Pictures

Valentine's Day
Carnival in La Vega in the rain

Carnival Santiago Syle

It's all fun and games until someone gets confetti in the eye!

This week I attended my first Young life club, Domina style. It was a lot of fun, RJ put a "Next" video together of the leaders which was really funny. Steph posed as a middle aged cat lady, so I'm now dating a cougar! I had a kid walk in on me while I as in the bathroom, it's equally as awkward in other countries as it is in the states. Steph's friend Becky was in town for a few days and we all had a really fun time together. Unfortunately for her the sun did not come out until she left. Thursday night was Wyld life where I discovered that middle-school awkwardness spans cultures. My driving skills have passed two more hurdles this week. I had my first near accident this week, which is kind of funny to say, because every minute of driving here is a near accident. But I was running an errand for Steph for club on thursday and as I pulled out onto a main road I did not see the moto riding in the middle of my lane in the wrong direction. It was obviously my fault (hope you got the sarcasm), but he was not too happy with me.  Friday night I was driving back to Katie and Aldo's from Steph's late at night and was stopped by the police. With things being shady as they are here, you never know what is going to happen when you are stopped and your best bet is to turn around or drive through their checkpoint if possible. Apparently there are no consequences for that. I did not see them in time to turn around and had to stop as there was traffic at the light in front of me and could not keep going.  My spanish was sufficient and they did not really bother me, so on I went. Friday was a bittersweet day. Steph found out she got into grad school! We're really excited about that and are now busy filling out the necessary forms that come with that. Steph also found out that her Young life ministry is in need of some funding, which creates a extra work and stress. Saturday was a good day. I managed to find some flowers for Steph for Valentine's day on the way to her apartment in the morning, which she was excited about. We had a fun experience in the grocery store. Being a saturday, the store was really crowded and a little bit crazy. So apparently that seemed like the right time to clean the floors. It seemed like the guy was following us around the store with the machine as he cleaned the floors and generally made it difficult of everyone to shop.We decided to pass on a concert in the capital and go to dinner instead. After an interesting detour on a washed out road (literally you could see where the creek had come up and washed some of the pavement away in the last storms) and some off-roading in the Corolla, we made it to Camp David.  Camp David is a development on the mountainside of Santiago. At the top is a restaurant/hotel with incredible views of the valley below.  We got a table outside overlooking the city all lit up at night.  The food was good and it was a great night! Again today we decided to go to Carnival.  The weather was much nicer this time which made for a fun afternoon.  We went to the celebration here in Santiago, which is a little different than La Vega. The big thing here is throwing confetti at each other and people as they walk down the street. This can be both very fun and slightly dangerous. Choking on confetti is not very fun, nor is getting it in your eye, like Steph did.  She had two pieces stuck in her eye for a few minutes, but she is no worse for the wear. We'll looking forward to another fun week here together!

Lluvia

So it has been raining more or less non stop since last Wednesday night.  I just back from being at camp for a week with a work team.  We had a great week, despite the rain. The team worked really hard in less than ideal conditions.  I am impressed with how much we accomplished! The team was digging out for an extension to the pavilion in the rain and mud. They moved a lot of dirt. We also did a lot of landscaping.  We did lots of pruning and maintenance and planted some new things.  We also now have a nursery full of plants that will soon be ready to be put around camp.  I'm excited to see everything grow back in ! 

carnaval

WOO!  guess who has the password now??!  i'll sell it to you for a great price.

ben and i went to carnaval on sunday, which goes on every sunday in feb, and it's insane.  sadly, it was raining sunday and so it wasn't as crazy as normal...

but i do have this to share.

and here is a photo of the largest avocado we've ever seen.

91.3

Last month Steph's ipod and fm transmitter were stolen. If you have them, please return them asap and please send money to pay for the car window that you broke. So she ordered a new transmitter a while ago but it did not come last mail day. Her order was cancelled since it was made from a computer in the dominican republic. This happened without her knowledge so when mail day rolled around, we were severely dissapointed to not have any good music. Enter 91.3fm. This radio station is amazing. It plays mostly 80's music in english, it rarely dissapoints. Let's just say there's nothing to cure a bad day like getting Rick rolled in a foreign country.
Steph and I drove to the beach on Saturday for the day, it was a gorgeous day and minimal sunburn occurred. The ride home was a little unpleasant. We decided to take a different road home than we had taken to get to the beach. It ended up being terrible. The road had been washed out in several places and had potholes everywhere. It took over 2 hours to get home when it only took an 1 1/2 to get there. We were stopped twice by kids asking for money. They would stand in the road and hold a string across the road so you would stop. I give them an A- for imagination, a D for safety. It worked well though, we paid up both times. We did stop at a little fruit stand on the way home and bought the biggest avocado ever. I hope Steph took a picture before it was eaten. Today I came up to Pico Escondido, a work team is coming in tonight and I'll be here for a week. Steph will be in Santiago, bored out of her mind, so pray for her. And she is going to miss her chafeur.

Just when you think it's getting better

We got out of the hospital and were feeling pretty good. And just when we were feeling good, I popped a tire on the car.  We were on our way to play paintball with Younglife and I took a turn too tight from a stop and tapped the curb at 5mph.  The tire was not up to the test.  After a fun night of paintball we returned to the car and with help from Chris we had it changed in a few minutes.  I just looked at the tire and it blew out the sidewall. So apparently it is going to cost $20 to get a new one.  Maybe that is why it blew out so easy, because it only costs $20 to begin with.  So we are off to get a new tire and run some errands.

#1 Rating

We recently heard that the new hospital down the street was rated #1 in the Caribbean. We decided to see for ourselves. Tuesday morning Steph woke up early not feeling well. I went to her house around 8:30 and we just hung out at her apartment all day.  It would have been a nice day to hang out and watch a movie, but of course the power went out around 9 and still was not on when we left at 3. Steph was feeling progressively worse during the day, so we decided to call the doctor in the afternoon.  He said since she could not keep anything in her that he would not prescribe her anything and she needed to go to the hospital and he would be over later.  We went to the hospital and were taken pretty quickly. They came in the take some blood and start an IV when the doctor arrived.  As they started to take her blood, I suddenly felt like I was about to pass out.  That's never happened before to me.  I think it was the realization of being in a hospital in a 3rd world country and then seeing the crackers under the bed.  I also had not been feeling great so I had not eaten or drank much that day.  So the doctor told me to leave after telling Steph that she made a poor choice in who she brought with her to the hospital.  The doctor was very nice, he speaks great English and enjoyed making fun of me! After Steph had her blood taken and IV started, she decided to throw up on the nurse.  The doctor came out to the lobby and told me to come back in after he mad fun of me again. After a 45 dollar sonogram to check our Steph's stomach we were back in the ER. They gave us a room shortly there after.  However no instructions were given on whether or not she had been admitted or what was going on. So we sat in the room for a while. After a while when nobody had come to check on us, I went to the nurses' station and told them that Steph had some questions, the nurse looked at me like we were crazy for having questions. She came down later to tell us that the doctor would be in when he felt like it. He did come by a little bit later after Steph called him.  So he explained that she had some kind of infection and they would treat it with antibiotics but she could not eat or drink anything until the next day.  When it started to get late and we decided to go to sleep was when the nurses decided it would be a good idea to check on her regularly.  Thankfully we slept pretty well and we were able to go home today.  That is after I had to go downstairs and pay the bill. I tried to pay the bill in the lab area first, it did not work, but I was kindly pointed to the right area.  One of the funnier parts on the bill was being charge 10 cents for rubber gloves.