Sportsmanship Week

It is such an eventful week at Saint David School! It's Sportsmanship week! That means the PE classes are being combined so that classes can compete against one another in events like basketball, tug of war, and kickball. Today was the high point of the festivities when the high school champions (10th grade) played the teachers in volleyball. It was so fun! We lost every game, but not by much! And they didn't know a lot of the specific rules against things like carrying, lifts, or spiking on serve, and neither did the Cuban referee, so we're just going to blame our failure on that. But the real point is, the teachers had a ton of fun, so we're going to see if we can get people together regularly, like on Fridays, to play a few games. Hopefully it works out, because that would be awesome!

I'm not quite sure if Sportsmanship Week is accomplishing it's goal of encouraging teamwork and, well, good sportsmanship. My class plays the 5th graders in kickball on Friday, and they are all talking about how we are going to win, and they are going to lose, and how we need to kick their butts... hmmmmmm....

The Rest of the Weekend

Saturday was spent running around, exploring the city. Amy and I caught a concho to Calle del Sol (street of the sun?), basically downtown. There are lots of shops and restaurants and street vendors. We explored some of the clothing and shoe stores for a while and then took another concho to Centro Leon, a kind of cultural center where they have art exhibitions and historical presentations. We were there to attend a presentation called "The Evolution of Merengue." Before the show started we ordered some food from the cafeteria there. An appetizer of three different dips and a side of tres leches (three milks) cake. It is this amazing yellow cake that you soak in a milk mixture and top with a whipped cream kind of topping. It was raining outside, so they had the presentation in a little room inside. We were looking forward to watching all of the dancing, but it ended up being more of a lecture with a little bit of dancing spaced throughout. It was fun to watch, but we decided we were glad we didn't pay for it.

After the presenation, Beth, Andrew, Amy, and I went to Isis' house again for dinner. It was so much fun and the food was so delicious. She's teaching us all kinds of tricks to Dominican cooking. She was making rice and half-way in she put a plastic bag on top with a little water on it and cooked it covered for another 10 minutes. It made the rice really light and fluffy. She also showed us how to make stuffed eggplant and slice yellow plantains for frying. Her mother has been visiting her the past week so we got to meet her, as well. She's from New York, like most Dominicans living in the US, and only gets to visit Isis once a year.

Today Amy and I are having more cooking adventures. We made our first batch of mangu and it was extremely successful. Mangu is like mashed potatoes, but with green plantains. We mixed in some garlic and cilantro, topped it with sauteed onions and vinegar, and put some fried salami on the side. A true Dominican breakfast. Amy is also trying to fix her jelly. Isis suggested just blending it up with more water to fix the consistency. We'll see. A lot of air got mixed with during the blending process, so we hope that doesn't ruin it. I am also in the process of making pera-pina juice. The name makes it sound like pear and pineapple juice, but it's actually just pineapple peels and rice. Everyone says it's soooo good, so we'll see. If it turns out, this will be a really cheap juice to make. Actually, it looks like it's done boiling, so I have to go take care of that. Thanks for all of your prayers and comments, everyone! Have a good week in the Lord!

Culinary adventures and my crazy schedule

Thank you to those of you who gave me encouragement on my last blog post. It has been difficult but the administration is trying to work out solutions, most likely meaning someone will be in my room to deal with him. Your prayers are greatly appreciated.

On Wednesday one of the other teachers approached me and asked me if I'd like a tutoring job. She organizes tutors for students of other schools. She didn't really let me say no and I decided that I'll give it a try. The boy I work with is in 5th grade and has special needs. He is very slow. Slow at speaking, reading, and learning in general. I started already on Wednesday. After school I went home and changed, then walked with Beth to the other teacher's house. I waited there for a good 45 minutes for the people to pick me up. I tutored for 2 hours, then we headed back to my place. I got home after 9. I cannot do that every day, but we might work it out so he comes to my apartment for tutoring. That would fit into my schedule much better. I hope it works out because the extra income would be really nice.

Thursday were parent/teacher conferences. They were fine, but then came the weekend! Steve and I went shopping that evening. When we got back, he and Andrew played Cribbage while I did some cooking. The first attempt was guava jelly (because the teacher who asked me to tutor has a guava tree and gave some to me because she has too many). That took most of the night and this morning when I checked it I found that it had hardened. It is more like guava candy than anything. Really sticky candy. And kind of rubbery. Did I cook it too long? How do I know when it is done?

