last posts!

Wednesday, April 29, 2009:

Okay, so today is supposed to be the day I leave, in fact, I was supposed to be on the plane at 8:40 this morning but guess what? I’m not! I decided to drop out of school and move here….. SKYE! But seriously, I did extend my trip one more week and now I am leaving on Tuesday the 5^th. I realize that is cutting it close to graduation on Saturday the ninth but oh well! If I am going to get back into the hustle and bustle of life in the States, I might as well hit the ground running right?

In my last entry I talked about our spring break adventure to the beach for the crazy Semana Santa celebrations and crazy they were! There were THOUSANDS of people on the beach all day, two or three stages set up with constant blaring music and the night life was similar minus the families. I feel like I have experienced what it’s like to go to those Cancun/ Miami spring break things where people are inappropriate and go absolutely wild! It was fun but something I don’t really intend to do again. It was interesting though to see so many Dominicans at the beach. Typically Cabarete is dominated by tourists but locals were surely the majority this time. Some of our Dominican friends have told us that Dominicans don’t go to the beach too much because they don’t want to get any darker so maybe they wait for special occasions like Semana Santa to go.

My last week of school went well. I had a couple of tests and one big paper which was a hassle but otherwise, no complaints. It was 500% less stressful than any other finals week so I really can’t complain!

My sister came to visit the Monday after school ended (the 20^th) and is currently exploring another part of the island by herself before returning again to Santiago to hang out with me some more before she leaves on Sunday. Trena came with me to meet Melanie in Santo Domingo and spent the next day at Tres Ojos which are caves with three pretty little lakes in them. Our cab driver was extremely friendly and decided he was going to come with us and hang out while we walked around the caves. Apparently he is not paid by the hour! The caves were really cool with turtles and really big iguanas, I got some great pics!

Tuesday afternoon we returned to Santiago and Melanie got to meet my friends and Dominican family. We had a really fun meal, Eduardo was on a roll and we all know Melanie enjoys a good laugh! They have been extremely hospitable to her and even offered to drive her to the airport on Sunday!

Wednesday Melanie, Krista, Trena and I went to 27 Charcos which is pretty much a mountain you climb and then jump/swim down these 27 small waterfalls! We had to wear helmets and life jackets and it was pretty intense! It was pouring down rain on the hike up which was wonderful because the pace our guide set was quite swift! Some of the falls had a natural slide that he tossed us down and others were jumps off rocks into the pools below. The highest jump was about 35 feet high which was a serious rush but sooo fun! The rocks along the series of falls were a cool greeny-teal sometimes and sandy white others. We decided everything was a mix of Jurassic Park meets Swiss Family Robinson and Fear Factor. There is no way we could have taken a camera but the mental pictures I took are bomb! From there, Melanie and I continued on to have a couple sisters-only beach days in Cabarete and Sosua. In Sosua we made friends with a bunch of cool little kids. Our favorite was this little tyke named Gregory who was chillin by himself while his dad worked by selling things on the beach. Baby Spanish is adorable by the way! We mainly just laid in the sand and let the waves hit us. Gregory held my hand for about 15 minutes and told his dad I was his girlfriend, precious!

Melanie’s birthday was Sunday the 26^th so the two of us left Saturday for an overnight adventure in town called Monte Cristi which is located in the far northwest corner of the country near the Haitian border. We had heard the town was beautiful but very quiet, both were true. Our hotel was right on the water and had about 70 rooms and we guessed maybe 5 very occupied. We had a chill night Saturday just going to dinner at a nearby restaurant and watching tv. Saturday we had planned to go snorkeling. Once we stepped into the road to try to find people to take us snorkeling a woman rolled up on her moto to ask us if we wanted a ride to one of the nearby islands to go snorkeling, perfect! She was very sweet and hooked us up with a boat guy, masks and really sweet flippers! The whole excursion for the two of us for the whole day cost less than $45 dollars. We rode the boat out to the nearby island with a group of couples who were headed out to spend the day and have a picnic. After we dropped off the others, our boat man took us to the other side of the island and told us not to go out too far because it’s dangerous, and not to go in too far because it’s dangerous and then told us to jump out. Haha, I was just thinking about all the paperwork this little outing would have required in the States. We spent about an hour swimming around looking at the coral and letting the waves push us around. I got a pretty gnarly scrape from the coral and then was afraid I would attract sharks with my blood but other than that, all went very well and we had a great time.

