New Blog!

As some of you know, starting in September of next year I will be travelling to 11 countries in 11 months on a mission trip called the World Race (http://theworldrace.org/). I am incredibly excited to be a part of this experience that will allow me to serve others and see the world!

I will be travelling with a larger group of young adults (aka U Squad) that will be broken down into smaller teams of 5-7 people. Together we will be going to Rwanda, Uganda, Kenya, China, the Philippines, Thailand, Cambodia, India, Nepal, Romania, and Ukraine. In each country we will partner up with a local church or organization to work with for the month. We could be doing any kind of ministry, from manual labor to visiting orphanages or hospitals, and our work will likely vary from month to month.

In order to document this journey I have a new blog: lucymorgan.theworldrace.org
If you want to keep receiving updates about my adventures click "subscribe via email" on the left hand side of the page. Thank you so much to everyone who has been following me and my travels so far, I look forward to what the next year will bring! Merry Christmas!

La Guagua

Completely romanticized version of my commute to work every day:

More accurate picture (via Google) of my commute to work every day:

The most people I ever rode with was fifteen in one of these! Where I live they're slightly smaller than these pictures so it's normally less than five people at a time. It's always an adventure since the drivers tend to be in a hurry and no one respects traffic laws in this country anyway. In order to let people know where the guagua (Dominican word for bus) is headed, a guy often stands in the doorway (as you can see above) and yells at passers-by to try to convince them to get on. This guy is also the one that keeps track of which passengers have paid. If there is not such a guy on the guagua, sometimes the driver will point towards which direction he's going, or sometimes I just get on and hope for the best!

Signs...

...That I Am Becoming More Dominican:

• I get antsy when rice is not served at a meal, and when it is served I eat most or all of my portion.
• I prefer to eat with a spoon instead of a fork and knife.
• I am a total juice snob. If it was not made today, forget about it.
• Air conditioning makes me chilly.
• I consider traffic laws to be completely optional.
• Things like schedules and time are not important, and there is no such thing as "now."
• I've stopped pronouncing the letter s at the end of words.

...That I Am Still Very Much American

• I am the whitest person in at least a five-mile radius.
• I crave chocolate 24/7.
• I prefer to eat cereal for breakfast.
• I usually can't understand what the heck people are saying.
• I wash my hair every day.
• I still cannot dance or sing.
• I have no immediate plans to get married and have kids.

Out of the Office

This week I was lucky enough to get out of the office in order to help run a summer camp for a local school. The organization that I work for has a partner organization that gives loans to private schools instead of to individuals. Two families associated with this organization came down from the US to put together the camp at one of the schools that happens to be in La Romana where I live. A few people from the capital came to help translate, and since I'm already here I got to come help out too!


The kids were in elementary school and we divided them into three groups by age. I went with the littlest kids because they needed the most assistance with everything. A lot of them turned out to be even younger than we expected but they were a lot of fun. Every day we did three activities: sports, crafts, and English. My favorite moment was the day we played with one of those giant parachutes in sports. I don't think any of the kids had seen anything like that before, and it was mass chaos as we tried to play the usual games with them, but they were so happy and excited that it was impossible not to smile.


Another perk of the week was that I got to stay in the famed Casa de Campo because that's where everyone else was staying. They figured it would be easier for me to just stay with them instead of them having to come pick me up every day. Ever since I found out I would be living in La Romana for the summer I have wanted to see Casa de Campo. If you look at the Google map of the city, you will see that Casa de Campo is almost as large as the entire city of La Romana. "What on earth is in there?" I wanted to know. Now I know! Although there is a resort and several golf courses in there, it is mostly like a large gated neighborhood with ridiculously nice houses that people own or rent. So after every long sweaty day of camp we got to come back and go to the beach.

Also one of the American families was really into volleyball so that happened again haha. Between the camp and Samana, this has probably been my favorite week so far in the DR. All the people I got to work with at the camp were awesome, both those that I knew through work and those visiting from the States. Back to the office next week though! It's hard to believe that not much time remains in my internship.

Samaná

Whenever I ask people where the most beautiful part of the Dominican Republic is, they say Samaná. 

And now I know why. The above photo is the view from another intern's (her name is Lucy too!) host family's house. That's right, this is the view from your average everyday Dominican house in Samaná, not from some resort or after hiking deep into the middle of the jungle. This is normal.

This is Playa Rincón. Someone somewhere rated it as one of the best beaches in the world, so we (the interns) just had to go. Again, no resorts or development, few tourists, and a whole lot of beauty. When we got there initially the beach was practically empty, which is when I took this picture. To get there we braved a rather bumpy ride in the back of a pick-up truck on unpaved roads (my guide book recommends going by boat because driving there requires "patience and will" haha) but despite the bruises it was a fun ride with beautiful scenery along the way.

