back in the capital

we made it back to the capital for a few more days of training, but the end is in sight. i am pretty psyched to get to my site and start working, although i am also feeling a little overwhelmed by the fact that i will be starting entirely from scratch. at the moment i am feeling a little bummed, i think mostly overwhelmed by the constant moving around and not wanting to be in this huge congested city. my site visit is on tuesday though, so it will be pretty exciting to see where i'll be living for the next 2 years and be out in the campo. in other news, today we went to the US embassy in santo domingo and went swimming in the pool there, which was really refreshing and a nice change of pace. then we ate at a little italian restaurant, which again was a nice change of pace from the rice and beans. tomorrow we are getting our cell phones issued, so i will email my phone number and please call me! i would love to hear from everyone. i will write again after my site visit and let you know how it goes.

almost done

so, we have about 3 days left here and then it will be time to head back to the capital. i am pretty ready to ship out; constanza has been great but it's time for a change of scenery. this past weekend a fellow trainee and i painted a community center with our youth group, which was tiring but also really fun. there has been some pretty serious drama going on in their neighborhood involving theft, so i think it was good for them to have something positive to do for their community. monday we gave the group a talk on sexual health, and then today my friend derek and i gave a talk on teenage pregnancy to an 8th grade class in that neighborhood. i think we got the point across and the kids seemed to be interested which is the most important part. we fielded a few awkward questions but overall it was awesome. last night i helped my host sister yajaira put up a christmas tree and the christmas lights in front of our house, since the christmas season here apparently starts in early november... as usual, things with my family are crazy but i am totally used to it so it's fine. oh right, about tropical storm/hurricane noel... things here are fine. it rained for about a week straight and there was damage to certain areas of our city, but all of us are fine and in good health. there are certainly parts of the country that didn't fare so well, though. i don't really have any other news, but i did post some pictures from the DR onto my google account so you can look at them through the link on the right (at least, i think it's on the right). i will talk to everyone soon, and i hope all is well up there!