Hey everyone!
I’ve just finished staying my first weekend here in Samaná, and its been a blast. My host family is wonderful. I’m living with a woman named Sara, her 4 children (3 boys and a girl), and granddaughter. This part of the country is absolutely BEAUTIFUL, and the photos you see above are actually from the porch right outside my room, and from the back porch. We live on a little dirt road off the main road, on a hill a few kilometers out of town. It’s very, very beautiful just sitting in the home reading a book or looking at a storm come in from the bay.
The neighborhood here is like one big family, and everyone gathers under a tree in the shade on a hot day to talk or play dominoes. Playing dominoes is something everyone here does every day – it’s a very Dominican thing to do, as I saw many people playing dominoes when I was here a couple years ago.
I’m still getting used to the pace of life here – let’s just say that its sloooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooow. You don’t really go anywhere in the day. Or do anything. This leaves lots of time to rest or read or whatever else. Books certainly help a lot, especially since there is no internet in the house. I’m getting to know the neighborhood a bit more, and soon I may perhaps feel comfortable enough to take a place under the tree outside…for now, it’s somewhat daunting to join that sort of group who have known each other all their lives.
There is a beach about 15 minutes walking away from here, but really, it isn’t very nice. Henry and I walked down there and it was a little underwhelming. We are hoping in the future to go to other beaches perhaps a little father away and nicer on other weekends.
One last thing to note, which I find very interesting around here, is that there are no taxis in Samaná. Rather, you take what is called a “motoconcho”. Essentially, everyone here has a motorcycle with two seats on it (essentially, an extended back seat). For about a dollar, you can wave down anyone on the road, and you hop on the back of their motocycle and they’ll take you into town, or to the beach, or wherever else. I usually ask them to go a little slower than they usually do, just for safety reasons, but it’s really a very convenient way to get around town.
Today, I start my first day of work, and I’m excited to begin working in the villages. I’ll write a post in a couple days describing to you exactly what I’m doing – I’m writing up profiles for groups of women who want loans to post on www.kiva.org. This is a peer-to-peer sharing website where people can loan money to anyone around the world who is seeking a microloan to start a business. It’s a very novel idea, and it’s exciting for me to be part of this.
I’ll describe it more in detail, and perhaps a couple of stories, when I finish my first few days of work!
Monday, June 22, 2009
Friday, June 19, 2009
In the DR!
Hey all!
I have now been in the Dominican since Tuesday, and I wanted to give a quick update of what’s been going on. I’m currently in my last night here in Santo Domingo (the capital of the DR), and the last couple days have been filled with training for us new interns. We’ve been going over some of what our jobs are here in the DR, and it’s finally becoming a bit more clear on what exactly I’ll be doing. I’ll be in the city of Samaná, which is in the northern part of the country, on a peninsula. Look it up – it’s gorgeous! I’ll have an update after the weekend talking about the city. For now, it’s time to move cross-country (for the DR that means a 3 hour bus) and get myself established in a new place of the world!
I have now been in the Dominican since Tuesday, and I wanted to give a quick update of what’s been going on. I’m currently in my last night here in Santo Domingo (the capital of the DR), and the last couple days have been filled with training for us new interns. We’ve been going over some of what our jobs are here in the DR, and it’s finally becoming a bit more clear on what exactly I’ll be doing. I’ll be in the city of Samaná, which is in the northern part of the country, on a peninsula. Look it up – it’s gorgeous! I’ll have an update after the weekend talking about the city. For now, it’s time to move cross-country (for the DR that means a 3 hour bus) and get myself established in a new place of the world!
Monday, June 15, 2009
Off to the DR in a few hours!
Hey everyone -
This will be the place to look at my blog while I have an internship down here in the Dominican. I have committed myself to having a better blog, with more updates. I am extremely excited for what is going to happen in the DR this summer, and I'll let you all know what's happening.
For those who might not know, I am interning for Esperanza International, a microfinance NGO. I'll be in the city of Samana (in the north coast - you can look it up on Google Earth). It should be BEAUTIFUL. They haven't given me specific tasks yet, and I'll let you know how I'll be aiding in the distribution of credit to the impoverished when I find out more!
Talk to you upon arrival!
-Nate
This will be the place to look at my blog while I have an internship down here in the Dominican. I have committed myself to having a better blog, with more updates. I am extremely excited for what is going to happen in the DR this summer, and I'll let you all know what's happening.
For those who might not know, I am interning for Esperanza International, a microfinance NGO. I'll be in the city of Samana (in the north coast - you can look it up on Google Earth). It should be BEAUTIFUL. They haven't given me specific tasks yet, and I'll let you know how I'll be aiding in the distribution of credit to the impoverished when I find out more!
