Profe in the DR 01

Hola GTA,

As I mentioned back in June, I joined the United States Peace Corps and am now in the Dominican Republic.  I arrived August 19^th and have now been here for five weeks.  In order to become a Peace Corps Volunteer you first have to pass ten weeks of training, and I am currently halfway done.  After that I will serve for two years as a volunteer in the DR.  I am in the youth development program which means I will work with groups of young people in all sorts of projects, promoting education, leadership, self-esteem, healthy life choices, physical fitness, etc.  I would like to share with you a little bit of my experience so far.

            We spent our first three weeks in the capital Santo Domingo, which has a population of about two and a half million.  It was very hot and humid and I seemed to be sweating all the time, quite a switch from Northern Michigan.  We had training from 8am until 5pm weekdays and 8am -2pm on Saturdays.  We learned about the history, culture and geography of the DR, how to stay healthy and safe, how to use local transportation, what to expect as volunteers, and of course Spanish. 

           

While in the capital, we stayed with host families.  My host family was composed of four people, a 71 year old great-grandmother, a 50 something grandmother, a 27 year old friend of the family, and an 11 year old great-grandson.  The house was nice, and was located about 15 minutes walking distance from the training center.

During the first three weeks we also individually spent four days visiting a current volunteer to experience a little bit of the life of a volunteer.  I went to a city called Nagua on the northern coast to visit a 23 year old volunteer named Jacob White.  I got to see some of his projects and then on the weekend we went to the beach one day and then swimming in a laguna (sinkhole) the next.  Both were incredibly beautiful, but the laguna had a rope to swing off of into the water and was far more fun.  I must have launched myself off that rope a hundred times.

To be continued…