4. My placement!!

Hola!!!

I have some news to share with you all....I found out where I'll be spending the next two years in the Dominican Republic!  I'll start by giving you a run down about how they told each of us.  This past Friday was an extremely long day.  We had spanish class, then found out our placements, and after lunch we had a test, we had to give feedback, we then had a few lectures from a current volunteer and then we had to meet with our nurse.  The day started at 8am and we did not finish until about 8pm, after our meetings we went to a volunteers house to have dinner for her birthday, it was a LONG day!  Back to our placements - the youth director, Adele, came up the mountain to tell each of us where we will be living and a brief overview of our projects.  The process was a bit nerve wracking.  There were chairs set up in a circle with one in the middle.  Whomever was in the middle was told where they will be going and each person was given two minutes to receive as much information about their site as possible.  They then put a tac on the map and the person in the middle then picked a star that had another persons name on it.  We did this for all 25 people.  I was second to last so it was a long hour waiting to have my two minutes!

Adele, the youth leader, giving placements.

Your one and only hearing her placement.

My name and site.  R is for RURAL, N is for NO PREVIOUS VOLUNTEER, 50/225 is for 50 HOMES and 225 PEOPLE!

The map w/ my tac, top left!

I am going to a place called Los Vasquez.  Below is a picture of my tac on the map but it is difficult to see, I am the white tac in the upper left corner.  Los Vasquez is in the East, I believe it is around an area called Hato Mayor.  I've tried to search for it on the computer but have not had much luck.  This is what I do know in terms of location: it is about an hour, hour and a half, North of La Romana which is on the Southern Coast.  I am about two hours from the capital, Santo Domingo and I believe I am about an hour and a half to two hours from Punta Cana which is on the East Coast.  I hear Punta Cana is a great place to vacation for all of you who are going to come visit me!!  Either way, the country is small enough so nothing is too far!  As you can see from my picture of the map (kind of), I am a little isolated from some of the other white tacs.  The white tacs are only people in my group that are also in the youth sector.  I am not sure how close I will be to another volunteer but I would guess about 30 minutes away via bike - if and when I get a bike.

Here are the few details I know about my site, I am doing a bit of speculating because as I said, we were all only given about two minutes of information.  Los Vasquez is an extremely small community which they call a "campo".  There are only 50 homes and 225 people, I keep trying to compare this number to something but I am having a difficult time.  I am thinking the town itself is a little bigger than the cul-de-sac I live on in St. Louis, it has about 40 more people than my graduating highschool class, the whole campo could fit in a SMALL lecture hall at KU and it is probably about the same size as a few of the parties we threw at my college house, 1212!  It is hard to put into perspective and I am juggling these numbers but either way, it is tiny!  I believe I am in one of the smaller placements so each volunteer will have a different experience.  My community has been promised a volunteer for three years, that is a tall order!  I can picture it now,  my community will be soooo excited for me to arrive and little do they know, the volunteer they are 

getting will barely be able to communicate with the..."hola, me llamo Libby"...silence, more silence and more silence!  It will be interesting to say the least!  Good thing I have gotten my practice with awkward situations!  Although my introduction to all 225 people in my community may be brief, I will have a big smile on my face and I know they will be so excited to have me there for the next two years!  Ok, moving on, I got the impression that my project will have a lot of opportunities to work with sports.  I was told that they really want to build a sports facility and just recently they bought land for this.  At this point I would like to share a phone conversation I had with my beloved mother when I was telling her about my placement and this newly purchased land!

Me: I guess they bought land in the past few months and I am supposed to build a sports facility or just lay a concrete slab for a basketball court or something, I don't really know...just a place for them to play soccer, volleyball and basketball or something.

My mom:  Ok great, we can do that!  Let me know when to send the brothers down - They can knock that out in a week!

Me:  Mom, I think I am supposed to build it with the community and it will take a while.  I don't think I hire a construction team or my brothers to come to the DR to knock it out in a week!

My mom:  Ok, either way, we will make your campo just perfect!

I have no doubt about this, especially with all of the support from all of you back home!  Hopefully over time I can start a sports team or two... perhaps a girls volleyball team and maybe a boys basketball team if I can gain their respect by draining a few three pointers....only time will tell and I would not put money on that happening!

Here are a few other projects that were mentioned in my two minutes: 

Escojo - Escojo is a youth group that focus' on sexual education.  Peace Corps started this years ago and it is one of the most popular projects and there is a lot of support through Peace Corps.  The point is to give informative charlas on different topics to the group in hopes to graduate all of the members and they will then become "multipliers" of the information.  Escojo is one of the few projects that recieve funding and the Peace Corps puts on both a regional and a national conference!  It is very clear that the kids here are hungry for the information.  Speaking of Escojo, our last spanish presentation was based on an Escojo charla.  My group did our presentation on gender vs. sex, we did it for our community and this past Monday we went to the highschool and presented it to the students (all in spanish)!  It was really fun and they seemed to love it!

