There are no more mangos. When I first got here in September I was overwhelmed with the amount of available mangos. At the entrance to our neighborhood there is a stand where people sell mangos, flowers and avocados all the time. It’s now November and they aren’t selling mangos anymore. There are avocados, flowers and papiya which isn’t as good. Mango is like sweet, orange marshmallows. That’s how it tastes to me. Now there are none.
I will be leaving in less than a month. In so many ways I have learned about myself and have changed, yet I feel a lot the same. I was looking at pictures on facebook from other mission experiences I’ve had. Those experiences were brilliant. Each trip I’ve been on has brought its own experiences and lessons. The same is true for here, but I feel like I’ve lived here. I have a home in the Dominican Republic and a family. The kids here know me. They have learned from me and I have learned from them. They have improved my Spanish and I have improved their English. The little girls were making pictures and writing stories underneath. So many of them wrote, “We love you Amber, don’t ever leave!” I nearly cried! This has been one of the most fulfilling experiences of my life. I hope in some I have left an imprint on them too!
If you didn’t know we were supposed to have a Hurricane hit us today. It’s been rainy, but nothing major. Hurrican Tomas has shifted and will now hit most of Haiti if anything. Really, how much more can Haiti take? So I had English class today and so many kids came. Kids that were in my class came and others that just wanted to hang out at the club out of the rain. We had a great class and played some English/Spanish games. Oh, if Paulo Boero my old Spanish professor, could see me now! Afterwards it started to rain pretty hard so we decided we would take everyone home in the truck. It’s like a seven passenger vehicle, so we were going to see what we could do. We also had lots of the little kids with us and they can squeeze. After all was said and done there were diecesiete, 17, kids in the car! This sounds dangerous, but really it’s how the Dominican’s roll. As many people in a car as you can possibly fit. So we drove to Agua Negra/Playa Oeste and all sang Waka Waka as loud as we could. When we dropped them off everyone jumped out and gave hugs and kisses. It was a crazy wonderful car ride.
These are some of the things I’ll take home with me, maybe I’ll try to come back next mango season!