Greetings family and friends! We are just a bit behind on our blog updates. I guess that means we have been busy! Where to begin?! It has been over five months since we moved to the Dominican Republic. Luna and Fia are over six months old! We have quite happily created a little family here in the Colonial Zone of Santo Domingo. Very happy with where we chose to live, we take frequent walks to La Plaza España where the puppies are able to run freely in the grass and in the square. The puppies regularly attract the attention of passing tourists- yesterday we saw half of a tour group turn away from their guide to watch Luna and Fia run around in circles.They are quite the speedsters and love chasing Jeremy up and down the stairs that lead from the old gate into and out of the colonial zone and up to the house where Diego Columbus (Christopher Columbus's son) lived in the early 1500s.
One of the highlights from fall 2011 was our discovery of a little piece of paradise. Las Terrenas is an area on the northern coast of the island on a peninsula called La Samana. By searching for pet-friendly accommodation we happened across a hotel called Atlantis, run by a man who is also the French Consul. It turned out that the hotel is not only very dog-friendly, but it is set on Playa Bonita with a stunning view of what must be one of the most beautiful sand-lined coves on the island. The hotel itself looks to be set in Southern Spain or a colonial Morocco with white, ivy-lined walls. Breakfast and dinner are served open-air under a thatched roof. Lunch is also served outside, but literally feet away from the water. Did I mention the food? A French cook bakes fresh bread for every meal and every item on the menu that we have tried thus far, has been amazing. Uh, GAZPACHO?!! On our first trip we barely left the premise. We did leave, however, to walk down to an even smaller cove where the waves were less intimidating for the dogs. Luna and Fia learned how to swim!! Luna, being quite the daddy's girl, proved herself to be a natural aqua-dog. Fia, a bit more like her mother, opted to nervously wait on the shore to make sure everyone got back in safely.
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| Playa Bonita. It's muy bonita. |
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| The Atlantis hotel |
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| Our holiday card |
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| learning how to dig! |
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| daddy's girl :) |
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| fresh oysters! |
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| Piña coladas! |
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| Showing off their ability to "stay!" in the park |
Alas, it has not all been about swimming lessons and beach bumming (in fact, we have gotten to the beach much less frequently than desired!). Jeremy has tirelessly working away with UNHCR (while also trying to keep the three girls at home happy). In December a good friend, Stephane, and another colleague made the trip to Santo Domingo to work with Jeremy on designing the tools required to implement a nation-wide census of the refugee population. Together they have designed a relatively ground-breaking system for collecting data from refugees and then continuing to exchange information - using cell phones!
The census officially began this past Wednesday with Jeremy and other members of UNHCR's protection unit in the field ensuring smooth implementation. Now off and running, the census is going well and it's amazing to think that all of the future public data on the number of refugees and their demographics in the DR will be, in a large part, as a result of Jeremy and the rest of his team's hard work.
In addition to the census Jeremy has been working closely with a number of asylum cases, specifically an Iranian family and a Cuban man. While the government's apparent lack of will to grant asylum and hence guarantee the rights of refugees is frustrating, the work itself has been interesting.
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| The villa where our classes were held |
As mentioned in the last post, I spent two weeks in Orvieto, Italy with the Harvard Program in Refugee Trauma. This trip was the two week on-site portion of a nine-month program on addressing the mental health of trauma survivors, particularly refugees. It's hard to put into words how the two weeks impacted me and how the course continues to fine-tune my professional goals. The faculty and participants on the program were from all over the world and all walks of life. Each class was different ranging from mental health within human rights law to culturally appropriate diagnostic tools. Never have I been so entirely captivated by lectures. I have also never attended "school" that gave you two 30 minute coffee breaks where they served freshly baked focaccia and then, of course, an hour and a half for a lunch cooked on a nearby villa that uses all locally grown food - oh my! Aside from the coursework, every dinner was spent getting to know my classmates, eating amazing food and drinking Orvieto wine! A weekend in Rome on the night Berlusconi's resignation was the icing on the delicious cake!
