Getting busy

Things are starting to pick up now for me! It was nice to have the weekend to just settle in and relax, but I think I'm ready to get busy now. We only have one team coming this fall (in November), so my responsibilities for the next few monthes are basically to do all the odd media projects that no one else has had time to do yet. I will be managing the blogs for a couple of the other ministry sites and working on DVD presentations to send to supporters and child sponsors back in the States.

My first assignment is to put together a 5-minute overview of ALL the Students International (SI) ministry sites in the Dominican Republic for Lowell, the SI director in the D.R., to take to the States on the 23rd. SI upgraded to a Mac computer since I was here last, so I'll have to learn how to work with that also. Alicia is going to help me out. :-)

So, today I did school in the morning and then Nate gave me a motorcycle lesson. I drove around on the winding back roads behind our house for a while to practice, then this afternoon we headed to town to pick up Cammy from the public hospital. (Cammy is a nurse who interned with SI earlier. She's back for a few weeks to work with the SI doctors at their ministry sites, and is staying with us at Slabach's house. This morning she helped with four surgeries!)

Anyway, long story, but we ended up not having to pick her up, so we were free to head over to the mission base outside of town for my job orientation, but it started POURING rain! We waited under the awning of the hospital for at least 45 minutes; it let up just enough that we decided just to go for it. SO...my first time on the big main road (traffic...GULP!) and it's raining. Actually, it wasn't too bad; there were less people out and about than I thought there would be.

(This is my lesson bike; it used to be Andrea's, but it's Chastity's now.)

I spend most of the afternoon watching DVD presentations that Andrea and Alicia had made for teams over the summer so I could get a feel for what kind of video shots and pictures I'm supposed to be getting for the projects I'm going to be working on. Then I played around with the new Mac computer for a while (SWEET, as Andrea would say, lol!). My next computer is going to be a Mac. I've converted. :-)

(This photo is from last year when Andrea and I were working on a presentation on the old boring Windows pc. :-)

Maggie had the annual pulga (not sure of the spelling, but it's basically a yard sale) for the staff and their families at the mission base this afternoon/evening. Donated clothes, towels, shoes, shampoo, insect repellant, and other random items were put up for sale at low prices. Maggie said the staff really look forward to this every year! Here are a few photos:

Before:

During:

After:

We finished the day with supper (thanks for treating us all, Cammy!) from Pica Pollo, the Dominican version of fast food! Pica Pollo is a roadside stand that sells fried plantains and Dominican-style fried chicken...absolutely wonderful! The plantains are fried, mashed, and then fried again; they taste similar to french fries, but even better!