halloween

We had a group of seven come down yesterday, which included a 4 year-old daughter named Jenna. She was pretty sad about missing Halloween at home, so we had our own here at the house. Jenna went from door to door trick or treating. Kate, Elizabeth, Cara, Sharla, and I decided to make it fun and dress up for it. I think we had more fun than Jenna did! Below is us pictured in our costumes.

just for kicks

no school

So, Noel is here and has made himself comfortable. The rain has just been crazy. We ended up canceling classes today because of the inclement weather. It just poured and poured. This morning water started flooding into our bedroom from the balcony door. There is a drain, but it was clogged, so water kept collecting outside and therefore decided to pay us a visit. Fortunately we were able to unclog the drain on the balcony so water stopped coming into our room.

We are all safe here, just lots of rain. I had mentioned to many of you before that this part of the island only receives the rain when hurricanes and tropical storms pass by. We did have to cancel class today though. This however did not prevent me from leaving the house nor from getting work done, we made a couple trips to the hardware and grocery store and cleaned the whole house top to bottom.

Below is a link updated on Noel's progress here in the DR, the capital was the area most affected by the storm (about 5 hours from us).

miss sass

Friday when we were at the school cleaning, Cristina had some attitude and it was hilarious! She was asked to go to the capital over the weekend by her brother to spend time with her family, and she was so excited. She was kidding around and acting like a pre Madonna, all dressed up and going to the big city. She would turn out her hips as she talked as she informed us of her plans for the weekend. I love getting to see the depth of her personality!

Oh, and I talked to her today and she said that she had a great time there!

noel

So, we have been getting a lot of rain in the past couple of weeks. I started to think that perhaps there might have been something brewing in the Caribbean. I just looked it up on line, and it turns out that there is. Tropical Storm Noel. Bienvenidos a la isla Hispaniola Noel! So, yeah, we are all doing great, just lots of rain. No rain now, but when it rains it pours.

Read more about Noel here.

school or day care?

One day a couple of weeks ago, two infants tagged along with their aunts to school. I was so confused whenever I saw these babies being held whenever the kids were in line to enter the building. Apparently, for both cases, the mothers were not at home when it was time for classes to start. So, each of the younger siblings brought their little niece and nephew to class. It was kind of humorous to see babies brought to class, kind of frustrating because one in particular cried the whole time, but also endearing because the kids decided to come to school with the babies as opposed to not at all.

Pictured are David and Elizabeth holding Tony and Katiana. Tony is the nephew of the Yoslena and Francesa (plus all the other Betran family kids that we teach) and Katiana is the second cousin of Tericia.

baseball

A couple of weeks ago, one of my students invited us to go and watch his baseball game on Saturday morning. Though it was at an hour I didn't care to see on a Saturday morning, we decided to go anyway and cheer him on.

There is only one word that I could describe this game, Dominican. There were actually two games going on at once, one on the actual diamond and another in right field. We couldn't see any adults at all on the field, just about 50 kids. (Later we did see one coach though). A couple were standing on the pitcher's mound playing "ump," kids would line up on the fence next to the on deck circle getting ready to bat, and everyone was wearing some sort of uniform regardless that not a single one matched with another.

They only played 4 innings which ended up being about the perfect timing. However, the chalk to chalk the field arrived at the 3rd, so right before my student batted (Natanael) the game was paused to chalk the 1st and 3rd base line, batter's boxes, and on deck circles.

Natanael didn't get a hit and their team lost in the last inning, so he told us not to watch him anymore because apparently it gives him bad luck.

The smaller kids that were playing their own game in right field were pretty cute. There is one boy from Tamarindo that I recognized. He was playing catcher. Every time his team would take the field, he would yell my name from right field back to where we were sitting (3rd base side) and wave his arms to show us that he was playing. I told him earlier that catcher was the position I used to play and he got excited.

I was going to try and upload a few more pictures, but the connection is pretty bad right now so one will have to do. We had a pretty fun morning watching the craziness that is Dominican baseball.

internet and house

Within the past seven days, our internet was out for about five of them. Earlier this week after class one day we all decided to go to a place that has wireless internet so we could catch up with emails and such. So, the only place in the city that has wireless and is somewhat close by is a sports bar called Hemingways at a beach resort, so that is where we went! The connection wasn't working for about half the time we were there, so I was able to send out a total of one emails. We did however have an enjoyable time, and spent some time playing Nertz, which is always fun!

A few things have happened in the past couple of weeks with our staff here at the house. Cara, an intern who has been here since August, is now back in the states for a friend's wedding for a couple of weeks. Also, this past Wednesday Weston moved into a host family's house in Montellano to be able to work more on his Spanish. He is living with Dona Luz, an older woman who comes and cleans our house whenever we have groups here. But there still always seems to be things happening here at the house, our friend Ben is down nearly every weekend to help build something for the school or fix something at the house. Kate's boyfriend David flew down on Sunday to visit, and Sharla flies back down on Saturday. She has been in the states fundraising for these past three weeks.

Stay tuned for kid and school updates!