Pictures

Finally here are some pics










This is where I make my phone calls



My cute little cousin, Crismayte


Training for the cock fight



My little host brother, Efrailin, won first place in a running competition and we went to an awards ceremony for it.

Comida in the DR

I’ve now been living in the Dominican Republic for a little over a month (even though it feels like a lot longer) and have had different variations of food and tried some new stuff too.

Things I’ve had here:
Papaya everyday – Yum
Fried plantains – okay
Fried bananas – GROSS (way too sweet)
Coffee – Okay but they like to load it up with sugar
Grapefruit juice with sugar and honey – my new favorite juice
Yuca – not too good; kind of like a block of starch
Coca-Cola – all sodas here are made with real sugar and not frutose AWESOME
Italian-styled pizza (pretty good)
Mangu (breakfast dish of smashed plantains+) – okay
Soursop – really good, tastes like a sweet tart, but it’s a fruit
Orange juice with oatmeal – surprisingly really good and good for you too
Cow Liver – While at least I think it was liver. It definitely was not meat though. I asked my Dona when she gave me the plate, “This is cow meat?” She said, “Yes its cow meat.” And then she cut a chunk in half for me. The “meat” was really firm and had layers. I ate everything else, got down four pieces of “meat”, and then said I was full. It was disgusting and I hope I never get served that again.

The other day my Dona gave me some yellow cheese that looked like cheddar cheese so I asked her what kind of cheese it was. She replied, “Queso Amarillo” and looked at me funny (amarillo means yellow in Spanish). Apparently the only two kinds of cheese they have are queso amarillo and queso blanco (white).

Last week was Semana Santa (Holy Week) for Easter. During Holy Week no one goes to work, and none of the children go to school, I’m so jealous. Saturday and Sunday are the biggest days of the week. Saturday we had family come in from Santiago and the Donas spent all day cooking. I watched my Dona cut up a turkey because I thought it would be interesting. I was doing okay until she threw in the lungs, bladder, feet, and heart into the pile to be cooked. But luckily I wasn’t served any of those.


Our pet pavos (turkeys). Before Semana Santa there were four.

Brigada Verde Conference

We went to a conference for Brigada Verde Friday through Sunday and we had a great time. Brigada Verde is a national, Peace Corps-started youth group that allows youth to develop leadership skills and learn about the environment. If a volunteer has a good number of youth in their community, he or she can start a chapter of their own. It’s like an environmental club; a chapter does fundraisers, community service projects (like a beach or street clean-up), creates and maintains a garden, etc. The club is really cool so I really hope I can start one when I get to my community.

The conference was more like a camp. The site was in the middle of no-where on top of a hill, we slept in tents, it had a pool, one night we had a huge bonfire and of course we had s’mores. We, the group of volunteers, weren’t really campers and weren’t really camp counselors; we were just in between. We had sessions were we learned about Brigada Verde and how to start our own chapter, but we also helped out the kids with arts and crafts and had our own section of activities with them.

The kids were really into the environment stuff which was really cool to see. Also, they were very talented musically! Each night they would get out tambors (drums), maracas, and guiro and play, and clap, and sing songs. A guiro is a round cylinder with holes cut out where the metal sticks out (like a cheese grater) and you strike a metal stick up and down it. They were really good at coming up with beats and matching each other. It was a great culture experience.

Arenoso

This is a picture of my backyard!

Yeah I know you're jealous. I've been in La Cumbre (Arenoso) for almost a week know and am loving it. It's definately a little more chillier than Santo Domingo, but it's great. My host family is awesome. Somehow I got paired with another family that owns a colmodo and they also have a guagua (van for public transportation)! They have 3 kids: the 2 boys (about 17 and 10) are both star runners. The little one, Fralin, just won 1st place in a 10 K on Thursday! And the girl, whose 16, is really sweet. I promised her she could paint my nails this afternoon.

So now that we are in the mountains we are done with Core training and have started more technical training. The other day we took a walk through one of the host family's garden/ backyard. After we looked at some different kinds of trees, he led us down a path to a beautiful waterfall...in his backyard. Ironically I bought a new camera the day after. But hopefully we will go back there sometime soon so I can show ya'll some pics.

Also, we're learning about soil erosion and organic farming. Yesderday we split up into teams of two and built our own compost pile. Here's a pic of us and our compost and yes those are machetes.

I won't be able to update ya'll again till probably next weekend so have a good week!