So I finally got myself some Campesina hands this week! Milking cows, peeling guandules (beans that leave stains on your hands), welding machetes, and carrying buckets of water. I’m just about at the end of my 3 months of service, which means I can move out of my host family’s house and into my own. I found a lovely little 2-room wooden house (also the only vacant house in my village) and I’ve been prepping to move in (moved in yesterday, the 15th). But of course it wasn’t as simple as just moving in. There is a letrine, but the outhouse around it was taken down, so it was really just a hole…. which just wasn’t gonna cut it for me. So my landlord hired a guy to build a little house around it, and my host dad and I helped with the whole process, thus the machete-welding (to peel the bark off of sticks used to support it). And with a few other repairs (door hinges; the water tap was broken- now it is fixed and water comes from the aquaduct every 4 days). It was also pretty stressful buying the things I needed for the house- namely a table-top stove w/gas tank, bed, and a mini fridge. Negotiating for appliances when you stand out as a gringo is pretty rough. But bueno, it’s all done. I still have to buy some basics, like plates, cups, utensils, oh and food, but I’ll get to that soon enough. Peace Corps gives us a “settling in allowance” at your 3-month point that’s supposed to go to buying stuff you need for your house, which is awesome, but it’s not quite enough. Unfortunately, I had to pull some $ from home to cover some of the expenses, which most PCVs end up doing. One-time expense. Quick note about milking cows- I’ve been going out almost every morning with my neighbor Wincito to milk his cow. And I don’t mind saying that I’m getting pretty good at it- I’ve even got the two-handed-double-teet-milking thing going on. It’s pretty awesome. And Wincito loves it because 1. He’s teaching the American girl how to do something new 2. He can’t believe that someone would actually enjoy it, and 3. It’s less work for him! He’s really great, and he gives me a big pail of milk right after we finish every day. I think now he thinks I’m down for anything though, because the other day he took me to see a bee hive that they keep to make honey, and he says the next time they go in to get it, I’m gonna gear up in a big suit and help out. I’m kind of sad to be moving out in this sense, because I have an awesome little barrio of about 5 houses. But I’m definitely going to come visit a lot. I told Wincito that when I come running in the morning, I’ll stop by to milk the cow.

In addition to fixing up my house and moving in (for which I got a ton of help from my neighbors and other wonderful people in my campo), I also have been working on finishing up my Community Diagnostic report & presentation. Our 3-month In-Service Training is in the beginning of February, and there we have to submit our reports and give a presentation to PC with someone from the community (I’m bringing my friend Navil who came with me on a lot of the home visits). Another part of the whole Community Diagnostic process is that we have to present the results to our community. I decided to present to a community group that happens to have all the key leader-ish people in it. I was a little nervous to present everything, in Spanish on what I, the outsider, saw to be the “needs and wants” of the community. At the end of the presentation of data, I gave a list of suggestions of what I thought would be great projects to do. Everyone seemed to agree with me 100%, and we discussed each potential project to some detail. But then, I asked for volunteers of people who would be especially interested in working on each project. For example, I wanted a partner for, say, a latrine project, who would accompany me to the hardware store to pick up materials, etc. No one volunteered. No one said a word! For a minute I was really bummed and thought I was basically going to be on my own for this. Then someone asked me what exactly I meant, and that no, I wasn’t going to have 1 or 2 partners for each project, that everyone wanted to help with everything, that we would talk about project progress at every meeting, and that we are all in this together. Let’s just say it was a true Peace Corps moment, with me feeling silly for trying to go about it in an American way, and realizing that we were going to do this the Dominican way- very inclusive. It might take a little longer this way, but that’s the Republica Dominicana, and I guess development in general. That sounded so cliché, and I hope my PCV friends don’t read that and make fun of me... J

