 |
| on the bus on the way to Las Terrenas |
 |
| the beach by my homestay |
 |
| me and my pick axe :) |
The Dominican Republic was one of the ports in which we did a service project so as soon as we got into port we all loaded up onto buses to drive to Las Terrenas, the city where we would be doing the project. Well they weren’t exactly buses. They were more like riding in trucks. The whole back was open and we sat on benches. It was a lot of fun. We arrived a few hours later in Las Terrenas, very wind-swept. We ate supper on the beach and the meal was provided by the community organisation that we would be working with throughout our time in Las Terrenas. The major showed up and talked about the city and thanked us for what we would be doing. When the meal was over we were sent off to our home stays. I was with three of my friends and we stayed with a Canadian couple. They lived outside of the city and 30 second walk from the beach! We had real beds, showers and peanut butter! It was pretty amazing.
The next morning we met at a local elementary school and were split into groups to work on projects. My group worked at building a compost garden at the elementary school. Other groups built a playground or painted. I got to use a pick axe! We worked hard for the whole day so I was really quite sore by the time that we were done. We had a few hours to shower and rest up at our home stays and then we all met at the beach for a pig roast, a dance party and a bonfire.
The next day we had to say goodbye to our home stay parents :( It was sad. They were so nice and we had had a really good time. We finished worked on our projects the whole day and then returned back to the ship.
On our last day in the DR we had a full day shore leave so I went with some of my friends to see a waterfall. First however we had to get to town which was a 30 minute bus ride from the ship. Buses here are just vans with more seats added so that as many people as possible can fit. We were waiting at the ship with the group of teachers when one of the buses came however there was only enough room for the teachers to squish in so we had to wait for the next one. A few minutes later a huge, fancy tour bus drove by. We flagged it down and asked if they would take us into town. They agreed so the seven of us had the entire, luxury air-conditioned bus to ourselves. At one point we passed the teacher’s bus while they were stopped picking someone up so we all ran to the back of the bus and waved. The look on their faces when they saw us in our huge bus was priceless. In Samana, the town that we were going to, we stopped at the grocery store and bought a huge, picnic lunch. We then caught one of the bus-vans to the waterfall. We had to hike into the waterfall and it was about 45 minutes through jungle. We had a guide who stopped to point out coffee beans, cacao pods and the seeds that used to be used for war paint. We finally got to the waterfall and were in luck because a huge group of tourists was just leaving so we had the entire waterfall all to ourselves! We went swimming in the pool and swam behind the waterfall which I’ve always wanted to do. We ate a picnic lunch on some rocks and the hiked back out. It was an amazing day!
