Here's what 40 looks like!

So far, 40 looks like fun!  Laura dove on me in my bed at midnight to wish me Happy Birthday and then in the morning she had a SWEEEEETTTT banner over our potty for me to see when I woke up.....

I headed to the kitchen where Dan and Kari had a lil Happy Birthday fanciness going on...and an AWESOME prayer with the group.  SOOOO cool!

Below is the awesome group in town!  SOOOOOO funnnn!

Me, Kari, and Cora!  What a treat to have these gals with me...

Um and here is me and Dan....  His hair is the best ever!  I can't believe I get to work with someone who is as cool as Dan.  For reals.  (Do you think he's reading this?)

So right when breakfast was almost over...the door opened up and guess who walked in?  Yup- BABY NICOLE and mama Martina!  And they didn't even know it was my birthday.  What a sweet surprise!

Then it was off to the barrios (a place called La Ranchito) with Nef and the crew.....

Fun bus ride!  This team is really ministering to the communities here.....lots of medicines and love...but most importantly- LOTS of Jesus!  It's the best!

Lunchtime at the barrios

Sleepy time on the way back to the Guesthouse.  But they DID sing various versions of Happy Birthday songs on the bus to me..... in spanish.  WAAAAAAYyyyyyyy!

When I finally got to my room around 8 or 9 pm- I found these presents (boxes of cards from home) on my bed.  They were from home and Cathy Case had brought them like 2 weeks ago when she was here.   I can't believe everyone hid this from me for 2 weeks- I was SOOOo surprised and EXCITED!  I stayed up til 11:30 reading my cards.  I am overwhelmed with gratitude to have such an amazing church, family and friends that are SO supportive of me.  What a treat!  

And um yeah- no celebration is complete without hanging out with my Dominican hijos Monchi and Chino.....

And Lauritaaaaaaa.....mi pana full.

40 means having an excuse to wear pajama pants (it's SOOOO Domininican anyway) and pretend I'm athletic or something.  Actually, Monchi made me do this.

Dominos.  Nuff said.  It's how we roll, even at 40.

Sooooo how do I feel?  I feel great.  I feel loved.  I certainly don't feel like I've lived 40 years here on the old planet earth.  I feel grateful.   I feel excited for what's next.  I feel like I am exactly where God wants me at this very minute, in this time and in this place.  I feel like I have the greatest support system ever known to man.   I feel like Jesus Christ is still the One, He's still got me in the palm of His Hand, trying to help me along poco a poco.    I feel blessed.  I still feel like I'm the luckiest girl in the world- I get to do this amazing stuff in this amazing place with amazing people.....and yeah- there's hard days and tears and all that jazz.  But I'm not alone.  I've NEVER been alone.   God is here with me.  He's Big- He's ON IT.. and we're doing this together.    Amen.  Y Amen.

Bewildering

Friday- I'm not sure if it's because I don't feel like I've slept in a hundred years or if time really IS blowing by me....but I think maybe the last 2 weeks have been a blur.  A wonderful awesome fantastic blur of surgery and kicking' teams.    

I'm trying hard to breathe between one team leaving yesterday (Friday) and another arriving today (Saturday). Uffffff.  Breathe.    Dios is IN control.   :)

A highlight was having my friend Cathy here with me the week before last.    She's a rocking PACU nurse and then treated me to a weekend at the beach in Juan Dolio.  It was soooo fun to have her.   I learned a lot watching her in PACU too.  That's one of the cool things about this gig- I'm always learning.   ANNNNDDD how cool IS it to share a place that I LOVE with a dear friend.  I love seeing it through other folks' eyes.

