Happy Baby You You

Hopefully this will be my last entry sans photos. I vow to start carrying my camera more! Anyway, I found out yesterday AFTERNOON that it was my host mom's birthday. I was so mad because I would have bought her some fancy "american" lotion or a tin of peanuts or something. Anyway, it turns out that my host dad had a little party planned for her..with TWO cakes, balloons, soda, the works! I found this kind of weird because, at least in my family, it is the children's birthdays who are celebrated more, not the parents'. But in this family, I experienced the reverse. When my sister turned twelve we hardly batted an eyelash..but for my mom's birthday we had half the neighborhood in the house! Of course there were about 15 prayers..I think everyone just likes having HIS turn to lead the "Glory a Dios!" and "Ay, Santo"s. Then a bunch of people had to make speaches....including yours truly! Talk about impromptu! Thankfully, I muttered some words about being her "hija mas grandecita" and everyone loved my broken spanish. The craziest part...aside from receiving a cell phone better than the one I had at home, my host dad bought her a COMPUTER!! I thought I was supposed to be living with a poor family?!?! They have SATELLITE tv! This country is truly nuts. Anyway, we topped off the celebration with lots of singing...including "Happy Birthday" in English. Unfortunately, no matter HOW many times I explain the pronunciation, they all sing "Happy Baby, you you." Did I mention that teaching English was NOT in my plans?

Some Honorable Mentions

So, when discussing my travels, there were a few interesting details that I left out. One, that I saw a guy eating paint chips off of the boat that we were riding across the bay of Samana. So you combine him with the two old guys drinking out of their flasks and you have one heck of a morning! Two, when I was on crappy guagua number 3 (Nagua to Rio San Juan), I had an older lady sit next to me. I was watching a little boy of about 8 years old who was a "limpiabotes" which means that he cleans and shines peoples' shoes for a few pesos...it is a REALLY popular job among the little kids. Anyway, this woman starts going off about how she has three children and how they are "limpiabotes" also. She was literally beaming with pride about how they go down to Cabarete beach where there are lots of tourists, and clean shoes all day long. She was so excited because they bring all the money for her! She also went on about how nice the tourists are...they give her children clothes, food, necklaces....sometimes they take them to restaurants. The tourists are so nice, in fact, that her children are desperate to learn other languages so that they can casarse with one of the extranjeras and move with her to her beautiful, rich country. Now, aside from the fact that I would normally have lectured the woman on how important it is that her boys go to SCHOOL and STUDY so that they don't valorize a life of panderism, I think that my conversation with the woman sheds an interesting light on what we gringas represent for even the littlest muchachos here. We are foreign, which must mean that we are rich and bring gifts...and if they can just marry one of us then their dreams of living in Nueva York will come true!

Mi Viaje (continued)

Since we were already out east, Alan and I decided that we should "aprovechar" and take the chance to visit Robyn in Sabana de la Mar. We took a guagua to Higüey, from Higüey to Hato Mayor, and from Hato Mayor a HUGE van that had holes in the floor and cardboard for windows to Sabana de la Mar. After four hours of traveling, we were hanging out in Robyn's house. We went to Tavasan for tacos, tostones, and Presidente and met up with Joe and Ben (a former Sabana de la Mar volunteer visiting for the weekend). We had a really fun night hanging out in the parque, an old CBT pastime, and I tried my first "chimmy" (basically a pulled pork sandwich made by a street vender) and am now part of the chimmy-loving club (which includes most other volunteers).
Reportedly, there is a bus that goes directly from Samana (which is across the bay from Sabana de la Mar) to Puerto Plata. I was told that it takes 3 hours...which is a GREAT alternative to the 8 hour trip through the capital. The hitch-to get to Samana one has to take the FERRY. So, at 9am, I hopped on the "yola," which is a tiny boat like those they use to illegally enter other countries (everyone kept yelling "Vamanos a Puerto Rico!"), which led us to the slightly larger boat that crosses the bay. I decided to sit up top, as sitting below makes me ill. It turned out that the most HILARIOUS people were sitting up there with me. There were two guys who were drinking out of their flasks..all before 10am, mind you, and told me that when I come back to Sabana they are going to make me paella. They also told me that I had better not fall over the edge because the sharks will see my white skin and think, "Mmmm, que postre!" which pretty much means mmm....what a dessert! They also kept telling this clearly married guy that he needs to "put on a nice shirt" if he wants to conseguir (obtain) me. Maybe they were just drunken, old idiots but I thought they were hilarious.
About halfway through our trip, it started to sprinkle..and then POUR. We all sat up there laughing as we were COMPLETELY drenched. Finally, we arrived on the other side of the bay, where I started to look for this reported guagua to Puerto Plata. When I was told that the only direct one had left, blah blah blah, I had to find another route. Well, that route turned out as follows: A guagua from Samana to Sanchez. Then another from Sanchez to Nagua. Then from Nagua to Rio San Juan. Then from Rio San Juan to Puerto Plata. Mind you, these are all the small, crammed, crappy guaguas and each took at LEAST an hour. So, after leaving Sabana de la Mar at 9 am, I arrived home about EIGHT hours later...we decided that we REALLY need to do some more research about this reported direct route! I think I saw more of this country (albeit through crappy guagua windows) then ever before!

