In Santo Domingo, it is hot, and it has lots of palm trees to climb. It has seashells, and flamingos. The people live in houses with straw roofs. Chocolate grows on trees in pods called cocoa beans. The pods are green and red and yellow. The people put cocoa beans in baskets, then spread them out on leaves until they turn chocolate in the sun. The children swim and find the shells called conchs. The shells are shiny pink on the inside. They crush the cocoa beans into chocolate powder.

It’s very hot and hardly ever rains. Sometimes ships come to Santo Domingo from Maine. They are coming from Maine to get bananas, cocoa, and coconuts from the island. The people on the island trade cocoa beans for ice.

In Maine, the days are cold in winter and very short. The people stay inside and cook and play games and stay warm. Outside, the rivers and ponds freeze because it is so cold. The people wear coats and hats. From Augusta to Merrymeeting Bay, men with horses scrape the snow off the river to help it freeze better.
The people go on the ice with big ice cutters. They cut back and forth until the ice looks like a giant checkerboard. Then, they cut the ice and float pieces to the riverbank. Then, they stack blocks of ice in an ice house and cover the ice with sawdust and hay to keep ice from melting. They wait for summer for the Kennebec River to melt, then they load the ice onto schooners and sail south to Santo Domingo.

Chocolate only grows in hot climates like Santo Domingo, and water only turns to ice in cold climates, like Maine. So, this is why Mainers sailed to Santo Domingo to trade ice for chocolate.

Alex and Mark
3/20/03
4A

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