#8 Sleep Schmeep

Squeak . . . squeak . . . squeak . . . squeak . . . squeak . . .

Okay, fan off.  Maybe the oppressive heat would be easier to deal with than the incessant squeaking of the fan all night.

"Qui-quiri-qui!  Qui-quiri-qui!"

If only there were an off switch for roosters!  Apparently nobody has given the Dominican roosters proper job training because they don't seem to realize that they're supposed to be silent during the hours of darkness.

Adjusting to a new bed is challenging enough without the additional distraction of persistent noises from within and without, although I really had it good.  Poor Pete.  He did his best to keep silent about his dilemma, but after spending two nights sleeping on a box spring he couldn't hold it in any longer.  One wonders how the housekeeping person could make up a box spring with sheets and blankets and not detect something amiss.  Lo and behold, Roscoe was sleeping on two mattresses like the princess and the pea!  A little shifting of bed components and all was made right on that front.

But those roosters.  Sheesh!

Whatever hindrances there may have been to a good night's rest, there was always good, strong Dominican coffee to put the pep back in the pooped.  Too bad for me that coffee has always been on my short list of beverages that are better left for someone else.  Try as I might, I could never develop a taste for the stuff, so when we were graciously served hot dark coffee every morning around 10 a.m. on the work sites I appreciated my team members who were more than willing to bail me out as soon as the hostess turned her back.  Wednesday morning, however, I found myself with no teammates close at hand when the kind lady began serving the coffee.  Oh, what to do, what to do?  One thing I could not do was to set the cup down and leave it untouched.  Should I surreptitiously pour it behind a bush?  My conscience kicked into overdrive as I nonchalantly stood around with my squishy cup of coffee in hand, looking for all the world like I was just waiting for it to cool down.  In those few minutes I made a decision to be the boss of my mouth and just drink it.  For the first time in 34 years a sip of coffee passed my lips.  One thing I had to be thankful for was that there was only about 3 oz. so it didn't require too many swigs to get it all down.  And having survived the experience and lived to tell about it, I decided that for the rest of the week I would drink every cup of coffee that was put into my hands by a generous Dominican extending hospitality in the only way that perhaps she could.  While I didn't enjoy the taste of the brew, I did appreciate the benefits of the caffeine that helped restore some of the energy that the roosters stole from me in the night. 

Coffee being served

 

Proof to my family that I really did drink it

 

Coffee being taken back home by Regi & Kristi

 

With all that energy I was able to learn some new skills and be as helpful as possible for an aging girl who knows far more about cooking and gardening than construction.  Hanging around and staying alert for opportunities to be useful earned me the chance to use a hammer drill to bore out some holes in the concrete porch for putting up a railing.  And I got to pound a chisel with a hammer a few hundred times to rough up the smooth concrete on the porch so the new stuff being poured along the edge would have a good surface to bond with.  No doubt those tasks could just as well have been done by one of the men, but they were kind enough to recognize the longing in my eyes to be put to work, and so Mark found jobs that even I could do that would be more help than hindrance. 

Mark starting the porch project

Roughing up the surface

 

Drilling with an audience

 

Dick sets the pedestals into the holes

 

Noah fills the frame with concrete

 

Mila sits on her porch which is coming along nicely

 

Scraping dried concrete off boards

 

Grapefruit tree provided lovely shade for working under

 

Avocado tree provided shade as well as fruit for our dinner

 

Everywhere bananas

 

Disgruntled hen didn't appreciate being caught

 

Sleep schmeep.  Somehow all the energy we needed was there when we needed it to find enjoyment in the work, in the play, and in the special people to people moments.

#7 Hickory Dickory Dock, The House Upon the Rock

Each day we followed a carefully planned schedule of meals and work, which flowed surprisingly well considering that Dominicans aren't known for their punctuality or even necessarily their awareness of time.  At our orientation Sharyn warned us to expect Dominicans to observe time in a rather slushy manner, but that she expected the Americans to be respectful of the agenda that had been prepared for us.  A local resident might show up to an appointment 45 minutes late and get away with it, but that kind of leeway wasn't an option for us.  This here time sensitive lady appreciated the imposed structure!

 

Sometime between 6:00-6:30 every morning our wonderful cook, Nena, entered the kitchen and began preparing breakfast, which was then served at exactly 7:30.  We would go through the food line, fill our plates, and take them out to the charming covered dining patio.

Nena

 

 

 

At 8:00 the hired driver was waiting for us with his van in front of our villas, ready to transport us from Jarabacoa to Pedregal, a ten minute drive away.

