Mini-orchids and Odd Complements

I wanted to post this picture of some orchids my uncle and cousin brought me from the mountains.  It took a year for them to bloom (probably because I didn't water them as faithfully as I should have), but now they are beautiful!

I also wanted to share a cultural observation.  In Spanish (at least here), everywhere you go people shower you with complements and "palabras de cariño" (expressions of affection).  "Hola, bella!"  (Hello, beautiful!)  "Hola, mi amor!"  (Hello, my love!)  "Que más, mi amor?"  (What else can I get you, my love?)  "Sí, mi corazon!"  (Yes, my heart!)  Algo más, mi reina?"  (Anything else, my queen?)  It is something that men and women will say to you at the grocery store, on the phone with the pharmacy or corner store, at church . . . nearly everywhere, with no trace of mockery or impropriety.

Well, recently a guard at the school started to practice his English on me.  And he would say things like, "Hello, you are very beautiful!"  And I realized once again that you just can't get away with translating everything directly from one language into another.  

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.

Spanish Fatigue

I am tired from Spanish.  Not "of" Spanish (though I have my moments), but "from."  Little every day interactions like calling the corner store for water, greeting the neighbors, answering wrong number calls on the phone, asking where things are at the grocery store (which is not arranged intuitively), listening to the sermon and talking to everyone in Spanish (more or less) Sunday mornings, and reading signs are all exhausting when added up in time over time.  Not to mention converting pesos to dollars!  I have to do this in my head with every price because I still need to know what it would be in dollars to know if it's expensive or not.  And since there are about 40 pesos to a dollar, it's some pretty tough math.  Sometimes I'm like, wow, that's a thousand pesos??, only to realize that that's $25.  Or if I'm shortchanged 10 pesos I can remind myself, OK, we're talking a quarter here . . .

But it's interesting, I think culture shock is mostly having to notice more around me than I would in my home culture (because things are different and I have to analyze it and think, for example, wow, is it a good idea for him to be carrying a propane tank on the back of a moto?) and having to think more than usual to talk or perform daily interactions.  Just a lot of energy.  So still wanting to learn a lot of Spanish but not wanting to make much effort these days.  Just want to become fluent without trying.

Two Week Winter

I had gotten so hungry for some "real" winter.  Caribbean Christmas lights flashing at night as we drove by in our air-conditioned car just didn't feel right.  And somehow muggy, rainy afternoons listening to Christmas carols near our decorated houseplant couldn't compare to the afternoons in PA we'd spent in sweaters or blankets next to the fresh-cut tree.  We were doing our advent each night, and our church had a great Christmas service the week before we left, but I was really excited for the cold!

 

So when we got to Pennsylvania again, it was amazing!  I prayed for snow, and we got some three different times.  We only took pictures this first time, when there was barely enough snow to cover the grass, but the next two times were actually deep enough for sledding (the fact that it was not deep enough to sled on Christmas day, as you can see, did not stop us).

We had a great time with our family and friends, it was a blessing to see everyone and to have some relaxing weeks to get a break from school.  But, I must confess, it was dark and bleary much of the time, and the wind was sharp and not too enjoyable.  By the time we got back to our warm Caribbean D.R., and were unloading from the plane in 80 degree weather, I must confess I said, "Wow, it's good to be home!"

. . . And Back Again

(Yes, that's a Hobbit reference, can't wait to see it when we get to the States)

We're almost packed!  Abigail has checked her plane bag about 20 times to make sure the Hello Kitty pez dispenser and lollipop are still there.

We're heading back to the U.S. for Christmas.  It's crazy, it's going to be crazy.  Drinking tap water, flushing toilet paper, shopping at Trader Joe's and Walmart, loading and unloading the dishwasher, being cold . . .  I'm really excited!  Mostly to see everyone.  The phone and internet make people seem much closer, but it's still not the same as physically being with people.  It's been a long time, almost 6 months, since we've seen almost everyone we've known our whole lives.

I'm excited to talk with those I'm close to about my life here.  In some ways, if this makes sense, going back to "report back" will make my life here feel more real.  Analyzing my life in the D.R. from a distance will I think click my new life into focus.

It's a great time to go back.  God is so good.  I can't tell you how much better I'm feeling this month than last (and all the months before).  As a super honest communicator much of the time, I've struggled with my answer when people have asked, "Do you like it there?"--admittedly a pretty innocent and seemingly non-threatening question.  But in survival mode, I found that question a difficult one to answer.

