Santa needs good hiking boots!

Christmas means we get to do things a little different here in the D.R. Part of the schools tradition is to give out Christmas bags. Not boxes, not hampers, but bags. If you have been to the D.R. you will soon realize that the lowly plastic bag is really what keeps the world going 'round. The "funda", as it is called, can be used for groceries (we were familiar with that one), but also as a hat, a raincoat, a motorbike seat cover, rainboots, or perhaps something to hold your hair rollers in. When it comes to shopping you can also get almost anything you want in a plastic bag; eggs, sugar, candy, flour, 1 tylenol pill, 1 scoop of tomato paste (I'm serious about that one). In any case the "fundas" that we gave out for Christmas were hand sewn and good for many different uses, besides the fact that they were filled to the brim with groceries. For many of the people that we visited this might be a weeks worth of groceries. We had a blast riding around in the back of the Diahatsu (Japanese import work truck) with the students. At various spots around or nearby community we got out, attempted a Christmas carol or two in Spanish, and handed out the bags. Our students delivered approximately 35 bags, with our Dominican staff hand delivering the remaining 35 to the more remote locations. Ethan had a blast handing out suckers and toys to the kids along the way. This was a great opportunity for all of us to see how many of the poorer Dominicans live. Within the city of Jarabacoa itself we become accustomed to cement houses, some of which are actually mansions, but this was the Dominican countryside and things look a little different out here. The people were very gracious, and we received many gifts of fruit in return. One lady, who obviously had nothing, tried to get or entire group to come inside for juice. I'm not sure how she was going to pull that off, but she tried anyway. Even with our terrible singing I think the day was still a great success.