December 1st was International World AIDS Day, so my youth group (Escojo mi vida) and I planned an AIDS march through our community. First we met in our community center to make signs, then we marched through the community shouting AIDS messages, like “Si a la vida, No al SIDA’ and ‘Escojo mi vidi contra el SIDA.’ At first the girls were a little shy when we passed a group of people, but by the end they were shouting really loud. They were great! And now, the best thing of all: Noche Vela (literally ‘candle night’)! Saints here are a very big deal. Every region of the country has their own patron saint, which warrants a 1-week long celebration (Patronales) which I have yet to witness! There are also a bunch of days in the year devoted to the celebration of certain saints. Anyway, Noche vela was December 2 and celebrates saints in general, and the Virgin of Altagracia in particular. There’s about 4 Noche Velas throughout the year, which I couldn’t be happier about. Ok here’s why it’s so great: during the day, they dig these long pits in the ground, fill them with firewood, and put these huge pots on top, cover with banana leaves, and cook for hours. There’s chen-chen, which is a polenta-like goup of ground corn, there’s goat, and then rice and beans of course, because what’s a Dominican meal without rice and beans? When the food was ready, half the community suddenly appeared to chow down. Oh yea, and the goat head was hung up from a tree for a domestic touch. Then came the palos (literally ‘sticks’). This is a music group with big tambora drums, and they play the drums and sing/chant while people ‘dance palo,’ which is pretty much however you feel like dancing. It was amazing, and it went on all afternoon and night. I danced a lot with the kids and the Doñas. Love the doñas. I forgot to take pictures, but there’s another Noche Vela at the end of January, so I’ll try to get some then. It’s really cool to see a tradition that clearly has Taino Indian and African influence. Apparently the palos are only in certain regions, so I’m lucky to be in San Juan!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I hope you all had a great time with your families and managed to gain a few pounds :) We had a big PC celebration in the capital with a Turkey Trot, sports, a talent show, and obviously a big Thanksgiving lunch! All of the food was homemade at the embassy families' houses, and we got our favorites of turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, cranberry sauce, and veggies. But the best part was the pies. We had tables of like 8ish, and every table got a pumpkin pie, pecan pie, chocolate mousse, apple stroudel, and brownies. It was awesome. Not quite as good as my mom's Thanksgiving dinner table, but it didn't include rice or boiled platanos so it was awesome. It was nice to be with the Peace Corps family for Thanksgiving!

In terms of work, I'm about half way through my community diagnostic, where I go house to house and interview all of the families in my community about health and living conditions. More times then not, I leave the houses with bags of chinolas (passion fruit), chinas (oranges), or huevos criollos (Dominican eggs- the yolk is bright orange and they are SO delicious! But yes, they just hand me two eggs to carry to my house. I love it.) I'm learning a lot about my community, like that things are a little different than I thought by looking on the surface. It seems like I'll be able to do a lot of projects- I found there is some need that I hadn't realized. And even though my community has agua, luz, and letrines, there's about 10 houses without letrines. So hopefully if everything works out, I'll be able to learn how to build latrines (yay!).

All is well here. Sorry I suck at blogging regularly. Nothing much is going on while I do my community diagnostic. And no one here can understand my spanish, so that's not so fun. But I guess it can only improve. Until the next time I remember to blog, Adios!

I'm back at the PC office after my site visit! Las Yayas is absolutely beautiful. Theres a lot of agriculture in my area- they grow platanos, beans, and onions. I can see a mountain range (the Cordilleras perhaps?) in the distance, and you need to take a motorcycle ride to get into my community because it's pretty rural. The people are really amazing- everytime I visited a house I came back with an armfull of fruit! The accent is VERY different though, I'm having a really hard time understanding anyone or having anyone understand anything I'm saying. I feel like they're not even speaking Spanish sometimes. But hopefully I'll be able to figure out the accent pretty soon...or else. One funny thing that happened during my visit is that I casually mentioned to my neighbor that I had never tried guinea (guinea hen) before. The next day, guess what was slaughtered for lunch... and it was delicious.

My community is very organized with health promoters, an aquaduct, latrines, and very active community groups. I'm going to be working with the community groups to strengthen their capacity, and during the first 3 months I'll be conducting a community diagnostic to assess the needs and strengths of the community. I'm really close (20 minutes moto ride) from San Juan, which is a pretty nice city. So if I need anything, like internet, printing, etc I can just head into San Juan instead of going all the way back to the capital. Looks like a pretty good site!

Swear-in is tomorrow. I can't believe how fast training went by! Finally moving from being a trainee to a real volunteer!

I know I haven't gotten the chance to write in a while- I've been so busy at CBT (community-based training) in Las Tablas. So I got my site on Thursday- it's called Las Yayas in the San Juan province, about 3.5 hours from the capital. It's got less than 100 houses, which I think is the perfect size. During my pre-placement interview, I told the director that I really wanted to be in the mountains and I wanted to build stuff, like latrines and aquaducts. When I asked on Thursday if I was in the mountains, I think he was trying to let me down slowly because he kept saying "it's very pretty... there are hills." So I have no idea what to expect but I am happy to know where I'm heading!