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| Touring Rome - at the well of something something |
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| One of my favorite meals |
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| View of Orvieto! Yeah... amazing |
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| Occasionally we dress up for our dog walks :-) |
Around when I returned from Italy we became the proud owners of a Ford Escape. This may not sound like a terribly exciting event to most of you, but it has transformed our lives here in Santo Domingo. We are able to escape (hee hee) to the beach whenever we want, run errands to our hearts galore, take the dogs to the vet without being nervous about Luna's car-sickness in someone else's car, and, in particular, it has enabled me to feel much more independent, mobile and safe moving about the city. Between the car and becoming members of a nice gym, we feel significantly more settled. We even hosted a holiday party and got all dressed up to go out for a festive night on the town!
I was fortunate to be able to go to Minnesota for Thanksgiving, and both Jeremy and I were very happy to have nearly two weeks in our respective homes over Christmas and New Years. Both of us feel very grateful to have families that we love so dearly and to love each others' families so much as well! The only problem is that Rhode Island and Minnesota are not close enough! I can tell Teddy is feeling a lack of Jeremy in his life and I know that I am feeling that a visit with the Harkeys is already long overdue.
Happily satisfied by our holiday visits, we were both excited to be reunited with each other and our little fur balls, Luna and Fia. They keep growing somehow getting cuter all of the time and most definitely are still enjoying their puppy-hood. 2012 has been off to a healthy start for both of them (horray!) and has brought on a new stage of the teething process. Money, internet cords, shoes, iphone chargers, plants, books, their harnesses... yes they have gotten their little teeth on everything! However, all things considered, they are turning into pretty fantastic and well-trained puppies. We welcomed, with open arms, my mom as an assistant trainer for an entire week!
Mom was our first visitor and I would say we are off to a great start hosting guests! The three of us spent a relaxing weekend in Punta Cana at an adults only resort. Yes it was 99.9% couples and then the three of us! However, we figured out that adults only resorts are the way to go in Punta Cana - much more peaceful, higher quality and less of an "all-inclusive" feel. On our first full day back in Santo Domingo mom and I went on a walking tour of the colonial zone and, well, I'll just get to the point - she broke her foot! She was a trooper and (just like Alison who broke her foot with me in Argentina) she hobbled around the Dominican Republic with a smile on her face. We tried new restaurants, walked the dogs, mom got a manicure in the salon (where Chuckie, dog-sitter and friend, lives), she braved the traffic jams, and the two of us made another 24 hour escape up to Las Terrenas. It was a fun-filled and refreshing week. Thank you mom!
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| Broken foot... but happy with her Presidente! |
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| Breakfast, lunch and dinner with a view! |
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| happy girl |
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| happy hour in Las Terrenas |
We can feel the weather changing here, as the cool winter months (okay, 60s) seem to slowly be taken by heat and humidity. It seems hard to believe that stifling heat will someday return. Meantime, we have been enjoying wonderful tropical storms that whip up out of the ocean or develop in blackened northern skies. Today we had a full rainbow, stretching 180 degrees within our range of vision. I was riding our exercise bike on the porch when it hit, and Jeremy was reading poolside on the roof. Quite a sight!
It's mango season, and our neighbor's trees are full. The blossoms have been making Jeremy allergic, but he's made friends with the neighbor and has secured an offer for a steady supply of mangos once they start ripening. In the meantime, Jeremy has noticed that the parrots are beating him to the fruit. We can see hundreds of mangoes on the trees, and quite a few that are hanging pieces of stripped orange pulp. Lucky birds! These same birds fly over us each afternoon, screeching in pairs or groups of up to ten. Lucky us!
And indeed, lucky us. We have our little gripes about this country (grisly traffic, bad manners, the sloooowness of so many things...) but we are happy here. We live spitting distance from the coast, in a stunning colonial building, with good friends and cute dogs. We've found great escapes, and will find many more. Life is good, life is good! Please come visit!
Some other highlights of our "winter" months... Yet another wonderful weekend in Las Terrenas. This time we opted for a tiny beach bongalow next to our favorite hotel, Atlantis, where we could pay less, let the dogs run free more, and roll out of bed to the hotel's restaurant for our favorite meals. A quick conversation on the beach with two awesome lady travelers from California quickly turned into wine at sunset, piña coladas at dusk, who knows what at dinner, and then beers, guitar and singing with a group of German's at the nearby pizza joint. A beautiful, relaxing and highly entertaining evening with dogs in tow... 
