Hurricane Isaac

Hurricane Isaac came over the southern Dominican Republic on Friday evening and caused some damage in nearby villages. La Hoya and Copa were very lucky, apart from some felled trees and a great deal of water, there was no damage and school was able to start again on Tuesday. There's still some worries about possible flooding but the rain seems to have passed and we seem safe for now.

Aside from the excitement of a hurricane, Becky and I have been enjoying sampling Dominican food and exploring the village of La Hoya. Everyone has been very welcoming and my Spanish is fast improving with constant use.

To everyone who is reading this or has been linked here recently, I apologise profusely for the lack of long posts! Hurricane Isaac has disrupted all rhymes of normal life, so we're still getting back into the swing of things. I hope having power back after Isaac means I will be able to make some substantial posts!

Hope to talk to everyone soon,
Bethany

Early Days!

My First Week:

I dont have much time on the internet here, so I will try and be consise. Forgive any misspellings, this keyboard was nto designed for english.

It´s been a surreal couple of days. Everything is so different here, so I have been taking my time adjusting. I have discovered that I really like Dominican food and yesterday Silvia, who is the librarian at the COPA school, and her neighbour Keniya, came by our house to make dinner with us and show us how to cook Dominican spaghetti and tostones, which are friend plaintain or banana. I love tostones!


I am still getting used to the heat, although it is not too terrible because there is usually a breeze. Becky and I have been on a few short walks but we usually come back needing to take a shower right away! We´ve been lucky so far with the power outages and have gotten used to taknig advantage of power while we have it.

My Spanish is a little rusty after the IB exams but I´ve been using it every day now and I keep learning new words. Sometimes it´s hard to communicate but people here are very patient with new volunteers and have so far been impressed with the Spanish I do know, so I´m pretty happy with how I am progressing.

Since I´m almost out of time, I must dash. Don´t forget to check out my flickr under ptbrg to see pictures!