Living in Cabrera--for real.

6 days. 50 + mosquito bites. Many great friends.

So it has already been 6 days since I first arrived in the Dominican and it´s definitely been a mixture of good times and hot times. At first glance, the small town of Cabrera is what I imagined: chicken running around, random fields with donkeys and horses, stray dogs walking around and some broken down houses. But I have already come to love what is going to be my home for anot her 14 weeks. Sure, I miss the comforts of having the internet, air conditioning and constant run ning water and electricity but the culture and vibrant lifestyle of the locals here never cceases to amaze me.

Join me on one of my t ypical days:

I wake up at aro und 8:00 in the morning and head to breakfast that Yaniris has so generously prepared for myself and Dan. We talk for a bit while enjoying a high-carb breakfast of eggs, toast and whatever else. Come 8:40 or so, Dan and I head towards the school which is just a short 5 minutes away. Along the way, we say Hola to the locals who are either working away or just sitting along the side of the road. Yes, there is a LOT of sitting around. I arrive at school where I am greet ed by lovely smiles and enthusiastic kids wanting to learn. Throughout the morning, I take a few kids out to practice reading out loud a nd help them sound out words. A lot of the times, I have to remind them to think of the letter and the sound that the letter ma kes. A little while later, the kids are reading. Through that and helping out wherever I am needed, playing board games or helping the kids throuigh Math bingo, I find myself quickly at lunch time, 12:00, where I head home for lunch. Yaniris has prepared lunch for me again and this time it is probably rice, habeuchuellas, a salad, some type of meat and a nice cold glass of mango juice. Nice and refreshing. I return to school for 1:30 where the older kids have their session. Wednesday was Club day and the kids got to join whatever club they wanted, I helped out with board games and played monopoly with some kids. On a regular day, the kids are often given a pick-and-mix session where they can choose to work on an assignment, practice for the talent show, do some reading with us or sometimes even cook with one of the teachers! This goes to about 3:30, and at that time there is either a show-and-tell about asinger, a group, an actor or something of that nature by one of the kids. This week, we saw a great one about Angelina Jolie. Other times we would sing some songs. School ends at 4:00 pm and that is prettty much the school day.

I walk home with Carissa, Brittany and some of the ot her volunteers and are greeted by some of the students w ho are picking mangos off trees. The other day, some of the students offered us some and it melted my heart right away. The mangos are fresh, delicious and picked with love, haha.

At night, we do a variety of things. Sometimes we go out for drinks right after at the Manny ´s, a seaside bar type thin g. Ot her times we go play some pool and relax on a few Presidente beers. Orange juice , alittle bit of shopping and interacting with some locals fills most of the day. I´ve been a bit under the weather here so some days I just stay in. But most of the time, there is always something going on and Dan, my housemate, is kind enough to show me around to the tiny little beach, to the internet cafe and other little gems in town. Fiona and Anthony also have been working with us and trying to get us accustomed to the local lifestyle and invite us to do things with them whenever they get a chance. I am really grateful for their openness in receiving our company.

Dinner is served at around 7-8 and consists generally of a meat, more eggs and some typè of carb. We may or may not go out in the evening again and then I generally head to bed in and around 10 on a weekday. That´s life so far.

On Monday and Friday, I head to a pre-school instead of the school with the Esperanza Project. There, I work with another group of excited children just starting out to learn to read in English. I worked with some of them individually to pronounce letters and I even read the book The Three Billy-Goats Gruff to them. It is a change of pace working with younger ones but it is refreshing and it keeps me on my toes. I love it.

However, there have been a couple of highlights with my time here so far. Upon arrival, Fiona and Anthony took us out to the -Blue Roof aka Mira Mar- on Monday night just to talk a bit and get to meet the other volunteers over some drinks. We went to Manny´s and enjoyed some great company and nice views. There have a few good walks with Carissa to random places and to the centre square just to hang out a bit. On Friday on baseball day, all the kids went to the camp grounds and played baseball. We got to play and Carissa, Brittany and I happened to be on the same team and won our first Dominican Baseball game 17-16, a true nail-bitter. I also got to enjoy a nice German meal at d inner last night wihen we went out with a bunch of the other local gringos. Today, Car issa and I headed to the local waterfall which we learned was a saltedero and rode on Yaniris motorcycle thing. There, some locals were jumping off for us and helped us down to the bottom where we got to jump into the nice pool of fresh water as well . Later on, we enjoyed a nice afternoon on the beach, Playa Grande, where we relaxed, swam in the Atlantic ocean and played a bit of Bocce Ball --of which I have never played before and ended up winning the second game, yay!

But here I am. 6 days in and as I said over 50 mosquito bites. A little bit sick but I bought some local medication and I hope it will be fine. Life so far has been incredible to say the least. It is interesting to note the difference between the rich and the poor even within this town itself. There can be really nice houses with what seems to be two floors, nice furniture and cars all around and then right across the street there is a broken down structure where some people may live. A bottle of Dasani water of bottled juice is 20 pesos, a mere 50 cents. Internet? Last time, we used 3 computers at the internet cafe for 20 minutes each and paid only 45 pesos, just over a dollar. It is incredible to think of money in these terms but there is obviously a difference in the standard of living here with that of Canada. Like I said, there is a lot of sitting around, in the dark and whatnot. There is electricity 60% of the time and if you do not have a generator in your house, you simply do not get electricity. There is a slight drought here in Cabrera (maybe all of the DR, I´m not sure) and during parts of the day you don ´t get running water. Sometimes we have to save up water in a bucket so we have some for later. That is the reality that some people face not for 6 days, not for 15 weeks but for their lives. I can only be an advocate for what I live and I´m glad the locals have embraced me with open arms.

Life is not as I expected it though. I think I came super prepared thinking that all water must be purified and that there are a lot of don´ts that I should be worried about. Sure, we take care of ourselves and take precautio ns but for the most part we´ve been experiencing life as a local would. Although we would not drink out of the tap water, not even Dominicans do, there is a good system of clean bottled water that we use to refill our bottles with. Speaking of which, I lost my water bottle again (the same one I lost on Dan´s grandparents´farm... just not alucky bottle for me, heh). I will keep safe, especially when Im not in Cabrera bu t f or now, life is good.

I can´t wait to dive into the adventures that behold me in the next 14 weeks. Tomorrow, we are going to a bigger town for the day, we are headi ng to Caberete.