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.