America's B-day, Peace Corps style...

Every time I slide myself into the emerald or turquoise water of the ocean and look around to miles and miles of palm trees and the white sandy beach I cannot believe that I live on this island. The best part about it all is that I’ll live here for two more years. And within those two years I will want to hit as many beaches as possible. So those of you who are thinking about visiting me should be prepared to travel to see these beautiful sights.

Starting out on Friday morning, Arya and I check out of the Hotel Colonial, a cheap place to stay for PCVs, and find our way to the fruit stand where by coincidence a taxi drops of 3 PCV beauties. These are my girlfriends who are also going to catch the bus with us. When we get to the bus stop we spot a few more volunteers also going on our bus. It turns out there will be a total of 12 gringos on the same small passenger bus heading for Samana. This just goes to show you that we are everywhere and when there is an event planned it is a guarantee that you’ll find other PCVs on the bus – so you’re basically never alone. The ride took about 3 ½ hours to get to Samana, where we took another but smaller bus to Las Galeras. From the drive by we did of Samana, it looks like a small European village, with sailboats at the dock and pastel painted houses – very cute.

Once in Las Galeras we find our way to Hotel Marcos, where we see the ocean for the first time in this small town. The place had a very tranquil atmosphere that was perfect for us who just traveled for over 4 hours. Marcos is a Canadian ex-pat who started running the place earlier this year. He was nice and accommodating to our group of PCVs who came and went. I am sure he was happy that we all drank during his happy hour and ate at the restaurant. The food was okay, but the drinks were better. The water was warm there at the main beach and there were lots of plants under the water which made it hard to stand or walk on the ocean floor.

Saturday we took a boat to Playa Ricon. About a 20-minute boat ride this beach is hidden behind a few huge rocks. At the edge of the beach a river meets the ocean. If you have ever been in Barton Springs in Austin, Texas then you would know how cold the fresh water was! It was like stepping into an ice cube. This is the type of water that cools your inner core and it takes hours for the heat/sun to penetrate the coolness. It was Awesome. During this time older volunteers and new volunteers are meeting and sharing stories about their sites. It was a good experience to hear how the other volunteers live their day-to-day lives. I also learned a lot by seeing how they travel and what food they pack to eat cheap, but be full. Apparently canned pasta needs not cooking, just open and eat! I’m looking forward to a can of ravioli next time I go to the beach.

That night Marcos had a burger/hot dog grill party and other ex-pats came to see the spectacle of the PCVs! However, there were not fireworks, cake, or watermelon. I missed the watermelons of Grapeland, Texas this year. But in tradition, off we went to the local car wash to get our bachata and meringue dancing on. All of this lasted until late into the night and in my true fashion I was up by 7AM. Why or how I do it who knows! But I’m usually up early after a late night, I try to eat and then nap but that didn’t work out on Sunday.

I latched on to another group of PCVs and we secured a guagua to Las Terrenas, another amazing beach town. It was about an hour east of Las Galeras and even more unreal. This place feels like it was developed by Italians and French ex-pats. This place was more expensive and had a lot more to offer. We spent the afternoon hanging out in the water and the afternoon napping in the hotel/apartment. I noticed that in both towns one of the main attractions as far as food goes is Pizza. So yeah I ate pizza twice while on this trip and I am sick of it! I’ve never been a pizza lover, but this weekend I was craving something else, like fish. I got my wish to eat fish that night and it was so satisfying. We all took this night to sit around at the hotel and unwind. The next morning we found the French bakery and I had the perfect cup of café con leche and an apricot Danish. Yummmm!!! This is one place I’ll hit up if ever in the Samana Peninsula again or if I have people visit. The town was pricey for my PC budget but for people on vacation its not super expensive. The shops are trendy and the clothing very cool. I wish I had been an American on vacation just to have money to buy clothes.

My clothes here are going through some rough times. A few weeks ago I washed my darks with a new purple towel. HUGE mistake! It gave all my clothes a purple tint and changed the lighter clothing’s color completely. Fortunately I can still where all of it even though they are new colors. But today I threw in my khaki capri’s with the darks and they came out with blue stains ever where?!?! I wash with cold water so I don’t know what went wrong. So, like I said, my clothes are getting the worst of the PC experience. I also noticed that everyone uses fabric softener here. I never used it in the states so I’ve been washing without here, but today when I went to take my clothes off the line all the cotton items were stiff and rough. I will start using fabric softener now, I hope it makes them feel better. But I digress.

The small guagua back to Santiago was 4 ½ hours and it was a tight squeeze for a good 3 hours or it. Luckily with my new found friends Jenna, Karina and Justin it was a memorable time. These older PCVs have Spanish down enough to joke with the people on the bus and they throw out the “Ah, Dios” y “gracias a dios” - and well anything referring to God and your cool with the Doñas on the guagua. When we made it back to Santiago they showed me a nice sushi place that wasn’t too expensive and didn’t taste like the kind you’d get at the grocery store but better like a mid-scale sushi place. I know it seems weird that this PCV is hanging out in resort towns and eating sushi but hey its hard work being the gringa in a small pueblo. From there I grabbed a ride from the family friend who is still visiting from NY. I was happy to be home and ready to sleep in my bed.

Tuesday I woke up and headed to the CTC to check out the situation there since it had been almost a week. Turns out the Internet went down over the weekend and the place was a ghost town. Although as I was walking to and from the CTC people stopped me to see how I was and how enjoyed my trip. It was such a good feeling to have people seem like they care. It just confirms that I love my community. I still have lots of diagnostic work to do but little by little I’ll get it done before our 3-month in-service training. This is a 5-day workshop where our project partners come and we present our diagnostic findings and then us PCVs do more hands on technical training with one another. I’ll be leading a video editing class! My goal is to use the moviemaker program (on most CTC computers) to make a video as my diagnostic presentation. This way I’ll have experience using the program and then I’ll teach my fellow ICTs how to use it. I’ve got less than a month. Keep your fingers crossed.

Side note: I came down with an allergic reaction to a mango! The rash is going away after two days of sitting on my bed covered in Caladryl lotion. The PC doctors are great here so don't worry. If it doesn't get any better in a few days I will be heading to the capital. However, it seems as though the spreading has stopped and one side of my lower back is already healing. Gracias a dios!