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------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------{ November 19, 2006 }
Pictures, finally!
There is a way to put pictures up on the site, but I haven't worked it out yet with Justin so I'll do that in the future. In the meantime, check out some pictures here (I hope it works!). They aren't all of them or the most recent, but it takes a while to load pictures so it's going to be an ongoing process. These are all from before Jarabacoa. Enjoy!
Posted by katie at 04:07 PM | Permalink
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My site: Juncalito
I just got back to Santo Domingo from visiting my site, which is located in Juncalito. It is a little town in the mountains of the Cordillera Central (one of the DR's several mountain ranges), in the middle of the country. I will be working with the Asociacion de Caficultores de Juncalito. I didn't really want to work with a producer group, but my counterparts are really nice and this site is probably the closest thing to Jarabacoa there is out of our group. It's nice that I won't be baking in the southern part of the country for the next 2 years and instead get to enjoy the crisp air and beautiful mountain scenery. This was just a preliminary visit, and I'll be going back for good in a week, when I will start to do my organizational and community diagnostics to figure out what exactly I'll be doing for the next two years.
The Association wants more sales outlets and to expand exporting (from my basic understanding at this point), but from what I gathered in the short time I had this week they really need some work on Mission, Vision and goal creating, as well as organization and fundraising. I'll have more on this later...I won't really know what I'm doing until I have a chance to analyze the organization completely.
My family is really nice. The mom is a teacher at the school and the dad has a colmado. They have 3 kids- 1 16 yr old girl, 15 yr old boy and 10 yr old girl. I met some people in the community, but I will admit to being nervous at this point. It was easy in Jarabacoa because I also had 3 other Americans with me but now I will be completely on my own and although I've done the whole move to another place without knowing anyone thing a few times, this is completely different. I am excited though to finally know where I'm going to be and to get started.
Posted by katie at 01:35 PM | Permalink
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------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------{ November 11, 2006 }
Back in Santo Domingo
I got back to Santo Domingo yesterday and it's HOT. It's not as hot as when we left, but after living in the mountains for 5 weeks where it actually gets cool enough to put a sweatshirt on at night, it's hot. Now my fear is getting sent to one of the hottest campos in the South for my site. I'll find out Monday. All the other groups besides mine already know where they are going but we have the great pleasure of being the last to find out. Lucky us. Soon enough though. The crazy part is that we find out Monday and then leave on Tuesday to go on a site visit until the following Sunday. Not much time in between for mental preparation.
I already miss Jarabacoa. I really enjoyed my time there and even though it was short, I felt like a part of the community. I would definitely prefer to live in the mountains and visit the beach...crazy coming from someone living in the Caribbean now I suppose. I'm going to try and put pictures up soon, but it's difficult because they take a long time to load, I have a lot, and the computers are slow, but I'm trying.
We're having a party tonight at my house with anyone that can come so I'm looking forward to reuniting with some of the people in the other groups and hearing how their training was.
The wedding wasn't all that different from a U.S. wedding- it was hot and I got burned a little bit and the preacher talked a lot and added on to some of the vows, but otherwise it was similar. It was nice to have gotten the opportunity to go. We had 3 nights in a row of going away parties from Tuesday through Thursday. Wed. night they killed a rabbit for us...it was actually really good. Thursday night they had a Perico Ripiao party- Perico Ripiao means typical merengue with a drum, accordian and guido (metal instrument). It was really fun.
Posted by katie at 12:26 PM | Permalink
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------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------{ November 03, 2006 }
Wedding
I am going to a wedding on Sunday...it should be interesting to see that aspect of the culture. I can tell you the Bachelorette Party was certainly an experience.
The Halloween party was fun, unfortunately I didn't have much chance to work on a costume so I just put my glasses on and said I was Velma from Scooby Doo, since I used to get that a lot when I was a kid.
There are only 3 more weeks of training and then I'm off to my site. I'm really excited but I know it's going to be a big change from being around Americans all the time. Right before we leave there is a big Thanksgiving celebration with all the volunteers in country followed by an all-volunteer conference the next day.
Posted by katie at 10:06 PM | Permalink
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