maybe i could inject bug spray intravenously

i am so sick of mosquitoes. i think one of my incredibly personal secondary project here will be to start the war of the mosquitoes. they fight all guerilla style and i am gonna walk in with my deet and bug bomb the daylights out of them. that's the plan at least. i would be a hero...

anyway sorry for the delayed post, i have been very busy and important. well, the busy part is true. we have youth groups formed and it has taken a lot of work to throw together a project with them in the short amount of time we had left. that said, i am very excited about the project we have created. it's gonna be a night of merengue when the jovenes will talk about the history of merengue, read poems they have written, talk about the traditional clothing, and read a biography of a famous merengue artist, fernando villalona. and they are gonna dance. we somehow ended up with the leader of a local dance club in our youth group, so he got all of his friends in our youth group and what was a 4-5 person youth group became 12-14. it's gonna be great, they are fantastic dancers! and the best part is that all their stuff is already choreographed so we didn't have to worry about preparing that part of the presentation. the other cool part is that the volunteers are just supervisors and the jovenes do most of the visible work. i mean, we wrote the letter to the mayor and i stalked him until we thought he would be in his office (its really hard to actually catch him in the office--the mayors here spend a lot of time out in the town and in santo domingo) so we could deliver our letter requesting space for our presentations. and he said yes! so we do a lot of the background work, but the kids are the ones taking the reigns on the projects. i am very proud of our kids. also there is one, Adolfo, who is an aspiring writer which makes me so happy. yesterday another volunteer, Alex, and i spent hours typing up some of Adolfo's stories so he can have hard copies. there are computer labs here, but you have to pay to use them, so Adolfo just had a giant folder of all his hand-written stories and a memory stick that our jefe had given him. just reading his stories, and understanding what i could, was interesting. he has a very strong voice, and his stories almost sounded like fables. he has a very strong writing style and i hope he keeps writing because i think he could really be successful. we are going to teach him how to set up a blog today so he can "publish" his stories for free, and if he does end up doing it i will post the link here. but i'm not sure if he will be able to, because, like i said, the computer labs aren't free and if he couldn't use them to type up his stories, i doubt he can to update a blog.

Let's see, what else...OH we went to the beach last weekend! it's the first time i had been to the beach since coming here and holy cow it was awesome. first of all, we were all pretty stressed from the week and working ourselves so hard with our jovenes, so we kind of had this unspoken agreement to check all peace corps related anything at the door and just enjoy our time at the beach. which we so did. it was beautiful with the giant palm trees and the incredibly blue water. and the white sand. and the sand dollars. and the gentle waves. jealous yet? well get this: after the beach we went to our leader's boyfriend's land aka his coconut farm! and i ate coconut straight off the tree. now i'm not the biggest fan of coconut, but that was delicious.

The drive to the beach was also great. we were all loaded into two pickup trucks and i was in the bed of one of them with Brendan, Ben and Paul. We got jostled around quite a bit, and i have a beautiful shiner on my knee from a particularly mean speed bump, but it was the best ride ever. we went through the mountains to get to the beach (it was over a 2 hour drive on not always so very paved roads) and it was just so gorgeous. we actually all stopped to get out and take pictures once. On the ride back we had a bunch of coconuts back there with us which was an interesting experience because a bunch of bouncing coconuts can actually be a bit dangerous. we almost lost some shoes to the bouncing (which in hindsight is probably my fault for taking my shoes off...) i did develop a handy tactic for going over particularly large pot holes or bumps in the road: hop into a squat position as fast as possible so that you just bounce on your toes and don't ram your tailbone into the bed and your spine into the side every time the car bounced. winning.

Anyway it was the longest day maybe ever, but also one of the best i've had since being in the country. and that is really saying something because i've had more than my fair share of fantastic days. i do have a peeling back because, being the genius i have proven myself to be (remember the rain situation?) i forgot to put sunscreen on my back. i remembered the rest of me though! so at least the rest of me is burn free. i've actually gotten obsessed with my sunscreen because the sun is so strong here, and i've gotten so tan, that i feel like a walking warning sign for skin cancer. i've even taken to putting sunscreen on my legs which, i am not exaggerating, i have never done in my life. even when i was a kid i never put sunscreen on my legs. but now? SPF 50! i am not leaving this country looking 10 years older thanks to sun damage. no sir, not happening.

In other news i got proposed to (this is a very mild way to describe the situation). by "got proposed to" i mean this incredibly drunk man begged me to marry him and take him to the states while he was practically falling over. actually he did fall to his knees once. it was a pretty uncomfortable situation, and nothing happened, but i have never been confronted with such a persistent person before. no matter how many ways people told him to leave, he just wouldn't. so we left and that was that.

And then last night we all american-ed it up. first the girls came over to my house and we painted our nails, chatted, learned a dance from Yaazi, and threw popcorn into our mouths. that took two and half hours. Then the guys came over and we attempted to watch a movie, but the volume on my computer wasn't working out, so we listened to music (ranging from nsync to mumford and sons, what?) and played spoons with pesos instead.

So now it's sunday and so far it's been a pretty great last weekend in El Seibo!

