Hurricanes and strong girls

This week was a bit chaotic and when I wanted to write my entry on Saturday, nothing came to mind at first. Although it was actually a quite eventful week!

On Mondays, for example, we went to a book fair with two girls from our shared flat. There were also many English books and a few German ones, although they weren't very interesting. However, we did get some well-known fairy tales in Spanish. We were a bit shocked when we found out that apparently not everyone knows 'Snow White', but we have to remember that this fairy tale is of European origin.

Anna and I have been feeling under the weather all weekend, and on Tuesday we went to school, but were sent home after the first period and stayed home on Wednesday as well. But with some rest and plenty of onion soup, we quickly felt better.

On Thursday, we met the brother of the orchestra director at school, who will be staying here for three months to help us. He is a fantastic violinist who has traveled a lot around the world and speaks several languages, including luckily German.

On the other hand, we have taken up learning Spanish actively again this week and are currently trying to get by in our "casita" (the house where we live) without using English, or at least as little as possible. One of the girls has even agreed to learn Spanish with us.

As girls here in the Dominican Republic, we are not expected to have much physical strength. I can almost understand if I get surprised comments when I carry a table alone. But when I carry two chairs, it almost makes me mad. And it's not just the men who are surprised, but also the women. But it seems that it's really not common here for women to carry things. Dominik once made us carry something and got scolded for it by one of the other guys, because the box, which one person can easily carry, and the cables were too heavy for us. I must admit that I almost enjoy carrying extra heavy things just because it annoys the others. (Does that make me a bad person? :D )

This week, we also had a birthday to celebrate in our casita. Initially, there were many plans, but in the end, we actually just went out to eat together.

Yesterday, on Sunday, we spontaneously went to the mall because the other girl's class was canceled. (more on that later)

It was really fun to go shopping again, even though suddenly everything seemed too expensive, which would have been completely normal in Germany. This is probably because money is not constantly and readily available here. Nevertheless, I bought a top and a pair of pants, both of which were discounted.

Maybe some have already noticed, but there is currently a hurricane over the Caribbean. Its name is Matthew and it is supposed to be Category 5, the strongest in 9 years. So far, we haven't experienced much of it here, except for the fact that today there have been strong rain showers all day and it's almost cool for the first time. Until now, I believed that I would never be able to wear my sweatpants here. Well, in any case, we also don't have school tomorrow because of it.

However, it could get quite boring if it continues to rain like this. We can't go outside then and I've already cleaned my room today. While doing so, I sorted through all the old things left by our predecessors and regretted not doing it earlier. They left many useful things for teaching that we didn't find when we quickly looked, but they also left materials for learning Spanish.