My Placement!

Exciting news - we received our site placements last Friday! It's not 100% official, but chances are that things won't change. So, this is what I got - I'm going to be right where I am now for training, just outside of Nagua on the beach! Its a nice small town with a quiet atmosphere, though Nagua is only 10 minutes away so I have easy access to groceries and Internet, etc. The town is very cute with friendly people who can't wait for me to get started. They already have a lot of projects lined up, so I have the advantage of having work ready to go without having to worry about starting something from scratch. And as I mentioned, its ON THE BEACH! Who'd a thunk it. I find it kind-of ironic that I've never been much of a beach person and never really had much interest in going to the Caribbean, and now here I am living on a beach in the Dominican Republic. Well, I'm a beach person now! Already I'm more tan than I've ever been in my whole life (though I'm still proud to be the whitest volunteer here).

What I'll actually be doing at my site will be determined once I'm there for a while. The first three months will be spent doing a community analysis, after which we'll really get to work. The town has a lot of ideas in mind, some of which are: working with a sala de tarea (after-school tutoring) which I could help run and recruit teachers for, fundraising activities for the local community center, and starting a girls baseball or softball team. This could be a good opportunity to have kids do community service work to earn sporting equipment, etc (there is a program like this through Major League Baseball). I visited my site for the first time last weekend, and without making my presence known, looked around the town and got a feel for the place, which was a very nice feeling! I'm lucky, as no one else will be able to see their sites ahead of time until our official site visit a couple of weeks from now. Here are pictures of the beach and the baseball field:

I finally took some pictures of my family. They are psyched to know that I will be staying around the area, and I'm excited as well because I can always come by their house to say hello or grab a quick lunch ; ) Here they are, in a rare shot of the three brothers actually wearing t-shirts (well, two out of three). L-R: Muriel (19), Anneuris(25), 11, Federico (Fede), Asia(mom, ??), and Carlos Jose (15, soon to be a famous baseball player in the states):

And speaking of baseball, check out this game I played with Fede the other day. It features 5 Dominican baseball players, three of which are Ortiz, Manny, and Pedro! I found it hysterical:

Well that's all for now, hopefully we'll be doing a little something for Halloween tomorrow, though Dominicans don't really know what it is. They'll just be looking at us funny when we're dressed up.

Happy Halloween!

Joan