Over the weekend (Thursday to Sunday) I got a real taste of what it will be like for the next two years. I left Thursday morning to visit Alicia, a current volunteer, in Punta Rucia.
Alicia was already in Santo Domingo so I meet her at the Peace Corps’ offices so that we could travel together. We were still in the capitol for lunch, so Romio (the PC/DR county director) took us and about 6 other volunteers to lunch at the embassy. There is a cafeteria there, along with real American products (Lay’s potato chips, Diet Coke, etc.), and toilets which you can actually flush the toilet paper down! It was really good and fun to converse with other current volunteers. One of the volunteers had just gotten back from climbing Pico Duarte ( the highest mountain in not only the DR, but in the Carribean); she said it took them 3 days, but she should have done it in four. Climbing Pico Duarte is definitely on my list of things to do while here in the DR.
After lunch, we headed on up to the north coast and two bus rides, my first motoconcho (motorcycle taxi), and five hours later we finally arrived. The motoconcho was very cool, at first I was a little scared because I had never even been on a motorcycle before, but it was fun. We didn’t get to Punta Rucia till like 8 o’clock at night and were exhausted. But Alicia’s boyfriend, Mat, had made us Pina Coladas so we stayed up and sipped on those for a while.
Friday, I got to see her town and some of her projects. She’s just wrapping up her projects, so it was really cool to see all of the progress and success. During her time, she had built a library (which the people insisted on naming after her), did a reading hour, had a Girl Scouts team, did Brigada Verde ( an environmental youth club), taught English classes, and got 25 people birth certificates (which is a major problem in the DR). Most importantly, though, she had fully integrated into her community every time the children walked by her house, they could call “Alicia, Alicia.” Also, every time we went to someone’s house to say hi, they were not only welcoming but they kept asking “Can I get ya’ll anything?” “Can ya’ll stay for dinner?” We did get one free meal and some free grapefruit juice (which was REALLY good).
Saturday, we went to the beach, which was like 10 feet from her house. It was beautiful! We laid out on the beach staring out at the blue water and the backdrop of mountains; it was great. While walking down the shoreline we came across a beached sea-urchin. I was the biggest I’ve ever seen! It was still alive, so we put it back in the ocean. That night it rained so we stayed in and watched the movie, Fargo, by the Coen brothers. I would describe it as- good but screwed up; it’s even more screwed up because it’s based on actual events.
Anyway, the motoconcho ride back Sunday morning was…interesting. Because it had rained so much the roads had become mud and we were sliding all over the place! There were times when I thought we were going down for sure, but the driver was really good and we finally made it through. So now here I am again in Santo Domingo, ready for my next adventure.
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