Clay and Family Come to Visit

Our son Clay, his wife Amie, and their four daughters flew in from Atlanta for their Spring Break to spend a week.  We did a lot of things and had so much fun, but we'll try to compact it into just one blog post.  These are some of the things that we did:

Here they are arriving at the airport.  It was just so fun to see them!

We took them to the park to see our neighborhood.  Here they are looking at the iguana pit - it was a warm day, so all five of them were out showing off.

 The kids loved the Taino caves in the park.  Here Cailey's being silly with one of the carvings.

These pictures are outside and inside El Conoco, a Santo Domingo restaurant that features Dominican food and entertainment!

We had planned on taking them to the fort and other sites in the Colonial Zone on Saturday, but they were closed due to the Easter weekend.  We knew that they would be closed on Good Friday here, but not the next day.  There were still fun things that we could see though.

 There was a man in the square who was selling food for the pigeons.  He showed everyone how to hold it and put it on their heads, so that the birds would come visit them.  It was a little crazy, but fun!

Here they are standing in front of Christopher Columbus' statue. 

Here we are visiting our little branch in Consuelo.  Amie, like all of us, fell in love with Anna Maria, shown here with Cailey, and wants to figure out how she can bring her to the States for her last two years of high school.  It would be a wonderful experience for Anna Maria, but I don't think she could leave her family.

We spent Easter afternoon in our apartment - the Easter bunny even found them down here, and  they did an egg hunt, filling little Dominican purses as their baskets.  We spent most of the afternoon preparting for the puppet show for the next day. 

 Here they all are standing outside the Santo Domingo Temple.

 We had made arrangements to perform a Health Fair puppet show for students at ADR which is a rehabilitation center in this country that the Church also has as their wheelchair partner.  There were around 70 students and teachers who attended, many with Downs Symdrom and other disabilities. The show is provided by the Church for health fairs where, using muppet-like puppets, the audience can learn about the importance of eating well (you can see Mr. Protein, Miss Carbohydrate, and the Vitamins and Mineral twins here).  We also talked about the importance of washing hands and food before eating.  They also have a cigarette and alcohol portion, but they weren't appropriate for this audience.

 Then we performed it again that night for the senior missionaries to see in case they wanted to do something like it when they had family come.  The kids did such a great job and loved being able to serve like this.  The doctor at ADR wrote such a nice note and hopes that this can be done again.

Here are the bad "microbias" who can be removed by proper hand washing. 

Afterwards, we took them to the Doll Factory to see how those sweet little figurines were made, and they each purchased one to take home.

 Tres Ojos is a cavern with three underground lakes and one outside one that you can only reach by a boat which is hand-pulled across the third lake.

 The outside lake shown here was apparently used in the movie Jurassic Park III.

Here are the girls posed by one of the beautiful pools - "Tres Ojos" means "three eyes" for each of the three lakes that were used by the Taino Indians for bathing.  

Here we are getting settled at Iberostar, an all-inclusive restore on Dominicus Beach.  We were greeted by a beautiful peacock, sitting on an entrance table looking at himself.  One of the workers told us that he had never seen that before.
Now he's strutting through the garden.

We had made arrangements to go out on a boat with Scuba Fun to Saona Island.  The boys went scuba diving while we snorkeled.  It was a gorgeous day!

At Saona Island, the girls played in the ocean and hunted for shells.

Amie found a place down the beach where they were cooking beautiful lobster.  But we had a nice Dominican lunch in a different spot

Back on board the boat, we headed out to the "worlds largest swimming pool" or something like that. We jumped into water that was only waist deep to find beautiful giant star fish on the bottom.  Because star fish can't breath air, it was important for us to keep them pretty submerged for picture taking.  Still, it was amazing to see all of these beautiful creatures there on the ocean floor...

All and all, we had just a wonderful week, and were so grateful to share our island with Clay and his family!

