January 29, 2013 - Cinnamon Iced Tea Demonstration and Group Yoga

After our morning at clinic and House of Hope, we were able to have a relaxing afternoon at Jungle Bay. After enjoying a wonderful lunch, we got to watch a demonstration of how to make our beloved cinnamon iced tea. Joanne, the head chef, heard about our infatuation with this wonderful drink and showed us how she boils the cinnamon bark in water to extract the flavors. After 10 minutes or so the "tea" is poured into a pitcher and mixed with lime juice and sugar. Just 3 ingredients, so simple, yet so delicious. Our group fell in love with this tea on our very first night at Jungle Bay and now we will be able to make back home!

 We had some downtime to work on our herbal scavenger hunt interviews before we had our group yoga session with Nancy. As the sun began to set, we were treated to an open air yoga class with the sound of the ocean as our soundtrack. We were expecting a typical morning yoga session that Nancy usually puts on, however we were in for quite a unique surprise. Instead of working on our balance and strength with the typical warrior poses and sun salutations, we spent the class in variations of the shavasana corpse pose. We used a bolster for most of our poses. For example, one of the poses was to simply place one leg over the bolster as we lied on one side of our body. Nancy challenged us to clear our minds of any outside thoughts and learn to relax and enjoy ourselves in the moment. It certainly was a very novel idea for us as we have been so busy with our final year of pharmacy school and all the stress that comes with rotations and job-seeking. This yoga session with Nancy was truly a great way to cap off our trip to Dominica. The people of this country have humbled us and taught us to be more patient, slow down, and appreciate the simple things in life. I tried to channel this attitude into my yoga session and I hope my fellow group members got as much out of it as I did.

- Joanne