Mi familia

Life and mi familia

So…. I am not so intelligent- After setting up this blog, I’ll managed to lose my gmail account name and password which I set it up under…until a couple of days ago. But, eureka, I figured it out finally… kinda like a pirate finding a buried treasure (I apologize I have been a little obsessed with pirates since coming to Caribbean, haha I even have a skull and cross bone bathing suit). But anyways, now I have been able to read and see how everyone has been doing. It sounds like everyone is managing well, and we are all going through that first fun and ackward stage of getting acquainted with a new place.

So today is just another day in the sweltering heat of the DR (although the mountains are not as bad as Santo Domingo). I am right now watching a cult of aliens in “Hombres en negroes dos” Men in Black 2, with my 11 and 3 year old host nephews, as I wait for my host brother to come home so I can interview him about his business for my project for class. I have to write a business plan paper in Spanish and an Income Statement by the end of this week for one of the companies I interview. This should be interesting, since most of the places I interview don’t really keep any kind of records… and not to mention I am sure things are getting lost in translation (my Spanish is progressing slowly but surely. I think I am passed the early child stage. But I have definitely not matured yet. I think I am in the ackward puberty phase of my Spanish capabilities).

I really like my family here in the Mountains of Juan Lopez. I dance and sing with them all, especially the 3 year olds. I play lots of baseball with the 11 year old. Whenever the volunteers get together to play at the field on the side of our mountain (I’ll need to take pictures of this, like lizmac says, its sure not ugly) kids appear out of thin air in the matter of minutes and soon there are 25 kids playing/ watching. For a place where there is no cell phone reception, word sure gets around here fast!

Also, I really like the daughter-in-law, Jokaira, whose family lives with us right now. If its not raining, I am going to skip class tomorrow, and go to her work, which is in Porta Plata, the big beach town about 2 hours away. Since she works at a resort, she speaks a little bit of English, which comes in handy if I am having communication issues. She is really trendy, cool, and an awesome mom (her kids are so good and not annoying!) So she is sort of my Dominican role model here. I decided I might even change my name once I get to my village and start going by Jokaira. Not just in memory of her but because I have found that NO Dominican can say/ remember my name, I think the double L is tricky or something. But it’s always kind of funny, to watch people struggle at it.

And my neighbors are really fun too! We convinced, Jesse, who is the host sister of one of my best volunteer friends to have a house party 2 nights ago. Now Jesse has a little 3 year old, but she is really crazy and funny! We have dance parties A LOT, where we teach her the Macarena and the running man, and she teaches us to try to shake our hips… (one of my 2 year goals is to be able to shake it like Shakira). Or we will have cooking contests or just mess around. Well anyways, she lives next to me, and we convinced her she should have a party. So I went on a beer run on the back of her husband’s moto, helmet and all! And some how we were able to a fit this huge crate of beer on the motorcycle with us! Then our other friends and volunteers arrived from the top of the mountain with the Dominican rum! We blared the music and my friends host dad whom is 60 came over somewhat drunk and showed us card tricks. Then the Spanish and English music flowed, and we had a good old time talking in Spanglish and learning lots of Spanish slang and bad words. Then me and my friend Justin, pulled out the Soulja Boy Superman dance to show Jesse. Haha my Dona, also around 60, came out too, it was a good old time in the campo!

So yea, my family is basically the bomb, except for one. The other daughter-in-law, whom is my age, doesn’t like me so much. Luckily, she has only come around a few times, but every time I see her, she always has some not-so-nice comment for me. But I think I am going to just kill her with kindness. Today, for instance though, she came over and before even saying hello, she tells me I am gaining weight, but my Dona (host mom) and Jokaira came to my defense real quick. And then I ran about 9 miles, to show her! But, besides that life on the mountain is pretty sweet! I am going on a lot of cool field trips this week, so I will update you guys soon about stuff I am actually doing!

Adios BFFS,
Kels/ Jokaira