Benvenidos a Bombita

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My flights from SFO to Miami then to Santo Domingo run late but without a hitch as does my transfer from the airport to where the bus will leave for Barahona. On my way out of the capital I glimps street stalls selling baseball hats, flashy sandals and sneakers, and sunglasses under the shade of an overpass. There are large, fancy buildings with corporate signs, concrete strip malls, and men hawking cell phone chargers strolling between lanes of traffic. These give way to pastel bungalows with grill enclosed patios, then small hills covered in shanties of corrugated tin and brightly painted boards, then finally cane fields backed by palms and blue hued mountains.

The trip by guagua (a kind of bus, see photo) is supposed to take 3 hours and we have already stopped at the roadside Parador Hong Kong to use the bathrooms and buy Dominican or Chinese fried snacks. We have also pulled to the side when a passenger in the back yells up requesting to buy roasted ears of corn from the boys running beside the windows. The guagua is still full of the smell of butter and corn when we slow to get the news that a Presidente beer truck has overturned ahead. We pull off to an unpaved road next to cactus-fenced fields and bump along into a forest of short, thorny tree whose branches screech along the sides of the bus. We continue slowly for nearly 45 minutes before we see the highway just over an impassible trench and a dangerously sandy stretch of road. After several attempts to fill the trench with branches enough to cross, the driver gives up and we make a painfully slow retreat backwards to the highway.

I finally arrive in Barahona and am met by COPA staff. I eat dinner with Connie, the director, Verona, the education advisor in Bombita, and the 5 girls from the UK volunteering on their gap year. I’m fairly sure the plate ordered for me is horrible but I am so hungry I wolf it down between answering questions. Verona, 2 of “the girls” and I drive back to Bombita where I am shown my little 2 bedroom house on the school compound. It is strange to be alone but the crazy old watchman talks to his dogs outside and I can hear music and voices from the village just beyond my window as I drift off to sleep.

Quick Update

Since I did not do such a great job of publicizing my blog before leaving San Francisco last October, lets review: Last fall I visited the north coast of the Dominican Republic for 10 days before heading to India for an unspecified period of time. I traveled, made friends, took an internship with an awesome organization in Mumbai, began to understand things a little, then, after 3 months, made the difficult decision to leave. I took a job with COPA, an organization that runs a school and clinic in each of two villages near a Dominican town called Barahona. I will be living in Bombita, a batey (historically a settlement of plantation workers) where the organization also has a trade room. I’ll be in charge of the trade room programs, as well as the sponsorship program and overseeing the maintenance for both schools.

Back in Transition

The excitement of Uttarayan makes the following days seem lazy and uneventful. Tulsi has to work at her internship so I bop around on my own in Ahmadabad using my awkward Hindi/Gujarati to do errands and return time and time again to the Singapore Air office. In the evenings we zoom around with Tulsi's cousins on the back of their bikes. We eat a secession of snacks on the street, go for dinner, then ice cream, then paan, repeat.

My last day in Ahmadabad we visit the village of a friend of the family's who makes us amazing food and walks us through his fields. I annoy Tulsi by constantly asking agriculture related questions to be translated and thoroughly enjoy the outing. We return to the city to make a food-filled round with the cousins and meet the few other friends I have to say goodbye. We top the night off with a in-house dance party, blaring Hindi music in the sitting room before catching a few hours of sleep.

My flight to Mumbai, where I have been rerouted to fly home, is early in the morning, affording me a full day there before my midnight flight to Singapore. I stuff my luggage and myself into a rickshaw and head to Naina's place to relax with her before meeting up with Shivang. I convince them to accompany me in the search for a few elusive gift items. Chitra meets up with us, then waits with me until it is time to board the plane.

Once in Singapore I venture out from the cushy airport on the free bus that takes me to a shopping center complex. I try to walk from there to see more of the city but the freeway seems to be blocking me so I settle for some delicious noodles in the food court before returning to check in for my flight. We have a short layover in Hong Kong where I groggily peruse locally made artsy do-dads in a shop between dutyfrees. More sleep and airplane food until we land at SFO. I'll miss India but it is nice to be home.

I stay with Whitney and my sister, working few shifts at my sisters restaurant and trying to see friends as much as possible. My bags are split between temporary homes, my clothes are not yet all clean, and I'm still waiting for the visa to go through, but I'm starting to get excited about my next step into the unknown.