Finally, a new vacation update!

Yes people, I am back with a new update on how our vacation in Bavaro was. It took me a while, I know. But hopefully the story I am about to write was worth the wait. Last time I blogged I left you after telling you about Saturday, June 20th. So I guess I will kick off from Sunday June 21st. Here I go!

Sunday, June 21st 2009

This day was an easy, lazy one. We spend some time at the Jacuzzi's, read our books and played our games. After a while, George wanted to take a swim. I did not feel very good so I went back to the room to take a nap. My stomach had been giving me some trouble, as in not willing to work with me the way it should be. Joyce went back to the room as well, but she stayed outside and read her book. She really wanted to finish the John Grisham book she borrowed from me, “The Testament”. I had read it the first time while on vacation in Isla Margarita and being in a country that is not too far from where the book takes place, it really helped me enjoy the book. So when Joyce asked me for English books to take along on our vacation, I told her to read the back sleeve of “The Testament” and she liked it enough to take it along.
Just after I woke, and already sat outside next to Joyce reading my book, our phone rang. Joyce answered. It was Wimpy, asking us if we were interested in taking the “Eco-tour” on Tuesday with him. Since we had no intentions in getting so very bummed out drunk again, we agreed to go along. We had to be ready at 7:30 on Tuesday morning. George was back and taking a shower and after that, he edited some stuff on the laptop while Joyce and I were reading. We took it easy, went to dinner at our usual time, made a small walk after dinner and then went back to the room to enjoy some games on the GameBoy/PSP and I enjoyed my book. Then we went to sleep after enjoying our lazy day. It was a Sunday after all *winks*.

Monday, June 22nd 2009

Another lazy day with a lot of reading. Joyce and I both read a whole book, but Joyce was a bit bummed that mine was about 200 pages longer as hers was. But still, we both read a whole book while sitting in front of our room. George was inside, playing with Windows® MediaPlayer™. He was putting some images and vids together. Unfortunately he has never finished the movie, so I will not be able to post it here. Ah well, back to the books. I read Sophie Kinsella’s “Remember Me?” while Joyce read Mary Janice Davidson’s “Undead and Unemployed”.
After a while, the weather was getting a bit darker, George yelled from the room that he wanted to take a swim. So I yelled back that he should go if he wanted to! But just after I said that, there was a loud bang of thunder. And then George yelled back that I wanted him to swim during a thunderstorm and that meant I wanted to kill him!!! It sounded so silly and funny. He can be such a wussy sometimes haha! But he can be a sweet dude as well, if he wants to be…

Near the end of the afternoon, we went to “Pikolo'” for some pizza, fries and chicken pieces. After that we took a nice stroll on the beach. George “found” a beach chair, and dragged it into the sea. Then he wrote: I “heart” C + J. But a wave came and took his text away.

George kept laying there…
till he got a wet @$$! Haha!

 
Joyce and I…
a very flattering picture…

Through the clouds, the sun came back…
only for a short while though, evening was setting in.

 
Some more sun on the way back to the hotel for dinner

After a while, we were getting really hungry. So we went back to the hotel to grab some dinner. I was hoping banana’s would help me get my stomach into active mode again. And that obviously lead to a silly picture.

After dinner we went back to the room to prepare our bags for the tour we'd be taking on the following day.

Tuesday, June 23rd 2009

We had to get up early so we’d be able to have breakfast at 7 am sharp. We were supposed to be ready at 7:30, so this gave us 30 minutes to eat, drink and visit the toilet again before setting off on our first real “adventure”, the “Eco-Tour”. But even though Joyce and I were ready in time, it was already 7 before we even left the room. And then we had to hold the truck, because it was ready to move but George wasn’t moving yet. He was still on the toilet. So I begged the driver to wait and Joyce even went to the men’s room to warn George that he really, really, had to hurry. When he finally was in the truck, we went on to pick up the rest of the group. And then, we also picked up Wimpy and we were on our way.

