Updates

The luz may go at any point so I'll try to touch on as many things as quickly as possible. Last week we finished community based training. CBT is when we go into a community, live there for 5 weeks, and learn more about our technical area. For youth development, we work with a group of youth to implement a service learning project, or some kind of talent show at the end of the 5 weeks. We created a community diagnostic, interviewed people in the community, and created a FODA. From that we identified an activity that would be beneficial to the community and youth. All while having training from 8-5 which included learning about specific youth development D.R. initiatives and projects and intensive Spanish. We also lived with a new host family (mine included a mom dad sister and brother, and my grandmother, grandfather, and great grandmother lived downstairs.I was surrounded by a lot of family and I've often said that if I lived in Nigeria, I imagine I would have a similar experience with a lot of love =)

It was by far the best experience I've had in the Dominican Republic. I had a great trainer, the best youth group team (much love to Hilary, Malika, and Sean) and I had the most amazing and loving host family. To top it off my Spanish teacher was amazing and another wonderful Spanish teacher lived downstairs with my abuela so I hung out with her all the time! Words cannot even describe how much working with youth in Monte Plata, learning Spanish with my host family, laughing and drinking cafe with my grandmother, just talking meant to me. The whole experience intensified/confirmed my belief that God has given me this opportunity for this moment in my life. I have much more to say, expecially now that I am in my site, but I will post little by little to ensure you to get to read at least some of it.