first week

This week has opened my eyes to a lot of things. The Dominican culture is a lot different than us in way, but there are also some similarities. I have noticed that they are very family oriented. They eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day together with lunch being their biggest meal. Their lunch is like our dinner. Walking around the neighborhood

near the place where I stayed, I noticed young boys working and doing what they can to earn money. I saw young boys working a pizza stand at a corner. Also, by walking around I noticed a lot of stares. In my mind I’m wondering they must be staring cause they never seen us before or we must look America. Walking around and riding through the city I think the city is beautiful. The poor areas are depressing and make me appreciate a lot. Children work to help take care of their families if they can. This is something you don’t see a lot in America. I like how the community is close and just about everyone knows each other. It appears to me that they value relationships with people more than the amount of money they make. Something that I had to get use to with living with a host family is that there hasn’t been a day

where I took a hot shower and to get hot water you have to turn on a switch. Also I had to adjust to being hot all the time and this heat is different from America. I had to adjust to the bugs and the mosquitoes eating me alive. Stray dogs and cats are everywhere and they look stressed and sad. I think it’s because they don’t know when their next meal is. I had to get use to the fact that you are not suppose to flush anything, including toilet paper in the toilets. When I first heard this I  thought it was nasty but then I realized it is because their toilets clog easy. I learned not to judge other cultures because that is what they are use to and there are probably things that us Americans do that they might find weird as well.