Goodbyes and Open Fields (Days 5 & 6)

Day 5, January 13th, was a beautiful day! We toured the agricultural fields and saw the work that goes behind the fruits and vegetables we pick at on a daily basis. All the details and steps of the process of raising these fruits and vegetables must be a pain!

Bananas growing (the plastic is to protect the bundle from bugs and pesticide)

Farm Cattle

A Little Modeling Session in the Fields

From left to right: Rashel, Myself, Evelin

My homestay "mom" Raquel

Rashel and Evelin's oler brother Luis

     We said goodbye to our homestay families later that day, which was a little strange for me as I’m pretty bad with goodbyes. But I wished everyone well despite not knowing how to say it to them in Spanish. I had been working on a portrait of the youngest daughter of my homestay family and finished it in time to give it to her before I left. I’m proud that I made something to put a smile on her face, and I hope to hear from them. (I’m friends with the family’s only son. All I need is to brush up on my Spanish haha)

        By the end of the day we made it to the capital Santo Domingo and toured the Colonial Zone, which I think the whole class and I would’ve enjoyed more if not for the downpour that night.

Welcome to the Capital!

I present to you, my lovely audience, a Colonial Church!

Saw the US Embassy

Not the most exciting day, aside from the goodbyes.

A little of the view on the way to Consuelo

Day 6 was a little more eventful. We took a long ride to the next and final stay, a nunnery, with a short stop at the sugarcane area “Consuelo”. Seeing Consuelo’s small facilities was nice. They have baseball fields all over the place, and a small learning center. It was good whenever I saw well-supplied learning centers over in the DR, even small ones. The coolest part was not only watching young men practicing and possibly trying out for a chance to even take the first step toward a baseball career, but it was awesome having the chance to play a little in one of Consuelo’s field’s!

After gaining a little insight on baseball we talked with the human rights group ASCALA. They told us of the broken system in the Dominican Republic and the “games” that are played making the struggle for citizenship even more difficult than it already is! I heard of stories where officials would misspell a person’s name or misgender them just to stop them from attaining citizenship! This is such a cruel, immature form of injustice and the system needs to have better accountability on all its officers!

          At the end of the day we finally went to see a ball game, the Estrellas vs Licey. What a game it was! We had front row seats and a pretty exciting game (home team won and half the class were given balls from the game!) (On a side note I want to say, I had to go an ocean away from home to finally get a game ball?! Ah well, I guess that's how it has to be. Ok enough of my mini-rant) Our friend Jon, a member of the organization Yspaniola and writer one of the article's I mentioned before, was with us and spoke Kreyol to one of the ball players. As upset as he was about one of the game's plays he was happy to be able to talk in his native toungue, which I guess is why he took a few pictures with him and another friend we picked up along the way.