Apartment Life:
We had one week that was filled with lots of power and water outages. The power outages are normal for the country. Normally they don’t last too long, but we had some longer outages recently. It’s not terrible…just no fans and lots of flashlight and candle use. But, I think it’s easier to be without power than water. Losing water is not normal; a big pipe in our section of the city broke. But, the water is back on now.
Work:
Well, I’m learning to adjust to the school and their way of doing things. It is quite different than teaching in the US. I’m figuring out the school’s methods a little more each day. I had to move classrooms to make room for another class in a younger grade. If I had said I didn’t like off-brand packaging tape and cement walls before, I hope you can imagine my disdain for removing packaging tape, carrying it to another room, and trying to put it back up again. Lol But, I can’t complain too much because my new room has AC! It’s not what I would consider cold, but I’m certainly not wiping sweat all day long like I was before. J
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| The students eat lunch outside. If it is raining too hard, they eat in the hallways. I hope you can imagine my enthusiasm about lunchtime on these days lol |
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| new classroom #1 |
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| new classroom #2 |
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| new classroom #3 |
Weekends:
There have been two weekends since I’ve posted. On both of the Sundays I went to a beach called Hemingway about 45 minutes away. It’s the hottest time of the year right now, so the beach is a perfect place to be. I went with different groups each weekend, but both were awesome beach days!
Besides going to the beach, shopping, washing clothes, church, etc on the weekends my other big event was attending the Enrique Iglesias concert! I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to see the biggest Latino male artist of all time amoung 20,000 Latinos J (and all for a cheap ticket price) The concert was certainly an experience. It lasted from 8:00-12:30 but there wasn’t music the entire time. If a set change takes 30 minutes in the US, it definitely takes an hour on island time. Enrique is touring with Tito (Puerto Rican artist) and Pitbull.
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| Friends at the Enrique Iglesias concert held in an outdoor stadium |
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| Enrique Iglesias |
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| Hemingway Beach |
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| Hemingway...isn't the water beautiful? |
Food:
New Dominican foods I’ve tried:
Fried cheese-I passed on this opportunity the first couple of times it was offered to me, but I finally gave it a try. It’s not breaded like a cheese stick in the US; it is just some type of white cheese fried in a rectangle. I only sampled it, but I’ll try to get a picture the next time I eat it.
Tostones-These were much better than expected! They are fried plantain chips. Depending on the stage of the plantain, plantains can be soft and sweet or firm and potatoe-like. Tostones are crunchy on the outside and soft in the middle (and fried twice...very healthy). They taste more like French fries than bananas. I will have to take a picture to share the next time I eat them.
I’ve also tried my hand in my first Dominican cooking… Now, before you get any ideas let me say that the 2 things I’ve done are very simple lol
1-I made the traditional dish of beans and rice…and I even bought rice the way the Domicians do (out of a big bucket) instead of the bags of rice. It turned out fine and is filling.
2-The species of payaya that grows her is different that they type we typically see in the NC grocery stores (that type is probably from Mexico or surrounding areas). The payaya is called lechosa, and it’s always for sale. I bought one, cut it up, and found out I didn’t really love the taste. It wasn't terrible but it wasn’t my favorite either. But, a batido de lechosa (payaya milkshake/smoothie) is also very poplar here. I had sampled one before so I decide to try to make one. I got a Dominican recipe from the internet and made my own version (nothing was measured and I used skim milk instead of sweetened condensed milk because that’s what I had). The final result was pretty tasty! Definitely better than eating it plain J
I'll write again soon. Love and miss you all!
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