After we made our way back around to where our new friends were we decided to explore the island a bit. Monte Cristi is known for salt production, apparently the industry brings in $4 million year! So there are these weird square lake type things full of this gross looking salty mud water stuff and the surrounding ground looks all gray and scaly and in the form of sheets. We were trying to climb this little mountain to see the other side of the island when Melanie suggested we veer off the trail and go by way of the squishy salt sheets. I took one step in the new direction when my foot sunk down about 6 inches into this black mud that was apparently below these gray salty sheets. When I pulled my foot out, my black sandal was gone! Now this was pretty stressful considering the amount of walking on rocks I would have to do barefoot if I couldn’t find my sandal and I must admit I was a bit skeptical that I would find it at all considering my sandal was black and the mud was black and deep. I immediately grabbed a stick and tried to fish for my sandal while Melanie abandoned me in my time of crisis to pee. My first stick snapped right away and we were laughing hysterically as I found another stronger one and commenced digging. I didn’t give up and eventually was able to catch the top strap part and pull out my flip-flop totally covered and disgusting. We had stomach aches from laughing so hard, good times!

We came back to Santiago that night and a bunch of my friends came to the Monument to celebrate with us. There was some sort of carnival set up in the parking lot and therefore tons of people! They had a Ferris Wheel that was going WAY too fast and seemed extremely unsafe. They had some really cool, climbable trees too so naturally, Trena and I decided to climb one. After a while we saw a couple of cops and even a SWAT guy come over to regulate… apparently these are special, endangered trees that people are not supposed to climb. They seemed pretty upset but luckily Melanie came to the rescue and distracted them by asking lots of questions and they settled down and left! Haha, oh Meli, so smooth!

Sunday, May 03, 2009:

I am officially the last one in my group still in the country. Sally (and Melanie) left today and now the end actually seems real. It was very hard for Eduardo and Daysi to say goodbye to Sally and I foresee a similar experience on Tuesday when I leave. A part of me feels guilty for not leaving the same day so that would only have to go through it all the one time.

We went to Sosua one last time yesterday and had a very relaxing time. Melanie and I swam away from the beach and around the rocks to the resort-y side area and it was awesome! The water was so clear I could see the flowers I have painted on my toenails! When we came back to the house we had our last family meal and sat around chatting with the family. Melanie had yet to eat the street food so the two of us made a trip to the Monument area eat empanadas and a yucca ball at 12:30, tasty!

I am going to make this my last entry so I think it only appropriate to write some concluding thoughts. First I must say that my time here has been the greatest in my life, so far. I know it’s important to say “so far” because I know I will be this happy again. The Dominican Republic is a very happy place. Yes it’s beautiful and there is lots of sun but also the people here are just truly content and happy. They are so expressive and caring it’s wonderful. Being here has taught me to not just like things but LOVE things and see the beauty, value or excitement in every little thing.

As far as personal growth is concerned I can pinpoint a couple of things. Everyone who knows me knows that I am a planner and a very organized person. I don’t think I am uptight but I do like to know what’s going on and stick to some sort of a schedule. This trait is almost non-existent here and I have adjusted. I am shocked at how little mishaps or not smooth situations affect me these days. I have truly adapted the island’s “joy of living” mentality and can just go with the flow. The other major mental change has been in regards to physical appearance. I have always stressed about my figure and body image and it has been a constant annoyance because I know it’s a ridiculous thing to waste time worrying about. However here, fully body types are adored and no one expects or wants girls to be stick thin. A third change is in how I think I will approach my future. After this experience I no longer feel like a fancy job, a PhD or societal superiority is anything to be desired. I would like to have enough money to be stable and able to do things but I do not feel much of a drive to make a lot of money or be flashy in any way because I know those things are unnecessary and contribute nothing to happiness. Of course I have goals but they no longer consist of a bam, bam, bam plan that will bring me great success in the next five years. I cannot emphasize enough how liberating these changes have been for me and I really, really, really, hope I can manage to carry over this mentality when I return home to the States.

I must admit I am pretty nervous about going home. One reason is because I am graduating and moving on to a new chapter in my life but also I am nervous because of the reverse culture shock. On one hand I am afraid I will go back and miss everything here so much I will be depressed and feel really out of place. However the alternative seems even scarier which is returning home and immediately falling back into step with everything so easily it will seem like this experience never even happened, like it was all a dream. It has been so incredible I am afraid it will not even seem real once I am back home. I guess we will see soon enough.

