Peaje season

Fundraising for our stolen inversores is under way, with the help of my club of kids who are super interested in computers. They're helping me with my community diagnostics and now with fundraising, and are just the best bunch of high schoolers. I feel bad for them, because they just want to do computer stuff, and we can't yet.

The fundraiser they chose to do was a peaje, which is like the Dominican version of the firefighters holding boots at intersections. We had to jump through a million hoops to get permission to do the peaje to begin with, and then we made some signs telling the cause and got a rope and money pouch together. All Saturday we stood out on the highway that leads into the city at a key shady location, and stopped cars to get them to give us money. I had no idea why the fundraiser sounded so appealing to these kids, but it turned out well, and we made quite a bit of money. One guy even gave us an American dollar :) The trick to the peaje is that you have to put the rope down when motorcycles are coming, because we didn't want to create any injuries, and it took lots of care since the majority of vehicles are motores! The only low point was the dust, that kicked up quite a bit since they're redoing the highway, and when the heavy afternoon rain came and ruined all our signs. The kids had fun, though, and want to do another one soon!

We'll see what surprises are awaiting me when I get back to my home from being in the capital last night and today. Ambrosia and I came in to get prescriptions filled and run other errands, and are headed back soon. But last time we went to the beach, I got back and knew that somebody had slept in my bed. Which is not a big deal, but then when I was putting up my mosquitero later that night, I found under the bed a vasinilla (sp?), or Dominican chamber pot, that was full to the brim of pee. I knew it was my host mom's -- she's the only one that still uses one instead of walking to the bathroom (I know because our walls don't go to the ceilings, and you can hear any little noise from any of the rooms). I was a little grossed out and sort of upset, but decided that I would just laugh it off and sort of smiled and walked out and through the living room past the mom and her son, saying, "I found a surprise under my bed!" The host mom, instead of laughing along with me, tried to say that it was her granddaugher and that she must have done it when she was making the bed (that I had already made?). That was more annoying that she tried to lie to me instead of just mentioning she'd slept in my bed! But only a few more weeks there. . . banking on the hope that I'll find a house soon.