1 Week Down!
Santo Domingo,
Santo Domingo,
Dominican Republic
Thursday, March 6, 2008
Current Location: My Dona's house located in el barrio, Los Cocos, Santo Domingo, Domican Republic
Date: Thursday, March 6, 2008
Time: 7:13 p.m.
1 Week Down!
Cheers from the D.R.!
I've received some inquiries about the goings-on here in the D.R. Number 1, it's great hearing from you. Number 2, I'm going to try to send I thought I'd send a brief updates to give you some idea of the life of a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Dominican Republic.
My host family has been a tremendous support to me. My host family consists:
Dona Loiusa,
her daughter, Yahira, 30 years old
Yahira's daughter, Ana Liz, just turned 1 year old
The Don, who I rarely see
There is always music playing here!-either from the colmado (corner store) next door or the neighbors. And, as you might have guessed, I'm not fluent with Spanish. It's my main battle right now along with the mosquitoes.
Training has been intense! It consists of a normal 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. schedule Monday through Saturday. In training, we learn all about health and how we can stay free of malaria, dengue fever, TB, the Diarrhea (the traveler's best friend) and many of the other not so friendly states. We have about 25 hours of language training a week. There are 36 of us in our program. About half of them will be in my program of Community Environmental Education (CEDE).
This week, I'll be taking my first field trip on my own to visit a CEDE volunteer-sort of a shadow experience with an actual PCV (Peace Corps Volunteer). I'll be in the Southwestern part of the country in a little town of Los Rios towards Barahona, if you're looking at a map.
Finally, I've chosen to take on a more Latina name here and I'm going as Rosa. It's just my middle name in espanol, but it'll take some getting used to. It's just hard hearing Jenniefer hacked up every day.
Much love,
Rrrrosa
