The end of the beginning…

4/24—So this is the last week of training here in El Seibo. Teaching another class on Tuesday, youth project fair on Wednesday, then we leave on Thursday! Craziness. And Friday, we find out if we will be working in a school-based lab or a community-based lab (although we don’t find out our actual sites until the following Monday). Very exciting. A little scary. But I’m antsy and ready to go, so mostly exciting.

This past week was good—Thursday, my Spanish class made empanadas and quesadillas at mi casa. Chicken and cheese goodness. And tomorrow we go to Playa Esmeralda once more! Hope the rains hold off—May’s rainy season seems to have gotten its start. Speaking of which, they told us that the cockroaches only fly in June, but a lot of them are flying already. Hmmm…I guess they aren’t on Dominican time.

Lots of updates…

4/19—So the beach went really well (as you all could see from the pictures, it’s beautiful). I did NOT get burnt—woohoo. Did get sick again that night, though, which we don’t need to go into. On to better stuff—taught my first class in Spanish on Thursday! Ah. It was long and stressful but very cool. I enjoyed it mucho. Teaching another one next Tuesday at the community center.

Also had another meeting with the APCD (the head of my sector) and the PCVLs (Peace Corp Volunteer Leaders) about site placement. Some people got a good idea of where they think they’re going. I definitely don’t think I did. I requested a small pueblo or a campo (i.e. boonies)—they seemed pretty onboard with that, but as for anything else, we shall see. Coming up soon! I’m pretty ready to get out and actually start my projects—getting a little antsy.

In other news, my Dona abandoned me this week as she has to travel for her job (gracias a dios). Thus, I’m cooking all my own meals. I’m going to be honest, it’s probably the best time of my life. For instance, today I made a tuna melt sandwich! And just one—no one was there to make me eat 5 of them along with viveres and a mound of onions. Serious excitement. I then attempted to cook a platano maduro (the really good yellow ones) for dinner. I ended up with Heather’s Dona pretty much cooking for me because I couldn’t even start the stove. But now I know how to cook platanos fritos (and how to start a stove with a match)! Says the girl who doesn’t even know how to make pasta. Ah, so much to learn. Excited to have cereal for breakfast tomorrow. And maybe scrambled eggs for lunch. Mmmmm…

BELOW...

...is a picture of all the volunteers at la playa Esmerelda!


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La Playa Esmerelda!

4/10--Tomorrow we go to the beach! Our trainer is taking all of us to la play Esmerelda for some relaxation. Woooo. It's supposed to have cool coves and stuff--I'm excited.



I'm 100 percent better and very busy--we're working on two projects in the community right now. The first, me and two other volunteers are going to teach an adult Microsoft Word class for an hour--in spanish obviously. Aaah. Should be interesting. In the meantime, we are observing the class to get a feel for the things they need to know.

The second is our group projects with youth. Our group is making a school newspaper at the local liceo (high school)! Very cool. I'm in charge of the Arts and Entertainment section. We had our first meeting yesterday. It'll be hard to crank out a newspaper by the end of the month but should be funfun. All for now!

"Mi hermanita mala!"

4/2 Host-brother came home from the university in Santo Domingo for Semana Santa. Went to the rio with him and his friends and Heather. A little dirty, but lots of fun. My hermano y yo tried to convince everyone we were twins, but for some reason no one was having it. 20-year-old Dominican and 23-year-old Caucasian American, what could possibly be the difference?
4/3 Got extremely sick. 4 times. In 5 hours. And other things I'll leave out. But recooperating. Nothing very exciting besides my crackers and boiled potato diet. Mmmm...

Que bueno!

3/28 Made it out here to El Seibo for technical training. Big town but a lot calmer and a lot more safe than Santo Domingo. Like it so far. My new host family is just one Dona. I get my own bathroom and it’s nice and calm and I can do my own thing, but it’s kind of weird not having anyone else or kids around. She’s only got me to talk to (inside the house anyway) and my Spanish is only good for a 20-minute or so conversation. Internet is harder to come by here without the training center’s free wi-fi. Went out to Discoteca WOW one night. Tried to get our bachata on. We’ve started doing our group diagnostic projects—interviewed some people about issues in town and had some jovenes make some maps of what they thought El Seibo looked like.
Had dinner at a Korean (KOICA) volunteer’s apartment with Heather (another PC volunteer)—we can only communicate in Spanish though. It’s weird to think that I translate my English thoughts into Spanish, say them to Odelia or Feliz (the Korean volunteers), and they translate what I said into Korean in their head. Feels like a lot could be lost along the way there. But very cool that a foreign language for both groups is what bridged the communication gap between us. A hen just freaking walked into my room so I’m going to go run away now!

(Update--got the hen out of the room, then it laid an egg in the corner of the room which my Dona cooked for breakfast the next morning.)