Heading Westward towards Barahona

Saturday morning comes early, and we meet Bob for breakfast downstairs about 7:30 before leaving Santo Domingo to head westward along the coast.  On the way out of the city, we pass the monument the dictator, Rafael Trujillo  (ruled from 1931 - 1961) built to host the “World’s Fair” to which no one came.  A short while later, we also pass by the ugly monument where Trujillo was assassinated.  It is meant to be ugly to represent how ugly Trujillo's regime was.  Bob tells us the story of his assassination and some about his horrendous reign of espionage and rule.  Keeping in mind the time frame (Cuba-Castro-Bay of Pigs, an attempted overthrow of the Venezuelan government), seven men, armed with CIA provided weapons waited in ambush for Trujillo as he drove towards his home down the coast a little ways in San Cristobal.  They had attempted to kill him once before.  It is rumored that the guns had been hidden within the Episcopal Church of the Epiphany (the Cathedral), Bob said.  When the men started firing, Trujillo got out of the car, perhaps thinking he was invincible, and started shooting back.  His body was riddled with bullets.  They put his body in the trunk of a car and left the car in a driveway of a house.  Within a month, six of the seven attackers were dead, because Trujillo’s son came to power.  The son then fled to France about a year later, where he was killed in a car accident within a year.  Coincidence?  Hmmm.  The driver of Trujillo’s car survived until about four years ago – but he never spoke about the ambush and assassination.  The seventh man who attacked him also survived because he fled to the US, and he wrote a book, but eventually came back to the DR.  He just died about seven or eight years ago.  The seven men were part of the same revolutionary movement as the Marybelle sisters, and for which the priest Charles Barnes was martyred.  Bob recommends another book, The Feast of the Goat, to learn more about the times and events.

We go on to Haina, the largest port on the southern coast of the DR, perhaps in the country.  It is very much a blue-collar, working-class town.  We stop at San Marcos church and school. We meet with Alejandro, who is on the Vestry.  He used to be the Jr. Warden.  His wife now is.  They have a woman priest, but she is away at a retreat.   Alejandro thinks the Epis.copal Church is on the right track with all of its efforts to grow new churches, start schools and meet other social needs such as clinics and food pantries.  San Marcos has a very active congregation.  It is the largest school in the diocese with over 600 students.  This campus is in pretty good shape.  The original small church-in-the –round building is now the library.  The large church is beautiful.  A very lovely stained glass window was designed, made and given by an Episcopalian artisan from Virginia.  A local artist from Haina painted a mural of John baptizing Jesus under the stairwell near the font.  Pendular lights were donated from a church in Virginia.  Fifty scholarships a year for the school are provided by Immanuel-on-the-Hill, across from Virginia Seminary every year.  This is one of the few places that has a separate building for preschool.

We’re now in San Cristobal – home to Trujillo, but much more importantly, home to Rafaelito, our wonderful driver. How Rafaelito manages to keep his calm in this traffic and squeeze through it like he does is a complete mystery - or perhaps miracle.  He is amazing and wonderful and incredibly humble.   There is a beautiful city square in San Cristobal.  People like to gather in their public spaces, or really anywhere, here.  Dominicans are very social people.  There is frequently loud music and laughter associated with gatherings.  There is no museum to Trujillo, thanks be to God.

We stop in Santana (Saint Anne’s), where the church and school are San Matias (Saint Matthias).  The priest here, Ramon, has only been ordained for about a year, but he was a professor of philosophy at a Roman Catholic seminary for nine years.  Free range chickens roam the playground.  The school here started with only a preschool, but then, the church was asked by the town to build a school through grade 12 because children had to cross a major highway.  Around here, just crossing a regular street can be dangerous, so it's easy to see why they were concerned about the highway with their children.  The people from the town helped build the new school.  The open-air multi-purpose building used to be a pig barn, but was cleaned out to use for its present purposes as the dining area  and covered gathering spot.  The computer room, with half a dozen or so computers is completely useless  as they are all either obsolete or broken.  They need a good computer tech to see if anything can be salvaged from what they have, but basically, they just need much newer computers.  They also have a very poor library and need books in both Spanish and English.  The desks are in terrible repair - they're the one-armed kind made for right-handed people, and the metal parts need to be repainted and the formica tops are all breaking off. Padre Ramon's biggest concern however, is general security for the whole complex.  They simply have a 4' cyclone fence that is easily compromised, so gangs or others can come in and steal sound equipment or anything else from the church or school.  His desire is to have a concrete and rebar wall to deter theft around most of the property.  A team working with this church and school would either need stay in Bani or on campus, in which case they would need portable showers.  This place feels like the neglected teddy bear in the dark corner of the toy box.  It feels lonely and neglected.  It calls out to me and some of the others.

After we leave Santana, we begin to enter the desert area of the DR.  It's amazing what topological (if that's the right word) diversity there is here.  Some places look positively tropical.  Some are mountainous.  Here, there are small cactus like saguaro in miniature.  Everything is very dry and brown.  Then we come to where there is truck farming and they grow lots of tomatoes and make all the ketchup.  We pass dump trucks full of thousands of tomatoes (imagine the mess they'd make in an accident!) on their way to a ketchup plant.  Sharp mountains rise up to the north of us.  Some places look almost like the southwest US.




