Camp I is over! I can't believe it because it feels like just yesterday I was planning camp with my teachers, calling home asking for supplies, and waiting for the much anticipated boxes of books that the Holy Family School in NJ donated to our center. But here we are, July 22nd and we're already halfway through Camp II. By day 2 in Camp I (which ran from July 5th-July 16th) we had 43 kids in the morning, ages 5-11. In the afternoon we had about 35 kids ages 11-15. A few more days in we had some unfortunate drop outs thanks to a bad cold/flu that went around town. In the second week we even lost a teacher for few days due to a nasty virus called Dengue Fever that passes through daytime mosquitoes. Despite the overwhelming number of kids it went great. During week 1, two volunteers (Arya and Helen) came out to help. From teaching the kids how to dance the "lawnmower" and the "shopping cart" to organizing a mini Olympic Games, Arya was an indisputable hit with the kids. At one point he even entertained the kids by balancing a chair on his head while I got the roll call together. Helen, without complaining even once, slaved away making 33 Olympic medals made out of cardboard, gimp string, and glitter. Make sure you check out the pictures of Camp I morning group to see the pictures of the Olympic games. For other activities, we did a lot of reading. We were able to identify many kids who don't know how to read although by their age they should be able to already. Now that we have these kids' attention and trust, we are going to start to work with them in the fall to get them on track. During week 2, Roberto, Lindsey, and Oliver came out to help. Oliver is a youth in Roberto's town so that was really impressive to see a 16 year old give up his free time to come here and help. Oliver and Roberto were great about taking the kids out to the baseball field to play kickball or over to the elementary school for volleyball. You guys have to imagine the 95+ degree days we are having here so it's not easy being out in this hot sun. Lindsey led 30 kids in the afternoon through making hackey sacs out of just old material I had in my house and some random dried beans. If it hasn't come off as obvious already, having these volunteers around was a life saver. I also had a youth dedicated to helping me every afternoon from 2-5pm and another that would come in the morning whenever she could. I would have loved to have had more youth helping but no matter where you are, teenagers aren't easy!! For other successful activities, we went to the river and looked for rocks to paint as door stoppers, the kids went around town picking up plastic litter, we had an acting competition in the afternoon, we learned about reducing, reusing, and recycling, we read, wrote, and researched poetry, and best of all, we even had a potato sack race! To say the least camp has been fun for everyone involved. I will be coming home exhausted but it will have been more than worth while! Thanks to everyone who contributed and don't forget to check out the pictures!

So as it has been pointed out to me, I haven't blogged since April. oops. May was a crazy month. We graduated a class in "Introduction to the Computer" and wrapped up 3 classes of English. I think I had written before about how we were working with the Bronx Zoo and the class in NJ to let my kids take a "virtual trip to the zoo". Well unfortunately that turned out to be a disaster. Despite our best efforts my internet could not handle the bandwidth of all the video feed coming from the zoo. The last image my class saw was a frozen picture of the Zoo employee holding a giant cockroach... nothing my kids didn't see in their own houses in the morning! I kept working with Access NJ through Verizon and with Judy at Rutgers University but we were never able to make it work. In the end I think I was more disappointed than my class. I knew how great that program would have been but they didn't even know what they were missing out on. I think that made me even sadder. Luckily another Peace Corps volunteer had come out to assist so that helped me not sulk about it.

After that I left for the capital where we had our annual All Volunteer Conference. In my opinion, the conference went off without a hitch, well minus me falling down a flight of stone stairs at the end of the day. We had guest speakers to talk about how volunteers and their communities can still assist victim's of Haiti's January Earthquake. We had another panel of speakers, all of whom were once Peace Corps volunteers themselves, who came to talk about career opportunities after service is over. It was a long day but definitely worth all of the effort put into it.

The day after I left for a much needed vaca in Puerto Rico. Luis was there working for two weeks so I took a couple days to visit. I was able to sleep in, enjoy an air conditioned room with two even better perks: running water and 24hrs of electricity! It was my first time in PR and I must say I really liked it. Downtown San Juan is beautiful and we even had the chance to visit the El Yunque Rain Forest. The timing of Luis being there was perfect and we really had a nice time.

As soon as I arrived back into Santo Domingo it was time to go to what's called 1 year In Service Training. Each of the volunteers in my Information and Communication Technology sector gave presentations basically outlining what they've been doing for work in the last year and some of the challenges that they have confronted. The whole training session was only 3 days but it was a great opportunity for us to all get together and hear what projects have been undertaken. As soon as it was over though I headed straight back to my site. It been almost 3 weeks since I had been home and I reeeeaaaallly missed my dog and my house and not having to live out of a suitcase!!!

Since I've been back we've been working 150% on making our July camp happen. We've been announcing it on the local radio station, posting flyers around town, and looking for support from local businesses. Sister Ann (the teacher I've been working with in NJ) has just sent us a whole package of books for the reading sessions, the local school district just agreed to give us paint for the art sessions, I've thrown in ALL of the random art activities you folks at home have sent me (gimp, beads, markers, etc) and my dad already sent out a package with even more materials. I've had meetings with the manager of the center and the two teachers who have helped me coordinate the schedule from the start. We have a doctor who will come give a health talk to the youth in the afternoon, and a representative from the reforestation office to come give a talk to the kids about planting trees and maybe even bring them to a tree Nursery! I could go on for paragraphs about our plans for camp but I can write more about that as camp is in progress!

In addition to that we are back to giving classes and forming our youth groups. I have a Basic Computer Skills class in progress as we speak. They meet 4 days a week at night and learn how to use the basics of Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint). They are determined to graduate so they've got all my attention. I am working with our youth group EcoClub to complete their first Community Diagnostic. It's Ironic to be helping youth do the same thing I had to do just last year. Once they complete all of their activities they can start to determine what some of the greatest needs of the community are. Our other very active group is our Club de Lectura (Reading Group). They read The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe and then got to watch the movie Narnia once they were all done. Moving on to a more difficult read, they are now working on The Davinci Code. Because the last book was pretty easy I let them whip through it. For this book however they are reading about 3 chapters at a time and then we get together to discuss. As I write this I'm actually waiting for that group now who is running fashionably late. Bueno, it's time for me to get back to camp planning. July 5th will be here before I know it! Thank for reading!

