19-22 Enero
Not much happened Monday, I had my first Dominican-Haitians Relations class, the prof seems really interesting and passionate and I think it’s going to be a great class. Tuesday morning I had class at 8 and then came home to pack and watch the inauguration. All of the channels were being translated into Spanish so I tried to understand; it was pretty hard but still cool to see. Mama was so excited and there were parties everywhere, they’re so excited for Obama to be president. After our clase de baile Rosie, Trena, and I took the bus to Santo Domingo. Our teacher from Luther, Tejada, and their trip’s guide picked us up from the bus station and bought us dinner before we went to the houses because we had to get up so early for the excursion the next day. Rosie’s good friend Kayla and Trena’s roommate Heather were on the trip, so they stayed with them and ended up staying with the director. A sophomore who I had never met was living there and she was really nice and I got to hear all about their trip. The house had like an indoor patio that was like 1/3 of the house that I thought was interesting. There was running water but not for the shower head so they heat up water on the stove then mix it with cold water and you use a bucket and dump it over your head to shower. We went to bed at like 10:00 because we had to get up at six the next day.
Wednesday was a day that made me really glad to have ISA and realize how lucky I am in Santiago. Even just being in the streets of Santo Domingo we realized how much nicer Santiago is, just like how it’s so much cleaner and safer and just more welcoming it is. We left our house at seven and had to pick up some other girls on the way to school, everyone lived really far apart so they said it usually takes like at least a half an hour for anyone to get anywhere. We took a guagua (bus) to Higuey, a town in the eastern part of the country where there was a huge basilica/church thing called the Salvaleon de Higueythat people travel from all over to see, especially on the 21st of January (the day we went) because it’s a national holiday, the Virgin of La Altagracia Day. It was ridiculous how many people were there; tens of thousands of people come from all over to try to get their prayers answered on this day. Their director said people sleep there like four days before the holiday to show their devotion and so the Virgin Mary will answer their prayers. People bring sick kids and other people with problems and it was a huge thing. There was a line that I’m sure took hours and hours to get inside, so we stayed outside. It was interesting that so many people went, but also really hard because there were so many poor people and so much garbage and people sleeping on garbage. We took some pictures and left because of the huge crowd.
Next we drove about two hours to go to the Altos de Chavon. Trena, Rosie, and I had already been there on our trip to La Romana (it’s the big stone architecture place from our first trip) but we knew the girls would like it. However, when we got there the teachers didn’t have enough cash to pay for the tickets and they said they wouldn’t take a credit card and told Tejada that she had to go to the ATM and get money. Fifteen minutes later she came back to tell them that the ATM didn’t work. They argued about how we were students and not tourists and they still wouldn’t let us in so we left (keep in mind everyone had been waiting and ready to go to the beach since 7:00 this morning and it was now about 3:30) we drove back towards Santo Domingo for about an hour and finally got to the playa at 4:30. It was fun to swim in the ocean and take pictures with the girls and we met these two middle aged guys who were drunk in the ocean but talked to us for quite awhile. It’s really fun to talk to random people but they kept speaking in English so we had to keep reminding them to speak in Spanish. We left the beach at about 6 and they dropped us off at the bus station at 7:30 and we took the bus home and made it by 10. I don’t think I’ve ever spent that much time on a bus in one day in my entire life, but it was really fun to hang out with Luther people and see familiar people. We felt bad though because they said that most of their excursions have been like that where things just kind of fall through and that their families were nice but a lot of their houses were dirty and it was too dangerous for them to go a lot of places so they were all pretty ready to go home. It was sad because we’ve had such a good experience so far and even our disaster adventure to Sosua last weekend seemed better than some of their stuff and we planned it as we went in the pouring rain. It made us really grateful for our families and house and the chance to go to PUCMM and live in Santiago.
Today I had class at 8 again (it’s still terrible getting up at 7, especially after being exhausted from the day before) and then for my community service class we got to go see the final place we can chose to work at. It’s called Hogar Emiliano Tardif (sp? No se) and it used to be a drug lord’s house but then when he got caught someone bought it and turned it into an orphanage/kids center for kids from dysfunctional homes. It was a huge building and had a huge yard and I hadn’t walked two steps into the lawn when a little girl, probably 8 years old, came up and held my hand. (In Spanish) she asked me what my name was, and I asked her name (in Spanish) and after she said me llamo Adriana she goes “my.. name.. is.. Adriana.” I asked her if she knew English and she said just a little bit and we talked a little more (it’s hard to understand kids in Spanish because they don’t understand that it’s hard for us to understand them when they talk fast) and she sat in my lap when the director talked about the program. The kids were so adorable and you could just see their faces light up when we talked about playing sports and doing homework and stuff with them. Next the kids (they were all between about 5 and 10) took two or three “big kids” to give us a tour of the place. There was a huge swimming pool and big grassy areas to play and they had goats (the goat had just had a baby so yelled whenever we passed it but the baby was so cute) and ducks all just running around the yard. The house was massive, basically a mansion, where the basement was a big classroom, they put up big long tables for the kids to eat, and our girl went to in depth on the rest to have time to show us around upstairs but I think she said that’s where people sleep. I’m trying to work here for my community service, the kids seemed so willing to work hard at activities and school and learning but just have had a bad home life. I think we find out next week, and I’m just so excited to start.
This afternoon we had our dance class, and now we’ve started to practice in pairs rather than in big lines. We have four boys in our class and it’s too funny to watch them try to dance and to dance with them.. I’m not good at dancing but can remember the steps so I usually end up leading, oops. I need some hot Dominicans to show me how its really done, hopefully this weekend (we’re still waiting..) I spent the afternoon in the library (mostly talking to people and not reading my novela.. four day weekend I can get a lot done? Espero que si.) We came home and Rosie and I decided to make guacamole for our family. Mama cut us up the avocados and before we knew it she had peeled three of them (which is the equivalent of at least seven normal avocados.. so damn big) so we had to triple the recipe online because no one makes guacamole in bulk. It was really fun to make except we got a little carried away with the limes.. it was really good but had a very strong lime flavor. Mama, Jenny, and Stephanie tried it and you could see on their faces they weren’t ready for the lime but they ended up eating a lot of it and they wouldn’t have choked down that much if it was that bad so we were glad. We had Cola Real, aka Coca Cola, and ate that for dinner which was fun.
We went out to El Fagon with the kids and Amy’s friends from last year Steeve and JB came with some of their friends so it was really fun to meet and talk to new people, especially because we all kind of knew a little bit about each other. (Gracias Amy!) Except that Amy told everyone she’s from Chicago because no one knows where Iowa is.. so after they asked where we were from they were like “Minnesota and iowa, that’s pretty far from Chicago where you go to school..” haha oh well. They were going to a party afterwards but I had gotten up at 7 and Rosie was a little sick so we came home and went to bed (and because we have a four day weekend so we don’t want to have too much presidente in the first day). I’m excited for the weekend and to hang out with the familia more.