Camping in Campeche

Hola todos! So I had an entertaining weekend this past weekend. It was our first weekend of community based training (CBT). We went to the east of Santo Domingo about an hour to a place near San Cristobal to a camp and environmental learning center called Campeche. It’s a beautiful place with all these enramadas (open-air buildings with cement floors and usually palm frond roofs). They also had a swimming pool which was a treat for us Peace Corps folks and the Dominican kids as well. And we took a hike to a small cave that was on the property. We slept in tents near the enramadas. I’ve come to realize I think I like the idea of camping more than I actually like camping. Or at least I like camping during the day time but not so much sleeping in a tent on the hard ground at night.

We went for a Brigada Verde regional conference. Brigada Verde is the environmental youth group here in the DR that was started by the Peace Corps and has since become a program that is recognized by the Dominican government. There were about 30 kids between the ages of 12 and 18 and 6 or so volunteers and all 16 of us trainees. We had our first competencia (competency) in doing dinamicas (non-formal educational games) with the kids on Friday night. My group had to entertain a group of kids for an hour and a half in the evening after dinner. They were a great group of kids, we had a lot of fun.

Saturday we had an afternoon crafts session where we learned to make bracelets out of old fondas (plastic bags). The kids taught us how to do it. They have been making them and selling them to raise money for environmental projects that they’re doing in their communities.

Saturday night we had a fogata (bonfire) and the kids played traditional merengue songs for us and we played music and sang songs for them. After that we went to one of the big enramadas and they put on merengue and bachata music and we danced. The kids tried to teach us how, although I’m not sure how successful they were, not for lack of effort, but for lack of skill by us americanos. After the kids went to bed all of us trainees stayed up chatting until pretty late.

Sunday on our way home we went to the beach for half an hour. It was kind of a rocky beach but it was pretty cool because there were a ton of tide pools with sea urchins, hermit crabs, snails, and shells.

Unfortunately my camera battery died so I’m hoping to get some pictures from some of my group members.