Laguna Gri Gri

Sunday morning, I wake up, pray, read my Word, eat some fruit and head out to our meeting place. It’s about 7:30 am, but I feel like its noon, the sun was already hot, the birds had been up for hours and the air was fresh. This morning we were getting ready for an excursion through some caves in Rio San Juan. Our guagua was ready for us by the time I made it down the long hill that was our campo. The driver was taping up a window and putting up a piece of cardboard reinforcement on the inside with his ten year old son helping him out. There were small shards of glass on the floor by the busted window, so I selected the seat with the least likelihood for disaster. Once we were all loaded, for our two hour ride to these mysterious caves that awaited us, sleep hit me as if I hadn’t just woken up an hour earlier. I put my headphones in and dozed off to Kirk Whalum’s In the Garden, the perfect sleeping song.

About forty five minutes on the road, I woke up with the guagua spinning in my head, everyone’s voices were jumbled in my brain and the whole world became a hazy blur. My stomach churned as the vehicle took turns about 20mph too fast. The heat was making my body sweat and the skin on my arms was slick like a slip and slide, and there was a pool of sweat collected under my chin. I thought I was going to vomit, and I panicked because I needed to alert someone, but I was afraid that if I opened my mouth, more than words would come out. Everything stopped spinning for a minute, and when I could focus on the faces of everyone around me, no one noticed that I was in silent distress. I decided that water might help; I was probably just overheating in the van that had an extremely meager source of air conditioning. Finally my stomach settled a little, and I decided that sleeping through the remainder of our journey would be the best option.

When I woke up we were pulling up to a little house with a wooden fence around a yard that had an indefinite boundary. It was actually an office where the national park rangers (or whatever they’re called here) set up tours for the caves. We were accompanied by a ranger and by our environment expert Tim Keifer, who explained to us how the little town we were in is making an effort to protect their caves and underground water sources to protect the water supply that goes out to the people. The first cave we went to did not look like a cave. The entrance was quite literally a hole in the ground, and to get inside you had to climb down this rickety ladder that was maybe only five years old, but had seen better days.

The cave was very dark, as you would expect a cave to be, and our park ranger set up a series of candles to help us see. I was very impressed by his craftiness, finding nooks in the stalagmite small enough for the safety candles to fit in, and securing them inside with their own wax. I was a part of the first group to see this cave, and I had my janky Dollar Tree $1 flashlight ready to go, but my stomach was less than pleased with me, for whatever reason, but I had yet to want to let that stop me from seeing this natural wonder. Once inside, there was a chirping, which we later found out was from a frog, which we thought was cool, but Dominicans are afraid of frogs because of some old Taino taboo that no one can really explain to us. There were also giant spiders, but they were on the other side of the cave. We didn’t realize the distance they had to travel to actually reach us until we realized that the ground ahead of us was actually about ten feet below us and under water. The water was so clear and still that the limestone beneath it appeared to be a dry, flat surface. 

Because sharing is caring, we left the cave to let the other groups have a chance.The second cave was far different from the first, and it was also just far away. We had to go back by the office house, through the backyard, through what looked like Taino ruins, but so much tourism had been done in that area that it’s hard to say what was true ruins and what was manufactured later to give it a little extra dazzle. We had walked through what seemed to be an old, wall-less mansion, and through the kitchen where there was still a functioning stone over. We hiked up a very steep staircase of tree roots and makeshift railings to what looked like an amphitheater. There was at the top a giant chair, perfect for royalty to watch the show untouched by common peasants or regular rich people. On the side of the theater was a door that led to another cave. This cave had a pool in it big enough to swim in, but that’s about all that fit inside. Due to my questionable stomach conditions, I decided it would be best to not risk contaminating a town’s water supply with my stomach acids and the remainder of last night’s bandera dinner.While waiting outside the cave for the groups to take a dip in the dark hole, we tried to look at a bat that kept retreating farther and farther away from our flashlights. Once we gave up on that, we listened to voodoo stories from Tim Keifer about people who tried to “do a work” on him for one reason or another. We also learned how Dominicans make zombies…because zombies are made.

