Adios Republica Dominicana...

So, today is my last day in the Dominican Republic...and I have NO idea how I feel!! For the past few weeks, I will be honest...I have been saying "Get me out of this country!!" It has been literally the hottest and most humid week since we have been here and the men seem to be in rare form as my hair becomes blonder with every passing hour I spend in the sun...Therefore, the declarations of "RUBIA, quiero mi visa!!" seem to be more and more frequent, and thus, more and more annoying!

All week the days have seemed to move so slowly...until yesterday. Last night, my mama and hermana made me a beautiful going away dinner (during which, the lights went out...again! My goodbye wouldn't have been complete without this ;) ) and after, my family and I sat on the front porch and just spent time together...We also exchanged gifts, at the end of which, we were all crying messes! Later, I  laid down in my now empty room (not a fun sight!) and attempted to sleep, but I just tossed and turned...that was until mi hermana, Aibid, snuck in in the middle of the night and crawled into bed next to me, and then I seemed to sleep absolutely perfectly :)

I now sit in my kitchen as mi mama prepares my final lunch, and I cannot help but feel this lump rise in my throat....It is the strangest feeling because one part of my heart is so stinkin excited to come home!!!! While the other part is breaking because I am leaving my new family that I have come to love so very much... But this is in no way the end...this is the beginning of relationships I will have and cherish for the rest of my life!

This summer I think I learned what I was capable of...or rather what God is capable of when I just let Him do His work...I have learned to cherish and suck in every single moment, and be so grateful for each and every one of them...I have learned that "just being" is okay, and so very necessary...This summer has changed my life...I have grown and been stretched a whole lot more than I think I wanted to be, but isn't that how God works? He never gives us what we expect, but He gives us absolutely everything we need! This summer I became part of an incredible family and entered into a completely different culture...This summer I became Dominican :)

El Ultimo Domingo!

Today is my last Sunday here...which means I have less than a week until I come home now!! It is a very bitter sweet feeling...on the one hand, I am so very ecstatic to finally be back in the States with the people I miss. But, on the other hand, I am realizing that I am leaving my new family who I will dearly miss.

Last night I got home at around 10pm after a day that started at 3:30am!! We had to wake up that early because we had to start our 6 hour drive to La Romana early enough to actually be able to spend the day there. La Romana is a city on the east of the island with quite a bit to offer! We went to La Cueva de las Maravillas (The Cave of Miracles...for you non-Spanish speakers ;) ), which are caves that are 25 meters underground with stalagmites and stalactites which were absolutely incredible!! (You should look up pictures if you get a chance! Our God is so creative!) We went from there to a town that was modeled exactly after a 16th Century Grecian town and was actually built by a man in 1979 as a birthday present to his daughter!! Quite a present, if I do say so myself! Following that, we went to a beach called Bayahibe that was so incredibly stereotypically Caribbean...with the practically white sand, clear light-blue water, and palm trees covering the beach...It was beautiful! 

We left there and then made our 6 hour bus ride back home...the entire way back, we did what most do on long trips to occupy the time...WE ATE! We ate crackers and cookies and peanuts and granola and ice cream...I don't say this just to make your mouth water (although mine is!) I say this to make you aware of the volume of food we ate. As a result, everyone was saying that they hoped their families didn't make them dinner...everyone, that is, except for me! I may be a little tired of things like rice and beans, mashed platanos, yucca and fried cheese and salami, but I now constantly say to mi familia here that they have made me into a Dominicana...in that I want to eat...ALL THE TIME! I always eat breakfast now, usually get a midmorning snack at school, a pretty big lunch, dinner, then a second dinner usually after church! So...that long tangent to say that when I got home last night, my mama had quite a bit of food waiting for me, as I had hoped! 

As I sat there eating, she casually let me know that she and my papa won't be going away this coming weekend...A bit of history here, months ago, my church planned to attend a marriage conference where they have all the couples in the church staying at a resort and attending workshops run by an American pastor couple...it's the first marriage retreat our church has ever been a part of and they have these pastors being flown in from the States to do it, so it's a pretty big deal...and it happens to be during the same weekend that I am leaving. My mama didn't even realize until half way through my trip here that they would be gone when I left, and when she found out, she was so upset, but we had resigned ourselves to the fact that we would just have to say goodbye two days earlier than expected. Well apparently, that was not good enough for mis padres! When I asked mi mama why they weren't going and that if they were staying here for me, they shouldn't, she just said, "You are my daughter and you are worth so much more than this conference. Your papa and I discussed it, and there is no way we could not be here to say goodbye to our daughter!" At this point, I just started crying at the kitchen table, and my mama followed suit. It was a very precious moment that I will forever be etched in my memory!

