Photo Scavenger Hunt | Luke

Saturday, February 21, Rachael had a huge surprise in store for the entire group and the suspense was killing us. We knew that it was something big but she refused to tell us till breakfast that day. Finally, after we had eaten our fill and the dishes were finished, she finally got the group together and told us the exciting news that had everyone excited. We were going on a scavenger hunt! The group was split into five groups of four and each group was assigned a chaperone to be the judge of how well they do. At around 9:30 in the morning, she finally sent us off on our adventure with strict instructions not to come back till 12:00, (unless it was an emergency) and a list of random sites and objects that we would need to find around town some of which where; Colmado, which in Spanish is a small corner store, or even something like a 3 legged dog. Our task was to find these objects and take pictures with them with as many members of group as we could for more points. So my group, Makayla, Julianna, Billy blanco and myself started off and almost right away started to find success on our list. Our journey throughout the town brought us through some back streets to where a nice man greeted us and asked for our names (in Spanish of course) and tried to start a conversation with us. Through our broken Spanish, we got to find out that his name was Richard and that he lived close by but other then that we had a very hard time to communicate with him. It felt very awkward to talk to him because for some reason it came across that I, for some reason, was good at speaking Spanish so he would talk really fast to me and even when I said, “No Entiendo” which means, I don’t understand, he would just talk in Spanish even faster. After a bit longer though we parted ways and where on our way to finding a dominican york so we could cross it off of our list.

One of the tasks was to make a human pyramid

At first, we thought that a Dominican York was a type of candy or food so we started going up to random stores and asking for them but to our surprise none of them had it and actually looked kind of confused about it. After we walked out of the last colmado we gave up and sat down across the street on some benches and tried to figure out why none of these places had this food. Thats when a Dominican looking woman who’s name we later found out was Elizabeth, started to talk to us from across the street in perfect English and was wondering what we were here for and how long. So we crossed the street and started to talk to her and after a bit of talking we asked her what a Dominican York is and where we could find one. To our surprise, she pointed to herself! She explained to us that a Dominican York was just what they refer to as someone who was born in the D.R. and moved to America then later moved back with a slightly different accent and knowing English. This lead her to looking at our scavenger hunt list and helping us identify some of the objects on it one of which was a Guava. She told us that she actually had some in her back yard and without hesitation invited us into and through her house! After showing us some of this amazing fruit and even offering me to try some of it, we ended up talking for a half hour or so about her life and the journeys she has been on. It surprised me and actually impressed me that this random lady trusted us enough to allow eight complete strangers into her house and strike up a conversation with them. She even ended up letting us go onto her roof and took a picture with us so that she could show her family back home.

This sadly was the end of the journey and we had to part ways. Even though we all wanted to talk more with her, we had to get back to the base for lunch. This whole experience was really amazing and eye opening because it showed the hospitality and kindness of the folk in the D.R. They didn’t care that we were complete strangers, everyone we walked past whether a small child or an older couple, they all said hola and would have a conversation with you if you wanted. The people here are inspiring and I wish that everyone could experience their warmth!

Billy Blanco's group with Billy Negro