A very triste Bon Voyage

Well, what can I say? The only way to celebrate/cope with Kelsi and Jen's departure back to the United States was with half price margaritas at Tequila John's (a special Peace Corps discount, no less!). After a delicious meal and drinks, we spent some time at the hostel and then went out attempting to find somewhere to dance, ultimately ending up at some random speakeasy downtown. In any case, it was really hard to see my two favorite Santiago girls go! I will definitely miss all of trips to the JUMBO (aka Colinas mall) to eat sandwiches and Yogen Fruz! (Even I need a break from rice and beans every now and then). And no more trips to Playa Dorada where we gringas can pretend to be tourists for a day! In any case, I had a great time living near both Jen and Kelsi and will miss them more than they know! I wish them all of the best in that great land we call Nueva York and hope that they come visit soon! Buena suerte to las dos chicas preciosas.

My latest "Side Project"

Meet Frito. (Or "Frita" if it turns out to be a girl). Most of you know that I am a die-hard animal lover and have always been particularly fond of the feline sort. Generally, the more sick, desperate, and needy, the better...right? Well, in the DR I have surprised myself in many ways. And now I find myself wanting to throw this cat right back onto the street from whence it came. About 5 weeks ago, some little muchachos brought me the cat and told me that someone had killed its mother. It was SUPER tiny and really sick, so I decided to keep it in a box in my spare bedroom. A few hours later, they brought me its "sister," Catchu (how the say catsup). I had two baby kittens and had to BOTTLE feed them constantly. As a side note, I am never having children. Well, I suppose I can still adopt, but they will have to know how to feed themselves and be potty trained. Bottle-feedings are a nightmare. Anyway, pobre little Catchu got sick in the night and died one morning. Even though she drove me insane, I was really sad to see her go. Now it is just Frito and I. He whines ALL day long, chews on my fingers, has fleas that I have tried to kill with shampoo TWICE, pees on my floor, refuses to drink milk out of anything besides a bottle, and (I'm pretty sure) has parasites. Just a bundle of fun, huh? PLUS, I couldn't join Robyn in patronales because I was stuck at home being a surrogate cat mother! But, then again, he is a cute little scalywag, isn't he?!?! I just hope that he grows up to be big and strong and develops an appetite for cockroaches!!

Life as Usual

So, Kelsi once wrote that she feels like she just gets into the routine of ordinary life and, therefore, she feels that she doesn't have anything "blogworthy" to say. I must admit that I often find myself in the same position. I mean, after a certain point, life just becomes sort of...normal. I go to work, do laundry, go into town, hang out with my host family, go to Santiago, and do lots and lots of reading. So, I thought that I could just occasionally post funny pictures like these ones...since me reading a book wouldn't be as interesting. On the right, we have my brother "combing my hair" and, on the left, he is wearing some goggles that his dad brought him from the hotel. All of the odds and ends that tourists leave lying around the hotel rooms become great toys for my host siblings (Darling even has a giant blow up whale!). You may also notice that he isn't wearing any pants...he is not exactly in the habit of doing so. Though, hey, it is HOT!

I really do work, too

Welcome to my precious little "classroom," also known as the "library." You can see that it is just OVERFLOWING with books, huh? And most of the books that you do see here are either not in Spanish or are written by such primary school greats such as Sophocles, Descartes, and Nietzche. (Not exactly on my 1st graders' reading lists!). I wish that I had some before pictures so that I could show you all what a mess it was beforehand..but with the Directora's help we repainted (even the chalkboard!) and I swept, mopped, and dusted..throwing away things like Hunting magazines (complete with pages and pages of rifles), television programming manuals from the 1960s, and old Popular Mechanic magazines in English. Now I spend just about all day, everyday in this little room. I have four different classes (two in the morning and two in the afternoon) of students who are overage..ranging anywhere from 10-year-olds who are in 1st and 2nd grade to 13 and 14-year-olds who are in 3rd. Most of the students I work with are "principiante," meaning that they are still working on vowel recognition. I am also putting kids on mini versions of Individual Education Plans (IEPs), so that teachers and parents can work together to track students one-on-one progress. So far, all is hectic but going well. Soon I will post some pictures of my beloved kiddies hard at work!

So Sick of Computers

So, I was going to put up a few new pictures today but I worked all day and am as tired as a dog, and simply cannot deal with these piece of crap computers. I went to my usual internet center, and they didn´t have internet. I am now at another...I am on my FOURTH computer here because my USB didn´t fit in the first one, and the other two didn´t work. After about ten minutes of trying to shove the USB in the back of this computer, it still won´t retreive the pictures on my card. So, I don´t know HOW everyone else keeps their blogs nicely updated, but I am having technical difficulties and, therefore, have to wait to post more pictures. Hopefully it will be soon!

Happy Birthday of a Different Sort

So, this happened a few weeks ago, but I think that it deserves mentioning. I was invited by one of the support staff of the school to her son´s 12th birthday party. The woman is really nice and has invited me to her house previously, so I made it a point to attend. Little did I know that I would be their guest of honor! They kept serving me on dishware when everyone else received paper plates. I wanted to explain that, although (for them) I have eaten from the silver spoon, we also use paper plates in Nueva York! Anyway, they turned the music on and the kids started dancing...which SOUNDS innocent enough..but the music was reggaeton, which most resembles hip hop. The dancing is actually MORE caliente than hip hop! I mean these kids were only 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10 years old...and they were making ME blush with how ¨adult¨they were dancing. Funnily enough, the parents just write it off as ¨kids are changing these days¨and that THIS is what they like now. Well, I was red in the face and just about ready to leave, but then the generator ran out of power and so the kids had to go home. I stayed on the porch with the father, an uncle, and a few other random guests and we actually had a great conversation about economics, poverty, Europe, all sorts of crap. They have learned a lot about other countries by watching Discovery en español, and were asking me things like, ¨Is there really a place that has rivers instead of streets?¨ We had lots of fun drinking Brahma (one of the THREE main beers here). The best part is that the family, though one of the poorest I know here (they have a house entirely made of wood and at least three people in each bed. I also used their bathroom for the first time..which was just a wooden hut where one pees on the floor!), they want to take me all around town...to the campo, to the beach, to the pig roast, to the discoteca. I couldn´t be more excited!! I am even hoping to move closer to them (and, thereby, closer to the school as well). Si Dios quiere!