Hella Fun
I'm back from my Republica Dominicana vacation and it was wonderful! I thoroughly enjoyed myself in the beautiful DR and met some fascinating people. I recounted some of these discoveries, thoughts, and anecdotes below.
I first went to visit my friend Sylvia for a few days in Jarabacoa, where she serves as a missionary and Director of Communications at a school and orphanage. The town is about 3 hours from the Northern coast and is surrounded by mountains. Quite the tour guide, Sylvia took me to a waterfall, a coffee plantation, the school and orphanage where she works, went out for drinks, dinner, coffee - all in the first day! I took some risks in the DR - such as riding on Sylvia's scooter with half my ass falling off and a motorcycle, both without a helmet! We're also talking about unpaved, dirt roads! I also had to make a few adjustments to DR living. For example, there are power outages that occur daily and randomly for an undetermined period of time. Another is not being able to flush toilet paper. And there is hardly ANY air conditioning!! The minor inconveniences are compensated by the food, which is CAROLICIOUS! The typical dish is chicken, rice and beans, and salad with avocado. The fried fish is MOUTH WATERING TASTY! YUM!
The highlight of my Jarabacoa stay is going out for coffee after dinner. On TV at the cafe was an infamous Bollywood-Indian movie. At first, we laughed at the overt cheeziness of the movie -- after the beautiful man and woman were stranded on an equally dazziling beach, they, of course, fall in love and break into dance and song.."I love you...blah blah blah". After 3 hours and fighting our sleepiness, we were still at the cafe but instead of laughing, we were completely held captive by the said cheezy movie. It was completely hilarious that here I am, visiting my friend on this Caribbean island and watching an Indian movie.
Through Sylvia, I met Carolyn, a lovely Australian girl. She helps Sylvia out with her work at the school. Carolyn is a teacher who decided to take 5 months off to take an extended trip and do some missionary work. We had a conversation about my previous doubts on the decision to forsake my 2-week salary for my DR trip. I told her that now that I am in the DR, I am really happy about my decision. She said, "No one ever wishes that they could have worked for 2 more weeks. It is usually the opposite. They wished they had taken more vacations." She is so right! I also learned a few interesting Australian slangs like "cozi" (translated: swimsuit, short for 'costume'), "That is unreal", and "more-ish"(as in "it is so yummy or awesome, you want more of it). A quirk about Carolyn is that she is in a natural state of tiredness - very much like my long-time bud Jennifer Kim! Carolyn is worse then Jenny in that she didn't come out to dinner a few nights, retired at 11p.m. or earlier, and never went out partying with us!
After a very peaceful weekend in Jarabacoa, I travelled to Sosua where I was taking Spanish lessons for the next 2 weeks. When I saw the view of the Sosua beach (2 minute walk from the school) and subsequent trips to the beach, I could not stop telling myself how damn smart I was for finding and choosing this school! As much as I truly enjoyed Sosua, two drawbacks are 1) There are stores lined up along the beach and the locals swarm on you to sell you the same merchandise as their neighbor has; and 2) Sex tourism is visible but makes for interesting people watching. You would see old and/or nasty men with hot, young Dominican or Haitian women. Although not as frequent, you would also witness the reverse - young local studs with the older, white women. The term for these studs is "skanky panky".
The school itself is really nice. Despite the stifling heat and unbearable mosquitos, I was comfortable living and studying at this small building. Outside my door was a lush garden full of palm trees and random roosters walking about. The first week of actual lessons was bad. I had Maria that was not a trained teacher, liked to listen to her own voice, and didn't speak any English. Thank goodness for Sonia, the Canadian who lives in New York. Sonia and I were the only ones with Maria, who spent 2 hours on articles!! 2 hours!! Anyway, Sonia is one of the most interesting and intelligent people that I have met. At a group dinner one night, she told us about her 2 month backpacking sojourn with her husband, Sean, to various countries in Africa with only their Lonely Planet guide. She and Sean are both teachers at the NY Harbor School, a public school with a water theme. She takes her mostly disadvantaged and Dominican kids on Humanities field trips. She told us about a student who is a 14-year old prostitute with her pimp's name tattooed on her back. She was also in the DR on a grant to learn Spanish so she could speak with her students' parents and also to go to Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. She was going to Haiti to teach children how to take pictures and give them disposable cameras to document their lives. Haitians practice Voodoo and think that if your picture is taken, your soul will also be taken. Not only is she interesting, she is also the instigator. The first day I met her, a group of us ended up swimming at the beach at 11p.m.!
