Telephone Number and PICTURES!

Hey guys! The Peace Corps just gave me a cell phone for my time in the Dominican Republic. If you buy a calling card, you can definitely call (or text) me anytime.

The number is: 1-809-723-9939.

And finally I have put pictures up online. It's an extremely slow process in a country where high-speed internet is not very readily available, so be patient with me.

The web address is: http://picasaweb.google.com/LRams728

And the next stage begins...

So much has happened in these past 2 weeks, so here is the latest Peace Corps news.

All of the youth volunteers left Constanza on Saturday, October 18. We had all really bonded with that community so it was a very sad day. While in Constanza, I met my best friend in the country thus far: a 10 year old boy named Cley. Cley was my dominoes partner everyday for 2 weeks. He made me a beaded bracelet, accompanied me to church, carried anything even slightly heavy for me, and gave me a picture of his graduation from 3rd grade. It was so adorable. And so it was especially hard to leave him. On Saturday, he just sat with me and cried for an hour while our luggage was being loaded into the bus. Even his mom kept joking with me that I would need a larger suitcase to bring Cley and dominoes back with me to Santo Domingo.

And now I'm back in Santo Domingo for our swearing-in ceremony tomorrow. Apparently this is a huge deal with both US and Dominican Republic government officials, all of our host families, and the other volunteers that are currently serving in the country. Out of our group of 50, we have unfortunately had 6 people leave: 1 for medical reasons, and 5 chose to leave. Three of those were youth volunteers, so it's been a tough three months. But hopefully the rest of us are here for the full two years. On Thursday, all of us new volunteers are headed to a pool party at the US ambassador's private home! Not too many people can say they swam at both the embassy and the ambassador's house.

And then on Saturday I am headed to Baoba for good. I went and visited my site for 5 days and I am so extremely excited to begin. Baoba is gorgeous. It's a very rural, campo with just 4 dirt roads in the entire town. It's surrounded by green valleys and cow farms, and it's just so weird to see palm trees in the middle of these pastures. There's both a high school and an elementary school in the town, which is rare, and a great resource so the children in the town don't have to travel far to go to school. And there are two basketball courts, two baseball fields, and multiple Catholic churches. Also it is just a twenty minute walk from the beach! And actually it's not just the ocean- there is a river that runs into the ocean, which is so gorgeous.

The people in Baoba seem so friendly and ready to take me on as one of their own. I've made speeches in all of the classrooms and in three church services telling them who I am and what I'm going to do, and everyone tells me that they are going to take good care of me. There are also a lot of strong women in my site, which makes me so proud. These girls (ages 17-25) aren't married and don't have kids and they keep telling me that they're going to wait until after they study and start their careers before they start their families. Also the people in Baoba want so much from me, I'm definitely going to be busy. I'm supposed to teach English (since Baoba is a beach town, close to resorts, it would be beneficial for their tourism jobs if they knew English), start a sala de tarea (an after-school homework/tutoring program), create neighborhood watch groups, a club for women, and start basketball, baseball, and volleyball teams for both boys and girls.

Also, just so you guys know there is no internet in Baoba. Hopefully I'll be able to travel to the closest large city once a week to use it, but I'm not sure. But please continue sending me mail, emails and comments on my blog! It can get lonely here, and I imagine it will only get worse once I leave all of these Americans. I really do appreciate all of the encouragement and loving words, even if I can't find the time to reply back immediately.

La Noche del Cine

Below is the recap from my journal about last night's fundraiser; Please feel free to learn from the chaotic event that occurred:

OK, So we had our big fundraiser tonight for my pastoral juvenile group. And it was seriously a disaster. We began cooking popcorn at 4:15. In total we cooked 5 lbs, or 250 small bags worth. Angelo came over to help us out right at 4:30, and about 4 more boys came over 15 minutes later. At 5:30, Rachele, Angelo and I go to the church where we’re going to have the fundraiser, while the rest of the boys and Trenita and Regina stay to continue cooking the popcorn. We set up chairs, find extension cords, and set up where the projector is going to go, so everything was looking great. This was their project, and they were actually participating and helping set everything up. Yay!

