Llegó Navidad en la Republica Dominicana (Christmas has arrived in the DR)

To tell you the truth, Christmas arrived in the DR about 2 months ago in our favorite grocery store: La Sirena... but we decided to hold off a bit in our actual lives.

First Sarah and I found our Christmas tree, literally on the side of the road in Santiago. It was across the bus station the day we were going to see Breaking Dawn. We spoke with the guy and asked him if he would be open later (we didn't think it would be the best idea to drag the tree into the movie theater with us). So we picked it up after the movie and took it on the bus with us. He (being the tree) sat next to me in his very own seat!
 The following week we invited Miranda over, and the 3 of us decorated the apartment.

The finished product-- I know very Charlie Brown Christmas Story like-- and that's why I'm in love with it!

The following Friday we had our Fiesta de Navidad at the school --complete with dressing up, a pizza party for each class, and performances for the children's parents. Here a few pictures from the "dressing up" part of our day:

Isn't Estaci BEAUTIFUL?

One of my favorite pictures of the day. 

Warner!

Ricardo & Antony are best friends. I was able to capture Ricardo telling Antony a secret before all the students started singing.

I always envision these two boys.. years and years from now, still best friends and hopefully doing great things for the Lord!

Blaini all dressed up!

Alturo

 Profe Nicole & Andy

Manuela and Profe Sarah.

Finally we had our Makarios staff Christmas party, where all of the families of our Dominican and Haitian staff members were also invited! It was a GREAT time. So great in fact, that I didn't have time to take as many pictures as I wanted. Here are a few from my point and shoot camera (which for w/e reason the resolution/tone is suddenly awful on).

This is Lismery. She is one of Yomo's (Yosmery is her full name) daughters. And Yomo is one of the Makarios staff members. I wish this photo wasn't blurry!

Surprise cake for the December birthday girls.-- Sarah, Yomo and Narolin.

And the night ended with Kelvin pretending to be Clark Kent.

I love my staff.

Thanksgiving Week in the DR

Day 3 of blogging everyday this week!

Thanksgiving for us in the DR started the Saturday before. We had a large family style dinner with all of our American, Haitian and Dominican staff members. Even though I'm not the hugest fan of typical Thanksgiving food.. it was really nice to have a turkey, mash potatoes, gravy, etc. etc.

Here's a few photos from the night:

Writing down what we're grateful for

Group shot.

(taken with Pat's camera)

Thanksgiving continued with our relaxing mini vacation to Lifestyles resort. After our half-day on Wednesday, Sarah and I headed to Playa Cofresi to begin our stay at the all inclusive resort (that we got practically for FREE through cheapcarribbean.com). Miranda, her sister Jamie (who was visiting from the States), Janelle, and her coworker Tracy joined us on Thursday.

Now, I wouldn't exactly put Lifestyles in the 5 star category.. but coming from our small town Montellano, it was just what we needed and more! My favorite parts included hot showers that you didn't need a hot water heater, relaxing on the beach side canopy beds, food being prepared for us, spending time with the girls, watching part of the Macy Thanksgiving Day Parade, watching cable TV in general,  having time to read for pleasure ( ie discover my new love for "The Hunger Games") and being able to leave my cafe con leche on the counter without ants devouring it. 
It's the small things, ya know?

Here are some pictures from our long weekend:

The balcony of our hotel room

The inside of our room

She's pretending..

Bathroom

The beachside canopy beds!

Our Thanksgiving Day Dinner, at the Mexican Restaurant. 

Rainbow above the ocean.

Group shot.

AND Sarah and I ended our weekend by taking a quick trip to Santiago to see BREAKING DAWN! (which premiered a few days before Thanksgiving here in the DR).

If you're wondering.. it was amazing, and I'm ready to see it again (and again, and again).

That was our DR Thanksgiving: A relaxing/amazing time spent with friends. Grateful that God brought me to this country to live and serve him for the next two years!

Come back tomorrow for another post!
Imani

Meet Lisela

So about those blog titles that I was supposed to have. I think they're over. I think the only one I'll stick to is the "Hola ___".... slowly introducing you guys to the people that surround me in this country. And I think I'll change it to "Meet ____." (I'll probably change my mind again, stay tuned)

Anyway. This is Lisela. Enjoy.

