Pancho Mateo, Day One

So, now that I am living at the Makarios house and the Austin Stone group is here, I am learning more and more what my summer will look like. Last night, after our fifth power outage, my roommates (Holly and Laticia) and I decided to sleep with some of the other female interns on the roof. Let's just say, that is the best idea we have ever had. First of all, it's beautiful up there. To the north is the ocean and to the south is Mt. Isabela, which is a sight to see. Secondly, it's COOL. No joke, Holly got up in the middle of the night and got us one of those hotel blankets, like the pink ones I used to have. It was incredible!

We woke up for breakfast at 7:30 and then it was time to get situated into the guaguas to head to the villages. Guagua is the word for van, which includes both our Makarios vans and public transportation vans, which are a whole different, completely awesome story. (See the end of the post)

So, if you read about guaguas, stuffing 40 people in two vans is a task. We did it though, and I made my first trip to Pancho Mateo. Today I was getting to know the village, but I get to do something very special that I am both a little nervous and extremely excited about while I'm there. One of the interns, Chris, is in graduate school at Clark in Massachusetts getting an a grad degree in something like international development (I forget the exact name). He is here this summer, living with a family in Montellano (Luz, our housekeeper, is who he lives with), and interning with Makarios to fulfill a degree requirement. So while he is here, he is conducting a survey and study of the people in the villages Makarios works in, mainly Pancho Mateo and Chichigua. He is trying to find out people's opinions of us and other "gringo" presences in the villages -- because there are a lot more than you'd think! He is asking them about the new education center we are building in Tamarindo as well. So my job is to help him, to listen to the people and ask questions as well so he is not alone and it is not as awkward.

We started that today, and had this great conversation with an old Dominican woman and half her relatives. Dominicans are some of the most hospitable people in the world. They immediately offer you their chairs to sit in on the porch and coffee if they have any (which they oftentimes don't since in these villages they have so little) even if you can't speak your language.

I was really nervous about doing this and talking to adults, just because Dominican Spanish is so different, but God really blessed today! Plus I still got to wander around and hold lots and lots of cute kids that are starving for attention. The Austin Stone group is split into three groups. Half of the girls go with Camille to help with her classes that she teaches in Spanish in the villages. Half go with Alexia to help with English camp. (Alexia and Camille are the two teachers who have been here the past year with Makarios.) The guys are all out at the site working on building the education center, which is one of our main projects for the summer.

The village was so amazing to walk through. It really is amazing how much we take for granted just at the Makarios house (I'm typing on a laptop that is connected to the wireless internet, for one) and these kids and families literally have nothing. Children are naked or wearing their one pair of clothes and some have scabies and other ailments, yet they are all so excited to see "gringos" everywhere and want to hug us and be held by us and sometimes kick us, which is okay too.

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PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION IN THE DR:

These consist of old vans, sometimes 15 passenger, sometimes more the size of a small school bus, sometimes smaller. They run on the same route up and down the autopista, but you just stand on the side of the road and flag them down, as one of the workers is standing in the open doorway looking for passengers. Then you yell at them when you want them to stop and get out--this can sometimes be a disaster, as we found out. And you can fit a ridiculous amount of people into a guagua. Other interns have seen 30 people squished into a 15-passenger guagua. The other option for public transportation is the motocoche. These are small motorbikes that two people can fit its driver and then two more people. I got thrown onto one with Johanna, another intern, on the way to lunch one day in Cabarete. It was awesome, but I kept wondering what would happen if we crashed. Don't worry Daddy, it didn't go too fast!

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I'll post more pictures soon -- I have lots of cute Haitian and Dominicans.

Pray for continued confidence in being in the villages and that God would use us in big ways and in the way he has planned because I have no idea how that will look but I'm excited!