This year has been great. It has gone by fast, but it has been great. The funny part about completing a year is that you can finally look back and assess your accomplishments, your shortcomings, and where you should go next. One of the biggest highlights of my recent months has been the video conferencing with the Coverdell World Wise Match Program (http://www.peacecorps.gov/wws/correspond/about.cfm). It has made my English class so much more dynamic and fun. It has brought technology to my class in a way that I hadn't been able to before. Check out my Picassa web album for the pictures of my students at their houses with their families. We made a presentation for our class in NJ about what houses are like here and I really think it was an eye opener for the other students. While this project has been great and my other classes in general have been very successful, I have learned a lot about education in this country and where my project falls into place. My project is technically in the Education sector but my focus is on Information and Communication Technology. Why is this great? because communities like mine seriously lack access to technologies such as computers, the internet, etc. What are the shortfalls? I have huge difficulties teaching computer skills to my students because they lack the fundamentals of basic education. Public schools have too many students in every class, are in no way dynamic, do not include critical or analytical thinking, and essentially leave students incapacitated for the real world. This makes my job that much more difficult when trying to explain basic concepts of information technology. Sometimes I feel like I'm explaining calculus or philosophy by the empty stares I see on their faces. I find myself explaining the same thing to my students over and over again and I use all of my energy trying not to get frustrated because I can't imagine what it's like for them. I might be presenting something as simple as right click and left click of the mouse but there's just a disconnect. Now you might say that maybe I should change the way I teach, maybe that's the issue and while I agree that I severely lack knowledge in formal education I have pulled plenty of tricks out of my hat. I have tried so many different angles and approaches but I feel like my students are being caught off guard because all they know about education comes from a slate chalk board and memorizing words. They are confused by learning with games or with didactic materials.Where am I going with this? well I have had many conversations with other volunteers here and we've come to some conclusions that we were oblivious to last year. Instead of focusing on just teaching technology, maybe we should just be using technology to teach teaching methods. If we could find a way to improve the education system in our communities, teaching information technology and computer skills to the product students would be that much easier and more successful. There are certain countries where Peace Corps only sends very specialized volunteers and our proposal is that we start getting volunteers here that have degrees in education. Who knows if it will work or if anybody will listen to us but it's worth a try. Everybody has a right to quality education and unless something is done to change the system here, no computer, cell phone, or internet will change the futures of these kids.For an end note, here is a link to an inspiring video about how kids can change their own education.I hope you enjoy.. http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/kiran_bir_sethi_teaches_kids_to_take_charge.html

So Semana Santa has come to an end. Semana Santa is holy week and celebrated the week before Easter. In this country it means that everyone runs out of the capital and Santiago and heads towards the beaches or the small towns where they grew up. Oppositely I headed into Santo Domingo last Saturday to pick Luis up from the airport. On Sunday we went out to dinner in the Plaza Española and then headed over to free live music concert where we met up with some other Peace Corps volunteers. On Monday poor Luis had to sit and wait for 3 hours in the volunteer lounge at the Peace Corps Office while I had a meeting with administration about the upcoming All Volunteer Conference. Luis and I decided to improve the day by going out to dinner at TGIFridays and catching the 3D movie Alice in Wonderland. Now all of these things might not sound so special to you guys but you have to understand how luxurious they are for me. When I "go out" to eat, it means a $3 plate of the day of rice and beans at the local cafeteria. So having a BBQ chicken salad at somewhere like TGIFridays or Paella at the Spanish Restaurant out in the plaza is amazing for me. On Tuesday we headed out to my site first thing in the morning. Luis is now the first visitor outside of Peace Corps to appreciate the long ride back to my site. Once we arrived in Loma de Cabrera he then realized what I really meant by "we're taking a bus to my site".. that was we'll be riding in the back of a pickup truck haha. We got to my site, he saw my house (was pleasantly surprised) met the teachers I work with, met my neighbors, had lunch with my old host family, met my dog, and endured a long series of visits to random people's houses. On Wednesday I decided we would bathe in the river since we didn't have any water at my house. I think Luis thought I was crazy but the river was really clean and refreshing so he came in too. I know I've blogged about this before. Bathing in the river here can mean just going to the river for a swim, doing laundry (washing clothes by hand obviously), or literally bathing yourself (wearing a bathing suit or something of course). It can be a family event or just a way to cool off in the afternoon. I love going to the river so I'm glad he went and got to see it all. On Thursday I brought him to the Haitian Market. It was especially crowded because of the holiday so it was an intense experience.. maybe a little too intense. Buying beans and rice took at least 20 minutes and we literally had to fight our way through groups of people to look for vegetables. For the first time, Luis saw a pick up truck with at least 15 Haitians piled into the back. He wanted to take a picture but unfortunately I left the camera at home. He ate the typical Dominican dish of rice, beans, and chicken at Mari-luz's house, tried Maiz con dulce at my neighbor's house (sweet corn), dominican spaghetti with my host family (twice), and the smallest bit of habichuela con dulce (sweet beans- typical for Semana Santa). For all of the strange foods I put in front of him, and the strange places I dragged him to, Luis was a great sport. He handled all of these adventures with a smile on his face and the only complaint he had was that my dog smells... and seeing as how my dear Caramela enjoys eating dirty diapers and dead frogs, I couldn't blame him. We came back here to the capital on Saturday and finished our adventures with a nice Italian dinner and delicious made-to-order frozen yogurt. We got him to the airport at 6:30 this morning but he won't see his house until probably 2:30 am tomorrow morning if he's lucky. I've asked him to post a blog here telling the adventures from his point of view so you can look forward to that soon. Thanks for reading! Oh and here's a link to an article in NJ about the video conferencing program I'm participating in! Let me know what you think!

http://www.patersondiocese.org/page.cfm?Web_ID=3294

So I am back in the city of Sosua which is on the northern coast of the DR. I came here with three other volunteers (Amanda, Arya, and Tamara) because they had either a cat or dog to be spayed or neutered. I was here in December when I had my dear Caramela spayed but I don't think I remembered to blog about it. Frank Alfano, a great vet from Falmouth, and coincidentally an RPCV (Returned Peace Corps Volunteer) and also my friend Vanessa's dad, is here for almost 2 weeks doing free vet work. He comes down about twice a year and works alongside other vets, volunteer anesthesiologists, and other local ex pats willing to lend a hand. It seems that most of their work is in spaying and neutering but they obviously treat dogs with injuries or illnesses. Today for example I saw a dog here who they are curing from somebody having thrown scalding water all over him. It burned off most of his hair and he has a hard time walking. Its the saddest thing in the world. Yesterday they had a woman bring in a dog who had been in labor for 48 days. As you might have guessed all of the puppies were stillborn. The vets and volunteers worked for an hour to bring them to life but it was too late. They were able to save the mother but it was obviously a somber moment. In the states any owner would have brought their dog to a vet within 2 hours, not 2 days! The way people regard dogs and animals in general here is just very different but hopefully its something that can change. God knows Caramela has changed the way people treat dogs in my town. Nobody would dare touch her and if anything now people love bragging to me about the dog they have at their house. Before Caramela I swear their dog had as much value as the doormat. So the point is that what Mr. Alfano does down here is amazing work. There are so many street dogs in this country and they reproduce like crazy. Getting these dogs and cats spayed and neutered puts a huge dent in controlling the pet population in not only the Puerto Plata region but all over the country (thanks to Peace Corps volunteers bringing their animals across distances to get them here!). I am pasting the link to the animal rescue association they have here so any of you can check it out. They do great things and have lots of dogs up for adoption. Ok well time to check on the puppies...Http://www.aaassosua.com

classes, classes, classes. That's what takes up the majority of the day and I must say that I love it. I am teaching 3 English classes, each of which meet twice a week for 2 hours per class. English I now has about 20 students which an age range of 11-14 years old. English III has about 25 students and has an age range of 14-20. and English IV has about 10 students with adults aged 20-53. Teaching English is considered a secondary project because its not exactly in the field of Information Technology (which is my main focus here) but whenever I can I try to include computers or use the projector or something like that. In order to tie English closer to my primary project I've been focusing a lot on the video conferencing with that class in NJ (I posted a blog about that a few weeks ago). Luckily the teacher there is very enthusiastic about the project so our classes have already met 3 times. Last week the class in NJ presented a geography lesson to my class using powerpoint. Through that session I discovered that even at age 14 most of the students in my class had never taken a geography class. They couldn't name more than 1 continent, and confused all of the states in the US for countries. Instead of teaching English for the last week I've been giving geography lessons and having my students do research on countries and continents using the program Encarta on the computer. On St. Patrick's day my class will present in Spanish what they learned about each of their assigned regions. As a surprise the teacher in NJ is working on getting an Irish step-dancer to come perform for our two classes. As for my other classes, I teach Basic Photoshop to a group of 10 who already graduated from my Basic computer skills course last semester; on Mon and Weds nights I teach Introduction to the Computer which is a course for youth to adults who have never used a computer before; On Saturday mornings I teach Basic Internet which is a 6 week course on the basics of searching the internet, email, social web pages, avoiding virus/scams, etc.; and on Saturday afternoons I teach Basic Computer Skills to teachers which reviews the keyboard, mouse, typing skills, and will go into basic software. These Information Technology classes are each 3 hours a week.As you can see, these classes keep me busy. The classes tend to be in the morning and at night so I typically have long break in the afternoon which keeps me sane. In addition to my classes we are trying to start a youth group here called Eco Club and also a Women's group in the next town over. A lot of you, whether in phone calls or emails, have been asking me what I've been up to so that's pretty much it. Classes are doing well although I wish I could get more teachers to take the basic computer skills class because I know so many of them need it! I am in the middle of posting pictures on Picassa so please check them out!! There's an easy link to the right! Thanks for reading! Post a comment!

So I've decided that I could and would keep up with my blogging if I only had a secretary. They would be on my case all the time running down my to do list and making sure I actually get things done instead of pushed off until another day. So, if anybody has a secretary they can spare, then send them my way! Just make sure they like rice and beans, and don't mind working by candlelight..Moving on..So I need to fill in a gap for a good 20 days. First: Jimani. That was the most humbling and tiring 9 days of my life. Without fail, we worked at least 20 hour days, every day. By the time you crash its 2am and you don't care if those 4 hours you got were on a couch, the floor, or sandwiched between 4 other volunteers on 2 beds they pushed together. All I can say is, no complaints. If you complain there you're pretty much a jerk. Why you might ask? Because our lives there were still luxurious comparatively. The Haitians that I met in the hospital had some of the most heart wrenching stories that one could hear. I met a 23 year old mother who lost her husband, mother, father, brothers and sisters, everyone. She was so depressed that she was borderline nonfunctional. I met children who lost parents and parents who lost children. I was so impressed with the Psych teams that came in that took the time to talk to all the different patients and spend extra time with those who were especially distraught or who were just receiving news about a spouse or child 3 weeks later. I was also so impressed with the physical therapy team. They had a lot of work on their hands getting patients up in close quarters and getting them out to practice walking on a newly amputated leg or operated joint. I felt very guilty leaving as I wish I could have stayed on longer and helped some more. Luckily 2 days before I left though a great group of 4 new peace corps volunteers arrived and took our places. I will admit that after just those 9 days I did get burnt out (which I didn't really realize until after I had left) and am just still so amazed by the full time staff there who had been pulling those long days for 3 weeks straight.After Jimani I stayed less than 24 hours in the capital; enough time to get my mandatory H1N1 vaccine, make 15 name tags for a clinic near my site, got a new Peace Corps ID tag (which I've been putting off since Nov), run to the grocery store twice (forgot the dog food!), and of course eat pizza :0)I made it back to my site on Thursday, Feb 11th at around 11am. I had just enough time to pay the electricity bill, run to the Thursday street market, and get to the high school to remind my students about our 4pm meeting. Around 2pm my guests for the 4pm meeting showed up early (a miracle). They came from Pedro Santana (one of the "next" towns over using the international highway) with the hopes of starting a chapter of a youth group called Eco Club. There is a volunteer in Pedro Santana so she was my connection to this. Eco club is a youth group that works with community, environment, and technology development. One of my goals here is to start a youth group in order to get these kids involved in something that's not the afternoon soap opera and this seems like a great formalized way of doing that. Eco Club is already established in several other communities in the DR and Haiti so we have a lot to work with. Ok well that was the week I came back from Jimani. I will get to the next week (which I believe was last week) tomorrow perhaps. Thanks for reading if you made it this far!!

So I just completed day 2 here at the Good Samaritan hospital in Jimani (in the Dominican Republic). If you look at the map above (which, yes, is the same map I used 2 blogs ago) you will see where I am in relation to Port-au-Prince, but you will also see where the town of Jimani is, in the southwest of the Dominican Republic. There is a hospital here called the Buen Samaritano Hospital (Good Samaritan) and is being run by Americans with additional staff from Spain, Guatemala, and the Dominican Republic. The hospital itself is amazing especially considering where it is, but unfortunately it is kind of small for the amount of patients they have been seeing here. Before the earthquake it was typically only used for eye and hernia operations (i think). The main building is being used as the emergency room but also has 2 operating rooms. Once a patient has been treated or operated on they get moved over to one of 3 locations. There's what we call the orphanage (it's not really one but it was built to be years ago and so the building just picked up the name), the chapel (which is an outdoor alter which they made "indoors" with tarps and sheets which houses maybe 15 patients, or they go to the "tents" (which is nothing but a giant brown army tent with tons of beds and patients). Everyday a Navy helicopter comes and picks up critical patients and takes them to either the USS Comfort or another hospital over in Haiti. Here we have teams of nurses, primary care physicians, surgeons, physical therapists, etc. It really is amazing to see how many people dropped their lives, bought tickets and came down here to work. There are almost as many non medical volunteers as there are medical volunteers. Non medical volunteers do everything from coordinate the food runs (for patients and families), to entering written data into excel (to keep track of patients), to coordinating all the translators (which is what I am doing), to just about anything you could imagine. Today we had a group of Korean missionaries show up just to work for the day and offered to clean all the bathrooms and to fumigate. That kind of work is invaluable!This blog has already become kind of long so I will save some of the day to day and patient details for my next blog, but I will say that the situation of most of these people is heart breaking. There are so many amputee patients here who have a long road of recovery and struggle ahead of them. Their lives have been turned upside down and now not only do they have to learn to walk with one leg or work with one arm, but they have to face the fact that their homes are gone and there will probably be no job or income for them when they get back to Haiti. We have orphan patients here who have no family to claim them and just wait in limbo while somebody tries to figure out something to do with them. Everywhere you look it is just sad and frustrating. Tomorrow I will write more about my personal experiences with the Haitians I have met and worked with and the things they have shared with me. Thanks for reading.

A couple of months ago I signed up for the World Wise Match Program. It's a program that matches a Peace Corps Volunteer with a classroom in the US. The only requirements are that we have access to the internet and youth willing to participate. My match is a class in Fordham Park, NJ and I was lucky to get placed with a teacher who is on the ball and really enthusiastic about the program. She sent me a web cam with a built in microphone (along with some fun candy canes) and we both just had to confirm that we have the program Skype on our computers (Skype is the program that I use to make cheap calls to the US using my computer and to talk to Luis for free). Her and I video conferenced a few weeks ago to meet each other and to plan the first time that our classes would meet. She has a sixth grade class that she wanted to participate which was perfect for me because on Mondays and Wednesday mornings I have an English class with students about the same age. For the last 2 weeks I was having them work on introductions in both English and Spanish. They wrote out and practiced their names, ages, where they live, and what they like to do in their free time. The day of the video conference was great. It was snowing in NJ so the teacher let her kids outside to make snowballs to show my students. I had hooked my computer up to the projector so that the whole thing would be projected big on the wall so they were able to see everything. Once the NJ students were back inside, my students got up one by one and read their introductions. I really expected my students to be a little shy in front of the camera but they did great. Next the students in NJ got up one by one and read their introductions but only in English. We put the volume up really high so my students could here well but then I translated for them. They loved hearing about all the pets the students in NJ have at home. The video conference lasted about 45 minutes or so and in my opinion was a complete success. I received an email from the coordinator of the program and it seems like we were actually the first conference to take place at all. I'm out of my site for a week but we agreed to another conference as soon as I get back. We are going to try to focus each conference around a theme; geography, food, sports, etc. I am really glad I signed up for this program. It was great for both my students and the ones in NJ who otherwise would never have had an experience like this. Stay posted, I will be putting pictures of it up on Picassa soon.....

I'm trying to keep up with my word here and update my blog more (stay on me about this!). So since the last time I wrote our collection in town went really well. We even had what's called "gua gua anunciadoras" which are translated as "Announcing trucks" (which are trucks that drive around town with GINORMOUS speakers blasting messages and/or music) announcing where people could drop off food, water, medical supplies etc. Everything was then brought to the local Catholic Church and then loaded into a truck. From here the truck went to the Catholic Churches in the surrounding towns and picked up more donations until it was brought to Port-au-Prince. One of the most amazing parts of it all was the solidarity that Dominicans are showing towards Haitian. I think I've written about this before but the history between the Dominican Republic and Haiti is bloody and full of hate. Dominicans typically looked down upon Haitians as being a much lower class (even though they themselves probably have some Haitian descent in them.. not that they would EVER admit that). However, since this earthquake they have managed to put that hatred and discrimination aside and are now referring to them as "our Haitian brothers and sisters" and talking about "Today for you, tomorrow for me". It truly is great to see that. I have 2 friends that actually live and work in Haiti (they were luckily not in the capital at the time of the Earthquake) and they have been telling me about a new kind of problem. A lot of people are moving out of Port-au-Prince and seeking refuge in small villages and towns in the central parts of the country. As one can imagine they are arriving with nothing but the clothes on their backs. They have needs too great for the towns alone to handle, especially since in some towns thousands of new residents are arriving. I found one volunteer who managed to get a huge box of clothes donated along with feminine products, first aid medicines, towels, sheets, etc. So basically we are doing a round 2 of donations but this time they will go to the central region of the country to assist those who have fled the destroyed city of Port-au-Prince. I just hope after seeing all of this that those of us who are privileged enough to come from a developed country are thankful for all that we have, even if it's not much.Ok well it's late and I have my first internet video conference tomorrow with my English class and a Spanish class in New Jersey. They will all introduce themselves and talk about their hobbies and stuff. I will write all about that in my next entry (promise). Good night all!

So much has changed since Tuesday evening when we started to feel the shake. We were so fortunate here that there were no injuries and there was no damage. As it was going on though we had no idea of the magnitude of destruction just over the border. Above I circled a map that shows my proximity to Port-au-Prince where the earthquake centered. At around 6pm we made an announcement on our community radio station about the earthquake and the magnitude reading of it that we found on the internet. Still, we had no idea of what was really going on there. Little by little the pictures and the videos made it to the news and the internet. In some ways I wish you guys at home were seeing the same news there that we are seeing here because I promise you its not the same. Instead of bodies under white sheets you see hundreds of corpses in mass graves or still just lying in the streets, some even just children. Instead of watching Sanjay Gupta showing a long line at a medical clinic, the news here shows people with severed arms or a limb literally cut off or people with their intestines hanging out. You don't know whether to cry to to vomit but either way it wakes you up. This is real and its only going to get worse. These people are hurt, sick, hungry, thirsty, dirty, and desperate. I know its a relief to many of you that I am not allowed to go over there and help but I hope you know that it kills me. I'm so close yet I can't be there. I talked to several other volunteers who feel my frustration. So, in turn, we are channeling our energies into food drives. The Catholic Church and the local bank in my town have both set up for deliveries to be made to Port-Au-Prince so at our computer center we are going to aide them in rounding up as many supplies as possible. The students in my English Classes will even get 5 extra points on their next test for bringing something in to donate. I go to bed every night and I hope that this helps because it kills me to not be able to do more. You have to imagine that where I live so close to the border I live surrounded by so many Haitian families. Every time I see a Haitian child here I see the images of unconscious children lying in their mothers arms waiting to be seen by a doctor if they're lucky; or worse I see the others that are lying dead in the street. Before this earthquake more than 80% of Haitians were already living in extreme poverty. They were already the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere. They didn't need this. Do what you can to help.

CNN Impact (lists many sites): http://edition.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2007/impact/?iref=allsearch

UNICEF: http://www.supportunicef.org/site/pp.asp?c=9fLEJSOALpE&b=1023561

Clinton Foundation: http://www.clintonfoundation.org/haitiearthquake/Oxfam: https://secure.oxfamamerica.org/site/Donation2?idb=482683780&df_id=3900&3900.donation=form1&JServSessionIdr004=vzh8hruob2.app240a

So where do I begin with my update? Well last weekend I took my dog up to the North coast of the country to Sosua where Dr. Alfano (Vanessa's Dad) was spending the week doing free vet work. I stayed in the town of Imbert (about 40 minutes away) where another volunteer is living. On saturday I went with volunteers Jean and Tamara (she's from Harwich!) to the clinic where we brought our dogs for a day of fun. My dog weighed in at a healthy 45 lbs and was given the royal treatment. She got a series of vaccines, heartworm medicine, flea and tick medicine, even a new leash and collar with bright yellow reflector strips so you can see her at night! We left the dogs with the vets while we went to find breakfast and by the time we came back Caramela was drunk as a skunk and missing her ovaries. We stayed at the vet for at least another hour helping with the dogs as they tried to wake up and even got to watch the neutering of another dog and the surgery on the paw of another dog who got run over by a car.

The dogs needed some time to rest so Frank and his girlfriend Karen invited us to lunch at the house where an American couple were hosting them. You can't imagine how nice this house was or how beautiful the view was overlooking the turqouise ocean! On top of that we had an amazing lunch! We had hummus with fresh veggies, chips and salsa, fresh tomato, basil, and mozzarella salad, potatoes with garlic and olive oil, and even though I don't eat fish, even that looked amazing! All in all we had a great weekend and everything was a success.

As for work, I'm wrapping up my classes and getting ready for our graduation. Over a month ago we had begun to plan our graduation to be held right here in our town. Then we got a call from the First Lady's Office in the capital saying that we were not allowed to do that because they wanted to have one big graduation in the capital. We went along with it even though we knew that it was a terrible idea and bound for failure. Imagine having to take 100 students by crappy bus 7 hours to the capital only to have to turn around and come back on the same day!! On top of that I couldn't rationalize how much money they were going to spend on this! So as we predicted, just 4 days away from the graduation, they called and canceled. Surprise!! Not! So here we are back at square one trying to plan a graduation to have right here in our town for a fraction of the cost.

Well back to lesson planning! See you all in two weeks!!

So the week before last I took a ride with a teacher from my computer center, my host mom (who's a nurse) a local doctor (who's on the committee to my computer center) and a local youth (who practically lives at my computer center) and we headed towards a town called Guayajayuco. We went there to give a talk on Breast Cancer prevention and awareness on behalf of the First Lady's Office (who, remember, is the sponsor of my computer center). In order to get to this town, we had to take what's called the International Highway. This road basically weaves in and out of Haiti and the Dominican Republic. To be honest with you I didn't think that the parts of Haiti right on the border with the Dominican Republic were going to be much different than the Dominican Republic itself.. but I was wrong... Very Very wrong. After driving up the windy road through the mountains of my region, we hit the border. From the first inch that the road turns into Haiti, you know it. The road goes from acceptably smooth to crater city.. we're talking like hold on to the "Oh Shit!" handles (as my dad calls them). Also, the second you cross of the border, there are kids waiting on the side of the road who drop anything their doing to chase your car to beg for money. These are the sights that change your world. I have never felt so guilty for simply being inside of a car while these emaciated malnutritioned kids chase you. We passed a school that was nothing but slats of wood with a thatch roof. The houses are still made with adobe and there were no electricity lines in sight. I just couldn't believe the difference between two places only 45 minutes apart. We continued our journey and made it to Guayajayuco about another 45 minutes later (about an hour and a half in total). If the roads were smooth we could have done the whole trip in 45 minutes but because of the conditions we could only drive about 20 miles per hour. We rounded up about 50 people (men, women, girls boys) for the talk. We showed a video, passed out fliers, and were received by a good audience. I was able to walk around a bit and take some pictures which I am posting in my Picassa Web Albums (just click the link to the right!). The mountain scenery was beautiful but it was hard to forget the living conditions. Even though we were in the Dominican Republic, the poverty level and the isolation of this town was obvious. Most houses only had one solar panel for electricity, all house had latrines instead of bathrooms, and getting water seemed a difficult task. It makes you wonder how a country can have so many multi million dollar resorts and a billion dollar metro in the capital but can't manage to get their citizens the basic necessities???

So today is October 22nd...well it is atleast for the next 15 minutes. What does that mean? That I am only 2 months away from the comforts of home. That's right folks, on December 22nd at 10am I will be arriving into Boston's Logan International Airport. It will be my first official 4am flight, but totally worth it. I can't tell you yet where I'll be each day or what exactly I'll be doing (although I'm going to refuse to compromise on taking several hot showers a day...)but I can tell you what I'll be eating and drinking! While I was sitting in a class this weekend I took some time to compose a list of my December wish list. Some events have peoples names next to it, other things are up for grabs. Feel free to jump in and take a food, drink, or activity and we'll all go home happy :0)

• 1st purchase: Starbucks: Grande chai tea latte with skim milk• 2nd: Dunkin Donuts: Blueberry bagel with blueberry cream cheese• Then in any order: • My mom’s spaghetti with Meatballs• Steak tips with red bliss potatoes and fresh broccoli (dad)

• A good bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon (Bree)• Friendly’s ice cream (Hi Claire!)• Beef Stew in a sourdough bread bowl from Liam’s (Tanya?)

• Grammy’s Ursula’s apple pie• Lots and lots of soy milk… mmmm• Wheat bagel with Honey walnut cream cheese from Cape Cod bagel (Bree)• Chai tea latte from Coffee O (Bree)• Brookside Steak sandwich with a Brookside salad (Jennie)• Dunkin Donuts Vanilla Chai (I’m trying to separate them out so I don’t get sick haha)• I want everyone to invite me to go food shopping with them.. I miss that• Laundry! I want to do lots of laundry! Haha• Drive… I am going to drive just because I can• I’m going to watch:o A Christmas story and Elf AT LEAST 3 times (Caralyn)

o At least 10 episodes of Law and Order (I’ll find the time)• Can somebody hold off decorating their tree to let me help?• Dance in the aisles of CVS at 1am after setting off all of the dancing Santa’s (again, Bree???)• Intense coupon shopping at CVS (I’m going to need my mom and Amanda for that…)• I want to bake cookies, pies, cakes, brownies.. basically ANYTHING I can... this is going to require a lot of help: help baking, eating, and buying the ingredients! (claire, aly?)

So yeah, that's what I've got for now... let me know if you have anymore ideas! Can't wait to see you all!!

So let’s talk about what’s new. Last week I found my first tarantula. As you might imagine it was SCARY but luckily it was only a small one haha. It took teamwork to take him down. I opened part of my suitcase and immediately something move. I ran to go get my raid and found Yolanda in the meantime (A girl who lives in our house and helps out.. she seems to be afraid of nothing.. or so I though..) I got her to come in the room and I started spraying Raid into the suitcase (the contents were worth the sacrifice) The nasty sucker came out but hid behind the bag. Yolanda took a coathanger and started banging the bag to get him to move so we could spray him some more. He did, I sprayed him, and then he ran into a set of curtains I had sitting on the suitcase waiting to be hung. Now here’s the best part you need to imagine. I am standing a goot 3 feet back from the suitcase. Raid and one hand and as tense as one could ever be. What I wasn’t thinking about is that Caramela was underneath my bed. So when she decided to put her paw on top of my foot from under that bed I obviously thought “TARANTULA!!!!” and screamed like I have never screamed in my life. So of course my screaming makes Yolanda scream, her screaming made me scream more and then we realized it was just Caramela which thankfully made us laugh a little bit… but by then we were out of breath from screaming and shaking. So then Yolanda, the brave soul, dragged the curtains out to the living room, right next to the front door, where the tarantula ran out. Luckily there was a guy in the living room wearing boots who crushed him for us. Now try to visualize that at that point I was standing on the sofa holding my can of raid, intermittently screaming when the tarantula headed in my direction, now trying to hold Caramela back because she thinks that this raid cover tarantula is a toy she should play with..Wrong! The tarantula obviously died and when I was sure of that I went in for a closer look and he was naaaasty. Big, hairy, and scary looking. Well I was going to write more but I think that’s enough for one entry. That was my first (and I hope last) Tarantula experience and as opposed to previous fears, I lived to tell about it haha. So when I come home and freak out about a Daddy Long Leg, will somebody please remind me about this? Thanks.

Wow I've been saying that "I'll post a blog tomorrow" for a month now apparently. oops. It's been a little crazy around here lately so where do I begin? Well in the last month the Electricity and water has been as bad as it's ever been. We've gone stretches of days without even 5 minutes of electricity and at this moment we're still waiting for the water to come back on. Apparently a tube broke the day before yesterday and people are speculating that it could be anywhere from 3-30 days before it gets fixed (apparently the worst it has ever been was 2 months with no water, but that was a few years ago...). Let's just say that living in the dark and bathing in the river gets tiring.. I mean real tiring. Think about the FIT we put if the electricity goes out for even a few hours? and can you really imagine hauling a bucket from the river to your house just so you can cook and bathe? Maybe for a weekend of camping but I would imagine most of you would freak out trying to deal with that as "real life". Well I suspect I'm going through what many, many, many Peace Corps volunteers go through.. an understanding of why so many people spend their lives trying to immigrate into the US. I mean there I was on day 3, no luz (lights): During the day I can't give class, my cell phone is going to die, I can't use my computer (which I will give is a luxury most people don't worry about), At night I'm bumping into things, cooking by candlelight is difficult and dangerous, I can't read or correct tests, I just want lights!! By day 3 with no water, the garbage barrel buckets are pretty much empty (we have 4), the bathroom is starting to smell like pee, you're wondering what you're going to use to cook with... are you starting to see my pattern? It's frustrating, very very frustrating. Now consider that this is only like 3 days. Imagine when this goes on for longer. You've been bathing, washing clothes, and carrying buckets from the river for weeks. You have these tasks in addition to cooking, cleaning, and/or working outside the home. With less than a week of this I was already saying to myself "I understand why people want out of here and want to get to the US!!" ...even if it is to work 7 days a week or to somewhere that has COMPLETELY the opposite climate or language. I know I was already dreaming of electricity, water, and Chai tea lattes haha. So I guess when you find yourself asking yourself "Why don't these people go back to their own country?!" Think of my few tales and alse realize that in many places its actually a lot worse. Some people may never have electricity in their house. A decent doctor can be 2 hours away down a bumpy dirt road in the back of a pickup truck. I'm going to end this posting here so I can go home and have cena (dinner) but I'll write again tomorrow. Stay tuned! Next post: Tarantulas, Ebay, and a new addition to the family!! Oh and the picture is from my birthday... I realized I never posted a picture with the flowers Luis sent me for my birthday. Isn't he the best??

So this weekend was what's called committee weekend. Within PCDR (Peace Corps Dominican Republic) there are several different groups and committees. There are groups that get volunteers together over common causes or projects. From building stoves to improving the Peace Corps website, there's a committee for it. As for myself, I'm on an IT committee (Information Technology), Libraries and Education Committee, Dominican- Haitian Border Relations Committe, Encargados del Futuro conference committee, Thanksgiving Committee, and Volunteer Action Committee. Yup, it's like high school and college all over again. In the IT committee we take on various projects like the PCDR history project which will be an entire website dedicated to the history of Peace Corps service in the Dominican Republic over the last 40 years; we provide information on higher education to high school students; and provide IT technical assistance to any volunteer, no matter what sector they work in. In the Libraries and Education Committe, volunteers who either would like to build a library in their site or who may already have one get together and share ideas. There's nothing that even resembles a library in my town (not even in any of the schools!) so I'm very interested in looking into how I can build one or make one. Now you're probably curious about Thanksgiving committee.. that's the best one. Every year at thanksgiving volunteers with the help of Americans who work at the Embassy (and their families) plan a HUGE thanksgiving feast. It takes months of planning to find the venue, try to get as much food donated as possible, and plan out all of the other logistics. Its a whole day event and so in the committe we plan out everything from the Turkey trot, to the volleyball games, straight through dinner and the talent show. In all of the these different committees the projects are divided up and the work is delegated. Lastly, the Volunteer Action Committee is one of my favorites. In this committee I represent a region in the country (mostly North West). I attend meetings once every 3 months or so with the Country Director and several other administration personel where we discuss new and old Peace Corps Policies. Its my job, along with other volunteers who represent their own regions, to bring complaints, comments, and suggestions about different peace corps policies from volunteers in my region to the administration. After I have those meetings I meet back with the volunteers in my region to report back what administration had to say.

All in all it was a busy weekend but a good weekend. I learned a lot and got to meet a lot of new volunteers. Now it's Sunday though and I'm exhausted! I'm sorry if this post was confusing but I thought it might be interesting to know what we do here as volunteers to help within our own organization. If you are interested to know about PCDR, here's the website, enjoy!:

http://dominican.peacecorps.gov/

So yesterday I jumped in to help do the laundry. The electricity randomly came on at about noon so we really had to take advantage (the electricity needs to be coming in from the street in order to run the washing machine). My host mom had to leave for work and my host sisters were either away or at school so it was just me and Yolanda (a girl who lives and helps out around the house). I had no idea doing laundry could be so hard. I mean I used to complain about doing laundry in the states and all I had to do was put the clothes in the washer, dump some detergent on top, turn a knob, and in an hour its done. To dry we just pull the clothes out and throw them in the dryer thats usually 6 inches away, turn a knob, and in an hour you're done.

Here things aren't quite so convenient. First, there are about 7 of us in the house so there's always a ton of laundry. Second, there are very few paved roads here so no matter what you do your clothes get muddy, dusty, and dirty. Third, the laundry process isn't easy. We start start by seperating out the laundry (literally color by color). We fill the washing machine bucket by bucket with water and add soap. We start with whites adding the clothes one by one. As those are washing we fill two BIG buckets up with water. When the clothes are done we form an assembly line. Yolanda will take each piece of clothing out of the washer, one by one, wringing out the soapy water. She throws those in the first bucket so I can rinse out more of the soap, wring out that water, and pass them into the other bucket of clean water (same process of rinsing and wringing). After the clothes have passed through the two buckets they go back to the washing machine which has a spinner (which is why they are called semi automatic washers.. there's one part for the wash, and one part for the spinning). The clothes spin dry for about 5 minutes. If its a sunny day we take them from there and hang them on the lines to dry. Unfortunately yesterday was raining so we had to fold these wet clothes and neatly put them in a clean hamper where they would have to get hung to dry today (You pick your battles). Now mind you, while you are spinning and folding you have to start adding more clothes to the washer so its a constant juggle of pulling clothes out, rinsing, wringing, spinning, pulling, hanging, folding, scrubbing, etc. I'm telling you my wrists weren't ready for this kind of workout. Not to mention that it started pouring out yesterday in the middle of all of this so even though there is a roof over the washer we were still outside and we still got wet while we were doing the rinsing. We were outside washing for about 2 hours and we still only got about half of it done. The washer and spinner can only hold so much weight so its a long process. We would have kept going but the electricity went out again and rained on our washing parade.

So the next time you go to complain about doing laundry at home, remember my story and be thankful. I don't know about the other volunteers but I'm going to kiss the washer and dryer when I get home...

I’ll admit that I wanted to get a dog before I even stepped foot on this island. In all of the volunteer blogs and articles that I had read they had all written about how a dog made such a great companion during your service. None of them mentioned though the difficulties that also comes with having a dog outside of the US. For us we can just go to the shelter pick out the dog we like and it’s usually already been spayed or neutered and given all of its shots. When you go on walks, you'll probably cross at least 10 other people doing the same, no to mention all of the dog parks you could choose from.

Let’s just say it’s not quite like that here. I have to travel a town over just to get dog food (which is sold by the pound in a plastic grocery bag) and I'm not quite sure of the quality. I brought Caramela to a vet when I first got her but I really question the qualifications of the people working there, including the doctor. To get her spayed I’m going to have to cross the country so Mr. Alfano (a vet from back home who happens to come here twice a year to do free vet work) can do the operation. I’m afraid of what they would do to her anywhere else.

For the everyday, I walk her on a leash and while people are starting to getting used to it, people have been looking at me like I'm crazy. People get dogs to guard their house and just let them run around. They don’t spay or neuter them and they certainly don’t bathe them. To be honest I don’t think most people even feed them; they just let them fend for themselves and occasionally throw them scraps of food. People will stop and ask me if Caramela is mean and when I say No, they look at me with disappointment. They say, "she should be mean or she won’t protect you". Now use your imagination on how a dog might become “mean”… If you picture a person beating the daylights out of a dog, day in, day out, until it barks at every person walking by them, then you thought right. One day after lunch I could hear these awful cries, yelps, and beating noises coming from my neighbor’s house. My host mom and I thought it was a person so she went over to the window to check out the situation and came back to report that “it was just the dog”. I wanted to go over there and make them stop but she told me not to for fear that the person could get angry with me and either come after me or take it out on my dog. I didn’t get how she could say though that it was “just a dog”. She told me about a dog named Lassie (of course right?) that they used have but how a neighbor (who my host mom had called the police on for beating his wife) had killed the dog and threw it over a fence. Incidentally, only a couple of weeks ago Caramela walked into the open yard of the in-laws to that neighbor (who killed the other dog) and all of a sudden we heard Caramela yelp and cry all the way home. It literally got the attention of all the neighbors who told me that the wife kicked Caramela right in the side. That’s how animals get treated here.

I'm not writing this because I want you to think these people are bad. I do think it's important however to realize that in the United States we often don't think about how animals are treated in other countries. We are educated in the US on how to treat animals and we even have laws to protect them. So in addition to the work I'm doing at the computer center I have made it a personal goal to promote education to work against cruelty to animals. I'm already starting to work with kids since they seem to catch on really fast. After that I'm on to the community at large. As for now, I need to go attend to my poor Domino who's been sick since yesterday. Wish him well!

I posted the address to my house a couple of weeks ago but wasn't sure how that would go. The good news is that the test package that my mom sent me already made it to my house last thursday. So if you send me mail to the Peace Corps office in the capital I may never get it.. but if you sent me something directly to my little rural town in the mountains it will get there in under 2 weeks. Go figure right? I don't get the logic but I also don't want to question a good thing! In other news, after months of fighting with customer service centers, I finally got the major telecommunications company to sell me a wireless internet card. That means I will have internet almost everywhere, almost all of the time. It just depends on whether or not there's signal at the time but I don't suspect that it will be a problem.

I'm still in the capital now. We had our 3 month training all of last week just outside of the capital and now I'm just waiting until Monday to hopefully get some books, educational DVDs, and diplomas for my computer center. For the first part of our training we brought our project partners (the people we work with at our sites). We presented the results of our community diagnostic and sat through workshop after workshop only to be followed by lots and lots of team building activities. Our project partners left on tuesday and we stayed for more workshops. I'll admit it was fun but by Friday we had all had enough. Well that's my most recent update. Now that I have reliable internet I should be posting more often. Until then...

So I've been told that I can supposedly get mail right to my house... that's right, I contracted a donkey to come all the way from the capital through the mountains, over the river, and to my house.. crazy huh? only its not true. There's a "post office" in town and they claim if you wonderful people send me cards, letters, packages, or doggie toys, it will make it right to my door.

So here's the address:

Brittany LeBlanc

de Miriam y Rolando

Calle Duarte #22

Municipio Restauración, Provincia Dajabón

Republica Dominicana

As I talked about in a previous blog, if you are going to send me anything resembling a package, its best to mail it in a padded envelope. We were told that those are less expensive to send and take less time to get her. Obviously if it can't fit in an envelope then don't worry about but that was just a suggestion from Peace Corps from before we even got here. Hope you're able to put this to use someday!!

I just realized that the last time I posted was when I was at the airport on my way to Florida... that was 23 days ago. I've been pretty busy since then I must say. The wedding/vacation was great. Amanda and Mark picked a great little island to get away on. The day after I got back into country, I went to Samana with several other volunteers for a Fourth of July gathering. Samana is a peninsula in the Northern part of the country. The coast has some of the most beautiful beaches in the country and the interior has by far some of the best and largest waterfalls in the country. We found small bungalow hotels with a view of the ocean and we only paid about US $7.50 per person per night (not bad right?!). Then on Sunday I made it back to the capital where I only stayed about an hour before I was whisked to the town of Jarabacoa by an American friend here to visit family and take care of some business. In my two days there I managed to find my new best friend. She was living next to a street vendor who sole fried chicken and fries. She was the only street dog that I had ever seen who wasn't skinny, covered in bugs, and covered in mange. She was just a puppy but she was pretty well filled out and loved affection. She came right up to our table and was waiting for either food or some love. I took a couples to make the decision but in the end we went back and picked her up. The next day we took her to the vet, got her some anti-parasite medication, vaccines, flea bath, a cage, and of course her first collar and leash. The vet said she was only about 2 months old and agreed that she was some kind of German Shepherd mix. She's little now but judging by the size of her paws she's going to grow to be a lot bigger. In any case, I got her back home and she's now a town celebrity. There are people in town who have never seen a dog on a leash and who don't understand why I treat my dog with respect so they watch as I walk by with her. All of the kids know her name (more or less) and yell it out whenever they see her. She also made best friends with the dog already living at my house (who is doing much better since we gave him that medicine a couple weeks ago) so now not only have I been working around the clock to get my community diagnostic done by next week, I've been doing my best to train this dog. That's kind of the story of my life right now. I take Caramela to the river every afternoon to swim and have found some amazing places. As soon as I can I'll take pictures and post them. For now, it's back to work on the diagnostic.

So I was fortunate enough to catch a bola (a free ride) to the airport right from the Peace Corps Office... the unfortunate part is that I got here 6 hours early. Keeping on the positive side of things, I found a cafe that has nice employees who have let me sit here for hours and use the Wireless Internet.

In my time here I've been able to think up some funny times I've had here recently. Such as:

Have you ever seen a kid run around in nothing but snow pants in 90 degree weather chasing a chicken down the road? and then his brother is following him wearing nothing but underwear and you realize he has a baby chicken in his hands? well that was Thursday..I've seen 3 adults and 2 children fit all on one motorcycleI've had people try to tell me that bioled plantain (banana) has fat but that the fried egg is ok...Someone in town is trying to educate others that a woman can get pregnant again while already pregnant...A neighbor is trying to educate others that AIDS is a myth...I saw a kid sitting in the middle of a dirt road in nothing but his underwear dragging his butt down the road like a dog...Butter and Salami sandwiches with hot chocolate is a balanced breakfast..Best of... Water makes you fatAlright well that's all I can think of for now. Spirit Air should now be open so I can at least check in.

So as some of you know, I was originally nominated for a Peace Corps program in the Carribean for Youth Development. Based on my experience working with kids and youth they felt that was the best match. However I saw 15 months go by with no assignment. In December (of 2008) I had my final phone interview where the girl asked me if I was willing to be part of an Information and Communication Technology program. She said she could nominate me for this program and guarantee me a spot based on the fact that I had worked in the computer labs at UT and took a course of Microsoft Office programs. Changing paper and knowing powerpoint and excel obviously doesn't make me a computer genius but it was enough to get me an assignment and at the point that's all I was looking for. When I originally applied for Peace Corps I'll admit I had a certain idea of what it might be like. I pictured living in a straw hut with no electricity and walking to the river for water. Well as it turns out that's how the Youth and Family volunteers here in this country live..as most do around the world.. Here their houses are usually made out of Palm Tree Wood, most do not have consistent electricity, if any at all, and many still have to bathe in the river. So while I might complain about having cold bucket baths and only having electricity 10-12 hours a day, I've actually got it pretty good. More than that is the computer I'm using to write to you on now. In the last 3 and a half months that I've been here I've learned more about computers (hardware and software) than I have probably learned in the last 10 years combined. I can now clone a computer, assess problems, make repairs, upload image files (didn't even know what that was before!) and today I just mastered changing the template to my blog. I assure you it was a learning process and not as easy as I thought. So while I know it's not as easy to read, just know that it was a triumph of self learning on my part. The more I learn, the more I can teach the kids in my classes, who will hopefully go on to teach others as well. It all comes full circle because if I had turned down this assignment to Information Technology I would have missed out on all of this useful knowledge. As an FYI I will be changing this blog template to something easier to read soon but for now its my little trophy.

And of course

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY!!

So I just want to say thank you to all of you tax payers because I truly believe the Embassy here in Santo Domingo keeps us sane. After you pass security, it's like stepping into a whole different world. People speak English, the cafe serves American style food, there's a pool and then there's the best part.... the HOT showers!! After going back to my site on Sunday, I turned around yesterday just to come back here so I could get my green card today. I go back to my site tomorrow morning, stay for one week and then come back to the capital next Friday to catch my flight to Fort Laudersale at night. What makes all of this travel especially fun is that the trip takes about 7 hours (9 hours on a bad day!) With that said, when in the capital it is REALLY nice to take a dip in the pool followed by a hot shower. It's only a walk down the street from the Peace Corps Office so it's really convenient too. That might not seem like a big deal to you guys but when you sweat like you've never sweat before (even just standing) you'd kill for a pool and when you take ice cold bucket baths everyday, a hot shower is glorious... and I mean REALLY glorious.

Well I know I didn't write much but my first host family is letting me stay with them in Pantoja ("suburbs" of the capital) and I have to catch a bus to get there so I need to head out. I'll try to write more next week.

So it’s been a while since I’ve posted a blog. It’s one of those things I say I’m going to do tomorrow and well tomorrow becomes next week … and well you know the drill. Since I last wrote I’ve been pretty busy. I’m not sure if I explained this before, but for the first 3 months that I’m here, I’m supposed to be working on a diagnostic of my town. Basically I’m supposed to walk around, meet people, introduce myself and explain why I’m here. Then I need to get them to eventually answer my survey questions. I’ve developed questionnaires for youth, teachers, and families in the community. The questions principally have to do with Information Technology (IT) and their level of experience using a computer or taking classes, etc. I’ve got questions about the school system and how we can get parents involved in it. I’ve also got questions about youth groups and community needs. You name it for community assessment and I’ve got a question for it. I try to spend as much time as I can on that but to be honest I get pulled away a lot. I typically go into my computer center everyday around 8:30am and leave at noon for lunch. The center opens back up at 2:00 which is about when I go back too. On certain days I give classes to the teachers to get them better capacitated in certain Microsoft Office programs. We had a meeting today and it was decided that it’s going so well that I’m going to keep giving the teachers classes for the next 3 months. During the rest of the day I’m usually called on to help with an array of issues. Somebody comes and needs help with a spreadsheet.. Brittany!.. somebody needs a letter typed up… Brittany!... computer crashes… Brittany! I started getting frustrated at first thinking I was just getting taken advantage of but then I realized that it was because nobody knew how to work excel or they couldn’t type fast (and I’m not talking speed typing here). SO that brought me back to the classes with the teachers so I can get them ready to do these sorts of things on their own. It’s kind of strange but half the point of my work is that I won’t be here someday. By the time I leave, I have to teach somebody to be able to do everything that I can do so then they can continue to teach people, who can continue to teach people, etc. My goal is to make them not need me anymore by the time I’m going home. Luckily I got placed in a great computer center and I’ve got the willingness of all of the teachers and the committee to work with me. I’ll let you know how that goes…