las mañanitas: actually, it doesn’t really look or feel like christmas at all here, but that’s ok, i'm trying my best. i think maybe because it's still so hot and dominican christmas music doesn't sound like the christmas music i'm used to... but i am learning some new christmas traditions. for example, this week began what is called "las mañanitas". basically, it is christmas caroling... but at 5:00 am! it's like a novena, so nine days before christmas we began. then every morning at 5:00 all of the kids get up, put on their sweatshirts (because when it's 70 degrees everyone is freezing here), collect their tamborines and pots and pans (or anything they could use for drums) and begin christmas caroling house to house. every day a new house is in charge of starting... so they start with the house next store and continue in order and every time they sing in front of someone's house, the people of that house come out and join them, so by the end everyone is together. the kids have so much energy at such an early hour... it's incredible! once everyone is together, we all travel to the basketball court to gather in front of the manger scene that is set up. every day there is also a house in charge of dressing up as the different people from the christmas story (mary, joseph, the 3 kings, etc)... then on the basketball court they act out a different part of the story. that is then followed with a prayer and the reading of the day's gospel. then the tradition is to head back to the houses where we drink ginger tea and eat crackers. it has been a cool way to prepare for christmas... it's less of a temptation here to forget the real reason for christmas, because we aren't so focused on gifts and shopping and all that, but it's always good to stay focused. and each morning before the prayer ends, sister fanny reminds the kids, "si no hay encuentro con dios..." (if there isn't an encounter with God...), and they shout in reply, "no hay navidad!!!!" (there is no christmas).
good-bye family: we had to say goodbye to leah on monday because she is a good third grade teacher and went back to be with her kids. but lexy and kylie still had two more days of dominican life, so they got to have a little taste of what life is like for me here on a daily basis. they got to spend time in casa san pascual with me where they learned how crazy life can be with kaki, paola and gang in the special needs house, we played after school with my boys from santa rosa (reading, drawing, soccer and just having fun in the backyard) and they spent some time helping out in the school in english classes. monday night is usually the night i do grocery shopping, so i got permission to bring salomon (my godchild) and carlos (kylie's godchild) with us. we did our grocery shopping and then took the kids to the dominos that is in the grocery store and got some soft-serve icecream afterwards. it was cute... salomon and carlos are really sweet kids and they got dressed up in their nicest clothes and were very well behaved... they even led us in the prayer before we ate our pizza. we then taught them our famous "aaaaaaamen" with the hand roll at the end of our prayer. they looked at us like we were really weird... but we had a really good time. it was sad the girls had to leave so soon, but we had a lot of fun and made a lot of memories... plus being with family helped it feel a little more like christmas!p.s. lexy took about 1,600 pictures (well kylie and i took about 100, and lexy about 1,500)... i'm going to work on posting some of them at http://dominicanrepubliccitypics.shutterfly.com/ soon. lexy's are credited with "lp"... check out her photography at http://lexypopaphoto.shutterfly.com/
"if the thing we like doing is, in fact, the thing God wants us to do, yet that is not the reason for us doing it, it remains a mere happy coincidence." - c.s. lewis
No comments:
Post a Comment