Se fue la luz

We spent this past thursday to sunday in a campo called "Río Grande Abajo" where we stayed two people to one host family and worked with this awesome group of youth in the community called "Brigada Verde". Their mission is to promote a more green lifestyle in their community. We helped them out this weekend by giving some charlas (talks) at some schools about cholera, dengue, and garbage disposal and how they are all interconnected. We did this with posters, dramas, and candy =P We also provided the community with garbage cans that we painted since they don't have any and throw the garbage on the ground. Then we painted a couple murals in the community center with the Brigada Verde. It was an amazing time, I didn't want to leave. The people there are so wonderful and there is such a strong sense of community. Everyone knows everyone else and it has that small town feel. The environment is beautiful and so green. It's in the mountains near Puerto Plata and and the views are gorgeous. The lifestyle is so simple. Most people are farmers and everyone lives very modestly. My host mom was great, very sweet, and said I can come back any time. I know living there would be hard because they lack basic necessities, but I almost wish we lived there rather than the crazy city. There isn't a ton of pollution or sounds of cars honking all the time. But they also often don't have electricity and sometimes no running water. Definitely no warm water. One time I was in the middle of washing my face and the water stopped running haha. Showers are from a bucket of water. Inside the houses there are no doors, just curtains separating the rooms. Lots of mosquitoes and my mosquito net had holes in it so i got eaten alive. I swear i have the biggest mosquito bite in existence, it covers my whole thigh. Because of all the animals and the not so great waste system, it smelled like poop or barf a lot of the time. Etc etc...
Us in front of our murals that we painted that you can't see... haha. Check facebook for more and better pictures of everything.

One of the charlas at one of the schools.

Me eating cacao (cocoa) in the fruit form. It tastes nothing like chocolate but is very sweet and delicious. You sucks on the little white balls until all the flavor is gone and then spit it out.



And yet with all these little things that make me appreciate my living situation in Santiago so much more, I still love the campo and find myself feeling more at home there than I ever have in the city. Everyone treats you like family and all the youth are really fun to hang around. And they really care about trying to improve their environment and wanting to help. I felt safe there, whereas in the city it's hard to ever feel safe. I mean, there were definitely a few creepy old men who I did not like very much, but for the most part people were great.


I'm not sure what it was, but it was really great to get away from the city for four days and be in the campo. On the last day none of us wanted to leave. But I didn't stay sad too long because we went directly to this place called "27 Charcos" which means "27 waterfalls" and yes, I JUMPED OFF OF TWENTY-SEVEN WATERFALLS! It was pretty awesome. So much fun. Some of them actually terrified me and I just did it but it was soo scary! I took some pictures with a waterproof disposable camera so hopefully they turn out and I can post them later. That was great. Now I'm feeling pretty good and happy, not looking forward to going back to classes tomorrow, but I just keep telling myself to get through the next two weeks because then we have a week long rural stay in another campo! Im trying really hard to just have fun and not take things too seriously, especially with stressful things like academics and the big research capstone. I need to figure out what I'm going to research asap because I've fallen behind and so that's been a point of stress and unhappiness, but I'm trying to tell myself that I know it will get done and stressing is worthless. I don't have much time here so I really need to enjoy it and be happy about what I'm doing rather than stress out.

Anyway, it's late and I'm soooo beyond tired. Waking up tomorrow is gonna suckkk! I love you all and miss you! Hope all is well wherever in the world you are =)

Paz y amor,
~Aysha~