Super Bodega Raymond

Most people reading this may not understand the significance of drinkable water. The idea has taken on a new meaning for us, living in a country where you can't drink the tap water. There is a sign outside the Junta (the office where we are taking pictures) that provides a daily reminder. Watch out for that Leptospirosis. Not a good thing. Of course it's also bad to walk barefoot through cow pies, but it's the water issue that is more relevant to us. By the way, if you click on these pictures, they get much bigger and you can read the sign.

We have an interesting method for getting water. It comes out of this bottle. You put a pitcher under the little spout and then pump up and down a bunch on the blue cap on the top. It takes about 60 pumps or so to fill a 2 quart pitcher, depending on how empty or full the bottle is. Pumping pushes air inside, which puts pressure on the water and forces it up the blue tube and out the spout. We have come to appreciate clean tap water a little more.

It's a five gallon bottle, but that doesn't last very long when this is our only source of clean water. Eventually the bottle goes empty. So we have learned to have a few extra bottles on hand. We have six, and as soon as we have four empties it is time to go to the well. Actually, we don't go to a well. I don't really know where the water comes from. I'm not sure I want to know. When we asked the missionaries who used to live here how to get more water, they referred us to the card in the kitchen drawer.

On the back of the card are the words, "Ask for Richard." Now, if you were calling Super Bodega Raymond, why would you ask for Richard? But I'm used to this sort of thing, so I called the number and asked for "Richard". In Spanish, of course. The response was not very clear on the somewhat tinny sounding cell phone, but basically there was no one there named Richard. I was on my own. So, I explained the nature of our concern to a couple of different people before I finally talked to someone who understood about water. Oh, yes, we can do that. It will cost you 260 pesos. We'll be right over. And to our great surprise about five minutes later there was a buzz from the phone handset next to our front door. Now, as it happens, we had no idea how to respond to the buzzer, so I went down the elevator to let the guy in. There was nobody there. So, I came back up and here was this guy carrying two forty pound bottles of water up the stairs. I explained to him about the elevator and eventually we were left with four full bottles in place of the four empties that the guy carried away with him. It should come as no surprise to anyone who has spent any time here that, of course, he carried the four bottles on his "moto". I'm not sure how such a thing is done. One of these days we'll have to get downstairs early so we can see him drive up.

If you look closely at the card you will see that Super Bodega Raymond is detrás de Macdonald. Well, we've driven past McDonalds many times, but it took some time before we finally found Super Bodega Raymond. I'm not sure we've met Raymond yet. I suppose I should ask, but it never really seemed appropriate. And what constitutes a Super Bodega as opposed to your average every day Bodega is not yet clear to me. 

McDonald's sits at the bottom of a sort of parking lot that connects Ave. Bolívar with José Contreras, two one way streets that we drive on all the time. We live on Bolívar. Anyway, if you walk up to the top of the parking lot and take a left, you will likely run into Super Bodega Raymond, if you are paying attention.

 A clue that you have arrived is the stack of lovely Planeta Azul water bottles next to a sign that says Super Bodega Raymond and advertises Embutidos, Sandwich, Picaderas, y más. You can get cold beer, Loto tickets and los mejores jugos de la zona, y todo tipo de batidas. 

The guy out front is not Raymond. I asked. But he was very friendly. I presume the "motos" out front are Raymond's delivery vehicles. Some day we'll verify that. 

I'm guessing they don't usually have a very up-scale clientele, but it is a reasonably nice sort of place inside. We didn't see any cockroaches, and they have a TV. Probably cable. I don't think either of these guys is Raymond. Or Richard.

Although I'm not yet sure I'd have them make me a sandwich, I'm sure it's the place I'd go if I wanted to buy a Loto ticket. And they deliver really good water. It makes really clear ice cubes that pop out of the ice trays so easily you don't even have to twist them. 

One of these days, I suppose I'll have to go in when there's nobody outside and see what happens if I say Richard sent me. There's probably a stairway hidden behind the cooler.
 

