"But if we have food and clothing..."

"But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that." 1 Timothy 6:8

I was afraid his bones were going to bust through his skin. His dark body looked like an X-ray sheet, with skin so thin that all his bones were visible. He lay on the ground naked. Bare and barren he stared up into the sky as if asking “why” with full, opened eyes pleading in perplexed agony for an answer to his one question as if he was in a conversation with his creator above. I’ve never seen anyone so skinny.

I was out with my reporter that I shadow at my internship, Julio Caraballo, when we saw this homeless man without clothes starving on the street. Our original story was intended to be at the hospital but we stopped when we saw this man. Julio approached the man cautiously as a crowd began to form and stare at this homeless man in all his nudity. A white sheet lay to his right side and he weakly pulled it over him to cover himself. He looked embarrassed and ashamed to have all these strangers staring, but he was too frail and weak to lift himself.

“What’s your name? Where are you from?” Julio asked the man gently. The man didn’t respond. Now that we were closer I saw a plate of food to his left side probably given to him by someone out of kindness. Flies buzzed over the food and over his body but he was too weak or maybe he just didn’t care enough to swat them away, maybe he knew they would eventually return again. Looking at this man I was in awe. How did he get like this? What happened to him? Was he going to be okay? I wanted to help but what could I do? I reached in my purse to give the man some pesos but the camera man, Christian, told me to put my money away. It was pointless to give him money because he didn’t have clothes or shoes. No one would allow him to enter their store in order to buy things. Laying money next to him, someone walking by would probably just take it.

“Do you have any family?” Julio asked, still trying to get this man’s story. The man turned his head away from the mic as my heart turned in my chest. He seemed disarrayed couldn’t help but think, yes we are trying to cover his story, but how are we helping him? We have a camera filming him and everyone is staring but what are we actually doing for him to possibly save his life? The man still wouldn’t speak. His dark wide vacant eyes just continued to look up, and then we left.

That same day we left the city and traveled to the outskirts of Santo Domingo to cover a story about this community police force in the community. We passed children walking home from school on the dirt roads and passed shacks that were their houses. Men sat outside playing Dominoes and sitting on their porches in conversations as more children ran by. The unemployment rate in the Dominican Republic is 15.1% (2009 estimate) and driving round in the streets you see a lot of people doing nothing. The houses aren’t air conditioned so it’s cooler to be outside during the day, so they just appear to be sitting around, doing nothing. Looking at their community from the window in the truck I was riding in, I wondered if they were happy. For some reason, America, in all its vast idealization of materialism as idols of self-worth, has brainwashed us into believing that the items we own determine our happiness. But Americans have more wealth and materials than a “third world country” (I hate that term) like the Dominican Republic, and we still have people with all the items in the world that are depressed and unhappy.

According to the World Health Organization from 2008, the United States had 11.1 suicides per 100,000 people compared to the Dominican Republic which had 1.6 suicides per 100,000 people. In fact, Central and South Latin America have the lowest suicide rates overall in the world and these are the countries that most of the world powers countries look down upon because their lack of “modern developments”. Is it really THAT big of a deal that people are living in places without hot water or air conditioning? If you never knew of something “better” that existed, you would be perfectly content because that is the only thing you knew. Henry David Thoreau says it best:
As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler; solitude will not be solitude, poverty will not be poverty, nor weakness weakness.

So I wonder who’s really better off. Us or them?


Our affluent society contains those of talent and insight who are driven to prefer poverty, to choose it, rather than submit to the desolation of an empty abundance. ~Michael Harrington


Here's a Video of what I saw:

Welcome to Paradise

When we arrived at the island, butterflies greeted us. They swarmed around us like snow in a winter blizzard, so vast in numbers that they looked more like fallen leaves then butterflies. But the only trees around us were palm trees and we were far away from any winter storm. When I tell you that we went to paradise, I am not exaggerating.

My day started at 5:00 that Saturday morning as I woke up and began my day with my newly acquired routine Bible study. Every morning I have been waking up earlier to begin my day with prayer, and then I open my Bible and read and ask God to help me take away the message that He wants me to understand. That day I was reading the book of 1 John (which is one of my favorites because it is all about how God is love) and the verse 1 John 3:18 really stood out to me:

“… let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth.”

