¡Estoy Aquí!

¡Hola familia y amigos!  

I have arrived safely in the DR, and so far am loving it!  The country is beautiful, the people are friendly, and the food is delicious!  It’s mostly been orientation-related activities so far: class registration, lots and lots of lectures about culture and safety, a dance class, a city tour, and so on.  Because I’ve been here for almost a week already, I’ll try to summarize a few things in list form... 

My Favorite Aspects of Santiago (So Far):

Fresh fruit from el campo!

1.      How friendly everyone is.  As a whole, Dominican culture is just more social than American culture.  Everyone in our whole apartment complex, for example, seems to know everyone else and there are always people standing outside who have stopped to chat with each other in passing.  People also are always helping each other out.  Right after I landed in the airport, I was having  trouble getting my suitcase off the carousel because it was so far towards the back.  When the man next to me saw it, he reached for it, and when he  couldn’t get it in time, the people next to him noticed and immediately  grabbed it and handed it to me. 

My lunch today

 

 

2.     The food.  It is wonderful!  My host mom is a wonderful cook and has been showing me how to make all kinds of Dominican food, like mangú (boiled and salted plantains mushed up and mixed with the oil and vinegar used to fry onions and the onions themselves).  My family also gets almost all of their fruits and vegetables from their relatives in the country, so they’re really fresh and delicious.  The only problem is the portion sizes…my host mom will say she’s adding just a little oil or butter and then pour in almost a cup of both, and the standard serving size for everything seems to be at least three times what I’m used to.  At least we’ve been walking a lot during orientation…

3.     The scenery.  It’s amazing how beautiful everything is here.  Well, not the litter, but everything else.  The plants and the colorful buildings and the mountains in the distance are incredible.  On our first full day here, we had a long orientation session in a country club about 25 minutes outside of the city, and the view was absolutely breathtaking.  We were towards the bottom of one small mountain, looking across a little valley at another, and the entire view was covered with bright green tropical trees and bushes, but here and there you could see a baby blue house or a lone horse grazing.  Beautiful.

A pretty yellow bird on the university campus

A Few Notable Differences Between Santiago and St. Paul:

1.     The weather.  So far, it’s been beautiful – in the 70s with a slight breeze and lots of sun for most of the day, in the lowish 60s at night.  Apparently, it’s been unusually cold, and most people have been wearing sweaters in the morning.  Wimps.

2.    Public transportation.  In Santiago, the main form of public transportation is the concho, a car (just a regular – albeit usually very old – car) licensed to drive a fixed route.  To catch one, you stand anywhere along the route you want and wait.  Within approximately 1 second during rush hour (and just a little more at other times), a concho will honk at you and start to slow down; if you don’t wave it away, it will stop.  You get in, pay the driver 15 pesos (about 40 cents), and continue along the route, getting squished in with four people in the back seat and two in the front if it’s a busy enough time of day.  When you want to get out, you just say so.  Usually, it works quite well.

           

Thankfully, we did make it.  Here we are at La Sirena!

I, however, managed to get stuck in a concho the second time I used one.  A buncho of the girls from my program and I went to La Sirena, a gigantic store filled with everything from groceries to bikes to luggage, and to get there we had to take the concho just for a few miles.  Since there were so many of us, three of us wound up in a concho that already had three people (plus the driver) in it, and I was squished in the front seat next to someone else.  

When we got to the right stop, I couldn’t get the door open.  I tried using the inside handle, using the outside handle, lifting the lock as far as it would go, and pushing it as hard as I could.  The man next to me tried everything, too, and eventually the driver got out and started pulling on it from the outside to no avail.  Eventually, I hopped out of the open window.  When I told my host mom about it later that night, she couldn’t stop laughing.  Apparently, she’s never heard of that happening before (so, hopefully, I’ll have better luck in the future).   

 

3.      The Noise level.  Dominicans are rather loud and sound travels through the walls really well.  During rush hour, there is a constant stream of horns going on the big roads: Conchos honk at everyone they see to see if they want a ride, men honk at women, and everyone drives crazily and honks at each other for it.  Kids run around and yell at each other and adults sit around and yell at each other. At night, there’s a bar half a block away from my apartment and they have live music at least half the nights of the week and, in my bedroom, it sounds like they’re playing it in the living room.  Much louder than St. Paul or Minnetonka.  Then again, there’s a girl from New York on my program who was complaining that it’s too quiet.  So I guess loudness is in the eye of the beholder?

Okay, this plenty long enough, so I’m going to end it here for now…I hope you all are doing well!  I love you!