11-17 de febrero
Sorry for the long break in between posts, I’ve started to be really busy lately and got way behind so here’s last week and I’ll post the rest soon! I also apologize in advance.. this is going to be an extremely long post.. it happens. Last Wednesday was my second day of volunteering in the hogar (hogar = home). After more than a week of constant rain, I finally saw sunlight at my house about half an hour before I was supposed to leave. So, naturally I assumed the rain was done (also I decided I didn’t need my umbrella).. completely wrong. I got in the concho and halfway there it started pouring again. There are two different conchos that run on the route that I needed to take so when I got in I asked the driver if they were going past the hogar emiliano tardiff and he said yes. When we got to the road that he told me it was on I got out, in the pouring rain, and walked up the street to discover he had dropped me off at the colegio (high school) emiliano tardiff. I walked around the neighborhood for awhile because I knew I was close, but got real discouraged real quick with the rain so I called Jonathan and he didn’t know where I was so I just went back to the main road and had to explain to another concho driver (there were about 5 other Dominicans in the car too) that I was lost (and completely drenched) so he took me to the place and didn’t make me pay because I was so pathetic. Finally I got to the hogar but you have to ring the buzzer to have someone come let you in. However, no one came to answer the buzzer and after about 10 minutes of more rain I was about to leave because I didn’t know what to do and finally some kids came to get me. The kids who are there in the afternoon are the older ones and they just looked at me like “how is this girl supposed to teach us anything” but because of the rain we couldn’t go outside to do sports so I played with the little babies for about half an hour and then left. Better luck next time.
That night we went out to Fogon to watch karaoke night (like Spanish love song karaoke.. hilarious) because Randi’s mom was getting married so she was leaving for four days and we had to get out of the house after all the rain. I saw a ton of my Haitian friends and it was just really refreshing to just hang out with a bunch of people. Angelica even sang which was hilarious but so much fun.

Thursday was absolutely gorgeous and the worst day to have class from 8am to 6pm but on the way to school after lunch Rosie videotaped the walk to campus and I made fun of her because anyone who watches it will probably get motion sickness. That night we went over to JB’s apartment to do a power hour (take a shot of beer every minute for an hour) but we only got through about 20 minutes before all of the beer was gone because instead of using shot glasses we just had little plastic cups and everyone got a little too excited. The guys went to go buy more and we never really resumed but did have a very successful dance party that lasted for a really long time. Afterwards on our way home at 2am we decided to stop and get burritos at this restaurant that was still open which seemed like a good choice until mine tasted like it had cream cheese in it and did not sit well with me. After walking everyone home (Joe and I live the farthest away so we walked all the girls home), I texted Rosie to come back (she had stayed to hang out with the guys but getting up at 8am and cocktailing doesn’t mix well for me so I wanted to go to bed) but she had fallen asleep waiting for me and didn’t actually end up getting my texts until the morning so I had to wait up until like 4:30 until I called her from the home phone (which you are not supposed to do bc calling a cell phone is like calling long distance but I didn’t have any minutes left on my cell phone, which never even happens but it was just an unlucky event) and we kind of got in trouble for leaving the alarm off for such a long time in the middle of the night but we got everything straightened out and now always both bring our keys.

Friday Rosie and I laid out all morning, did homework, napped, and ran in the afternoon, and then I went out with Brie, Angelica, Joe, Charlotte, Sally, and their language buddies from the university (you can sign up to have a ‘buddy’ so you help them with English and they help you with Spanish.. I don’t have one yet but just kind of latched on with their group). They were such nice guys and my first friends that weren’t Haitians that I’ve actually hung out with and haven’t just had a class with so that was fun. We went to a bar to get drinks before going out dancing, but while we were at the first bar someone stole one of the guy’s batteries out of his car. While trying to figure out what to do, a taxi drove by and was like “hey what do you guys need.. well hey I have a battery right here in my trunk if you want to buy it for 900 pesos..” sketchy so we think the taxi guy was the one who stole it and then just sold it back to him, but there was nothing else we really could have done. Once that mess was over we finally got to the club which was so much fun. It was super packed (which we were excited about, finally we got to go to a place where there were more people than just us) and it was like people our age up to people who were in their 60s. It was a really classy looking club, I wasn’t drinking at all so I don’t know how expensive the drinks were but there were like lounge rooms off of the dance floor and cool lights and I just felt really classy. They played reggaeton and techno but also bachata and meringue so I got to practice the moves I learned in class! We danced with the guys we went with and with a few random guys but it was really hard to try to talk to anyone because the music was so loud but it was still such a fun time to actually be able to dance. I got creeped on by a guy who was clearly older than 30 but it’s all part of the experience.

