KATE IS GREAT!!!!!

Profe Katy is back!!!! YES! Honestly, we are SO SUPER DUPER excited that Kate Moorhead is here for a visit! She'll be here for 3 weeks and it just doesn't seem like enough time. Cara Jane, Anne and I went to pick her up at the airport. And then went to the Boon's apartment and hung out and ordered pizza. Oh how I love Kate!


Just a little Dominicanism for you: We ordered 2 large pizzas, 1 pepperoni and 1 veggie. Who was the idiot who made 2 large pizzas, each half veggie and half pepperoni??

Garrett = Golaith

For our last week of school we decided to teach the Bible story of David beating Goliath with God's power. So the story was read and then it was time to act it out. It's a good thing that we at Makarios have our own Goliath....


Yunairi was the first one to go, being that she's the smallest in our school. Cristina told her how to play David and then....


GREAT SHOT, DAVID!


Honestly, look at how small she is compared to Garrett. She has the tiniest voice and the longest eyelashes. Ahh, preciousness on a stick!


It was then Ashley's turn. Oh, Ashley, you're so funny


Estiven gets to be David. All the kids think this is too funny


And then 25 preschoolers attacked Gare! It's a good think Katy forgot to mention that David then cuts off Goliath's head or they might have tried to act that part out...

We did this about 10 times and each time Garrett got pegged and fell to the ground. He's such a good sport.

Thanks, Garrett, for letting us use you. The kids LOVED it!

More pictures from the construction

We've had some sun and lots of rain, but the men are still working hard. Here are some pictures:


Edi wanted me to take a picture of the guy who makes lunch for everyone. He also helps with the construction but he makes the rice, too. This day it was rice with salami cooked in...yummy?


They have been digging...a lot! As far as I can understand, they are digging out where the are going to put the footings for the support of the building. Then they'll back fill it in and lay the foundation. Obviously construction in the DR is not my specialty, so I could be wrong.


Riley and Fredo digging. Today the holes are so big that they go above their heads.


Lots of steel


Edi and Garrett carrying the steel they just tied.

Sorry to anyone reading this blog who is offended by my lack of accurate descriptions of what's going on!

Escuela número two

The guys have started on their newest project this week: the 2nd school building! Next school year we're going to add 2 new classes and, therefore, we need more space. Here are some pictures:


It rained all week long and yet they still worked


The new construction site. It will be right next to the current building. It's going to have 3 classrooms and bathrooms. Can you see the wall on the back side? We still have another half to go but the part that's up has helped out a lot. Now we get to cut down and eat our own bananas!


The guys bent lots of steel


Here's Garrett showing us how it's done.


Perfect form


It looks easy, but it's not. Especially when you're bending really thick steel


Way to go, Gare!


Here are the guys tying steel. The white one 3rd from the left is Riley Dallas. He's here for 6 months and we're soo excited that he came down!

More pictures as the building goes up.

Happy 1st birthday, Diegote!

Tuesday was a big day in the life of the Morel family...Diego Miguel Morel Morel turned 1!

We all headed over to the MAK house for a pool party with hamburgers and hot dogs. Miguel's family came from Caraballo (His mom, 3 sisters (Angelina, Anabel, and Maria), 1 brother (Daniel), his aunt, Bladimir, and his 8 month old Nephew). We watched Diego and his little cousin, Marco Miguel, play in the pool for a long time. Then ate delicious food. Then watched Diegs chow down on the cake. Then back to the pool to clean up. Cumpleaños feliz, little guy! The Makarianos love you a lot!


Anne with Miguel's sisters: L-R Maria with Diego, Anabel, Angelina with her son Marco Miguel.


Miguel in the pool with Diego and Marco Miguel


He got some sweet gifts, although he didn't care too much about opening the presents. Funny because he'll rip up an entire People magazine and won't touch the wrapping paper!


Eating ice cream from Papi after the cake. I was taking pictures with Jennie's camera so I don't have any. Let me just say, though, that it was so funny! He never used his hands...oh, I just love that kid!


¡Aye, Diego, pero tu eres muy precioso!


He's already a Papi chulo at the age of 1


He's so cute! I cannot wait to meet baby #2 in November!

To the river!

On Saturday we were all very Dominican: we went to the river to eat sanchoco. It is something truly Dominican to do (at least on the north coast). It was supposed to happen last Monday (Día de los Trabajadores, Labor Day) but it worked out better for everyone to have it on Saturday. So we headed to Los Ciruelos (The Plums, the neighborhood where they're building the new Makarios team house, one pueblo closer to Puerto Plata from Monte Llano) for the day. Here's the day in pictures:

Here we are! We just made it and are taking in the veiw. It was so green and there were some "rapids" behind the rock. It made a perfect "waterslide"


Diego had a GREAT time getting dirty in the sand and then spent most of the rest of his time in the water or eating. Here he is building sandcastles with Jennie, his mama.


