From a place where time is irrevelant

Today I remembered why I love hiking; we got to hike in the rain up to the Cave of Saint Francis. We also brainstormed ideas of how else we could use the cave for other than small pilgrimages and retreats. We thought of concerts, weddings, and my personal favorite, movies in the cave. Just think, Saturday morning cartoons on Saturday mornings in a cave! You can’t get much better than that. Sarah and I are settling into more of a routine, but at the same time we are also really excited to have the third member of our team arrive in now less than a week! Once China gets here, we’ll really be able to get the ball rolling with the mission team of 2010-2011.  We’ve also had a chance to hang out quite a bit with the interns with Medical Missionaries this year, Fidel and Emily. They work in Thomasique, Haiti and they come here to reorganize supplies, etc. The four of us just graduated this past May, so it’s nice to have that connection with other young adult Americans in a foreign country. Today marked the start of a ten day long fiesta (party) in Bánica with the feast of Nuestra Senora Mercedes (Our Lady Mercedes). Another name for Our Lady, she is the patron saint of the Dominican Republic. We all met at the church at 6 am for a two-hour procession to Calvario, which is at the foot of the mountain of Saint Francis, on the outskirts of town. Starting tomorrow evening, there will be a novena for the next 9 days until the feast of Saint Francis, which is October 4th. These people really know how to celebrate a good time. With Mass, processions, food, music and dancing, parties can’t get much better than that. Well, I’m off, I’ll update again soon!

This is where I live

I look around me everyday and there is no doubt in my mind that there is a God. And He is a good God.

Musings on a rainy afternoon

Another not-so-ordinary day in Bánica. I got to sleep in until 7:00am, eat breakfast (fried batatas…my new favorite food) and then meet up with Sarah and Luisa for morning prayer before getting picked up for another retreat in a different community, Sabana Cruz (still with Las Hermanas de la Restitución). We crossed another river and spent the morning and part of the afternoon under the shade of a huge mango tree. And Sarah and I got to make some people laugh because of our poor Spanish pronunciation during a game. I wanted to comment on our lunch there. These people have so little, yet they are always willing to share what they do have. Even though Sarah and I will be living with them for ten months, they still treat us as honored guests, and we are always one of the first to get a chair or something to eat. The society down here is not an equal one, and as a American, and especially one who works for the Church, I get preferential treatment. It is still something I am getting used to, and praying continually that it does not go to my head. I am used to giving up my chair for my elders or someone else; I am not used to an older lady in her 70s shooing me into her chair, knowing she would be offended if I didn’t take it. This is the part where I say again (and it won’t be the last time) that cultures can learn from each other. Not that anything they do in Bánica is wrong, and not that the United States culture is wrong in any specific respect, but that when cultures mesh they can learn to respect each other and differences within each culture. The other adventure of the day was Sarah and I going down with the locals (WanRey, Pedro, Mayo, Luisa, Iriana and Cysto!) to the river. I had promised Father Murphy Iwould give Cysto a bath, and the river was a perfect place to do it. So off we trooped to the river to hang out for awhile. Well, we got more water than we bargained for, because for about an hour after being there, it started pouring. Literally pouring. I guess it was a good thing we were already soaked. There is something freeing about the rain, something very beautiful about water coming down from the sky and completely drenching you. It made me realize that there are many things I have no control over, and I much prefer that to having to decide everything. It’s nigh impossible to take complete control of your life, and if you do, you end up disappointed. It’s just not possible to control your life completely. Musings aside, the people love the rain down here. It’s like snow in Virginia. Get a threat of snow, and school is canceled. If it starts pouring down here, school gets canceled. Everything shuts down and closes because of the rain. (It could wash out the road, it’s hard for little kids to walk home in the mud, and no one goes out in the rain so stores shut down because no one is out and about). But the rain brings life to them because it makes the crops grow and provides water for drinking, cooking and washing. They are thankful for rain because they have no control over it, and they are thankful that they are given this gift in which to live. It’s very beautiful.