Everyone Gets Tired Sometimes

And I'll be sure to snap your picture when you fall asleep... especially on a road trip.

This is Micah. He is using the Slump method. It's when you just relax where you're sitting and don't even bother with the head nods. It's a good way to prevent the Open Mouth side effect though you may have Stiff Neck syndrome later.

Holly used the I'm Going to Get Comfy and Sleep method. This method requires a pillow and whatever else you can put between you and the hard wall of the vehicle. This method does have its risks. Notice the slightly parted mouth but her neck muscles will probably remain unknotted.

Dave goes for the Relaxing at the Beach method. This requires a seat in front of you to either prop your legs against or over. The Slump and Slide move keeps you from the Open Mouth and Snoring risks. Although I could say he was snoring and he couldn't prove otherwise since he and all the other witnesses were sleeping at the time...

My Dad managed to pull off the I'm Really Awake but Resting my Eyes look. He was definitely out though. It's a good thing he didn't use the Head Back method; he would definitely have the Snoring effect and startle himself awake.

And since I'm a good sport... I took a picture of myself sleeping.

It took me a few tries since I couldn't stop laughing and then I woke up everyone else with my hysterics.

But I was determined. Pretty good, huh? It's the I Don't Have Anywhere to Lay my Head but Back method. Open Mouth is a given with this particular sleep position. Micah told me the only thing missing with my picture was some drool. I wish I had thought of that.

Or maybe I should be mad at Micah for insinuating that I drool...

Familiar Yet Different

The Dominican Republic is still on my mind. And believe it or not, there is still a lot to share about my one week trip there. These are some pictures of things with which we are very familiar.... and yet they look very different. Go ahead. See if you recognize everything.


This is the kitchen of a family we visited. A lot of homes have outdoor kitchens because it is cheaper to cook over an open fire. She fed us some of her delicious jucca. Mm mm good! (I think it is yucca root?)



Not exactly the ladder you see at the local hardware store... but I LIKE it.

We saw this kind of fence a lot. We even saw one man making his fence. They use these green branches as the posts and a lot of the time, the branches take root and grow again.

This one is a little bit trickier. You can barely see it through the mesh... but there's a chicken living in that chicken coop.

And last but not least. Some call it a parking brake; I call it the emergency brake. It works!

The Places I Went

I was told to take a lot of pictures on my trip to the Dominican Republic. So I did.

This "restroom" was not restful. It was in a separate building behind the church and there were no lights. Picture this with just the beam of a small flashlight. Three of us ventured out back to use this toilet. We made plenty of noise as we approached and Cheryl threw rocks at the building. Why? Because we didn't want "company" in there in the dark. Rats and spiders, PLEASE let the girls have a turn. The rocks and noises did their job. *whew* When someone asked if I had actually used these "facilities" I responded, "Hey, I was just glad that I would have a door!"

The next outhouse I came across was brand new. It was built at a construction site (which I have yet to tell about). Isn't it cute? Then they said we had time to use the outhouse if needed.

So, of course, I quickly took advantage of the offer AND took a picture. The door latch was a little tricky.

Here's the bathroom I used everyday. The showers were cold but surprisingly refreshing to me. The lantern was for when the power was out. (The power goes out nearly every day for hours and usually comes on again in the evening/night.) That toilet had me practicing me my patience; you had to hold that handle until it was completely done flushing in slow motion. The water bottles were for brushing teeth. You don't want to put even a minuscule amount of tap water in your mouth.

Ah! Another church bathroom. Better than the scary dark outhouse but it had its own setbacks. Notice there is no t.p. No problem. I came prepared. (The other girls called me Walmart. Not that I had packed a lot; I just packed what I remembered needing in a third world country.)

And there was no running water. This bowl was filled with bleach water for cleaning your hands. Yes, I used it. Then I used my hand sanitizer too. What? Wouldn't you?

Even the nicest bathrooms have their occasional challenges. The house was running out of water. Cheryl had ordered a water truck to fill the cistern but it hadn't arrived yet. I said, "We could just carry some water up from the other house so that we can flush the toilets here." She agreed but didn't let me do it. She had the guys on the team carry buckets. Buckets and buckets. *ahem* Sorry, guys. My fault.

I will admit that I didn't go here. Holly did. And I asked her to take a picture. That's right. I knew that Josiah would want to see a picture of the airplane's bathroom. But I totally could have gone here; I was just, well, I didn't want to get up and squeeze past the nice man sitting next to me.

So there you have it. I did miss a few places. Thank me.

My dad laughed at me for taking all these pictures. (So did Micah and Holly and Cheryl and everyone who knew) My response? "It's a lot more fun using a questionable/scary bathroom when you are collecting evidence for bragging rights!"

I hope you are sufficiently impressed. And please, please, tell me your worst bathroom experience. Okay, maybe I should clarify; please tell me about the worst bathroom you have used or the one that made you suddenly realize you didn't have to go so bad after all.

The View with a Fish

While in the Dominican Republic, we chose Friday and had a special lunch at the fish place.There were so many of us that we took two trips to get everyone here. It was not so impressive from the outside....

...but the inside of the restaurant offered a gorgeous view. No, no, no. This is not the view. This is where we stood to enjoy the view. The back wall was open to a beautiful valley.

We saw this. This.

This.

This. (The tops of the banana trees)

This.

This.

