Hola de la República Dominicana!

After a long day of travel coming from all over the United States and Europe, we arrived safely to the capital city of Santo Domingo. In the morning, we ate breakfast and then hosted our in-country orientation on the rooftop terrace of our hotel located in the Colonial Zone of the city. Santo Domingo is recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Center and the Colonial Zone hosts beautiful buildings and architecture that date back to the early 1500s. To learn more about the history of the city and the Dominican Republic, we went on a walk with a local guide.  We were also joined by two past students who Jake taught when he was a teacher several years ago in the D.R. It was great having two local Dominican ambassadors with our group who were also in high school! Everyone enjoyed getting to know Brian and Emilia, and having them hang out with us the entire day.

Here are a few things we’ve learned since arriving to the D.R.:

• The Taíno are the indigenous natives of the Caribbean.
• Santo Domingo was the first permanent European settlement in the Americas, the oldest continuously inhabited city, and the first seat of the Spanish colonial rule in the “New World.”
• Christopher Columbus named the island Hispaniola when he arrived in 1492. The island is divided between the D.R. and Haiti, with Haiti being first colonized by the French.
• The D.R. is the second largest Caribbean nation after Cuba (in land mass). It’s about the size of Vermont and New Hampshire combined!
• About 10 million people live in the D.R.
• Tourism, coffee, sugar, and tobacco are the main sources of national income.
• “Merengue” is the given name for Dominican music and dance. “Bachata” is another very popular music genre and dance. (We will be grooving a lot!)
• The D.R. served as the headquarters for pirates of the Caribbean in the mid 17th century (minus Johnny Depp!).
• The national sport is baseball. The D.R. has the second largest number of MLB players after the U.S.!

After our walk, we took some time to explore in small groups, shop, and rest back at our hotel. For dinner, we went to a typical Dominican restaurant and shared a variety of appetizers and main dishes to get a taste for the local cuisine. It was delicious and very hearty! We look forward to eating more yummy food and learning to cook Dominican dishes in our host community, La Guazara. After dinner, we enjoyed dancing and listening to live music performed by Grupo Bonye. Every Sunday evening, there is live music and dancing in the Colonial Zone where locals and travelers alike come to dance merengue, bachata, and salsa. Many locals invited us to dance—it was a blast!

Santo Domingo is lively and full of energy! We look forward to spending our final day of the trip here once again. Today we head to La Guazara to meet our host community (they are throwing us a bienvenida welcome party!) and learn about our service projects. We can’t wait to meet everyone and get settled into our new home. Until then…hasta luego! Thanks for following our journey!

— Jaimie & Jake