Lunch is in Azua, where some other mission teams have worked.  At Pollo Rey, Chicken King.  Not great.  Basically American fast food style.  Then we go to the Church of the Reconciliation, and meet their priest, Jesus (another good name for a priest).  The church is under construction, but well underway.    The first floor has been tiled.  There’s a beautiful blue tile cross on the top of the front and another on what will be the wall behind the altar.  Spray painted on the wall are marks for where the Stations of the Cross will be.  Then we go upstairs to where the padre lives with his family.  Several members of the church join us.  The hospitality everywhere here is amazing.  We as relatively very wealthy Americans, would think that they can't afford to offer anything, and yet they never fail to offer hospitality in one form or another.  Here, they offer us cups of Coke.  Because the climate is so temperate, many houses have porches that are used as a room of the house.  This home has another wonderful open porch which overlooks the small grove of banana (or plantain, I can't tell the difference) trees in the backyard.  The padre and the women each welcome us, as Bob and Josan translate.  Then, we drive to where a team from our diocese built a house for a woman with several children.  It’s impossible to describe the horrible conditions of the shed they used to live in, which is right behind their new home: blocks, rusting corrugated metal, sticks of wood all with holes plugged with rags and bits of foam rubber.  The new home may not look like much to us, but it is two bedrooms, a kitchen and a living room.  There is a refrigerator, a small stove, two beds neatly made, all in a cinderblock home with a smooth floor.  She is so proud of it.  Two of the women with us have also had homes built for them and they proudly point them out as we drive by.  Then we go to see San Jorge (St. George).  It is the oldest church built in the old style still in use.  Post and beam construction with clapboard siding of halved small saplings.  It’s been painted many times, but not for a while.  There is a back yard, fenced in with block.  Under a shelter roof, there is a painting of a momma chicken and her pios (chicks) to teach children the days of the week.  There is the old outhouse that (hopefully) is no longer used for bathrooms.  Sunday attendance in this small building is about 80 or 90.  It’ll cost about $100,000 to build a new church, but that’s what they need.  The church has only plastic white chairs, folding chairs and a few benches.  As we think we are about to leave, Jesus and the women break out into song.  They sing a song in which each verse includes one of us by name to invite us back.  It’s very sweet and touching and joyful.  We drop the women and Jesus off back at the church and get underway again for Barahona.

It’s a bit of a drive, so we do a Bible study as we go.  It’s on the Gospel for Sunday, which is Mark’s version of the Transfiguration.  It’s a good discussion.  The idea of Jesus changing appearance makes me think of a picture that Julius took at San Juan Bautista where the picture on the wall of Jesus is right next to the face of one of the male singers in the choir and there is such a similarity between the two faces.  We have seen Jesus transfigured into so many faces in the last several days; we have only to look into the eyes and smiles before us, in to the least of these who face incredible deprivation from what we are so used to and take for granted.  Jesus has been before us in the faces of those who have provided such wonderful hospitality, such gracious welcome, such hope and perseverance in the face of so little.




We reach Barahona and go first to the church, Jesus Peregrino, Jesus the Pilgrim.  It is in the midst of a very poor barrio, one of the poorest we’ve seen, which is saying something.  Children are everywhere.  According to Bob, there are lots of single mothers here, lots of drugs.  The main industry is a sugar cane processor, but the work is getting more mechanized and is slowing down, so fewer employees.  Lots of unemployment.  The church has a school with it that goes up to third grade.  They are planning on opening a bakery to sell bread to the neighborhood.  They own a piece of property on the corner across from the church, but the bishop hasn’t decided exactly how to use it.  If we were to come here, projects might include building bathrooms, repairing roofs or homes, painting, or doing a VBS.  Afterwards, we go to the hotel, Costa Larimar, “where all your dreams come true.”  It looks great from the outside, white with blue trim.  It's named after the gemstone which is found only here in the DR, which is blue and white.  The hotel has a pretty pool with poolside dining and bar.  A flagstone walk goes out to the beach.  But it’s the last rose of summer.  The interior is shabby chic without the chic.  But it’s perfectly serviceable.  We get settled in and meet downstairs.  I walk out to the beach, but don’t feel particularly safe, so come back in to the bar.  The bar is not very well stocked, so I just have an El Presidente Light beer again.  Dinner is included in our bill.  Some of the folks comment that it is somewhere between Dominican and American food, but it seems pretty much like everything else we’ve had. Carrot Soup, Arroz Mexicali (Mexican Rice), a sweet carrot dish for over the rice, beef chunks that I don’t try, a shrimp seafood mixture that’s also good over the rice, and a few other things.  Some fresh tomatoes that might have come from the fields we passed.  They don’t do desserts well.  There are some red or green servings in sherbet dishes that are gelled but have either kiwi or an unidentified fruit in them.  They are incredibly sweet and pretty inedible.  Some folks try the option that looks like cheesecake, but it is very hard to slice into and it's pure sugar according to those who tried it.  Oh well.  Early to bed.  No internet or phone access from this place.  Phone access has been very sketchy for the last day or so anyway.  It doesn't seem as though there are very many people staying here besides our group.  It's a strange feeling place and I don't sleep very well.  Early in the morning, I think I hear someone trying to enter our room, but fortunately, there's a chain on the door.  Perhaps it's just my imagination...