Day Two: WOW!

OK, Kerry here.  This day did not turn out in any way like I thought it would, and then it got strange, and then it got astronomically awesome.  I woke up almost an hour before I planned to--7:30, can you believe it?  Totally out of character for me!  Erin and I washed and dressed and went out to greet Marilu.  She had a neighbor helping her prepare breakfast.  We had delicious pineapple and melon.  Erin had some corn flakes without milk.  ???? No sé.  I had a delicious ham and cheese sandwich.  Marilu brought me 'catchup' for my sandwich.  It was totally Hunt's; I was perfectly happy. We learned that los Dominicanos do not use condiments, so I think Marilu bought the ketchup specifically for las Americanas. We also had some whole milk that came out of a container kept at room temperature.  I wasn´t so sure about that, but when in Rome....

LeAnne arrived while we were eating in the beautiful garden (pictures to follow) and took us to the high school in town, Liceo Regino Camilo.  We met with the director and learned a little bit about the school.  It has 591 students and they come in two shifts.  The first shift is in the morning from 7-1 and then there is an afternoon session until 7 pm.  The early session is for the traditional students and the late session is for students 18-26.  The two biggest problems they have are resources and space.  For example, the government has been promising Internet access for the computer lab, which is filled with computers, but they haven't seen any Internet in over a year.

After meeting with the director, we went out into the courtyard while all the kids were in recess.  They couldn't get enough of Los Americanos.  I think they all thought Kasey was Mandy Moore.  They kept asking for her autograph.

After visitng the high school, we went to see the amazing murals in Tenares with Hector Blanco, a muralist.    ¡Hay muchos murales en Tenares!  They are quite beautiful.

This was one of Hector's religious commissioned pieces.

This mural was in a pavilion celebrating the different towns and villages of the DR.

This mural is from a series examining the foods of the DR.

This mural is from a serious examining the work and play of the DR.

Even the water tower deserves a mural.  This one featured a common theme in Tenares: the butterfly, representing the  Mirabal sisters who were murdered in 1960 by the Trujillo regime.

After a walking and driving tour of the murals lasting about an hour, we went to Hector´s brother´s house, which was amazing.  The house itself was small and rustic, but the yard was a small beautiful farm with many fruit trees and lots of plants and animals.  He raises the biggest pigs I´ve seen outside the state fair, as well as many chickens and roosters and even some bunnies. 

As adorable as they were, them's eatin' bunnies.  Here is a very important video of a cute bunny washing his face.  

Hector's brother also had fruit trees that grew Dominican apples (manzanas de agua), which are not as sweet as our apples and have the consistency of a pear.  However, they smelled like flowers on the outside.  Wonderful. This photo is of Hector's brother up in the manzana tree getting us some fresh manzanas to eat.

That's not even the half of it.  Sitting under the beautiful shady fruit trees were other muralists making such beautiful paintings.  

   

We were served a wonderful lunch of mas fruta, rice, some kind of Dominican beans, and a couple of fish dishes.  Ask Lance about that.  The food was fantastic, and after we ate, we were presented with the most delicious coffee in little demitasse cups.  The coffee was served black with   LOTS of sugar.  Yes, Mom, I drank it.  It was wonderful!   We were also served some amazing chocolate-covered peanuts straight out of the oven.  So delicious.  The muralists talked to us at length about their art and their country and their politics.  We asked each other questions, and gave each other answers--with help from Lance and LeAnne.  It was splendid.

The muralists with their friend Lucy, a lawyer; Hector's brother
on the  lower right; and some LeAnne-provided NC gear. 

Erin and the banana tree.

