Goodness I’ve fallen a little behind in my blogging. So many things to write about. I suppose I should start with the story where I got the Tacoma hopelessly and very much stuck on our way to a job site. We (me and the 3 Haitians with me) were all assessing the depth and location of a drainage ditch as I slowly crept over it. I knew I’d guessed wrong when my side of the front of the truck fell down 2 feet. After a few “oh shuuuuts” (this is missionary work, no swearing EVER takes place….) I opened my door and fell out of the truck. The clutch peddle was level with the ground. After collecting myself and taking a few steps back I saw the full damage I’d done. The drivers side front wheel was sunk 2 feet down in the ditch while the opposite rear tire was floating 2 feet in the air. I happily handed the keys to Raoul after he asked me if I wanted to try and get us out or if I wanted him to.
In true Haitian culture by this time a crowd had formed around us and people from all directions were “helping” shouting directions in Creole for the best method to get unstuck. Back and forth with much tires skidding and clutch burning Raoul miraculously got the car out of the ditch. I would have taken some pictures but I was too busy picking my jaw up off the ground. In USA we say always have 3 points of contact when off-roading. I have confirmed Haitians only need two wheels on the ground to recover a car. Incredible. When I returned to tell my story to my supervisor the first thing she asked me was if I’d gotten any pictures. Apparently this is a common occurrence. Raoul only laughed at my request to do it again so I could video it. I thought that was a splendid idea.
After my exciting car adventure I headed off to the Dominican Republic where I met the beautiful Miss Sara for 10 days of fun filled travel. After 10 hours on a bus and crossing a border that felt, I image, something similar to a concentration camp I found myself in the booming metropolis of Santo Domingo at a hotel with a rooftop swimming pool AND air conditioning!!!! The next day after collecting our rental car (they gave us a nice flashy red one so we’d really blend in <snort>) with 2 inches of clearance and wheels no larger than a wheelbarrow wheel we headed off to the little town of Jarabacoa in the mountains. Here we hiked to a series of three waterfalls (two by mistake after adventuring off on a muddy steep path with a trail bridge down that we crawled underneath). We were joined on the trail by Paul from the Peace Corp who is a mechanical engineer and working in a town near by.
The next day we headed to Cabarete, world renowned for its amazing kite boarding. After reading about people who’d lost limbs and viewing images of faces being massacred from hitting the water of course I had to give it a go. Turns out it’s a little more complicated than a piece of cake. More like a 10 layered cake. The minimum lesson time required is 6 hours and most companies recommend 12. I had 2 hours before the wind died. The first part of kite boarding is all on beach just learning to fly the kite. I spent most of the time trying to stay grounded and avoid flying away with the kite. The trainer kite they give you that rips you around is half the size of the one you actually fly in the water. Yipes! The next part is body dragging through the water where you practice flying the kite with your life vest on in the ocean and let the kite pull you around. This eliminates one extra object and sport to try and learn (the boarding part). The third part is putting all three together and not drowning, loosing some $3,000 of gear, and actually enjoying the sport. I got to level 1. Hardly. Too be continued at the Gorge in Oregon. Who’s with me?
As I was taking my lesson some young Dominican that works for the same company that my instructor was from came behind me to tether me (when you’re learning to fly a kite you need someone to help ground you or else you end up running all over the beach into people trying to control your kite due to the massive pull you receive from the kite). After he walked away and my instructor came back she explained he was one of the best kite boarders in Cabarete. He’s 18. When he was 8 years old he wanted to enter a competition one hour away but didn’t have money for the bus fare so he decided to wind surf down to the competition. About 1 mile offshore the wind died completely and he was left to paddle and survival sleep (cocooned himself in the kite) in his kite all night long on the ocean. Did I mention he was 8? Oh yes I did. Perhaps we’ll mention again that he was only 8. A fishing boat picked him up the next day some 4 miles out at sea. He came home, hung his kite up to dry and was out kite boarding the next morning.
The next day we backtracked to a splendid little series of waterfalls call 27 Chacos inland a bit. For 14 dollars you get a life vest, helmet, two of the most hilarious Dominican guides you’ll ever meet, and 4 hours of sliding and/or jumping down 27 waterfalls. The areas you can slide are actual rock formed from the waterfall itself. They are almost like a luge but made out of rock. The highest waterfall we got to jump off was 25 feet. To do so one must climb up wet slippery rock to a wet slippery edge. Because my brain doesn’t work on vacation I didn’t think that tennis shoes would be a good idea to bring for such an occasion so I arrived in sandals. The guides were quick to knock that idea down and I was given keds, of which I think had about half as much traction as my teva flip flops. This added to the adrenaline rush of walking down wet slippery waterfalls for 3 hours. We had a blast in a butt-slapping, nose-filling-with-water kinda way.
