I still volunteer at a little school on Thursday mornings. This past Thursday when I went, I had my favorite experience with my little first graders yet. When my friend Brittany and I got to the school, they told us that we´d be chaperoning my class´ trip to the zoo. I was confused, because I hadn´t heard that there was a zoo in Santiago. Oh, but there is!

The guagua ride to the zoo took about 15 minutes, with 6 little kids sharing the far backseat. The zoo is a large plot of land at the bottom of a mountain in Santiago. We pulled up and all´s we could see was a large field with some ostriches mingling with goats and cows. I dismissed it as a rural zoo and prepared to spend an hour observing their interaction. Oh, but there was so much more!

When we got to the entrance of the zoo, we were greeted by a cage full of small white rats. ¨Estuart Little!¨ exclaimed the niños. So cute. (The kids. NOT the rats.) We walked in a bit further, saw some birds, and then one of my favorite (?) exhibits. The dogs. There was a line of cages containing shih tzus, pomeranians, and other varieties of lap dogs. Sad life, but I suppose those little pooches wouldn´t make it on the streets, and at least this way they´re getting food? Not sure what I think about that. The same was true of a cat exhibit, but I don´t have as strongly of feelings for cats. These weren´t zoo cats (if there is such a thing). These were fluffy white cats that are only in commercials.

There was an extremely agitated monkey that was clearly having mental issues from the ridiculous amount of small children very close to its cage who were nonstop screaming at it. I would´ve had a similar reaction if I were the monkey, I think. The problem was that the monkey would jump at and attack the cage right in front of a child´s face. The child would scream, the other kids would want a similar experience, so they would scream at the monkey and hope it jumped at them. Basically, it was a sad cycle of monkey abuse. When the kids left, we watched it just sit there, and it was shaking like a leaf. Sad story.

Sadder story. There was an exhibit of birds of prey (i think?) and inside their cages were (sensitive stomach? maybe stop reading. Or at least decide right now to not visit this exhibit) bloody chicken heads. There were many bloody chicken heads. And it smelled... like that, too. Left that part in a fast hurry. That smell combined with the muddy crocodile water and croc smell a few feet away made for some quick nausea.

Those were the zoo highlights. The whole experience was pretty neat, and the kids really liked it. It was one of the few days I didn´t have my camera, and the whole morning I was regretting this decision. I´ll get pics of the kids eventually, though. They´re just great.

This weekend has been an even longer than usual weekend. There´s some holiday today that has to do with their constitution (NOTE: the Dominican Republic does not have a working constitution as of this writing. Ironic? HA). This is the last day of the four day weekend. I´m not sure what we´ll end up doing, but there was talk of making a chocolate cake. Yeah, there´ve been cravings for American foods. That might be one...

...aaaaand a whole new photo album! neat.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2063239&l=bcd4f&id=15300570

Interestingly enough, this weekend went as I had expected. It was NOT worth the trip. I'm glad I went because now I can say I've been to the extreme southwest of the Dominican Republic, however if given the option to repeat the experience, I would answer with a loud NO.

We went to Lago Enriquillo, which is a saltwater lake in the southern interior of the DR close to the Haitian border. Let's just set the scene a minute. We pull up to the "parking lot," which is this ridiculously swelteringly hot, arid, desert-y dirt lot. Oh, and the critters. There were way too many iguanas, which here measured about 8 inches high and 2 and a half feet long. When the bus pulled up, 6 or 7 of them waddled up and surrounded the bus. Way too Jurassic Park. We waited in IguanaLand for probably about an hour for a man who will drive us to an island where there's supposedly a museum and some red eyed iguanas. No one in my group really wanted to go to this island, but our director insisted that it'd be good for us to check it out for future years. When the boat man gets there, he duct tapes a motor onto this boat and has half of the group pile on. We cross the lake, which is pleasant enough, but the extremely noticeable scent of gasoline is disturbing. And the fact that the lake is known for its high population of crocodiles isn't something that helps either. Here we are on the boat, pretty much just nervous. We get to the other side, which smells overwhelmingly of sulfur. The scene below greets us. I can't even imagine how many crocodiles are hanging out in that murky water. We managed to get to the rickety ramp onto the island after the boat drivers had to get out and push us forward and ask some os us to get out, too. We get out and walk around the island. Of course, there are killer bees that we have to avoid. We walk around the desert in the blistering sun trying to avoid little cactus thickets that attack our feet. We finally get to the "museum" and realize that it consists of the 3 animal skulls (think cow, pig, goat. Not anything cool.) So we sit around waiting for the boat to bring back the other half of the group so we can get off that island. In the mean time, we talk about how to build fires and how we could catch a red eyed iguana for food. Basically, we were all ready to be stranded on that nightmare indefinitely. Fortunately, the boat did come back and take us back to shore. We rushed to the guagua and sat in the AC waiting for everyone else to come back. When they did, we unfortunatley had several stops yet in the day. We were all cranky. But the next day was much better. We went to Bahía de las Águilas, which is a gorgeous 27km long white sand beach that's super isolated from Dominican Republic. It's on the extreme southwest corner of the country almost in Haiti. We took a boat to get there, and while there were not bothered by any venders or anything of the sort. We only saw 3 or 4 other people there the entire time we were there. And some sand rays, crabs, and other critters. But this beach was by far the most gorgeous beach I've ever seen.

