Baseball

After two days of motorcycle touring and a day of waterfall jumping and cock fights, today’s only adventure was to find a barber shop and a salon to get out hair done.

The lovely family that rents us the motorcycles has been very helpful in learning our way around.  Keith asked one of the older sons, Ronnie, for a recommendation for a barber and he walked us through town.  The first barber was on the second story up a very steep and narrow set of concrete stairs.  He didn’t know what to do with Keith’s blond head so we followed Ronnie to another barber.  At first we got a little panicked when he just started hacking haphazardly at his head, but it was just because its been so long since he got it cut and he was getting to a starting point.  I turned out to be one of the most meticulous cuts he has gotten.  We took a break and had breakfast at our usual little shop and then we went off in search of a salon.  There are several here, I got a recommendation for Antonia’s.  She was delightful and had a tiny room in her house to work out of.  She pulled up a picture of what she was doing so no surprises.  I got the full experience with big curlers on my head and all.  I am sure Keith enjoyed waiting the whole time.

By Saturday morning we were ready again for some more action.  The locals organize a softball game between themselves and the boaters.  When we got to the field the kids were playing, they ranged in age from probably 6-17.  It was fun to watch.  Baseball is taken very seriously here, I think the Dominican Republic has the most or second most amount of professional players.  When the local guys started showing up on the field Keith had some second thoughts about playing- they looked tough and to be honest quite intimidating!  I had enough bumps from the waterfalls, I didn’t even contemplate participating.  It became evident pretty quick that they were there to just have a good time.  They didn’t take themselves seriously at all.  Keith joined in.  It was a good time.  The local guys would pretend to miss a ball or slo-mo run to the base.  Even then boaters still only managed to score one point! The game had take a recess while a heard of cows wandered through.  They stopped in the outfield to graze.

^^Think he wants to be a baseball player when he grows up?

^^They provided the gear for the boaters.  Clearly labeled even.

After the game everyone-the kids, the locals, and the boaters-hung out at the corner bar.  They had provided the game, we contributed to the beer and soda.  The beer is drunk more like wine here, a bottle is ordered and it is shared in little plastic cups.  Very social.  I love it.  Ben from Blabber started to serenade the group with a song from the radio and about caused those tough-looking guys to snort their beers.  Lots of laughs.  We are going to do it again next week for sure.  I can’t believe we arrived only a week ago today- it has been one very active week!! (edit: I am a full week behind getting this post loaded up-the game today was just as fun)

On Sunday we went to the real softball game between the Luperon team, Los Normans, and a nearby town.  This time we got to see the serious side of the game.  Wow, they pitch fast! Definitely fun to watch and neither of us are sports fans. We will do it again too.