Eight months of wonderful experiences.

By: Anna Groesser
Graduate and Gap Year 32-week Program, 2012You can read about Anna's internship with Grupo PUNTACANA on the InteRDom website here.

Well, the end of my eight month InteRDom internship (which was in Punta Cana) is near, and I cannot believe it! The experience was so wonderful- I had a great situation there and I felt fulfilled with all my responsibilities and tasks I had, plus my supportive and awesome supervisors Señor Beswick and Margarita. Now I am back in Santo Domingo at the InteRDom apartment, awaiting the final date, preparing for my post-internship job at a really nice private school and apartment-hunting as well. I will be staying in the country- my fiancée, who I met in Michigan over two years ago, is Dominican and we are planning to stay here. A lot of the Dominicans I’ve told are surprised that we aren’t returning to the U.S. But honestly, I do appreciate the positives of this country, the cool feeling that I am living so far from home and out of my comfort zone, and I am only mildly homesick. More importantly, both he and I have very good job situations here and plan to stay for at least the next four years. (I can’t help but think, by that point, my Spanish will be great!)

It was bittersweet to leave my temporary home in Punta Cana- saying goodbye to all the friends and acquaintances I made there- but the end of my internship there went as smoothly as it could possibly have gone. I received farewell gifts from my supervisors and also the Public Relations office (which I had helped often with translations, photos and website work)- fancy Oscar de la Renta perfume (he is one of the co-owners of the PUNTACANA Resort and Club) and a Caribbean beach resort-style sun hat that people commonly wear while outdoors. On my last day, I had lunch with some of the friends I had made. When I returned to the capital and to my room, I found the InteRDom apartments were full of other interns (whereas when I arrived in December, I was the only intern) and I have been able to make some good friendships in just a short period of time.

(One final note- though apparently July and August are supposed to be the hottest months of the year here… I arrived in December (the coldest time) and I honestly cannot feel a huge difference. It was hot then, and it is hot now! This is actually the biggest question I have received from people back home: “How hot is it down there?” and my answer really is that boring!)

All the best of luck to my fellow InteRDom interns, to Alicia & Mandy in New York and to Reyna & Melida here in Santo Domingo! Thanks for everything!

Supporting the Community

By: Anna Groesser
Graduate and Gap Year 32-week Program, 2012
You can read about Anna's internship with Grupo PUNTACANA on the InteRDom website here.

Well, here I am writing another blog for InteRDom! First off, the basics about my employer: I am here as an InteRDom intern within the Social Community Projects department of Grupo PUNTACANA, a huge resort corporation (which includes two hotels, golf courses, water/power/security infrastructure, lots of restaurants, an ecological preserve, an outdoor shopping area and more). While being the very first resort in Punta Cana and spearheading the whole tourist industry in this region, Grupo PUNTACANA has taken it upon itself to contribute and improve the local communities through development projects in health, education, culture, sports and environmental protection.

The Veron Polytechnic School, created by Grupo PUNTACANA, is an example of a successful educational project. Within this tidy and well-run school, along with basic education classes for the youth of Veron, adult classes are also offered which give training in a variety of resort jobs. In other words, while Grupo PUNTACANA is contributing to the overall education of the local community, they are also contributing to their own workforce of resort employees. This is a melding of social corporate responsibility to the community and a responsibility for the fiscal growth of the company..

Taking a quick look at some other areas of community development/protection within Grupo PUNTACANA, we have the Ecological Foundation. This is extensively focused on and devoted to protecting the natural beauty of the environment. Their efforts toward protection of the flora and fauna and the marine and animal life is astounding, as is the vast amount of talented scientists and students who come here to study and contribute. Another aspect of Grupo PUNTACANA’s contributions is the local free health care clinic in Veron, which was completely renovated from a decrepit building to a clean and working clinic by Grupo PUNTACANA and now run in cooperation with the Virginia College of Osteopathic Medicine (VITCOM). VITCOM organizes “medical missions” in the community and supplies the medical staff within the clinic- again we see a huge amount of educated and valuable professionals coming to this region through the efforts of Grupo PUNTACANA. Everyone benefits: the local community gets better health care access, the VITCOM medical students gain experience and Grupo PUNTACANA receives a relatively healthier region for its tourists, as well as a stronger and healthier workforce.