We spent all of last Saturday at the beach and then on Sunday walked around the more central area of the town. Saturday and Sunday nights were spent dancing Dominican style with Lucy's host brothers. As you may know, dancing is not really my thing, but maybe if enough Dominicans teach me I will suddenly become awesome at it. Maybe.

Long story short: if you plan on taking a vacation in the Dominican Republic, skip the random resorts on every other coast in the country and go straight for Samaná. The entire peninsula has awesome sights and from the two parts I saw I'd say it's well worth it!

Just Another Weekend in the Dominican Republic

This is another post I wrote for our intern blog! No pictures because I didn't want to get my camera soaking wet!

Last weekend was an adventure. We (the interns) had been planning it for weeks, but we still weren’t really sure what to expect. All I knew was that we would be hiking up a mountain in order to jump off some waterfalls on the way back down. I was excited.

At 5am on Saturday morning we took taxis to a random address in Santo Domingo which turned out to be a sort of restaurant/bar. Being gringos, we arrived way before everyone else, wondering if we were really in the right place. While waiting, some of us walked down the street to buy tacos from a stand that for some reason was open at that hour. I can’t say I’ve ever eaten a taco for breakfast before, but at the time it tasted delicious! By the time we walked back a small bus had arrived as well as about a dozen other people going on the excursion with us. I could not wait to get into that bus and fall right asleep for a couple of hours.

Unfortunately, sleeping proved near impossible as soon as our guides started blasting music from the speakers in the bus. I decided to take the opportunity to stare out the windows instead, and got to see some beautiful scenery. We were heading up north to the more mountainous part of the country that I had not seen yet. The lush green hills and valleys were definitely a change from the flat coastline and beaches I was used to seeing near La Romana. Eventually we made it to our destination: the 27 Charcos.

Armed with life jackets and helmets, we started our trek into the woods with our guides. After hiking for a while we came upon our first waterfall where we could jump off a rock into a deep pool. Swimming around in the cold water was such a relief after weeks of Dominican heat! Twenty-six other jumps and slides followed, one of which was tall enough to make most people uncomfortable and some people opted to skip it altogether. There was plenty of time for suspense to build as we squeezed together in a line leading up the cliff to where we would jump. We watched each person before us jump off without really being able to see how high it actually was. Then came the moment of truth as I stepped up to the edge and looked down at the pool below. The guide gave me a countdown and off I went, screaming the whole way down. That one was definitely my favorite!

Doing things like this really makes me marvel at how incredible it is to be here in the Dominican Republic. Before coming here this summer I had no idea that I would be jumping off waterfalls in the middle of the woods, but half the fun is not knowing what to expect. Even though we planned this excursion well in advance, so many things happened that we didn’t plan for. Crazy experiences are around every corner, and I’ve definitely been learning to sit back and take it all in instead of trying to control and prepare for everything. That’s what makes this summer an adventure!

How to Eat a Mango

Alternate title: Reason #2435876 Why I Am a Gringa

If you know me, or especially if you have ever lived with me, you may know that I sometimes spill food while eating. Let's be honest, by sometimes, I mean all the time. I rarely eat a meal without getting some part of it on myself, my clothes, the table, the floor, etc. For this reason I always carry around a Tide to Go pen and like to keep a constant supply of napkins at hand. You may be wondering, "Did this girl's parents not teach her to use a fork?" Why yes, they did. In fact, I have not always been a messy eater. I'm not sure what happened between then and now but the fact is that spilling food everywhere is currently part of my daily life. And it's hilarious.

Given that I already have difficulties eating like a normal person, you can only imagine how difficult it is for me to eat a whole mango. First of all, I had never eaten a whole mango before coming to the DR, only nicely sliced pieces that I could easily spear with a fork. So when one of my coworkers brought fresh mangoes from her mango tree to the office for everyone, I knew I was in for it. Long story short, after eating our mangoes my coworkers stood there with slightly sticky hands while I sat there staring at a desk, a plate, my own hands, my shirt, and about 1.5 billion napkins, all covered in mango. And it was hilarious.

The mango I ate, from someone's tree at home, is on the right.
The one on the left is normal sized from a store/street vendor.

So later in the week the same coworker brought mangoes from her tree and decided to teach me how to eat a mango. Because I clearly needed teaching, it was that ridiculous. She taught me how to peel it properly, how to cut out the bad parts, and how to avoid getting it all over yourself. By the end of my second Dominican mango, I had managed to forgo the plate and desk, spared my shirt from destruction, and limited myself to only two napkins! Such progress! My coworkers still made fun of me, but I claimed that I kept getting the exploding mangoes and that's why it was so messy. If only that were a legitimate excuse! I'll just have to keep practicing...

