November was LOCO

Little boy sitting on a tank of gas.

November turned out to be an extremely busy month. Here is a quick recap of what I have been up to:

1st week of November: We were put up in a hotel (!!!) for a week when the Hurricane passed through, just in case anything bad happened. I slept a lot and took way too many hot showers.

2nd wk: A 3-day conference in La Vega with the other health volunteers, marking our one year anniversary in country! We talked about past successes and failures, and planned out the next year. Also, on Saturday I took my Escojo youth too the beach (45 minutes to the north).

3rd wk: There was a 3-day a Healthy Homes Health Promoter Conference in Jarabaco. We are starting up health promoter projects, training women to visit houses in their community to educate other mothers on health topics.

4th wk: I took Shakira and Spider Monkey to Puerto Plata to get spayed (boy was that an adventure.....public transportation with 2 animals, both of which did not have carry boxes). And finally.... a Thanksgiving Celebration in the capital with the Peace Corps, where I ate way too much.

Posing for the foto.

December is turning out to be just as crazy! On Dec 1st my Escojo grouop celebrated World Aids Day by distributing fliers in the community, and giving a talk in the school. That weekend, we participated in a Celebration in the Park of Santiago Rodriguez (which is about 2 hours from our community), with Youth from all over the region. It was a a day to promote awareness about AIDS. THEN I took 2 youth to a National Escojo Conference in the capital for 3 days, and now I just returned again from the capital from a Christmas party and meeting. The meeting was about a new NGO in my region that Peace Corps is trying to help out. It is called Fundacion de Mujeres para el Desarollo Noroestana (Women's Foundation for Northwestern Development). It is in its ground stages, but we are working on integrating the Health Promoters and Youth Sex Ed Promoters into its workings.

And the month is not over yet!

Trip to Playa Ensenada with my Escojo Youth group. This is the food we ate too - deep fried fish with tostones (mashed and fried green plantains)

Celebrating El Dia Mundial de VIH/SIDA (World AIDS Day) in the park of Santiago Rodriguez. These are the youth that I brought, from my community and two neighboring communities. We marched, chanted, handed out information, condoms, games, music, and decorated felt squares to make a mural. And of course there was some dancing.

My garden! I don't think I have ever worked so hard on anything. It was full of weeds, rocks, and trash. I picked and hoed and shoveled the bejeebers out of that land. I made the fence too..... There will be (si dios quiere and the bugs don't eat everything!) tomatoes, peppers, beets, cilantro, eggplant, cabbage, melon, pigeon peas, squash, and okra. We'll see if it grows, there are many enemy insects.