Baking Time!

I have been waiting for this day since my child was born. You all know how much I LOVE to bake and I have dreamt of the day Eric was old enough to "help" mama out. Well, today faced with an entire day indoors with nothing new on the horizon to and a growing craving for chocolate chip cookies I hauled out the step stool and put on some patience and we went at it.

I must say he seems to be a natural! His had an immediate instinct to pour the ingredients into the right place and not onto the counter. But, what started out as this:

Turned to this:

He had a blast! So much fun. I can't wait to bake more goodies with you Papi!

The Mangoes Are Coming!

Seems like a long time since the last post. Don't know why. I updated my Flickr page to right so you can see more pictures. We don't seem to have many pictures of outings or anything really that exciting to show. We did take a drive last weekend west in search of something new on a spontaneous whim. We drove to Bani, which I learned is known for their mangoes. No mangoes yet as they haven't turned ripe, but they are on their way!! They are all over the city, trees in parking lots and yards. I wonder who gets to pick them when they are on public property?! My friend, Ina told me that she got so many mangoes given to her as gifts from the village she works in that she didn't know what to do with them. Oh, the blissful thoughts in my head thinking of all the ways I get to prepare and enjoy my favorite fruit. I have no shame saying I will be glutenous! Eric's grandparents have mango trees in their yard, so I'm looking forward to checking out the progress when we go this weekend to celebrate his grandfather's birthday. I hear we are going to eat "chivo", which is goat. Yikes! It's supposed to be amazing...I'm not so sure, but I'll let you know.

I am getting busier each week with little things here and there. I am still teaching English to two women at their office one time a week (we had to move it to one day as opposed to two because they don't have the time for two lessons right now). I am also doing a language exchange with one of Eric's aunts. Flor comes over one morning a week and we talk in English one hour and Spanish the next. It's great, because this is a time where I can be corrected and really learn to speak better. I am learning a lot by just living life here, but I don't often get corrected and I know I use a lot of incorrect phrases. I am also helping my friend Ina out with her ministry in the village of Cercadillo. Take a look at her website to see more about what's happening in Cercadillo. For now I am helping her with little tasks to get a co-op started selling handcrafts the women in her village are learning how to make, like necklaces and bags. It's a really amazing ministry she has to these women and I want to spend more time telling everyone about it in greater detail, so I am going to wait and make it it's own post.

I'll leave you with a couple of pics of our boy who is really growing up so fast. He is talking up a storm, some words in English, some in Spanish and a lot in his own language still. He is becoming very energetic little guy and I am trying to keep him stimulated when we are cooped up in the house. We can go outside to play when the sun isn't overhead, but it's basically in the parking lot of our apartment and it's so dirty (I mean filthy, greasy black dirt that I have to scrub off) that I have to pop him in the bath immediately when we get back upstairs. Yesterday we played outside and when we came back up we discovered we didn't have any water! Hopefully we can get to the park to run out some energy today because it's one of my days to have a car.

Eric had a little too much fun combing little E's hair into what he called "The Donald"...as in Trump, if you couldn't guess.

Have a good weekend everyone!

Environmentalism has come to the DR.

So the other day I was joking with a friend online about how there are things we do here to save money or resources that fall into the category of environmental friendliness, however we live in a country that is completely unaware of what taking care of the environment is. I told her I didn't quite know what to call what we do, because on one hand I wash and reuse ziplock bags, grab a kitchen towel to wipe up spills instead of a papertowel, use cloth napkins instead of paper, reuse paper in our printer, refill the cartridge from the printer and I still use cloth diapers with Eric when we are home; however, there is no recycling program here so I throw EVERYTHING in the trash...can you believe it? I can barely type the words I feel so bad about doing it, especially since we moved from a city that proudly boasts having a goal of recycling more trash than is actually thrown in the dump.

My friend called it "accidental environmentalism". Which kind of fits. While people here are not the least concerned with the environment, there are many things they do to reuse and conserve. It's just out of thriftiness rather than a mindset of "reducing their carbon footprint".

On the other hand, I am appalled everyday when I see someone throwing trash out of their car; or the large trucks that spew thick black smoke making it impossible to roll down your windows in the car; or piles of burning trash, which include disposible water bottles; or plastic bags hung up in trees blowing in the wind. Eric told me he read in National Geographic that one of the top ten industrial waste sites in the world is just on the edge of the city where there is a dump for car batteries. I can't even think about how that effects the soil and water supply in our area.

The first time I took my reusable bags to the supermarket someone from Eric's family asked me why I was bringing them with me and why I didn't want the plastic bags from the store. I explained how bad the bags were for the environment, taking 100's of years to break down and how the sheer numbers of these bags are clogging the landfills. They kind of laughed and said (and I quote), "We don't have a problem with the environment here. So, you don't have to worry about that." I kid you not. And, everytime I bring my bags to the store I have to explain what to do with them to the person bagging my grocery items. What irks me the most, though, is the people bagging the groceries put one or two things in a bag and oftentimes double bag things, so you end up with literally 30 plastic bags when all is said and done.

