Bani y la playa de Salinas

Dominicans seem to have a skill for making the most use of any space that they have.  The motorcycles that fill the streets are packed with two, three, and sometimes four people.  We saw a man carrying a refrigerator on the back of his motorcycle.  A car that is designed for four or five people carries seven or eight.  The trucks are packed with produce:  thousands of bananas on the bed of one truck.  And when you get to a place where there are houses, they are right next to each other and right up against the road.

The goal of our trip to Bani today, and one of the goals of this whole trip to the DR, was to meet the grandmother of one of our families.  She raised the children while her daughter, their mother, went to the United States to earn enough money to bring the children there.  Seven years later the kids moved to the United States.  We only had to ask directions a few times today to find the home of this woman.  Once off the main road, we drove along a small street in Bani and asked a group of boys on the corner if they knew where she lived.  They pointed to an even smaller street and told us to turn there and we would find her.  This tiny street had several small houses, lots of wandering dogs, and children playing.  We asked another person and they pointed to a larger house, by far the largest and nicest house in the neighborhood,  at the end of the street.  This was the home of the grandmother who had raised several of our students.  Students that we all know and who are smart, and polite, and kind, and always eager to learn.  She came to the gate and welcomed us into her yard and her home.  Her husband was there and her sister and her sister's husband.  She showed us pictures of the kids:  Louisa, Luis, Rosa, another Luis, and yes, another boy named Luis who does not go to our school.   We sat in the area outside of the house and talked for a while.  Then they served us a lovely meal of chicken, rice, and salad.  We sat outside again afterwords and Beatriz said to the grandmother how difficult it must be to have not seen the kids for three years.  You could see the grief spread across her face.  I looked at my own daughter sitting across from me and couldn't imagine not seeing my own child for three years.