More of Santo Domingo

I had a minute without kids on my lap and thought I would post some more pictures of the area we live in! I also wanted to say how thankful I am for all of the people in my life! I am so blessed to still be in touch with so many good friends. Thanks to all of you for being a part of my life!

The Ashton School from the street

The main classroom building-the swimming pool is behind the tree and the blue fence there. Farther to the right is an open courtyard.

Alex with the school duck! Actually there are two. They understand Spanish and like to eat the ficus tree leaves....interesting.

Alex working at Joe's desk and my Emma blissfully hanging from a ficus tree near the lunch tables.

A plant nursery in our neighborhood that we pass on the way home from school and the colmado where we get our bottled water. A colmado is like a convenience store here but they deliver. Those are motorcycles with plastic crates on the back. You give them a call and they send a kid on a motorcycle with your water or whatever else you may want from the colmado! This is just down the street from our apartment. Oh, it also doubles as a little car lot :)



Our apartment building-we're the apt. on the top left and this is our street-that's Emma by the black car and Joe pushing the stroller. To the right is a salon and then the construction site.

Well, that's enough for tonight. Hope this gives you a better idea of what our teeny corner of Santo Domingo looks like! I have more, but I'll save them for later! Have a great day...

Merry Christmas From the Ritchie Family

Merry Christmas from Ethan!

Merry Christmas from Emma!

Merry Christmas from Ivy!

Merry Christmas from Alex!

We hope that everyone had a great holiday!

Having fun

This is "our aguacate guy." He's one of the many fruit vendors who comes down our street everyday. He whistles and shouts "aguacate (avocado)!!" He then rattles off the names of the other fruits in his cart really, really fast. When we hear him, the kids will climb up in the front window and shout "Senor!" and then he'll stop and wait for me to come down. I like to buy avocados and bananas from him. Sometimes I'll get a pineapple, cantaloupe, mango, or some oranges too. It's really fun to have your very fresh fruit come right to your door everyday! Well, yesterday the kids were in the living room playing blocks. We heard him whistle and Ivy looks up and shouts "aguacate!!" It was soooo cute and I couldn't believe she said it! So I said "Ivy do you want an aguacate?" She stomps her little feet and sticks out her bum (I don't know why she does this but it always means she's happy) and says "ya, ya, yaaaaa." I loved it. My baby is learning Spanish :)

The kids are also into playdough and clay again lately. Alex is holding his version of Shreck (even though he hasn't seen that movie) and Emma made a caterpillar.

Ethan is also learning new skills! I have found a benefit to this teeny tiny washer!

The kids think it's great fun, and I've been amazed to find that even my 3 year old wants a turn to do the laundry :) I came around the corner to find him finishing up the tablecloth. Of course, this is NOT one of Ethan's assigned household jobs. I think that just adds to the excitement for him though.

Ivy has discovered the fun of Emma's Barbie lipsticks (among other things hidden in Emma's closet). I thought she looked a little strange, and on further inspection had nothing more to say than, "Wow Ivy aren't you beautiful!" Of course, she thought so and every little girl has to do this at least once.

Kids are cute :)

Ethan comes out of the bedroom the other day looking like the above and says to me, "Mom, I know this church is true!" I was trying my best not to laugh because he was being so very serious! I asked him how he knew the church was true and he said that Jesus told him. I asked him later why he needed to have mascara on his eyebrows in order to tell me this. He said that he was being Joseph Smith. I thought it was too sweet not to put on my blog!


Ivy is sick. Yesterday her cold went from normal to trouble breathing. Luckily we are friends with a Dominican family here who are extremely kind and helpful! She is a doctor and he is a pharmaceutical rep. so last night we had a nebulizer, antibiotics, Tylenol, and TLC-all without leaving the house! She'll make a house call tonight to check on her again. What a blessing! I was nervous last night because the medical system here is something we haven't experienced yet and you never know what a hospital is going to be like in a developing country. Anyway, we were blessed.



I also wanted to put up the pictures of Ivy in the Superman cape. It was a miracle that Ethan had it off long enough for her to even get it! I pinned it on her shirt and she was soooooo pleased to be like her big brother! She ran through the house and made the most of it until he saw her and had to be Superman again RIGHT NOW! I will post some pics of the other two kiddos soon!

Things are getting better :)

O.K. I am finally happy to be here! I have been waiting for this to happen and worrying that it wasn't going to. I have gone through a whole series of emotions from fear and shock to loathing and inferiority complex, to trying to figure a way out, to acceptance and happiness. You know it takes a while for some things in life to sink in. My life has been very surprising to me and has thrown me some curve balls that not only caught me off guard, but hit me square in the face. But you know, Heavenly Father has helped me through it all. I feel like I have been pushing my way through a blinding fog. I haven't been able to see anything, but I just put my nose to the grindstone and kept going and now I'm coming out on the other side. Things are not peachy. They are still hard, but what I think is happening is that my perspective is changing. This is such a deep transformation that it takes time to even recognize what is happening. I don't know if that makes sense to anyone else, but my entire frame of reference is expanding. My view of the world is changing. My comfort zone has new boundaries and I am becoming a different person. I have seen pride in myself that I didn't realize was even there. I have seen immaturity in myself that I didn't realize was there. I have recognized that love means more than I ever imagined. I have a new comprehension of how important my husband and children are to me, and how important people are in general. I have continued to receive service here that astounds me and I continue to experience the amazing capacity for good in so many people. You know, Joe and I have a hard time with some things. We have some real challenges. But we sit up a night and talk now about our challenges in a new light. I cannot tell you all how unimportant some things seem when you have seen so many people living with NOTHING. We are living on a tiny island. This place is really not that big. The poverty we see represents a problem that is so large we don't even comprehend it. We have been so blessed, but when we honestly think about it, we have spent far too much time and energy focusing on material things. The Hatian men who are working on this construction site, live on this construction site. You see the blue tarp? They live under that. This is what we see out our front window. Material things are definitely important-especially for those who don't have any. We are learning a lot from people we see who have nothing, but we are also learning a lot from friends who have a lot materially but who give exponentially as well, not just of their posessoins, but of themselves. I think it's going to take me years just to digest this experience!

