My last week serving with Samaritan’s Purse in Dominica has officially begun. Since my last blog post, I have seen first hand how Samaritan’s Purse is helping the people of Dominica, experienced so many new people and places, and fallen more in love with this island. I am so excited to start serving in Ecuador and Peru in a couple of weeks, but I am definitely going to miss Samaritan’s Purse, Dominica, and the people I have met here.
Throughout the summer, I have had several opportunities to go out into the field and see some home reconstructions, church reconstructions, roof rebuilds, storm shutters, and greenhouses. At these different sites, I talked with some of the beneficiaries and heard so many stories from before, during, and after the hurricane. I have never experienced a disaster like hurricane Maria, and I cannot imagine the fear and loss so many of these people have endured. I heard my favorite story at the last site I visited, a home reconstruction site. A single mother with two children lost her home and job to hurricane Maria. She had nowhere to stay and, like many people on the island, no immediate job prospects. When Samaritan’s Purse started rebuilding her home, she did not sit around and wait for it to be finished. She stepped in and started helping the contractors in any way she could. Through this experience, she learned a new skill and is currently working with that same contractor to build homes for other people in need. As I stood in her home listening to her story, I noticed the Bible Samaritans’s Purse gave her open on her table. What an amazing reminder of why we do what we do! Samaritan’s Purse is helping in Jesus’ name so that people’s physical and, more importantly, spiritual brokenness can be mended. Because I spend most of my time behind a desk, I do not hear these stories every day, but it was such an encouragement to know that I am contributing to making a difference in people’s lives here on Dominica.
For the second half of the summer, Joe, the other intern, and I have worked hard to check as many Dominica sites off of our bucket list as possible. By filling every weekend with a new adventure, we managed to almost complete the bucket list. Here is list of all the places I explored this summer (This is mostly for my own sake, but if you ever go to Dominica, this list is a pretty good list to follow):
- Trafalgar Falls
- Boiling Lake
- Middleham Falls
- Freshwater Lake
- Bioluminescent plankton at Champagne Beach
- Snorkeling at Champagne Beach
- Snorkeling and viewpoint at Scott’s Head
- Mero Beach
- Batibou Beach (this is where we saw baby sharks)
- Snorkeling and natural hot tubs at Bubble Beach
- Number One Beach (from Pirates of the Caribbean 2)
- Spear fishing at Coconut Beach
- Titou Gorge (from Pirates of the Caribbean 2)
- Penville viewpoint
- Pointe Baptiste Chocolate Factory
- Red Rocks
- Emerald Pool
- Wotten Waven Hot Springs
- Mourne Au Diable Crater
- Scuba diving at Toucari Bay
I also ate some great (and not-so-great) Dominica food, plus some non-Dominican, but still really good food from local restaurants. The office provides lunch every day, which is usually traditional Dominican food. Again, mostly for my benefit, here is a list of some of my favorite foods and restaurants I tried during my time here:
- Bakes
- Cacao Tea
- Plantain chips
- Roti
- Shawarma
- Smoothies from Strawberry
- Sunset Bay
- Fort Young
- C&D Beach Bar and Grill
- Icho
- Coco Mango
- Le Petite Paris
- Pagua Bay
I included pictures from some of my bucket list adventures on my last post, but I want to include a few more here, starting where I left off.
My favorite beach on Dominica: Batibou Beach (We saw baby sharks here. Check it out in Joe’s video at the top).
Emerald Pool is just a short hike (really just a stroll) down a tree-covered trail. The bottom picture is the view from the trail.
Freshwater Lake is a gorgeous hike that shows off Dominica’s mountains, lakes, and ocean. Because it is at a pretty high elevation, it is usually pretty foggy, but we were lucky to catch it on a clear day.
Scott’s Head is a viewpoint at the southern tip of the island. On the right of the picture, you can see where the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean meet. If this were a video, you would be able to see that there are a lot of waves on the Atlantic side while the Caribbean is perfectly still. There is also a reef where we snorkeled just down the mountain.
We went to Number One Beach on a stormy day, so the view was not spectacular, but it was a nice beach, and the black sand was cool. I included the picture because this is the same beach Jack Sparrow is running on in the bottom picture from Pirates of the Caribbean 2. Other parts of the movie were filmed at other spots around the island such as Indian River and Titou Gorge.
The chocolate from the Pointe Baptiste Estate Chocolate Factory is significantly better than just about any other chocolate I have ever had; however, I am fairly certain it would not be FDA approved. The man who owns the factory grows the cocoa on the property, ferments and dries it on a wooden table in his backyard, roasts the beans, then takes the roasted beans down to the basement of the factory to make the chocolate. He gave us a tour of the factory and let us try his different flavors. My favorites were mint, spice, and chocolate covered pineapple (also grown on the property).
Red Rocks is a unique rock formation on the north side of the island. It probably formed after iron-rich lava flowing from an erupting volcano was stopped by the sea and formed a peninsula (at the time it was grey). The peninsula began to oxidize and, eventually, rust, which gave it this unique red color.
These are not all of the amazing views I had of Dominica. I could never fit all of them in a blog post, and there were many that I could not capture on a camera at all. I wish I could post pictures of the amazing bioluminescent plankton, never-ending star-covered skies, and colorful underwater ecosystems, but to see those, you will have to come to Dominica yourself. It will definitely be worth your while.
I do not want to end my last Dominica blog post without throwing in some pictures of some of the amazing people I met here. I do not have pictures with all of them, and there are too many people who made an impact on me this summer to even count, but I am so grateful for the relationships I have built this summer. From roommates to coworkers and bosses to visitors from IHQ, the people I met are really what made this summer great – although being on a Caribbean island didn’t hurt. I will forever be grateful for the opportunity God gave me to live and serve on Dominica for a summer.
P.S. I also attached a video that my co-intern, Joe Pfeifer, made of all of our adventures around the island this summer. Thanks for letting me steal your video, Joe! Subscribe to his channel – he is definitely the next great up-and-coming influencer!