Lisela is a first grader in Profe Sarah, Profe Kelvin and Profe Belizeur's class. She's an extremely smart girl that is always  one of the first in her class to raise her hand with the correct answer. She has the kind of fresh/hilarious/sassy attitude that is only cute on a 6 year old. She has a little sister that's in Kindergarden at our school, and a baby brother who's almost 2 years. Her mother is very sweet and attends a church next door regularly. One of my favorite things about Lisela is her little raspy voice and how she pronounces every single syllable of every single word. She is wise beyond her years and always keeps us laughing.

(Photo taken by Pat Miles)

This is Lisela on the day we had our Makarios school Christmas presentations. The kids had permission to "dress up" in whatever they wanted, versus their uniform. Lisela arrived to school super unpleasant because she didn't think her pants, shirt, and shoes were cute enough (plus the pants were falling off  of her body). After Sarah walked her home, so that she could change into a skirt and different shirt.. she still was unhappy about the way she looked, and proclaimed that she was ugly. Pat pulled her aside to tell her how beautiful she was, and I immediately offered to take a photo with her, affirming her again how beautiful she was. She felt better for the rest of the day!

So blessed to work for an organization where we have the ability to encourage the self esteem of 6 year old girls.
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Thanks for reading! I'll be blogging everyday for my last week in the DR before I spend Christmas/New Years in the states. Hoping to make up for all the times I should have been blogging over the past few months! The blog posts will be short snippets of life here. Enjoy! (Also here's a link to yesterday's post in case you missed it.)

Weekends

Just a snapshot of how we've been spending a few of our weekends. 
(disclaimer- this may seem like a "long" blog post, but I promised it's not. It just filled with lots of photos!)

••Santiago: (November 5-7)
Many weeks ago, the 4 of us girls ventured to Santiago to explore a city we had heard many things about. Before we stepped on the bus, we knew Santiago wasn't going to be a grandiose (I felt cool using that word) tourist location, but instead a typical "city" with typical city-like activities (restaurants, sport games, malls, etc.). And that's just what we needed compared to the region we live in.. that doesn't have all of tha to offer. Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't trade where we lived for the world.. but it was nice to get away for a weekend and enjoy going out to eat, our first Dominican baseball game, going to a MOVIE THEATER  (something we missed greatly, since the one near us was closed down for 3 months), and visiting a mall.

Here's a few pictures from the weekend:

The Monument 

View of the city.

Before we went into the baseball game.  Lauren, Andy, Cakito, and Emily came down for Montellano. 

Aguilas vs. Escolidos

The whole reason we went to the game was for Cakito. We surprised him for his birthday (which was a week before this) and told him that we were going to take him to the game for his birthday! 

2nd base coach arguing with the umpire. He was thrown out of the game 2 minutes later. 

Trust Sarah to find Latin dancing

Movie Theater! 

(photo from Dena's camera)

••Sousa Beach (October 22)
With the beach being only 30-40 minutes away, we try to visit often.

Can't get over that this is where I live.

••Malacon (October 29)

There's a historic fort in Puerto Plata, and one weekend we decided to explore it. So we hopped in a carrito (public transportation cars) and  once we arrived, told moto drivers that we wanted to go to the forteleza (fort in Spanish). LITTLE did we know that you have to specify the tourist forteleza, or the forteleza at the point.. because our taxi drivers took us a to a prison (apparently this is what forteleza also means). After some explanation, we finally got to where we needed to be.. only to find it was closed on Saturdays! No matter, we walked around the Malacon (the walkway by the coast) and took pictures instead.

••Jazz Fest (November 11)
Jazz Fest is an annual multi-day jazz concert that takes part of different parts of the North Coast. We had been hearing about this festival since our first day in the country, so needless to say we were excited. And it didn't disappoint.. I wish they had live music like that every single weekend.

My favorite group of the night- Xiomara Fortuna

Groupies. What? 

Other weekend events not pictured- watching the new Makarios documentary (A Rising Tide) as a staff, movie & pumpkin spice lattee night, watching episodes of New Girl, eating dinner in each others apartments, and Makarios Thanksgiving & Christmas dinners (saved for a later blog post).