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Wow, there's so much happening that I don't know where to begin. I'll start with some sad news- a friend of mine decided to leave the country. I'm bummed about it because I was just getting to know him and I think he would have been a great volunteer, but I know he'll do great things wherever he is.

I went on a site visit this past weekend to see another volunteer, Erica in Samana. It was great to have the opportunity to sit down and talk to her, ask her all the millions of questions that I had, and really see how a volunteer lives. We had fun too- we met up with some other volunteers and trainees and went to the beach on Saturday and it was beautiful. I, in my usual fashion, got quite sunburnt despite my liberal application of SPF 30. I soaked up the beach opportunity, because I probably won't have one for quite some time. We went out dancing on Saturday night so I got in some merengue finally, and bachata.

Some notes on public transportation...it's a mess. The bus system is terrible and crowded, but cheap. The other popular form of transportation is public cars, which really means shoving 7 people into a car. I'm not talking an SUV or a roomy sedan either, a little compact car with 4 people in back and 3 in front. Not comfortable in the least. Also, motoconchos (motorcycle taxis) are everywhere and necessary to use in many areas outside major cities. Don't worry...I have my PC issued helmet. You can actually get administratively separated for not wearing it.

So, the DR is considered one of the best countries to be a volunteer in but has the highest harassment rate. However, it's striking to realize that so many people here don't have access to water in their homes. There is one group of volunteers that goes to sites and builds aqueducts. Even the houses that have water don't have it all the time because the public services are messed up here. Lights are usually out for several hours each day. Many people don't pay for electricity, driving up the cost for those that do. So yes, I often don't have water or lights. How does one shower, you may ask, if there is no water? Let me tell you about the "bucket bath." (Isn't the Peace Corps glamorous?) It's self-explanatory, but there is a bucket sitting by the shower and if there's no water, that's how you bathe. Happens frequently and for many people, they have to always do that.

Today in training we had a self defense class and a dealing with harassment/machismo class (in addition to Spanish, of course). A guy from the World Bank came and talked to us Monday. Next week we start our CBT (community based training).

I went to a church service a few weeks ago and didn't have time to post on it. It was 3 hours long- singing, dancing and lots of noise. It was beautiful and a fascinating cultural observation, but I won't be going back. It was a bit much for me and I'm not exactly the 'go crazy dancing while in church' type, which led a man to take the microphone and tell me to not be afraid of the Holy Spirit. Yeah.

Posted by katie at 07:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Quick shout out of THANKS to Justin for making my site look awesome!!! You're great and I really appreciate it.

Posted by katie at 12:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I almost forgot- I started a Bible study today with three other volunteers so I'm pretty excited about that. Please pray for us. I went to church this past Sunday and that experience deserves a better description than I can give it now so I'll post more on that later. If you've emailed and I haven't emailed you back, I'm really sorry. I don't have much time and everything is a whirlwind, but I'm thinking about everyone and love you guys.

Posted by katie at 07:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

OK, I will get to the public transportation part but I have to cover something else first. I moved families yesterday. It was not a great situation at my other one- highlights being that I was locked out of the house 3 times and never offered a key despite not so subtle hinting, the parents were never at the house so I spent most of the time with my 14 year old sister who is not disciplined and made comments about me in Spanish to her friends while I was there because she thought I didn't understand, and because the brother and his girlfriend were making out and my friend came over and wasn't sure it was my house but they completely ignored her and me and continued on. So I talked with the family coordinator- I was going to just stay and deal with it because, in reality, I'm only here for 2 more weeks now, and then 2 more weeks after my CBT (Community Based Training) but they really wanted me to move so I did. I went out w/my new sister and her friends last night and it was really fun- we went to a karaoke place that also played some merengue. Yes, I sand and yes, it was fun and embarrassing. It was neat b/c they have random instruments scattered around the room and people will just pick them up and play them with the beat- drums, cow bells and this Dominican instrument that I can't remember the name of. It's like a cheese grater sort of and they rub something against it to make music. I'll meet the mom shortly- she was out of town for a funeral yesterday and didn't get home until today.

Tomorrow (really, really early) I go to Samana to visit the another volunteer until Sunday. I'm really excited to hear about what she's doing, get a break from regular training and see another part of the country. What's going on with you guys? Send me some emails!

Posted by katie at 06:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well, I had a request to address some topics. If anyone else has similar requests, ask and I'll post about it. I'll answer the questions and share some more about what's up. Here are the questions: I'm interested in what you like most about the country, people, etc. What you like least. What's surprised you the most. What do you miss the most (and family and friends isn't a choice... I'm talking about creature comfort besides air conditioning) those sort of things.

