Day 8: Arriving at Beach Comber

6.6.12.

Beautiful beach all to ourselves:]

We all dug into a wonderful breakfast of fresh cut fruit (banana, mango, passionfruit, etc.) and hot sandwiches on the hotel porch before making our long bus drive over to Beach Comber, the residence that Dave owns and lives at most of the year. We drove through cities, towns and deserts before arriving at the this paradise of a beach home, which included a luxurious pool, relaxing discussion area equipped with a ping pong and pool table, and a beautiful view of the soft, blue sea.

Daniel proves his worth at the ping pong table...

The rest of the day was free time, where we zipped into our rooms, threw on bikinis and raced out to the ocean which greeted us with strong, frothy waves. The current was so strong that we had to get out every 10 minutes to run back along the shore so we could remain in the allowed beach zone. After getting thrashed around in the waves and floating in the lulling saltwater (the area right before the waves broke), we headed back to the pool where everyone relaxed in a chair sipping fresh coconut juice or in the pool, playing chicken.

Our rooms and the pool. Wonderful? I think so.

These were going to be some fabulous next few days.

Day 7: Organic Coffee Farm & Santa Domingo

At breakfast we discovered some member's favorite TV shows, which included Friends, CSI, and My Little Pony.. We still haven't dropped that one. The bus ride up to the coffee farm was breathtaking, for those who managed to stay awake. From the openings in the trees, we could see countless palm trees sprawled over the infinite green valleys and rolling hills, with the winding rivers snaking between. The coffee farm was interesting, and those who could hear the tour guide learned lots. For those too engulfed in the view and picture possibilities (emma and I), or those feeling sick from the bug spray incident the previous night (James and Fergie), among others, this tour was still as fun, but very very buggy. Still, we got to trek through the jungle and try exotic fruits that tasted like sweet tomato-mangos, learn about the coffee bean process and observe the breathtaking view again from a hike to the mountaintop.

Pretty flowers on
the mountainside

Beautiful dewey flower

Coffee Farm tour guide showing us
 red beads (ripe beans)

View from the mountain village

Juliana trying the mango-tomato fruit

MOTO on the mountaintop!!!

(as you can tell, I haven't quite got the hang of the photo arranging on here yet...)

Outside the slums
 (we weren't allowed to bring cameras in)

Afterwards, we set off on our l o n g drive to Santa Domingo, but not before splurging on a variety of ridiculously cheap snacks from a nearby store. Through the city we drove, until we arrived at the starts of the Dominican slums. We walked through a technology school, where many citizens learn sets of skills they can use to find jobs, and then down a long and steep set of concrete steps to the bottom, where countless, poverty stricken Dominicans lived. The rickety shacks that housed these people were tiny and many members of our GLA group who had never seen slums were gobsmacked at the sight. I think Dave said over a million people lived, cramped in that tiny slum-area. Because the DR government doesn't provide many public services, like trash collection, these slum-inhabitants have no where to put their trash, so they empty it by the river. The river that serves as their baths, washing machines, and faucets for drinking. We saw pigs and chickens crowd round a freshly dumped mound of trash, rooting through the remains before moving on. This idea of poverty, water availability, sickness, job search and so many of the other problems we had been discussing was an evident reality here in the Santa Domingo slums, and many of us were moved by this fact.

Music began blaring from a nearby house, and a crowd of children congregated around us; a dance contest began. Wesley was pushed into the center of the circle to represent our group.. Let's just say the Dominican children were a little better than us. Haha! The light was waning, and so we made our way back up the steeep trail of stairs to our buses, waving goodbye to the children, some teens passing the kids sugar cane they'd bought out the windows.

Some of my group members felt very uncomfortable while walking through the slums, particularly many of the boys, as the Dominican men seemed to glare at them. The children at one point were chanting "matar americanos" translating to "kill Americans", which unnerved several group members. However, from a  slum inhabitant's perspective,  I can see why they'd be angry, feeling hatred towards us. If I were a poverty stricken slum inhabitant whose residence was being invaded by a bunch of touristy, rich Americans as if we were some sort of zoo, I would be pretty irritated as well.

Tuyen and her face-sized pizza

Afterwards, we were bused through the city to our quaint little hotel. However, because of a room-space mix up, only the boys stayed there because just 3 rooms were available. So we girls weaved our way through the SD streets to another hotel, where we got settled, got dressed up, and left to re-meet the guys for a night on the town. Jane and Dave led us to a fast food pizza place, where we inhaled some 14 HUGE pizzas. And when I say huge, I mean pizza-the-size-of-your-face huge. We walked around colonial SD for a while, taking touristy pictures in front of the famous statues and stone buildings, before being police-escorted back to our hotels.

Our hotel had lost electricity to the second and third floors, so when we arrived back, everything was pitch black. We entertained ourselves during that light-less time with flashlights, cameras and lots of laughing. The end result was a bunch of really cool pictures, a night of fun light shows, and a few arm bruises from where we accidentally whipped ourselves with the flashlights as we wildly spun them around.

