Stepping Out of the Boat

So many things have happened recently that we haven't had time to blog about them, so here we go... this is going to be one massive blog post about the things that have been going on starting with last Sunday night.

Farewell to Wayne...
Last Sunday night, when we returned home from our weekend away, Wayne (one of the foreign teachers) called us. We assumed that he was in his apartment on the first floor of our building, but as the conversation continued on, we realized that he had flown the country. He was at home in Canada... he had quit! We were shocked and sad because we really liked Wayne and wanted to continue to get to know him. As it turns out, he had just gotten fed up with the nonsense at school and had decided that enough was enough. He packed his bags on Friday night and flew out early Saturday morning, unbeknownst to any of us. He left a bottle of wine outside his apartment door and told us to have a drink on him - so on Sunday night, we all toasted to Wayne - farewell! (See the picture.) He had emailed and faxed the big kahunas at school and expceted them to find out sometime Monday morning...

We all went to school with bated breath that day to watch and wait until the you-know-what hit the fan. Wayne had asked us not to say anything, but he wanted us not to be in the dark when everyone found out. As it happened, when the you-know-what hit the fan, it happened somewhere in an office, out of the watchful eye of teachers and students. But there were signs...

That day, Holly informed us that some of the more rediculous formalities and expectations that had been put on us had been removed. That was the first sign. The second sign was the way members of the administration looked at us with concern in their eyes and asked, "How are you doing?" The third sign was a meeting that got scheduled with all the foreign teachers directly after school the next day with all the big kahunas.

A Meeting with the Big Kahunas
In that somewhat awkward meeting with the heads of St. Michael's, we addressed certain parts of Wayne's letter that contained "we" statements. The night before, we (Sonya, Becky, John, and I) had all decided through a pow-wow on the roof what we were going to bring up in the meeting and what we were going to let slide. We also decided that we were going to back Wayne 100% - after all, we had all talked about the reasons he left many a time after school or on the weekends. We agreed with everything he had to say.

So, I won't go into specifics on the world wide web, but as a result of the meeting, and ultimately of Wayne's departure, we now have a not-so-rediculous job, and a few new things in our apartments. One of Wayne's complaints (and all of ours) is the complete lack of working space in our apartments. The kitchen table is the only flat surface we have, and it's in a very dark corner of the apartment - and because of the way things are arranged, it's the only place for it to be. So - we now have a desk in our spare room (see the picture) and a light installed over our kitchen table! I have already gotten tons more school work done at home because the desk is in a room with light and breeze, and the TV is not in the same room!

We also got a new super-turbo fan. We had previously only had one fan in the whole apartment, and you can guess how that was going judging by our blogs about the heat. We also may be getting screens installed on all of our windows to keep out the swarms of mosquitoes. That was another one of Wayne's complaints; he was shocked that we didn't have screens to protect us from the mosquitoes since there has been an outbreak of Dengue Fever recently.

We are still really sad that Wayne left, but thanks to him, our lives are going to be a little bit more enjoyable at school and at home. Here's to you, Wayne!

The World Series in Santo Domingo - Or Not...
On Tuesday night, we decided to go see one of the World Series games at a sports bar that has a huge big screen TV. We figured that since everyone here is so crazy about baseball, it would be a big deal. Well, it rained on Tuesday afternoon and evening, and when it rains, EVERYTHING stops. Traffic is a mess, no one goes out, and the city just soaks in water. Luckily, we thought, the rain stopped in time for us to walk a 1/2 mile to the sports bar.

We learned something: don't go out even after it has rained. The streets and sidewalks were completely flooded... but we trudged on. When we got close to the bar, we saw that there was some big thing going on a few blocks further - huge spotlights in the sky, a fireworks dislpay... Wow - we need to check this out! So we walked further until we got to where all the hullabaloo was taking place. (See picture). As it turns out, it was a car dealership. You can't see much from the picture, but there were men in dark suits with ear pieces guarding the whole place, and people were really dressed up. It was weird.

So, back to the bar we went, and asked them to change the channel to the game - but something didn't get communicated. The game was not on the TV. Eventually, a manager came up and mumbled something about "lluvia" which means rain. We were sitting at the only table that wasn't soaking wet from the rain, and there were hardly any other people at the bar because of the rain. Later, we figured out that he meant the game had been rained out in St. Louis. We all felt like idiots because we had kept asking for them to change the channel to the baseball game. Oh, well. We had a nice conversation and then walked home through the flood after asking the waitress to take our picture. Nothing seems to work out the way you plan here - ever.

A Date on Friday Night
We always like to go out on a date on Friday night - or at least go out to dinner because we've had a long week of work. Well, as soon as we got home yesterday night, it started to pour. You know from a few paragraphs above what happens when it rains here. So, we ended up waiting and waiting for the rain to stop, getting hungrier and hungrier... but the rain didn't stop. At th end of the week, we don't really have any extra choices for food because we buy just enough to last the week. We have to carry it home, so buying extra just causes problems. We had a Verch (my mom's family) family favorite: noodles and ketchup.
A few hours later, the rain did stop, and we went out just to get out of our apartment. We found a delightful ice cream shop that recently appeared close to our apartment. It's just like Cold Stone Creamery in the USA. We got some ice cream and had a mini-date. It cost us a lot less than going out for dinner would have. Eating out here is very expensive.



I got chocolate ice cream with strawberries and walnuts. John got chocolate with bananas and chocolate syrup. It was a nice treat. Itn't John a goof?



Here's John with a new food item. We don't know what it's called, but it was kind of like a tamal. It had chicken and plantains in it wiht corn meal, was wrapped in some sort of large leaf, and had one tiny raisin in the middle. We decided that every week, we're going to get some new strange thing from the grocery store to try. We'll keep you posted on what we find.

Today is Saturday, and we're going to go shopping to try to find some new swimming trunks for John. The elastic on his has given out, which is a very dangerous thing. That means we'll be walking long distances under the hot sun. Remember to leave your comments and email us about your life!