A Walk to School

When thinking of the Dominican Republic, one might picture beautiful beaches and tropical scenery.  I must admit, that comes pretty close to where we live.  I’d like to introduce you to Villa Montellano, about 20 minutes outside of Puerto Plata on the road to Sosua.  This is a typical days walk to school.

We live on Calle Silencio, a misnomer at best, as we are often serenaded by animals, motos and loud music throughout the day.  Our apartment is four houses down from the autopista, the main highway that runs across the north coast.  We live on the second floor of the building, above our landlord.  There are 7 other apartments in the building and a nice flat roof on top to hang out and watch the stars or hang your laundry out to dry.

As we walk down Silencio towards school, we pass Colmado Oliver.   There are multiple colmados on our street, but we tend to go mostly to Oliver since you can get most anything for day to day cooking there.  We’ve gotten everything from rice by the pound to dish soap, canned beans to fresh tomatoes and peppers.  And most importantly, it is one of the few places that sells Coca Light!  (Random side note:  The guy who owns the place is actually named Luis, but there was already a Colmado Luis on Silencio, so he named it after his son, Oliver.)

As we keep walking towards school, we have to turn onto main street for a bit.  Main Street runs the length of town parallel to the main highway for about a mile, with lots of small shops, restaurants, ferreterias and small parks along the way.  I get my fresh veggies at a stand less than 5 minutes walk from my apartment.  At the corner of Main Street and Silencio is the restaurant Garage (ga-RAH-he) where we can get our daily plato del dia for lunch, consisting of rice, beans and chicken, all for the bargain price of 100 pesos.  Across the street from Garage is our church, Iglesia Templo Biblico, along with a Compassion International school and a private Christian school Adonai in the same area.

Not far down Main Street, we turn right into the neighborhood of Tamarindo, where many of our kids live.  In the morning, one often sees the woman of the house sweeping or mopping the house, and watering the road (I have yet to understand the reason to wet down the road).  Watch your step as you walk down the street, as you never know what was there last.

Tamarindo is a maze of houses separated by alleyways approximately 8 feet wide separating the rows of houses.  I still get quite lost in most of it, but I have learned the way to some of our kid’s houses.  Many of the houses are approximately 15×20 feet and house multiple generations of family members.

At the end of the street, before getting  to the river, we turn left down a small dirt pathway to get to the school.  Every morning as we walk up we are greeted by students running to give hugs, so glad that we are there to love on them.  And that is what makes this all worthwhile!

Welcome to Montellano!