Poco Pelo teaches First Aid

Current Playlist: “Toes” by Zac Brown Band

Current Kitchen contents: Same as yesterday with the addition of a pineapple... that cost less than a dollar!!

Newest Spanish Words: Audifonos (earphones)

How in the world can life not be good when you’re staying at a place this beautiful?  You can’t even count all the kites in the air!  We were a little worried we would be taken out by a windsurfer!  It’s crazy to go to a beach where so many people are doing water sports that there are barely any people just laying out in chairs. As you can tell the wind is spectacular…excellent for sports….horrible for attempting to take a nap on the beach.  You end up covered in sand and now SB’s bed contains a solid portion of the beach’s sand!

First order of business, Marco is definitely not the name of our new Dominican friend.  His name is Wilson.  This morning when we walked out for breakfast Wilson, Freddie, and Nicco were in the middle of a pull up/push up contest right outside our door.  They really enjoy any type of competition.  Nicco is the BEST!  He speaks with us all the time.  He speaks very little English, so we help each other.  He is 19 and will be going to university in the fall.  La Universidad esta en Santiago.  Se gusta los zapatos de Puma que SaraBeth lleva en campamiento.

We are SOOO excited to meet the kids.  They just love you for who you are, crazy wavy hair, no make-up, broken Spanish and all!  On the way back from the beach we met Daniel.  He is 14 and lives in Cabarete.  He will be attending the Dream Camp for the second year.  His favorite part of camp is MUSIC!!!  His favorite resturaunt is Mercedes (not to be confused with the car).  For all you Spanish speakers out there, in the Dominican they do not pronounce “s” in words.  Right now…imagine saying the word sexy without an “s” try it out even.  It’s a whole different experience.   

FYI…the power just went out and the only light we have is my computer since the sun just went down.  Power outages are pretty common.  They happen at least twice a day.  This is in addition to the two times a day the power is turned off for the hotel.  This happens daily 4-6am and 1-3pm.  After 3 days it doesn’t really phase you.  We bought some sweat towels at the supermercado(25 pesos/$0.75), so we are set!

Today was a little tedious.  B sat through a 3-hour session to learn about the Wilderness First Aid.  SB only had a 30-minute version.  We now know terms like MOI Spine/TBI and AVPU, how to stabilize a broken arm with a file folder and t-shirt, and how to assess any accident scene.  All this impressive knowledge may make you think we are experts; however, I would not trust us to save you if we did happen to meander out in the wilderness one day.

Other news from the day… We talked about security and safety today.  Of particular interest was the S.P. conversation.  This stands for Sanky Panky.  Apparently these are Dominican men who flirt with foreign women in the hopes of receiving meals, money, having money sent to them once the women leave, etc.  That is definitely good news for all you single guys out there… you can rest assured knowing that we will not be picking up any Dominican men while we’re here. 

Another fact is that you are not allowed to flush toilet paper down the toilet.  Believe me, this is a hard habit to break.  We have made several notes to remind ourselves about this!  But no worries we haven’t caused any plumbing problems…yet…

Living the Dream (Project)

            SB and B 

Note: We feel like we should have prefaced our blog with the fact that although it is a little sarcastic at times, it is because we usually are writing when we are 1. Hyper 2. Delirious 3. Laughing too hard to focus.  This is a completely humbling and life changing experience that (as of now) we would strongly recommend.

24 hours later...

Our Room!

Current Playlist: “Pretty Boy”  Danity Kane and "I Gotta Feeling" Black-Eyed Peas

Current Kitchen Contents: Nutella, Crackers, Gatorade

Newest Vocab: Tazones (bowls), llaves (keys), Pasto (pasture/grass)

 

Bienvenidos a las vidas de B y SB!!  As the title states, this is the story of our first 24 hours of our livin’ la vida loca in the Republica Dominicana (RD…DR…depending on your language preference).  I’m sure you are wondering what in the world we have been doing, and you guessed it, we are going to tell you.  

Our journey all began on a cloudy Miami day when SB and B met at E8 of Miami International.  It is a good thing I got there, because B had spent 3 hours of her layover sitting at gate E5 heading to Tegucigalpa, Honduras (ask us about the song when we get back).  The airport was great, boarding was normal, but it’s never a good thing when

1.     1. Your pilot comes on and says due to weather you will be waiting on the runway for at least 30 minutes and it will probably be a bumpy ride when we take off.

2.     2. When it is so bumpy that SaraBeth has a near panic attack and Bianca is suddenly upgraded to Business Class to calm her down. 

However, the good news is we made it as did our luggage!

We have a very eclectic group of volunteers.  For starters, the majority of the volunteers here are from BYU or the Northeast.  We are daily learning more and more about the Mormon faith.  We have Aneka who is from Germany and 2 years ago moved to Billings, MT.  Freddie aka Fe Fe (pronounced Feh Feh), Nicco, and Marco (unable to pronounce his actual name) who are all from the Dominican and speak un poco ingles … meaning they can say “yes,” “how are you?” and “Oh my gosh.”  Gillian was born in Scotland and moved to the US when she was 5.  The list goes on….

If you’re worried about our safety and wellbeing in the DR, you don’t need to be.  We have very strict rules.  No alcohol at The Hummingbird (our hotel), no motorcycle taxis, and we must stay in pairs.  We do talk to strangers though.  They highly encourage us to get to know the local people.  We also have a watch dog here at the Hummingbird.  Her name is Princessa.  She does a lot of sleeping, has fleas, and barks at any and everything that walks by the hotel.  She is no special breed, just a mutt who we are growing to love more and more even with her 4 am howling. 

 

Other Brilliant Ideas/Thoughts

1.    1. Spanish Nights – Bianca and I will only converse in Spanish.  Mas o menos.

2.    2.  Facebook video post  (pending internet situation) – be watching for them

3.    3. Spanish Movie nights – Such as Transformers 2 … yeah that’s right they have it here in the DR.  We could have bought the pirated version tonight as we ate our ice cream. 

4.     4. Spanish words of the day – We post new words we learn on the door.

5.     5. START A BLOG!!!  - SB randomly created this sight so now we have to post

6.     6. Find Supermercado de Janet before we leave

Living the Dream (Project) 

SB and B

P.S. – We skype, facebook message, iChat… all as we carry our computers across the pool area.  If you do happen to reach us, we will have some great conversations!  There is a strong possibility we will be investing in local business in the form of the internet café this weekend.  And Brian Hey!  Yes, the pool was refreshing!

Coming Soon… Local Dishes, Beach Ratings, Local Nightlife, Survival Guide, and we will actually throw in some life changing moments!  Caution …. Spanish will be implemented the longer we are here.