Actually, it wasn't my idea. Since there aren't any kids in the house here to bake for, I'd been planning on just eating whatever they fed me, but then my host mother started making comments like 'A couple years back, we had a student staying here who made chocolate chip cookies. They were really good. We all liked them a lot. He made lots of them. We really liked them. He made them for us. They were good...' So, eventually I decided to make cookies with them. It was fun. She had a recipe left by the other student, but its translation was kind of vague, especially for people who hadn't made cookies before. The difference in ingredients here, plus the high altitude, changed the flavor and consistency of the cookies a bit, but they were still quite good. My host-mom put the burnt ones on top (cooked with a thinner pan), then, when that ploy was unsuccessful, hid the cookies in the cupboard, to keep her kids from eating them. It didn't work. I think we're going to make more this weekend, since the other ones disappeared so quickly. We'll have to wait 'til tomorrow, though: my host mom and dad are both gone for the day, at a conference through some kind of organization they're involved in, to help strengthen marriages. Apparently a few times a year they teach a class through the organization, to help couples stay together.
Last night I went to the 'Bomberaton' ('Firefighter-a-thon'), a big parade and fiesta honoring the local firefighters. They had live music, lots of fire-fighters standing around in uniform looking bored, and a pirated version of Smokey the Bear wandering around, with a frozen plastic grin plastered on his face. There seem to be a lot of big fiestas here, to honor various saint's days, etc, all of which are celebrated with loud fireworks displays (last night's was the exception, I assume because the firefighters were off duty).
I went on a tour of the historical museum at Santo Domingo last weekend. I got one of the audio guides in Spanish, to practice listening as I wandered around. Two hours later, I'd finished the museum - but the tape had only gotten up to chapter 32, out of 96. I decided that I'd have to forego the educational experience of listening to the other 4 hours.
I also did my first load of laundry last weekend. I'd put it off longer than I normally would have, because doing laundry is one of the few things here that is not cheaper than in the United States - they charge $1.50 per kilo. Everything else is very cheap here. Oh, and the bathrooms are nicer than the French ones.
My Spanish class sextupled in size this week. Since both of the 3B classes were so small, they combined them together, plus they got 2 new students, as part of a big group coming from Australia. There's a surprising number of students here not from the U.S. or Canada. At the moment, we've got people here from New Zealand, France, Germany, and Switzerland, among others. Strangely, the Australians are easier to understand when they speak Spanish. One girl started talking to me in English, asking me if I'd studied Spanish at 'oonie' - whatever THAT means.
I hope you're all doing well.
Hasta luego!
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