I am so grateful for my little family. They are all I care about in the world. When my family is happy, I am happy. When we are working hard to serve each other, everything really does look brighter and life is just plain good. We still don't have much. We still have our challenges and problems to sort out. But we have so much more than so many and we have each other. We also have a chance to be in this place where we can learn together in an environment that we've not experienced before. One that is helping us see people in a new light. I wonder what we will do with all of this...

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Still Alive

I have been too much in culture shock to really write the way I planned on this blog. Also, the unreliable electricity and wi-fi connection have made it tricky as well. I have learned a lot during the last month since I have been here! First let me say that I LOVE AMERICA!!!! This is not meant to say anything negative about the D.R. but I have learned to appreciate what we have in the U.S. more than I ever thought possible. Having never before left the country, this is all incredibly new to me!

I have been very busy over these past weeks learning how to do everything in a different way. It has been an adventure and I have discovered a lot of things about myself that I didn't realize were there! I have learned to do laundry in a very tiny, semi-automatic washing machine and dry it all in a tropical climate "sin una secadora"-withough a dryer! It's the rainy season, and this one task alone has brought out the Laman and Lemuel in me!!! I am learning to grocery shop for a family of 6 with only a double stroller to hold it all in and without saying much "porque no hablo espanol!" The crazy thing is that we cross 4 lanes of traffic to get to the store on a road that, when I first witnessed the driving, had me just staring with my mouth wide open! It's amazing! There are no rules of the road here. Everyone does whatever they want. Now, I keep thinking that seeing an American lady pushing a double stroller with 4 kids across the road would be no big deal after everything else that's going on-but I get shouted at a fair amount, so evidently I am an unusual sight! I'm also getting a kick out of how unusual it is to have 4 kids. We get stared at everywhere we go, and people just smile at us (or some of them FROWN) and they ask us "Don't you have a T.V.?" They think that's hilarious here, but it really was funny, because we actually don't have a T.V. that works right now :)

We are living in the city with no car (as you have probably already figured out) so we walk to the kids' school, to the store, and to church. At first this seemed really difficult because we're not used to it, and because it's SOOOOOOOOOOO hot here! But we have toughened up a lot in a month and now we're pros! It's still tricky because people leave garbage, construction debris, large holes, and parked cars on the sidewalks here. One of my favorites things is all the "Ay yay yay, Peligroso!!!" I get to hear as I literally "off road" with my stroller on a daily basis. Again, something that was at first traumatic, but is now all in a day's work. I've learned to just smile, and RUN!

I mop with a rag mop, and cook on a stove that I light with a match and an oven that has no temperature markings on it anywhere. I didn't know what to do with it at first, but I actually figured out how to make dinner rolls without measuring cups and said oven which has been a major accomplishment for me! I say all of this, not to complain, (though I really did a lot of that in my first 3 weeks or so) but to give you an idea of the ways life is so different here. I have a new appreciation for how modern life has made so many of our necessary jobs easier and how this frees women to do other things that would otherwise not make it onto your "to do" list at all!I do laundry every day. I go grocery shopping every other day. I mop everyday-there is no carpeting here. Everything is tile and there is a lot of dust and dirt in the air-you can imagine me in such a situation :) I have three kids at home all day with almost no toys, no T.V., and no back yard. No parks, no safe sidewalks, none of that stuff that you have all over your house that you can use to make things or play with. It has been interesting to set up a temporary house with a family and only the stuff I was able to pack in our suitcases. I am learning how grateful I am for the life I left in America, but also how much I, and I believe all of us, is capable of doing when our situations aren't so easy. Necessity is the mother of invention and I am finding that as we accept the things that are different here and look for the good, we are finding things to do and we are living without things I never thought possible to live without!

I have more to say, but this is already too long. In my next post I want to just put some of my thoughts out there about the social issues I am seeing. Poverty, wealth, racism, etc. Things I never thought as much about. I feel like an infant. I don't know much of anything, but I see a lot of things that are making me ask questions and re-think life at a level that surprises me. I hesitate to even write most of this because I have no idea how it's all going to sound to other people. I see my experience as such a work in progress and I know I'm going to say things one day that I have to re-think another day! So, if you read this blog, realize that I am saying nothing in absolutes! I am throwing out observations as they come to me, and waiting for the day when it can all come together into something useful and cohesive in my mind. I also want to give a little more info. about how each individual in my family is coping with this too.

I'm surprised that I'm blogging :)

I finally got onto my dear friend's blog a few weeks ago. I've really not had a clue what blogging was all about until then. I must say that I loved it and it I decided that it's a great way to stay in touch with people-so here I am. I called this blog "Are we there yet?" because I think I would call this my "freudian motto"(yes I just made that up). I seriously haven't realized it, but I've been living life this way-always anxious to just get there already! I have a lot to learn!!!

Our family has been having an adventure this summer, and it's about to get more interesting. Joe has been in the Dominican Republic for the past two months setting up a library at a private school. He has finally found an apartment and the children and I will be on our way Oct. 3. I'm still in shock, but excited for the opportunity. I am finding that I am not nearly as brave, strong, or independent as I thought I was. I am, frankly, scared to death. I am hoping to use this blog to keep everyone updated on our life, and am hoping to hear from many of you. The hardest part about what we're about to do is leaving all our friends and loved ones behind. There really aren't words for how I feel about that right now.