The next stop took some real effort. The hike to the second cave was just a practice run for the hike to the third and final cave. Our walk, once again past the office house, was hot and unforgiving as there was very little shade as the day was nearing noon. The only moments of relief were standing under the one shady spot while we waited for our guide to get the key to let us inside the next cave and seeing a child’s sized Michigan block “M” t-shirt hanging on a line to dry. Yes, even in The-Middle-of-Nowhere Dominican Republic, it’s great to be a Michigan Wolverine. It was like seeing light at the end of a tunnel, and of course what made it even better is that there are six wolverines on this trip of 17 college students from seven different universities and the one school that showed up in this little town was mine. J smiles all around!

The cave itself was in the side of a hill and we had to climb up the rocky hill and then climb down a ladder into the midnight black cave. We had some candles lit for mood lighting and a guy standing with a lantern to make sure no one was drowning. I decided that I only had one life to live, and there was not another guaranteed time for me to swim in a cave, so I jumped in…but not literally. I just waded a little in the water, and it was cool as ice from never seeing the sun. Claribel was egging me on to jump in, but I used my Yoda Jedi powers to counteract her dark forces of Yolo (she always wins when she pulls that one on me). I think my body went into shock from having two extreme temperatures occurring at polar ends of my body, because as soon as I emerged from the water my stomach felt fine, great even; it was like I had stepped into a magical well of healing waters.

After the caves, they treated us to a nice bandera lunch, complete with rice, beans, and carne…big surprise. We also had some grape soda, good old Sprite, and at the end the lady served coffee, which I did not have, on account that I still do not like coffee. After drying off a bit at lunch, we got back on our bus and went to a mangrove where we took a boat ride to see a lagoon and some more caves. The beginning of our ride was so cute and romantic, like the scene Kiss the Girl from The Little Mermaid. There were cranes and other large birds nesting within the grove, and the water went on a winding path like a lazy river, that eventually took us to open water.The water in the Caribbean was extremely blue and extremely clear until you got to parts that were very deep. I couldn’t help but think of that scene in Finding Nemo where he’s in the tank and the other fish want to meet him and Bubbles asks “So, the Big Blue. What's it like?” Nemo: “Umm... big... and blue?”…It really is big and blue. No joke. The ocean expanded on for forever, and disappeared over the horizon like the edge of a table cloth. The waves rolling in beneath us caused our stomachs to drop a little, like riding a roller coaster, but it was more fun than scary. We took the boat into a cave and almost ran into another boat. It was really cool and dark, the air was crisp and the salt in the air lingered, trapped inside the cave.

After leaving our final cave, they took us to the beach. On the way there we passed an old man fishing off the cliff, and a bunch of scattered busts. There were heads of men and women, all European looking, made of some white plaster-ish material. We passed a headless women descending into the water, and once we got to the beach, we found a family reunion of busts along one side of the beach. From the shore looking out into the water there was another man climbing the rocks. We were fascinated by the way these figures seemed to float above the water, barely grasping on to the rock walls they were built upon.This beach was even more beautiful than the first. The sand was white and less humid, so it didn’t stick to your skin unless you were just in the water. We were teaching our Spanish professors how to swim, which was funny because they’re all from this island, and doing basket tosses into the water like mer-cheerleaders. After a while it started to cool off, and it was too crowded in the ocean with tigueres (and tigueras) and their primos, so we got out of the water and just sat and watched the ocean. A group of old men who were lacking severely in the dental area came over and serenaded us for a propino (a tip) and then Claribel YOLOed me into getting ice cream (but that was ok because it was chocolate ice cream and I YOLOed it off onto Lizzy).

