Waiting for Guido: Adventures in Dominican Shopping

We awoke this morning to the sounds of roosters crowing, dogs howling, and children screeching - just another morning at the Centro de Ministerio. Breakfast was French toast, fruit, strong coffee, and the ubiquitous orange drink that has been at every meal. The food has been good, and mostly common Dominican fare...although I'm unconvinced about the French toast. After breakfast we waited for Guido, the manager here at the center, to come back and take me shopping for work supplies, because it's fairly difficult to shop here if you don't speak Spanish, and even harder if you don't look like it's remotely possible that you're from here. Eventually we decided to find another Spanish speaker and go to the lumberyard without Guido. Much to my surprise, the lumberyard is basically just like the ones at home, except that I have no idea what they're saying while they're loading up my purchases.

Then we came back, unloaded the lumber, and waited for Guido some more (okay, we put the youth to work measuring and marking the lumber to make bookshelves, chair backs, and desk tops while I waited for Guido). Somewhere in there it became lunch time, so we ate lunch and continued to wait for Guido. At last Guido appeared, and he and I went on a shopping spree around Santo Domingo. In the midst of this very Dominican looking city, which is full of bright colors, tiny, run-down houses, honking cars, garbage, fruit stands, and very small, very specialized shops, we went to a grocery store more modern-looking than Price Chopper, a hardware store that was cleaner and better organized than Home Depot, and a place that looks exactly like Sam's Club. I also saw an IKEA, a Burger King, and a McDonalds slid into the most unlikely locations. It was a little surreal.

Anyway, I'm back at the center now, and the youth are repairing desks for the school, and building and staining bookshelves for the library. They are also staining the grass, the dividing walls, and themselves. The adventures never stop around here. There's kind of a lot of whining happening at the moment, which is typical mission trip Wednesday behavior. It's the point when the novelty starts to wear off, people are tired from lack of sleep and tired of each other, and they're wondering why they are using their school break to get dirty, sweaty, and weary. We'll have birthday cake and ice cream tonight for Nikki's birthday, but shhh, it's a surprise. The even bigger surprise is tomorrow, since they don't think they're going to get to have any fun until Saturday. We're going to work them pretty hard in the morning, but then take part of the afternoon and evening off to see the historical part of the city. Maybe. If they stop whining, and staining the walls.