Seeing the DREAM

Today we were able to donate some additional books. This time it was to a school. But that was later in the day. This morning was a bit slow getting started - I was online trying to work for the better part of the morning...unsuccesfully. I just couldn't get a clean connection to work. After trying that for most of the morning, we decided to check out the local beach. Here is a view of the beach as we walked down towards it:

And the street we walked down to the beach - typical Dominican streets:
This beach is here in Sosua - about a five-minute walk from their home. This beach has soft sand and amazingly clear water. I took this picture of Shanlee's legs in the water - even when you were out where you couldn't stand up, you could still see your feet. There were some fish close to shore - really small ones, but they would swim right up to your legs.

Shanlee and Megan tried snorkeling for the first time today. They both liked snorkeling, but didn't like getting salt-water in their mouths. They loved seeing the ocean floor. There was coral and some see weed growing that they both said 'looked neat.' They also tried free diving - Shanlee managed to stick her rear end out of the water; Megan was able to get down under about 2 feet.

Back on the beach, they helped bury the kids' in the sand - making them look like little mermaids. From the left they are: Kyah (6), Parker (5), Aaliyah (2), and Kimball (4).
After that, we came home, got cleaned up, and went to get some groceries, which we were getting pretty low on. Greg and I went to a store and got the necessary items. It was a very nice store - many typical American foods. We stuck with typical Dominican fare, but I was constantly amazed at the things they had in this store: Campbell's soups, a typical-looking dairy section with many brands of cheeses, butter, and even sour cream, a meat section with hot dogs and pepperoni, and a huge bread section with many options, including hot dog buns.

Greg said this city has a section with homes starting at $1,000,000 and other areas where there are American and European residents. This group of residents demands certain foods, so this grocery store imports them. When we were leaving, I went to push the cart through the checkstand, and the bagger shook his head and pointed to the back of the checkstand - no words. I thought he was pointing to the next checkstand, so I tried to go through the next checkstand, only to get the same reponse from another bagger. I then figured out that they wanted me to leave the cart at the front of the checkstand. Greg later explained that most of their clientelle doesn't speak much, if any, Spanish, so most of them don't even try to speak.

We then had a papaya smoothie before leaving. That's some good...juice. Too bad we don't have many of these fruits so easily accessible at home - mangos, plantains, papaya, coconuts, and pineapple. They have so much fresh fruit here; I could easily get used to it - I think it took me about 1/2-day to get used to it.

At this point, we were off to Cabarete - the city we passed on the way to El Frances last Wednesday where they have the kite surfers. In this city is a school called the DREAM school. We went to church with some of the volunteers at this school yesterday. It was off the main road through Cabarete - back through dirt roads and past more very humble homes.

The school itself stands out in the area - it is two stories high and very well-built - no re-bar sticking out the top. We were looking for a contact at the school, but he was in a meeting, so we took a tour of the school. This is the front of the school; the entrance is the door on the right:

One of the rooms is filled with about 10 brand new iMacs, donated by a company. Probably the nicest computer setup on the northern shore of the DR:
They also have a community library inside the school. This library is impressive - it is small compared to our libraries at home, but it has hundreds of books, and they have rules posted (be quiet, no running, etc.)

We discussed this school - it is very impressive, but its reach is no larger than Cabarete. This is great, but the Dennings want to bring books to people in Sosua, Puerta Plata, Cabarete, Nagua, Samana, El Frances, and many other places in the DR - not to mention other countries.

They have a summer school program that started yesterday - they had about 250 students. It is so neat to think of that many students in this school program. We brought about 15-20 books to donate to their library. The staff there was so excited - the director spent about five minutes paging through the books and kept saying how great they are. She thanked us many times for bringing them.

On the way out, Shanlee used her skills to find a piece of barbed wire laying on the ground. Impressive. So I went back into the school to get some first aid supplies so we could clean the cuts and put sterile bandages on them.

We went back to Sosua and went to the top of the condominium complex to see the view. Wow! Here are a few pictures.

Parker, Megan, Kimball, and Aaliyah:
The view of the bay - the same one we swam at this morning: In the evening, Shanlee and Megan planned a party for the kids. They brough glow sticks, and when it was dark we all went out and swam in the pool with them on. The kids loved it. I have some video, but no pictures, yet. We'll have many more pictures later.

When we came back in, Shanlee and Megan shared Pop Rocks with the kids - another hit. They loved hearing the popping and looked at the camera with their mouths open so I could film them. It was really funny.