Just settling in...

So let's start off with a little glimpse of my walk to school...

I don't want to mislead you, most of my walk is along a fairly nice paved street and sidewalk, there is just this one small section of dirt road. 

I'm not going to lie, I was a little hesitant about crossing that bridge at first, because it looked like I was walking into a pretty sketchy neighborhood, but honestly most of the people just smile and wave as I walk by.  In fact, I've actually started getting to know a few of the people on my typical routes (to school and around the street I live), which is pretty awesome. Dominicans are possibly the friendliest group of people you will ever encounter, plus they all seem to have this natural ability to talk your ear off. It's a very home-y atmosphere once you start getting settled in. 

On Saturday night I met up with a few friends at a street concert sponsored by "El Presidente," the most popular and widely available beer here. I couldn't tell you who was singing, but I do know that the opener was a chica singing merengue, and the closers were a rap group that apparently was doing some kind of "8 mile" style rap-off. It was free and fun. The music was electric and everyone was dancing and singing with an ice cold beer in their hand, including ourselves. But as the night wore on and our small group of very white American girls started attracting more male attention than we are generally used to getting, we decided to head home early. We wandered happily back to our cozy beds, humming the merengue tunes still stuck in our heads. 

Menicia (also a PUCMM teacher) and her "Dominican little brother" Jose

Annie, Pelumi, Menicia, Hannah, José, Jacky

Sunday rolled around promising to be a lazy day. I headed to the Hub (the hostel I stayed at when I first arrived) for an informal church service at 10:00 a.m. I met some new peace corps friends and saw some old ones. We sang and ate donuts and marveled at how lucky we were to be living in this moment. It was all quite lovely. Afterwards I strolled to the market to peruse the isles for my produce this week. I had just returned home and was settling in to do some lesson planning when the phone rang:

Alexis: Hey, we're going swimming in Jarabacoa, want to join....?
Me: I'm not sure, I kind of already had plans....
Alexis: It will be fun!
Me: Ok I'm in!

So at least you know I didn't shirk my responsibilities right off the bat and that I put up a good fight for my lesson plans....kind of....:)

One hour later we were cruising down a zippy little highway tucked in between the mountains, jamming to some lazy carribbean music with the windows rolled down, and sipping on a shared liter of Presidente (and another bottle of straight rum...but shhhh...don't mention that to my mom.)  Soon our cruise turned into a climb and our compact blue car chugged its way up through little mountain towns until we arrived at our destination: a calm pool of water at the base of breath taking waterfall.  The pictures speak for themselves. 

Rum in a cup. And no, there are no drinking and driving laws here. this is perfectly legal...that may be one way that you can tell you are in a developing country....

The lovely Alexis. She teaches English at PUCMM as well, but she's actually from Canada. 

Once we'd waded into the chilly waters and drunk enough rum (I'm told this is the real Dominican water) to make us brave, we dared crossing the pond to get closer to the cavern beside the falls. The water is deep and surprisingly swift, so you can only make it to the other side if you come in from the right angle and  swim well. I ended up accidentally swallowing a lot of river water on my swim over, but don't worry, I promptly washed it down with some rum...that should kill all the bacteria right?

When the sun finally sank too low, we towled off and hopped back into the car to hit up a popular rib joint down the side of the mountain. I didn't take any pictures because I was too busy eating! We stuffed ourselves full of ribs, and yuca, and fried plaintains, fully deserved after a day of sun and swimming. By the time I made it home it was late, and I was full and happy. I would have gladly ambled off into a dreamy sleep, but there were still lessons to plan. But what's a couple hours staying up late compared to missing out on such an adventure. I think I made the right decision :)