From the Campo

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All is well--everyone is happy and healthy. What a wonderful group and a wonderful experience for all. We just got to Cabarete and will post this quickly to let you catch up and will post more (and hopefully pictures) later as we now have internet and electricity. Nothing but good things to report.



Travel Blog Campo Tuesday

The music’s blaring, and another round of Rummy has begun, we have just been outside working, turning the small sea of green grass into a lake of rusty brown freshly turned soil. Lunch is being prepared and Taylor colors in the coloring book. We are all going to head down to the school after lunch to do some planting; we might take a walk down to the river to cool off, but I don’t know if well have enough time what with us going down to the school. A nice breeze is coming in through the door and another song has started on the radio, and with another song comes another blast of music, which is fine by us.

Tuesday, April 30^th – Another day of work

I’m sitting with Frank and the crew, lunch still working its way down. The heat wafts in through the open doors, and the animals pant while they wait for the scraps from our plates. The boys are off to school, little ones up the hill, and the older ones in town at the larger school house. It’s the best time of day to hang in the shade, while the sun beats down through the tiny holes in the corrugated metal roof. Having some shade helped us in our clearing of the rest of the field. It surprised everyone how easy tilling a field by hand is when the slope is great. Even in the heat there is respite and enjoyment in the sweat and breeze. Our 80 year old host, the father of Freddy, still goes out to work, carrying two machetes and wielding them with skill, barely breaking a sweat. He told us “esta bueno” after the hottest part of the day when we finished turning over a field for batatas, sweet potatoes.



Tuesday – working in the morning



Soon after lunch we headed out to clear the second field, which is next to the first field we cleared yesterday. It is a very short walk, five minutes or less through coco trees, plantains and other palm and sub-tropical flora. It is on a steep slope, this time it is not so covered in weeds as the previous one. We use shovels and pick’s to clear, while some of us go and do a fine tuning of the second field. Some of us work much harder than others, not surprisingly the three Dominican boys stop working after about 15 minutes (Adrean, Phillipe, and Alex). Of course as soon as we finish this field we have to go to another. This time it is not clearing we have to do. Back the way we came and off to the side. A steep hill where Adrean says we are going to go turn over the soil. Rudalphy and Frank as he likes to be called join us, since we are latterly a minute away from the main house. After several hours of work , much done by Vangeli, Rick, Adrean and the others taking long brakes in between their work intervals, we get the field tilled. It looks good. Now before going anywhere, while a few of us finish up the work, the Dominican boys go and get some coco which is very good. You can suck on the seeds, don’t chew, and spit them out. A game begins when Phillipe spits a coco seed at Alex, and so it went, of course Vangeli joins in. Now we are all done for the day, probably half an hour till the hottest part, so we head down to the main house for lunch. Some of us go to play cards, some go to get clean, some just relax. Lunch looks like it is going to be good, by the sneak peek I took. Looking forward to it.

Wednesday – The final day at Tres Ceibas.

Everyone (especially Jordan) seems to be aware that today is our last day here. I have mixed feelings about leaving. Anna just told me they’re making hot chocolate again to go with breakfast… AWWW YEAH! The term “Hot Chocolate” can’t quite convey how incredible this steamy beverage is. Allow me to extrapolate on how they make it. They walk to a tree twenty feet away, and pick the cacao. That’s how fresh it is. Then they toast and crush it in a pestle and mortar system of a huge tree trunk for the bowl and a nice big club for the crushy smashy bit. They crush the toasted cacao to the finest powder you can imagine (I got to help!), and the oils ooze out. Then they take this delectable concoction of 100%!c(MISSING)acao and add in milk, sugar, cinnamon, cloves, and orange leaves (Kind of like a bay leaf, but WAY more awesome and cool and tropical). What emerges from the pot is just… well. Tienes que probarlo tu mismo.

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