A Few Steps into Haiti....

I have decided to stop apologizing for the lack of consistency in my blogging beacuse I would have to apologize like every time, so we all just have to accept thats the way it is (cough cough aun candy..hehehe but actually you inspired me to write again :) Ok so the other day i had the opportunity to go to a little market town on the western border of the DR called Dajabon, For those of you who didnt pay attention in geography class, the Dominican Republic shares the island of Hispanola with the poorest country in Latin America Haiti. French and Creole are the languages spoken, languages often heard in the streets here in the Dominican Republic, because of the many Hatian people tha have migrated over the border legally and illegaly. The border into Haiti: its like crossing over from paradise into hell. The dominican side lush with beautiful green grass trees plants and life, and immediealty as you see the border to Haiti its brown and dusty, its hotter, and a lack of anyting green or beautiful, there is extreme poverty and it is obvious even just standing on the outside looking in, its hard to even believe your eyes. The border town Dajabon, there is a bridge to cross connecting the two countries, on mondays and fridays the Haitians have until one o'clock pm, to run over with their fares and sell whatever they can in the Dominican market and run back before one. To give you a picture of this situation, a street so crowded with people with huge bags of potatoes on their heads or shoulders, huge carts of stuff i had never seen before, women with bowls of fruit on their heads and people just running and pushing so that every three seconds you got hit by a sack of something or pushed by a motorcyle and jabbed by a cart, or stepped on by someone. The smell was sometimes spicy and interesting or sometimes horrible and vile. Everyone was sweaty, with ragged clothes , and just piled on the streets displaying thier goods, some times being old soaps and toothpaste , or underwear, basically the most random stuff, things no one would want to buy. we made it across the bridge into Haiti, it was an incredible feeling and experience, we werent allowed to venture in too far for "securtiy reasons" but its been my experience that every country has a diffrent feeling, and Haiti's is hopelesness. I am really glad I got the chance to see and feel it, and save those pictures in my head , ones that i will never forget. There is so much culture and history to learn yet, and when i get home hopefully I will have learned it all to share in detail.

Who Knew you could ride a horse and almost drown int he same day!

-----------I know it has been quite some time......my apologies :)

I would love to share with you all about our trip to Jaracoba!!!!! So Jarabacoa is a small town in the mountains just south of Santiago. In the morning we visited the coffee plant and everyone learned about coffee production, I might have had a hard time focusing on the details, when they were coming out of the beautiful brown face of our young tour guide, I mean we are supposed to appreciate all parts of God's creation are we not? we whent back to the ranch/hotel and had a delicious buffet, highlight of that..... homemade french fries! and then cafe con leche on some huge rocking chairs.... Ok the best part was around the corner and I wasnt even aware of the experience I was about to have...we take about a five minute walk over this cool bridge and come to a little bard surronded by the most precious little boys and HORSES! yes we were to ride horses up the mountain to the waterfall!... Ok so at first it was pure excitment and then maybe a bit of fear, what its been maybe like a good ten years since ive been on a horse and have I ever ridden on up a mountain..NO! ok so we are told that the little guys are going to ride with us sitting behind us in the saddle bahahahaha! ok so a little one comes up to me, takes my hand, and points to his horse, OF COURSE!! somehow he gets me up in the saddle, he takes like a quarter of the time it took me to get up, puts his little arms around me grabs the reins and we're off!! I dont know If it was the holding on for my life while being violently bounced up and down, or seeing the biggest guy in our group with the smallest horse and smallest kid, I mean that poor little boy couldnt get his arms around the guy, much less see around him! or just the hilarious picture us gringos flopping around on the horses must have made! that I was in hysterics, tears rolling down my face almost peeing my pants, thought my jaw would break because my smile was so huge! My little boy Alexander was a true cowboy and of course all who know me also know that I was so in love with him and his little 12 year old self! ...Eventually I got used to the horse, and quickly informed my little man that we had to be the first to reach the top, he loved that, gave me a killer grin, and slapped the horse and we jetted off at a gallop! bHAHAAH I cant even explain how awsome it was, he was excited to win, and actually have the gringa who wanted to go fast, instead of the ones trying to get off and walk, I was excited that I didnt fall of! there were many close calls but , I was born for the rough country :) hehe.... So we arrive at this beautiful waterfall, freezing cold water, all our little guides were down the rocks in their shorts and swimming before we all were even done with our "ooo's and aaahh's" I saw Alexander jumping off this rock by the waterfall and it looked so cool! so we swim over there to play too!, Their faces were like really, you guys are gonna do this too! So basically having the time of our lives! until i decide that standing behind the waterfall wasnt enough I wanted to jump through it, to safely splash on the other side, i asked my little man If it was safe, he said "claro que si mira" "of course look" and proceded to jump through and pop his little head up on the other side, so without hesitation im jumping! I didnt jump far enough and crashed with a rock and got stuck directly where the million pounds of water was falling on my head, it spin me around and around I didnt know where up was I didnt knwo anything and I really thought I was going to die, my thought was "oh no poor rachel!" I was about to black out and then there was air! hooray!!!!! I made it but wow it was sooooooo scary.... but i guess that it was a good experience hehehe and my little guy was like" I was about to jump in and save you, and then you just popped up! " that would have been quite a sight me being twice his size, but he had a big heart! our ride back was just as cool, just kinda soggy and me and Alexander sang salsa songs inbetween gallops and then at the end we took the secret longer was back and left everyone behind , so our time together could be even just a little bit longer! at the end he held my hand and told me that he would remember me when I came back, I was in love with the horses, the little boys, the mountains the beauty....it was a priceless experience!