Around the World in Five Days

As things were a bit too "tranquilo" in my site, I decided to take a crazy vacation to literally the OTHER side of the island. I left in a hurry on Thursday for the capital, hoping to get my greencard. When that plan failed, I proceeded to do what we ALWAYS do in the capital: eat american food and spend way too much money. On Friday, Alan and I decided to make the insane journey to Miches, to meet up with Kevin and Zoe and begin Zoe's birthday celebrations. We had to take a taxi to the guagua stop, then about a 2 hour bus ride to El Seibo. The hilarious part was that, while passing through El Seibo, we literally drove RIGHT by Kristen (the volunteer who works there) as she was walking home. Then, we had to get in a CRAMMED van that, of course, was a piece of crap. Smashed in the back seat, our neighbors started asking us why we are here, where we are from, etc. Creepily enough, some guy sitting in front of us said, "Yeah, you used to be in Sabana de la Mar with some other girls, right?" "And you had a going away party where someone drove up in a big truck with speakers." He said that he knows that I used to go to the discoteca and dance merengue and bachata. He even asked if I was from South Dakota...which I am not...but Kelsi is! So creepy! I have no idea how he knew all of that! It is so weird being practically famous.
As we flew around the mountain bends in the peace of junk van, we finally arrived about two hours later in Miches. Kevin has an AWESOME apartment right on the ocean. He even has four rocking chairs! We began by chatting and having some Presidentes, and somehow ended up going on a tour of the pueblo's street eateries. We ultimately made some ""friends," one of whom turned out to be a freak and kept telling me that he was in love with me and referring to me as the espanola. Fortunately, Kevin's host-second-cousin came to the rescue in his insanely nice SUV (we are not quite sure where he gets the money for it...or if we want to know), and he drove us right to the discoteca that was up in the trees. We went home shortly thereafter, but definitely weren't going to be getting up at 5am as planned.
The next morning (Saturday), we all hurried over to another guagua and began the four-hour trek out to Bavaro for our night at the all-inclusive hotel. We didn't get there until around 1pm and had to wait until 3 to get the rooms (because I, classically, made the reservations for the wrong day). We started by eating right away...though, to our utter dismay, the food was nothing to write home about. We did have fun drinking the girly drinks at the bar ("coco loco," pina colada, etc)...though after a few we started feeling sick from all of the sugar. We eventually got to our rooms...which were really neat little lofts...and headed out to the beach. Kevin and Zoe decided that, as we all need to get our money's worth, we really should eat, vomit, eat, vomit, etc. in order to try ALL of the restaurants. The plan, thankfully, didn't quite catch on. After dinner we saw a few minutes of the "tropicalissimo"show which couldn't have been more lame, and headed over to the disco. The disco was cheesy as well, but the americans (there was a huge group of peace corps volunteers celebrating one year in country) had a BLAST getting down to Usher and 50 cent. The next morning, however, we awoke to MORE travelling...