BLOG: Saturday; 3.10.2018 Bill Garvey, II Santo Domingo, DR, March 10, 2018
First two days back in the DR!
GSU Pounces back in the DR, Chillin!
The Instituto Intercultural del Caribe (IIC)/ Casa Goethe, (Our training and transportation facilitators) welcomed us into the DR like old friends at the airport. Our first night here after a long day traveling ended with some of the best food and drink the DR can offer. We were greeted with a cooking class by Ms. Uralda, where we learned and all participated in preparing San Cocho, a wonderful National dish that is like a soup or stew that can be made with many different meats or with a combination of beef, pork , and chicken that are browned in oil and then added to the vegetables..
San Cocho may remind you of type of stew that is made on the southern US coast, Low Country Boil. The ingredients are somewhat different in that instead of the potatoes the following starches are added: plantain, green banana, and yucca, to the garlic, onions, green pepper, and corn. The meat is seasoned with a combination of something like a Dominican Ms. Dash and two types of fresh cilantro. The kind we use in Mexican fare and a larger leafed ancho cilantro. After a long slow cooking down to a light stew consistency, it is served over rice in a bowl. As the San Cocho we made was cooking they had made some ready for us to enjoy. Here are the pictures.
Oh, what a little chocolate will do!
I’m the one of the students that have a single habitation. I feel like I have been gone from along trip and returned. I was hugged and embraced by these dear strangers into their home without any reservations. I gave them gifts of chocolate truffles I brought them for hosting me and you would have thought I had brought home and given them the winning lottery ticket. Indeed, they shared that I was now family and this was my home now for the duration with my own set of keys. It is a wonderful feeling to be so treated like this. I was lovingly asked would I like pancakes for breakfast with some fruit juice and coffee. How did they know that was my favorite?
Why do the Cocks Crow?
For our class we had to read a book about the relationship and history of and between the two countries that share the Island of Hispaniola; The Dominican Republic and Haiti. It is titled; ‘Why the Cocks Fight.’ I want to know why the cocks crow? Five o’clock came with a chorus of roosters trying to outdo each other. It’s funny in that I didn’t see or hear any of the birds during the day. It is a very different place from the US and it comes with a few contradictions. While every country has them and I’m not pointing fingers; coming into a country after learning so much of the history and knowing about some of the policies that have brought us here to study, it is noteworthy to see some examples. I hope you can notice differences in these juxtapositional images.
A blended view of western beauty and Haitian-Dominican faces as caricatures?
A beautiful Street scene with graffiti and coming from the ocean view into a crowded city.
Below we see the views of the coast and Haitian art for sale from people that are so talented, yet are not welcome in the country, and have been mostly disenfranchised while living and working here.
The Mall and Construction the old fashioned way with pulley, rope, and bucket.
President Obama’s picture on a Dominican refrigerator!
Below we see the beautiful coast and riding along the way are two motorcycle riders; one with a helmet, one without the safety of a helmet.
Two very beautiful and friendly young ladies that agreed to take a picture with me under protective, menacing, but very unfriendly concertina wire.
And in a land where we have seen so much poverty, we are the first to eat an amazing lunch in a restaurant so new that it still has the plastic on the furniture.
This was just part of the first two days! There is mucho mas to come, Buenas Noches!