links

Just wanted to give you these two links. The first is a video that one of the other trainees put together of our training thus far. The second is my flickr, which has some photos, although I haven't taken many :(

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnnGN9tDKTg

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bigpinkt/

Still in Miami.

Si Dios quiere....

We got up this morning at 3:30 to go to the airport, with plans to arrive in Teguc around 1:00 local time (3:00 Dominican/eastern time). To make a long story short, it's now 5:30 and we JUST got to a hotel in Miami.

So yeah.

Honduras may or may not happen tomorrow....Si Dios quiere, as they say

Stuff

As Phil noted, yes, we only have electricity part of the day..... at the training center, we have a generator, so I don´t notice the power outages as much. it seems to generally come on in the evening..maybe somewhere between 7 and 9, but turns off around 6:30 or so, when I wake up. Water and internet are the same way... Everyone has huge plastic canisters to store water whenever it comes, to use later in the week. As I understand it, the shortage comes from the utility companies not being paid enough by the government, so they´ll just shut it off whenever they feel like it so they don´t lose money.

Our barrio has unpaved streets and very few sidewalks.. Maybe I´ll have time to upload pictures someday.... The driving here is crazy in general (not in our barrio, but on the surrounding streets.. traffic lanes are poorly marked, if at all, and even then are really just suggestions :) it´s not uncommon to see someone driving the wrong way on the shoulder of the road - especially on a motorcycle.

A couple days ago, we got to visit one of the volunteers here in the DR. It was cool to talk to him, but since the Peace Corps doesn´t do Municipal Development in DR, we (the Muni D´ers) went to a youth volunteer´s post instead. It was exciting, though.

Honduras, here we come!

We recieved official word today that we will, indeed, be going to Honduras! We´ve been planning on it all along, but it wasn´t official until now. Our swearing in date was pushed back a week to giveus some extra time for training. Of course, the situation could escalate at anytime and plans could change, but for now it looks like its actually going to happen. They say that Hondurans speak a lot slower than Dominicans, which is good, because I still can´t understand anybody here....

My life here can prettty much be summed up as: I can´t speak spanish, I can´t stop sweating, and I itch all over (mosquito bites plus heat rash = ick) haha, fun times...

Over the weekend I got to go to the beach (Bocachica). It was a lot of fun... the water was really shallow and warm.. it rained a little, but ended up being a really nice cool day. Last Thursday, we went to a car wash...which is more exciting than it sounds.. the car washes here are the place to hang out. They actually are car washes during the day, but the at night, they turn into bars. It was a lot of fun, and we got to try out our new found merengue and bachata dancing skills. Everywhere here plays really loud music. I´m lucky that my window faces away from the local shop (colmado) so I don´t get too much noise at night. Oh and last Wednesday, I think, we got to go into Santo Domingo.. They have a pedestrian street, just like good old c´ville!

The power and internet were both out all day today..it was pretty unbearably hot. Luckily this internet center has AC (must have a good generator) and somehow the internet is working :)

I´m pretty sure there are some mathematical geniuses in my neighborhood

They say that the national religion of the Republica Dominicana is baseball, and the national sport is gossip. Well, the other national sport is dominos. I didn´t think dominos was a difficult game until two days ago. The people here play so fast, and are able to keep track of all the dominos as they´re played. When they count the score, even if there are 15 (or more) dominos left, they can add up the points in a matter of seconds. And they´re not blow trying to trick the gringos into giving them more points than they deserve ;) If you hesitate in playing, they will skip your turn, and even so, we slow down the game a lot. It´s really amazing... but of course every evening is spent with at least a couple hours of dominos before dinner, and they´ve probably been playing since they were kids..

I really like this community.. it´s super mixed use and dense, although not too overcrowded, and really close-knit, but also very wlcoming and hospitable. Oh, and I already resond to ¨gringa¨ just as well as ¨Teresa.¨