The next attempt was Dulce de Leche. It is just whole milk and sugar that you boil for FOREVER. The recipe said it should only take 10 minutes. It took over half an hour. Maybe I did something wrong there too... I will just have to keep practicing I guess. I think next time I'll try a different pan.

At least the flavors turned out good. On Friday Steve and I also tested our juice experiment. One of the teachers told us that you can make a really good juice by putting pineapple peels in water in an air-tight container for 5-6 days. I'm not sure what it's supposed taste like but it tasted rather fermented...

I've had a lot of fun learning to cook here. Steve and I mostly work together to prepare meals whenever we can. We make a pretty good team. We know that when we get back we will miss all the cheap fresh produce, but we'll be happy to have back good American meats. There's some give and take wherever you go I suppose. Any cooking advice is welcome!

Today we went to a beautiful beach in Cabarete, which is a little farther than Sosua, where we've gone the last few times. It was gloriously rainy all day so we didn't have to pay to use umbrellas for shade on the beach. The weather was so comfortable and the waves were fun. The best part of this day is that it was only Friday! Dia de Mercedes is a great holiday! Maybe you should adopt it over in the States;)

New kid on the block

Holly's sarcasm towards Steve in her comment on the last post inspired me to write again. The truth is that I've been holding off because I haven't been sure how much to say.

I got a new student last week Monday. How do I explain him? Well, he is a terror, in every sense of the word. It's unbelievable that the classroom has not yet been completely destroyed. I've been hit the past four school days in a row (okay, one of those times was a different student) and only once was he sent home directly after. Thank goodness he is only 5. Well, supposedly... they aren't exactly sure. He is big for a five-year-old.

It's not that he's bad. His home life isn't very stable and he seems to live in his own fantasy world in which he can do anything he wants. He also really craves attention. Constant attention.

One of his favorites is to get a hold of my bell and run in circles around the room. The other kids know that this is bad so they chase after him sometimes, thinking that this will help me.

Every day as we go out the the cafeteria, which is an open patio next to the playground, he makes a break for the playground. He has also on multiple occasions attempted to escape from the school. He just runs out of the room and down the hall, through the offices and tends to be caught by the school's doorman right before exiting. It is for children like him that the school is surrounded by a fence.

The other kids have decided not to befriend him. I try to encourage them, but they are scared of him. I don't blame them. When he does decide to join us in the circle on the floor the kids keep moving away one by one so they can move to the opposite side of the circle from him. Being a circle, there is no way for them all to be as far as possible away from him.

He also likes to roll. On the floor. When the others are attempting to sit on it. If it wasn't so frustrating it would be quite comical.

On numerous occasions he has taken hold of my ankles and not let me move. I have been bitten, pinched, kicked, slapped, hit, etc. I just get scared for my other students. I don't want to end up in a position where I end up hurting him by trying to protect the others.

I'm about at my wit's end by the time my classes end. Every day I recharge and go back to it, but it is tiring. Miss Jenny is working out a schedule for someone to help me in the classroom at all times. It is necessary. We hope with time that everything will get better. Prayers are greatly appreciated.

On the upside, as Steve has told you we have gotten to do a lot of fun things outside of school. I still love the culture and the heat is really getting pretty comfortable, as long as you stay out of the direct sunlight at about 2:00 in the afternoon. We are looking forward to organizing visitors for Christmas break, or anytime for that matter. Know that I think of you all often and miss you. God bless!

If I could call your attention to.....

While I know you all noticed during your hourly blog check-up that right now in Santiago we are experiencing a beautiful 73 degrees, I think it is important to point out what the casual observer might not have perceived. Not only is the temperature 73, but is also FEELS like 73. If it weren't for the bugs, I wouldn't sleep with my fan on tonight.

WHAT?!?!??!?!?!

So it's the weekend!

