Visit to Los Cocoas

I just returned from a 4 day visit to a volunteer site in Los Cocoas, San Cristobal. Each trainee was assigned a different site in their specific sector (Health, Community Economic Development, Youth or Water Sanitation) so that we could see what the life of a volunteer is like. After taking a bus to San Cristobal, I had to take another bus to the Los Cocoas. I knew as soon as I took off in this bus I was headed for an adventure! The scenery on the ride up to the site was breathtaking. I felt like I was in a tropical jungle winding up to the top of a thousand beautiful mountains. When I pictured being a volunteer on the tropical island of Dominican Republic, I never could have dreamt of such a beautiful place. I mean I thought beaches and palm trees but I had not thought as much about the countryside. By the time I got to the site, I was exhausted from traveling because it took me about 6 hours to get there because the buses here do not leave at specific times, they just leave whenever they fill up. I learned a lot while I was there. The volunteer I visited was living by herself in a small simple shed like house with a tin roof. It was not anything glamorous. I am now an expert at bucket baths with ice cold water, so if anyone needs any pointers back home, let me know. The volunteer I visited is working with a coffee company called "Cafe Esperanza", which is a DELICIOUS coffee that should probably start exporting to the U.S.A. RIGHT NOW so that I can drink it all day everyday. I was able to see the how they process the coffee beans through the different stages until packaging. It was quite interesting and way more complicated than I ever thought it could be. She also was working with a hospital that was pretty much dormant before she got there. She has gotten several doctors to come work there and her mom donated and sent a bunch of hospital supplies to the community from the U.S. The government here makes med students do a year of free service after graduating, so she was able to get in contact with the right people for that. She also teaches English classes and does a workout group on the side 6 days a week.

Another volunteer that works as an environmental volunteer lived 20 minutes from her site, so we went to an inauguration of a stove project. It was really interesting to see how much Peace Corps volunteers mean to small communities because several important members of the community were there to give speeches and several Donas cooked for everyone. Basically her stove project was that she was able to get people in the community together to help them construct 40 stoves that do not use the wood and are bad for the environment and cause damage to lungs and so on.

Well, this week I have my first test for training thus far and will be heading out of Santo Domingo for CBT (Community Based Training) for CED (Community Economic Development) in Altamira in the north. I am super excited because our CED director, Tim, is going to plan an outing for us to visit 27 charcos (waterfalls) which is super beautiful, and you can watch a video of it on youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwS6FTdtJOs

Well thats all I got for now, stay tuned for more :) Peace!