Hurricane Matthew October 3-7

For three days we were under house arrest as caution for the hurricane. We were all prepared for the worst, but when the storm came we were protected by the mountains and got almost nothing. On Wednesday we were supposed to start teaching again, but only about five kids showed up so we decided to cancel classes for the week. The government canceled school the beginning of the week so most parents kept their kids home the whole week. I'm glad I got one day with some of my kids though, I was starting to miss them.
House arrest was a pretty obnoxious thing. Having 31 girls stuck in a house together for multiple days gets quite old. We played lots of card games and watched movie after movie on whatever laptop was charged. If you know me you know how much I dislike not having things to do.. So I started writing and researching poetry, practicing cursive(it's a dying art), playing the guitar, practicing the uke, and listening to audiobooks. Most of the girls thought I was crazy for researching poetry, and maybe I am, but I think it's fun. I'm not sure any of my poetry is going to see the light of day enough for others to read, but it's giving me something to do. As for the musical instruments, I'm just hoping that by the time I go home I can have enough songs down to entertain passengers.
Anyways, back to the hurricane. The other side of the island was hit hard while somehow we ended up with just light rain and wind. We really got lucky. It was harder to stay home since the weather was nice, but if the weather was bad we would have had more problems. Our neighbors houses flood just about every time it rains here and that storm could have done a lot of damage had it hit hard.

On Friday when our house arrest was lifted we decided to go to Pueblito. It's a beach just on the other side of town. We took a guagua there. On the way I sat by an older gentleman and he happen to speak some English. It was fun to talk to him and I wish I learned his name. At Pueblito there are lots of little souvenir shops by the beach and every shop owner tries really hard to get you inside. We looked through so many shops before we could go sit on the beach. I only bought a few things.. We had to barter with the guy selling chair spots. He wanted way too much money from us and all we wanted was a chair and umbrella. We gave him the little amount we offered and he stormed of all upset we wouldn't pay more. We spent the afternoon there building sand castles, reading, and playing in the waves. This is the first beach I've been to here that actually has waves. It was great! We came home to find that we had a problem with our water system and there was no water in the house...

Adventures of the week: hurricane watch, no water, trapped in house, thunderstorms, no school, blisters, cuts, lizards, and more power outages.