I immediately began to think of my friend, James*. He recently told me that he discovered his parents are separated and are considering a divorce. James is a student in the DR program with me, and he feels lost. He never would have imagined in a million years that his parents would divorce and here he is in the DR, helpless to do anything about the situation. “All I want to do is go home,” he told me with a voice that sounded like a sigh full of a heavy longing for comfort as his eyes slid past mine, drifting away into his own thoughts. With this memory in my mind, I flipped the page in my notebook, picked up my pen, and began to write James a letter. Today we were all going on an excursion to Isla Saona and I wanted him to enjoy himself and not worry about situations that were out of his control. So I did the one thing that I do best. I wrote.

I arrived to campus around 7 am and quickly claimed my seat on the bus for the 2 hour ride to the island. I slipped James the letter that I wrote which included Bible verses about the love God has for him, how things will all work out for the best, and how if he ever needed to talk I was here for him. A couple minutes later I was captured into his warm embrace and he thanked me sincerely saying how at the exact moment I gave him the letter, he was beginning to feel sad and was thinking about his parents. God is good.

Two hours later, we were taking a motor boat out to the island. With our bright orange life jackets on, we screamed and laughed in excitement while riding over the clearest ocean water I have ever seen. It was light blue and turquoise, sparkling under the sun like a sea of gems. We couldn’t have picked a more beautiful day. The clouds in the sky were white, fluffy and shapely, placed specifically to decorate the sky like jewelry adorns the body. The motor boat stopped halfway to the island where the water was shallow and we were told to jump out of the boat and take a moment to swim. So we did. We took off our life jackets, striped down to our bathing suits, and jumped into the Caribbean Sea. It was amazing! The water was as clear as a sanitized swimming pool and was only about 4 and a half feet high, so it stopped at my chest. The salt in the ocean burned our eyes, but we were so ecstatic that we didn’t mind. I felt like I was in a dream, the beauty of this place was surreal. And just to add the Dominican feel to this moment, I have to mention that one of the boat drivers brought out a bottle of Rum and was pouring plastic glasses full so half of the students on my trip were sipping rum in the middle of the Caribbean at 11 am. Like I said, surreal.

We got back on the motor boat and about 15 minutes later we arrived to Isla Saona (Saona Island) which is a tiny, remote island off the Dominican Republic’s coast and that is sometimes used to film movies that need a “deserted island” setting. It looked like an advertisement for heaven. Soft, white sand, crystal clear water, palm trees surrounded by butterflies; I felt like I was in a postcard. The beauty of Isla Saona was unbelievable. The only thing on the island that we saw other than its own nature were beach chairs, a volleyball net, and two picnic covering areas. Under one covering people were dancing salsa, bachata, and merrengue, and under the other was food. There weren’t any hotels, no roads, no pollution, just pure beauty. There weren’t even that many tourists. There were about 100 people that we saw on the island in total but we had our own strip of the beach to ourselves including an open bar with as much rum and beer as you want. I spent the day in the water soaking up a golden tan while delighting in God’s majesty. I could have stayed there forever, just me, the sun, the beach, and the butterflies.

While my friend, Arcena, and I were playing in the water, a man joined us. He had brown hair with blue swimming trunks and shades on his face and started a conversation with us in Spanish. We found out he was an Argentinean on vacation. We then proceeded to have a full conversation in Spanish! The conversation flowed so naturally that I forgot I was speaking Spanish. A couple other tourists from Brazil joined our conversation except they spoke Portuguese. I spoke to them in Spanish since it is similar and they were amazed when I later told them that I was actually an American and my primary language is English. So here I was, in the Caribbean ocean off the coast of the Dominican Republic having a conversation in Spanish with a man from Argentina and a Brazilian who spoke Portuguese. I still can’t believe it.

As the day progressed, the other students in my program quickly became drunker and drunker from the free rum and soon became very entertaining to watch. A couple of them were sprawled out on the shore, passed out from too many shots of the cheap rum. One girl was crying on her beach chair and speaking nonstop slurred Spanish while proclaiming how beautiful the island was, it was quite sad and yet hilarious at the same time. I didn’t want to leave, but soon it was time to get on the boat to go back to our foreign homes. So I waved goodbye to my isla de paraiso from the sail boat we were taking back to the bus. I discovered on this sail boat (my first time ever on a sail boat) that I am susceptible to seasickness and that I prefer to swim in water rather than ride on top of it for too long.

