Stepping Out of the Boat

Today, we went to "el campo," which means "the country." That's what Maria, our friend and fellow teacher, calls her country home that she is in the process of building. She has kind of asked us to come out to her country house several times on several different occasions, but has never really and actually invited us. Today was different. In fact, she ended up needing help painting some rooms in her house, so we went to help paint.

Yvonne and Nelson, some other friends, drove us there. Maria's house is about an hour north of Santo Domingo, close to the mountains in the middle of the island, so we had a nice ride there in the van with the Gutierrez family. We took the only highway that goes north out of the city for an hour, and then we turned off of the highway onto a dirt road. It was really lovely, but seemed like we'd left the world of technology behind. Maria's road splits an orange grove that occupies a plain just before the mountains begin. It was beautiful to say the least.

We drove back into the countryside by groups of small shacks where the poor live. Every so often, we'd pass a large gate where a larger and nicer house (we presume) is located.

Maria's house is not finished, not furnished, and not quite ready, but it will be nice once it's done. Here's a picture:

The lower level has a small kitchen, a living area, and a bathroom, and the upper level has two bedrooms, a laundry room, and two bathrooms. We painted the lower level and one bedroom. Here's Maria painting the wall by her staircase. Unfortunately, Maria didn't have enough tools for all of us to work at once, so we took turns painting and resting.

Maria has a little creek that runs by her house in the back, and we had some fun jumping on the stones and cooling oursleves in the water. We almost fancied that we were back home wading in McKormack's Creek at the State Park, besides the fact that there was a woman washing her clothes by beating them on the rocks in the creek bed.

We spent quite a bit of time outside in this little hut thing. It was very nice, although there were mosquitoes everwhere. We had to bring our own food because Maria doesn't have a fridge or a stove yet, so we had picnic style snacks out there during the day.

It was a nice day, but as we were getting ready to leave, Maria discovered that she was missing 5,000 pesos. She had 10,000 pesos in the house with her (about $300). Then, two other people who were there with us discovered that they were missing money, too. We were really not surprised because the gate had been open all day long, and the house is in an area surrounded by extreme poverty... of course the poor are going to be tempted to steal. Nothing was stolen from us, but we really didn't have anything with us worth taking. It kind of put a damper on our evening. Here's John looking grim while looking through our bag.

Yesterday, we paid our cell phone bill for the first time. Our cell phone company is called Orange. There are advertisements all over the place for Orange here. I bet you can guess what color their advertisements are...

So, we thought it would be a quick stop. That was our first mistake. Nothing here is every quick. When we got to the mall (Acropolis), we ended up waiting in line for quite a while inside the shop. When we got up to the counter, the sales clerk had that slightly amused look - the look that every sales clerk has when we walk up to any counter here. People at school tell us that here, they're not used to anyone being different. There really aren't many tourists here, so we stick out like sore thumbs everywhere we go - unless it's to a resort.

Just before we stepped up to the counter to pay our bill, we realized we would probably need our phone number (which we don't have memorized). So, I borrowed a pen from Sonya (it was purple) and wrote the number John dictated to me from our phone. Incidentally, he gave me our home phone. Eventually, I got the correct number written on my hand, but I was so sweaty that the ink started running.

I read the number to the smirking clerk :) who entered it into the computer. Either I read the number wrong, or he entered it wrong, because it came up as "Juana de Comistena" or something like that. Eventually, we got the right number, and we paid our bill successfully.

Then we went down to the Outback Steakhouse to hang out in the air conditioning for a while.
Now, it's Friday afternoon, and we have no plans as of yet. We'll see who drops in on us this weekend...

By the way, those of you who read our blog regularly, we're really glad you're keeping up on what's happening with us; but, we have no idea what is going on in your lives! John says, "Cool people leave comments!":) You can use your deductive reasoning to figure out what people who don't leave comments are... so leave us a note here and there to let us know what's up with you. If you don't want to leave it on the blog site, then email us!

A couple days ago, as we were walking down the stairs in our apartment building, we noticed that suddenly, overnight, Christmas decorations had appeared all over the stairwell from the second floor down to the first floor. There are lights, mistletoe vines, and poinsetias! What occasion prompted our neighbors below to decorate the stairs in this fashion? Is our calendar two months behind? Have we lost track of time? Incidentally, we noticed that this same neighbor (whom we have never met) has also gone all out on his or her balcony as well - tons of Christmas lights! I wonder if we'll ever solve the mystery...

Otherwise, things are going just fine. The weather this evening isn't quite as warm as it has been, although early today it was just as hot. The sky was filled with clouds part of the day, and thunder rolled in the distance, but it never rained. Tomorrow is laundry day, so even if the sun is shining all day long, it will most certainly start to rain when we put our laundry up. :)

School is fine - according to the way things go here. Soon, we'll start making our Unit Plans for next quarter, but at least this time around, our students will have text books so that we can teach our unit plans. I (Claire) am still waiting on two novels, but the school is reordering them from different providers. I hope they come before I'm supposed to teach them! John is having some class novels ordered now since everyone at the school negelected to order books or tell him that books needed to be ordered before school started. All things considered, we'll find something to teach!