The last two weeks have rocked with General Surgeons and Ortho docs and a Gyn from Spartanburg and Roanoke.  Some new faces, some old faces- all in all just buckets of fun.   Hernias, hydroceles, circs, arms, hands, all kinds of surgery.   And we throw in some softball on Monday nights, dinner at Bienvenida's Restaurant on Wednesdays, AMAZING sponsor/student reunions on Thursday nights...and it's all around BUSY.  Plus Market runs, the flag raising at a local school...and all the rest that encompasses a week at Solid Rock Guesthouse.    Dan and Kari and I (and Laura when she is in town!) are having a blast.   I think I actually got to SEE Kari on Friday when we sat for 3 hours waiting for a pedicure downtown.   Sometimes the 3 of us pass like ships in the night- craziness.   We laughed in the grocery story buying extra forks which were plucked out of a cardboard box crammed with random silverware on the floor.   We snorted giggles plucking oatmeal from the shelve that HAD NOT been nibbled on by critters.   We stared in awe at the stunningly beautiful Dominican girls getting all kinds of gorgeous at the salon.  One lady actually grabbed my hair in her hand and made this painful grimace like "oh why....what a pity!".    I was actually proud that I had WASHED my hair today but of course unless it's streaming perfectly straight down my back..it's not "done" like it should be.  Sigh.   I am a fail at Dominican hair.

I've again, as always, met the most amazing patients.   Hugs, kisses, love and adoration.  One of our barrio teams was in Baby Nicole's town last Monday and they came back to report that her mama brought her to the team and recounted with great pride the day of her birth.   Oh my heart.   How full.   It's almost been a year.   She'll be one on in less than 2 weeks.   A year.  Baby girl.   Best.  Day.  Ever.    The team thought she was adorable too!   And the handing off of the black plastic bags full of potatoes or oranges or beans continues.    It's sacred, really, the giving here.   I feel so full.   So tired, so overwhelmed, so loved.    I love cruising through the streets and KNOWING folks that I see.   I spent a good hour today (Friday) with Bartolo the Concho Driver looking for a guy that needs some paperwork that I have.   After scouring 3 baseball fields, his home and local neighborhood, we returned home unsuccessful.   However- everyone has been alerted that we have what he needs and I fully expect him to show up any minute now.  It's kinda how things work here sometimes.   (Saturday- PS- he showed at 9 last night.  YAYYYYYY)

There's some tough stuff too.   One of the kids in the Nutrition program is STRUGGLING.  And it's more than malnutrition now.  He's sick.  Really sick.   And he was here and stayed 10 days in the clinic and it's hard to see.   And another patient didn't show up for surgery so I went to pick her up and it turned out that after we waited a long time for her to get ready and get everything set for surgery...that she was denied the surgery and hadn't wanted it in the first place.  It was my pushy american nature of going to find her that forced her into my truck and back to the clinic.    Humbling.    I felt terrible.  I still do.   Sometimes I feel like I get the teeniest grasp on the culture here and then the other shoe falls off and I realize that although I LOVE it here so much, I'm always the outsider.   I wasn't BORN here.   I don't get the inside jokes.   I still struggle with the language and sometimes what I think I SHOULD do.   But there are moments.   Moments when stuff clicks and I DO get it.  Moments when I throw out some spanish street words and they make sense to more than just me.   Moments when I slice up the garlic and onion and cilantro and oil and toss it in the black metal pot and it smells JUST like it's supposed to for the rice.   Moments on the back of the moto cruising through neighborhoods and ballfields searching for my friend and laughing when everyone points us somewhere else.    I AM an outsider....but I'm so glad I'm here!  

And the big 4-0 arrives on Tuesday.   I feel fine.  I'm not scared.  I'm looking forward to next weekend when we celebrate.   YAYYYYYYYYYYYY.  Here's to another year of living la vida locaaaaaa.    Tan buenaaaaa eso.

Holy Buckets!!!