The excursion to Isla Saona made me happy to be doing this program again. My homesickness was an inevitable phase, but now I’m ready and excited to continue my studies and finish off my program strongly. That one day made everything I’ve experienced thus far worth it. I’m learning to do everything that I wanted; to love others, to grow closer to God, and to speak Spanish. Isla Saona helped show me that I am maturing into the person I’m supposed to be. It was a little piece of heaven that God left here on earth, and there, on that beautiful, glorious Saturday, the butterflies carried a glimpse of the blessings that await me on their wings.

-The Girl with the Monkey Mind

Al Menos mi Espanol es Mejor

My Spanish is improving. With class 3 hours a day and then my internship for about 6 hours after class, my nights typically end with my brain spinning faster than Dorothy’s house in the twister from the Wizard of Oz. Some days I even catch myself thinking in Spanish. Well, it’s more like Spanglish, Spanish with some English thrown in, but it’s not intentional my brain is just becoming accustomed to thinking in that way. My English spelling is horrific. I’m glad I’m typing this so I can spell check otherwise anyone reading this would seriously believe that I suffer from dyslexia (and ironically I spelled this word correctly without the little squiggly red line appearing!). But I am able to hold conversations and understand when people talk slowly and are speaking directly to me. However when Dominicans speak to each other in Spanish I feel like I never learned Spanish at all because I still won’t understand a word they are saying.

I’ll be at my internship talking to my reporter Julio in Spanish, and we will be talking so naturally and without me thinking too hard that if he goes somewhere and then comes back, I’ll start talking to him in English because I forget that we were speaking in Spanish because I understood him. The educated Dominicans (also normally the ones with more money) speak much clearer Spanish that is easier to understand, just like in the US. The ones, who come from a lower-income neighborhood slur their words together, talk fast, don’t annunciate, and use slang words that are impossible to translate. They could be speaking Chinese for all I know. They say that Dominican Republic Spanish is the hardest Spanish to understand because it is like Ebonics in the US, also derived from their African roots. But if I can learn Spanish here, then every other type of Spanish should be a piece of chocolate cake.

Speaking of chocolate cake, I miss US cake. And ice cream. And cereal! Down here they eat Corn Flakes and call every brand of cereal corn flakes and I miss my sugary, cavity giving Captain Crunch Berries and Fruit Loops, Cinnamon Toast Crunch and Apple Jacks. All of us here are getting homesick. I haven’t had a hot shower in almost a month. I’ve lost at least 8 pounds since I’ve been down here. My host family has started to become more diverse with food, but I’m still just missing our American tasting milk, and hamburgers, and pizza, and spaghetti!

In class the other day my teacher brought in pictures of food for us to learn new vocabulary words. Then, he gave us Chinese food menus for us to pretend like we were ordering food at a restaurant. I am craving Chinese food. General Tzu chicken with broccoli and white rice, Shrimp Lo-Mein, my mouth is watering at the thought. But in class, I began to notice how much weight I lost. I gripped my hands around my thigh and was able to connect my fingers. I lost it. I stormed out the classroom as if someone insulted my mother. I went to the bathroom to breathe. I took a deep breath to calm myself down and realized that it wasn’t that serious. You’re just being dramatic, Alyssa.

I took another deep breath, walked back to my class and told the teacher, “Lo siento. Yo tuve un momento.”

I’m sorry. I had a moment.

"I am Strong, I am Invinicible-"

Do you remember in middle school when you were trying to pass a note to your friend in class but she wasn’t looking in your direction so you “pssssst” at your friend to get their attention? Walking the streets of Santo Domingo, that “pssssssst”-ing follows you wherever you go. You know how Mexicans whistle? Well Dominicans “pssssst”. It’s the most annoying thing ever. Because our ears are trained to automatically turn and look in the direction of the “psssssst” in expectation of an urgent request for your immediate attention only to find a dirty, perverted stare of a Dominican man whispering words in Spanish that I’m happy I can’t understand.