This weekend we set off an another adventure to another resort on the island. This time we decided to stay a little closer to home, go for two nights, and take along some friends. On Friday, Claire, Wayne, Becky, Sonya, grabed our packed bags right after school and headed off to Jaun Dolio which is located about an hour east of us on the southern coast. We arrived at the hotel around 4:30 in plenty of time to settle into our rooms and explore the grounds of the resort before having a bite to eat. The Barcello Capella is a larger resort with all the pools and beaches spread throughout. We started our exploration by walking along the beach and checking where the hot spots might be for the following day. The beach here was a lot rockier than any of the beaches we have been to before but there was an area where the sand streched out long enough to really enjoy a swim. After checking out the beach we headed over to the sports area. They had all kinds of recreation things to enjoy. There was a basketball court, weight room, volleyball and tennis courts, a soccer field, and as you can see a gigantic chess board. There were a couple pieces missing on each side so we didn't get to play but in a way it reminded Claire and I of Harry Potter's wizards chess. There was also a putt putt course but I am sad to say that we never found the time play. With the heat of the day and the fact that the course was located in a forest (mosquito heaven), we thought our time would be better spent next to a pool or the ocean. Maybe the next time we go we can squeeze in a game. From here we headed over to check out the two pools. One of the pools was two levels. The top level had a swim up bar that you could enjoy a drink at before taking the water slide down to the lower pool to swim around in. This picture to the left is of the lower pool and just to the left is the slide. If you check out the Video and Photo page I will post some pictures of the slide and a few other things that we were unable to put on this post.

By this time we are starving so we headed over the buffet for dinner. It was alot of the same types of things that we had had the weekend before but we still enjoyed it nonetheless. After dinner we decided to head over the the Flamingo Bar which also posed as a theatre for the evening performances. After finding a seat, we settled in for what we thought was going to be a traditional cheesy resort performance. Little did we know, however, that the Playa Mundial Beauty Pageant was to take place Friday and Saturday night at our hotel. The show started out innocently enough with a few singers and an ice breaker game to buy some time for the crowd to gather. We really didn't know that there was a pageant taking place in the two nights we were there until the first half-naked lady walked out onto the stage. Our first impression was that this must be some kind of a joke but, with a pannel of judges set up at the base of the stage and a few T.V. cameras around the arena we quickly realized our mistake. One after another, the women kept coming out, each seemed to be wearing less clothes and a fancier outfit than the one before. When the women were done it was the mens' turn, and to say the women were wearing next to nothing is an understatement compared to what the men had on. They paraded around on stage a couple time before the night was out. The thing to do after the show was head over the to the disco for some dancing. So we decided to check it out but by this time it was late and we were ready to call it a day.

(Claire's turn to write.) We woke up fairly early Saturday morning, had a yummy breakfast by the sea shore, and headed to the beach. We had a very refreshing swim before the clouds rolled in around noon - it rained for about two hours, during which time we had lunch and a little rest in the air conditioning. John said that he doesn't mind rain on days like that because it clears out the crowds. After the rain stopped, we went back out to the pool.

In spite of the almost embarrassingly bad "performances"at the beauty pageant, we were curious enough to see how the whole thing turned out that we went back for more. Oh my.
Let me say at this point that the Playa Mundial competition made no attempt to make the competition seem like it was based on anything other than physical appearance. No tallents, no interviews, and as the night went on, the clothing items became smaller and smaller. Some of the contestants looked kind of embarrassed to be there, but others seemed like they thought the sun rose and set on them. It was unbelievable. After the initial parade of contestants and swimsuit competition #1 (yes, there were two different ones), some dancing people filled the changing time with badly rehearsed dances. In the end, Miss Puerto Rico and Mr. USA (who was no more from the USA than John is Dominican) won.

It was one of the most absurd things I've ever experienced... not to mention that the whole thing was so badly rehearsed that people ended up looking around and not knowing what to do on stage. They had to start the whole thing twice because (we're guessing using context clues) the TV cameras weren't ready when the competition started. If ever I need some material for a speech on absurd and ridiculous experiences, this will be number one. John thought it was entertaining, and I suppose I did too, but on the most sarcastic level possible.

Sunday was a beautiful day - hot and sunny - and we got much sun, although John refuses to admit that he is burned. Several times during the weekend, we looked at each other and said in disbelief, "We live here!" We checked out at one this afternoon, but as the rules go, we were allowed to stay until 5 with our bags in a secure area. We had a great time, and we plan on doing this at least once a month. It was definitely affordable!

John wanted to call this post "Going Swimming in My Own Sweat," but I wanted to focus the more positive aspects of living in the tropics.

We have regular access to really yummy fruits and veggies, although we have to soak them in bleach water before we eat them. This meal pictured here was what I thought we'd be eating really often: Salad with fresh avacado, Maggi Chicken noodle soup, cold mango, and a glass of cold water. It's too bad we're not losing weight here - the heat makes us feel like eating less, but we end up eating high-calorie food. For some reason, I feel like it's better to eat high calorie fresh food (like mango) than low calorie preservatives that taste like something fresh. There's nothing like cold mango to refresh you after a really hot day.

Speaking of hot days, let me expand upon John's title. It has been so hot here that we really feel like we're swimming in sweat all the time. Last night, there was no electricity from about 10pm to 2:30am. It was the first time since living here that the electricity was off during the night, and we hope it NEVER happens again. When the electricity is off, we can't run the air conditioner, and our room gets stifflingly hot. We tossed and turned for many hours last night and woke up much less than rested.

People here keep talking about "when the weather breaks," but we're not going to believe it until we feel it. (We're secretly hoping the break will come tomorrow.)

