I finally have the time to sit down and write a detailed trip report. Sorry if this is too long, but hopefully I can capture just a little bit of the amazing hospitality, the crazy things you don’t understand, and just the beautiful simple life. 
Some background information about what took me, a single, 22 year old white female to the DR for 10 days. As part of graduation requirement at my college, you have to have 12 credits of international education and you can either go abroad or take classes on campus. I choose to go to the DR for 3 months. The first six weeks you live in the capital with a host family and take language classes, culture lectures, and have field trips in the city and throughout the country to see the historic sites of the DR. The second six weeks we go out to a little village in pairs or alone (and live with another host family) and serve in some way. That was my summer of 2004. If you want more information about that, let me know and I’ll be very eager to share!
So, Thursday December 10th, really early in the morning I started my adventure down south. After weather delays and such, I finally arrived at SDQ (7 ? hours late) and my host father was there. so my first prayer had been answered, someone understood that my flight was going to be late and was there to pick me up. I was taken back to my host mother’s sister’s house which would be my home base for the next week and a half. There I was greeted with lots of hugs and kisses and it felt good to be back, until I went to the bathroom to find no toilet paper and not even a trashcan (I had brought my own paper just in case there wasn't any). Oh well, that’s part of life down there. Friday morning I was taken to work with my 20 year old host sister. She works at the school at one of the Mennonite churches. I have a whole new appreciation for innercity schools in the US. Granted, I was in the 3-4 year old class where we just ran around, screamed, sang a few songs, and then glued little pieces of colored paper on the number 3. That afternoon I went out to the barrio “El Hipodromo” which is pretty far out of the city. It felt like the campo and was the new home of my host family. A small, two room house. The front room had the couch, stove, table, and refrigerator. The wall between the rooms was a piece of cardboard that had the Audi symbol on it. The back room had two beds, a dresser, and a tv. Two adults and three kids slept there. Then you could walk out the back door where there was a little area with a plastic curtain that contained the hole in the ground and a bucket for water. More about this barrio later.
Early Saturday morning I went to Duarte bus station to get a guagua to Vallejuelo. But of course there wasn’t one at the time I wanted to go, so I took a bus to San Juan de la Maguana and then switched and continued on. There is something about riding with the locals and seeing all the street vendors jump on the guagua trying to sell you queso and what else and then at the next stop jumping off to catch another ride back. I couldn’t imagine doing that all day, yet alone make a living off of that. When I finally arrived in the little village, I just had to say the name of my host family and I was dropped off right in front of the house. More hugs and kisses followed and off I went to find all my old friends and family members as well as stop at the hospital where I had worked to see them. There wasn’t anything out of the ordinary about the weekend. Sat outside under a shade tree and chatted, danced and then in evening went and sat at the fritura (food stand) that my host mother ran every night. Of course I enjoyed a lot of batata (sweet potato), yucca, platanos, pollo frito, and more typical Dominican food. Also, got to participate in washing out shirts and underwear in the outhouse while taking my cold bucket showers, which in December is really cold. At night the temperature would drop to where I would need to put on a sweatshirt, long pants, socks and I would use the comforter and of course the mosquito net which never works for me anyways! One night “se fue la luz” (no electricity) and so I spent several hours sitting in the city park with a host brother talking and looking at the stars.
Monday afternoon came too soon and once again I said goodbye to my family and headed back to SD. This guagua ride was very interesting. Somewhere outside of San Juan, we stopped and were told to get off the bus and get on a different on. So we gathered all our stuff and got off to find the other guagua was way too full and not quite enough space for all of this, even thought I believe the motto in the DR is "there is always room for one more". We loaded up again and off we drove. About 5 minutes later we stopped and got off again. This time we got on a very empty guagua (this one had AC) and finished the trip to SD. Once in SD, another host brother met me at Duarte where we walked a few blocks to find a publico (taxi) to go home. The only way I can try to explain the publico scene is to relate it to a food frenzy. An empty car would pull up and people would start pushing and shoving to get in. People would actually run to the driver’s side and get in through that door. Of course, I was the polite (terified) gringa and refused to push and shove, so we waited awhile. Finally, my host brother just pushed people aside and we got in and went for the ride of my life. I don’t know how many prayers I said in that publico, but I almost screamed when we stopped short a few inches from a gasoline truck that said “Caution, flammable”. It’s also a good thing I don’t have long fingernails, otherwise I would have left marks in my host brother’s leg when we went over a speed bump and I could feel the cement grinding against the bottom of the car. You always know it’s a bad publico when the locals tell the driver he’s crazy, but hey, it’s just part of the experience. Safely out of the publico and back at home base, I packed up my stuff and went to Ensanche Quisqueya to visit a missionary family...more to come later...