In my Spanish class, we had a discussion about these men and the way they treat women. Some people in my class think that Dominican men are only expressing their beauty and can’t contain themselves when they see a pretty woman and want to share their feelings. I disagree. The men here will “pssst” at anything with legs. Fat, ugly, no hair, no teeth, shoot she could be blind and only have one leg and they would still “pssst” at her like she was Halle Berry. The one Haitian girl in my class, Natalie, said, “You’re a woman.” Like because I was a woman what did I expect? Like the treatment I was receiving from men ogling me like I was walking pornography came with me being a woman was as natural as having a monthly period.

“And? I don’t care if I am a woman. God created Adam and Eve equally. I am not just some sex toy, I am a human being with a mind and deserve to be treated with respect!” I blurted this out in Spanish before I had time to realize how furiously I had reacted. I forgot that there are people in this world who TRULY view women as nothing more than sex, as nothing more than a pretty face and nice legs. I can’t imagine being raised in a country where these ideals and standards were prominent. I know the US isn’t perfect, and that there is still injustice and that some people still share these same beliefs about women, but at least in the US, I can file a lawsuit if I feel I’m being discriminated because of my sex.

I’ve never been proud to be an American before coming here, but now I’m starting to realize all of the simple freedoms we take for granted, especially the rights we've acquired as women. I miss you, United States.

- The Girl with the Monkey Mind

Sundays are for webcam

Me and my two year old cutie pie brother, Hosea.. I tried to give him some lessons about American dance culture

His first encounters with webcam

Isn't he adorable?

<<<------- Me and Darjennie

And You Think The Subway is Packed

My legs haven’t looked this ugly since I was five years old. They are covered in more scabs than a young Tony Hawk practicing for a skateboard competition. No, I’m not skating down here in the DR; however I am getting viciously attacked by the mosquitoes like I just performed an act of terrorism against their home. They are worse than the lotuses from the Egyptian plague. They are EVERYWHERE! In the house, outside the house, at school, in the movie theater they are even in my shower. Getting bit isn’t even the worse part; it’s the aftermath when the itching occurs. It’s gotten so bad that instead of scratching with my nails I use my scalp brush to ease the itches. So if you ever decide to visit Santo Domingo, bug repellent is a necessity.

Now that I’ve gotten that out, I realize that I haven’t been discussing the CULTURE as much as I should. So that’s our topic today. Be prepared for randomness because my brain has a tendency to jump (I told you I have a monkey mind), but here we go.

PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION: To get to and from school each morning, Arcena and I, as well as other students here, take a public car. The public car is a combination of a taxi and a bus. They ride up and down the streets and pick you up so if I need to go 10 blocks up the street it will take me and I just tell the driver when I want to get off. The thing about public cars is that you aren’t the only passenger. The drivers try to cram as many people in the car as possible, normally 4 in the back and two in the front passengers seat into a tiny old boxed 1990’s Honda. These cars are the definition of “to’re up”. The doors are literally hanging by their hinges and the insides are sometimes missing cushion. So you’re crammed into these little cars that could possibly break down at any moment with six strangers who only speak Spanish in 88 degree weather. Pretty awesome, right? I have officially been packed like a Mexican. I actually wish we had them in the US because they are extremely convenient. They are only 20 pesos which is less than a dollar and they run frequently so you don’t have to wait 20 minutes for a bus or pay $20 dollars for a cab back in the US. I just wonder what would happen if the driver got into a wreck and you got hurt, who would you sue? I think that’s why they are illegal in the States.

There are over 1 million Dominicans living in New York City. I now understand why they live there because it must remind them of home. Dominicans drive like lunatics! If there are two lanes, they create four. They run lights, I’ve never seen anyone use a turning signal, and motorcycles regularly drive the wrong way on a one way street. It’s chaos. But ironically, I have yet to witness an accident. Organized chaos is what my friend calls it.