The rest of that day was anticlimactic, and we all arrived to dinner a little tardy. My host parents told me they were about to send out a search party for me, even though when they asked the neighbors if their gringa was home yet, they said no. I also got a real shower that night because we had agua and luz. One from a showerhead, not a bucket, and I washed my hair thoroughly and didn’t have to leave in some suds for the sake of not having enough water pressure. Overall, this day was a win.
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Dominoes & Dancing

Adjusting to life in the campo has been an interesting experience. Most of my adjustment process has been sleeping more, and earlier than usual. There is only so much to do in a day here. Since our research projects are coming to a close, all we have to do is work on our papers, work on our presentations, go to Spanish class twice a week, and that’s about it. I would find myself just pacing up and down our one street community just to say I did something.

Every day at five-o-clock a small group of us go for a walk around the community, venturing to the next campo and back again. We always see interesting things and creatures along the way. We usually encounter men with machetes walking down the street, children running around naked and lots of animals.  We pass rolling hills of countless grazing cattle, and a ranch with horses. We also are greeted by pecking peacocks, mostly females showing their babies how to be proper birds of beauty. The scene of infinite palm trees that are seen from the tops of the hills are united by a border of the red-brown dirt roads that were shaped by the people traveling to work, to their houses, to visit their friends, going nowhere. The tranquility of this simple life is complemented by the beauty of the natural environment that cradles it.

There are an infinite amount of flora in the country, the variety of plants just in the yard of my host family’s house is incredible, mostly because they plants just grow, without the intervention, for the most part, of man. I took an afternoon after lunch to explore the yard and count all the different plants that were there. I got to seventeen and decided that photos would be better. The plants here are so exotic and colorful, there is a cattail on the side of the house that is bright red and a flower that blooms both yellow and pink. There are even hibiscus flowers here, the universal symbol for tropical climates.

Once it becomes too dark for walks or admiring the nature, the whole town heads to the Esquina to play endless games of dominoes. Almost every day there is at least one game going from about 7pm until they get good and ready to go home.  Since the Americanas showed up, we have added to the numbers and contribute a table or two of dominoes to the already established games. Dominoes is a very intense game over here, kind of like old American men and horseshoes…it’s not a joke. You can see Dominicans of all ages, men and women, gathered around tables of four playing in tournaments or just casual games to keep from getting rusty. Keeping score takes a lot of mental math, because you can win points in the middle of a game, at the end or a round, whether you won that round or not…there are so many ways to win points that you have to be paying attention the whole time. My mental math skills have definitely been challenged here. Since you can only play four at a time and there are only so many tables, and because music is always, always, ALWAYS playing in this country, there is no dominoes without dancing. Between rounds it is very common for a guy, usually old, to get up and start dancing merengue for a song with some unexpecting, slightly creeped out young lady. These baila breaks, obviously, prolong all of the games and they last forever.

Regardless of whether there are dominoes or not, if the Americans are there, there shall be music! Everywhere we go, if someone has a stereo, they immediately play music for us. One night for one of the girl’s birthdays the family ran the car just to play music from the stereo. I’m pretty sure it’s battery died on us. In our honor, they especially like to play American Top 40 songs or timbau songs, like Palante or Muevete Heavy…the Dominican equivalents of the unedited versions of “Yeah” or “Drop It Like It’s Hot.”  This literally happens wherever we go.  One night we wanted to play Mafia, and we had to keep telling these guys to turn the music down because we couldn’t hear each other eliminate our murder suspects.

But the music isn’t all bad. There is this one disco in the campo called 20/20, a chill place where you can [in my cheesy announcer voice] play a pickup game of billiards, drink a Presidente and, of course, dance. It’s funny because on the sign it says “Lo mejor de aquí…” but is should say “Lo único de aquí” because being the only one that exists for a good thirty of forty minutes, naturally, it is the best. In general, it’s not bad, just a little awkward because the same ten guys are always there, and they always ask us to dance and its really weird when you see them around the campo, and you know their life’s story just because this town has like ten people in it.

Sorry....

I know I have been home for a long time and I have not nearly finished posting about all of my adventures, but I do promise that they will come soon. I just want to take the time to thank all of you who are reading this. I hope my adventures have inspired you to have some adventures of your own!

