Oops! Tirando pedos

In the night, after the day is done, I have eaten and chatted with the neighbor women, I sometimes go over to a house just a little walk away. We play cards, look at the stars, laugh, play different games, etc. It is a house with a mom, dad, grandma, and three kids: two daughters in high school and a middle school age son. The daughters this Sunday were begging me to spend the night -- this is a common phenomena, that everyone wants to give of themselves and share their lives so much with the people they hold dear that girls often want me to even spend the night. Everyone was fighting over whose bed I would sleep in if I ever did spend the night, and the 89 year old grandma (Peto) finally interrupted and said that I would be sleeping with her. I agreed, settling the discussion.

Soon after that, Peto was walking by and just had a big attack of gas, letting multiple farts go. Everyone was sort of laughing, and when I joked around that I didn´t think I would be able to share her bed with her, the family just cracked up. They pointed out that she "suffers" from gas, being elderly along with some medical issues. I think the best part of it all is that to say fart in Spanish is pedo, which sounds VERY similar to the grandma´s name.

Things are going smoothly here as I plan to start English classes with a friend who speaks pretty good English. He is a med student and a community leader. The only hesitation that I had about the classes is the money issue: I wouldn´t mind giving free classes, and he wants to charge. Obviously he should, since he´ll be earning money. And we should charge something to cover our class costs. But he pointed out that one Dominican trait is that they do not value anything they don´t have to work for, and if we offer something very cheap, they will view it as cheap. It is the truth! So we´re charging, and offering "scholarships" (which is really just reducing the price to almost nothing) to the needy who jump through a couple hoops for us. The only thing I am worried about now is that a 65 year old woman signed up for the class, even though it is only for middle and high school students. I pointed out that she would be the only person older than high school age in the class and she is just fine with that! We shall see how it goes.