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.