Everyday Things

Hello all,
People always tell us to write about the things that seem strange at first before we eventually get used to them. Well, Christmas in the Caribbean is strange. Yesterday, Terry and I were standing on the upper patio of the school and were watching some of the support staff mowing the lawn. I didn't think anything of it until Terry commented on how he's never seen people have to move Christmas ornaments of their lawn in order to mow it. How true.
We've gotten used to the constant traffic and annoying roosters. It has been interesting to see new people come to the school and be annoyed by those same things. It makes us realize how much we've gotten used to it. Although, when some crappy concho without a muffler speeds past us on the road, I still makes me want to push him into the ditch for being so annoying.
But things have definitely been getting easier, in terms of Dominican living. We don't feel as though our Spanish has gotten any better, but I think it has without us knowing it. The other day, without really having to think about it, I walked right into a store to buy some yarn all by myself. Two months ago I wouldn't have dared go without someone who could have spoken spanish for me. Usually, when we know where we want to go, we look up some necessary words in the dictionary and then head off into town. We're starting to feel a bit more confident getting our errands done.
Now that "winter" is here, we've been going out less and not visiting any new waterfalls. It's hard to predict when it's going to rain. It's a great time of the year to try to get to the coast. We have Thursday and Friday off this week, we're going to try to get out of here for a bit before Christmas.
Well, I don't have much more to say. We'll let you know how our Christmas is going. Here's a picture of our tiny tree. We wanted to buy a bigger one, but with my spanish being almost non-existent, this is what we ended up with. It's cute.