Talk to you upon arrival!
-Nate
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Sevilla!
Hey everyone!
The travelling group to Sevilla!
I have three posts to put up in the next few days – I have taken trips to Sevilla (to see a bullfight), to Italy (Pisa and Florence!) and to Portugal. I’ll try to put up posts/pictures from those three trips over the next day or so….get ready!
So…Sevilla. The location of the big bull fight. We got up EARLY this morning (and had about 2 hours of sleep the night before…) and took a train over to the city to explore a bit before the 6pm bullfight. It was beautiful and sunny in Cádiz when we left…and absolutely pouring in Sevilla when we arrived. And it wasn’t stopping – it was one of those rains that you see in Seattle which is heavy but you can just tell that it is a long-term type of rain. So what’s a group of tired Seattleites to do on a rainy cold day in an urban city? Go to Starbucks of course! As you can see from the photo, we successfully found a Starbucks and sat there for a while hoping the rain would abate…
Unfortunately it didn’t. We walked over to the cathedral in Sevilla and took a tour of that building – it was pretty beautiful as well (and happened to be “World Tourism Day” which means we got in everywhere for free!!). Here’s a photo from inside the cathedral – I will never get tired of looking inside cathedrals here, every sing
le one is unique and beautiful in its own way. It was at this point, about noon or one pm, that we ate lunch and started to consider the possibility that the bullfight MIGHT be rained out. We weren’t sure. But the thought was creeping into our heads.
We found a beautiful garden area in the city to spend some more time in, and I think that around 4pm we hit one of our low points of the trip. We were all completely soaked, it had been raining non-stop since we arrived at 10am, and the bullfight was in 2 hours. We had already gone to the bullfight ring, an dthey said the decision is made essentially at the beginning time. Anyway, we were in this cave inside the park, which was dry, listening to the relentless pounding of the rain, when we pretty much gave up going to the bullfight – we were thinking it’d be cancelled. We were planning out perhaps even getting a warm hotel room for the night and then heading back to Cádiz in the morning.
However- it stopped raining around 5 and the sun (kinda) came out, and it seemed like we would be able to see it after all! Everyone was going to the ring, the TV reporters were showing video of men working on the ground inside the ring, and the seats were filling up. We all took our seats and got ready for the bullfight…
Only to see a person walk around the ring with a sign saying that… the bullfight was cancelled. Yeah, that’s right – we all got into the stadium, but the matadors came out and decided it was too dangerous to fight on some slick ground (understandable. But still). Anyway that was a HUGE letdown to a day that was full of ups and downs. We arrive full of hope, then had the rains dash it, only to have the rains stop and us have lots of hope entering the stadium, only to have a dude with a sign ruin it all. No one else was very happy – you can see in a photo below all the seat coushins that people threw into the ring in disgust when they cancelled it. I put a few other photos of the ring down below … overall, it was a fun day but it was super disappointing to not see the bullfight after all.
I’ll update about Italy next!
The travelling group to Sevilla!
I have three posts to put up in the next few days – I have taken trips to Sevilla (to see a bullfight), to Italy (Pisa and Florence!) and to Portugal. I’ll try to put up posts/pictures from those three trips over the next day or so….get ready!
So…Sevilla. The location of the big bull fight. We got up EARLY this morning (and had about 2 hours of sleep the night before…) and took a train over to the city to explore a bit before the 6pm bullfight. It was beautiful and sunny in Cádiz when we left…and absolutely pouring in Sevilla when we arrived. And it wasn’t stopping – it was one of those rains that you see in Seattle which is heavy but you can just tell that it is a long-term type of rain. So what’s a group of tired Seattleites to do on a rainy cold day in an urban city? Go to Starbucks of course! As you can see from the photo, we successfully found a Starbucks and sat there for a while hoping the rain would abate…
Unfortunately it didn’t. We walked over to the cathedral in Sevilla and took a tour of that building – it was pretty beautiful as well (and happened to be “World Tourism Day” which means we got in everywhere for free!!). Here’s a photo from inside the cathedral – I will never get tired of looking inside cathedrals here, every sing
le one is unique and beautiful in its own way. It was at this point, about noon or one pm, that we ate lunch and started to consider the possibility that the bullfight MIGHT be rained out. We weren’t sure. But the thought was creeping into our heads.We found a beautiful garden area in the city to spend some more time in, and I think that around 4pm we hit one of our low points of the trip. We were all completely soaked, it had been raining non-stop since we arrived at 10am, and the bullfight was in 2 hours. We had already gone to the bullfight ring, an dthey said the decision is made essentially at the beginning time. Anyway, we were in this cave inside the park, which was dry, listening to the relentless pounding of the rain, when we pretty much gave up going to the bullfight – we were thinking it’d be cancelled. We were planning out perhaps even getting a warm hotel room for the night and then heading back to Cádiz in the morning.
