So, I'm back, and now we skip forwards to Thursday 18th august; my first day of school! School was open a couple of days that week, and you could go to start getting back into the school routine, but attendance that week was not compulsory so I only went for the one day. On the Thursday there were only 5 other people in my class, two of them girls who could speak English. It was a really surreal day because the lessons didn't seem as structured, rules seem...

So, in the spirit of catching up with everything I've done so far, we come around to the weekend of the 5th, which was the AFS Dominican Republic orientation camp. I was one of the first to arrive at the AFS office Friday morning, so I hung out for a little bit with Pablo (a family friend who works with AFS) and had some mango fresh from the tree, which was sooo tasty and not something you get at all in England. When some other students started to arrive I went...

So, once I'd got off the plane all the students from our flight piled onto a bus and went off to the AFS office where I met my family; Jenny (sister), Guicho, Evelyn (Parents) and Kipé (brother). I didn't actually meet my brother until we got home, and by then I was so shattered from the flights that I kind of just crashed into bed. The first week was not the best for me; I wasn't used to the heat, the noise, the something in the air that meant I c...

Around 1 month ago, on the 28th July, I boarded a plane that would take me away from my family and friends in England and to the Dominican Republic for 10 months, throughout which time I would be living with a host family and going to school here, all to improve my Spanish, gain a new experience and understanding of a different culture and widen my world view in general! Just for some background information, the organization I came here with is calle...