Going to the Dominican

    Sallie Mininger, the children's school teacher, is almost finished with her time here. They will have school yet this week then a short program on Saturday. Keith offered to take the whole family plus Sallie and I and Lacey Toews ( she is teaching school in the Mennonite school here) to the beach in the Dominican Republic before Sallie leaves. There is a small town along the coast there called Los Platos that Keith's have been to several times. It hasn't been very much of a tourist town in the past but now this time they were doing some building along the beach - boardwalks and small kiosks- so it  looks like its on the way to development. The small hotel where we stayed was also getting an addition and some remodeling done. We left right after lunch on Wednesday then were going to go to a missionary's house for Sunday morning church then would come back to Haiti on Sunday afternoon.
    We got to Los Platos after 8 o'clock in the evening and the small restaurant across the street from the hotel didn't have any food right then but after Keith talked with them they agreed to make fish and fried bananas for us. They had to start from scratch so we unloaded the machine at the hotel and still had some extra time before supper was ready. The hotel didn't have air conditioning but had a ceiling fan so with the patio door open it wasn't bad at all. One of the nights there we had hot water, not sure what was up the other nights.
     In the early morning hours the next morning a local man (who apparently remembers Keith's from other times and recognized their machine) decided he could easily wash the machine then get Keith to pay him. Problem was, he used his greasy t-shirt to scrub with. We really realized this the second day when we went to the capital in the Dominican to do some shopping - more on that later.
   This small town also has a fresh water river fed from a cold spring where they have dammed it up and made a very nice place for swimming. It goes from about one and a half feet deep to maybe four feet deep and is cold but feels wonderful on a sunny day. Thursday we just went back and forth from the ocean to the river with no real schedule -except a local woman who is a Haitian but has been
living there about eight years- was going to get some of her friends to make us supper. We did find another little joint to serve us rice, beans, and chicken or beef for lunch. It was delicious. The bean
sauce had cilantro in it so was different from how the Haitians make it but it hit the spot. It was a
wonderfully relaxing day. In the evening we found out the lady had misunderstood or something- there was no food made for us and it was now too late in the day for her friend to cook for us. So we went back across the street to the small restaurant  ( which once again had no food ready) and they agreed to make us chicken and fried bananas. Of course it took a while again so some of us went and showered before supper.
   Friday morning we all piled back into the machine for a ride to the capital and some shopping. We
now found out that the windows on the machine were just covered with grease from the dirty t-shirt. We felt like we had to look through this man to see out. Some water and paper towels helped a little. Supposedly it took four hours to drive there but once we took a unplanned detour and we stopped several places for Keith to look for a water heater and a washing machine motor. After several stops he did find the washing machine motor and it cost $30. In Port-au-Prince that motor would have cost him over $200 so we felt our "vacation" had payed for itself already as Keith got two motors. Somewhere along the way we suddenly had a police man coming out on the road toward us shaking a big stick. We had done nothing that we knew of- then we found out the reason. Some guys on their
motos came flying past us- They were lying down on their moto seats with their feet crossed and no helmets on and were racing. We were their shield from the police! They timed it just right that they passed us right while we were passing the police. I guess the police saw them coming and all he could do was threaten us with a stick because he couldn't get to them. Another place at a police check it was entertaining as the police didn't know creole or English but still wanted to tell Keith something. I guess there were a few numbers left off of the paper that allowed us to drive in the Dominican. The police and border officials here are very corrupt and are constantly thinking up reasons why someone can't  get across the border unless they pay money. Then they take the money and pocket it for themselves. With the detour and the stops it took us a little over five hours to get to the capital. We were all very hungry but knew there was a Pizza Hut somewhere that we wanted to eat at. Of course
none of us had a SIM card from the Dominican for our phones so none of us could use google search or anything to find one. The we had didn't show a Pizza Hut anywhere near and it is such a busy town that you can't just stop beside the road and try to pick up some company's WiFi. By the time we would see there was a network available we would be too far past it to connect. After driving around for almost an hour more we gave up on pizza and stopped at a Burger King. The great thing about that was there was also a Krispy Kreme within walking distance where we got hot doughnuts for dessert. Then we went to Plaza Lama. This is a large shopping center three stories tall and they almost have some of everything.(except canned pumpkin and graham crackers)  Sallie and I have been hungry for pumpkin muffins but we can't find any pumpkin yet. I found one kind of graham crackers but they were advertised all about their fiber content and that scared me off from buying any. Keith had changed some money into pesos but didn't have quite enough left to pay here and had stood in line at the bank for an hour already to get more changed but didn't remember he needed his passport to do that and had left it in the machine. Then somebody said they could pay with American money. That turned out to not be true so most of us had cokes and watched the world go by for a while. Keith did find a water heater in that store though. When we finished there some of us still wanted to find a Pizza Hut for supper. It looked like it would be an early supper after a late lunch but we drove around a long time again and by the time we found a different Pizza Hut it was for real supper time. Supposedly the one we were looking for at lunch time was only one main road over from the Burger King but we never did find it. Let me tell you though, that pizza was awesome! It meant we got back to our hotel pretty late but no one put up too much of a fuss.
    Saturday morning we had more river/ocean time then ate lunch and left to go to the missionaries' house. We got there several hours later after having seen a lot of beautiful scenery. Their house had bathrooms each with a shower with hot water so we were living it up. Our bucket works quite well for a shower up here but if there is a real shower available I sure wasn't gonna turn it down. There are no members at this small outpost yet, just several people in doctrine class. Two brethren from a congregation in San Juan came to help with the service then they served us rice, beans, and chicken. We felt very handicapped the whole time in the Dominican because of not knowing the language but very much enjoyed the vacation. Except those warmer places also have mosquitos... We are blessed it is cool enough up here that we don't have any.  The border crossing took an hour again and cost $200 plus.  We got back here about ten o'clock in the evening. Did it ever feel good to sleep in our own beds again!