Christmas in Santo Domingo - 1st Year

I have often imagined skipping off to the Caribbean for Christmas to avoid all the hubbub of the season, but this is not how I imagined it. 

Although the ocean is visible not far out our apartment window, the nearest beach is about 40 miles away. So our first Caribbean Christmas isn't about escaping to the sun and sand. 

Here in the DR, Christmas begins sometime before Thanksgiving. There is no particular stigma attached to starting before Thanksgiving because Thanksgiving is, after all, a US holiday. There seems to be a lot of excitement about Christmas, but as near as I can tell, it's not really so much about presents. There is more evidence of Jesus here than at home, but it's not really all that much about Jesus either. I think it's more like Mardi Gras.


Where we work at the Junta Central, a government building, they have this interesting nativity scene displayed in the front entry. It is not something one would find in a government office in the US these days. So, we have had this little reminder of Christmas for quite a while. 

Shortly after our arrival, we found artificial Christmas trees for sale at La Sirena. Being warned that stuff disappears fast, we decided to grab one and along about Thanksgiving we assembled this little tree in our living room. It isn't much compared to home, but it has served its purpose faithfully and we have enjoyed plugging in the lights every evening. A most satisfactory little tree.  





Across the street to the north from our apartment is the temple. Also across the street and next to the temple is the park. I don't know the name, but it's quite the happenin' place at Christmas time. During the day you see a whole lot of tropical looking trees, providing a lush green canopy over the sidewalks, fountains, benches and everything else in the park. When it gets dark, after about 6:30 or so, the lights come on. It's pretty cool.

I'm not sure about the marketing, but Santa, drinking Coke, says "I also believe in you."

These interesting LED lights are wrapped around everything and really light up the park.

 

Sherrie can't pass up the opportunity to get a picture with Santa Claus.

 

We work with Elder and Sister McIntyre at the Junta taking pictures.

The temple is a pretty amazing building for Santo Domingo, and provides quite a contrast to the very loud attractions of the park at Christmas.

By one corner of the temple (the side closest to our apartment) is a simple nativity scene. We kind of like walking by here, especially the way it is lit up at night.

On Christmas morning we got up early and walked over to the MTC, which shares the grounds with the temple. There are 45 new young missionaries celebrating their first Christmas away from home. You might imagine how a bunch of tender hearted senior missionary couples would feel about that, especially since many of them are missing family. So, at 7:30 Christmas morning all the senior missionaries gathered in the Family History room at the MTC and assembled 45 little trays of treats. 


When all was in readiness, and the young missionaries were all seated in the cafeteria, all the senior missionaries, laden with goodies, wandered down the hall to the cafeteria, singing "We Wish You a Merry Christmas". Apparently we were not unexpected, because after we gave them their treats and finished singing our three (way too slow) Christmas songs in Spanish, it seems they were prepared and sang a couple of songs for us. It was pretty much fun and a little touching.

After that little adventure we wandered back home and had breakfast and our own little Christmas party.

Before

After

 

We are pretty grateful these days to be able to put such things out even for a few minutes. The bugs have not come back yet. (knock on wood)

A little later in the afternoon we went to dinner with some other missionary couples. We had ham and cheesy potato casserole. Yum. And for dessert Sherrie brought this really great dessert stuff. I don't know what it is called. In the past she has always made it with chocolate, but in honor of the season she used cherry stuff and pistachio pudding. It was way good. The picture is a little piece that was left over because we forgot to get a picture of it earlier.

Because apparently one can never have too many nativity displays, we have acquired one that is probably uniquely Dominican. The figures are made of metal and then hand painted. I think the three wise men are carrying desserts. Most unusually, the shepherd is accompanied by a sheep, a cow and a giraffe. I'm not really sure what that's all about, but your collection of nativity scenes is not complete until you have one with a giraffe.

Merry Christmas!