The Dominican Republic is a third world country so I was expecting our money ,to be worth WAY more down here, however I was mistaken. The things down here are just as expensive as they are in the US if not more expensive down here. Especially the food and beauty supplies. I went to the farmacia (pharmacy) to buy some sun block and it was 750 pesos. That is over $20 US dollars. I think it’s so expensive because it is imported and since the US produces almost everything, it’s more expensive out here. For some reason I thought all countries were like us and that they had their own brands. They do have some like Rica, which produces their milk and juices, but they don’t ---> [public car driver] make nearly as much of their own materials as we do which is probably why they have more poverty and higher unemployment. If they had the funds to develop better technology to create and export their own materials they would be able to stimulate their economy however they rely on the US and other countries for most of their supplies. Gas here is about $6 per gallon... so next time it rises in the US, I will not complain!

-The Girl with the Monkey Mind

Soledad- I'm taking your job!

I am one blessed girl.

So I came to the Dominican Republic with absolutely no expectations, no hopes or wishes or grand plans; I just came because I wanted to study abroad. I signed up to take a Spanish class and a Community Service class so I thought I would be spending time helping the community at an orphanage with little skinny naked children like the ones on the infomercials or volunteering at a homeless shelter. I had no idea that this gigantic opportunity was coming.


When I found out that I was going to be interning at a Dominican Republic TV News Station, my heart dig a backflip. I was more excited than a die hard Californian will be if the Laker's win the NBA Playoffs. Everyday I will be going out into the city with a reporter and then in the evenings I write my own tv news script about the stories we covered during the day. Oh, and by the way, this is all happening in Spanish! No one at this company speaks English fluently (atleast no one that I have met) and my reporter knows only a few random words like "Let's go" and "Hello, my name is". Now if you don't understand my excitement, let me reitterate that being a reporter is my dream job so this internship not only looks fantastic on my resume, but is teaching me valuable information and allowing me to do more things than I would ever be able to do at a network TV news station in the States. I figure if I can master the art of journalism in Spanish, then just IMAGINE how insanely amazing I will be in English, my native tongue!

The craziest part about all of this, is that it's so random. I didn't expect to be doing anything like this while I was down here. It's like I was just strolling along the street and a winning lottery ticket fell on my head. I told my friend Greg how I felt about all of this. I told him how great God is because I didn't do anything to receive these blessings. This incredible internship and the imergence of such perfect friendships are things that just happened without me lifting a finger.

"Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart." Psalms 37:4

I'm just so thankful and gracious to Him. I'm overwhelmed with contentment right now. Even though things may be rocky sometimes, I've never felt so whole and had my mind be so at peace. Maybe God is finally helping that monkey in my mind rest for awhile.


-The Girl With the Monkey Mind

My Very Own Miley Cyrus in the DR

Check out me and my host sister being goofy-------

Or listen to her sing!!!

Yo Quiero Taco Bell

I cried two times since I’ve been here. The first was for God, the second out of self-pity. I decided to go with my family to their Dominican Christian Evangelist church and I loved it. There church was no different than a small Christian church you may find in the U.S. except the sermon was in Spanish. The church was filled with the Holy Spirit’s warmth and energy. It started with praise and worship songs, followed by a break out session, then more songs, then the Pastor spoke and then there was more singing.

I couldn’t stop smiling at this little girl who was standing up front with the band. She was the band leader’s daughter and couldn’t have been any older than four. She was dressed in an all pink outfit that read “daddy’s girl” across the chest and had two long braided pigtails draped over her shoulders. She stood with the other singers holding a microphone in her hand and was singing her little heart out to lyrics she barely knew, just moving her little mouth in the formations that produced similar sounds as the rest. The main thing about this little girl that kept calling my attention was her right eye. It was red and swollen and hung lazily on her face. I don’t know if she had pink eye or if that is just how it is naturally and I also couldn’t tell if she might be slower in the head than other kids her age. But the one thing that shone as bright and evident as the sun was the glowing love that she possessed. My eyes were glued to the passion she exuded as she sang from her big soul that fit snuggly inside her tiny frame. She grasped her microphone with more dedication to the word’s being sung to God than I have ever seen from anyone three times her size.

