For the past week, the city of Santo Domingo and the Carol Morgan School have been having major power issues that have made life here, if nothing else, very, very moist! (http://www.luxner.com/cgi-bin/view_article.cgi?articleID=1463) Most people who have been here a few years think it is the hottest right now since they can remember: to wit, the humidity is constant and thick, the sun is large and oppressive, and people are generally beginning to unravel -- especially those of the student variety. Normally, we have two functioning ceiling fans and two functioning air conditioning units per classroom. These days, the AC units are out almost daily and the fans seem to make little difference as does opening the windows. The kids appear to be melting into their desks and it is definitely a challenge to keep their attention (good thing I am extremely funny and an excellent dancer (see Puerta Plata post below)). The ultimate frisbee crew still charges enthusiastically out to the field every Wednesday to perform their duty, but the injuries are mounting and the heat tolerance might be reaching a head. At the end of every play, those who are particularly susceptible to heat exhaustion or sunburn scurry like roaches to the nearest patch of shade -- pathetic gringos that we, I mean they, are. The one thing that has been my salvation in all of this heat is the sweet Dominican woman who brings me a huge glass of freshly squeezed iced juice (orange, pinapple, sometimes lemonade) for the astounding price of: 30 pesos a day (less than 1 dollar) - oh yes.
Another fun component of life at Carol Morgan School is the way that the power outages affect the technology that we rely on in our classrooms. You are using your overhead and the power goes out -- good luck and scramble quick to come up with alternative. You just spent 25 minutes working on a document or email and, hey, for the fifth time today, it's gone just like that. It makes for a lot of redo's. You learn to save often and breathe deeply.
In other news, Ailing's middle school volleyballers just won their first game this afternoon. The 10 year-old scorekeepers may have helped our cause just a bit, but a win is always a win.
