Dominican Food and I got older!!

Holy Bananas!!

A true Dominican eating his habichuelas con dulce!! Well maybe not quite!

All cookies and crackers are wrapped individually. Probably because of the bugs and the humidity.

Big yummy grapes!

Two of our institute students. The taller one just left for his mission in Guatemala and the shorter one is getting his papers ready to go. They are great kids!

Getting the family to church

Fruit stand

Beautiful Dominican Republic

Love the tree line on the mountains!

This painting is in a restaurant. Part if the frame is in the wall. Pretty unique!

Buying fruit near our apartment,

Habichuelas con dulce - sweet beans. They are traditional for Easter in the Dominican Republic. It is red beans (mostly blended), lots of sugar, coconut milk, cinnamon, potatoes, sweet potatoes, raisins and cookies. Dominicans LOVE this!

This house was built around the tree.

This is some doctor's offices - guess they decided to expand and build another floor.

This was painted on the wall across the street from the church - the Book of Mormon and the Bible.

This was just remodeled. I think it's an appliance store.

Getting to work - Dominican style.

.This was on the street. They said they had 70 chickens on this motorized rotisserie. It was over a wood fire.

My prune-filled birthday cake. The flowers are made of candy.

Happy Birthday to me. Notice the paper flying up on the wall. The AC was broken so the fan did a nice job making all kinds of paper fly around.

 

At the grocery store. Lots of platanos (bananas, kind of)

When you buy chicken here you can get extra parts.

I think this is some kind of meat. Does not look appetizing to me.

This little creature joined us for class one day.

Yup you can plug into a tree. The meter is on the picture below.

A mango tree. They are all over the place.

Carnaval

Little boy holding a thing like a nerf football on a string that people in costume use to whack people on the behind. Originally these were real cow bladders.

There were lots of people dressed only in their underwear with mud smeared all over themselves.  Do not understand that. I didn't put pictures of the X-rated ones. Many of them carry a bucket and want you to give them money if you take their picture.

Cute little girl with a hairdo that we see often.

This boy was smeared in black.

A more elaborate costume smeared in mud.

These buildings are fake and are next to the church. They were all put up in January and they arch across and cover a whole roadway. Yes, the man taking a picture is a missionary.

A little girl sitting next to us - check out that hair. Glad I don't have to comb that out!

This guy came right by us. He also has a tail.

There were a bunch of guys that had deer heads with antlers on their shoulders.

These guys had whips that they were using to make noise.

Green tinted mud???

Snacks

Do they have enough speakers??

We saw this man on our walk going down a residential street, yelling that he had flowers to sell.

They still have phone booths all over.

They will make any flavor you want.

A Little Sight Seeing

 This fort was built in the 1500's after Columbus came. It is in Puerta Plata

 Fishing in Puerta Plata

 Elder Walters and Elder Francis relaxing at lunch.

 Lunch was good. French Fries made after we ordered them.

Below - Beach bathroom - no toilet seat and they give you a bucket of water to flush with.

 If there's a tree, just build a wall around it!

 House remodel

 The Monument - Trujillo built it in honor of himself.

 At the top of the monument - young missionaries call it the touchdown Jesus.

 They love baseball here!

 Duarte Day Parade. Pictures of Duarte with the eyes cut out are kind of creepy.

 Selfie of the misioneros

 You don't want to be hit by falling leaves here. These things are huge!

 Can't believe this guy begs in the middle of traffic. We saw him one night when the power went out. I was scared to death that he would be hit. There are so many people here missing arms or legs.

 There were 2 girls dressed like this at the gas station on Valentines Day passing out heart shaped suckers to everyone.

 A chicken place named after my grandson.

 The whole family going to church in the back of the truck. You can't see the mother. She is in purple and behind the man in the back corner.

 Our hotel room - not the Marriott

   Duarte Day parade of school children. Coco frio stand in the background. Coconut water and flavoring.

Below - boys playing marbles on the beach.

 

Moving day!