Visit to Santo Domingo

Catedral Episcopal de la Epifania

On Saturday, Sister Jean Gabriel and I joined people from Centro Buen Pastor and San Esteban in a trip to Santo Domingo for the dedication of the first Episcopal Cathedral in Dominican Republic.  This Santo Domingo church has been an Episcopal church for over 80 years, but now it is officially no longer a church, but the Cathedral.

There was an Episcopal Cathedral in on the island in Haiti, in Port au Prince, but it was demolished in the earth quake this year, making it even more meaningful for a new cathedral to be named.  

The mass of dedication included a large procession into the cathedral and the participation of bishops, priests, deacons, and acolytes from all over, including one bishop who was visiting from Ecuador.  The area bishop, Bishop Holguin oversaw the mass.  

Bishop Julio Cesar Holguin Khoury

After the mass was a luncheon for the hundreds of people who had come from all over the island for the dedication.  It was a wonderful time to see people who work for the Episcopal church who are not normally in San Pedro.  The whole day was quite a success.

If you have any questions about the mass, let me know!  There are many more photos on my facebook page.  This blog is very slow to load photos, so I can't add any more here.  

After the service, we went book shopping in Santo Domingo.  Sister Jean Gabriel took us to an alleyway that is filled with stands of used book vendors.  We went from stand to stand looking for books for one of the students Centro Buen Pastor supports.  Once we knew which stands had the books he needed available, we then haggled to find out which vendor had the best price.  It was a fun experience.  They give better prices to people who bring back old books to trade in, so students are told to keep their books in very good shape so that they will be better to trade next year.  Very different from the used book buy back we're used to in colleges in the US.

The edge of the used book vendor street in Santo Domingo

My schedule has changed yet again.  Due to complications and miscommunications, I am no longer going to be working at San Esteban School.  I am now a missionary for Centro Buen Pastor, though I will still attend Sunday Mass and other events at San Esteban and I will obviously still be close to all my friends there.  All this really means is that instead of going back and forth between the two schools, I'll concentrate on one.  I'm not sure exactly what I will be doing during the mornings at Centro Buen Pastor, but for now I will help Sister Jean Gabriel with taking photographs of the scholarship students for their records.  Eventually, I may be teaching English to the morning students or teaching a study group for students who are struggling who cannot attend my afternoon study session because they have afternoon school sessions.  Really, this simplifies things and helps keep me more focused.

This weekend my friends and I went out to McDonald's.  They were excited to go, and I went to appease them, but it made me chuckle that to them that was a big night out.  We also stopped by a small carnival fair, like the Topsfield Fair but much, much smaller.  There was a ferris wheel, a merry-go-round, the Zipper, and a few other rides along with stands of cheap things for sale, cotton candy and popcorn stands, and some fair games.  The big differences were the bar in the middle of the fair that sold everything from beer to shots and the gambling stations at the entrance that included dice games, craps, and roulette.  Overall, though, it was a lot like any other fair with crowds of families near the kids games and rides and crowds of teenagers near the scary rides and music booths.  I was too much of a wimp to go on any of the rides, but it was fun to walk around and the cotton candy was pretty good!