In Country (finally)

This is Lewe (I think) He's the nice guy who lead us around. Its so nice how protective he is of the Americanas:)














Here are my two sisters and the past trainee Stephanie. The other is of my Dona and Don and their doggies:)


Hola! Buenas Dias!!

I've been saying that a LOT lately!! I realized that my espanol is NOT very good, actually I knew that but I found out its a LOT worse that I had thought. Ah well, my host mother (or Dona- say Do ya (long o)) seems to think that despite the fact that I am the worst shes had in her house when it comes to speaking spanish that I will pick it up in a week!! At least she must think that I am smart:)

I really love my host family. I was so nervous but they are soooo nice! There are three sisters and then Fransisco and Carmen. The girls are 12, 14 and 16 and the youngest is severally mentally disabled. My Dona takes the best care of her though, its refreshing.

I will be with my host fam for 3 weeks and then I go to CBT or Community Based Training out in Bani and a director was just telling us that there is a big drug problem in this country and decided to use Bani as a great example. I guess last week they found 7 or 8 dead bodies in the ditch due to drug dealers. Great.

My host family's house is NOT what I expected. It is pretty run down on the outside and is in a barrio (as opposed to a residencia) I guess a residencia is nice and more quiet. Thats the truth. I had to walk about 45 minutes to get to this internet cafe and its in a residencia. They're more tame. My group and I would have never gotten here if it weren't for Kenzie's Don. He happened to be walking in front of us when we walking here and he lead us all over the neighborhood ( a freaking maze!!!) and to this place. We would have never found it, we thought that it was in a different place all together!!!

Today a volunteer from the city came to visit our group in our training center. It was really lucky because she had lived in my house when she was in training. She came to my house after and translated for me for an hour. I learned a LOT about my family its nice to know how they are with things like church (they don't go but I'm happy bc its catholic and like 4 hours long) or how they feel about me staying in my room with my door open... I don't want to seem snotty and antisocial not being in the living room. The house is really small so if any of you want to call me I'll have to be in the girl's bedroom to talk. My Dona told me I could use the phone so feel free tot call after like 6 eastern time but before 9. I'll give my mom my number.

Theres a lot more I'd like to say but there are 5 other volunteers waiting to use the computer. It costs 25 pesos/hr to use it here which is a lot since I just get 40 pesos/weekday starting Monday (although they gave it to us already). I'm going to try to post a bunch of pics on myspace so if you have it check it. Love you guys lots and miss you tons!!!

love

Betsy

Staging

8/21/08

Well, I’m sitting in the airport in Miami now, waiting to go to the DR. I found out that we will be going to a retreat tonight and then to our host families on Friday after training. A retreat sounds nice right? Not this time! We’re going to get some vaccines and take competency exams to see where we rate in different criteria. Great. It’s not all bad though because I think (but could be wrong) that we are staying in a hotel which could be a nice thing.

The hotel we stayed at in Miami was nice:) I never got to go swimming because it was way too busy. I got in at 1:30 on Tuesday and was in training until 6:30 then it was time for a shower and dinner. After that I was on the phone till late. The next day were wee up at 7 and were lucky enough to get done with staging early at 4:30 but we had to repack and iron clothes (I guess in the DR they’re really big on appearances). I was on the phone till 1:30 this morning and woke nice and early at 5:30 (thanks for the call Rach:) and headed to the airport.

We all thought that it was a little excessive getting to the airport at 7:30 when our flight didn’t leave until 12 but whatever. At least we’re not hurried and we all made it to the flight:) When we get in the DR the head guy, Romeo Massey will meet us and our bags will be taken to our host families while we will go to the retreat. So my carry on bag is heavy since if has to have all the stuff for the retreat.

I learned a lot yesterday in staging such as how we will not be in the capitol during training, we’ll be in a town that starts with a p and is about an hour NW of Santo Domingo. I’ll still be able to get mail and stuff about 2x/week when I’m at the training center. After 3 weeks in the p town I’ll go to my CBT or community based training where I’ll be with all the other health sector volunteers. I found out that we get to go to a town called Bani (accent on the I- I don’t know how to do it on my computer) that’s right along the coast line:) SWEET!!! :) Some others are going to a “luscious, fertile valley” that is full of strawberries and also lots of beautiful flowers that are often exported. The beach sounds great but so do strawberries!!

I also found out that we will be soo busy during training. I knew we would be but dang!! We have stuff from 8am till 6 and then meeting and stuff after that even! During training we will be given a walk around allowance which is a lot less than what we will get when training ends. They give us less because we don’t have to pay for food or anything. We’re all hoping it was a typo but some paper we got stated that we were going to be given just 45 pesos/day!!!!!! That’s like a freaking buck 25!!! So much for slow adjustment!! Lol

So, those are the updates for now:) I hope I answered any questions and I look forward to letters from you all!! Even though it still feels like I’m just on a vacation I miss you all very much! I don’t know when I’ll be able to write again so I wanted to tell Gracie HAPPY 6^th BIRTHDAY!! I hope you have a great day and I’ll be thinking of you:) Thanks for the phone call at my hotel Harnisch Herd, I can’t wait to get the 116 letters from Gabe and Isaiah, lol!

