A little bit of everything.

I'm so behind! I realized I have a few days to update you all on... nothing big happened but I figured I'll fill you in just the same :]

Christina con Virginia

On Sunday when we got back from La Romana, we were all hanging out in Alex's room when Olga and Virginia came to get us.  We walked into the living room and there was a cake on fire!  Olga had made Christina a chocolate/coconut cake for her birthday, complete with two ginormous candles shooting sparks.(The picture is only half of the fire...) So cool!   This was birthday celebration #2 (we'd had cake in La Romana for her birthday too), and then on Monday, Danny came to visit us and brought her a cake as well! It was store bought and we expected it to taste like the store-bought cakes here, but it was way richer and fluffier and delicious-er. We're hoping the birthday celebrations continue into a whole birthday week!

Christina, Lauren, Virginia, Alex, Olga, Ryan, Aaron, and me!

When I went into work Monday morning, I was surprised to see everyone sitting at the conference table--turns out they have Creole lessons on Monday and Tuesday mornings! A lot of the people they work with in the bateyes are Haitian and don't speak very much Spanish, so they take lessons so they can interact with them better. I only caught the last ten minutes or so, but it was very very interesting. I wish I could go to more/stay her longer and get a better handle on it, but unfortunately I'll only learn a tidbit. It was a kinda different... lessons for Creole, taught in Spanish :] That'll make your brain work.

The above is where I spend most of my day.  And that's Miriam, the other volunteer from Germany. We spent Friday, Monday, and Tuesday organizing newspapers and putting them in huge binders. It's not super challenging, if anything it's kinda tedious, but we chat the whole time and it goes by pretty quickly.  Today at work we're translating documents from Spanish into English--finally something that makes me feel useful! :] Because you know, I do speak English pretty well.
Like I said, the work in the office isn't incredibly interesting, but it's okay because occasionally we get to go out on trips. Tomorrow, we're going to Los Haitises, mountains on the north side of the island, to see some sort of project they have up there. Honestly, I'm not entirely sure what we're doing, all I know is they said to dress like we're going to the jungle, and to be at the office at 5:45 a.m.  Yikes!  Miriam lives a bit far out of the city, so since we have to be here so early tomorrow she's going to come home from work with me and stay with me tonight! Ana is cooking a huge dinner and all of the other kids are going to come, along with her nephew Miguel, who has promised to take us to Jarabacoa on Saturday.  I'm very much looking forward to tonight, it should be a lot of fun!

This is José, he's our driver. He's a little bit crazy, and he insists on speaking in English although I feel like I'd understand his Spanish better... he's so hilarious. I keep trying to take videos of him talking, but even time I pull out my camera he stops being funny... of course. But he always gives us lectures about "In this country? You no have to be on time..." or whatever the topic was that day. He said he lived in New York for a few months, but it stressed him out how Americans are so strict with their schedules and such and he likes it better here.
 José makes up nicknames for all of us, but I think that's just because he can't remember our real names. "The doctors" are the three that work at the hospital, Christina, Lauren and I are often "blondie", and Aaron is usually "the little guy", but today had the bad luck as being referred to as "Peewee." Poor Aaron... :[ 

A little bit about the driving here.... traffic laws seem to be mutual agreements between fellow drivers more than laws.  Like stop signs? Only if you feel like it.  Right-of-way laws are nonexistant. You know how pulling halfway across a road and stopping in the middle would get you tons of angry gestures in the States? Here, if you don't inch forward and cut off one lane of traffic at a time, you're just not gonna get to the other side. I'm incredibly impressed by their depth perception, because they constantly get within a few inches of other cars but never seem to hit them. Oh, and they really like their horns.
They also pack people in cars, children sit on the laps of drivers frecuently, and on the way to La Romana we passed a family of five (three small children) on one motorcycle. Crazy.

Yesterday after work José took us to his pool.  He's a member of a neighborhood club that has a pool, different sports courts, and exercise rooms.  It was pretty nice, there were a lot of children running everywhere in their swim caps :] So cute.  Oh and I'm about a fourth of the way done with Los Juegos del Hambre! En español, por supuesto. I'm going to feel like such a winner when I finish it.



