my first day

Well today was quite the day!

After a 2.5 hour drive to SFO, 3.5 hours waiting in the airport for my flight, 5.5 hour flight, 6 hour layover blurry eyed at 2 am in Miami, airplane delay and another 2 hour flight…..I made it to the DR safely! Y estoy muy contenta (and I am very content).
Everything went really well all day (except for a hilarious mishap just now, which I will get to at the end)…I got through customs without any problems, found Diego and his son immediately, got a nice tour of the clinic and meeting my housemom and her pals went well. My house mom is named Maria Dulce (dulce=sweet in Spanish, and was a nickname given to her because she is a really nice person.) I was happy she liked the necklace and chocolates I got her, and conversing with her neighbors/friends was fun.
Its so amazing to be able to communicate with my housemom and some others right off the bat. Its still not to a level of being able to understand all (just much better than my past experience in CR), because those that told me that Dominicans speak faster than most other Spanish speakers were VERY right. I was talking to un vecino (a neighbor) and even though I was giving him my full attention and trying really hard, it was so hard to follow his numerous stories and when he started directing them toward me there were definitetly times where I just pretended to understand and giggled or smiled, paying attention to his facial expressions and subtle cues hoping that I was not giggling at the death of his mother or some other mala cosa (bad thing…)
It was interesting talking to Diego about all of the problems and corruption of this country on the drive in.. he told me one politicna built a metro in Santo Domingo deeming it fully “necessary” when the money is much more needed for things like feeding its population / investing in electricity.

I knew about the electricity situation before getting here, and was wondering when the first blackout would happen…and it did when I was in the shower! Ha ha. Luckily my host mom came to help me with a flashlight so it was fine!
The surroundings of the house I am living in is GORGEOUS, Maria has a huge garden, and everything is so lush and green. There are tons of succulents and various other plants. And chickens! I was expecting extreme heat too…but the location in the mountains means a wonderful cool down at night. It’s the perfect temperature right now, and I’m excited because I might be able to start up a running club that Debbie (my cousin who came here before) told me about, or just find a few pals to run with!

So anyways, now on to the funny story. I was getting ready for bed and I noticed a HUGE spider on the wall. I’m not much of an aracanaphobe and have no problem killing spiders I’ve come across before, but this one was SCARY. It looked venomous with little pinchers. I got some toilet paper and my heart was beginning to race. I decided a shoe would be a better bet since it seemed to large to attack with toilet paper. I grabbed my shoe, garnered all the courage I could, and SLAM. Hit the spider, (killed it.. I think)…. And…. broke the wall. Yep, definitly should have made sure the wall was not as thin as it was beforehand…at this point I was standing back in shock peering at this giant gaping 1 foot crack I had lodged in this beautiful green wall. Dammit!
I asked Maria Dulce to come in and profusely apologized, explaining that I had a big accident and should have thought a bit more before lodging the shoe into the wall.
Fortunately, she didn’t really care. She started laughing and said it was no big deal.. My roommate is coming home from a beach trip tomorrow…I’m sure she will get a kick out of the story when she notices the huge break in the wall….
Oh boy oh boy. I still feel pretty bad, but I’m just happy Maria was not upset about it and I suppose it creates some reading entertainment for you all!
I’m excited to explore tomorrow and start the outdoor recreation club // helping out at the preschool // whatever else I will be doing to help out with the nonprofit on Monday!
I’ll keep you all updated. Hope everyones doing well.

Kelly