Yesterday a trainee, Today a volunteer!

TODAY I BECOME A CERTIFIED PEACE CORPS VOLUNTEER!!!!
We have a ceremony with diplomats from the DR and the US embassy and everyone from the PC office. And i take an oath and sign offical documents. Its really exciting. We are all so proud of ourselves and so sad. I could cry i miss everyone already and i'm sitting right next to my best friend here, Margaret. I'm going to my other best friends house, Stephanie to blow dry my hair after i eat margarets dona's "life changing french fries" We'll see how good they really are. These were the other 2 girls in my agforestry group and they are just awesome. But they will never take the place of my one and only twin bff, Lauren Frisbie. Tears will be shed today. Training was an incredible experience, i would do it over a million times if i had to. (I'm glad i don't tho, Hubo dias muy abburidos)

Oh by the way everyone, I passed all my tests!!!!!!!! I'm an intermediate mid spanish speaker which is the requirement. I was so excited, i got a little choked up! All the other tests and interview went smoothly.

So anywho back on track. I think when i get as frustrated as I was in my site, I know that i have these great friends and great supports that i will be fine. All volunteers have told us that "your peace corps service will be a rollercoaster of emotions" I am just now at my crossroads from trainee to volunteer realizing how "challenging" this can be. But like everyone always says " what ever doesn't kill you makes you stronger" and i'm pretty sure i'll be the incredible hulk by the time i get back!!! 2 years in the DR, thats all i can say....

Tomorrow we are going to the beach!!! It'll be my second time. I wasn't impressed the first time. Boca Chica is G-Ross, but we're going to a different one this time with all my friends. And i think friday i'm getting permission from the PC office to get a horse, and a puppy at the pound!!!! Yippeee Then we might go swimming at the US Embassy, haha its nice being American!

Wish me luck i'm gonna go get pretty!

Love everyone, thanks for all your support!

ai ai ai

Back in the capital. I'm in the peace corps headquarters right now cuz the girl i was traveling with was sick last night vomiting and the works. so she's getting checked out by the doctor and i'm using the internet for free.
So my hill is really overwhelming. My dona is crazy, i mean 2nd grade education level, had an abusive husband that died just crazy. She just isn't helpful, and she confuses the hell out of me. But she's a great cook. I can't wait until i get my own house and meet other people in the community. She's going to drive me insane if i don't get other friends or meet other people in the community.
Its also freezing cold and wet on my hill. Def. not tropical hot weather. Its good to not be sweaty anymore, but i get shivers and never feel warm b/c its so damp. So if anyone would like to send me a hooded sweatshirt I would love that, they are hard to come by in this country b/c most places its freaking hot. I decided that i am going to start running every morning so that i will get warm enough to want to take a bucket bath outside.
oh well i will get used to it.
Enough ranting, i think it was just a really confusing and tiring visit to my community. I will be returning back there next sunday.
Tomorrow i have my final language test, a medical test and a safety and policies test. Also tomorrow there are interviews with the peace corp director and sector director. Once again I am nervous. Ai Ai Ai

An unforseen miracle, i'm on the internet for free!!! 2 days of internet, this is going to be rare. Anyway i'm in Santiago, which is the nicest city in the DR, almost feel American. And i live super close only a 12 peso bus ride away after i descend the mountain that i call home. I had pizza hut for lunch. and haven't spoken a lick of spanish yet today. Jen and i met up at our office of our project partners, the name of it is slipping my mind, but anyway another volunteer met us there and showed us the city and stuff. Now i'm at her apt. which makes me miss america cuz it has internet and running water and a refridgerator.
Anyway last night we went to a showing of the pelicula, "an inconvienent truth" the one about global warming with al gore, it was in english with spanish subtitles, so i've been totally spoiled these past 2 days. I love this city!!!
Not much else is going on, i'm just really overwhelmed still.

my crew

Hey aunt lisa and crew.
I´m so glad you guys are enjoying my blogs. I want to write this how i talk, so you never forget my lovely lingo.
I can´t believe little nicky is now 13!!! Get ready the teenage years are the best. I´ve got some cute dominicano boys here if she wants me to bring one home to put in her bike basket!!!!
Miss you all!

