Routine Interrupted

     Life here in Monte Plata has been pretty hum drum the past week or so, but that ended when I learned about the events still unfolding in Boston. Hearing about the attack, first from my host mom and then from a Dominican news program was surreal. My heart goes out to all those who have been affected. I knew big events would occur but what happened in Boston is not what I expected.

     Onto happier things, I received some more hints about where I will be going! I was told that I would be working on constructing a library, possibly helping with establishing a pre-school. My community will be in the campo (countryside) and there will not be other education volunteers nearby (volunteers from other sectors). However, I was told that I shouldn't worry about other education volunteers not being nearby because they will all want to visit me because my site is in a pretty awesome location. Crossing my fingers that means a beach! Still have to wait another 2.5 weeks till the big reveal!

     My literacy pull outs have gone well so far, myself and another trainee teach 4 3rd graders for an hour followed by an hour with 4 4th graders. The biggest difficulty we have so far encountered is determining what to teach. The majority of our students do not know the alphabet so ideally we would go through the entire alphabet but we are only here for 2 more weeks so we have decided to focus on the vowels first and take it from there.

    On Thursday myself and the other education trainees were reunited with the business trainees at a health and safety seminar and then got to enjoy a pool party in the evening. It seems like education lucked with our technical based training. The business group says they always have homework and they are learning pretty dry business things plus because they are in a new training site some of the house families are less than perfect. They also have to walk up and down mountains all day. None-the-less they seemed OK, and it was great to catch up with everyone.

Random Thoughts:

     On Tuesday I will be giving a presentation on classroom to 30 teachers at the school I work at with 3 other Volunteers, I have the highest level of Spanish, I am surprisingly not nervous about it.

      I frequently see people on motorcycles with gas tanks, long PVC pipes, washing machines, sometimes a horse roped alongside, and there is a 12 year old kid I know who rides one around town.