This weekend, we're going to another all inclusive resort. This time, we're going with all the other foreign teachers, and we're staying a little closer to home. The place we're going is called Juan Dolio - Dad, you can look it up on Google Earth. :)

If you're starting to get cold up there in the north, just think of us - sweating ourselves silly.

What a great weekend! We successfully made it to the other side of the island and back on our own – and we had a wonderfully relaxing weekend.

On Friday night, we were invited to go with one of our Dominican coworkers to his “club.” Here, it’s very popular to belong to a club where you can go work out, swim, and play sports. Most of them are ridiculously expensive to belong to, so we won’t be following that trend. Lucky for us, Marte, a math teacher at St. Michael’s, likes us and wants to hang out with us. He invited us to join him at his club after school.

It turns out that his “club” is really a hotel in Santo Domingo that makes a few extra bucks by charging the locals a membership fee to come and work out in their gym, swim at their pools, etc. Because we were guests, we had to pay a small fee to get in, but we had a marvelous time. We decided that we should do that every Friday after school – so relaxing! We went swimming and relaxed in the hot tub. Here, of course, there is no such thing as an indoor pool. People who live here laugh at the idea. We ended up ordering a pizza and chilling out by the pool until about 7:30.

Saturday morning, we got up bright and early (5:50) to catch the 7:00 bus to Puerto Plata, which is on the north coast. (We live on the south coast.) We went with the Metro bus company, but the deal is that you have to get there early enough to buy your ticket and get on the bus before everyone else. They’ll sell you a ticket for any bus, but if it’s full when you get there, you have to wait for the next bus to leave – which may be two or four hours later. Needless to say, we arrived on time and boarded the bus in plenty of time. The Metro busses are very nice – air conditioned and comfortable for the most part. It took us about three and a half hours to get there, but it would only take maybe two hours if the roads were better. We both read books (not for school) on the way. They do play movies, but the volume is so low that no one can really hear them. It was enjoyable.

When we arrived at the Puerto Plata bus station, we were unpleasantly surprised to find that it was in the dumpy part of town and was very dirty and run-down compared to the station in Santo Domingo. As soon as we exited the bus, we were accosted by taxi drivers wanting to take us where we wanted to go.

It’s a conspiracy!! The taxi drivers, hotels, and bus companies are all in it together! We got overcharged for our taxi ride to the hotel – a ten minute drive – that cost almost as much as it cost us to get all the way across the island. The driver wanted us to pay 734 pesos to begin with, but we ended up paying only 450, which ends up about $12.

When we arrived at the hotel, a couple glitches occurred: Glitch #1. Travelocity had not reserved our room at the hotel. We ended up waiting almost an hour after calling Travelocity on our cell phone (expensive!) because they had not faxed the hotel our reservation. Lucky for us, the hotel was not full. During that hour of waiting, we discovered glitch #2: A sign, of sorts, was standing on the counter. In five different languages, including fairly bad English, it said that the beach was unfortunately closed due to construction. OH NO!!! That’s the whole reason we came here! It all ends up fine – but in typical Dominican style.
After we finally got our room, we took a little walk around the hotel to check it out, and when we got to the beach, we were surprised to see people swimming. Yes, there was a giant, rusty, metal pipe running down the beach as far as the eye could see and the occasional bull dozer was driving by, but people were swimming. Some dude was trying to sell us something, and we asked him about the beach being “closed.” He said, “Well, man, what you see here and what it says in the lobby are two different things, if you get my meaning…” We got his meaning.

One definite benefit of living in Santo Domingo is that whenever some one was trying to sell us something, as soon as they found out that we live here, they immediately stopped the sales pitch. We decided that on all our travels from here on out, we should say we’re living in whatever country we happen to be visiting – although on second thought, that would create a moral dilemma.

We thoroughly enjoyed a weekend relaxing by the beach, reading, getting some sun (not too much, though), and eating REALLY GOOD food. There was not a single other American tourist at our hotel. Mostly, the people there were German, French, and Italian. There was one British group, and a small group of boys from Canada. Otherwise, though, English was not a part of anything happening at the hotel. I suppose we’re used to that, though.

Saturday night, we ended up going to bed early because we were so tired from our long day. Then, Sunday, we enjoyed some more relaxation on the beach. When we got down to the beach, we realized that the construction team had been working all night long – the pipe was gone!! So, Sunday, we had a mostly unobstructed view of the ocean. There was still the occasional bull dozer steaming by.

The ride home was pretty uneventful. We arrived safe and sound back in Santo Domingo with plenty of time to get ourselves organized for the week.

This coming weekend, we’re planning a trip with the other foreign teachers to Juan Dolio, which is much closer – only about an hour away. Hoorah for all inclusive resorts!!!




For more pictures and a video from the weekend getaway go to our pictures and video page.

Last week the four of us (Becky and Sonya) were up on top of the roof enjoying some of the nice breeze that hits us as the sun is going down. We tend to make our way up there most days of the week. Most of the time we sit on the chair and little bench while we are up there and watch the traffic and construction that is happening out front of our building. However this day was a little different. We started to explore the other sides of the building and what exactly was out there. We noticed a the tree in our "backyard" had what
we thought were limes on it. There wasn't a lot of fruit up there, but there was enough that I felt like I needed to try and get what was up there. So while the girls watched from the roof I went down to see what I could do.

