Yesterday was field trip day at el campamento. Here we are waiting for the bus which was an hour and a half late. No one seemed to mind at all. The campers were too excited to get bent out of shape by this minor inconvenience. Just not the Dominican way.
See how happy we are all waiting for the bus. Selfies, after all, can be very entertaining.
Here's Dylan with his three charges on the train that took us around the botanical gardens in Santo Domingo. Last year Luc mentioned how much he valued the experience of needing to keep track of the campers while on the field trip so we made sure we did that again. All the kids had a blast. Didn't really matter where we went because this is the only field trip they get to go on ever. Case in point: We gave them a permission slip the night before the field trip and every single camper brought it back to us the next morning. We also told them that they had to bring their own lunch. One kid told Tanya that he woke up at 6:15 to make his mangú de plántano himself because his mom had to work early that morning and she wouldn't have time to make it for him.
We took the train as well.
When we got to the one stop where we got off the train one of the caretakers told Felipe that there was a tree with lots of limoncillos. He found Felipe a ladder and up he went. They all thought the fruit was way too sour but I thought they were just right. No accounting for taste.
Here's Camila with her trio. This year we got off the train and told the driver/conductor that we would walk back. So we got much more time to explore (hence the limoncillos adventure). I used to wonder why they had these beautiful gardens that you could only see via train. Turns out all we had to do was ask to get off. There's some sort of life metaphor in there don't you think?
And here we are all 120 of us. Except for me, who's taking the picture. I think we've come a long way from our one classroom of 20 students six years ago.
Here's the gang in Santo Domingo. After the field trip we went into the colonial zone and spent the night. We wanted to create an afternoon filled with history, relaxation, and souvenir shopping. We did the last two but the kids weren't interested in doing any learning. I think next year we'll take all the teen leaders, Dominican and gringo, into the zona colonial on a separate day and do some history with them. In any event, we woke up this morning at 6:30 to make it back to camp on time today (at least on time Dominican style)
Here the leaders are giving out backpacks filled with school supplies to local children. We did this after the camp today. Always a challenge to donate such things while explaining where the funds for the donation came from and why Norteamericanos want to help Dominican children.
The delivery of the goods can get a tad hectic.
Clearly some kids are shy and others not so much.
Here we are distributing sporting equipment (gratefully donated by the Ribatt family) to a local school where Modesto Garces, a friend of the Montas family, works.
And here the Montas women are finally relaxing after dinner. It's been a long and super fun and interesting couple of days. After this afternoon of donations we took all the leaders into San Cristobal for some karaoke. Lots to report about that but no photos for now (curse the lack of memory on these devices). And I'm half asleep and thus off to bed.