Mission trip to DR part 2

Dominican Republic mission trip, 2010

...more from the journal

7-29-2010 – Thursday

Today we started actual classes for the drama effort in the Iglesia Cristiana up on the mountain. We used my water bottle for a prop, asking the kids to use it in a way that they normally would not. We got results such as keys, a phone, a microphone, and a hair dryer, all creative ideas. We broke for siesta and walked past the first of two cantinas and up the road to pastor Eddie's mother's house. She fixed a massive meal of delicious chicken, rice, beans, shredded cabbage, avocado, eggplant and a fruit mix with mango, pineapple and some things I'm not entirely sure how to identify, but which tasted wonderful. Later, we walked further up the hill to Eddie's uncle's house. He invited us in through his house to see the view from the backyard, where we could see Moca in one direction and Santiago in the other. He has a parrot, too, which is trained to laugh, and which is delightful in spite of the fact that he bites. You just have to keep clear is all.

For the afternoon session, I had the kids read some lines, and made them say “Rejoice with me” as if they meant it – you know, acting. They all did, until the last guy in the line, and he delivered it perfectly deadpan. I tried him a few more times, encouraging him to say it as he normally would to his friends, and he was still deadpan. His friends assured me that that was indeed the way he would say it to them. That's OK – we had some non-speaking roles. I really love these people.

On the way back, in the van, (big) Bobby began playing with David, and we all laughed so hard on the rest of the trip that my eyes still burn from the tears. David is a wonderful fellow who smiles with his whole face, and who does some wonderful Laurel and Hardy impressions, my personal favorite. It's so beautiful to see him with his sister Jessica, to see the love their family shares.

Tonight is ice cream night, so I look forward to the evening outing, to see what flavors we can buy from the ice cream shop. But first we have dinner in a few minutes, so the journal gets stored away for the time being.

7-30-2010 – Friday

Ice cream night was excellent. We went to Bon, which is supposed to have some character above the O so that we pronounce it boan, but I don't remember what it was. No matter, the ice cream was good. They did not list the flavors on the wall anywhere, so you just had to sort of know what they had, except that our escort knew and confirmed my hopes that they served rum raisin. You see, that is my favorite flavor of ice cream, and while it's really good in the USA, you go anywhere in the hispanic world, and you will taste the most wonderful ice cream in the world if you think to ask for rum raisin.

Anyway, today we blocked the play. I will be honest and tell you that this was easily the hardest day I had while in the DR, because we used the siesta time after eating to have the casting committee meet (Dawn, Sarah, Molly and yours truly, plus Wendi because she speaks English and knows who the kids are), and we spent the entire time getting it done, with no real chance to wind down. We filled the most difficult, least flexible roles first, then plugged in the ones that could, in some alternate universe, have been female - because, predictably, we had more female actors than male, and who knows? Maybe the King's personal finance officer could have been a girl.

Amazingly, we matched each of the 24 kids to a role in the play (with nobody being relegated to third shepherd from the left, you understand) though not all had speaking roles. Each person was at the very least a non-speaking accountant who flipped a page and had to actually “act.” None of the kids had to take dual roles. It was perfect. There's your first miracle.

About halfway through the first act, I realized that it was going to take a second miracle to get the blocking done by 4:30, so we could finish up and get down the mountain, so that the kids could go home and study their lines and commit to memory what they were supposed to do. We were rotating them through, so that while Molly and I (Molly is awesome, translating my confused direction into Spanish) were working on one act, the kids in the other two acts were in the back of the room working on costumes, while others on the team were outside creating scene panels to serve as our set. Dawn was working the costume department. Molly and I were sort of double teaming them – I would give some direction, and she would translate, and then when the kids had questions, she would translate that back for me. It was order within chaos, with chaos being the more visible. We finished blocking Act I, sent our actors away to take their turns with costumes, and gathered our actors for Act II – and discovered that a couple or so had disappeared for whatever reason. One couldn't be there Sunday, another couldn't for some other reason. After crossing them off the cast list, and considering who to load down with a dual role, they came back, upset that they couldn't have a role, so we re-instated them. As I said before, we had exactly one role for each kid, a miracle.

So, by the third act, Molly and I were getting seriously tired. I was trying to follow her Spanish (and that of the kids) and not doing too badly, considering the noise coming from the costume department on the other end of the room. We were getting the idea across to them pretty well, and the kids were doing their best, and I didn't even take time to check my watch.

And we made it to the end of the Prodigal Son parable, which was Act III, at 4:32. I was astounded, pronounced it an official miracle, and went outside to get some fresh air, and maybe, just maybe, some shade. I did not collapse, and neither did Molly, and so I told the kids to review their scripts, lines and blocking before they went to bed – and I had no idea if they would really do it.

Empanadas and “the monument” were the outing for the evening. I looked forward to them both, as I had used the monument as a starting point when searching for geocaches, hoping to score yet another country for my profile. There are no caches in the area, however, so I left my GPS unit home. At the monument, we had an impromptu talent show, some very silly but harmless stuff such as backward flips and funny impressions.

The empanada stand is run by one little old man, who could not be expected to handle the rush of business that we would represent with our rather large group. So by prior arrangement, two of our drivers/escorts got behind the counter, took our orders, and later our money. He had us adopt creative fake names for this exercise. Ginger became Spice Girl, I was el Jipo, Caleb was the Mad Raccoon. Fun stuff. This made it easier for them to keep track of us.

Then back to the dorm for “devo,” the name for “devotion time,” which I personally loved, with praise and worship singing, courtesy of Patrick and his magic guitar.