Rum, aparently no one even drinks water

1. So this post I just want to touch on a few of the interesting little details of this amazing country. Lets star with empanadas..fried bread things with cheese or whatever you want inside...I hate there existence , and that I pass by an empanada stand every day on my walk to school! YUMMY! They also have this obsession with ketchup and mayonnaise...its on everything!!!! There are little stands all over the place selling the local food, and they are open till like 5 in the morning, needless to say after a night of some serious merengue, fried food is just what any normal person would want! There is something called Yaroa, and this is only found in Santiago. It is the best invention ever, just imagine,, fries on the bottom, like this crumbly fried meat(like from a cheese steak) and then melted cheese on top with ketchup and mayonnaise! you eat it with a fork HAHAHA. Ok enough of food! I also enjoy that I hear ALOT of French just walking around, because of being so closely attached to Haiti, French is almost just as common as Spanish. I love my classes for the most part, not exactly challenging but I am getting great practice. I am taking an ESOL course and starting next week I will be teaching English classes in the university ...kinda scary ..kinda not :) By the end of the four months I will be certified to teach English.
   
2. This past weekend we went to Samana, a little town on the southern coast. We visited what they call Los Haiteses, which is an island that has amazing caves they we got to go into ..I decided I really don't like bats! We had to take a boat to get there, i decided i really like riding on boats! :) Its great because very time we take a boat ride there is always blaring music drinks and pineapple! We got to go to the beach and again I cant even explain the color of the water, it was amazing, and a guy in our group brought goggles and we could see all the neon fish and sea urchins , and be glad we had decided not to step on the rocks before we realized there were all these prickly sea creatures all over them! Our ride home was my favorite part. It was like a mountain jungle adventure, with these little houses scattered all over the place some were made of concrete and some of wood. There were always little naked kids running around and people just sitting in plastic chairs outside their homes. What these people do all day, easily answered they sit on plastic chairs, and some might play dominoes. There is always so much to take in its almost impossible! Tomorrow we are going to Puerta Plata for the Merengue Festival!! talk about color! To end this I just want to yall to maybe get a little glimpse of my walk to school. Part of it is through the very nice neighborhood that i live in then it turns into a farm area where i have to be careful not to step on the million chickens running around my feet, then i go down a mud slide to a little bridge that goes over the dirtiest river i have ever seen, meanwhile dodging the men on little dirt bikes that think its funny to scare the gringas by almost running them over, and then up a hill, that immediately provokes SWEAT!, past empanadas and across the street, an all the time dealing with the stupid comments EVERYONE makes to you as you pass by. The other day a young guy in a car slowed, rolled his window down and exclaims at me, "Holy Californian Sunshine!"...I'm not joking that's what came to his mind to yell at me... "Holy Californian Sunshine"... and there you have it a little piece of my life here in the Dominican Republic
   

A little Dominican hospitality goes a long way!

