second weekend in the DR

Tuesday is now a blur since it’s been a long few days. But from what I remember Tuesday was rather productive. We (the group) had Spanish class for most of the day and then learned how to play Dominican dominoes and dance meringue. The dominoes game like many other things here is not played the same. Instead of counting points by counting the dots and looking for multiples of 5 – here you just match the dots to one another and the first person to run out of dominoes wins the points left in the other opponents hands. The first team to 200 points wins. I was first excited to play the game when I learned that this game is very popular in the DR, but the game now seems very boring. Granted you could block the other team by playing the same number domino but beside that type of strategy, it’s not a lot of fun. I mean, I was really looking forward to throwing down my bones when I scored those awesome 10 points. Oh well!

The dancing however was much more anticipated and for those of you who know me – it was easy to catch on to the type of dancing here. There are various types of meringue here, starting first with a slow (tranquillo) beat and once the music gained popularity gained speed and now the music varies tremendously. It was also seen as an anthem for people who live in the country (hence the slow beat) in the 40s-50s. The upper class didn’t accept meringue until Trujillo took over and started playing it at his parties. The dancing went well all in all. I went around and tried to help some of the guys who just couldn’t get the beat. After class was the most important part of the day. I taught my first yoga class ever! There has been a group of us who wanted to exercise and specifically practice some yoga. So, we planned ahead and stayed late so that we could attempt to clear our heads and stretch our bodies. The training center is perfect because of all the tropical plants and outdoor area, as Jean put it “people pay to do yoga in places like this” and I agree! The group liked my teaching a lot, so pat on the shoulder for me! After class those of us who were left at the school went to meet up with other trainees at a Colmado (corner store) and celebrate Leeann’s birthday. Yes, yoga then beer – what could be better? It was much needed out of the training center interaction with my group.

The way the colmado and drinking at one works here goes like this: you walk up to the counter and ask for a Presidente or Presidente Light as in our case. The guy behind the counter asks if we want a Grande or small (Grande you can split between a few people and a small is the regular bottle for one), usually you say Grande and get a few Dixie cups so that you can share. We’re talking small cups here people. Then you split the beer between whoever is drinking. After yoga I shared two Grande beers and it came out to about 4 small cups for me. Then I went home. When I get home I run through my day in Spanish with my family and proceed to eat dinner. After dinner on this day my friend Alex came by (he’s the grandson of my Dona) he’s in school to be a P.E. teacher. Anyway, I told him about the yoga class and how a group wants to get together on Saturday but we don’t know where to go. He offered to let us use some space at the school where he works. Awesome, yoga class at 11 on Saturday then! Like I said, it was a productive day.

Friday was long. I spent most of the day taking carro publicos and guaguas (buses) to one place after another and walking in between. I forgot to put on my sunscreen so I also got a little bit red because of all the walking in the sun – don’t worry it’s now a tan. This was also the final day for our transportation lessons. We were supposed to find out how to take the buses from Kilometer 9 or the Caribe Tours center to our Peace Corps Volunteer site visits. I am heading to Tenares! I did however buy some luggage locks for my bag at the supermercado owned by some European company. It was way nicer than La Serena and the selection was much better. Lindsay (who’s blog is listed to the right of this post) and I waited for almost 40 minutes for our bus to show up. Well we didn’t even take the one that goes to our house. We decided to take the 10-B that goes to the training center and hop off early so we could walk (even more walking) to our houses in the neighborhood across the highway. We then relaxed at her house for about an hour. I came home after and went to be very early because I was so warn out. The first time for me to be in bed and asleep by 9:30 in who knows, maybe 3 months!

Saturday Alex totally came through and we practiced yoga at the catholic school down the street. Again, the class went well but we had to deal with verbal attention from the students. A few younger girls came by about half way through the class and attempted to do the poses. It was cute to see them twist and stretch without knowing what exactly to do. Afterward they asked if we would be there next week and if they could come. Sadly we won’t be there again because this was basically our last weekend in the area for about a month (I’ll explain my schedule in another blog). But I tried to convince Alex that he should look into teaching yoga since so many of the kids were into it. He wasn’t going for it. The rest of the gringos parted ways there and I went to my house to get ready to go to a Campo (a rural small town) to meet some extended family. The drive was nice once we got off the major highway. It was refreshing to drive in a car and on a different highway. I feel like all I know about Santo Domingo is from a crowded run down bus on a dirty run down highway. The campo was very relaxing. I didn’t really talk with the family because they went into their house while Irene, Alex, Mayra and I sat outside and made small talk. One at a time Mayra and Irene would leave to talk to their cousins or aunt. It was sort of awkward but we had beer there to make it all better. The kids came along too and they were out playing games with the other kids. Before we left we gathered some fruit from the trees. I am not sure of the name but one that was basically green ball didn’t taste that good on Sunday morning.
Sunday started out great! I got up when I wanted and started helping my Dona and Irene make some soup for lunch. I was also learning how to use the washing machine here since there is not running water through the pipes on the regular as well as electricity. Most of my morning was a learning experience for sure! At 2 o’clock I left the house to meet up with Lindsey and Jeff so that we could make it to the Colonial part of town for a historical tour set up by Enrena. No one let us know that the bus that runs through our part of town doesn’t really run on Sundays. After waiting about an hour, we started walking to the highway to catch a different bus to the city. By this time it was already 3pm and we knew we had missed the tour, but we thought hey we might run into them and at the very least see more of the historical area. We finally arrive at our stop and take a carro pulico into the Zona, the driver tried to charge us 50 pesos each! We being smart people knew that the going rate was only 15 pesos! Our first experience of American discrimination! Luckily the guy didn’t get away with it. Although on our way back another driver did. He claimed that he didn’t have change after we had given him our 100 pesos! It was a disaster to say the least. And after getting to the stop for the bus it took another hour for a bus to even come that was going our direction. Needless to say we were all very happy to get to our homes and to never travel on Sundays again! There were a lot of frustrated emotions between the three of us. It just shows how much people here will take advantage of us at the drop a hat. Another, bothersome fact was that at Entrena they don’t encourage you to take another bus that would take you to your part of town. When I got home and told my story my family told me there is the 27B and 27A that come by the corner close to my house, something that would have been good to know yesterday. I guess that the important thing is I know now. Once coming home and after telling my story twice, I sat outside with the family for what seemed like two hours until it got dark. For dinner we had chocolate with milk (hot chocolate) and bread. Here you dip the bread into the hot chocolate, much like the churros and hot chocolate at Limones (for all you Asheville people). Then I got a surprising phone call from Kyle (!), the brightest part of my day. As if I wasn’t popular enough I got my weekly call from Mom & Dad. It was awesome to talk with you all!