and the music didn't stop till 6am

Or possibly later, to be honest. But I think 6am was about the time that I fell asleep on Sunday morning, in a sleeping bag full of sand and still wearing my jeans.

On Friday night, I went to a poetry reading here in la Zona Colonial that was part of the Dominican Republic's second annual International Poetry Festival. It began with a very well-coordinated, ridiculously cute musical/dance act by students of the public schools in Guachupita and Capotillo (two particularly marginalized barrios in Santo Domingo). After the fanfare of eight-year-olds dancing in colorful colonial garb and some incredible drumming, noted poets from Brazil, the DR, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Cuba read selections of their work. I'm glad I was able to catch part of the festival, thanks to a tip-off from a friend here, which featured events from October 20-25. After that, I stopped for some chocolate/vanilla/mango/guava goodness and a chat with the nice Cuban lady who, with her Italian husband, co-owns the homemade ice-cream place by my house. I made it home just in time to avoid a 20-minute downpour. When the rain ended, my roommate and I went out to La Espiral for una noche de palos, where some of the Spaniards (of the commune in our previous apartment building) had congregated. They invited us to come to Juan Dolio, a beach about an hour from the capital, on Saturday for an overnight fiesta. I agreed to go, though my roommate declined (she had a cold and lots of work to catch up on).

What I thought was going to be a small gathering of the Spaniards and a quiet night on the beach turned out to be one of the most amazing parties I've ever been to. There were about 30-40 people whom I had never met in my life, though most of them were from what I'll refer to as the "International 20-Somethings NGO Crew." By "international," I mean that I met people from the DR, Spain, France, Guadeloupe, Honduras, Italy, and the U.S. By "20-Somethings," I mean people that were old enough to have meaningful conversations about feminism, machismo, public health, music, research, and culture, all while tearing up the dance floor until dawn. By "NGO," I mean that if you ask most of them what they are doing here, the answers range from working for UNICEF and the Red Cross to installing irrigation systems in remote mountainous communities in the country's interior and environmental work.

We swam in the Caribbean, had a cook-out (a girl from Texas and I marveled at the first hot dogs we'd seen in a while), sang and danced to live music, merengue, bachata, reggae, salsa, reggaeton, and techno, lay on the sand and counted the shooting stars that seem to be remarkably common in this part of the hemisphere, talked (in Spanish, English, and the tiny bit of Italian I was able to muster) on the beach at who knows what hours of the morning, and found patches of floorspace on which to catch a few hours of sleep in the completely unfurnished beach house that we were renting for the night. Good thing I brought my sleeping bag and yoga mat. When I woke up, I went swimming and then fell asleep again on the beach until several of the Spaniards decide to pack up around 2pm. We went to an oceanfront seafood restaurant before heading back to Santo Domingo.

Saturday night/Sunday morning highlighted one of the main reasons that I love traveling - the people you meet. While it is a wonderful experience getting to know the people of the country where you are, I have come to appreciate getting to know other travelers as much or more so. I've found that those who choose to travel, live, and/or work abroad are predisposed to be much more open-minded, mature (in some cases), and cultured than the general population (of any country). People who set out to know the world in which they live from other perspectives - geographically and mentally - are a select group. Admittedly, there's an inherent privilege in being a part of this contingency, but not all those who are privileged necessarily choose to explore, challenge themselves, and expose themselves to new places and cultures. Those who do, as was demonstrated this weekend and in numerous late-night conversations in hostels and clubs throughout South America during my semester in Peru, are some of the most amazing people I've ever met. Perhaps the fleeting nature of such acquaintances adds to this. If you have a life-changing conversation with a complete stranger at 2am in a hostel in Bolivia, somehow the knowledge that you may or may not ever see that person again makes the interaction all the more meaningful. And even if you do (which, in our increasingly small, globalized world, is not entirely unfathomable), the transient feel of traveling makes you somehow appreciate it more in the moment. Of course, the good thing about hanging out with people who are living here in the DR, as opposed to just visiting, means that there is more time to hang out with such an awesome bunch. :)