Still recovering, suavemente.

And therefore mostly indoors.

You know when you cut a mango, you first cut off the two sides, or cheeks? There's a great life hack that I now use where you scrape the flesh off the skin using a water glass. The flesh plops into the glass, and the skin is all in your hand with very little waste. I like it better than cutting it in squares, trying not to nick the skin, and turning it inside out. You're still left with the peel to deal with. 

Regardless of how you deal with the cheeks, you're left with a few bits of harder to get off fruit stuck to the top and the thin edges of the pit, right? It's not a small deal here. This is a really big cereal bowl, and it is full of those bits. That's what I call a big, juicy mango!

I ate the cheeks yesterday and the day before.

This is an inverter and battery pack. Apparently the DR does not suffer from as many power blackouts as it once did, and when they occur, they are not as long, but the school has made sure that every household has one of these puppies. It will kick in within a second and run lights and small appliances for several hours. Our only responsibility is to check the water level in those white caps once a month or so, and top up as needed. Pretty cool.

After almost three days at home, I decided to test my strength by going to a one-hour merengue lesson at school. I had a ball! The teacher is apparently known throughout the country, and for some reason chose me to demonstrate. Here I am with all these gorgeous young thangs, having a ball. 

Carlos, the man in the green shirt, peeked in to see what was going on. Short of men, the teacher insisted that he join us. He kept trying to leave - he had our payroll to get out - but she simply wouldn't let him!

Now I'm at home, coughing and being very quiet and good.