Moo, Neigh, Bleat, Cock-a-doodle-doo

How many people are laying on their couch on a Sunday morning (OK, I am going to church later, don't judge) and see large animals walk by? Two weeks ago it was a herd of horses. Today it was cows. Sometimes it's chickens and roosters. On other blocks it's sheep or goats.

It wouldn't be strange if we lived out in the country or in the mountains. But we live in a large city, in a nice development. I'm trying to imagine my parents' reaction if a herd of cows walked past their front windows in their neighborhood in the U.S. I feel sure some kind of phone call to someone would need to happen. Here it is commonplace.

Living in the D.R. is a little bit like living with Mary Poppins. You never know what you might see. Expect the unexpected ...

My picture of the cows below is, as my son commented, anti-climactic, but I was not prepared for the photo and I assumed they were gone until I heard mooing from down the street. So you get to see some specks in the distance and trust me that it's a herd of cows.

Amoebic Prevention . . .

So I do not claim to be an underreactor.

My kids and husband would certainly not describe me as such; I am rarely accused of keeping calm and failing to take action when action was (or was not) warranted. There is a special look and tone used by my husband when he feels I am unnecessarily alarming the children by my response to something.

But every now and then . . . you're welcome!

Due to an intervention (albeit caused by a freak out, perhaps), usually triggered by a strong mommy instinct and some google searches, disaster is averted. Or may have been averted, because often "unnecessary" interventions can't really be proven unless no action is taken. For example, if a blog writer interrupts a blog post about overreacting in order to track down a mosquito for a longer time than one might usually bother, we would call him or her a hero if that mosquito is carrying Dengue or some other nasty virus. But since the only way we'd know is by letting it go and inevitably infecting an unsuspecting victim later, we would probably assume the hunt was just an overreaction. This is, naturally, a purely hypothetical speculation.

Anyway, Jesse was the beneficiary (or victim) of my overreacting today. And he insisted that I blog about it--he thinks my readers will be interested. He is, in fact, my overreactor-in-training.

While my children were scavenging for their lunches from the limited supplies in our refrigerator, I was hunting mosquitoes, coincidentally, in the garage. When I came back in and reports were given me of the various lunch items eaten in my absence, Jesse unwittingly shared that he had eaten some of the raw bok choi in the container he found.

Freak out.

In the sunny Dominican Republic, where palm trees and tropical fruits abound, we have some nasty parasites and amoebas to avoid in raw produce and water.

Veggies I expect us to eat raw, once they are cleaned by soaking them in a vinegar and filtered water solution for 20 minutes, I store in a tupperware or ziploc bag. However, when my maid helps me by cutting up green beans or bok choi or broccoli for me to cook for dinner, she also puts them in a tupperware. This system has served us well for seven years, but today my son went rogue and ate a new veggie raw.

Since my husband was at work, there was no one to say that it would all be fine and to give me that special look and voice tone.

I did try to backtrack after my initial response and tell Jesse that very likely he did, in fact, not pick up an amoeba or parasite from the raw produce he ate. It was more like playing a lottery no one wants to win and he just needed to avoid playing in future. But as the son of an overreactor, he did not find it all that comforting that he probably did not have one.

So I googled. And gave Jesse the following Dominican home remedies:

• garlic and carrot (this was supposed to be juiced, but I do not have a juicer and our blender is broken, so I made him a little salad with some vinegar, yum!)
• fresh oregano and clove tea (I have oregano growing in my garden)
• a ginger candy
• yogurt
• a drop of peppermint extract

OK, the last two aren't Dominican, they were just bonus. And I realized that probably all of the other stuff killed whatever good bacteria were living in the yogurt, but it can't have hurt. He told me all of that gave him some powerful breath and made his stomach churn a little.

I'm guessing that even if Jesse happened to have eaten something nasty, we killed it. If he didn't, well, then I guess all that was an overreaction. And I guess we'll never know which it was . . .

