LEX

a day in the life

life here doesn't always go as planned. actually, it rarely goes as planned. the good thing is that, as long as you accomplish the essentials, you've had a productive day. it's just a matter of knowing what is essential.

on wednesday we had 2 meetings for registration. pancho mateo was from 9-12, and chichigua from 2-4. however, we didn't get to pancho mateo until at least 9:30.

it was raining wednesday morning, and though that doesn't affect much in the US except outdoor activities, it can pretty much change a whole day's plans here. dominicans don't like going out in the rain. and though it could be that they just don't like to get wet, it's also very dirty. the roads are poorly paved, if paved at all, which makes for lots of muddy puddles. if you're riding a motoconcho (motorcycle taxi), you're likely to get very dirty. Luz (the maid and woman who was to take care of Ian while we were gone) didn't arrive until about a half hour after we expected her.

yet when we arrived at pancho mateo we did not have a line of people waiting for us. yes, they knew we were coming. and they had been assured that they should be on time. but everyone knows that "on time" is relative to the weather.

mares was supposed to be there to help us out with translating into haitian kreyol and crowd control when necessary. since he lives in pancho mateo and we were late, we thought he would be there. we quickly realized that that line of thinking is not very dominican. mares goes to santiago on tuesdays for school. he travels by bus (or some other sort of public transportation). that's all fine and dandy until you have una vuelta (strike) on your hands. lucky for us, this is just what we got on wednesday. but being the resourceful white girls that we are, we whipped out our professional giraffe notebook and began registration, right there in the path between the school and some houses.

the rest of wednesday went pretty smoothly. we finished registration at pancho mateo, went to a parada for rice and beans, had registration at chichigua and called it a day.

thursday was another big day of firsts. ian had his immunizations, which made for a pretty rough day for the little guy. but we know he'll be better off for it. however, the lady did feel the need to let us know he was very malnourished...yeah, thanks for the heads up. we'll start feeding him...

after ian returned and went down for a much needed nap, it was time to learn to drive. i drive all the time in the states, but now i have to learn to drive a stick on these wonderful roads. i will assure you that i ran into nothing and nobody. i didn't get higher than 3rd gear, but i did successfully drive all the way from the tropical (which involved backing out of the parking spot) back to the house with only stalling once (besides that one time in the parking lot, which doesn't count because it was the first time i drove in reverse). i know this doesn't sound very exciting, but it really is, trust me.

after lunch camille and i braved 3 types of transportation. we walked down our street and cut through the ranchito to get to la calle principal (the main road). from here we were able to take a guagua (this one was a van type of vehicle) to the stop before the dirt road to chichigua. these guagua's are supposed to run all the way up and down this road, but for some reason this one did not. so in addition to finding out why we had to get off before our stop and get on another guagua, we had to convince the guy we were not going to pay 400 pesos when it should only be about 10 or 20. we finally get to our stop and take a motoconcho down the dirt road to chichigua. 3 people, on a motorcycle, on a dirt road, without helmets. yeah, this is normal, everyday transportation. we did the same thing to get back and found that we, in fact, can maneuver ourselves around by public transportation.

while camille and i were gone, kate (board member and orientation leader of the week) stayed back with ian, planning on having someone arrive to do some house maintenance. we were then all going to take ian to the hospital for some check ups. no one came. this resulted in our change of plans which led to me driving home from the supermarket. we were also going to pay the verizon bill while we were out - when it's just down from the tropical, why not? oh yeah, because it's closed. why not mail it in? umm...yeah, that's not how it works. online payments? what's that?
ian has yet to go to the hospital, but we'll make it there eventually. immunizations were enough for one day.

know what is essential. the rest is just details.

posted by Alexia & Jeffrey @ 10:56 PM