Maison Gautreaux Santo Domingo

MEETING WITH THE ARTISANS: After the IST (In-Service Training) Conference where I presented my community diagnostic and learned tools to help us in our sites, I came back ready and pumped to implement some of the ideas they gave us. Since I had been at my site (over 3 months), the Artisan Association that I was solicited to work with had not met. For this reason, I came full force - hand made invitations, made a poster for our Action Plan, and called them ...

... on breastfeeding to the staff. It helped generate some questions that I hadn't prepared answers for. I need to use this last week in Santo Domingo to answer all of my own questions about the topics, develop teaching tools (posters, brochures, handouts) and master the Spanish that goes along with the topics. I'm so incredibly grateful to have 24-hour internet access! The time with Marla was really great on Wednesday night. She is now living in the western part ...

... shock stage. We have small Spanish classes, great people in the program, and a lot more information to be absorbed throughout training. Next week, I am going to visit a current PCV that's in the interior of the country and after week 4, I will be in a different homestay with my technical group for economic development training. For now, I hope all is well back in the states and make sure to update me when what you have been up to!! Adios!

... next to them. There was a 3 storeyed fortress in side the fort were soldiers obviously fired out in relative safety because there were only little slits for you to place your gun and nothing else. Up top you could fire from behind the walls and you had a good 360 view so you could see the enemy approaching. On the actual grounds there were more modern artillery weapons. The boy in me took over and Sarah couldn´t believe how excited I got but I just remembered all the ...

Up early due to jet lag and decided to take pictures of the ocean to prove I'd made it. Except the bloody digital camera I'd borrowed was telling me that it had no battery and refused to take photos. I'd charged it before I left home and so left its paraphenalia behind - back to relying on my sis's film camera and hoping I can scan the pics in at a later date. Breakfast in the hotel before heading off to find the expreso bus to Santo Domingo. We were going to catch a gua-gua ...

... I could have fended off all three of those grimy footpads, taking care of the one with the machete by turning that 40oz. bottle of beer into a powerful projectile, then drubbing the other two piranhas with a few blows to their flea-bitten heads. Maybe I could have taught them a lesson by turning the tables and using force to diffuse the situation, putting them down before they could even coordinate their assault ...

... Spring!! So weird to think about you guys having snow and cold. I hope it warms up quickly. I am really trying to get some pictures posted up on this, but it's a difficult process right now with public computers and such, but I am trying to figure it out. Adios! PS, here is a link to my friend´s travel blog site...she can be better about telling stories that we all do, so it might be fun to look at her page. www.jenfoora.blogspot.com.

... I´ve decided to write a list of things that I will always remember about the small campo of la callejon de cabrerra, that way you can get a better idea about what my life was like their for the past few weeks: 1. waking up in the middle of the night from the sound of rats running around in the kitchen and on top of the roof 2. waking up in the middle of the night from my crazy neighbor who would start chanting the bible at the top of ...

... that men weren't allowed in the kitchen..but I would let him back in any time just to say that I had defeated machismo! The meeting was a huge success and we gobbled down the empanadas with much ferver. A week later, I decided that it would be a good idea to start a garden that I had been thinking about starting since I moved into my house in April. With the help of the Estrellitas and a few other neighborhood kids, we set to work. We cleared the top ...