CBT has been awesome. I was put with an AMAZING family. My 12-year-old host brother and I play soccer a lot and my "aunt" does my nails on a weekly basis. I'm also getting plenty of practice using a latrine- which definitely does take practice. So this is funny: We took a field trip to the capital to see an organization called ProFamilia. While there, about 6 of us went to the US Embassy and ordered burgers from the cafeteria. 2 days later, 4 of us were really sick. Out of all places in the country, the US Embassy gave us amoebas! We're all ok now, but that was my first in-country illness experience, and it wasn't too shabby.

So we only have a week left of CBT; we leave next Saturday for the capital to finish up training in the capital. CBT has absolutely flown by. We typically have Spanish all morning and technical training all afternoon, and meanwhile we each had to give 3 technical presentations to people in the community.

hello hello! This weekend we all got to visit volunteers at their sites and see their projects and their daily lives. I went to visit a health volunteer Meredith, who lives in a tiny tiny community called Jabonico, in Monte Plata. Jabonico is a batay, which means it was originally constructed as a place to house workers who came to work at sugar cane fields, or in this case, Dole pineapple. Most of the companies have left, and now they are some of the poorest communities in the country. Jabonico is beautiful, with mountains on each side of the road. Great views from all over. I used a latrine for the first time and was pleasantly surprused at how clean and non-gross smelling it was!

I got there on Thursday evening, and on Friday we caught a guagua (a small bus-type vehicle where you can PACK people in) early and headed to a pueblo (bigger than a campo, smaller than a city) where another volunteer, Phil, lives. We met up with other volunteers and other people in my group who were visiting the volunteers. So Phil has an ecotourism project where his youth group is trying to start up tours of a cacao production plant as a tourist attraction, and the group wanted to do a run through of the tour for us and get some feedback. The tour was really interesting and smelled delicious. They gave us delicious hot chocolate when we got there.

The next day we went to another volunteer's Escojo graduation. Escojo is a peer education program that teaches life skills. On Dominican time of course, the 2:00 graduation started at 4:00. The kids were all dressed in their finest apparel, in prom dresses and suits and ties for the guys. All the girls' hair looked awesome too. Overall, an awesome chance to see a few people's sites and kind of see the real PC experience after training. I was so excited and impressed to see how many projects Meredith had undertaken in her (almost) 2 years of service. She has a girls volleyball team, did a food security project with chickens and organic gardens, built latrines, built an aquaduct for clean water, and did a bunch of programs on nutrition, women's health, etc. I'm excited to do a bunch of projects like this, too.

So I'm in the capital now with 3 other trainees, hanging out at the Cuerpo de Paz office and using taking advantage of the free internet. Planning on heading over to the embassy in a little to use their pool and their hot showers! Some empanadas may be in order a little later... :)

Hola!

So I´ve been here for a week now and it feels like much longer. My host family is very nice, my Dona cooks for me often and my 15 year old host brother Eton is very polite and patient with my broken Spanish. My barrio is GREAT. There is always music blasting, maringue and raggaeton. And if the music doesn´t keep you awake, the chickens and dogs sure will! There´s this awesome call and response thing that the chickens have going on. They will talk to each other from across the town.

It is really great here. I have a huge group of 59 volunteers, and everyone is really cool. We have a great training center in the city with lots of trees and open space. Our spanish classes are very small. I´m in a group with only 2 other volunteers. We were tested on our spanish and rated on a scale of 1 to 10. 0 is you know how to say ´hola´ and 10 is native speaker. I´m ion the 4 group, which I´m really happy with. At the end of training, you have to test at a 5 to be sworn in, so that shouldn´t be a problem, especially considering how much spanish I get everyday.

The hospitality here is really incredible. Whenever I visit the other volunteers in my barrio, their Donas always bring out coffee, which is out of this world by the way, or jugo de limon, or a fruit salad with sugar on it! I´ve played some dominoes and some Dominican card games, and I was even invited to a birthday party this weekend. How exciting!

I´m becoming a pro at bucket showers, and even bucket showers with a headlamp, when the electricity goes out, which is often. I´m at an internet cafe on my street right now, and I´ll try to post as often as possible. Probably about once a week because we are super busy at training. Adios for now!

