Tina’s Technical Training y un poca mas

Tina speaking: I loved my training in Constanza! I lived with this amazing family, a dog (se llama Doggy), and a cat (se llama Pinky). The family was unbelievably warm, friendly, hospitable, and it was fun having a little sister and brother. I loved hanging out and playing cards with my Doña and my little sister. I got along really well with them and cannot wait to go back to visit. I’ll probably reference Luisanna (my little sister), Anyelina (my Doña), and Doggy as I think fondly of them. Side note: in the past, I have had terrible allergies and a genuine loathing of cats, but that has slowly diminished. The reasoning: I abhor rats, mice, cockroaches, centipedes and other tropical insects significantly more than flu-like symptoms from a cat. Cats here eat or at least kill, nearly every annoying creature (excluding mosquitoes), which is a pretty miraculous feat. That being noted, we will probably get a cat while we are here, as the alternative is not pleasant. Back to Constanza.
Constanza was a farming valley surrounded by rolling hills. It was cold, a sensation pretty foreign in this country, and beautiful, not very uncommon in this county. There were 25 trainees in Constanza, and we were all volunteers in the youth sector. We had Spanish and youth technical training in Spanish every day. I am considered an “Extreme Needs Youth Volunteer.” Extreme Need Volunteers usually work with more at-risk youth in organizational settings. The nature of the title is unimportant, except it lent itself to a good joke for our Spanish class. There were 4 of us in our Spanish class, and we all came to the country speaking little to no Spanish. We also burned through a total of 4 Spanish teachers during our training, which coined our class the name, “Extreme Needs Spanish Class.” Sad, but true. However, despite the challenges, we all learned (some) Spanish. Despite being separated from Dom, Constanza was perfect. It was very conducive to learning Spanish, studying, team building, learning meringue y bachata, developing a genuine love of Dominican food, mastering the bucket shower. Also, my neighbor had a nail salon so I got manicures and pedicures with wicked Dominican designs for 100 pesos total, which is about $2.50. We all survived our training and made it back to the capital to finish training. Successfully completing the training, we were sworn in as official Peace Corps Volunteers on October 27, 2010.
Now we are living in San Pedro de Marcoris, in a barrio on the northern outskirts of town. We love it. We live with a neat couple, and the man, Juan, is hilarious. While writing, I just got a mosquito bite on top of another mosquito bite. I did not know that could even happen. More impressive, they are both on my backside, so two mosquitoes got through my underwear and pants to get to my booty. We live in an Evangelical community so we hear praises to G*d all throughout the day, afternoons, evenings, wee hours of the night…There are 13 or 14 churches in our community, which is a lot considering we do not have paved roads, an elementary school or high school, concrete houses (the houses are constructed from scraps of tin), regular toilets (we use latrines i.e. outhouses), supermercado, or anything more than small colmados.
We are still trying to learn Spanish. You will inevitably hear subsequent blogs and complaints about the Dominican Spanish, so I will keep it minimal at this point: Dominican Spanish is painstakingly difficult to learn and/or understand because they drop the r, the s, and the occasional d from nearly all words. It is equivalent to learning English in the Deep South, and is sure to bring humor to our friends who actually speak Spanish. Our accents will make your ears bleed, but we can speak it!
I also bought my first pair of semi- Dominican jeans. Dominican jeans have crazy designs, glitter, gold, and are tighter than the tightest leggings. This is applicable to jeans for both men and women. Admittedly, I love the gold and glitter but have not yet mustered the courage to get a fantastically Dominican pair yet. I managed to find some jeans that are a little more subdued (except for the pockets that zipper up with leather tassles), and they allow me to breathe, even after eating rice, beans, yucca, platanos. Ahh, Dominican food. More to write in the future about that, but as for now, I miss you all, and would gladly welcome any phone calls, texts, emails, facebu messages, or care packages:) Saludos, Tania (as my family here calls me, as Tina is apparently harder to pronounce).