Back "home" for a visit

Good day.

Full day.

Fun day.

I feel better now.

It had been a rough weekend. Yucky stuff had happened. I was worn down and wishing for the comforts of home, but was trying to focus on the good parts of living here.

So we took ourselves on a good adventure. 

...

We went to visit our old neighborhood where we stayed three years ago.

We have kept in contact with our next-door neighbors from The Cove so we were going to visit them. 

But we were also going to deliver photos to the neighborhood colmado*.  We were both pretty excited about that.

I guess you could say that my photographer hubby has been working on this project for three years. When we were in the area three years ago he shot lots and lots of awesome photos. He then went to work selecting and editing a few of them. Or a few dozen of them. In preparation for coming back to the area this year, he had printed and mounted these few dozen choice photos of beautiful Dominicans to bring with us. He carried some of them on our various excursions around town and out to Playa Rincon to find the people and give them the photos. What a fun project!  (See some of those encounters here.)

The visit to the old neighborhood was to be the culmination of that project. Armed with the remaining pile of photos wrapped safely in their little black tote bag, we climbed aboard a gua-gua and headed out to El Frances and asked the driver to drop us off at the colmado. 

This colmado is a tiny building crammed with more food staples and supplies than you can imagine and is the center of life of the area. It was just a little way down the road or down the beach from the cove and we had shopped here regularly while living there. Every day or two we walked over there for eggs or bananas or juice or Coke or other necessities. Most of those days we were served by the precious little granny who was always working there. 

So there we were climbing down from a gua-gua** and stepping from the bright sunlight into the shadows of the tiny little store. Would she be there? 

As my eyes adjusted to the dim light I couldn’t see her right away but then there she was! I got so excited that I couldn’t think in Spanish. I stood there just kind of gleefully clapping my hands as I tried to ask if she remembered us and to express how excited I was to see her. She kept beaming and saying “Angelica” - and I realized she meant that was her name. 

Now here’s the thing. When we returned to the States three years ago, I was terribly chagrined to realize that I had not discovered her name. I’m not sure why because I wasn’t particularly shy about asking Dominicans their names. Maybe I had been rather in awe of her - and didn’t want to seem disrespectful or something. At any rate, I went home feeling so sad that I didn’t know her name - and now here I was back again and suddenly she was telling me her name. What a moment!

Recovering some of my Spanish vocabulary, I babbled about having a daughter named Angela and a grand-daughter Angelina - and she grinned and nodded about the similarities. And then Bob pulled the picture of her from three years ago out of his bag. And then more pictures - and more.

We asked her and the two young men working with her if they knew the people in this photo - and this one - and of course, they did. They knew everyone and yes, they would be happy to distribute the pictures.

Other customers came in to buy things and got involved in looking at the pictures as well. What fun! 

After a few minutes of the commotion, one of the young men stepped away from the counter and toward me with a serious but friendly expression on his face, extended his hand and said, “Muchisimas gracias!” Thank you so very, very much. It was as if he suddenly realized the intentionality that had gone into the preparation for this moment - and he recognized how important it would become for all of these people who would receive the photos of themselves. He seemed very, very grateful.

...

The day was getting hotter and we had things to do and places to be so we left them to marvel over the photos. It had already been a good day. A great adventure.

We crossed the road and made our way down the beach toward the cove. I had remembered that this stretch of beach was not very walkable because of being so steep, but we hadn’t really remembered how much of a work-out it is. 

We made it and we found our friends - AND we discovered that three other couples we knew were back again. Turns out they come back every year. I had wondered whether we might happen to see any of them so this was a bonus. Eventually we also found CoCo and Antonio and had great visits with all of them. 

We sat on the beach and watched the whale-watching boats out in the bay. We even saw a few whales - but of course not very well at that distance. Our friends recounted stories about sharks and barracudas and motorcycle accidents and property acquisitions. I felt like we got to know some of them better than we had before. It was a great visit. 

...

Eventually we headed to the colmado again to catch another gua-gua back into town. We weren’t sure the procedure to catch one heading this way so thought we might need someone at the colmado to help us. But maybe not. Here’s one. Sure enough; he stopped for us. With the usual assistance from helpful Dominican men, we clambered up into the back and around a propane tank and three huge blue closed containers of something and found a seat up against the cab. No leg room but at least a seat. 

Adventure accomplished and we were on our way home. 

And then I had a moment. 

I suddenly realized that I felt better about living here. 

I was okay again. 

Rather than avoid culture stress, I had faced it head-on. I had engaged with some of the good parts of this adventure and I felt renewed to put up with the difficult parts.

We had taken on a challenge. Several challenges really. 

We had pushed ourselves to step out of our comfort zone once again. 

We had searched for ways to bless people and I think we succeeded.

We had created good will.

We had relished in old memories and made some new ones.

We had once again cherished the beauty of this country - in the faces of her people and in her idyllic scenery.

Full day

Fun day

Good day

* Colmado = a little tiny store with counter service - meaning that you ask for things from behind the counter rather than walking through aisles of a store. There is one in most every neighborhood and some even have a Super-colmado - which is not so tiny.

** Gua-gua = public transportation - usually a van or the back of a pick-up truck with a roof over it.