The last two weeks.

So it´s been a while since I´ve blogged about my life. In fact, the last time was after the incident with the Black Pearl and Holly´s birthday. A few weeks have passed but not a whole lot has happened. Life has become somewhat of a routine and pleasant surprises with a little more free time.

Since school ended at the Esperanza Project about a week and a half ago, several things have happened.

My host family came back from the United States. Yohaira, the owner of the house, came home with Melissa (12) and Lissa (9). Their cousins, Crystal (12) and Christie (8) also came with them. Life at the house has changed a lot, especially with the noise, the chatter and just a lot more people in the house all the time. It´s a pleasant noise though. It´s kind of funny though--at first, the girls were not allowed to bother us when we were eating because Yohaira wanted to give us some quite time. However, when we would eat, all the girls would come and talk to us. Shortly after, we hear Yohaira come down the stairs and the girls all scatter into different corners of the room. ¨We weren´t molesting them!¨ (Molestar is the verb to bother in Spanish so I guess that´s why they said molest, haha). Things like that cheer my day up and they are a lot of fun. With their arrival, the two boxes of puppies I found upstairs one day became a regular part of the family as well. Each of the girls got a puppy of their own and I enjoy my quiet time reading with a puppy beside my lap. Things at my house are good but they are about to change again. Crystal left about a week ago and Dan leaves on Sunday. The new volunteers arrive on the 18th. I cant wait to see how the dynamics of the house change once again!

Since school ended, we have been helping out at the pre-school two times a week and helping repaint the school and getting preparations ready for camp. The school looks amazing now. We were asked to paint a mural of sorts and to be honest, I was NOT prepared to do that. I would be able to paint if someone asked me to (yay for the reading week trip to Mississippi), but to draw? Never in a million years. Fortunately, it hasn´t been that hard to copy out of a book. We drew in pencil and spent most of last week painting them in and finishing up the walls as well. I hope to get some pictures up eventually...

**note on pictures, Brittany and Carissa´s cameras have magically stopped working--some people say its because of the salt in the air (makes me kind of worried about mine). Mine still works but I don´t have the cords to connect it to a computer, haha. So hopefully when Brittany´s host mother returns with her computer, I can upload some!**

At the pre-school, we helped the kids get ready for Mother´s Day (which is different from in Canada) and had a little party at the school where the kids performed some songs. Other than that, things have been pretty standard and we help out where we can. We have been fortunate enough, however, to be asked to help with some of the evaluations. Whether the kids could count to 30 in English, give the correct letter sound of certain letters and what-not. Sadly, this week is the last week of the pre-school and I think I will miss it. The kids, although a little bit rowdy, are a treat. They are comfortable with us as we are with them and sometimes they come up to you and hug you too. It´s just a great feeling :)

Aside from the hustle and bustle, though, we have been enjoying ourselves too. This week Anthony and Fiona are going away somewhere just to spend the week. They are still in the Dominican but it has been a little bit of free time. So we have been hitting the beaches as much as we can, although it has been raining pretty much every day for the last two weeks.. We headed to Playa Breton, Playa Caleton and Lago Dudu this week so far. They have been amazing days full of fun and a chance to relax. I think it´s our only real time aside from weekends to get some time off. To get there, though, we have been taking GuaGuas which are little minivans, kind of, that stop anywhere along the main road as long as you flag them down. Hop on, and they will stop wherever you want -- a true Dominican experience. I am glad Dan took it with us the first time because I would have had no idea what to do. Since then, we have taken it a few times and aside from cramming close to 15 people into a GuaGua sometimes, they are a pretty good way to travel!

And a quick update about language, I can understand lots! Not because I´m stellar at Spanish though, haha. Ive been cheating a bit with French. One of our friends speaks Spanish and French and I speak French and English so I have become somewhat of a translator with him, haha. I do enjoy the practice of speaking French but I also want to improve in Spanish, hmmm.. it is going to be hard.

Something else that is interesting is that this friend and another Dominican friend of ours noted that I looked Chinese. I told him it was probably because I actually am Chinese. Somewhat stunned, they replied by saying that I was Canadian though. For some reason, it seems that being Chinese and Canadian were somewhat mutually exclusive in their minds. Perhaps they have just not encountered many people with different backgrounds but I just found this interesting.

Sometimes, I also think I look Dominican. Last night, some gringos at BillarZone asked me for another beer where I politely replied by saying that I didn´t work here. Perhaps I am becoming more local-like, who knows. I sure feel like one though...