Tree Planting at the National Zoo

               There is a large zoo here in Santo Domingo that we haven’t ever visited.  So, when we were asked to film a service project there, we thought it would be fun.    We’ve shown you pictures of the park near our apartment – it used to be the zoo.  It’s so small, that it almost seems like it must have actually been a petting zoo, rather than a real zoo.  The new zoo (which is about 25 years old) is north of the city.

          The project was a tree planting at the zoo, and our Church’s young adults between 19 and 30 were asked to participate.  It was a little hard because it was on a week-day morning, but we had about fifteen turn out which was really enough. Other groups had particpants as well.  

Here's the first group - I love how many of the Dominican women pose,
such a the girl with her hand on her hips. I've seen even little girls do thi!

          Reforestation is a big thing in this part of the world, which is interesting to us because there are so many trees.  The Church does have a big project planned for Haiti soon, but that is because of the damage done by hurricanes. 

               The Church donated about 50 trees for the project.

Here the zoo workers are moving the trees from our truck to theirs.

   











The zoo workers went ahead and dug the holes, and then the kids just plopped in the trees, so it went very quickly.

We don’t have a lot of photos of the zoo itself because we were concentrating on the tree planting project, and after the Atlanta Zoo, this was is not really unique, although it's the largest zoo in the Carribbean.  There is supposed to be a white rhino, but didn't have time to go looking for it.  The flamingoes, though, are beautiful and so tropical.

 

It was a fun project, and we were glad to be a part of it.  As you can see, the kids themselves had a ball…

Dominican Cottage Industry - the Faceless Doll

Many folks here make beautiful things to sell.  When you go to the beach, there is always someone with lovely wood carvings that he tries to sell to you or an oil painting of a Dominican scene. 

Right after we came here, I saw this 
darling doll in a store –
 I love her because she is so dignified & lovely.

Probably the most famous “craft” from the Dominican Republic is the faceless doll.  These dolls, which are made by a number of manufacturers here, represent the people of the country who are of Taino Indian, African, Spanish, French and other ethnicities – they don’t have faces because they are everyone.

There is another style that we have fallen in love with, too. These other dolls that I love are made from a special ceramic material and are made with amazing details.  A few months ago, a number of us went to visit the home where these dolls are manufactured in a nearby town.  This “factory” is a real example of a successful cottage industry- at least ten women are working there.  And then next door, her husband does wood working and makes darling shoeshine kits, wood trays, business card holders, etc. The woman is named Mary and her husband is Joseph.

The women must make thousands of these sweet little dolls of different sizes and nativities.  The clay itself is some kind of resin that dries very hard, but I saw some large bags of cornstarch, so that must be part of it.  When the basic clay is made, they add a large squirt of oil paints until the get the right color.

Here's where Joseph and some other men work on wood projects.

Here's what the whole workroom looks like

There are the molds for the body
of the doll.

Can you see the pasta roller on the left?  That's how they roll
out the material for the skirt.

The skirt has designs for the lace and little flowers added
and then they pleat them to make the skirts.

Now they have a skirt on them.

These dolls will have several skirt layers.

These are the little collars for the dolls' dresses.

You can see the assembly line process that they use - all of the little parts that are made separately and then put together – the intricacy is just amazing.  All the "lace" and other edgings like on the ruffled skirts are done with a bag that looks like a frosting bag...

Here is a closeup of the collars - see the lace and little flowers.

These the little umbrellas that will be added.

These are little magnets - almost done. They are intricate, too, but not three-dimensional  

      And now they have their faces!

Here's a finished doll - all the ruffles on
her dress!

And here is one of the nativity scenes that I've ordered for the family.  Can you see that even baby Jesus has a laced edged blanket and Joseph has a rope sash?  They are just amazing...

Mary is sweet - Joseph even has stripes on his robe.  I love the fringe at the bottom of his shawl.
 They are just so sweet - even the grass is very detailed.

Things on Trucks

This is just a quickie post that we have wanted to share about the things that we have seen on trucks here.  A little light but they cast a lot of light on how they make good use of their transportation (and also do things that would never have been allowed in the United States :-).

Can you see how precariously these logs are loaded with pretty flimsy

posts to keep them from falling off the back?  We hurriedly got

around that baby.

These are giant bags of rice with the guys just riding on top.

A truck of green bananas - we wonder how many of them get bruised

This is a whole truck of empty plastic crates - the guys loved it that we were taking a picture.

 A truck full of palm trees headed somewhere for planting-

can you see the two guys waving as they were getting into the picture. 

A giant truck full of sugar cane - this doesn't show how large it was.

This truck was overflowing, but at least they tied a few things down.

There is a little truck under all of those bales - we couldn't figure out how they got them all on.

And here's a satellite dish - again, how did they load it?

A truck filled with the little motos that everyone drives.

A truck full of furniture isn't remarkable, but it was just pouring that day -

can you see the fellow on the right sitting in the back and getting drenched?!