September 21, 2008 - Santiago, Dominican Republic

It has taken me longer than I had previously anticipated to post another blog. This is not due to a lack of events to recount, but rather the lack of time and motivation to sit down and put my thoughts in order and translate my experiences into words. I will attempt to do so, although I feel as though I still lack the motivation. One experience worth recounting that happened since my previous blog post was that I went with the majority of my class to a beach outside the city. We met at the school, and after an hour of waiting for everyone to arrive, we took a public bus, or guagua, to the area of the city where larger buses leave from to other areas of the country. We quickly came upon a bus that would drop us off at the beach. Once we were on the road and approaching the beach I went to the driver to remind him as to where we would like to be dropped. He nodded, signifying his comprehension, but apparently he did not understand. Around five minutes later I look out the window and I see we are driving past the beach I had asked him to stop at. We are in the inside lane, going quite fast, but I yell out, "CHOFER!! DEJANOS AQUI!! AQUI!!" He slams his foot to the brake and pulls to the side of the road. As we exit the vehicle, quite shaken, he chuckles at us. Though the ride there was interesting, the beach was beautiful and we spent most of our time diving through the large waves and playing frisbee. We all grew quite hungry, so myself and another girl organized for a man to drive us to the nearest place that sold food. This happened to be about 2 kilometers away, so we squeezed on to his tiny motorcycle and made our way there. Once the food was ordered we climbed back on the tiny bike and made our way back to the beach, trying to juggle the many bags of food the whole return trip. After a sufficient amount of hours on the beach we made our way to the highway and waited for a public bus to stop to pick us up. We did not have to wait long and we were soon back in the city. We hired a very run down van to drive us all home, paying the driver a fair, yet very low amount of money to do so. Over all, it was an eventful, interesting day.
I have spent the last few weeks looking for a new apartment. A girl in my class from Texas has been living in a hotel for the past month and is in need of a room mate. I get along with my current room mate, but I feel as though she is not comfortable with me having people over, as she made clear to me one night when I invited a few friends over. I am not comfortable living like this. It is mostly likely a cultural difference between us, but I know that living with my classmate will be much more comfortable and home-like for me, not to mention I will not have to buy furniture for me room. We shall see what happens, but I am hoping for a place where I can feel as at home as possible in.
Another experience worth noting is our class' visit to a public school in a poor, northern sector of the city. We went to the school to play games with and give treats to the youngest age group of children. It was blisteringly hot that day and the school had very little ventilation. I know I received some definite heat stroke in the few hours we were there. In the classrooms, the children were very well behaved and we all thoroughly enjoyed singing and playing with them. They seemed very grateful for the treats they received and sang songs for us in gratitude. During their recess, though, the children transformed into crazy, overly energetic animals. They surrounded every one of us, begging for us to repeatedly take pictures of them, asking us the same questions in English over and over again, pinning us against the walls to get our autographs or email addresses, or jumping up on us trying to climb up onto our backs and shoulders. I have never felt so overwhelmed in my life. The amount of chaos during those 20 minutes was much too much for me to handle. Although, even with heat stroke and the chaos with the children, it was still an excellent and memorable experience. Later that evening a small group of us made our way north to the city of Santiago, the second largest city in the country. The bus ride went by quickly and was very enjoyable. Once we arrived in the city we were picked up and some of us were driven to Cabania. The best definition of what a cabania is, is a hotel that you pay by the hour and provides its customers with utmost privacy. In other words, it is a hotel to bring prostitutes or mistresses. However, it was the cheapest place to stay in the city, so we packed four of us in the room (3 girls on the bed and 1 boy on the couch in front of the door). It was quite an experience, fully equipped with condoms and lubricant in a basket on the table, a mirror on the whole of the wall next to the bed, a horrible singing man all night outside our room, and our own garage. In the morning, after little sleep (due to the singing man), we were taken to a house (which had absolutely spectacular views of the mountains and the valley) and fed breakfast, then whisked off to a water park outside the city. We spent the entire day on the water slides having a blast. We then returned to the house where we were fed breakfast. We decided to stay there that night, a room of seven with one bed (3 on the bed and 4 on the floor). We took a short nap upon returning from the water park. Upon waking, we all began to make ourselves presentable to go to a club in town. This process was quite long as it was nine people sharing one shower. Once we were all ready we headed into town, first grabbing a quick bite to eat, then made our way to a club. We were met there by two other friends from Santo Domingo and some of their friends. The club, the music, the dancing, it all became tiresome quickly, so we headed home within a couple hours of arriving. In the morning we took our time getting up and eating breakfast, then we were taken back to the bus station and sent on our way back to Santo Domingo. It was a very enjoyable trip!