Susanna, Me-chel, Ray-becca, and Tia Maria Come to Visit!

Oh, yes, Sunday, July 29^th marked Visitor’s Day not only for the kids here, but also for me! At 3:00pm in the afternoon, I left the craziness of kids returning after summer vacations and the many visitors on the terreno to head to the airport with my godbrother Wilson to pick up MY visitors: my sisters, Suzanne and Michelle, along with best friend Becca and my aunt Mary! We came back for a grand tour of the place and got settled in! Many MANY introductions were to be made as the kids are always curious when there’s new people walking around, esp. chicas lindas (not to mention I had made pretty much everyone aware of the fact that they were coming prior!)

Becca and Michelle with Estrellita and Erika (plus Leonardo!)

Carolina and me (and Natalia!)

On the grand tour!

Mary and Jhon Luis (here begins our intro to the baby house!)

Suzanne and Estrellita in matching army pants!

Becca and her new best friend, Saul.

Michelle, Fausto, and Becca.

Monday was hang-out-with-the-kids day and attempt-to-learn-250-names day. We did lots of activities esp. with the girls in my house. We made bracelets in the park and then later painted nails. We all ate lunch together in Santa Ana and then that night we attempted to sleep on the roof underneath the beautiful Dominican sky (by 2:00am, we had all headed for cover...the moon was SO bright!)

Scones for breakfast!

Our dining room!

Belkis and me!

Suzanne and her resident match-maker, Valentina.

Luisito had SO much fun with all the thread!

A new friend...?

Nail polish time!

Erika, Carmencita, and me! Seven months in, without fail, anytime these girls see me, they drop whatever they are doing and run in my direction for a big hug...a GREAT reminder of why I am here!

Katherin and Suzanne!

A country of contrasts...and a country of beauty...

20 bottles of nail polish is no everyday matter here...took no time for the girls to all show up!

Becca got a wonderful manicure from Anaika!

Cristela insisted on painting my nails...LOVE this girl! So young and so grown-up all at the same time...

Michelle and Josi (had to take advantage of the fact that Josi would let me take her picture this day!)

Lunch: rice, beans, meat, and salad...la bandera dominciana.

Tuesday started out rainy, so we switched up our plans and spent some more time with the kids right off the bat. We started out by bringing a yummy breakfast of monkey bread to the house and soon afterwards, we did a craft the girls had never seen before called Dream Dolls. My aunt Mary brought it along, and it was a blast. It was so cool seeing each girl express themselves by creating a different type of doll! Next stop was San Pedro which meant it was time to get on some MOTOS! Yep, we grabbed three motos and hopped on over to town to visit Wilson at his internship at the gas station and then to all get some supper together. We also went in a public guagua, which is essentially an old van that costs 25 pesos a ride. We gave Wilson his b-day gifts and called it a day! But not before the girls had their first chance to see a cacata (tarantula) climbing up the stairs to their bedroom!!

Monkey bread...it might not look so good, but it tasted super dulce!

Katherin working on her Dream Doll...

Carmencita and her Dream Doll...

Belkis with her Dream Doll (and new headband!)

Milis (Wilson's sister) and Michelle!

Aunt Mary i.e. Director of the Dream Doll Project.

Finished products!!

Suzanne, Mary, and Yesenia

Katherin and her finished product!

The crew including Nairobi who is deaf and mute...the Dream Doll was a great way to express herself!

On the moto...booyah!

Visiting Wilson at Shell where he worked for 5 weeks this summer!

Walking through San Pedro...

Down by the malecon, right next to the ocean...

Pizza and pica pollo for all!

Lots and lots of motos!

In the public guagua (it was a pretty nice one!)

Getting ice cream at Bon!

Kristen's 22...

...and Wilson's 16 (as well as a Twins fan!)

EWWWWWWW!

 Wednesday morning began our second part of the week: resort DR. We took public transport (a bus, bus, taxi, bus, and taxi) to our all-inclusive in Puerto Plata. It was a good 7 hours of travel, but a great view of the country. We ended the night with some dancing!