Flooding in Santiago . . . Our Drive Home Yesterday

Yesterday we watched a high school girl's play-off soccer game that was called due to lightening.  Soon we were commenting on the bad drainage in the gym where we were taking refuge.  We clearly were not too concerned by the rain at that point, as you can see below.

When we got on the road, we were first fascinated by the water build-up, then concerned as we saw the level rising up the sides of the cars.  It must have rained close to a foot in an hour (by Owen's and my estimation) and the drains could not keep up.  

I have to confess, most of the pictures were taken before things got really interesting.  Once I really thought we might get stuck in the creek that the street had become, I got distracted from taking pictures.  At one point we had to pull into a gas station, and the water was up to the level of the foot board on the side of our SUV.  We considered staying there because it really looked like it was getting too deep to drive (we watched people lift up their moto out of the water to fill the gas tank), but then a submerged gas station didn't strike us as the safest place to get stranded and we went for it.  The kids swear they saw a floating car as Owen and I were navigating our way.

We talked to stranded co-workers until they got off the roads and we shop-vacced out our house and we thanked God that everyone was safe.  Needless to say, the kids enjoyed their supper on the couch in front of Wild Kratts (in a dry corner of the house).

Not a typical rain storm.

A Hiking Path!

I don't think you understand how shocking the discovery of a hiking path is in Santiago unless you've visited.  We once drove for three hours searching for a hiking path only to get back out of the car and give up.  It's possible to hike in the mountains, which are an hour and a half away, but even then you have to be on someone's land or on one of a few paths.  There are no national parks or anything.

But someone from our school found a hiking path around a pond (probably built by the industry right next to it)--and it is amazing.  It makes me feel like I'm back in the U.S.  I'm giving you some pictures below of the family hike we took with some friends.

Only here . . .

Only in the D.R. can you randomly pass a dead hedgehog in the road while jogging--not because they're native to the country, they're not, but because you just never know . . . anything is possible here.  I passed one while jogging and could not believe it--and yet was not surprised at all.  I'm putting a picture of it at the very end of the post because my husband and good friend assure me that it's in bad taste to paste a picture of a dead animal, even if it's cute, and so you can skip the picture if youwant.

On my hedgehog-spotting jog I brought hot pepper spray with me for the first time.  It really isn't the safest place to jog, mostly because there are dogs in the street a lot of the time, and since the loss of my jogging partner (Grenade) I have felt nervous.  People have told me that you're fine as long as you're not afraid of the dogs--they can tell if you're afraid.  They say that about horses, too.  Here's the problem.  I am afraid.  It probably doesn't help that we used to have a nasty pit bull next door in Philly that snarled at me when I picked veggies from my garden.  Either way, I am, and they know.

I realized I was at least as likely to spray myself with the pepper spray as I was to get bitten by a dog, especially because I have trouble picturing myself calmly aiming and spraying while getting rushed by a dog.  I decided I needed to at least test the spray once and see how it worked.  It was breezy, I thought I could risk it if I pointed downwind.  But I could not get the "liquid fire" to spray no matter what I did and ended up going home for a stick.

So it's a good thing I didn't encounter a rabid dog, because really, what the world will I do with my stick?

No Water Day

A very D.R. sort of scenario developed for us today.  We realized the water was gone in our house, which has never happened before.  And when the guys from the school went over to look into it, we realized that a combination of forces was keeping us from our water.  Interestingly, here it is common for home owners to put in illegal water lines in addition to the legal paying line.  So that much of one's water, then, is "free" (stolen?).  So we knew previous owners had put in a second line at our house.  What I found out today was that that was the line they had running to the cistern.  The main water source for the house.  And at some point, a while ago perhaps, the water company cut off our illegal line.  Which I say, Great!  Let's be legal!