Life here has been physically, emotionally, and mentally harder.  New language (still wildly frustrating), new culture, new jobs added to the routine (related to a less sterile environment), new worries (Dengue fever, for one), new noises, new bugs in food . . .  And none of that has changed, but I'm figuring out how to navigate my life without expending quite so much of my energy and internal resources.  You don't realize how much of your day you do in automatic pilot until you have to think about each interaction and task for a while.  It's exhausting.

I feel like I'm inching my way over a big initial hump.  Suddenly I'm finding it possible to do some "extras."  I got some editing done, I started a quilt I had meant to make for Abigail, I made a few batches of ice cream, and I did a few other projects I had put off for a "someday" that seemed quite remote.  I didn't see it coming, but somehow I seem to have gotten adjusted enough that I'm able to do a little more than just the daily tasks of living before collapsing on the sofa.

But I started to realize in the last few months that my biggest issue at this point is relational.  I mentioned in a previous blog how I don't have close friends here yet, and my friends from the States can't relate to my life here (though they are still an important part of my life).  But what is so great is that in the last few weeks we've had more of a chance to hang out with friends from our church here, and we are genuinely starting to be real friends with them.  And real friends, to laugh with about the ridiculous things we do here because we still don't know what we're doing, are what I have missed so much.

Feeling like I'm leaving and will return to people who get us and care about us gives me a very different perspective on my life here.  I honestly feel now like I can say, "It's great!  It's hard and we're still adjusting, but we love it!"  :)

Different Perspectives

We just had some, "Hmm, we're not in Kansas anymore, Toto" moments.  I thought I'd share a few:

Doctor Visit

Owen had to go to the doctor the other day.  His name is difficult for people here.  None of his names seem like first names to anyone particularly.  So the receptionist at the doctor's office had a lot of trouble with his name, even though he showed her on his driver's license.  He told her many times which name was his first, middle and last in Spanish--as did the nurse from his school who went with him as his translator--but she did not seem confident.

When he got back to the exam room, the doctor had trouble pulling his name up.  Owen looked at the computer as the doctor was looking under his last name and saw "Organ Donor" as first and middles.  He said he was pretty sure that was him.


Dinner Party

We were invited over for dinner today after church.  Ice cream here is pretty much awful, so I offered to bring some I had made--I am loving the chocolate ice cream with coconut milk I found on an Oprah website--which I think is infinitely better (mostly because it doesn't contain all sorts of artificial colors and flavors and tastes "real").  So I thought I'd bring it to church with me and stick it in the freezer in the church kitchen.  But when I got there this morning, the refrigerator was gone.  It turned out someone in the church needed to borrow it because they didn't have one.  So then the pastor's wife asked a neighbor who attends our church to keep my ice cream in her freezer during the service.  It felt distinctly un-American, the whole thing.

Then on the way to the dinner party the host of the party asked for a ride to his house.  We checked if he needed us to drive his kids (and wife?) too, mentally trying to figure out how to cram the our two oldest and one car seat into the back (where the boys could sit on pull-down jump seats) and counting seat belts.  He said, never mind, his brother had room (maybe he heard that infinitesimal pause as our American minds thought, "How could he think we have room?").  We followed his brother's car to his house (they made one stop to let out someone who had needed a ride--Owen thinks they had a kid with them, but I cannot corraborate that) and when we got there, five adults and five children poured out of the car.  I told him maybe the expression "has room," which in America involves the number of seat belts in the car, means something very different here.  The meal was delicious!

(Hilariously, when it was time for all fifteen of us to eat, he told us to all sit at the moderate-sized round table with seven chairs.  I asked if he meant just the seven kids, or all of us, and he said we'd all fit.  I told him I think maybe he just has trouble with the concept of "fitting.")  These are some of our best friends we have made here, I'm sure there will be many future chances for us to see from different perspectives.


On a personal note

I'm feeling an unusual sensation a lot lately of needing to call someone but not being able to think who it is.  I think it comes from feeling the need to talk with someone who 1) knows me very well, and 2) understands the context of the story I want to tell from my day.  And while I have wonderful friends in America who know me very well, and new friends here who understand the context of my story, I have no friends who both know me very well and understand the context of my story.  It is a tribute to my wonderful friends in the states who walked so closely with me through my daily experiences how very much I miss them now in my new daily experiences.

I know I will always have those friends, and I know in time I will have close friends here who understand my daily life well, but it's a very wistful, indescribable feeling to not have that right now.

Two more weeks till we visit the states!