Here I am. Sitting at my laptop while three little heads look into my window, fingertips hanging over the edge of the shutters. They look in, curious to see my every move. I ask them "¿Que lo que? (A Dominican saying translating to "What's the what?"). They smile. "Libya, what are you doing?" "Libya, want to play soccer?" "Libya, take a picture of us".
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| Buddies |
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| Me, Florinda and Hericon on my front porch |
It is hard to get things done in my house. There is a group of about 12 muchachos who are regular visitors - by regular I mean sunup to sundown, every moment I am in my house. If/when I close my door, they sit on my front porch and slip their little fingers under my door instigating my cat to pounce on them. They giggle and continue on. Every once in a while I will hear them closing the big iron lock on the outside of my house, attempting to lock me in. I hate this game. It is an automatic way to get my attention and they know it. Tricksters.
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| My neighbor with a broken arm. |
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| Take a picture of me!!! |
There is one little boy, Hericon, who lives two doors down from my house. His parents left the community so he is living alone with his grandmother, he is three years old and 9 out of 10 times, he is naked. There is something about him that makes me smile (other than his nudity of course). He is the first one to my house every morning, arriving at about 7:00-7:30am "Libya, open your door? Take a photo of me." He is very soft spoken but I can always hear him. Many people in the community call him a "tiguere", a very common and much used word in the Dominican Republic. The word literally translates to "tiger" but they use it to reference men (and sometimes women) that are street savvy, slick, good with women and confident.
Hericon is a bit of a tiguere, he is great with the ladies - just kidding - but he is already a leader and has a group of four other little boys who follow him around like crazy. About five times a day I can hear his grandmother calling his name because he has wandered too far from his house, out of sight, often visiting me. He ignores her and after a few screams, I have to remind him he is being called for. He runs off and returns a bit later. He is in his own world, always entertaining himself and others. He loves playing with my cat. The cat is scared of him and immediately runs when she sees Hericon but he always wants to play with her. I will hand him the cat, he will toss it over his shoulder, walk it to the side of my house and watch it freak out for a minute. It will then run off in a direction looking for the fastest way to enter my house and go straight under my bed, away from Hericon.
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| Hericon with my cat. |
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| Trying to escape Hericon. |
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| Hericon rolling in the dirt. |
Speaking of my cat, I got a cat. Well, I was given a cat, I guess it came with my house. This is the first cat I have ever had. We have a love-hate relationship, it loves me and I hate it. Just kidding (kinda). I have always been an animal lover but it just different in the Dominican Republic. Animals aren't the same here. They aren't fluffy, friendly and plump. They flinch at every move, are covered in scars and you can see their rib cages. They sleep outside and fight with each other throughout the night, keeping me awake. Anyways, every morning I would wake up to the smell of cat poop. It had claimed under my bed as its designated latrine. Not good and not the best thing to wake up to. I would find myself losing my temper, (which doesn't happen often) every morning, and throughout the day because of this. I would have to move my bed from against the wall (It's scary under there) and clean it up. Whenever I walked, it would be at my feet, almost tripping me. It was constantly meowing for who knows what. I tried locking it our but it would crawl under the door, I even barricaded it out sometimes. It still doesn't have a name but some of the boys in the community call it Libby/Libya because it is white and has blue eyes so they automatically think we look alike. I don't feel comfortable calling the cat Libby so it remains nameless for the time being. Like everyone else, I always like a happy ending so you all will be glad to know that we are friends now - 100% due to the kitty litter I bought for it and the rats that it eats.
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| The cat. |
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| Me w/ some of the girls, and the cat. |
A few weeks ago, my friend Colby came to visit. Hi Colby! I have had a few visitors but she was the first to see life outside of the beautiful beaches. Looking back, it probably wasn't the most relaxing "vacation" for her but she sure was a trooper.
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| YAY!!! |
Here is our story.
Colby arrives and I am waiting for her at the airport. Hi Colby, welcome to the Dominican Republic, lets go!! We get in a cab and get dropped off on the side of the highway. Cars and GuaGuas (buses) zoom by, one is slowing down, lets get in. Here, take a beer. Thirty minutes later, ok, we are here, lets get off. We walk to a hostel in Juan Dolio, put on our bathing suits and head down to the beach, grabbing a beer on the way. Another volunteer, Tina arrives bringing a bottle of rum. A local offers us some coconuts so we have a nice drink on the beach and decide to grab some dinner at one of the three available options. We order way too much food and return to our hotel room.
