Here is my last blog update about my amazing and rewarding experience in the Dominican Republic. Starting about two weeks before I left I threw a small, little pizza party for the orphanage I helped out with while I vacationed...... oh wait *studied* in the Dominican Republic. One friday night I lugged a few pizzas over to the orphanage and while they were in the mist of unlocking the gate for me to enter I made it clear that all the pizza was only for the pregnant dog. After we all chowed down on some dominos pizza I played a little game with them that I did not understand at all. It was fun to be apart of their family for a night. I then had to make my way home but before I left I was attacked by the biggest, most loving group hug that almost knocked me off my feet many times. It made me so sad to leave all the kids I had been lucky enough to get to know over the few months I had lived in the DR.
Of course when my mom came to visit me she brought up a bunch of gifts for my host family. After my pizza party a little later in the week I told my host family that I had a small, early christmas for the family. A Red Socks jacket for my host dad, because baseball is a huge sport down there that most dominicans love to play and or watch. For my host mom I had a lobster claw bracelet from silver lining. For both of my host sisters a pair of silver lining earrings and of course a Johns Lawns t-shirt. Then for the family to share my mom had brought up a box of chocolates, real maple syrup from our cousins in Vermont, and some lobster gummies. My host mom found a lot of amusement in the gummies, even taking a picture of one of the "lobsters". They all loved their presents and I'm so glad I could give them a little christmas before I left.
Our final extravaganza in the DR was spending our last week in a campo. Its an area out in the country side. The campo we spent our time at was very impoverished and everyone living there were squatters. None of the families could afford to buy land or pay taxes so they nailed together some misfit pieces of wood or metal to set up a place to reside. Many of the houses had dirt floors and if a family was lucky they had one bed that they would all squeeze onto for a nights sleep. They may not have had money there but what they didn't have in money they replaced with love and care. I absolutely loved the time I was able to spend in the campo because I was welcomed with open arms. We were taken care of like part of the family and treated like part of the family by all the residence of the campo. While spending time there I helped out with the school that they had there for kids around the age of five. When I was thrown in charge of teaching I found it impossible to get all the kids attention at once. It was very difficult to get their attention and teach them anything. It was okay because they were all the cutest, most friendly kids so that part made up for it. The structure of the school in the campo was none existent. The first day I went over to help one of the teachers and he said "okay you can teach them" when I asked what to teach them he just shrugged and walked away. Something that made me very sad was that because the campo was so poor and couldn't afford teachers they had 16 year olds as the teachers. These "teachers" would only went to school on sundays. I may not have been the biggest fan of school but am so grateful that I was given the opportunity to attend school and gain an education and have the ability to eventually gain a higher education. One of the scariest parts of the campo was that for a "school bus" they used a falling apart, rusty truck that only had a drivers seat. The kids that were picked up for school then filled up the back of the truck. It was so unsafe but they cant afford to buy a bus and have it sent over the DR form the States. If you could afford to help out the kids that are lucky to having any form of schooling it would mean so much to them and keep them all safe so that they would have one less worry on their minds. One day instead of spending all day at the school I went down to where we ate and helped cook up a lunch. I spent a good two hours pealing a cutting up some potatoes. Then helped cook over a wood fire outside. When the food was all ready it was then put in half of a baking pan because it was too big but it was the only one they had. The pan was then slid into the oven, but of course the pan was to big for the oven so the oven was left open while our lunch finished cooking up. There was no fan or source of cooling so we were engulfed by the heat of the wood fire, the open oven, and of course the sun that burned bright almost everyday. It was extremely hot there during the day. Well for me it sure was hot. We were lucky enough to be spending time at a campo that had a great pool. I could go for a quick, or ver long, renewing plunge everyday. Then it would cool off at night and be completely opposite than during the day. Even though it was way too hot for me during the day when it started to cool down on the brink of dark I attempted to play a little basketball with one of the boys of the campo. Of course I haven't been playing any sports for a while but it was about time to test out my ankle in a little basketball competition. The hardest part wasn't finding the pain in running but the ruts and ditches throughout the court made it a little hard to get around. For the last day of being in the campo we helped set up some houses with a more solid floor and better roofing then we took a trip down to a beach. Of course we rode in the falling apart truck, down the high way, at high speed, it was only a little terrifying. I had a great time