Oh, and on Monday, Ana took me to the supermarket so I could get stuff to take for lunch at work. I got bread, peanut butter, and jelly. Mmmmm :] (However, I did get Goya brand jelly so it'd still have a Latino hint and I wouldn't feel like so much of a sell-out...)  Ana had never heard of a PB&J. I made one when I got home, and when she called Annette, her granddaughter, she told her I had made "a food from Texas!" :] I made another for Annette, who had never had one either. She said you wouldn't expect peanut butter and jelly to go well together, but she liked it!  Look at me sharing American culture... next we'll have to do S'mores or something.

Well I think that's all I have for today! I'm officially caught up. But I have a lot of things planned coming up so there will be lots to tell soon!

LOVE,
Abby

La Romana.

Okay! Yesterday we visited La Romana, which is a city about an hour and a half east from the capital.  And it is beauuutiful! I wish we could've stayed a lot longer and seen more of the city, we really only got to drive through it and get out in the plaza for a few minutes but goodness! It is so colorful... and there is a lot less traffic and it seems a bit cleaner than Santo Domingo too. I loved it! Both Ana and Olga grew up in La Romana... I'm a bit jealous!
Ana and Olga are two of seven siblings.. and they were all there yesterday for Mother's Day! It was a very big party, since each of the seven siblings brought most of their children and grandchildren.  I loved getting to talk to everyone! One of their nephews, Miguel, is the same age as us and speaks English very very well so it was a lot of fun talking to him about school and everything.  His older brother, Javier, and his cousin, Carlos were hilarious also.  Miguel attends a university in Santo Domingo, so he said he could take us around town and that we could hang out with his friends sometime! We might even go on a trip to Jarabacoa this weekend--espero que sí! Also, I think we're going to go to a Juan Luis Guerra concert in a few weeks! Tanta. Emoción.

Adelfa lee un cuento sobre las madres antes de la bendición.

They have a beautiful, loving, intelligent family.  I got to talk to so many interesting people! One of her brothers is a renowned cigar maker, and owns two of his own brands of cigars. One man I talked to, Stefan, said his mom was Bolivian, his dad was French, he grew up in the Dominican but went to a British school here, and then spent two years in the States. He nows lives and works in international law in Paris and speaks English, Spanish and French fluently and... is the most interesting man in the world. 
There was a lot of dancing, singing, talking, and a lot a lot of food! Everyone was so welcoming and genuine, they really opened up their home to us and made us feel like part of the family.  It took a picture of my plate... everything was so delicious! There was also mango-chocolate cheesecake, along with carrot cake for dessert! You would've loved it, Dad :] I had no idea they ate carrot cake here!

 

We had such a wonderful day... I only wish we could've stayed longer! Visiting with their family, along with seeing Casa de Campo made for one incredible Sunday.

LOVE,

Abby

Casa de Campo.

Just chillin' with my burro, chillin' chillin' with my burro...

Oh. My. Goodness.

Today is Mother's Day, and so Christina, Alex, and I got to go to La Romana with our host moms (Olga and Ana, who are sisters) to visit their mom.  La Romana is about an hour east of Santo Domingo, and beautiful. However, as soon as we got to La Romana, Francisco, Olga's son, took us to Casa de Campo... and it deserves its own post, so we'll talk about La Romana and the family next :]


Casa de Campo is it's own city. Legally, that may not be true, but it's big enough and has everything you could possibly need inside.  It's a private club (if club is the right word), so we were so lucky that someone in the family lived in there/was a member (?) and put us on the list to go inside! It's somewhere between a resort and a country club, and then kicked up about fourteen notches. (It's kinda like Mira Vista, for you Fortworthians, except its Mira Vista's rich grandpa who owns half of the oil industry). Francisco was our tour guide and told us everything about it as we drove through it. He said the richest people in the country, and the world, live there. There are huge houses where people live, but visitors can come and rent villas or stay in the hotel too.

We passed the house of the guy who owns Presidente, una cerveza dominicana. (The house above is not his, but it is a pretty house just the same.) 

Part of Casa de Campo is called los Altos de Chavón, and it was constructed in the seventies by an American business man (Charles Bluhdorn, founder of Gulf+Western), and it is rumored that he gave the city-of-sorts to his daughter for her quinceñera. You know, just built her a whole city above a river, one that was constructed to resemble medieval Italy. No big.

El río de Chavón

So this little city of hers has a church, many restaurants, (I just spelled that as restaurantes as first because my brain is a bit stuck in Spanish mode... I called golf courses "golf fields" early because I couldn't remember the word in English... yikes, and it's only been a week!), lots of little shops, several golf courses, oh and its own art institute.  It also, however, has its own concert venue.  

