Ange, Lisa, & the DR

So Angela and Lisa (or rather, “An-hel-a” and “Lee-sa”) came to visit at the beginning of January. They stayed for a week, and I tried to show them a lot of the fantastic north. (yay, Cibao region!)

The photos will do most of the detailing, but some memorable moments included:

• Having them arrive to my house without electricity and water (both came back ...eventually). ...welcome to the DR, friends!
• The 27 Waterfalls! They used waterproof cameras, so once I politely download steal pictures of this from my friends, maybe I’ll add them to this post.
• Introducing them to guaguas and tigres. I could write a whole post about this experience alone, but to sum it up: lots of cramming onto guaguas + many, many characters = interesting situations while smushed on a bus. Angela and Lisa were really good sports.
• Cabarete and the beach!
• Learning and playing dominoes with my neighbors. Lisa and Angela were both naturals, which my neighbor enjoyed pointing out. “Pero tus amigas saben mucho! Tu tienes que aprender mas.” More or less: “Your friends are way better at this than you are.” :P
• Eating lunch with my host family, and meeting some of the neighbors in the barrio - pigs included.
• Lisa organizing a bola on the last day! I was proud.
• and of course, living with friends for a week! Fabuloso.

So these are photos from our trips to Santiago, the 27 Waterfalls, Cabarete, and Mao. There’s many pictures, so posting may take a while. It might be faster to just upload the pictures on a real photo website... but oh well I like this lucha; it’s fun. :) Between the three of us, there were over 1,000 pictures of their trip! There’ll be 50ish here, si Dios quiere. Kind of a lot, but still only a small taste (5% of the total amount, right? oh math, yikes). Okay, enjoy!

Santiago:

At the Monument

Love this picture...their first guagua ride!

Market in Mao

rice and beans, claro.

On the way to the 27 Waterfalls

Cabarete

banana fields in Mao

construction on the newer half of the school

He's already half-way through this book!

Thanks for reading!

que te vaya bien y cuidense muchismo,

XO

Out of Order Blog

Just a little update, a bit out of order, but oh well - you’re all smart, you’ll get it! Getting these posts up to speed and pictures soon.

* * *

In the DR, Christmas lasts a long time, so everything, nearly everything in town is put on hold mid-December through mid-January. Including but not limited to: school, classes, work, buses, stores, supermarkets, internet cafes, banks - all closed/operating less often/working less than usual, etc. Maybe to paint a picture: it is sort of like you walk down the street your first week back in the DR from the States, but the bank’s closed, then after walking a few more blocks, you see that the supermercado is closed, and finally, defeated and walking home, you discover that even the trusty colmado across the street from your house has its wooden doors shut, too. Hmm, thought you might buy groceries today? Nice try. Peso-less, and with only oatmeal left in the kitchen - looks like you’ll be bola-ing to your dona’s house for lunch instead. (Which those who have visited me will tell you - is always the better option, anyway). So the entire town is more or less on the winter vacation schedule of a college student. Welcome back to the DR - right now there’s a month-long break for nearly everyone you know! ...Hmm, actually sounds pretty fun, right?

Well maybe that’s not every volunteer’s experience, but that was me the first couple days back in Mao. Before all that though, I aprovechar-ed the Dominican holiday season and went home for 10 days, came back, and then had my fourth and fifth visitors from the States for about a week. Going home and friends from the US? So. darn. lucky.

I’ll save save Angela and Lisa’s visit for the next post (lots of pictures coming soon!) and start with home. Home was really good. Busy. I felt guilty at first for leaving the DR. Then while at home, occasionally I still felt like a big Peace Corps cheater, mostly due to all the hot water/(water in general) available all the time. And internet. I could literally send emails faster than ever while lying in bed. Glorious.

Seriously, though, I was glad to be home and lucky to be able to visit with friends and family. To those I saw - thanks for making time for me! :o) To those I missed because of the blizzard (thanks so much, New England weather) - well, all the more reason to come down here and visit now, right? Yes.

All in all, (but snow completely aside), it was a good time at home. Oh yes - and I got to meet Sara’s/mom’s pet (aka new dog that replaced me post-leaving for Peace Corps). If you haven’t had the pleasure to meet Ellie take my word for it - she is such a cute, little, sad-eyed charmer.

Be well, all!

XO

Travel like a Boss

...Or maybe a better title would be, “How to Fly the Red-Eye, then Travel Cross-Country in Less Than 24 Hours without Sleep: A Mini-adventure on 3 Gua-guas, 2 Taxis, and an Airplane.” But that seemed like a rather long name. This log documents a trip back from the United States to the Dominican Republic. And I’d like to think that to an extent, it also exemplifies dedication to celebrating New Years.

