Quick Update Monday March 5

Really quick:

Great weekend. Went BOWLING in the Dominican Republic! While we were there my friend Doron (American) told me that he tried to call before we came and got this message, on his Dominican phone to my Dominican phone IN ENGLISH, “You cannot make this call.” What’s the deal, he was like, “What do you mean I can’t make this call? And was really threw me off was the English!”

Sunday I went to the Domincan “Carnaval.” Like Mardi Gras Dominican style. Amazing!! There were amazing costumes and crazy people. The best part was that there are little kids, and teenagers that dress up (it’s sort like the DR version of Halloween) and have these pillow/football shaped things on a string that they wind up and HIT YOU IN THE BUTT with. They chase down girls that aren’t looking and hit them so hard. So you can imagine at first it was funny, but girls started to get mad by the end of the night. I watched my back, quite literally, and escaped the pain.

Today I went to my internship and tried out my letter project that I mentioned in my previous blog. Didn’t go as planned but they still listened to me for at least a little while and drew pictures and I got them to write the names of what they drew. I don’t think they understood we were trying to learn the letter A, but that’s ok, there was some sort of order and it lasted longer than I expected. That’s all I want. And maybe they learned something?
Also, we always line up outside before school starts and it’s a Catholic organization, so they pray before school. They recite the Lord’s Prayer in Spanish and typically one of my boys laughs at me and the fact that I don’t know it instead of saying it himself. BUT, today, instead of doing that, he told me my Spanish was better! It melted my heart. High for the day.
Also, I played the DR version of checkers and you can attack backwards here. I’m not great at the American version, so it’s a little harder when I don’t even know the crazy rules!! BUT, these kids could make a living at checkers they’re so good. I swear, they’re like 5 moves ahead in their minds, when I look like Tom Hartka playing chess, concentrating on my ONE move and how to not lose. Sooo, after 2 games of them beating me and about 5 boys moving my players and telling me what to do, I WON!! It was awesome. And the boy didn’t let me win either. I quit while I was ahead. Dad and Reid, and Mom (watch, Mom was probably in some Checkers League when she was young, just like bowling, she never told us and whipped out her bowling skills one weekend! I bet she’s good a checkers too!) we’ve got to play some checkers this summer.

Ok, it’s about 7 pm here and I left the house at 7:30 this morning, so I gotta go man the public cars to get home, eat a domincan supper, and sleep!

PS-Did anyone see the lunar eclipse Saturday night? It may be really regional, anyway, there was one here and it was really neat!