Surprise!

My puppy, Florencia, was born this past January 25th! She was the only puppy born to our dog, Ossie. Technically she is a mutt; Chihuahua father and blonde-mangy-footstool mother. Thankfully, she is a very small, dark brown puppy (and looks exactly like her Chihuahua father). While she has not yet opened her eyes, and looks like a small rat, my excitement cannot be contained! Everyone loves her name (“what a large name for a small dog!”) and after a few months, she will come to live with me in the shack! Everyone asks if she will come back to the States with me, and that is a question to be considered in 2 years, not now.

This past week I also came down with a crappy virus that consisted of nausea, a piercing headache around the eyes and stomach troubles. Boo. I didn’t leave my bed and I couldn’t even eat the oatmeal cookies I had made (and for that, you know I was really sick). What caused this? Mystery. Luckily my community is great and they made and delivered soup and visited lots!

In other news, this Saturday I will be going into town for the day to buy all the things I will need for my shack including big plastic tubs, plastic shelves, a mirror, a pillow and lots of hooks! I will be sure to take pictures in the next few weeks of my new housing. My new host family is great and re-did the bed they are giving me (putting lots of padding on the bed—Dominican beds are notoriously old/awful).

Also, last night we had a spontaneous water committee meeting (the committee only consists of 3 town members, so it was easy to plan). I had been wanting to have this meeting for a very long time. The community has been itching to redo the PVC gravity-flow water system (which consists of 2” pipes running through the jungle on vines) that provides all the water for the town. Whenever it rains, the pressure becomes too strong for the pipes and creates leaks/pulls the pipes apart which leads to the town being water-less for hours/days. This is a large problem in the community, and we are working on getting price estimates of new tubes to enable us to write some grants (and I may be asking you all for money soon!).

I also recently attended a “get out of jail free” party which consisted of a welcome-home party for a Dominican man imprisoned in the US for being there illegally (83 days of imprisonment). I felt awkward as the only American there.

Finally, after seven weeks of English class (we took off 4 weeks for Christmas), we had our first quiz! The kids did well; most knew colors, family members, clothing, adjectives, countries and the English alphabet. However, everyone failed the conjugation of the verb “to have”. Grammar is not easy!

Other Updates:
• I can’t believe my large bottle of shampoo and large bottle of body wash have lasted me these past 5 months!