In the mornings, I would have Spanish and in the afternoons I was completely free. Besides hanging out at the beach or taking siestas, I also took surfing lessons. My hot Michael Jordan lookalike instructor would give me rides on his motorcycle and go 150mph!! The first time I went surfing was really tough. I exerted every part of my body trying to get on the board. I had to get used to the waves and felt slight motion sickness. And the salt water stings your eyes and tastes awful! I was able to get on the board 4 times which was great!
The second week was great! Carolyn and Sylvia came up from Jarabacoa to stay with me throughout the week. We were very, very cozy in my non-air conditioned room. I also switched to a much better Spanish teacher, Malicio. Sonia had departed for Haiti with Sean. I had Frank and Naomi, part of the C-5 (to be described in more detail below), and Herman the German (hee hee, it rhymes) in my class. Herman liked to ask a lot of questions in English or German to avoid speaking Spanish.
Knowing that it was my last week, I really packed it in! I took another surfing lesson, went snorkeling, learned the bochata, merengue, and salsa and went to the Imbert Waterfalls. Imbert is a hike that consists of 28 waterfalls, which would take several hours. You can go through the first 7 but only with a guide. 'To go through' means jumping, sliding, wading, and swimming. It was exhilerating and fun to fling myself off 2 15 and 20-foot cliffs into briskly cold refreshing water after suffering through the heat (I would sweat profusely despite just sitting). I loved it because there is no way you could do anything like this in the U.S. where everything is so restricted.
On my way to surfing one afternoon, I took a 'carro publico' (public car) that was a 4-door sedan to Playa Encuentro (Found Beach), the secluded beach with the best waves for wave surfing. When I got in, there were 7 people in the car including myself. Picture this: the driver, 2 in the front, and 4 of us in back. Well, we were on our way and then we pull over to pick up another person. I was thinking, how in the heck are they going to fit 1 more person?? I found out soon enough. The driver gets out of the car, the woman gets in, and the driver follows after her. Two of them in the driver seat! All I could say was, 'wow'. The gua-guas or vans would also fill them up. Get this - not only would there be a makeshift bench to fit in more people, BUT they would slide open the side door and two people would STAND on the ledge, hanging out. CRAZY.
The days were quite packed for me but so were the nights! About a 20-minute car-ride away is Cabarete - a beach town world renowned for windsurfing and kitesurfing. At night, the bars hang lights, set-up tables on the beach, and play FANTASTIC dance music. The Cabarete-5 or C-5 was a group of 5 of us that went to Cabarete at night to party it up several times the last week. It consisted of Frank the 41-year old German who is a chain smoker (his grandfather was a Nazi!) and rolled his own cigarettes; Michela the adorable 21-year old Italian who said "si, si, si" all the time; Naomi the free-spirited, 32-year old former activist who grew up in Queens and now lives in San Francisco, showed up to class half the time, said "hella [adjective]", and who was hella fun; my homegirl Sylvia who was free to be her debaucherous-self on vacation; and ME! We really got to know each other well by playing "Yo Nunca..." ("I Never...") and in Spanish. It was brilliant: finding out each other's dirty little secrets while also practicing our Spanish at the same time!
As the case for all good things, they eventually come to an end. The last night we stayed out all night in Cabarete until we had to leave at 6a.m. We meet this typically obnoxious short New Yorker who likes to order rounds of Tequila shots. He wants to go swimming but none of us want to. He decides to go himself and proceeds to strip down to his boxers. As soon as he jumps in, I yell for us to take his clothes. It was deliciously evil! We waited for him at the bar close by and he soggily comes up to us. He moons us and swears at us, but he is a good sport about it all!
