Fire, fire, the guagua's on fire

I am sure that many of you have already heard the story by now but for those who haven’t sit back and here a tale of how the guagua caught on fire. Although it has been a little over a month since our van caught on fire the wreckage that still sits outside on the street makes it feel like it happened yesterday. After a productive day in Montellano the women’s group from Westlake Bible Church were ready to return home to the comforts of cold showers and oscillating fans. When we arrived to the house I noticed that Anne had parked the truck in front of the carport which meant I needed to leave the guagua on the street. After the group unloaded I went inside to say hi to Anne and grab the truck keys so I could move it and the guagua under covered parking. When I stepped outside I noticed smoke coming from under the driver seat in the guagua. After casually telling Anne the van is on fire and asking for a fire extinquisher I returned outside. We didn’t have a fire extinguisher so Anne brought out some flour to throw on the flames. When she met me outside and saw the amount of flames accumulating under the van she simply noted “I don’t think flour will put this one out.” If you haven’t been to the Makarios house then you must know that we are located at the top of a hill. To make things more interesting, the emergency brake on the guagua doesn’t work so we always park it in gear. Apparently the fire produced enough heat to start turning over the engine and the van began jumping forward. It finally succeeded and began making its way down the hill. Luckily we also have a broken down Nissan Pathfinder that has never been removed from the street. The van stuck the front end of the Pathfinder allowing us enough time to steer the guagua to the vacant lot across the street. It is not hard to draw up a crowd in the DR so when 12 American women begin screaming and running into the street and flames engulf a van people stop to look. Within minutes every neighbor, construction worker, taxi driver, dog, cat and chicken began showing up. After 10 minutes and two stops at the wrong address the fire department finally arrived. They immediately try to break out the windows but there tiny hatchets just wouldn’t do the trick. So the logical solution became for each member of the fire department to pick up rocks and throw them at the car windows. Needless to say they succeed, more oxygen enters the van and the flames double in size. After another 10 minutes of attempting to put the flames out Miguel and I are questioned about registration papers and insurance. We tell them that everything was in the glove box. Seeing as this was not an acceptable answer Miguel worked his way between two firemen and began kicking the glove box. After 3 powerful blows the box opens up and he salvaged what was left of the paperwork. The police got all of our information, the fire department thought they put out the flames so everyone began to leave. Before the fire department made it down the street the battery in the van caught on fire again and Miguel flagged down help. After a few more gallons of water the fire was out Everything was finally over...I wonder when the clean up crew will come? Oh yeah, there isn’t one...so Miguel and I swept up the broken glass, pushed the guagua out of the street (using the truck), hosed down the car fluids that were all over the ground and finished just in time to start up the grill, it was burger night and everyone was hungry.

Happy Birthday Kate!

Today the wonderful and amazing Kate turned 24. We joined her with her parents in Cabarete to celebrate. Her family made a meal of tapas and Kara made an incredible chocolate cake to top it off. We attacked her with silly string, sang happy birthday and she did her own toast. It was a great night of fun and laughter! David presented to her a bunch of cards her students made and we showed her a video of them wishing her a happy birthday.

Not the best picture of all of us, but you can see imagine the joy of our hearts to be in air conditioning for 3 hours.

Welcome Diego Miguel Morel! The little lad was born May 12, weighing in at 7lbs. Both Mom and Baby are doing great after an unexpected and quick delivery. Please pray for a speedy recovery for Jenny and join us as we praise God for this new life!

So...I'm the new girl

Hello Makarios readers all over. My name is Laura and I am about the only person on staff not from Texas. I am from Dayton, OH where I work as a nurse in a pediatric emergency room. I absolutely love my job, but what I love most is that God has given me a skill that is needed everywhere with constant opportunites to serve others and honor him. I came with a small group from work in the fall and it was during that trip that I knew this would not be my last time coming to the DR to work with these kids. God began working in me and I got the time to come off and spend the month of May here with a job description to "heal all the children." I laughed when I heard this. I'm very aware that this will not happen, but I will do whatever I can.

I've only been here a week, but have had many medical discoveries. The usual infected wound, scalp fungus and burns. This week, we have had the pleasure of having Dr. Glennen and his assistant Connie at the school for dental work. They have managed to see every child and pull lots and lots of teeth. I was highly impressed with their skills and how well the children handled it. And seeing how I am always a part of the shoving the tooth back in as opposed to taking it out, this was a learning and interesting experience. Edwin, AKA Bobo, had 8 (yes, count 'em 8) teeth extracted and slept through it! Not only that, he was snoring and had one tooth that had four roots instead of the normal three which made it extra hard to remove. He didn't care. I know he was numb, but good glory, there is still pressure. And we all know the doctor means when he says "you're going to feel some pressure." Oh yeah, he had an infected wound on his leg, so I cleaned and dressed it...he woke up for that, go figure.

