Christmas Activities

This week has been busy with lots of Christmas activities-- Monday, my Bible Study group went caroling to some people from school. It was a bit strange to be going caroling when it was 81 degrees, but it made it a bit more enjoyable with the warmer weather! Tuesday was the elementary music program, and I stayed at school until the performance. The kids did a great job, as well as my roommate Kyla who had the 1st-3rd graders. Last night my aide Everg invited me over to her house for a meal-- it was an egg dish, served with yuca and avocado. It was so good!

Her mom, who was visiting from New York, and a friend of her mom's were also there. Neither of them spoke English, so I was able to practice my "broken" Spanish! --Though I get a bit flustered when I try to remember the words to say. It was fun to be able to hear them talk in Spanish-- I was able to understand maybe 25-50%ish of what they were talking about-- Surprisingly I don't get to hear people talk in Spanish a lot here. I hear English all day at school, and then go home to my English speaking roommates/friends. If I go out to the stores, sometimes I use Spanish, but it's not an every day occurrence. 

A random Nebraska connection-- one of the teacher's here, her parent's are visiting and they grew up in Nebraska! (Western, NE I think) They also have some family I think that are still in Omaha. They moved to New York 50 years ago, but it was fun to be able to talk about towns that I know about!

Tonight we are celebrating a friend's birthday, and then tomorrow is our last day of school before Christmas break-- we have a half day tomorrow. :-) 

                                         

Two weeks of school left before Christmas Vacation! Saturday evening, we decided to make sugar cookies and watch my favorite Christmas movie-- White Christmas-- and Sunday we decorated them.

I'm not going home for Christmas break, because with my brother getting married in April, I decided to go home then-- with it being more of a priority. :-) I've been away from home for the holidays before-- and I guess with being as self-sufficient/independent as I am, I'm ok with being away from my family during Christmas (or even Thanksgiving). (And because I know that my parent's read my blog, this does not mean that I don't like to come home for the holidays.... LOL) It seems a bit different year however, with being in a totally different country than my family-- or my friends in Kansas. I'm not usually one who gets home-sick, with always having lived several hours away from them, but I've always been within driving distance (4-7 hrs) of them. Lately, I have gotten a bit "home-sick" with everyone talking about seeing their families and friends over the break-- But I know that's just what comes with living here, away from everything familiar that I'm used to.
I am looking forward to though, being able to do some exploring here, having time by myself-- and of course having the warm weather right now (while I'm sure it's probably going to be freezing in Nebraska!!) isn't the worst thing in the world to have! LOL

This week is still a relatively normal week at school. Next week there will be music concerts and Christmas parties-- and then I think we have a half day next Friday. It is hard to believe that the school year is almost half over!!

                     

My Christmas decoration for my classroom--made by my aide's daughter... 

 

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Thanksgiving Vacation to Barahona

Thursday, Sarah, Ginny and I, left for Barahona-- Google Maps says it takes 4 hrs, but we they were building a new road-- with lots of road construction-- so it took us about 5ish hours. The scenery was absolutely beautiful, despite it taking longer for us to get there. In the past Ginny has gone to Santo Domingo, b/c this road was not there. 

The terrain goes from mountainous to tropical to desert, and further west we saw tall cacti. 

 It was almost like being in the states, with encountering a herd of cows along the road...

And then greeted by calves, when we got to our hotel... along the road....

Until we reached our destination... La Saladilla.... around 4ish in the afternoon. 

The hotel is a few miles outside of the town-- Barahona is a fairly good sized town. We drove around it some over the few days we were there. 

Friday morning we left around 9 for the Bay of Aguilas (Eagles)-- a two hour drive farther south and west... 

                       

Along the way we made a few stops-- the picture postcard view....

 Not a stop, but there were wind turbines...

And another stop for the cow drive... (we saw lots of random goats and a few pigs along the roadside as well)

This is more of the desert terrain that we saw, including the start of the red dust soil-- which I learned aluminum foil is made from.

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We also drove to the Haiti border-- in previous years, they have had a Haitian market, but since the border is now closed, they have it on the other side. 

We took a boat to one area of the bay, and swam there for about 30-45 minutes. 

I don't have a picture of it, but I was able to swim to a cave area among the rocks as well. Then we rode the boat a little farther to another beach area.

It was a bit strange to have the desert background mixed with the ocean, but it was still a beautiful area, and gorgeous day! After having a late lunch (I of course had fish-- I have yet to get tired of seafood!), we drove to a stretch of road where we hunted for conch shells-- the fisherman throw them along the side of the road. 

Friday morning, I got up to watch the sunrise on the beach....

Before we headed off on our next destination.... 

The lake is the only saltwater lake in the DR. 

We were greeted by rhinoceros iguana's-- they were as big as a cat!   

The iguana's were very docile-- didn't seem to be bothered by people, and just hung around the area.

We took a boat tour around the lake with our tour guide Manuel.

It is a mystery as to why the area keeps flooding --- the water is 60 feet deep below. Roads, and even a town have been moved, because the water keeps expanding so much, in a short amount of time. There was a forest below this water, and now it is almost completely covered.

Another highlight was seeing the crocodiles, which are only found at this lake in the DR.

We were only about 10 feet away from this crocodile (the only one we saw on land). He stayed like this for several minutes with it's mouth open (maybe 10?), and then in only a few seconds he went into the water. This one is about 6 feet long.