at the beach with all my new friends from the campo. Swimming in the warm, clear water and of course taking lots of pictures made me sad to think that I would be leaving the next day. We then headed back to the campo but stopped to grab some foods for a last night cook out. We got back and grilled up some meets that the guy in charge had put in the most delicious marinade. At the campo the kids that we hung out with everyday were Ian, Miguel Angel, and Samuel. Ian was 10 and was such a funny, loving kid. Then there was Miguel Angel who was 6. He was the cutest little boy and I feel in love with him so hard that I wanted to adopt him and take him home with me even though he had a family. Then there was Samuel who was 17 and he was a great friend and was very good at speaking slowly in spanish so I would be able to understand. Also he was so understanding with my spanish and how I still needed some help and wasn't able to speak perfect spanish. A great part of the campo was that everyone besides the guy in charge only spoke spanish. It gave me a week to test out how well I could get along with only speaking spanish and no english. I may not have been the best but I was still able to make new friends so it couldn't have been that bad. The only bad part about the campo was that on the second day that we were there I got sick. The one time I got sick during my trip to the DR. I had the worst stomach pain and my head was all congested and ready to explode. It got better by the end of our campo trip and having a little sickness while I was there didn't take away from how much I loved my stay there. One night there was a news crew that came to the campo for some interviews so the area around where we spent the night was filled with many people of the campo. When I came out of my room and walked over I was swarmed by one group of dominicans that all wanted a picture. I then jokingly said "It's only because I'm American, right?" then the girl responded with an easy "oh yeah, of course". I didn't minde but I found it very comical that they had to get a picture with one of the only "Americans" around because they only see our kind every so often. The time soon rolled around for goodbyes. It was so sad for me and I hated that I would be leaving friends from my week in the campo. It may have only been one week but they all had made such a big impact on me. I miss them so much and hope I can see them soon in the future.
The day after I got back to Santiago after the campo I ventured off to a Romeo Santos concert with two of my friends from the study abroad program. Romeo Santos was the favorite singer of many of the residence of the campo. I couldn't understand the music but I had spent the days of my journey in the DR loving his music. We arrived at the concert about an hour early so we could grab some good seats. We then sat in the off an on rain for three hours after the concert was supposed to start waiting for Romeo to make his debut on the stage. The concert was a great experience and I am so glad I could end my trip with one last big thing. After the concert we went outside looking for a taxi along with most of the other people that had attended the concert. We finally found a taxi and jumped in. Soon after he took off we found out that the driver was most likely drunk. The driving through the DR was scary enough but this made it even worse. We had to yell at him where to turn and where to go and he barely understood us. I made it home safe and sound so I was lucky enough to jump out of that cab without a scratch.
During my last few days when I was packing up my suitcase my host mom came up to my room to give me little christmas presents for everyone in my family. She gave me a coffee mug for my mom and I, a magnet for my dad and a key chain for my brother and I. It was so sweet of her and I love that I have a token from my loving, host family.
I then had to sadly part away from my new found home in the DR and make my way to the airport. I made it safe and sound on to my flight to Miami but then wasn't as lucky once I landed in Miami. I then had to rush around getting stuck in custom lines and such. I then missed my flight to Boston but was lucky enough to be able to catch a flight that was only one hour later. I made it to Boston around 12 and had my Uncle there ready to grab my suitcase and make our way back to Boothbay. We waited where the luggage came out for a while and it turned out that my luggage had been left in Miami but they would have it to my the next morning. I then traveled home with my wonderful Uncle that had been sweet enough to gather me up from the airport. We mad it back to my house in Boothbay around three. I slept a few hours then got up and made my way to Hyde to visit my old friends and teachers. It was so great to see old friends and the best to see Miss. Moorse my old spanish teacher.
Being home has been so nice. I've been able to see all my friends and family and be back in a familiar place. It is absolutely freezing though and I wish the heat was something I could have brought back with me. I love being home to normality but I miss the new life that I had made in the DR and I hope that I will be able to go back very soon and see all the new friends I had made.
This is my last blog until I venture off to Spain in January. I hope you all have a very merry christmas and a happy new year! Feliz navidad, prospero ano!
Sunday, December 21, 2014
Friday, December 5, 2014
yesterday wasnt september?
First things first, my computer stopped working for me so I'm typing this on my phone so most likely there will be a lot of errors but I will edit them all when I'm home with a working computer.
