It’s already been 5 weeks in the DR??

Somehow time has just flown by and we are heading back to Michigan tomorrow!

Last night we went out to dinner with our professor, Karen, our coordinator Bernadette, and our host moms Adela and Estela. It was so much fun! The restaurant was called El Conuco and besides yummy food there was music and dancing for entertainment. The dancers were so talented, I cannot believe the moves they were doing. The girls were spinning so fast I don’t know how they could stand up after. They taught some of us to dance too. I am an awful dancer and I didn’t want to be the entertainment for the whole restaurant so I joined the band instead. I do really want to take salsa dancing lessons when I get home because it looks like so much fun!

Today was our last day at school, and it was another half day of exams. My students took their Spanish and Sociales exams. I felt bad because I wasn’t much help to them because they obviously study Spanish at a much higher level than I am capable of and I do not know much about Dominican social studies. But, it’s not something I should worry about because I wasn’t expecting to become fluent in Spanish in the short time I’ve spent here. I took 3 years of Spanish in high school and an intermediate course during college, but it has been 4 years since I’ve used it at all, so it took me a few weeks just to get used to the language again. I was looking through some old papers that I wrote for my Spanish 201 class and I was pretty good at Spanish back then, I wish I had kept practicing! I was proud of myself for writing a thank you note to my host family in Spanish though! So when I get home, the plan is to take Spanish and salsa lessons!

Thank you to my host teacher, Ms. Pacheco, my students, everyone at St. Thomas School, my professors, my host family, and of course the other 5 student teachers for making this an unforgettable experience. I will forever treasure the memories made here!

On December 1st I built a Sandcastle, and other adventures in Las Terrenas

Due to Thanksgiving we had a 4 day weekend so we decided to take full advantage of it by heading to beautiful Las Terranas. It was quite the adventure! Here is the story of our trip.

Friday: We woke up bright and early to catch the 7am bus from Santo Domingo to Sanchez. We arrived at the bus terminal, bought our tickets, and learned that we would have to take the 8am. So we killed time by playing Euchre (I still haven’t gotten the hang of it). The bus was fantastic, probably the comfiest seat I’ve ever sat in, and the view was amazing! We drove through the mountains and jungle, saw rice paddies and other farms. We arrived in Sanchez, where we would take a taxi the rest of the way to Las Terrenas. Sanchez is an interesting little town…when we got off the bus we had no idea what to do. Men were yelling in Spanish trying to get us to take their taxis. Finally we found a nice taxi and were on our way. Here is what we saw on our drive:

Once we arrived at the house we rented we ran to the bodega to grab some provisions (mac n’ cheese) then headed to the beach! The house was so cute, and it felt like we were in the jungle!

Saturday: We woke up early because the roosters were crowing (literally, there were so many chickens) and we wanted to see the sunrise.

We spent most of the day at the beach, or relaxing around the house. I think we all read more this weekend than during all of our student teaching combined, I know I did. I have really missed having time to read! The beach was so perfect, it doesn’t even look real.

That afternoon we headed into town for dinner and shopping. First we found the ATM. I randomly withdrew 5000 pesos because I am bad at math and never know how much money it is, but this will become very important later. We checked out the souvenir shops for a while then found a little Italian restaurant. This is when things started to get weird. A man on crutches came into the restaurant and started begging us for money in French and showing us all sorts of injuries. We couldn’t get him to leave and the restaurant workers were not doing anything. Finally he left. Then we sat at a little beach bar when a man with a guitar came to sing for us. It was very strange, then he asked for money. We decided to find somewhere else to hang out when a man (very intoxicated) started following us and trying to get us to buy illegal things from him. It was scary because he would not let go of Bret’s shoulder and we tried everything to lose him. Luckily, we happened upon the taxi who had driven us into town so we quickly hopped in and took off. Then the taxi charged us an insane amount, but we were just glad to be back to our house.

Sunday: I spent most of the morning enjoying the hammock on our porch before heading down to the beach. (Notice my tan is not coming along very well)

At the beach we played in the waves, relaxed in the sun, and I built a sandcastle! It did not seem like it could possibly be December, but I know that it is snowy at home!

At 3pm we took a taxi back to Sanchez to catch our bus home. We got our bus tickets, but the man told us it would be a 4 hour ride home! With that as our only option, we ran across the street to a store to pick up some snacks for the ride. We were planning to catch the 4:30 bus. A bus pulled up at 4, and we ran over to get on. The bus driver said this was not the bus to take to Santo Domingo, and that we needed to wait for the one that would come at 4:30. That was all fine, we just thought the bus was early. We went to sit down in  the bus station and the ticket seller started yelling and banging his hands on the desk. He said we were supposed to get on that bus! Apparently the next bus was completely full and the last bus of the day. What were we going to do?!? Our options were: stay in Sanchez (not really a town I’d like to visit again, let alone sleep there), get a taxi all the way to Santo Domingo (so much money!), call our host family to come get us (such an inconvenience for them). The angry ticket man ended up helping us out by saying he would have a taxi take us to another station to catch a bus. He said our taxi was there and we walked out to find not a car or van, but 3 motorcycles. To have a picture of our faces at that moment… So, we rode 3 deep, with our luggage, no helmet, flip flops, through the mountain jungle, with strangers who didn’t speak English. I refuse to ride a motorcycle with my boyfriend, while wearing a helmet, in a town I feel safe in, but I didn’t have a choice here so I got over my fears right quick. The motorcycle Laura and I were on pulled off, and all I could think was that this was the beginning of a scary movie. We are getting kidnapped. Luckily Bret and Katie showed up and we went to a gas station.

