Blakes In the Dominican Republic!

Time Gone: a little over a week (10 days)........ Time Left: 4 Weeks to go! (26 days)

Well this isn't Blakes words, but its mine from what I have heard from him.

Blake left June 29 late Friday night. Elli and I saw him off at BYU as he joined a group of 13 (or so) other students. He is doing a study abroad in the Dominican Republic through BYU studying teaching. There he teaches every day Engineering to 6th and 7th graders. (more specifically pulleys and levers.)

This is really fun for Blake because he gets to not only teach but use his Spanish that he learned from the mission. Blake has only been out of the country once before this trip (to Mexico for our honeymoon) so its a pretty awesome experience for him to jump right in and experience another culture and country.Blake teaches a few hours each day in the schools. He says the students are all eager to learn which makes teaching that much better. He also says that the school seems like an old military base, as it is small and basically just a cement building with chairs and tables in it. He also gets to take the class outside to teach because their is more room.

Because Blake only teaches a few hours each day his group has been touring around the Dominican Republic a lot. somethings he has done includes:
-exercising with his roommates
-spending all day at the beach - body surfing ( every one came back really sun burnt)
-attended the temple
-drove around and toured the city
-checked out an old movie theater
-celebrated fourth of July by watching the fireworks on TV
-attends church - where he gets to translate
-plays the game "Bang" with his group
-videoing: Blake is in charge of making a documentary of the trip for his group so he is doing a lot of filming trying to capture the trip

 (Here they made a cake for a friends Birthday)

(Pretty Awesome! -Climbing up a coconut tree!)

some other interesting things:
-only half of the group that went speaks Spanish, so Blake is one of the dominate speakers. His teaching partner has taken Spanish one in school but that's it.
-He needs to be taking malaria pills to not get sick but its causing him to get a lot more sun burnt then he usually would (everyone is glad he brought the Aloe Vera)
-Its really hot and humid there
- he has had some awesome rain storms that don't last very long but are a huge down pour - pretty cool.
- we get to Skype every night

When I talk to Blake he just seems to be loving it! I'm so glad he is getting this awesome experience!