so its been a while since i have updated this thing. everything is going well. Right now i am in the cibao region. kinda north in the country. it is very beautiful as we live in the mountains. sorry for the lack of pictures but i left my camera cord in santa domingo but as soon as i can i will upload the pics. the people in the DR are so warm and friendly it makes adjusting to the culture much easier. Not to say there haven´t been difficulties, mostly with my stomach, the new diet doesn´t agree with me. My spanish is improving, i can almost talk to a four year old. I really like the family i am staying with right now. My fellow volunteers are pretty cool too, we hang out a lot. it is weird though knowing that in a month we will go our own way and not see each other so much. I miss the comforts back in the states no doubt, but i feel very good about my decision to come here. we shall see what happens in the future but i got faith i´ll be fine. Please keep sending me messages even if I don´t get to reply.

Training

So I have begun training. It can be very overwhelming at times. There is a lot of information being thrown at us in a short amount of time. It can be quite stressful at times. For the next two weeks I am staying in Santo Domingo with my Dona. Dona is kind of the woman of the house. It is just me and here so it is pretty quiet. She is extremely nice as are most Dominicans. They love to feed you non stop. Sometimes the amount of food they give you can be a little much. It is such a genuinely friendly culture here and Dominicans who know of peace corps really try to look out for volunteers. I haven´t had much a chance yet to explore the rest of the country but in the next couple weeks I will. Should be interesting. Life here is pretty good, but it is definitely an adjustment. For example the house I am staying at has no running water, they have to get it brought in. If you want to take a bath, use a bucket of water. If you need to flush the toilet dump a bucket of water down the toilet and hope for the best. I guess that is all part of the experience though. I like the other volunteers that I have met. There is a fairly largely group of us and we are still getting to know each other but so far everyone is pretty nice. I have already had to deal with two tropical storms and one tropical depression since leaving virginia. Hopefully i don´t how to deal with too many more storms but i have a feeling that is wishful thinking. Hope everyone back in the states is doing well. Shoot me updates of your lives and keep in touch

Just finished up with staging. I had a lot of information thrown at me but I feel pretty good. Tomorrow we leave for the DR. Everyone in my group seems real cool, I can tell that I am going to make some good friends out of this experience.

The adventure begins

I am leaving tomorrow to go to Miami for staging. This is the first step I will take on my road to adventure. hopefully I'll make it safe and sound without delay as Miami is under a tropical storm warning but i have a feeling i will be stuck in the airport for a long time.

I know some people might be curious as to how the whole process works so i will give a brief rundown as to what should happen. First let me begin by saying that i am not officially a volunteer. I can only be considered a volunteer if I successfully pass the training and swear in. Staging is the very first part of this process. It occurs in the United States and lasts about two days. During this time I will be introduced to the various policies and procedures of the peace corps and get to meet all the members of my training group for the first time.

After staging we leave for our host country to begin training. Training lasts about ten weeks and contains an intensive language component, technical skills, cultural, and safety components. For the first 3 weeks my whole training group will be in Santo Domingo, the Capital of the DR. During this time I will be living with a family there to expedite the integration process. The next portion of the training is the community based training, for about five weeks or so, all the volunteers from my sector will go to another community for addition training with more of a focus on technical skills that we will need for our job. I will be living with another family for the duration of the five weeks. Once that is done we are giving our community assignments and go there for about a week. After that we go back to the capital to finish up training and swear in. Usually 90% of the people pass training and become official volunteers. From what i hear it is a pretty hectic and demanding time, but well worth it. After training you are sent to your community where you will live and work for the next two years to figure it out for yourself. anyways i hope this clears up somethings. It should be interesting...please keep in touch, i would like to hear from people.

Wish Me Luck!

pictures of my house in virginia

Right now I am home in Virginia preparing to leave to philadelphia to go visit my grandparents for possibly the last time. For anyone who doesn't know I have been assigned to the Dominican Republic, a country that shares the border with Haiti. Right now I have mixed feelings, obviously i am excited, but i am also a bit apprehensive. Despite what some people might think I am not going away on a two year vacation to some tropical island. Instead I am going to be spending the next two years of my life living in a third world country as its habitants do working, socializing, and living among them. It should be quite an experience. I will try my best to keep some sort of regular contact but access to internet will be inconsistent at best (no internet! he must be roughing it). I have no doubt the experience will be life changing and I cannot wait to see what happens.