Once I got down there I realized that the "limes" were a lot higher than they looked from the roof. After looking around the area for a moment I realized that the long 2 by 4s would be my best tool. So I started with the 10 foot board and struggled to get anything down. I was hitting them really hard, they were just alot harder to get out of the tree than I thought. So I upgraded to the 20 foot board and after about 5 or so minutes of batting the fruit around, some finally fell out of the tree. Well great cheers went up as the girls were watching from the roof.

It was after I had knocked one out of the tree that I realized they weren't limes but were really oranges.
I continued on getting four good oranges before my arms couldn't even lift the board off the ground and my hair and eyes were filled with who knows what that was falling out of the tree with each whack of the board. Here are a couple pictures of me back on the roof and of the girls with the fruits of my labor. We took them down stairs washed them off and had a little treat.

They surprisingly tasted just like oranges but the smell was even better than normal oranges. Apparently, the oranges that you buy at the store are dyed orange so that when you see them, you think, "I bet that is really orange and yummy on the inside since it's so orange on the outside." Naturally grown oranges are green on the outside. Check out the Picture and Video link to see a 2 part video of me trying to hit an orange out of the tree.


Last Wednesday was our schools open house. We had been told leading up to the night that it wouldn't be like any other open house we had even been to so we weren't really sure what to expect walking over. Once we walked in we noticed patio chairs and a projection screen had been set up on the playground. After making sure our classrooms were all ready to go all the teachers and parents made thier way to a seat. The director of the school had a power point presentation, in Spanish, that she wanted to share with everyone. Part of the presentation was the introduction of all the teachers. This sounds easy enough, right? When the director says your name you stand so that the parents can put a name with a face. The problem was she was speaking in Spanish and she was going faster than anyone can stand and sit down. So after seeing my name, along with a few others, on the projection screen and not really knowing if it was my turn I stood up. No one really said anything but I am still not sure if I stood at the right time. Claire completely missed her name and ended up standing at the same time as two other teachers. The entire presentation lasted for an hour and a half. She talked about anything and everything having to do with the school. I would go into more detail but the whole Spanish thing I mentioned earlier made it harder to understand. After the powerpoint all the homeroom teachers and parents headed up to their rooms for the individual speeches. I decided to do my part with the other six grade teacher who speaks English. Call me crazy but I had a feeling I would run into some sort of language barrier along the way. I am glad that I did because this part of the night was also done in Spanish by the other six grade teacher while I just stood up in front of everyone. I did get the chance to introduce myself and speak with some parents afterwards but other than that it was a long awkward 30 mintues.

Well Thursday was my 25 birthday. I really can't believe that I am a quarter century old but I guess I am still a young one. When Claire and I left for school that morning we were welcomed by a sign the Becky, our foriegn teacher friend from across the hall, had made with candy and gum hanging from it. It was a nice little surprise first thing in the morning. The students really didn't know that it was my birthday until the point in the morning announcements when they read everyones birthday. My homeroom sang happy birthday to me during first period. Then my other class sang to me again when I had them for the first time. It was nice to have my birthday on a Thursday because it is my easiest day at school. I have the last two periods off on Thursday so it was nice to be done a little earlier.

Every year on my birthday Claire and I go to the Outback Steakhouse for dinner. I am a sucker for the Bloomin Onion and the Ribs. We weren't sure before moving here if that tradition was going to be able to be continued but wouldn't you know there is an Outback here within walking distance of our apartment. So the dinner date was on and before the day was out it was becoming a small party. When all was said and done there were 10 of us. Claire and I were obviously there. Going around the table to my left is Sonya, Holly, Wayne, Becky, Alyssa, Kayla, Yvonne, and Nelson (Claire is taking the picture if you hadn't figured that one out) Soyna, Becky and Wayne are all new this year and we all live in the same building. Holly is from Canada and has been here for 9 years. Yvonne, her husband Nelson, and their two children are the family that have been showing all of us around the town so far. We had a ton of food. We ended up ordering a couple Bloomin Onions and a couple Loaded Cheese Fries before our meals even got there. We were there for about 3 hours which is typical for a Dominican meal beacause they really aren't concerned with rushing through meals. The waitress there take thier time and never really try to rush your through your meal. We really had a great time.


After the meal the staff did come out with a small dish of whipped cream with a candle in it and sang happy birthday in both Spanish and English.

To top off the birthday celebration Claire and I came home and Claire made some birthday brownies. A simple task such as baking brownies here isn't so easy. Our oven doesn't have any numbers on it, it is either off or on. But the brownies came out fine and even though we were really full we each enjoyed a small piece. This was also the night of the season premire of Survivor. I thought it was the perfect way to finish the day. I think I can truely say that my 25th birthday is one that I will never forget.

Tomorrow Claire and I are headed to an all inclusive resort as another way to do a little celebrating. Alot has gone on here that we are in need of blogging so be checking back with us in a couple days. Just to give you a preview of what to come we discovered an orange tree in our back yard with oranges on it, we had our school open house which lasted almost three hours, and Friday night a fellow coworker took us to a health spa that he is member of for a little swimming and relaxing.

I (Claire) am home from school today because yesterday evening, I came down with a UTI - a urinary track infection. If you've ever had one, you know how painful and uncomfortable it can be. At home in the USA, it would be bad, of course, but here, in foreign country, where we don't know the system, we don't have a doctor, etc., it's just that much worse.