But we knew neither that they did anything or that the main water supply to our house was affected.  So when the wonderful fix-all-problem guys from our school re-routed the problem, it fixed for the long-term but not for today.  Because today I learned what our cistern is protecting us from.  The street water is turned off I guess a day or a few days a week, just as they do with the electricity.  And what happens if you don't have a functioning cistern is that you don't have water until they turn it back on.  Which I was told may happen tomorrow?

So I thought: I have three small kids, one smelly from soccer practice.  Plus, I'm hot and need a shower.  It's like 90 here every day.  Also the toilets all are waterless and I don't know what to do about dishes.

I decided to scavenge around the school for a solution.  Thankfully, there are showers at the school, which I decided to use after soccer practice pick-up, and I got the athletic director to lend me a big water cooler.  I lugged it home, filled all my toilet tanks, packed shower kits, and then we had a Davis family shower in the locker room after soccer ended.  Then I brought the refilled water cooler home so we could wash hands and dishes.

I feel so resourceful.  Also I feel like I live in a third world country.  Some days I don't, but today I do.  :)

An Un-American Story

Yesterday I was stopped at a traffic light waiting for the light to change.  I noticed in my side mirror that a moto was approaching on my left.  And then I watched as a woman stepped out from behind my car, crossing the street through the stopped traffic, and got hit by the motorcycle.  I opened my door to go see if she was okay or if anyone needed my help--only to see a group of Dominican men already gathering and shouting at the driver of the moto.  One of them hit him on the side of the head, shouting what must have been the equivalent of, "What on earth were you doing?" The moto driver picked the woman up off of the street and they stood there in an embrace while the group around him all yelled and took care of the situation.  I later saw the driver drop the woman off on the other side of the street on his motorcycle, and I guess then it was over.

I just felt strongly that there couldn't have been a less American way of handling an accident.  I felt like I was watching a presentation on Dominican culture: "and here you'll observe through this minor accident something of the culture--chaos, warmth, expression of emotions (both negative and positive), protectiveness of women . . ."

Hand-sized Spider

So, oops, we left the screen open to the window connecting the garage to the dining room a big crack . . . and the most enormous spider crawled into the living room while we were watching a movie on how beaver's are nature's super-heroes (worth checking out on netflix, truly inspiring creatures, beavers).  The spider was not hairy, thankfully, but it was literally the size of my hand.

Abigail was there, unfortunately.  She's been having nightmares about tarantulas, I can't imagine this will help.  They don't have tarantulas here in the D.R., but they have their equally scary-looking twins called catacatas (or something like that).  They're huge and hairy and their bite is like a bee bite.  But, seriously, they are creepy.

So it was not ideal that she saw a spider that size in our house.  We'll have to do a better job with the screens.  Sometimes when we push one side across the other end sneaks open a little and we don't notice.  This was great motivation to be more careful!

Doctor Visits Can Trigger Culture Stress

I took Jesse to the doctor today and left feeling very frustrated.  It was not a unique experience.  This is how it often is when I leave the doctor here.  I think it's because what I expect as an American is not working with how things are done here.  There's something very different about how doctors talk to patients.  They do not like to be questioned, or maybe it's that they are so unfamiliar with it that they don't know how to handle it.  

In America, I now realize, we question our doctors.  If they say to use this cream and drink this medicine, we ask what it's for.  We expect them to in some sense educate us, to sell us on their diagnosis.  We realize that there is more than one way to skin a cat, and we'd like to know which method they're proposing.  And we want to make sure the skin really needs to come off, so to speak.  Dominicans don't, they just do what the doctor says.

If we are prescribed a medicine and it doesn't fully work, we expect some kind of explanation for why it didn't work or why he wanted to try it first.  We don't expect to be told that "no medicine is magic" when we say that it's not working (which is what he said to me).  

I explained that coconut oil seemed to work better and was prescribed another medicine.  I asked what the medicine would do, and the doctor said it would soften his skin.  I asked what it would do different than coconut oil, which was softening his skin, and he said it was designed for this skin condition.  This answer didn't really give any new information.  I tried again to see what it would do different than coconut oil, I asked leading questions about how coconut oil would maybe just mask symptoms instead of curing something, and he said it wouldn't cure anything, it would soften his skin.  He said he wasn't familiar with the medicinal properties of coconut oil, but that I was welcome to get a second opinion in the states.