Another young girl that caught my eye was the friend of mi hermana named Bianca. Bianca is in high school and is very pretty. She was dressed in tight jeans and heels, typical Latina style, and carried an air of confidence like she would a purse. Complete with braces, a little acne, and lack of experience with makeup, she seemed like any other girl her age but yet she had an energy that everyone seemed to notice. She was one of those girls that lit up the room when she walked in. She seemed carefree and lovely. The type of girl you want to hang around and be friends with because everything just seems to go her way. And when she danced, it was ethereal. Her body moved with the fluidity of water. She was one of two girls dancing but it seemed the room was only watching Bianca. How her long arms encircled her head as she danced like long grass swaying in the wind, smiling the whole time with her braces beaming.

I watched her thinking in my head how much I wanted to be that carefree, beautiful, magnetic type of girl like the one twirling on stage before me. My heart sat heavy with sadness when abruptly, a voice in my mind said back to me powerfully, “You are. You are that girl, Alyssa.” And I just started crying. In the middle of their dance as the two girls came together in the center of the stage, tears began to flow as I realized that to God I was and have always been that girl that I so desperately want to be. That I am loved. That He has saved me and blessed me unbelievably and that truth, that powerful beautiful splendid truth overwhelmed me.

So you would assume that after having such a great connection with God earlier that day that I would have transcended into a place of self contentment, but ironically it didn’t. Instead later that same night my family tried to feed me arroz y pollo (rice and chicken) with beans for the fifth consecutive tonight, I bursted into tears once again. Half of the reason my digestive track was having a nervous breakdown was because of the adjustment to eating their food. I literally did the Charlotte from the first Sex in the City movie. My body could not handle eating any more rice, chicken and beans! I explained to my host mom my dilemma and she replied with a nonchalant “oh well” because that was what they ate every night because they can’t afford to switch up their food. So I called my REAL mother back home in the States and I felt better.
This experience is really showing me how grateful I am to be an American if not for any other beautiful reason than the simple satisfaction that I receive from our deliciously diverse food.

Theraflu to the Rescue!

I thought I was going to die. For two days my body ached, my head hurt, and my stomach was doing all types of disgusting things in conjunction to my digestive system that I’d rather not discuss. I had caught the Dominican gripe.

At first hearing this word I thought I was infected with the some sort of Dominican version of swine flu and that I was soon doomed, however I pulled out my handy dandy dictionary and discovered that gripe is the Spanish word for the flu. Although this illness wasn’t life threatening, it still was horrible. I sent my abuela to buy me my favorite medicine for this type of sickness, Theraflu lemon flavored and just tried to get my rest and sleep it off. My abuela apparently had alternate plans because she wouldn’t stop yelling at me. My cute little sweet tweety bird granny with pouty lips and a pouchy stomach, who pinches my cheeks, gives me tight hugs and whom I normally love turns into a Nazi straight from Hitler’s own personal army. Her finger waved in front of my face with her voice at full pitch speaking in a language I can barely understand all while I am feverish is not a good combination. Trying to translate a language while you’re sick is like a trip to the dentist, unnecessarily painful. All I honestly wanted her to do was shut up, my brain couldn’t handle it. On the verge of having an angry outbreak, I was saved by mis amigos, Greg and Arcena.

I was so happy to hear English I nearly cried in relief. They came to bring me my homework from class that I missed and make sure I was feeling okay. It was while hanging in my room on this sickly day that we proclaimed ourselves a trio like on the Lizzie McGuire Show. Do yall remember that show? With Lizzy, Gordo, and Miranda? Arcena declared herself Miranda since she says she has always been the weird friend therefore I became Lizzie and Greg became Gordo. Again, my picture perfect friends and for once I’m the main character. Greg started showing us card tricks and soon we had a game of cards going when my Nazi abuela came back and I was informed that I wasn’t allowed to have a boy in my room despite the fact that I was sickly, Arcena was also in the room, and it was 5 o clock in the evening. Oh and I was also informed that if I needed something out of the fridge, to ask my abuela and not get it myself.

Now I don’t know if it was because I was sick or what but I was quick to anger that day and these new rules made me even more upset. What harm is having a boy in my room at 5 in the afternoon with another girl in there. We clearly aren’t doing anything but playing cards. And I can’t go in the fridge if I need something? But when I first got here they told me to make myself at home. I felt my emotions running ramped and decided to calm down. This is their house and they are being gracious enough to have a complete stranger live with them for 2 months so I can at least respect their rules regardless of how stupid I think they are. What I think doesn’t matter sometimes; sometimes a rule is a rule. Now, the refrigerator thing really bothered me (how do you trust a stranger to live with you but not use your fridge?) But I decided maybe I didn’t understand clearly because of the language barrier and asked again. Clarity came. They weren’t telling me NOT to open the fridge ever, they were saying if I needed something particular to ask.

