Good morning all! This is my last official blog update written from my bed in Las Tablas! By the time this is posted I will officially done with training in the countryside and back in Santo Domingo for a few days to gather my things and be sworn in as a true Peace Corps Volunteer!

It’s bittersweet; I’m leaving the community I have lived in for the past 5 weeks (that has taught me everything I know) but IM ACTUALLY BECOMING A PEACE CORPS VOLUNTEER! Not that I ever doubted.. but still, its exciting to be more than a trainee. After hours of spanish class daily, technical training sessions, community presentations and tests (along with choking down the daily fried salami and fried bananas), I can say that I am tired of training and ready to move on. The “hardest” part is over and now I will have my community for the next 2 years (maybe truly the “hardest” part?). It’s also a bit sad to leave my family here who is awesome (again, the little sister is my bff), and more unfortunate that I will be about 7 hours away by bus (and thus not able to visit often).

However, I have a few parting gifts for them that include:
-2 ripe mangos (mango season is over so this is a treat; also, subtly encouraging fruit intake)
-my spanish/English dictionary (my sister is learning english but doesn’t have a dictionary because they are too expensive. She’s wanted one forever)
-a photo album with 5 printed photos of the family & me. They’ll never forget me now!

The last few days have been hurried as we prepare for the move out of Las Tablas and wrap up training, especially yesterday. We were on the bus to the nearest town at 8am yesterday to check email, get host family presents and purchase food from the market for our going away party (Friday, potluck, pool party)! My friend Eva and I are making a sweet potato pudding for potluck. It should be healthy and delicious. The best thing about being an American woman in a marketplace can be the things you get free… we got our cinnamon and orange zest for the pudding for free from the vendors!

The highlight of the shopping trip in town was my purchase of a huge, plastic, hideous plaid (orange, black and cream) carpetbag (that zippers!). These bags are found all over Central/South America and are useful for everything from transport of clothing to food. Best of all, they fold up into a flat square perfect for storage. You can also wash them easily. I got mine for a mere $1.75 US. I know it will be essential for the move to La Lima in the coming weeks.

After the shopping trip, I returned home to my house only to find a little neighbor girl crying hysterically. This neighbor girl often likes to run around naked (and is 5 years old), and never wears shoes. Of course she tripped and basically took a toenail off, among other injuries. Being the health promoter I am, I washed, disinfected & bandaged her toes (while giving her some mango to ease the crying). Little did I expect to see her 1 hour later STILL RUNNING AROUND WITHOUT SHOES ON, with one of the bandages already off. God, children. Last time I’m helping them..(kinda joking)..

After the rice and beans lunch I finished preparing my final presentation. We took our final technical training exam at 3pm, and then at 6:30 I had my final community presentation on Gender and Stereotyping. It went horribly (but don’t worry, this story has a happy ending):
1. We were supposed to have it at the school, but the electricity was out in the community and thus had to switch the location at a nearby poolhall (that has a generator) 5 mins before the presentation was supposed to start. Note: a poolhall is not a good place for a presentation.
2. We invited 11-22 year olds as our audience. About 30 kids (12 of them under the age of 8 came). From the get-go the little kids were screaming and shouting. One of the volunteers offered to take the little kids to the baseball field and play. He coerced them away from our presentation with “I BET YOU CAN’T CATCH ME” and started madly running. He ended their games with hide and seek (and told them all to hide—he ran away haha). Many of the kids returned to scream and shout.
3. We tried to do an icebreaker to begin our presentation but there were too many kids and not enough space; scrapped that idea after giving the initial directions (and thus confusing the kids).
4. It started to monsoon after we began the presentation (think: heavy rainfall on a tin roof). You could barely hear our presentation at times.
5. No one seemed to understand gender and stereotyping although we had about 5 activities repeating the same message…we skipped much of the presentation we realized would be over their head (all of our work—to waste!).

After a half hour and a waning audience of children, we ended quickly as we saw our trainer giving us the hook. After a quick debriefing of “don’t worry, the presentation went great, the problems were outside your control, this is reality” with our trainer, we packed up and all went to the Spaghetti dinner held at a volunteer’s host family home. It was a relaxing ending to a hectic day—we were officially done with training!!! A margarita and a plate of spaghetti later, I was feeling better and trekked back to my house to watch a few telenovelas and go to bed.