La Piscina Isabella

Today we drove to the nearby Piscina Isabella, and you can see the beautiful pools as well as the gorgeous Dominican panorama. What a terrific and much needed respite from Peace Corps training! Jonathan, my 19 year old host "brother" drove and his friend Luigi, another baseball player, accompanied us. The beautiful sisters Marianna and Gabriella participated. And the lovely Peace Corps Volunteer (and my good friend), Susan, joined in the fun. I am posting a number of photos taken today.
While Bachatas played on the speakers, we enjoyed a day of splendor in the water and sun.

You can see that I am a little partial to Marianna. She is the middle child in her family. As the older daughter, I notice that she is expected to do a lot of the household chores for her mother while her brother enjoys the life of a prince, and her younger sister is the family princess. I enjoy giving Marianna special attention and today she was soaking it up.

Above is a photo of the lovely Susan, along with Jonathan and Luigi. As you can see, the fellows (as well as Susan) are full of good humor, and the cheer is contagious. I am including a photo of all of us that went swimming today, taken by Jonathan:

Below is a photo of the sisters:

 More poses of Marianna:

And here is a photo of Gabriela playing dominoes with Susan, Jonathan and Luigi:

Ahead are a few nature shots of the Beautiful Dominican Republic:

Nature is what has saved me at this week's end, and you can see that there is great beauty here in the Caribbean. While I'm posting photos, here is a photo of the Peace Corps Volunteer Trainees for the Youth Sector at a gathering I hosted along with my host family in Monte Plata Friday night. I prepared dinner for the group and we played music and danced. Here you see Patria, my Spanish instructor,  selecting You Tube videos on my laptop computer and speakers.

This is a photo of Laura and her daughter. They came to the gathering Friday night along with my Spanish profesora, Patria. The Friday night gathering was Patria's idea! Below you see that we are enjoying being together while she is having extensions added to her hair after our Spanish class:

These last photos are of the girls dancing to some hip hop at the Friday night dinner gathering:

I'll end this weekend and this month with these photos of Marianna and Gabriela dancing. September is over and now October is here.  Next Friday we find out the location of our sites where we will be Peace Corps Volunteers for two years!  I'll keep you posted.

Memorial For Charo's Mother

Charo's Tias came to the house today, all five of them.  The sisters still living came to commemorate the loss of Charo's mother, their sister, who died a year ago.  Charo's mother, who had cancer, was just 56 when she died. There was some moaning and shrieking today at the end of the service, which was reminiscent New Orleans funerals I've been to.

What a comfort it was to me as I drank in the presence of the mujeres. "Tango hambre," I told them, "para mujeras de mi edad." They each took me into their arms for a warm embrace. We sat in the living room together for a half an hour before the priest began the service. Charo's sister and brother were here today too. I have to say that today's service nourished me more deeply than any other event since I've been in the Dominican Republic. I valued the beauty of the prayers, the singing, and being together. Charo and her aunts cried, and tears were flowing from my eyes too. Here is a photo of the altar and another Tia:

Charo's mother appears in the photograph above the altar. The fuzzy object is the tail of a toy "mono" or monkey one of the children here  hung from the chandelier, where it remained throughout today's service. I didn't notice it was in this photo until posting it now!



Keep scrolling down after this photo, please, as there is a gap here!











The photo below is of three of the sisters together:

And this photo is of the oldest sister.

Charo's husband was here today, too, of course, and I realize that I haven't included his photo on my blog yet. He is such a pleasure to be around, so I am bringing up his photograph now, along with one  of their 19 year old son Jonathan, who plays baseball for the Minnesota Twins in Boca Chica.

Jonathan's little sister, Gabriela, is in the photo along his side. On the upper left is the photo of Charo's mother that was hung over the altar for the memorial service. As long as I am having luck with uploading photos today, I'll post one of the children playing in the bedroom today while adults were in the front room preparing for the memorial. All of the cousins, or "primos" were here today:

Below are photos taken last week of my host sisters hamming it up in their mother's clothing:

And another photo of Jonathan, out front of the house:

Here's a photo of an aunt I meant to include earlier:

And here's a photo of the whole group of Peace Corps volunteers at the waterfalls we went to yesterday. We had a terrific time! You can also see that I am the only older person in the group, so no wonder I was very happy to be among women my age today!

Still having luck uploading photos, so here are some taken in the campo last week I have been meaning to post:

Oh, and a week and a half ago, Peace Corps Volunteers took girls out on a scavenger hunt of downtown Monte Plata. Here are a few of my favorite photos of that day. The first one is of a man who sells chicken feet to customers at the park. I love this guy!

I also fell in love with the guy who cuts and sells sugar cane.

Here is a scene you see all of the time in the Dominican Republic: A group of guys playing Dominoes.

