Juelga

Wednesday morning Rachel and I were heading up to Los Higos around 8 a.m. to go teach English in the public school. We saw several questionable things on the road, and honestly thought nothing of it-- a lot of rocks, black ashes, filled-in holes in the road, and finally a tree across the road. I though, 'wow, last night's rain must have been stronger than I thought to have knocked down so many trees'.

When we left the school, Yin (an old man whose face is the logo for the local coffee factory) flagged us down to tell us we couldn't go home, at least not in the truck, because there was a riot ('juelga', also translated as strike or protest) in Hatillo, the community down below Los Higos. We went to Los Higos, and spent the day listening to the latest gossip about the riot. We heard that they were putting nails on the road to pop tires, cutting down trees and digging a ditch across the road to stop traffic, and pulling down power lines.

Around 5, Brian and the construction guys, who were working on Meri's house, decided that they were going to go home. So they went out the back way from Los Higos with an ax and a machete. When we got almost to Hatillo, they had to cut a tree apart and remove it from the road so we could cross (the second photo). Thankfully the ditch that had been dug there wasn't too deep to be crossed by the truck.

As we were clearing that tree, we were overlooking other people removing a tree from the main road in Hatillo (top photo).

It turns out that some people from Hatillo were protesting that the government had not kept its promise to fix the road there. It seems ironic that they actually damaged the road more in their protest. Protests do occur periodically here, however, because it seems that the people feel like they have no voice in their government, and riots are the only way to get its attention.

Please be praying for the Dominican Republic, that God would put leaders in place that fear Him and who truly want to serve all Dominicans, rather than just looking out for themselves and their political party.