Crossing the river

Today after school I decided to go to Pancho. The short way to Pancho is to cross the river.

Most of the kids from Pancho walk this way every day to get to school. When it rains, the river gets really high and it becomes dangerous to cross.

Today, the river was pretty low and easy to cross.

The river is used for many things: washing clothing is a typical activity you see here.

This man was washing his shoes.

As I traveled down the road some men were playing baseball.

Today was a dry day, which is nice because on rainy days, the road is extremely muddy.

Katherine’s house is near where the trash is burning.

Here is the entrance to the houses that Pilu, Katherine’s husband, built.

Today, when I arrived at Katherine’s house, she wasn’t there. Instead she was hanging outside of her mom, Marcelina’s, apartment.

Katherine says, “Kristen, like this!”

Marcelina and Nelisa

Francis is Marcelina’s neighbor.

After about an hour, Katherine wanted to make fried plantains. (which I was very excited about.)

She’s a great cook.

Kendall was playing basketball at the cancha so me and the kids went to watch her.

smack talking at it’s finest.

Here are my viewing companions!

The players.

The beautiful sunset.

MOVED IN!

Yes, it’s true…. Lara and I moved! In an attempt to give you an idea of where we live Monte Llano is the “town” we live in. There is a long road called the auto pista that is the main road. (This is the road where we catch carritos and gua guas to go to La Sirena in Puerto Plata or to go the other direction towards Caberete). Well, if you picture the main road, Monte Llano is about a mile and a half? stretch of it. We used to live right near the start of Monte Llano where the “bomba” or gas station was. Now, if you are traveling down towards Puerto Plata we live at about the 1/2 mile mark in between the start of Monte Llano and the end near Los Ciruelos (where the Makarios house is.) Maybe that didn’t help very much but it tells you we literally only moved about a half a mile down the road.

We now live on Calle Silencio which actually isn’t Silencio anymore but most people and moto conchos refer to it as that. I guess during some election some guy (I don’t know the whole story) changed the names of the roads here. However, we still stick to the old street name, so Silencio it is.  We live in a yellow apartment on the left hand side of the road if you turned down our street from the auto pista. We actually live in the same building that the Uptons and  Johan live in!

So Friday morning, thanks to a Dominican holiday, the moving process began. It took all of about 2 hours and two trucks and some great friends to help us move.

Our old apartment... Lara getting it ready for the big move!

And this is the good looking moving team that helped us:

THANK YOU FOR ALL YOUR HELP!!

Here are some pictures of our new place!

 

My side of the bedroom.

Anne Marie and I share this bedroom. (I said to her, man I feel like I am in college again... she goes, yeah, me too... but that was only last year." DOH!

Looking into the kitchen

"living room," part of the kitchen and the pantry.

My favorite part of the house: the front porch!! (this is one of THREE porches that we have!!)

After we got a little settled in Johan and Merlin, the Pancho boys and the Uptons came over for pizza as a thank you for their hard work!

oh boys..

And of course, no pizza party would be complete without an impromptu dance party!!

I love Pancho dance parties!

Afterwards, late in the night, Lara, Anne Marie, Kendall and Lauren Upton and I hung out on the porch.

 

Anne Marie says, "girls, we look weird... we have to work on this."

night time on the porch.

It was a great first night in our new house!!

Quieres sopa caliente?

The last few days I have been a bit sick. No one is quite sure what I had but it was not fun. Anyways, I wasn’t at school for two days and Katherine was getting worried. On the evening of my second day not in school I got a phone call around 8pm from her. I answered the phone and to my surprise her husband, Migelito, was on the other end asking me if I wanted some hot soup to help me feel better. In less than 10 minutes him, Katherine and Carlos Miguel were at my house with some hot soup. They made sure that I ate a huge bowl of it and while I ate we chatted. It was so incredibly sweet. My friends here are amazing. 🙂 I feel so blessed by them and hope that I show as much love and kindness to them as they show to me.

Back in the DR

Tired on the first day back to school!

Transitioning back to the DR has been fun! It has been in the low 80s most days and the kids have been a little extra cuddly these last few days so that is always fun. Yesterday Wilner, Yosmery, Vanessa and I had a  great conversation about maracas for about 20 minutes as both kids lay on my lap. It was a very sweet precious time for me.

Lucia showing some sass.

One of Sharla’s friends came to sing for the kids as a special treat and they LOVED it! We learned some new songs to sing in Creole and in Spanish. So fun– just look at how well they are paying attention!!

The kids listening so intently!

I ended up teaching Johan and Kendall’s class for two days which was a BLAST! We played Bingo, read our new book, “The grump bird” and then made brown bag bird puppets, and at the end of the day on Friday we watched Shrek and ate pop corn. It was so fun to be in a classroom again.

Goofy Neifi very excited to play another round of cereal Bingo!

The boys and I have continued playing soccer at recess. Here is my favorite shot from our game the other day.

Andy's face says, "bring it on."

Visiting in Pancho has been fun! Exciting news: My friend Carmen is PREGNANT!! She is so excited! Blainey, her 3 year old daughter, is also very happy to be a big sister.

 

And my favorite picture from this week:

Listen... do you want to know a secret?