For the past few blog updates I have kept notes of what I've been doing. When I looked at my notes for this blog the first thing seemed like 3 months ago not 3 weeks ago. Anyways so a couple of weekends ago the entire CIEE program travled down to el Dajabon which is the border of the DR and Haiti. There is a huge market there that we had time to look through. You could bargain for what you wanted and everything was surprisingly inexpensive. I ended up getting a lot of my christmas shopping done and found an mp3 player for about $10 that looked exactly like one of the mini iPods. I made the vendor test it and everything to be safe and it was great. After our trip to el Dajabon we made a pit stop at a gorgeous, jaw dropping beach. The only thing was that the mosquitos there were huge and in large quantities but the view was worth it. I think the longest ive gone during my trip without a new bug bite has been 2 days. Thats a pretty good record for here.
The next weekend I took a trip down to Cabarete with 5 of the study abroad girls. Its a lovely tourist destination right on the beach. We spent the night in a hostel. When we got there we were surprised to see how nice the hostel was, having a pool and a trampoline and a pool table. We filled up the he room with bunk beds and only had to pay $12 per person for the night. We all had a great time, we went in to town and snaked on some Chinese food then took a stroll down the beach. On our way back we crossed paths with these two boys from the states and one of them did not like the culture here. He was saying how everyone needs to speek english and how it was so stupid that people kept trying to sell him things over and over again. It was very hard to be around because obviously you're in a different place where people dont have as much money as you and do whatever they can to make money to feed their families and themselves. The next morning was planned to be our beach day but when we woke up it was pouring rain. We walked to town in the rain and after we had gotten some breakfast the rain had cleared out and welcomed the bright shinning sun. We had a perfect 3 hours of sun to lay out in and then the rain started again. I had such a fun weekend away from all of the gap year kids and the CIEE program on the beach in the sun. "Beautiful girls on a beautiful beach in beautiful weather" -Addis perfect quote for the day. We then went home saturday and got back to Santiago around 7pm. The next day I got up and headed in to town from some walking exercise and some prowling for a pair of pants. On my way home I was crossing the street about 100 steps from my door when a motorcyclist drove by and swiped my purse on the pass by. I had no words at first and stood there in shock. The worst part was when he stole a glance back at me so I threw my hands up and yelled "HEY" because I was not able to think of anything else. My bag consisted of my DR $20 phone, 1000 pesos, and my ancient cracked ipod. That all didn't matter to me but it was so scary. I walked to my house and had to ring the bell because my keys were also in my bag. I then told my host dad what happened and he went out looking for him with no luck in the end. My family ended up changing one of the 3 locks to enter into the hours so I know need three keys to get into my house instead of two which is weird coming from a house where we don't even know where a kay is and where we leave our car keys on the car.
Speaking of keys about a week later I was sitting down with dinner and looked up at the table and caught sight of a set of car keys. looking a little closer the Maine key chain my mom had sent over to the DR was latched onto the keys and it made me really happy. Around that time it was my older sisters 21 birthday. My family had many family members over but my sister Jennifer was sick all night and couldn't even enjoy a slice of her very own birthday cake.
The next weekend I was privileged to have my mom come up and visit. When I went to get her from the plane the moment I said her I couldn't wipe the smile from my face. We went down to Sosua for the weekend. Sosua is another place like Cabarete. We stayed in a nice hotel with a pool and ocean view. We spent the day relaxing on the beach. We ordered delicious pina coladas that were served in a pineapple and half of the beverage you need to eat with a spoon because it was a lot of chopped pineapple throughout the drink from heaven. We also tried a casino one night which neither of us really understood ot liked. Another night of her visit I took her out to a discoteca so she could see some more of my life here. during her visit we also stopped to get a mani and pedi. They scrubbed my moms hands and feet so hard she had trouble walking after that. Her nails were a gorgeous red with an artistic white and gold design. She then had to leave after only 5 days. I missed her after the fist day she departed and cant wait to see my whole family when I'm home. Wish I could have made the trip perfect for he but we had a great time spending time at the beach and it was just nice to see her after a solid 3 months.