And behind them you see our girls, checking off items on the sheets for our scavenger hunt. As you can tell, it's been a lively and varied few weeks so far in Monte Plata. I'll post again, soon!

Community Based Training in Monte Plata

Uno has been a big hit with the girls in my household here in Monte Plata. I hit the jack pot as far as my host family is concerned. Everyone in this family is over the top gracious. The three muchachas living here are the best Spanish profesoras I could possibly hope for.

Below is a photo of my host mom, Charo. Of course, I could easily be her mother. She is gorgeous and and an awesome cook. We have lots of broccoli and avocado for lunch every day, and plenty of mango for supper. She never serves sugar with my coffee, either. Host moms in Monte Plata are attuned to Peace Corps person tastes. I am so lucky.

Charo's mother died just a year ago, and this Sunday a memorial for her mother's death is being held to mark her passing last year at this time. Today I was able to meet several of her mother's sisters during our trip to Bosque, the Campo Charo was born in.

I've taken many photos of this photogenic family, as well as Community Based Training in Puerto Plata, and will be posting them soon!

Site Visit with Rosa in Guaymate!

Here is a photograph of the lovely Rosa Lopez, Peace Corps Volunteer in Guaymate and my host for the weekend. So far I've visited the office in which she works, met her NGO colleague, and participated in her Chicas Brilliantes groups.

It is really hot here in Guaymate, yet Rosa's home has a good fan and we have shared wonderful talks. I slept comfortably last night in Rosa's home, thanks to her hospitality and a great mattress. Thursday was a long day! The day began at 7:30 am in Santo Domingo with a taxi ride to the station where at 9am I caught an express bus to La Romana, which arrived at 11 am. Then I caught a Guagua inland to Guaymate, and arrived here about 12 noon.

Rosa's work is impressive, and she leads groups for youth in which hundreds of youth participate regularly. Walking around town is quite an experience, as everyone knows Rosa. She speaks fluent Spanish, though her native language is actually a dialect she spoke as a child growing up in Oaxaca. Rosa moved to a Farmworker community in Lamont, California (near Bakersfield) at the age of ten, and learned Spanish and English at that time.

Asked how she learned both Spanish and English in a year's time, Rosa told me that her father brought home audio-books from the library so that she and her siblings could learn to speak both languages. Rosa said her father locked her in the room on the weekends with the audiotapes, which was a hard experience at the time, but she was glad she learned to speak two new languages so quickly.

Rosa received her college degree from UC Santa Cruz, and worked as a Paralegal for six years before applying to become a Peace Corps Volunteer. She came here a year ago.

Many of the people in this area are of Haitian descent, as their parents and grandparents were brought to work in the sugar cane fields. The heat is oppressive and the poverty is staggering. Children have very little opportunity to learn in the school system, as there are few supplies and teachers are not always available. The programs provided through Peace Corps, and Rosa's NGO organization, 180 Degrees provide much of the education and interaction to which children have access.

The Peace Corps experience is sure cracking my world open. I am so appreciate the work Peace Corps is doing in the Dominican Republic, and especially Rosa's work. She is my hero! My prayer is that I may be able to contribute in my own way too.

How I loved the mini-dramas performed by Chicas Brilliantes yesterday, and the children with whom I played. They were very affectionate with me! Rosa played the bad mother in one role play and I got to be the good mother! I really liked that. The idea behind the mini drama was to demonstrate the effects of positive parenting on girls' attitudes toward themselves and other girls. Rosa has worked with some of the more impoverished girls to draw them out. She has also worked with girls who are unkind to other girls so they better understand the effects of their behaviors on others.

Today we are going to the Superman group, and I will be able to meet some of the young men with whom Rosa works. Rosa has a number of young people she has taken with her to camps. The young people she has trained to lead groups on their own are called Multiplicadores. Several of the young men came to the house today so Rosa could work with them to plan today's group objectives.

I would download more of the exquisite photos I took yesterday except that photos have been very slow to download today. More photos are to come soon!

Our Fabulous First Week in the Dominican Republic!

Friday, our entire Peace Corps Training Group took public transportation to the Colonial District of the Dominican Republic. Our day in the oldest city on the Caribbean was a dream come true!

The architecture reminded me of the years of living in the French Quarter of New Orleans.

I enjoyed the casual diners at lunch time. We had lunch of traditional Dominican food (as well as pizza and hamburgers for some PC Trainees).

 Here is a photo of my beloved Spanish Professora, Milfred:

  Now I will go off to a wonderful birthday celebration for one of our PC Trainees, and leave you with one last photo:

We are all going to have a dinner together, courtesy of the PC Trainee's host mother and her friends. This birthday is special for Emma, as she is in the Dominican Republic with the Peace Corps (her dream come true, too) and her father was a Peace Corps Volunteer thirty years ago!