Karin came to visit me last weekend and it was great fun. I have some pictures up on my facebook account, but I don´t have the link to it at this second. I´ll put it down below. Here are two highlights.

We went to Haiti! It wasn´t really a big deal because it involved only walking over the bridge and standing by a building and being told that we were in a different country, but honestly that was enough for me! It was market day, which means that the Dominican government opens up the border for Haitians to cross into Dajabón and buy Dominican products. It was so interesting to see because the two countries are terribly un-fond-of each other, especially in the case of the DR disliking Haiti. The border is only open until 1:00, and at 1:00, any Haitian in the DR is in serious trouble. The border only opens for the Haitians into the DR so that the money from Haiti comes into the DR. On the highway on the way back to Santiago, we were stopped many times by military men making sure we weren´t taking Haitians into the DR.

The other favorite thing that happened while Karin was here happened on Sunday, on which way too many crazy things happened. Basically, we were taking a 3rd class bus from Puerto Plata to Sosúa, which is my favorite beach in the area. We got put in the front seat because we´re gringos, and we got ready to pay. The driver didn´t seem to want to tell me how much it cost to ride to Sosúa, but I heard someone say it was 30 pesos. So I had my 100 peso bill out ready to pay for our rides. We pull up to a gas station, and the driver reaches over and grabs my RD$100 out of my hand. I ask him for the change and he smirks at me. Later, I ask the money collector who rides in the back for change, and he tells me he doesn´t have any (note: since the gas station, several people have gotten on and paid in small change. LIAR.) A few minutes later, I get out my sunscreen to put it on my arm, which is sticking out of the window and burning. The driver reaches over to grab it. I´m of course shocked at his forwardness and pull it away. He makes a sad face and gestures to his arm and tells me it´s burning and grabs for it again. I tell him it´ll cost him RD$40 (what we need for change.) He laughs as if it´s a cute little joke and reaches for it yet again. I´m frustrated with him at this point, remind him of the RD$40, he shakes his head and I put the sunscreen away. He whines. We ignore him. Before you get upset that we were ripped off, understand that it was all for about US$1. And gas costs a lot and these drivers don´t actually make that much money after they have to pay for gas.

So. Today I´ve been sooo hot all day. In my dance class we started learning the Salsa the other day, and that involves a ton of movement, especially when you´re already super hot. And then I went to the cafeteria, bought an iced cream cone, and the iced cream fell off. Not good.

And tomorrow. The day I´ve been dreading for weeks. The bus will be by my house at 3:08 in the morning on the way to the Southwest region of the country. Apparently there are pretty beaches and some national parks. The definite down side: 8 hours each way in a very small, very cramped bus. This down side is enough to deter me from even going, but I was convinced that I should just suck it up and go. So we´ll see. Hopefully it´ll be less painful than I´m anticipating. =) I´ll let you know.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2061429&l=6089f&id=15300570

again, you´ll have to wade through pictures you might have seen already. And there are only 13 or so new pictures. I´ll probably put up more soon. Like, after this weekend´s trip.

As promised, here´s what happened on the family reunion to Ojo de Agua. Um, it was awesome. I wish I would have been able to speak more Spanish there, but I was focusing so hard on understanding everything that I didn´t have time to formulate my own thoughts most of the time. I guess that´ll come later, right? =) We left Santiago a little after 8 Sunday morning and drove the hour to Ojo de Agua. The actual event was a joint graduation party for two cousins who were both really nice. There was quite a bit of family there, and people trickled in and out all day.

