Week 5 Home Visits

We actually found 5 houses this week, unlike like last week when we only found one house in an hour and a half! Up until this week I didn't know that many Dominicans (at least in Jarabacoa) have never taken a bath before. Our neighbors and fellow KAI missionaries, who have a 5 year old daughter (Melia), told me that one of Melia's Dominican friends came over and they were given a bath. When her friend saw the bath full of water she said, "Wow! You have a pool!!!" She was so excited to be completely covered with water, to play in it, and even discovered that she couldn't hear when she was under water. Another story I heard involves one of the girls who attended Anija and became good friends with one of the missionary families. She had just taken a shower for the first time in their house and afterwards came downstairs and asked, "How do you turn it off?" She had never bathed in an actual shower before. She was about 14 years old. A third story i heard, involved the Haitian boys and their last night with Kids Alive. The Field Director took them to the capital, where they were being dropped off the next day, and they stayed in a hotel. All of a sudden, they heard one of the boys yelling in the bathroom and come to find out he had turned the hot water on and 1. probably didn't know what a hot shower felt like and 2. didn't know how to make it colder. One of the other boys went in to help him out. :)

Here are a few pictures from today's visit. I've included a couple of pictures of these families bathrooms.

One of our students with their family posing in front of a bathroom that they share with other families that live near them.

The front of their all-wooden house.

Visiting with one of my students and her mom.

This is one of the smallest houses I've been in. Behind the curtain on the left is another small room where they sleep. There is a bathroom outside that they share with their neighbors.

A community bathroom.

A view along the way while we found the student's houses.