My bike! Keep scrolling to see the real blog.

These are just pics of me and my bike, Sasha. First is of us on the way to the museum. The second is of us on the back of a truck hitch hiking back to Heathers house. We have the best times......oh, Sasha.....

Vacaciones!

Just got back from an amazing 2 week vacation...oh yes....2 weeks. It has been a blast. First there was Semana Santa, like i told you guys so everyone in the entire country was off celebrating that. The second week my Aunt and Uncle came to town to visit and put me up at the Barcelo resort with them! Man, was that nice. All you can eat, air conditioned rooms, hot water(most of the time) and comfy beds. It doesnt get much better than that.
So Semana Santa started off by hanging out in Moca. Heather and I rode our bikes 2 hours straight to get to the Hermanas Mirabal Museum. Who are the Hermanas Mirabal you may ask? Well look here! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirabal_sisters
It was quite a fight to get there so we decided to hitchhike back to her house. Luckily a truck stopped to give us a ride and they happened to be going right by her neighborhood! so we rode with our bikes in the back of a truck filled with empty chicken crates, haha (hence my facebook pic).
Midway through the week another volunteers(Carly) parents came into town so we all enjoyed a free night out in Santiago, gracias a sus padres.
On Saturday i headed up to another volunteers(Topher) house in the mountains towards puerto plata and hung out with him and another volunteer (Chandler). We hung out in the local river and enjoyed some good tunes and good people. Very chill.
Sunday, I made the trek over to the wonderful Barcelo all-inclusive beach resort to meet up with my Aunt, Uncle and cousins. They stayed until Friday and we did all sorts of stuff. We went on a cable car ride up to the top of this small mountain which had amazing views of the country. Then we went and jumped off some 12 waterfalls in Imbert for half of a day, that was fun. We ventured to Santiago to visit my site but i had forgotten my keys so we couldnt get into my apartment. We did manage to rig up a ladder and my 2 cousins and I climbed through the window for a bit, haha. We went to Cabarete the next day to enjoy the beach, and then friday the left. It was a much needed break :) and i was so glad they had a good time. I loved showing them around my little island. Seriously, if anyone wants a free tour guide, im your guy!
Now its back to reality. This weekend is a readjustment period and then i start a new small-business class on Tuesday. Im pretty excited about this one, well see how many kids show up. Also filling out a grant to get cement floors and tin roofs at a neighbor community, and working on helping paint the basketball court in my community.
Oh! we also celebrating my little neighbors ChaCha's 3rd birthday. We went to McDonalds and had chocolate sundaes. Haha she wore this little dress and a crown. It was the cutest thing ever! She doesnt look very happy in the picture with me, but trust me, she loves me, haha.
Good things happening, staying busy, living the life, poor as dirt, haha. Thats about it for now. Hablamos.

Whats happening

Hmmm...whats happened in the past month....instead of going 4 days straight without water.....hard to think of anything other than that haha.
Seriously, that was a while ago, and it really wasn't that bad. There was an "incident" where a few fellow volunteers were staying at my house and one of them was stricken with a variation of intestinal distress, of course, i had no water that day. Theres not much worse than 5 people in one tiny apartment while someone is "going through the motions" in the bathroom with only a bucket to flush. It is a sufficient way to get it all down.....but it doesn't necessarily complete the job, and lets face it, there are a whole lot worse things than that, ha. Gracias a Dios, it wasn't me this time.

Anyways, in related news....we just had our annual bola race! Each year most of the volunteers in the country gather in one location, then are given the name of a destination to get to using only free rides. Basically, we all gathered in Santiago, and were told the morning of the race to hitchhike to Las Terrenas. Rules of the game: You must have a partner of the opposite sex. You must wear a costume. You must assume a character. So, another volunteer, Heather and I dressed up in wedding attire. Full on dress and tux and raced up to LAs Terrenas. Ultimately, we took the wrong route and ended up next to last, BUT it was a blast and a once in a lifetime thing. Who can say they hitchhiked with a bride halfway across the Dominican Republic! Ha! There is my 10 year reunion story, haha. Im not really married though. Dont get your hopes up....or be disappointed in me :)

Other news, a few weeks ago we completed the boys science camp we had been anticipating for a while. It was an awesome success. We hosted 32 boys ages 10-14 for a 4-day 3-night camp focused on engineering and becoming a man/proffesional. I gave a presentation to 32 little boys about what it means to be a man.....can you imagine....it was a disaster, i could not have done a worse job. They seemed to take little bits and pieces from it though, so who knows. We did all kinds of science projects. We made cars out of rat traps and raced them (my team came in 3rd), we made boats out of recyclable materials (my team was the only one that could fit a person on and float the boat down a river!) We also did a lot of tiny experiments and a lot of team building educational games. We slept on the ground in a town that is probably the highest elevated town in the DR. At night it got into the low 50's thats cold when your outside, ha. It was awesome to see these kids run around in a camp-like environment. None of these kids had ever been to anything like this. We take summer camps for granted in the US, they loved it!
I was able to bring 2 kids from my community and they both had an absolute blast.

Now, its back to work as usual. Spend a few hours at the school everyday, tending to the needs of the people, lol. This week is Semana Santa, which means Holy Week. It is in observance of what we call Easter. We get a whole week, i dont know what you suckers get! I plan on traveling to see a water system inauguration tomorrow. Another volunteer has finished his water project, which basically provided water to a town that previously had no direct access. How awesome is that? Im gonna spend this week traveling throughout the tri-region area celebrating the Holy Week. LIFE IS TOUGH.

You will all be pleased to know that i am not moving to that shack i showed you in my last post. After much thought I have decided its just better to stay where im at for many reasons. But, i will still be working over there. Yesterday i went through about 25 houses inspecting them for a grant i am writing focused on cement floors and tin roofs. There are a lot of homes, like the one i was gonna rent, that have dirt floors, and a lot of houses that have very damaged tin roofs, which leak heavily when it rains. Im hoping to get this one approved so we can start working over there.

Also, I have been in contact with a teacher from the Carol Morgan School in Santo Domingo. He is going to bring 25 of his advanced AP students (this is an international school where all the students are multi-lingual from very fortunate backgrounds) to my high school for one day on May 26th and show the teachers how to utilize the science lab we have. We have a room labeled Laboratorio de Ciencia but no one ever uses it because there are no instruments. They have offered to leave us with sufficient instruments to run and sustain a science lab!! I'm really excited about this project.

That seems like all for now. I attached a few pictures. Hope you all enjoy! Miss you guys! Excited for my aunt and uncle to get here in a week!