Some background information about what took me, a single, 22 year old white female to the DR for 10 days. As part of graduation requirement at my college, you have to have 12 credits of international education and you can either go abroad or take classes on campus. I choose to go to the DR for 3 months. The first six weeks you live in the capital with a host family and take language classes, culture lectures, and have field trips in the city and throughout the country to see the historic sites of the DR. The second six weeks we go out to a little village in pairs or alone (and live with another host family) and serve in some way. That was my summer of 2004. If you want more information about that, let me know and I’ll be very eager to share!
So, Thursday December 10th, really early in the morning I started my adventure down south. After weather delays and such, I finally arrived at SDQ (7 ? hours late) and my host father was there. so my first prayer had been answered, someone understood that my flight was going to be late and was there to pick me up. I was taken back to my host mother’s sister’s house which would be my home base for the next week and a half. There I was greeted with lots of hugs and kisses and it felt good to be back, until I went to the bathroom to find no toilet paper and not even a trashcan (I had brought my own paper just in case there wasn't any). Oh well, that’s part of life down there. Friday morning I was taken to work with my 20 year old host sister. She works at the school at one of the Mennonite churches. I have a whole new appreciation for innercity schools in the US. Granted, I was in the 3-4 year old class where we just ran around, screamed, sang a few songs, and then glued little pieces of colored paper on the number 3. That afternoon I went out to the barrio “El Hipodromo” which is pretty far out of the city. It felt like the campo and was the new home of my host family. A small, two room house. The front room had the couch, stove, table, and refrigerator. The wall between the rooms was a piece of cardboard that had the Audi symbol on it. The back room had two beds, a dresser, and a tv. Two adults and three kids slept there. Then you could walk out the back door where there was a little area with a plastic curtain that contained the hole in the ground and a bucket for water. More about this barrio later.
Early Saturday morning I went to Duarte bus station to get a guagua to Vallejuelo. But of course there wasn’t one at the time I wanted to go, so I took a bus to San Juan de la Maguana and then switched and continued on. There is something about riding with the locals and seeing all the street vendors jump on the guagua trying to sell you queso and what else and then at the next stop jumping off to catch another ride back. I couldn’t imagine doing that all day, yet alone make a living off of that. When I finally arrived in the little village, I just had to say the name of my host family and I was dropped off right in front of the house. More hugs and kisses followed and off I went to find all my old friends and family members as well as stop at the hospital where I had worked to see them. There wasn’t anything out of the ordinary about the weekend. Sat outside under a shade tree and chatted, danced and then in evening went and sat at the fritura (food stand) that my host mother ran every night. Of course I enjoyed a lot of batata (sweet potato), yucca, platanos, pollo frito, and more typical Dominican food. Also, got to participate in washing out shirts and underwear in the outhouse while taking my cold bucket showers, which in December is really cold. At night the temperature would drop to where I would need to put on a sweatshirt, long pants, socks and I would use the comforter and of course the mosquito net which never works for me anyways!
One night “se fue la luz” (no electricity) and so I spent several hours sitting in the city park with a host brother talking and looking at the stars. Monday afternoon came too soon and once again I said goodbye to my family and headed back to SD. This guagua ride was very interesting. Somewhere outside of San Juan, we stopped and were told to get off the bus and get on a different on. So we gathered all our stuff and got off to find the other guagua was way too full and not quite enough space for all of this, even thought I believe the motto in the DR is "there is always room for one more". We loaded up again and off we drove. About 5 minutes later we stopped and got off again. This time we got on a very empty guagua (this one had AC) and finished the trip to SD. Once in SD, another host brother met me at Duarte where we walked a few blocks to find a publico (taxi) to go home. The only way I can try to explain the publico scene is to relate it to a food frenzy. An empty car would pull up and people would start pushing and shoving to get in. People would actually run to the driver’s side and get in through that door. Of course, I was the polite (terified) gringa and refused to push and shove, so we waited awhile. Finally, my host brother just pushed people aside and we got in and went for the ride of my life. I don’t know how many prayers I said in that publico, but I almost screamed when we stopped short a few inches from a gasoline truck that said “Caution, flammable”. It’s also a good thing I don’t have long fingernails, otherwise I would have left marks in my host brother’s leg when we went over a speed bump and I could feel the cement grinding against the bottom of the car. You always know it’s a bad publico when the locals tell the driver he’s crazy, but hey, it’s just part of the experience. Safely out of the publico and back at home base, I packed up my stuff and went to Ensanche Quisqueya to visit a missionary family...more to come later...
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