I still volunteer at a little school on Thursday mornings. This past Thursday when I went, I had my favorite experience with my little first graders yet. When my friend Brittany and I got to the school, they told us that we´d be chaperoning my class´ trip to the zoo. I was confused, because I hadn´t heard that there was a zoo in Santiago. Oh, but there is!
The guagua ride to the zoo took about 15 minutes, with 6 little kids sharing the far backseat. The zoo is a large plot of land at the bottom of a mountain in Santiago. We pulled up and all´s we could see was a large field with some ostriches mingling with goats and cows. I dismissed it as a rural zoo and prepared to spend an hour observing their interaction. Oh, but there was so much more!
When we got to the entrance of the zoo, we were greeted by a cage full of small white rats. ¨Estuart Little!¨ exclaimed the niños. So cute. (The kids. NOT the rats.) We walked in a bit further, saw some birds, and then one of my favorite (?) exhibits. The dogs. There was a line of cages containing shih tzus, pomeranians, and other varieties of lap dogs. Sad life, but I suppose those little pooches wouldn´t make it on the streets, and at least this way they´re getting food? Not sure what I think about that. The same was true of a cat exhibit, but I don´t have as strongly of feelings for cats. These weren´t zoo cats (if there is such a thing). These were fluffy white cats that are only in commercials.
There was an extremely agitated monkey that was clearly having mental issues from the ridiculous amount of small children very close to its cage who were nonstop screaming at it. I would´ve had a similar reaction if I were the monkey, I think. The problem was that the monkey would jump at and attack the cage right in front of a child´s face. The child would scream, the other kids would want a similar experience, so they would scream at the monkey and hope it jumped at them. Basically, it was a sad cycle of monkey abuse. When the kids left, we watched it just sit there, and it was shaking like a leaf. Sad story.
Sadder story. There was an exhibit of birds of prey (i think?) and inside their cages were (sensitive stomach? maybe stop reading. Or at least decide right now to not visit this exhibit) bloody chicken heads. There were many bloody chicken heads. And it smelled... like that, too. Left that part in a fast hurry. That smell combined with the muddy crocodile water and croc smell a few feet away made for some quick nausea.
Those were the zoo highlights. The whole experience was pretty neat, and the kids really liked it. It was one of the few days I didn´t have my camera, and the whole morning I was regretting this decision. I´ll get pics of the kids eventually, though. They´re just great.
This weekend has been an even longer than usual weekend. There´s some holiday today that has to do with their constitution (NOTE: the Dominican Republic does not have a working constitution as of this writing. Ironic? HA). This is the last day of the four day weekend. I´m not sure what we´ll end up doing, but there was talk of making a chocolate cake. Yeah, there´ve been cravings for American foods. That might be one...
...aaaaand a whole new photo album! neat.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2063239&l=bcd4f&id=15300570
Friday, November 7, 2008
Monday, November 3, 2008
Interestingly enough, this weekend went as I had expected. It was NOT worth the trip. I'm glad I went because now I can say I've been to the extreme southwest of the Dominican Republic, however if given the option to repeat the experience, I would answer with a loud NO.
We went to Lago Enriquillo, which is a saltwater lake in the southern interior of the DR close to the Haitian border. Let's just set the scene a minute. We pull up to the "parking lot," which is this ridiculously swelteringly hot, arid, desert-y dirt lot. Oh, and the critters. There were way too many iguanas, which here measured about 8 inches high and 2 and a half feet long. When the bus pulled up, 6 or 7 of them waddled up and surrounded the bus. Way too Jurassic Park. We waited in IguanaLand for probably about an hour for a man who will drive us to an island where there's supposedly a museum and some red eyed iguanas. No one in my group really wanted to go to this island, but our director insisted that it'd be good for us to check it out for future years. When the boat man gets there, he duct tapes a motor onto this boat and has half of the group pile on. We cross the lake, which is pleasant enough, but the extremely noticeable scent of gasoline is disturbing. And the fact that the lake is known for its high population of crocodiles isn't something that helps either. Here we are on the boat, pretty much just nervous.