Non-stop, all day travel. Enjoy reading. And maybe don’t do it the way I did. Suerte, amigos.

Dec. 29th:

8ish pm - Arrive at Logan Airport, check in, and find terminal.

10:00 pm - Flight from Boston to Santo Domingo. Nope, delayed. Instead: search terminal for chai tea latte. Last one for a while.

11:30 pm - Flight from Boston to Santo Domingo. Delayed again. Guess this flight leaves on Dominican time.

Dec. 30th:

12:00 am - Flight from Boston to Santo Domingo. Nope. Not yet.

12:30 am - Still waiting to board. A few donas start yelling at the staff at the airport because of the delays and long wait - ironic moment. (First time I’ve ever seen Dominicans upset about being late. Refreshing. Also, frightening). People continue yelling in spanish. Staff announce that they may cancel the flight because they feel threatened.

1:something am - Start to board by sections. No one on this flight seems to be waiting in line. (Pero, claro!)

2:something am - Flight from Boston to Santo Domingo.

7:00 am - Land in la Republica Dominicana.

8:00 am - Taxi from airport to bus station. All for the low price of only $1,200 RD. Ay Dios...

9:00 am - Bus to Mao.

12:00/1:something pm - Arrive in Mao. Unpack. Repack. Discover there’s no running water in the house again. Sad for a second. Hope it returns someday soon. Leave house.

2:30 pm - Bus to Santiago. Smushed and caliente. Holiday travel - gua-gua style. Fancy. So many suitcases strapped onto the outside of buses. Quite a sight! Too tired to dig for my camera, but it would have made a great picture.

3:30 pm - Bus from Santiago to Sosua.

5:something pm - Arrive in Sosua to some fuerte taxi drivers. Translation, mas or menos:

Taxi driver: “Rubia! Going to Cabarete? Come here! Taxi, taxi!”

Me: “OK. How much?”

TD: “500 pesos, mi amor. But for you, just 400.”

M: “No thanks, bye”

TD: “Wait, wait, Americana. For you just 350 pesos.”

M: “No, I can’t pay that. Bye.”

TD: “Wait! How much do you want to pay?”

M: “150.”

TD: “Okay fine. Let’s go!”

Well, maybe they weren’t so fuerte after all. But I am not paying 500 pesos to go a distance that could easily be bola-ed if I weren’t so tired/scared of fast Sosua drivers. Tu sabes.

6:00pm - Arrive at hostel to ring in 2011 on the beach!

Long day. Y es facil?

So, that took a while. Traveled from New England, to the the south of the DR, to the north of the island with a few detours in the middle. Ten months ago, I don’t know if I would have been so confident in my Dominican public transportation abilities to do all that at once. In the end though, it went really well, just as everything always does. A couple photos from New Years:

Family, Friends near and far, PCDR voluntarios...everyone, everywhere - Happy 2011! There’s a lot to be thankful for. (Ability to go without sleep, for one thing). God bless!

XO

December Wrap-up

Back in the DR! I went home for Christmas, but before that I did a few things in December that I never wrote about. Just ran out of time, but here it is now:

1. Youth Conference - In early December, our sector held a national conference for Dominican youth. All volunteers in the education sector brought 1-3 jovenes from their campos/pueblos to Licey (same site as the Medical Mission) for a 3-day conference to learn about leadership, computers, technology, etc. I brought a 14-year old from my neighborhood, and she loved the conference. It’s really easy to travel in the DR, but I find that most people in my town just don’t leave that much. So my joven really liked traveling somewhere new, and meeting kids from all over the Dominican Republic. Here’s a photo of the joven I brought and a few more who attended the conference.
2. Monte Cristi - (Located left corner of map, northwestern-most city of the DR). My school went here for a graduation, art show and dance performance. The graduation was for the environment courses that our padrino, Banelino taught. The course taught different ways to incorporate environment-knowledge and recycling into teaching in a classroom. The class was held monthly for the past 6 months or so (since last spring when I arrived to Mao). After the graduation some of the kids got prizes for their environment-themed art they had made. In the last post about the recycling exhibition you can see a photo of the winners holding their drawings from the art contest. Monte Cristi itself isn’t too far from Mao, maybe 1.5 hours? Possibly less. And the ride up there is really different from anything I’ve seen so far - lots of dry land, even cactuses (cacti?). Yup cacti in the Caribbean. Here are a few photos from the day: the shore in Monte Cristi, the kids’ dance at the graduation, and students thanking Banelino for working with our school.
3. Candy making with host family - Right before I left from the capital to the United States in mid-December, I stayed with the host family in Pantoja for a night. The family made a sesame and chocolate candy and gave me some to share with my family at home. Here are some photos of the candy-making process. Those big leaves in the pictures are banana or plantain leaves.

Bye!

XO