Mariposas and Mofongo (Plus Tutoring!)

Hello everyone!

I’m back in the Dominican Republic, and I’m absolutely thrilled to tell you about my first week! One of the biggest things that I was looking forward to all of Christmas break was getting to be back at the tutoring site again! And last Monday I was able to go back and see all of the kids and help with classes again. They were thrilled to see me and I got some really big hugs, which made my heart melt.

I also got to help with the receiving end of Operation Christmas Child (which the preschool, the tutoring site, and the sports sites all received boxes for). It was a really cool experience because I’ve only ever got to pack the boxes at my church in the States. The kids were very excited about the toys, but I think the coolest thing was how it was planned out. We invited all of the kids and their parents to the site, where we were able to share the gospel and inform the parents that OCC had given us a discipleship curriculum that we would be using for the next 8 weeks. I’m excited to see where it leads and also to be able to put that kind of teaching into practice!

One of the things that I was kind of nervous about over break was losing my Spanish. It was a relief to realize over this first week back in sites that I didn’t necessarily lose a lot of my vocabulary. What I did lose though, was my ability to translate for myself so that I could keep up with conversations for (relatively) long periods of time (2 hours). It’s going to be a good amount of work to get it back, something that will definitely result in a lot of exhaustion. That’s one thing that I didn’t realize about learning a new language this way-- your brain can only do so much and then it calls it quits for the day.

With sites over for the week, we went out on our second excursion for the semester-- to the Casa Museo Hermanas Mirabal. In English, it translates to the Mirabal Sisters Museum, and it’s placed in their childhood home. The Mirabal sisters were part of a revolutionary plot to overthrow the dictator in the DR (named Trujillo) during the late 1950s. They became a symbol of hope and were also known as Las Mariposas (The Butterfly Sisters). Three of the four sisters were murdered by Trujillo, although it was staged as a car accident. The day of their death (Nov. 25th) is now an international holiday called “International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.” 

It was cool to walk around the house and see the art that some of the sisters had made while in prison, their wedding dresses, where they had slept, and their clothing. Our tour guide spoke a little English, and after walking through the house we explored the gardens before heading to a restaurant to get mofongo, which is a tower of mashed plantains or yucca combined with a type of meat or cheese. We had chicharron (fried pig skin) and chicken.

Today (Monday, Jan 29th), we’re starting homestays and language school for the next two weeks. I’m really excited to be staying with Brendaliz (a doctor at the Cien Fuegos clinic) and her husband Migue. I’ll have more about that in my next post!

That’s about all that I have for now, and so I’ll see you in two weeks on the 12th of February! Thank you again for following along and praying for me on this journey.


¡Hasta luego, y'all!

Maddy <3

Mofongo at 4F

Working on Math Problems

OCC at the Tutoring Sit

OCC at the Preschool

Myself, Noel, and Ava at the
museum

Minerva Mirabal's famous quote was
"If they kill me, I’ll reach my arms
out from the tomb and I’ll be stronger."