La Loma (the hill)

Hey folks,
I unexpectedly got to a computer, which by the looks of my site location is not bound to happen more than once a month. Ánother volunteer se llama Jen is working with the same organization as me, and seeing as though i live halfway up the highest peak in the northern most mountain range and we have a meeting in the morning my project partner brought me down the mountain this afternoon instead of having to get me in the morning. It takes about 40 minutes just to climb the mountain, by jeep mind you, to ge to my village. Let me just tell you the view is absolutely incredible!! I live in the clouds, literallly, the fog is rolling around at all times. And boy is there a chill, but I like it so far.
My house that i will be living in for the first 3 months is like camping. There is no faucett for water, its all in big barrels outside, no sinks included. We have a latrine, which if anyone has been to slateford farms and took a gander at the outhouse there, thats what i´m pooping in, and thats no joke!!! The showering is just a tin enclosure with a sheet door, luckily i love showering outside, that was a requirement of our house in north carolina, EOS!!!! enclosed outdoor shower. but now its just a bucket bath. hmmm what else, ooooh my dona, the woman of the house, cooks over a fire!!! She says its better b-c gas contaminates the food. Boy is she crazy!! Thats ok, the fire keeps me warm when we´re in a cloud.
Anyway, besides roughing it hardcore, my village is a agroforestry volunteers dream!!! I´m pretty sure i´m living in a rainforest. There is a great site for tourists that they are developing about 40 minutes more up my loma. Its kinda like tuscarora, a retreat center, and they told me i can stay there whenever i want. So if you wanna hike and stay there with me, its a pretty nice place. I mean i haven´t seen any civilized living arrangements lately but this place is really nice, it runs on renewable energy and has running water, even in shower form. mmmmm heavenly.
What else to say.
Oh could some one email me info on the Manacala forest, thats what i´m living in and its supposedly really rare or something. They have a rough accent here and i´m struggling with the language again... I got so confident when i got back to Santo Domingo, i could talk to everyone, but now, as dad would say pppp dead.

Oh well. I¨m so overwhelmed and my brain cells have formed into a geletain state of mushy peas. but i´m getting by. A week from today i will be an offical peace corps volunteer, no more of this trainee shizzle.

TaTa for now my sweets

ocho mas!!!!!

I GAINED 8 POUNDS IN TECHINICAL TRAINING!!! is it muscle or did i just fall deeply in love with fried plantains! The world will never know...

Luckily now i will have to hike up a mountain every day for the next 2 years.

I´m up to 143 y pico MOM!!!!!


so much for me being skinny, i couldn´t imagine what would happen if icecream was easily accessible!!!!!

ok peace out my peace corps fan club!!!

entrainamiento habia terminado

Hola mi amores!
My week near Haiti was great!!!! It was life changing no doubt about that. The 7 of us and a few dominicans and our trainer slept in cabins, cooked over a fire stove, clogged lots of toilets and bathed in the river!!! We had a blast!!!! We encountered a bat in our room hanging from the bunk bed and a rat in our bathroom.

Haiti was the saddest site i´ve ever seen in my life. I couldn´t speak. We drove down the international highway which is the worst dirt road i´ve been on yet in this country and they are all dirt! But the dr is on one side with green hills and trees as far as the eye can see and Haiti is on the other side and its brown and dry and it would have been possible to count the number of trees on the mountains. The people live in shacks smaller than a pennsylvania tool shed made of sticks and mud with palm leaves for the roof and 8 to 12 people live in them. The people look like the ones you adopt for a dollar a day on those commercials. I cried under my sunglasses... there are no hope for those people. Dominicans are poor but their poverty doesn´t make me cry b-c this country is on the right track. Just seeing haiti put my whole life into perspective.

Anyway tomorrow i go visit my site in El Ranchito.. isn´t that fun to say El Ranchito accent on the chi!!! I´m totally psyched!!! Nervous as all heck but can´t wait to get this service started. I will be gone until sunday in my new home. Monday will be a huge internet day. My site is on a mountain so maybe i will have phone service up there. Si dios quierre! ahah thats a dominican phrase.. it literally means if god wants, and they say it for everything, are you going to school si dios quierre. haha anywho. I´m so excited i could pee

Can´t wait to get settled in speak the language (today was my last spanish class yowzer), and have so flipping visitors!!!! Bring your rain gear and your bathing suits, i´m in the clouds and near the beach!!!!

