Santa Megan in the Dominican Republic: 2016

Monday, March 14, 2016

Weekender Updates - Fun, Fun, Fun! Oh, and Biscocho!

I'm Hey hey here's another long text. So I'm officially half way done!

Woo hoo and today is pi day so that's always cool. All tell you all the cool things we have done this past month on the weekends!

Feb 6th- We went to the Christ statue and it was SO cool. There was like all these gardens and cool walk ways throughout the whole place! Oh my gosh it was amazing. And it's where I had my only burger in the DR! And French fries. It wasn't even that good but tasted so good.

Feb 14th- We went to carnaval. It's the biggest celebration in the Dominican Republic. Apparently it's a celebration of life but they come around and hit your butt with hardened pig intestines. And you think it would be soft but no. It feels like straight up bricks. Girls had their whole butts covered in bruises. I feel like that sums up the Dominicans perfectly though.

Feb 17th- Day off from teaching!!! They have all these random holidays where we don't have to teach and it's honestly the best thing ever. We went to Sosua (prettiest beach). On the way there we have to take guaguas. It's basically a van where they stuff as many people as they can in. Like on this trip there was four in the front not including the drive. And TWENTY TWO of us in the back. I'm not kidding. I thought I was going to pass out and die. And people just hang outside of the car door like its so crazy what they can do with a guagua. Anyway so we went there and it's sooo pretty. We went snorkeling and saw some cool coral reefs and I saw a school of fish. It was so cool.

Feb 19th- this was a Friday night and we went to this disco casino! Just a couple of us went but it was so fun! It's so funny how much they love Americans like they were offering us so many free drinks! But we danced the night away and it was so fun.

Feb 20th- TWENTY SEVEN WATERFALLS!!!! Seriously the coolest thing! It was raining when we hiked it and I thought it was so cool but also a little freezing so it'll be better when we do it in May! Everyone we talked to was saying how hard it is to hike all 27 but I didn't even think it was that hard at all! So you hike up to the top and then cliff jump and slide down all 27 waterfalls and it is so cool! We just chilled the rest of that day bc it was a little tiring.

Feb 21st- Me and a couple of my friends went around and explored the city after church! We went to this Amber museum and the Ladamar museum. I guess there is a museum that had the actual Amber thing that was in Jurassic park but I have yet to find it. We got the BEST ice cream ever. It's called biscocho. You guys will love it. I think I'm gonna name my future dog Biscocho.

Feb26th- happy birthday mama! We went to Jarabacoa! I love this place. It was so weird because it wasn't humid and everything was so relaxed and pretty. We went white water river rafting and it was SOOOO much fun oh my gosh. And we had the coolest tour guide so that was fun too. And then after we had the yummiest liner buffet.

March 4th- made our way to Cabarete! This place reminds me of like Newport. It was so much cleaner and more put together than where I live. We had such a cute hotel there that was right on the beach and split between 6people we only had to pay 15 dollars a night. That's so crazy. This night we went out dancing at the clubs and it was so fun. We saw so many hot Norwegians. After dancing we went skinny dipping in the Caribbean Sea! How dang cool is that?? I love skinny dipping.

March 5th- Beach day! It was a little rainy and overcast but it was fun to chill on the beach like that. we went around to all the little shops and it was so fun and made me miss California. We went to this SO good restaurant for dinner called Gorditos Fresh Mex. it was like chipotle. And so I was in love. We spent the night in Cabarete again and then just woke up the next day and went home!

March 8th- international women's day aka best day ever bc school was canceled! I love being a woman. We went to the fort of San Felipe. It's like a little museum but mostly the view is the coolest thing ever! I totally rode an ass lol donkey. And then we went to Sosua beach for a nice beach day. I love beach days

March 11th- we only had to teach for an hour! Who knows why but it was legit. So we went to Sosua right after school and stayed there for like 6 hours. I tried the best coconut candy things on the beach. Ugh everything here is so yummy.

March 12- Laguna Dudu. I love saying that so much. It was a two hour drive there and it was the prettiest thing in the whole world! It was just a fresh water little thing and I was so in love. They had a little canoe you could canoe around in. And then they had this dope zipline where you go off the side and then drop in the water! It was soooooo freaking cool. One of the girls in my group slipped when she was going and fell too early it was so funny. But I guess she hurt her tailbone. Hahah

Well that's all the fun things I do! Teaching is getting way way better. I have a groupie squad of girls who think that I'm cool and love to hang out with my so I love it! I'm gonna make them friendship bracelets so our friendship will be legit. I told them you guys were coming and they are SO excited!!! I can't wait for you to meet all of them. Well I love you guys even though you're at my favorite place having the time of your lives without me.

Rain Helper & Dancer

On Thursday and Friday it had been raining all day and on Friday night we saw our neighbor with a bucket and all day she has to get a bucket and scoop water out so it doesn't flood her house. Me and a couple other girls went and helped her for two hours and I just can not believe that she has to do this all day for like two days every time it rains. I just feel so blessed to live where we do and for our beautiful house. I love you guys!!!

Wednesday, February 3, 2016

An Update (finally!) From our Megan!

The following is really the first, unedited, letter we've received from Megan about how things are going and what she does down in the DR. Enjoy!

hola! k dad thinks I'm going A crowd so I'm telling you guys what I do everyday! The night before each day we get all of our teaching supplies ready in a bin.

