My neighbor across the street, Juliana, and her friend Leisy are shown together at their graduation event. Below are other graduates and Juliana's mother can be seen on the upper right.
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:
Below is a photo of Clary, another teacher at the school, and Juliana, while they lead the class in some dances on the last day of class:
And the following photos are all portraits of individual students I found especially appealing that day.
Jennifer appears above, and below are two male teachers who are upstairs grading papers while all mayhem ensues downstairs after structured activities have ended. And Yesenia can seen below, as well, with a group of her male students.
Now for something completely different! Above some of us are seen in front of a market we stopped at for snacks on the way to Los Haitises National Park, in Northeastern Dominican Republic. We left around 7 am and didn't arrive back to Santo Domingo until 8 pm, having enjoyed a splendid day in this beautiful park. Below is the guagua that got all of us there!
Above are some of the boats available for transport through the waterways at Los Haitises. Below we are in a boat touring the mangroves.
And next are some of the scenes, many depicting a great variety of birds, throughout Los Haitises:
Below are views from one of the many caves we toured that day. And I appear in the following photograph!
Below the Guide is showing our group the footprints of the Hispaniolan Solenodon, a mammal so rare in the Dominican Republic it is on the endangered species list:
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.
Below are photographs of the whole group of us, near the end of our day:
Above is a photo of Juan Diogenes, opening his birthday present during my recent visit to Monte Plata. As regular readers of this blog may know, I have maintained a close relationship with the family I lived with while training in Monte Plata with the Peace Corps. This family has always been wonderful to me! Below, Juan Diogenes is seen in some wacky glasses, and next, different family members are included:
Finally, everyone wants some candy!
Charo and Juan Diogenes are below, in their wedding portrait:
Finally, I visited my beloved Rio San Juan in June, and will just post a few photos in this update, having posted many photos of the area previously. Below is a beautiful sunset on the ocean.
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