First Day in Cercadillo

Hola! This morning, after my luggage finally showed up :) we headed to Cercadillo to officially begin registration for our summer camps (morning is reading in Spanish, afternoon is conversational English). I had the privilege of sitting with Ina while she interviewed each potential student about their age, family, preference for only one or both camps, and did running records to determine their reading levels. It's fun to see the same strategy to determine reading levels used in Spanish that I use all the time in my profession. We were going to be done with registrations at noon, but as all things happen in the Dominican, we finished around 3:00pm and then headed back to Ina's for a much anticipated lunch. She never turns any child or adult away no matter how hungry or tired we are or because they didn't show up during our "scheduled"time. It's such a good example of flexibility in service for me. Carmen, the Voodoo priestess for Cercadillo, showed up midway through the day and sat with us for awhile. It was awesome because when she first saw me, her face lit up, and she acted as if she remembered me from the two years past even though I'd made very short visits. For those of you who traveled here last summer, you might remember Alberto (pastor of the church in the extremely rough neighborhood). He worked with Ben today finishing up the bathrooms.

Another highlight for today was getting to see several amigos from past years. If you've been here before (or heard me talk a lot) you'll find several familiar names: Noe, Arjenes, Benjamin, Althussar, and Abbey :) I got to experience several huge Dominican hugs, and I am so excited to see them through out my month here. Last night Arjenes and Althussar showed up unexpectedly at Ina's house. Without a doorbell, you just head to the door anytime you hear someone yell, "Ina!" or "missionaria" from the front gate. Because we live in a semi-rough area of Santo Domingo, Ina has us safely locked behind several layers of padlocks, and we are quickly learning the system. I passed on several bags of Beef Jerky to my friends and it felt like I had never been gone!

Biggest adventure for the day: Last night we had a mild incident of hair singeing and skin reddening so Ina sent Ben and I out to buy some ice. By the time we got to the corner store we had forgotten the word for ice (will be writing these things down from now on :) so we tried to get ice by saying "agua mucho,mucho frio" with fingers making small square gestures but clearly we were not relaying the proper message because the store clerk just kept pulling out water bottles from farther in the back of his cooler! Since we weren't far from the Institute (where we will be taking Spanish classes) I suggested that we go there to see if anyone could help us. God blessed us by providing Althussar to help. He laughed a lot (not at us, but with us :), and helped us get the ice! Fun times!

Thank you for your continued prayers!