Seeing Both Sides to a Rainy Day

  So this blog post is late because Monday rather than having a day off I had to work, but let me tell you what I got to call a work day! I rode with the girls (the ones in my class) to the beach, got out did some snorkeling, sunbathing, went to another beach and swam and had dinner. All of this while “on the clock” can you believe that! I can’t! The beach was breath taking, so beautiful! We went snorkeling which was a fun experience…I have a story. So I love the concept of the beach or ocean and am totally game and down for it until something touches me. You see when I was nine I was swimming in Virginia absolutely loving life until I put my foot down into a horseshoe crab that was turned over who then out of reflex grabbed me with all 10 legs! I have understandably been traumatized since. I also hate whales, which is a whole other story. So I try to put all of this out of my mind and suit up, I have my goggles my snorkel and my flippers and I try to approach the ocean…15 minutes later I make it waste deep with much struggle. I eventually flop my body so that I submerge myself in the water in an attempt to get my feet behind me to swim. This was a shock to the system and my body went into hyperventilate mode through a snorkel I have flippers on my feet that are so tangled up…at this point I am convinced I am going to drown. I finally surface and am freakin out and a staff member asks me if I am ok trying to keep my cool in front of everyone I say yeah of course and try to act natural. So I had a bit of a rough start but it went well. It was out of control beautiful! While on the shore they handed out to the kids bottles of bread to feed the fish…I did not take one on purpose because I don’t like ocean creatures around me! We get about a mile away from shore and one of the girls freaks out (I did not judge her) and says she needs a life jacket so she starts to go back in but says she can’t swim because of the bottle of food she has and gives it to me. So now I am swimming with piranha food in my hand and am trying not to think about it. I did calm down and offer a piece to a school of tiger fish who ate right out of my hand! It was cool but then one touched me and I was done. It was a really cool day! While we were swimming it rained really hard, I got to experience two of my favorite things at the same time! I put some pictures on Facebook so check them out! (if we are not friends on Facebook please friend me, if you have no idea what this sentence means…it’s ok).

                I wanted to give you guys a domestic report! I made guacamole from scratch! And I am made beans today that are edible, not quite Dominican yet but closer! I have also been successful in making popcorn without a microwave and I witnessed Mac and Cheese being made without Kraft! I am about to make me some granola! Thank you for those of you who wrote me this week, keep it coming I love hearing what you think, and just hearing from you is so nice! I miss you guys!

Yet another amazing week! I only had a few disappointments my beans, papaya, and Strong Burger. I think I have discovered why I am not a good cook, when there is an ingredient that I have never used or bought I skip it, and I also will start doing other things and forget I started cooking. Don’t worry I am on the brink of greatness! I have decided to take a vow to never again skip and ingredient and am not on the look out to purchase a timer! Needless to say I spent a lot of time to figure out I don’t like black beans and so I am going to keep trying until I am able to make beans somewhat like a Dominican! My other disappointment was today when I tasted papaya, which is the worst fruit ever! I was really expecting greatness since the fruits and veggies are out of control delicious out here. I am not kidding the other day at lunch I put some random looking stuff on my plate and when I put it into my mouth I exclaimed to the girls at my table “what is this amazingness and where has it been my who life!” They let me know it was mango, so good! So yeah papaya had a lot of things going for it but totally lost in my book. And finally the last disappointment of my week is Strong Burger. This week we went to Santiago for a staff van trip after work. The whole way one of the staff members, Chris, was talking up where this place called Strong Burger and convinced me and the other Strong Burger virgins that we had to go there. So we followed him a decently distanced walk around Santiago and we got to what I would call a sidewalk next to an empty parallel parking space and Chris held out his arms and said this is it, this is where Strong Burger would have been. One of the girls replied with “what do you mean would have been I thought we were going to a restaurant not some random cart on a street!” we were all kind of thinking this.  I thought he was going to cry when he called them and found out their “location” had moved and we had no way of getting there. I honestly was ready to have the best burger of my life, but maybe another time.

                This week has been filled with a lot of fun. I will tell you my favorite classroom story of all time! I have the job of supervising the computers along with my classroom (PS I think I confused some people I work with American teenagers who are put into a program to help them get back on their feet and stop doing bad things). So I have a monitor that allows me to see all the computers the students use at one time, even the ones not located in my room. So I am watching the computer not in my room because the person is making a little break dance man using Paint (some program) it was highly entertaining watching him pose the stick figure and creating different frames so that put together the man would dance. The kid was home free because I thought the teacher in his room had given him free time until he pulled his paper up and began typing on it, his fatal mistake. I have the ability through my computer to click on theirs and gain the control of their computer, so I did. I took control of his computer (which remember is in the other room) and brought his paper back up and typed on it, ghostwriter style, get back to work this is not free time! It was epic! I wish I could have seen his face.

