Thursday, August 24

I wasn't able to catch a bus from Santo Domingo to the Haitian border on Tuesday, so I ended up staying an extra day in the capital, enjoying the hospitality of a random woman who took pity on me when I walked up to the hostel where I had stayed every year since 2011 and found it boarded up and dark. So she hooked me up with a place to sleep, and another complete stranger found me a taxi to the bus stop the next day. You will all be thrilled to know that the taxi driver willingly drove me all the way back to retrieve my flip phone when I realized I'd left it under my pillow.  Another near-disaster the flip phone, narrowly avoided :)

The bus ride through the mountains of the Dominican Republic was really beautiful, and my walk to and across the Haitian border was peppered with friendly faces and (limited to my few Spanish phrases) conversations.  The government of the DR has continued to bolster a military presence at the border, now sporting a giant Dominican flag and statue that guard the fancy new iron gate.  Not the most welcoming.  Gone are the days when it was just a single chain across a doorway.

Crossing into Haiti and visiting people has been a huge source of joy for me.  Everything is really green and lush (for this part of the country), thanks to lots of rain and some innovative irrigation practices.  The Haitian guys--Wood, Nixon, Patrick, Sandy, and Arthur--who run the tree-planting and gardening at Sadhana Forest are doing really well.  The trees on the property have grown significantly, and we planted ten more on a family's land out in the mountains this morning.  Last night, we went out to the town (I can count on one hand the number of times I've been awake after dark in this place), bought peanuts and fried plantains from a woman who sells them on the street, and walked to the beach to sit in a boat and look at the stars. 

This weekend, I'm looking forward to spending time at the refugee camp (now over two years old), attending an old-school revival at a nearby church (I probably won't go for the all-day, all-night option), and checking out a cross-cultural festival I've seen advertised on the street. Many of you may remember that the last time I got super excited about a festival, it ended up being about processed meat, put on by the Dominican equivalent of Oscar Meyer. So I don't have my hopes up super high this time.  But we'll see!

Anyway, the Internet cafes in Pedernales have all closed, so I am using the wifi in a friend's welding shop, and it's very very hot here. So I'm going to call it quits and head back to Haiti. Thank you so much for your good thoughts and for keeping in touch. I hope to write back sometime next week with updates from the refugee camp.