I am always amazed at how children react to situations. I think only three of all the kids actually cried and got upset. Only two of them were we not able to work on b/c they wouldn't cooperate. This would have never happened in the States. We would have had to use all sorts of distraction and papoosing. I notice it even with the latinos that come into the ER back home. They are the most well behaved kids and don't cry until we leave the room or are told they are allowed. It's the machismo culture. And never in the States would we be able to just pull teeth without consent to treat from parents.

We will be doing more dental work tomorrow. If you want to see more pictures or see what life is like in the DR for a midwest lady, you can check out my blog. It was created for this trip and will only last a month. http://totheleastofthese-laura.blogspot.com/

For whatever reason, I am not able to post any pictures or video at this time, but I will do my best to post some soon!

another picture of the Doña

We're building a ranchito!

The guys are taking a break from building the house (they recently poured the concrete footings) and are back at the school building us a little ranchito. It's going to be a circular structure with a thatched roof away from a school a little bit so that we have a some more space for our students. Here are some pictures and a video from the first day of construction:


Rick (a volunteer who came with his wife to help for a day during their vacation), David, Charlie and Juan tie steel.


David and Juan dig the to put in the footings


Charlie bends steel


The area that will soon be our ranchito and our garden behind it


David explains how to tie steel

Josh and Royce come to visit!

Josh and Royce, who work for the non-profit Proskuneo, came to worship with us for a day and a half! Royce came down as an intern last year and taught the students some songs and how to play the guitar. This year they came with new songs and new instruments to show off. The students were full of energy and sang and danced and clapped with joy. The music of the Dominican is generally blaring, and sometimes scary and so they are not used to softer sounds like acoustic guitars and violins. Here are some pictures and a few videos of their short stay with us:


Royce and Camille lead songs in Camille's morning class


Preschoolers learned to sing as well. This is Camille and Weston's class. Lisbet is in the white shirt and Bebé is on the right.


Kate and Cristina's class watched Royce play the guitar and Josh with the violin.


Cristina's morning class is learning the movements to a new song


Camille's class watches as Josh plays the violin


Kate and Cristina's preschool class


Camille's morning class


Camille's morning class, again

presenting doña cristina

there are some people that we work with that some of you never get to hear about or hear from unless you come here. (which is why you should come here.) so, i would like to introduce our doña cristina. she is the cook at the school, and she is awesome. she never stops working. when she first showed up at the school for robin to go over some things with her, jennie had warned us that she was "older," but i remember thinking, "this lady is too old to work here in our crazy school." but she does it, and does it well. so here is the doña and some pictures of food!
cooking


pantry... very dominican


arroz y habichuelas (rice and beans) the food the preschoolers eat

Se quemó (no one was hurt, praise Jesus!)

This was how we drove groups around. It's called a guagua. It burned. Huge flames. Electrical. As Miguel said, "No más guagua"

t.i.r.d.

If any of you have seen the movie Blood Diamond, you may recall the idea of saying T.I.A. (This is Africa). When things happen or regardless of the insane things that go on, it is still your country. We all feel that this idea fits perfectly in this country. I often find myself mouthing the phrase "soooo dominican!" because that is really the only way to describe the things that go on in this country. This is Republica Dominicana.

Please enjoy the following pictures and videos, along with their captions. Feel free to enlarge the pictures to see every humorous detail. All of these pictures and one of the videos were taken within the 15 minutes of each other, I kid you not. The other video is bonus.
We were the first car stopped at the stop light. As we waited, slowly but surely motos wove in and out of the cars up to the front until we were completely surrounded by them when the light finally turned green. T.I.R.D.
It wouldn't be a day in the Dominican Republic if you didn't see someone drive by carrying something on a moto. This time it is a Haitian man carrying paintings over his head. Why transport your goods any other way? T.I.R.D.
On the main street that runs through Puerto Plata, which also becomes the highway when you leave town pass all the speedy cars and motos on a mission to get somewhere and to get there fast. On the same road passes a man with his horse and cart. Notice that his cart is actually a car axel. T.I.R.D.
The back windshield of the car reads "C VEND." What the owner was clearly trying to write was "C VEN D" there just wasn't enough room. What does this mean? Well, nothing to tell you the truth. However, it would be pronounced the same way as the phrase "SE VENDE" which means "For Sale." Clearly though, one would use letters with the same pronounciation (instead of the actual words which take longer to write). T.I.R.D.
Look closely at this tractor driving down the main road with its entourage of motos. There is a motorcycle in the lift. What?! T.I.R.D.