 

We had a group of 8 people, and then Wimpy and his driver.

The way the locals travel

The first stop was in a local market. A very small market but they sold a whole lot of different items. Some new, some already been used… Wimpy bought some items that he needed on our last stop.
He told us some more about how women are being treated/used on the island. How they were just “toys” to many men. And how the drunken men sometimes went on to the kids after doing their moms. We were really disgusted by the idea of it all. But it did and does explain why there are so many kids on the island, on why a human life doesn’t mean that much as it does here and it also explains why many kids do not know their real father. The women and men are raised this way, if you want to call it “raising” and the don’t know how to break the pattern. Only the rich people behave in a more dignified way, but not by much. I mean, the men still like to have more women, but they have more intension to keep them and pay for them, support them. It’s even said that when a man only has one wife (which is also not always really his wife, seeing marriage is not really a thing they do on the DR), he must be gay… And so it is that there are 14 years old carrying babies in their arms which are their own kids…
There have been more than one attempts to “help” the kids and women, to get them out of the use/rape/abuse cycle. But when they’re supported with money, they use it on themselves and then return to their normal lifestyle. When they are taken to a safe house, they go out and find men on their own instead of the men finding them. It’s really the DR way of life and they just seem reluctant to break that cycle. Kids often do not know their dads, they are raped at a young age and when they grow up, they start using young ones themselves. Kids are known to start drinking at the age of 4 and no one thinks that’s strange. It really proves what kind of Third World Country it is and that it is almost not possible to change their ways of life to a more “civilized” way. They can’t and won’t accept help, they gladly take your money and then it’s over and done with. Ah well, it’s not my place to be judgmental and also not in a position to make a change. So I’ll just leave it as it is. This is “just” what Wimpy showed us and told us.

Then we went to a small ranch, to do some horse riding! Me on a horse! But I quickly felt sorry for the horses. The way they were treated by the men there, made me want to smash the guy who kept whipping the horses… My horse was on the back of the line a lot and every time the guy just made a “warning” noise, she really felt uncomfortable and I felt it. And the guy even whipped my horse when she could not go any faster because there were like 7 horses in front of it. So sad. I had to hold myself not to get too aggravated with that stupid, uncaring man! Poor horsey… I just wanted to take it home, to a country where she would be more loved and less whipped over stuff she could do nothing about… Ah well, I guess that’s what you get in a Third World Country… Animals have lesser “rights” than they have here with us. But here are some pictures. Only George had a camera with him, I was too scared I would drop mine if anything would go wrong while riding that horse.

Riding on the sad horsies

After we left the poor, thin and whipped horses we went on to a family of women. The eldest woman had taking in a lot of kids in her care. She showed us how they live, the normal kitchen and the “expensive” kitchen, their bedrooms and so on. It was just a very small house and knowing how many people live in there, amazing. Though I must admit, that with the 2 next tours we took, when we also passed their property, I could not see a living soul there. Wimpy had told us of the expensive tours which you book with your operator, that they hire people to occupy a house when they visit. And that these were real people living there. Seeing they all had no jobs, one would think that you’d see at least a couple of people around in the shades when you pass them by. But nope… So I kept wondering if this “family” was real, or also just for show… Ah well, doesn’t really matter a whole lot so I will just share some of my and George’s pictures here with you.

 

After visiting here, we went on to a more remote village. We first picked up a female teacher and her son. We were going to visit a school. They had a day off, but seeing Wimpy built the school and pays for the teacher, the kids had no problem with coming to school. There wasn’t a lot else they could do. Besides being used to make money for their family.

I actually wanted to finish this day’s blog, but seeing there have been 3 days without me working on it (too busy unfortunately), I will post it now so it’ll give you something to read. I will try to update my blog more regularly, but the following week is quite a busy one for me. So I will do my best.

TTFN, Cynni xxx