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------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------{ November 16, 2007 }
2 months later...
I realize it has been about 2 months since I have given much of an update. Since then, I've been through 2 visits, a tropical storm and my project partner having an arrest warrant out for him, among other things. I'll start with the first visit.
At the end of September Maura, Matt, Andy and Justin (4 friends from USC) came to visit. First we went to Sosua, a beach on the Northern coast in the Puerto Plata region. Aside from Andy gettnig attacked by a sea urchin (it had to be Andy), it was very nice and relaxing. We stayed at a motel run by an American woman which had a pool and great pancakes. I naturally dazzled the crew with my taxi negotiating skills (read- giving lots of attitude and walking away when charged too much). After the beach, we went to Juncalito, where we went on a hike up to the coffee processing plant, the boys bonded with my little neighbor Jeury and we had an all around awesome time. They participated in my English class (which was on Matt's birthday) and learned to dance merengue and bachata. Before I sent them off to Santo Domingo, we stayed one night in Santiago, where Maura and I yet again dominated in Taboo. Fortunately there was no Trivial Pursut or we would likely have reversed our winning streak. I was sad to see them go but it was a very memorable trip.
During all of October we were working on preparing for the Annual Assembly of the Association. We had to get all of the year end financial information together for an audit. (Forget all those times I suggested working on this prior to October.) So we did all that hard work and then the day of the Assembly there were less than 50 people total due to Tropical Storm Noel, so it has been rescheduled for November 29th. Aside from that, I gave up on both Quickbooks and Cafelio for various reasons and set up an accounting spreadsheet myself in Excel to start at the beginning of October (our fiscal year) and so far it is going well. My test for it is when I go home for 2 weeks to see if they do it while I'm gone. I'm hopeful though- I think they really see the benefits of keeping up with the information after the struggle to get all the information together for the Assembly.
Also in October I helped at a training activity for the new volunteers and one day the Association had an activity at a more advanced coffee plant and toasting factory. It was a lot of fun and the socios really enjoyed it. At the toasting company they did a campo coffee drinks class and taught us how to make cappuccinos, rum coffee drinks and more.
I had a great birthday. There was a party at the bar on my birthday with a merengue group and they sang to me. We stayed and danced until 2:30am. My English class had a "surprise" party for me too during one of our classes (they secretly just didn't want to work, although they brought a cake so I was ok with that).
On November 3rd Cory came to visit, which was another really fun visit. We came to Juncalito, had a dinner with my English class (with a little dancing, of course), hiked up to the coffee plant and hung out with my friends. Cory got to experience all of my favorite things in Juncalito: walking up the mountain, my friends, coffee, dulce de coco, chulitos, dancing and, of course, dominoes. She was starting to get good too. After Juncalito we had a long travel day (4 busses and 2 taxis) to get to a resort in Bayahibe. It was wonderful! We mostly ate, drank and lounged on the beach from Thursday evening to Sunday afternoon. We also went kayaking and saw Grease, Dominican style (not recommended). Then, sadly, she had to leave (even moreso because it was so early in the morning) and now all my friends keep asking when she's coming back. (Hint Cory!)
To keep you in suspense, and because this is already really long, I'll save the arrest warrant story for the next post, which should probably be next week.
Posted by katie on November 16, 2007 03:49 PM | Permalink
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