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hola!
it has been a long time since my last blog so i have a lot to tell everyone. Two weeks ago we began training for summer camps at the library. There is a local group of youth our age who are helping us with the camps and there are about 10 - 12 of them helping out every day. Alex and i are the only ones who don´t speak spanish so that was a little difficult during training but Annette translated most of it. Jose and Annette are a married couple who run the library. We introduced ourselves to the whole group during training and apparently Jose has my father´s sense of humor. He told all the dominicans that since i grew up on a farm i drank milk straight from the cow´s utter and he held his hand up pretending to drink from an utter. At the beggining of camps he also told all the little kids so when he asks them where i am from they yell NEBRASKA and pretend to drink milk from an utter. We started camps last week. They run in the morning and at the beggining Jose entertains them for a while and then i lead them with two songs. They love the two songs and i can´t go all day without hearing someone sing it 100 times. One song they get to stick their butt out and wiggle it so they think that is hillarious. We have about 100 kids a day normally. After the songs we split up into groups to do activities, reading, and art projects. My group is the 5-6 year olds. The parents know that only 5 and up can come so they tell the kids to say they are five even though a lot of them are 4. We have the biggest group and also the most restless. We have to change activities often because they start wondering off or playing around. But, they are adorable! One little pain likes to run out onto the field to play with the older kids. I stand and yell for him to come back and he puts his hands on his hips to mimmick (sp?) me. Then if i chase him he runs and laughs. So, one day i asked him if he wanted to go into the trash can and then picked him up and pretended to put him in head first. Now, all the kids want to go into the trash can. Every week of camp has a theme and this week is connecting with the world. So on thursday or friday i am giving a presentation on Nebraska and the different types of weather.
I am not sure i have talked about the Europeans that live here before so now i will. Las Terrenas is a tourist town, with most of the tourists being older french and Italians. A lot of the European men (and some women) come here for the beach and to find a young dominican. We call the young dominicans who seek out the rich older white people Skanky Pankys. Enough of the young population finds a European and some even go back to Europe so that the cycle continues. Its really gross most of the time but sometimes it is way over the line. The young dominican girl who works with me at camps is 15 years old. She is also married and almost 3 months pregnant with her 44 year old american husbands baby. Stacie and i have both decided he is very creepy. He teaches english classes and she was one of his students when they started dating 1 year ago. Her parents and friends are all very happy for her because he has money. Annette told me he does not like to have his picture taken or his name put in the paper ever and i think its because the FBI probably has a file on him. Its really sad but you just kind of hope that she´ll be happy because no one will do anything about it here.
Since we have started volunteering with the dominicans we have been hanging out with them a lot at the beach and going to basketball games. They are a lot of fun but sometimes we have no idea what they are saying so Jose´s niece, Biannca, has to translate a lot. We also got a new volunteer yesterday who´s a 20 yr old guy from Conneticut. He seems really cool. We are having a lot of fun and i will write next week! Oh! also i killed a type of scorpion in my shower the other day. ha.
Ciao!
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