What a week

I have so much to say about the past week...hopefully I'll be able to remember everything. I added a couple links to the sidebar on the right. One is of all the Peace Corps Dominican Republic blogs. There are a lot of people in my training group that have one, so check them out if you want to see what other people are up to. Also, I added a link to Beth's photos on picasaweb. She takes a lot of photos, and I'm in a couple of them so go look at them. I'm still figuring out how to upload my photos...hopefully I could do it soon because I have a lot of good pics. Now on to the past week...

Last Thursday thru Sunday all the trainees went to visit a current volunteer in their sector to see what volunteer life is actually like. I was visiting a volunteer in a campo (small village) outside Altamira, which is just south of the tourist area of Puerto Plata. In order to get to this village I needed to take a bus into the capital, then a nice, air conditioned tour bus to Santiago, the second largest city in the DR, then a public car to another bus station, then another bus to the city of Altamira, and then a motorcycle to the volunteer's site. On Thursday morning the ground was still wet from the rain the night before, and on my way to catch a bus into the city I completely wiped out in the street. I cut up my hand and had mud all over my pants and backpack. I had nowhere to clean my cut or change clothes because I was already far enough away from my house that I didn't feel like going back. At that moment I really knew I was in the Peace Corps. But that was the only bad thing that happened the whole weekend, and I was even laughing at myself after it happened, so it wasn't all that bad.

The motorcycle ride to the volunteer's site was probably the most amazing drive I have ever been on. It was a little harrowing at times, but words cannot describe the beauty I was surrounded by. The first 20 minutes or so we were driving on a well-paved road, but for the next 30 minutes we were driving on a dirt/gravel/rocky mountain road. I was hanging on for my life as we went up and down 30-40 degree inclines. It was amazing. I got to his site around 1 pm and he showed me around and introduced me to some of the people in his community. I got to see the work he has completed on his aqueduct so far and we pretty much just chilled the whole time. It was very nice to be out of the dirty capital for a change. His site is literally in the middle of nowhere in the mountains. He has no electricity, running water or cell phone service. The temperature at night and in the morning is so comfortable too. It gets down to probably about 70. I drank plenty of unfiltered, untreated water during my stay there, and (knock on wood) I haven't been sick from it. The volunteer there has only been sick twice and both times it wasn't really serious. At around 5 pm that day we hiked down the mountain a bit so we could bathe in the river. That was definitely the first time I did something like that, but I'm pretty sure it will not be the last. Also, I got to poop in a latrine, where according to the volunteer, spiders will bite your butt if you go at night. Needless to say, I did not use it at night. I slept on a futon that he built himself and it was really comfortable.

Friday was a work day for him, so I was able to see how he organized all the workers and how they dig the trenches and lay tubes for the aqueducts. It was nice to see a glimpse of the actual work I will be doing for the next two years. I found out a lot about volunteer life and cannot wait to get out on my own and start my own project.

On Saturday we were supposed to go to the beach in Puerto Plata, but the volunteer we were going to go visit was sick with Dengue fever. Do a google search for it if you don't know what Dengue is. About 1 in 3 volunteers get it at least once while they're down here, so I have something to look forward to. Anyways, instead of going to the beach we went to this awesome natural attraction called 27 charcos. A charco is like a waterfall/spring kind of thing. We went with a few other volunteers and trainees and we got in for free because there is a Peace Corps volunteer stationed there for his job. We hiked and climbed up the 27 charcos, and on the way back down you get to jump off cliffs and slide down some of them. It was incredible. On the last jump I threw my glasses down to somebody so I didn't have to jump with them on. Well without my glases on I threw them pretty poorly and the guy missed and my glasses went to the bottom of the probably 10-15 foot deep spring. It took about 20 minutes for some of the people to retrieve them. For a few minutes I thought I would be traveling back to the capital blindly. Go to http://www.27charcos.com/ to see how awesome it is. I'm so glad we did this instead of going to the beach. Depending on where people stay when you come visit, maybe we could go here.

Saturday night we stayed at this place called the Hub, in Santiago. It was started by a Canadian couple for Peace Corps volunteers and other volunteer organizations as a cheap place to stay. It was only $120 pesos, so about $4 US. It didn't have air conditioning, but it did have nice beds, running water and cable television. We ended up just chilling there, drinking some rum and playing dominos. Sunday morning we left to go back to our host families. It was an awesome weekend.

Last night we had a small party at my host family's house because there was a huelga (strike) today. We did not have training today because of it, so we decided we should take advantage of the situation. There was no sign of a strike going on today, but we still didn't have to go to training. Some people that stayed over ended up going to buy food for an American breakfast. They made pancakes, eggs, bacon and some fried salami. It was the best breakfast I've had since I've been here.

This Thursday we are all heading out to CBT (community based training) where we will be in the campo for five weeks, learning all the technical skills we will need to have in order to complete our projects. The town is in the mountains outside Santo Domingo, and the coffee harvest is going on now, so mayble I'll be able to get some really fresh coffee. I think there is a larger pueblo nearby the campo we are staying in, so hopefully I will be able to get on the internet every once in a while to update everyone. That's it for now.

I think I figured out how to get the pictures up so here are a few as a teaser:

The view of the mountains:

The river I bathed in:

Here is a link to my picture site:


http://picasaweb.google.com/kebmodee