so american......and so dominican.

Today was Blady's first day of school. We took great care to mark all of his school supplies with his name; laid out the school uniform the night before; and went to bed early. It had already started out to be quite the morning several hours earlier. Miguel woke up at a quarter to 2 in the morning to make yet another trip to Santo Domingo for a hang up in my residency papers. However, on the way to the bus stop in Puerto Plata, the jeep ran out of gas and he was left to desert it on the side of the road until I could do something about it in the morning.

But anyway, Blady and I woke up early, got dressed for school, and gathered all his school things to take. On one last revision of his things I realized that he was short the two roles of toilet paper that were on his supply list. So off we go on foot to the little super market near by and then finally out the door to flag down a motoconcho. Thank God for motos! Everything is going well and we get to school on time before 8 am. As we approach, I start to get a little worried...there are no kids around and it appears to be closed. Did we have the wrong day? We entered and the director and teachers were all there, but obviously surprised to see us. I asked, "School starts today, right?" The response, "O yes, yes....school starts today but the students don't arrive until 11am if they come at all on the first day of school." So here we were ready to go on time....so American...but actually, the first real day of school starts tomorrow.....so Dominican.

While Blady was dropped off for what I imagined to be a quiet morning at school, I walked to the other school work site; checked on the workers to make sure they knew what they were doing for the day; went to the hardware store to buy some nails and to hurry along the delivery truck with the zinc for the roof; and finally hopped another moto with a gas tank on my lap to go rescue the jeep.....I guess you have to live here to believe it.