Mealtime

I thought maybe some people might be curious as to what I usually eat down here. There are actually a number of options since this is a tourist destination. On the beach there are quite a few restaurants that have prices that are average by American standards, but expensive on a volunteer´s budget. I usually avoid those places. The times I do eat on the beach, I usually go to a couple of places that have some good cheap dishes and also half price or two for one happy hour specials. In those situations, I can get something decent for a very low price ($3-$5).

Other good places are what are basically Dominican restaurants. At these places you can eat for about $3-$4 at any hour. The basic Dominican dish is chicken, rice, beans, and maybe a little salad. Really not a bad deal at all. There is some variety too, as you can get beef and fish and other variations, but generally it´s all pretty much in the same category as the traditional dish.

Another type of place I like is the colmado. A colmado is a small Dominican store, that sometimes is only a walk up booth type of setup. They sell small food items, soft drinks, beer, rum, and other basic things. Some of them sell food, which is usually pretty good and pretty cheap. My favorite is the pork sandwich at the colmado closest to me. It costs 80 pesos (about $2.50) and is pretty filling.

This isn´t to say, however, that I eat out all the time, or even a lot. I eat breakfast and lunch almost every day in my room. Breakfast is usually corn flakes, milk, bananas, coffee, and water. All in all, it probably comes to about 25-30 pesos ($1 or less). For lunch, I usually have a couple peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (sometimes tuna fish or ham), a couple more bananas, and maybe some cookies. That probably costs another 30 pesos or so.

Breakfast

Lunch

Sunday night through Thursday night, six of us eat dinner at a local Dominican family´s house. We choose what we would like to have and then Anthony goes with her to buy and pay for the groceries. At the end of the month we give her another amount for her time and labor. We eat outside on their little patio area, and it´s also kind of nice to have a regular meeting with some of the other volunteers. She is a pretty good cook, and we have had a lot of variety. Chicken or beef with rice and beans, burritos, sandwiches, salads, stew, stir-fry are all some of the dishes we´ve had. I also take care of handling the money for the group, putting my wonderful accounting skills to use.

5 of the 6 regular dinner group members

Here´s Jessie and Anthony displaying Jessie´s wonderful burrito making skills. If that Dartmouth education fails to get her somewhere, there´s always a job waiting at Chipotle.

The other nights I either eat out somewhere or occasionally make something in my room. That isn´t often, however, as the only things I´ve made in my room are rice and beans, sandwiches, and eggs (for breakfast).

Well, that´s about it for food. As you can see, I generally try to be a cheap bastard and make my stipend go as far as I can. That way I have more money to spend on rum and beer. Just kidding. Sort of.