To make a long story short, when I started feeling not so good, I was a little worried. A few hours later, I totally freaked out. Then, we looked up my symptoms online and low and behold, I have a UTI. We thought to try to figure out what we could do and ended up calling Holly, our supervisor, who it always helpful when we are in a tight spot. She said that she has had 3 UTIs since she moved here and had never had one before she lived here.

She said that I could try to go to a doctor - she recommended one who speaks English, or since I knew what the problem was, I could just go to the pharmacy and ask for a certain antibiotic. Here, there is no such thing as a prescription. If you're willing to buy the drug, you can get the drug. We decided on the pharmacy route because we didn't know how I would get to the doctor today. John has to work at school, and I really shouldn't go anywhere by myself. Whatever we were going to do, it had to wait til daytime since everything was closed.

I was in a lot of pain and discomfort and it was getting late when we remembered that our friend Sonya who lives accross the hall is practically a walking pharmacy. She brought all kinds of medicine here with her from home. After several attempts at waking them up, it finally worked, and she had antibiotic that her doctor gave her specifically for UTIs. So, we thanked her and thanked God, and now I'm feeling much better, although not quite well enough to teach school.

Staying here alone all day is kind of weird. It seems I get most homesick when I'm not feeling well. I left all my school stuff at school, so I can't really catch up that way, but I have work to do here... like sewing.
This is a somewhat blurry (sorry) picture of John's ripped shirt. It's one of his favorites - green silk - and yesterday because of the heat (read yesterday's blog post), it ended up ripping.

He didn't have any airconditioning in his classroom yesterday because the custodian lady pushed the wrong button on her little remote in the momrning, and by the afternoon, it was a sauna in his room. So, as he was teaching, he went to write on the chalkboard, and as he tells it, he was so sweaty that his shirt was stuck to his skin, and when he moved his arm, his shirt didn't move with it. So, alas, I have a torn silk shirt to repair, and the rip isn't on the seam. I've also got several buttons to sew on other various things.

Last night, before the UTI business started, we had Sonya, Becky, and Wayne over for dinner. Now that Wayne has FINALLY moved into his apartment downstairs, he has been hanging out with us a little more. We found out that this is his 30th year teaching, and he could retire back in Canada after one or two more years teaching, but he decided to have an adventure instead of just staying home. I don't know many teachers in his stage of life who would do something like this. I really respect him for taking this step and taking the risk.

I made Jamaican Stew Beef and Spinners for dinner - one of my family's favorites. It was a lot like a family dinner, in a way, since we've all become a sort of pseudo-family here in Santo Domingo.

On the table, you can see the tub-o-salt (white lid) that we use instead of a salt shaker. You can't use a salt shaker here because it's so humid that when you shake it, nothing comes out. It's all stuck in the bottom. So, here instead of , "Please pass the salt shaker," it's "Please pass the tub-o-salt."

It has been another hot day here in the Dominican. It is that sufficating hot that you can never get away from. The kind of hot that starts at 7:00 a.m. and continues on well past sundown. It is the hot that drains your energy. Its the hot that causes you to break a sweat when you're brushing your teeth in the morning. I am not sure how many of you have experienced that last kind of hot, but here in the Dominican it happens often.

The day started off like any other hot day with me, John, breaking a sweat walking across the street to school and then getting ready in my classroom that has a little musty smell to it as the air conditioner still isn't up and running all the way. Now I need to let you know that each morning when I get to my class the air has not yet been turned on but within the first 5 or so minutes the custodian lady comes around with her little remote control and turns it on. It is a nice little system that we have here even though the custodian lady doesn't speak a lick of English and doesn't understand, even though she has repeatedly talked to me in Spanish and I repeatedly told her I don't understand, that I don't speak hardly any Spanish. These little interacations are another blog entry all on their own (as I roll my eyes). So the air is on and we headed down to our flag ceremony just like every other day.

Here is the patriotism part. Today being the 5th anniversay of 9/11 the school, along with the Dominican anthem, played the American national anthem. This is done on U.S. holidays such as Labor Day when we were in school and you were all at home in bed. However today had a little twist.
After the Star Spangled Banner a group of students, who Claire and I are guessing to be a school chior??, all dressed in white came out and sang We Are The World with the accompaniment of the CD version of the song. To make the story a little weirder they held three doves which they then released upon the conclusion of the song. Here is a picture that Claire found online and for copyright purposes I am required to inform you we did not take it ourselves, but this is what they looked like. After two of the birds flew away while the thrid one, not getting enough liftoff, flew into the building landing just behind where the students were standing and even after one of MY students then went running after it in front of the entire school we all headed back to our nice cool air conditioned classrooms.

WRONG. When I got back to my room and opened the door I might as well have been opening the door to a burning oven. What a day to have the air conditioner not working. I had heard of this type of thing happening at school so I just went with it despite the uncomfortable factor. It wasn't until I had taught in there, with the windows and door open and 2 ceiling fans on full strength, that I then went to another classroom and realized it wasn't a school wide problem but a MY classroom problem. So on my first break which was about 2 and half hours after school started I went out to find help. After walking around a little while wouldn't you guess who I eventually ran into, the custodian lady. Not wanting to waste all my prep time I had her come into the room where I tried to expain that something isn't working right and it was like a hot box in there. So she pulled up a chair to stand on and put her hand up in front of the system that at that time was blowing warm air. She then turns to me, with a smile on her face, and rambled on something in Spanish that I assumed meant something like "It is working I can feel air coming out of here." Then before I could get anything else in she collected her things and left. Knowing that I only had one more class in that room at the end of the day I decided I would let the few teaches who were to come into the room before then talk to someone and have it fixed.