Saturday was Valentines Day and our mom set the table for lunch with red candles little teddy bears and gave us heart-shaped lollipops on our plates with a little valentine that the girls made us. In the afternoon Rosie and I walked around on Calle del Sol (there are a lot of shops and people and stuff) and didn’t buy anything but it was fun to just walk around and see more of the city. When we came back we helped Stephanie clean her room (she has soo many toys and Rosie and I ended up reliving our childhoods and playing with the toys rather than actually cleaning.. she had a skip-it and a million barbies) and it was actually really fun because for the first time both her and Jenny kind of opened up to us and acted like themselves around us so we were really excited. Although there were parties and stuff for Valentines day, Rosie and I decided to hang out with the fam and we watched Harry Potter 4 and go to bed at 11:30 which was probably the best vday I’ve ever had.

Sunday we left for Jarabacoa at 8:30 to go ride horses to a waterfall. The ranch was absolutely gorgeous, it was set like right in the mountains and all of the trees and plants were just amazing. We each got assigned a horse and a little boy who actually drove the horse and we just had to try not to fall off. These little boys were so cute and even though they were like 8 years old could just run and jump on the horses like a vault.. nuts. It was so fun to ride, we went through the woods a little bit and crossed a river (my orthodics got a little wet) and around on these trails until we got to the waterfall. The little boy just stripped down to their underwear and dove in off the cliffs.. we were a little more cautious because the water was freeezing but we walked across the pool thing the waterfall made to a smaller waterfall and the big falls were too strong and when we tried to walk up to them we just got pushed down the river. After swimming/playing at the falls for awhile we rode back to the ranch for lunch and pool time. It was really nice to finally have a pool to swim in after sweating every day for the last two months. In the afternoon we to La Vega for carnival. It was absolute madness, like a state fair/tgiving parade on drugs. Everyone wears these extreme costumes that are really bright colors and these giant masks that all look scary but are really cool. Different groups of people have different costumes and they get judged in Santo Domingo, Santiago, and La Vega and the best ones get to go to Santo Domingo for the final competition and they pick first, second, and third place. There were tons of people there to watch because La Vega is the place where it’s the biggest in the country. It was really cool, but the downside was getting literally hit by the guys in costumes.. they all have ropes connected to bags of sand or something and swing them and hit people in the ass and hips. Like really hard. I have a giant bruise the size of a softball on my hip still a week later. I still don’t understand why they do it but whenever I ask anyone they just say it’s tradition. They aren’t supposed to hit you while you’re on the sidewalk, but they would trick us into telling us they wouldn’t hit us so we could take a picture with them and then one of their friends would come up from the back during the picture and hit us really hard. Or little kids would just come onto the sidewalk and hit you where you just got hit.. it was ridiculous but quite an experience. Ha and one guy came over to Rosie to take a picture with her and afterwards he took her hand and pulled her into the street and was like ‘let’s you and me get out of here’ but in his mask and everything. Hilarious. And I think we didn’t make it any easier for ourselves because Rosie, Brie, and I stood together so they would come up to us and yell ‘rubia’ (blonde) and try to hit us on the sidewalk. I think we’re going to go back next weekend (it’s like 15 minutes from Santiago) because Randi had to go home for her mom’s wedding and it’s the last weekend so should be crazy so I’m pretty excited. Maybe a few presidentes with ease the pain next time. Ok sorry again for being a slacker and not writing, but I miss you all very much! BESOS.