I'm fairly sure there would be a least some medical argument for using his creams and soaps he prescribed, I just wish he would engage in a discussion about it.  If I have castille soap and coconut oil and they'll do the same thing, I'd rather go with those.  But the "less is more" attitude toward medicine has not hit the D.R.  The doctor looks at you with a quizzical look which says, "If you don't want my medicine and my diagnosis, then why did you come here?" which I must say is very effective for making me mumble my thank you's and take my leave.  Frustrated.

Huelga Day and Rain

Today is exciting for several reasons.  First, it is a huelga day!  Which is like your northern snow days.  Unexpected fun!  The purpose of the huelga, of course, is more serious.  People in the poorer neighborhood near our school are striking to get paved roads and sewage repairs done.  Last time we held school on a strike day there was a minor incident with a small explosive being set off close to the gate of the school.  So the school is taking the strikes very seriously.

The rain effectively stopped the strike, so now we have no school on a day when we probably could have--but better safe than sorry.

With the rain comes wet-vacuuming.  The slope of our back porch angles toward the house, so water comes right into our office.  But it's totally worth it.  Because it's been cool and drizzly all day so far.  And that hasn't happened here in about half a year!

We've had a wet dog visiting already.  We really need to get up that chicken wire.  She's way too cute!  If we don't do it soon we'll lose our nerve.

Motorcycle Accident

In front of the kids' school today at pick-up time, a motorcyclist passed the line of cars waiting to enter the school.  I saw him pass my car and a moment later watched as he crashed his motorcycle right at the entrance of the school.  The horrible part of the accident was that he wasn't wearing a helmet and I saw him hit the ground without it.  People came running from their cars to him and someone rolled him onto his back and I think shouted to him to see if he was OK.

 I think apart from how upsetting it was to see the accident, what really struck me was how everyone got involved.  People here have not been scarred by lawsuits here like in the U.S.  There isn't a fear that someone trying to help would be sued.  This is also not a country where ambulances are much in use; people scoop up strangers in their cars and drive them to the hospital after an accident.  The emergency number doesn't reach anyone, from what I hear.  And I have seen ambulances, but there aren't many, and I wouldn't imagine many people here could afford to use one.

It was a relief to see him move after the accident, though it was really serious and he was still lying there when I left the school with my kids (the school nurse and doctor were both with him).  Many people are killed here in motorcycle and car accidents in part because driving is less regulated, and in part because most people don't wear seat belts or helmets.

It was an intense afternoon for the whole school.  All of the parents and students leaving had to pass by the scene.  It strikes me that children are less sheltered here from violence just as they are less sheltered from everything.

A Dog, Some Chickens, a Hose, and the Police: a Middle-of-the-Night Incident

So although our new house is beautiful and in a quiet part of the city, it is pretty lively in the middle of the night what with the roosters, chickens, and geese the neighbor across the street raises and his neighbor's yippy dog.  Two nights ago I realized that the two noise sources are connected.  One neighbor's chihuahua was chasing around chickens and roosters in another neighbor's yard--right across the street in front of our bedroom windows.  After being awakened at 4:30 and listening to it bark for an hour (when I just gave up and got up for the day), I decided that next time I'd take action.

Last night turned out to be next time.  In fairness to the yip dog, it all started with another neighbor's house alarm going off at 3:30 in the morning.  After the alarm stopped the dog barked for about 20 minutes straight, and no ear plugs or white noise could quite block it.  So I decided to go for my extremely long hose.  (Owen had told me to get a long one, but apparently he didn't mean it should wrap the whole way around the house.)

I first woke up Owen (who had of course slept through all of it) for a "crazy check."  I find it's always a good idea to get a second opinion with desperate middle of the night, spur of the moment decisions, I find.  But he told me to go for it.

