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