“This one’s going in the blog!”

This is exactly what one of the girls on my team said as I was being towed via piggy back for twenty minutes unable to walk on my own with 7 people following me laughing hysterically the entire way…

So, yesterday was a national holiday—Our Lady Mercedes day—and some people from our church took us to the beach. I have been living in the Dominican Republic for over a month now and up until yesterday I had yet to dive into the Caribbean Sea, so you can imagine how excited I was to finally get to play at the beach.

After the hour and a half drive to the beach, the very first thing I did was step in the water. We had a ton of fun throwing the Frisbee around, swimming, eating snacks and to end our day, four of the people from my team and one of the guys from church went for a nice long walk along the water. At the farthest point of our walk, R. and I couldn’t resist swimming in what was probably the bluest part of the water we’d seen so we hopped in for a while. Walking back to the shore, all of a sudden I feel a sharp jab in the bottom of my foot, not a poke like you’d feel if you had stepped on glass, but I definitely felt something forcefully thrusting itself into my skin.

You know those times when you just need a second to see if you’re ok, and you rest (maybe mutter a four letter word to ease the pain!), and then you can just move on? I tried that, and the pain was still worse than ever. I made R. carry me back to the shore, the others are looking at us like, “What is going on?” I am now laying on the sand trying to get a grip and one of the guys went to go get help. First glance at my foot showed an already bruised wound and a swollen foot. Not good. All of a sudden, the “help” starts squeezing my foot, pressing lime against it, and looking for remnants of sting ray stingers. I'm glad I can't understand Spanish very well, because the "help" also wanted to use his pocket knife to slice open my foot to be sure nothing was still in there.

Now, my mom was an E.R. nurse, so I learned not to make a big deal out of something unless it was extremely painful. This was exremely painful…an 8 out of 10 (10 being child birth). It started to get dark and the rest of our group would being worrying about where we were, so we had to start our way back. Thanks to our long walk, one poor guy had to carry me on his back for twenty minutes.

While my foot was in horrible pain, this was probably the funniest part of the day. I was so embarrassed that I was now being carried in my bathing suit by a guy I’ve known very briefly (oh, and who doesn’t speak much English). Ladies, imagine how awkward I felt when his friends encouraged him to run with me on his back…in my bathing suit!!! Gah! I had my girls stand behind me as much as possible to help give me some coverage, but I think this got lost in translation as the guy just kept on running. Then he asks me to itch his nose. My legs and arms are cramping from holding on to this guy for twenty minutes. And now the rest of the 15 people in our group are watching us approach in confusion. Fortunately one of them was a nurse and she cleaned it up for me. R. said that he’d been stung by a sting ray before and the only way to relieve the pain is by sticking it in hot water. Let’s just say the following 2 hours until we got home were nearly unbearable! But he was right, the girls heated up some water for me and the pain immediately stopped (If you’re interested, you can read about sting ray stings here).

Needless to say, our first trip to the beach was more exciting than we’d expected! But I still had a great time (especially now that my foot doesn’t hurt!) and now have a story that will keep our team laughing throughout the year (let’s just hope image of me on the guy’s back fades out of their memories!)