I'll meet you at the carwash

Things are still going well here in the DR. We've now been introduced to the public transportation system which consists of guaguas and carros publicos. Guaguas can range anywhere from small vans, to larger buses. They are usually falling apart and I have no idea how they are still running, but they do. You have to sit 5 in one row of the bus, which is really only meant for 3 or 4 people. The carros publicos are also falling apart and you sit 2 passengers in the front, and 4 in the back, making for quite an uncomfortable ride with seven total people in the car. Add to this the 90 degree heat and it gets even better. (DD brown, I don't want to hear anymore complaining about the CTA!) There are a couple good things about the public transportation system, though. It's really cheap and you rarely have to wait more than 5 minutes to catch a bus or car. It is chaotic, but it's organized and I'm starting to get the hang of it. There are no published routes or schedules, so everytime you get on you have to ask if it's going to where you need to go. They also have certain hand signals for each route, but I'm still trying to figure out what they mean, and apparently they change quite frequently.

The other night there was a fire in our barrio. No houses were affected, just some telephone lines. The crazy thing is that no fire department ever showed up and people just kind of watched. One person intervened by pulling the wire down in order for it to be extinguished. Mind you, this could have been a live electrical line but the person didn't seem to care. The cable is still on the ground in the street and has yet to be cleaned up by anyone.

Now, about the title of this post. There are a lot of carwashes along the highway. The cool thing about these carwashes is that they turn into bars at night. Everyone in our barrio went there on Saturday night and it was so much fun. Definitely the most fun I've ever had at a carwash. They mostly played merengue and bachata, but us gringos requested some reggaeton. When it came on, we all went to the dance floor and danced gringo style while being watched by all the Dominican people there. I'm sure we were quite the sight to be seen. On the way home from the bar we were craving some food, so me and my roommate went to the little corner food stand and got some amazing fried chicken and spaghetti, very Dominican...haha, but it only cost about $5 US and was fantastic.

This week should be pretty fun. On Thursday everyone goes to visit another current volunteer to see what everyday volunteer life is like. I'm going to the campo, outside of Altamira, which is in the northwest. It's just south/southwest of the tourist area of Puerto Plata.

Finally, my family makes the best juice ever. My personal favorite is the jugo de chinola, which is passionfruit juice. Everyone knows just how much I love passionfruit. I've had it on constant IV drip ever since I got here. Also, they make some awesome juice out of pineapples which the Dona tried to explain to us how she makes it, but my Spanish isn't good enough yet to understand. The other juice she made was out of these little cherry-like fruits (I have no idea what they are called), and they are very sour. I want to learn how to make all of these so when I get out on my own I can still enjoy them.

That's it for now...I'll try and update after I visit the volunteer this week. Hasta luego!