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.

Last weekend we went to Santo Domingo. The city is really big and it´s fun to walk around in. We spent a lot of time in La Zona Colonial, which is where there a lot of firsts for the New World and extremely old buildings. There´s the first hospital constructed (around 1500), the first university, the homes of some Columbusses, and the list goes on. It´s very historical and old looking, and it was fun to be there. We went to the beach at Guayacanes on Sunday, which is about 45 minutes East of Santo Domingo. The beach was very pretty, but it rained pretty much the entire time we were there.

This weekend we went to a very small town on the outskirts of Jamao, which is also, interestingly enough, a very small town. Paulina, a French Canadian, has over the years adopted some 20 kids and built a school to educate them and other kids from the community. We went there with a group of 15 of us from the program, which is almost all of us. We got there on Friday night and played with the kids. It gets dark fairly early here, which is a bummer. It got dark around 7 and we enjoyed the rusticness of a home that runs most of the time without electricity. We carried around flashlights and candles and tried to avoid the wildlife.

On Saturday we got to work. Paulina wanted us to help build the foundation for benches for her students to be able to wait on. Our job then was to go around the premesis collecting rocks and sand. In order to get sand, we had to walk about .5 miles to the river, fill up a burlap sack with about 4 shovel-fuls of sand, throw it over our shoulder, and traipse back up a very steep and rocky hill to the place where they were mixing cement. In case you were wondering, it was indeed uphill both ways. To say we sweat a little would be the biggest understatement ever uttered. We were all drenched with sweat, and dirty from walking around in the dirt. We went swimming in the river there, but it was pretty dirty from the rain, and the current was ferocious. Yet it was much more comfortable than being so sweaty, and so we enjoyed the break. I feel very bad for the pile of obscenely dirty laundry that my host mom is about to wash.

Saturday night we encountered WAYYYY too much wildlife. I had laughed early Saturday when some people from my group found out that there were tarantulas here and were contemplating flying back to the US immediately. However, I reevaluated my stay as well when I saw what happened when it rains and spiders don´t want to be wet—they come inside. The paranoia in my cabin Saturday night was remarkable, but with good reason. Those spiders were LARGE. We killed more innocent spiders than I care to admit, as I usually let spiders live. However, when it comes down to having to sleep in the same room as thousands of large, hairy crawly beasts, I choose to try to not let them outnumber me. I sort of wish we had taken pictures to post of this, but we frankly didn´t want to remember how gross the whole event was.

The highlight of Sunday in the Campo was that I helped wash a 500 pound pig. I got in its cage and, well, didn´t do much to wash it. Really, I did this mostly for the photo-op. But I did dump some water on the big guy. This picture was supposed to be me posing nicely with the clean pig, but it suddenly jolted very close to my face, and the picture was taken in the middle of my panicked reaction.

This week, we have a holiday from school on Wednesday due to the holiday of a patron saint for the Dominican Republic. So I´m looking at a rough little 3 day school week. =) Studying in the Caribbean is rough; let me tell ya. =)

I put up some more pictures and decided to share them the lazy way. So rather than uploading them onto here, they´re here:  http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2059129&l=a4f2b&id=15300570  i just added them to the old album so you´ll have to check out the old ones first.

I just got back from my first morning volunteering at Caminito de Jesus, which is a little private school nestled in the upstairs of a church here. I absolutely LOVED it. But first the part I disliked.

Trying to get there, I decided to use a concho, which is a midsized car into which 6 passengers are very uncomfortably squeezed. So I figured out which one I thought I needed, and went ahead and took it. Unfortunately, it wasn't the one I needed, and 20 minutes of circling the city later, I realized this. It didn't go far enough down the road I needed to go further down. SO. I was double charged by the driver, for no other reason than there were several guys in the backseat that said "you should double charge her," thinking I didn't understand. Reluctantly, I paid to avoid a brawl. So I ended up paying 30 pesos to end up where I started. Believe it or not, I was less than thrilled. (Don't worry too much; 30 pesos is still [barely] less than a dollar... Exchange rate is about 34:1). So then, when dropped off roughly where I'd started, I decided to take a taxi, as I no longer had time to kill. Taxis cost more than the sardine-cars, which of course makes sense. They cost RD$100, which is about US$3. [Note: It's good that they're fixed rate most of the time because it's not uncommon for a traffic light to last 90 seconds or more.] Anyway, it's also a good idea to agree on an amount before taking off, even though they know that it's RD$100--it's just a case of whether they think you know or not. I forgot to clear this, as I was still reeling from being double charged by the concho. So when I got there, I handed him my RD$100 bill and was told that the charge was $150. Even less-than-less-than thrilled this time. It was further away, though, and it did cost him some gas to get me there. And gas here is equivalent to US$6/gallon. So I'm only a little angry about today's escapades. =)

