Saturday, October 17, 2009
This afternoon we made up for our disappointing walk. On our regular Saturday drive to Azua we had to take a detour quite a way out of our way. We drove about 40 miles up to the pueblo of San Juan to make an emergency delivery of mail and packages to the Elders there. We’ve heard from several people that this is a pretty drive. Well, we weren’t disappointed. It was a beautiful drive through the country side. The best part was the beautiful new road up there. It was very wide, with shoulders and a centerline stripe. And we saw something on the road that we haven’t seen anywhere else in the Dominican Republic, it was a passing lane. Wow, a new road, with painted lines, a guard rail and passing lanes. What could be better than that? Well I’ll tell you… imbedded orange reflectors in the roadway to mark the center line and white reflectors imbedded to mark the side of the road. This road was so good I thought I was back in Arizona.
Something else really jumped out at us. All of the little towns we went though and San Juan itself was completely clean and litter free. This is highly unusual. The Dominican Republic has to be the litter capital of the world. But the people in these little towns and all through San Juan take a great deal of pride in their communities. It was very obvious because the streets were so clean and litter free. It was a wonderful drive we took. I’m really glad we had to take the detour.
Hna. Johnson also observed something about these little communities and maybe the reason why they are so clean. Once we took the turnoff to San Juan the country side and scenery changed. We were driving in a fertile river valley. This was all irrigated farm land. All of the little towns we drove through, including San Juan, are farming communities. Hna. Johnson said that generally people that work the land (farmers) love, respect and take care of the land. They wouldn’t think of throwing litter or trash on the land they love. I think she’s right.
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