Day 1

Excited to land in Punta Cana 

After 5 class days spent in Blacksburg the well anticipated trip to the Dominican Republic finally arrived. We met early at 6:45am in front of Merryman. As a group we split up the balls and gear collected to bring down to the DR into our bags. We had a 2 ½ hour ride from Blacksburg to the Charlotte airport which we spent getting to know each other better outside the classroom. The plane ride went smoothly and most of us spent the time sleeping or reading our assigned book from Dr. Rudd.

We arrived in the Dominican and I was stunned to see that the airport was very open to the outdoors with roofs resembling those of huts. We were treated like VIP in the Dominican Airport and got to surpass many of the lines. We collected our bags and boarded onto a bus set for The Punta Cana Ecological Foundation were we would be staying for our duration. When we arrived we met Ben, the logistical leader for the foundation, he helped us get situated into our rooms.

We dropped our stuff and set out for the beach located across the street. On our walk to the beach we met up with 3 amazing guys from the Dominican who would be with us throughout our trip. Victor, Julio, and Miguel Angel are all members of Deportes para la Vida (DPV) who run the camps for the children of the DR. At the beach we hung out in the water and learned many dynamicos (little games) from the DPV members that we would be using later in the week with the kids. This was one of my favorite parts of the day because we got to open up more to one another and to the DPV members (there were some language barriers but between all of us we were able to make it work)! After the beach we came back and got ready for dinner. We had a short walk to Tortuguita for dinner. We were served a variety of fruits, rice, vegetables, chicken, and beef. All of us were in agreement that the meal muy delicioso!

After dinner, many of us spent time in the lobby learning a number of Dominican dances including the Bachata, Meringue, and Salsa from Julio. Everyone joined in at some point and everyone broke a sweat! The first day already exceed my expectations of the trip and I cannot wait to see what else is to come!

Ashley Manning