Monday: October 25 (Republica Dominicana)

The music was loud last night, but the earplugs (courtesy of Jet Blue) did their job. I had to sleep on my stomach so that no parts of my body were touching each other and exacerbating the heat. My stubbed toe throbbed throughout the night, but it'll pull through.

This morning I met the group of 8 from Florida that came down to help install a water system in one of the churches here. They are all very nice and we had a delicious breakfast of eggs, papaya, pineapple, and bread. Around 8:40 we headed out and onto the roads packed with Dominican drivers (meaning wild!) The designated lanes don't seem to have any meaning...nor do red lights and other various traffic signs and courtesies.

At the church, a few went to work on installation, a few teaching, and a few (including myself) playing with the kids. It is hard, of course, with the language barrier. Some of my Spanish is coming back to me, but basically I'm just a poser. Conjugation is out the window. Bare bones Espanol. We did some arts and crafts, singing, animal noises, etc. I had to confiscate one kids backpack because I was informed that he had a gun. I opened it up to find that the accusation was correct and, though I didn't think it was real, handed it off (it was a fake after all.) There was also a fight we had to break up and incredible amounts of screaming. My ears are still ringing. Very cute kids, though. Lunch was delicious: rice, beans, chicken, carrots, and some fried thing. I will not go hungry.The children came back around 1:30 and they were put into small groups to make a paper craft about the creation story. They were also taught about clean water.

Oh, and I found it hilarious that a kid pointed at my nose ring and gave me a nod and air fist pump. Yup, total badass is right!

When we got back to the house, I spent some time on the balcony with some of the team members, lounging in a hammock, and bonding with Luna the dog before it started raining. There is a black and white cat too, who is nameless, but we haven't had that same bonding experience yet. Now that I found that hammock, I'll probably be out there all the time. Although the mosquito bites have started. I'm still exhausted and will need to catch up on my sleep from these last couple nights. For now, I will head to dinner.

Day one=Success