Love,

Betsy

8/19/08

Well it has certainly been a busy and loooong day. I woke up at 4 am to catch my flight out of O’ Hare at 8:35. I wanted to get some breakfast with my mom, Rach and John before I had to leave. We went to the oasis and had some McD’s which was delicious. When they were about to drop me off at the airport terminal Rach decided at the last second that she was going to park and we were going to walk together to the airport which was nice:) She surprised me and brought Toffee, the new kitten which I fell in love with before I left. So, Toffee and Booker stayed in the car and the rest of us walked inside. I checked my bags and we had about an hour to kill so we hung out on some benches. Then a lady tried to trick us into moving so she could sit there but we held firm. Wheelchair waiting area my…

Anyways, it was hard to leave everyone but impossible to say goodbye. I really mean impossible!! None of us said those words, I know I personally couldn’t. As soon as I walked to security I was a mess. The morning consisted of a very red and puffy Betsy and got worse and worse till I got to Miami. Then the terror of flying through a tropical storm called my attention away for a while.

After I landed I relied on my training from the health department to inspect a piece of paper over a random persons shoulder to discover the words DOMINICAN REPUBLIC. I knew that there were other volunteers on the plane so I asked her if she was a PCV and she was! So we hopped on a super taxi and headed for our hotel together.

One we got to the hotel we noticed that there was an awful lot of baggage in the lobby. We went to check in and were told that the storm had knocked out power so they couldn’t check us in since their computers weren’t working. They told us that they would be more that happy to take our bags though and that we could head up to our meeting if we want. Sounded good enough until we found out the meeting was on the top floor and the elevators weren’t working.

20 flights of stairs and no air conditioning later, my volunteer friend and a very sweaty Betsy got in line to fill out forms. We were in line for about 30 minutes but were still dripping sweat when they lined us up and took our picture like 3 feet from our faces! That’s a picture I don’t want to see…

The first day of training was a lot like CA training but better. It went over important issues but was sooooo much straight forward than CA training that it went quickly. One thing we did was go over our fears and goals. I was really relieved to find that everyone pretty much has the same anxieties as I do. The main thing I’m afraid of it living with the host family. It seriously freaks me out even though I know I’m over reacting. Even if they are awful, its just for 10 weeks and then its off to my site with another family for 3 months.

Well, that’s all for now:) I’ll try to write more later. I hope you all are well and I miss you all sooooo much!!!

Love,

Betsy

My last day at work was bitter-sweet and chocolaty

Today was a very surprising day and warm ‘n fuzzy kind of day. I went into my last day of work at the Boone County Health Department full of mixed emotions. On one hand it was nice to be gearing up for the Peace Corps (I leave in just SIX days!!!) but on the other hand I hate saying goodbye. I have to admit that I had wondered if there was something the scheming women and Bill had in mind since I know how they seem to generally plan things. When I came into work and there was no sign or anything up on my desk I figured that no plans had been made, which was ok since I was feeling a little down about the whole thing.

Around 11:15 or so I went to the break room to get some lunch, a tasty freezer burned peanut butter sandwich (which Bill so graciously helped me thaw) and noticed a bunch of ice cream in the freezer. I asked Bill what the ice cream was for and he nonchalantly responded, “I don’t know. Must be something the nurses are doing.” Hmm, ok then. Without suspicion I returned to my desk.

At about 11:30 Bill called me into his office to have my exit interview. We had just begun when the phone rang and Bill said I had to go with him to the back to see what they had just caught. Just caught, YUCK! I was thinking that was kind of nasty since I was just in back eating but nastier things have happened. When we were walking to the break room I noticed no one was at their desks and figured they were all looking at whatever was in the break room. To my horror when I rounded the corner I heard someone say they caught a bat!

I looked in the room and saw everyone and a large gold gift bag with tissue paper on the table. THEY PUT THE BAT IN THE GIFT BAG?!?! Then I saw all the ice cream treats on the counter and noticed that everyone looked pretty dang happy for just catching a bat. Ohhh…. I finally started to catch on. This was a surprise for me! How nice!!! They were so thoughtful to put together a bag of goodies of things I may need like bug spray, anti itch spray, toilet paper, and baby wipes (to clean the “stinky areas” after no shower”). I’m not sure what all I’ll need but I know that the things in that bag could come in handy!! They gave me a really great card too.

After we all enjoyed a little ice cream… ok, a lot of ice cream, it was back to work. But what a great day it became. Since I started this job more than a year ago I have gotten fleas, been chased by a LOT of dogs, lied too, yelled at and stepped in more piles of poop than I care to reminisce- this is my favorite job ever!:) Thanks everyone, it really means a lot:)!!!