Just sharing a stage with the greats.

Anfiteatro Notable.

El Anfiteatro Notable, which seats over 5,000 people, was another part of the poor girl's present... Frank Sinatra sang at her birthday party.  Since then there have been just a few other cool people to stand on the stage... like Shakira, Gloria Estefan, Santana, Sting, Heart, Duran Duran, and Juan Luis Guerra. Okay cool. 

I've just about convinced myself that I need a destination wedding... Dios mío...

We left los Altos de Chavón for the marina. Casa de Campo has three docks, with yachts from all over the world. There are houses all along the sea/marina in every direction. It has its own yacht club and sailing school, which is perfect for when I buy my yacht.  We walked all up and down the marina, some of the yachts are huuuuuge! And they have a bunch of fishing boats, where there is a raised platform up high for the captain to navigate from.  Also, some man had a replica of one of Colombus's ships made and it was sitting in the harbor.  Because I guess if you can afford to dock your yacht in Casa de Campo, you might as well have your own colonial ship.

Complete with un guacamayo, of course.

Francisco said that many rich and famous people buy houses here and use them as vacation homes to relax in when they're not doing whatever else they do. Shakira, for example, has a house near the marina. Francisco didn't know exactly which house was hers, but he knew which area it was in.  We saw a yacht in the marina with a Colombian flag on it ... It took a lot of convincing on his part that knocking on every door in the vicinity was a bad idea.  I'm still not convinced. If only I had been wearing my Shakira perfume...

So. Close. To where Shakira. Has Been.

Casa de Campo has its own private beach (that Francisco talked our way in to), with its own bar, restaurant, masseuses, and the like.  Although we thought it was gorgeous, Francisco said it's nothing compared to many other beaches in the DR. That only makes me even more excited for Samaná in two weeks!  We just stayed at the beach for a second... the sand is so soft! I can't wait for our weekend trips :] 

 

So all in all, Casa de Campo was insane. We were there for an hour or two, but Francisco said we didn't even see half of it. We had such a good time though! Maybe one day I'll be super rich and/or famous and will sail back here on my yacht... probably.

Con cariño,

Abby

Sábado.

     Saturday was really relaxed... Ana (my host mom) left in the afternoon for La Romana, but I stayed here in Santo Domingo to go to a drag race with the other kids!  Except after we hung out all afternoon we found out that the drag races were canceled this week because Mother's Day was today, Sunday. Apparently racers really love their mothers.  Womp womp for us.
     In the afternoon, we called José, our driver, to take us to the supermarket. We ended up at a place called La Sirena, which seems to me like the local Walmart.  I didn't take a ton of pictures--I didn't want to seem too much like a tourist--but I got a few!  The store was huge, two stories, and we walked around everywhere, looking at clothes and all the different kinds of foods. I didn't buy a ton of food because I don't seem to need it, but I got a few things to try :]

Aaron and his wagon on the cookie aisle.

The Cow that Laughs.

     Once we got back home Olga made us a lovely dinner of roasted goat and fried yuca. Mmmm. Since the drag races were canceled, we just went to the boys' house and played games on the porch. We laughed when we realized we were sitting on a second story balcony, overlooking the rooftops, the street and a baseball game, playing dominos and drinking El Presidente, while really loud merengue played from a car below.  I'm not sure we could've gotten much more Dominican :]
     While we were playing dominos the man who lived at the house came out to talk to us. He was probably about sixty-something, and even though we spoke to him in Spanish he always answered in very accented, very segmented English (that seems to happen a lot here for some reason). I made the mistake of asking him what he did for a living, because for some reason that triggered him to launch into a twenty-minute long story that was kinda hard to understand, but centered around how when he was in the States he somehow got involved with the FBI because of a friend they were chasing. He had all these conspiracy theories about how "they" (I'm still not sure if he mean the FBI or the American people in general) go against evolution and always kill the smartest people, the people who actually contribute to the world, and that is why there is poverty and injustice in the US. Because "they" shot Kennedy. He mentioned that about eight times, along with the words "they talk about... liberty... demoncracy... but they only... words!" We sat and listened politely while he continued. He said that the FBI sent him on a plane back from New York to the DR. On the plane they gave him something to mess with his brain, but he figured it out and took preventative actions so that they did not succeed in compromising his mental capabilities (his words... not mine). He said he's starting a political party based on all the things he had mentioned, and that it'll be campaigning for the election in 2016.   Best of luck to him.  So yeah.  He was entertaining.  I'm not really sure what else I can say about that though.
     The evening was a great one, very relaxed :] I stayed at Olga's house so we could leave in the morning for La Romana, so Christina and I got to have a sleepover.

