first, let me say that the picture below was from my CED group, the 17 of us developing communities economically from 2007 to 2009 in the dr. we are way sweet.
Well, we have more than halfway through community-based training. We go off to our own sites for the 2 years in less than four weeks. Its been great up here so far. We did a practice community diagnostic, which involves interviewing members of the community, attending community meetings, and just wandering around taking notes. It has been fascinating getting to know this community of about 750 (my estimate) really well. Even in this small place, there are very specific mini-neighborhoods, and I’d say pretty much everyone of Haitian descent lives on one very poor block. This unfortunately seems to be symptomatic of many areas and is a sad part of Dominican culture. Many of us will end up working with communities with large Haitian populations, which presents its own opportunities and difficulties. Besides that, I find out that everyone is interrelated and intermarriage is not uncommon. I guess the "country" is the same everywhere.
Lets see, the other day my family took me to a river/beach thing in the pouring rain. I was a little pissed because it was raining but they refused to let me stay home. Of course, we got there as it stopped raining and it was a beautiful site. One great thing about the Caribbean is that cold mountain rivers aren’t that cold.
Did I mention I live in a rain forest? It seems to rain on and off all day, every day. Nothing works when it rains, which presents some problems, such as leaving the house. This does not occur if it is raining. Another fun bug story – the other day my friends host brother smashed a massive spider in the house. In the ensuing explosion, dozens of baby spiders pretended they were shrapnel and flew out of the dead momma spider, leading the entire family to chase and attempt to kill all the baby spiders running around the house. Hours of family entertainment indeed.
Finally, I am a master at dominos. Challenge me and fail.
Also, apologies for not posting pictures recently. I know you wanted to see me and my shaved head but the internet is too slow here to put any pictures up. Ill try soon. Also, send me postcards. They make me feel good.
lets see if these pictures came out right, it should be one of my street and one of my ride to training in the morning. hope it works