It is so funny to me because my days are sometimes so uneventful and then there are days so full and weekends so exciting that its hard to describe in just a quick note... Before we go on the adventure of my past two weekends Here is a little update on me.. I have had a pretty ugly cough the last two months and after the direction of my mother I whent to the doctor ...they sent me to get some x-rays of my chest and lungs and a blood test...Results are that I have bacteria spots in my lungs and my bronchial tubes( how do you even spell that!) and my lungs are inflamed. They gave me an injection in my butt! and I cant even explain how bad it hurt!!!! hehehe im on lots of meds and hopefully ill be on the mend!...On to the more fun stuff...We have made some great Dominican friends and this group goes to PUCMM ( our university) and they are from a small town outside Santiago called Mao. They decided to take us to the mountains to go camping! saturday morning we all meet in mao, in this guys house we had just met, and him and his mom ....complete strangers..made us a great pancake breakfast with eggs and oatmeal and orange juice :) ..then all nine of us pile into a suburban, and speed off down probally the most trerous roads I have ever been on, blaring merengue the whole way. About half way we all had to go to the bathroom so they stop at a gas stationa and we figure that there would be a bathroom there like normal, ...no they take us to this little house and asked this little old lady sitting on the front porch if we could use their bathroom, and of course she usherd us into her home giving us all kisses, and saying "God bless you," I mean im sure its not every day a group of five gringas arrive in her living room. The most hilarious part was that she had one bathroom that of wich was being occupied by her daughter taking a shower and she kicked her daughter out of the shower, i mean dripping wet and soapy, so we could use the bathroom! And then her husband, this adorable wrinkled old man, walkes in his eyes the size of baseballs, and just keeps saying "God does bless" and gave us kisses, candies and huge mangos for the road, and inviting us for dinner, and when we greatfully turned down dinner, tried to get us to stay for coffee. We eventually had to be on our way and they told us that we were their family and were welcome at any time, it was precious! We arrive at the most beautiful river so alone it felt great! There were huge rocks that we jumped off of into the water..maybe like ...i dont even know how high because im bad at guessing height but high enough that it was like 5 seconds of freefall..its was scary! but GREAT! ..They made rice and chicken ever the fire, and we slept by the river..or at least tried to sleep... we got up at sunrise they made us breakfast and we floated around the river some more, learned some dominican card games, got lots of mosquito bites it was great! I am allways just so impressed at how they take it upon themselves to take such good care of us! It was a great experience, and just cool to be with such warm open people!

A little bit of Rain does ya good.....

I wish I could just somehow imprint all my thoughts and experiences on this blog without having to cut short and summarize and be the exciting journalist that Im not :) but well see what I can do.... It has been amazing to me to see after making the comment to my Dominican mom "dont worry everywhere I go i seem to bring a hurricane," that there have been like three stinking hurricanes, and still more to come! :) I do want to say thank your for all your prayers and concerns, this country and those surrounding it have been hit hard, especially the poor regions, when houses are made out of cardboard, they dont last long. Here in Santiago we are in the northern mountain range and God has really protected us, its rainy windy and muddy but safe. I kinda like it tho :) Lets get to the good stuff! Last weekend right before the storm we when to a place called La Romana, its a small town on the southern side of the island. We spent about four hours in a little bus driving through a countryside that I cant even begin to describe. You see things like four people on a moped, houses that dont even deserve to be called houses, and lots of bannanas! Once in La Romana we stayed the night in a small hotel, and got a taste of local flavor at the corner store. I would like to take a moment and help you all understand what I mean when I say corner store, or liquor store....I love this ok get ready. A corner store is just that a store on the corner, you can get anything from cheese, hairspray, and brooms, but they really dont sell anything other than Presidentes ( th local beer) and other forms of achool, and empenadas (delicious fried things!) There are probally a million plastic chairs strewn about, and the key to the fun, there are allways with out fail an impressively LARGE set of speakers(making you wonder how in the world they got them) and the merengue or bachata music cranked up to its utmost volume or make-your-head-explode loudness! It could be eleven at night or two in the morning the music is cranking! and there are people there from the old lady who sells juice to the little two year old kid of the drunk man yelling things at the gringas. At this particular corner store there were alot of random Europeans , prostitutes and sketchy men, so needless to say we didnt stay long. That next morning we has some delicious fruit and toast accompanied by a GREAT cup of cafe con leche and we were of to Island of Saouna ( i might have spelled that wrong) hehehe ... we take this awsome boat for about an hour, dancing merengue with the crew and being served rum...i stuck with plain ol refreshing Coca-Cola :) There are pictures of all this fun in the ablum I posted! no matter where you are in the Dominican there is music BLASTING and Rum being served. I you have ever seen a turqoise gem or that other blue one that I dont remeber what its called :) then you can picture wat this water looked like. I thought that It was just good photography all those pictures you see on the internet that look FAKE. I realized it just good scenery!! and it is actually REAL! the water was as warm as a bath, blue as a gem, and saltly like you were licking a block of salt ewww. The sand was white like me! hehehe but I have learned to wear sun block and I am thankful for that!...we ate some delicous fish for lunch with watermelon juice YUMMY!! and we danced some salsa in this open Cabana , for those of you who know me well, wich is all of you, that was almost unreal!! Amazing! we left the beach and motorboated to this place called "The Natrual pool" and thats what it was...like in the middle of the ocean was this clear water that only can up to your waist..just like a pool ..and we found a starfish! theyre bigger then I thought! The whole day the thought that kept coming back to me, if this can be So indescribably beautiful, how beautiful is GOD , the one who made it! It knocked me off my feet....
"By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, their starry host by the breath of his mouth. He gathers the waters of the sea into jars; he puts the deep into storehouses. Let all the earth fear the Lord; let all the people of the world revere him, for He spoke and it came to be; he commanded and it stood firm." ps 33 ..

