Goodbye Arenoso

We are now back in Santo Domingo. I am really going to miss the mountains. I’d never lived in the mountains before; it was so beautiful and my host family was awesome. I almost started crying when I had to leave.

A couple of things to mention from last week or so in La Cumbre:
4/22 Earth Day! We put on a charla (speech) for 5th and 6th graders at the local school about trash and proper handling; then we did a trash pick-up along the road. Some kids got really into it and of course others did not. But I think everyone had fun.


The guy in the yellow shirt is "Papi" the local crazy.

4/25 Santiago! A group of us headed to Santiago to get a couple of things and then eat pizza for lunch from, of course, Pizza Hut. It was a lot of fun. One the way down we got what is called a bola (free ride, like hitchhiking). The “bola” system is really popular here and pretty safe which making traveling a lot cheaper and easier.

This is us crammed into the back of a carro publico.

4/27 Maribol Sisters Memorial! We took a bola to La Cumbre and then walked about a mile to the Maribol Sisters Memorial. I don’t want to go into long detail but in the 1950s there was a dictator in control of the DR called Trujillo. He actually did a lot of good for the school system and infrastructure, but he killed a lot of people and was known for “liking” a lot of young women. The Maribol family was a very respectable one and Trujillo wanted to “have relations” with one of the daughters. The daughter refused so Trujillo had 3 of the sister’s husbands imprisoned. One day on the way back from visiting their husbands in jail, the 3 sisters were stopped and killed by Trujillo’s men. Then their bodies were dumped (where the memorial is today) to make it look like an accident. The family was outraged and it lead to a revolution against Trujillo. Trujillo was eventually assassinated on his way home from visiting a girlfriend in 1961.
I recommend the book “In the Time of the Butterflies” even though I haven’t read it yet. Also, I recommend another book that I read about the DR called “The Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.” It’s not your typical book but if you don’t mind a lot of “street-talk”, it’s really good and also talks about the time of Trujillo.
Anyway, knowing the history of these brave women and seeing where they died was really sad and touching.


Then later that day we learned how to make empanadas which was really fun. Plus they turned out really good!