Saturday:  I can hear the bachata in the barrio behind my window and some kid cracking a whip.   It whistles really hard through the air and it IS a pretty cool thing to see=....ya know...playing with whips and all.   I saw some other kids walking on stilts in the street last night.   It's a trip noticing what is considered entertainment or toys for kids here....stilts...whips...garbage bags and sticks refashioned as kites.   This week a girl brought her baby to the clinic and I noticed her baby was carrying around pieces of a broken glass bottle TO PLAY WITH.   I encouraged the mother to throw it away.....reminding her that shards of glass can like...CUT people.  Sheesh.   I like seeing the street ball that the kids play..... mop or broom handles for bats and bottle/milk container caps for balls.   There's a name for that kind of street ball but I can't remember it right now.

So I can shower in cold water without blinking and I can wait to drink until after I eat and I can pee in the most ungainly locals and places;   I can understand a lot of conversations and I can almost rap to some dembow if you catch me in the right mood.    I can play dominos, albeit poorly...and I made rice TWICE this week.   So, am I Dominican yet?   Yeahhhhhh well not quite, although I WAS diagnosed with parasites on Monday.  Yay for ascaris.   Turns out that all that talking I did in the barrios about washing my hands, wearing my shoes, and eating cooked food came right back to get me.   However, I am fully recovered and shameless about promoting ways to avoid parasites.

Great surgical team this past week- yay for Spartanburg.  And arriving tonight is the second half of Spartanburg.   It's always fun having folks arrive that you remember from last year so I'm looking forward to hanging out with a great crew again.  And of course in-between the surgeries are precious moments.... holding sweet babies,  catching up with returning patients in the waiting room,   laughing with Dr. Sandy and the Dominican nurses,  hanging out with Nef and our other wonderful translators.

Last Sunday was J's birthday.  So Chino and I dropped off some birthday cake on the way home from church.    I wonder if anyone else knew..or remembered.  I just know there was a big fat grin on his face when we pulled up.  17 years old.  Wow.    I'm hoping he can come with us to church tomorrow too.  We love this church.   It feels like everyone there just LOVES each other.  We sing and then between some songs we walk around and HUG each other (like EVERYBODY does!)  or shake hands or just say DIOS TE BENDIGA.  And I feel loved there.   And there are always a bunch of neighborhood kids running around sometimes misbehaving and they are so wonderfully loved and hugged and encouraged there.  Of course it helps that Nef can translate everything for me.  Ohhhh to understand!   It's a beautiful thing.   So I'm hoping that J will go with Chino and me tomorrow and I can sit proudly with my two Dominican hijos.   And then my dear friend Cathy is arriving with the group!  Oh to see the wonderful faces from home!  I just can't wait!   It's going to be a great week!

Yesterday I went running at the track.  Running is always a strong word for what I do but anyway- it's the effort that counts.  And I ran with Monchi.  Who is a REAL runner.  We went to the track via moto, cruising the back roads.   We ran side by side, with one of my ear plugs in my ear and the other in his- the Dominican rap blasting.   And we chatted up his friends there.  And some 7 year old kid held his keys and my phone in the middle of the field while we ran.   And I looked around at the big and serious baseball players who were strutting around, stretching and working out.  And the families who were laughing together as they walked around the track.  And the runners, the SERIOUS runners there who seemingly go forEVER who lapped us like a million times.   And everyone else who just seemed to be having a great time- the trainers- the 9 years olds who still have their baseball uniforms on and are headed home- the teenage girls eyeing up the fellas- just everyone.  And me and Monchi.   Me plodding on and him slowing down for me, saying "vamamos Nicol..vamamos!  Let's Go!".  Uffff.  I'm part of this.  And it's thrilling.   It's still thrilling, driving home on a moto with the sweat drying off of me, my hair all KINDA crazy, the music still thumping (one in my ear and one in his!),  the endorphins jumping, feeling SO much better than I did a couple hours ago.   Glad that I'm here.  Glad I've got sweet friends who love me and push me an extra lap or so.   Glad I'm headed home and I'll eat some rice (that I made) and crack up with my pals a couple more times, howling with Dan over funny sitcoms, giving my poor frente high blood pressure when I screw up AGAIN on my domino play, doing our thing.

And tomorrow it begins again.  New team.  New folks.  And some familiar faces too.  Here we go!