cielo...jazz...rest

hola hola mis amigitos.
i hope that you are doing good. life here is finally calming down. i just finished a group presentation in one of my classes and that should finish off any big assignments for a little while at least. praise god. i am so excited to just rest this weekend and not have to rush to finish a paper or something. as for this past weekend...i got to go to santo domingo and stay with my friends, lindsay and elliott drake who are missionaries there. it was so so great to hang out with them and see a little more of their day-in and day-out life. it was a good weekend of rest and fun times in cielo and nazaret. on saturday, i got to hang out with lots of different families in cielo. i don't really know what to say about it, the lord was just so faithful in my time there. he gave me a lot of joy in being there and among my friends. and thankfully i will be returning in about a week and a half to spend the week with the group of wake students coming with emmaus. i am sooooo excittttteeeeddd to see friends and have times of worship and prayer. anyways, so here are a few pics from the weekend...

this one is one of my new fave dr pics ever:



this is one of the sweetest little friends i have...notice the unicorn featured in most of these pictures (one of the little girls insisted that we take pictures with it, i didn't resist obviously):



these are the solo shots that were at high demand:
my personal fave is llamarlyn, the smaller 2-year-old, learning how to pose for pics. hilar...







so on sunday i went to church and then hung out in the neighborhood for a while and finished the afternoon off cheering for cielo's softball team as they dominated some other not as cool team.

this is a dude i saw scaling the coconut tree right outside of lindsay and elliotts house. no big deal:



then tuesday eventually came along and some of us went to a jazz concert thing at this really small bar/jazz music place. it was really fun and really really good playing of instruments. nothing like sitting 3 feet away, directly facing, the saxophone player. awkward eye contact was basically unavoidable. love it. alright now we are on/in/at today. my friend joe and i went to teach our p.e. class bright and early this morning but when we arrived we found a very closed looking school. so we decided to wander around a little and then just walk back instead of take a van thing. it was an overall good morning and allowed us to get some good exercise. and then the rest of the day hasn't really been anything too crazy except i got to talk to my dear friend molly b which was fab of course. as for things i am learning...god answers prayers. the little prayers, the big prayers. he is a faithful god. he always brings freedom.
may you find rest in him today.

are you serious?

so i was just walking into the library with my friend to meet for a group presentation. the guard guy proceeded to tell us both that we could not come in with shorts on. we both had athletic shorts on. i think that is the most angering thing i have experienced since being here. that is absolutely ridiculous. unreal.
other than that, things are pretty good. i am going to update soon. after i finish the presentation that i am part of in an hour.
hope that you are doing fab.
love you and miss you.
~salpal

p.e.

well i a lifelong dream that i think we all have was fulfilled today. i was a p.e. teacher at the school i am volunteering at. so hilarious. i am so thankful for it though because it gave me renewed excitement about working there. it was so hilarious. lets just say it involved running in circles and playing the dominican version of steal the bacon. except the bacon is someones long sleeve shirt. love it. anyways, it was a lot of fun. my friend joe worked with the boys and i was with the girls. the first class had about 20 boys who played a stick game in which everyone tried to get the stick but then when you get it, everyone like chases you and tries to punch you. not as cool. but joe was a trooper.
k well love you all.

couch. horses. fear.

sooooooo. here i am in la repub. the weather has cleared up and is now so so perfect. so that is the best. the past week has been real good. on friday we hung out with our dominican friends who are hilarious. it involved the battery being stolen out of one of them's (i dont have any idea how to write that grammatically correct)car. not cool. but fortunately a taxi driver came by and had one in his trunk that he sold to us for about 30 dollars. we are pretty sure he is the one who stole it. creative. but we moved on and the night was fun yet involved way too much techno music for anyones good. onto even better things...on saturday, my dear friend daniel couch came to visit the dazzling city of santiago. it was sooooo fun. we had an adventure finding his hostel which later that night gave his room to someone else. and then we went to the monument and went real high up in the air. always a good thing...this pic really captures the fun we had:


