The Dominican Republic

With life being as crazy as it has been the last month, it has really been hard to try and find any motivation to blog...well that, and the fact that I was out of the country for 2 weeks. So I will just start by recapping the highlights of the Dominican Republic. I was contacted by Farmer to Farmer, an organization that sets up projects in other countries. They asked if I would be interested in helping with a project that involved pepper production in the rural mountains of the DR. It was truly a great experience and I am glad that I had the opportunity! I had this same opportunity a few years ago in Haiti, with the same organization, working in seedling production. I left on the 31st of Aug. and returned the 13th of September. Some of my favorite things about the trip were; spending time in the villages with the women, in their homes, even getting some great recipes from them and helping cook a meal or two, seeing their wonderful strength, hard work and determination in the greenhouses, and even a little dance party that was held in my honor! The roads leading to a lot of the places that we went were very treacherous and I wondered a lot of times if we were going to make it! Especially when we had to cross a deep, fast flowing river, thank heavens for 4 wheel drive! It is such a great thing to be in these little communities where everyone knows everyone, and they keep an eye out for each other and their doors are always open and at night they all get together on their porches and shoot the breeze. It was so great spending time with one family in particular. Nancy, the mother and her 2 daughters and son, spent the majority of their nights teaching me funny Spanish phrases. The little hut we were staying in was situated next to village doctors office. The girl working there was an intern from Santa Domingo, her name is Talia, and it was her idea to arrange a dance party. Being a doctors office, she has a generator which lit her house, but more importantly, powered the ghetto blasters. We listened to barracha and mariachi bands into the early morning hours every day! That is the other thing that I just loved about the DR, well any foreign country, the ability to let loose and sing and dance and have a good time! The work that I did was a great learning opportunity for all of the parties involved (I hope). I toured their facilities and pointed out problems and came up with solutions with their brainstorming. Without a lot to work with and heat and humidity being especially hard to work around, there aren't a lot of options but hopefully we have made some changes, or at least got the think tanks working enough that they will be able to come up with solutions that will best work for their needs. There are a million things that I can say about the DR, I could go on all day, I love the people and I love that I was able to have the opportunity and hope to go back someday! If you were wanting to know more about what Farmer to Farmer does, I have linked their blog to mine. Check it out! Here are some of the MANY shots I took while I was there: