Leaving soon

We are heading to honduras soon.. they won´t let us tell anyone when in case word gets out over the internet and the rebels block the airport. (sounds silly, but i guess it makes sense that if they were able to hold up 50 gringos at the airport they could make some serious publicity) So we are just enjoying our last few days in the DR. Im ready to go, field based training sounds AWESOME. my Protected Areas Management group is going to the base of a mountain in the Comayagua wilderness for almost 2 months. We will all be individually living with host families again, but together all the time. Everyone is alittle nervous about gettig sick of each other, but there are some awesome people in our group. Many of us are just VERY different. But, I have made a few really awesome friends with the same sense of humor, etc.

Spanish is coming along.. I am getting better but still struggling. The largest obstacle is that the DR is not latin america, it is the caRRIBEAN so it sounds like jamaican weird spanish. Apparently it will be much more clear in Honduras. In lieu of trying to immerse in Spanish my english has taken a notiçceable downturn. I think so basically in spanish that now i think that way in english. i guess it just takes time.

I am really hoping to post pics soon, but I just have so little time on the internet that it´s impossible to do right now.

Please let me know what you guys are doing too

Entrena

Our training center is called Entrena, in the northern barrios of Santo Domingo. I love in Los Acarrizos with about 12 other volunteers, well we each live with separate families in the same barrio. My family is um.. unteresting. We have learned in cultural classes, etc. that the people, especially the women are SUPER friendly and outgoing and all up yo business all the time. This is the case for most of my friends, but for some reason my family prefers to let me remain super isolated. I eat alone, hang out alone, they don´t want to have a lot to do with me.. whatever. I´m improving tons on the mandolin. Seriously. My spanish is getting better 0 we have language classes every day for 4 to 5 hours. I tested in at ïntermediate low level 0 surprising. But our six person class is going to the colonial district of santo domingo for language class tomorrow. Ill be thinking of you mom.

Other than that, I LOVE my fellow voluinteers. I have fallen in love with all of them. I actually held together my friend´s head as it bled all over the place today. Not kidding. He ran into a roof. The roofs are really low and he´s really freaking tall. Ruth I think you would have fainted. Head wounds bleed a lot and it was disgusting.

For my birthday everyone in my barrio 0 the other volunteers, went to a Carwash. They literally wash cars and have a bar with this really good dominican beer and they brought a cake and balloons. The carwash plays meringue and bachatha and slasa music. We took the dance floor in the epitome of white person can´t dance dominicans got a kick out of it though. Some of these kids grew up in el salvador or have lived in the carribean so they knew how to dance.. funny our Entrena teachers actually gave us a lesson in meringue dancing and dominoes this afternoon.. its part of the DR peace corps training.

ok im about to get kicked off. this is the most poorly written excuse for a blog entry i have ever imagined. my apologies. no time, not much more word on going to honduras but we all have our fingers crossed.

oh, and jacquelyn my host mom said¨oh your sister speaks soanish a little, no
they donñt speak any english and really enjoyed that someone else besides me doesnt understand what they are asaying

ok got to go the keyboard is messing up

Santo Domingo

We reached Santo Domingo two days ago, late at night, after traveling FOREVER. The training center is really nice, and again I feel like I have known the kids I am with all my life. I went home with my host family last night.. just thrown in with their Spanish. Luckily I am picking it up again very quickly, but the Spanish here is really Carribean. They drop all (s) at the end of words, etc. So, our language trainers in Entrana (our training facility) speak beautiful Spanish, but my host family is alittle hard to understand at times. My host father is a really old total carribean man, a bit husky and gruff - but laughs a lot, which is great. We have to take bucket baths and it's primitive, but I am seriously loving it. Could not be more happy. And, I learned two more songs by heart on the mandolin. They love music here, LOVE IT so it's a good conversation starter. I am so glad I have that damn mandolin - especially after lugging it around with all my stuff - because it makes them feel less pressure to talk to me.

ok i have to go now, we have tomorrow off so i wont be able to have internet.. but i will try to write more on monday. And, my BIRTHDAY IS SUNDAYYY!!!!!!!! - should be pretty cool in santo domingo. it's definitely a music and dancing city, meringue and salsa are ways of life.. as is dominoes. We have lessons in dominoes and dancing meringue in addition to our daily spanish lessons. MERINGUE FOR MY BIRTHDAY!!!!!!!

one more thing, the Country Director from Honduras is here and says that we will WAY more than likely be able to go to Honduras. June 22nd. I am PUMPED.

Will try to call on my b-day, but may have to wait until next week when i know my way around more and can get to a telephone booth without getting into anything dangerous. lots of love.

On to Dominican Republic

Well, since the military Coup in Honduras Sunday morning, plans have changed. My training class travels to the Dominican Republic for 3 weeks for language training tomorrow. And then hopefully continue on to Honduras for more technical training.

I am in Miami for the day, but leave the hotel REAL early tomorrow.. (check out is 3:30 am - rough). They have scrambled in the past 48 hours to place our training class SOMEWHERE in the Americas, thus the crazy flight plans. My flight heads to Puerto Rico for a very healthy layover and hopefully will get to the Dominican Republic to move in with our host families tomorrow night. Some people leave today, others tomorrow, all together we will arrive in Santo Domingo in 4 groups. I feel really grateful to the PC administrative people in charge of our group because our training class was almost sent home. They admit that we could probably avoid the political situation in Honduras effectively, but the PC director pointed out that 50 Peace Corps volunteers arriving days after the Coup would suggest the US supports the new government. To stay politically correct, we will travel to DR first. I am pretty pumped about seeing an extra, unexpected country. My one hope is that they let us move on to Honduras as training class without splitting us up allocating each person to another country around the world.

I love the people in my training class already. They are from all over the country: Hawaii, New Jersey, Michigan, North Carolina, D.C., California, New York.. and on and on. Although no one has even heard of Sewanee, I feel like I have SO much in common with these people already.

Actually, I think we are about to go to South Beach for the day. - We were not expected to stay in Miami an extra day so the one PC administrator left in this town just said to do whatever: beach, pool, it's Miami! -

I will try to write more once we are in the DR. Should be more interesting there.