Barahona Day 4

Day 4 in Barahona was mostly time spent in the Dominicans of Haitian descent community. In the morning we went to Batey 7 to learn about the community and its history as well as sit in during a health info session with a bunch of mothers. We were taught that Bateys were originally the living areas for Dominicans who worked in the huge amounts of sugar cane fields in the surrounding areas. It was a much different community than the rest of the Dominican we've seen so far. It was my more run down and had very different infrastructure. None of the streets were paved but a majority of the city had very, very nice sidewalks and curbs lining the streets, which stood out among the rest of the buildings and the street. The largest neighborhood was named la gran manzana, or "The Big Apple", and they also had a Martin Luther King street. It was really interesting to see the difference in life style between the city and the Batays.
Hearing Creole spoken by Marc Hare (one of two PCUSA mission coworkers) and several of the people who lived in the city was awesome. We haven't really heard Creole at all and I think we all found it pretty beautiful to hear.
At night, we slammed down some dinner and headed to a local church of Dominicans of Haitian descent. It was packed, unlike many of the IED churches we've attended, and the power went out almost immediately but came back on shortly. The worship was incredible and really seemed to be straight from the heart. A man came up and preached a pretty intense sermon, which we couldn't understand cause it was in Creole. Many aspects of the church felt very legalistic to some of us. There were a few people in matching shirts who would walk around and make sure no one was sleeping and keep the children in order, and there seemed to be a very specific way of participating in the different aspects of the service. It was clearly different than the Dominican churches we've been to so far.
Overall, I found the day to be really cool learning about the Dominicans of Haitian descent, and the history of Batey 7. It was kind of refreshing to see such a different type of community only half an hour outside the city. Tomorrow we're helping clean up a different neighborhood in the morning then heading to the beach in the afternoon. Go Bears.

⁃ Evan

Quick Hits:
⁃ Today was Deja's birthday! She is finally no longer a teenager!
⁃ Stu, Andres and Evan's mustaches are finally reaching completion (Andres' is debatable).
⁃ Kim got hit with a stick for wearing her shirt inside out.