Hotel!

Ready for supper!

And Mary's on the dance floor!

Dancing the night away!

Thursday was beach day. Nuff’ said. I live in paradise. 

Playa!

Sistas!

Besties! (It was Mexican night!)

SO pretty!

Friday was another day at the resort for Mary and me (beach, books, sun) and a trip to 27 Charcos, some AMAZING waterfalls, for the rest of the crew. Dominican coffee was drank by all. YUM.

Mary got artsy with her new camera after supper!

Saturday we made the return trip back to NPH and the decision was made to spend the rest of the time at NPH rather than doing any more touring/sight-seeing. We went to misa at 5:00pm with the kids…it’s always fun seeing the kids in their Sunday-best.

Couldn't resist the temptation of the see-saws after hours!

  Sunday was ‘batey day.’ We started the morning off by going to the nearby batey (Haitian migrant community), Monte Cristi and we did a caña walk. Everyone got the chance to chop some down and attempt to peel it…needless to say, we all got our butts kicked by 3 little boys who had 3 pieces of caña each while we were all still working on our very first one. The afternoon was spent hanging out with the kids one last time and saying a sad goodbye to Wilson. We got in one last Domincian experience by heading back to the batey that night for some dancing!

The caña crew!

Suzanne taking a bite...

The three boys were so entertained by our lack of skill!

Michelle giving it a go!

Didn't take long for Mary to catch on!

Our walk back to NPH was made a little more exciting by this cow crossing and little Jeri's scared voice saying, "Kris, the cows are COMING!"

Some of the batey boys...the place was packed!

Hermanas!!

Monday morning by 5:15am we were on the road to the airport! It’s amazing how quickly time flies! It’s hard to pick a favorite part of the week, but without a doubt, one of the coolest parts for me was having my family meet Wilson and getting to hang out with him! He is definitely part of the family now! Overall, I just feel so blessed to have such kind and generous family and friends…it was an unforgettable week! Thanks to all who made it happen (including Becky Tukua, Brenna, Grandma and Grandpa Becker, and of course mom and dad!)

Santiago (i.e. That is one MAD Donkey!)

            What a weekend! I dare say, it was my best yet…overall, it was an extremely Dominican weekend, and it’s the first time when I’ve been on my way back to the orphanage and wishing I had another day to be away. So Thursday, Avriel, Madelon, Hannah (Madelon’s sister), and I took off at 4:00pm for Santiago. A bus ride, walk, bus ride, walk, bus ride, coach bus ride, and taxi ride later, all of which took about 5.5 hours, we were in our hotel in Santiago. We got the cheapest room (600 pesos/less than $4 each) that was literally like the maid’s quarters, not even in the hotel, but on the roof. We like to refer to it as the Penthouse Suite :) We dropped off our stuff and headed out for the famous monument in Santiago to meet some friends. The monument has to be about the highest point in Santiago and it had an amazing view! From there, we went out and did a little dancing and then headed back to our rooftop suite and called it a night!

The americanas take on Santiago!

This is where the 'Penthouse Suite' business went down!

            Friday morning, we took another guagua and headed over to visit Batey La Libertad. It was a lot of fun being there and there were TONS of cute kids who were more than willing to show us around and display their finest dance moves for us. This batey was quite different than the bateyes around here. For one thing (and we noticed this all over up north), things seem less integrated between Domincians and Haitians. In the batey, I strictly heard Creole where as here, you hear both Creole and Spanish, sometimes even more Spanish in the bateyes. On the guagua ride back into Santiago I experienced something I’ve only heard about up until this point. There were security checkpoints along the highway where the police wave down busses. They hop on, stare everyone down, and then demand that certain people show their documents (of course, the darkest ones). They then bother everyone for a minute or two and the cobrador who works on the bus has to give them a few pesos in order to get them off and keep going (i.e. bribe them). It was just maddening to see...(not to get political, but when you think about the uproar in AZ over racial profiling, this is just 100x worse and no one blinks an eye, because it’s such a norm). Anyways, next, we took another guagua over to the town of Tamboril which is northeast of Santiago. The next road we went on isn’t quite fit for vehicles so we took a 40-minute moto ride way up, up, and up into the mountains. It was GORGEOUS…hands down, the most beautiful views of my life and certainly the best moto ride. 

