Week One

Hola Amigos!
One week has passed since I left the US and I already feel at home here. This is the most beautiful place I have ever been, Jarabacoa. I realized I was saying the name wrong but it is pronounced Hara-bow-co-a. Anyways, I live with my mom and my brother. My house is very beautiful here, There is a wonderful porch with 5 chairs and a table. A large front room, a small kitchen-dining room, and 3 bedrooms, and 1 bathroom. People here spend a lot of time outside on their porch and watch people walk by and wait for random friends, and family to stop by. Dominican´s value their friends and family a lot and everytime they see someone they know, they stop and greet and kiss and appreciate one another.

It is hard for me to type in English because my brain has transformed into Spanish, which is awesome. I love the group of people that came here, they all love to have fun. Friday, I went to the discoteca and danced the night away with Tessa and other chicas. Then on Saturday, I went to una tienda, a store, that sold liquor but also is a popular place to hang out at. We drank a little and then went to two discotecas, and after the bars closed at 2 AM, it is a law in the DR that during the week the bars close at 12 and during the weekends at 2 AM, after the discoteca closed we went to Con Fluencia, which is a place where a ton of people drive to and dance and hang out. It is where the rivers meet. I didn´t go home until 4 in the morning, it was a long night. Then on Sunday, I went to the mountains with Tessas brother and his friends because one of the friends has a house up there. It was enormous and it had a saunca, pool table, and much more right next to the river. After that we went to Tessa´s house and had pizza for dinner. The pizza here is a little sweeter than in America, and usually has corn on it.

Now about the food....
I LOVE it. My mom cooks me 3 meals a day. For all meals I have eaten different things. But usually for breakfast I have some type of very very fresh fruit, and always a tiny tiny cup of very sweet coffee. Lunch is the HUGE meal of the day. Today, I had white rice, red beans in a wonderful sauce that you put on top of the rice, yes I eat beans now, and it is sooo good. Then Usually there is a little bit of chicken, and salad. For salad dressing, they use vinager and oil and put a lot of salt on it. I know I like salt but this is ridiculous how much salt they put on the salad. Oh yes, I also eat smashed and then fryed plantains with salt. Those are sooo good also. I ate yucca the other day also and it tastes similar to potatos and I like that a lot also.

The only thing that is kind of bad here is the mosquitos, ants, and bugs. On the dinner table at my house there are always flies flying around and really small ants on the table. I use a mosquito net on my bed at night which keeps out mosquitos, lizards, and other animals. My house is very clean and I know that this climate just attracts bugs and I am not longer grossed out by bugs as much. Surprisingly, I have not seen any spiders, thank god. Another surprise is that I don´t have that many mosquito bites compared to a lot of other girls here. But bad news Taylor, I already used all my 40% DEET stuff. I will definitly need to buy more. My allergies are acting up and I have had a very runny nose the past 2 days but hopefully that clears up.

Everything is sooo cheat here, not that I smoke but the ciggarettes are only 100 pesos, which is only like 2.75 dollars. The alcohol at bars isn´t extremly cheap but its decent. A double shot of tequila, which they call a normal shot, is also 100 pesos. Beer is popular here but I think that liquor is cheaper and therefore more common to drink. A 40 ounce of Presidente, which is the beer of choice, is also 100 pesos. I really love this city because there is so much to see and do here.

Let me tell you about the city,
There is around 20,000 people that live here and its very stratified. There are little shacks with wood next to mansions. I live in a middle class house and family, which I am very lucky to have. I actually have running water in the shower every day. A lot of my friends here have to take bucket showers. The water is cold though and a bucket shower is not as shocking to the body. Every day, no matter what I look like, for example today I am wearing long black tight work out pants with a gray tshirt, I am stared at and cat called. It doesn´t bother me anymore but I do feel unsafe when I am alone because men are so forward and will talk to you and try to do everything they possibly can.. It is extremely important to stand your ground or they will keep going and take everything they can get.

I learned how to dance merengue, raggaeton, y bochatta. Still need to learn salsa though. Merengue is a very romantic dance and when you are dancing you are very very close usually. The women here know how to dance! I wish I could dance like them because it is so beautiful.

The spanish here is CRAZY, because they drop s´s at the end of words and verbs, they do not enunciate ANYTHING and it all blends together to sound like one huge word. ALso, the verbs they use here is much different than the verbs I learned in school. I think I mostly learned Mexican Spanish. But I am trying to learn and I already have learned a lot just being here the past couple days.

I had Spanish Class today and I am happy to use my spanish in a formal setting because I really need to practice tenses, especially the past and future. I really have only been using the present I confuse my mom a lot haha.

OK, that´s all for now.
Leave me comments about what you want to hear about and I will try and update in the next couple days. Adios!

---

---