Hello friends!!!

So much has happened I don’t even know where to start!
First of all, I’m enjoying this place immensley! Although I am slowly forgetting how to speak and spell in English, my Spanish is improving daily. My domino game is getting better also ; ) Watch out!
I’ve been visiting my vols every week, preparing them to finish their community based initiatives and their campamentos with the kids. The campamentos are a crazy blast. The kids are so full of energy and truly unruly. The energy and desire to play and learn is fantastic, but the bulla (chaos) is a huge challenge. I have had to work a great deal with my volunteers, devising classroom management strategies for each group. Last week I taught yoga to a group of kids which was super fun! I was surprised to see them become quiet for the first time during the campamentos. Afterwards, we all went to a mango grove and picked a few. The kids here have an amazing way of eating mangos purely using their teeth. I have tried to immitate it only to discover I have a slight allergy to the mango peel… On the upside, because I have to use a knife to peel the mango, I’m more liable to make tasty mango salads ☺
I've also been dominicanizing myself slowly...The little girls tend to wear these cute twist braids in their hair. I learned just the other day how do this : ) When girls get older, they try to control that unruly hair by putting it in rolos to straigthen it. This is why you see lots of Dominican women walking around with big hair-rollers in their hair. I love the rolos so I had them done the other day. After their done with the rolos, they put their hair in a tubi (wrapped all around the head) to keep the hair straight. I got one of those too. It did make my hair super-straight : ) I've also been learning bachata and merengue. I hope to learn salsa soon! The salsa here is really fun, the style is a bit different than what i've seen before and more interesting. Today I bought 10 CDs of Bachata, merengue, and salsa for a whopping 400 pesos (11ish dollars)!!!
Alot of the other adventures I've been having are small, everyday adventures like bucket flushing, bucket bathing, cooking with a headlamp, taking guaguas with 40 (or more) other people, fighting off tarantulas, washing my clothes by hand, etc.
I still try to keep some parts of my life normal by watching movies, doing yoga, etc...
I’ve also started taking opportunities to practice teaching yoga. I really enjoy this! I gave a belly-dance class the other day too. I think teaching is such a wonderful challenge and I hope I keep up with it.

All and all my adventures have been fun! I’m enjoying this beautiful country and the people here. Hope you all are doing well!!!

Love,
Raquelita