Lunes

This marked the beginning of our first full week in El Seibo. Daisy’s esposo (husband) won an election of some kind this weekend, I think he became President of some group or city office, I don’t remember what exactly even though she’s told me several times. But it’s hard for me to get the words when his title is about 10 words long in Spanish. Maybe I’ll have her write it down soon. Either way, he’s got this new job now and they celebrated all day Sunday. When I woke up this morning I wasn’t sure I would have anyone up to make my breakfast in time for me to get to the high school (where we have our training classes). I’m glad I didn’t worry to much about it because shortly after I was dressed Blanco (Daisy’s brother) was making me sardines, onions, peppers and mashed potatoes for my desayuno. It was a very untraditional meal but I liked it! Aside from the mashed potatoes it was a rather healthy meal. Halfway through Lindsey (enter link here) came by so that we could walk together and catch up on the weekend.

The first class of the week/day started out fine. We went to the high school’s computer lab to get a look inside the hardware of the dell computers. Apparently there was a PCV at this site a few years ago and left the computer lab in top shape with some one trained to take over when he/she left. However, the room that we say was very different. As of now the school doesn’t even use the lab, I think because most of the computers are broken. The room itself is super dusty, damp, and dirty and any other bad d-word you can think of. Lucky me – I am carrying out an internship in this particular lab with two other people during our 5 weeks of technical training. Nothing beats learning first hand – I guess. Needless to say there is a lot of work to be done.

Next week is a huge holiday in the DR. They call it Semana Santa (Holy Week), it’s tied into Easter somehow. The DR is big into Saints anyway. Each town has a patron Saint and once a year, at various times, they celebrate their particular saint with a huge festival in the town. But I think next week it’s just for the Easter. So, my point is that next week is a holiday and everyone goes to some type of body of water to celebrate. Even though the rest of the DR has the week off, us PCT folks get to spend the week fixing up the lab and computers. It will be nice to be at the high school without the students’ cat calling us!

Spanish class was uneventful except that I had a small cup of coffee today*. I’m not really drinking it since my acupuncturist told me I shouldn’t but today I said heck, why not? So shortly after class a group of us, including my Spanish teacher went for a run/walk. We ended up walking for about 20 minutes and running for 5, but when we got back to the house the other two guys how were supposed to join us had finally arrived so three of us continued running with them. In total it was a 45-minute work out! It felt good to get my heart rate up considering I’ve had a lot of fired food this past weekend and yoga doesn’t usually do it. I hope this same group will keep up this plan of alternating days between yoga and running. We’ll be able to do yoga at the high school in the room where we have class, because it’s huge!

When I got home Idaliby was waiting for me so that she could take me around town and help me find some tea (with or without a bag). It wasn’t really successful but I did get a few small packets of manzanilla (chamomile) that I’m going to try out in my French press. But if your feeling sorry for me you can send me bags of tea to the address to your right! She also showed me the few bookstores (used I think) around town – they were closed because it was close to 7:30PM. However she did offer me Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist in Spanish! All I really wanted anyway was an easy read book in Spanish to help with my learning and I ended up not having to pay! Yippee! I also got her to swing me by her house so that I could post yesterday’s blog post. Dominicans are super nice about sharing and I think they are sincere when they say it, but I wonder if she realizes that when she said; “any time you need the internet just stop by” I really will be by her house everyday. Hmm… maybe I’ll try to space it out some. Either way she’s an awesome person

I was out and about today more than usual, which I feel helped me hang out in the house a little more and I got to sit and chat with Daisy, her husband, and a guy who’s nickname is Coco. Coco owns the pizzeria and the factory that makes this famous drink in the country called mabi. He says that on Tuesday (today) he’ll bring me some of both so that I can try it out. It is normal for Dominican to put corn on their veggie pizza. I’ll let you know how it goes.

*It’s 12:40 and I’m still not tired. I think it must have been the coffee that’s keeping me awake. I know I turned 25 a few weeks ago, but the caffeine shouldn’t be affecting me this long! This makes me feel old 