| | He hugged me long and hard, and I think we both had misted eyes as I finally drew apart in order to make my bus on time. He asked, “Will you come back?” I answered in his native tongue, “I don’t know. I hope that I will be able to, but I don’t know.” He sighed, but smiled hopefully. “Si Dios quiere,” he said. “Claro que sí, Christopher!” I responded with a grin. “Yes of course. If God wants…”
I have spent the majority of my summer in Latin America. It's been great! In the D.R., when my teammates were suffering indigestion from the daily rice-and-beans fare, I happily filled my plate each mealtime and then, to my friends’ dismay, was immediately ready to go exploring the town! (And go clubbing).  The language I had practiced and learned in Costa Rica was also a huge asset as I was often in demand to help translate our Dominican work foreman’s instructions, do the talking when we went shopping, and talk to the kids at the orphanage every day as we worked and played with them. Everyone thought I was Dominican. I think it must have been the tan and dark hair/eyes, even though I'm not even as tan as usual this summer. I mean, you should be able to tell I'm not Dommie as soon as I open my mouth! But I did get that question a lot in the Dominican. I felt quite special.  I don’t even pretend to be fluent, but even my attempts were very useful.  Knowing the language makes one muy popular!
We started out working at a Christian school, doing lots of painting and scrubbing. Painting sounds easy, until one has to use extenders, perch atop ancient ladders, and spend hours bent over backwards as one attempts to paint ceilings with minimal dripping which has to be scrubbed off later. We also painted lines on the basketball court, hopscotch lines, soccer goal posts, and other fun things like that. One afternoon the children’s VBS in the next door church was singing lots of familiar songs we knew in Spanish. It was sweet to be able to sing along in our own language. Then we moved operations to the orphanage. We scraped paint off a house, re-primed and re-painted it. We scraped paint of the roof—the longest job ever—and it was hot up there! We sanded, using bricks, the concrete walls of a new house, which gave me a new empathy for the ancient Hebrew slaves building pyramids by hand. I also helped sort tons of donated clothes, school supplies, and gifts, and thousands of soccer uniforms and cleats. Those two weeks were packed with work! Often, some of the kids would help us, or at least entertain us and talk our heads off while we worked. Sometimes in the afternoons before we left for the day, we would play a game of basketball, or just hang out and run around with them, and that was a lot of fun. One highlight was the morning we got to take off work and cram in a tiny bus with 50+ kids and a couple of adults to go to a waterfall and swim. It was a great time to just be able to cool off and get to hang out and speak Spanish. Of course, the last day we all got to participate in a fútbol (soccer) tournament, which was a blast. Only during the game, I got eaten alive by mosquitos and no-see-‘ems, and my leg was a bloody, muddy mess by the time we were through! Leprousy again!
Back to the opener. My little friend Christopher. We were teased about each other by both Dominicans and Americans, and we hung out alot. I was thinking, though. My Tico novio (Costa Rican bf) was too old, and this one is too young. However, if I average the ages, it gives me a bf a couple months older than me! Perfecto. Oh well, Eva says next trip I will find the perfect soul mate.
In conclusion: No, I didn't get to see Sammy Sosa's home (I tried) or go clubbing (I also tried) or do anything terribly or abnormally peligroso. (Remember that vocab word from past posts?) I did have a sweet time with my teammates, playing NERTZ, dancing to dulce music (name my new header line, peeps!), and white-water rafting. We also saw 13 river-side baptisms, which was awesome. It was a great trip, and I'm thrilled by the way God worked throughout in my life, particularly. It was amazing, and I am grateful.
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