After that, we headed back to our respective homes.  Marilu had said she'd be expecting us home at 4:30-  OK, here's where the paths diverged.  We were supposed to come back to Marilu's house, rest a minute, and then go out into the neighborhood to ask questions of the people on the street.  That is NOT what happened.  When we arrived home, Marilu was still coming home from work and she would be there by 5.  Jefferson, Marilu´s 11-year-old son, asked us to eat, but we told him we wanted to rest first.  We paid no attention to the fact that there was a HUGE spread of food on the table...and it had BEEN there since earlier this afternoon waiting for us to return.  Instead, we went into our room and took naps.  Unfortunately, we slept until 6.  When we came out, Marilu was a bit frustrated that we hadn't eaten, but I was so flustered that I couldn't summon up the Spanish to explain myself.

She asked us if we wanted to go out soon and blah blah blah blah blah, and I, of course, said that would be fine while Erin sat blankly looking at me assuming I had some idea what was going on.  I did not.  At all.  So we sat down to eat quickly while we waited for Marilu's brother to come pick us up.  There was a yummy salad for Erin, some roasted veggies (cabbage, crazy huge awesome carrots, and something that sounded like tayotes--it was chayotes, which are also called "vegetable pears"), rice with sweet corn, and some marinated baked chicken for me.  It was wonderful.  We finished eating just as Juan Carlos, Marilu's brother, arrived.  He drove us to another friend´s house where we all piled--and I mean PILED--clown-car style-- into a big SUV.  We didn't change our clothes from the day; we just went.  Bad idea.  When we arrived to wherever we were going, we couldn't get but ONE of the car doors to open.  I don't know WHAT was going on, but we just couldn't get it to work!  We all piled out one passenger side door that we finally were able to get open.

Guess what word I learned today: misa.  Misa means "mass."  Great.  Marilu took the two sweaty, filthy Americanas along with four of her own appropriately-dressed friends to the church in Salcedo for mass celebrating International Women's Day.  Courtesy of my Catholic upbringing, I actually knew what was going on.  It was quite impressive.  The music was awesome: recorded music with five female singers belting it out.  One of the songs was actually sung to the tune of  "Bridge over Troubled Water."  Hysterical!

Afterward, we left mass and headed somewhere else.  Erin and I just went with the flow.  Again, when we reached our destination, we had to pile out of one door like a clown car.  We found ourselves at a government building in Salcedo that we had seen earlier in the day because it sports a beautiful mural of Las Hermanas Mirabal.  We recognized some of the people whom we had just seen in church.  We were now at the Official Provincial Celebration of the International Women´s Day.

The award winners.

There were even tv cameras there from a few of the local channels.  The emcee introduced the special guests which included the governor of the province and a very important woman who knew Marilu--who we learned knows everyone in the province.  When the important lady gpt up to speak she actually called on Erin and I as honored guests from the United States.  I have it on film; I can prove it.  As a result, Erin thinks we'll be on local TV tomorrow.  Crazy!  After her wonderful keynote, in which she talked about the need to end violence against women locally, nationally, and worldwide, she gave out a series of awards to recognize the important work of women in the community. She even called on Marilu to present an award to another one of the women who had come with us.  They were both very excited.  Marilu did not appear to have known she'd be asked to present the award.  It was very sweet.

At the end of the ceremony, a local star named Carolina (I think) sang some songs that the people loved.  She really knew how to work the cameras, too.  We were very impressed.

After the pictures, a server in a black tie passed out tall glasses of sweet fruit nectars and DELICIOUS yellow cake.  I'm not talking about your Duncan Hines yellow cake, either.  We're talking butter cream frosting with extra EXTRA sugar and raisins in the sweet honeyed frosting between the layers.  It was fantastic!  Even I might have said it was too much sugar.  It didn't stop me from eating it, though.

As we left, each woman was given a beautiful red rose.  It was lovely.  When we got home, I began this blog almost immediately, and as we worked, Jefferson came in to the bedroom to play Connect Four with Erin, and Marilu came in to tell us that we would be going to an event tomorrow evening to be on television with her and another group.  What is going on here and how much do I love it?  I'm making Lance come with us this time. Look out.  Stay tuned for my Day Three and perhaps some reports from others.    Time for my bucket bath!