Tres Oyos

Very little of what the richness Dominican Republic has to offer can be found in Santo Domingo. Even people who have lived here all their lives recognize the city to be hot, humid, noisy and crazy. The Colonial Zone has its charms, but otherwise the city is pretty challenging without a lot of rewards. This is where the jobs are, but anyone who can, gets out of town any chance they get.

So imagine our delight to find Tres Oyos - Three Eyes - Park. My friend Paula read about in online in August, told me and then forgot about it. Fortunately, I did not. Our friend Kirk had rented a car this weekend because his mother was visiting and off we went.

The Eyes are small underground lakes created thousands of years ago from tectonic action and collapse. They were sacred sites to the indigenous Taino people, but were only rediscovered in 1916. It took about an hour to meander up and down the coral stairs with our excellent guide explaining the features as we went.

Stalagtites. Our guide told us most sincerely that those coming up from the floor were stalagmites, and that those that met in the middle were called Dolomites. I just left it.

Paula, me Kirk's mother Jimmy and Kirk

 Un-retouched natural colour in the slanting rays of light.

Until ten or fifteen years ago, kids still used to swing from these fig roots and let go over the pool. Now there's no swimming allowed. Perhaps Dominicans don't believe in Darwin, just like born-agains.

I liked this loop of root.

Crystalline water

We did not have to pay the ferryman.

Laca de las damas - so called because it is small and shallow.

 A termite nest

This formation is called a Big Stone Willy

 I wish my column was this strong and straight!

Tilapia on the hoof in the fourth of the three Eyes. (It doesn't count because it's open to the sky.)

 For Robin and Paul. A natural beehive way up on a dolomite wall.

The four amigos at the outdoor lake.

Near the exit - and the gift shop - the guide pointed out this natural stone dolphin. Cool.

Now on to part two of our day trip in town - the monument to Christopher Columbus.

Perfection is Overrated

 Sure there are holes in the basil leaves and one of the tomatoes looks like Jimmy Durante, but I feel good eating food that haven't been so tampered with.

Sadly, there are almost never any ripe tomatoes for sale. People expect to ripen them at home. Since in my case this has attracted a rat, I now ripen my tomatoes in the cupboard. 

So much to be thankful for

There is a good-sized contingent of Canadian teachers at CMS, and they have for several years been hosting "The Real Thanksgiving" dinner, a y'all come affair where the central dishes are provided by Canucks, and others pitch in whatever they like. I was moved to tears by all these people coming together to help us celebrate our holiday far from hearth and home. Not that you'd want a hearth here, but you get my point.

It took some doing, but I managed to make a pumpkin pie from scratch. First time I've ever had sweat dripping from my chin over this task. I am proud to report that it lasted only minutes on the dessert table.

The groaning board.

There really was everything - turkey, stuffing, gravy, squash, beans, mashed potatoes, the works!

I'll have to get a t-shirt for next year.

The plate-piling event has begun.

Most of us

I have wheels!

Trying it out, and..

...ready to roll! (Kirk is getting a bike to, but can't resist a good photo-bomb op.)

La vida e bella!

Which means that Saturday morning, I get to do this without spending $10 on cab fare.

Chocolate

Back in August, I volunteered to chaperone the annual Grade 9 trip to a chocolate factory. How hard could that be, right? I figured the place was somewhere on the outskirts of town, we'd go, tour around, have lunch and come home. Little did I know that I would be spending from 7 am to 5:30 pm with over 70 teenagers on a huge road trip.

To begin with, one of the chaperones came down with some version of the Dominican two-step and simply could not be on a bus for two hours. However, he also kept hoping he'd get better, so he didn't report sick. The group leader had to scramble to find a replacement, and as a result, we were an hour and a bit late getting away.

Our first stop was for a traditional Dominican breakfast - eggs scrambled with  tomatoes, fried cheese and mangu, a classic Dominican dish made from mashed green plantains. Everything was delicious.

Our next stop was at the Mirabel Sisters' Museum in Salcedo where we were not allowed to take pictures. It marks a turning point in Dominican history. For over thirty decades, the country was run by dictator Rafael Trujillo, aka El Jefe or The Goat. The Mirabel sisters were part of an undercover group opposed to his regime. They and their husbands were incarcerated several times for their activities. The women and their driver were clubbed to death by Trujillo's henchmen in November of 1960. In 1999, the UN General Assembly honoured the sisters' sacrifice by making November 25 the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women.

This was a lovely gesture, but in no way affects the reality of Dominican women. The country's rates of violence against women  and femicide are amongst the highest in the world. The Ministry of Women’s Affairs has the second smallest budget in public administration and the Women’s Advocate Office does not even have a budget at all.

But I digress. After a very well moderated tour, during which the students were on their best behaviour, we got back on the bus for our final stop, an organic cocoa plantation and chocolate factory owned by the father of one of our students.

That's me in the middle. I accidentally wore clothes almost identical to the school uniform.

Blue trumpet vine at the entrance. Isn't it gorgeous?

Cocoa beans inside the pod, coated in slimy stuff just like a newborn.

Cocoa sprouts.

Our lovely guide demonstrating how cocoa plants are grafted. Only branches from the best "mothers" are used. Yield is about 4 times greater than on trees sprouted from seeds. Those are used just for their trunks.

A mature worker holds a mature cocoa pod.

The pods grow directly off the tree trunks.

I cannot conceive of how hot it must have been inside this cocoa bean costume. I was soaking with sweat just from walking around in light clothing.

No one wants to find a hair in their chocolate bar.

Beans are fermented for five days, then dried and roasted before being ground.

Students are working furiously at a chemistry worksheet. Way to take the fun out of a chocolate factory!

Sigh. It's milk chocolate. Nothing's perfect.

Each student chose a mold and this lovely lady filled it with freshly made chocolate. They were cooled, unmolded and delivered to our bus just in time for our departure after a really good lunch.

We left about an hour and a half behind schedule, thereby hitting rush hour in Santo Domingo. By the time we got back to school at 5:20 pm, I was suffering badly from overexposure to noise generally and teenage noise in particular. It was a great day from which it took me three to recover!

Rats!

It is very strange that given that it is in a region that has not one but three sorts of mosquito borne diseases - malaria, dengue and chikungunya - the school does not provide us with screens on any but our bedroom windows. Want more? You pay for them. I would be happy to do so (not true; I would be grouchy to do so) and have asked twice. Still waiting for mañana...

Now I am being visited by another of God's creatures. On two occasions in the past two weeks, I have come into the kitchen in the morning to find that some creature or other has been availing itself of my produce. I'm all about sharing, but that was my last tomato and it had just ripened to perfection.

The maintenance department says that screens won't help because rats will just chew through them once they've learned a food source. Now I'm ripening my produce in a cupboard. I, too, can learn.