Right now I am starting this entry while sitting in my internship office. Everyone is in a meeting and I think they forgot about me. I am working 4 hours a week (min.) at BRA-Dominicana, working in the projects department. So far I have been doing document translation and report writeups.
(FYI if you click on the pictures you can see them full sized!!!!!!)
Lots has happened since the last post. My bad. So starting from the beginning. On the weekend of my birthday (Feb 6-8) we went on a group excursion to Jurassic Park. There were lots of dinosaurs, an
d a couple of the kids in my program got eaten by velociraptors. Overall it was a pretty tame weekend… Ok but seriously. We went to Parque de Los Haitises where parts of Jurassic Park were filmed. We stayed in a really cool hotel there; it had natural spring pools running throughout the place. On the way there we stopped at Cueva de las Maravillas (Cave of Marvels), which is a cave that was discovered by a troop of Boy Scouts and has a lot of bats…and a lot of old Taino (indigenous) cave drawings. Apparently the Taino’s invented the smiley face. The picture on the r
ight was taken illegally by one Anna Scott. You can see some of the drawings. After settling in at the hotel we went on a 5k hike through the park. It was pretty muddy due to the rain, which made the hike pretty exciting at times. The scenery was amazing, and you kind of did expect dinosaurs to hop out of the trees. Our guide was a walking dictionary of botanical terms, and cracked open a Cacao pod so we could take a
look at what chocolate looks like when it grows on trees. Near the end of the hike we went into Cueva de la Linea, which was a very skinny cave. When we finally got to the end of the hike we got onto a boat and took a boat back to the hotel. The boat ride was amazing; the national park is incredible, tons of cool rock formations, island
s and mangrove forests. According to my guide book the park itself is only accessible by boat. When we got back from the boat ride, we had a chance to swim in the natural pools and then we had dinner and a campfire where we made “S’mores”…we had no graham crackers…
The next day was WHALE WATCHING DAY! And of course a small unimportant internationally recognized day called “Caitlin’s 21st Birthday”, so we were off to see the whales. We hopped on the boat, saw some dolphins as we exited the park and
entered the bay of Samana. Then the guides gave us huge rubber raincoats…we should have become worried then… Why? Because then it started to rain on us, and the waves started to s
plash over the side of the boat. After a 45 minute boat ride we ended up chasing a pair of humpback whales for 10 minutes through Perfect-Storm sized waves, needless to say some of the weaker members of the troop became sea sick. I, however, had a great time, despite the fact that I was completely soaked and so was all the stuff in my backpack including my change of clothes… This began the period of the trip that I will call the “will I e
ver be dry again” phase. It rained. And rained. Our afternoon at the beach was an afternoon hiding from the rain. Then later that night we hid from the rain some more and played many a game like musical chairs to entertain ourselves. The next day we were supposed to go submerge ourselves waist deep in mud to go and plant mangroves…but it was raining. So we played dominoes. Needless to say when I got back to Santo Domingo I had to spend a good 45 minutes scrubbing my sneakers in hopes that the mud would disappear…it did.
My weeks here so far have become fairly normalized. A typical day for Caitlin is as follows:
9am Wake up and Breakfast
930 Walk to la UASD
10-1 Class at la UASD
1 Walk or take GuaGua home depending on if it is really hot or raining
130 Arrive home
2 Lunchtime
230 Walk to CIEE/FLACSO
235-3 Internet/Quickly finish homework time
3-5 Class at CIEE
5-7 Internet/Homework Time
7-830 Gym
9 Dinner
930 Hang out with friends
1200 Sleep.
Since last posting, I have dropped my social history of the Dominican Repupublic class and added Drawing 1. Which so far is way more interesting than the former, which seemed to be a general introduction on how to learn history. No thank you.
A few weekends ago we stumbled upon a huge Dominica
n music festival type thing called Sol Caribe in Plaza España. There were tons of people there and a huge stage and lots of big Dominican Merengue, Bachata etc. artists...it was very cool and the atmosphere was great!
Last weekend was Valentines Day Weekend! On the day of San Valentin, me and four other people went to the beach, which did not seem to be a popular destination for Dominicans, as it was almost entirely empty. We hung out there all day, and as it turn
s out I got fairly sunburned on my back. Also during this time I developed the ultimate strategy for dissuading beach vendors, I simply told them that I already owned everything they were selling. To some this seemed logical, others thought I was crazy, and another lectured me on how I need to purchase un chin (a little bit) from each vendor because its not fair to buy all from one. Also during this time my friend Jeremy attempted to sell me to a vendor in exchange for a scarf…Unfortunately for me the vendor was eager to make the exchange.
