This past Sunday we were invited to a get-together east of Cabarete at Joe’s house. Joe is a guy we met when we came down house hunting in early March. He bought a place near the beach and was just putting his villa in Sosua on the market. Although it has a beautiful garden & pool,it just wasn’t what we were looking for, so obviously we didn’t buy it. 
Check out this fan palm from his yard. We are going to plant some in ours once the casita is done.
Once we were moved here, Joe got in contact with us. He had done some work on his place and asked us to come see it & give him our feedback. He also invited us out to see his new place. But until last weekend, we weren’t able to synch up our schedules; on Sunday, we finally made it out there.
He lives about 35 minutes east of us, down a very bad dirt road, but right across that road and a small lot is a beautiful beach.
Note: one thing we’ve learned here is that you have to keep an open mind…as there are definitely some characters on this island! No more so than you’d find back home, but they do seem to be concentrated a bit more here. And this gathering was no different… we met several very interesting people.
First, there’s Michael, Joe’s partner. Michael looks like Willie Nelson. He was the chef for the day and had prepared what could only be described as a full blown Thanksgiving dinner! They had set up tables under the trees right beside the beach for this feast. There was a turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes & gravy, cranberry sauce, mac & cheese, and fried eggplant.
For those of you who don’t know, Steve’s not a turkey fan (at all!), but he was trying to be polite and took a small piece & planned to fill his plate with some of the other items that he likes better. Well, Michael, being the gracious host, decided that Steve didn’t have nearly enough of ANY of the dishes and proceeded to heap his and my plates with big scoops of everything! Luckily we were able to swap a few things between the two of us and ended up with a meal we could each enjoy. And the peanut butter bars we took were a hit as well (thanks, Sharon, for sending the recipe!)
Then there was a guy from England named Pablo (go figure!). Pablo has been here for about 3 years & has decided he doesn’t like it any more. We asked him what he’d been doing since he’d come down. He gave us kind of a non-answer, saying he didn’t want to shock us. We weren’t sure we wanted to know at that point…so we left it at that and changed the topic of conversation! He told us that he initially came for a vacation which turned into a longer stay with the intention of writing a book. Well, the book is about half done and he’s now decided he hates it here and will go back to England, but he doesn’t know when. We’re not sure, but we think Pablo may have some issues!!
Next we met a couple, Joy from England and her partner, Johnny, who is Dominican. Joy and her husband came to the island about 6 years ago, but have since separated. She ran a bakery in Sosua called Pandora’s Box. Two women, Martha (I believe she was Dominican as well) and Emma, who is from Germany, rounded out the group we sat with. Emma has been here 10 years & speaks very good English & Spanish. It was interesting to listen to her and Johnny talk in Spanish – with Joy making sure we could keep up with the conversation by translating bits and pieces. I was surprised at how much I could understand, but to participate in the conversation was a bit more than I was ready for!
We also watched a young Dominican boy from the area climb up a VERY tall palm tree – with his bare hands and feet – to gather come cocos (look in the middle of the picture above - he's about 1/2 way up the tree). Aqua coco or coco water is a Dominican favorite. We enjoyed a walk on the beach where we found several sand dollars…some of them still alive (yes, we left those there!). Oh, and I can’t forget to mention Leo, who is Joe and Michael’s very cute and sweet puppy. We were tempted to dognap him!
It was a very fun day. Check out the view behind us…beautiful!!
We had to leave around 3 to get home for the second of our gatherings for the day. The last Sunday in May is Dominican Mother’s Day – or Dia de la Madre. We joined 6 other couples at a place called Casa 21. It’s owned by friends of Al & Glenda. Since most of the moms in this group here have grown kids back in our native countries, we thought it made for a good excuse to get together for a nice dinner. Steve was looking forward to a nice piece of beef for dinner, but unfortunately he and Tony got two tough steaks instead. It’s somewhat the luck of the draw here…no consistency. But it was fun to meet some more people and visiting with everyone.
Monday was pretty quiet, but the afternoon rains started again. On Tuesday, we had a hellacious downpour! We had to squeegee off the patio table so we could eat out there later in the evening. One strike of lightening was WAY too close. It scared the bedoodles out of us and Raphael & Johnny who had taken shelter out in the casita. Then not too long after that, they got on the moto and left for the day! I wouldn't be out on one of those things during a storm like that, but I guess when that’s your only mode of transportation, you have to do what you have to do.
Wednesday morning…no Raphael, no Johnny!? We were worried that perhaps something had happened to them on their way home. Thursday was another Dominican holiday (Corpus Christi Day?), so we fully didn’t expect to see them, but Raphael showed up on foot around 8:30. We know he didn’t walk all the way from home (he lives out past Cabarete), but we’re not sure how he got here.
The DR does have a pretty good public transit system – made up of motos for hire, taxis – often small cars like a Toyota Corolla – that they try to stuff as many people in as possible, guaguas, which are generally a minivan that hold more people and have a guy who hangs on the side of the door and yells his destination at people along the street.. He is known as the “cobrador” and also takes your fare and tells you where to sit. They also have buses that run routes similar to the Greyhound buses in the States.
The casita and propane storage are coming along nicely. Hopefully it will be just a couple more days before they are completed and ready for primer, then paint. Next we’ll get the windows, door and electrical done. One step at a time!
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