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| Cerveza on the beach. |
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| Colby with the remains. |
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| Fish. |
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| Chopping us some coconut. |
Up and at em'! 7:30am We walk to the side of the highway, get on a bus to the capital in order to catch a bus to my community. We sit through some traffic and get off and look for the next bus we need to take, but wait, I don't know where it is. Lets just wander around the hottest, loudest, dirtiest part of the city asking people. Found it, Hop on! What the heck is that noise, oh, its just the rooster sitting right next to us, for the next FOUR hours. Luckily the bus wasn't too crowded. We pull up to our stop around 2.
"There he is. This is our ride, Colby."
"Yes, that motorcycle."
"Yes, we going on the same one."
"Yes, all three of us with all of our bags."
We get to my house and peel ourselves off the motorcycle. A few kids that saw us drive through come over. I give Colby a 15 second tour of my house, here it is.... my room, my kitchen, my shower. A bit later I give Colby a tour of my community. I show her the landmarks. Here is my Doña's house, the soccer field, the church, some cows. We return to my house and the kids watch us, everyone asking if we are sisters. We were planning on having a soccer practice but it begins to rain. We sit on my front porch for a bit and watch the rain fall and accumulate in large puddles. The electricity goes out and never returns for our short stay in my community.
"Are you hungry Colby, because I don't have any food. Hang on, lets send this little boy to find some avocados for us."
"No avocados. Well, I have these platanos, lets fry them...and I have this 3 month old Cacoa wine."
"We can have a nice romantic dinner in the pitch dark...I hope you like mosquitos."
"Shower? Here, take this bucket and stand in here and just dump it over your head."
"Oh, and let me show you where my bathroom is."
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| My latrine. |
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| My shower. |
Eventually, the mosquitos got to be a little much so we retreated to my mosquito net and watch a movie on my computer while the rain falls against my tin roof. Quite relaxing really.
The next morning we get up early because I have a meeting in the capital. When we arrive, we meet some volunteers at the embassy for lunch. We hang out at the office, I attend my meeting and Colby goes shopping for some treats for the next bus ride. After my meeting, we all rush to the bus stop to catch our 5:00 bus. They oversold the tickets so we push and shove to make sure we get on. Good thing we brought some rum. Four hours later we arrive in Puerto Plata. We cram into cabs and make our way to Andrew's apartment, another volunteer that was nice enough to let us stay over. The night is spent singing, dancing, playing beer pong and hanging out on the roof. It was a late night.
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| Add caption |
After a few, short hours of rest on an overcrowded bed, we get up because we are going to visit 27 charcos. We were all moving a little slow but we eventually get there. They give us our life jackets but ran out of helmets for just our group. hmm. We hike up for about an hour until we get there and start our adventure. We jump of cliffs and slide down rocks into little pools of water, 27 of them to be exact! A few hours later, we finish and sit down for a big, Dominican lunch - rice, two kinds of pasta, bread, potatoes and a little bit of meat. I hope you like carbs Colby.
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| Walking to the 27 charcos. |
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| Waiting to go. |
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| The beginning of the hike. |
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| Colby jumping off one of the cliffs. |
We were going to make our way up to Cabarete but last minute we decided to stick with the rest of the crew and go visit another volunteer that lives close to the waterfalls, Jose. We hitchhike to the main road and jump on another bus. Once we get off, we all get on motorcycles and take a 30 minute moto ride to Jose's house. When Colby gets off, she tells me her arms are sore from holding on so tight to the back of the motorcycle. We have a few beers in the park and wait for Jose to arrive. Once he comes, we all cross a sketchy bridge to get to the other side of the river, where we bath, all 9 of us together. After bathing, we spend some time on Jose's roof, cook dinner and watch TV in the clinic waiting room (Jose lives above a medical clinic) and Colby and the boys head out for a night of dancing bachata (I bailed bc I was so exhausted and my toe was infected with what I later found out was staff infection). The next day, we pack up and head out one last time for the capital.
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| Beers in the park. |
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| The bridge to bathe. |
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| Getting clean in the dirty river. |
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| Cooking pasta. |
Colby and I go back to Juan Dolio because it is on the beach and near the airport. We have a nice dinner out and go back to the hotel. We get up early, spend a little time on the beach and then pack up to leave.
I drop Colby on the side of the road and talk to moto driver and off she goes to the airport. Like I said, I am not sure how much of a "vacation" it was BUT I can't tell you how appreciative and happy I am to have shared my life here with such a great friend. Thanks again Colbs, I had a ball and I will never forget it!!
Below are some more of Colby's photos (I hope you don't mind I stole some of them from you!)
Off to bathe in that bucket of mine! Until next time!!
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| Representing the STL. |
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| Batey Cuchilla. |
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| Cooling off on a hot day. |
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| Resting. |
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| Barracks in my community. |