After our beach excursion we stopped at our favorite place, Bon. It is an ice cream store close to our apartments that makes delicious Yogen Früz, they take any mixings that you want and scrunch them up and make specialty flavors of frozen yogurt for your own personal enjoyment. It is probably one of the most delicious things ever. And healthy too! The best combinations I have tried so far are Raspberry+Oreo, Chocolate+Raspeberry+Bran, but you have the option of putting in: Mango, Papaya, Apple, Zapote, Strawberrys, Mixed Berrys, Blueberries, Waffle Cone, Prunes, Peach, Watermelon, Cantaloupe etc. etc. The possibilities are endless…
Sunday morning was a day of a big expedition. About 15 of us were off to see the much talked about Carnaval de La Vega. We were supposed to arrive to get our tour bus at 7 am…and now is where I start
to talk about Dominican time. Dominican time, never exactly when they say, usually at least 30 minutes later, but there is no rush so just hangout. That means that we Americans all got there at 655 and when did the buses leave? 9. The tour ended up being a bit of a fiasco…they took us to eat lunch and hangout at this place near La Vega and kept us there all day and we only got to go to Carnaval for about an hour. The hour itself made up for the entire crazy day. The costumes were amazing and there were just tons and tons of people. The costumed gangs or diablos have air filled bladders that they hit you with. No not lightly tap, hit. Hard.
On the butt. There are new regulations about how the bladders can be made, because they used to be filled with sand or water. That being said, it still hurt like hell when they hit you, and I spent most of my time trying to escape from them, which just makes them chase you. They also were especially interested in hitting girls, and lucky for us Gringas were an even better target. A bunch of my friends still have bruises from getting whacked.
This weekend I am planning to go to Carnaval in Santiago with my group in my UASD Art History class, because we have to give our presentation on the 5th of March. The weekend after that is the big Carnaval celebration in Santo Domingo, so there will be a lot more on here about Carnaval. Friday night the program is paying for us to go see Fiddler on the Roof at the National Theater. Its still unclear whether or not they will have translated all of the words into Spanish, but either way it should be fun (and Free!)
Pictures will be added later...
(FYI if you click on the pictures you can see them full sized!!!!!!)
Lots has happened since the last post. My bad. So starting from the beginning. On the weekend of my birthday (Feb 6-8) we went on a group excursion to Jurassic Park. There were lots of dinosaurs, an
d a couple of the kids in my program got eaten by velociraptors. Overall it was a pretty tame weekend… Ok but seriously. We went to Parque de Los Haitises where parts of Jurassic Park were filmed. We stayed in a really cool hotel there; it had natural spring pools running throughout the place. On the way there we stopped at Cueva de las Maravillas (Cave of Marvels), which is a cave that was discovered by a troop of Boy Scouts and has a lot of bats…and a lot of old Taino (indigenous) cave drawings. Apparently the Taino’s invented the smiley face. The picture on the r
ight was taken illegally by one Anna Scott. You can see some of the drawings. After settling in at the hotel we went on a 5k hike through the park. It was pretty muddy due to the rain, which made the hike pretty exciting at times. The scenery was amazing, and you kind of did expect dinosaurs to hop out of the trees. Our guide was a walking dictionary of botanical terms, and cracked open a Cacao pod so we could take a
look at what chocolate looks like when it grows on trees. Near the end of the hike we went into Cueva de la Linea, which was a very skinny cave. When we finally got to the end of the hike we got onto a boat and took a boat back to the hotel. The boat ride was amazing; the national park is incredible, tons of cool rock formations, island
s and mangrove forests. According to my guide book the park itself is only accessible by boat. When we got back from the boat ride, we had a chance to swim in the natural pools and then we had dinner and a campfire where we made “S’mores”…we had no graham crackers…The next day was WHALE WATCHING DAY! And of course a small unimportant internationally recognized day called “Caitlin’s 21st Birthday”, so we were off to see the whales. We hopped on the boat, saw some dolphins as we exited the park and
entered the bay of Samana. Then the guides gave us huge rubber raincoats…we should have become worried then… Why? Because then it started to rain on us, and the waves started to s
plash over the side of the boat. After a 45 minute boat ride we ended up chasing a pair of humpback whales for 10 minutes through Perfect-Storm sized waves, needless to say some of the weaker members of the troop became sea sick. I, however, had a great time, despite the fact that I was completely soaked and so was all the stuff in my backpack including my change of clothes… This began the period of the trip that I will call the “will I e
ver be dry again” phase. It rained. And rained. Our afternoon at the beach was an afternoon hiding from the rain. Then later that night we hid from the rain some more and played many a game like musical chairs to entertain ourselves. The next day we were supposed to go submerge ourselves waist deep in mud to go and plant mangroves…but it was raining. So we played dominoes. Needless to say when I got back to Santo Domingo I had to spend a good 45 minutes scrubbing my sneakers in hopes that the mud would disappear…it did.My weeks here so far have become fairly normalized. A typical day for Caitlin is as follows:
