Day 19: FUN DAY

Last night was horrible…I couldn’t sleep and I fell ill.  I kept waking up every three hours and honestly got a total of maybe 4 hours of sleep.  It didn’t help as well that at 3 AM I was pucking for a good 3 minutes.  But let’s just say that I fell way better after that and took some pepto but afterward felt a bit warm.  I tried to get back into bed and at least get some rest, but I ended up playing games on my phone since I couldn’t sleep.  I was finally able to doze off and soon than later I realized that I had to get up for our fun day to begin.  We got up earlier than usual and literally boarded the guagua since we had a long list of activities to do.  We got on the road to Barahona for our first workshop…while on the guagua we had our breakfast, but of course I didn’t eat, nor drink anything since I was still not feeling great myself.  Lucy and Gloria were surprised and I just told them I felt fine, but as time went on I told them that I wasn’t feel too great…of course no details were divulged!  It took us longer than usual to get to Barahona, because of roadwork and we had to get gas near the Bateyes.  

Literally after a 2 hours we made it Barahona, and we stopped by to get some snacks and made our way to the Larimar workshop.  Once we arrived at our location we were given a history lesson about that stone, it’s one of kind and there is only one mine and it is located here in the Dominican Republic.  After our history lesson, we were able to choose our own rock and design our own jewelry.  It was pretty cool finding a stone that we liked and creating a design and watching it transform before our very own eyes.  That took a good 1.5 hours for all of us to pick, cut, and polish our stones, but we all had to wait with anticipation for our final product to arrive.

After our workshop we were on our way to Villa Miriam, the GG leaders had an idea that we were going to a waterfall, but what awaited us was truly a spectacular feat…it was paradise.  Seeing the beautiful scenery the pool, the lagoon, the mini waterfall in one area was breath taking.  But there was more in store for us.  Lucia took us walking up some stone stairs and at the top of that there was a larger waterfall that indeed was a spectacle within itself.  Of course we all took pictures and did the whole touristic thing, I even got into the mix and got my camera.  But then it was the real challenge getting into the water, which by the way was COLD, to say the least.  But I got enough courage and got in and made myself go underneath the waterfall, and it was so cold I literally felt like I was in shock felt that pain in the chest but once you continued through the waterfall there were caves that were truly a natural beauty.  I was able to take my camera and take some pictures for evidence.  After the initial shock of the water it literally was all fun and games…I too was feeling better and the kids were having a blast, even with Don Cristian’s son (Don Crisitian is our awesome and dutiful guagua driver).

We had lunch there and I honestly can tell you that some of these kids inhaled their food because they wanted to get back into the water.  After another 1.5 hours of fun we had to pack up and get back to the hotel.  On our way back we had to pass by the Larimar workshop to pick up our jewelry, which turned out to be a big ordeal since they weren’t done with the stuff and we had a 30 minute delay.  The kids opted not to go to the beach but rather stay in the guagua which was interesting in itself, but I feel that they were just too tired to go anywhere.  

After we got our jewelry we again hit the road back for our 2 hour drive back to San Juan.  Once we got back to the hotel, we had to change our schedule and decide to use the 1 hour left to pack and then get ready for dinner, as time flew by we were on our way to the restaurant and came to realize that we were walking to the restaurant to eat our last dinner here in San Juan…on the way there I was making remarks that I have a feeling that we’re going to have pizza and some kids were that would sound really good…as we sat at our table and waited for our food to be served…some of the kids told me, “you’re a psychic…how did you know we were having pizza, my response was just a simple grin.  The pizza was pretty good and the cool thing was that we even got dessert afterwards and it was ice cream…granted the flavor was interesting and it was difficult to pin point but as we were eating our ice cream our dance instructor Cristian and his dance group came to teach us Bachata.  This was I think another BIG highlight of the night, the students definitely seem to be enjoying themselves and having a ball it was evident it was a great way to fuse two cultures through dance…because some of our kids taught them some of the dance moves from home.

All the adults got involved too…the GG leaders and Coordinators also had a blast learning some dance moves.  Although I was sick and had a low grade fever I truly believe that I sweat out whatever was making me ill…I literally was drenched in sweat and some of the kids were teasing me and said I had a workout, little did most of the kids now that I honestly wasn’t feeling well but managed to put a smile on my face because I didn’t want anyone to know that I wasn’t 100% and really just wanted to get some sleep.  After our 1 hour dance class we made it back to the hotel where we had our nightly meeting and ended the night later than usual.  I again had to wait until the student leader of the day was done writing their blog….the internet was down and we couldn’t post it.  So I told the student leader of the day that I would post it in the morning along with some pictures.

As I got back to my room I opted to take a shower and hit the sack since I believe I overly exerted myself but hopefully got rid of what was making me sick, so I could enjoy the last full day in the DR.

Buenas Noches…hasta mañana.