The next day we headed off to playa grande, probably the most beautiful beach in DR, where Sara snoozed and I entertained myself with a man trying to sell jewelry on the beach. After he realized I didn’t want to buy anything he plopped himself down next to my lounge chair and we chatted away in Spanish for a few hours. Anytime I didn’t understand a word he would draw or create the word in the sand so I understood. “Trampa” was my favorite (booby-trap) which he proceeded to dig a miniature hole in the sand, lay sticks over and a leaf on top. Priceless. We became fast friends (it doesn’t take long in DR) and after a while he had pulled out a little book in Spanish he carried in his back pocket (after seeing that I had been reading a book in English) and told me all about the funny stories in it. Anis, as his name was, became one of my favorite parts of the trip and made playa grande a lot more grande in my heart.
Next I drug Sara out to a little one intersection minuscule spit of a town on the eastern peninsula. Here we took a small motor boat to a remote island. Our captain was a charmingly attractive young man whom I loved mostly because he only spoke Spanish. Great opportunity to practice! While Sara spent 4 hours snorkeling and getting barnacles stuck in her toes and hands, our captain and I clambered off up the mountain looming behind us. The trail was pretty similar to rock climbing in that I used all four appendages most the time to hike in my sandals. Remember that whole brain on vacation thing? Finally I followed the example of my guide and just ditched the slippery suckers for better traction.
Never did I think I would travel to a Latin country and have a Latino be ecstatic for me to teach HIM how to salsa dance but thus was the case with Elvin our boat captain. At the top of the mountain we enjoyed breathtaking views of the ocean, a few bachata and salsa dances, and prickly sticker bushes. Pretty awesome last day in Dominican Republic and I found myself reluctant to leave. Dominicans will go out of their way to help you (as well as whistle or kiss at you too) and we found it easy to get around even on our most lost days. On the second day of our trip we thought it brilliant to shortcut it through the mountains rather than take the autopisto all the way around. Turns out the sides roads aren’t marked at all and we found driving 15 minutes and then asking someone on the site of the road where we were and how to get to the next town more productive then using the map. At one point a man in a delivery truck stopped next to us in an intersection, rolled down his window and asked us where we were trying to go. After rolling my window down and shouting back the town we were trying to find he led us through town to the road we needed. It was awfully helpful to have Sara with her platinum blond hair and short summer dresses along for those days we really got lost and needed help. At one point I recall getting out of the car and asking a very inebriated man (little did I know) which direction we needed to head. He was all smiles and happily pointed a wavering hand in the direction we needed to go. There were a few “I love you”’s and “Marry me”’s included in the directions. What a hoot.
So I have returned back “home” for a knockout three remaining weeks. In these three weeks I have some 20 houses to inspect, one last week long workshop to teach, overseeing the installation of trusses on our huge community center in Cite Soliel and helping Sue interview Haitian engineers to fill my place. Go BIG or go home I say. But not before one last vacation. I will be traveling with the Swiss up to Cap Hatien on the north end of Haiti this weekend for some exploring. Three Swiss expats that work with the Swiss Confederation here in Haiti have generously given me the last seat in their car so I can attend. Should be fun. I fear I will be the only one in the car that speaks less than four languages. Sigh…..sometimes us Americans just can’t win.
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| Sara feeding all the stray dogs in Las Terrenas. Felt like I was traveling with Jane Goodall |
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| Elvin our boat captain and my faithful mountain hiking guide. Complete with Bachata music as we hiked. |
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| Santo Domingo |
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| The little mountain town of Jarabacoa |
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| Our Ferrari. I named it Horse spit |
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| Salto Jimenoa near Jarabaco |
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| Playa Grande |
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| My friend Anis at Playa Grande |
I miss you all so very much and although life here in Haiti is quite exhilarating and thrilling I am ready to return home to a land where the temperature falls below 60 degrees and where I can hate myself for eating fastfood. Looking forward to a splendid holiday with the fam in addition to a new job and reconstructing my life in Seattle.
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