Walks around

Walking around town taking pictures is one of my favorite leisure activities. The woman in the picture below is one of my neighbors. I walk by her 3 or 4 times a day in walking to school and to and from other places in the neighborhood. She is always working and always has a beautiful smile on her face. Today I asked her "Puedo sacar un foto por favor?" Can I take a picture. "Tu is muy linda" You are very beautiful. The picture was taken right after I called her beautiful. She laughed and told me she loved me very much. It is moments like this when for a while this place feels like my home. 

Tomorrow I am off to paradise Island for the day. Lots of sun and snorkeling!

3 weeks left of teaching

School was rough today. We had some major behavioral problems in class today.  Several fights started as soon as we walked in the door. I watched as one of my older boys punched Franceska right in her face. She is not a fighter and will tears rolling down her face she ran over to me for a hug. 

Did I mention how fast the time is flying by? I am very excited for my parents to come visit. Facetiming is nice, but not the same. 

Also, this is Joel. He is determined that we are going to get married. He told a friend of mine that she will be the godmother to our children. He told one of my friends her that he plans to ask my father permission for my hand when he comes to visit. Heads up Dad!

Time

Time, I am running out of time. I only have 3 weeks and two days left of teaching. I am savoring every minute in the classroom. I have learned so much from my students. I am currently trying to make 50 friendship bracelets in my spare time because I made one for Franceska and she showed it off.

My favorite part of the day is walking my students home. I wait the extra 30 minute after my last rotation for school to finish.

In other news...

Avocados are out of season :( but corn is in!

I am going to try and transport some dogs to America so they can be with their forever families!

People eat cough drops like candy here.

It finally stopped raining and we are warm once again! A toasty 90 degrees today.

My students have started chanting "Teacher Carsyn is the best" When I walk in with my teaching group. I swear I did not teach them this.

Different Culture, Different Problems

Last night at about 10:20 p.m. I was sitting on my bed talking with one of my roommates. We were discussing the cultural that we now find ourselves in and what we have learned.  Out of no where we heard loud shots outside of our house. We turned to each other quickly. "Firecrackers?" I asked. And then the noise happened again and we knew it was much more dangerous than firecrackers. After we sat frozen for a few seconds were heard more noise and moved to our common living area upstairs. More of our roommates ran in distrust and out of breath. They informed us that they had been at the basketball courts right next to the gunfire. They told us that everyone started to run and slam their doors. We counted all of our people and locked our gates and doors. And then we waited to hear more. We heard a few more shots but we were all safe inside. I could feel my heart beating louder than ever before. I called my parents and a few others to give a brief summary of what was going on. We learned later that a group of people robbed a store in town and then fled to our part of the neighborhood. They were stopped by the police and that was the gunfire that we heard. We are waiting to hear more about the situation.


Today we resumed life as normal and are locking up everything early tonight.


Here are some pictures from walking to school and to the store for school supplies today.

Enjoy, I love you all.

One of my students sisters. 

One of my students! I was welcomed into her house by her mother. She was happy to bring me a chair and to show me her puppy. Sierna wants to learn English so she can communicate with her father who lives in New York. 

One of my neighbors!

More cuties that live right next to me.

I let one of the older girls on my block take my picture because she asked so sweetly and was very careful. Brought a big smile to her face.

Shelling peas on the corner.

I tried sugar cane today! 50 pesos per stock. You chew out the sugar and discard the stock when it has lost its flavor. Don't worry I didn't eat too much because I ran into one of my favorite students and was happy to share with her. 

Rain, Rain

It is only 75 degrees today. So naturally we are all freezing. We are not used to this cold of weather. The entire town is dressed up with beanies and big coats. Even I rummaged through my suitcase to find the one sweater I had packed.

It has been raining almost non stop for a few days. School was canceled today for safety reasons. Yesterday our coordinator stopped by and asked us how we were doing with the rain. We all smiled and told her about the games we were playing and laughing about the flooding in our house. Our smiles dropped when she told us that a family that lives close to us passed away when they tried to drive over a river in the street. Their car was swept away and tragically their were no survivors. Another sad occurrence in our community to remind us that conditions here are not a game.

I left the house today in a break in the rain to go to our local clinic. I got some bug bites on my leg last week and they have doubled in size.

We have been advised to stay indoors. I have been writing and reading The Help by Katheryn Stockett. I have read this book before but it has a completely different meaning to me as I am reading it here.

I only have 4 weeks left of teaching and 6 weeks left in the Dominican Republic. Time sure does fly.

Cuties everywhere!

Mas Fotos

Whales in Samana

Samana

Samana is out of this world. We headed into town today to get a good look around. We were not displeased with what we saw. We enjoyed seeing a colorful food market and many other local shops. We fumbled into shop when one of my companions needed a bano pronto. I am so glad we happened to walk in. Yesterday I told my traveling companions that I wanted to purchase a piece of artwork while I was here. I explained to them that it was very unlikely that I would actually buy one because I had a very particular image in mind of what I wanted. While I was shifting through pieces of artwork in the shop while we were waiting I found exactly what I had been looking for.