 

A few of us, however, preferred to start each day with some exercise to kick-start our engines and get them revving before the work projects began, so the walking club set out at 6:30 each morning and watched the sun rise while getting the kinks out.  We enjoyed the convenience of walking 4 or 5 abreast right down the middle of the street thanks to a local ordinance that closes one side of the divided road for walkers and runners every Monday through Friday from 5:00-8:00 a.m.  Jarabacoa is actually a resort town for wealthier Dominicans who can afford to leave the oppressive heat of the low lying areas and escape to the mountains during summer.  As a result there are many beautiful houses in this town, side by side with the more typical modest Dominican homes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Upon our arrival at the clinic in Pedregal we would get our work orders from Paul and then head off to our work sites.  I happened to be part of Team A, aka Alpha Team, whose job it was to tear down and then rebuild the kitchen walls at Mechi's house.  In addition, some of the A Team spent time next door at Mila's working on a porch railing.  On the other side of the village the B Team was building a closet on the back of a house that this same team had built for Christina in 2011.  The vast majority of the work being done on all 3 projects was concrete.  It was pretty obvious while tearing down the lumber from the old kitchen walls why concrete is the preferred building material.  The local termites would need a good orthodontist if they attempted to feast on a concrete railing, and rumor has it that there is a scarcity of such medical personnel in the area, so homeowners are pretty safe from that particular kind of vandalism when they build everything out of concrete.   

At noon we stashed our tools in a safe location and walked back to the clinic where there was a cooler full of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and ham and cheese sandwiches waiting for us on the porch each day.  The little colmado across the street did a hopping business while we were there, selling cold drinks like crazy for a whopping 15 or 20 pesos, equivalent to less than 50 cents.  During our lunch break Dr. Wendy was whisked away on a motorbike by her husband for her own siesta, the gates to the clinic property were closed to keep the local children on the other side of the fence, and we enjoyed our humble meal and our naptime. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2:00 meant getting back to work for another three hours, or mixing it up with the locals if there weren't enough tasks for everyone to do on the worksites, and then at 5:00 we made our way back to the clinic in all our sweaty glory, more than ready for the showers that awaited us in our villas in Jarabacoa.

 

 

 

 

 

#6 Over and Out

 

As promised, we welcomed girls and their moms to the gazebo again Tuesday morning for one hour, and again they came like a flood.  By this time there were very few dresses left in larger sizes, as the overwhelming majority of dresses donated were for the little ones.  This meant we had to turn away a lot of disappointed ten, eleven and twelve year old girls, and I suspect we felt worse about it than they did.  But for those we could accommodate, whether school age niñas or bebés in the arms of their madres, the gratis dresses were a blessing to both the givers and the receivers.  And while there wasn't time right then to make a fuss over each girl due to the press of others waiting their turns, we knew we'd see them around the village in the days to come.

 

 

 

Names of some of the recipients of dresses

 

Before the trip, in anticipation of this happy event and wanting to show some love to the moms as well, I had prepared a letter that was printed on beautiful paper and folded just so, resulting in a lovely handout that they could read and then use the pretty paper for some other purpose if desired. 

A message of salvation through Jesus Christ

"Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!"

 

 

At the end of the second day of passing out dresses, our supply was depleted.  The few that were left were stashed in the storage corner of the clinic to be given to patients as they come in with their moms for medical care in days to come.  But what a delight to catch sight of a girl wearing one of the Dresses of Hope dresses as we walked through the village!  It would just light up my eyes and melt my heart, thinking of all the love that went into collecting and preparing them, praying that they would be a blessing to children who have so little.  Even more thrilling was to catch sight of a girl wearing a dress that was donated in 2011!  I found myself wishing that every person who donated dresses or participated in preparing them could have the blessing that God so graciously gave to me, of being there in person and experiencing this firsthand. 

 

 

 

 

The little cards pinned to the dresses were a delight not only to the children but to some women as well.

Card has been recycled as a brooch for an older woman

 

In spite of the poverty and the dirt underfoot everywhere, the people of the DR take great pains to keep themselves clean and tidy.  Those who are well enough off to afford mechanical maids to do the laundering for them will still need to find ways to get them dry.  Freshly laundered clothing might be draped over a bush, slung over a barbed wire fence, or possibly flopped over a clothesline wherever such a luxury could be suspended, allowing the sun to do the rest.

 

Tiny washing machine

 

 

 

While the ladies were involved with girls and dresses at the clinic, the men continued on with the  construction projects at three locations, digging, measuring, cutting, mixing, hauling, learning, blessing.  Soon we would be back to the shovels and trowels as well.