so then we went to my homestead and he met my dominican parents and we had a little history lesson with eduardo which is always interesting. in the afternoon, we went to centro leon which is a sweet contemporary art/dr museum. and we ended the day with dinner with eduardo and daysi and then a movie. the movie was yes man with jim carrey which we eventually realized was dubbed in spanish. that combined with my exhaustion led to my dozing off during the movie. but it was still great. basically, i am so thankful that daniel could come visit. it was so nice to hang out with an old friend and with someone who appreciates rihanna the way i do. obvi. okay then on sunday our group had a trip to jarabacoa which is a mountain town like 45 minutes away. it was sooo pretty. we rode horses around the pretty mountains and swam in a really cold waterfall. one of the best parts about the horseback riding was that we each had a 10-year-old riding bareback behind the saddle of our horses. so they took care of the steering and speed of the horse. all that to say, it was no po-dunk horse ride, but rather involved running, walking and in between. (i dont know horse movement terms). this is the scenery we saw...

k so that was definitely a highlight of being here thus far. then we hung out at the pool at the resort place we were at for the day and then headed to la vega for the infamous carnaval that we have been hearing about.
what did i learn there? that i am legitimately scared of people in scary masks. let me give you some visual images. and i think you will understand. oh and imagine them constantly trying to hit your butt as hard as they can with these sticks with barely padded really hard ovular things on the end. i think they hit anyone without a costume which is most people. i managed to only get half hit twice on my leg. at one point a scary masked thing stood in front of me while i was standing against a wall and when i wouldnt turn around he decided just to hit my thigh. that is definitely cheating. anyway, there were so many different kinds. here are a few. sorry if you have nightmares...




very interesting. and cool. so overall it was a great weekend. today i went back to the school i am volunteering at and the 3rdish grade teacher left me with 25 kids to work on pronunciation of numbers above 20 for about an hour. it was insane and very humbling. i can definitely say that no one learned anything. after a while of then running around and screaming and i just decided to read a book to one kid while everyone else went nutso. what can you do. but it certainly confirmed my decision to not be a teacher.
as for things i am learning. i am definitely learning more and more the importance of community. as i do miss my friends and fam at home and sometimes desire to be back with people that know me and people that i can really communicate with, i see how much we are made to live and function among others that can encourage and love us and that we can encourage and love. i also see this as i think about the poverty here. so many times i have thought how much more change a group can make than an individual in restoring the pain in the world to the way it was meant to be. not to say that god can't use anyone by themselves, but i believe we were made to serve him among others. and of course, we cant do any of it on our own. only through jesus.
okay well i should work on my take home test that is due in a matter of hours. but i miss you each a lot.
love,
salpal

rain rain go away come again another day...next month

it has rained constantly for the past what feels like million days. i love rain normally. but here there dry clothes on the line which means lots of rain equals dirty cloths. and very damp everything. not my fave. but the dr is kinda my fave. so thats okay.
dear dominican world, sorry that i smell bad.

life lesson.

i hate to start on a bad note but i just got hissed at by a guard guy and told not to sit on the floor in the library. that is ridiculous. last time i was here, they came up to me and told me not to sit on my feet in my chair. i mean, really? apparently they aren't into relaxation here. okay onto more normal things. the main exciting thing of this week involves our new dominican friends at the university. basically, brie, my housemate, and some other people in are group have really been trying to get 'language buddies'. they had asked a bunch of people at the school and eventually figured out that putting up a flyer was the best way. so they did. and before they had gotten like 5 yards away, 4 guys ran up and said they would love to do it. so we hung out with them tuesday and thursday and they are really genuinely nice guys. friday night, they took us and a bunch of people from our group bowling. it was so fuuuunnn. even though i got a zero on most of my throws. but what can you do. love bowling shoes. and they really expand your dance moves. the lesson we learned from all this and i would definitely like you all to learn is this: if you are desperate for friends, putting flyers up with your phone number is a great thing to do. so then on saturday, we went to daysi's mom's house for lunch which was so so fun. her dad is probably one of my favorite three people i have met here so far. in general, the old people here are about the coolest people ever. here is a picture with everyone, daysi's dad is on the far right.