This.

This. And this. Any questions?

Then everyone had arrived and it was time to eat. I love Dominican food.

Hello, fish. I hear that you are delicious.

Oh. my. cow. You certainly were delicious! I didn't do a bad job of finding and eating all the fish meat possible, if I do say so myself.

I think Leo made have done better (but he has had more practice too).

Anyone that wanted seconds could choose their fish if they so desired; however, I was full.

Thank you Fish Place for the view and the delicious lunch.

Republica Dominicana Project #2

Okay, so the Dominican trip wasn't all fun and games, cleaning water, and church services .... unless you call this part "The Painting Game". I like the sound of that!

Come to think of it... they DID hand me a machete and a shovel as well as paint, brushes, and rollers. And that ramp to the roof could be a slide of sorts with only a 50/50 chance of sliding right off and twisting or breaking something...

And leaning over the side of the roof to reach the top of the wall could be a balancing game of sorts. You just don't want to lose your balance because, well, you could end of losing a lot more. Loads of fun!

Notice that Holly spent some precious painting time dancing around when she thought no one was looking. Okay, maybe I made that part up; we knew that she knew that we knew that she was dancing. It was all part of "The Painting Game" I'm sure. Maybe she was practicing her brush stroke technique.

Hm? What was the shovel and machete for? The machete was to cut back the trees and other growth from the walls we were to paint. Then we lost it. So I "borrowed" some one's shovel that happened to be laying around and dug up the weeds that were growing on the roof. That's right. Weeds. On the roof. And I made the ants really mad too. You can see the pile of dirt, weeds, and ants behind the dancing Holly. No, you can't really see the ants; but you can see the dirt in which they live. It's the ant penthouse.

This is the wall beside the water filtration building. Beautiful, yes? No? Micah cleaned it up and painted it too.

Tah dah! Now there is a freshly painted, clean wall next to the freshly painted, clean water building.

This is one of the outside walls of the church/school and that is the path to the water filtration building. We cleaned the wall, swept the path, and then painted the wall. Since we had already played the "balancing over the side of the roof game" with this wall on the first painting day, we remained on the ground this time.

A little story on the side: There was a bird that kept whistling at me, so I whistled back and forth with it for quite some time. My competitiveness took over. I had to outlast the bird! My whistler was getting so tired... and then the bird... I think he started mocking me. He did learn a new whistle from me though; if he ever migrates to my house, he can call my dog.

After we ran out of white paint and the wall/path was sufficiently finished, I helped Holly do the finish work on the water filtration building. Those poor brushes! Brush work just isn't the same when you're working with bricks. I felt a little bit sorry for them.

What? Yes, those are the same jeans I wore the first painting day. No, that's a completely different shirt. Did I wash those jeans? Um, no. Were they disgusting then? Wow. You're really asking some personal questions. Um, yes they were disgusting but not SO disgusting. I sprayed them with Febreze the night before and once again that morning for good measure. So although they were disgusting, they smelled fresh. Now while you're at it, why don't you give me a paper cut and pour some lemon juice on it? Did I bring those jeans home? NO! They told me that they wanted to stay and be a missionaries in the D.R. so I let them.

I consider "The Painting Game" to be won. Yes, it was a team game. Us against the walls. We won.

Republica Dominicana Project #1

So one of the main projects of this trip was to build and install a water filtration system in the town of Baitoa. Two teams had already arrived and started on this before our arrival early Tuesday morning. (We were supposed to arrive late Monday night but that's another story.)

This is the church/school building. The water system was to be installed in a small building behind here.

All these parts have a specific purpose. It looks sort of like a 3-D jigsaw puzzle. I'm just glad that there were people who knew what they were doing. I asked Jim why the pipes go up and down in that pattern. The answer is that the ozone needs 30 feet of vertical pipe to rid the water of bacteria.

There was trench digging, pipe laying, trench filling in, pipe building, pipe installing, door and track building, and much cleaning and gluing and following of instructions.

This is Leo. He is married to my friend, Cheryl. Charro in Spanish. His full name is Juan Leonardo Perez Sanchez. Doesn't that sound cool? Well, he is cool. And he's the man in charge.

The cement thing in the background is the water cistern with regular water. The water is pumped up to the roof where there is a holding tank which is run through the filtration system. I was told the water will go through the system several times.

Micah, my brother, and Dave, the master builder, tested the weight holding abilities of the counter that they built before painting it. Test 1- Successful.

We called in more volunteers. Test 2- Successful. The counter will easily hold the big jugs of water.

Now for the finishing touches.

Tah dah! The water filtration system is complete!

These were the water tests. Each bag was filled with water then a chemical to make those pesky, invisible, deadly bacteria show up. The first bag of unfiltered water turned black within 24 hours. The second bag was partially filtered and turned yellow within 24 hours. The third bag was absolutely clear. Jim drank the water. And since Jim is still healthy... Success!

The last item of the water project was the installation of a small cross which Dave's neighbor had sent with him to leave on one of the projects. Little did we know that it would take some ingenuity to install it; small nails weren't readily available so Dave made staples do the job.

With this system in place, people will be able to purchase clean water for 70% less than the normal price allowing them to use clean water more often.

And more encouraging news: the mayor of Baitoa is excited about this project and wants to have ten more installed around the area!

Any questions? I may know the answer. If not, I know who to ask.