Little by Little

I've been in the DR more than a week now and I'm cruising along. Writing from an internet cafe down my street and I can't hear myself think because the Reggaeton blasting is extremly loud. Since I arrived in country, it's been information overload and long days as I'm in pre-service training for the next ten weeks. My typical day is wake up around 7am, eat breakfast my Dona (host mother/woman of house) prepared for me, walk to the training center, which, lucky for me, is only a minute away. Then, I go through four hours of Spanish lessons, break for lunch, and end with sitting through lectures, with topics like Domincan gestures and preventing dengue contraction, that either inform or scare us trainees. I end at about 5pm and return home to rest, do homework, eat dinner, and only understand half of the conversations I have with my host family. By the way, my host family is technically only my Dona, as indicated on my host family info sheet, but in reality it's her, her four-year old grandson (the hyperactive, but cute, terror I simply call the "nino") whom lives with his parents downstairs, her husband who is here visiting from the States, and any number of random neighbors that come in and out of the house. I live in a very nice house in a middle-class barrio outside of Santo Domingo, the capital, and was quite suprised to have air conditioning in my room. Other volunteers don't have it as posh I do and have the more typical barrio-lifestyle, complete with bucket showers, but all are fairly nice. It'll be starking contrast in a few weeks when I have training in the interior of the country, which is more rural. Two nights ago, I learn how to play dominoes, which is, next to baseball, the national pastime. I played with three other volunteers, one of their Dons', and a neighbor nicknamed Flaco (means "skinny" in spanish, and, appropriately, he's a very skinny guy). At the beginning, Flaco was kicking everyone's butt while I struggled figuring out the game. I quickly learned and understood the strategy. A fellow female volunteer and I were a team and played against the male duo, which included Flaco. The mujeres won four times in a row. Considering that dominoes is a male-dominated game, and not only were we women, but "gringa" women, I think we hurt Flaco's ego a bit. Aside from dominoes, I've been getting aquainted with alot of unique "Dominicanisms", including their slang. For example, the word "chin-chin" which means "a little bit". Take the following dialogue that happened the other day:

My Dona: Quieres mas jugo? (Do you want more juice)
Nino: (Shakes his head no vigorously)
Dona: (To me) Que bueno, el dijo 'no'. (Good thing he said "no").
Nino: Mas! (More!)
Dona: Ay, Dios Mio! (My God!)
Nino: Un chin-chin (just a little bit, with lower lip pursed)

I don't know why I took the time to write that, but I thought it was cute, funny exchange. Anyway, I'll try to share my newly-learned aspects of Dominican culture. I think I'll start a "Dominicanism of the Day" part of my posts, although it'll be more like "Dominicanism of the week" since I'll rarely get to internet. Well, that's all for now. Stay tuned. Next time I'll be sharing stories about public transportation in the DR, daily interactions with the nino and family, and experiences as a Fil-Am in this country, like being called "china" on the street. Hasta luego!