Happy Travels,

JhoShmo

Vamos a La Playa

So it’s been a few days since I landed into the middle of nowhere, and it still feels like I’ve been dropped off in the middle of nowhere with nothing to do and nowhere to go…well almost nowhere to go. We discovered there is a disco by my house, but we also discovered that it’s mostly for playing pool, even though there is a GIANT dance floor. We also found out that people in the campo play dominos for fun….every single day. Needless to say, we were all very, extremely bored. After saying enough is enough, we finally pulled together and rented a guagua and went to the beach.

The beach is about a ten minute drive from wherever we are, I’m still not really sure, but would be about a 40 minute walk down the mountain. I had never been more excited about taking a field trip in my life. The thought of leaving our 2 kilometer boundaries on the top of a hill bubbled in my tummy and I couldn’t stop smiling as I walked to our meeting place in my suit and cover-up, ready to finally see the ocean. By my house, there is a hill that you can climb and you can see the beach from there. It seems so close that you could almost touch it when you’re up there. It seems like you could just cut through the backyard, through the palm tree forest and be at the beach, but it’s so far down the mountain that it would take forever to get there. We finally piled into the back of our chariot and road down to the beach. On the ride there, everyone at some point was humming “vamos a la playa, a mi me gusta bailar…” Everyone was in a great mood, the best mood since before we left Jarabacoa.

My eyes exploded as I took in the scenery around me when we finally pulled up to the beach. The sand was white and didn’t seem to ever stop, the water was so blue it made the sky seem dull, and the waves were big and inviting. I couldn’t get out of the car fast enough to start taking pictures. Everyone jumped out, laid down their towels and sprinted into the salty water of the Atlantic Ocean. I was a little timid at first, but once my toes touched the shoreline, I couldn’t hold back my excitement any longer. I leaped over the waves that were coming in to get a little more than waist deep. The water was cool and warm at the same time; it felt great under the blazing afternoon sun. The others could not believe that that was my first time ever being to the ocean, my first time tasting its salty waters (which is really gross, but doesn’t take away from how beautiful it is). After letting a few waves sweep my feet of the ground and put them gently back down a few times, I went a little deeper. At one point I actually had to swim because I couldn’t touch the ground anymore, but that wasn’t a problem (thanks mom for throwing me in a pool before I could walk, it’s been keeping me alive out here). After feeling thoroughly saturated in salt and seaweed, I got out and laid on my towel. I remembered I still had awful tan lines from rafting, so I decided to try and even them out. For the first time in weeks, I just sat listening to my iPod, doing nothing but taking in the magnificence of God’s creations.

When the sun got too hot, I took a walk along the beach, taking pictures with a few others. It was amazing to see, or not to see, how far the ocean went. We walked a little ways away from the group until we came upon a coral bed, which was really cool. They poked out of the sand like little castles of Swiss cheese. The felt like rocks, but there was a certain quality about that that made them somehow different and you knew that they weren’t.

That was the best day spent in the campo, and we weren’t even in the campo for very long. That night, after I showered and rid myself of the residue of the beach, I went outside and sat on the hill by my house, just looking down at the beach. It was calling for me to return to it soon, and I intend to listen to its call. The night got darker as I sat out there, and the stars came out one by one. Soon the entire sky was filled with little miracles dancing in the heavens. I felt very safe under the open sky. I let myself get lost in the stars for a while, trying to figure out summer constellations. That night, I found one thing to love about the campo.

...Porque No!!!

More days of nothing followed our trip to the beach, which at this point just seemed like a dream. They finally decided to take us into one of the nearby cities to do some interviews for our projects and to do a little sightseeing and shopping. I thought I was used to riding on the back of a pickup truck until we had to ride 30 minutes on one, the longest trip by far. My whole body was sore from balancing and tightening all the muscles in my body, and even ones I didn’t know existed before, to keep myself within the truck and not on the side of the road(mom, I’m being safe, I promise). Our first stop in the city was to a private health clinic where I got to interview an OB-GYN for my research, which turned out to be an extremely helpful source. We spent most of the morning waiting on others to do their interviews, but the waiting room was entertaining. There were a lot of staring eyes at the herd of Americanas sitting there with notebooks and pens, looking health as can be.

