Saturday, June 23, 2007

Finally got a good night’s sleep! Some of the youth from the group of music students stood around and watched as we packed up. Boomboxes are, apparently, another universal. The young men had it cranked up.

Since all our stuff was packed onto the truck, we rode in an air conditioned van to Santo Domingo. What a luxury!

We went shopping at the mall we always visit. Another of the annual traditions is for Fred to get his shoes shined by one of the people outside the mall. Since he wasn’t along, I planned to get mine shined (they needed it!), but there were no shoeshine boys today!

We had lunch at the same chicken place we visit each year – good food, lots of seating space. Martires has the waitress pack up the leftovers in doggie bags, and gives them to the young boys who are begging nearby.

After a short stop at the offices of FH, we drove on to our hotel. Eliezer headed out to meet the next team – we were sorry that he couldn’t stay with us another day. Lynn, Talia and I shared a room. We all enjoy being just a little on the chilly side, so we had the air conditioning cranked up! We headed for the pool right away. The water was warm and soothing. When we got there, some of the others were already involved in a game of keep-away with some of the other hotel guests, who looked about the age to be college students.

Some of the team decided to go for a walk along the beach. Kristi (Martires’ wife) and Krismar, their daughter, stayed, so I did too. I was really enjoying the pool! The college students also stayed in the pool. They’re trying to learn English, so practiced with me. I thought one of them asked “How old are you?” - quite impertinent! Kristi cleared that up, though, he’d said “How are you?” One little word can lead to so much misunderstanding!