We Really do Work, too

So another project that we had during Semana Santa was the painting of our adorable mural for the Rights of Children. We spent ALL day Tuesday and Wednesday designing, drawing, and painting this mural that is supposed to promote the foundation here in Sabana de la Mar. The foundation, started by another volunteer, serves special needs children in the community. Our mural may not look so hot in the picture, but it really did turn out nicely! Unfortunately, my already dwindling wardrobe is now half covered in paint...

A Dominican Adventure

Semana Santa pretty much means lots of free time at the beach and lots of abichuelos con dulce. While sitting bored at Robin´s house on good Friday, we were invited by our good pals Frankley (Robin´s host brother), ¨Bam Bam¨, and BamBam´s brother..who doesn´t have a good apodo and his real name is too hard to remember...to go to the rio. After piling into the back of Frankley´s beat up truck, we flew down the road and ultimately ended up at Cano Hondo because there were ¨less people there¨...which still meant that it was full of dominicans drinking rum and swimming in the pools. Robin´s crazy host brother picked up one of the ducks that lives at the site and, as you can see, made good friends with him. On our way home, Bam Bam and his brother had us stop at their uncle´s really cool farm in the campo. The small farm had SO much stuff-coconut, bananas, tamarind, oranges, mangos, lemons, like four fruits I have never heard of, and, of course, sugar cane. After they uprooted 4 giant stalks of sugar cane, we all started breaking off hunks to chew on it. We also practiced peeling off the skin with our teeth..which is so much harder than it looks. But, honestly, where in Nueva York does anyone get the chance to fly around in the campo in a pickup truck eating sugar cane....priceless.

Feliz Cumpleaños

This Saturday was Kristen´s 24th birthday so, to celebrate, we went to the discoteca (of course)! We have all decided that we are addicted to dancing now that we are learning merengue and bachata. As usual, we had some really good dance partners who helped us learn..and we had those who were just scarey tigueres. Mom and dad you may not want to read this, but I was dancing with this little guy who I THOUGHT was just a fun dancer but then he started talking to me in Spanish..which is impossible to understand when the music is blaring...and just about immediately thereafter he LICKED my face!! I basically just screamed and nearly vomited...but it did make for a good story. Elisbeth told me that it is totally culturally acceptable to punch him in the family jewels...so the muchachos here had better watch out because my fist is ready! Aside from my being a creepster magnet, the night was really fun and we are going to miss our saturday night discos when we leave!

I still can´t insert pictures well!!! I hate blogger. Anyway, the first picture here is Kristen with the maracas that she randomly received as a gift from the guy shown next to her. Above is a picture of Kelsi, me, Elisabeth, and our dreamboat from the park. To the right is a very rosy-cheeked picture of Robyn, Kesli, and me!

I am in love with the Domincan Republic

Robyn, Zahira, and I coming down from a cave.

This is our beloved trainer, Elisabeth, with our dreamboat of the day.

The Mangroves


Although I haven´t put up pictures of any of the amazing beaches that I have been to (I am working on it!)..I want to post some pictures of el Parque Nacional de los Haitises because it was SO cool! It is a huge, densly wooded area right near Sabana de la Mar that has really cool caves with ancient paintings from the tainos (native peoples). We hiked all morning with our really cool guide, had a picnic lunch on a little playita, and rode around in a boat to see all of the really pretty mangroves. I wanted to see a manatee but they are hard to spot!! We also met a really hot guy in an army uniform who SCALED a coconut tree and then proceeded to hack open the coconuts with his machete. This man of our dreams also came out dancing with us later that evening (see Robyn´s blog for more details!).

"I haven´t gone in EIGHT days"-Special Ed PCT

As every proper Peace Corps DR volunteer should, I am creating an entry about the lovely act of going poop, simply because it has become one of the most popular topics of discussion in our group. I will remind you all that we are seven women in Special Education but, thanks to the WONDERFUL sanitation systems here in the DR, we all have newfound relationships with water. We have one girl who currently has a parasite but, hopefully, is recovering. I recently discovered that water in "funditas" (little plastic bags of water that are sold in colmados) are like poison to me and make me violently ill almost instantly. Most of the rest of our group has to avoid plantains and water like the plague because they can´t poo at all! Basically, our illness ends in hilarious comments about poop, mostly congradulating each other on normal bowel movements. For example, this Saturday we celebrated Kristen´s 24th birthday, but we also celebrated Megan´s poop because she finally went on day NINE!! Yay for pooping!

When it Rains, it POURS!

Generally, the weather here in the DR is one of three things: hot, hot, or ridiculously hot. We recently discovered, however, that there is another special season here which I would pretty much describe as MONSOON. There was literally one day in which it poured, heavily, for about 3 to 4 hours straight. The streets were like RIVERS. All of the children, naturally, were running around in their underwear having a gay old time in the rain. I also have a picture of my little host brother riding his bicycle (homemade, of course) through the rain-filled sidewalk. Since the rain stopped internet service as well, we had nothing to do but go to the ice cream parlor...where we were ultimately trapped for TWO hours until we finally called Elisabeth for a bola to our houses (see picture of us totally thrilled). Also, the rain means that clothes can´t be washed, so Robyn and I spent about 5 days being bedraggled rats in dirty clothes. Gracias a Dios, the rain has sinced stopped and I feel cleaner than ever!