dominican journal

Last weekend I went to the capital to buy five new computers for the school. The old ones – which looked like were made by cavemen – were in a sorry state and only two of them still worked, so these new machines, with their sexy flat screens, have put a smile on everybody’s face including mine.

I’ve started teaching the older classes how to create a web page from scratch using HTML. They were all surprisingly enthusiastic and the results prove it. Everyone was able to create a basic page using different colours, incorporating images and formatting text. As boring as this may sound, it is actually a very rewarding feeling you get when you type what appears to be gibberish into Notepad and it turns into a nicely rendered page when viewed in a browser. My reward was that they enjoyed it, so I couldn’t be happier. Philippe says he’ll send me back to the capital next month to buy five more computers. This is great news because at the moment I take my classes in two separate groups and they still have to share a computer as there aren’t enough to round.

Life at Sophie’s is also hunky-dory. I get on so well with her daughter who, it has to be said, is the cutest two-year-old I’ve ever met. It’s been decided that I’ll be living with Sophie for as long as I’m here as it’s cheaper for everyone and it means I have some company in the evenings. It also means I’m in a fully furnished and well-equipped apartment with everything I need at my disposal, including a room with a view, a petrol-powered generator for when the power goes (la planta) and a washing machine.

Having said that, I’d probably be better off washing my clothes by hand because when I got home today I put a load in the machine and washed them with floor cleaner by accident. Thankfully Sophie noticed that my wash didn’t smell quite right and she added some washing powder. Next time I’ll read the label before throwing in half a pint of the first liquid I see. I do hope my clothes aren’t ruined, but if they are, at least they’ll smell good.