One of my host sisters named the farm ´Animalandia´ with very very good reason. We´re talking love birds, cockateels, guinea hens, chickens, 17 turtles, 3 pigs and 13 piglets, a couple of goats, and hundreds of roosters. Why roosters? you might ask. Well that´s mostly due to the ´national sport´ (besides baseball) of cockfighting. So all over the property are single rooster wire cages, most of them with a rooster inside. The noise at that place! I´ll tell you what. More quiquiriquis (how you cock a doodle doo in Spanish) than I´ve ever heard in one place. My host sisters´ uncle is into cockfighting and from what I gathered has his own ring. This is something that repulses and fascinates me at the same time. Of course, it´s a huge waste of roosters that could be used for meat or eggs. But it´s possible that the roosters can sometimes be eaten after they die in the fight, in which case it wouldn´t be as terrible. I tried to figure this out, but no one I asked knew the answer to the question. I´m still not a fan. But I´m debating going to a cockfight, just to do what the locals do.

Anyway, the best part of the day was definitely the fact that Doña Dedé showed up, stayed for several hours, and talked almost exclusively to my host family and me. It was interesting to talk with her about things that weren´t directly connected to what everyone talks to her about, namely the killings of her sisters and what´s happened to her since then. But I got the picture to forever display in my future Spanish classrooms. She´s 83, but you´d never guess it by talking to her. I could write more, but I feel like it´s sort os a topic that either you care about or don´t, so if you are interested in this, we´ll talk later. =)
But yes. Overall it was a great experience. I´d do it again. Except my host sisters aren´t really what you´d call good drivers, and I had pretty decent stomach aches going both ways from their puslating of the go pedal and their frequent abrupt stops for pot holes. Oh, shoot, and while I´m going at it, they always put the radio on scan and leave it there for 10 to 15 minutes at a time. So I´m going crazy int he backseat listening to 10 second clips of music. Yeah, but if that was the worst part, I do suppose it does show that I am bad at predictions. Just like I predicted in Saturday´s post. =)

And since I realized I haven´t posted many pictures on here, and I haven´t shown anyone my host family at all , you get a bonus picture. Here I am yesterday in Ojo de Agua with my host sisters. Angelica is on the left and Carmen in the middle. They´re both going to New York on Saturday for 2 and a half weeks. Not so happy about this, haha. They´re fun.

So I thought I´d try something new so that you could get an idea of how wrong (or right) I can be sometimes when predicting what something is going to be like. I´m going to give my prediction about what I¨m doing tomorrow, and then after I´ve gone, I´ll tell you what really happened.

So, there´s a big graduation party tomorrow in Ojo de Agua for my host family´s cousins. I am going along, and it should last all day. Plus side: there will be amazing food. But this is what I think it´ll be like: embarazoso. That means awkward. Now, let me explain. My host sisters are both in their 30´s. We get along great, we talk a ton, it´s fun. They´re both more social than I am, especially when I´m self conscious about not knowing the language perfectly. My family will know everyone. I know no one. So we´re going to throw all of these elements together and predict that I´m going to be by the punch bowl. It should be fun, I´m just a bit worried about initiating conversation with Dominicans who talk millions of miles a second and don´t pronounce all their letters. (Dominican Spanish tends to drop the endings of words or random syllabols within words. I´m getting used to it, but it´s definitely a part of rural Dominican Spanish that makes it much harder to understand than city Dominican Spanish.)

Another point that might make it embarazoso is that today at lunch I was told to bring my camera because Doña Dedé of the Mirabal sisters (see previous post or look here) will probably be there. She´s their neighbor and the boss of one of the cousin-graduates at a health clinic. So now we have an image of Kristin going, hanging out by a punch bowl, and paparazzi-style taking pictures of a surviving Dominican heroine. Qué bueno. If I were in the states, I would need at LEAST a venti iced americano in order to feel confident going into this experience. Probably two.

Stay tuned for what actually goes down. =)

Hello again. I feel like the only thing I write about is what I did recently, but I guess that´s to be expected? If you have any questions, please post them in the comments part and I´ll use that to write about instead. =) If not, I´ll just keep writing about what I know. Right now, for example, I´ll write about my very fun weekend.