Garrett and Anne's T.I.R.D. faces.

foundations.

Over the past few weeks, construction on the new Makarios team house has continued to progress. The foundations have been dug...by hand I might add....pretty impressive, huh? For a while there it looked as if it was a Makarios archaeological dig. A few artifacts were found...but unfortunately didn't amount to much. At this point the guys are laying down the varrilla or steel supports before they start pouring cement.

The April and May rains have started which is good because we really need the rain. Its been so dry lately; however, as you can imagine...the guys are scuttling about trying to get the foundation done before too much rain falls from the sky!

kids crack me up

posted by sharla

i was translating notes from our kids to their sponsors last week and this was my favorite. keep in mind they are learning english at school. My comments in parenthesis.

I L(heart) you.

mandame una bicicleta
(send me a bicycle)

The bicycle part was erased, most likely because a teacher came around and noticed and told her to erase it. Kids make me laugh.

Corn in Chichigua and Kittens for All People

Hello!

I took this picture during Semana Santa two weeks ago--the one of corn in Chichigua. If you look closely, you can see what I think are corn kernels drying out on the blue tarp in between these houses. No one was around to ask what it was for (presumably to eat?) so I just took a picture instead. I like photos like these because they remind me that Chichigua isn't just a place that I visit to talk to students but it's where people live. And certainly there's no problem taking a picture of the corn in front of someone's house, but it does make me smile thinking about some of things about my life at home in the U.S. that would be weird or funny or charming to the families here. That's all. :)

The kittens were born LAST WEEK at a colmado near the school. Natanael's mom runs the store and Natanael, who is in Camille's class, always tells me when they have kittens because he knows that I'm borderline crazy about animals. At least I've become that way here. I miss them so much! Besides, look at this picture! They can't even open their eyes! So. Enjoy the little guys. More than once I've considered taking a few home. Stay tuned...

tutoring

Yoslena just turned 15. She is one of Camille’s students that we almost didn’t let enter our school because of her age, but she is so far behind that Camille really wanted her to be able to come to school. She doesn’t know anything. She can’t identify letters or numbers, she can’t read or write, and on top of all of that she is a little rough around the edges. It is for children like Yoslena that I feel I have been called to help. I’ve started tutoring the students that we have that are much further behind the rest. Yoslena is one of the worst, and I try to spend the most time with her. So I’ve set some goals for us; I want her to be able to know the entire alphabet and sounds that every letter makes by the end of the year, setting her up to start reading. This is my first time to teach someone to read.

When doing education ministry as a ministry it is important to evaluate what we do as a means to accomplish our goals. It is our hope that the children and their families would know the Lord and that He would be glorified. So I have been questioning what it is exactly that I am doing and if it is necessary in order for Yoslena to know the Lord. In the states we are given the mindset that we must be educated and successful. But does that mindset work in this country? If Yoslena never knew how to read, could she work? Could she have a family? And most importantly, could she have salvation? Does she have a need to be educated? She could work, she could clean houses, sell fruit, and other various jobs. She would be capable of being a mother, but would she understand the importance of teaching her children all that she knows? And of course she could have salvation, but she would never be able to read the Bible.

I believe that Yoslena has a need in her life to be educated, but I question it every day. I what to be able to meet her need and in doing so, love her with Christ’s love. Pray that I would have discernment, that I would know what to teach her, but pray that I would not become frustrated with her situation. There are other factors that play in to the difficulty of her education. I’m certain she has learning disabilities, but I’m not sure what they are and what the best thing is to do for them. She also comes to school quite infrequently. She has to care for her sister’s baby. It’s had to progress when I can’t work with her every day. Although she has all odds against her, I have seen progress, which is proof of Christ’s doing. The other day for the first time she was able to identify every letter of the alphabet. When we first started she would say, “I don’t know,” or “I can’t,” or “tell me again.” Now she has started to say, “No, no, no don’t tell me. I know it.” I can be very rewarding.

Pray for this child. She is hard to love. In some ways I don’t even know what to ask you to pray for. Pray that God would know.

A few highlights:

My mom came to visit. What a blessing! The Lord has given me such a wonderful family.

My Spanish is to a level now that I can fully communicate and teach!