However- it stopped raining around 5 and the sun (kinda) came out, and it seemed like we would be able to see it after all! Everyone was going to the ring, the TV reporters were showing video of men working on the ground inside the ring, and the seats were filling up. We all took our seats and got ready for the bullfight…
Only to see a person walk around the ring with a sign saying that… the bullfight was cancelled. Yeah, that’s right – we all got into the stadium, but the matadors came out and decided it was too dangerous to fight on some slick ground (understandable. But still). Anyway that was a HUGE letdown to a day that was full of ups and downs. We arrive full of hope, then had the rains dash it, only to have the rains stop and us have lots of hope entering the stadium, only to have a dude with a sign ruin it all. No one else was very happy – you can see in a photo below all the seat coushins that people threw into the ring in disgust when they cancelled it. I put a few other photos of the ring down below … overall, it was a fun day but it was super disappointing to not see the bullfight after all.
I’ll update about Italy next!
Monday, September 29, 2008
A trip to the Pueblos Blancos
Hey everyone! I finally have a moment to breathe and tell you about my adventures a week ago travelling around Spain in a rented van with six friends! Get ready for some good stories :)
As a bit of context, myself and six others were planning a roadtrip through the south of Spain from a Friday to a Monday to see what are called Pueblos Blancos, or little villages of all white buildings built into the Spanish countryside. All have either a castle or a church around which they were built, and which serve as the cornerstone of the pueblo.
My travelling buddies!
It took us about an hour to drive the van out of the parking lot (getting it into reverse was not intuitive…we eventually had to ask the desk how to do it). After picking everyone up, we were off to a small pueblo named Cartajima, just outside a famous (and very big) pueblo named Ronda. Our plan was to stay the night in Cartajima and then go to Ronda in the day. Well, long story short, it took 4 hours to drive what should have been 2 hours. We missed a turnoff and drove north to almost SEVILLA (that’s a good hour north of Cadiz) before figuring out we needed to go west from Cádiz. Eventually we arrived in Ronda to an English hostal owner who cooked us dinner (for a cost, of course). This guy was quite the character – long hair, very sociable, alcoholic, and pot-growing. About that last trait? He invited all of us up onto his roof what what he called "talking, drinking and smoking a doobie". No, I did not smoke, but he wasn’t lying when he said he grew his own stuff up there.
The next day we visited Ronda, which was beautiful but rather unimpressive after everything we had heard from host families. The picture I’ve attached is probably the best place we went in the city – this bridge is absolutely beautiful. We hiked down here to take a picture from below. After visiting Ronda, we w
ent on a cave tour of this amazing place a little ways out of Ronda. It had been used by people for over 40,000 years, with drawings dating back to that time. No, I couldn’t take any pictures while in there. Yes, I did take pictures anyway. Below is the photo of the "castle" as they call it, and this is the picture where the tour guide saw my flash, stopped the group and told me either he or the police would delete my photo for me. He didn’t follow through with this threat – I think in large part because I was joking and talking with him in Spanish the entire tour - but did pull me aside after and tell me that taking photos of national monuments in Spain is a big deal and that I should never do it again or I really would get in trouble with the police.
Anyway, we spent that next night "camping", which in Spain means have a grassy field, plant some trees, put up some posts with numbers and have a dirt circle for cars. This wasn’t "camping" by any American standard. We slept on a tarp on the ground, with nothing covering us…and wouldn’t you know, it rains at 6am. So we dashed into the van and slept (7 of us!) in a van for 4 more hours. Sleep wasn’t too good for those hours, needless to say.
The next day we visited a couple more beautiful pueblos – Zahara and Grazalema – which had absolutely amazing views. The photo below is from the top of a castle in Zahara – the vista was breathtaking. Sleeping yet again involved sleeping on a tarp in essentially a "camping field", but this time we put a tarp over our heads so when it rained we didn’t have many issues with rain.
As a side note, I did finally get to drive a car in Europe – the stick shift was different in this van, but I got used to it. I also almost got pulled over (gulp), but thankfully the guy driving in front of me got pulled over, not myself. We weren’t going too much over the speed limit, but the cop tailgated me for a while which was quite unnerving before finally going to pull over the guy in front of me. I was a little more careful driving after that little incident.