Christopher Columbus site in Colonial Santa Domingo

Abby spinning on a light - looks sooo cool dudee

Our light show shenanigans: Gabby

All in all? A good day.

Day 6: School of Forestry and Environmental Minister

6.4.12. a.k.a. A very Dominican July 4th!!

We got up early once again, and got a tour of a tree nursery/farm that the school of forestry had growing. We made our way through a the nursery, housing thousands of different saplings and down a dirt path to the rivers edge, where we admired the misty green-blue waters we would soon be splashing in. We ate the staple lunch in addition to a delicious dessert of coconut fudge of some sort - whatever it was it was goood - and some strong Dominican espresso (the deprived coffee addicts were ecstatic).

All of us planters with our trees babies!

Beautiful waterfall

We then hopped on the bus and drove to a little river side area, where we planted 100 of the 10,000 tree sproutlings we had donated. Afterwards we hopped back onto the bus, arrived at the hostiles once again, and quickly slipped on our swimsuits so we could make our way to the waterfalls just a short stroll away. After crossing many a rickety bridge (only 5 allowed on at once, or it might collapse...), we arrived at a viewing point to the beautiful flowing falls. I swear, it was the misty blue color you'd see on a birthday cake or in some pirate fantasy movie, it was brilliant!


After snapping a few photos, we waddled back along the swaying wooden bridges, and raced along the trail leading to the swimmable area of the river. It was numbing but refreshing, and we spent a good few hours of our independence day exploring this birthday cake colored oasis. Leonard ended up loosing his glasses, some of the boys built a dam with pebbles in the shallow area, and we girls experimented with underwater photos and floating down the rapids. We were sad to leave this breath taking view of distant, misty mountains to nearby, blue-as-blue-can-be rapids giving way to the circular waterhole we'd spent our last hours in.

Veggie girls and our salsaaaa

We had a dinner of boiled plantains (...yum?), followed by a sustainability discussion drowned out by the deafening noise of the monsoon-like downpour that echoed against the tin roof. Afterwards we enjoyed a second dinner of hot dogs and hamburgers cooked  (burned?) by our very own chefs-for-the-night Daniel and Ben.  Since the DR supermarkets don't really sell fake meat burgers, Juliana and I (the only two veggies in our group) enjoyed a large bag of chips and jar of salsa to ourselves for dinner. We all engaged in a very intense game of ratslap afterwards, and slowly drifted off to bed.

Apparently, most of our group is deathly afraid of spiders, as I was woken up soon after I fell asleep to the sound of petrified screams and shrieks over a "freakin huge spider!!!!" in the bathroom. So huge in fact that we had to have Rachel (the counselor) come in and exterminate it herself. The boys weren't any better - one spider sighting and a whole bottle of bug spray was expelled to ward off any other 'dangerous creatures of the liking'. It worked - it also warded off any feeling in James' arm the next day. Yay chemicals!

All in all? Hella Gnarly Tight July 4th (I picked up regional slang while I was there. Am I using it right??).

Day 5: Beach Day!

7.3.12.

Fergie and Hunter pulling in the board

Because of the hard work we had accomplished in the last 3 days, we were all awarded a beach day at Cabarete. We were also permitted to wake up relatively late, however I woke up a little too late and me and my roommate missed the best-breakfast-of-the-trip: granola, yogurt and eggs. After stuffing down a cliff bar, we arrived at Cabarete where 8 of us decided to go windsurfing. We paid for an hours lesson, where we learned the basics of the basics and practiced them with the instructor on land, and two hours on the water, where we shared two people to one board.

The girls just chillin' on the beach

Our group ranged from pretty successful to utter failure (I was closer to the latter), and although it may have been a slight waste of $40 and the majority of our beach time, we all decided it was a fun experience to cross off our bucket lists. After ordering some surprisingly expensive and somewhat American pizza, we headed back to complete our general afternoon routine of pool, dinner, discussion. I fell asleep on the hammock, exhausted after only partial success at windsurfing (my best was probably 20 feet before crashing to the water) and had a nice pre-cena nap.

Phuong, Tuyen and Nehemie on one
of many Bon trips taken during the trip

After dinner, we had a massage party which pretty much consisted of Hunter making his way round the table as we played cards and wrote the group blog, as he was the only one who could give a good massage. We headed back to our cabins then, to pack for the upcoming 5 day trip we were going to embark on tomorrow, where we'd head to a plant nursery and hostile hidden in the montanas,  Santa Domingo's slums and technology school and finally to Dave's Beach Comber.


* Tuyens photos :)

Day 4: Orphanage Returns (with Everybody)

7.2.12.

Painting the school

Our whole group worked at the orphanage today, engaging in a variety of different tasks. We switched back and forth between continuing the path, sanding then painting a new school house for the orphans, moving rocks to clear way for a sustainable garden, and more machete-ing. At lunch, we dug into a delicous salad decorated with fresh dominican avocados (=YUM) and other filling foods. I spent the rest of the time there painting the upper level of the new school with some girls, and playing with the most adorable boy ever, Niko, who found amusement in kicking an empty gatorade bottle, throwing dirt from pile to pile, and the bubbles I brought again.