9am Wake up and Breakfast
930 Walk to la UASD
10-1 Class at la UASD
1 Walk or take GuaGua home depending on if it is really hot or raining
130 Arrive home
2 Lunchtime
230 Walk to CIEE/FLACSO
235-3 Internet/Quickly finish homework time
3-5 Class at CIEE
5-7 Internet/Homework Time
7-830 Gym
9 Dinner
930 Hang out with friends
1200 Sleep.
Since last posting, I have dropped my social history of the Dominican Repupublic class and added Drawing 1. Which so far is way more interesting than the former, which seemed to be a general introduction on how to learn history. No thank you.
A few weekends ago we stumbled upon a huge Dominica
n music festival type thing called Sol Caribe in Plaza España. There were tons of people there and a huge stage and lots of big Dominican Merengue, Bachata etc. artists...it was very cool and the atmosphere was great!Last weekend was Valentines Day Weekend! On the day of San Valentin, me and four other people went to the beach, which did not seem to be a popular destination for Dominicans, as it was almost entirely empty. We hung out there all day, and as it turn
s out I got fairly sunburned on my back. Also during this time I developed the ultimate strategy for dissuading beach vendors, I simply told them that I already owned everything they were selling. To some this seemed logical, others thought I was crazy, and another lectured me on how I need to purchase un chin (a little bit) from each vendor because its not fair to buy all from one. Also during this time my friend Jeremy attempted to sell me to a vendor in exchange for a scarf…Unfortunately for me the vendor was eager to make the exchange.After our beach excursion we stopped at our favorite place, Bon. It is an ice cream store close to our apartments that makes delicious Yogen Früz, they take any mixings that you want and scrunch them up and make specialty flavors of frozen yogurt for your own personal enjoyment. It is probably one of the most delicious things ever. And healthy too! The best combinations I have tried so far are Raspberry+Oreo, Chocolate+Raspeberry+Bran, but you have the option of putting in: Mango, Papaya, Apple, Zapote, Strawberrys, Mixed Berrys, Blueberries, Waffle Cone, Prunes, Peach, Watermelon, Cantaloupe etc. etc. The possibilities are endless…
Sunday morning was a day of a big expedition. About 15 of us were off to see the much talked about Carnaval de La Vega. We were supposed to arrive to get our tour bus at 7 am…and now is where I start
to talk about Dominican time. Dominican time, never exactly when they say, usually at least 30 minutes later, but there is no rush so just hangout. That means that we Americans all got there at 655 and when did the buses leave? 9. The tour ended up being a bit of a fiasco…they took us to eat lunch and hangout at this place near La Vega and kept us there all day and we only got to go to Carnaval for about an hour. The hour itself made up for the entire crazy day. The costumes were amazing and there were just tons and tons of people. The costumed gangs or diablos have air filled bladders that they hit you with. No not lightly tap, hit. Hard.
On the butt. There are new regulations about how the bladders can be made, because they used to be filled with sand or water. That being said, it still hurt like hell when they hit you, and I spent most of my time trying to escape from them, which just makes them chase you. They also were especially interested in hitting girls, and lucky for us Gringas were an even better target. A bunch of my friends still have bruises from getting whacked.This weekend I am planning to go to Carnaval in Santiago with my group in my UASD Art History class, because we have to give our presentation on the 5th of March. The weekend after that is the big Carnaval celebration in Santo Domingo, so there will be a lot more on here about Carnaval. Friday night the program is paying for us to go see Fiddler on the Roof at the National Theater. Its still unclear whether or not they will have translated all of the words into Spanish, but either way it should be fun (and Free!)
Pictures will be added later...
They did! Spanish spanish spanish! I heard it from two different sources.
ReplyDelete