Tuesday, July 6, 2010

Birthday and 4th of July

These last few months I was reminded why it is so nice to be stationed in this country for Peace Corps.  The beaches, the cities, the relatively reliable public transportation and most importantly the fact that any time I am just a few hours from almost every other volunteer in my group.  In June we had birthday celebrations for me and Joe, whose birthday was the day before mine, and a group of about 30 or so volunteers met up in Santiago for the weekend.  Then just this last weekend we all fled our sites for the South and a weekend on the beach for the 4th of July.  Almost our entire swear in group, 30 some people, made the trip to the Paraiso cluster and spent the weekend soaking up sun and rum in our lovely Caribbean home.  In larger developing countries, and especially in the vast expanses of African Peace Corps, I imagine it must be much more difficult to arrange these kinds of weekends.  It is the ability to hop on a bus and in three hours go from the remote mountains to the, relatively, Western capital that makes this Peace Corps experience so unique and enjoyable.  As for the next few weeks I am going back up into the mountains to finish up my community diagnostic, start up English classes, form a Brigada Verde and look for my own house.  We have the 3 Month conference in the end of July and after that my real work will start.  All in all things are look good down here in El Caribe, and while it might be hard to go back to work after these long American weekends it is still nice to get away and take a little bit of a vacation.