oh and here is a bowling pic with new amigos:



so that was really fun and involved delicious sancocho. they always have sancocho when it cold. the last couple days have been like 60 or 70 degrees and everyone is freaking out about how cold it is. hilar. i saw a guard with a down coat and a tobagon this morning. nothing like it.
anyways, so after that, brie and me and my friend trena went to get our nails did. its only like 4 dollars. after putting my hands in this bowl of water, the lady doing my nails cut up a avacado and made sandwiches for lunch and then ate them. all at the nail station right in front of me. so great.
then came sunday, we were supposed to go to the mountain town on an excursion but the rain postponed that trip. which is totes fine because we have a progressive family hang out. we started at daysi's parents house again and then went to eduardos moms house and then their daughters new apartment which is totes modern. something i thought i would never see in the dr. it was great to meet more of the fam and try really hard to understand what is going on around me. as always. now we are in monday. or on monday. or at monday. not sure. today i went to the school i will be volunteering at the rest of the semester. the kids were hilarious and one of their assignments today was to draw pictures of 10 fruits. so i did my best to help them think fruity thoughts. on wednesdays i will be doing pe classes with the girls. so if any of you have ideas of games to play, send them to me via email. preesh. the return trip from the school involved my first gua gua ride. a gua gua is like a mini van thing that holds about a million people. when they stopped for me, i walked up and awkwardly maneuvered my way in to what seemed to me a full car. but it worked out because the guy that had been in my seat just hung out the door. overall, an awk experience which will probably happen many more times.
vamos a ver.
but things are going well.
lots of good food. lots of rain. lots of candy recently. and lots of hissing.
all great things.
love you all.
sorry if this is supe long.

hmmmm.

things i miss:
1. blue puffy vest
2. candy
3. blue puffy vest
4. you
5. the triple
6. blue puffy vest
7. abreves

things i don't so much miss:
1. asparagas, ocre, things of that nature (obvi)
2. freezingness
3. long papers
4. football games
5. class on friday

pilates, sooper bole, same diff.

well, how about that fute ball game. because of my strong obsession with football that you all know i have, we went to a local sports bar place to watch the juego. the bar was really fancy and really loud. overall, it made me miss home a little just because of all the fun superbowl parties in the past that involve lots of fab snacks and lots of not paying attention to the game. but it was still fun. minus the large number of middle aged men that were speaking english and being ridiculous about getting my friend to swing her pittsburgh towel constantly. what can you do. oh and the best part of watching the superbowl was when the audio in the bar messed up and rather than hearing the commentators and the game, we were listening to a pilates video infomercial. it was so hilar. imagine a very high voice saying "zip your abs together" while watching grown men throw each other to the ground. fortunately it was fixed by the halftime show.
as for earlier in the weekend, on saturday night, brie and i got to go to a sancocho (this really good soup they make here) contest at the country club place with our padres. it was so cool and sadly neither of us brought our cameras. not the best plan. but it was like a baseball field with little fires set up with huge cauldron type things on them. most of the family was there and lots of friends. there was a live band and a huge dance floor. at one point a nine year old was running around the dance floor by himself lip syncing. it doesn't get much better than that. i danced some merengue/bachata (still am really confused about the two) with eduardos brother in law, pancho. it was great. and quite funny considering everyone was watching me and brie on the dance floor, being the only americans there. but the soup was soooo darn good. they really know how to cook here. its the best.
so thennnnn on sunday, i went to church. it was cool. although the combination of it being catholic and in spanish made it quite difficult to understand. but i am glad i went and i got to sit with this family that i met a little while back who is really nice.
overall, things are rolling right along. i do miss friends and fam at home but i am really thankful to be here learning how to live in a new place. its always an adventure and yes, there are frustrations sometimes, but i think there are definitely some great things to learn from this place. something i am especially noticing is the way dominicans interact with each other with this immediate comfort. i havent seen many awkward interactions. they love their family so much and it is so cool to see they way they love just hanging out together. k well love you all and would suggest that you come to santiago sometime before may 3. or after. but i would prefer when i am here.
hasta luegooooooo.