Needless to say, although I expect this to be an extremely exciting week (I actually had trouble falling asleep the other night because I started thinking about how excited I was to be going home so soon!) I also expect it to be an extremely emotional week (I cried through  a lot of church today, realizing all of the things I would miss about our Sunday morning service)... This trip and these people have been such an extreme blessing in my life...saying goodbye should be interesting...

Love you all and will be seeing you in LESS THAN A WEEK NOW!!!

Not so Buenas Noches...

There is no way I can go to sleep without sharing this with someone!

I was just in the bathroom right before bed and some sort of creature ran OVER my foot (well, it ran into then over my foot). It went so fast that I wouldn't have known what it was, but then it somehow began to wiggle it's body under the closed door of the bathroom, which took a little while, so I got a good look at it's legs flailing about... They were most definitely the legs of a MOUSE!! I didn't scream...or even stop my nightly routine of washing my face, but now I'm thinking of the fact that there is a mouse loose in my house. I could just shut my door and feel safe, but: 

A) It could have run into my room while I was finishing my face washing

B) I have seen this mouse in action and know that it is a crazy contortionist mouse that can squeeze it's body under doors (including my shut bedroom door)

Really though, if I'm being honest with myself...I am a little too tired to care and these little occurrences luckily don't stick with me for too long, so I have a feeling that I am going to turn off the computer and fall into bed without a second thought...hopefully ;)

P.S. This finally explains the creature that jumped out of my closet and ran  across my foot my first week here! The little bugger got away so fast that I never really figured out what it was...now I know!

Buenas Noches!!

Cervesas and Guaguas and Playas...Oh My!!

This was definitely a fun-filled...and interesting weekend!

On Friday, we had a free day, so 5 of us decided to hop on a guagua and take the two and a half hour trip to a beach called Cabarete. We got there, and the beach was beautiful! We all haven't been to the beach in a while, so we were slowly but surely losing our golden, Dominican tans (okay, maybe not golden...but I am working on not glowing white!) So, our main objective for the day was to soak up some rays...the only problem was that there was rain in the forecast, which usually doesn't mean much because the weather is rather fickle and ever-changing here! We layed out on the beach right away, and within 20 minutes, rather ominous looking clouds started rolling in. We didn't make a move though because, like I said, we were desperate for sun! It stared to lightly sprinkle, but what does a little rain hurt? Really, it just served to cool us off nicely :) We stuck it out for a little while until it started pouring, at which point we took shelter in a restaurant set on the beach where we got drinks and an awesome pizza! As we were sitting in the restaurant looking out at the ocean, I was feeling a little sad about missing out on the beach when we were so dang close. So I decided to do the one thing I knew could fix our dilemma....I ran out of the restaurant, down the beach, and jumped in the ocen! We all had a blast swimming in the rain!!
Right after that, we made our way to the street to get on a guagua to come back home, and that was an adventure in and of itself! The guagua we got into had at least 25 people packed into a van that is only supposed to hold 14...needless to say, our little group of five was packed quite tightly together and the ridiculousness of it got me laughing. Anyone who knows me well knows that I do not have the most inconspicuos laugh...there is my snort and then there is the deep wheeze that occurs when I can't breathe, but I desperately gasp for air. I started laughing so hard that I definitely started wheezing! All of a sudden, we hear someone behind us with a thick British accent say, "What on earth is that noise??" (Simultaneously, we were asking ourselves the same question because it is not everyday that you hear a British accent in the middle of the Dominican Republic). It was then that we turned around and met Steve Martin (no, not the Father of the Bride, but rather a man from London who moved to the DR seven years ago to retire). He was a lovely man and he let us all know the benefits of retiring and moving someplace where the cost of living is dirt cheap :) We also met a man on the guagua who told me that he was crazy for me and would like to marry me...But that is a whole other story!

It's funny because that day we spent more time on the guaguas getting to and from our destination than we did at the actual destination, but that just goes to show you that your joy really should be found in the journey!

