I've arrived!!

Buenas tardes de Santo Domingo! I arrived in the Dominican Republic on Thursday afternoon. We immediately drove to a retreat center where we had an orientation and our first round of shots. One of our Spanish teachers stayed up sort of late with us and we were asking about Dominican slang. The next morning we headed to our training center, which is beautiful and full of flowers. All of our classes are outside under little open air huts. At the end of the day our host families came and got us. My host family is adorable. My host mom is super tiny! Then I have a 17 year old host brother Eduard who is very nice, but shy, and very short as well. Also, a niece is living with my family whose name is Carmen and she is 16. And the abuelita is visiting from New York. Now don't get any ideas, she doesn't speak any English so I'm not getting off easy here. Then there's a girl who is renting a room from my family, Cristina who is in her 20s and attending university. My house is very cute and I have my own room with a bed and a table and chair and some shelves for my clothes. It also has a cute little patio out front. We have chickens for egg laying and a couple roosters who start crowing outside my bedroom window at dawn. I can't put toilet paper in the toilet and the water pressure is . I have to drink bottled water and later on may have to purify it myself. My shower last night consisted of a bucket full of cold water and the bottom part of a liter bottle which I had to dump over myself to get myself wet, then soap myself off, then rinse. It took my breath away it was so cold. But I definitely felt better afterwards. And you guys are never going to believe this but I was in bed with the lights off at 9:30 last night. I got the best night's sleep I've gotten since I left home. I was so exhausted from being in so many places over so much time and transitioning to speaking Spanish most of the time. I was certainly glad I was in bed early when the roosters started crowing so early this morning. All right, more e-mails to write. I will post pictures soon. Les mando mucho cariño de Santo Domingo! I send lots of love from Santo Domingo!