ATL American!

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Okay, I want to start off by saying that in 2 days I will be getting a cell phone so you guys and girls will be able to call and text me!

So far, it feels like I have been shackled because we are not allowed to leave the city or even go downtown. All of us are in the surrounding neighboorhoods outside the city, but tomorrow we start to learn more about public transportation by taking different public transports. I have talked about the carro publicos, but now we will be taking the guagua. It is like a full size van and of course like the carro publico, they stuff as many people into that van as possible so if there are like 12 real seats there will probably be like 16 people. I have seen them pass by so I know what they look like. Unfortunately, the barrios are just a filthy and dirty place, with every corner used for any possible thing. I have visited several of the volunteers houses, which can vary tremendously with linoleum floors to some houses hardly have electricity. I am lucky in the fact that we have electricity all the time, but everyone has no running water. Bucket baths take much longer than a regular shower. The first time you take a little cup and pour the water on your head and body, your heart just leaps out of your chest (it never gets old). Oh and just for you people who wonder how do I flush a toilet when someone has used it. In my family, my bathroom has a toilet but no toilet seat so taking a shit always required squating. Next, no place in the city and probably all of the DR, except really nice hotels, lets you put toilet paper into the toilet cause the pipes are old and can get clogged. Hence, when you wipe your crack or the toilet seat or whatever you want to wipe, you fold it up and put it in the trash next to the toilet seat. Finally, if you want to flush the toilet you fill the big bucket with water from a storage tank and dump like half a big bucket into the toilet to flush its contents! You must understand that everyone in the city only gets running water 2 days a week so when it comes on, you store as much as you can. I also want to add that this water from the city has not been treated so you are not allowed to drink it, but now families buy big 5 gallon water jugs from private companies to get clean drinking water.

Now on to another random topic, so in our training we go over many topics. Included in these topics if of course spanish, but they also try to teach you the culture. Yesterday, the spanish teachers, who are all dominicans, were teaching the class merengue and bachata since YOU WILL be dancing in this country whether you want to or not. They demonstrated 3 kinds of merengue, but the last one was what they call street merengue, which is a mix of the very beat driven merengue that is very classic with hiphop or reggaeton influences. The 2 teachers demonstrated this technique, which to me looked like dancing to hiphop but you still do turns. After this merengue, the female teacher, Rosanna, grabbed a random guy in our group and danced with him (it is only them in the middle mind you). After 1 min, they parted and then she grabbed me to take me to the middle. I actually was HOPING she would pick me! I then proceed to do a couple of left and right hand turns and then start throwing some hip hop moves and of course finishing with me shaking my ass to everyone. Needless to say, I killed it! After the last dance move, I walked away and stuck my hand out as if to say I´m done with you (all ghetto like!). During the whole process everyone was laughing and hollering, especially the dominicans. They loved it! And I of course had this big smile on my face! I shocked the hell out of everyone. Even the training manager said, no one has shown up Rosanna. Looks like this americano has! ATL represent!

One more thing I would like to add, I will be visiting a current Peace Corps Volunteer at their project site in my field. What I will say is that after meeting with my head trainer for the water group, he confirmed my gut feeling being that the water people are usually refered to as the marines of the peace corps. Bascially, they send us to the most remote places! So the place that I will be visiting is a village called La Barrera. You can´t look this town up! My trainer says I got the most remote place out of all volunteers for this round. I will be leaving Santo Domingo by minibus west. I will meet up with my volunteer at the town at the end of the route. Sleep there for the night and then take a pickup truck up the mountain to get to this small town. After we get to the small town, we get off the pickup truck (this is considered a guagua in the mountains) and then walk 5km to the volunteers community and house. Some volunteers will be taking motorcylce rides and mules cause that is the only way to get to their communities! So yes, my adventure is getting even crazier! Time to fall asleep and wake up when my alarm tells me so!

Hasta luego

Tal

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