Thursday!

Today we got 5 interviews again today, which brings our grand total to 10. I interviewed one man today, just to mix things up, even though I''m focusing on women. He runs a barber shop, where all the macho men hang out in town. I did my first microenterprise visit today and it was so cool. It was a woman who opened her own colmado and she had bought a fridge with her microloan. She was so excited to show us all that her store could hold and even gave us a cold drink because it was especially hot today. She also invited us into her home, where we met her 5 ninas and their children. They were all very cute. Dominican babies may win the race for my heart vs the african babies. There were so many cuties that all I could hear in my head was my friend (and fellow foreign baby lover) Esther Chou saying “I want dems!” She talked to us for a long time and explained many things about domincan living. We were outside of the city today in the campo, the countryside. It looks very different than the city center, the houses are much farther apart and made out of corrigated tin like they were in the townships. There are lots of animals: cows, horses (FINALLY my rosetta stone payed off when I could say un cabillo!) dogs, chickens, pigs and goats. We also saw a lot of fruits, some of them, I dont think we have in the US and I certainly dont know the english word for it. But some of the borrowers gave us fresh mangos from their backyard. They were very tasty, but learned the important lesson of washing fruit. Yikessss. We came back to the office and then we went back to Sofia's. Sofia is a wonder woman. She started a pre school for children in the poorer section of town. She saved and built little by little for 5 years to build a school for them. Before that, she held it at her house and in churches. Tess and I can't walk anywhere with her because it takes twice as long, because she knows and loves EVERYONE in the neighborhood and they know and love her right back. All the kids come running up to her amiga! Amiga! And she'll slip them a few pesos so they can go buy a lollipop. So Tess and I went to help clean and organize some things. In the school, Sofia put in a water purification system so that they could use the taps at the school. Because it was more rural, and we had to walk along dirt roads to get there, pure water delivery service is unavailable. So, she sells the pure water to the neighboring community at cost, which is less than the water delvery would cost. HELLO SOCIAL BUSINESS MUCH? Sofia might be my favorite person in the DR right now. Anyway, we cleaned off sewing machines, which was cool because I've been wanting to see what they use out here. They are all foot powered, like the ones I've seen in textbooks from the 1940's. Sofia, because she knows I'm interested in the level of technology, took me by a tailor, which is a profitable business because all school uniforms must be tailored, where they had the same, although newer looking, type of sewing machine. We also met the cutest little boy named Lorlando who was playing by the school. He was very friendly and the funniest thing about him is when he got excited about things he screamed them. He was throwing rocks into a hole and I said como pelota! And he was so tickled by how I said pelota and laughed and said PELOTA, PELOTA. When we said goodbye, he said Adios Daniella Adios Theresa Adios Sofia! Adios Adios! And yelled goodbye to us for a long time. We could still hear him even when we couldn't see him. He was funny. Tonight we're going to hang out at the pizza place, which is like the spot to hangout at night because they play reggaeton music and eat non dominican food. Tomorrow is my last day in Hato Mayor and then we go to the west, for white water rafting, waterfalling and canyoning this weekend!!!