We ended CBT with a bang...what a great weekend to have a birthday! We had multiple "despedidas", or going away parties, with music and food and dancing and even made it to the beach again. Our weekend of eco-tourism activities in Parque Nacional de los Haitises was incredible as well. We stayed in a little hotel in a fishing town, took a boat tour through the mangroves, stopping to explore several caves, ate seafood every day, and swam in the natural pools at Cano Hondo, an eco-tourism resort. Basically, it was a nice vacation before coming back to Santo Domingo. Excited to be reunited with our entire training class, we gathered in a group last night to cook Indian food (the hottest entire plate of food I have ever eaten, but so delicious!) and I contributed a banana pudding as a palate cleanser at the end. It came out surprisingly well, thanks to our splurge in going to the Dominican supermarket, La Sirena.
Today was a BIG day because we found out our PERMANENET SITES and got our cell phones, which are nicer than anything I've ever had in the states. It even has a camera, ha! We can receive calls for free, but only have 100 minutes and 20 text messages to use per month, for emergencies like hurricanes and medical issues.
My site is a little mountain town of about 300 people in the far north, about an hour away from the beach. I have to do a diagnostic when I get there to find out the most important community needs, but I'll most likely be building ceramic cook stoves, water filters, community gardens, and possibly latrines. I also want to start a Brigada Verde (environmental) youth group and write a grant to get solar panels, if the community needs them. There are many other volunteers that will be near my community who will be great resources and project partners. We leave tomorrow afternoon to visit our sites and will come back this weekend to have our final swearing in ceremonies.
My training has really flown by and now I'm so excited to start my real job! Hopefully I'll have internet occasionally to keep you guys updated on my adventure.
Monday, April 28, 2008
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Who's afraid of the big, bad DR disease?
I wasn't...until it struck like a thief in the night. What I thought was a 24-hour bug turned into a 6-day purge-a-thon, and that's putting it delicately. It was interesting having a bug, or whatever it was, in a Dominican household where the walls don't reach the ceiling, the toilet doesn't flush without a bucket full of water, and I have a curtain for a door. As "chisme", or the Dominican grapevine, is especially strong in small towns infiltrated by gringos, news spreads like wildfire and I had many visitors within the first 24 hours, from Peace Corps volunteers to store owners to local kids. It's nice to be cared for, but I must admit it was a bit overwhelming when Tia Maria entered my room unannounced and issued a painful sounding prayer, presumedly for the salvation of my gut.
After several days of saltines and rice, I seem to be back to normal, which is a good thing because we have quite the weekend of despedidas (going away parties) and birthday festivities (I made it to 23! It's crazy to think I have two more of these before I'll be back to the states) as training is coming to a close on Wednesday. Next we'll head to Sabana del Mar for a few days of hiking through the Mangroves and painting murals with environmental youth groups before it's back to Santo Domingo to find out our permanent sites! After visiting our sites, we'll swear in on May 8th and then it's off the work I go...After a huge gringo party at the American Embassy of course. :)
After several days of saltines and rice, I seem to be back to normal, which is a good thing because we have quite the weekend of despedidas (going away parties) and birthday festivities (I made it to 23! It's crazy to think I have two more of these before I'll be back to the states) as training is coming to a close on Wednesday. Next we'll head to Sabana del Mar for a few days of hiking through the Mangroves and painting murals with environmental youth groups before it's back to Santo Domingo to find out our permanent sites! After visiting our sites, we'll swear in on May 8th and then it's off the work I go...After a huge gringo party at the American Embassy of course. :)
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
Hands-On Activities
On Sunday we returned from a weekend conference of Brigada Verde, a national environmental youth group, on the top of a mountain not far from my current home of La Cumbre. The site of the conference was called Diego del Campo and was absolutely beautiful. The theme of the conference was Eco-tourism, which I just gave a presentation on last week to my fellow PCVs, and the attendees were Dominican youth ages 13-18 generally. We organized fun activities and games for them, and they attended talks about ecotourism and presented the work they have done in their own communities, such as beach clean-ups and planting trees. On Saturday we climbed the highest peak in the Cordillera Septentrional (a beautiful mountain range in the DR) and now I'm looking forward to climbing Pico Duarte, the highest point in the Caribbean, sometime in the next two years!
Training is going very well. We've gotten to the very hands-on stage of learning, which keeps things interesting. Yesterday we dug up the earth on the grouns of Trujillo's old mansion (the infamous dictator of the DR from 1930s-1960s) and prepared the beds to plant seeds next week. Today we started construction on a stove for a family that will we finish tomorrow. The house is a small wooden structure with dirt floors and the stove, made from concrete and cement blocks, is outside the house as there was no way to put a chimney through the zinc roof. The goal of this project is to prepare us to build stoves in our own community, and I feel pretty confident that after watching/helping with a few, I'll be able to lead my own stove building projects.
This weekend I'm going with my family to Bonao, another nearby mountain town, to stay with my host mother's family. They're having an Hora Santa, which is a ceremony to remember the death of an important family member. Next weekend (my birthday!) we hope to go to Puerto Plata, a beachtown not far from here, for a little relaxation. In two weeks it's back to Santo Domingo for a few days, then a visit to our ACTUAL PERMANENT PROJECT SITES! I still don't know what mine is or what I'll be doing as my primary project, but I'm getting excited!
Training is going very well. We've gotten to the very hands-on stage of learning, which keeps things interesting. Yesterday we dug up the earth on the grouns of Trujillo's old mansion (the infamous dictator of the DR from 1930s-1960s) and prepared the beds to plant seeds next week. Today we started construction on a stove for a family that will we finish tomorrow. The house is a small wooden structure with dirt floors and the stove, made from concrete and cement blocks, is outside the house as there was no way to put a chimney through the zinc roof. The goal of this project is to prepare us to build stoves in our own community, and I feel pretty confident that after watching/helping with a few, I'll be able to lead my own stove building projects.
This weekend I'm going with my family to Bonao, another nearby mountain town, to stay with my host mother's family. They're having an Hora Santa, which is a ceremony to remember the death of an important family member. Next weekend (my birthday!) we hope to go to Puerto Plata, a beachtown not far from here, for a little relaxation. In two weeks it's back to Santo Domingo for a few days, then a visit to our ACTUAL PERMANENT PROJECT SITES! I still don't know what mine is or what I'll be doing as my primary project, but I'm getting excited!
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