Amor para todo el mundo!!!!!!!

I gotta go home and pack!!!!!!!

sweet beans

el diablo to me, known to dominicans as habecheulas con dulce, they are like a chocolate milk shake thing that is actually bananas and beans pureed. Its so gross, but they love it, they even have an icecream flavor of it in the icecream store in town.

the date of my swearing in is April 25th.

Whats my fam doing for Easter_ Hard boiled egg throwing_

training winding down

Hola Mis Amigos,
I´m feeling great once again.
We only have 2 more days in Jarabacoa! My house is packed with family from the capital. Last night there was 15 people. There was a matteress in the living room, and people screaming and a snoring fat man, mid dream i thought a motorcycle was stuck in a ditch and they were revving the engine trying to get it out. haha but it was just a snoring guy. Oh and my doña´s sister is a nun, but she´s really rude, always saying that i don´t understand anything, when in all actuality i do!!!
We just went grocery shopping for our trip and spent 5000 pesos. I dunno what the math is, but we got alot of peanut butter and macaroni and cheese and chips and salsa... And i got a mango for myself for later. mmm
Yesterday was our last day at the forestry schoool. We had lectures in the morning then planted sugar cane in the afternoon. I was eating the sugar cane, and got on a major sugar high. Its probably the least attractive thing to eat. worse than sunflower seeds. You chew the cane to get the sugar juice out and then spit the pulp out, but its so gross loooking. As if you were reguritating it. but i love it, peeling it with the machete then eating it like a Haitian.

I hope everyone has a great easter. Here we have been celebrating all week. Its called Semana Santa. The kids haven´t had school since last wednesday, so they have been off for a week and a half. On thursday morning at 430 everyone got ready and went to church in a group. The group walked around the neighborhood singing songs, kinda like caroling, man that was creepy. I haven´t been to church yet with them, but i don´t think i´ll be able to get out of it sunday. That should be interesting.

So the plan is Monday we leave for the border. Camp there a week and bathe in the river. Leave on saturday, go back to santo domingo. Monday i go to school and find out where my community site is that i´ll be at for 2 years and get my cell phone. Then tuesday is project partner day in santo domingo and i take a trip out to my site for a 5 day visit! Then i come back to santo domingo for 2 or 3 days, swear in as an offical peace corps volunteer and then ship out for 2 years!!! I´m so excited!!!!!

sorry i was dying

Sorry I haven´t written in a while, i just haven´t had enough time. I wasn´t able to go into town over the weekend b-c I was puking and on the verge of death. Needless to say it was due to the habecheulas con dulce, or sweet beans, that is made as a treat for easter. Everytime i think about them i cringe. I haven´t been able to eat any beans since then, but i hope i can bring myself to do it soon b-c they are a sustainial portion of my protein intake.
Anyway everything else has been good, learning alot. We went to a cacao plantation, but there was no chocolate to be found, so that was a bummer. We planted over 200 saplings between last week and this week, it was hard work but so fun, i got super dirty cuz i was the hole digger. I ain´t saying she a hole digger.... haha It was raining that day and i was wearing gloves and the skeeters were biting and i would slap them. I eventually started thinking that they didn´t bite where i was dirty, but i was wrong. I look like i have chicken pox once again
Next week we are going to a pueblo on the Haitian border called Resuracion. We will be there for a week and we get to cook for ourselves American cuisine, camp out, and bathe in the river!!!! I´m so stoked, Then the saturday we travel back to Santo Domingo. then the monday we get our site locations and cell phones!!!! Its quite the exciting time
Nobody worrry about me being on the Haitian border, although there is a general loathing of Haitian, i haven´t seen any violence towards them. There are Haitians everywhere too, even in this small town of Jarabacoa that i´m in now. They are alot of construction workers. We are safe.

Spanish is really frustrating. But i have double my language score since i´ve been here 2.0 to a 4.0. I know i´ll learn, but i wish i could just wake up and know it one day

I also had an interview with the placement officer and he said that he is thinking about placing me in a small community close to Santiago, in the North. Just so everyone knows this is good news! Its BEAUTIFUL in the north. Absoutely gorgeous!! I won´t find out for sure but if you wanna research thats the information that i have now.

alright i love everyone!!! And i will update soon