let´s see....where to start....
it´s been a while. i´m still alive. no worries. i spent the first three or so days of last week being somewhat lazy. we spent time doing stuff around the house. i practiced my spanish some. nothing too exciting. then on friday we went to bayaguana to visit milagros´family for the holidays. it was an interesting place. it was very different, but in a way sorta reminded me of canton. there were a lot of people that had come home from the various places that they were living to visit their families for the holidays. milagros´parents own a little store attached to their house. i did a lot of being lazy. then on saturday we went to the river. i guess around here everyone goes to the river or the beach for easter. it turned out that the part of the river we played on was oscar de la renta´s property. we know the people that work for him.....we saw his two houses on this citrus farm that he has....his helicopter landing pad....and his portion of the river looked as though God had designed it for a picture. there was a small waterfall. we swam there for a while. it was gorgeous. that night i went out with milagros and her older brother. we went to find a disco. the first we went to i felt very awkward in. it was a bunch of people sitting around and two people dancing. i was definately the only nondominican and it felt very obvious. we didn´t stay there but went to another disco with more people dancing. lots of merengue and bachata and a tiny bit of salsa. the next morning we left to come back home i thought but ended up coming to boca chica. as we were waiting for the bus to leave from santo domingo a large group of people got on the bus carrying a cooler and bottles of liquor yelling ¨"boca chica ahhhhhhhhhh!" they were headed to the beach. then as we drove i saw one large and lots of small red cross camps. with tents and ambulances set up they looked like they were preparing for war. also, there were large groups of people holding signs and dancing for various political canidates.....ahh, the dominican republic. in boca chica i went to the beach. i had been struggling at first to figure out what easter looked like here, and then i found out it just looks very different. the beach was a locals beach....i was again the only nondominican as far as i could tell. it was like a large neighborhood party at the beach. there were lots of kids swimming. there were basketball and volleyball tournaments going on and lots of games of dominoes. i swam a little and then watched volleyball for a while. and then watched dominoes. there was lots of loud music. so, that´s how easter looks here. that night i went with milagros to her church. it was different than UCC. lots of merengue. at one point there was a merengue-jump up and down train that went throughout the church. it also lasted two hours. they made me get up in front and say something. i talked some in english and someone translated roughly i could tell.....well, that´s been what´s going on here. i guess more later.
rachel