Each week er have a different subject we teach. The subjects are Arts and Crafts, Kitchen, Shop, Drama, Games, and Gym. I'm doing arts and crafts rn and it is the best thing ever. In the other subjects the kids just run wild but with arts and crafts they like to make stuff so they pay attention to what I say it's the best.

I wake up at 6:15 press snooze and then get up at 6:24 and go running to the beach and back with two other girls in my group. It's about 2.5 miles so it's a good little course! Then I'll rinse off bc SOOO sweaty in this humidity even in the morning!

After I read the scriptures, say prayers, eat breakfast (I've been eating cereal which I haven't eaten in forever... it's SO good) and then get ready for teaching.

We put all our stuff in plastic bins, so we carry those to school at like 9:40 and get there by 9:55 ish so we can teach at 10.

The kids are like straight animals. They punch and kick and wrestle each other it's crazy. A kid in America trips and falls down on grass and starts crying. Kids here are like made out of stele I'm not kidding. I don't think I've seen one kid cry and they hurt each other soo bad.

But so at 10-10:20 we do opening with all the kids in my group of five teachers. So me and five teachers have all our kids in a classroom and one of us leads the opening. We sing about five songs and 4 out of 5 of the songs is five little monkeys. They LOVE that one. It's so fun and I like it because it takes a long time and it gets all their wiggles out.

Then we break up into our groups. We each have nine kids in each group and usual two teachers share a room while teaching so it gets a little crazy. We have three rotations and each rotation is 30 minutes. So if you have one of the bad groups it makes the 30 minutes feel like an hour.

When we teach we tell them to only speak English but they totally don't. You give them tickets for every time they say a phrase that you pick to work on for that day. So like if the concept I want them to understand is them having something, I will give them a marker and then say "You have a marker. Can you say I have a marker?" and then the kid will say "I have marker." and then I give them a ticket. And then all the kids will see that he is getting a ticket so they all say "Have marker". They are like the seagulls on finding Nemo when they say "Mine. Mine. " It's freaking funny.

My hardest thing here is being mean to the kids. They will do something bad and I'm like getting mad and then they do something and I start laughing and it totally defeats the whole purpose of me getting mad but I'm such a laugher. For the most part they like me but when I start to raise my voice I think they get afraid of me. Probably not but I like to think so. I sound EXACTLY like mom when I say "No" in a mean voice. It freaks me out.

At the end of the last rotation we have a thing called store. And so we count up all the tickets that each kid has and depending on how many tickets they get to pick a prize. They love it. But if they were misbehaving in class they don't get to do store so that's supposed to be their motivation to do well in class. I've only told one kid they can't have store and she flipped me off and punched a kid and ran out of the classroom so I locked the door behind her. She is physco.

So we are doing that till 12 and then we are supposed to eat lunch at the school but I swerve so hard. Think of the gross elementary school lunches in the US and then it's like the gross quality of that with the gross food here. So I come home and eat and apple or something like that! Then we have to go back to 2 and do it all over again until 4.

Our morning class is so so so crazy and they are the older kids like 7 or 8. And then our afternoon class is SO CUTE. I die over all of them. So the afternoon is nice!

And then we walk back to our house and our cooking lady,Tamarse, is making dinner. Every meal is a variation of rice and some sort of meat that freaks me. Some days it's good but other days I just stick to my frozen corn and peas that I have bought or I eat and apple and peanut butter. While dinner is being made some of us go to the beach for a while or go walk around or get stuff ready for the next day or come up with more lessons.

We have to come up with 5 lessons for the next week by Wednesday before. So today I'm turning in my lesson plans to teach Kitchen next week. Then at night we just talk and laugh, have meetings, play cards, uno, or watch movies.

We have to have the gate outside our house closed by 7 bc the neighborhood we live in is so scary. There is like a prostitution house a down the street from us hahaha it's sos crazy. so the nights will get pretty boring after four months. But so far it's been ok! I feel like my life here is so normal. Like I don't feel like I should be in Provo going to school or anything.

It makes me happy being here. I look around on my way to school and just feel so so so blessed. Like it is just so crazy to me that we get to live in the nicest houses in the U.S and the people here are literally living in tin shacks. It was raining the other day for like two straight days and this old man was out there, every time I walked by, with a bucket trying to get all the water out of his house so it doesn't flood.

I just am so grateful for everything we have. I love everyone here and all of the people I live with are seriously the nicest. I don't think I could've picked a better group! I love it here and I'm having a lot of fun. It's hard but so fun! I've already been here for three weeks that's weird. But I love you guys so much. Sorry this is the world's longest text

Friday, January 22, 2016

On a Field Trip! Headed to Samaná

Megan took this picture for Sami because Mermaids are her very favorite!

Wednesday, January 20, 2016

Avocados as Big as My Head!

01.15.16

I just bought peanut butter, bread, avocados, and sour gummy worms from the store!! you could say I'm pretty happy! I've been surviving on the Qwest bars that I had brought with me!

Check out these huge avocados!!

Oh, and this is the kids' favorite thing to play with each day! My dad gave me the 1:Watch which makes a donation to several causes depending on the color of the watch you purchase.