Welcome to the "Real World"

This weekend I went on my volunteer visit to Santiago. Once I got to Santiago I met Leticia and her dog Lucy. She is a regional Peace Corps Volunteer in her third year so she lives in a nicer area of the city. The next day we went to her campo where she served her two years. We had to take three forms of transportation to get there. A small bus (gua-gua) a carro publico (taxi that the squeeze 7 people into) and a motoconcho (a motorcycle taxi). My helmet is WAY too big so hopefully the smaller ones come in soon. Her site was a very small town that had about 100 houses and a few colmados (small convenience stores that sell just the basics aka beer and rum). I met with her volleyball team and they had a big spaghetti dinner for us. I have completely cut out cheese and milk from my diet here so I didn’t get the alfredo sauce (which ended up making a few people not feel so great). The next day we went to work on her library. We had to take everything out of the room (boxes of books, broken tables and chairs) and then we filled buckets with water and threw them at the walls and then used brooms to wash down the walls windows and the floor. It was a lot of fun especially since it’s hot as you know what down here. We let the room dry and started moving things back in. She got a grant for some books and she painted shelves and is currently working on a cataloging system that is easy to understand. We also taught her girls how to play Jenga! (Which I am terrible at because I don’t have much of a steady hand). On Sunday we went to her boyfriend’s family’s house and they made a huge chicken stew called sancocho that they only make for special occasions. I learned a little bachata and had some Presidente then it was time for me to get back to Santo Domingo on my own. I made it back around 7 after a long gua-gua ride that was super crowded and I lost my awesome glow in the dark Nalgene. I can already tell you they don’t give us nearly enough money… (cough Mom/Dad cough).