The next day, Saleena and I were invited to go with her papa and his co-workers on a company trip to a beach called Ensenada. We jumped at the chance to go to a beach without the APU group because we need to practice our Spanish every chance we can get! We got on the bus to head out to the beach at 9 that morning, and the first order of business was to open up the cooler at the front of the bus and pass out beers to all of the employees... and that continued to be the theme for the rest of the day! I rarely saw someone without a Presidente in their hand! Saleena and I definitely got the sun we were looking for the day before...we both got rather burnt. But, we also got the Spanish practice we were looking for! It's funny because a lot of people here like when they meet Americans because they want the chance to practice their English, but we have to explain that we came here to learn and study Spanish, so they need to help us practice our Spanish. Sometimes I will have conversations where the person I am talking to will speak in English and I will speak in Spanish so we can both practice! I had some of those kinds of conversations at the beach that day, but after awhile when someone would speak to me in English I would say "No entiendo. Yo solo entiendo espanol!" That ended up working because a lot of the people really appreciate that we so badly want to learn their language. On the bus ride home Saleena and I were really tired so we tried to sleep, seeing as it was a three hour bus ride! This goal quickly proved to be impossible though because the men on the bus were still having their fill of beer, thus the noise level on the bus rose dramatically. It didn't help when a man from teh back of the bus came up and sat on the cooler in front of our seats telling us that we were not, in fact, allowed to be tired and that we needed to talk to him! All of my desire to sleep completely left me when I saw the bus driver with the steering wheel in one hand and a bottle of beer in the other!! Things are so very different here!! Now don't worry too much... because as you can tell, I made it home safely :)

On Sunday we had our three hour long church service (it is crazy to me that three hours of church no longer feels like a long time!), went back to my tia's house and ate lunch, then headed to Mao, which is a town in a more rural area about an hour away from Santiago where mi abuelo lives. We sat on the porch and drank the best lemonade I have ever tasted and ate green bananas. You may be thinking, "Why did you eat bananas that weren't ripe?" But here, they have bananas where they do nothing to speed up the ripening process, so they are completely natural and they stay green...yummy! After, we went to the river right near my abuelo's house to go for a swim...or rather, a sit :) I have gotten very good at just sitting while I have been here! Dominicans will be the first to admit that they are not the most active people, so it is completely natural to go to the river, find yourself a spot to dig in and resist the current, then just sit there and let the water hit you...While we did relax, we also found time to get in a big splashing fight with my entire family too, which was quite a sight to behold! The family decided to change before we got back in the car to leave, which meant creating makeshift dressing rooms out of towels we all switched off holding up for one another. Normally, not a big deal...I did that all growing up when my family would go to the beach... However, as a small, white girl in California I did not create quite as much of a stir as a now tall, white girl in the Dominican! As I have said before, Americans here often become the spectacle, and it was no different on Sunday. As Saleena and I changed behind the saftey of the towels held up by our families, we gained a bit of an audience with some boys who made it no mystery that they were hoping the towels would mysteriously fall or fly away. Luckily, our families were quite vigilant in keeping us safe from the prying eyes, but that didn't keep them from laughing at us for the scene we had created!

We drove back to Santiago the long way so our families could show us all of the different products grown throughout the countryside...I love how here, going the "long way" or stopping on the side of the road to pick up pinecones (yes, we have done this!) or spending an extra 45 minutes after church to take everyone home or being late to work to have an important conversation with someone aren't even second thoughts here. Here, time almost doesn't exist because the importance is found in the event itself...not what time it was supposed to start or what time it should be done so you can move onto the next thing...I'm convinced that if someone took all of the clocks out of Santiago, no one here would put up much of a fight ;)

Kisses and hugs!! (I'm so excited that I will be able to start giving these in person so very soon!! Only 2 weeks and 3 days left!!)

27 days and counting!!

I have definitely loved my experience here and I know I still have lots more to learn, but the countdown has definitely started! I feel like everyone in the group is in a very similar place right now...we have all loved it here, but we're feeling a little homesick! I think it is the realization that the end is so close, and yet in some ways still so far away...
I think it doesn't help that this is one of the hottest months of the year, all of our tummies are not extremely happy with the food right now, and my parents being here from the US definitely reminded everyone of home!