At one point it was just three of us sitting there, the other two clearly American, and me, the possible Dominican, maybe Cuban, one of the bunch. This one guy comes up and starts talking to the other two, and doesn’t even notice me as I was playing Tetris on my cell phone. I even laughed at how awkward of an encounter it was, and he didn’t realize that I too was American. The receptionist is laughing at this man’s attempts to speak English and hold a conversation, and we exchange a few glances trying not to explode in laughter at how comical it was. This guy was such a creeper, he wanted to know their names, where they were from, if they had boyfriends, it they wanted to marry him… it was so weird, but very funny at the expense of others. The guy found out one was from Michigan, and said when he lived in Boston, he had to take his aunt to the Michigan Hospital for some kind of operation, and that was weird, because most people in this country think that New York is the United States and that Boston is a city in New York, which is close to Chicago (aka they don’t know anything about the geographical make up of the US). So it was weird that he knew where Michigan was since most people have no idea and it’s as safe to say I’m from Michigan as it is to say I’m from North America. One girl interviewed him for his project and he was turned off when he didn’t get paid for participating and finally went away.

After that we were led part way through this new city by one of our professors, but then he ditched us and left us to our own devices to navigate through this new town that we had never been to before (good thing we’re adults and I speak Spanish pretty well). I had a mission to get some linen to make a pair of pants with my host abuela, and the others had missions to just do some shopping. We successfully killed two birds with a couple of stones, but in a reasonable amount of time. We found this one store that was incredible, the clothes were so cute and the floor was sparkly it was so clean. I felt like I had walked into a boutique in Manhattan. Just to give you all some background, stores in the DR have a specialty (like clothes, books, food, etc) and then they dabble in everything else. For example, in the photo store where you buy cameras and frames and get pictures developed, they also sold Pink by Victoria Secret bra and panty sets. That is the norm. So to find a store that sells clothes and shoes, and only clothes and shoes, and that were not second hand, or imported from the states, was incredible! But so were the prices, so most of us didn’t buy anything. We did run into another group of girls there, and we all decided to leave and get some lunch.

After finding a kind lady to give us directions towards the central park, we made our way to a nice pizzeria owned by a little old Italian man from Florence. He was so nice to us, and his food was amazing! I got a ham and cheese pizza, and it was the best pizza I had had in such a long time. As if providing us with good food wasn’t enough, his restaurant had wifi! Unfortunately I didn’t have my phone with me, otherwise I would’ve called my mommy, but that was beside the point. This little strange who moved to the DR because he had arthritis and needed the heat to keep the swelling in his fingers down was an angel sent to us when our spirits were at their lowest. We were all just talking about how we were ready to go home or at least back to Jarabacoa, because we were not cut out to live in the country, and he just gave us city girls some comfy creatures in the form of pizza and internet. Feeling rebooted, we were ready to take on the campo for a little while longer, knowing that we were almost done with our journey.

A Whole New World

We had all piled into two vans, luggage stuffed into the back of one, and the overflow strapped to the top with a combination of twine, rope, and bungee cords. The air was hot and unforgiving inside the van with eleven bodies all squished together on the pleather seats that slid beneath our sweaty legs. The air conditioning was on, but the fans were so weak that they only reached the heads directly below them, leaving most of us stuck breathing in hot recycled air. We were only about 30 minutes onto the road and we were already ready to get out. I cracked the window beside me, even though I knew the air was on, and the breeze created temporary relief from the heat, until the morning air turned into the afternoon hotbox. The driver was playing what must have been his American Top 40s, Hip-Hop and R&B playlist from his iPod. We were serenaded by Yeah by Usher, Without Me Eminem, and We Found Love by Rihanna, which comforted us for a while as we pended the unknown that we were about to be thrown into.