At this point, I cannot imagine my life without having had this experience. I think studying abroad should be required for all students and will encourage everyone to do it when I have the chance. I have a ton more stories and there is a lot more I could say but I know I will see all of you soon and we can talk then. Thanks so much for taking an interest in my time here and reading my blog. It’s been very fun to write and has been a great way for me to keep record of all these craziness.

Viva la Republica Dominicana!!!!!

Wednesday, March 18, 2009: (newer stuff below… I just forgot to post this one awhile back!)

This are still going great here in the DR. I got my first pang of homesickness yesterday while showing a friend a picture of what my siblings looked like. It was so weird because I have the very same picture I showed her online up in my room and therefore I see it everyday but for some reason looking at the three of us sibs standing in downtown ‘ham this past December made my heart ache a little for everyone I love back home. I am not at all saying I have not been missing peeps this whole time, it’s just that I have gotten into such a groove here I hadn’t really thought about missing people in a while. I was talking to my roommate Sally and she said she was having similar feelings lately and it may be because the end of our time here is close-ish. All I know is that leaving here is going to be very, very bittersweet for me and I know I am not ready for it!

I know I have mentioned the crazy style of the women here but I just have to share one crazy story. The Dominican students at our school, especially the females dress like they are going to a night club everyday with their hair and makeup just right, tight clothes and many even wear high heels! The Americans stick out like sore thumbs already, but the especially because none of us have even made an attempt to fit in fashion-wise and people notice but don’t really seem to care. However, the one unacceptable fashion trend that some of my fellow Americans have tried to bring to the DR is wearing athletic apparel or loungy-type clothes to school. They are so not into this that my roommate along with some other students have been denied entry to the library for wearing sweats or athletic shorts!

This past Saturday, Rosie, Krista and I went to our friend’s house to spend the day tanning on his roof. The three of us girls had a great time soaking up the sun while our Haitian friends sat under these flower pot type things because it was the only shady area available! It was so funny seeing these three big guys crammed under the little awning to escape the sun. They were great sports about staying up there to hang out with us even though it was obvious they neither wanted to nor needed to tan! Rosie made us all bean dip and we spent the rest of the afternoon hanging out and watching crazy YouTube videos. I was so tired from doing nothing all day I didn’t even have the energy to go out later that night.

Since Sally had been gone all week, Eduardo and I were running low on things to talk about during our meals together. So on Sunday he was trying to imitate the raspy voice of Louis Armstrong and started playing his greatest hits CD. He would look to me after every couple of lines and ask me what he was saying and it was so hard to translate because I am not musically inclined enough to find true meanings behind many songs as it is! The only one I was able to translate was one about a woman who would leave if she wasn’t being treated right. Did I mention he also dances the Charleston often? Yeah, it’s awesome! I hope he is his crazy self when my parents come to visit next week! He already has his English question practiced to ask my dad which is “which baseball team do you like?” Oh, Eduardo!

Thursday, April 9, 2009:

So I suck at updating the ol’ blog these days… sorry! I am officially in love with this place and never want to leave! Today is Thursday of Semana Santa aka Easter week aka spring break here so we only had class Mon-Wednesday which is awesome! Since this country is super Catholic a lot of people don’t work or go to school at all this week and there are lots of church retreats and other traditions going on all the time with lots people in the streets and other things I don’t fully understand. On the less religious side, Semana Santa weekend (essentially starting Wednesday night) is a totally crazy party week/weekend for the young peeps where apparently EVERYONE goes to the beach to celebrate the madness. Our crew along with our Dominican crew and Haitian crew of friends decided to take part in the celebrations in Cabarete and spend Friday and Saturday night there. We foolishly left finding the hotel in the hands of the Dominican boys who failed to plan ahead and all the hotels were already booked. Trena and I saved the day by finding three condo type places in Sosua (another beach town about ten minutes away from Cabarete) that we plan on cramming nearly 16 people into to whittle the cost down to only $9 US per person, per night! The commute between the two towns won’t be bad because a couple of guys are bringing their cars OR we can always take the famous moto-conchos (aggressive motorcycle taxis that squeeze 2+ adults and zoom you from place to place… see earlier entries for details!). We plan on leaving tomorrow and have gotten mixed reviews about how busy or not the roads will be. Some of our host parents claim the roads are packed with people traveling for Easter and others claim the road are completely empty because it’s disrespectful to drive on Good Friday so we shall see. I am quite excited for all things!

