Adventures of Reagan

Okay it’s been a while since I’ve posted so I’ll do my best to get you guys up to date. First off, I love my new kids! I’m now teaching 2nd grade rather than 4th, and oh boy it is SO much easier. Don’t get me wrong, the kids are still naughty and super hard but nothing compared to the 4th graders. Then I teach 4 year olds in the school that is in our house. We don’t have very many kids to show up, but in a way that’s nice because then we only teach 2 or 3 at a time which makes teaching a lot more successful. I really miss my old students. When I see them in the streets sometimes they’ll run up and hug me and it warms my heart. Other times they’ll just walk passed me and flip me off (not super heart warming). A couple weeks ago we all went to a Young Single Adult ward activity, and it was so much fun! They taught us how to Dominican dance and we all just danced together and ate pizza. Such a fun experience. I liked being able to hang out with Dominicans that were my age because i...

Well I’ve here for a month now! Crazy. I feel like I’ve been here for so long, but at the same time it has all gone by so fast. This place is starting to feel like home. People still treat us like tourist sometimes, and it gets really annoying. For example, yesterday we rode the gua gua to a city called Cabarete (funnest place btw), we had asked how much it would cost before getting on and they had said 70 pesos. Then when it was our turn to get off they let everyone else leave and closed the door and told us we had to pay 150 pesos. SO ANNOYING. And a little scary. People always try to do that stuff to us just because we are white. For the most part people are always really nice to us. We had our first day trip last Saturday to an island called Samaná. It was so beautiful. It was four hours away, but luckily we got a nice bus with AC. I think I slept better on that bus than I do in my bed here. We hung out at the beach all day then drove back. It was a nice little get away.  ...

I have been in the DR for 2 weeks now! Time is going by so fast, yet so slow. Teaching is still really hard. I will forever be so beyond nice to teachers, no matter what country I am in. Yesterday while I was teaching a little boy was saying "F you teacha" for the whole 20 minutes of my lesson. Then I taught the kids the word bully and they started calling him a bully and he chilled out a little. Why do they say the swear words so good, but they don't say anything else?! I guess it's still practicing English, right?  We have a long weekend this week so we won't have to teach Monday and maybe Friday, so that is really exciting. It will be very nice to have a break. I had a cool trip planned, but unfortunately some girls in my group got lice so we had to cancel our plans and it was too late to make a new one. Oh well. Instead of going on a trip I will be helping build houses or something which will actually be a lot better than going on a vacation. Last night I he...

       Today is my third day of teaching and oh boy it is HARD. I knew it was going to be hard, but I didn't know it was going to be this hard. I'll explain a little how it all works. We are given a category to teach, like shop, drama, art, gym ,etc. Then we have to write a different lesson plan every day to teach our kids. The lesson has to have at least 25 steps and last for 25 minutes, which doesn't sound hard but when you're making something as simple as a butterfly it's kind of tricky.      I teach at two different schools. I teach 3 year old from 10:00-12:00 in the morning. The 3 year olds either sleep during class or are super crazy and climbing on the table. There is no in between. They are also hard because they really do not understand English. I'll say "What's you name?" and then they'll just say "What's your name" back to you. They understand that they have to repeat what you are saying, but they have no idea what it ...

The last 48 hours have been so insane. None of it feels real...yet.  First off, it was a really long day of traveling. I had a flight from SLC to the New York during the night, then one from New York to Puerto Plata the next morning. Luckily for me I had a middle seat both flights (sarcasm because it actually wasn't lucky), so I wasn't able to sleep at all during either of the flights. On my flight to Puerto Plata I did try to sleep a little, but the man sitting next to me when extremely chatty! He offered to buy me some alcohol because he claimed that flying after you've had a few drinks was sooo much better. Don't worry I declined his offer. When we finally reached the airport in the Dominican Republic we were all exhausted, but so excited at the same time. We had to get our visa, go through customs, and get our luggage. I'm happy to say that all my luggage arrived safely. We had two vans pick us up then we headed to our new home. Let me just say that I...