Originally Composed 12/3/07
Life in this part of the world is a mix of strange contradictions. I've sat on my balcony to get relief from the sweltering heat indoors, only to find my neighbors in shorts and sandals, stringing Christmas lights in coconut and palm trees. I've met ranch-hands and registered nurses, lechosa (passion-fruit)-pickers and lawyers, all living in this little coastal town. I've ridden in SUV's and in the beds of pick-up trucks, to teach in dusty rural towns and lush resort areas, to people in airy, three-story vacation palaces, and one-room cement blocks. Strangest to me the fact that as laid-back and slowly as things tend to be taken here, time has flown by so very fast-almost too fast. It makes me sad to think that in less than four weeks; 27 days from now to be exact, I will be on a plane to come home. I have made so many dear new friends in the congregation here in Cabrera-I'm attached especially to the kids here; they all have these smiles that could light the sky and their spirits are equally as bright. They are all learning English in school. You should hear them all practicing their English on us with their sweet little accents. I even sound like them when I speak Spanish now, dropping my S's at the end of words and turning my R's into I's in some other ones-not on purpose, but it just kinda happens like that, you know? My dream would be to stay, right here in this apartment where the cockroaches have come to respect my presence enough not to surface except if they are dying, to carry my groceries home from the market and cook everything on that gas stove, to sit out at nights with my downstairs neighbors, Ramon and Dorcas and talk about the weather, to call this place home and continue to preach about God's kingdom with the Atlantic Ocean as my background, to wake up in the mornings and from afternoon naps to the abstract orchestra of aged roosters reluctantly heralding the new day, meringue and bachata music played in houses and cars, produce trucks in which the driver advertises his goods through a loudspeaker, and motoconchos ripping through the streets…but I cannot say if even by my best efforts that could ever be-my realities unfortunately are not those of others my age. But I have come to love this place beyond my expectations, and it will be very hard to go. So I'm going to try to pretend I'm not leaving in 27 days; but rather, simply wake up and spend each one as richly as possible.
There were some that got left out of the last email AGAIN, and I am so sorry… but I promise you that the stories I'll tell when I come back will make up for it. (However, if anybody wants to read the emails I've sent out before, just drop me a line and I will gladly resend you the stories from the end of October and November, because I did save them.) Also, I apologize for not responding to any snail-mail I've been sent-to tell you the truth, I just got all letters sent to me in the last two days (Thursday and Friday, November 29 th and 30 th). The postal system is really slow here. I will do my best to sent letters back, but they may not even get to you until after I'm back in the States. But I appreciate everybody's love, support and encouragement, in all forms. It has been much needed and well utilized.
Let's see…I know it has been a couple of weeks since I've written, so I'm trying to make sure I get you filled in from where I left off as completely as possible. Although the flooding that affected other parts of the country didn't affect us, the rain was getting to everyone, making it nearly impossible to do the long day of preaching in the campo that we planned on doing because of the excess of slippery mud (we sure did try anyway!). The rains are getting farther and fewer between, and I personally am relieved. The kids threw another unannounced party at our house, which I find very flattering still, because it means that the apartment of a couple of foreign pioneers is one of the cool places to be in Cabrera. The following day, November 18th, we went to our first real party here, the (sort-of) wedding reception of Wilkins and Jamie Almonte. Wilkins is Dominican, and he married Jamie, a pioneer from Alaska who came down here to help a few years back, and that's how they met. Wilkins moved to Alaska about halfway through their courtship. They have been married about a year and a half now, but they got married in Alaska and haven't been back here since, until now. So Wilkins' mom, Rina, and RN and bible student attending the congregation here, threw them a surprise reception at her home and invited the whole congregation along with the host of North American visitors who have begun to trickle in over the last few weeks. We had a feast and ate a ton, and I have to say, these folks know how to party; even though the lights went out midway through the night, they lit candles and we kept right) on dancing. I have to admit to being quite proud of myself, as the boys who asked me to dance were kind of hesitant to do so-they all had that "oh-no-I'm-gonna-have-to-teach-the-gringa-what-to-do-out-here-but-let-me-just-pay-her-a-courtesy" look on their faces when doing so. But they all admitted to being impressed with my dancing skills, a fact for which I'd like to take this time to thank Shannon, Jay, Marisol, and everybody I used to roll with back in my days of being a Spanish congregation-groupie, before I became a legitimate Latina. The next week, Natalie gave her first talk in Spanish and did a fabulous job (I think I might have been more nervous for her than she was for herself). It isn't an easy undertaking; as many of us know quite well, getting in front of an audience as it is, but it can be especially traumatic to do so in a language that isn't yours, believe me.
The day after that, we took two gua-guas and a bus the size of a school bus to Alta Mira, an inland town where Natalie's friend Maria, and Maria's friend Tineke (pronounced Tina-kah), both Canadian girls, are helping out in the local congregation. Once again, one of the main things I've come to love about being in this country is how easy it is to start bible-based conversations pretty much wherever you are. On the gua-gua between Rio San Juan and Puerto Plata, which was so packed that a person's ideas of spatial parameters are destroyed within minutes on-board (on a gua-gua, most likely you will end up with a your arm around a complete stranger or you might go to sleep on their shoulder-that's just how it is and either you deal with it or you walk), I had one arm free with the Spanish Watchtower (La Atalaya) I was studying in hand; the other arm was on the back of the seat around some dude, probably. The girl on the other side of me kept trying to pretend she wasn't reading my Watchtower. She asked me something about switching buses and we started chatting a bit, then I said something to Natalie in English, which puzzled the girl. "You're not Dominican?" she asked in Spanish. I told her I was American and the purpose of my stay in the country, and she commended us for our efforts, then she went on to tell me that her aunt is a Witness in Nagua, not too far from us. We talked more about the importance of studying the Bible, which she said she used to do years ago but for whatever reason, she just kind of drifted away from doing it. We talked until she almost missed her stop right before Puerto Plata. Once we boarded the school bus in Puerto Plata, Natalie struck up a nearly identical conversation with an elderly man who she had asked for directions. He was really nice and equally appreciative. " Cuídense, mis hijas lindas", ("Take care, my lovely daughters"), he says as we off-boarded the bus.