BUT then I got to Caminito de Jesus. I absolutely love it. Like, LOVE it. =D The people are so nice, and the kids are sooo adorable. Today they had me work with a little first grader from the United States who just moved here and is having a hard time in school, but his mom doesn't have enough money to put him in a bilingual school. So I tested him by having him tell me letters, shapes, colors, and other things in Spanish, and I kept track of how much he knew, and then I also found out how much more he knew in English. If he knows the English concepts, he'd be better off becuase he could just learn the Spanish words for what he already knows. But the question is if he is on grade level in English, because if he isn't he has a long way to go. I had such a good time doing this; it's just what I want to do when I grow up. =) And thank goodness for my Special Ed assessment class, becuase I felt like a pro in there, being all professional and everything, haha. So the plan with my little friend is for the school to talk to his mom and for them to decide if he should stay there, and if he does, I'll be working with him on Thursdays when I go to help out. I hope he's there next week! =D

I have class yet today; my dance class is at 2 and my film class that I just picked up is at 5. I decided to take a Latin American Film class rather than Teaching ESL, because I just don't think that that class would have helped me. Plus, it was taught in English.

The plan for the weekend is to head to Santo Domingo tomorrow or Saturday for a night. I'm very excited. It's time to get out of Santiago for a day or two. There's so much to see in Santo Domingo, too. Plus, then I'll finally have some of my own pictures to post [sorry emily!] =)

I'm sitting in class right now and it seems like a logical time to update my blog. =)

We had quite the rain and "chilly" temperatures the past few days because of Ike. The cooler temperatures have been super. We had to stay in Santiago this past weekend, which was okay for the most part, but got a little boring after awhile. It was good that we stayed, though, because much of the North coast of the DR was evacuated due to Ike. This coming weekend, 4 of us are hoping to go to Santo Domingo, which is in the south of the island. We're going to try to do it as cheaply as we can. =)


I definitely didn't take this picture, so I won't even pretend I did. But one of my friends here did, and I like it a lot. It's the monument in the middle of Santiago. I should probably ask her before I post it. I'll do that later.


And we found a donkey just chilling on the ground by the theatre. In the background you can see black and white photographs that are displayed to show some of the work that Dominicans did to rebel against Trujillo.


Last Friday we went to a Fiesta de Palos which is a party held monthly by people of Taino (indigenous people) ancestry. They held a party at which people drummed and then other people danced. it was fun.

Time is starting to fly! The short of it is: I'm still loving it and everything is still great. Classes started last week, and those are good for the most part. There's a lot of emphasis on collaborative learning in the Dominican higher education system, and as a result most of my “tests” are not tests but group presentations. My favorite class is a dance class where I am learning Bachata, Merengue, and Salsa dancing, which are the three big dances here.

I hope to start volunteering next week, as I would prefer to be much busier than I am now. I have quite a few options, and I am hoping to work in either a regular school, or what would be thought of as an “institution” for kids with special needs. I visited the school this morning, and I absolutely LOVE it. I will be working there for sure. There weren't any kids, as the government cancelled school for all kids yesterday, today, and tomorrow due to the storm. (Note: this is somewhat humorous as it hasn't rained since Tuesday. But better to be extra safe about it.) I love the school and the lady who is in charge. It's in a little Christian Church run by CRC missionaries. What a small world, haha. I'll be helping and doing odd jobs for classes that range from preschool to second grade. I can't wait to get started! I was going to visit the "institution" today, too, but it would be super hard to gauge something like that without any students there. So I'll visit there next week.

This weekend it turns out I was supposed to go on a work retreat in a campo, or rural village, about 2 hours from Santiago. We were planning on building a new floor for a school building that a woman is using to teach 20 children that she has adopted. Unfortunately, we just got an email prohibiting any travel this coming weekend. So that, as well as any beach plans, have rapidly dissolved. But I feel safe here; don't worry about me. =) The house I'm staying in is made of concrete and is very safe from lots of wind and rain. There are other places I could theoretically go also if I had the need to escape the storm somewhere else.

I realize that my area of the Dominican Republic has been fortunate with the past few storms, and I hope that this continues with the rest. A great perk of the hurricanes and tropical storms is that they bring rain as well as temperatures probably about 20 degrees cooler. Last night, I was super excited to be able to comfortably wear a sweatshirt for the first time since Michigan! Even though it was probably still in the 70's, it felt amazing.

I was trying to upload pictures, but it's being difficult. I'll post pictures next time! =)