After being up for close to 24 hours, I embark on an exhausting journey - a taxi, 2-hour bus ride, another taxi, flight to New York, 4-hour layover, flight to Cleveland, flight to Chicago, and then a car ride...I am finally HOME...zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
I first went to visit my friend Sylvia for a few days in Jarabacoa, where she serves as a missionary and Director of Communications at a school and orphanage. The town is about 3 hours from the Northern coast and is surrounded by mountains. Quite the tour guide, Sylvia took me to a waterfall, a coffee plantation, the school and orphanage where she works, went out for drinks, dinner, coffee - all in the first day! I took some risks in the DR - such as riding on Sylvia's scooter with half my ass falling off and a motorcycle, both without a helmet! We're also talking about unpaved, dirt roads! I also had to make a few adjustments to DR living. For example, there are power outages that occur daily and randomly for an undetermined period of time. Another is not being able to flush toilet paper. And there is hardly ANY air conditioning!! The minor inconveniences are compensated by the food, which is CAROLICIOUS! The typical dish is chicken, rice and beans, and salad with avocado. The fried fish is MOUTH WATERING TASTY! YUM!
The highlight of my Jarabacoa stay is going out for coffee after dinner. On TV at the cafe was an infamous Bollywood-Indian movie. At first, we laughed at the overt cheeziness of the movie -- after the beautiful man and woman were stranded on an equally dazziling beach, they, of course, fall in love and break into dance and song.."I love you...blah blah blah". After 3 hours and fighting our sleepiness, we were still at the cafe but instead of laughing, we were completely held captive by the said cheezy movie. It was completely hilarious that here I am, visiting my friend on this Caribbean island and watching an Indian movie.
Through Sylvia, I met Carolyn, a lovely Australian girl. She helps Sylvia out with her work at the school. Carolyn is a teacher who decided to take 5 months off to take an extended trip and do some missionary work. We had a conversation about my previous doubts on the decision to forsake my 2-week salary for my DR trip. I told her that now that I am in the DR, I am really happy about my decision. She said, "No one ever wishes that they could have worked for 2 more weeks. It is usually the opposite. They wished they had taken more vacations." She is so right! I also learned a few interesting Australian slangs like "cozi" (translated: swimsuit, short for 'costume'), "That is unreal", and "more-ish"(as in "it is so yummy or awesome, you want more of it). A quirk about Carolyn is that she is in a natural state of tiredness - very much like my long-time bud Jennifer Kim! Carolyn is worse then Jenny in that she didn't come out to dinner a few nights, retired at 11p.m. or earlier, and never went out partying with us!
After a very peaceful weekend in Jarabacoa, I travelled to Sosua where I was taking Spanish lessons for the next 2 weeks. When I saw the view of the Sosua beach (2 minute walk from the school) and subsequent trips to the beach, I could not stop telling myself how damn smart I was for finding and choosing this school! As much as I truly enjoyed Sosua, two drawbacks are 1) There are stores lined up along the beach and the locals swarm on you to sell you the same merchandise as their neighbor has; and 2) Sex tourism is visible but makes for interesting people watching. You would see old and/or nasty men with hot, young Dominican or Haitian women. Although not as frequent, you would also witness the reverse - young local studs with the older, white women. The term for these studs is "skanky panky".
The school itself is really nice. Despite the stifling heat and unbearable mosquitos, I was comfortable living and studying at this small building. Outside my door was a lush garden full of palm trees and random roosters walking about. The first week of actual lessons was bad. I had Maria that was not a trained teacher, liked to listen to her own voice, and didn't speak any English. Thank goodness for Sonia, the Canadian who lives in New York. Sonia and I were the only ones with Maria, who spent 2 hours on articles!! 2 hours!! Anyway, Sonia is one of the most interesting and intelligent people that I have met. At a group dinner one night, she told us about her 2 month backpacking sojourn with her husband, Sean, to various countries in Africa with only their Lonely Planet guide. She and Sean are both teachers at the NY Harbor School, a public school with a water theme. She takes her mostly disadvantaged and Dominican kids on Humanities field trips. She told us about a student who is a 14-year old prostitute with her pimp's name tattooed on her back. She was also in the DR on a grant to learn Spanish so she could speak with her students' parents and also to go to Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. She was going to Haiti to teach children how to take pictures and give them disposable cameras to document their lives. Haitians practice Voodoo and think that if your picture is taken, your soul will also be taken. Not only is she interesting, she is also the instigator. The first day I met her, a group of us ended up swimming at the beach at 11p.m.!
