Un chin más

´Chin´is one of my favorite Dominicanisms. It means a tiny bit, and they use it all the time for everything--and therefore so do I! This afternoon we have our official swearing-in ceremony, which is sure to be a soggy one since it´s been pouring since Monday. Then tomorrow we have a big Thanksgiving party (alas, no Tofurkey this year), followed by an all-volunteer conference on Friday and a couple days to relax in the capital with Kimberly, Nate, and a few friends. On Monday I´ll be heading out to my site and settling in at my new home, which I´ll admit is a little bit daunting. At this point, two years sounds like an eternity to me... but at the same time I´m incredibly excited about my site and eager to get started on my projects, and I have a feeling that come November 2008, those two years will have flown by. But I digress... Let me tell you more about what I´ll be doing, or at least what I think I´ll be doing:

Site news and photos

Finally, I know my site--and I love it! I'll be in Enriquillo, a small town on the southern coast not too far from the Haitian border, working with an organic coffee cooperative and a newly-formed women's group that just received 14 pregnant cows. I'm incredibly excited about the work I'll be doing (I'll add more details later, as they become known) and fortunately for everyone who was thinking of visiting, the site is absolutely gorgeous.

My new home, Enriquillo.




Just a short walk down the path behind my new host family's house. Rough, eh?



The view looking south towards the ocean from one of the coffee farms.



My new project partner, Maria, in front of her house in Enriquillo.


Coop workshop in the mountains last week.



Picking coffee in Jarabacoa!

A brief update...

I'm still in the mountains, and I'm still loving it. You should see the view from my street in the morning... Clouds resting in the mountains, pines and palm trees covering the hillsides, the sound of the river rushing by down below. Yes, that's right: pine trees in the Carribbean. I had no idea. Plus I slept with 3 blankets last night, which was pretty much heaven! I think we're all going to be a little disappointed when we get to our sites and it's nowhere near as gorgeous or cool. At least I will be. But then again, we might be by a beautiful beach, so who knows.

We're the only group that still doesn't know our sites, and they're telling us that we won't know until the 13th. I keep wavering between wanting to work with coffee farmers and artesania, and i think that either would be great. Sounds like the majority of sites are with one of those two groups, but I might also end up with banana or avacado farmers. We'll see. We've been learning a lot about small business in the DR, how to teach basic business skills, do feasability studies, etc. Today, for example, I'm in La Vega (the provincial capital) searching out gov't groups and NGOs to practice networking. I have a list of 5 names and am supposed to locate them (no map for this exercise), ask to talk to someone, and basically find out who they are, what they do, and how the PC could possibly work together with them. I was a little nervous at first, but you'd be amazed at how far a Peace Corps badge and an American accent can get you... At the last place (a technical training NGO that gives courses to youth and unemployed adults) they got together 5 of their top officers in a big conference room to talk to me, solely because I flashed my PC badge. Nice.

Alright, time to meet up with the group for lunch before heading home. Once again the pictures are proving difficult, but I'll keep trying. I have one of me picking coffee in the mountains, and I look just like Juan Valdez... Well, almost. Not to be missed!
Peace,
Melissa