So it's my last day at home! I have to be in Georgetown at noon tomorrow for staging. I'm so excited about meeting everyone in my group. I think I'm one of only 2 people that aren't flying in to DC from around the US- I'm lucky staging is so close to me! I'm not exactly sure what to expect of staging, but I think it's mostly a broad orientation, getting my passport, etc. And then we leave for Miami (leaving for the airport at 3:00 am for a 7:00 am flight... ) before heading to Santo Domingo.

So I have to leave my house tomorrow morning at around 11:00, so I'm getting some last minute stuff done now.... and I'm sure I'll forget to do something important. My next post will be in the DR! So exciteddddddddddddd

So it's time to pack... I have a steadily-growing pile in the corner of my room which I should probably start organizing. Went shopping yesterday to get some adventure basics- head lamp, pocket knife, etc. And my sleeping bag, duffel, and keen shoes just came in the mail. So it looks like I pretty much have everything I need. The problem is that I'm packing based on the assumption that every day will be 80 degrees, but I could very well be placed near the mountains, which is cooler. Oh well, que sera sera.

Dominican Republic, August 18! :) I've never been so happy to get mail in my life. Went out celebrating with my lovely friends! Good news is it's close enough for people to visit me....and it's beautiful enough that people actually want to visit.

Lots to do.... passport & visa applications, personal statement... eek.

My invitation is in the mail! Here are the events that led up to this moment:

Yesterday as I was getting ready to leave work, I got a call from that infamous 202 number. It was my placement officer, calling to ask me a few questions. It felt like another interview- how is your family feeling about this? Have you spoken to returned peace corps volunteers? What do you think will be the most difficult part? etc, etc. I tried to crack a few jokes about how its been a year-long aplpication process and I've been avidly stalking PC blogs.....but that didn't go over too well so I stuck to being professional. After the questions, she said that (contrary to what the initial placement officer said) they are considering me for a program in mid-August doing HIV/AIDS outreach in Latin America. Oh how quickly things can change! So I was super excited about that and she told me they'd be issuing the invitation shortly, and I have 7 days to accept the invitation.

So, obviously the first thing I did was check on peacecorpswiki.org for Latin American mid-August programs. PC has a 6-week rule; they have to issue an invitation at least 6 weeks from the staging date. So, there's Guatemala (Aug. 10- missed the 6 week deadline), Mexico (Aug 17- missed the deadline by 1 day, so possible, but not likely), and Dominican Republic (Aug 18- EXACTLY 6 weeks.) Dominican Republic also has a big HIV/AIDS program. I don't want to get my hopes up, but I'm pretty sure it's the Dominican.

I got the email early this morning informing me that my PC toolkit has been updated. If they only knew how long I have been waiting for this email! I checked my toolkit to see "Congratulations! You have been invited to become a Peace Corps Volunteer." From when my application was submitted on July 8, 2009 to when I was invited to serve on July 7, 2010, it's been a grueling ride. I'm glad it's over :)

So today, acting on the incessant pressure from friends and family to call PC and ask them where my placement is, I called the last PC staff member to contact me, my preliminary placement officer... No one picked up. So I left a message, and she actually returned my call! Seeing a call from a (202) number, as every applicant knows is the PC government area code, made me very excited.

Anyway, here's the deal:

- My application is now with the Placement Specialist, the final step before you receive an invitation

- The program I am being considered for leaves in September, not August/September as I was originally told (September departures in my region: Peru, Paraguay) :)

- This is the highest-volume time of year for program departures, so they have until the end of July to send my invitation (aka- be patient, stop calling.)

Even though it's not a placement, it's something. It's really good to hear from someone from PC and know that they didn't lose my application.

Hopefully good news soon!

Here I am, potentially 8 weeks from my departure date (slated for mid-August to mid-September), and still NO INVITATION. I'm trying to be patient, but I feel like I already paid my patience dues to Peace Corps somewhere along the year-long application process. Example of my patience:

July 8, 2009: Application Received

August 31, 2009: Interview

September 4, 2009: Nominated for Service

February 26, 2010: Medically Cleared for Service

May 12, 2010: Contacted by the Placement Office for Updated Resume & Final Transcript

June 17, 2010: ...

I want to call them but I don't want to be annoying. I also know I should be practicing patience right now in preparation for service. And to be fair, PC says you typically get your invitation 6 weeks prior to service. Maybe I'll call July 1 if I still haven't heard. I know everything I need to do to get ready to leave can be done in far fewer than 6 weeks... but I want to start buying cool gearrrrrrrr