Finca Alta Gracia Dominican Republic

... importantly that being half japanese qualifies me as looking like jackie chan:). Training is now officially over and it has been such a blur. Filled with baby goats, running burros, gaga dancing, riding in backs of trucks, quantum learning, running through sugar cane fields, didactic material, learning how to play big booty in three languages, dinamica after dinamica, and now we're ready to go ...

... I was at the entrance welcoming people and directing them to the ceremony. I have learned that Dominican weddings are quite different from American weddings. First of all, most of them do not occur in the church. This is not because Dominicans are less religious than Americans (the contrary actually), but because if a couple gets married in the church and they later need a divorce, the process is a lot more difficult. Divorces are ...

Sunday, January 4, 2009 Dear Friends, Happy New Year! Happy Holidays! I hope you enjoyed some special holiday moments this season. I'm doing pretty well. I've been in my site for the last couple of weeks spending Christmas, New Years, and tomorrow's holiday, Day of the Kings where I understand we will have party for the children. I was unsure how the holidays in the campo would go. Generally, there are many adventures outside of their sites that ...

... s why you don't feel well." Luzlanda on Sunday: "You shouldn't go to the World AIDS Day march tomorrow. Only walk when you need to." Me: "Great. I can sleep an extra hour." Me on Monday morning: "So how are we getting to work this morning?" Luzlanda: "We're walking." Walking to the office is about 12 times farther than the one-block World AIDS Day march. Me on Friday: "I'm going to keep taking my antibiotics until my cut closes up." Luzlanda on Friday: "Yes ...

... route we had just come by to get to the community. We showed up at the school unannounced so we could only give medication to the families who had children there for the morning session of school, or to the families who lived close enough to the school to hear that we were there. (Kids go to school for half a day here; there's a session in the morning and a session in the afternoon.) We waited for the afternoon session of school to start, but only four ...

... Jones like, day of my life in a long time. I went with 4 other friends and one of my friend´s homestay family, which was 30 people, on a hike to a river. We all thought that it was going to be an easy hour hike on a path to a river. Boy, were we wrong. It was a 3 hour hike through brush, trees, bushes with thorns, falling guavas, snakes, and climbing up and down rocks. The thing that made it so funny was that ...

... of the waterfall, getting a good dowsing, followed by myself, Steve, and Brian. We continued down the length of the river, criss-crossing it multiple time. At either side of the river the jungle rose up high and thick, and high clouds saved our shoulders from the inevitable sunburns we would get. It was hot, but the river was the perfect temperature, not cold enough to make you shiver, but enough to give relief from the heat. At various points there would be ledges that the river would ...

... those of you who called or wrote and were concerned; I appreciate it! This past week, before all the hurricane madness, we had a camp called Celebrando el Cibao, which is a diversity camp for kids in our area, and it was awesome. Topics were covered like religion, racism, sexuality, different cultures, and I think it made a lot of the kids really think and open their eyes to different topics and ideas. We had ...

... even more. There are those few that need to leave for medical reasons, but there is a stigma associated with ET's. Basically, you could not hack it and whimped out. Either way, Mkinney was a loner. You need to get to know others if you are to make it here. The first few months are about finding that local support system or outlets for those harsh days.

I have to go, but I love you all and I will talk to you soon.

... tap due to the country's inability to handle such a high demand. I guess you could drink from the tap, but you might want to stay close to the toilet or within running distance. Not too mention waves of pains might be involved. In the late afternoon we gather under the speaking site with fellow Dominican nationals pointing at us and whispering. We were about to meet our host family and where we would stay for the next three months. Surprisingly, we ...