Saturday – “Fiesta” and Wall-Mart

Saturday our final full day in the DR.  It was also said to be the biggest celebration day for the locals, who enjoyed family festivities on the beach.  We went down to the beach on the way down we saw a bunch of cars they were every where and we could barely move with all of the cars coming in and out. When we finally got down to the beach we went to the Mini Mercado we got some chips, Zeke wanted to get Queso  Blanco chips Bryce also got those. Theo got Cheetos and Maeve Pizza Flavored Pringles. When we got down to the  beach there was a whole lot of people and the tide was incredibly low. Kate said, ‘geez they moved the water back to make more room for people on the beach’.  Her joke took me quite by surprise, and I couldn’t help but bust my gut laughing.  After all, it was consistent with what we’d heard from Timo at the restaurant the night before.  That the government actually shut-down beaches for this holiday because they didn’t have enough patrols to keep all the beaches safe.  Timo explained that the people of the DR don’t often think through consequences and party so hard to the point of drowning.  He mentioned a local man putting up a ladder (metal at that) to hook himself up to the local electricity, and getting himself killed.  We’d heard this too on our paradise Island trip, that electricity was free on the island.  If you didn’t want to pay, you just hooked yourself up.  We also learned that there are public schools, and much of the social programs from the government come from a high gas tax.  They pay over $7 a gallon.  Anyway, The mood on the beach was definitely festive, with many young folk and families simply enjoying the sun, ocean, sand and music. Families setup picnic camps in whatever shade they could find as the younger kids raced to the beaches to enjoy the ocean.

  Ohoro, the restaurant we’d eaten at our first night after the heavy rain, was playing loud music for the entire beach to enjoy.  I pointed out to the kids how the beach “river” had completely moved from running directly in front of the restaurant to running beside and away from it.  Leaving a brand new beach of sand in front that was loaded with people dancing and a few beach chairs.  About half way down the beach we saw about five or six people playing with a flag and one person on either side would race to the flag and try to get to their side first, who ever did won. Theo then decided to get in to the water and then Maeve did. Zeke, Bryce and Jane went in to the “Wall-Mart” that was rather tiny. There was jewelry, sun dresses, hats, t-shirts, sandals and magnets. Later Kate came in and saw the Hawaiian t-shirts and looked through them she found two matching ones for  Bryce and Zeke she also found a sun dress for Jane. We decided not to get the sun dress and the person who was selling it had a hard time with that. First he wanted $50 for them both Kate asked for $30 but he said they were to nice of shirts to be only $15 he said $45 but then Kate said $40 and he made a deal.

Now the dress was a whole different story.  It was nice but didn’t quite fit Jane.  Which made Kate seem a disinterested customer, but the salesmen was not going to take no for an answer.  He asked how much she’d be willing to pay.  She said $5.  And he jokingly yelled, “Security”.  I think Kate enjoyed the friendly exchange, but in the end did not budge and walked out without the dress.   

As I waited with our bags outside “Wall-mart', I saw  plenty of fun on the beach.  Boyfriends and girlfriends slinging sand at each other, several boys walking on their hands, and a couple groups of teen boys playing catch with a half-filled soda bottle.  Evidently the bottle some attempt at an improvised football.  They would whip it towards each other and make dramatic attempts to catch it while diving in the send, and getting a little messy.  Alcohol may have been involved in this game as well.  These 3 asked if I’d take a picture of them, when I did, they simply walked away with big smiles and an English thank-you.

 

Much like we’d experienced in Venezuala, the culture hear was very protective and appreciative of kids.  Obviously the norm here was to raise kiids as a community.  Several times as Maeve and Theo were swimming in the ocean, younger teen girls or moms approached them to shoo them in towards the shallows, not realizing how well they can swim.  I asked Theo after he’d come in, what the girl was saying.  He said he had no clue, she only spoke Spanish.  At one point one of Maeve’s protectors, evidently enamored with Maeve’s smile, couldn’t help but inviting Maeve onto her lap and playing with her in the waves.  On the walk back up the beach, Kate caught this shot looking up at our villa sitting at the end of my fingertip.

Back at the villa, Kate had given the “staff” the day off to be with family, especially after Nellie found out that a new group was arriving on Sunday after we left.  Easter week is a big family week in the Dominican, and we hated being in the way of that.  As nice as it was to have Nellie and Rosemary cooking and cleaning and keeping the house for us, it certainly wasn’t something we were accustomed to and much more than the simple meals I expected.  We rounded up leftovers and made a meal of it, had a little swimming, watched a movie (Incredibles) and got to bed relatively early for the morning departure.