Fin de Semana en el Sur de RD

Friday-September 18

Let me just start by saying, what a weekend. I have so many thoughts I want to write down this might be a really long and rambling blog, but I need to write it down. This past weekend we had our excursion down to the south of DR. Specifically we stayed in a town Vicente Noble. Like 40 kilometers west of Azua. Friday we left at 7am. Really really eary, cause we were told we would be in the Gua-Gua (bus) for 12 hours. I kid you not; we drove and stayed in a Gua-Gua for 12 hours on Friday. Not fun, but I’ll tell you how it was. Most people slept on the Gua-Gua, but I can’t sleep in cars for some odd reason, unlike a certain somebody I know who only needs to get comfy and warm to sleep anywhere! :) Anyway, we drove to Santo Domingo where we stopped to buy some food, drinks and use the bathrooms for a half and hour, and then onwards towards Vicente Noble. But let me tell you the geography of this county is just incredible. Mountains in the background, enormous lakes, interesting villages, never-ending ocean views. We had 4 students from the south with us, two of which were from Vicente Noble and showed us the city. We first, however, dropped off two of them a bit outside of Vicente Noble in their respective city, and then made it to Vicente Noble where we dropped off the other two students with us. We then made our way to Lago Enriquillo which was incredible, seeing it from Taíno site made it even more incredible. We then went to visit the bottom of the lake, but we couldn’t see much due to the trees, so no good pics there. :( But the views from the top were just incredible, when I have time, I’ll put them up so you guys can see them. Otherwise email me if you’d like to see them. We then were told that we would be going to see the border of Haiti and DR in the south. So we ended up going there and (sorry mom and dad) were able to visit Haiti for 10 minutes. We talked to the people at immigration and they let us in and were very nice. It might had been to the fact we had a Haitian student with is from PUCMM, but no matter, I can say now that I’ve been to Haiti. The dynamic in the south is completely different from the north, so it was definitely a very interesting thing to compare. After visiting Haiti, we then drove back to Vicente Noble and stayed with a family to get a true southern experience. And let me tell you, it was an experience. We met the Doña, and she was just incredible to us (David and I-we had to share a bed together, more on that later) and her niece and her brother. They all live in the house together and were very hospitable and lived in a very humble house. They fed us and talked to us a bit to understand what exactly we were doing. At first they thought we were on vacation, but once we told them we were studying they seemed very pleased to have us there even more. The house itself was very simple, kitchen, bathroom and laundry room combined, 4 bedrooms and an area in the back for their chicken to roam around in. They rarely had running water, and electricity, so it was very interesting “showering” and getting through dinners without electricity. I still enjoyed it though. Then just before we went to bed, we met a deaf child who lived in neighborhood who knew the Doña and niece very well. He came in and ran right away. He was scared of me! :( He was scared of the beard and glasses, in the south I guess its not too common! ;) hehe. Anyway we watched the Doña and niece talk to him using hand signals, it was really cool. So that made the night really interesting. But once he left we went to bed for the next exciting day!

