Beginning thoughts...

So I have 11/2 weeks under my belt. At times it feels like longer, and at other times I wish time would jump five months so that I wouldn’t have to do so much memorizing (words, names, etc.). I wouldn’t be surprised if my brain was to explode at some point here. Despite being in the Caribbean, the weather is actually not hot here. In fact I wear pants most days; which is perfect because I don’t worry about my legs getting eaten alive. I think I have more mosquito bites in one week here in the DR, than I had in 5 months in Alaska. But it’s actually not too bad. In fact, I find that the bugs are the worst inside my Spanish tutor’s house.

Two Saturday’s ago, my Columbian roommate, Sonia, (who works as the ANIJA school discipline director-ANIJA is one of the schools that Kids Alive runs) and I moved into our house. Kid’s Alive people have rented it for years. I have my own spacious room and a porch out back. We also have a porch in front where I sit and eat breakfast. We have a nice door that likes to lock itself automatically. I’m sure this has already caused some amusement for our neighbors, considering that I got locked out Friday morning while I was in my PJ’s. Sonia had already gone to school and I didn’t have my keys, phone, numbers, or bike. I was banging on our downstairs neighbors door, when my next door neighbor poked her head out to see the commotion the new white Americano was making. I poorly explained that I had no keys. She repeatedly told me my neighbor wasn’t home. Darn, she might have had a key. The poor woman pitied me and took me to school to get the keys from Sonia. Whew.

Ok, so that’s not the only time I embarrassed myself this week. I fell off my bike while trying to go up an alley- in my defense-the streets and driveways are very unevenly matched, almost impossible to go from one to the other if going slow- which is what I was doing. I was also turning sharply. I’m not sure what I was thinking. But, yes, I fell, ever so slowly. Of course the old men on the corner turned. And the vender across the street. And the three guys playing basketball in the alley. What’s even worse is that I was on the wrong street, so I had to go down and ask the basketball guys for directions. And it’s not like I can’t show my face down there again; that’s where my tutor lives! But I have accepted the fact that this little white Americano sticks out like a sore thumb. I hope that I will bring laughter to the lives of many Dominicans as I hopelessly make mistake after mistake after mistake.

There are other stories I can tell…I embarrassed myself, once again, by not holding the left brake on the pesola (little moped thingy that I’m borrowing), while I was trying to kick start it, and of course I was giving it too much gas, and the thing shot off and did a huge wheelie, I screamed, the neighborhood was watching. My neighbor’s son came out to help me that time. I did laundry today. It took my a couple hours to try and figure it out…the washing machines are VERY different here. I put it out to dry. For a total of 10 mins before it started to, yes, rain…and it is still raining (7 hours later). In fact, I’m hoping it will stop in the next 20 mins here, cause I have to bike to tutoring. (all transportation is either: a) walking, b) biking, or c) motorcycling….and to think that I brought lots of useless stuff, like khaki shorts (think rain + dirt roads+ bike/motorcycle) and I DID NOT bring a poncho… I have a funny feeling that it’s going to be a very wet two years.