Injuries:
So I didn’t talk about all my injuries until now for a few reasons. One, I know my mother is at home worried and
missing me already, but also because I’m a little embarrassed by my own
clumsiness! But now! Its almost comical, so I decided I better
share with everyone how horribly accident prone I am in this country! The first week I was here I got some
scratches on my hands from the monkeys while feeding. My first thought was, dang! That is
definitely gonna scar (I scar very easily) but oh well, it will be a reminder
of an amazing summer! Shortly after the
many scratches on my hand, I was riding the moped with Manuel, and we
fell. DON’T WORRY! We were going very slow and just kind of laid
it down in a gravel driveway. But this
too added to my injuries, my knee was bruised and scraped up pretty good, and
my same hand now had scrapes on my palm as well! Somehow in the process of the bike falling I
also got a cut on my left middle toe. No
big deal, just a little blood, cleaned right up and went on with my
evening. About 2 days later, I was
walking down the hill from my house to the apartment and stumbled, and stubbed
(I’m almost sure broke) my toe. It was
black and blue right away, and I had a nice limp to go along with it for about
a week. It is still quite soar, but the
pretty colors are gone. Now, that was my
first good “trip”.Since then I have tripped on numerous things, its almost
twice a day that I step wrong, and stumble, even just on regular flat ground! This past week, I finally got up enough
courage to get on a moto bike after dumping the moped. I rode with Pierre just form my house out the
gate and into the MJ gate about ½ min up the road. When I got off, I hit my calf on the hot
muffler and now have a LARGE blister that I’m nursing. So again, walking with a limp! I’m loving my stay in DR, but if this keeps
up I may come home in pieces!
Baseball:
Sunday nights in our neighborhood (if you can call it that) the guys get
together and play softball. I had told
Lesly that I enjoyed watching baseball, so he and I rode down the hill to the
little snack shack at the corner and grabbed some drinks and then walked over
to the “ball field” We had to climb
through a fence to get in, it wasn’t until the game was almost over and the
cows wandered into the outfield that I realized we were sitting in the cow
pasture! Was cool to see everyone from
the area together, cheering for their friends, sitting around joking with
each other! There was two teams, one was
obviously the favorite! They didn’t have
matching uniforms or even very impressive equipment, but they were sure having
fun! It was a little awkward to be not
only one of very few females there watching, but the only Gringa! Everyone stared of course! (I’m getting used to that though, it happens
everywhere!)
Out
& About: Sunday night after the baseball game, a group of us planned to
go out for the evening. I was excited to
go and then realized I had to get back on a bike to get into town! This time with THREE people! So let me just paint the picture for you
all! The road we live on is
HORRIBLE! Extremely rocky, full of pot
holes, curvy, hilly! Its nuts! So not only is it hard to navigate, but we
had 3 of us crammed on one little dirt bike.
I chose to take the middle cuz I knew there was no way my butt would
stay on the back of the seat! I made it
into town w/ out dying, and of course thanked Denson for keeping me safe. We got to the Pizza place and Pierre was
about to park his bike when the Police pulled up and started questioning
him. Haitans in the DR are discriminated
against pretty badly. Pierre of course
is a Haitan, so the police took his bike for the night and claimed he didn’t
have the proper paperwork. This wasn’t
true, but Pierre said he wasn’t willing to pay the $ they asked for just to get
his bike back because he knew $ was all they were after. So after we ate our Pizza in Sosua, we all
got a cab to Cabarette. We piled 7
people, along with the driver into a little tiny car. What an experience. We had a few drinks and then went
dancing. WOW!! I’m such a white girl! Everyone down here has great rhythm, and hips
like Shakira. But I sure had fun!
Monday, yesterday, was my day
off! Lesly and I went to the beach in
Sosua. (Again, 3 people on a bike, Me, Lesly & the driver) I of course wanted lots of Sun, but in the
words of Lesly “I’m black man, I don’t need more black!” So we got chairs, one in the shade and mine
in the sun and just hung out for the day. Sosua beach is extremely relaxing. There were a few locals there, but not many
others, so I napped in the sun most of the afternoon. I made dinner for everyone when we got back
from the beach. Pele is and I did some
Spanish/English learning and we played cards for the rest of the evening. It was a great day off!
The next day (yesterday) I was back to MJ and had a
pretty quick and easy day. Still really
enjoying my job! :)
