Survived the first week!

Hola amigos! It is only by God's grace that my team and I survived the first week of STINT here in Santo Domingo! We have spent the majority of the week trying to get settled as best as we can. I feel a lot more at "home" now that I'm not living out of a suitcase! My clothes are put away, the dishes in our kitchen are nice and clean and my bathroom doesn't gross me out anymore after getting a new shower curtain. My bedroom still doesn't have AC, but Edward (a guy that has been fixing things in our apt) has been working on it. Yesterday he spent 3 and a half hours trying to fix it. Bless his heart! My sweet roommate, Karly, let me sleep with her last night since she has AC in her bedroom. So thankful for her! My body didn't know what to do when it got cold!

We have made countless trips to La Sirena, a relatively new supermarket. I decided this will be my new "Target" since every time I go in there I always end up buying more stuff than I intended on buying. I'm officially Dominican because I got a "bonus" card! They have a lot of US products at the grocery store but it costs a lot more unfortunately. It kind of felt like I was shopping at Aldi buying "off" brands.

I finally ate rice and beans!!! It was the Platos del dia (Plate of the Day) at a restaurant near campus. $120RD (Dominican pesos) which is about $3USD. I got a big plate of white rice, roasted chicken and a soup-like bean substance (?) One of the students got excited when I told her that I poured the bean "soup" on the rice. She said that's what you're supposed to do! I just did it because I thought it would taste good. Maybe I really am Dominican? I can't wait to go back to that place!

Yesterday, David and I went to a little store around the corner to buy 5 gallon bottles of water which is what everyone uses around here. We had no clue what the guy was trying to tell us, but I paid, he took the 2 jugs of water and put them on the back of his scooter and drove to our apartment. We stood there for about ten minutes trying to figure out what he was trying to tell us. Finally, we realized he needed 2 empty containers in exchange and thankfully the Foth's had some. Good to know! We were so incredibly thankful for the blessing of clean drinking water since we've been spending so much on small bottles.

We've been on campus meeting students and attending the Vida Estudiantil meetings. They have been so welcoming and giving us lots of grace as we learn Spanish. Some of the students speak English really well and I am thankful for them. They are such a fun group of students! I'm looking forward to getting to know them and joining them in reaching their campus for Jesus.

Hopefully next week we will be on a more normal schedule and start to get in a routine. We still need to figure out our language classes and who/when/where we will do those. We are all so ready to learn Spanish!

Tomorrow we are going to pick up our teammate, Ben, from the airport! We are excited for him to get here!

Paz y Bendiciones (peace and blessings),
Shannon