Volunteer Visit

Recently from March 18-21, I went on a trip to visit a current Peace Corps Volunteer. I traveled from Santo Domingo to the northern part of the country. About a 3-4 hour trip by gua-gua and bus. This is a photo I took on the way somewhere between La Vega and Santiago.

The volunteer visit was a great time, and a really eye-opening chance to see a volunteer’s site and projects first hand. I visited Amanda and had the chance to see all the work she has done as a PCV over the past year working on ICT projects at a school in her pueblo. She teaches computer courses and English classes for students and community members and works with a local artisan group. Here are some of the photos I took when we visited the artisan group:

I do not really know how to play chess, and am not sure if I even like the game at all, but I am in love with this mini chess set. If I wasn’t living off a limited budget, I probably would have paid the pesos for it. All of the pieces the artisans make are carved from a large stone and then polished and perfected. Tourists visiting the area come to buy the pieces, and they make profits for themselves and their families. You can sort of see them at work in the back of that photo.

Visiting Amanda was a really good chance to sample the volunteer life for a weekend. I was really lucky to be able to sit in on the classes she teaches and meet the project partners she works with. After seeing Amanda at work, I realized that this is the type of volunteer experience to strive for - working on projects that are important to a wide variety of community members. Not only that, but we didn’t walk anywhere in the town without at least 8-10 people greeting her by name every single time. She really knows her community well, and I could tell that they value her there.

During the visit, we went to the Charcos, which are a series of waterfalls you can climb and swim. I loved it, but unfortunately don’t have any photos of the waterfalls, but you can see the website here. Enjoy these last few photos from the volunteer visit!

Have fun. Be well! :)

xo,

Emma

Colonial Zone, Santo Domingo

During the first week in the DR, the training group took a tour of the colonial zone in Santo Domingo. These are just a few sites in the area that I thought were nice. (The statue outside the cathedral is of Colombus I’m pretty sure.)

xo,

Emma

Carnaval

(From Domingo 3/7/10)

After mass this morning, the family and I went to Carnaval in Santo Domingo. Carnaval was really interesting. From what I’ve understood, it is a celebration held throughout different cities in the DR, the largest celebration of which being in La Vega. In general, I think Carnaval is typically celebrated throughout February, as the 27th is DR’s Independence Day, but Santo Domingo’s Carnaval was today on March 7th.

Carnaval itself was a lot of fun, and a lot to see visually. It was a very long parade, with many people dressed in costumes and masks. I've been in a lot of parades because of baton twirling, but I definitely have never witnessed a parade like this before. There was a lot of loud Merengue and Bachata playing throughout, and some of the people dressed in masks, carried football shaped balls tied to strings. Occasionally during Carnaval, they run out into the crowds and start hitting everyone with the balls. So, to paint a little picture: everyone in the crowd is dancing along the sides, having a good time, and cheering during the parade, and then suddenly a masked parader rushes out into the crowd and starts hitting everyone. Imagine that at your local July 4th parade back home! I was curious, and asked my host dad why people do this, but was told it is a tradition during Carnaval. I wish I knew more about it so I could explain it better, but needless to say, it was definitely pretty funny, quite interactive and sometimes frightening to be a part of the crowd for this parade.

The parade’s location reminded me of the Miss America Parade, formerly held in Atlantic City along the boardwalk, as Carnaval was held next a road right along to the water. Here’s a picture of dusk in Santo Domingo along the parade route.

Miss you all back home. Thanks for reading!

xo,

Emma

Settling In & Befriending Obama

(From Sabado - 3/6/10)

This is my second day with my host family. I was really just hoping that they would like me, but so far things seem really great, and they are a lot of fun! Unfortunately though, I don’t think that the Red Sox are the family’s team of choice, but they seemed to like all the baseball gifts, stuffed animals and books I gave them anyway.

I wanted to share a few pictures on here of the house and neighborhood. Outside on the first floor is a tiled patio that extends to the front of the house.

Through the kitchen are set of stairs that lead up and outdoors onto the roof. It is here, right next to the stairs and right before the roof that I met my new best friend in the entire Dominican Republic. Yes, his name is Obama. He is a fantastic singer and as far as I can tell, listening to Reggaeton or Bachata, respectively are his musical genres of choice. Also, as an added bonus, most recently he has stopped biting me every time I try to say hello. Isn’t he cute? :^

Anyway, upstairs on the roof is a great view of the barrio (neighborhood) we live in. Also behind the roof is an upstairs garden and my dona showed me all the flowers and fruits growing there. There is a giant mango tree, a palm tree with coconuts next door, and she also showed me a giant tree that grows a fruit with spikes on it (I couldn't figure out how to spell the Spanish name, so decided against it). You can see some of it in the first picture on this post. The garden also features a really cool cactus! (Possibly, a cactus, yes?) I’m still learning, here.

So there's a few pictures so you can get an idea. I'll be living here up until the third week of training (end of March). I feel really lucky to be welcomed into their home, and am loving the host family experience so far.

Thank you for reading all this, and to my friends and family I am thinking of you all the time.

Take care of yourselves!

xo,

Emma

Staging in Washington DC

Above is a photo of most of the group at Staging on March 3rd. We had the chance to meet Peace Corps Director, Aaron Williams and then took this photo with him after he spoke at the event. I was pretty nervous that day. We all flew in to DC to be prepped for the upcoming Training and all things Peace Corps. For me, it was reassuring to hear Mr. Williams speak so well of Peace Corps’ program in the DR. He served with the Peace Corps in the Dominican Republic as well, so having him welcome us to training was an exciting start to this whole adventure.

I should probably mention that before I had the chance to be part of this awesome photo, I cried during the flight from Logan to DC National. Yes. And a lot. Arguably just as much as the newborn sitting next to me on the plane.

Extremes of new things characterized this day, from bumping into other trainees in the hotel halls, “Um, are you in Peace Corps, too?” to getting the H1N1 vaccine (and many more that I’ve since lost count of). And that theme continued into the ensuing few days, meeting my wonderful host family, starting training, and learning the ins and outs of the local transportation - gua-guas, carro publicos, motoconchos - (all of which make me miss the T and MBTA so so much, who knew?).

Anyway, I’m writing this entry a few weeks late because I’ve been very neglectful of this blog. I’ve been journaling and saving some entries in Word documents just for this occasion of catching up and posting multiple entries at once.

Thanks for reading!

More to come very soon,

Emma :)