Profe in the DR 37

Profe in the DR 37

4-29-12

The week after Semana Santa ended up being kind of slow for me as far as teaching.  The kids all took an extra week of vacation even though they were supposed to be in school.  This happens here all the time.  I used the free time to get a bunch of work done that had been piling up. 

My mother and her husband flew in to the DR on the 17^th.   I met them at a resort in Punta Cana.  It was the first time for me to travel to the east side of the island.  The east side is flatter with very few mountains, and far more trees.  They raise cattle and sugar cane.  I noticed that they did not irrigate the sugar cane fields.  I assume that is because they have sufficient rainfall.   In several places I saw them pulling the large sugar cane carts with oxen.  The closer I got to Punta Cana the more built up for tourism it seemed to be.  As the bus passed through towns, you could see people dressed in various uniforms of cook, maids, waiters, etc., waiting for transportation to the different resorts in the area.

It was also the first time for me to stay at an all inclusive resort.  We stayed in the Barceló which was absolutely humungous.  It was one of the earlier built resorts and so had an extremely large amount of land, 2 km of ocean frontage and its own golf course.  There were tons of large 3 story buildings for guests, 8 or more pools, a gym, large theatre, a dozen or so restaurants, a couple dozen stores, tennis courts, its own soccer field, a church, bars, and so much more.  It was quite impressive in its size. 

The guests were from all over.  You could hear all sorts of languages, French, German, Chinese, Russian, Italian, and many more.  Europeans seemed to be in the majority.  One Russian woman I spoke with said she had a twelve hour flight to get to the DR.  She and her husband just wanted to go somewhere warm because it had been such a cold winter in Europe and Russia.

            After more than a year and a half in a dirty, dusty batey, it was nice to be somewhere clean for a while.  I enjoyed hot showers, good food, and a decent bed.  I swam daily, trying to strengthen and stretch my left shoulder, which I injured about a month ago.  I also ran on the beach and in the pool, and racked up several hours on the exercise bike in the gym.  Despite all the good food I actually left the resort weighing less than when I arrived. (Not an easy feat at an all inclusive.)

            It was good to see my mother and her husband Larry.  Larry got three days of golf in and my mom joined him for one.  They also spent a lot of time just relaxing on the beach. I taught my mom how to play the card game Casino and we played each night.  It was a nice peaceful week, but I really wish that my wife Kaori could have been there with us. 

            It was hard coming back to the batey, especially since it had rained hard the night before and the whole batey was flooded and full of mud.  The kids didn’t go to school the rest of the week because of all the water everywhere.  I fixed the brakes on my bike yesterday and headed out for an hour.  I got to test the new brake pads out when a large swarm of bees crossed my path.  I noticed them just in time to come to a screeching halt right at the edge of the swarm; having only a few of them bump into me as I quickly backed up.