Challenges

This week I've been busy cramming two weeks-worth of school into 5 1/2 days. It actually wasn't quite as stressful as I thought it would be. Last night I even took the liberty :-) of staying up watching a movie with Chastity and Alicia until 2:30 this morning! I have had only six hours of sleep, but I don't feel too tired yet.

The reason I've been cramming with school is because we have a team coming in tonight (Saturday) that will be here for a week. It will basically be just Nate and me taking video for this outreach and I'm feeling the pressure already. I'm working on a schedule so we can hopefully cover all the sites Mon.-Wed., which will give me Thursday-Friday at 4:00 p.m. to put the whole thing together. We'll see how things go...

I had a brand new challenge this morning. Nate told me earlier this week that I need to get the oil changed in the little blue motorcycle before this outreach because I'll be doing a TON of running back and forth. The place where Nate usually goes to get the oil changed is a little tiny building--more like a room, actually--in town. That's right, in town. Or rather on the edge of town, but you do have to go through two busy intersections to get there. Not to mention I would have to go alone and I don't speak much Spanish. Very scary.

So...I had been kind of putting it off until today because I was rather nervous about the whole thing. But it had to be done. I had breakfast this morning, cleaned up a little, shoved 300 pesos in my pocket, Nate drew me a little map and wrote down what to say, and I headed off. I got through the intersections no problem, but I accidentally passed the place (as I said, it was small--smaller than I expected, and the sign didn't stand out at all) and had to go onto a different street and circle back around. When I came back around, I was at the second intersection again. It's very wide and curves around and there are no lane markings on the street, so when I stopped at the traffic light that no one listens to anyway, I realized I was on the wrong side of the street. But that's the great thing about Dominican drivers; nothing fazes them. They just went around me, no problem, and not even a glance. The traffic wasn't heavy anyway (thank you Lord). If you do something wrong, just pretend you did it on purpose. They all drive around each other because there's no driving laws anyway.

The motorcycle place was called De Leon Racing. I parked on the street and asked one of the guys there for Idani (not sure I spelled that right), the Christian guy there that Nate knows. I'm so glad Nate wrote down what I was supposed to say because I just pointed to what he wrote on the note and apologized because I don't speak much Spanish. A little awkward, but not too hard, I guess.

So one of the employees there changed the oil and checked and greased the chain for me while Idani worked on his bass guitar, lol! [For those of you who don't know it, lol means "laugh out loud." Mom said I should clarify.] Then the coolest thing happened. I saw a big Dominican guy coming across the street toward De Leon that I recognized. It was Daniel Suarez, a former SI staff member who speaks perfect English! (He was on staff when I was here in 2007) He was carrying a little container of mongu (Dominican potato-like dish), and he walked in and just started chatting with Idani and the employees while he ate his breakfast. I couldn't help but grin, I was so relieved! I asked him, "You're Daniel Suarez, right?" He looked surprised and asked who I was. So we chatted a little bit and he also translated for me and Idani. Oh, I was so glad I had waited until this morning to go get the oil changed! That kind of timing is "God-perfect!"

Today I have to do an outline and research for a 4-page history paper that's due on the 10th after the team leaves. This afternoon at around 4:30-ish I need to go over to the base and go through all the equipment and make sure all the cameras are working, batteries charged, tapes rewound, and the tripods are put together. The team this outreach is actually two separate groups and I want to be there when the final group comes at 5:00 p.m.