The view from the castle in Zahara
The pueblo of Grazalema
I’ll be posting in the next couple days about an (attempt) at seeing a bullfight in Sevilla, along with a couple pics from that trip…and then I am off to ITALY on Thursday! Yes! I’ll be gone until Tuesday on that trip to Pisa and Florence. I’ll be sure to take lots of photos, don’t worry :)
Hasta más tarde!
As a bit of context, myself and six others were planning a roadtrip through the south of Spain from a Friday to a Monday to see what are called Pueblos Blancos, or little villages of all white buildings built into the Spanish countryside. All have either a castle or a church around which they were built, and which serve as the cornerstone of the pueblo.
My travelling buddies!
It took us about an hour to drive the van out of the parking lot (getting it into reverse was not intuitive…we eventually had to ask the desk how to do it). After picking everyone up, we were off to a small pueblo named Cartajima, just outside a famous (and very big) pueblo named Ronda. Our plan was to stay the night in Cartajima and then go to Ronda in the day. Well, long story short, it took 4 hours to drive what should have been 2 hours. We missed a turnoff and drove north to almost SEVILLA (that’s a good hour north of Cadiz) before figuring out we needed to go west from Cádiz. Eventually we arrived in Ronda to an English hostal owner who cooked us dinner (for a cost, of course). This guy was quite the character – long hair, very sociable, alcoholic, and pot-growing. About that last trait? He invited all of us up onto his roof what what he called "talking, drinking and smoking a doobie". No, I did not smoke, but he wasn’t lying when he said he grew his own stuff up there.
The next day we visited Ronda, which was beautiful but rather unimpressive after everything we had heard from host families. The picture I’ve attached is probably the best place we went in the city – this bridge is absolutely beautiful. We hiked down here to take a picture from below. After visiting Ronda, we w
ent on a cave tour of this amazing place a little ways out of Ronda. It had been used by people for over 40,000 years, with drawings dating back to that time. No, I couldn’t take any pictures while in there. Yes, I did take pictures anyway. Below is the photo of the "castle" as they call it, and this is the picture where the tour guide saw my flash, stopped the group and told me either he or the police would delete my photo for me. He didn’t follow through with this threat – I think in large part because I was joking and talking with him in Spanish the entire tour - but did pull me aside after and tell me that taking photos of national monuments in Spain is a big deal and that I should never do it again or I really would get in trouble with the police.
Anyway, we spent that next night "camping", which in Spain means have a grassy field, plant some trees, put up some posts with numbers and have a dirt circle for cars. This wasn’t "camping" by any American standard. We slept on a tarp on the ground, with nothing covering us…and wouldn’t you know, it rains at 6am. So we dashed into the van and slept (7 of us!) in a van for 4 more hours. Sleep wasn’t too good for those hours, needless to say.
The next day we visited a couple more beautiful pueblos – Zahara and Grazalema – which had absolutely amazing views. The photo below is from the top of a castle in Zahara – the vista was breathtaking. Sleeping yet again involved sleeping on a tarp in essentially a "camping field", but this time we put a tarp over our heads so when it rained we didn’t have many issues with rain.
As a side note, I did finally get to drive a car in Europe – the stick shift was different in this van, but I got used to it. I also almost got pulled over (gulp), but thankfully the guy driving in front of me got pulled over, not myself. We weren’t going too much over the speed limit, but the cop tailgated me for a while which was quite unnerving before finally going to pull over the guy in front of me. I was a little more careful driving after that little incident.
The view from the castle in Zahara
The pueblo of Grazalema
I’ll be posting in the next couple days about an (attempt) at seeing a bullfight in Sevilla, along with a couple pics from that trip…and then I am off to ITALY on Thursday! Yes! I’ll be gone until Tuesday on that trip to Pisa and Florence. I’ll be sure to take lots of photos, don’t worry :)
Hasta más tarde!
Friday, September 19, 2008
Off for the weekend - update and pictures to come after!
So, I am off on a roadtrip adventure this weekend within Andalucia (the area of Spain where Cadiz is located), and will be gone until Monday afternoon. I am travelling with 6 friends in a minivan to various towns called Pueblos Blancos (White Villages). They are all within the forests and hillsides of Spain and are very beautiful. We have no school on Monday and are taking advantage of this for a 4 day trip! I shall put up pictures and an update about the trip when I get back, along with a little bit about what my daily life in Cadiz entails...including the whole "study" part of study abroad (boooooo). But really the classes aren't that bad.
Adios until Monday!
Adios until Monday!
Monday, September 15, 2008
A (long) overdue post about Spain!
