Wow, neglecting the blog much? I CAN’T believe I’ve already been here 5 months---can you?

I finally had my three month In Service Training presentation. Everyone has told me that service gets better after it’s out of the way. We spent three days in a beautiful mountain retreat center in a town called Jarabacoa listening to presentations on computer labs in schools, community centers and even dentists offices haha, as all of the ICT volunteers explained the research they carried out on their communities. As literacy is a new project and doesn’t truly have its own sector, Chloe and I sat like odd ducks and gave our powerpoint aided speeches to a glazed over audience of our friends. I was still overjoyed though because: Chloe’s presentation on the project she’s developing with our foundation went very well, my research ended up pinpointing some things that have the potential to improve the program, because I spoke in loud, clear spanish without using notes, because my partner showed up in a dramatic last minute entrance so that I didn’t have to give my presentation alone, and because my our director gave me some good feedback during the question/answer.

As always it was wonderful to see the rest of our training class and it was fun to bond with the Dominican counterparts as well—most of whom were very cool people which makes sense as they were kind enough to work with and support a volunteer. We played team building games and Mafia—which is like a living game of Clue + Heads up Seven Up--a volunteer favorite that went bilingual, I am absolutely terrible at it because I’m an awful liar and am always either caught or killed.

Our region’s Volunteer Action Committee meeting was very conveniently scheduled the next day in Jarabacoa so Jessica and I walked down the mountain and I took my first motoconcho ride! Jessica got on one and I on another, with the drivers balancing our bags on the handle bars. We asked them if they knew where our hotel was and Jessica’s driver said yes. Unfortunately, they took off before my driver could follow them so we drove around Jarabacoa asking the locals where our hotel was. In addition to my driver, no one seemed to know where to find the hotel. Jessica told me that while they were waiting, her driver had mentioned "He’s probably taking her to Manabao…" and she replied, “Manabao! He can’t take her to Manabao! It’s her first time on a motoconcho!” But they finally flagged us down as we were zooming past and we walked upstairs three flights to our hotel, where we found an airy room with the cleaning staff spraying aerosol insecticide at some uninvited guests—wasps. They were killed but within minutes more were flying in through the Persian blinds. We peeked out and saw several wasps nests attached to the building outside our window and slammed all the blinds shut. We spent the evening wandering around Jarabacoa on a fruitless search for a Mexican restaurant that was heralded in Jessica’s guidebook and were met with the same curious lack of knowledge from the locals, but ended up seeing some lovely views and watching The Birdcage back at our hotel.

The next day we woke up and headed to a ranch on the mountain for white water rafting. We got a good group discount as there were so many people including many girls from an international exchange program and some Russian tourists. After putting on a life vest and plastic helmet, I received advice from the ranch guide to reluctantly relinquish my glasses to the truck driver who hauled all the gear to the river and I picked my way carelfully and fuzzily to the truck. Me, Jessica, four girls from the UK and Guillermo—our nutso guide sat practicing the commands on the river bank, scraping our paddles through the dirt and foliage. The one that made my butt sore the next day was “Down” –which meant scramble off the side of the raft where you are perched and dive into the space where your legs normally go to brace yourself for a big rapid or hitting a big rock. If someone fell out there were three guys in a rescue raft floating down river that were supposed to pluck you out of the water although, most of the time they were splashing people with their paddles and spinning their boat around and round. Unlike the other rafts, we didn’t lose a single person into the river—I dunno if that speaks to our awesome teamwork, Guillermo’s watchful eye or just plain luck. He was encouraging and quite a character—he broke some bottlebrush looking plant stems off of a bush and stuck one piece in each of our helmets so that we looked like Doctor Suess characters. The whole time he was yelling “POWER LADIES” “C’mon ladies!” “AND FORWARD, FORWARD! Thank YOU!” And “Oh my Gato!” when we were plunging toward a rapid. He also had us chanting and singing things like “boom chicka boom” and “let me hear your woooooooo” The river water was cold but refreshing and Dominican kids waved to our team of 7 rafts as we rode the currents past houses on the banks. Afterward we had our VAC meeting, ate some delicious pizza and cheeseckake and were on our way and I rode Caribe tours back to the capital.

Here is a random cultural note for you all--you know the religious literature pamphlets that people hand out? Here, lots of people have them and hand them out in the cramped carro publicos and no one declines them. In, fact they all take them, say thank you and continue to read them. Just thought I'd share