Graduation entailed many speeches, and I did not stay for the whole event, but suffice it to say that the children and their parents seemed to have a very good day.
Cake and diplomas anchored the celebration of the end of the year for the school at which I've been volunteering during 2013-2014.
Of course, there were balloons!
The boy above is an absolute terror on most days but seemed to pull himself together for the day's event. It might have helped that both of his parents were in attendance.
Speaking of parents, here are some of them, waiting in the wings. Below is Yesenia, a teacher, shown with her two children:
And the following photos are all portraits of individual students I found especially appealing that day.
Above are some of the boats available for transport through the waterways at Los Haitises. Below we are in a boat touring the mangroves.
Below are views from one of the many caves we toured that day. And I appear in the following photograph!
Our tour group is shown here in one of the caves we visited. We actually viewed ancient Taino (and pre-Taino culture) pictographs on the walls of the caves.
We had lunch nearby one place we docked, after viewing a third series of caves.
And finally we headed for some waterfalls at the Yanigua river, where we enjoyed a late-afternoon swim before returning to Santo Domingo.
Below Christina and I are seen together.
Finally, everyone wants some candy!
Charo and Juan Diogenes are below, in their wedding portrait:
And next is a family that boarded the same Guagua I took in the morning to Playa Grande:
I'll end with a photo of myself I printed and gave to the moto taxi driver shown. He was delighted!
I've purchased my flight to Lima Peru (via Avianca Air), where I'll be residing next! My plane leaves Santo Domingo 5:15 pm and arrives 9:00 pm in Lima, on Saturday September 6. I'm already saying my "good-byes" and getting ready to sell all of my furniture. It's so darned hot here that I often find myself wishing I was leaving already. I know I need the coming seven weeks, however, to end a chapter in my life as important as these two years in the Dominican Republic have been to me. This morning I found myself in tears with my neighbor (she was crying too) at the prospect of my birthday next week-end, and saying "good-bye" to everything and everyone I know yet again. In the meantime, thank you for taking the time to read my latest blog update, and I'll post again in August!
No comments:
Post a Comment