                This week was the staff van trip, as mentioned above, this was like taking a little trip to the States! We went to the mall (first AC I have felts since being out here), we went to McDonalds, then to a movie. After the movie we got Baskin Robins Ice Cream that was SO good! It was weird to be living in a town that is so far away from American and to visit this third world version of America. It was really cool.

                Today is my day off and I have been enjoying it to the max! I have been resting and relaxing! Our school has a library that is pretty amazing! I checked out a Ted Decker book that has sucked me in! if you want a good read check him out! I was talking to my roommate this weekend telling her I honestly don’t know if I have ever read a book like I have this one, reading almost all of it in two days. I usually only have time to read 10 min here or there unless of course it is the Bible, I am only talking leisurely reading. It has been so crazy out here, having free time. I have actually found it hard to just do stuff for fun rather than things that have substantial purpose or meaning. What is so weird is I can’t hide behind every second of every day being full. I have had more time to figure out who Heather is because I am realizing it’s not my work, the students, my income, my car, or my status that defines me. It’s Jesus and I finally have time to be alone with my thoughts, at first this was scary and uncharted territory, but I am so thankful to be in this place right now. Whoa. Ok sometimes these blog posts carry me away. Please feel free to interact with them, let me know what you guys think. If you don’t know how to post a comment I am sorry I can’t help you I barely know how to work a blog but I can work FaceBook so holler at me there. Also it will probably be common for me to write a blog once a week I don’t want to lose you guys by giving to much info or whatever. Keep me in your prayers! You guys are in mine! Seriously God has revolutionized my prayer life this week, but that can be another blog post for another day.

I am writing you while sitting on the roof of my apartment building as the sun sets on a cloudy evening. It has been a jammed packed week! I made it through my first week on my own with my class! It is still so weird to be called Ms. Donohue.  I am beginning to get the ropes of what I do. I don’t think I have taken time out to explain over my blog what a typical day looks like for me so here we go.

I wake up when the rooster sees the sun for the first time then mentally throw a rock at him as a way of hitting the snooze button I get ready and a van comes to get the education staff (we all live in the same apartment building and take up all 6 room). At 8:30 school starts with the bell ringing and the kids getting in line. We make our announcements or whatever and then I invite the kids into the class room for devotions that I now lead. At 9 the kids go to their homeroom the girls stay with me the guys go to my friend Jessica. From 9-10:30 they work on their assignments I offer help and keep them on task. We have a break go back to class from 10:45-12:25 and do the same thing as before, but I get restless so I started a tradition in my class at 11:43 we do stretches and I share with them a wacky fact I found on the internet under the Google search of wacky facts. Its fun sometime you should try it. 12:25-1 is lunch. Studies again from 1-1:50 then activities or cleaning (we rotate days for cleaning, instead of janitors the kids do the cleaning on campus) then after that the school day ends with PE (I teach the girls, which so far has looked like us going tubing and workout videos) or we do group which is team building stuff between the kids. Then I get home around 5:30. That was a little boring sorry but it is the strait up facts of what a day in the life of Heather looks like. It will change when the fall semester starts (Aug 11).

My week has been really good, really intense but really good. Being on your own outside of the country has already taught me so much! I have noticed that I cling to the familiar when I am submerged into the unfamiliar. It is so funny how much comfort a glass of ice water with a straw brings, being able to communicate to a random American you meet on the streets, a conversation with my parents on Skype,  or on Sunday, a worship song that is my favorite is being led.  Things that I didn’t even know I held dearly to my heart are made abundantly clear when I come across them in this foreign land. It is also a new concept to totally be starting over, to go somewhere no one know you, it has been an adventure. Don’t worry the Dominican Heather is the same as the American one, it has just been a crazy time for me of actually learning who I am. I don’t know if any of this is making sense. I have had my moments (surprisingly VERY few) where I have been stressed out over everything being new or being away from friends and family or people that just know you, but what’s so crazy is in those moments I step away and get away with someone who does know me better than I know myself! Prayer has been so awesome it has been my exhale, the moment I just let all that stuff I have been holding up inside go. There is so much comfort in sitting with Jesus and letting things go.

Whoa got a little deep for a second! Today I walked all over this little town I live in. I started by going up to the “track” to run. The track is a dirt path around a cow pasture it is about half a mile away. Then I came home to get a friend who wanted to go into town today and we went grocery shopping. I carried all of it on my back to get it home, it almost broke my back. Then came home to walk back into town for ice cream, first ice cream I have had here and it was pretty good. Then I came home again and got a friend and we went to the river to swim. I am a little tuckered out today. I have also been so domestic today. Buying things here are so much cheaper if you make things from scratch. Today I made granola from scratch and started my Dominican beans for Wed (it’s a long process).  I go back to work tomorrow and am so excited! I am leading devotions again this week! Please pray for my words and for the hearts of these kids during the time I get with them.  I miss you guys! Email me and Facebook me I love hearing from you!

