aqui es el pan chiquito

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Okay so lets write another entry! Sorry but I would have written another one, but everytime I have been online to write one Maria has been on gmail and well, she has taken all of my time online! I will not even try to explain everything that has happened since I packed all of my belongings and moved to the DR. I will just tell you of some highlights of the past couple of whirlwind days. After basically being up for like 48 hrs in DC and then arriving in country, I finally got a little sleep at this place an hour outside Santo Domingo. That night is probably going to be my last night of hot water for a LONG time. Thank god it´s hot here! On thursday we arrived at the Center in the morning and from there the experience really begins. After some survival spanish, I got to meet my doña, lady of the household. The staff pairs me with my Doña and she kisses and hugs me like I am her own son....well in true Dominican fashion, it is of course over the top and she screams, My son (not joking)! However, someone get the doctor! The staff paired me with the wrong Doña for 3 seconds, but 10 seconds later my real Doña was right in front of me. Needless to say, I got the same over the top treatment. Who doesn´t love to be loved. After leaving the center, my Doña, another Doña, another volunteer named Ben, and I cross the street and wait for a carro publico, one of the modes of public transportation in the DR. This mode is just a standard 4 door sedan. So I first ask you this, what is full capacity for a carro publico including the driver (locating the question mark sign is hard on this computer). If you said 5, stop thinking like an american! 6 is incorrect as well. 7 is the name of the game! When I carro publico stopped, there was the driver and 1 passenger in the front seat. My Doña, Ben, and I go to the back, while the other Doña joins the passenger in the front seat. Three more minutes pass and the car stops again for another person. The last person gets in the back with the rest of us. No fat people allowed.

Another funny story that most foreigners will understand is this one. So today, I went with my Doña to the market to buy food for the today´s lunch and dinner. We walk to the market and the perfect word to describe it, Balagan! It is part open air market, with many little shops selling fresh produce and meats. Some of the produce is on the road and some are in little stands. Of course there are loads of people everywhere with bikes driving through all of it and stray dogs and cats walking through the produce and meat stalls. My favorite part comes next, we head to the open air market and she wants to buy some chicken. The story would have been better if she got to choose the chicken, but it was already cut up and deplucked. There is a huge pile of different cuts of chicken, including the feet. The seller, along with everyone else just pokes, prodes, and grabs the chicken pieces with bare hands. You can definately pick a chicken piece up, inspect it, touch it, and if you don´t like it, throw it back! Salmanella does not exist in places outside the US, Canada, and Europe.

Okay to wrap things up some observations of the Dominican people themselves.

1. Dominicans are some of the nicest, most friendly and hospitable people you will ever meet. There is this great Dominican saying, oh what you did was so Dominican! Some random Dominicans grabbed my friend and I when I was talking to him on his porch and we played dominoes with him and another person. It does not matter if you are a stranger. Privacy does not exist here.

2. The Dominican people have this doll of themselves, but it has no face. The reason is that every Dominican person you see on the street is completely different than the next. You can see someone who looks like they are from South America, than central, and then black like africa-americans. If you are black and go to the DR they are going to assume you speak spanish! So jarryd if he comes is in for a real treat!

3. The part that elitist spanish speakers will not approve (Maria and others!). In my class I have learned some Dominican ways to say hello and goodbye. I Dominican way of saying, I feel sad is to say aqui es el pan chiquito, which literally means here is the last bread. This refers to the crap end of the piece of bread that no one wants to eat that everyone passes on cause they know its shit!

As always with craziness,

Tal

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