All following comments are not meant in any judgement, wrong are right but just are.


You know your in the DR when:

1) Chickens walk through your kitchen
2) Your on the bus and every body part is being touched
3) Everyone thinks getting wet by the rain is extremly harmfull
4) You eat 10 servings of carbohydrates a day
5) You hear bachata music playing at 7am
6) You hear bachata mucic playing at 5am
7) The lights/electricity goes out 2-8 times a day
8) It's 60 degrees out and people are saying that it's cold out
9) The most popular sport is baseball
10)Your mosquito net becomes your best friend
11)You can find sugar cane being sold on the street corner
12)The same 5 songs are played on the radio all day long
13)You see people carrying furniture on the back of a motorbike
14)You see a family of five riding on one motorbike
15)You see women with big rollers in their hair saturday and sundays
16)When your showering in your latrine and all of a sudden there's a random donkey eating right outside
17)Pigs have leashes and are tied to trees (for raising)
18)There are salamander like lizards everywhere that climb walls and ceilings
19)There are more motorbikes or scooters on the road than cars
20)When warm water seems like a myth
21)When you see someone walking down the road with a piece of branch leaves to shade from the sun in their hands
22)When you are woken up in the middle of the night from randon cow eating in your backyard
23)When the driver of the public van didn't put gas in the tank to reach the destination
24)When every part of the ground is used as a trash can
25)When picking your nose in public is common
26)When snot rockets is the main way to blow your nose by all
27)When the idea of waiting in line barely exists
28)When a 10-15 minute walk to somewhere is considered a long walk
29)Your able to grab and kill a mosquito out of the air with your hand
30)When it's a mystery to knowing when the garbage pickup truck will come if there is a pickup system

Well, elections season is almost over and i am counting the days. I won´t have to see how people line up for bags of rice and beans and oil given out by those who are trying to buy the people vote. This bag will only last them a few days. This is how it works, you go to the politician in power and/or the one that wants to take his place and ask him for what you want: a lavadora(washing machine), table, bed, or something else for the house. Whoever gets to it first gets the vote. Other volunteers in the campo have told me how the politicans go out into the country and right out checks to the people in hopes of getting their vote. So many people lack this awareness, and not think about the actual candidate. Others know what the process really is but continue just the same, and then complain later. Ok that´s good that you have a washing machine now, but what happens when their isn´t any water or electricity?

This time is actually pretty dangerous, being that many men carry guns with them throughout the day. At rallies, people have been killed from a dispute between a apposing political caravan. Just picture trucks with 10 5ft speakers going around town all day long playing policital advirtisments until 10 at night. I do have to say that they are pretty creative and catchy. Sometimes you might catch me singing a long or dancing. The converst popular merengue songs to policial campaigns songs by changing the lyrics but keeping the same rhythm.

The two main parties in my town are PLD(partido liberacion demorcratica)Purple, and PRD/PRSC(partido revolucionario Demorcratico/par. rev. social critiano), white + red = pink, the aliance, these two parties came together. The current president, leonel is with PLD, i live right now in a part that is all white(PRD), but across the street it is primarily purple party(PLD). It will be interesting to see who wins.

And i thought politics in the states frustrated me?