more training fun

My Spanish professor is hysterical. He has been teaching us la lengua de la calle, so we can improve out street cred. We also learned some fascinating insights into Dominican culture: men shouldn’t drink passionfruit juice, it makes you less manly, as does using an umbrella. Men shouldn’t drink red rock (a pretty nasty tasting soda), it makes you sterile. Men should also protect themselves from the harmful effects of copying machines and jeans for similar reasons. He also encouraged everyone in our class with significant others in the States to partake in the festivities of this country, because of the “fiesta del 4” – you and your boy/girlfriend should take another one, and then everyone is happy.
My host family is entertaining. I live with a single mother and her two teenage daughters (my host sisters… nada mas… although one seems to be deeply in love), but they are related to most of the people on the block, as well the host family of another Trainee. A bunch of people in their mid-20s hang out at my house with my sisters and cousins and they adopted me into their group, I have a nickname, they feed me cerveza, and invited me to the beach. I have eaten avocado at every meal since I got here. 3 meals a day, 10 days – that’s a lot of avocados. Boiled plantains often accompany the avocado. They are one of the more unfortunate parts of the Dominican cuisine. They also really enjoy sugar, salt, and oil. For example, to make eggs, the recipe is the 3 parts oil, 1 part eggs, put in pan, cook until center is still really runny and you can easily get food poisoning.
Dominican machismo was on a little too thick the other day for me, when several male friends and relatives were over, and my host sisters were obliged to give up their seats, fetch food and drink, and act as entertainment for the guests. We aren’t here to change our host country’s culture, but sometimes it would be nice if we could tweak a couple things. We also visited a public high school. The grounds were nice enough, but the classes were a huge mess. There are 60 – 70 students in each class that has 40 desks, they lack books for all students, and there is no order or discipline in the class. Certainly plenty to work on.