What I like most: everyone is really nice here- they are extremely welcoming and willing to share whatever they have, even if they have very little. Yesterday, no one was at my house when I got home and I don't have a key, but my neighbors, who I hadn't met yet, invited me to come over and have some coffee with them. It's a woman and her mother (who has to be at least 90) and their house is owned by one of the woman's sons I believe. The majority of the income generated in the DR is from tourism and remittances (money that people send from other countries back to their families here). It's 2-3 billion/year for remittances I think, but I'm not quite sure. If you are from the US, everyone thinks you're from New York (sounds like Nueba Yol) and everyone either has family or knows someone from the DR in New York- there is a highly concentrated population of Dominicans there. I met a woman who's coworker is related to A Rod (too bad it's not Papi or Manny...why AROD????).

What I like least...probably that I never feel totally clean except when I'm in the shower. It's not as though it's just me and I'm dirty (I'm sure there will be some comments about that one...haha) but still, showering twice a day at least and still not feeling clean takes some adjusting. Also, there is trash everywhere. People keep their houses really clean but will throw their trash all over the street. Most don't know that it can have a bad effect on the environment (not including that it looks bad!).

I don't really know what surprised me the most. I haven't had any big surprises because I lived in Latin America before and at least had a decent idea of what to expect. The DR isn't at Costa Rica's level, but I wasn't expecting that either. I think the biggest adjustment I'm making is realizing what I'm actually doing here. That I'm going to pretty much be going around my community, when I finish training, and it's up to me to initiate everything unless I end up working on a project already established. I guess another interesting note in the 'surprise' area is that they eat most parts of the animal here so as not to waste any. Someone said they had fried cow intestines from a street vendor with their family the other day. Mmmmm. (No, I haven't had any and I'm planning on staying away from that one.)

Fine, family and friends would be what I miss most, but I'm going to have to say air conditioning. Consider the humidity in South Carolina when you walk outside and feel sticky...only all the time, without the releif of walking into an air conditioned building. I know later I'll be missing the electricity. Electricity goes out all the time in the DR, sometimes for more than 6 hours a day (at different times). My family here has a backup generator, but all houses don't. Also, some houses don't always have running water. They keep a bucket by the shower in case it isn't working and have to use that water. It's an odd observation that so many people have cell phones and get really mad when they don't work yet the electricity always goes out and they don't always have running water. The electricity is a really big deal here, especially because it costs a whole lot of money and the payment system isn't right. Some people just don't pay, and the goverment doesn't do anything about it and then other people have to pay excessive amounts. Others rig it somehow so their meters don't read right and they don't have to pay. I don't know about that part in detail, but it's a frequent topic of conversation.

Today we had a cultural class in training- we learned merengue, bachata (another type of music and dance) and how to play dominoes, the dominican way. These are all very popular things here. It was a lot of fun- I really enjoyed the dances but they're pretty simple. I'd done merengue a little bit before- it is the official dance of the DR. Training is divided into several different sections- the first four weeks are CORE training- focused on Spanish, some on development/cross-cultural communication, things about the DR, health and a little in our technical areas. The next 5 weeks are technical training. We still have Spanish classes, but we have more specific sessions on our technical area, mine being Community Economic Development, and we go to another town to focus on our technical area where we can do some practice community diagnostics and other things we'll have to do when we go to our community. My group goes to Jarabacoa- in the mountainous area.

Next week everyone goes to a different volunteer that's already doing their project from Thursday to Sunday to see what they're doing and learn more about their area. I'm going to Samana- it's a peninsula in the North and there are some good beaches up there so I may get to go but it's not a vacation so we'll see. Getting there will be interesting if nothing else. I'll have to post on public transportation later. This is already pretty long.

Posted by katie at 10:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Well, as you can probably tell from the title of this post, I have already forgotten what air conditioning is...it seems a distant memory of the past. I don't think any of us have stopped sweating since we've been here. It's hot, and humid and we sleep under a mosquito net so that doesn't help when it's hot at night and you're trying to sleep and there's this big net over you. I got sunburnt for the first time today and didn't even feel it because it's just been hot the whole time.