And on Friday a bunch of the teachers went out dancin'. There was quite a large group of us, and it was not that big of a club, so we found this little section toward the back that had some chairs and tables. We had just settled down with our drinks to have a member of the staff come over and inform us that section is only available by reservation and had already been booked for the night. So we forced our way onto the already overcrowded "dance floor." It's in quotes because there really wasn't a separate dance floor. Just a big room with tables and people standing, drinking, dancing, or all of the above. And people just kept coming in. And they kept setting up tables! In the middle of where we were dancing! I ended up with a table in my back on multiple occasions. I would try subtly scooting the table over a foot, but they always moved it back. So by the end of the night, there was hardly any room to dance. Amy and I spent more time hugging to take up less space than actually dancing. And the music was SOOOOO LOOOOOOUD! Which I guess is typical for clubs down here, but this one was particularly bad. We walked out of the club, and none of us could hear. We woke up this morning, and it still hasn't worn off. We all feel like there's big jars over our heads.

But it was a lot of fun. The music was really good, as was the company and the food. After leaving the club, we were hungry and stopped at this stand that sells cachapas. It's like a pancake made of cornbread filled with meat, onions, and seasonings. Delicious. Amy and I really want to learn how to make them.

Tonight is a low key night. We need to go grocery shopping and then we're coming home for dinner and a game night. Should be fun. I hope everyone is having a nice relaxing weekend! Thanks for all of the comments and emails. We love hearing from you all.

3 Things

First of all, a story. When I walked up the stairwell a few minutes ago, someone must have been making chinola juice or something, because the whole building smelled of passion fruit. Thankfully, Andrew and I have a huge jug of chinola juice concentrate, so I made myself a big glass to satisfy my craving. I was walking through the kitchen when I slipped in a puddle of water (it had rained earlier today while we were at school) and spilled the entire contents of my glass. I tried to mop up the disaster, but I'm scared we will have a floor-ful of ants in the morning. I also gave up on the juice. I'm just not in the mood anymore. :(

Secondly, school. I always lose my voice on Wednesdays. I think my 6th graders are getting antsy for the weekend, so I have to raise my voice a lot more. This is convenient since on Wednesdays I teach music class. (sorry, you'll have to wipe off the sarcasm dripping down your screen) But music class went really well. The 7th graders and I had fun for the most part. They just over-do everything, so I have to be really careful what activities I choose. I did yell in a boy's ear. I was saving my voice, cuz there wasn't much left. But they weren't listening to my directions at all, so to get their attention I had to yell. One boy decided to still not listen, so I turned him around to face me and yelled the same thing right in his face. Probably not the smoothest thing to do, but everyone got a good laugh out of it and he paid attention for a while. (Yes, those words were chosen deliberately)

Thirdly, a very unnecessary, random, and uninteresting comment. While writing the first paragraph of this post, I noticed the interesting letter parallels between the words "spilled" and "slipped." I apologize if you read that hoping for something witty.

I should write something...

...but nothing really happened today. It was Monday. I made some delicious pancakes from scratch thanks to Betty Crocker this morning. I have brownies in the oven right now. Heads up: grades are due this week. So there might not be much posting, and if there is, it might be stressed out.

There is a Christmas episode of Bones on TV right now, and it's just making me think of how great it's going to be when you all come to visit over Christmas. :)

Dear America:

From the DR

I've heard you're having money problems, too. Here are a few money-saving tips that have worked for me:

-Walk, you don't really need a car
-Public transportation, you don't really need a car
-Turn off your hot water heater when you're not using it
-Turn off your water when you won't use it for a while (at work, sleeping)
-Don't use a dryer, just line dry (you can do this indoors, too)
-You don't need air conditioning. Really. Just lots of fans and well designed buildings.
-Unplug electronics when they aren't in use
-Make your own juice
-Eat rice

Just a few suggestions. Hope this helps!

WHOA!

A ton of new pictures! Check it out!

Belated. Sorry.

It's been a crazy week. And it doesn't look like it's going to let up. I should be going to bed because I have to get up to play for church tomorrow morning, but I needed to post.

The biggest event has been the party on Friday. The teachers will often throw parties for everyone else at their house on Friday after school. This week was especially appropriate for a party considering Saturday was Lisette's birthday. Andrew and I volunteered to host and had so much fun. We made a ton of food. I made tostones (fried plantains) with a dip made of mayo, ketchup, and garlic and queso frito (fried cheese, a lot like cheese curds). Amy and Beth made fresh salsa (it was different, because of different tomatoes and spicier peppers), and Andrew made onion rings, quesadillas, and birthday cake. People brought beer, rum, and wine, there was music and dancing, and everyone had a blast. We are still cleaning up.