 A heavy rainstorm passed over us, changing from sprinkling to downpour in a matter of seconds. We all enjoyed washing our paint encrusted hands in the refreshing rain water, and several people took a shower in it. We made our way back before the next shower hit, and jumped in the pool before a dinner of guess what? Chicken, rice and beans! Dingdingding! (We were making a routine here! Work, pool, dinner, discussion, hang out, bed:).

Niko and I - He wouldn't look at the
camera, so I had to spin around!

Me and Niko, Amaricio, and Alejandro
- some orphans at the orphanage. So sweet!

Niko and his plastic bottle :')

Day 3: Hiking Bruson and Cabarete

7.1.12.

We woke, once again bright and early and left for a nice, long three hour hike up a mountain, Bruson, after slipping in a quick breakfast of fruit and cheese sandwiches. The bus ride was 40 minutes long, so while most of the exhausted GLA members dozed on the way there, a few of us stayed up chatting and taking in the scenery.

Some adorable kids we met on the way up

The hike began with a bathroom break in one of the local houses (Dave knows everyone) and a water stock up at a local store - especially for me, since I'd drank all my water on the bus ride down. The DR isn't like America in many ways, particularly in that it lacks an abundance of clean water. You can't just pop into anyone's house or turn on any faucet and expect fresh, filtered water - not even in Santa Domingo motels. This lack of fresh water forces most Dominicans to buy it bottles or packaged, which not only costs them money (if they even choose that over the local, polluted but free rivers) but wastes infinite amounts of plastic which take centuries to decompose. This water industry also allows large corporations, like Coca Cola and Desani to conquer underdeveloped countries like the DR, which only adds to our world water crisis.

Beautiful view from the top of Bruson

On the way up, we observed some completely sustainable families, who didn't generate much income, but didn't need to purchase many items either as they raised their own animals, grew their own plants and had access to water through either an implanted water system or the river. We stopped for water half way up the mountain at a local store, where we filled up our bottles using one of these water taps that a peace corps member had set up just years before. At the almost-top, we met a 80 year old woman who took care of her sick sister and three nieces and nephews, while caring for herself and her garden/animals. Her kitchen was primitive looking, completely made of plant material from the roof to the gourds she used for cooking. It was shocking to me that people could live as she did, but she was content with her sustainable lifestyle, making trips down the mountain only every so often for supplies.

Caberete Beach! 

At the top, we enjoyed a delicious meal of chicken, rice and beans and a beautiful view, before heading back down the mountain (which took half the time but was twice as hard, in my opinion). We then made our way to the local, touristy beach, Cabarete, where we explored the warm, lulling waters, the souvenir filled shops, the refreshing and delicious Bon and got our hair braided (by choice, or by force).

After reuniting with the other half of our GLA group (who switched and worked at the orphanage today), we played in the pool until dinner time. Afterwards we curled up and watched a movie about one of many world crisis' - Dave informed us that we are going to learn about all the problems before looking at the solutions - and how many problems there are...

* Emma's photos :)

Day 2: Orphanage

6.30.12.

The school-room where the orphans learn each day

After waking up unusually early (for summer at least), we prepared our backpacks for the upcoming day and headed down to a breakfast of fruit, fried cheese sandwiches and juice. At 8, our counselor Ferguson walked half of us (my cabin and one of the boys dorms) down to a little village where the orphanage lay. Today's work was mostly manual labor, where we pick-axed trenches around a plot formed to cage some newborn piglets, pick axed a path where we later wheelbarrowed tons of crushed rocks to, and where we machete-ed the overgrown grass and roots surrounding these areas (yes, I actually used a machete!!).

Looking at the photos they've just taken
- they loved the cameras!

 Around 'snacktime', the orphans began to arrive and we spent an hour drinking fantastic fruit juice and playing games with them. The kids loved our digital cameras, and spent the first half hour photoshooting each other before sitting, mesmerized, flicking through the pictures. I brought some bubbles and the kids loved them. I had about five boys circled around me laughing and screaming every time I blew a soapy sud, trying to pop it first. We had a blast.

After snack time, we all went back to work. I shoveled dirt from the trench with Nehemie, while local Antonio proved amazing at pick axing - he zipped through one 10 ft line of it in no time.  Soon it was lunchtime, and we all congregated in a little pavilion just up the hill, which turned out to be a legitimate tree house with a fantastic view of the swooping valleys and misty mountains ahead.

Playing with the bubbles - so much fun!!

We worked solely on the path after lunch for another 2 hours, until we left at 230 - covered in sweat and dirt - and returned to our wonderful organic farm paradise. We all jumped into bathing suits and then the pool, cooling off before the other half of our full GLA group returned. After dinner we had our first of many discussions.