Since students are not able to post any blogs while at this base, I figured I´d take the liberty of doing so. Yesterday was a ´typical´Dominican day for Kina and myself. Let me tell you about parts of it.
After lunch Kina, Pierre and I needed to go to Bermejo, a poor village about 45 minutes away from the Ministry Centre in Sabana Grande to Boya. We had been told they had desks that needed to be fixed but, as is typically Dominican, you can never fully trust what is said; it is always better to show up in person and see if there is a legitimate need. The three of us had talked the previous evening about leaving at 1. So, ten minutes before 1 Kina and I are ready to go and Pierre is nowhere to be found. We walked the 15 minutes to the other jobsite and found him there and we all went back to the base so we could leave. It is about 1:20 at this point. But we can´t leave yet, because Pierre needs to eat lunch still. ¡Claro! (clearly, certainly)
It´s now after 1:30 and we´re ready to leave the base. We drive about 6 minutes until we´re just outside of town and we hear a rattle and a bang. Clearly the drive shaft is scraping the ground as we drive. We stop, get out of the truck and I hold the truck to stop it from rolling backwards until Pierre finds a rock to put behind the wheel. The three of us sit on the side of the road as Pierre calls people he knows. Within 15 minutes he has a mechanic called, his son to come and pick us up on a motorbike and a local pastor called so we can borrow his truck. Within an hour Pierre had the pastor´s truck, the mechanic took his old juice bucket full of wrenches out of the trunk of his car and was under the truck fixing it and Solomon, Pierre´s son, was watching and helping fix the car.
Within that hour there were four other guys stranded by their Honda Accord about 30 metres away. But we didn´t know they were stranded as we were just shooting the breeze with them for a good 15 minutes. At the end of our conversation one of the guys mentioned that they were sitting there because they didn´t have any juice in their battery. Clearly Pierre, being the servant that he is, was going to help them. He physically took the battery out of his truck (we clearly weren´t going anywhere anyways) and carried it over to the Honda, where the Honda battery had just been removed. One of the guys just held Pierre´s battery close to the cables of the Honda and another guy started the car. They quickly removed Pierre´s battery and put the dead Honda battery back in and Pierre reinstalled his battery in his truck. ¡Claro! ¿Why wouldn´t you fix things this way? Kina and I stood and laughed but as we laughed we admired and were impressed.
Off we go to the school in the other pastor´s truck. Since we´re driving down beautiful Dominican roads I took the opportunity to sit in the back of the truck and enjoy the air and the view. We get to the Christian school and get a tour. This school is the only completely concrete building in the village. Most other buildings are made out of cheap wood pieces or scraps of tin. The school is quiet (almost a miracle here) and well-organized. The principal, Luciano, shows us around the place. I remember Luciano as he was at the base in Santo Domingo on the day before Max was leaving to go home and he was intentional and loving in his conversation with Max. It didn´t take Kina and I long to realize that we needed to do what we could to bless this poor, remote community. Luciano was excited to take us to a store room where they have this magical concoction that has all the vitamins and minerals that kids need. It comes in a bag and when it is added to boiling water, it tastes like hot chocolate. All the kids get some of this three days a week - and we all know how beneficial all this stuff is for healthy growth. They made some for Kina and I - it tasted great! The best part of this? These school kids get much of the nutrition they need as this stuff is continually donated to the school, but not by an American or European government (as I often assume will be the case), it is donated by the Brazilian government. ¡Claro!
You think the day is over? Not yet. One of the students needed to get some testing done as we believe she has a parasite (for parents reading this, the parents know who the student is). She got the testing done the day before and yesterday we just needed to pick up the results. On the way home from Bermejo Pierre, Kina and I stopped by the lab to get the results. The lab hours are painted on the front of the building: Monday to Saturday, 8-12 and 2-6. It is 5. The sign on the door is flipped to open. We go to the door and it is locked. Kina and I are slightly perturbed. Pierre is not, he knows where the lab technician lives. We drive to her house and go to her front door. Her husband says she is at the Farmacia (Pharmacy) so we drive there and track her down, tell her what we need and we follow her car to the lab where she opens the door and gives us the results. Why wouldn't you go to the lab technician's house to get what you need? Claro.
We take the lab results and now need to find someone to interpret them. As fascinated as I am by medical stuff, only some of the numbers on the papers made sense to me. Kina and I thought that we'd go back to the hospital to get a doctor there to read the lab results. Nope. Dr. Martes lives across the road from the Ministry Centre. Pierre will take the lab report there...but not right away because there is an extra car outside Dr. Martes' house so clearly he has company so clearly now is not the time to visit. But as soon as that visitor's car left, Pierre was over there. Dr. Martes read the reports, made a diagnosis, filled out a prescription and we were off to the races.
Parts of this may sound sketchy to you and a part of me hesitated to send it out...but it is real life. It is a glimpse into how the Dominican works. They are resilient, problem-solvers, positive, relational people. Their culture is a warm, open-door, relationship-based culture. People are the foundation here. And because of that foundation Kina and I found all that we were looking for today.
As such, there is no such thing as a typical Dominican day. Rarely does life go as planned. Rarely do things leave and/or arrive on time. Rarely do you ever follow the itinerary you devise in the morning. Stuff always takes double the time you plan for. Here if you accomplish one thing, it has been a good day. Two things: bonus. You got three or more things done? Something is wrong and you should probably rest tomorrow. Kina and I should stop working, we're getting too much done :D
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