Bienvenidos a la República Dominicana!

Welcome to the Dominican Republic!

I had no intentions of having a blog for this little trip to the Dominican Republic. What could I possibly have to share in a 5 day visit?? Well, more than I’ll have time to write about, apparently! But fun and awesome things happen, so here’s to something that might hopefully be more sometime in the future!  :)

I’m here for, well, 3 days really, not including the travel days ,for monitoring visits of a handful of projects that HOPE has funded here in San Jose de Ocoa, a rural province in the Dominican Republic – the eastern half of the island that it shares with Haiti in Caribbean. 

All the countries where HOPE works/has worked - past countries in blue, current countries in yellow. :)

It. is. beauuuuutiful here. In the middle of endless, beautiful, lush (we’ll get back to that:) ), sometimes even seemingly untouched natural paradises of mountains in every shade of green – it’s hard to believe at first sight that there are even people living here – where exactly are they in these picturesque mountainsides??  :)

But they are there, and are they ever! :)  I’ll share more hopefully in coming posts. 

“THIS”, I have been told, is “La Republica Dominicana”. Not the beaches. Heck, locals here can’t even go to the resort beaches that we think of – they’re privately owned and way beyond the average DR’ans capacity to afford. “We don’t have access to them; the Italians and Spanish build those big resorts there, and they take their money and ‘se van!’ (they go!) ”. Which I haven’t followed up on to see how much of that is solid truth, but I’m guessing perception isn’t far from reality here. Tourism vs. Development.  Aiy. :)

Anyways. It’s beautiful here. I’ve got one last day of project visits, and then I’m gone too. But hopefully taking something with me that will leave this place more beautiful than I found it. 

A couple pictures that do zero justice to the beauty here (it’s hard to take pictures driving along bumpy roads; these were just a few pit stops), especially without explanation (yet) of all the hidden treasures that these pictures really entail.  But for now, they will have to do. :)

By the way, if anyone wants to come and see the DR for yourself... come! 

This summer! <--- check it out. :)   

(and Latest UNION newsletter here :) )

Bienvenidos! :)