My 25th Birthday in the DR!
3-25-11
Twenty five years ago I would have never thought I would be living in the Dominican Republic doing what I am doing now. Scratch that, make that 2 years ago or even 1 year and 6 months ago. This is my second time celebrating my birthday in the Dominican Republic and it is definitely by far the best birthday I have had in a while. (Haha, its hard for me to commit to the best ever, but it was very good!) My group arrived in the DR in the beginning of March last year so because everything was so new and foreign to me I didn't tell anyone it was my birthday and spent it eating yucca and spaghetti alone in my room with my dona who also didn't know it was my birthday. Crummy. But this year I definitely went all out celebrating my birthday for an entire week! Yeah! I didn't even have to announce it to everyone, people actually remembered. Haha.
To commence the celebration, a big group of volunteers headed into the capital and we had a fun night at the Conde with drinks and dancing. My two favorite things. The next couple of days I visited a fellow volunteer Amber in Las Canas which was so nice to just be tranquil and peaceful. I pretty much slept a lot because her site is sooooo quiet. I didn't hear concho drivers, horns, trucks, nothing. It was perfect for sleeping and chilling out. Plus her dona was an amazing cook and her host family was super nice. From there I headed over to my favorite site in the DR, Magee's house where we continued the delicious food and tranquility. I honestly think I have gained 10 more pounds just from this week. Everyone was giving me so much free food and goodies I couldn't turn them away! I even got midnight birthday pancakes!
Heather, Me and Masa swinging at this cool new bar in the Cap
Heather, Me and Amber got all dolled up to go to a family wedding. Yep, we were way overdressed!
Lindsey, Magee and Jose. We ate delicious Mexican tacos with homemade salsa! Yummmmmmm!
Virgen, Melvin, Me and Mirian, my beloved neighbors who take care of me very much.
My birthday pies! Me blowing out the candles. Can't believe I am 25. :(
So thinking everything was over I returned back to my campo ready to detox all the bad food and relax. I spent the night hanging with the neighbors and surprise! They bought me 2 pizzas and drinks to celebrate my birthday too! It was really cute the way they went about it, they slyly asked to go to my house to have some tea then came walking in singing "Happy Birthday" in english. Cute. I have to say I definitely feel loved. Comparing my birthday from last year to this year I'd say it was a huge improvement and I am most excited about the stuff that happened in my campo. It's one thing to celebrate and do things with your friends but having poor dominicans buy you things to show you how much you mean to them was priceless. I couldn't stop telling them "thank you" and how happy I was to be spending it with them.
This goes to show that wherever you are you can make an impact on the others around you. I cant say this was the best birthday ever because I still was missing those people at home who mean the world to me like my friends and family but regardless of their absence I still felt loved and cared for.
Thank you to everyone who helped make my birthday special and rememberable. Guess what? I get another year to celebrate here in the DR! March 2012 will be even better!
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