Then the motorcycles were 1000 pesos each. Everyone else just had some random coins with them, maybe 50 pesos. That wasn’t going to cut it. Then there was me, with my 5000. (It’s so weird to say I took out 5 grand from an ATM) I was so glad that I’m so bad at math, because I don’t know what would have happened if we didn’t have the 3000 pesos to pay these guys.This is where we were dropped off:

So we waited at this gas station for the next bus. We were thrilled to find that the guy working there was from New York, and spoke English! And they had a credit card machine so we could buy some snacks. We were so nervous about making our bus, otherwise we would sleep at this gas station. We tried to get on the wrong bus twice, but the nice New Yorker saved us. Then the correct bus showed up, but every seat was taken! We convinced them to let us stand in the aisles for the 2 hour drive back to Santo Domingo.The nice man I was standing next to gave me his seat after an hour.

Finally, we made it to the bus station. I’ve never been so happy to be in the crazy city of Santo Domingo. We grabbed a taxi and headed home where Adela, Estela, and Lula were so happy to see us. They cooked us some amazing chimichangas and it felt like the best meal I’ve ever eaten after a day of eating only chips.

Overall, it was the most relaxing, yet most stressful trip I’ve ever been on. Thank goodness for Sam who speaks fluent Spanish, and for my bad math at the ATM. Otherwise we might still be in the Sanchez bus station.

Happy December everyone!

A Wonderful Weekend in Punta Cana, and other Adventures!

Wow, what a busy weekend!

Friday after school the group had a meeting with our coordinator to make sure that everything was all set for the remainder of our trip. After that, my weekend (which was much too short) in Punta Cana began! My boyfriend flew down to so that we could spend the weekend at a resort and see some sights together. The drive from Santo Domingo to Punta Cana was interesting, we definitely saw some sights there! We took a little bit of a detour leaving Santo Domingo and ended up driving through a traffic jam in little Haiti, which was a bit scary. But it was smooth sailing once we got on the highway. We reached the hotel just in time for dinner. A great bonus of visiting a resort was the hot showers. I am still not used to the cold water showers where we are staying.

Before the trip I was curious about other parts of the island, and how the resort communities differ from the capitol city, it was definitely different! Being at the resort was a whole different world. It was very interesting because I had expected to see a lot of other vacationers from the U.S. there, but it was actually mostly people from places like Ukraine and Russia, which added another cultural element to this trip. They seemed to really like cameras, everyone was constantly posing for a million pictures.

The beach was wonderful, it was nice to relax and feel the sun while listening to the waves. I love the ocean! A funny part of the trip was that on the other side of the wall outside our room was some sort of club/discoteca. All night it sounded like there was a party happening right there, and the DJ was yelling in Spanish. It might sound annoying, but it was pretty entertaining.

I didn’t take any pictures on my phone, but I hope to have some to post soon! The trip went by way too fast, as vacations always do.

I arrived back in Santo Domingo this morning and I showed my boyfriend around the local mall because it is a really neat building, and we were hoping to get some breakfast. It was kind of fun being the one who “knows” Spanish. Usually Sam, a Spanish major, does all of our communicating. Since she wasn’t there and George doesn’t speak any Spanish, I was the expert at the moment. I definitely speak broken Spanish, but I can get the point across. I’m hoping to gain more Spanish skills in the next couple of weeks.

This afternoon, we visited La Zona Colonial again. There was a little festival this weekend, but it was mostly over by the time we arrived. We did, however, stumble upon the oldest fort in the Americas. It was open for us to walk through so we went all the way up to the highest watch tower. It was so cool! The view of the city was beautiful, and I did get a few pictures there.

We Have Arrived in Santo Domingo!

So our group of 6 CMU student teachers has finally made it to the last part of our degree program! After arriving at the airport in Detroit at 4:30am yesterday we traveled to Miami and then to our destination of Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic! We are staying in the cutest apartments with sisters named Adela and Estelle.

Last night we had our first “Dominican” meal of spaghetti. I thought that was funny because I went out for a big Italian dinner right before leaving because I thought we wouldn’t be eating any pasta for the next 5 weeks. After dinner we sampled some other Dominican things such as El Presidente cerveza, and coconut water fresh from the coconut. Then we went to the local mall for gelato.

This morning we left bright and early for a tour around Santo Domingo. There was so much to see!

First, we drove through Little Haiti. The Haitians sell their goods on the streets here. We also drove through Chinatown.

Next, we went to Los Tres Ojos (the three eyes). It is a national park of caves with three lakes inside. It was absolutely beautiful.

Another view from inside the caves. So pretty!

We saw many other national monuments and sites. Here is the palace built by Diego Columbus. He was the son of Christopher Columbus. The inside is set up as a museum filled with furniture and art from the 1500s, though it is not original to the palace because of a fire.

One of our last stops was a cathedral. We made friends with this guard. It was quite a busy day, we saw and learned so much!

The rest of the day will be spent grocery shopping and preparing for our first day of school tomorrow!