DR Projects April 26

  Our first day in the Dominican Republic was an eventful one, as was the process of getting here.     I wrote a cheerful little post about being all checked I and on time at Logan Airport, and happily hit “send”.     Little did I know that our flight, scheduled to depart at 10:30 p.m. Friday, would not take off until 8:00 a.m. Saturday, after a largely sleepless night in the terminal.     Our boarding kept getting delayed because we needed to wait for the pilot to arrive from another flight.     Then he wasn’t eligible to fly us because he had logged too many hours. Then they found another pilot, and boarded us.     And there we sat for another hour before we were told that there was another crew snafu, and we would need to deplane and wait until morning. So from midnight on, we hung out at Gate 9 in Terminal C.     Some tried to sleep.     Others were unable to sleep owing to the ambient noise of shrieking chil...

 Our trip to the DR is off to a smooth start!  Our traveling party of 15 was together for the first time once the Dartmouth Coach picked up our two Sunapee High students in New London, and our trip to Logan Airport was smooth.  We checked 24 very full suitcases, full of donated material (and some of our stuff), and had no problem getting through security.  The line was long, but it moved pretty quickly. The two-by-two dog-sniffing perp walk was a new feature.  My titanium knee set off the usual alarms, but I impressed the TSA folks with a nice x-ray of my right knee post-surgery.  The flight boards in half an hour, and shoud take off on time a little past 10.  We'll land in Santiago between 3:00 and 4:00, and load our bus quickly before we make the short drive to the beautiful Sana Secret Garden, a small guest house with plenty of room for all of us to rest for 4-5 hours before we start the day at 11:00 with a leisurely breakfast.  We'll hop back ...

  After months of careful planning and preparation, we are ready to begin our trip to the Dominican Republic.  Our travel party of 15 (Rita Severinghaus has already landed safely in the DR and will be greeting us at the Santiago airport in the early hours of Saturday morning) will be heading to Logan Airport Friday afternoon for our overnight flight. I will be publishing this blog every day at the end of the day to help us keep a record of our travels and keep parents, family and friends up to date.  I will be including a modest number of photographs, and hope to include several guest authors. I have been fortunate in past years to have decent internet service at our hotel in Cotui, although I occasionally need to excuse students from their devices. The photos are from our successful packing day last Saturday at the Norwich church.  We filled 13 suitcases with donated medical and school supplies, dental supplies,  sports equipment and clothing. Only two days ear...