Villa Panty

This past weekend was my first full weekend spent in La Romana with my host family. Since my host siblings are around my age, I was interested to see what weekend activities look like around here. On Saturday afternoon I went over to the house of my host sister's friend. We hung out for a bit talking with her family, and by the end of the visit we had been invited back for dinner that night.


First I need to address the title of this post, which does in fact translate to something like Panty Village. If I told you I spent Saturday night in panty village, what would you think? As is turns out, Villa Panty is actually a very nice neighborhood with beautiful houses that just happens to have many lingerie stores on its streets. When my host sister drove me by the dozen or so lingerie stores and told me that that's what the neighborhood was called, I thought she was kidding. It was not until I heard my host brother telling his friend that that's where we were going that I understood that people seriously, with a straight face, refer to this place as Villa Panty. And that is where my host sister's friend lives.


So I went with my host siblings, my host sister's boyfriend, and another friend to Villa Panty for dinner. We decided to make "frito," which is the general word for fried everything. First, we walked down to the nearest colmado. Colmados are small convenience stores that are everywhere in the DR. There are three within a block of my house, for example. At this particular colmado we bought green/unripe plantains to make tostones. When we got back to the house the girls taught me how to make them. 


Every time I've eaten tostones I've wondered why there is that poofy part on the outside. I soon found out that after you fry the plantain slices, you take them out and smush them so that the insides come out the sides, and then you fry them again so the whole thing gets cooked. This blew my mind, although in hindsight I don't know why I couldn't figure it out in the first place. We also fried longaniza, a type of sausage. Altogether it was a fun time, there were a bunch of friends and family hanging around the house so I got to interact with many different people even if i couldn't really understand what they were saying. And now I know how to cook at least one Dominican dish!

When It Rains, Go To An Outdoor Concert

Last Saturday, Juan Luis Guerra came to Santo Domingo for a concert. In case you have no idea who he is (like I didn’t before hearing about the concert), he is super popular throughout the world in the Latin music genre. And he’s Dominican, so it was kind of a big deal. Therefore, all of us interns convened in La Capital for the weekend.

The other interns and I went to a friend’s house beforehand that was really close to the arena where the concert was. As soon as we got out of the taxi at his house, it started sprinkling. By the time we left the house with everyone to walk to the arena, the sprinkling had increased, and by the time we got there, it was clearly raining.

The place was packed with people, so looking for space enough for nine gringo interns to sit proved impossible. We ended up at the very top of the stadium, not in the very last row, but behind the last row in a tiny space between the highest seats and the wall that ensured we did not fall to our deaths. So there we were, in the pouring rain, with barely enough space to stand, and it was awesome.

The view was incredible. Could we see Juan Luis Guerra? Not really. But between us and him were hundreds of Dominicans singing and dancing to every one of his songs. Not one person remained seated while he and his band were playing; it was like a giant party. Behind us we could see Santo Domingo (mostly a lot of trees from where we were) from a bird’s eye view. We could feel the breeze blowing more rain into our faces, we could hear the collective voice of everyone around us, we could laugh at how crazy the Dominican adventure was turning out to be.

During the concert they had to take a break to deal with all the water on the stage and whatnot, at which point a lot of people left early and we were able to take their seats. This made it a lot easier to dance around and try to avoid catching pneumonia.* Other highlights included Juanes showing up to sing a song (cue hysterical screaming by the women in the crowd), as well as another guy named Romeo Santos (more hysterical screaming). It turned out to be a good thing that I accidently left my camera at the hotel, since it would have gotten completely soaked like the rest of my belongings, but that also means that I have no pictures from the concert to share. So you’ll just have to take my word for it! Or read this: http://www.hoy.com.do/el-pais/2012/6/17/432881/Juan-Luis-Al-son-deguerra-en-el-Olimpico 

*exaggeration: It was not actually that cold.

My First Day of Work

(I wrote this for our intern blog and figured I should probably share it with you guys too!)

As we swerved around the potholes all along the dirt roads I thanked God for seatbelts. For the past several minutes the landscape going past our windows had remained exactly the same: sugar cane plants as far as the eye could see. We were on our way to a batey, a community of sugar cane workers and their families that suffer from the most severe poverty here in the Dominican Republic. As we got closer the images that I had only seen in pictures came alive: piles of trash, stray animals, and tired eyes staring out from their homes.

I walked around to a few houses with a loan officer so that she could survey new people interested in joining the bank of Esperanza in the batey. I had taken my camera along hoping to capture some of the images of life in the batey, but didn’t want to be too conspicuous about it. Finally the moment came where no one seemed to be paying attention to me and I snapped a picture of the street I was standing on. I thought no one was looking, but someone was.