WRONG. The last period fo the day, when the sun is at its finest down here, I headed back to the room to experience a hot like I had yet to experience. I was dying in there for about 30 minutes. I was racking my brain trying to think if there was a way to take the entire class somewhere cooler. But in a school that is completly outside not may of these places exsist. I was completly drenched in sweat to the point where my shirt was sticking to my body. At one point I bent over to tie my shoe and as my arm went forward my shirt, stuck to my body, stayed where it was and I ripped a hole in it right by the armpit. With about 15 mintues of school left, right as I was to that breaking point where I thought I might jump out the window the custodian lady came through the door carrying her little remote control. She walked over to the air conditioner and pushed a button on her remote and the cold air started pouring out of the machine. She then walked up to me and in Spanish rambled on about who knows what while she pointed at two different buttons on the remote. From what I could make out she pushed the wrong button in the morning and instead of turning on the cool air she just opened some sort of vent.

This weekend, we learned that all the cops here in the DR are rotten. If you get stopped by them, you have to bribe them. If you don't bribe them, they can get very angry, which is a very bad thing. When I hear a siren on the streets, I no longer think, "Oh, justice is being served." Now, I think, "I'm glad I'm not out there." It's a good thing we don't own a car.

Apparently, the salary of a cop here is so low that no one could actually live on it, so to make up for that, the cops take bribes from everyone - the random person or the crime ring-leader. The cops are also known for being super criminals themsleves - car thieves, drug-traffic stuff, etc. So, now I know that I should stay far away from the cops at all costs.

Yesterday (Saturday), we went to the Acropolis, a large fancy mall nearby, and shopped around. It was nice to just do something fairly normal. We also cleaned our entire apartment. The weekends here are great. Perahps it's worth it to work at a disfunctional school in order to live in the Caribbean for the weekends. We've alwyas said that we don't want to be people who live for the weekends, but here, there seems to be no other option.

Next weekend is John's birthday weekend, and we are going to Puerto Plata up north to an all-inclusive resort called Viva Windham Playa Dorada.

Here's a link if you want to read about it:
http://travel.travelocity.com/hotel/HotelDetail.do?propertyId=63312&startIndex=0&showMap=0&sortOrder=ascPOSPicks&sortAlpha=-1&tab=features&SEQ=11579087893818102006&hotelQKey=-6414798595812227199

Anyway, yesterday at the Acropolis, I got John a pair of goggles as an I-love-you present so that he can look for "treasures" in the ocean on our various excursions. Here he is in the goggles. Isn't he handsome?

So - this morning, we went to another church, and it was quite an adventure in more ways than one.

I found this church on the Internet. My parents had recommended that we try to find a Union Church because they have English speaking services throughout the world.

Well, we had to call a cab in order to go this morning. We found information that said the service started at 9, so we called the cab around 8:30. When we got into the cab, we realized that we only had part of the address for the church. We needed the zone of the city where the church is because on any given street, there may be five different number 235's along the way. Miraculously, we drove down the correct street and eventually found the church. Our cab driver was the very first nice cab driver we have met here.

As we walked into the church, we realized that the service was already in full swing. There was a minister in a robe preaching up front, and about twelve or so people in the congregation, sitting in the large and echoey church. Come to find out, the service really started at 8:30 even though all their information says 9. The church building was about 100 years old with wooden pews and an organ (according to the bulletin) that was made in Philidelphia a hundred years ago this month.

We learned fromt he bulletin that two churches share the building: the Union Church and Ephiphany Episcopal Church. Every other Sunday, the service switches to the alternate style - same minister, same congregaion, but two different styles.

The whole service was read out of a little red book with prayers and directions in it. We didn't know what we were doing most of the time, but we just watched everyone else. We certainly felt like outsiders, and at one point, we whispered to each other, "What are we doing here?"

We got to take Communion, but much to our surprise, the "wine" really was wine! We had to go up to the front and recieve the bread and the wine from the minister, but when we got to the little cups, they all seemed to be mostly empty. John thinks he drank a cup that had already been drunk. Oops. Also, whenever we were supposed to be singing a hym, there was only really one lady who sang the hymns. Everyone else, it seems, stared at their hymnals - maybe they were humming. We sang.

I don't think they often have visitors at this church, and now I know why. They broke the number one rule about what NOT to do to visitors: "Please stand up and introduce yourself if you are visiting here today." So, we did. It was somewhat embarrassing. We were the youngest people there except for one family with three kids.

From what we could tell, it was a dying church with only the most faithful (and old) members left. Everyone kind of muttered along with the directions and prayers in the red book, but no one seemed to really believe or care about what they were saying. After the service was over, most of the congregation came over to greet us. We even got invited to the beach next Sunday if we want to come back. Apparently, one older couple goes to the beach directly after church every Sunday. The lady had her suit on under her dress. :)

Of course, everyone said how pleased they were that we came and that they hoped we would come back. When we had greeted and were ready to go, we were planning on calling the nice cab driver who had given us his card, but as we walked out to the curb, he drove right up and took us straight home! We gave him a nice tip and said we would call him when we need a cab. All of the other cab drivers we've used here have been either nondescript or downright unpleasant.

So, miraculously, we went to church and got home today. I don't think Union/Epiphany is the church for us, but we may go back on an alternate week to see what the "other" service is like.