As for my specific role within Grupo PUNTACANA as an intern, I deal with supporting the educational projects. Right now, we are building a new primary school and then improving the computer lab in an existing school. Because I am basically here as educated brainpower, I have a lot of freedom in my position to brainstorm ideas, suggestions and activities to supplement our projects. Besides the contributions I come up with as the days go by, my set responsibilities include creating a formal paper on the state of public education in this region through an extensive interview series (with local stakeholders) to understand the impact the new school will have on the community. Secondly, I am responsible for sitting in on the computer classes in the lab we will improve, and observe the teaching methods, computer programs used, and interviewing the teacher and students to find things we can make more efficient. I will also be collaborating with the local Peace Corps members here on an educational project, I will be giving a presentation to a local school on the importance of community development, and then contributing to a new statistical analysis of graduated students from a public school. I could go on and on describing the small tasks and activities I have, but there’s limited space here, so let me just say: my plate is quite full with a variety of engaging and fulfilling things!

My living situation here is quite nice. I live within the hotel grounds, in a clean and well-maintained little guest house about 3 minutes’ walk from the beach. It is breathtakingly beautiful in the “white sand beaches/turquoise sea/and warm, humid breezes” way that tourists all over the world seek. It really is paradise. Since I have arrived, my Spanish has improved a lot, but it is still difficult. One of my main preoccupations is figuring out how to still be a valuable intern without being perfectly fluent in Spanish, while energetically studying the language in my free time. So far, I have found many ways to contribute adequately, even without perfect Spanish, and it will only get easier as my Spanish improves.

The Punta Cana Community

By: Anna Groesser
Graduate and Gap Year 32-week Program, 2012
You can read about Anna's internship with Grupo PUNTACANA on the InteRDom website here.

I’m now at the halfway point of my eight-month internship here in Punta Cana and there’s so much to talk about! For starters, I’d like to remark on the friendliness of most every employee I come in contact with on the hotel property. When I leave my casita in the morning and walk to the employee cafeteria, I probably pass on average about ten different employees, and it is extremely odd if even one does not look me in the eye and say hello or good morning. I am wearing my employee badge, so they know I am not a guest, and there is no need to try and impress me, yet they still give a hearty greeting. I am struck by this, even after living here for four months.



Right now, there’s a tranquil, humid rain coming down outside and as I listen to the sound, it reminds me of the current changing seasons. When I arrived, I felt it was quite warm and humid, but it has actually gotten more humid as the months have moved past the winter season. Being from Northern Michigan, I am dreading the hottest months of the year- July and August- but luckily I have AC in my casita as well as the office, so I know it could definitely be worse!



I was thinking I’d mention some things I do for fun, since I haven’t really talked about that. I’ve been here for a few months already and have made a small group of friends who are scattered throughout the Punta Cana region. I have a Dominican friend who works the reservation phone for Tortuga Bay (the luxury boutique hotel here) who I met on the bus going to Santo Domingo one weekend. I also am friends with the two local Peace Corps members who live right in the heart of the nearby Verón community. I’ve got random friends I see at the office during the day, and ones I eat lunch with Monday through Friday, plus the front desk hotel staff who I talk to quite often (as I spend a lot of free time in the lobby, using the wireless Internet). Anyway, for fun, I find myself visiting a nearby theater to catch a recent flick, or spending a weekend afternoon on the beach with a Peace Corps member or two, or organizing a group dinner at a friend’s casita or simply spending time alone, studying Spanish and watching movies on my computer. Sometimes I visit one of the jungle lagoons here for a quick swim, or I meet up with one of the Peace Corps volunteers in Verón (and I can really see how good I have it living at the hotel, since Peace Corps members live at the same income and lifestyle quality level as the locals!) There are a variety of hobbies I can take up here too- I can learn to dive at the dive shop and help them hunt the invasive species Lionfish in the coastal area, I can help at the PUNTACANA Ecology in one of their sustainable resources projects or I can spend a day volunteering at a local orphanage.