When we got to Alta Mira, I found myself feeling very thankful to be staying in Cabrera. Not that Alta Mira isn't a lovely town, because it is. It's very hilly and green, kind of like what you'd expect the Andes to look like (actually, I've seen the Andes in real life and the hills in Alta Mira really do look like miniature versions of them). The air is much thinner and crisper there than it is in Cabrera. My issue with it is that it is so hilly, and and the air so much thinner, that for the first time on this whole trip, I found myself physically overwhelmed, which is not a good feeling, especially when everybody else around you is running up and down the hills and talking at normal pace, whereas I'm dragging behind, with my bad leg even stiffer and gasping for air (I can control the asthma better at lower altitudes). I literally wanted to go home. Not back to Cabrera- I mean HOME. But I'm glad I got to see it. It's poorer than Cabrera, so much so that our friends don't even have running running water, though their apartment is actually really cute. A shower consists of boiling a pot of water, pouring it into a bucket with about double that same amount of cool water, and using a pitcher to mete it out on oneself in the actual shower space. Though it was a nice change to bathe in warm water, I'll take my running cold water here any day. And it gets so hot here in Cabrera, warm water would be punishment alot of the time. And nothing beats being able to flush the toilet whenever you feel like it as opposed to doing so once a day to conserve water, as the girls only get two barrels of bathing/flushing/cleaning water a week.
Of course, in areas like that that are a bit farther from civilization, the ministry is even more productive than it is in a more established town like Cabrera (if you can believe that) where there are more Kingdom proclaimers. The congregation in Alta Mira has somewhere between 11 and 18 publishers, and the girls are operating the sound system and equipment, including microphones. There's plenty of room for growth and they could use a lot of help. When I leave, Natalie will be without a roommate, so she might move out there with the other girls to help. The congregation has two elders, one of whom, along with his wife, is a special pioneer. Here, two or three congregations at at time are assigned every weekend to clean the assembly hall in Via Gonzalez. While we were there, Alta Mira's turn came up, along with the Atlantica congregation from Puerto Plata. It was a lot of fun working there, and the assembly hall is so nice. Because of the climate, the assembly halls in this country are open-air, with just a roof supported by several pillars and beams, and an outdoor baptism pool. The grounds have a smaller buildings with walls and doors with bathrooms, offices, classrooms, dorms (for the Ministerial Training School), and apartments for the travelling overseers. I could see how a person could have trouble concentrating on an assembly program, with all the exquisite landscape around and birds and geckos paying visits. Maybe you just get used to it after a while.
The other day I was having a bible study with Cindy, single mom. I actually just found out she's going to school in Nagua for her degree in accounting, and even though she's had finals and her son Justin's two years old (enough said!) she's been faithful our studies. Her dad always kind just of sat outside on the porch whenever I showed up, without saying a word. Yesterday when I came he was in the house feeding Justin, and when we started going over the paragraphs, he left the room. Next thing I knew he came back with reading glasses and a bible. He said he wanted to look up the scriptures we were reading because he thought our bible said something different from his. So every time we got to a scripture I had him read it aloud. Sure enough, his version, which I think was the Catholic Valera (I think that's it?) said the same think with sightly different wording, even using the name Jehovah. Next thing I know, he was participating in the study-his grandkids were even helping him find scriptures! Another day I was out and I stopped to talk to a girl named Damari who worked at a colmado (small general store) but was outside on her break. Turns out she'd been studying the bible years ago but moved to the capital to find work, and she said during that time she'd really missed her study, and that she'd like to start up again but she has this crazy work schedule where the only time she could do it would be Sunday evenings after 5 pm. Sunday afternoons are the unofficial congregation Beach Day, but after we come back, Jamie (the aforementioned Alaskan-Dominican) are going to visit her. It never fails-every day that we go out, at least one person in a group gains a new student (that day Jamie and I each got one, and even crazier than that, they both had the same name).
I'm sorry this letter doesn't have the same jovial tone as my last ones...as reality is setting in that I'll have to go soon, it is getting harder to reflect on how wonderful this all as. I've been preaching up and down the street that I'm moving back, but who am I kidding? I'm tied to the United States by a team of doctors and a box full of prescription medicine and its tearing me apart. It's hard to be face to face with your own frailty, you know? I don't say this to be discouraging or negative-after all, I don't expect this to be my song forever- but I am saying it for those who do have the circumstances to do something that means something-I'm saying it so you'll DO IT. Don't wait until you get to a point in your life where you can't do as much and all you can do is wish that you could. There are tons of things we could all be doing with our time and our money, but experiences like this keep on giving to you long after they are over. So might find it hard to see where the joy is in being in a place where you may or may not have electricity or where you sit in somebody's house drinking coffee and a baby turkey may possibly pop out from under the sofa...but don't knock it 'til you try it. I'm gonna have a time getting back here, but I'm not giving up that easily-y'all know me better than that. I know now that my ultimate goal to serve long-term in a place where there is a greater need for Kingdom proclaimers and a greater appreciation for the fact that humanity needs something better, because what's out there is just not cutting it. This is my prayer, but in the end the answer might be no and I'll have to accept that. But in that instance, if my experience can get somebody else's blood pumping and encourages them to do something bigger than themselves, something that instills more love in their heart for Jehovah and for their neighbor, then I've done something right.
I love you all. I really do...
April
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