Bath Night

by Sherrie

Every Wednesday the produce is 35% off at La Sirena.  So every Wednesday we go to La Sirena to peruse the produce section.  There are fruits and vegetables I've never seen before, so I choose carefully and occasionally get brave and try something new.  A few weeks ago I bought a papaya.  I let it ripen a few days then carefully cut it open, scooped out the weird fish-egg-looking seeds, peeled the thing, and cut it into bite-size chunks. 

After it chilled awhile I proudly served it at dinner.  I felt so Caribbean-y.  Well, I don't like papaya.  Nope.  Never.  It is such a pretty color, but it tastes gross.  One of my relatives who shall remain nameless but is married to my sister calls it "puke fruit."  Aptly named.  Enough about papaya.

I don't remember what this is.  It is not a pear.

On to bath night.  Every Wednesday night is bath night for all the fruits and vegetables.  Such fun is bath night!  I have to wash all the produce in a bleach water bath to kill the yuckys hiding on it.  The first time I did the bleach water thing I ruined my favorite shirt with bleach water splashes. Rule #1 for bath night is "Wear a white t-shirt."  Aye caramba.

Everything soaks in the bleach water for about 20 minutes.

Even every little chive needs a bath.

After soaking, everything is rinsed with filtered water.

Washing our veggies is fun to do...

After the bath things need to air dry.  The saying about the yuckys in the water is "If it dries, it dies."

Kind of pretty, eh?  Another bath night is done.  Whew.

First Thanksgiving

Tradition. The Macy's parade, football games, autumny colors, and of course, turkey and mashed potatoes and gravy; these are what we didn't do this year for Thanksgiving. We did, however, decide to take the day off and go to the beach. 


Santo Domingo doesn't apparently have any proper beaches, just a lot of rocky shore. Since we hadn't seen a sandy beach yet, we followed the advice of several other senior missionaries and drove about 40 miles east to Juan Dolio. 

Having faith in our instructions, we parked on the street and walked through this little covered walkway. The local hotels try to control access to the beach, but someone thoughtfully provided this little path.

 

And there we found a nice quiet little stretch of Caribbean beach. You may peruse the following photo essay at your convenience.

 

We did not elect to go swimming, but we did manage to walk up and down the beach and at least one of us got wet feet. Sherrie found some sea shells.

There were several beach salesmen (pirates of the Caribbean) trying to sell us various trinkets, but we successfully avoided them.

On the way home from the beach, a billboard advertised Denny's located in the third floor food court at the airport. Since it was on our way, we imagined that a Thanksgiving dinner at a nice, comfortable, sit-down Denny's restaurant might be just the right thing to do. 

The airport parking lot was not too expensive, so we decided to head on in. This was the first time we'd seen the airport in the daylight. It seemed quite different when we arrived a month ago. 







 

At first we thought these were fake trees, sort of like the cell towers in Provo, but they're real enough. Just a point of interest. Nothing to do with Denny's.

And this also has nothing to do with Denny's. I just couldn't figure where else to put it. These Christmas decoration things are all over town. Don't know what they are, but you see them alongside the roads.

 It turns out that Denny's at the airport was not quite the sit-down cozy familiar venue we had imagined for our Thanksgiving dinner.

 There was no turkey dinner on the menu.

However, there were a couple of things that appealed to us, so I had a surprisingly good Bacon Slamburger and Sherrie went with the more traditional Super Bird. And, ever adventurous and desirous to "go native", Sherrie ordered a side of Plátanos Maduros.

After a quite acceptable Thanksgiving meal, we continued our drive home and stopped at PriceSmart, the local equivalent of Costco. We got a cup of ice cream (vanilla only because the chocolate wasn't working -- why is the chocolate never working?) and a box of a dozen really good frosted raised donuts. 

Eventually we got home, assembled our Christmas tree (purchased at La Sirena), Skyped with Monica and Kathryn, ate donuts and watched Miracle on 34th Street (the old one with Natalie Wood).

It was an odd sort of Thanksgiving day, but quite enjoyable and now that we've done it, it is tradition.