Like an ice cream truck except a horse. With limes.

LOVE,
Abby

Blue Mall.

Like kiosks, except a lot.

     Last night after work we had dinner together, and then felt like going out. My host mom suggested we got out and see a movie at a local mall, so we put on nicer clothes and out we went.  We're getting really good at sardine-ing people into a car...   
      The mall that we went to is called Blue Mall, and ... it's six stories high.  The first floor was the ritziest, with huge stores such as Louis Vuitton and Cartier (what...).  The rest of the mall had tons of clothing stores whose names we didn't recognize, but many of which looked comparable to many stores in the US.  One of the stores looked so much like Gap... I wanted to go in. :[   
     We went up to the food court and bought some ice cream--quite delicious. We still had quite a bit of time before the movie started, so we stationed ourselves at a little standing-table and people watched. So. Entertaining.  I'm not sure if the people here really like to dress up, or if the mall is just a bigger deal than it is in the States, but oh my goodness.  We were all wearing nice jean outfits/casual dresses and were severely underdressed.  All of the women wear heels, with bright lipstick, and hair all done up.  Colored jeans are everywhere, worn by women of all ages and sometimes even men. There were quite a few of the early-teenage crowd waiting for the movies as well, so we had a blast spying on them and narrating their actions.  

The Brooks Brothers of Latin America?

     The movie theater was the classiest theater I've ever been to. The bathrooms, the decorations, everything, was just super class and kinda fancy. We again felt out of place and underdressed. Oops. We'll do better next time. 
     Almost all of the movies there are American films with Spanish subtitles... the exact same ones you'd see here. Men in Black 3, American Pie, Battleship, The Avengers.  There's such a huge American influence everywhere you look. Many of the products you buy in the stores either are American brands and are only written in English, or have both languages on the label.  Many people follow TV shows from the US too. After seeing all of this, it's no wonder that many people know a decent amount of English. I'd say a majority of the people we talk to can recognize words in English if we ask about something, or translate them themselves, even if they can't speaking English conversationally.  It's way more than could be said about Americans and any foreign language. 
     We had a great time at the mall, and loved going out to see another part of town.  We're hoping to go back soon and do some actually shopping... hopefully it's not all too pricey! 
      Also... I noticed that for this whole post I've been saying "we." That's because if I'm not at work, most of the time I'm hanging out with the five other kids that live here in Santo Domingo. We've become our own little family of sorts.  :] I'll try to get more pictures of our whole group soon, I keep forgetting to put people in the pictures!  


    LOVE,
    Abby

Endless escalators.

The movie theater even has a skywalk!

 

Los bateyes

Today I got to go out into the field with Aneliya, the director of development at Save the Children. I really enjoyed it because I got to see all of the projects that the foundation works on.

It was about an hour's drive out to San Pedro de Macorís, where the field office is located. The zone near San Pedro has twelve distinct bateys. Bateys are small communities located within the huge sugar cane plantations. The communities have about four thousands people total, so a few hundred per batey. The communities are very very poor, and Save the Children has different projects in each, such as building latrines, repairing homes, reconstructing schools, constructing aquaducts, training teachers, and planting community gardens.
(I found this if you're interested! Los Bateyes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batey_%28sugar_workers%27_town%29)

I took a picture of the map in the field office for Dad. He loves maps. (Dad: We started in San Pedro, went up to Don Juan, and went to the East and made a loop through Margarita, to Cachena, and back down to San Pedro.  I'm sure you'll look it up on Google maps :] ).   And on the right their list of projects in each batey, but she said its a bit outdated.

This picture doesn't nearly to justice to how ginormous these fields of sugar cane are! As far as the eye can see in every direction for miles. But I did like the burro so he took photo priority over field-size.

Children at recess at the school in Don Juan.

The communities are very far out in the country. Aneliya said that many of the kids have to walk very far to school.  There are wild dogs, chickens, and horses all over the place. At one point our driver had to honk at a cow to get out of the road!
We spent all day out in the country, so I'm pretty tired!