This small encounter seems simple, but it taught me a good lesson. Sometimes we tend to always think the worst and assume things because we don’t completely understand. We take what we know and distort it into what we believe to be true, instead of clarifying and properly communicating to find the actual truth. I think our pride gets in the way and it’s difficult for us to humble ourselves, and in result we ruin relationships by our own preconsumptions.

But anyways I feel MUCH better now. They next day I went back to school and that night felt so energized and happy to be healthy I spent a good thirty minutes listening to Beyonce and while dancing and lip sinking in front of my mirror pretending I was shooting a music video. It’s crazy how I was able to have so much fun that night, just dancing in my room with God in my heart and my headphones in my ears.

Hasta luego (and I PROMISE more culturally stuff coming soon!)

-The Girl with the Monkey Mind

I Should Write a Letter to the Author

Before I left for the Dominican Republic I went to Barnes & Noble’s to find a Spanish English Dictionary. But as soon as I entered the store, books beckoned me like they were prostitutes in Amsterdam. Each cover carried its own seductive presence that my curious, book loving self couldn’t resist. I spent over an hour strolling along the shelves full of literature. I flipped through the pages of any book that caught my eye’s attention with more excitement than when you are at an ice cream parlor sampling each flavor on a miniature spoon. The words spoon fed my mind.

I decided that I needed a good book to read over the summer. A “summer read” as most book lovers call those type of books that take you on someone else’s adventure as you lazily partake in from the comfort of your own chair while reading on your porch (or in my case, an apartment balcony). After some more browsing, my eyes rested upon a book with three words on the cover, Eat Pray Love. I was sure I had seen the cover before however I proceeded to turn the book over to read the description and discovered that the book was about a woman’s search for self during her travels to Italy, India, and Indonesia. Perfect! Something told me to buy it, so I did and I’ve been reading it since my arrival to Santo Domingo. I’m trying to rush through the book because I feel guilty reading this much English since I’m trying to become fluent in Spanish, but it’s just so good! But anyway, when I stumbled across this line placed halfway in the book, I couldn’t help but laugh aloud:

"Like most humanoids, I am burdened with what the Buddhist call the “monkey mind”- "

Stop right there. Until Mr. Miller said I had a monkey mind I had never heard that expression before in my life (and this is also after I chose this blog name) and yet, here it is, in black ink. Page 132, second paragraph, second line, first word: monkey mind. Some may call this ironic, others coincidence, but I call it God. He’s just at work as usual.

Mr. Miller told me before I left that I need to learn to focus in order to enhance my life. He assigned me with the task to figure out my goals and to focus on doing things one at a time. Now to me this just sounds crazy. How on earth am I supposed to just pick ONE thing to focus on and dedicate my time to when I have so many passions and interests? Then he asked me to do the unthinkable; to make a decision.

My teeth clench at this concept that is more foreign to me than when my host family gave me hot milk to drink with dinner. Learning to speak Spanish in two months sounds more feasible to me than learning how to be decisive. It takes me 20 minutes just to decide what I want to eat at a restaurant and that’s after I’ve already asked every waiter that passes by my table what their favorite dish is.

But nonetheless, this is my personal assignment for my study abroad, to focus on a single issue. My thesis statement still remains unknown. I feel like with a little more time and exploration of myself in this new country may allow my focus point to show itself to me unexpectedly, like what happens to the main character in my book. I know I’ve been giving you all a lot of personal information and you’re probably more interested in the culture, but I promise all out that will be divulged as well. It's just crazy how this opportunity is teaching me so much more than I would have ever imagined spiritually, socially, and intellectually. I’ve been so busy trying to get settled that I haven’t been doing too much exploring, but we still have 7 weeks to go. Until then I guess I will just eat, pray, and love.

Bonisimo!

-The Girl with the Monkey Mind