In the mornings, I would have Spanish and in the afternoons I was completely free. Besides hanging out at the beach or taking siestas, I also took surfing lessons. My hot Michael Jordan lookalike instructor would give me rides on his motorcycle and go 150mph!! The first time I went surfing was really tough. I exerted every part of my body trying to get on the board. I had to get used to the waves and felt slight motion sickness. And the salt water stings your eyes and tastes awful! I was able to get on the board 4 times which was great!
The second week was great! Carolyn and Sylvia came up from Jarabacoa to stay with me throughout the week. We were very, very cozy in my non-air conditioned room. I also switched to a much better Spanish teacher, Malicio. Sonia had departed for Haiti with Sean. I had Frank and Naomi, part of the C-5 (to be described in more detail below), and Herman the German (hee hee, it rhymes) in my class. Herman liked to ask a lot of questions in English or German to avoid speaking Spanish.
Knowing that it was my last week, I really packed it in! I took another surfing lesson, went snorkeling, learned the bochata, merengue, and salsa and went to the Imbert Waterfalls. Imbert is a hike that consists of 28 waterfalls, which would take several hours. You can go through the first 7 but only with a guide. 'To go through' means jumping, sliding, wading, and swimming. It was exhilerating and fun to fling myself off 2 15 and 20-foot cliffs into briskly cold refreshing water after suffering through the heat (I would sweat profusely despite just sitting). I loved it because there is no way you could do anything like this in the U.S. where everything is so restricted.
On my way to surfing one afternoon, I took a 'carro publico' (public car) that was a 4-door sedan to Playa Encuentro (Found Beach), the secluded beach with the best waves for wave surfing. When I got in, there were 7 people in the car including myself. Picture this: the driver, 2 in the front, and 4 of us in back. Well, we were on our way and then we pull over to pick up another person. I was thinking, how in the heck are they going to fit 1 more person?? I found out soon enough. The driver gets out of the car, the woman gets in, and the driver follows after her. Two of them in the driver seat! All I could say was, 'wow'. The gua-guas or vans would also fill them up. Get this - not only would there be a makeshift bench to fit in more people, BUT they would slide open the side door and two people would STAND on the ledge, hanging out. CRAZY.
The days were quite packed for me but so were the nights! About a 20-minute car-ride away is Cabarete - a beach town world renowned for windsurfing and kitesurfing. At night, the bars hang lights, set-up tables on the beach, and play FANTASTIC dance music. The Cabarete-5 or C-5 was a group of 5 of us that went to Cabarete at night to party it up several times the last week. It consisted of Frank the 41-year old German who is a chain smoker (his grandfather was a Nazi!) and rolled his own cigarettes; Michela the adorable 21-year old Italian who said "si, si, si" all the time; Naomi the free-spirited, 32-year old former activist who grew up in Queens and now lives in San Francisco, showed up to class half the time, said "hella [adjective]", and who was hella fun; my homegirl Sylvia who was free to be her debaucherous-self on vacation; and ME! We really got to know each other well by playing "Yo Nunca..." ("I Never...") and in Spanish. It was brilliant: finding out each other's dirty little secrets while also practicing our Spanish at the same time!
As the case for all good things, they eventually come to an end. The last night we stayed out all night in Cabarete until we had to leave at 6a.m. We meet this typically obnoxious short New Yorker who likes to order rounds of Tequila shots. He wants to go swimming but none of us want to. He decides to go himself and proceeds to strip down to his boxers. As soon as he jumps in, I yell for us to take his clothes. It was deliciously evil! We waited for him at the bar close by and he soggily comes up to us. He moons us and swears at us, but he is a good sport about it all!
After being up for close to 24 hours, I embark on an exhausting journey - a taxi, 2-hour bus ride, another taxi, flight to New York, 4-hour layover, flight to Cleveland, flight to Chicago, and then a car ride...I am finally HOME...zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
posted by Chica Chan @ 8:40 PM
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