Ok, back to my placement.  There was also brief mention of a Sala de Tarea which is sort of an after school program.  It is a chance to get a small group of children and teach and work with them using alternative ways of learning (something different than copying words off the board) by doing arts and crafts, playing games etc.
 I was also told that the first lady opened a technology center in a neighboring pueblo which may be a good place to do computer classes and of course, use the internet.  

Here are a few last details... I was told that there is a river at the edge of my campo, this makes me a bit nervous because I am thinking they may have told me this because it will be my source of water...I just hope I have a toilet, knock on wood!!!  A current volunteer also told me that they have an extremely strong dialect.  Basically she said that they will be using words that don't exist and that I will not be able to find in the dictionary.  The advice I was given was "try not to pick up the campo dialect because when and if you go back to the states and get a job where spanish is involved, people will ask where the hell you learned spanish".  Great!

So that's the news about my project site!

I am still in Constanza for training.  We have about two more weeks left here.  I leave Constanza Saturday, October 16th and go back to Santo Domingo...that Tuesday, October 19th, I go visit my project site (alone) until Sunday.  I will bring all of my belongings and move into my third host families house.  Sunday, I return to Santo Domingo and we swear in that Wednesday, October 27th and then the real deal starts!!

Here are a few odds and ends:

-It has rained everyday for the past two weeks.

Me, Sara and Claire getting ready to go out in the rain!

Sara, Me and Stacy on a bola (hitching a ride in the back of a truck) in the rain.

-My spanish class is now on our fourth teacher.  I am still struggling a bit but it is coming along slowly.  I am going to have to fend on my own soon enough so it will come! 

- Speaking of Spanish, I am also struggling with my English these days.  I think my mind is so confused it is having a tough time deciphering which language is which.   Somedays I intermix both languages, it is weird. I would guess you may be able to tell from this blog post.

-I have recieved two cards!  It was great to get something from home.  I got them right after I found my placement so it was perfect timing!  Thanks June!!!

-My group went on a hike last weekend.  We hiked up the mountain and then hiked down to a river and swam.  It was freezing!  I did take a little tumble, I think it lasted a full minute.  I was laughing so hard I almost wet my pants, it was a close call!

GuaGua ride to our hike.

Sara and I at some point of the hike.

Zach, Sara and I in the river. 

Myself and some other volunteers on our hike!

-I have spoken to a few people back home and there were some questions about my address.  My address is posted on the right hand side of my blog.  The packages will be sent to this address even when I am at my permanent location so that is the one to use.  If there are any changes, I will let you all know.

-I've been helping my Dona learn English.  It is kind of refreshing because it is a good way for us to relate considering neither of us can remember or pronounce the proper words in the others first language.  I am also grateful I am learning Spanish rather than English, English has to be impossible to learn.

- The other day I was given bacon for dinner.  I was pretty excited but then I saw this spikey hair all over it.  It was awful and then I had to try to explain to my Dona that it is not her cooking, she is a great cook, I am just not very hungry etc. etc.

Lastly, I would like to wrap this up by telling you ten things that have gotten me through training (thus far):

1.)  Watching and borrowing stupid movies including:  It's Complicated, Music WIthin, French Kiss, Iron Man and Marmaduke.  I personally bought Marmaduke on itunes.  All of the volunteers gave me a lot of trouble for this but hey, It did provide me an hour or two of relaxation.  Money well spent!

2.)  Feeding/sneaking my host dogs, all four of them, my food/meals. (Spike, Ernie, Princessa and Lassie)

3.)  Taking walks to get tostados, pizza (with corn), and/or hamburgesas about once a week to have a little break from rice, beans and salami.

4.)  The other Peace Corps volunteers and my trainer.

My group, youth volunteers.

5.)  Casa de Maria - This is the woman's house down the street where we all use her wireless internet, play cards, hang out and play bananagrams.

6.)  Becoming friends with the local colmado owner.  The colmado sells everday items - bread, avacado, doritos, coke, cheetos, rum, presidente (the beer here) and crachi bars.

Me with a Presidente.

7.)  Wearing my clothes inside out.  

The reason my clothes are now being worn inside out, the blue sweatshirt (I am wearing it as I type, inside out).

8.)  My rain coat

9.)  Deodorant - the showers are freezing, I dread taking them.

10.)  Internet, speaking and hearing from my family and friends and reading the comments on my blog!  The more comments, the more motivated I am to write :)

Thanks to everyone reading!  I hope I am providing some good information, shoot me any questions or anything you all would like to know about.  Love and miss you all everyday.  Also, start getting passports and/or visas to come visit me (even if it is in a year or so), don't wait until the last minute (friends, this is directed to you)!, Mom, Dad and brothers, tell Harvey, Wilson, Norman and Larry I said hello!!  FYI -  I might get a puppy when I have my own place - nothing like adding a street dog in the mix!  

xoxoxox