The orphanage is still going great as usual. My mom was also able to stop by the orphanage on her visit and was generous enough to bring along a bunch of little gifts for the kids. One of the funniest parts of visiting the orphanage lately is that all the little kids chant my name for me to chase them around. Its still a little hard running with my ankle but its so much fun and I love it. One day when I was sitting down one of the girls started playing with my hair and a minute later the owner, Rosa came over and braided my hair so nicely and it was so sweat of her I loved that part to. This is my last week of being able to visit the orphanage so I asked if I could throw a pizza party for them and of course that was okay. So tonight I will bring over some dominos and let the kids feast on one of their favorite foods I'm sure they don't get to eat very often.
A couple days ago when I was on my normal walk to school I came to a halt in the middle of the sidewalk with a cat laying in front of me. The fur was very dirty but it didn't look like there was anything wrong with the cat, no blood or cuts, just the fact that it didn't have a home. Also that it was motionless without breath.
last night we had our fiesta de despised which was the farewell dinner for the entire CIEE group. It was sad but I had a lot of fun. I was assigned the challenge of writing a thank you for a teachers of the semester...in spanish. I then had to read it on front of everyone and my spanish pronunciation really isn't the best not even close to being okay. It was okay, it went fine but I'm going to miss my teachers soo soo much. The gap year kids then had to preform a little dance. The boys started it off then Nikki and I cut them off and did a little dancing then our teachers cut us off and we all danced together lastly we had another song come on and invited the whole audience to come up and dance. It was a great time. After dinner there were a bunch of us that stayed there late dancing, well I was attempting to dance but it wasn't the best.
So lately I've come up with a few more differences of the DR from the states. One I hate is that they have no recycling here. I wish they did because then there would be a little less trash strewn thought the streets. Another difference is when you walk down the street be prepared to hear many whistles of rubia and Americana calls. We are told that here when men see women they think look good it would be rude for them to not call out to them and let them know. But really I think its because I'm a white young american girl that they think has a lot of money. It doesn't seem to bother me though because I just ignore it and keep on with my walk.
This Sunday I will be leaving for a campo out on the middle of no where. Im really excited to see what its like. We won't have any running water and will be away from the city, mostly all the cook will be done outside and the life style is very different. I think this is my last post until I'm home but once I'm home I'll edit this and give you all an update on the last adventure of my expedition in the DR. Its crazy to think I only have 12 days left.
For the past few blog updates I have kept notes of what I've been doing. When I looked at my notes for this blog the first thing seemed like 3 months ago not 3 weeks ago. Anyways so a couple of weekends ago the entire CIEE program travled down to el Dajabon which is the border of the DR and Haiti. There is a huge market there that we had time to look through. You could bargain for what you wanted and everything was surprisingly inexpensive. I ended up getting a lot of my christmas shopping done and found an mp3 player for about $10 that looked exactly like one of the mini iPods. I made the vendor test it and everything to be safe and it was great. After our trip to el Dajabon we made a pit stop at a gorgeous, jaw dropping beach. The only thing was that the mosquitos there were huge and in large quantities but the view was worth it. I think the longest ive gone during my trip without a new bug bite has been 2 days. Thats a pretty good record for here.
The next weekend I took a trip down to Cabarete with 5 of the study abroad girls. Its a lovely tourist destination right on the beach. We spent the night in a hostel. When we got there we were surprised to see how nice the hostel was, having a pool and a trampoline and a pool table. We filled up the he room with bunk beds and only had to pay $12 per person for the night. We all had a great time, we went in to town and snaked on some Chinese food then took a stroll down the beach. On our way back we crossed paths with these two boys from the states and one of them did not like the culture here. He was saying how everyone needs to speek english and how it was so stupid that people kept trying to sell him things over and over again. It was very hard to be around because obviously you're in a different place where people dont have as much money as you and do whatever they can to make money to feed their families and themselves. The next morning was planned to be our beach day but when we woke up it was pouring rain. We walked to town in the rain and after we had gotten some breakfast the rain had cleared out and welcomed the bright shinning sun. We had a perfect 3 hours of sun to lay out in and then the rain started again. I had such a fun weekend away from all of the gap year kids and the CIEE program on the beach in the sun. "Beautiful girls on a beautiful beach in beautiful weather" -Addis perfect quote for the day. We then went home saturday and got back to Santiago around 7pm. The next day I got up and headed in to town from some walking exercise and some prowling for a pair of pants. On my way home I was crossing the street about 100 steps from my door when a motorcyclist drove by and swiped my purse on the pass by. I had no words at first and stood there in shock. The worst part was when he stole a glance back at me so I threw my hands up and yelled "HEY" because I was not able to think of anything else. My bag consisted of my DR $20 phone, 1000 pesos, and my ancient cracked ipod. That all didn't matter to me but it was so scary. I walked to my house and had to ring the bell because my keys were also in my bag. I then told my host dad what happened and he went out looking for him with no luck in the end. My family ended up changing one of the 3 locks to enter into the hours so I know need three keys to get into my house instead of two which is weird coming from a house where we don't even know where a kay is and where we leave our car keys on the car.
