Saturday in Santo Domingo

I woke up on my third morning in the comua thinking that I might not make it through this journey.
 
The night before had been a Friday night, and dozens of teenage boys had gathered in the shelter right outside of the family’s house and my separate bungalow. Others were gathered a little ways off in a patch of trees nearby.
 
When I asked who all of the teenage boys were, since they never seemed to venture closer or have much contact with the family, I was told that they were simply local teens who came to the Calazacon home for the Internet.
 
Anyway, on Friday night there were a lot more teenagers than on the previous weekday nights, and they stayed up passed one a.m. blaring music and roaring their motorcycle engines. I took a nap after dinner, but woke up around 10:30 p.m. and was awake until the last one left.
 
I then woke up promptly at 6:15 a.m. to the sound of screeching chickens. Lovely noises.
 
I was also sore from falling the day before. The girls had taken me off-trail hiking down to a gorgeous little stream. They were in plastic crocs and I was in my sneakers (but probably would have still fallen in my boots). I was just really glad I hadn’t taken my backpack with my camera and my microphone on this hike or I would have landed on it along with my butt.

The soreness wasn’t helped by sleeping on a thin piece of foam that does nothing to keep me from basically sleeping directly on the wooden pallet below. I also am covering in bug bites (from sand flies, not mosquitos) and have to keep wearing extra layers to try and keep them off not to mention my 100% deet spray that doesn't seem to scare the little buggers. 

Also, the wifi was out and I’m not sure when or if it’s every coming back - the answer i was given was unclear, mostly because I'm still struggling to interpret rapid fire Spanish. So I was having a hard time getting any work done. (Update: it came back on like two hours after I wrote this post). 
 
All in all, I woke up pretty down. 
 
But Saturday turned out to be a pretty spectacular day. I ate breakfast with Yosenka, a delicious meal of cheese empanadas – definitely my favorite dish so far. And afterwards was invited to go with Franklin and Yosenka into Santo Domingo.
 
We hiked up the hill to the road and stood around waiting for a truck or a car to pass by that would take us to the city. It took about fifteen or twenty minutes, no one seemed to be counting, before we caught a ride.
 
Along the way we picked up another Tsa’chila boy I’d met the night before and hauled him with us to Santo Domingo.
 
In the city, Franklin, Yosenka and I visited the Gobierno de los Tsa’Chilas, where Yosenka attends classes with other indigenous children.  
 
After Franklin’s meeting, we ventured into the nearby market where he dutifully crossed off a hand-written list item by item. It took several hours, during which we stopped for Almuerzo, before wrapping up by buying Yosenka new shoes.    
Getting back was almost as much of an adventure and had us waiting at another bus stop for even longer than we’d waited for our ride that morning.
 
Saturday was also extremely pleasant because it was cool most of the day (this was because it rained lightly on and off and then poured in the evening). But hey, for a girl who hates the rain, I was willing to take it because it was a relief from the sweltering heat of Friday. ​