On Friday we went to Salcedo and Ojo de Agua which are the two cities associated with the Mirabel sisters. ´In the Time of the Butterflies´ by Julia Álvarez is a popular book that I read in high school that tells a mostly true version of their stories. They´re heroines who basically were the last straw in the beginning of Trujillo´s downfall. Three of the four sisters were killed in November of 1960 (Trujillo was killed in May, 1961), and the fourth sister still lives in Ojo de Agua. Unfortunately she wasn´t in town when we went to visit or apparently she would´ve talked to us. A few friends and I decided to go back to talk with Dedé because we´re so interested in meeting with her, and we know someone who knows her. There was a museum dedicated to them in Salcedo which is the house they lived in when they were killed. Their clothes were in the closets, the table was set, their books were out on their desks, and it was sort of like they would come back at any moment. It was really neat to see, but it was fairly eerie also. If you ever come to the Dominican Republic, you should read the book I mentioned above. Or there´s a movie if you´re not into reading. =)

On Saturday night I went out with my host sisters and I had an incredible time. They took me to a Mexican restaurant which was DELICIOUS for a change. To compare the two food styles, picture Dominican food often as almost Mexican food, but rather than salsa, ALWAYS substitute it for ketchup. Yeah. Gross. But there is other Dominican food that is good that isn´t full of ketchup or mayonnaise. =) After the food we rode around town in their car and they showed me more places that I hadn´t seen yet. I´m looking forward to going out with them more as it´s a great change from doing things with other Americans. I´m moderately angry, though, because they told me that they´re both going to New York for a two week vacation in the middle of October. Which leaves me with the at times (and usually) awkward host mom. But we´ll deal with that when it happens. Next Sunday I´m going to the campo (rural village) with the family. Their relatives (the mom´s family) live in Ojo de Agua apparently right next door to Dedé of the Mirabel sisters, which is where both families grew up. Small world, eh?

In a few weeks Karin is coming to visit me, which I probably couldn´t be more excited about if I tried. So we´re all busy planning things to do and what not. So if you want to send me thousands of dollars, for example, you could always try to send it to her before she left. But she might spend it. Umm.

Speaking of thousands of dollars, I was awesome this past weekend and left y ATM card somewhere, probably in the ATM after I grabbed my money. At least I didn´t leave the money in there... no, but I´m happy for modern technologies that suck the card in and eat it up.

So I´m already in the middle of another week here. I think we´re getting close to midterms because the workload is growing a little. I´m trying to upload pictures to facebook but I´m not being successful. I´ll add the link when and if I win the battle with the computer. =)

yep, here it is: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2061429&l=6089f&id=15300570

So we're back from our trip to Samaná, which is the peninsula on the Northeast coast of the island. It was gorgeous. We actually stayed in Las Terrenas, which involved crossing an hour and half's worth of windy mountain roads each time we had to go into town.

On Saturday we went to Parque Nacional Los Haitises, which required a 45 minute catamaran ride. When we were there we went to Cueva San Gabriel which was a cave with a lot of Taíno (indigenous) writings on the wall. Apparently foreign seasons (from Italian, British, etc. networks) of the TV show Survivior come and shoot scenes in the cave in order to pass it off as whatever exotic location they're actually filming in. The US probably does that too, but I didn't ask. =) Gorgeous cave, though. I'll probably put up pictures. Later. We also went kayaking through a mangrove forest in that park. It was surreal-ly gorgeous. I dont have pictures of that for fear of my kayak tipping and losing the camera.

Then Saturday night we went out after dinner into the town of Las Terrenas, which involved a 15 minute walk from our hotel. On the way back I had my first ever moto concho experience, which I iwll be repeating because it was sweet. It involves riding on the back of a motorcycle used as a taxi. The driver generally smells bad, and sometimes you can convince the driver to take more than 1 person, which maybe isn't the safest choice. But for the first ride, we didn't ahve to go very far and so we squeezed 3 of us on one moto concho. Maybe shouldn't do that again. =) But in this town it was the only option for public transportation, and it's all about saving those pesos!

And on the way back to our hotel on Saturday, one of the guaguas (small busses--maybe 25 passengers?) broke down. So in order to return to Santiago, we had to cram ourselves into the other guagua and only had the additional help of a 15 passenger van. It was a tad too crowded. And for a 4.5 hour ordeal, it was unpleasant to say the least.