holy strawberries batman, this is bananas!

the food here is awesome. whoever said the peace corps was the best diet ever clearly wasn't placed in the dominican republic! the fruit is insane. every time i eat a banana, i enter a state of nirvana. i don't like mangos in the US, but here? don't even get me started. and i know it's early on to make such a declarative statement, but i may never get sick of rice and beans. or yuca. yuca is definitely hit or miss with people, but for me it's a huge hit. when i told my dona i had never had yuca before she replied asking if i had ever had rice and beans. that's how big of a staple it is here!

all this said though, i would kill for a piece of chocolate. or some salty chips. basically any piece of the crap that really sticks to your gut back home. just lemme at it. also hot sauce. they really don't like spicy foods here at all, which surprised me. although some volunteers have discovered hot sauce at the sirena (basically a walmart) so i think i may have to cave and get in on that action. i have been fairly good about saving money so far, (my only indulgences have been the bracelets from the market and a patch for my bag), but this feels like a justified purchase to me. although i would hate to offend my dona and show up with hot sauce. it might have to wait until i have my own place. at which time i will most definitely be getting a dog by the way. so many volunteers here have dogs, and i know some of them are bringing their dogs back. so there is a precedence here, and i'm following it!

so we have been having several hours of spanish class everyday along with safety, cultural, and medical training throughout the week. and i actually feel like i have improved some, but mostly i think it's due to the interactive aspects of life here. whether it's practicing out in the city, activities in class, or, most importantly practicing mi espanol en mi casa, i really have started to sense some improvement. as in now i can sometimes tell what is sort of going on. it's a start, what can i say.

speaking of going out into the city, i have come to realize that santo domingo is actually a pretty cool city. the DR has a rich and turbulent history, and you can see remnants of it still in the city. partially this is due to reconstruction by the spanish, but still. we can now see christopher columbus' house which is pretty cool, even if he wasn't exactly the greatest of human beings. that's me practicing the dominican technique of "understatement" by the way.

another interesting tidbit: it rains here just about everyday. and yet i've managed to get a burn. how is that possible you ask? it's because it can be sunny and bright and gorgeous and suddenly out of nowhere rainclouds will appear. on saturday a group of us went to the botanical gardens which was absolutely gorgeous ( this is a picture of the explorers and i also took lots of pictures of flowers duh) and i got some serious sun. not a bad burn, but definitely some sun. and lo and behold the next day is equally sunny. we had a tour of the colonial zone in santo domingo on sunday and i figured i would bring my raincoat just in case, despite the fact that the afternoon was shaping up to be the same as the day before. the first hour of the tour was hot, and so sunny i couldn't really take good pictures and then suddenly we were in the middle of a torrential downpour that lasted for over an hour and we had to cancel the rest of the tour! it felt good though.