Another round of photos!

This is coffee fruit lying out to dry in the sun. There are coffee plants up in the neighboring mountain, and some families harvest the fruit to make their own coffee. They are picked, set out to dry, roasted, and then hand ground in a mortar - it is quite a lot of work. The entire mountain used to be covered in coffee plants, but there are a lot less nowadays, and most families (including me) buy pre-ground coffee.

I realized that many of you have no idea how I live! Here is life without electricity! I was washing the dishes one night and decided to take a picture. I really haven’t minded living without electricity. I go to a neighbor’s house that has solar panels to charge my phone. I do not use my computer in my site because it takes too much electricity to charge it.

The girls in my Girl’s Club really really really want a trip to the beach, but it costs too much. So I am showing them different ways to raise money. We have a 5 peso quota (about 15 cents). With the money we saved from the quotas we bought sugar cookie ingredients and cut out stars and butterflies, which were sold in the community. We made a gain of 2 dollars! It wasn’t a lot, but I told them if they made some money, I would help them out with whatever they still needed.

This picture was taken down the street from my house. The building is the newly constructed discoteca (build last December). It was a bad investment by the owner and has been sitting relatively unused. Sunday nights they play music and people go to drink and dance. But we haven’t had any live musical groups come since last year. I am hoping that at least one comes this December before I leave! 

Music and dancing are some of the biggest pastimes here.Groups that are currently popular here in the DR are the following:

Bachata:

 El Varon de La Bachata - La Flor Prohibida

 Aventura -Yo Quisiera Amarla

Zacarias Ferreira- Desesperado

Frank Reyes - No Te Vayas

Manny Jhovanny - Hablen de Mi

Merengue:

Antony Santos - Corozon Duro

Perico Ripiao / Merengue Tipico

The Cibao region (the center of the country) is known for its merengue tipico, which uses an accordian, guira, guitar, and sax)

 El Prodigio - El Refran Rebeca

Kerubanda - El Hombre Mas Guapo 

Geovanny Polanco- Amor Divino

Mambo:

Omega - Que Tengo Que Hacer

Reggaeton/other:

  Don Omar - Danza Kuduro (I'll admit I love this song, it's partly in Portuguese)

Daddy Yankee - Pose

Prince Royce - Stand by Me

Enrique Iglesias - Cuando Me Enamaro

A little bit of everything:

Juan Luis Guerra - La Guagua (he is one of the most famous Dominican singers)

I love to write about food! This is my friend Ramona chowing down on chicken feet! When I told her that I was going to send the photo to my friends and family she laughed so hard. Recently a mother and daughter started making and selling empanadas (with salami, dried cod, onions and peppers… I was skeptical but it was tasty! Further defending the point that anything fried is good!). They also sell boiled mondongo de puerco (pig insides) and boiled chicken feet. While I eat most parts of the animal, I never was a fan of the chicken feet! I do know how to prepare them though – one part includes chopping off their fingernails!

 

This is carambola – starfruit! I was visiting a neighboring community and the family had the tree in their backyard! They weren’t ripe yet so I couldn’t eat any.

This butterfly stopped to eat a bit of mango skin I dropped.