Motoconchos, evangelicos, & CBT

The DR is one of the few PC countries that allows trainees/volunteers to ride on the back of motorcycles. Many sites are only accessible via motoconcho (motorcycle taxi), and while the PC equips us with helmets and a short training session, those things don’t really mitigate becoming half of a human projectile. 

The DR is extremely Catholic, but it also has “evangelicos.”  More specifically, Pentecostals. Some Koreans opened a new church DIRECTLY ACROSS THE STREET from my host family’s house, and when I got home today, they were blaring easy-listening jesus tunes from big speakers pointed at the house. My host mom, a devout Catholic who holds bible studies in the house at least 4x a week, was not pleased. You can hear these churches almost every night from anywhere (they’re fking LOUD), but I had never quite experienced the personal hell of laying in bed in the dark, with sweat-soaked clothes, no power or water, and 10,000 watts of the holy spirit washing over me. 

On Thursday, we leave for Community-Based Training (CBT).  Our big family of 39 trainees gets split into two groups: Captain Planet’s Planeteers, and the Technogeeks (Community Environmental Development and Information & Communication Technology Education).  This is where we dig in and get all the technical training that should help us be successful on site—although we won’t know our sites for another few weeks. They tapped me to lead a tech session, which should be pretty fun. 

Working in UNC’s IT department for the last 6 years has definitely prepared me well for a lot of the work I hope to do here. Customer service and tech support actually lend well to IT developmental work, and I am grateful for both the exposure and support that I got from the University and my colleagues.

When I took over managing ITS Labs’ student staff, I required all Lab Attendants to do capacity-building projects twice a year.  I enjoyed working with the students to develop these projects, and a few of them turned out really well.  I hope to replicate a lot of these types of small, community-based programs both in CBT and at my final site.

So, the future looks bright.  I have a lot of ideas, and am surrounded by some pretty great likeminded people.  In closing, here are some pictures from the beach!