Speaking to me in what I can only assume to be a mix of Spanish and Creole, I couldn’t understand most of what she was saying, but she made one thing clear: she wanted money. I told her honestly that I didn’t have any with me and she asked to have my camera. I proposed that I take a picture of her instead, and she struck an adorable pose in the usual Dominican style. I didn’t interact with her for very long, but in that brief amount of time I realized that even in her innocence she had probably overcome more challenges in her 5 or so years than I would in my entire life.

I didn’t decide to do this internship solely to put more experience on my resume and I didn’t do it solely to have a fun summer (although both of these will likely happen). A quote hanging on the wall of my bedroom at home reminds me that “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.” I hope to be affected by the people I encounter here as much as I affect them through Esperanza. It’s only my first day of work, and already a little girl gave me new eyes.

Punta Cana

Last Thursday through Saturday I had the pleasure of staying at an all-inclusive resort with my fellow interns, coworkers from across the country and their families. We basically spent our days eating and hanging out at the beach, no complaints there! We also went kayaking and played beach volleyball (ok, if you know me you know I did not actually play volleyball, but rather watched my friends play). Basically a little slice of paradise! This definitely did not put me in the right mood to start work today but it was cool to get to know some of my coworkers outside the office.

A Tale of Two Smoothies

This story deserves its own blog post. I clearly take my smoothies very seriously.


It was early. I was at the Jacksonville airport. I had gotten there ahead of time since it was an international flight but not many people were there at 8am Saturday morning, so suffice it to say I had time to kill. I also had a craving. For a smoothie. I knew there was a smoothie place in the airport but decided to go to the gate first to make sure my flight was good to go and maybe check my email. After a bit I started getting hungry and was so excited to finally have my smoothie...


...but the smoothie place was closed. After inwardly fuming a little bit I remembered that Starbucks also sells smoothies! With renewed hope I walked confidently up to the Starbucks and waited in line...


...only to be told that they were out of bananas, without which Starbucks as an entity is incapable of making me a smoothie. I told myself not to worry; I would have a layover in the Miami airport, which was sure to have a smoothie place or at least some bananas in a Starbucks.


My flight from Jacksonville, however, was delayed, so I did not have a second to spare for a smoothie, much less lunch. I safely made it onto the plane, but I was empty-handed. I accepted my smoothieless fate and enjoyed the flight to Santo Domingo by sleeping a lot. Little did I know what wonders the city had in store for me...


...On the way to the hotel from the airport we stopped at the wonderful establishment of Barra Payan, where they sell, you guessed it, smoothies. Delicious smoothies. I ordered mango, and tasted sweet satisfaction as I drank it. I then proceeded to drink two more smoothies in my first twenty-four hours in the Dominican Republic, and all three combined probably cost less than the Starbucks would have. This I can definitely get used to.

La Capital

On Saturday afternoon I arrived in Santo Domingo! Our intern coordinator Patricia picked up me as well as three other interns that arrived at about the same time and we rode with our van driver to the hotel. Later after some other interns had arrived we walked to the zona colonial for dinner. It was not yet Dominican food but still good. The next day some of us decided to go to mass in the morning at the cathedral, also in the zona colonial. To be honest I completely fell asleep and didn't really follow what was going on, but it was cool to be in such an old building doing what they've been doing there for centuries.

La zona colonial during the day

Later we had a historical walking tour of Santo Domingo where we got to see all the super old buildings and be told many times that Columbus' body is indeed in Santo Domingo, not Spain or Puerto Rico or whoever else claims to have it. That night Patricia and her coworker Marisa took us to eat typical Dominican food: chicken, rice and beans, tostones (my fave), yucca, and salad. We later all went dancing, which I suck at, but it was still a lot of fun!

The oldest street in the New World

Monday and Tuesday were our actual orientation, so we went to the main office and heard from various people about different aspects of the organization: microfinance, Kiva, media, and the other services Esperanza offers its clients like health care. We also learned the nuts and bolts about what exactly we'll be doing as interns for two months. What is that, you ask? Stay tuned for a future blog about my awesome internship responsibilities!

All in all my experience so far has been great! All eight of us interns (one of which is named Lucy too!) get along really well and it was cool getting to know the capital city for a little bit before I settle down in La Romana. First, however, all the staff from around the country are headed out to a resort for a retreat! It's beach time!

Otra Vez

Guess who's back? And by back I guess I mean leaving again. But back to blogging! This time I'm headed out to the Dominican Republic for an internship with a microfinance organization for two months. No, I don't actually know anything about finance, I will actually be doing more related to teaching English to the employees of the organization, who are Dominican. I will be living primarily in the city of La Romana with a host family, which I'm really looking forward to, but first I have orientation in the capital, Santo Domingo, with all the other interns. As usual I will do my best to keep anyone who reads this up to speed with what I'm doing! I can't wait for the adventure to begin tomorrow!