bachata

Hello all dedicated readers!

This blogpost comes very late-- I'm already back in the USA and officially done with Peace Corps! But of course, I would like to recap what my last month in the DR was like (it was so busy I never got a chance to update before leaving):

1. I mostly finished all my projects. This is to say that the fence at the school is not done, and neither is the cement bridge-thing in my community that we were fixing up. However, these projects have been completely funded and taken over by community members, so I have hope they will be completed soon! My youth/adult health promoters will hopefully continue with their projects. I also was able to obtain 2 boxes of last-minute books for the school. Speaking of the school..

2. Interestingly enough, this past month I converted into a highschool math teacher in the local school. The local math teacher went away suddenly, and the 120 highschool students were left without a math teacher! There were no math teachers available in the whole province, either. Of course, I volunteered and the next week I was teaching freshman-senior math (and freshman-sophmore english!). I was teaching at the school every day from 8am-1pm, and spending my afternoons lesson planning and grading. It was a great overall experience (although the kids were pretty bad!). I spent 3 full weeks at the school.

3. I finished up my time in the DR with my going-away ("despedida") and the aqueduct inauguration. We held activities my last Saturday and Sunday inviting the community and killing 2 pigs. I was presented with 4 different plaques (one from the school, and 1 from each of my 3 communities) and we took lots of pictures with water shooting out from the aqueduct. The celebrations were wonderful, with performances from my youth health promoters too!

4. I returned to the USA on October 28th with Rafelito. Of course, we had a tough time with immigration because he is a first-time immigrant and Homeland Security needed to process all his forms (of course, we had no clue about this process). We missed our connection in Miami due to this problem. However, we finally arrived in Boston at 1am to see my family! How wonderful. Now, Rafelito and I are adjusting to the US and eating lots of food! In a few weeks we will start to make some moves, but until then, you can find us on the couch/internet making up for the last two years we missed here.