New Family, Same Friends

Well, this journey is beginning to get more technical and our group has gotten immensely smaller. Don't worry, only three people that we know have have gone home so far out of our group of 51 (don't judge, everyone has their reasons), but four days ago we moved into our Community Based Training sites by sector.

Thus, on Thursday we moved here to Constanza in the mountains of the DR, and let me tell you: this place is GREAT. The weather is temperate. I have to sleep with a blanket at night (which sounds normal, but it's a first here). The mountains are huge believe it or not. We're also getting into the actual technical aspect of training--which means we're learning more about what we'll actually be doing for the next two years. In our sector it meant meeting our youth groups and planning events with the youth (which in this culture means up to 30).

So getting to the hilarious part of the week was when Andrew, Dean, and I met our youth group for the first time last night. We actually have what in the states would be considered a legit youth group, as in one that meets after church. Catholic Church. Latino Catholic Church. So, we go to the service only to discover that we are also attending a wedding. A Catholic wedding. A Latino Catholic wedding. Our youth group had told us that mass might run long because it was a special mass, but they failed to mention that the special was because two people that we have never met were in fact getting married. So, the three of us attended our first Dominican wedding. All the while, we were missing a dance party at my house, but oh well, we got to accidentally go to a wedding.

Later at our meeting the kids asked us if we could teach them english and we obliged. The first phrase they wanted to learn "what it is." Now, for you young folk like me, please supress your laughter long enough to explain "what it is" is to my parents, and yours. And this is what dominican kids want to learn.

Finally, some good news for the next five weeks. While we're in Constanza the 16 of us live within a stone's throw of each other and we have free internet access. I probably still won't be on much, but I'll try to keep up better with the blog while we're here.

Cuidate.