Hey everyone! I REALLY apologize for the long amount of time between my posts, I had shaky internet service until my arrival here in Cadiz, and plus I did so much that I didn’t take time to write a blog about everything! So, prepare yourselves, this is going to be a blitz of the most interesting things to happen to me while in Spain so far.
After sightseeing in Barcelona, which was amazing, my friends and I travelled down to Valencia (via one night in a small town called Terragona), where we were in an AMAZING hotel, which was also very cheap. Cheaper than our hostal in Barcelona, and yet so very fancy, with its own kitchen and 3 balconies, everything. Our main goal of being in Valencia: The Tomatina in Buñol! This is the famous tomato fight, which is the largest in the world – 40,000 people, 113 TONS of tomatoes and 2 hours of fighting mayhem. I can tell you all more about it later on if you wish – the photo you see here is of the aftermath of our adventure at the Tomatina. And, yes, I wore my basketball mask because I d
idn’t want to get my nose smashed by a tomato and yes, it paid off for I was hit several times right in the nose part. I think people liked aiming at me since I was taller than everyone AND wore a mask. But hey, that’s part of the fun! I had an absolute blast. I think I was taking tomatoes out of my ears and hair for several days following, as were all my friends.
After sightseeing in Barcelona, which was amazing, my friends and I travelled down to Valencia (via one night in a small town called Terragona), where we were in an AMAZING hotel, which was also very cheap. Cheaper than our hostal in Barcelona, and yet so very fancy, with its own kitchen and 3 balconies, everything. Our main goal of being in Valencia: The Tomatina in Buñol! This is the famous tomato fight, which is the largest in the world – 40,000 people, 113 TONS of tomatoes and 2 hours of fighting mayhem. I can tell you all more about it later on if you wish – the photo you see here is of the aftermath of our adventure at the Tomatina. And, yes, I wore my basketball mask because I d
idn’t want to get my nose smashed by a tomato and yes, it paid off for I was hit several times right in the nose part. I think people liked aiming at me since I was taller than everyone AND wore a mask. But hey, that’s part of the fun! I had an absolute blast. I think I was taking tomatoes out of my ears and hair for several days following, as were all my friends. An interesting story out of Valencia – I almost had essentially all my important possessions on this trip stolen in one swoop. I was sitting in the train station with Molly, waiting for our train to our next city, while the other 4 members of the group went off into the city for an hour. It was around midnight at this time. A man approached me and asked me to help him out with the coke machine to my left (strange), although I didn’t think much of it at the time because Molly was there and I felt like, since the place was empty, there wasn’t much risk of anything happening. As I’m helping this guy out, about 30 seconds later, I hear Molly ask behind me, "Nate, is that guy walking off with your laptop bag?" And, sure enough, after turning around and staring at where my bag used to be, someone had it in their hand. Contained in the laptop bag:
Laptop
Passport
Wallet (Credit cards, cash, drivers license)
iPod
Camera with all my photos from the trip so far
Passport
Wallet (Credit cards, cash, drivers license)
iPod
Camera with all my photos from the trip so far
Essentially, if I lose this bag I lose a heck of a lot. So, therefore, I absolutely book it towards the entryway where the man went, which is to the left about 10 meters or so. This man must have heard me running at him (my flip flops were kind of loud…), and dropped my laptop bag, because it was sitting right in the entry way. Nothing was broken or stolen (thankfully!), although the guy did try to get the computer – the zipper was about half open. Anyway, I’m a little more wary of people after that experience and more careful with my stuff.
So, I finally arrived in Cádiz, a city on the southwestern corner of Spain (the Atlantic side), and it is an absolutely beautiful, beautiful city. The beaches are gigantic (kilometers of beach), it is sunny and 85-90 every day, little to no humidity, and warm water. It is absolutely wonderful.
I live with a family of 4, mother father and 2 sons who are 21 and 17. They are all very nice people and take good care of me. I’ll let you all know in a later post a bit more (really, I’ll post in the next couple days!) about the life in general here. For now, below are a couple pictures from the city, one of the sunset on my first night here, and the other from the top of a tower from which you can see all the city. In that photo you can see the big cathedral here, along with the beaches stretching out of the photo to the left. From those beaches we watched an airshow yesterday, and in the final photo you can see the planes making a Spanish flag in the sky with smoke, the finale of the show. 230,000 (!) people attended the airshow on the beach.
I’ll finish off with this picture of some delicious octopus (pulpo) which I ate in Barcelona one day. Take my word for it: It was good. Try it sometime :)
That’s all for now, sorry again for a long post and such a delay between posts, and I'll post again soon!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
