Mangos, Rocks, and new friends...

Today there were many adventures to be had, and I’ll let the team responsible for blogging share that with you, but I want to tell you some lesser great moments... Today I learned that I am funny if I only tell one word jokes.  While scraping paint off of the ceiling in a very small room, Dustin & I were about to get our picture taken with masks on, so I encouraged him to smile, in spite of the mask.  Later on in the cigar shop, we were getting our photo taken and the kind man I met in September was there again and he offered to take our picture.  The first time he said, “say American Cheese” so the second time I said, “queso” which made us all laugh.  So we are either more easily entertained here without television or I have gotten funnier.  The are a few of us who share similar loves: jugo de chinola and mangos.  Jugo de chinola is passion fruit juice, and it is amazing. Tonight my dinner partners and I took multiple shots of the chinola for later facebook profile photos.  The other love of our lives is the mango.  Earlier this evening a lady was selling mangos across the street - I bought four which quickly appeared on our faces.  I then bet Ben that he couldn’t get mangos cheeper...Ben won the bet, but only because he charmed the lady selling them!  Needless to say, we are on an adventure and learning to love life in the Dominican Republic...there are those threatening to stay for the mangos....

Sending our love through mango-covered faces....

Heather

My team gets to help with redoing the plumbing in the church and school buildings.  The school has 800 students, preschool through senior high.  Our first foray rebuilt a bunch of toilets in the mens room, but tomorrow I think we get promoted to sinks!   It was all worth it though, because they fed us mangos.

Don  

Ten of us worked with painting today.  I started with the ceiling and got more paint on me than on the ceiling.  Both our Dominican coworkers, Alesandro  and Tofi (?), wanted their pictures taken with me.   Alesandro did most of the ceiling.  We did the walls until we ran out of paint.  More paint came at the end of the day so we will have more to do tomorrow.  There was a spirited basketball game at coffee break with some of the school kids.  The playground team moved a couple of tons of gravel from the playground (and you think I’m kidding!).  There were many kids to play with us!

Kris