My Trip to the Mountains

So I got back from my volunteer visit yesterday, and I had a really awesome time. The volunteer I visited, Ryan, lives in a place called El Rubio up in the mountains in the region of Santiago. The first day I got there (Thursday) we just ate lunch in San Jose de las Matas, a bigger city near his site, before we continued on to his house in El Rubio. That night I went with him to a meeting he was having with two of his project partners where they discussed some of the plans such as the river clean up with the local school kids they had planned for the next day. After the meeting we went to the store to buy some food and make dinner at his house. He didn’t have any electricity that night, it kinda of comes and goes at will, so we had to cook by lantern light and a candle. It was really good dinner, we made carrots and beets, this wheat rice like stuff, and soya with curry spice and onions. It was nice especially since curry has been the biggest food I’ve missed since I’ve been here.

The next morning we woke up, and it had been raining the whole night before so they had to call of the river clean up that was planned because they feared the river would be too dangerous because of all the extra water that would be fueling the currents due to the large amount of rain; especially since it was with the kids. Instead he took me on a little tour of his town which took quite a while since he knew almost everyone there and we would stop to say hello to everyone we saw on the way. For lunch we went to his “host moms” house where we had rice, beans, and fried eggplant, and then started to go to a couple peoples houses because he had to find a host family for the new volunteer that will be going there after him. At each house we had were offered coffee or juice and at one house this really awesome coconut cake pastry. It was also interesting because in this particular town there are many people who have either lived in the US for a number of years or receive remittances from family members who live in the US. I think this made them especially friendly to Americans and loved just talking about day to day life here and there. We went back to the volunteers house in the evening, it had started raining again, and I took a nap for a little bit.

Later that night we went to one of his neighbor’s house were we just hung out and made plans for the next day. His neighbor was one of the owners of a radio station in a nearby city called Mao and we were going to spend the day with him there. We had a few drinks at his house before returning home to eat dinner and go to bed.

The next day we met up at his neighbors house, his name is Don Percio, and he drove us to Mao which is about an hour and half way from where we were in El Rubio. Part of the reason why it took that long to get there is that for about half the way the road was not paved so it was a pretty bumpy ride. They are actually gonna have a huelga (a strike) this Wednesday to try to get a stretch of road paved. When we got to Mao me and the other volunteer walked around the city a little bit and got some lunch then went back to the radio station where Ryan spoke on the radio a little bit about some environmental issues in his town and the broadcasters actually, on the spot, decided to go to El Rubio the following weekend in order to do a live broadcast about the environmental issues there, which is super cool. After that Don Percio, his brother, the brothers wife, 2 other guys that worked at the station, and me and Ryan went to a little bar where we hung out, drank some beers, and chatted through the afternoon. We left later in the evening and Don Percio took us back to his house where he cooked us dinner, and then we returned home to go to sleep.

When we woke up on Sunday we and walked out of the bedroom we were surprised to see that the rest of his house was covered in an inch or more of water. There was a leak in the ceiling in one of the back rooms and since it had been raining pretty much non-stop all weekend, and the door to that room had been closed, they water was probably building up until it finally went under the door and infiltrated the rest of the house. We spent the next hour or 2 trying to bail out his house. We got a lot of it out but there was still almost an inch of standing water in the back room when I left that he was going to have to continue to build up throughout the day. I was supposed to take a carro publico to get back to San Jose de las Matas but since it was raining everything was shut down so they were not running. I ended up having to take a bola, basically hitchhiking with a random guy that was going in my direction, in order to get to San Jose de las Matas and take the bus back to Santo Domingo. The guy was super nice, and I actually went to mass with him because he was stopping in another town first on the way to go to church, so it was that or not get to where I needed to go. It was actually interesting to see what a mass was like here, I am always interested in different religious practices, and it only took about an hour. After mass we finished driving the rest of the way and he dropped me off by a park and then I walked to the bus stop where I was going to meet my friend who visited a different volunteer in a nearby city so we would travel back to Santo Domingo together. When we met up I wanted to show her the picture of Ryan’s flooded house but when I looked for my camara in my bag it was not there. I realized that it had probably fallen out of my bag when in the car of the guy who gave me a ride because at one point I pulled out my notebook to write something down and wasn’t thinking that this was the pocket my camara was in. Looking back I can just see it happening and I just was clueless, I’m sure its just sitting on the floor of his car, and since this was just a random good sumaritan giving me a ride, there is no way to get in contact with him. But asi es la vida, I’ll just have to try to buy another camara at some point, whenever I have free time which probably won’t be for a few weeks but I’m sure I can bum some pictures from other people.

But on returning to Santo Domingo I just ate dinner, did some of my homework, and then went to bed early. This weekend our group is going to a Brigada Verde regional meeting, they are a youth group here in the DR, and our going to be doing activities with them all weekend then come back to Santo Domingo on Sunday. Then on Monday morning we leave for community based training which is in a smaller campo (town) where we are gonna be for 5 ½ weeks learning some more technical skills for our sector (environment), improving our Spanish, and also integrating with a new host family. I don’t know what my internet situation will be like there but hopefully there will be an internet café or something so I can stay in touch with everyone. But until then hope everyone is doing well. Bye for now.