Mosquitoes, Toilets, and Hurricanes

School started this week amongst a flurry of craziness.  Given the craziness I felt that now would be a good time to make a list of why I think that some people might hate living here.  There are some redeeming things about it that I will make another list for as well.  Also I am making a list based on my personal situation and the same does not go for everyone.

Things that could make you go crazy.

1. If you open our refrigerator the door falls off, and the door doesn't actually close all of the way; this means the temperature inside of the refrigerator is only 10 degrees cooler than outside of it.

2. Mosquitoes live to make your life horrible.  I’m easily over 100 in the number of them I have killed.

3. Cold showers, other people have hot ones, but not I.

4. Regular loss of power

5. More frequent loss of power during a hurricane

6. Loss of water during hurricanes hasn't happened to me yet, but many of my friends are water less right now.

7. You can only drink filtered water, good thing it is cheap.

8. Toilet paper goes in the trash can not in the toilet.

9. You have to wash your vegetables before you eat them or you will get something awesome like Typhoid or an amoeba.

10. No internet at home and when you are somewhere with internet it will probably go out a few times, normally when you are planning school stuff and you need online resources.

11. There is no good beer here; the closest you get is crazy Czech and German stuff.

12. Dominican Spanish is similar to Spanish but with many new words and with a totally different accent than you will hear anywhere else.

13. Anything imported, which is a lot of stuff, is very expensive.

14. Almost no air conditioning anywhere even when you are in a stuffy little classroom with one window and 15 students while it is 95 degrees out.

15. There are no dryers, which isn’t a big deal until it rains for a week straight and your clothes are clean but still wet.

16. Platanos (Plantain), am I the only one that thinks they are disgusting?  Anything turned into something called Mongu is not good.

17. The lady I live with has a dog named Giorgio, Giorgio is the son of Puka and Joanfie, Joanfie is also the son of Puka.  This is not considered weird at all to the Domicans.  It is also normal that every dog in the neighborhood barks at anything in the street no matter what time of night.

18. I’m sure more will come eventually but I will leave it at this for now.

Things that are redeeming.

1. 2 Grande Aguacate (Large Avocado) y 2 Cervezas = 2 US dollars

3 Grande Mangos y 2 Grande Aguacate y 1 Aji Rojo (red pepper) = 3 dollars

When I say large, I mean like 3 times the size of ones you buy in the States.

2. School gets cancelled at noon because of a hurricane!  No school the next day!

3. Climbing a mountain during a hurricane… I mean really, who isn’t trying to check that off their bucket list.  In other news I climbed my favorite mountain 30 seconds faster than ever before, but I threw up at the top.

4. Climbing beautiful mountains with sweeping views of the lush Cibao valley.

5. Waterfall climbing.

6. Jumping off waterfalls.

7. Aguacate y Mango taste way better here than where you are, guaranteed.

8. When it rains the air temperature is the best ever. 

9. It’s weird, but I love rain and it has been raining all the time.

10. The beach is 2 hours away!

11. You can rent a horse here and take it wherever you want.

12. There are Culebras (snakes) but no Serpeintes (poisonous snakes) on Hispaniola.

13. Living with Dominicans has caused my Spanish comprehension and speech to dramatically increase.  Although my spelling of the words is probably wrong siempre (always).

14. A huge double scoop of ice cream at Bon for just over $1.

15. I’ll add to this later also.

Quick recap of the last few days as they have unfolded.  Wednesday was the first day of school, although school didn’t completely happen because most of it was orientation stuff.  Thursday we started having school and then we were told that we were only going to have a half day because the Secretary of Education was cancelling school.  While hanging out with friends last night we found out there was no school today because of the increased concern about Hurricane Isaac.  So what was the best idea, climb a mountain today, best idea ever!  By the time I post this it won’t be Friday anymore because I probably won’t see the internet again until Monday.