My First Week in the DR

Hi All, I'm not planning to write a deep-thought blog while I'm in the DR, I don't think. I'll just post photos with descriptions here once a month or so, to let you all know what I'm up to. : ) Please keep in touch via facebook and email :)! I miss you all already! Ok: 1st photos...

To the left are some of the houses in Pancho Mateo, one of the villages I'll be working in.

The website to learn more about the work is at http://www.hhidr.org/ You can follow the organization on the HHI facebook page too. (Health Horizons International).

The photo to the right shows the long hilly road to Arroyo de Leche, another one of the communities I'll be working in. I rode there on a motorcycle that was also carrying 2 other people yesterday. The ride took 40 minutes. The road was potholed and dusty, but the scenery was breath-taking.

To the right are four giggling girls I met swimming in a mountain stream in Arroyo de Leche. The stream is dirtied by sewer water. But of course the girls didn't notice or care.

Here's the living room of the house I'm staying in currently. An artist owns the home, and I love her decorations!

The mosquitos, cochroaches and pitcher-flush toilet I love slightly less. : )

I'll be getting my own apartment soon.

For those who know how much I love Chocolate Milk for breakfast :), I want you to know I have been thrilled to find a way to still have it here in the DR!

Here's the Bible Verse I found on the kitchen fridge in the house I'm staying at this week. How appropriate! It made me feel all fuzzy inside. :)

A Cat, a Fan, and a Mosquito Net: Three things I'm thrilled to have in my bedroom at the house I'm borrowing for my first week or so until I find an apartment. : )

I've also enjoyed hearing my neighbors here in the small city of Montellano singing while walking on the streets early in the morning and late at night. Dominicans love to dance, I've heard. But in Montellano apparently they also love to sing.

I think that makes them my kind of people.

Of the songs sung, I've heard a lot of church songs that I know. And 2 nights ago around 10pm I heard a teenaged girl outside the house belting out "baby, baby, baby" by Justin Beiber in a beautiful voice that made me think she's definitely ready for "American Idol," er, "Dominican idol?"

I'm currently in orientation and learning my new job, plus Dominican Spanish vocab words, as fast as I can. It's a whirlwind. But I did get to go to the beach today and that was beautiful and relaxing. At the beach it's clear that the span of lifestyles between the rich (tourists) and the poor is drastic here.

I hope that all is well with you! - Janelle