So I went out in my pajamas and dragged the hose into the street--hissing and quietly shouting in Spanish at the dog all the while.  I couldn't quite see the dog, but judging from the aggravated noises it made I think I may have hit it at least once.  It ran around behind the house and came out on the other side barking, so I dragged my hose over there and sprayed.

Eventually it hid behind the chicken house, but I waited for a while because I was hoping to chase it back to its house.  Then I saw the flash of lights as a police truck pulled up our block and decided to get my hose back over into my yard.  I didn't try to run hiding into my house, as that seemed inadvisable, so of course the police stopped next to the crazy gringo in PJs and asked me how I was.  I told them.

To their credit, they did not mock or give me a hard time at all--they actually parked next to the chicken house and listened for a while.  In a country where anything goes and no one seems to care about things like nighttime noise, I found it gratifying to be taken at least somewhat seriously.  Of course, the dog didn't bark then.  But that was OK by me.  It was actually quiet (except for a few yips) the rest of the morning.

Broken In

When I last posted, a little over a week ago, I figured I'd write again soon and show some vacation pictures and the paint job we had done on the house while we were gone (it looks really good, by the way, which now doesn't really matter).  Our house was a little crazy and it took a while to get unpacked and get everything back together post paint-job.  We were pretty well adjusted by the weekend.

But then that Saturday night we were broken into.  

We were in the house, but we slept through it.  And while some electronics are gone and some credit cards have been cancelled and passwords changed, we are all OK.  Initially we were a little shaken up and Micah and I were both a little scared, but now we are doing much better.  The school put some more bars on the windows and Owen's been pulling his mattress into the hall at night to be keep an eye on the kids--so now I am sleeping again.  

We heard some things about our neighborhood after we were robbed (or burglared, as Cath tells me I'm supposed to say) that made us feel like this would be repeated and it wasn't safe for us to stay.  So we immediately started house-hunting for a new rental in a safer neighborhood.  And because we want to move right away, we basically started packing as soon as we found one we liked (even though we haven't actually signed any papers or anything yet--we are praying that they get signed tomorrow and that we get moved by the end of this week).  So my house is once again (flashback to Philly two years ago) bare and bagged and in varying stages of clutter/packed-ness without us knowing for sure when we will be moving out.  It has been quite a week.

The two things that bothered me the most were my stolen blender (it was a good one, and I use it all the time) and my purse.  I thought they could have had the consideration to take the wallet and leave the purse (or, even better, just take the cash).  And already feeling vulnerable and a little in shock, it was so weird to have nothing to pick up on the way out of the door.  No keys, no license, no nothing.  

And seriously, they needed a nice blender to do what?  It felt like one last jab.  It somehow made it more personal.  I blend all the time.  OK, I realize I can't really explain my attachment to my blender, you'll just have to take my word on my sense of loss.  I should also mention that I didn't realize the blender was gone until a few days had passed--which made it feel like I was robbed a second time.

So it was ironic when our landlord found those two items on our roof this morning investigating a water issue.  I guess they went through my purse on the roof.  And I guess they decided the blender was too heavy to toss to the next roof (it's a heavy base).  It was also great that they left the keys, and, hilariously, Micah's hat that he'd been looking for (I'm guessing one guy said to another, "Seriously, you're really going to take that hat?" only in Spanish.  It's a Dominican Republic hat, patriotic perhaps, but I can't imagine it would help anyone's street cred.  

It was such an encouragement to me, like God was giving me very personal and direct comfort in the midst of all of the drama and chaos--he returned the two things that made it hard for me to get past the break-in.  And somehow after a week on the roof in the hot tropical sun and after a shower or two, nothing seems any worse for wear.  

He is so faithful, and so specifically so.  It was like he was saying, "Here Val, I know this has been hard.  I've had your back.  Look!"