Then the drama begins. Angelo tells us that the projector is coming at 6:45. The movie is supposed to start at 7. We were expecting plenty of time to figure out how to set up the projector, but now that time is very minute. Our fellow volunteers arrive first, at 7 on the dot, looking very American and wondering why we aren’t ready to begin. The projector has yet to arrive. When the projector comes – AT 8 P.M. – the room is full of chatty, energetic preteens and teenagers.

Once the projector comes, you would think that all of our problems would be solved, and we just be an hour behind schedule. Our problems are not solved. These kids are here for social hour. They paid their 20 pesos and now want to just hang out with friends and eat popcorn and drink juice. There was absolutely no way to hear any of the movie over their incessant chattering, and nothing would make them shut up. I do not know how many times I told someone “Sientate y Callete, (sit down and shut your mouth).”

After we passed out all of the popcorn and juice, the Americans slowly began trickling out. They were only there to support us, and I do not blame them at all for leaving that chaotic zone. Around 9, everyone left. I felt extremely embarrassed to be a part of this failure, frustrated at our pastoral juvenile group for not being more put together, and just annoyed at small children in general. And I felt that we should have given some of the money back to whoever bought a ticket.

I do not really blame our pastoral juvenile group. They made the arrangements with the projector and thought it would arrive on time. That was out of our control, as were the annoying children. There was nothing we could do about those factors. And the pastoral juvenile group was extremely gracious of our support, and I think maybe a little embarrassed that we were there to witness it. It was utter chaos.

Weekly Schedule

I just realized that you guys probably have no idea what I am actually doing here. So here is this past week's schedule:

Sunday

• 8 a.m.: Meet with my pastoral juvenile group to plant trees. This was actually an amazing project. Thirty-five kids showed up, which was about 30 more than I expected. And were able to plant about 200 seedlings.
• 5 p.m.: Meet with my pastoral juvenile group to plan our big fundraiser
  

Monday

• 8:30 a.m.-noon: Training seminar on family problems and how to resolve them
• 12 p.m.: Lunch
• 2 -4 p.m.: Give a presentation on sexual health (in Spanish, of course) to about 40 community members.
  
• 8-9:30: Go to a religious service conducted by my pastoral juvenile group

Tuesday

• 8:30 a.m.-noon: Training seminar on leadership skills and conflict resolution
• 12 p.m.: Lunch
• 2-5 p.m.: Spanish class
• 5-7 p.m.: Health seminar
  
• FREE TIME!: I played dominoes with about 5 boys until 11 p.m.

Wednesday

• 8:30 a.m.-noon: Health seminar on sexually transmitted infections
  
• 12 p.m.: Lunch
• 2-5 p.m.: Spanish class, where we watched the movie Voces Inocentes about the civil war in Ecuador
• FREE TIME!: Played dominoes with the same boys from 8 p.m. to midnight

Thursday

• 9 a.m.-noon: Visit a public school and sit in on two classes. One of the classes was first grade, and there was one teacher with 46 students. Needless to say, it was chaos. The other class was second grade, and the teacher had a lot more control over those students.
• 12 p.m.: Lunch
• 2-5 p.m.: Spanish class
• FREE TIME!: Played dominoes with the same boys from 8 to 11:30 p.m.

Friday

• 8:30 a.m.-noon: Training seminar on art therapy, and how art benefits both children and adults
• 12 p.m.: Lunch
• 2-5 p.m.: Spanish class
• 7:30-10:30 p.m.: All of the youth volunteers and trainers went to eat pizza. The most popular pizza topping here is corn, and it is delicious!

Saturday

• 7:30 a.m.: Traveled to the mountains to deliver clothes and food to a poorer community

Sunday

• 8:30 a.m.: All of the youth volunteers will go to Aguas Blancas, to relax and swim in an icy cold river
• 4:30 p.m.: Begin preparing for the pastoral juvenile's fundraiser
• 7 p.m.: La noche de Cine begins- We're projecting a movie (although the exact movie has yet to be decided by the group) and charging 20 pesos for entrance, a bag of popcorn and a glass of juice. The money raised goes to the group so they can buy new instruments (guitars and drums) for their religious services.
  

Vamos a la playa!

Here it is...the news you have all been waiting for...

For the next two years (starting November 1), I am going to be living in a small coastal town called Baoba. It´s a rural campo on the northeastern coast of the island. In case you can't find it on the map, the closest beach is called La Entrada, and the closest large(r) city is called Cabrera. I am so extremely excited about this because there were only 3 beach sites, and I got one of them! A youth volunteer who has been in country for about 1 year is living about 20 minutes away, and another youth volunteer from my group is going to live about 30 minutes away.