OK well I met my mom the other day. She's really nice but she works in her uncle's restaurant Monday through Saturday until 11 at night so I don't see her a lot- just at breakfast and then Sat/Sunday. My family is nice but it seems that they aren't usually all here at the same time. There are a few other volunteers that live really close to me so we walked around the neighborhood some on Saturday and Sunday. The families don't do a whole lot around here because it's really hot and because it costs money to go everywhere and there was a big economic crisis in 2002/2003 and they have recovered some but not totally, things are a lot more expensive than they were and salaries haven't increased any. It went from 1 dollar to about 16 pesos to 1 dollar to 50 to 55 pesos. Now it's 1 dollar to 33 pesos, more or less. My family speaks only spanish, except for my brother (who lives with the grandma), who speaks a little English. The other volunteers and I are trying to speak in Spanish but we don't all the time. It's hard especially when we are all together because it's a break to speak English, but we definitely can use the practice in Spanish. Our group has people who are beginners and a few who are fluent...and everything in between. I'm in between, but there are 3 levels of Spanish classes (and 3 sublevels with the first 3, if that makes sense)- they are basic, intermediate and advanced and I'm in one of the advanced but not the most advanced. I had my first class in that level today and it went well, there are 4 in each class. We discussed our families and took a test to see our grammar level in writing. Today is one of the girls' birthdays and some of us went out for a little while so that was fun. It's really strange when so many of us go somewhere at once because we really stick out. We aren't in the city, so I haven't seen any other gringos besides us yet.

OK about sending me stuff (because you will, right? :) )- they don't recommend getting big packages- nothing really bigger than a padded envelope, because the taxes through customs can be high. I can receive them, but it's better to only do so if it's something I really need, so it would be better just to send cards/padded envelopes. Great, can't wait to get some next week! Just kidding. I'll write more about training later when we get into it more and I know how it's going to be more than I do now because we just started.

I'm caught somewhere strange in the way I feel right now- I still feel really new here but at the same time, it feels like forever ago that I was even in Miami for staging.

Posted by katie at 11:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

This is going to be a short version of what's up so far.
I got to Miami and we had a day and a half of staging (mostly an overall orientation). There are 56, give or take, volunteers here total- divided into my job, Youth and Family Development, Water Sanitation and Healthy Families. People from all over, mostly young- the average age is 24. It's a fun group and I'm excited to be a part of it.

Yesterday we got to the DR and were at a retreat center for the day where they went over the training program methodology (I'll post more on training another day), a brief overview of health info and we got our mosquito nets and DEET power bug spray. This morning we went to the training center in Pantoja, which is a barrio (town/suburb) outside of Santo Domingo, the capital. We had some more intro and overall PC stuff, 2 shots (yes!), a basic crash course in Spanish and an interview/Spanish conversation so they can place us in our Spanish classes. And I enjoyed the first of many meals featuring arroz con frijoles (rice and beans). Oh, and FYI- it's hot. And humid. Also beautiful.

At the end of training today we met our families. My host sister, Pamela who is 14, picked me up because my mother had to be somewhere. She's really nice and seems like she'll be fun.

Training's going to be pretty intense. 8 to 6 every day. Some Saturday activities but none on Sundays. Oh, we have internet in my house and I'm using it in my sister's room. I may not call much from my house because most families have a plan with minutes per month, that get taken up even by calling cards by my understanding. There are plenty of public phone places though, but I haven't gotten that far yet.

Love and miss you all!

Posted by katie at 11:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

My address in the DR is:

Katie Devine, PCT
Cuerpo de Paz
Apartado Postal 1412
Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic

I may have a different address after training, but I'll always be able to get mail there, so send me lots of letters and money! OK, maybe not money, but definitely the letters. And books too. Thanks in advance. I'll miss you!

Posted by katie at 10:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

I'm currently staying in San Antonio, Texas with my parents before I leave for Miami on Tuesday. Aside from packing, I've mostly been taking it easy and trying to make sure I've got everything together, however, I have gotten the opportunity to experience some of Texas prior to my departure.

Last night I went to a rodeo for the first time. I can't say that this is something I would want to do all the time, but it was interesting to say the least. I can't understand why someone would want to ride a bull that is trying desparately to throw them off and then, when it does, it sometimes will chase the person and try to maim him with its horns. The crowd, adorned in a sea of cowboy hats, seemed to enjoy it though and I can't say I wasn't entertained.

In addition to the rodeo, I went to a Mexican restaurant with my parents where they paid a Mexican dressed in traditional garb to sing me a song in Spanish. Not at all embarrassing, really. We also ate at the Tower of the Americas restaurant- the same type of structure as Seattle's space needle- where we had a rotating view of the whole city. A lot of places have random live music. It's really hot. There are bbq, steak, and Mexican restaurants everywhere and, at a minimum, 5-10 pickups and SUV's are parked in every parking lot, many with Bush, Long Horn, or 'Don't Mess with Texas' stickers on them. This is Texas. I don't think I'd ever want to live here, but it's definitely an interesting piece of the American culture.

Posted by katie at 05:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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