Hotel Loro Tuerto Barahona

... and college experiences, such as music class, art class, theatre, sports programs, study abroad, after school activities, etc. and realized that we have it REALLY good in the states. They have none of that here and if they do get one of those opportunities it is because their family has money, power, or status.

CELEBRATING ONE YEAR IN SERVICE: Many other volunteers and I celebrated our one year in service in a little beach town named ...

... been giving my Escojo Mi Vida (I Choose My Life) sex-education class and it was going well; 15-17 kids showing up on time, ready to learn, do educational activities, and most important expand their knowledge on something that affects many Dominican adolescents. One day I was giving a talk about abstinesce (of all things) as a method of birth control and this man from my community disrupts my class to tell me that these kids are too young to learn ...

... my friends and I a shout out before one of the performances "Yo quiero saludar Justin y su grupo de gringos!" (I want to say hi to Justin and his American group). Some nights it was hard to sleep because the bulla echoed throughout the entire community but it was fun the nights I went out, dancing Merengue, Bachata, and even some Reggaeton!
JUST BECAUSE YOU'RE WHITE: you get treated better here. Sure it's still weird getting stared at ...

... that comes in is to visit a current volunteer who has been here more than a year. I had a "trainee" visit me in the beginning of the month and it really made me remember my first few weeks in country not knowing ANYTHING about ANYTHING; adjusting to Dominican Spanish aka it might as well be Japanese, eating arroz y habichuelas every single day, living with a host family (hello awkward silence!), going through training and feeling like you are 9 years old ...

... posters in the community, made tickets, collected names and sicknesses, and found a location to have the event (the high school that they are constructing…yes, there was construction during the medical mission). What made it even more frenzied was the fact that I had two friends from the states visiting, Emily and Jessica. I made sure to put them to work as we started the medical mission at 8 in the morning since there was a large line of people at 7am ...

... that means 2 things: hot showers and good food. We ate Italian, seafood, and even went to the only Irish pub in the country (that happens to look right out onto the Caribbean). Best of all was that we traveled to a place called Jarabacoa, a mountainous region where they have a lot of outdoor sporting, like white water rafting. I had never been before so it was really exciting and a little scary at times when we had utterly no control of the ...

... charades with easy words. Some highlights: - one student said that if Jackie (another volunteer who came) and I kept speaking English as fast as we were, "I go." (he stayed) - one student asked what cookies were called in English and after I told him, another student asked the same question and he said, "Cookie!," like the other student should have known. RAIN RAIN, GO AWAY: The rainy season has officially begun and boy did it begin. I ...

... we came here for a specific reason, or maybe many reasons, yet, we are here doing something, whatever that may be. I am a new volunteer and right now the excitement over potential projects, new experiences, and fervor for being a resource to my community overwhelms me, and to be honest, kind of scares me. I have talked with many volunteers thus far in my months ...

... not here are along the lines of, "Ahh, Fulana? Hmm, she had to prepare dinner. Ya tu sabes." After nearly every absent member has been accounted for we discuss something that doesn't relate to the group for an hour. A group member then stands up and offers his philosophical perspective on the matter at hand, which happens to be the construction of the new high school. An applause. Another group member ...

... donate as much as you want!) https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?sh ell=resources.donors.contribute.projDet ail&projdesc=517-296 Thank you so much for considering this project worthy of your funds and of course, thank you for the continuous support I have been receiving thus far in my Peace Corps Dominican Republic experience.