Instead of working with a formal government-based organization, I´m going to be working with the youth group in the town. The pros of this are that I will have a lot of flexibility and will be able to implement a variety of projects that I want to, without conforming to the rules and regulations of a formal organization. However, the cons are that the group will probably be unorganized and lacking structure. A large part of my job will be to work with sports teams in Baoba because there are some sports facilities in the town, and I will also work on building leadership skills with the older youth in the town.

Because I am in a beach town and close to many resorts, I expect lots of visitors! Come see me!

Mas vocabulario

Ok, I've learned some more vocab. words that I think are necessary for you all to know:

Gripe (pronounced gree-pay): I unfortunately have the gripe. It's a combination of flu/cold that is hitting all of us youth volunteers. I believe 14 out of the 16 have had the gripe within the past 2 weeks. The reason why we all get the gripe is this: We are constantly playing with grubby little kids. These grubby little kids do not have constant access to water therefore handwashing is not common practice. And to top it all off, the customary Dominican greeting is to kiss each other's cheeks, so germs are spreading like wildfire here.

Patronales: Wooo! It's patronales time! This is a 9 week party in honor of the patron saint of the country. And luckily for us, it also falls on Constanza's 101 anniversary. So for the past week there has been live concerts in the park at night. I've gone every night but one, and I have a great time. And it's a lot easier to go now that my "parents" just give me the key to the house and let me come home whenever. Mom and Dad, they're almost stricter than you guys with the curfew rules.

Bachata and Merengue: I mentioned lots of dancing at patronales. Well these are the two most popular dances with salsa being a close third. I absolutely love dancing. And what's great about this country is that the guys here love dancing too, especially with an american. At patronales, we usually meet up with some kids in our youth group and just spend the entire time dancing with them. It is so much fun, and I advise all of you who plan on visiting to start working on those bachata and merengue skills because I guarantee that we will go out dancing. (Liz, this means you!)

Campo: This may be the most important word in my life right now. On Wednesday, I find out exactly where my site will be for the next two years. However, I talked to the Youth Volunteer Director, and she let it slip that I will be in a campo. A campo is an extremely small, rural town. My director guessed that my campo will have about 200-300 people in it, which probably means about 50 houses total. And the positive of this, is that whenever you come visit just find your way to the town and ask where the American lives. I guarantee they will know exactly who I am and what I am doing at that precise moment.

Pastoral Juvenil

In order to get more experience working with youth groups in the Dominican Republic, three other volunteers and I have been assigned to help a local group here plan some type of activity by the end of the five weeks. This activity can be pretty much anything -- a community service project to clean up trash or plant trees, a sports tournament, or an arts project.

Our group is the Pastoral Juvenil en the barrio of Las Flores. This group is Catholic, and working with them has been extremely interesting. They told us that there are about 30 members in the group, including 10 girls; However, at the meetings there are usually only about 10 members and they are all guys. Also the ages of the guys in this "youth" group range from about 14 to 28 years old.

The group is extremely religious. We go to their meetings (there is one every night of the week, but we only go to about 2 per week) so that we can plan service projects, yet every meeting we have gone to is only a worship service. This is great because the guys conduct their own service by playing the guitar and drums, singing songs, reading from the Bible and then giving testimonies on the passages read. I really enjoy the services because the songs are pretty and the services are interactive, however there is no group planning, and us Peace Corps volunteers just want to do our job and plan some sort of activity.

Last Sunday we went to our scheduled meeting at 4:30, and surprise! It was a funeral. The four of us were sitting on the front pew when all of a sudden four men walk into the church carrying a casket. We were shocked, and tried to slyly move to a pew that was farther back in the church so that we wouldn't look as out of place as we felt. I'm sure everyone was wondering why four gringas were sitting in on that funeral.

Yesterday we were finally able to plan something: a movie night to raise funds for some other event that we have yet to plan. They want to show a movie on a projector for all of the kids in the community and charge them 20 pesos to see the movie and then more more for snacks and drinks. I'm hesitant to say that our group is going to follow through on the plan, but maybe these boys will surprise me.