Altagracia & Duarte

There were two Dominican holidays last week:

• Dia de Nuestra Senora de la Altagracia (More info. here)
• Dia de Duarte (Another Wikipedia link, here)  

These events also translated into a 4-day weekend. The first holiday, Dia de Nuestra Sra. de la Altagracia was Simon’s first communion. I went with the family to church to watch the ceremony. Simon and his grandmother (my host mom) have been pretty excited about this day for a while. My dona got him a brand-new dress shirt for the day and Simon (who is only 10 but has said on occasion that he wants to be a priest! aw, cute) has been memorizing prayers and studying about confession. So their enthusiasm was enough to have me really looking forward to attending . In short, the communion featured; a lot of kids, their families, and a long mass - pretty comparable in content to most US first communions. The church was so packed. It was completely filled, and some people stood outside, watching the mass from the doorways and windows. The communion began in the afternoon with a parade around town of everyone in attendance followed by a mass that lasted into the night.

The second recent holiday celebrated one of the founding fathers, and democratic leaders of the Dominican Republic - Juan Pablo Duarte. In town there was a long mass for this occasion as well as patriotic speeches in the park, all followed by another parade. Schools, town officials, bands (two) and town groups participated.  

So if anyone’s counting, I paraded twice in 4 days. (Seem familiar? De ja vu of baton, a little) I didn’t twirl in these parades, just walked, so I didn’t really know what to do except to take pictures of people on the side of the road as we went past them. Enjoy!

From the First Communion:

From the Duarte parade:

 

Our school marched, too!

More soon - take care all. Lots of love!

XO


Happy early birthday(s) to my Grandparents who read (& print, haha) every single post! <3

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest

Buenos dias, amigos! Just a little blogito from me to you. Enjoy, and have a really good week!

Recently I finished The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series by Stieg Larsson. Yes, kind of late to jump on that bandwagon, I know, but very glad I did (thanks, Mom). Those books are fantastic and I wish there were more than just three. If by chance you haven’t read them yet - put them on your list! They are all page-turners, impossible to put down, and easily among my favorites I’ve read here.

On a mildly-related note, I may literally become a girl who kicks hornets’ nests. Just look at my new next-door neighbors:

Well, I guess they’re maybe not so new? The nest looks like it took some time to make. But look at that thing. It’s a baseball, maybe softball-sized nest of stinging insects. Nexttomyhouse. Bueno. How fortunate to have an up-close view of God’s amazing creatures! ...Amazing. And, slightly vile.

vaya con Dios!

XO

Ange, Lisa, & the DR

So Angela and Lisa (or rather, “An-hel-a” and “Lee-sa”) came to visit at the beginning of January. They stayed for a week, and I tried to show them a lot of the fantastic north. (yay, Cibao region!)

The photos will do most of the detailing, but some memorable moments included:

• Having them arrive to my house without electricity and water (both came back ...eventually). ...welcome to the DR, friends!
• The 27 Waterfalls! They used waterproof cameras, so once I politely download steal pictures of this from my friends, maybe I’ll add them to this post.
• Introducing them to guaguas and tigres. I could write a whole post about this experience alone, but to sum it up: lots of cramming onto guaguas + many, many characters = interesting situations while smushed on a bus. Angela and Lisa were really good sports.
• Cabarete and the beach!
• Learning and playing dominoes with my neighbors. Lisa and Angela were both naturals, which my neighbor enjoyed pointing out. “Pero tus amigas saben mucho! Tu tienes que aprender mas.” More or less: “Your friends are way better at this than you are.” :P
• Eating lunch with my host family, and meeting some of the neighbors in the barrio - pigs included.
• Lisa organizing a bola on the last day! I was proud.
• and of course, living with friends for a week! Fabuloso.

So these are photos from our trips to Santiago, the 27 Waterfalls, Cabarete, and Mao. There’s many pictures, so posting may take a while. It might be faster to just upload the pictures on a real photo website... but oh well I like this lucha; it’s fun. :) Between the three of us, there were over 1,000 pictures of their trip! There’ll be 50ish here, si Dios quiere. Kind of a lot, but still only a small taste (5% of the total amount, right? oh math, yikes). Okay, enjoy!

Santiago:

At the Monument

Love this picture...their first guagua ride!

Market in Mao

rice and beans, claro.

On the way to the 27 Waterfalls

Cabarete

banana fields in Mao

construction on the newer half of the school

He's already half-way through this book!

Thanks for reading!

que te vaya bien y cuidense muchismo,

XO