Living Loud

On the drive back down the mountains this weekend I was struck with how much I've gotten used to things here, how I've come to adapt to the vividness of life here--what was initially just sensory overload I've come to be able to process more and even appreciate (with the definite exception of loud noises or music at night).

There are stark contrasts here: wide open spaces like rice paddies and long coastal beaches near crowded barrios and trash-littered streets packed with cars, motos, and pedestrians; the sounds of ocean waves with loud music from neighborhood corner-stores;  beautiful orange and red flowering trees, frilly palm trees and tall-reaching ferns growing next to poor and dilapidated houses (perched, at times, precariously on cliffs overlooking breath-taking views).

Paint and clothing colors are bright.  The sun is harsh.  It is a land of extremes.

Crazy driving, motos toting huge gas tanks, spontaneous dumps near fruit trees and a creek.  Friendly smiles and extreme kindness, impatient honking, neighbors stopping by with herb tea creations for a child sick with stomach flu.

And the more I get used to it the more I wonder how I'll adjust again to a calmer, quieter, more sanitized--muted--life.  I think it may be harder than I'd anticipated.

Carnival

I've been meaning to post this picture of our visit to the Carnival display that they have at the free cultural museum in downtown Santiago.  The statue behind the kids is attired in a traditional dress designed by a really famous designer (whose name escapes me because, frankly, most names do--and the energy I spend learning names is better invested on those who go to my church or the kids' school).  A man wore this costume for Carnival, which is a Mardi Gras type Dominican festival celebrated the month of February every weekend.  He's dressed in the "Steal the Chicken" role, which Wikipedia tells me men in dresses adopted originally as a clever way to steal chickens, stuffing their dress with chickens to serve as hips and breasts.  There are other statues in the room also of the other central character of Carnival, The Limping Devil.  That's the guy behind Abigail with horns holding the silk bag.  He's a fancy version of the real thing.  Normally the silk bag is an animal bladder filled with air that I have been warned is used to hit girls on the butt.  A fascinating celebration, sometime I'll have to ignore the strong warnings to the contrary (i.e. this is not the place for a gringo) and go to see it for myself.  It doesn't sound like a real family-oriented scene, so logistically speaking, it may not be soon.  But I may just have to see this for myself someday.

Dominican Birthday Party

When Abigail turned one, we made a blueberry cake and blew up a few balloons.  My parents came over.  There were some presents.  She took some first steps.  It was an ideal party.  I'd say it registered at about a one on a scale of size, magnitude, and expense.

Such was not our experience at the party for our neighbor's son who just turned one.  Apparently here the one year-old birthday party is a really big deal.  It was at a facility that was decorated at the level I'd expect for a prom or wedding reception (though thematically a little different).  There were photographers, a clown, a juggler, a Mickey Mouse, a man on bouncy stilts, a dancer who also did face painting, a magician, two DJ's, an assistant, and a woman who did cotton candy and popcorn.

But the part that surprised me most of all was the volume of the music.  It was such that I can't imagine the one year-old could bear to listen to it.  I was of course considering the long-term hearing implications for my children.  But they were into it.  Jesse initially covered his ears, but once they started asking, "Quien quiere un premio?" ("Who wants a prize?") he was all in.  They had to clap and jump as loudly and enthusiastically as possible to win.  Abigail won one out of sheer cuteness.  I mean it's hard to compete with a tiny thing jumping with all her might.

Anyway, it was wild.  And I'd have to call it a culture shock moment for me.  Less "culture stress" which I've read is just the fatigue that comes from having to work harder to do every day kind of tasks, and more all out "culture shock."  My ears actually hurt.  And I found the clown a little scary.  But it was a true Dominican experience.

It was as if someone had seen my lame attempt at a one year-old party and said, "You call that a party?  This is a party!"

