Day Eight Constanza

What an amazing day we had today. We headed out in the morning Angelo and Leona, Robinson and Andy, Herman and me, on three bikes. The road started out paved and eventually to gravel and lots of ruts and very windy. We went about 50 km up and over and arround the mountains to get to Constanza. The views and vistas were amazing, pictures do not do it justice. It was cool at first as you can see by the clothes we had on, its that mt coolness you get here, but once the sun was up higher we shed our coats and felt the warm sun on our backs.
The reason for going to Constanza was one for the ride and the scenery but also Kids Alive have an orphanage up there that I wanted to see and so did Robinson, because he and his wife are thinking of becoming house parents for one of the houses if a vacancy opens up.
Constanza is a real agricultural area, the soil looks very fertile, it is situated in a valley high up in the mountains. It was a bustling city bigger than what I thought it would be. The orphanage is an ongoing project for work teams . They have 3 homes right now with about 9 children in each and 3 pairs of house parents that are Dominican. Where do the kids come from you may wonder. Leona said they are found, or are dropped of or through word of mouth that a child is being neglected, so various ways. There is one here in Jarrabacoa as well, they are both called The Ark. It was all very interesting to see.
As for the agriculture I seen strawberries, potatoes, onions, garlic, cabbages, lettuce, beans and more. We seen some potatoes being harvested by hand like we did about 40 years ago.
We had lunch at a local spot that was recommended to us, it was very good, large portions and very homemade and the place was packed and mostly men, which I thought was a good sign.
Oh i forgot to tell you what we did before lunch, we tried to find the river and a walk to a swimming hole, after asking different people if they new how to get there, we finally did.It wasn't that great plus we had to drive across part of it and it was flowing rapidly and rough and about a foot deep. Anyway Herman refused to drive through so I started across on some rocks and fell flat and got soaked after that I just walked since my sneakers wre wet anyway. Angelo came and took hermans bike over . We went a little further and the path kind of stopped so we turned arround and went back, then we had the river again tis time Herman braved it and plowed right through we were a little concerned when he headed for the rocks but he straitened out just in time. Quite an adventure for us soft Islanders
After Lunch we headed home oh what a dust ,bumpy ride back my butt was very sore actually everything is because you have to brace yourself so much.A shower was very welcome, well they call it a shower but it is a pathetic little sprinkler, anyway with the widow maker it was at least hot.
I for got to mention that before we left Robinson prayed with us for a safe trip I'm glad he did, you can not take your safety for granted here nor should we ever really some how here it seems more so. Thank fully our prayers were answered. Praise the Lord!