So, imagine my surprise when someone told me yesterday about a recent trip to a Costco-type store here. She said they had stopped using bags and the woman at the register told her she had to take her items out to the car in her basket and load them into her car that way. She offered to sell her bags and showed her the sign stating they were changing their policy. This person was so angry she had the manager come to the register so she could give them a piece of her mind. She told him they were just doing it to make more money off of people by selling them bags. She left the store mad and got an e-mail from the store later that day explaining their new policy. As she was telling this to me she paused to find the right words in English and I tried to help her along by saying, "Was their explanation in the e-mail about the environment?" And, she kept saying no, it wasn't the environment. It was about the animals in the ocean and how they eat the plastic and die. And, I said the word environment again and she said it wasn't that it was about the animals.

Well, I left it there, although you know I wanted to jump up on my soap box that very instant and inform her all about the global environmental crisis and how mad I get everytime I see a car spew out black smoke and how I can't believe people light their trash on fire or dump paint into the gutters, or...well, you get the picture.

It's baby steps. And, you just gotta keep doing what you can do, even if you have nowhere to take your plastic bottles and paper to recycle. What can you do when you live in a country where most people are just hoping for a warm meal and running water? It's hard to be as concerned about the environment here as I was in Boston, because I understand the survival instinct in stronger than the protection instinct.

Who doesn't like chocolate milk?

I mean, really, tell me...what kid doesn't beg for chocolate milk? Not mine. He won't touch milk in a cup with a ten foot pole. Since we started him on milk in June when he turned one and we got the go-ahead from our pediatrician I have tried everything to get him to drink it. Spaced out over the past 8 months I have gone through periods of trying and periods of completely giving up and resorting to the one nightly bottle he drinks. I've held onto that one bottle because I am so afraid if I give it up he won't drink ANY milk at all. I've tried serving it to him in several different types of sippy cups and regular glasses, as well. I've tried forcing him with the your-going-to-sit-there-until-you-drink-it method and we all know that NEVER works, but sometimes you just get desperate. And, recently I have tried chocolate milk, Nesquik to be exact (which happens to be loaded with vitamins and marketed as a health drink in Latin countries, as is sugar cereal, but seriously don't get me started). Nope. He takes one drink and hands it back to me or puts it on the table as far away as he can set it.

What he doesn't realize in that tiny little head of his is that he has this window of opportunity right now to drink as much chocolate milk as his heart can wish for, just so he'll be drinking SOME milk. And, that one day he is going to actually want the chocolate milk and I am going to give him the not-before-dinner speech. Someone should tell him to wise up before the clock runs out. Or, maybe he's the smarty-pants who knows what I am up to and isn't giving in to my bribery tactics knowing that I am just buttering him up with the chocolate stuff to get him to regularly drink the white stuff. Once I have him hooked I'll cut him off.

Well, whatever it is I just wish, for his bones sake, he would drink milk!

On another note, we are battling mosquito bites again. It's a sad sight...he has 5 bites on his face from the past two nights. And, he sleeps under a mosquito net. I just can't figure it out. And, then today another bite appeared on his temple as a huge red lump. We don't think it's a mosquito bite and we don't know what it is. All this, just one day after a bout with a moderately high fever over the weekend, which included two blood tests to rule out Dengue Fever and a trip to the pediatrician.

I tell you, you get through one thing just to be faced with another. Trying to coax him into chocolate milk is actually FUN compared to the latter two things!

Looking Up.

Things are looking up in our home these days, and in my heart, too. We've been here nearly 4 months and are feeling adjusted and more settled. We've found a daily rythmn around the house. And, the challenges that keep coming our way don't seem to be taking us back a couple of steps each time we meet them. Do I dare say that Santo Domingo is feeling like home?
Here are a few things we are thankful for:
- Our car arrived and we had the money to pay the taxes and fees to pick it up.
- Little Eric loves going to school and is growing in so many areas.
- I have a job teaching English 4 hours a week that I love and provides extra money.
- Eric is excelling in his jobs at the University and at Lexco.
- We have enough money to pay our rent, bills, and expenses.
- We love living near family.
- I am communicating and understanding Spanish better each day.
- I have new friends (both American and Dominican) and a Bible study group I am a part of that I love.
- We have been healthy with only a few minor colds.
- The weather is amazing and something I am not taking for granted.- Amazing coffee grown locally that I can enjoy in the early morning hours when I take a few minutes to start my day and pray.
- Great fruit to enjoy every day - cantelope, pineapple, papaya, bananas, etc.
I am sure there are so many more things to put on the list, but for today this is what comes to mind. More than anything I am finding that it is through the challenges life deals us that we grow and our faith increases. God has been faithful to us in so many ways and I am thankful for Him today.
Some pictures of the Dominican Republic through my eyes:

Little Eric playing with a neighbor in the parqueo of our apartment. Her name is Giada and her mom is Italian and dad is Dominican.

The park in Santo Domingo where I like to go walking with Eric's mom.

This totally cracks me up everytime I walk past it. It's an ad for a small salon, but the picture on the poster is of Katie Holmes. Do you think she has any idea?

A street vendor selling masks for Carnival.

This is Asopao, another Dominican stew that is typically enjoyed with family and friends. They have a lot of these one-pot meals here.