Las Terrenas y La Playa Bonita

We just celebrated Dominican Labor Day with a long weekend trip to Las Terrenas, which is in the region of Samana.  It was gorgeous.  Curved beaches with mountains and palm trees and cool rocks in the water.  And there are 60 different varieties of palm trees in Samana.  It's not an area where the beaches are developed, there aren't houses, just stretches of empty beach with occasional restaurants nearby.  It's incredible!  Owen's parents were visiting, and we had a wonderful time there.  We went to a different beach each day.  I wanted to share some photos from our trip:

The rounded beaches with mountains in the background made for stunning landscapes.

Highway view

The road cut through the mountains.

The grandparents with the family on the beach.

Right behind those bushes there was a man who took lunch orders in the morning.  Then he'd take a boat out, catch the fish, and fry it up with some plantains and potatoes on the side.

Saving the computer with rice

The spring rains have apparently started.  Today for the second time it's raining with hail.  We heard about the May rainy season, but didn't take it seriously until this weekend.

When we first came to the Dominican Republic, we made the mistake of leaving the windows open a few times while we were out of the house.  Well, there are windows everywhere to keep air flowing here, and the rain can come in at a right degree angle, so an unbelievable amount of water can get in within ten or 15 minutes.  While mopping up inches of water which had covered the floors in our absence, and anxiously testing out the electric piano to see if it was ruined, we vowed we'd remember to close the windows when we left the house every single time.  And we did stay serious about the windows near the keyboard.

But once the hurricanes were over (late fall), rain didn't come from any direction except the south.  We stopped having a strong respect for the unpredictability of the Caribbean rains.   If it rained at all, it rained in a reasonable manner, and at most we'd have a slight wet patch in front of a window if we left it open.  We were fine for about five months as long as we closed the windows on the south side of the house, and we'd close those pretty faithfully each time we left the house  We also seemed to (almost) always be home when it rained.

All this to say, we were unprepared for the torrents that hit our house on Friday afternoon while we were stuck on the Autopista (major road here).  By the time we got home we had an inch of standing water in several rooms of the house.  More problematically, the computer had been left open near the window next to the balcony, where normally it would be quite safe (it's not your average rain that blows across the balcony and into the living room).  And the computer was wet.  And it wasn't working.

Thankfully, I'd had experience getting water out of our front gate opener (after accidentally throwing it in the laundry in Owen's pants pocket).  Someone told me to put it in a plastic bag with rice for a few days.  And someone else told me to put it in the sun.  So I put it in a plastic bag with rice in the sun and had it working in a few short hours.

So when our computer wasn't working Saturday morning after the Friday afternoon rain exposure (I can't believe we didn't even deal with it until the next day), I put it in a bag with rice.  I didn't like the idea of leaving the computer outside in the sun, and plus it wasn't sunny, so I heated up the oven slightly and turned it off.  Then I put the computer (which was in the bag with the rice) in the oven.  I kept reheating the oven off and on for several hours and kept the computer in there for a while.  When I checked again I could get it to go onto Windows and connect to the internet.  Some of the keys weren't working, enough that I couldn't really type on it.  We watched too much Netflix on the computer last night, which may have heated out the last of the water.  By this morning we were back in business.  As of now, only the "end" key isn't working, and I mean, really, who needs the "end" key anyway?

I thought I'd share this, because who knows who else it dealing with a wet computer?  It worked for us!  We are so thankful to not have to buy a new computer.

Constanza: Little Switzerland

We spent some time in the mountains last weekend on a retreat with some of the school staff.  It was amazing, so cool and beautiful.  We wore sweatshirts all weekend, played games, hiked on a mountaintop, and rode horses.  Here are some pictures!

Better Late Than Never

A techie friend of mine explained how to get the pictures off my phone using my husband's Blackberry charger (thanks Steve!).  I thought late Thanksgiving pictures of the slaughter of our turkey were still interesting enough to post in January for those of you who read the November entry and won't go back to see the pictures I now added:

The last two pictures are of the butcher who slaughtered my turkey for 50 cents and a chicken head that was on the floor of the slaughterhouse that I almost stepped on by accident.