DR: Saturday & Sunday

I have been thinking about how to capture my reflections, lessons and experiences from 8 days in the Dominican Republic efficiently. For lack of a better idea, I am going to simply record things chronologically.

We left our house very early (ahem, 4:15am) Saturday morning. I had not slept well at all that night. I was worried about missing the alarm(s) we had set for the early wake up. I was also praying over what the week would hold. The word that kept coming to mind was: stripped.

I am a modest person. My most reccurrent nightmare as an adolescent was showing up at school without being fully clothed. It is ironic how I can sit behind a keyboard and make myself fairly vulnerable--but to a large degree I think it is because I still have the illusion of control. I decide how much to share. The thought of joining dozens of others (in very close quarters) for a week that I did not plan or know much about the schedule for left me feeling stripped of control. This illusion of control is one of my primary coping mechanisms for the chaos that can accompany parenting.

We took only clothes that could be ruined by sweaty, dirty manual labor...being with all those adorable college girls made me feel frumpy and old. I felt stripped of my vanity. Living in that close of quarters (14 of us shared a single small bathroom--and we all slept in bunkbeds) made me feel stripped of privacy. I worried how those fun 20 something non-parents would judge my un-fun moments of attempting reign in wild and wooly 6 year olds in a new environment.

I was stripped of my connections to the outside world (escapism) as I turned off phone, email and Internet access.

Lest I sound like a complete whiner, I wasn't perseverating on all this, just prayerfully mindful that this was a work trip...and God was likely planning to work out some things in my life.

We were one of only three families that would be at the camp (the other 50+ people were students from UGA, Auburn, a high school in Birmingham and the college in our town.) We flew from Atlanta to Miami, then from Miami to Santiago, DR. Once we arrived in Santiago, we cleared customs and were greeted by Ramone, our Dominican host for the week. He led the 14 in our group to a van, where all the luggage was loaded on top (we were quite a sight--the tires had to have a bit more air added to them!) and we went for an adventurous 90 minute ride to the camp in Jarabacoa.

The sights and sounds of all the roadside stands selling live animals, vegetables and anything else you can imagine, were a reminder that we were in a foreign country.

Travelling the roadways in the DR is not for the faint of heart. Oh my goodness!!! There are mopeds everywhere with 1-5 (yes, 5!) people (including infants) at a time riding them without helmets and making up traffic laws as they go. People drive recklessly and aggressively, honking their horns constantly. There were countless times that I closed my eyes tightly, certain someone was about to be seriously injured.

We arrived at camp, Pico Escondido, and had a couple of hours to explore and settle in before dinner. We were blown away by the beauty of the place. One of my most poignant observations about the DR is the contrast between the extreme natural beauty colliding with the dirty, brokenness of the concrete world the Dominican people have created. Because there is very little discretionary income, there is little marketing via billboards for much of anything. The three exceptions were politicians, colas and paint. The buildings and homes are all painted in the birghtest of hues. I couldn't help but think about man's propensity to want to dress up our poverty--to cover it up with images that will distract from the brokenness and emptiness inside.

(I was already seeing a connection to my own fear of being stripped.)

Sunday morning we awoke to another goegeous day. (The weather was a perfect, sunny, breezy low 70s the entire time we were there.) The college kids were spread out all over camp enjoying quiet time before breakfast, so my kiddos took their new journals and joined in.

These may be two of my new favorite pictures.
After quiet time and breakfast we did a little exploring. K was thrilled at the discovery of a real pineapple. She carried it around for a couple of days like it was a baby doll. :-)Our entire group travelled to a church in Jarabocoa. It was a really neat experience to hear familiar songs by Hillsong and Chris Tomlin sung in Spanish. The sermon was also in Spanish (with a translator) and very long--especially for children who have trouble sitting still for 20 minutes in our home church! After the service, my trio thoroughly enjoyed themselves on the church's rudimentary playground with other kids.
The language barrier did not seem to matter. What a precious lesson in love and friendship!We all loaded back up into the 'people movers' and headed back to camp.

I would like to point out the irony that although we still have our almost 7 year olds in Britax five-point harness car seats in the States, they travelled throughout a Third World country known for its driving hazards in this thing...After lunch we were allowed to enjoy an afternoon of rest. We hiked up to a nearby waterfall and enjoyed God's gorgeous creation!As we hiked we saw the very real living conditions of the camp's neighbors. Two families were living together in this structure. It is hard to tell from the photo, but to the left is a concrete slab with a sink, a table (for food prepartion) and all the other contents of a kitchen. The smell was strong from the two family pigs. We learned that one of the week's work projects was going to involve helping to complete a new home for one of those families. One of the things our trip leader had encouraged us to focus on during the week was 'being' not just 'doing.' (Another hard challenge for me!!) Sunday was certainly a time for that--but I was glad to know the real work was set to begin the next day.