You put the lime in the coconut and drink it on up....

So, when I last wrote I was getting ready to visit a current volunteer for a long weekend. My visit brought me to a small city in the east called El Seibo, where I stayed with Brian, an IT volunteer. It was great to see how he lived and experience a day in the life of a "real" Peace Corps Volunteer. He's got a pretty comfortable situation, with electricity and running water most of the time, and lots of resources nearby (I'm trying not to get my hopes up about this). His main task is to help establish a computer lab, and he teaches english and organizes other projects on the side.

It wasn't all hard work and learning as you are probably thinking, we got together with other nearby volunteers, who were also hosting trainees, and had a weekend of fun! There were two nights at local discos practicing our merengue and bachata dancing (I must say I'm pretty good). We also visited a health volunteer named Callie who lives in the "campo", a very rural area, and who does not have electricity nor running water. To get there, you need to find a pick-up truck to ride in the back of, and the ride is about 45 minutes along dirt roads. She bathes and gets her water from a nearby river. Very different living situations from one volunteer to the next.

We headed to the river to see how it was done, but really just to swim and have fun. What a great time! I love swimming in rivers, and we were by a damn so it was like swimming under a waterfall. Here we are literally bathing in the river (l-r Iosefa, Megan, me, Callie, Ana). I feel bad about the pollution, but that's how the people do it in these places so what can you do:

That brought us to our last week at the training center in Santo Domingo (for a while). By this point I had really started to make some friends, so it was sad to think that we would be separated now that we were finally getting to know each other! Anyway, we had a final going-away party and "thank you" to our host families, and had them all at the training center last Friday afternoon. When I said I was pretty good at dancing, I wasn't kidding-there was a dance contest at the going away party, and I won! Iosefa and I, from our practice at the disco in El Seibo, swept the competition (nothing to worry about, Jeff).

Below are some more pictures- here I am with my spanish class, Margo (also in youth), Adrienne, and Jonathan(both in health);

Margo and Adrienne at the training center;

My host family in Santo Domingo - Martha, Raydiris, me, Martha's neice, Lisbeth, and Antonio.

I left Santo Domingo last Sunday with my training group (all of the other trainees here to work with youth development), and arrived for six weeks of training in Nagua, in the north of the country along the coast. So far its been pretty good. I have a super cool new host family with older kids, who are much easier to live with. (I love 6-year-old Lisbeth, but "Mira! Mira!" (Look! Look!) every five seconds gets to me after a while.) Margo is living in a house right on the beach. A few days ago we all went to her house and a neighbor picked fresh coconuts for us directly from the trees in her back yard, chopped them open with a machete and let us drink the water (its water, not really milk). I'll have to try it with lime next time, as the song goes. We also ate some coconut, which is when it has come off the tree and had time to dry. Oh my was it delicious! I haven't had fresh coconut many times, but I never knew it could be this good.

I haven't actually taken any pictures yet since I've been here, but Internet access is much easier, so hopefully I'll be able to post a new blog soon. We're starting internships to get some practical training with active youth programs. I will be working with an after school program to help kids with their homework and other projects. The school systems here are not very good, so after school programs like this are very beneficial to the students.

Tonight is another volunteer's birthday, Morgan, so we will go out dancing (I swear, I usually don't dance this much!). Tomorrow we've got a day trip planned to a nice beach! This town is right on the water, but the beaches are not very clean.

Hope you all are doing well!

Joan