What was ahead of us was a dark mystery that we tried to be positive about, but it was hard to do since we had only heard two good things about the campo: 1) Less tigueres and 2) It’s beautiful. After four hours of being cramped in our vans, two stops on the side of the road for carsick passengers, three stops for gas and snacks, we finally made it to La Esquina, the campo that’s somewhere between Nagua and Cabrera, but isn’t on any map we’ve ever seen. Well it was true that it was a beautiful place, as we drove up the mountain and dropped everyone off at their new homes one by one, I could see the huge pastures of grazing cattle, the palm trees in the distance, sunflowers and orchids in front of every house and the prettiest birds I had ever seen, but there was one eye sore; the houses. Many houses were made of cement with tin roofs, but there were also just as many made of weathered wood, that look like they have endured a hurricane or two. There were also a few very modern, western style houses that were completely made of cement with modern colors on the exterior, not the bright oranges and pinks that you saw on the other houses, but of course those were not the houses they were taking us to.

It took me about half an hour to actually reach the house I would be staying in for the next three weeks, since I lived the farthest up the hill. The last one to get dropped off, the anxiety I felt waiting in the van grew in my belly and I tried to calm myself down to keep from vomiting up the Doritos I had eaten about an hour before. There were three others to drop off before me, so I prayed for the last seven minutes of waiting, not wanting to have a horrified look on my face when I met my host family for the first time. Well I was calmer when I got to my house, but I still looked horrified. I looked in the direction of the finger of my director who was pointing out my house and it lead to a little wooden house painted Pepto pink and lime green. In the doorway stood a little old lady, who I later learned was called Maria. She was to be my host mom (well grandma) along with her husband Oscar, my host grandpa.

On the table to greet me as my lunch already prepared. La Bandera, of course, was set up on the table, but it didn’t look very appetizing. I didn’t realize why at first, but then I noticed that my chicken was moving. Ants had taken over my lunch, probably because we arrived two hours later than we were supposed to due to all the extra stops we had to make. The only thing on the table that had not been invaded was the rice, so I ate rice…a good choice since the little black soldiers would be easily spotted in my white starchy meal.

Maria showed me to my bedroom, where I was greeted by a very bright pink bed spread, a window that was wide open with no glass or screen, and a wooden vanity. I thought I was going to puke, there was so much pink. The sunlight that came in through the window had reflected onto the walls making them also appear to be pink. (For those of you who do not know me very well, me and pink do NOT get along…at all. It is by far my least favorite thing in the world. I hate it more than almost anything else, it’s almost up there with murderers, rapists, and child abusers…yes, that high on the list.) So yes, I had a pink room in a pink house… perfect -_-. I decided that I could stomach the pink room when I saw that I had a personal fan in the room too. That would make this experience much better.

First impressions say a lot, and I can honestly say that this has not had a great first impression on me. But impressions change, and I can only hope and pray that this one will leave a much better impression, and soon. I’m not sure I can handle three weeks of ant food and all pink everything.

So Hard to Say Goodbye

Time is really flying by. It seems like just a few days ago that I arrived in Jarabacoa, with my blue tie dye dress on, sitting in a preschool room waiting to be matched up with my host family. The last week in Jarabacoa was extremely eventful and fun, a very bittersweet memory. In order to celebrate surviving the first half of our program, we went to dinner at this super fancy restaurant on top of a mountain. It took us twenty minutes to get there, 16 of which were just us climbing up a very steep, very curvy mountain side. We could see all the buildings and houses below us get smaller and smaller the higher we got. Once we reached the restaurant, we were in awe at how much of the town below us we could see. The sun was setting and left a pale blue streak across the sky highlighted by a bright burnt orange that just kissed the horizon. Naturally we took a lot of photos…for about an hour. Once our table was ready we sat down and attempted to order our food.