The rest of my parent's trip here was great! We got to spend time at the pool (a very hot commodity here, seeing as the only other time I have had access to a pool here was at the resort I went to), we went out to dinner with everyone from the APU group, we had some awesome conversations, I got to sleep in their AIR CONDITIONED hotel room, and we got to have a goodbye dinner with mis padres and go to see my church afterward. I was just so thrilled taht my parents got to see all of the things here that are completely impossible to describe with words... All in all, an incredible time! But, I realized at the end that before they were here, I had definitely done a good job of compartmentalizing them and pushing them to the back of my mind...But them being here obviously made them jump right back to the front of my mind again!

For some reason, I think that my parents coming signaled the end of the trip for me, but I have another month left! This is where my lessons on "just being" come in, and I need to just jump right back into life here and take in every single moment, appreciating the beauty of what I have here because it really is going to be done before I know it! I try to take snapshots in my mind of everything here that is so wonderful and so dear to my heart like mis padres standing and worshipping together in church, or the silly look mi hermana gets on her face after she's told me how to say a bad word in Spanish (hehe), or how much I revel in the idea of a cold shower at the end of a day, or how ridiculous it is when we are able to squish 16 people in our 6-seater car after church because we need to make sure that everyone has a ride home, or how, when the power goes out right before bed, my entire family will lay on the tile floor of the front porch because that is the coolest part of the house...

I love my life here...sometimes I just need to remind myself of the moments that I will miss when I get back to the United States because, although I get tired sometimes and just want to be home, I am so blessed to be having this experience that will forever be a milestone that I look back on with great joy!

Things that make you go hmmm...

So, here in the DR, there are things almost daily that perplex and puzzle me...and generally just make me laugh out loud :) I will share some with you:

-Sometimes it is a little disconcerting when you walk into a nice restraunt and they have a sign on the door specifying that you cannot in fact bring your firearm in with you...

-More disconcerting when entering the mall and not only is there a sign saying you can't bring in your firearm, but also that you can't bring your machete in with you either...

-Even more disconcerting when the officer on the street with his large gun (which he is allowed to have because he is neither in the nice restaurant or the mall) feels that it is okay to whistle and me and try to get my attention...I am sorry sir, but you have a very large gun which I feel you should be paying more attention to than me!

-The sign in the corner store that says you are not allowed to drink alcoholic beverages in the store before you have purchased them...as I stand behind two men in line enjoying their Presidente cervesas :)

- The concho driver giving me 25 pesos so I can fully extend my arm to try and reach across to another concho driver to make change while we sit at a stoplight (good thing I have monkey arms!)

...as of now I can remember nothing else, though I promise these perplexing moments occur mutiple times daily!!

On another note... MY PARENTS ARE HERE!!! I was a very happy girl yesterday when I got to go to meet my parents at their hotel, get a drink with them and share how life is here, have a wonderful cuddle time with my mommy, then take them (in a concho! Mom did not like the experience so much...she made me promise we'll take a taxi from now on while they're here :) ) to mi casa where they got to meet my incredible familia and have dinner all together! Seriously one of my best nights here...having my two sets of parents who I love so incredibly much finally in the same room together getting to meet the people I talk so much about was so....I don't even know how to describe it...but it was wonderful!

Love to you all :)

All. Inclusive.

I never fully realized the beauty of those two relatively simple words until this weekend. When mi familia told me that we were going to stay in a hotel in Puerto Plata for the weekend as a church trip and that it would cost $55 per night, I was honestly a little shocked at the price. You might be saying to yourself, "Fifty five dollars for a hotel room is a pretty dang cheap price!! Why were you shocked, Bri??" But you must remember that I am now a Dominican, so my economy is much different...When I can buy a cell phone for $13 and go to the movies for less than $3, I find $55 a night for a hotel a wee bit steep...This was until I found out that the hotel was an all-inclusive resort with direct beach access, three different restaurants that were open at practically all hours, two bars (one at the pool and one on the beach) where you could get any fun tropical-y drink you could want, and fun activities like pool aerobics, kayaks, and shows every night! Needless to say, I was completely fine with the cost after I found all of this out!!

