Electricity and Innertubes

After a long hiatus from blogging, I felt compelled to write a quick note and post it out there in the bloggosphere. Our life has been eventful, to be sure, as every move is eventful. Everything is a step or two more complicated here than it would be if we had simply moved somewhere else in the US.

Allow me to iterate... In preparation for our arrival, the school signed a contract with the electrical company, and the electricity was up-and-running. Well, it was sort of running. Let's just say that when there was electricity in the neighborhood we were already part of the action. When I got here the school handed me their contract and told me to go into the electric company and switch the contract into my name. They made it sound easy.

As it turns out, the electricity company is notorious for a few reasons. First, they have some super lousy customer service. I got to see this first hand because I was talking with a customer service lady that simply would not slow down her speech, no matter how many times I asked or reminded her that I had only been in the country a couple weeks. Second, the electric company has been known to over charge people. Kinda like how they want me to pay for the month of MAY (not June or July... it's crazy). Lastly, they're quick to simply turn a person's power off. Currently the good ladies at my school are worried that the company will do just that because I can't talk to their customer service people long enough to get them to switch the account or allow me to pay a bill for the time period that we were actually living here.

Dizzy yet? You should have seen me walking out of the office last time... it was nuts. Pretty much everything around here works kinda like that. I bought a new motorcycle... had it in the shop within two weeks. The smoothest thing that's happened so far is that I got a flat tire today, and it was patched within 30 min and cost me less than 2 bucks. That's because it was a guy working out of his house, not some established place trying to steal my pesos. (BTW... the motorcycle tires down here have INNERTUBES like a bicycle! It reenforces my theory that this thing is really a bicycle with a motor attached to it)

We're learning how to navigate in this new culture, though. The motorcycle is a great deal easier to get around on in La Vega, because the streets are narrow and there's a great deal of waiting and honking to get a car through some of the neighborhoods. The mercados are cheeper to buy veggies at, and there are more options than just the Dominican Walmart for the shopping. We've found most of the spices we'll need for the basics, and I even managed to find a place in Santiago that sells BAGELS!!!

Our current complications involve buying a bed and couch, as well as a possible auto repair on the SUV that I drive to work every day. Please pray that we'll be able to afford all of these things and still pay off our medical bills in Portland. Also, pray for the beginning of my school year which begins this coming Wednesday. We're almost done with our teacher's meetings, and will have Monday and Tuesday to prepare for the actual classes. Pray for the kids and parents and teachers that we may start this year off well.

So Many Animals, So Little Touching

I doubt many will be surprised by what I am about to say, because we all know I have the barely controllable desire to make friends with animals.

In my neighborhood there are 3 horses, and 1 is a baby. There are a zillion dogs. Cats are everywhere, as well as kittens, puppies, chickens AND on the way to Rod’s house there are often baby cows!!!!! (vacacitos ) The sad part is I don’t get to touch any of them. Thankfully Rod has 3 dogs and 5 puppies that I can play with!

My photos are from the Travasia which is a mountain village where we have a church plant. Thankfully I got to pet both horses, ride the white one and play with Chiquito, Moreno and Tigua's dog.

See, It's Not So Bad

From Eric's previous pictures and videos you can see that we are ruffling it a little. But life is so good because we are working together real well and we have an amazing community here who is willing to help us with anything! In fact they don’t even need to be asked if they know of a need you can pretty much guarantee you will get help. Sometimes it is nice to be the helpless foreigner. Laundry day was a bit trying though! I had help lined up for the day before but we had no “luz de la calle” which means we were running on the inverter power so no running a laundry machine. Eric was a trooper though and we did it together the whole time. I think I would have quit early but we had a small flood and all the dirty clothes got wet so there was no stopping and coming back to it. Needless to say we will not wait 2 weeks to do laundry again if it can be helped.

Last night we had friends over for dinner for the first time. Alberto and Milagros came with their 3 children and 1 Niece and 1 Nephew. It was a full house and we all had a blast. Alberto and I cooked together so that I can learn how to make his amazing chicken dish. The kids and Milagros arrived on 2 motos, 7 people 2 motos!!! The apartment is great for having people over and the table is in a room just off of the living room so the adults could have some private time and still keep an eye on the kids.

Yuli, the girl from our photo cards has been coming over at least twice a week since we moved in and that has been great. We are paying her to help out around the house so she comes once to work and once to hang out. We are helping her learn English and she is helping us with our Spanish. It is a great exchange! We hope to go to her house in the next week or two. She moved out of the barrio and is living with her boyfriend.

Please pray for us and this relationship that it would be blessed and profound! Yuli has two years of school left before she can go to college. Pray that she remains focused on her studies. Also pray for Eric and me because the craziness of the school year starts on Monday!

Laundry Day

Just got to do our first day of laundry... only took like 5 hours!

Kisha & The Ants

No dialogue required...

Running On An Empty Tank

A few days ago we had a practice of patience when we woke up to an empty water tank. Perhaps a little background info will help you understand how this is even possible. Every house that I’ve seen so far in La Vega, and most of the DR for that matter, has a multi-gallon tank on the roof. Most of them are black, and there are different sizes and shapes, but they all do about the same thing. They hold all of the water for a given house. Each house also has an electronic pump with an automatic switch, which pumps the water from the big pipe under the street to the tank that is on the roof. It’s really not that complicated, but there are plenty of ways that things can go wrong. A broken PVC pipe, a pump that’s not functioning, or a lack of electricity are just some of the problematic options.

At first we thought the lady that takes care of the plants left the water on in the garden. It took a day to figure out there was no way that could happen because the garden hose isn’t hooked up to the tank. Then it took a day to figure out that even though we had closed all the outdoor spigots, the tank still wasn’t getting water. On day three the chairman of the board for SCS showed up with a couple of guys from his church to help fix the problem. Mind you, that was two days of walking down to the garden to draw a bucket of water just to flush the toilet. Fun times.

With relative ease they figured out that the automatic switch on the pump wasn’t telling the pump that it was time to draw water. A quick trip to the hardware store and about US$5 and we were back in business.

I think we weathered the whole thing with good grace. Kisha and I remained on the same team as we tried to trouble shoot and network to solve the problem. We are now much more appreciative of water when we turn the spigot off and on. So I guess you could say that we practiced the patience pretty well!

El Clima

A weather report from La Vega, DR...