Trainee Visit

The newest class of Peace Corps Trainees arrived in March!  After a week or two of training, each newbie goes out to visit a volunteer to see what their service is like.  I took Blair around to all my classes and groups, out to one of the bateys, and got to see Heidi's kids play baseball. 

This is the basic computer class for women who have completed basic literacy.  Look at your keyboard. The letters are tiny, strange-looking, there are tons of symbols, and the entire thing is baffling.  Especially if you can’t really see it.

Blair, helping out some of my favorite Doñas. These are awesome, funny, kind women. I’m glad she got to meet them.

The baseball game between Heidi’s kids and the team from La Mina. Batey baseball is pretty awesome.

Every once in a while, we had to stop the game so a truck could drive across the field and load up on cinder blocks and gravel. Horses, cows, and motorcycles also wandered onto the field...

My cousins play baseball in West Virginia, and generally kick ass. They’re superstars. My uncle uploaded the above picture from one of their games, and I was shocked by how different it looked. That grass is SO GREEN.

The province is pretty damn pretty. Once you get out of Yamasa and the rolling hills, it gets really flat and arid. They used to grow sugar cane here under Trujillo, but they stopped, and now the cane towns are left without any major form of work and income. Peace Corps has started putting more volunteers out here, and they’re doing really awesome work with kids.  These are small communities of just a few hundred people, without running water, paved roads, sanitation systems, reliable power, or virtually any other services.  The main goal for a lot of the kids is to get out. There is so little to do, and so few opportunities even for those who do manage to stand out.