I am overwhelmed buy this place, these people, so warm, and this culture so rich! I am so happy to be here and am learning SO much i dont know If my brain can fit it all in!! There is so much more to write but my "mom" has just made a feast ...and i mean feast! so well i gotta go! hehehe..but seriously EVERY day at lunch we have a diffrent kind of rice, beans, some diffrent kind of bannana or platano, and meat and fresh juice and salad and bahhhhh its to much! hehehe, Dont worry dad I am going to learn how to make ALL of it for you!!!
I LOVE you ALL! and almost die everytime I see that I have a new comment!!! hehehehe
Until next time!!

p.s. the spell check has turned off so im sorry i dont have the time to edit ..so just deal with it! :)

HeyYall check out a few of my picts....and yes they are real I was actually there!!

http://picasaweb.google.com/stiefern87/RDFavorites

Hurricanes, mud, and madness..and a little morning blues

So I was going to start this off with a story but I have been distracted the last forty-five minutes but this worker right out the window that I am sitting in front of, working on building the new house next door. Let me see if i can describe this to you. First of all I am in hysterics. This man proabaly in his early thirties, Atlanta Braves hat on, spray paint can and measuring tape in hand. He is the only one on the roof, he obviously has a job to do, he has pulled the measuring tape out a thousand of times only to let it drop to the floor and retract it again, he has shaken the paint can a million times and even taken the top off ...but just to put it back on, he has talked to every passer by and checked his cell phone twenty times, and I thought I was slow in the mornings, he has done some stretches and ended up laying down...until he saw that I was watching :) and now you should see how hard he's working!... There has been a hurricane passing through the Island, they have had to evacuate many people and there has been some disater in the southern part of the country...not like there is a big distance between the northern edge of the island and the southern coast. Here in Santiago we have has some heavy rains but have been safe from the floods and strong winds, Praise the Lord. Yesterday there was a dance class held by some of the students at school and so of course we had to go...the best part is that from my palace its only a fifteen minute walk to school, the walk starts out in the neighborhood and is quite pleasnt, it ends abrupty, and turns down and grassy now muddy little path to the river and then over this little bridge and thru this little community of shack houses that make up for their lack of appropriate building materieals by their bright blue, green, and orange colors, i LOVE it!, on our way there are the ocassional calls about the Gringas, my favorite came from this little naked boy who was maybe five years old, he yells "ay gringas bonitas ven a besar me!" in other words, "hey beautiful girls come and kiss me!" Its just the little things that will keep you amused through out the day! ( update: our little friend working on the roof ..still hasnt done a thing!) My classes start today and i simply just cant wait!! I am just so overwhelmed by this amazing oppertunity to learn and be a part of this rich culture!
~"Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the Desires of your heart."~

For those of you who enjoy learning fun little words (april!)... here in the Dominican to say "a little bit" they use the word "Chin" like "i only want a chin more" or "chin a chin im learning spanish" (bit by bit im learning..)