Moving

           I look around the tiny room where I’d been staying for the past week in Hato del Yaque. Hato del Yaque is a suburb of Santiago where G.O. Ministries built a church and a dorm. Teams stay in the church and work construction on the future apartment building across the dirt road. Jen normally leads the teams in Hato del Yaque, but she hurt her back, so this week Kyle was leading the team which meant her little room was left available for me. There was a shower, and a real bed frame. Still no real mattress, but who needs that? I am perfectly happy with the cachones, also known as big pieces of foam.

            I’m trying to collect all my things and throw them into my back pack and plastic bags. Kyle, Doug, and I are heading back to Santiago just for tonight. Jen is feeling a little better, and she is going to take over the team for now to give us a night off. We will have tonight, and most of the day tomorrow while the team is at the beach. I plan on sleeping in, doing wash, hanging with the girls, and eating bread. Living the good life.

            I grab my dirty clothes bag and wrinkle my nose. Mixing concrete by hand for three days is not flattering; it is not beautiful. My purple towel is also suffering. It smells damp and moldy even though I just washed it the week before. I rip my Pooh Bear sheets off the top piece of foam, roll them up, and stuff them in my My Little Pony pillow case. I throw my shoes in a La Sirena bag, the Dominican version of Target, look around the room one last time, and call it good.

Doug, Kyle, and I throw our bags into one of the old vans and wish the team farewell.
            “Oh, but we’ll see you again?” they ask.
            “Don’t worry. You’ll see us after the beach. We’ll be back when you come back.”  
We would be going back just the next day. And the day after that, I would come back to Santiago. And the week after that, I would be going back to Hato del Yaque. And the week after that, I would be going back to the United States.

When I get back to Delores’ apartment in Santiago, I dump all my things in a side room since two nurses are also staying with Delores for this week. Delores is the sweetest woman. The female interns get to stay with her when they are in Santiago. We call her Grandma Dee-Dee, and her apartment is like home base.

There are three bedrooms, and the interns take up two of them. Each bedroom has a bunk bed, so we have four bunks to split among the five female interns. It usually works out pretty well since we aren’t all “home” at the same time. My first week, I was in Hato del Yaque, and when I got back, Elsa was off at the beach. So I took her bunk underneath Kelly. When she came back, she slept on the floor for a few nights until Kathy left. I moved into the room next door to take Kathy’s bunk. But then Alissa wanted to switch, so we ripped the cachones off the bunks and threw my Pooh Bear cachone to the top. The next week, I repacked all my things and went out to Hato del Yaque with Doug and Kyle. I had Jen’s little room all to myself. She even has a shower with warm water. The shower made me think I was at a resort, other than the slightly stale purple towel, of course.

I stare at my pile of things on the floor of the storage room. I wish I could organize, but the nurses will be in my room one more night. Elsa had to move to share with Alissa and Kathy. This week, Kathy was the lucky one sleeping on the floor along with the cockroaches and dust bunnies.
            “How has your week been, Leah?” Kathy is sitting on one of the black couches in the living room.
            “It was really good! Hato del Yaque is my favorite place to be.”
            Kathy gives me a look.
            “I know that nobody else likes it that much, but I love being out there. Maybe it’s because that is where I was my first week so I feel more at home there. I don’t know. It’s good to be back here though too, except I am not looking forward to sleeping in the storage room.”
            “Everyone else is at the beach. It’s just you and me, girl!”

I take half of my pile of stuff and move it back into my first bedroom. The next night the nurses will be back, so I need to leave it so they never knew anyone was there. I take some cachones and throw them on the floor. I put my Pooh Bear sheets on and stand in the doorway to survey my work. I wrinkle my nose. Is that me? I never smell that bad. I sniff hard and look at the open closet with a grimace on my face. One sniff and I slam the door closed. These will be my closets in just one day. Fantastic.

The next day, I work on my blog, skype with my friends, and chat with Kathy. But when I throw my dirty clothes in the laundry machine, I realize my purple towel is still hanging on the hook in Hato del Yaque. I go over all the possible ways to get my purple towel to me as soon as possible, but since I can’t actually use the force, I have to admit I will just have to wash it with my next load of dirty clothes.

“It would be nice”, I think, “to have all my things in one place. To have a bed that’s definitely mine, to have drawers for my underwear, to have a hook where I can always find a clean towel.” Back and forth from Santiago to Hato del Yaque. Back and forth from Champaign, Illinois to Huntington, Indiana. And someday, maybe, just maybe, back and forth from the Dominican Republic to the United States.