Getting to the Farm, and some other things

After Ebs and Cita (dreamily thought about trying for a threesome; a concept that I and probably many a men have oft thought about, probably never gonna happen in my life) both left Santo Domingo for the States, I took a cab to a guagua station and hopped on a 4 hour guagua to the town of Samana not coincidentally on the Samana Peninsula, i.e. the north eastern coast of the country with beautiful beaches, poverty, resorts, motorcycles, and gorgeous green scenery all mixed together. Well to be honest a lot of the country can be described that way...Anyways, from Samana I sat on back of a pickup truck guagua headed toward Las Galeras and since the driver knew the family I was going to, he volunteered to take me all the way to the farm in a little village called Manuel Chiquito himself.

[Important side note: What is a guagua, you ask? Guaguas actually describe many things in this country. For example, like a Sherut in Israel, it can be an intra or intercity mini bus that takes 15-25 people around to general areas and make personalized stops along the way. If it's an intercity guagua, it will be slightly bigger and will take you potentially quite far--like the one I took from Santo Domingo to Samana. If it's intra-city, it's probably a van with an always-open door and some guy hanging out always hollering at walkers by to jump in and go wherever it happens to be heading. If my Spanish was good, then I would love to explore Santo Domingo via guagua routes...

So primary guagua meaning: intra or inner city mini bus that makes personal stops on the way to a planned destination. However, I have also heard it defined as a true bus (like when Elena's fam, Ebs, Cita, and I took a bus from Veron to Santo Domingo and a local gal in the city still called it a guagua even though it was a chartered bus) and even as a guy in a pickup truck or sedan driving as many people as he can stuff into his car around town (like the ones Ebs and I took in Caberete or the guy, Lazaro, who took me to the farm when I got to Samana). Good. With that said..]

I arrived at Cindy and Jose's home and farm at dusk on July 3rd and was greeted with the barks and howls of lord knows how many dogs. Actually, there are eight, and their names are: Mimi, Annie, Shiro, M.T., Sherman, Brahma, Reina, and Little Guy. There are also 3 adult cats (Cinco, Xana, and Leo) and Xana’s 3 babies; the cats are quite anti-social compared to the dogs. Jose was in town drinking with some buddies so Cindy welcomed me by her lonesome with some beer and a curried rice n potato dinner she was just putting back in her fridge. To be honest, she had no idea I was coming as she had not checked her email in some two and a half weeks because it was down for a while, and on my end I had no idea what the response would be when I showed up because she wasn't responding to my emails and her farm was my only plan so I was definitely apprehensive. But she was just like yeah, I figured you might show up last week or this week, and if not then I'd figure that you just weren't coming. Alright, in the game!

After eating and chatting with Cindy and the recently arrived Jose, they helped me set up my air mattress on sofa frame and mosquito net, gave me a couple of sheets and a pillow, and I passed out until the dogs started barking in the middle of the night. And then I fell asleep until they woke me up. And then I fell asleep until the night’s heat woke me up. And then the dawn’s light woke me up. And then the dogs started moving around and eventually barking and then Sherman started jumping on my bed to play with me through the mosquito net and then, yes, it was 7:30am on a Sunday morning and I was wide awake for my first day in my new 'home'...