Speaking of keys about a week later I was sitting down with dinner and looked up at the table and caught sight of a set of car keys. looking a little closer the Maine key chain my mom had sent over to the DR was latched onto the keys and it made me really happy. Around that time it was my older sisters 21 birthday. My family had many family members over but my sister Jennifer was sick all night and couldn't even enjoy a slice of her very own birthday cake.
The next weekend I was privileged to have my mom come up and visit. When I went to get her from the plane the moment I said her I couldn't wipe the smile from my face. We went down to Sosua for the weekend. Sosua is another place like Cabarete. We stayed in a nice hotel with a pool and ocean view. We spent the day relaxing on the beach. We ordered delicious pina coladas that were served in a pineapple and half of the beverage you need to eat with a spoon because it was a lot of chopped pineapple throughout the drink from heaven. We also tried a casino one night which neither of us really understood ot liked. Another night of her visit I took her out to a discoteca so she could see some more of my life here. during her visit we also stopped to get a mani and pedi. They scrubbed my moms hands and feet so hard she had trouble walking after that. Her nails were a gorgeous red with an artistic white and gold design. She then had to leave after only 5 days. I missed her after the fist day she departed and cant wait to see my whole family when I'm home. Wish I could have made the trip perfect for he but we had a great time spending time at the beach and it was just nice to see her after a solid 3 months.
The orphanage is still going great as usual. My mom was also able to stop by the orphanage on her visit and was generous enough to bring along a bunch of little gifts for the kids. One of the funniest parts of visiting the orphanage lately is that all the little kids chant my name for me to chase them around. Its still a little hard running with my ankle but its so much fun and I love it. One day when I was sitting down one of the girls started playing with my hair and a minute later the owner, Rosa came over and braided my hair so nicely and it was so sweat of her I loved that part to. This is my last week of being able to visit the orphanage so I asked if I could throw a pizza party for them and of course that was okay. So tonight I will bring over some dominos and let the kids feast on one of their favorite foods I'm sure they don't get to eat very often.
A couple days ago when I was on my normal walk to school I came to a halt in the middle of the sidewalk with a cat laying in front of me. The fur was very dirty but it didn't look like there was anything wrong with the cat, no blood or cuts, just the fact that it didn't have a home. Also that it was motionless without breath.
last night we had our fiesta de despised which was the farewell dinner for the entire CIEE group. It was sad but I had a lot of fun. I was assigned the challenge of writing a thank you for a teachers of the semester...in spanish. I then had to read it on front of everyone and my spanish pronunciation really isn't the best not even close to being okay. It was okay, it went fine but I'm going to miss my teachers soo soo much. The gap year kids then had to preform a little dance. The boys started it off then Nikki and I cut them off and did a little dancing then our teachers cut us off and we all danced together lastly we had another song come on and invited the whole audience to come up and dance. It was a great time. After dinner there were a bunch of us that stayed there late dancing, well I was attempting to dance but it wasn't the best.
So lately I've come up with a few more differences of the DR from the states. One I hate is that they have no recycling here. I wish they did because then there would be a little less trash strewn thought the streets. Another difference is when you walk down the street be prepared to hear many whistles of rubia and Americana calls. We are told that here when men see women they think look good it would be rude for them to not call out to them and let them know. But really I think its because I'm a white young american girl that they think has a lot of money. It doesn't seem to bother me though because I just ignore it and keep on with my walk.
This Sunday I will be leaving for a campo out on the middle of no where. Im really excited to see what its like. We won't have any running water and will be away from the city, mostly all the cook will be done outside and the life style is very different. I think this is my last post until I'm home but once I'm home I'll edit this and give you all an update on the last adventure of my expedition in the DR. Its crazy to think I only have 12 days left.
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