With only having a camera phone, I could not get any pictures of the crocodiles in the water, but we saw several different ones, though only just the tops of them. We drove for quite awhile among the brush looking for them. I wasn't as nervous as I thought I would be-- If we didn't bother them, than they didn't bother us...

Another picture of the iguana's, as we left...

Sunday morning it was pouring rain-- we were fortunate to not have the rain the previous days-- it would have made driving a bit tricky with the road we were on. We took the road back to Santo Domingo, which is all paved. The scenery was so pretty-- I saw sugar cane fields, and a lot of other interesting agriculture along the way. 

Picture from the car...

We stopped at Ikea in Santo Domingo, which was about 2 hours away -- I had never been into one before, so it was fun to be able to do some shopping. 

I've been watching everyone back in the states getting the snowy, icy weather, and it does seem strange to be watching it from afar. I do feel bad for everyone having to deal with the severe winter weather, though I can't say that I miss it! 

 Three weeks until Christmas Break! I'm not going home for Christmas, because I'm going to be going home instead, in April for my brother's wedding. 

Thanksgiving Update and Address Change

Thursday, several of us went to see the new Hunger Games movie in 3D-- I've haven't read the books, but I have seen the other movies-- and this one was really good. Friday there was a group of us that got together and had homemade ice cream-- our friends have an ice cream maker, and they made chocolate mint, Reese's, banana, and Cookies and Cream-- so good! We also played a game called Quelf -- It has several different type of actions you have to do-- rules, acting out silly songs/themes, categories, etc. Saturday, Darlene took my roommates and I to the Colinas Mall here in Santiago-- It's in a different area of Santiago that I had never been in-- the mall had 3 floors with escalators, with the store Jumbo taking up two floors of the mall-- it's similar to a Wal-mart with groceries and also furnishings. Later that afternoon, we went to La Sirena to get ingredients for apple crisp that we made for the Thanksgiving meal at the Cohen's on Sunday (which turned out really good!!). Then, that evening Kyla and I went over to our friend Allison's and helped her grade some of her Math papers (along with watching a Hallmark movie on Youtube)-- so busy day! Sunday we had church, and then at 4 p.m., we went over to the Cohen's (SCS Director), for their Annual Thanksgiving Dinner. There was so much food! After dinner we had a time of worship, and Alan the school chaplain gave a message about thankfulness. All in all, it was a busy (but good) weekend!

We have 2 1/2 days of school this week- Wednesday we have a half day of school. Today after school we have an in-service with Kathy Walcott, who will be talking more about SIOP-- which the new teachers had heard her talk about, at the beginning of the year.
I'm doing some Thanksgiving themed activities with my student's today and tomorrow-- Wednesday, with the way the schedule is, I won't have my students-- but I am going to be helping 2nd grade with their Thanksgiving center's. Many student's do celebrate Thanksgiving here, though it isn't recognized as a holiday here in DR. We've been seeing some signs for Black Friday here, so evidently that is spreading here as well, as I've been told it's something relatively new.
With my 2nd grader's we are working on short vowels, 3rd grade-- we work on the weekly reading comprehension skill and fluency, and another student I work on the grade level math skills, 4th grade we're working on long vowels and fluency, 5th grade-- we just finished up reading the Yellow House Mystery Box Car Children book (it was one of my favorite series as a kid), and after doing some informational text practice, we're going to read Sideways Stories from Wayside School (along with the classroom comprehension skill-- it's cause/effect this week). Not sure what we'll do after we finish that-- so I'll be looking for a new chapter book to read with them.

I have a different mailing address -- the BM number changed...
Lori Smith
Santiago Christian School
8400 N.W. 25th St. Suite 100
BMW# 107243
Miami, FL 33198-1522

Busy week last week---
- Surprise Birthday Party for our Middle School Principal-- was a lot of fun, in a gorgeous location
-Student Birthday Party -- I was a Judge for "Santiago's Got Talent"-- The 3 teams filmed 20 sec videos with their skits for each the 5 "studios/judges."
-Saturday- Family Day at SCS--My aide Everg and I were at the popcorn/cotton candy station-- there was a worker from the company that made everything, so basically we got to watch him make everything-- and we said hi to all the kids!
-It has rained about every day the last week or so-- usually during the night/early morning. It is definitely cooler here, but it still gets warm/humid. I'm going to have to buy a blanket for my bed!
-One week till Thanksgiving break-- then vacation! Details to come...

School Visits

This week I had the opportunity to visit two schools in Santiago-- Thursday I went to a Special Needs School with one of the H.S. Bible classes that visit there every week--It was so interesting to see how the school works-- It was a bit intimidating with not knowing Spanish, and not being able to talk to the kids and teachers. The school was very bright and clean-- but the materials were very sparse. The students were using notebooks , and I've been told that that is very common. There were no children's books or other materials in the classrooms. It made me really want to be able to talk to the teacher's and do some teacher training with them-- but I know the teacher's are doing the best that they know or can. The cost of the school had gone up in the last few years, and it makes it harder for lower income students to attend. The classes were divided up by age, and were small groups-- approximately 7-9 kids in each class. It makes you really appreciate what you have-- with seeing so little that they have... 

Friday I went to another school with a different HS Bible class-- this time I went to a regular school that is funded by Go Ministries. The school is EC to 8th grade with 2 sessions-- 4 hrs in the morning and 4 in the afternoon (for different kids). The school had slightly more materials- the EC/Kinder classes had toys in the room-- the rooms were very small-- the building itself was 3 stories-- and built very compact-- with their commons area at the very bottom.