June 17, 2006, Departure Day

I’m glad I took Friday off – I was still packing and repacking until almost 10:00. I did take time during the day to go for a nice lunch with my daughter, Melanie.

I woke up at 3:15 a.m., mentally reviewing what I’d packed, what I should have packed, what I should still pack. I gave up on sleep at about 3:45, and checked my e-mail and putzed around. Then Fred and I met the rest of the group at the park and ride. Melanie drove our van back home, and we rode in Rick’s van with Carol, Rick, Casey and Fran to Chicago O’Hare. Fran drove their van back to Madison.

I thought I’d fall asleep on the flight from Chicago to Miami, because I was tired, and I usually sleep pretty easily on the plane. I didn’t though – wish I had – I could have used the sleep!

Although Miami to Santo Domingo was a shorter flight, I did doze off. The flight was delayed, so we got into Santo Domingo around 8:00 p.m. When we landed, the pilot made the first announcement in English, with the standard information, weather (85°), wishing us all a nice stay. Then the flight attendant near to where I was sitting made an announcement in Spanish. He started with “Buenas Tardes” (Good evening). “Que pasa?” (How are you doing?” Then something about getting “a bien dormir” (good sleep). Apparently, I wasn’t the only passenger who dozed!

We had no difficulty getting through immigration. In fact, Vonda and Jenny, who had studied Spanish all year (along with Casey) enjoyed talking with the inspectors in Spanish. I took the easy way out and just spoke English.

It took a while to collect all of our luggage and verify that we had everything. Then Vonda took some video of our luggage “convoy”. We had some fun hamming it up for the camcorder. Most of the team had gotten less than a good night’s sleep the night before, and in-flight naps didn’t quite repay the sleep debt, so we were getting a little punchy. The customs officials read our shirts (Food for the Hungry), and waved us through.

Victor, Martires and Jose of Food for the Hungry, and one of Jose’s nephews, were waiting for us. It was so good to see them again! They are all Dominican-born, and have a great passion for helping their country to know Christ.

Vonda took more video of our convoy as we pushed our carts to the parking lot, and loaded up the truck. On the truck were two brand-new wheelbarrows! Fred said just seeing them made his knee feel better! He had badly injured his knee on our 2003 trip, pushing an old wheelbarrow that zigged when it should have zagged!

Victor and Martires speak fluent English, but Jose only speaks a little. Vonda enjoyed being able to converse with him without the aid of an interpreter for the first time. Many of our teammates this year speak Spanish. Casey, Jenny, Vonda, Brandon, Kati, Carol and Karyn are fairly fluent. Arianne speaks Spanish well, and also speaks two other languages - her native Indonesian, as well as English. The rest of us rely pretty heavily on Spanish/English dictionaries when we don’t have Victor or Martires nearby!

We stopped at the pizza place, where Fred and I shared a table with Carol and Casey. Casey pulled out a deck of cards she’d brought along – a game called “Ask Me Anything”. We had fun playing that as we waited for our supper.

After supper, we drove to the camp. We were impressed by the improvements made for the national games in the last year. The road from Yamasa to the camp was new and smooth. The bridge had been replaced with a new bridge. The indoor stadium that had been under construction in 2005 was finished and, at night, looked well built and very nice.

Best of all, though, we had electricity when we got to the camp! Electricity means the fans will be running! That will make sleeping a lot easier!