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. :)

1 comment:

Josh said...

So, let's say that hypothetically, someone were thinking about visiting the Dominican Republic...how would they go about that?