We get to the other side, which smells overwhelmingly of sulfur. The scene below greets us. I can't even imagine how many crocodiles are hanging out in that murky water. We managed to get to the rickety ramp onto the island after the boat drivers had to get out and push us forward and ask some os us to get out, too. 
We get out and walk around the island. Of course, there are killer bees that we have to avoid. We walk around the desert in the blistering sun trying to avoid little cactus thickets that attack our feet. We finally get to the "museum" and realize that it consists of the 3 animal skulls (think cow, pig, goat. Not anything cool.) So we sit around waiting for the boat to bring back the other half of the group so we can get off that island. In the mean time, we talk about how to build fires and how we could catch a red eyed iguana for food. Basically, we were all ready to be stranded on that nightmare indefinitely. Fortunately, the boat did come back and take us back to shore. We rushed to the guagua and sat in the AC waiting for everyone else to come back. When they did, we unfortunatley had several stops yet in the day. We were all cranky. But the next day was much better. We went to Bahía de las Águilas, which is a gorgeous 27km long white sand beach that's super isolated from Dominican Republic. It's on the extreme southwest corner of the country almost in Haiti. We took a boat to get there, and while there were not bothered by any venders or anything of the sort. We only saw 3 or 4 other people there the entire time we were there. And some sand rays, crabs, and other critters. But this beach was by far the most gorgeous beach I've ever seen.
We went to Lago Enriquillo, which is a saltwater lake in the southern interior of the DR close to the Haitian border. Let's just set the scene a minute. We pull up to the "parking lot," which is this ridiculously swelteringly hot, arid, desert-y dirt lot. Oh, and the critters. There were way too many iguanas, which here measured about 8 inches high and 2 and a half feet long. When the bus pulled up, 6 or 7 of them waddled up and surrounded the bus. Way too Jurassic Park. We waited in IguanaLand for probably about an hour for a man who will drive us to an island where there's supposedly a museum and some red eyed iguanas. No one in my group really wanted to go to this island, but our director insisted that it'd be good for us to check it out for future years. When the boat man gets there, he duct tapes a motor onto this boat and has half of the group pile on. We cross the lake, which is pleasant enough, but the extremely noticeable scent of gasoline is disturbing. And the fact that the lake is known for its high population of crocodiles isn't something that helps either. Here we are on the boat, pretty much just nervous.
We get to the other side, which smells overwhelmingly of sulfur. The scene below greets us. I can't even imagine how many crocodiles are hanging out in that murky water. We managed to get to the rickety ramp onto the island after the boat drivers had to get out and push us forward and ask some os us to get out, too. 
We get out and walk around the island. Of course, there are killer bees that we have to avoid. We walk around the desert in the blistering sun trying to avoid little cactus thickets that attack our feet. We finally get to the "museum" and realize that it consists of the 3 animal skulls (think cow, pig, goat. Not anything cool.) So we sit around waiting for the boat to bring back the other half of the group so we can get off that island. In the mean time, we talk about how to build fires and how we could catch a red eyed iguana for food. Basically, we were all ready to be stranded on that nightmare indefinitely. Fortunately, the boat did come back and take us back to shore. We rushed to the guagua and sat in the AC waiting for everyone else to come back. When they did, we unfortunatley had several stops yet in the day. We were all cranky. But the next day was much better. We went to Bahía de las Águilas, which is a gorgeous 27km long white sand beach that's super isolated from Dominican Republic. It's on the extreme southwest corner of the country almost in Haiti. We took a boat to get there, and while there were not bothered by any venders or anything of the sort. We only saw 3 or 4 other people there the entire time we were there. And some sand rays, crabs, and other critters. But this beach was by far the most gorgeous beach I've ever seen. 
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