Journeys End

I'm just returning home today from being away from my site for a very long time. I figure that, on the bright side, it's good training for when the time comes for me to actually leave my site forever. I am very ready to get home though, and unload my gigantic backpack that grew in size during my weeklong trip.

It all began last Saturday when my club of muchachos from the high school and I set off for another IT volunteer's site to have an interchange and some workshops together, sort of a weekend-long camp. My kids had fundraised to pay for the passage in public transportation, and would stay at the kids' houses there, splitting up at night. In spite of all the bad things that probably could have happened, it was a huge success. We did have a pit stop on our hike up to the high school when we first got there because of the rain, but right away all the boys started getting their hair gel out to make themselves beautiful for the girls in the other club.

I'm pretty sure that many of the activities we did during the weekend would have gotten us in trouble as real public school teachers in the US had we done the same activities there. In addition to the computer repair and photo editing workshops (acceptable), we played a couple of icebreakers that the kids had made which were basically kissing games (on the cheeks, at least), went to the same discoteca at night as all the kids, and showed the movie Scarface to the community and our kids, a fairly gory movie that made me want to cringe several times. At least everyone enjoyed the weekend, and learned a little bit.

After we got back from the camp, I went straight to the capital for a week of our last chunk of language training. Decided to follow that up with a visit out to my friend Jenny in the south, a 4 hour bus ride from the capital. Their town was in the middle of their fiestas patronales, so it was a huge party in the central park every night. I even got persuaded to stay a little longer than I would have for a road race in the town. It was a 7K, and since I live in a different part of the country they wouldn't give me a number, but Jenny ended up winning the female division! She won a washing machine (Dominican style, not like the ones you are picturing in your heads), which is pretty humorous compared to the male prize of a new little motorcycle.

When I stayed with my old host family, the host mom was really sick and it turns out she had pneumonia! They sent home lots of different medicines including a set of three shots to give herself over the next few days. Her daughter asked if I was good at giving them... I had to say that that is not one of my talents! But it was very difficult to communicate with Tita, since she couldn't hear anything. Everything I said to her I had to repeat at a yelling volume, which was a turnoff to talking with her to say the least.

I'm looking forward to going back to my campo where the rain is falling and it's probably about 10 degrees cooler than the South, especially at night. I had to buy a blanket when I went to the Hatian market in Elias Piña with Jenny from her site for those cold nights. Who would have thought that on an island I would be cold sometimes? It's a welcome change from the constant sweating.