The first thing we did when we got there was eat, of course (I have decided that is the favorite Dominican past-time) I was so excited because the buffet had...vegetables!! Yes, vegetables! Here, vegetables aren't necessarily a favorite food, and when they are served they are always, without fail, drenched in vinegar! I don't think I have ever been so excited to be eating garden salad and steamed broccoli as I was that day at lunch. After lunch, Josh and I got to enjoy a piña colada by the pool before making our way to the beach where we proceeded to eat another food I miss quite terribly...Chips and pico de gallo. I think that everyone assumes that if a country is Spanish-speaking they will have lots and lots of Mexican food...that is most definitely an incorrect assumption!! We all played in the pool for awhile and then we got ready for dinner, but the getting ready part was even wonderful because I got to take a shower with running HOT water!! It was incredible :) We went to the buffet again for our first dinner and then about 2 hours later, we went to the resort's Mediterranean restaurant set on the beach for our second dinner! After dinner we caught the end of the show, and then spent time walking on the beach and hanging around the pool area...Josh and I also started working on saying goodbye for the next month-and-a-half :/

The next morning at 6am, mi papa and I took Josh back to Santiago so he could catch his flight back to the US...I will admit that there were a few tears on my part, but I have a feeling the second half of my trip will fly by faster than I expect! When we got back to the resort, I was greeted by my extremely loving family who all wanted to see how I was doing and who also wasted no time at all getting me to do a water aerobics class with them where I think I got more exercise just from all the laughing I was doing :) We also did a lot more eating, sunbathing (a little to much...I'm now a teensy bit crispy...But mi familia continues to say that being burnt is a good thing because now I look more like them...hehe!), sleeping, and just spending time together! I again had two dinners....one at the buffet, and the second at an Oriental restaurant-- I am thinking that this weekend I may have gained back the weight I lost when I got sick!! Woohoo!

The last day (which was yesterday), we had a mini-church service in the hotel's little outdoor theater, and it was awesome! I feel like God is really trying to make me aware of the fact that He works in my life and speaks to me...He may not always speak to me about the things I think I need answers to right now, but I think He wants to make sure that I realize that He is an active part of my life and I can trust Him to speak to me clearly about everything in HIS timing, not mine! The day before, I had been reading Luke 11:9-13 where Jesus says that if you ask, it will be given to you and if you knock, the door will be opened...and how earthly fathers, even though they are sinful, give their children what they ask for, so how much more will the heavenly Father give his Holy Spirit to those who ask.  It was awesome, because that same passage (from Matthew 7:7) was used in our church service, and it was just so incredible to me that God would be so intentional with me...to ensure that I am paying attention to the words that He's giving me, and that I realize that He is speaking to me. I really want to learn (and I think I am learning) what it means to really seek God and be persistent and perseverant in seeking Him even when you don't necessarily "feel" what you think you should. I really want to figure out what being filled with the Holy Spirit looks like, because I want Him to be living out of me...I'm tired of being the one living this life of mine! A bit of a tangent, but I figured it is important to let you all know how I am developing spiritually, so you can continue to pray for me as I try to work all of this out!

After our church service, we spent more time in the pool, eating, and on the beach...When we were at the beach, my brother-in-law, Audi, asked if I wanted to go kayaking with him, and I was all about it! So we started out going straight out against the waves...We got quite a rhythm down, so we were super far from the shore in no time. He kept asking if I wanted to go further and every time I said, "Por supuesto!!" (Of course!!) Finally, Audi decided that he wanted to start going parallel to the shore, so we could explore another part of the beach...Bad decision!! Going against the waves is one thing, but when you decided to place your long kayak parallel with them, they have a habit of knocking you over! The second we turned, the kayak flipped...most would expect that this would be the point that little Bri Bri would start crying, but instead, I started to laugh hysterically! I thought that the ridiculousness of our situation was absolutely hilarious! The laughing continued when every time we tried to get back on, we would flip all over again...we didn't realize until later, but apparently our kayak was missing a plug that it needed, so it was filling with water, making it harder and harder to flip back over, and also making it impossible to keep balanced once we tried to jump back on. Luckily, a motorboat full of people saw us, and the driver said he would take the cumbersome kayak and oars off of our hands and back to shore. You may be thinking that this still left us in the middle of the ocean quite far from shore, which is the correct assumption! Luckily, a little sailboat saw the predicament we were in, so they came by and picked us up to take us back to shore! There was an English woman on board who had paid to rent the boat and have the guide, and we just got to join for free!! Definitely an incredible memory, and it just goes to show you that the unplanned-for mishaps can be the most fun :)

Yesterday, we made the 2 hour ride back with 4 sunburnt people jammed in the backseat, but all was well because we had an awesome weekend! 

Lots of kisses and hugs to all!!