We’ve had a good day today. We got up and had a breakfast – fresh fruit and bread. We planned to start giving books away today starting with a school, so we started the day dropping me off at an internet café while Greg and the others worked on finding the school teacher. Shanlee, Megan, Rachel, and their children walked around Las Galeras for a bit – it is a small town at the end of the road on the Samaná Peninsula. They did some souvenier shopping - here are a few of the things they saw:
Shanlee, Megan, Rachel, and all of their kids spent a few minutes in a store watching a demonstration of how to roll cigars. They took video, but you only get to see a picture. They tried to sell them cigars after the demonstration, but they were uninterested, for some crazy reason. "Hey, kids! Here's a stogie for each of you!!"
The main road into Las Galeras is paved, but it soon turns into a number of smaller dirt roads that are difficult to drive on. We bounced all over the place while trying to get to the people we wanted to visit. With all of the bouncing, we managed a picture of the flowering trees:
One place we went was a nicer-looking area with free-standing homes in a sparsely populated community. There was a home that resembles a castle that was built by Italian brothers. These homes were all built intermittently among the trees. Most homes were a few blocks apart, but they weren’t that regular in their dispersion. By one of the homes there were two men using long poles to pull down the coconuts from the trees.
We stopped at one place to watch them make a different type of cheese. They put the milk in a large pot on a large fire and cook it – when we got there, they were lifting and pulling it with what looked like to large sticks. The cheese looked like taffy in its consistency. They would then move it to another place where someone would cut it into smaller pieces that they would sell. We bought two pieces of about 1 pound each for use in our meals.
The other thing we bought there was bags of water. It is just that – they have water in a small bag – maybe 8 – 12 ounces – that they keep refrigerated and you buy them for 2 pesos each - less than .10 each in U.S. Dollars. Here is Shanlee demonstrating how to properly consume water from a water bag:
We then went to visit a family the Dennings have known for quite some time. They lived in this area a few months ago, so they have driven around and have met many of the people. The first person we met was Alfredo – he is about five and came running up to us to see Greg. The last time they were here, they had taken pictures of the family, and Alfredo wanted to see them. Greg had printed the pictures out – pictures of Alfredo, his sister, and his mother. As soon as Greg gave him the 8 ½ X 11 inch sheet of paper with the four pictures on it, Alfredo grabbed it and ran across the street to show his mom. He was so excited.
Then we brought the books to them – five in total. There were two books with dinosaurs in them. Alfredo would snap the book open, have me read the name of the dinosaur, then close the book and open it to another page. He did this probably twice – going through each page. I spent some time talking his mother – she had a book to teach English words. She went through three pages looking at each word and saying it out loud. With some, she would ask what the word was. Most I was able to translate, but I don’t know what a ‘pram’ is. Thanks to Word’s thesaurus, it now know it is a buggy or a pushchair. We also read a book about dolls to their baby. She has beautiful eyes – she just stared at us while we talked to her. This is where they live - it is a store front with a living area behind it.
Here are two pictures of the little girl with Shanlee and Megan.
After this, we went to visit another family in El Frances. This family lives together with all of their extended family – they said they lived in a kind of ‘family ward.’ They have a 14-year old boy who wants to learn English, so we brought him an English book. We also brought another 7 books. We sang Happy Birthday to the 14-year old in English and then watched them hand the books out to their family members. It was great to see them all sharing the books with each other. The mother was really nice – she spoke to us and thanked us for the books. She said hi to Shanlee and Megan. When we explained that they didn’t speak Spanish, she complimented them for coming. Shanlee and Megan are starting to say a few words in Spanish, so they both said, “Gracias!’ 
We also went to a small town - I don't even know if it had a name - that had a school under construction. It is a place the Dennings will go back to in the future, when they can talk to the teacher there. Right by this town was a place called La Boca del Diablo. It means the mouth of the devil - it's a blow hole, but the surf wasn't high enough for it to really do anything. The area all around it is sharp black rocks that they call Los Dientes del Diablo - the teeth of the devil.
We then came home and Rachel made Empanadas. They were made with flat-bread, filled with black beans and cheese, then deep-fried in oil. Rachel also made Mango Salsa for us to put on the empanadas. I ate two – they were incredible, and I was very stuffed.By this time in was nearly 10 p.m., so we went in front of the condominium and went swimming for 30 minutes, or so. The pool is nice and the moon was overhead, filtering through the palm trees just off the beach.
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