Do you feel rain?

Another month has finally come and gone. My departure date has been established: June 25. Even though classes end officially on the 13th of June, I have to stay to hand out my grades in person to the kids on the 24th of June. Why on Earth we need 11 days to do end of year tasks like grades and cleaning I will never know. They tell me that they have bought the ticket for the 25th so hopefully it will be a good flight and I will get home the same day I leave. I'm ready to be back. I miss my family, my boyfriend, my friends, my everything!

School has been unsupportive or most things that any normal school would be able to support a teacher in. We're still on our own for discipline, most supplies. But whatever, I'm hopeful that the school will continue to improve. There is honestly only one way for this school to go and that is up. The changes and programs that we have made this year will hopefully continue next year, but probably won't. The new principal is from England. They're probably going to get rid of all the English teachers that are not from there and get new ones from England. The poor kids are going to have a hard time adjusting to the many differences that there are between British and American spelling and pronunciation. Oh well. Not my problem.

The old saying "April showers bring May flowers," also holds true here in the Dominican Republic. This past weekend has been the rainiest I've experiences in all my time here. (that includes hurricane season).

This weekend my friend Albena and I drove to Santo Domingo for the Aventura concert. This is a good 4 hour drive. We stopped in La Romana to grab a coffee and a palmera... I ended up getting on a road that turned into a one way. Driving the wrong way on a one way where there isn't even enough room for one car is a bad thing. Luckily we made it out of there alive.

Just outside of Santo Domingo it started to look like rain. We called ahead to see if it was raining and got a no, so we continued. The clouds turned orange and purple. You can imagine the storm we got while driving through the capital. Making matters worse it was Friday and everyone (literally everyone) returns back to the city. Problem 1: it was a down pour and I couldn't see. Problem 2: Bumper to bumper traffic. Problem 3: the road lights were turned off. Problem 4: we got stuck on a detour and didn't know where we were. SO here's what happened because of all of that. First we got stuck in a traffic jam and ended up being rear ended by a mini-bus. We couldn't get out of the car first off because what would we do, demand he pay us? and second because it was pouring out. Then because of all the water the available land and drainage systems were overloaded with water and the water started pouring into the streets. It wasn't too bad at first, but the water kept coming and coming... pretty soon it was splashing over the windsheild. For a good 15 minutes we were in water up to the door handles. The car was floating at times.... if you thought it couldn't get worse, the car filled up with water almost up to my knees in the front and in the back it was full all the way across where people put their feet. I was literally driving with one hand and with the other tossing water out of the car with a cup AND honking the horn to try and keep the bus in front of us moving. I knew that if we would stop we wouldn't get started again. Why didn't I pull off the highway? Well, there was no where to get off, walls on both sides. As soon as we could get off the road I did. We found out today that where we waited for 2 hours for our dominican angels to arrive is one of the best places to get mugged, car jacked, and find prostitutes and drug addicts. We're lucky nothing happened.

As I said our Dominican Angels came and picked us up. We ended up staying in a hotel instead of with our friend. She couldn't figure out how to help us (or even cared to) so we had to ask people we met a few weeks ago to come and help us. They ended up helping us out more that weekend.

The next day, guess what happened. We got all dressed up to go to the concert. While waiting outside I thought I felt a few sprinkles. Needless to say, by the time we had finally gotten into the concert with a beer in hand waiting for the show it started to rain. And rain. And rain. And rain. We waited an hour and 45 minutes in the pouring rain for it to let up, but it just got worse. Lightening and thunder too. We had no coat, no umbrella, no plastic bag to cover ourselves, and NO SHELTER TO GET UNDER. I was soaked to the bone. Not a single piece of my body was untouched by the rain. It was ridiculous. So in heals and all we walked out of the concert to try and get a taxi home because of the weather. :( so no concert for us. Then I realized that I only had one pair of pants with me which were soaked... so no night life either that night.

I forgot to mention that while coming into the concert the security guard took my battery pack for my camera and while coming out told me that she lost it. So now, I have no way to use my camera.

AND while we were leaving for the concert Albena got stung by a bee.

So Sunday morning we woke up early and decided to get the hell out of dodge. We had had enough of the SD for one weekend. Albena and I took a taxi to where we needed to catch the bus. We get there, realize we have no cash and that they don't take cards so we had to leave and find an ATM. While walking to a store Albena's shoe broke. So I left her on a corner with the bags by herself so I could go get the money. Finally we got back, got out tickets, and came home (where almost upon arrival it began to rain).

Today we learned that the bus stop we left from is known for trouble and extremely dangerous. half of the people that go there apparently get either mugged or assaulted in one way or anything. The location is known for it's concentration of drug dealers and prostitutes. Good thing we were there during daylight. And yes, I do realize that I left Albena waiting on a corner. Good thing no one wanted to screw with us!

Moral of the story: even when you think it's bad, thank your lucky stars it isn't worse.