Feel free to leave me lovely comments to read tomorrow! :]

LOVE,
Abby

First day of work first day of work!

I was at work for nine hours today, and the main thing I accomplished was to realize that Dominican Spanish is very different from the Spanish I'm used to...  it's very fast and very slurred, and a lot of letters just don't get pronounced. So I felt a tad clueless for most of the day, that's for sure.

I'm working in the office of Save the Children Dominicana, an international NGO that promotes children's rights.  It looks like I'm going to be working in the office mostly, which I'm a bit bummed about, but some days (like tomorrow!) I can go out to the field and see the programs they're working on. So hopefully I'll get to see some sights and hang out with some kids tomorrow :]

The executive director and founder of the Dominican branch of Save the Children is an Aggie! Class of '73 I believe, and his name is Horacio.  He came up to talk to me about A&M, he asked if the Corps still wore boots, and later brought me his yearbook from 1970 :]  He seems very nice--my supervisor told me that he "es un amor."

There was another intern who started working today... and she's from Germany.  Never before had I heard Spanish spoken with a German accent--it took some getting used to!  She's been working in the DR since last September and will stay three more months, so she gets more important jobs that me because she knows what's going on and will be here and all... qué pena :[

After work I split a mango with Aaron and Ryan on Olga's front porch, and now am at my home. I found the fire escape and climbed up to the roof to take some pictures... it was a bit cloudy but I loved seeing the neighborhood!

Hasta mañana,
Abby

Santo Domingo in the sunshine.

Today I finally got to see what the DR looks like in the daylight!



This morning we hung out at Efraín's house while Danny went to exchange our money and buy us cheap cell phones to use while we're here.  Efraín has a wonderful photo wall... I'm quite impressed.

 Once everything had been sorted out, we wanted to go on an adventure, so we headed for the main street.  After about a half hour of walking, all we had found was Krispy Kreme and Papa Johns, and so we headed back, feeling defeated.
We went to Virginia's, one of the host moms, house and told her we had no idea what to do for lunch. We must have looked kinda sad/pathetic because Virginia returned in two minutes, dressed with keys in her hand, packed us in the car, and took the six of us to Adrian Tropical, a creole restaurant right on the ocean. The food was so delicious! We tried to try new things... I got solomo, a type of pork, and tostones, which I would describe as plantain biscuits.













After lunch, Virginia took us around the colonial district, we got to go inside the first cathedral in the Americas! There's a plaza with a statue of Christopher Columbus, and many other buildings/monuments, as Santo Domingo was the first place he landed on his trip to the New World.

 

We went home and passed out... I don't know what they put in the food but we slept for almost two hours!

When my host mom, Ana, came to pick me up, I got to meet her granddaughters, Annette and Veronica.  Annette is a freshman in high school and speaks very good English. Veronica is eight, and the first thing she did when she met me was sing me an entire Luis Fonsi song, complete with an accompanying dance.  Needless to say, the evening was enjoyable :]

Work starts tomorrow! I'm rather nervous and I have to get up early so I'll stop here.

¡Buenas noches! 

Con cariño,

Abby

Some of the group in front of the cathedral. It was so beautiful!

Day 1.

Hellooo from sunny Santo Domingo!!

Just kidding, it’s not sunny, it’s the middle of the night.  But I am here at last!

I took I picture of me too, for Mom.  Look Mom! Here I am!  Look at me alive and everything!

The trip here was just about as good as it could’ve been…

On the first plane ride I sat next to a Chilean lawyer who had just completed the Iron Man triathlon in The Woodlands (the swimming part of which took place on the same lake Cary and I kayaked on yesterday!), and he and his wife told me about good business schools in Chile/Argentina for when I study abroad there next year!

On the second plane ride I sat next to a woman who not only was the first Dominican woman to complete the Iron Man, but is the executive director for a non-profit children’s organization in Santo Domingo… which is exactly the sort of organization I will be working for starting Wednesday!  We talked for the whole trip about the triathlon and her organization, Fundación Futuro Posible, and I hadn’t even opened my book yet when they announced we were landing.

We eventually made it through customs and—after a small amount of searching, worrying, cell-phone-borrowing-from-random-taxi-driver, and waiting—found Danny, the country coordinator who picked us up, packed us into vans, took us out for pizza, then dropped us off at our host homes!

So here I am,  in my little bedroom in my new home for the next month!  More tomorrow—I’m about to crash!  Love you all!

LOVE,

Abby