Saturday-September 19

Man, I though things couldn’t top going to Haiti and seeing the Lago Enriquillo, but Saturday we topped it. I have been to one of the most beautiful beaches in the world, and I can say that with complete confidence now. On Saturday we went to Bahía de las Aguilas. Yes, Jav! We did go! And I have to say you were right! It was just absolutely breathtaking. Took forever to get there from Vicente Noble (5 ½ hours) but once we did, it was just incredible. Once of the most beautiful beaches I have ever seen in my life. And I’ve seen a good amount of beaches; this definitely topped a lot of them. Once we arrived at the Bahía, we took a boat from a restaurant/club and they dropped us off at one of the nicest beaches ever. The water was a perfect turquoise, almost as far as the eye could see, the beach had the whitest sand I’ve ever seen, the beach was clean (barely any trash anywhere) and the best thing: not that many people were there. No tourists. Just Dominicans and a few Haitians know about this perfect beach, but it honestly was just an incredibility beautiful beach. My camera died too! So imagine how pissed I was, but I’ll be stealing pics from other friends on this trip. But take my word, it was an incredible beach. We spent 2 hours there, enjoying the beach; I took a walk with Jenny basically through the whole coast which was awesome to see the bay itself as a whole. I swam pretty far out and came back (kinda exhausted, I need to start swimming more!) but the water was just perfect for swimming. We really didn’t want to leave, hopefully one day I’ll be able to go back there, maybe bring on of you guys with me! :) Just be nice to me! Hehehe. Anyways once we were back from the beach, we ate at the restaurant, whole fishes! Heads still on and everything, with tostones, papas and aguacate. Really good! A lot of the girls were hesitant, but I can understand if you’d never had that before, it would be strange. Lucky I’ve eaten whole fishes before, heads and everything, and I thing it makes you feel cooler eating a fish that’s whole. Haha. Anyways after that we walked around the fishing community of the bay and saw where the fishermen lived, and it was just shacks underneath the cliffs, just really poorly constructed houses and unsafe, but here for them, that’s normal. Just really makes me feel so privileged and lucky to live in the US and come from a family that’s really privileged. At the same time though, it makes you feel bad about coming down to the beach on vacation and seeing the inequality of the social classes down here. I’m still always thinking about that. Anyways, once we toured the community, we left for Vicente Noble. Once we got back, we decided to see the night life of Vicente Noble. Since David and I were staying together, we decided to head out there and meet the other girls when they got there, since they take hours and hours to get ready and David and I can get ready in 15 minutes. Anyways, we ate and got ready in 15 minutes. So we decided to head our, the niece escorted us to the park (since we had no idea where it was) and once we were there we decided to buy a beer and watch people in the park. So that’s what we did and the bartender asked us where we from since we obviously didn’t look like we were from Vicente Noble. We were the only white people in the whole park. So we ended up talking to the bartender for awhile just about what we were doing in Vicente Noble and such. It was really interesting. But wait, it gets even more interesting, once we sit down and start talking for a bit, a Dominican girl approaches us and invites us to sit with her and some of her friends. And our night began with Dory, Miguelita, and Sara. Dory was flirting David, while Miguelita was flirting with me. (Sara had a boyfriend). We talked to them about what were doing in Vicente Noble, about their studies, our studies, their future careers, and ours. It was just really cool to get know some other Dominicans, these Dominicans girls were much more approachable than any I know of here in Santiago. Here in Santiago, the girls are just a bit too snooty. Ah mi no me gusta mucho. Anyways, they invited us to disco not too far, so we went with them and they told us how to dance basically. It was fun, even though I kinda suck at dancing at times…oh well. Miguelita I think was humoring me. Anyways, after a while, David was feeling a bit uncomfortable with Dory, cause she was asking him for money and drinks, so we decided to head out. We got numbers though! Whoo. Not really that big a whoo, but that’s basically how the night ended.

Sunday-September 20

Sunday was interesting cause we basically just did one thing, but it was pretty much the most important. We went to a barrio called Los Baytes. It’s a barrio outside of any really city, and is filled with Haitian immigrants. We first meet the youth group and introduced ourselves and they began to discuss life in the Bayte. Just to hear how they lived was just so intriguing. One thing that has just struck me really hard with interest was this: a girl said ‘We are not poor, we have Jesus Christ.’ Just thinking about that, this community living the way it is, I believe truly needs faith. Otherwise I believe it would be chaos and mayhem, but at the same time, I don’t think having Jesus Christ with you doesn’t make you poor, we toured the community. To me, it just seems that they’re surviving, not really living, but for them to believe in God is what they need, then I am completely in support of that. Its just curious that is so different in the United States. I would love to talk more about this, just ask me if you want to know more. I just don’t want to offend anyway, but if you have questions about the community with religion let me know! But just listening to the community and talking to them was really intriguing. Then I came to a conclusion that we were probably one of the first Americans they’ve ever seen, which makes me just want to know what they think about us and our culture. Next time we go down there it might be interesting to ask them, what they know or think about us.

Monday-September 21

But in reality, this whole experience was just incredible. I am so exhausted, but at the same time I’m so glad that I was able to have this experience. Everyone down in the south was very nice, hospitable, even though they didn’t have much to give. The Bayte was by far the most interesting part of the trip. I just wish some of you guys could have joined us for that experience. It was just so interesting and thought provoking, I’m still thinking about it and don’t really know how I feel about it still. There’s just so much inequality down here and its really shocking at times. Makes me feel like there’s so much that needs to be done, and a bit spoiled. I was talking to our Haitian friend and she was saying that these people aren’t really living but just surviving on the basis of faith. I agree with her, but they really do want to better their lives. That’s the goal I think of everyone down there, but she argued at times they don’t work or want to get an education to better their lives and kinda just wait for blessings from God. Its rough to see how they put all their faith in blessings from God and live the way they do. That just makes me feel that God can’t be ever present if they’re living they way they are. Curious how living in a completely different place can effect your faith so much. Its very intriguing. Well I think that’s all for now. I’m tired of typing, so I’ll let you guys read and comment back to me via facebook, email, skype, whatever you’d like to contact me and give me your comments. Things are going great otherwise, better get going, gotta grab lunch before Dance class. Catch you guys around! Tengan una buena semana.