Today was an awesome day! As a kid I used to say man I wish my birthday was on a school day that would be so awesome, well today I got my wish! It started with some of my students giving me birthday cards they made me. Then the house mom dug into her secrete stash of chocolate chips (a delicacy not found on this island) to make me chocolate chip cookies. School was getting a little intense until they pulled me aside and asked the PE teacher if for her birthday and for PE I would like to take the girls tubing. I said heck yes! So after the best lunch (today the cafeteria gave us breakfast for lunch it was so delicious!) we went to the river, it was crazy! Ok my first clue should have occurred to me when we put on helmets and life jackets! Basically tubing in the DR is white water rafting with a tube! You get thrown around in the white water like a rag doll. It was amazing! This would make the Salt River (shout out to all you Arizonians) a lazy river in the “white water” parts. I know a lot of you are discounting my testimony but it’s true, come down here and let me show you! When we came to the end the Dominicans were jumping off rocks and doing crazy stuff that is hard to explain without you guys thinking I am making this up. I will try you for one story. A boy would stand at the top of a rock face and hold a branch limbo style with his arm fully extended we were wondering what they were doing. so the other guys would get 50 yards out and start running full speed to run up the rock thrusting themselves over the branch and do a back flip into the water. I did not think this was humanly possible. I just told my roommate this story and she said yeah the Dominicans are daredevils because they didn’t have toys made from china to keep them safe, so they start young. Anyway I got home and my roommate gave me the best birthday present ever! A glass with ice in it! I got to have ice cold cola!!!!! I don’t know what it is about ice but it brings me so much joy and I have not had it for a week. I am about to go to a party in my honor I have heard that there is cake there! I am very excited. Please pray I don’t get typhoid I got water in my mouth and no shot in my arm.  If I get it its ok, one girl has had it four times and from what I can see she is fine, it would just be nice not to have it.

Things are still so awesome here! I just cannot explain the peace I have about being here. I mean it is not the strongest it has ever been at the current moment. I would say we are in the eye of a hurricane but my roommate says this is just a tropical storm. The wind is blowing like crazy, CRAZY! This morning I walked to town, it was a nice walk about 15 minutes and you are in the center of town. I walked there with some friends they went grocery shopping and got a taxi for the ride home but I choose to see if I could make it back on my own. I did it was really easy, so now I feel like I can go into town whenever I need to. After town I watched my favorite movie with people who have never seen it, which is the best! They loved it.  Work is still awesome, I am still training and will be for a while but I am working in the school as a homeroom teacher. The school is set up like homeschooling with some classes. So my job is to know where the kids in my class are at all times, and to help keep them on task. It is a little rough currently because we work with teenagers who are at risk we have a very structured program so learning the program has its struggles of remembering everything. On Saturdays I get to go up to the house that my girls live in and have dinner with them and hang out. (I am the girls homeroom teacher and because it summer there are only 4). This was probably a highlight of a very highlighted week. When I am with them I can still talk and hang out but I am there teacher, so it was cool to get to know them in a different environment (I say different because unlike most homes the students have a lot of restrictions and responsibilities at their home on campus). Many stories were exchanged at the dinner table that were hilarious but I have to share this one. So there are twin boys who’s parents work at the school, I think they are 11 but anyway Friday night a mouse had gotten into their house. They trapped the mouse on the back porch and managed to get him in a bucket that they then turned over after knocking the mouse unconscious. They began discussing how they were going to kill the mouse going back and forth the decision was make to fumigate the mouse with bug spray. They covered the bucket and sprayed away. After a while the peeked inside to see what had happened and the fumes had turned the mouse into this white ball. Being 11 year old boys Brody said “Hey I bet this stuff is flammable” so they lit a match and touched it to the mouse who then came back to life (remember he was only knocked unconscious) and began running around the back porch! (picture a fire ball running around)! Brody and Josh are in a panic so Josh picks up a rock and throws it at the mouse and hits it! He puts out the fire and later realizes somehow the mouse was burning from the inside out! Today I have the day off and go back to work tomorrow. Our school week is Tuesday through Saturday, the reason for this is because on some Mondays we take the kids out to do fun things and so it is easier to get a big group around on a weekday rather than a Saturday. Man I wish you guys could see the storm that is happening around me I told Kate at this point I would say evacuate? But where you going to go it’s an island. Later I was talking with another woman about it and she said “oh honey that was only a thunderstorm not even a tropical storm and nowhere near a hurricane”

Disclaimer for all you worried people reading this (Jennifer, grandma or mom) to someone who lived in a drought for the last 11 years I think the storm is just shocking not so much death defying.