Day 5 - I am definitely NOT in New Jersey/Utah anymore!

Wow!  Life is different in the DR.  So much has happened in these last few days!  We have two delightful women that work to make our life easier - one cooks our yummy meals and the other is what we call a 'house mother', she doesn't live with us but will show us around the first couple weeks, showing us where to shop, buy ice cream, etc!

Over the past few days we went to the beach for a few hours and then went and toured the two schools where we will be teaching.  These are very humble places, with broken chairs the norm, but happy, smiling kids.  The kids just wanted to hug and be near us.  They literally have nothing.

That night we were instructed that before we go to sleep we should spray ourselves head to toe with mosquito spray, and then spray the windows and doors.  Later we hung up new mosquito nets around our beds.  The worst part so far was taking some clothes out of my suitcase and finding a beetle as big as my palm hiding there....all I could do was cry...real tears.  I hate bugs, especially big ones.

Here are some views from our apartment's balcony. The kids find anywhere to play!  Often times they come to the gate at the front of our apartment (it is a tall barred fence) and call out to us.  We are not allowed to give them anything, not food, money, prizes, if we did they would never leave and there would be scores of children begging at our gate.

I am making some great friends with this group of girls and a few of us even enjoyed a run to the beach and back!

There are little fruit and food stands everywhere.  One stand we stopped at for ice-cream had a ten year old boy running it, and the entire time he had this huge smile across his face.  He didn't understand a word we said but he sure did smile!