The gods must be crazy part 41

so remember that last post when i mentioned not following rule #2 often enough? yeah. busted again. this time was awful! i had just finished playing dominoes with my friends at Don Garcia's house and knew the storm was coming but was hoping i could beat it. as if the storm was gonna wait 20 minutes for me to get home. please. about 3 minutes into the walk it started to rain. but did i turn back or go to a nearby friend's house? oh no. that would have been giving up. it also would have been way too smart. no, i decided it was only sort of raining and i would keep on keeping on. oops. a few minutes later the sky opened up and i found shelter under an awning of a closed colmado. and i stood right under the electrical box until the other lady who was there pointed it out to me. so that was my third great decision. after a few minutes i thought it seemed like the rain might be letting up so i decided to try to make some headway on my journey home. luckily maybe 2 minutes after leaving the awning the rain got even worse than before. men started yelling at me that i was gonna get the gripe and i just smiled and said "i know" which made them laugh. at least i could find humor in my soaking wet, chilled situation. i decided to take shelter again under another awning but that didnt work because the rain went full on horizontal on me. at that point i dumped out my waterbottle and put my phone in it in the vain hope that that could save it, even though it had already gotten pretty gosh darn wet. and it worked! so yay, i'm not phoneless. about 800 motoconchos offered me bolas home, but i figured at that point i couldn't get wetter, and it was probably safer walking and risking the gripe than to ride 3 to a moto sans a helmet in the crazy rain. i saw one guy riding and using both of his hands to shade his eyes. so that made my decision for me. No motos. by the time i finally got home my skirt was so wet it probably weighed 10 pounds and my shoes were slush. gross, i know. believe me, i know. Dona Agueda took one look at me and was like "get in the house! get in dry clothes! dry your hair! do you want to get the gripe???" so despite my protests about drying off a bit first, i was hustled into the house dripping wet, not even allowed to leave my disgusting toms outside. don't worry though, i did take a picture. someday i will put it up. (edit: i put it up)

so yeah, i basically foretold this event and yet did nothing to prevent it. you know why? because i am a genius. want further proof of said "genius"? the sky is still falling at this point, and i'm hoping it lets up so my friends and i can go dancing tonight. you're right, i will never learn.

In other news, i am liking this town quite a bit. apparently for safety reasons i'm not supposed to say where i am. i might have already. i can't remember. anyway el seibo is great. oops i said it. stalkers keep away! This morning my friend and i scoured the town for jovenes we could practice our teaching skills on. actually we were more trying to practice our "assessing the reading level of the children" skills. we weren't being annoying for fun though. it was homework. anyway i bribed the kids to help us by promising to take their pictures afterwards. those pictures are also pending. sorry, but i'm lazy. no getting around that. It's a risk carrying my laptop all the way to the internet source without knowing if the sky is gonna go nuts on me. because, take my word for it, you NEVER know. case in point: today.

Anyway, i'm all dry now and, si dios quiere, gripe free. suck it rain.

rule #2: never leave home without your raincoat

I've broken this rule more times than i would like to admit. especially considering how many times it's backfired for me. there's really nothing like walking home in toms that are soaked through...mmmm good times.
so yeah, it rains here a lot, but don't let that fool you: it's still hot as hades. and it's just gonna get worse. luckily last summer prepared me for anything the DR can throw at me. heat-wise at least. the hurricanes and tropical storms will definitely be new experiences.

let's see what else...it's semana santa here, which basically means the town shuts down and everyone goes nuts drinking and having a grand old time for 5 whole days. so i'm looking forward to seeing what happens this weekend!

In other news we have had our first case of dengue. my friend got taken into the capitol for a few days to rehydrate and get his fever down but he's coming back today. Dengue sounds kind of like mono...but from a mosquito. they are awful here by the way. my ankles are constantly one giant red blob. but anyway about dengue: people react to it in very different ways. some people just feel like they have the flu, and some people hurt so badly that it's called "breakbone fever" and you feel like your joints are breaking and all sorts of fun stuff. the best part is, there isn't really medicine for it. universe:1, PCDR: 0.

Training is going well. ehhhh, well...it's going. just kidding, it's cool. i'm really liking the tranquilo training here as opposed to the incessant onslaught of information that was core training. CBT (community based training) is way better. we have youth groups we are supposed to be working with, but (back to that whole it's semana santa thing) they keep on not showing up. i think 6 kids came last time. that works out to 1.5 kids per group. i think we can do better. anyway once we actually have kids we are going to have a technical project for them that we will complete during our time here. Like, making a recipe book, or a children's book, or a youtube video or radio show. i'd be down with any of those ideas by the way. especially the recipe book, because i want to make a recipe book of dominican food anyway. so i could basically cheat and make the kids do it. it's called winning, guys.

ooh other news. i have a resident mouse in my kitchen. i have named him hewie. giving him a name makes him cute and not gross. once again: winning. actually he is really cute though. he's little with great big dumbo ears. i'm not saying i'm excited about having a mouse living in the kitchen, but i am definitely making the most of it!

To wrap up: i finished the last of my peanut butter tonight. bummer. looks like its rice, beans, veggie stew, and friend bananas here on out! until i buy more peanut butter.

ok that sounds ungrateful. my dona's food is great, just sometimes unvarying. she actually sat me down the other day to ask me what kind of veggies i do like since apparently i'm not eating enough. and here i thought i was. clearly i'm wrong though and it was time for a serious conversation about it. i tried to explain to her that i really do like her food, but i don't like eating until i'm stuffed because i feel sick. at that point she thought i had the big D once again and started to basically mime it telling me she will start serving me less fat again. (by the way last time she served me "less fat" i had fried bananas and fried cheese for dinner. what?) anyway i told her no no no i'm not sick anymore, i just get full quickly. that seemed to make enough sense to her and she accepted my explanation. only after many protestations that i like her food though. i think we are good again though, because she finally let me do the dishes! this is big news guys. i haven't had enough confianza yet to get into the kitchen, much less to actually wash the dishes. but now i do. WINNING.

ps, i totally understand that it sounds weird to be pumped about washing a sink full of dishes. but believe me, this was a giant step.