I met up with my two best volunteer friends in the capital on the 31st and we took a 4.5 hour bus ride up to Cabarete on the north coast.  We met up with probably around 80 other PCVs to bring in the New Year together (Cabarete is an annual PC New Years thing).  We partied all night on the beach and had an amazing time.  For most of us to get back to our sites, we had to go back to the capital from Cabarete.  A few of us spent two more nights in the capital together.  Before heading back to our sites, we had a nice breakfast of strawberry pancakes at the embassy and went for a relaxing swim in the ambassador’s pool.  As I cannonballed into the deep end in an attempt to soak the pool boys, I thought to myself, “Wow, I live such a hard life here, I really do hope that people continue to send me care packages – it’s the only thing that keeps me going.”  An added perk of paying a visit to the residence of our very welcoming U.S. ambassador is the hot showers that follow our intense games of marco-polo (kidding – about the marco-polo, not the hot showers – I never kid about hot showers, or even running water at that).

After getting back to my site (and realizing that I had absolutely no clean clothes), I asked my doña to teach me how to wash my clothes.  First, we had to sit around and wait for electricity.  Of course.  Once the luz came back on, I started lugging buckets of water to fill the washing machine thing that they have, and two tubs.  After I ran some of my clothes through the machine (which, is nothing like our US washing machines just FYI), I stood there staring at it and the two tubs of water on the ground.  My doña laughed and said, “You have no idea how to do this, do you?”  “No, doña, I would say I have a mediocre grasp of washing my clothes stateside, thus this is completely beyond me.”  She showed me, and I got to work.  Neighbors and family walked by staring all afternoon, as I stood in my front yard dunking every single article of clothing that I own in and out of two different tubs of water and scrubbing away.  Look!  Rubia isn’t completely worthless.  I felt like a true dominican woman, once I got the hang of it.  By the end of the afternoon though, hands raw and back aching, I vowed to never complain about doing laundry (when I get back to the US) again.

Another moment that stands out over the past few weeks is learning how to cook dumplings with my neighbors.  We set up a fogon one night – a pot set on three rocks with a fire built underneath (terrible for the health of all doña’s everywhere – as a health volunteer, I am not supposed to support the use of fogons, but oh well, dumplings sounded delicious).  There were about 6 of us, standing around the fire, rolling dumplings and throwing them into the pot.  Of course, I had to try them first and when I said I liked it – everyone got up and started yelling and dancing in a circle around the fire.  Absolutely hilarious, yet awkwardly cult-like.

And then my birthday rolled around.  The kids/teenagers sang for me on the porch…they also do this thing where they scream/sing every year up to your age.  Counting to 24 takes a really awkward amount of time, but that’s ok, they did it anyways…more than once.  My three favorite kids here – two 7 year olds and a 9 year old – pooled their pesos together and threw me a party on the afternoon of the 10th (a day late – “in true Dominican style”).  There were balloons, hamburger flavored chips (ha), lollipops, gum, and juice.  It truly is the kids here that keep me sane and happy.

Alright, I’ve finished drinking my fresh agua de coco straight from the coconut.  It’s time to retire from my rocking chair to my bed for a nice mid-afternoon siesta.  Like I said, I live a very hard life here.