Elizabeth, the intern from last semester came to visit.

I have been getting by with finances and the Lord has provided, but I still have money to raise.

Thank you for your prayers, love and support.

Cara

march group

spring break austin brings us a group of high schoolers from hill country christian school. led by spanish teacher and board member (of the year?) laurie majcher, this group probably wins the title of "most prepared." they come ready to take over the school and teach the kids with their spanish skillz. they also bring a LOT of stuff to bless the staff, the kids, the community, and pretty much anyone who looks at them. here are a few pics from their trip:

afternoon in Chichigua

Chichigua

Some of you may have visited the batey Chichigua on your trip to the Dominican Republic with Makarios and some of you may be hearing the name for the first time. Chichigua (Dominican Spanish meaing Kite) is a small Haitian batey set in the sugarcane fields overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. It has about 100 people living there and about 20 of our students our Chichiguans.

Because the view from the top of the hill where Chichigua sits is so lovely the land surrounding the batey has been sold to make room for multiple hotels and multiple golf courses. We have known for a while that the land had been bought but we weren’t sure when construction would get underway. Well, it has begun and the land in front of Chichigua, where many of you have played baseball and soccer, has been leveled in preparation for the golf course.

We’re still not exactly sure what will happen to Chichigua. I have heard that they will be moved but I have also heard that they will not be moved but rather a wall will be built up around the complex. After all, who would want to see a poor batey on their vacation in the Caribbean?



Ambiolix playing, looking at Chichigua from the construction sight


Franchesca and Ambiolix playing on a dirt mound

I think we bought a truck from a drug dealer.

posted by sharla, who has never used drugs.

we have been looking for a good quality truck for some time now. we've needed one for a long time, but didn't have enough money for one that wouldn't break down every month. then in december, the Lord provided the rest of the money and we were excited. but then we shopped and shopped and shopped and found that there were very few quality trucks available (except for brand new models that were VERY expensive).

and so we were discouraged, and I, for one, was tired of shopping. it was getting frustrating because we were having to rent trucks for various needs - at the construction site, for groups, for other mak needs.

then last week, a truck came up on a dominican car shopping website that i hadn't seen before. it looked like a great truck for a great price. it was in bonao, a city that i had never been to, about an hour away from where i was in santiago.

teresa white and i set out for bonao on wednesday. we looked at the truck. it was great. a mechanic looked at it. he said it was great. then it started getting weird.

we went into the dealership office. now picture this with me. this is a small, corner lot dealership in a small town with maybe 30 cars. it doesn't seem like the kind of business that makes a man filthy rich. but what do i know? the office was fancy as far as these kinds of offices go in the DR - expensive art, the latest technology, people offering you beverages left and right.

we were invited into the president's office. turns out he had a big tv that he kept watching - it was showing surveillance of his lobby. ok. then we got up to go to the bank. he pulled a hand gun out of his desk drawer and put it under his shirt. now mind you, we were NOT carrying a bunch of money to the bank. no, no. the bank was going to run my credit card and put the money into his account. the bank was two blocks away. were we in danger of some sort of violent crime in a country that suffers from a mere 7.6% of the aggravated assult rate as the US? (I looked it up.)

so you put this together and i fear we bought our truck from a drug dealer. i think it'll be okay. why don't you come down and go for a ride with us? (p.s. the twins were just modeling. we do not drive with them in the back.)

pain and hunger

Pain

I used to think I had felt physical pain. I mean, I have broken my arm and had stitches 3 different times, not to mention the countless times I have fallen, tripped, or burned myself. However I, as most Americans, had plenty of medicine to help with the pain and a doctor to go see if any complications arose.

In this country, though, and for our specific student it's just not that easy. Let me introduce you to just one of the many cases that we have seen at our school this year. Sili, 11 years old, lives in Pancho Mateo with his parents, 3 sisters and niece...they are poor.

A couple of weeks ago, Sili came to us and told us he had a toothache. We ask him to show us his tooth and discovered that he not only had a toothache but that his molar was actually decaying away. Over the next week his cheek began to swell and the pain became even more intense. We gave him some ibuprofen hoping it was relieve at least a little bit of what he was feeling. He family cannot afford pain medication or to take him to the dentist to have the tooth pulled.

Last week, it became obvious that we needed to step in and help him out. Cara Jane took the initiative and began investigating how we would go about removing the tooth. We knew that it would take a while to figure this out, since all things Dominican take longer than they should, and so Cara bought him some pain medicine and an antibiotic for his swollen cheek. After a few days of asking around and waiting for the dentist to get back, we finally had his tooth removed.

