Okay. I had my volunteer visit and for the first time got to get a look at real life service, the good the bad and the ugly. Let´s talk about the good: I found the place! My volunteer had given me awesome directions with which to travel across the country and I had a lot of help along the way, some from trainees and existing volunteers peppered about the country, some from a mystery man who, when I got off the bus somehow knew who I was and put me in the right public car and told them to take care of me (I still to this day don´t know who he was!) and some from the friendly motorcycle taxi drivers, or motoconchos who saw me wandering and asked me if I was looking for my volunteer.
My volunteer was incredibly sweet and encouraging. By candlelight we ate our dinners which consisted of her specialty, deliciously sautéed vegetables, to my stomach´s content as it was a nice break from the Dominican standard of rice, beans, platanos, meat. In fact, by candlelight I did almost everything including bucket baths. Though she had her own apartment she had a lot of interaction with her host family as she lived in the same building as some relatives. And, best of all, she was surviving—although she had many hardships she had made it though her first year of service and this was something I needed to see. I got to visit the North coast of the country which was a great blessing as I got to visit my first Dominican beach. A couple of the volunteers in the area met up so I got to hang out with other trainees as well—it was like a dream come true, white sand, palm trees, crystal blue water, man, there is a reason that tourism is the country´s largest source of income.
Our volunteer visits concluded the first portion of our training which was a true crash course in all things Dominican and things we needed to know to learn more in the future. The results of this training were for me: a complete and utter love of my family in Santo Domingo (though I only got to live there briefly), more confidence in Spanish, (basic) knowledge of Dominican history, environment, educational system, cultural nuances and most importantly, how to dance bachata haha.
We then left the other half of our training group, the environment kids who were on their way to learn how to build efficient cook stoves and go snorkelling and got on the bus to El Seibo to begin our community based training. Here I met my mom Francisca, my dad Billo, the young lady who cooks and cleans Elida, my sister Yaira and my brother Franklin who bears a striking resemblance to my brothers in the States. I lucked out yet again with house placement. Although I´m far away from the other volunteers, I like my neighborhood and our house is super nice, (running water again!) I met a youth volunteer who had actually just moved out before I moved in and he explained that our family setup is non traditional as both parents work all day--my mom is the principal of a school in el campo (which can be translated as boonies) and my dad transports and sells water and fruit from his truck, at least as far as I can tell, his accent is quite strong so I try to get information from my mom with the copious amounts of questions I ask each day to try and understand what the heck is going on with my still limited Spanish. Elida is really nice and a good cook, I thought I didn´t like weird Dominican spaghetti which is cooked twice with corn and onions and cheesy tomato sauce but she makes it really well, I am also developing a taste for tostones, doubly friend and squashed plantains that taste kinda like thick potato chips. As I type there is a massive construction project going on outside our house, my family is building a second story to serve as apartments for a source of income, but, Domincan construction can last a long time as they don´t always have all the money required to finish a project before beginning it.
Community based training so far has focused on computer hardware and software, their Spanish translations and how the heck we´re supposed to work when there´s erratic power in this country, teaching methods, and how to do research in our community so that we can work efficiently. We have Spanish class at our teacher´s houses, who also live with host families and trainees, an interesting setup to say the least.
I experinced holy week here which means I got a little much needed time off, spent a lot of time talking with my mom as no one works or goes to school and I ate the holy week special--habichuelas con dulce, which taste like liquid pumpkin pie with soggy cookies and pieces of potato floating in it.
Soon to come...teaching my first computer class in Spanish