Tree Planting at the National Zoo

               There is a large zoo here in Santo Domingo that we haven’t ever visited.  So, when we were asked to film a service project there, we thought it would be fun.    We’ve shown you pictures of the park near our apartment – it used to be the zoo.  It’s so small, that it almost seems like it must have actually been a petting zoo, rather than a real zoo.  The new zoo (which is about 25 years old) is north of the city.

          The project was a tree planting at the zoo, and our Church’s young adults between 19 and 30 were asked to participate.  It was a little hard because it was on a week-day morning, but we had about fifteen turn out which was really enough. Other groups had particpants as well.  

Here's the first group - I love how many of the Dominican women pose,
such a the girl with her hand on her hips. I've seen even little girls do thi!

          Reforestation is a big thing in this part of the world, which is interesting to us because there are so many trees.  The Church does have a big project planned for Haiti soon, but that is because of the damage done by hurricanes. 

               The Church donated about 50 trees for the project.

Here the zoo workers are moving the trees from our truck to theirs.

   











The zoo workers went ahead and dug the holes, and then the kids just plopped in the trees, so it went very quickly.

We don’t have a lot of photos of the zoo itself because we were concentrating on the tree planting project, and after the Atlanta Zoo, this was is not really unique, although it's the largest zoo in the Carribbean.  There is supposed to be a white rhino, but didn't have time to go looking for it.  The flamingoes, though, are beautiful and so tropical.

 

It was a fun project, and we were glad to be a part of it.  As you can see, the kids themselves had a ball…

Dominican Cottage Industry - the Faceless Doll

Many folks here make beautiful things to sell.  When you go to the beach, there is always someone with lovely wood carvings that he tries to sell to you or an oil painting of a Dominican scene. 

Right after we came here, I saw this 
darling doll in a store –
 I love her because she is so dignified & lovely.

Probably the most famous “craft” from the Dominican Republic is the faceless doll.  These dolls, which are made by a number of manufacturers here, represent the people of the country who are of Taino Indian, African, Spanish, French and other ethnicities – they don’t have faces because they are everyone.

There is another style that we have fallen in love with, too. These other dolls that I love are made from a special ceramic material and are made with amazing details.  A few months ago, a number of us went to visit the home where these dolls are manufactured in a nearby town.  This “factory” is a real example of a successful cottage industry- at least ten women are working there.  And then next door, her husband does wood working and makes darling shoeshine kits, wood trays, business card holders, etc. The woman is named Mary and her husband is Joseph.

The women must make thousands of these sweet little dolls of different sizes and nativities.  The clay itself is some kind of resin that dries very hard, but I saw some large bags of cornstarch, so that must be part of it.  When the basic clay is made, they add a large squirt of oil paints until the get the right color.

Here's where Joseph and some other men work on wood projects.

Here's what the whole workroom looks like

There are the molds for the body
of the doll.

Can you see the pasta roller on the left?  That's how they roll
out the material for the skirt.

The skirt has designs for the lace and little flowers added
and then they pleat them to make the skirts.

Now they have a skirt on them.

These dolls will have several skirt layers.

These are the little collars for the dolls' dresses.

You can see the assembly line process that they use - all of the little parts that are made separately and then put together – the intricacy is just amazing.  All the "lace" and other edgings like on the ruffled skirts are done with a bag that looks like a frosting bag...

Here is a closeup of the collars - see the lace and little flowers.

These the little umbrellas that will be added.

These are little magnets - almost done. They are intricate, too, but not three-dimensional  

      And now they have their faces!

Here's a finished doll - all the ruffles on
her dress!

And here is one of the nativity scenes that I've ordered for the family.  Can you see that even baby Jesus has a laced edged blanket and Joseph has a rope sash?  They are just amazing...

Mary is sweet - Joseph even has stripes on his robe.  I love the fringe at the bottom of his shawl.
 They are just so sweet - even the grass is very detailed.