As for my work activities, these are just as varied as my free time activities. Specifically, one recent activity was extremely fulfilling- I spent a week with a large group of doctors and medical students and we set up makeshift clinics in the local community, and simply treated people as they came. I did a lot of patient flow management because we had to keep the huge crowd (plus the numerous kids underfoot) from milling about too much, wandering into different sectioned-off areas to curiously watching the examinations! I’ve also been working on the creation of a few different webpages for the PUNTACANA Foundation, and I am learning the public relations-related steps we need to take before these websites can be made official, since it represents the hotel corporation’s image. And just recently, I co-managed a group of VIP tourists from the U.S. for a couple hours. They were interested in seeing the free local clinic and one of the local schools that the PUNTACANA Group created. This was a lot of fun, since it involved my direct supervisor Margarita and I acting as a close-working team during the tour, and we both received a hearty applause at the end as the group thanked us for our leadership that day!

Adjusting to Life in Santo Domingo

By: Anna Groesser
Graduate and Gap Year 32-week Program, 2012
You can read about Anna's internship with Grupo PUNTACANA on the InteRDom website here.

I have been living in Santo Domingo for about one month now, and luckily arrived during their “dead of winter” season. To them, this means comfortable breezes and temperatures in the mid-80s. To me, coming from Northern Michigan, this is the height of summer! That being said, you can be sure I have enjoyed the temperatures while my friends and family in Michigan freeze. Honestly, my past month has been pretty relaxed. I’ve focused on getting adjusted to daily activities- for example, weekly shopping and visiting the local colmado for avocados and bananas (or catching the seller who passes through the street every day at 10am, and buying them from his cart). I’ve also toured some of the areas of Santo Domingo and have been slowly practicing my Spanish with strangers and friends (especially those helpful sentences such as “Can you say it with simple words?” and “A little slower, please.”)

Something interesting: after having been in Santo Domingo for only one week, I had experienced more culture shock than in my entire year studying in Tokyo. I attribute it to the fact that the Dominican Republic is not simply a foreign country to me, but also a developing country and a far cry from what I am familiar with back in the U.S. It’s a developing country, yes, but it’s also a busy, thriving and lively place. People are everywhere, things are going on everywhere, trash is everywhere. The streets are narrow and sidewalks are often non-existent. There is so much to look at and compare here. The driving is treacherous and sellers swarm cars at stop lights selling knickknacks, fruits and flowers, or trying to clean windshields. But on the other hand, the pace of “getting things done” in offices and banks and cellphone branches is often frustratingly slow. This is a city of extremes.

The FUNGLODE building is directly across from my apartment building. Their facility is high-tech and impressive, with Dominican security guards in evidence at all times of the night and day. FUNGLODE often hosts political and academic activities and during those evenings, the street below is full of cars looking to park (and lots of honking, to hurry each other along!) A few times a week, the president of the Dominican Republic visits FUNGLODE, and that’s always exciting to me.

My Spanish teacher was a confident and interesting Dominican Spanish language professor. We focused on speaking and listening mostly, as my reading and writing far exceed the former, and she gave me a birthday present on our last lesson day (a wind chime, perfect for my breezy and spacious 5^th floor apartment). I hope in a few months to reconnect with her, due to her strong interest in community development within Santo Domingo.

The next phase of my time here entails me moving to Punta Cana in a few days to begin my development internship with Grupo PUNTACANA. I will be interning within two projects- one the creation of a local elementary school and the other in the improvement of a local high school’s computer lab. This is exactly what I went to graduate school for and I can finally experience these things in real life, and not as solely theoretical 20-page paper projects!