Dominican Republic: The Beginnings.

I'll give you 10 cookies if you read this entire blog post. Or 5 cookies if you skim it and look at the pictures. Pretty please?

WOW! Where to even begin? I hate to make this a long blog post (especially since I am the queen bee of not wanting to read long pieces of text on the internet).. but I've waited so long to blog and now I have so much to catch up on! Bear with me friends, my blog posts will definitely NOT always be this long. 

I'll describe day-by-day, and it probably won't be super detailed... just to keep it short! :)

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• August 1-19. I spent 3 weeks in Colorado attending Mission Training International (alongside about 40 other missionaries & families, including my teammates Miranda, Sarah, and the Menold family) There is no way on this earth I would be able to thoroughly describe how utterly amazing this training was. I'll try and summarize it in 5 "phrases"

1. Invaluable lessons (from paradoxical feelings to  conflict styles, and everything in between). 

2. Dance parties. (Waka, waka)

3. Community that I wouldn't trade for the entire world. 

4. Spiritual preparedness. (God paused my entire life and had me focus on him & my faith in a crazy serious way during these 3 weeks. There aren't enough words that can express how thankful I am for this.)

5. Colorado is beautiful. I'm going back one day. 

• August 19-26: Last week at home. Pack. Shop. Doctors appointments (x6). To do list.  Nurse my cold. Repeat. 

• Friday August 26. Still in NJ. I find out that my flight that was supposed to leave the next day was cancelled/postponed because of Hurricane Irene. (Insert sad face/blessing in disguise because it gave me more time to rest)

•August 26-August 30: Many texts with my fellow teammate Dena (who was also on my cancelled flight), many minutes waiting on hold with Continental, reweighing my suitcase so that each is under 50 pounds & spending a few last moments w/ my mom...


Wednesday August 31- I finally arrived in the Dominican Republic!!!!! 

•  We were met at the airport with part of the staff holding many Welcome Signs! (Sidenote- I've always wanted this to happen to me! My dream has been fulfilled!).

First sight of the island from the plane!

We drove through Puerto Plata and arrived at the Makarious house (where we'll be staying until we get our apartments, and where short term missionary teams are hosted).The rest of the day was spent unpacking & settling in. Well.. unpacking was paused when the 3 kids from the Miles family & 5 kids from the Menold family came into our room, and we somehow began  a spontaneous Disney songs/Christmas music/Justin Bieber dance party. 
 The day ended with myself and my other 3 single ladies teammates (Dena, Miranda, and Sarah) attempting to kill the hugest and fastest spider I've ever seen in my life. A lot of laughing, a lot of screaming, and a lot of praying. But we won, and he lost. 

•Thursday, September 1- MY 22nd BIRTHDAY!!!!!!!!!! More importantly, I got to meet the rest of the Dominican & Haitian staff!!! We spent the day playing icebreaker games, asking each other getting to know you questions  and just being with each other.  At night we had a Welcome to the DR party, which included dinner, more games, and the Happy Birthday song in English and in Spanish! After that we ate birthday cupcakes and spent time on the roof chatting. (Bonus: we saw shooting stars. I L-O-V-E shooting stars). So happy I got to spend my birthday meeting and getting to know the friends (read: family) I'll be working with for the next two years! 

Myself & Dena on the rooftop of the Makarios house. (I later found out the rest of the staff was signing a birthday card to me while we were up here!)

The 4 soltera ladies. (single ladies) of our team.

•Friday & Saturday,  was our our staff retreat. We spent the mornings worshipping & having group devotionals, and the afternoons relaxing/having fun on the beach/getting to know one another (a 15 minute commute)!!! Friday we ventured to Sosua where some of us went banana boating and some of us went snorkeling. (I went banana boating, but unfortunately don't have any pictures). And Saturday we made our way to Cabarate.. where soon after we arrived it began to pour, so we ended up chatting in a local restaurant for most of the rest of the day.

The 2011-2013 Makarios staff. (minus Yosemari and Jen). 
Picture taken after our devotionals.

Friday Sousa beach. Sunny day.

Saturday. Cabarate beach. Rainy day.

Sunday- Church in the morning at Templo Biblico. It was hard for me to keep up with the entire sermon in spanish, but from what I can see it's a really great community of believers! (We have the option of going to this church or an English speaking church… and I'm still praying about which one to pick). We spent the rest of the day shopping at La Sirena (think... Dominican style Walmart) and having dinner.

Monday was our first full day of work!! We arrived at the school at 8:45 and began the day with a group devotional & of course an icebreaker game! We then spent the first half of the day setting up the school. I helped Miranda setting up the Library (my position is not primarily in the school.. so I don't have a classroom to set up). While helping her I found a ton of bilingual children books that I hope will be perfect to read to my ESL classes/have my ESL classes read! The rest of the afternoon was spent going over some health administration stuff with Docotora Lauren. 

Icebreaker games.

(Yomo is in the white, 
Belizeur has on the black hat, and Marnelia is in the yellow)

Johan lifting Addie (one of the Miles' children)

After our full day we went to visit an apartment (that we didn't like very much). And finally.. my favorite part of the day, we visited Chichigua,  which is a Haitian "battye" (a Haitian village), to have a meeting about the Makarios school!! I was super excited/nervous/anxious about this visit because this is where I'll be spending a lot my time teaching ESL and conducting social work! I prayed the entire time car ride over, and God answered every single prayer request I had!!! The meeting went well, Sarah & I were able to meet many adults and kids from the village and form the beginnings of relationships that God will use for the rest of our two years here! 

Fani & myself.

Wilnay, Sarah, Fani, & I

I love this picture!

Boys will be boys!

Hamming it up for the camera.

Tuesday: I met with Erika (the wife of the host couple that are in their transition process of moving back to the states) to discuss ESL classes, go over what she's been teaching, and look through materials. Imagine the hugest smile on my face as I type this. I. AM. SO. EXCITED. to start this aspect of my job! In the afternoon we had a staff meeting at the school, and at night Sharla (our boss that lives in Austin, but has been here in the DR for the past week) took us "soltera ladies" (single ladies of the team) out for a night of fun and relaxation. We first went to a hotel lobby (read: air condition & beautiful facilities) to order cafe con leche and use their fast wifi. Then we headed to a restaurant named "Taste" where we had great food, an interesting waiter, and a lot of laughs. Great, great night! 

Sharla (our amazing boss), Dena, Sarah, myself, and Miranda.

Overall  this first week has been a great general getting to know each other/this country stage. My transition thus far has been fairly well! There are a few of "yucks" (a term we learned to use at our training that describes the paradox we will experience while living in another country. Yays are the positive things. Yucks are the negative things)... and life isn't a bed of roses here.. but that's life right? I'll share a bit more about this paradox in another post.

Okay that's it for now. Thanks for sticking through. (If you made it this far). 

Love you all, y que Dios the bendiga! ( and may God bless you)

Imani

PS- I realize their is probably many unanswered question on this blog post (Who exactly are your teammates, what's transportation like, what's the food like.. etc. etc.) BUT I promise you will see posts dedicated to those things soon!