Embassy!

So right now im sitting in the peace corps headquarters here in Santo Domingo. We were given our work assignments yesterday, i will be working at a high school....wooo....not my first choice, but its not about me. Monday we get our site assignments. Anyways, so today we are meeting our employers, which for me is the Ministery of Education. So we arrived downtown at like 10:30ish to go to some book fair, blew that popsicle stand to hit up the big mac dizzy, Mcdonalds!! It was soooo goood. You never realize how good it is until you have been deprived for soo long. Then we went to the US embassy here, which....is....awesome. I dont even know how to describe it other than it is not the DR. Lush manicured lawns, full service cafeteria and an incredible pool!!! We hung out there for a while and now i am taking advantage of the internet at the HQ.
So we got into Santo Domingo last night and it was a stark reality check. I arrived to no electricty or water, walked into the bathroom and was greeting by someone elses duece, staring me straight in the face, mocking me, "haha, look at me, LOOK AT ME." Not to mention it was like 95 degrees at around 10 last night, so i just sat in bed and sweat for about an hour until i passed out from heat exhaustion only to be woken up by roosters fighting dogs at around 4:30 am eastern time. Perfect first day. But, today has definitely made up for it.
Anyways, gotta go,
love and miss you guys tons

haha

So the bottom two pictures are of us playing the NAtional Dominican Pastime..... Dominoes, the other is me eating the greatest empanada ever created. ham, cheese, chicken, with mustard and mayonnese YYEEESSSS!

Sigue

Free day! So we had a technical meeting from 8:30-10 am, and the rest of the day is free to work on our "projects". Our group has all but finished ours so its pretty much an open day. Just been sitting at home reading and listening to music as the cool Dominican breeze rushes over my near bald scalp. I had mashed potatoes and a block of cheese for lunch. Thats right, its exactly what your thinking in your head, a literal block of cheese. About 1.5 inches thick and about the width of a VHS tape. Yellow, a little wet, spongy, you just take a fork and knife and cut off little bites then mix it with your mashed potatoes. Its a very awkward experience to be sure, i mean cheese is good, dont get me wrong, but there is a time, place, and limit to how much one should eat in a sitting, not to mention this cheese had been sitting out since morning. Nevertheless, i ate it with a smile on my face because thats all there was.
Outside of that, not a whole lot has been going on. We visited a haitian-dominican village and got to see a haitian woman make the best peanut brittle you could ever dream of in a million years, seriously, we had one right after she poured the batter out on the table to cool, and i almost passed out.
On the health front, im still going strong. Im off the D-train as of right now, which is a blessing, Gracias a Dios! But, im pretty sure i fractured a rib playing basketball, because it hurts to......breath.....and its really hard to get out of bed in the mornings because it hurts to lift myself up, cant lay on my belly.....well see how it plays out over the next few days. ITs not TOOO bad, but it is noticable. No te preocupes!
We are going to the beach again on Sunday, which im pretty stoked about, and then we leave this city for good on thrusday and training will be pretty much over. IT went by so fast these past 2 months. But at the same time, it feels like ive been here for 4 years already. Doesnt make any sense, i know, youd have to be here. Im just so thankful that im finally relatively fully healthy, hahaha. Im going to try and upload 1 photo from the beach on here right now, but im not making any promises....

Empanadas

To go with my steadily growing love for empanadas, here is a picture of some empanadas that my spanish class and i made. cheers!

temblor de la tierra

So apparently we had an earthquake today. I was sitting in bed when it started shaking, i didn't really think much of it. But then my host mom came into the room and asked me if i felt the earthquake. So, thats definitely a first for me. I got to watch the first NBA playoff game yesterday, Bulls vs. Cavs. Unfortunately it was a blowout, but it was still cool.
So i want to talk about the mosquitos and flys here, not to mention the spiders. First of all, mosquitos are always around. Its not liek in Florida where they come out towards sunset and later at night. They are out 24/7 here. And there are a few different types of mosquitos. The ones that come out in the morning and night carry malaria, the ones that come out during the day carry dengue fever. So, either way, the odds of contracting a debilitating disease increases with each mosquito bite. We get malaria medicine which should prevent any symptoms, but Dengue fever is a free for all. Dengue is also called breakbone fever, and apparently it feels like all your bones are breaking at the same time. Cant wait for that. Im sure there is diarrhea associated with it as well.
Flys are another problem here. There are flys over everything. I eat meals in a flurry of flys. They carry their own disease as well, but im not too worried about that one. Spiders are frequent here as well. I saw one the size of a baseball in my shower the other day, yayy.
whew, anyways, just spending another lazy sunday here in the DR.
Love and miss you guys tons.

This is our group. Thats me in the back with a bowstaff.