Haiti and the Southwest, Part 1

The students took a four day field trip to Pedernales and back Jan 24-27. Thursday was spent circling Lake Enriquillo and then visiting the "Magnetic Pole" near Barahona before spending the night in Barahona and heading to Pedernales the next day.

Enriquillo

Enriquillo was a Taino (native inhabitants of the island) chief who was actually raised in Santo Domingo at the San Francisco monastery after his noble father was slain by the conquering Spanish. He was then sent to work under the colonial repartimiento system that apportioned Taino slaves to Spanish landholders in exchange for their promise to convert them to Christianity.

In 1519 he escaped, and soon a large gathering of Tainos joined him and started conducting guerilla warfare on Spanish settlements just South of the lake now named for him. The Spanish sent out several parties to try and capture him, but his hit-and-run tactics, helped by the mountainous landscape kept him and his men out of reach for more than a decade.

In 1530, the Spanish relented and a peace treaty was signed. Enriquillo and his men settled around the lake. Free from the military threat, they succumbed instead to smallpox which was introduced to the DR by the Europeans, and Enriquillo's men were almost totally wiped out within a decade.

Lake Enriquillo is 26 miles long and slightly larger than the isle of Manhattan. The lake sits at the lowest point in the Caribbean at 150 feet below sea level. The lake is 3 times saltier than the ocean. Crocodiles live there, but none were spotted by our group. We did see pink flamingo and plenty of the rhinoceros iguanas.

Near the lake is a cave (Cueva de las Caritas) up a mountain where Tainos carved faces into the coral rock. At the western most edge of the lake is the city La Descubierta where we had lunch under the shade of a centenary tree.

Also...

• View of Lago Enriquillo
• View uphill on the way to las Caritas
  

Dominoes

After lunch, Nate, Tim, Andrew and Luke play the number one game in the DR. Dominoes here is not a simple relaxing family game. The game is incredibly competitive and Dominicans are incredibly good at it.

All over the country, one can find men gathered at Colmados (small corner grocery) in the evening to play. One nuance of the game is how the dominoes are held in both hands, then all laid face down on the table before the domino to be played is picked up and slammed into place. Many Dominicans are so good that, as the game winds down, they can correctly tell you who holds which of the last three dominoes. Score is always kept, usually up to 200.

In this game, Tim and Luke are partners, and if one of them goes out (lays their last domino), they receive a number of points equal to the total number of dots which Nate and Andrew are holding. During the game, they also might receive 25 bonus points points for various other acts, such as the other team not being able to play after the first domino, or at the end of the game, being the only person to be able to play at both ends of the train.

"Magnetic Pole"

On the way back from the lake, we stopped at the "Magnetic Pole" near Barahona. Believe it or not, Miriam, Jon and Betsy are looking down hill.