Easter Week in Dominican Republic

Easter Dinner with Senior Missionaries



Another shot of Easter Dinner with Senior Missionaries





Janet on the Beach on Juan Dolio on her birthday




Getting around in the Dominican Republic



April in the Dominican Republic



 







 

Catching a ride



Another truck headed for the market. If you look close you can see eggs and green bananas ( these are not the regular bananas),green peppers and then some sort of roots. 

Power distribution in the Dominican Republic

According to our understanding, the government provides all the power and sells it to power wholesalers who then distribute it. The distrubtion system belongs to these distributors. Over time people have tied into it without permission and without paying that they estimate up to 60% of the power is delivered without paying for it. The distributors go broke and new one comes on line and runs new lines to try and see that he is paid for his power, but eventually he looses so much power to non payers that he also goes broke The next one runs more new lines. As you can see it is a royal mess. Usually everyday power will go out for a time. All nice apartments and office buildings have backup power generation systems.



Another view of power poles in the Dominican Republic

 Moon Lake wastes a lot of pole space. They could put a lot more wires on those poles, don't you think?

Dinner with the Fords & the Roberts at our apartment

The Fords are serving in the Santo Domingo West Mission Office, the Roberts are Perpetual Education Fund Missionaries, and those folks on the far right look a little lost, don't you think?

Groceries for this week

Here are the things we purchased today. We show this only to ask you to guess "how many plastic bags do you think they used to bag this up?" They use a lot, but I doubt you would guess 20, but that is how many bags they used. One bag had 2 cubes (not pounds) of butter, another had a small can of Nestles Quick. It is no wonder that you see so many blowing in the wind and everywhere.

When you don't have a truck a bike will do.

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Bikes just make their way through traffic



Puppet show



Elder Berkley and puppets

We were gratful to the Berkleys for taking an evening their last week as missionaries to go with us to our branch and put on the puppet show they had show several times while in the DR.  They have gone to orphanages and other branches and wards throughout their mission.



Elder and Sister Berkley getting ready for the next show
Brother and Sister Berkley  are waiting for their turn on stage as Sister  Mead and Sister de Scheinwitz's daughter in law finish their part.  the three ladies rode up with us to help.  Sister de Scheinwitz is the photographer for the group.  She is a temple missionary here from California.



the puppet stage at 6:40

We were scheduled to start and 6:00, but didn't start until 6:30-after going out and rounding up some of the kids. By the time we finished the first show we had a nice sized group, and they were still coming.

The cutest one at the show

                                                  Lots of cute little ones enjoyed the show. 

The audience by the time the second show started

As we ended the first show most of the seats were filled.  Elder Berkley would talk to them for a couple of minutes and tell them about each presentation.

Front row seat at the puppet show

 By the end of the third show every seat in the little church was filled and people were watching through the door and window and it was dark outside.  I think they would have been willing to sit through the three shows again.  It was a great evening.

Our home in Santo Domingo



Living Room

  We really enjoy our living room. It is open and spacious. Our view is out over our noicy street. If we look careful between the buildings we can see the spire of the Temple just a couple of blocks away, but mostly shielded by big high rise buildings. We also look out the east on a school yard.


Dinning Room

 This is our place to eat our meals and share with company when they come to visit.



Master Bedroom

The bedroom is spacious. When we arrived we thought it strange that the bed only had a bottom and top sheet and no blankets. That does not seem strange now. That is all you want and need.  

Second  Bedroom

We  even have a 2nd Bedroom for company

Kitchen


We have a great kitchen. We need it because all our produce gets a clorox wash and all our dishes also get a clorox rinse. We have a working microwave and a dishwasher (not built in - she is also a housecleaner and cook and audit trainer).





Office



 This is our office where we work at home, study spanish and skype.



Front Porch

Here is our room overlooking the street. It is great to study. It has a piano. Here our Dishwasher is studing Spanish

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Fresh Water Supply


                      All drinking water in purchased in bottles. We use 1 1/2 of these bottles a week.

Maid's Quarters

 The apartment was designed to have a maid's quaters but we don't have a maid. Actually we do, but she is also the dishwasher, cook and Spanish student.

Our Parking Place

 Our parking space with our car.