What a month...

Hello again!

If those of you who follow this blog were my Dominican friends and family, you would give me a hard time about having not updated in such a long time. Think something along the lines of ¨you don't love us anymore¨ or ¨you´ve forgotten about us¨ or any other number of guilt-inducing jabs. Unlike my conversations with my Dominican pals, though, I won't try to make excuses or assuage those sentiments - I've just been busy!

I don't even know if I could recount all of the great things that Dave and Joe and I did while they were here for a total of almost three weeks - there was a lot of time spent in my site, a lot of time spent at the beach, a lot of time spent hanging out with volunteers, and most importantly...a lot of time spent catching up with two of my best friends whom I haven't seen very much of in a year and a half. It was truly a wonderful couple of weeks.

I could signal any number of reasons for such a successful trip, but I think it mostly has to do with the flexibility of Dave and Joe and their willingness to throw themselves out there into situations out of their comfort zone and just go with the flow. It can be stressful to have visitors (not to say that I wouldn't be more than happy to host anybody for any length of time), and I never felt the stress of having them around for a second.

What is hard to believe right now is that they're already gone. I thought that I had a pretty good grasp on the ever-increasing velocity of passing time during my Peace Corps experience, but this was just ridiculous. It's already been a month since Dave first arrived. Wow.

As would be expected, I took somewhere between zero and no pictures - (sorry.) However, maybe they would be so gracious as to send a couple pictures of the trip my way via email and I'd be happy to post them up here on the blog. As for now, there is one picture of me (above) - just a couple miles from my house in the campo. In any case, it was great. Thank you.

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Before I get to some work stuff, I have another piece of fun news to relate. A couple of years ago, a group of Volunteers began the annual tradition of the ¨Bola Race.¨ A bola, for those unfamiliar with the very Dominican term, is a free ride - a hitchhike. As I was unable to participate last year, I was excited to try my hand in 2009.

It is a 2 person team event, composed of one male and one female member. Cecilia and I thought we had a chance. I thought that my previous experience hitchhiking on the Appalachian Trail might help me out - we also decided that the ¨little black dress¨ look on Cecilia might expedite the process. Little did we know...

Part of the competition, besides arriving from point A to point B without paying for any form of transportation, is dressing up in a thematic costume and sticking with the story. Ceci and I decided to dress up as a traveling Mexican/American/Dominican musical duo. She and I set off from Santiago with a little black dress, her luggage, me, a cowboy hat, and a guitar (which was all I brought for 3 days).

Less than 4 hours later, halfway across the country, ahead of ALL 22 other teams, she and I came screaming across the finish line - in 1st place. Champions. After getting 6 different free rides, on highways, mountain roads, beach roads, in the back of Daihatsu trucks, in vans, in the back of pickup trucks...winners. I might never pay for another ride again. I'm still waiting on some pictures to get sent my way from that one, as well.

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Work? Work.

It's been a fun month, with the visitors, bola race, Semana Santa (Holy Week - maybe the biggest Dominican vacation of the year), and everything else. But we've still been accomplishing a good amount in my community.

English classes are still alive and kicking - nobody is leaving fluent, but I enjoy them and so do the students. The women's group in town is still producing and selling Mistolin, with much more success than any of the other times I've tried that project. With one community group, we did a survey of all of the houses in the community (over 300 families) - we are now in the process of synthesizing all of that information into a usable format. Hopefully it will give us some ideas for new projects. My environmental youth group is still rolling along. We spent yesterday in the mountains, exploring, learning about the environment, and chilling by the river. Not a bad Monday. Our newest idea is to hold a nature photography contest in the community.

The community stuff is great. I love where I live and the people around me take great care of me. I have invested a good deal in the community work, and I'd like to continue to do more. However, word has started leaking down from the head office in Santo Domingo, and (if all goes as planned), I should be moving out of my community in the next couple of months to take a new position as a regional peace corps volunteer leader in a nearby city. Besides a change in where I will be living and what I will be doing, this also means that I will be sticking around the D.R. for more time - probably around 7 or 8 months. By my count, that will leave me here until the summer of 2010.

Although it's tough to leave my community early and postpone my return to the United States by another half a year, I've though a lot about the decision and I think it's the right one. One it becomes official I'll be sure to let you all know what is going to happen more concretely.

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Thanks for keeping up with what's going on here, despite the extended time between entries. Enjoy the warmer weather State-side as I prepare to fry for the next six months!

David