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.

Classroom fun

Excerpts from my computer classes this past week. Keep in mind that the students range from eight years old to about 60. Most are high school age.

When filling in a box that asked for an adjective, about 90 percent of the students in my more advanced Microsoft Office class asked me what an adjective was.

In the beginning classes, we are learning about the keyboard. The first thing I had the students do was to type out the alphabet. Unfortunately, none of the older kids remembered the order or what letters were in it, and I had to write it on the board for them. They never learn an alphabet song as kids!

A couple answers to a question about the "best country" in the world: Europa, Nueva Yol (that's Dominican for New York).

But besides the sometimes humorous and sometimes very frustrating moments in my computer classes, things are going well. The beginners are really noticeably more comfortable doing lots of stuff with the computers, and it's like instant gratification. The only part I am not liking about the classes I give is that I have them in the morning and afternoons on Saturdays, eating up more of my free time.

I finally got rid of the couple swarms of bees, only to have a small swarm arrive to the other side of my house a week ago or so. I haven't bothered the bee guys again, but it's getting to the point where I am going to call soon.

In moments of free time, however, I have been perfecting my tree-climbing skills in the pursuit of sweet oranges, and am planning with a guy in my community a night English class a couple times a week. And I have a running partner who runs harder and farther than me, always pushing me. It's fun to have someone to run with sometimes.

My kitty is getting bigger, but is such a bad bad thing that I don't know what to do. She never likes to go outside because she gets scared of the dogs around, and even the chickens. She is always biting me, and purring while she does it. I'm attempting to teach her to refrain from that bad habit. Maybe someday she'll calm down. I do have a little hope, because sometimes if I get a chance to read at night, I'll be laying on the floor, and she'll curl up on my back, purring away. Oh, Cajuil!