Since arriving to the Dominican Republic I have noticed some interesting things about the way of life here. Here are some of my observations:
- Just about every little store blares Hispanic music. They really like their music here, and they like it loud. 🙂 It’s all I can do to keep from dancing, too!
- The people here are completely fine with sitting, chatting, and letting time pass by.
- Stray dogs are everywhere. In fact, our team inherited a little chihuahua I dubbed “Pepito.” He follows us everywhere in town – to the park, markets, medical center, church, and our apartment. He’s become the team pet.
- People go out of their way to cook for us and serve us. It’s difficult to accept at times, but it’s very humbling.
- Used toilet paper is thrown in a trash can.
- When one says “be there at 2:00,” they really mean 2:30 or much later.
- Kids play freely throughout the town and with any object they can find.
- Motorcycles and scooters are everywhere as well. I have yet to ride one…hehe.
- Sanitation is not a number one priority – something I’m trying to get over. Please pray for that.
- It is perfectly acceptable to throw trash anywhere outside.
- Everyone’s middle name is “hospitality.”
- Squeezing 6 kids on a scooter and lots of people in the back of a truck is perfectly normal. And speaking of trucks, on our way to Padre Las Casas (our current location), we squeezed 13 packs, 13 backpacks, and 16 people onto one truck. Six of us, including myself, were hanging off the sides while driving 30 mph through the Dominican countryside. Yep. Only on the World Race! 🙂
Along with these observations, I am constantly learning how to:
- really share food…especially since we don’t always know when we’ll eat next and we don’t always have a ton of it
- communicate with locals via charades and broken Spanish
- go with the flow 🙂
- accept the little quirks of my teammates, lol – they’re great, though 😉
- appreciate the little things in life
- and turn to the Lord when I have absolutely no clue what to say or do.
I promise to upload some photos, but our internet connection won’t allow us to do so at the moment. :/ Until then, I’ll try to describe what I’ve seen the past two days through words.
The grass and plant life is very green.
The mountains are full of vegetation and are lightly covered in clouds at the top.
The buildings are painted in bright, vivid colors – lots of bright oranges, greens, blues, and pinks.
The smell mainly (not always, lol) consists of fried food and exhaust (kind of like being at a fair).
The sky at night is dark, vast, and sprinkled with countless stars.
Most of the roads are paved, but there are many rocky and pot-holy (ha!) paths.
Some buildings are simple four-walled buildings, while others are enclosed by curved or geometric-patterned gates.
The people are very relational, and the kids have the “steal-your-heart” kind of smiles. 🙂
Tomorrow we begin our journey to the villages we will be ministering to. Our contact has told us that for some of the communities this may be the first time they see white people. My main concern at this point is how I go about sharing the elementary truths of the Gospel that I’ve known all my life. It should seem simple, but trying to talk about Jesus or the Bible when they’ve never encountered such things is puzzling. All I can do is rely on God and trust that He will communicate to His people through us. We’ve also been told that rather than planting seeds among these communities, we’ll be cultivating the soil for the seeds. Either way, all glory to God.
Thank you for reading – you have NO idea how much your comments, support, and prayers mean to me! Until next weekend, Adios!