The best part of the evening came at the end. Keith stayed late, and Lisette stayed until the end. It was about midnight when she was going home, and she was going to give Amy and I a ride to the girl's apartment. We got outside and found that she was parked in. She had taken someone's parking spot, and they either were big enough jerks to want to teach her a lesson, or they were too drunk to care since there were several available parking spots all over. Either way, the night continued until 1:00am with Lisette, Keith, Andrew, Amy, and I standing outside the apartment setting off Lisette's alarm, trying to get the other guy's alarm to go off, and knocking on his door. It was ridiculous. Like I said, either the guy was an absolute jerk or totally wasted (probably the first one) because it took them forever to come to the window, let alone outside, let alone with keys to move the car, and even then only after Keith pounded constantly on their door as hard as he could for several minutes straight. It was so ridiculous. Dominicans are not like this. They are usually the most generous people. This guy was more what I would expect in a big city in America. The best part is, Andrew and I get to live in the same building as him.

Okay, that's all I have strength for tonight. More tomorrow, I promise. Have a blessed Sunday, everyone!

Por Fin!

Hello again! Since it's been a while I'm going to back-track all the way to this past Sunday. Steve told you about his great guagua experience on the way to church, but he did not tell you about going back that evening. They had a spaghetti supper at church so we got to go back and play games and talk to some of the people of the congregation. I talked to one of the women that we stayed with when I was here on Project Timothy but she spoke SO fast I had a pretty hard time understanding her. We learned a new card game called Tres y Dos and ate a lot of really good food.

Monday night we went out with some of the teachers and their friends to a Jazz night. It was air conditioned and I was FREEZING! But the music was so good! We are hoping to go again. One of the teachers we went with is Cuban. I used to have a really hard time with his accent but I'm starting to get it pretty well now.

Tuesday night we had a meeting for all the parents at school. That started at 7 and we didn't get home till 9ish... Andrew had invited a bunch of the teachers over, but since it was late only two came besides Steve, Andrew, and I. Lisette and Warlin are really great and we ended up staying until shortly after midnight and then we just had to end it.

Today at school was crazy. Just when I think the kids are starting to learn something about how to behave in a classroom, they have to go and prove me wrong. The hardest part is that I just got a new student on Monday. She showed up 5 minutes into the day. I guess sometimes things like that happen. She did go here before and was in the early childhood area with my other kids. She is a handful so that just spices up my life a little more.

I still love my kids, don't get me wrong. But they still haven't learned how to listen to me, how to sit, how to raise their hands, some don't know any of the letters (which I was told they should already know), etc. Many have problems with hitting, lying, and stealing. There are some serious attitudes in some of these kids at such a young age.

On a more positive note- They are always hugging me and telling me they love me and that I am beautiful. And when I look back to the beginning I know that they are learning some things. I just have to remind myself of that on days like today.

Yesterday I had a pet lizard for a little in my room. He was pretty cute and they eat roaches so I left him alone, but I think he left.

Steve just got here and we are off to make dinner so that's it for now. Chau!

So much has happened!

But it is so late. It's at least 12:30, and I need to teach tomorrow.... So you will all just have to wait. >:)

Doesn't it just stink when you log onto the blog to find that no one has written anything?

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!

Water, water, everywhere, except my apartment....

After school today, I walked to my apartment with two goals in mind: take a shower and do laundry. Neither of these was accomplished at my apartment tonight. So I changed and walked to Amy's. By the time I got there, my shirt was already nasty with sweat. Thankfully, the girls never have problems with water at their place. It was a lovely evening. Amy and I made some salads with avocado, black beans, and chicken, and I fried up some overripe plantains. Unripe, green plantains are like potatoes, and overripe, yellow plantains are like bananas. So these were more like dessert and I decided to sprinkle some cinnamon and cloves on top. Cloves are used in most Dominican desserts, so they always taste like Christmas.

The best part was that while we were cooking, a big rainstorm hit. The temperature dropped and the evening has been so comfortable ever since.

In other news, tomorrow is Friday, which is great enough in and of itself, but we also have plans to join a Dominican teacher after school and he'll show us around the city a bit. More on this story tomorrow.