Best moto ride EVER.

Does it get any prettier than this?!?

After 40 minutes, we literally reach the end of the gravel road at the top of the mountain in a village of about 70 people called Arroyo El Toro. There, we were welcomed with open arms by the entire community. A couple years back, Madelone took a trip with her college and got hooked up with a couple of these families as her host families, so they were all thrilled to see Magdalena and her 3 americana friends. We went around the community, walking up and down hills, greeting everyone, seeing the sights with a pair of old binoculars lent to us, and playing a little baseball plus we got our first taste of mountain coffee, which was undoubtedly the freshest, most delicious coffee I’ve ever had.

End of the road i.e. our host family's house!

Part of the Arroyo el Toro village...

...more of the village...

The houses next to the baseball field...

The play (baseball field) and yep, I'm out there by "third base."

Doing the rounds and saying hello to everyone!

The binoculars!

Eventually, we headed back to home base, essentially a two-room house with an outdoor kitchen (open fire for cooking, do-all-laundry-by-hand kind of situation, and use sheets for extra walls).  Our host mom had prepared a delicious supper of pasta, rice, and beans and per Dominican custom, she had us four girls sit down at the table to eat and the rest of the family ate after us. That night we hopped on over to Madelone’s other host family for a birthday party for Yonelly. She turned 17 and already has a 10-month old gorgeous baby girl with her husband (her mom became a grandma at age 31!) We danced, opened presents, and ate cake…there must have been at least 15 of us in this small, little house. We then did a little prayer service (Friday night custom) and then continued the dancing with some of the neighborhood boys.

CUTEST. BABY. EVER. (Not to mention extremely delicious coffee!)

The whole crew at the birthday party! Yonelly is in the pink pants...

Breakfast time for the chickens...right in the kitchen with the rest of us!

Kitchen "sink" where all food prep and dish-washing happens...can you believe that view?!?

Stove...can you imagine using this for all your cooking?!?

Saturday morning, we woke up at 6:00am to be able to see the beautiful sunrise over the mountain. We were trying to be as quite as possible so as not to wake anyone up, but sure enough, a nearby donkey FREAKED OUT as we were climbing up the little treehouse and everyone quickly learned that the americanas were awake. By 7:00am, our host dad had us over to his brother’s house to meet the fam and drink some more delicious café (this time with cinnamon added). We then went and checked out a house that is the making right on the edge of the mountain there and returned home for a hearty breakfast of oatmeal. Soon after 8:00am, we had the neighboorhood boys rounded up and we took off on about an hour hike to the nearby caves. Up and down we climbed until we got to the cave entrance…pretty spectacular-looking. At this point, the boys lit up their homemade torches and we spent the next half hour slipping and sliding up and down the muddy hills inside the cave until we reached the very back in nearly complete darkness. Needless to say, I took the prize for worst walker…at one point, I literally did the splits in the mud, and I came out looking pretty darn dark since I was covered in mud. Two words: worth it.

Buenos dias!

This donkey was NOT happy to see us at 6:00am (hence this blog's title).

This is UNREAL.

We returned home for showers, another delicious lunch, and many goodbyes as our motos returned to pick us up at 1:00pm. We soon realized going up the mountain on motos feels a lot more safe than going down…ay dios. But we made it safe and sound and were home by 8:30pm Saturday night in order to be ready for Visitor’s Day and the return of the kids who were on summer vacations on Sunday.

Also, guess who had visitors on Sunday?!? ME!! Suzanne, Michelle, Becca, and aunt Mary are here right now! So far we’ve played lots and lots with the kids, hung out with the boy we sponsor here, Wilson, and eaten lots of Dominican food. Tomorrow, we are headed to Puerto Plata to spend 3 days at an all-inclusive there. Mages invasion of the DR=in full action. Next blog post about the family!