This was by far the absolute longest dinner I have ever had. We left at 7, were seated at 8:30, ordered our food at 9, and got our food at 9:43. The place closed at 10pm. We finished eating at around 10:30 or so, well maybe a little later as we were taking our time. Then it took us forever to get our checks. Once they came, it took them forever to pick them up. The bills were wrong, probably because they had two guys taking orders together, trying to take them in English, even though we were giving it to them in Spanish. One side of the table to the other took about thirty minutes to get orders in. It was ridiculous. It took so long that our taxi drivers were getting mad because it was taking us so long (although I’m not sure why they were mad because they ate at the restaurant too, and saw firsthand how long it was taking, but…). They had an issue with giving people who paid in cash their change back. On one bill it was all in cash except for one card, and the waiter thought all the cash that was in the book was a tip and charged the whole bill on this one girls card…that was about to get ugly, but they finally fixed it. Once we got bills settled, we finally left at like 11pm. Nobody went out that night, arguing with waiters takes a lot of energy out of you.

That week I also had a lot of interviews to do around the community. Having people sit down and answer a lot of personal questions is an extremely hard thing to do in the United States, and you usually have to spend a lot of time pleading your case with people to get them to care even a little bit about what you’re researching. The upside to doing research in the States, however, is that you can do a lot of work online, that way surveys are done when it’s convenient for the participant to complete it, it doesn’t seem as invasive because you’re not staring directly at the person who is giving you the information, and it gives a lot of people a better sense of privacy and anonymity. So naturally, without access to these online resources, I was extremely nervous and anxious about going into people’s houses and asking them, in my less than perfect Spanish, a billion questions about themselves.

Now my research is on the differences in breastfeeding practices between urban and rural Dominican Republic…basically. In the United States, if I were to walk up to a person’s house and say “hi, I’m a student, I need to know how you breastfed your children” that would be a little awkward, right? Yeah, well, apparently not. Here in the DR, nobody looked me weird like I had an extra head growing out of my left ear and a hand protruding from my nose. Everyone was very open to sharing. Actually the hard part of my data collection was keeping people’s answers brief and to the point (Dominican women really like to talk and share stories). But even though the people here are very open, old habits die hard and I still felt extremely awkward approaching people.

That Wednesday was the 4^th of July, the great American holiday; just another day in the DR. Being the super Americans that we are, we all wore some form of red white and blue to class that day. It wasn’t until then that we really noticed that those are the same colors of the Dominican flag. On our walk to school that morning, feeling deprived of the smell of barbeques firing up, and fresh fruit being chopped, we serenaded ourselves with the Preamble from School House Rock. “We the people, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice and ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare and…..Do or ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America!” We couldn’t remember the fifth line…and still can’t remember… so we just hummed around it (if you know the words, please comment them!). We had been discussing for a while how we should go about celebrating our Independence, and settled on a trip to the river and burgers from Carlos at Mi Tio Café.  Because of being so behind in collecting data, I skipped the swimming and met up with everyone later.

Thursday was pretty regular until about 8 pm. Josue, the tostada guy in the cafeteria that’s attached to our house, was playing some music and had a game of chess going with his friends. The music got a little louder when me and the other Americanas showed up. Soon enough it was a full on party going on in the street. We had all the kids in the neighborhood laughing and dancing in the street. It was pretty dark out, but nobody seemed to notice. After a while, we switched up iPods and played some songs from the US (which the Dominicans already knew, so it wasn’t that novel). I had to leave mid party to get some dinner, but the party was alive and well by the time I came back.

Friday we had a despedida, where we had a formal farewell to all our families at the school. It was nice and brief. Some people gave some speeches, so parents told some funny stories, we ate some cake, drank some punch and called it a night. Afterward, my neighborhood had a block party at a bomba, which is a gas station. One of the girls in my program, her dad was hosting the party, and was playing the accordion in our live merengue band. His brother owned the hotdog stand that was on the property. We danced a little, chatted a little, laughed a lot, and then went home. I still had to pack my bags.

The next morning was a very sad day. I didn’t want to leave my new family. I was just getting close with them, and now I had to go my separate ways. It was very tragic. I told my host mom I wasn’t going to cry, but as soon as I got in the car, it was over. I don’t know what the campo has to offer me, but I know it has some very, very large shoes to fill. The car ride will be long, so hopefully by the time I get there I will be more open minded about leaving Jarabacoa.