La Piedra. I would advise you to not jump off of it; it's not as deep as it looks. Garrett bruised his tailbone, pobrecito.


Anne and Kendall went up to take a look. Isn't it lovely?



Here are the men getting everything ready! They pealed and cut yuca, yautilla amarilla, yautilla de huevo, plátano, ñami, ahuyama, and papas; cooked the chicken; added cilantro and other seasonings and then let it boil.




It was a massive pot of sanchoco. With all of us eating we ate only about a third of it. SO DELICIOUS! ¡Gracias a Javier, Miguel, Edi, Fredo y Chepe!


The gringas waiting for the food, after going down the "waterslide"


Sharla, Jamie, Jakob, and Isaak came to visit! They didn't stay for long because the boys needed to nap but it was so good to see them. Sharla and the boys moved to Santiago and we have missed having them around.


Ahh, por fin the food was ready. Here are some of the gringas chowing down


The menfolk chose the piedra as their dining room.


And Miguel chose the biggest bowl ever for his food. And, yes, he did eat it all!


Look at how precious this family is! Miguel, Diego (who's turning 1 on Tuesday!!) and Jennie

Chichigua

We all went to Chichigua for a soccer game on Sunday. It started just as we were about to leave but we still had fun hanging about with the kids. Pictures:


Cara Jane with Vanessa, Rachel and Franchesca


Anne with Yaina. She has Cerebral Palsy and lives mostly in her wheelchair. But that day she decided to crawl out and sit in Anne's lap for a while. Yaina LOVES to laugh, especially when someone falls over or gets hit with a ball (during the soccer game).


Myself with Evelina and Ambioirix (her son). Evelina is my English student. I go to her house once a week and we speak in English and she asks me words that she wants to know. I'll generally ask her some Haitian Creole words or how to say different things. It's an intercambio in 3 languages!


Have I mentioned how much I love Ambiorix (or Ambiolix...it depends on how you feel like pronouncing it. In general, Haitians have a hard time pronouncing the Spanish "R" and so it sounds like an "L"). Look at how cute he is! He's still missing his front teeth and he's still short and he's still just utterly precious. He's also the one who gave me my name here: Lubi. And I love it!

Outside my window

So I heard something moving outside my window in the bushes. At first it kind of freaked me out but then I realized that no robber would try to rob whilst making such a racket. So I opened my window to find this:


Can you see what that is?

It's a cow! I mean, come on people....we don't live in the campo here. And yet there was a cow that spent about a week outside my window. It only mooed a few times (and each time I busted out laughing...really? a cow next to my window?) and it only smelled a few times. And then one morning I woke up and it was gone. See you later, vaca.

Luperón

Last Monday was a holiday (¡Gracias a Dios!) and we decided to have an adventure and go to Luperón, a beach about an hour from Puerto Plata. Here's our journey in photographs:


Cows! Have you noticed a theme? They weren't taking up too much of the road, but there were seriously 100 of them. With lots of little baby cows (aka calves, I know).


Anne was our chofera for the day and did a great job navigating through all the Dominican directions (one person will tell you to go to the right and then 4 blocks and another will come up and yell that you need to go 15 blocks and turn left).


We finally found a sign that told us that it was down this road...


...and then we saw it! The blues waters of the Atlantic!


Garrett came ready for fishing. Are those booties??


Making sure the fishing pole is put together correctly. He didn't catch anything. We mostly saw sea urchins.


Isn't the beach lovely? There were only the 7 gringos and 4 fisherman (they somehow found lots of large fish...better luck next time, Gare). I did put on SPF60 and STILL got burned. Another reason that I hate the beach. The sand at this one wasn't so bad and the water felt lovely.


This is all there is to the beach (a little farther down there was a large tourist resort). We parked under the trees and sad on the sand. It was perfect!


And on our way out we saw this sign. Dominicans really like multi-functioning places. Take this for example: you can get your car washed, while hanging out at the bar, AND dancing!! The place next to our apartment has all of this PLUS a pool and sometimes plays movies.

Mosquitoes!

Can you see what's swarming around my leg? Now that the rains have given way to the heat of summer, the mosquitoes have hatched and now spend all their time swarming, biting, and, in general, annoying.

For example: Ashley killed 18 mosquitoes in our bathroom this morning and then I walked in and killed 10! Then we sprayed some raid and about 100 more fell to the ground. Ewww!


Every black spot is a dead mosquito...and this is only 3 ft into our bathroom! They were covering the floor.

We hate mosquitoes!