Feb 7: If There’s One Thing I Should Learn

It’s to not try and joke around with people in a language I can’t really speak.

Hmmm. I think we have guests.

It was a simple enough joke I thought. We were at a home not far from ours, trying out our Spanish with a couple who don’t speak any English at all. One of the girls, who probably mopped the room three times during our visit, was doing a little dance with the mop while singing about cleaning. So I said “You need to come and clean our house!” They all laughed at the time, and then two hours later who do you think was at our house to do some cleaning? The girl and her sister. They were pretty adament about cleaning while my objections were only half-hearted, so we got a free house mopping. In my defense they did seem to enjoy it. I guess the question is, was my comment really a joke or not?

Later in the afternoon I ventured out to grab some Orange Juice without added sugar. As the idea of having anything without adding sugar is a bit foreign here we had to venture to a Colmado 5 or so blocks from our home to find it. As one would expect it started to pour while we were there and didn’t look like it would let up anytime soon. A little boy came over with his umbrella and appeared to be offering it to the kids. So we ventured out into the rain and started home under his protection. Not 5 steps from the door he gave the umbrella to Ariana and ran off down the street to the sound of my objections. It just didn’t seem right to take an umbrella from a child who didn’t wear shoes and looked like he couldn’t afford to. Silly me for worrying. It wasn’t more than a minute after we arrived back at our house when he showed up to collect his umbrella. And a small “tip”. And I was more than happy to oblige.

Back at our house we had invited another family over for dinner. We expected them to come over later in the evening as the Dominican custom is to eat dinner pretty late. We let the kids eat and started getting them ready for bed. Shortly after 7 our guests arrived. What made us chuckle was when they apologized for being so early.

Our guests were the family that runs the soccer program here in the Barrio. I talked to him a bit about what equipment he needs. It sounds like the most important thing would be a bunch of soccer shoes. I’ll have to give some thought as to how we could get them down here, but as soon as I figure that out you can expect to get a call from us.

Impromptu Band