I a lot of time looking around before I decided I wanted to try to purchase this painting. We starting talking and I knew this was going to be a lengthy conversation. My salesmen gave me and my friends all free bracelets halfway through our conversation and proceeded to offer me a shot. I had to refuse him several times for the alcohol until he gave up and went back to bartering. Finally, we decided on a price. My last request was to have a photo taken with the artist who was the man’s father, which was happily agreed upon.

After carefully wrapping my painting for the journey we sought out food. We enjoyed lunch at a local ‘Comedor’ which serves like a cafeteria and you cannot beat their prices!

We headed back to our hostel in a guagua which is about an hour ride each way. After arriving at our hostel we grabbed our swimsuits and went back out to enjoy some time at the beach. It was early evening so the beach was almost empty making it seem like we had reserved it. After a refreshing swim we walked the thirty minutes to the small town that sits above Samana. One of my friends was in search of dominos to bring back for her family. We found some in a small shop and she asked for my assistance in haggling. After a lot of talking, joking, and even dancing I got the price that she wanted. And… then she changed her mind. We decided it was time to walk back to our hostel. We have not actually made the walk back because someone has always given us a ride. It is a very steep walk that none of our neighbors wants us to go through. This time we were picked up by a taxi who said he would love to take us free of charge because it was heading in our direction anyway. His name was David and he was full of happiness. David even stopped his taxi when we saw a tortoise crossing the road. Hearing our reactions at the sight of the tortoise he hopped out of the taxi and caught him so we could get a closer look. Afterwards he helped the little guy cross the remainder of the road, and placed him safely over the fence.

David drove us past his house so we wouldn’t have to walk very far at all. After we thanked him we started to walk the last little trek to our home. At this point it was very dark and the final part of our path was very rocky. We passed a motorcycle who greeted us as we walked by. He then proceeded to shine the light from his motor and followed us to make sure we got to our place safely. There are so many wonderful people here. We thoroughly enjoyed our stay and I cannot wait to see what tomorrow brings.

I've been lacking wifi...

Traveling here is full of surprises. I took a bus from Caberete to Santo Domingo with a 10 minute buffer to catch my next one. I missed it. I missed it by an hour and a half. It was also conveniently the last bus that left for our desired destination of Punta Cana. My group and I had to find another route. We luckily found a local bus that just happened to be going to Punta Cana just in time. After a long day of traveling we reached our destination, only 6 hours off of our target.

Punta Cana was well worth the hassle of getting there. We stayed in a very modern house that we found for a great price, and we were not too far from Playa Blanca. Playa Blanca is a very famous beach in the area. The new problem my group and I faced was the new prices. Taxis in this city cost 10 times what we were used to in Puerto Plata. My typical bargaining skills could not get anyone to nudge. After much persistence we paid for a taxi to the beach. It was worth it. Playa Blanca had the clearest yet bluest water that I have ever seen in my life. I snorkeled and saw many colorful fish and crabs. After 3 hours of simply playing in the water we took a break and enjoyed some dessert at a nearby restaurant. A restaurant that we didn’t feel fancy enough to be in with our dripping swimsuits.

Once we were a little bit more rejuvenated we went out in search of paddle boards. I rented a board for an hour and it was incredible.

After that it was time to head back to our house to get ready for the next day. We arranged to have a taxi pick us up at 5:45 the next morning so we could catch our 7 o’clock bus. I figured that that would give us enough buffer time for if something went wrong. I was wrong,…… again. Our taxi had a large delay and we didn’t make it to the station until 6:53. We thought we were in luck that we were going to make it onto our bus. …….We didn’t. The tickets were completely sold out for the 7 o’clock. We waited at the station until 9 to board the next available bus to Santo Domingo. Luckily the bus station had an empanada stand right next door so I enjoyed one as I waited.

Now having arrived in Santo Domingo I just boarded my next bus to Samana. This is the last stop of my vacation.  I am loving all of the great memories I am making but I am also very eager to get back to teaching in Puerto Plata!

I am now staying in a hostel in Samana and it is my favorite living arrangement thus far. After the bus ride from Santo Domingo a taxi took me to the hostel which is at the very tip top of a mountain. We are the only guests here at the moment so we were already upgraded to all having our own beds. Our host is an animal lover. She has 19 cats, 2 dogs, 3 horses and claims there are chickens around somewhere. All are rescues and have the sweetest personalities. After briefly settling in we were offered a ride into town by our host. We went on a walk around town and wandered around some of the local shops. By this time it was dark and the view of the stars was breathtaking. It gets better. A few minutes after walking fireflies started to buzz around. Such a beautiful night! Tomorrow we are going to explore the beach close to our temporary home. We might have the opportunity to go horseback riding with our host if everything works out. We are going whale watching Sunday morning and then we board a bus back to Puerto Plata.