At 7:45 every morning, all the homeroom teachers bring their classes down to the gym/auditorium/recess area/soccer field/basketball court/cafeteria/parking lot (after school hours) of the school for the Flag Raising Ceremony.

Each class stands in a line and the Dominican national anthem is played to begin the day. On US holidays, they play the Star Spangled Banner, too. For example, Monday was Labor Day, so we had the pleasure of standing through two national anthems. Then, everyone must bow their heads for the morning prayer, which isn't a problem here because almost all of our student are Catholic, and it's a private school. Most of the time a 2nd grader says the morning prayer and no one can understand what is being said because of the poor microphone quality.


Then, it's time for morning announcements. Unfortunately, it's impossible to understand what a word anyone is saying, so I just hope nothing important is ever said during the morning announcements. The homeroom teachers also take attendance and do the uniform check during the Flag Ceremony.

The uniforms generally consist of green pants or a skirt for the ladies, a white polo shirt with the St. Michael's logo, white ankle socks and black flat dress shoes. I have decided that the uniform battle is not one that I am going to fight, so if I see an untucked shirt, I'll simply look the other way.

Tomorrow, John and I both are attending a mini-conference from 11:00 to 12:30 at school to learn how to use the new textbooks which have still not arrived. We most definitely see the irony in all of this. So - during that time, we have to have substitutes, and the directions for sub plans were, "Leave your planbook on your desk or in your cabinet." Since I (Claire) have neither a desk nor a cabinet, I think I may just let the sub have a hayday.

Not really. I'll type something up and try to give it to someone tomorrow and hope for the best, but really, the way things go here, I shouldn't expect my substitute to see hide nor hair of my plans.

We do not currently have any plans for the weekend, but we did decide that all the foreign teachers and anyone else who wants to come are taking a weekend trip to a place called Juan Dolio not too far from here. We're going to an all-inclusive resort for the weekend. Hoorahh! That's two weekend getaways in a row for us.

Also, please email us and let us know what's going on with you. There's even a link in our sidebar in case you don't have our email.

We're also thinking of starting a little prayer request email once a week or so. If you'd like to be part of that list, send us an email so we can put you on our list.

Livning here - teaching school here - is like a perpetual headache. I've known some people, Becky Hillenburg being one, who have lived with actual headaches that never go away. Those people must simply get used to having a headache, and in time, they most likely forget what it's like to feel healthy and normal. That's precisely how it is living and working here.

We thought we were getting the hang of living - and we are - but we were without water AGAIN yesterday and today. That means this morning we went to school dirty - YUCK!! Let me tell all you people who live in the USA: going a day without a shower here in the Caribbean is an entirely different thing than doing the same thing in the USA. In a previous post, I covered the issue of the thin layer of grime that covers everything here. On a human body, the grime is mixed with sweat - lots of sweat. I won't say more other than that a.m. and p.m. showers are absolutely necessary. Without water, we also could not flush the toilet for over 20 hours, and stuff gets really nasty really fast in this humidity.

As far as we're concerned, living here is not so bad. We've got a handle on the laundry, choosing groceries according to their weight and size, walking everywhere we go, calling the Colmado (little corner store) to ask for water in Spanish, sweeping and mopping every three days, making deals with taxi drivers BEFORE we get in the cab, etc. But school is a completely different story. We cannot begin to tell all of you teachers who read this blog how lucky you are.

At St. Michael's, all the copying is outsourced because there is no copy machine in the school. You must have your copies ready to go at least two days before you need the copies. If you decide to do something last minute - oh wait, you can't change your plans at the last minute, or even the day before. Simply having the copies ready to go two days ahead of time wouldn't be that bad if it weren't for this detail: everyone has to have their copy requests (the forms are in Spanish only by the way) signed by their supervisors. So, what ends up happening is that during the 45 minute prep period, you have to - if you're very lucky- find one of the five computers for the 55 teachers free in order to print the thing you need to copy. Then, fill out the copy request form that is entirely in Spanish. This is the part that is the biggest pain: you have to find your supervisor and have him or her sign your request form. We have both wasted large quantities of time wandering around the school trying to find our supervisors so that our copies can get out on time. WOW! All of you teachers who have copy machines at your fingertips, be thankful!

When it rains, it pours, literally. Today is Tuesday, and both yesterday and today, right when the clock struck 3:00, the sky opened up and it poured. Yesterday, we hung around for about ten extra minutes, and then ran home in the downpour. We were drenched when we got home. Today, it also began to pour at 3:00. Luckily, though, it stopped before we lost our patience. All evening and afternoon, it poured on and off. When it rains, the stairs in our apartment building become a bubbling brook. Alright, I'm exaggerating slightly, but basically, the water pours in from the roof and runs down the stairs all the way down to the first floor. Needless to say, the stairs become incredibly slippery.

We had a conversation today about how this is the hardest thing we've ever done, and when it's all said and done, we will be quite sad to leave. We know all of this inconvenience and the perpetual headache will make us into better people.

On a happy note, we LOVE the weekends here. In fact, we're planning a visit to an all-inclusive resort for John's birthday weekend. Woohoo! We'll take a four hour bus ride over the mountains in the middle of the island up to the North coast for two days.

Sunday morning, we went to church. It was the first time since we've been here that we have had the opportunity to go to church. Ines, the lady who hired us, goes to a Southern Baptist church here in Santo Domingo, believe it or not. 98 % of the population is Catholic. So, on Friday at school, I had to wait for quite a while to be able to get into her office to ask her about churches. She had mentioned before that there are three English speaking churches within walking distance from the school. When I asked her about them, she invited us to come to church with her!

