The Weekend

The weekend started off rough. Danny, a Dominican teacher at the school, was going to show us around downtown after school, but we couldn't get a hold of him, and it started raining, so nothing ever came of that. We did end up going out with Katie and Guess(her boyfriend) and some of his friends, though. We went to this really cool place called H20. It's a liquor store, but it's kind of a bar. The seating is all open air on this big patio, and instead of ordering individual drinks like a rum and Coke, you order a whole bottle of rum and a bottle of Coke. It is such a great way to go out for drinks with a group of people. Rum is super cheap here because there is a local brand, so it was not that expensive. I think it came out to 100 pesos a person, which is about $3. For 2-3 mixed drinks? Not bad. We need places like this in the states.

Saturday we went to dinner at the house of a new friend of ours. Her name is Isis. She's older than us, in her 30s I believe, but she likes making friends with the American teachers. She had Andrew, Amy, and I over. We got to meet her kids, we ate mangu(mashed plantains) and these little pork chop things that were more like ham(Amy knows what they're called), drank Kahlua and sweetened condensed milk, played Mario Kart Wii with her son, and had salsa lessons in the living room(actually a very normal occurrence for us). It was a great night.

The best part of the weekend was today (Sunday). We went to the WELS church in Moca again. Remember that we have to take a guagua, the big vans they cram full of people. There were 6 of us traveling to Moca today, and when the guagua stopped it sure didn't look like there was room for 6 people(this is always the case with guaguas). Andrew and Keith piled in and I waited behind the girls for my seat, but quickly realized when Isis sat down, that there was absolutely no more space in the vehicle. My spot was not actually "in" the guagua. My feet stood in the door, and my hands held on to the inside of the doorway, but the rest of me was outside of the van. I was hanging out the door of the guagua the whole way to Moca. I am now a REAL Dominican. It was so cool. Andrew was really jealous. Amy took a picture that will be going up soon.

One final note, I spoke with Pastor Alex today at the church (and by "I spoke" I mean "Amy spoke") and told him how I would like to accompany their church services. I guess they have a keyboard of sorts, but nobody to play, since many Sundays they sing unaccompanied. They were all really excited about the offer. I am too. It will be very fun to play again.

There is even more that happened this weekend, but I hope Amy finds time to include some of the other details. (HINT HINT!!!) Have a great start to the week, everyone!