new blog.

so, the teaching blog is up.

we're still working on the webpage.

check it out:

http://teachingkidsenglish.blogspot.com

pictures

although there are quite a few "super" supermarkets here in santiago that develop photos - complete with the kodak picture machines and one-hour digital processing they are quite expensive. the norm are family owned, little "photo studios"

i've gone to the same shop since i moved here, a cute little one called Garcia Color - a man, who i think was a school photographer in the states, and his kids - who run a low-cost photo studio with those really horrible backgrounds and a much higher class of framing and developing.

the first time i went, i met the mother. she was impressed with "la gringa" who taught english in "the church" and we've maintained a friendly relationship since. her son however has never really been nice to me. he never said anything, eventhough he was 100% in charge of digital processing.

so, yesterday i went to get some pictures of samil developed, and he looked at my feet. weird, right? but then - after three years of never saying anything more than "hey", he says "i knew you were american because you always have either sneakers or flipflops on"

what?

yah. apparently my attempts to blend in have been ruined by my choice of footwear.

go figure.

progress.

in case you were wondering...

i'm on book 11 of 66 in the bible.

the spanish is kicking my butt, but i'm getting it.

dictionary in one hand, notebook in the other. bible in front of me.

it's slow.

but so good.

"let there be light..."

we've spent the last three weeks with severe rolling "brown-outs" -- some days more than 8 hours at a time. apparently it's a problem right now in all of the carribean, but no one can say exactly why.



when i first moved here the light was an issue. and i lived in a pretty affluent neighborhood. by that i mean, it was a weird situation. the barrios rarely have light because most of the electricity is "borrowed" straight from the pole and not many people pay. the less the neighborhood pays, less light they have.



now we live in a comfortable neighborhood. and for the past two years we've never had serious black-outs. a few hours here and there. 15 minutes at the hottest hour of the day, but never, never the whole day. or night.



it's been three days now since the last hard-core black-out.
here's to hoping it lasts.

planning.

i just spent the last... oh, six hours planning for the month of may.

i'm teaching a pre-school age class and the program is completely up to me. we dawdled through april when i realized that they were pretty far behind in the basics - you know, colors, numbers, body parts.

so, we reviewed clothes, body parts, numbers, days, colors and shapes. oh, and school supplies. because i was sick of the kids saying, "teacher can i saca la punta of my pencil" or "teacher, do you have a saca". as far as i'm concerned if they can make complex sentences they should know the word for sharpener.

anyways. this month, we're doing seasons, months, weather (and clothes for the weather), plants and reading. they've never read before in english - with the exception of little words - so there's the trick.

it's a relief to have everything done. i just have to go to school tomorrow and print out the cutouts and make some flashcards. it was six hours today -- but no last minute planning for the month.

that's a first for me.

unwanted advice.

there's a little churro cart outside of the supermarket that my dad loves. so when he's here, we go.

frequently.

he calls them chimichangas. it doesn't matter how many times i correct him. they're still chimichangas. but whatever. most dominicans don't know what churros are anyway, since they're a mexican postre. they're typically referred to as palitos. or sticks.

we went to the cart yesterday after picking up the new fan for samil's room. i'm not a big fan of random strangers telling me what to do with samil. especially when it pertains to something that babies do. you know, stick things in their mouths, chew on things, cry.

the woman standing next to me at the counter looks over and very matter of factly says, "straighten him out." i say nothing. she says again "oh, the poor baby, you're going to curve his spine."

i've learned to hold my tongue. i don't look. i don't say anything. so she says really sarcastically, "well, he's your son."

to which i respond, "exactly."

seriously, your advice is obviously unwanted. it was definitely unsolicited. and you apparently realize that samil is my son, not yours - but you keep talking? what?

so she looks over at amalio, then at my dad, at samil and then me. and says, "i have three kids."

congratulations i tell her.

"i'm just letting you know. from experience. you're going to curve his spine."

i look over, see her perfectly straight-spined children. "oh, so one of your kids has a curved spine. wow. i'll let you know if it happens to mine."

apparently i pissed her off, because she left the cart with only half of her original order. but really, people. if you see i'm not interested in your back-woods, mountain advice, stop talking. if i was interested i would have answered. or stopped samil from reaching for the napkins - the action which apparently is going to curve his spine.

i passed samil to amalio. he's better at the advice than i am.

Sunday for Samil

grandpop came to visit this weekend. and by weekend i mean saturday.
my dad is planning a mission trip for our family church and needed to come check on some things before he makes a presentation to the church. it didn't work out for him to do it when he was here for holy week, so he had to come back.

yesterday we did some running around in the rent-a-car, went out to eat and hung out. today we drove to puerta plata and checked in on some of the available work projects for the trip, ate some fish in maimon and came back to santiago. we took a nap, checked out another church in the city, bought a fan and ate churros.

tomorrow morning he leaves at 9am.
samil loves granpop so he might be sad.
me too.

my mom says that she's coming at the end of may. but i think she's just mad she didn't come this time.