His cheek has now almost returned to its normal size and he said that he hasn't been feeling any pain. But, like I said, that's just one of the many stories we seen.


Sili's swollen cheek and rotting tooth. You can see that the front part is almost completely gone.


after having his tooth removed

Hunger

I'm not even going to say that I've ever thought I was truly hungry. I have felt times when my stomach wanted food and I have felt "hungry" compared to what I normally feel but I am learning to say that I have never in my life been truly hungry.

That's not the stories for some of our students. We have some kids who are hungry. Here are 2 of them: Emilio and Bernito. They are brothers who live in Chichigua with 2 other brothers, a sister and their parents. Each day that they come to school they are ready to eat. Bernito, who is in preschool, will generally ask for more food. We serve rice, beans, and chicken on Tuesday, Mangú (boiled mashed-up plantains) on Thursday, and Spaghetti with Salami on Monday and Wednesday and we will normally have enough food for all the kids to have seconds, if they want. Bernito would eat thirds and fourths, if we allowed him to. If we were to feed him the amount that he wanted it would make him sick or it would expand his stomach to think it needs more food and we are trying to be conscientious of this. His brother Emilio comes to the afternoon program and is continually searching for more food to eat. He has begun taking food from the other students before they have finished eating, much to their dismay, and will jump at any chance to eat food they don't want and is continually searching any food sitting in the kitchen. We have started giving him some of the extra eggs at the end of the day to take home, but he normally eats them before he leaves.


Emilio with 2 eggs, a tall glass of milk and a banana, after having eaten 2 other eggs, 3 pieces of bread and 2 other bananas.


Bernito with his food in preschool. He will generally ask for at least 3 bowls of whatever we are having.

I write this knowing that our students do not necessarily experience the most pain nor are they the most hungry in the world. But I do write this knowing that there are varying degrees of pain and hunger and that I'm experiencing what they look like to a new degree.

CARIBBEAN WORLD SERIES!

Last Saturday a group of us had the chance to make the drive to Santiago to watch a doubleheader for the Caribbean World Series! Here are some pictures from the adventure:


Piled in the car on the way from Puerto Plata to Santiago


Arriving at the stadium with Bernabe driving


Cara and I in our seats, getting excited


Bernabe, David, David, Kate, Camille, and Cara


Licey (Dominican Republic) vs. Venezuela; Licey won


Flags of the 3 countries represented: Mexico, Venezuela, DR


LAS AGUILAS!! The Dominican national champions and the team that officially represented the DR in the series


That's what time it is...and there are still a few innings left


This is what I look like at 1am at a baseball game when we still have a 2 hours drive home.

Despite of how exhausted I was the next day, it was loads of fun! How great to watch baseball in a country that is slightly obsessed with the sport. There was lots of dancing and cheering and flag waving...so fun!!

the last 2 weeks.

The middle of January rolled along, and in came a wave of busyness for us. Miguel and the crew started on the massive cistern for the new Makarios team house/conference center. When I say massive, I mean its about the size of an average house here, but under ground. The projected gallons of water it should hold is around 35,000. Because of the rain, we were able to see that more work needs to be done on leveling the ground before the foundation is started on. And you'll also see the cave-in that one side of the cistern hole experienced. It has made for some muddy, busy days, but they are thankful that it is coming to a completion this week as far as the cistern goes. The guys are working all day pouring the top on the cistern and hope to be done by 7pm tonight.

I on the other hand, have been getting bigger and feeling it! (for some of you who don't know, Im six months pregnant). But aside from that I've been doing a lot of running around and errand running for the school. We have been able to, with more sponsorship money, start a little more sophisticated feeding program for the kids at the school. Up until now, we had been able to give an egg, piece of bread, and banana to the kids that come to school. Now, we are able to offer a warm breakfast for the morning kids, a hot lunch for the preschoolers, and a healthy snack for the afternoon kids. I have been busy buying the cooking utensils and kitchen supplies; organizing the cleaning and cooking ladies; and helping Robin (school director) to get it all organized. Last week was our first week of cooked meals and it went surprisingly very smoothly. Of course there are always a few kinks to work out, but we are excited to be up and running with this program. Although the food benefits all who come through the program in significant ways with added nutrition and food in the bellies, it has especially been noticeable in a few kids who come through and are literally scarfing their food down. Its obvious its the only food they have received all day. We are so thankful for the kid's sponsors who make this possible for us to do.

Some pictures of the massive cistern!

Lake after the rain.

the cistern with 2 rooms!