Hello faithful followers!
For the past few days we have been staying with Luis and Rossy in the northern part of the city. Starting with the birthdays of Rosa Lee and Rossy this week, adventures seem to arise everyday here and it sounds like we have a lot more coming up in the next couple of weeks.
Before we came here to stay, we were in contact with a woman who was trying to put together a Christmas dinner for displaced elderly. She was in need of food, volunteers to cook and to serve. I called and signed up for at least food donations, with the hope of serving the 100+ elderly. Marsia and I had fun gathering all the right food together for their dinner. We're hopeful we will be able to make it tomorrow afternoon to serve. It is about an hour and a half away, so we shall see. If not at this Christmas event, then maybe another. There is so much going on around here, it is crazy!
Last night Rosa Lee and El Grupo Lee had a concert in a "city" about an hour and a half away. A taxi van was rented for the journey. We started with nine people piled in this van and a few instruments. We were told that we needed to pick up a few people along the way. All I could think was how are all these other people going to fit in here?
Basically, the driver would just go down the road, pull over to the side and someone would hop in with an instrument. The first guy brings a bass drum that takes up two seats and then there were guitars, keyboards, etc. The last stop is pick up a back up dancer. We get there and she is stuck in traffic somewhere and we wait about a half hour with 14 people crammed in this van for her to arrive. She gets there and we are off!
Once at our destination, we are escorted to the "V.I.P." section and served a massive platter of food (we aren't sure what it was and weren't very willing to find out). Of course I (Marsia) has to use the restroom from drinking all my water in the car ride over, so I asked for a bathroom and was taken out back. Fortunately, Jill told me grab a napkin on the way. I was taken to a "shed" built from sticks and a tarp for a curtain. The woman stood outside while I just went inside. There might have been a bucket or something but honestly, it was way too dark to see. It was a VERY rural part of town, needless to say. If ever I needed my "whizzies", this was the place.
Miguel from Monte Plata
The concert was great. The people in the community were excited to host the celebration. It was amazing to see kids of all ages (even toddlers) dancing in the streets until the wee hours of the morn. We all piled back in the van and dropped people off along the way.
Word of the day: Guira ... (gwee-rah) a guira is a percussion instrument which looks a lot like a cheese grater with a metal hair pic to "accentuate the beat of the music". No respectable bachata group would even attempt to play without a decent guira player.
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