The Domincans are beautiful people - beautiful and friendly and helpful. We also bump into ex-pats here and there - other foreigners who are here for a visit or for the long haul. They, locals and internationals alike, have their own families and stories that are precious to them. Our lives are enriched by our encounters with them and we hope that we can bless them somehow. I will attempt to sketch at least a caricature of some of them even though I cannot possibly do justice to their vibrancy and beauty.
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Chelo, our driver from the airport
An old man who we've never seen before, who speaks no English and drives a beat-up white mini-van, but we are putting our lives in his hands. Sometimes you just need to trust. Yep, that's what is called faith. Fortunately for me, he impressed me as a decent driver - aggressive but with maybe a smidgen of caution. The caution was impressive because it seems rare here; aggression, on the other hand, is relatively common. He was kind to us and offered a rest stop. Thankfully he works with tourists enough to know where to find a "real" restroom - one that was locked and protected for us persnickety ex-pats. Yes, one that had paper and running water - AND a toilet seat!
Once we got to Samana, things got a little stressful. It seems that he had not been instructed that the cove was further beyond the town of Samana. He got pretty loud in his attempts to figure out where the place was - getting the attention of various people on the malecon - none of which could help us. For a minute, I was afraid he would get mad & refuse to take us any further. He kept losing his cell signal, which added to my sense of insecuity and vulnerability.
But he stuck with us & kept driving through the dark night. And we kept trying to communicate with him what we thought we knew about where the place might be. Did I mention that he speaks no English? We had never been here before. We had seen pictures of the pool and the beach, but had no idea what the entrance might look like. Up another hill and down, around another sharp curve we went, wondering, always wondering, whether there would be anything to help us find the place. By then, I suppose he probably thought that he would have to take us all the way to the end of the highway. I guess you could say that he did because our place is only a few kilometers short of Las Galeras - which is indeed at the end of the road.
Chelo was the first of many Dominicans that I had to trust to help us during our adventure and I am thankful that he proved to be trust-worthy.
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