week one

About 45 minutes from the city of Santo Domingo lies a Caribbean oasis known as Eco Village. EV is situated in the middle of a poor section of Boca Chica characterized by tiny tiendas, rocky dirt roads, and motos. The physical dichotomy (wealth vs. poverty) has not been lost on any of my cohort as we have worshipped, prayed, learned, and played together for the past 5 days. We are sleeping in simple but clean villas (with bunkbeds) and having our meals prepared for us during this training (and enjoying swimming for a brief period each day).

Our discussion of bonding with the local cultures where we serve today seemed especially ironic given our living situation right now. Nevertheless, God has given us this beautiful place to learn and grow and become a community of spiritual support for one another for a purpose, and I believe that purpose is being fulfilled. There are 3 families with small children, one married couple, and 8 single women here for this training, and our experiences and stories are as diverse as the countries to which we are headed in the near future: Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Peru, China, Guatemala, Rwanda, Mozambique, and Nicaragua.

Our training thus far has been conducted by FH staff from the DR, Bolivia, Peru, and Korea. Most of it has taken place in a small conference room with green tables and (hard) chairs. Aside from the mosquitos, the chairs are actually the only uncomfortable thing about this place.

Yesterday we had our first “cultural excursion” into a Dominican market place. Having been in the DR before, I can’t say I experienced anything unusual, but the story of our lunchtime adventure is worth retelling. As we walked around the old city, we approached a street vendor looking for advice about a lunch location. He directed us to a local guia, who led us on a 5-block trek to what wound up being a very expensive looking restaurant, complete with tablecloths and wineglasses on the tables. Needless to say, I and the 2 other girls I was with were very uncomfortable with the idea of eating in this kind of establishment, so we bid farewell to our guide and began our own search for some local comida. About 6 blocks later, we noticed a hole-in-the-wall sort of dive and ducked inside to see what sort of place it was. It turns out we had discovered an Indian restaurant and bar in the middle of the city with only two tables and one other customer. After a quick look at the menu ($5-6/lunch), we decided to try it out. Our waitress approached us, and we quickly learned that she spoke only Spanish, but we managed just fine. It struck the 3 of us as quite odd, however, that we had come all this way to the DR and were eating falafel and kabobs!

After 4 hours in the sun, I was quite tired, but it was nice to get out of “the compound” and explore a bit. Everything has been going well so far, and I am so encouraged to be spending so much relational quality time with likeminded people who are about to embark on similar mission-oriented work. I am also excited that I had a chance to reconnect with 2 of my close FHI/DR staff friends from previous short-term trips—Martires and Victor. Even after a year, they are as warm and friendly as always.

I have very limited internet access here, but please know that I am blessed, and look forward to sharing more stories face to face when I return. Meanwhile, enjoy the picture...this was my cohort in Phoenix last week.