My Last Weeks Here

Hola Todos,
How is everyone? I can't believe I'm about to come home. I fly in on the 25th, 8 days from now. Wow, time is flying. I'm excited to come home but sad because of the friends and things I've been able to experience here that don't exist in the States. But a cool thing happened. I prayed for God to transition me back to the states and he's done a really good job at that.

Last wednesday we had a huelga (a national strike). It's a little different than the ones in Europe like Talia tells me about. Here, the whole town shuts down basically. There were no conchos so some of our classes got canceled and I couldn't go to my orphanage because lack of conchos. We were told not to go out that night because these riots get pretty dangerous in the streets. But mostly just in the poorer neighborhoods so we were fine for the most part. There were some shootings in Naverrete which is 20 min away from Santiago. I saw footage on the news of Naverrete and it literally looked like Iraq with the vacant streets and the random groups of men shooting anywhere and everywhere. I figured Mom that i'd write you after the fact to let you know I'm alright and only got shot 2 in the leg but it's healed now....lol. Fast recovery, what can I say!?!

I went to Ensenada Beach with Angela--the lady who cleans and cooks for our house. Yisette came too. Lol, this was an interesting trip to the beach...to start off the story we got picked up at the gas station at 6:30am on a motorbike. The guy took us to Angela and the bus that was going. We definitely took a yellow school bus. Now...let's get this straight...school buses are supposed to hold around 100 people, 2 to a seat, right?! well we definitely crammed in 200 full grown people. And there were 3 people in my seat including me, with me on the end...yes....one butt cheek in the isle. COMFORTABLE! not...and then there was a lady's butt squished up against my face/side for like 1/2 hour. what was SUPPOSED to take 1 1/2 hours took 3 hours. This beach is REALLY dominican. By that, I mean that there were absolutely NO tourists. only gringa was me. yay! what fun...lol....just imagine the looks. "Whoa, a white girl! never seen one of those before!? I'm going to talk to HER". If I stood in one place for too long, i'd have too many "new lil friends" if you know what i mean. Well I ended up meeting a guy named Roberto that officially gave me my first dominican love letter. LOL! It was hilarious...apparently I'm the most beautiful flower in the garden lol.

Today was my last day of classes officially (ok i lied, i have one more on monday night for a little bit). YAY! I've finished over 1/2 of my final papers for my classes. I don't really have final exams, only one. But it's not that hard, school here for the "foreigners/exchange students" is kind of a joke.

We had our last day at the orphanage. It was really funny because I gave the kids some conversation hearts with the messages on them. Well they made me translate them into spanish but it's pretty hard to translate some phrases that DON'T EXIST in spanish like "Sweet Home". They gave me the oddest looks when I translated some of them. Well I did fine saying goodbye until I had to give a speech and I just lost it. Tears just started flowing. Omgosh that was SOO hard to say bye to those kids. Looking at Yoanni's face as I looked at her for the last time before shutting the gate was just as hard as when I had to say goodbye to my boys at the park last summer. Let's just say yesterday was a pretty hard day. Plus my host mom took me and Yisette over for a visit at her's friend's house. Well, I don't know if you know what I mean when i say when you can just tell two people talked about you before you get there? I just knew she told her that i can't speak good spanish (yes...this is the VERY sweet way my host mom introduces me to others...nice, right?!...not). Well she didn't talk to me whatsoever. She only talked to Yisette even though I understood everything she said. She even asked Yisette "where's she from?" talking about me when I was SITTING RIGHT THERE. It really hurt my feeling but of course my host mom wouldn't understand, nor Yisette because I'm sure she didn't notice that it happened.

I'm enjoying my last moments here. This is officially my last weekend in the DR and I think 4 of us girls are going to roadtrip to Punta Cana to move in a girl--Saleema who is working there for the summer. We'll see how this random road trip goes.

See you all really soon! -Ciao, Natalia

Prayer Requests/Praises:
1. Praise: Wrote a lot of my papers already
2. that God would continue to transition me from the DR and make it easier to leave here
3. that he would bind satan because satan has been attacking me recently in my self image and my spanish skills/confidence.
4. that'd i'd be able to say goodbye to all of those I want to
5. Praise: I was able to forgive a guy from our program who has really made me mad and doesn't deserve any apology. It felt so great afterwards not holding a grudge anymore.