Hi Dad

Well its been a busy week for Luke and I. We have spent the last three nights in Manabao, which is a place way up in the mountains where the boys have their summer program. So we got to take a 40 minute ride way way up to where the roads are so bumpy every time you drive through you are sure you'll never make it (I've taken to praying for most of the ride).
We have made that trip twice a day for three days, and the road is so twisty that I get car sick every time. Its cold up in Manabao at night, but the view is fantastic. Theres a cottage on stilts that the boys live in, very rustic. Two boys in the summer program speak fluent spanish and so they spent a lot of time with the dominicans (the boys have been building a school all summer in Manabao and work with the dominicans).
So every night we have had dominican visitors at the cottage. Two nights we had bonfires with them, one night I played dominoes for a long time with them. Dominicans can play dominos forever. Dominican culture is big on hospitality, so basically if someone comes to your house they stay until they are ready to leave. But they dont get in your way. They sit on the couch, or sit by the bonfire and if the boys need to get stuff done the dominicans dont mind.
If there arnt a whole bunch of adult dominicans around there are at least 1-3 little dominican boys which follow the students everywhere.
One, Allan, has been there every night. We give him food, but he wouldnt eat until everyone is finished unless we tell him to go and get food. He must be no more than 7 years old. He reminds me of vinnie when he was younger. He wrestles with every student, and Luke too. Last night all the guys were pretending they would throw him in the fire. But he fights back with all his might and hangs off the guys like they really were his older brothers. His dad was also at our bonfire last night.
Luke and I will be offically in our house on Wednesday morning. That will be the first day we are running the house as houseparents. Today was shopping day and so Fiette (the housemother who is moving out and whose place I am taking) and I went into town together and shopped. I actually think I am going to really enjoy making menus for my house and cooking. You can get so many fresh fruits and vegetables down here, and I've already had one lesson from a dominican cook on how to cook rice and beans dominican style (the food down here is very very good).So I made up my menu for next week and now I just have to get into the house and cook it.
I think Luke and I are going to subscribe to MFI, which means we will be able to get mail regularly. When we subscribe I think we will be ordering a lot more things online if we do that, and maybe I could look and see if I could get some of those BBC miniseries for cheap. Down here its nice to have things to watch, because on your time off all you want to do is veg out. I think we will also subscribe to some magazines like national geographic. Its nice to have things like that here.
I was reading in an old national geographic the other day about Orkney, Scotland. Its the northern string of islands at the very tip of scotland. Someday Luke and I would like to go there. Most of the 'cities' in Orkney have the population of 5. It listed one island as having 1 family on it-haha.
We cant believe we've been here a month. We miss the soo and family, I am going to really miss not seeing Jakob and Joshua as they get bigger. They are going to be very different when we come home next summer.
But we are happy in Jarabacoa.
Its a nice little town, and we are starting to get around it more and get to know it. Its also nice because a lot of the staff who work on campus live in the town. We still wish so much that everyone could come down and see us from back home. We always keep thinking 'oh, this would be a great place to bring so-and-so'.
There is a fully functioning monestary very close to here. The monks make and sell bread. We'd like to go and visit them sometime soon.
The Dominican is so different from home but you feel very safe here. Everyone says hello to you and is kind and polite. Dominican culture is very friendly. The only thing is they party every day and so all night you can here Bachata blaring around you. Its never so loud you cant sleep, but the dominicans sure like to dance I can tell you that.