My parents came to visit me last week and I honestly don’t think things could have gone any better! The day they were due in my friends and I decided to go to the beach for the day which eased my nerves a bit and we enjoyed sweltering heat and HUGE waves (I’ll try to post the video Sally took of us ‘body surfing’). I must admit I was very nervous for the rents to come. The main reason being I knew how much Spanish I would need to speak while traveling around with them and was worried I wasn’t good enough along with some other general worries about their culture shock and that sort of thing. I am pleased to report that the language issue was non-existent! I surprised myself with how well I was able to communicate and translate for them because as I have mentioned before, aside from the huge, foreign-run resorts on the beach, the DR is not much of a vacation land and you cannot easily find English speakers.

Eduardo came with me Friday night to pick the rents up from the airport and then we headed to Samana to spend a couple of days at the beach the next morning. We had great weather at the beach, stayed at a small, older resort filled with man-pri-(capris for men, think Roger Federer)-wearing Germans. We (meaning I) negotiated prices for taxi rides and beach art and the rents got a real kick out of it! My dad would try to participate by giving the thumbs up out of turn or interrupting to ask me what was going on…hilarious. Mom was great about practicing some Spanish words and phrases on the cooks and servers and Dad even won two bottles of the cheap but famous Dominican rum, Brugal playing bingo! We swam, collected coral, swam in a cave under a massive waterfall, rode horses (but mom got a mule, haha), played ping-pong, Dad and I shimmied up a slanted palm tree (I have video documentation of dad’s turn) and took a couple cozy gua-gua rides across the treacherous yet picturesque mountain roads! It was great!

Next stop was the capital, Santo Domingo. We stayed in an awesome hotel in the colonial district that was formerly a home to someone who lived in the 1700’s and was renovated beautifully with tall, chamber-style doors, pretty tile work and lots of stone. The place was so bomb, the day we left they were preparing to have a Venezuelan beer company come in a shoot a pirate-themed commercial there!

In Santo Domingo we took a three hour walking tour of the colonial district to learn about the all the historical stuff such a Columbus’s impact, the first Cathedral in the America’s and the cigar and Larimar (pretty teal national stone) manufacturing businesses. Our guide was a really nice guy named Roberto with a pretty thick accent but the rents claimed they picked up most of it. We did quite a bit of shopping in Santo Domingo, walked the Malecon or boardwalk for 2+ hours and had a fancy dinner in a cave!

The last leg of the journey brought us back to Santiago. My host parents made an amazing dinner Thursday night of all the delicious dishes I have been enjoying since I have been here and Sally and I had our hands full translating. Our host brother-in-law who can talk anyone’s ear off about American music surprised us all with his English skills and my dad (the not so musically inclined fella) was the lucky recipient. After dinner my parents came to meet all my friends at our favorite neighborhood bar called Fogon and Mom impressed everyone by guessing all their names from pictures and descriptions I had given her before. Friday (mom’s birthday) I showed the rents my school, we took a couple cozy concho rides to get down town and hit up the market for a little more shopping and finished the day off with two barn burnin’ basketball games for the semi-finals of the professional Dominican league. There were bands in the stands, a fight or two, chanting, show-boating by the players, and overall outta control fans that made the environment in the arena so loud and fun. I had experienced something similar at the baseball game a couple months before but the confined space definitely added to things as well. Some friends who didn’t come with us told us we were even on TV as the game was being shown at the bar we always go to.

I got up with Eduardo at 6 am to bring the rents to airport, we had a quick, emotional goodbye and then I went home and slept until 2:45 in the afternoon… definitely a personal best! I had an incredible time with the ‘rents and feel they did too. My host parents ask about them often and have not stopped raving about how ‘chevere’ (cool), kind, and wonderful they were. My parents felt the same way about all my friends and family here and I think that helped to ease any of the uneasiness they had about what I have been up to.

