Day: September 13, 2016
Day 2 – Altagracia’s home/school
This morning we radioed Cheri and Allen (the birthday boy) and asked them to pick Marci, Jude and I up on their way in to Altagracia’s home. Danny’s gout in his foot is causing him so much pain and he hasn’t slept well the past couple of nights, so he stayed to rest it and the four younger creatures stayed to work on homework. The plan was that they’d all meet us in town midday.
We continued with the roof this morning. Things are moving along well.
Allen did a few things below then once again climbed up on top to work on the frame for the roof. He and Cheri make a great team, with her cutting wood and handing it to him to nail in.
Jude is a contractor in the making.
We started seeing faster progress once the tin sheets were placed.
The truck arrived with a load of sand to mix into the cement…
and shortly after that, the mixing began on the sidewalk.
Altagracia’s home looks a bit messy right now but it’s definitely starting to look like what we had in mind.
Look how limber this gentleman is! He’s almost doing the splits.
They are doing a good job smoothing it all down.
Amid the craziness of the day, I went with Altagracia over to the produce market because she needed 1/2 lb of sugar. I asked her if there was anything else she needed and started naming things off. She was very reluctant to respond, and extremely shy, so I made a pile of fruits and vegetables. If she said she needed 1/2 lb of rice I got 5 lbs. If she needed 1 potato I got 6. Soon we had a heaping pile and she held her heading her hands – completely amazed that I was purchasing all the groceries for her from the gofundme money. With teary eyes she told me she has never had this much food, and was grateful for it. I made sure she understood that it is not me or our family, but that there are many people who care for her and have sent money to help, and that most of all, God loves her.
Since she knows Danny’s foot is hurting she made him cherry juice from the cherries we bought, to help him.
Danny has had a dental issue for quite a while now, and needed it fixed, as well as a cleaning. Jude has a cracked tooth she needed to have looked at and I wanted Aidan looked at to see if he could get invisaline. I scheduled appointments for them at a recommended dentist for this afternoon, and took them in. An hour later, Jude had had her teeth checked out, a cleaning done and Danny had his molar worked on and rebuilt. He had an infection and had it injected, and he had an X-ray. Aidan’s teeth were evaluated and a recommendation given. After all this the bill came to 2800 pesos, which is $62.22. In the US we would have had a huge bill. I don’t think we will ever go to the dentist in the US again.
The care was just as good as any we have had anywhere in the US, and the doctor could speak enough english and we could speak and understand enough spanish to where we communicated well.
After finishing up at Altagracia’s today, Mycah sang her a few songs. She loved it.
We chatted with a few of our favorite people for a while too.
Have I mentioned that we love these people here in Luperon? That we love this place and the peace and joy that is here! We have noticed in many places around the world that the less people have, the happier they are. Stuff causes unnecessary stress.
Tomorrow, the work continues. Hopefully we will be able to start painting and finish the roof. We love what we are doing.
Adventures of a Tribe 