Road Trip

This week has been one of my busiest yet; I've only really spent
sleeping hours at home. On Sunday I went to the carnival in Malecón,
with a group of people I had met through Cristian, including some 5
year old kids who were really funny. The carnival itself was
absolutely crazy. I couldn't believe how many people had turned out;
it must have been about half of the population... The costumes were
just outrageous: demons and dragons were the most common, but there
were people without heads, or with stakes through their hearts, or
dinosaurs. The diversity and effort that people had put in was
staggering.

At about 6 o'clock, the darkness came, and with it, a light drizzle.
Within two minutes it was torrential, and mayhem ensued. People were
desperate to reach the sanctity of a bus or car to avoid the rain.
Fortunately, we managed to squeeze onto a bus; others weren't so
lucky.. Our driver, too, seemed to have been affected by the madness.
In a fruitless attempt to undertake a coach on an already packed road,
he managed to get us squashed, and several layers of paintwork removed
from our vehicle. Once we had returned safely, we had a chilled
evening Cristo Rey. The highlight was a dance off, won by a 6 year old
girl; she drew in a crowd of about 30 people which was most impressive.

On Monday and Tuesday, I went to Victor's after work and we went for a
run. It felt good to be excersising again, having not really done any
so far this year... He introduced me to his friend Michel who is 19.
It was nice to have somebody my age to talk to. We went up to the roof
and did some weights with a few other guys, who were all very keen to
talk and entertain. Over dinner, I found myself trying to explain the
relationship between England and Scotland. It was surprisingly
difficult.

I had to be at work early on Wednesday morning because a group of us
were going to Santiago on business: me, Victor, Nicholas, Miguel,
Rodriguez and Fifol. It was a 2 hour drive and I took in the varying
scenery, from the rice planations to the mountainous straight that
diagonally slices the island. Once there, we set to work on doing an
inventory of all the stock in their warehouse. I felt very
professional with my clipboard and dust mask, and it was nice to be
doing a job that required some responsibility. In the evening, after a
long day, we went out for dinner near Santiago's monument, which
stands atop a hill in the very centre of the city. We were all getting
on very well and it was a really good laugh; they seem to find my
knowledge of certain slang words very amusing.

The following day we worked hard again, so that we could finish in
time to make it back to Santo Domingo at a respectable hour. We
managed to get away just before 8, after a sumptuous pizza hut
takeaway... On the return journey, we saw the beginnings of a forest
fire, which was quite exciting. It had been a really fun two days.