10.18.07

Hi Everyone,

Not much new to report since last time. Tonight was a nice change from the usual here; we had a health class with the nurse from the training center who came up to our site for more information to scare us out of having sex the whole time we’re here. Man, the stuff you can get in developing countries, man oh man. It was a good night though because they gathered all of us together at our trainers’ house and bought us empanadas and made this fantastic pasta and veggie (not something we get often enough here) salad, with RAW vegetables, which is slightly unheard of, so far. We had some great girl talk and ate cake because it was my Spanish teacher’s birthday. A fun day in all, and it was really nice to have some change of pace food-wise.

(the next day)
The weekend is finally upon us, and although I am fairly bummed that it will be too full with work in preparation for our second technical Spanish presentation on Monday to be able to go find internet, there are a few social activities planned, which makes me at once happy and stressed out (because of reasons previously mentioned) but I’m excited to do something fun and have more opportunities to hang out informally with the group. Tonight after dinner my neighborhood is getting together to drink some of the wine we bought on our way out of Santo Domingo last Sunday, and then tomorrow we are celebrating two birthdays in our group and going to the Kiosco Bar in one of the barrios. This is the bar that a couple of weeks from now will be having “Noche de Espuma” (a foam party) that we are also planning to attend. So it will be a fun weekend with a nice mix of work and play (I hope!).
As expected, there are many adjustments and general inconveniences, the majority of which I am not at all surprised by – the food, the bugs, the heat, the unreliable water and electricity, for example. These have been annoying, but so far they haven’t caused too much anxiety or stress. The sneaker pain in the ass is how long it takes to get to internet and how hard it is to fit it in my days. Even in Santo Domingo, where there was an internet place in the barrio, an hour’s worth of internet was easily a two hour affair, and here in Juan Lopez de Moca, it’s easily 3 hours start to finish. Luckily, I have my computer here so I can write off line (thanks, Mom!), save emails to respond to at home. But still, it’s really stressful to try do everything in a reasonable amount of time. Usually when we go there are several volunteers taking turns on computers, so everyone is waiting (as patiently as possible) and nobody can take their time. And then, because we are there together we have to wait until everyone is finished. My level of irritation at this situation has caught me off guard. I know I’m an internet junkie, but I am surprised at how cranky it makes me. I’m looking forward to my site, when I’ll be able to move around more freely and set my own schedule. Right now, we do everything as a barrio – which I generally like – but I’d really like to figure out a more peaceful approach to communicating with folks back home.

In other news, or non-news, more precisely, I have yet to receive my first correspondence from home, and so I ask, “Who’s will be the FIRST I receive???” I don’t know if anything has gotten put in the mail yet, but everyone else has been getting mail for a couple of weeks now so I’m getting impatient! J I really haven’t been gone that long, Only just short of six weeks now, but it seems like longer because we have been so busy and adjusting to so much new stuff. It would be great to get some reinforcements, if anyone is feeling up to the challenge. I know my mom is working on a few things, but other than that… J
Alright, it’s about dinner time. More later.