i just realized it'd been a few days. maybe i've become used to this place.....it seems more commonplace...less things that appear blogworthy. i've spent the past half a week or so doing some work.

i spent thursday going into santo domingo (the capital) with milagros to take her brother to see a specialist. we started out early in the morning....spent some time at the doctor's office waiting etc. we got done at 10:30ish and were told that we had to come back at 4. we had about five hours to kill. we went to the digecitss office. digecitss is the governmental organization in charge of AIDS stuff for the country. the office was much smaller than i'd imagined, but it reminded me of any nonprofit office that i've been in in the states. the same vibe. we met with a doctor there to try and get milagros enrolled in a course to become a certified AIDS doc which we learned would be more difficult than milagros expected. the doctor thought he knew me....milagros told him "i don't think so. she's from cincinnati." we then spent the rest of the afternoon shopping, eating pizza hut, and wandering the city. you know what's weird is that santo domingo reminded me so much of any large american city. i think it's that i've been here so long everything seems familiar. for example, san pedro reminds me of cincinnati, and i remember when i first got here being blown away by how different it was from anything i knew.

yesterday we got water. and we cleaned....cloths, the apartment, dishes. we then went to the movie theater. ended up getting there two hours early (i told milagros it didn't start until 7, but she wouldn't believe me). the movie was in english.....similar to the states. today i cooked for milagros. did some spanish and work work....and i've got spanish class in a couple of hours. we head to boca chica tonight. i think that's the excitement around these parts.....

next week's a samana week. i'm excited. we leave early wednesday and stay through saturday. we're going to be doing some education with the youth for. after that i've got four days and then i fly home. ahhhh....home!