On Sunday morning, she picked us up and we went to a school where the church meets (they grew out of their building). It was SO WONDERFUL to be in a room full of people praising God!! The entire service was in Spanish, but we had translator devices provided for us for the sermon. It almost made me (Claire) want to cry (happy tears) when we walked in becuase I knew that the people in that room wanted the same things I wanted and love the same God I love. We felt at home - in the eternal sense of the word.

John didn't really catch much of what was said in Spanish before the translators started working, but during worship, I recognized some songs I had sung before in Spanish during my various mission trips to various countries. It was just so wonderful!

Some time during the service, it dawned on me that all around the world, in every nation and language, praising God with other people is at its very core the same. I've realized this fact at various times during my life, always when I'm in another country and culture, and this time, the realization was just as comforting. That's what heaven is going to be like...

We don't know if we want to go back to Ines' church or if we would like to try a real English speaking church here in Santo Domingo. I think it's pretty important to John to go to a service that is really in English and not just transalted. I certainly learned a lot of new words during the service since I had the translator in one ear and I was listening to the Spanish with the other.

All things considered, it was a great break from the perpetual headache of life here in the DR.

Another Saturday in the D.R. another adventure. Today was the first day that we actually got a good look at some of the things the Colonial Zone had to offer. For those avid blog readers you may recall in an earlier episode that we have in fact been to this part of town before but it was late at night and we didn't get to see too much. We left our apartment today around 2:30 hoping that we were able to beat some of the heat, yeah right. Yvonne and her family picked us up and we headed to the oldest and most historic part of the island. Our first stopped landed us at the Fortress of Santo Domingo. Here you can see The Tower of Homage, which was built along the coast in 1502 as the last fortification built by the Spaniards as they finished the exploration of the island from North to South. Because it is located on a steep bank overlooking the river and the sea its function was closing and defending the port between the river and the ocean. We were actually able to walk throughout the entire building and surrounding fortress area. If you click on the "Other Videos and Picture" site on our blog you will see more picture from inside this building. It was incredible to us to think that we were walking around in places that soldiers did over 500 years ago. Here you can see a view from out a window on the second floor as it is overlooking the river and the ocean in the distance background.
We were actually able to walk out onto the roof that you see here in this picture as well as out to the lookout place just beyond that. We really enjoyed ourselves here but the heat was almost enough to knock you off your feet. From here we left to walk around the area a little bit, mostly to find a Cormado, which are little convience stores located all over the island, for some water.
On the way we pasted by what could best be called a memorial building with sites and stone slabs remembering some of the great leaders on the nation. This is a picture that was taken inside of this memorial.
We all agreed that we would come back again on a day that wasn't so hot to see the rest of the sites here. However before we were completly done with our adventure, Yvonne and her husband Nelson wanted to so us the Mercado where we could buy some painting if we were interested. This Mercado was located inside a small building but with many, many, many vendors set up everywhere and very little ventilation. All the vendors wanted you to come into thier little store area to see what they had to offer. Lukily for us Nelson knew a couple people there that he had bought painting from in the past and was able to help us get some good deals on some things. This picture below is one of the paintings that Claire and I had our eyes on. We really like the style and colors of these paintings.
This was one of the paintings that we really liked however the picture of the "goddess" in the center wasn't something that we were thrilled with. Again it is lucky for us that Nelson was there because he talked with the seller into having the artist, who like most of the other artist are very local if not are in the building, into painted this same picture but replacing the goddess with anther image of our choice. It should be ready next weekend. We are really excited about the discovery of these painting for a couple reasons. 1. Now we finally have something to hang on our completly bare celery green walls that we have been staring at for a month now. 2. These styles of painting come in various sizes, shapes, colors, and pictures so we will be able to decorate with a variety. and 3. They are really inexpensive. This painting that is shown here is about 3 feet tall and 4 feet long and we are able to get it for 600 pesos which is only $18. Again if you look at our other picture page there are a couple other pictures of some paintings we were looking at.
We finished our day by heading back to a place closed to Yvonnes house called Picola which had a burger type sandwhich called a chimi that is pork with cabbabe, carrots, onions, and a coupe different types of secret sauses on it. It was really good way to end a day and we were glad to hear that there is another Picola close to our place that delivers.

Wayne, one of the other foreign teachers, has been living in a hotel for a month because his apartment was not ready when he got here. First they said it would be ready in a week, then ten days... you see the pattern. So, today, he finally got to move into his apartment today after school. All week, the lady at the school who is in charge of our apartments has been saying that we were going to have a party at Wayne's new place to welcome him home. We didn't know if she was for real or not - but let me tell you - SHE WAS FOR REAL!!

We thought that if it was going to happen, we would go over for an hour or two after school and talk and have some food, but here in the DR, parties last a lot longer than a few hours. Actually, it's almost 10:30 pm and the party is still going. It moved from Wayne's to Outback Steakhouse, but it's still going strong.

The picture to the right was taken before most of the guests arrived. Check the video blog link tomorrow to see some video of the party later on - merengue music included! We even danced!



Here's Wayne in his new kitchen.

Tomorrow, we're going to the Colonial Zone to shop around and see some of the original buildings that Christopher Columbus and Co. built. We'll post about it tomorrow night unless we're too beat.