I hate to be so cliché but I must say, time flies! I cannot believe next week is my last week of school and that I will be leaving at the end of the month! I know that I should be excited for graduation and returning to the States but the idea of leaving this place, my family and all the people I have met here truly makes my heart hurt. At first I was having such a hard time getting adjusted to everything that I thought I would be one of those people who still loved to travel, but wouldn’t want to live in another country. But now, I find myself plotting how soon I can get things in order back home and move abroad for awhile. I am considering deferring my school loans and doing something like the Peace Corps but am still exploring my options. I know I will eventually settle in the States but feel like this is the time in my life where I should live abroad, perfect another language and not worry about making money. Maybe the state of the economy is the sign that’s telling me “now is not the time to enter the working world.” Who knows? I will for sure be around half the summer, I will for sure go to Europe with Dan in July, and I will for sure do my internship this fall but after that I am pretty open and excited to do whatever may come next.

Monday, March 09, 2009:

One quick correction to my last blog entry… the DR celebrated its 165^th birthday on February 27^th, not its 65^th. Just for the record!

This past weekend we had our third excursion to a place called Samana which is supposed to be one of the most beautiful areas in the country. One of Semana’s biggest draws this time of year is the humpback whales who hang out until early April. We were supposed to go see them but the waves were too big and the boats they take you on are pretty small and therefore it would have been too dangerous. I was a little disappointed but I have a second chance to go when the ‘rents come later this month so it still might work out. In place of the whale watching we took a boat out to this crazy pack of little rocky islands on of which was called bird island because it has all these crazy-huge birds just flying around. We got off at one of the other islands to go in this cave which was pretty cool. We anchored nearby, ate some lunch and then busted out the kayaks for a swampy little tour through the wild. I was partnered with Trena which was great because she was totally down for the
“off road” kayaking we did. The waterway was long and narrow situated between the sides of two different rocky islands with lots of trees and obstacles growing everywhere. One side was definitely more clear and the obvious choice to paddle down so of course on the way back Trena and I decided to go along the opposite side and see if we could weave around everything. This was great and we even say a huge sting ray! Of course, we reached a point where we couldn’t make it any further on the side we were on so we saw our only option besides paddling a significant distance backwards was to get out and try to toss our kayak over this log. Keep in mind since we decided to travel off the beaten path, we hadn’t seen anyone from our group for at least half an hour but right when we were out of kayak, laughing, knee-deep in swampy goo trying to get our heavy kayak over this log, our group just happened to be passing by on the other side! None of them seemed surprised to see us (especially me) in this adventurous pickle but they were all certainly amused. Krista immediately busted out her underwater camera and Mike braved the swamp himself to help us get our kayak over the log. I thought we were all good once we got back in but freaked out significantly when I saw two black crabs that resembled huge spiders crawling around on Trena’s life jacket. After some spastic flapping and screaming we were able to get back on track and make it back to the boat!

Our hotel was in a town called Las Terrenas about an hour from Samana. The clouds had been in and out so we decided to check out the pool instead of swimming in the ocean once we got to the hotel which was really fun. The hotel was totally island-y with great food (buffet style), a pool, hot showers, a pool, a really cool gift shop and lots of older Europeans. Since it was about thirty feet from the beach, about five of us girls decided to go skinny dipping on Friday night before staying up late to have some serious girl talk. Quite fun!

Unfortunately the weather didn’t really cooperate on Saturday either but we still played on the beach, did some aerobics, chatted, read and then went back to the hotel to hang out until lunch once it started actually raining.

We got back to Santiago around 7:30 Friday night and I came back and had Yucca (bomb potato type food) with Eduardo. Daysi had a church retreat this weekend and Sally left for the capital from Samana because all of her friends from the church mission from back home that she does every year is here this week. Sally is going to be gone all week which is already weird but fine, I like hanging with the host parents too.

Sunday was a pretty lazy day. I slept in until almost noon and got up to eat the breakfast Eduardo had prepared for me hours before… oops! After spending some time on Skype talking to peeps from back home I went home to relax and maybe start some homework when I got a call from the 24 year-old neighbor I had met a couple of weeks ago and recently run into again. He asked me if I wanted to go get some of the best homemade ice cream with him. Since I wanted to neighborly and since I cannot resist ice cream I said I’d go. Once we got out the neighborhood he asked me if he had mentioned that the place we were going to was in Jarabacoa which is a place 45 minutes from Santiago! I was essentially kidnapped but I still had fun and the ice cream was honestly worth it! It was kind of like a popsicle and a milky-coconut flavor.

Since our time here is kind of starting to wind down and I have been so good about not missing any classes we have decided that we are running out of times to skip class. That being said, we are missing class tomorrow and going to the beach!