Dark Chocolate?

Hi!

So I just finished my 2nd to last dark chocolate bar and am realizing how silly it was to bring so many clothes/1st aid supplies instead of 80 lbs of chocolate because it is a much more vital item in my life. That and tea, specifically Yerba Mate tea. I was talking to some of my trainee friends about how wonderful Trader Joe’s is. If I could choose one store to have a shopping spree at -Trader Joe’s currently tops the list.
I have been teaching my homestay sister Laura how to play guitar and am starting to become more frustrated with my limited Spanish vocabulary when I am trying to get her to understand a few more specific things with where to move her fingers and how to form her hand etc. The trainees definitely get together and speak English – and I know I do because you just get frustrated with taking so long to say one sentence. I anticipated this would happen to me so I’m not upset – I’d say more annoyed with myself. I am learning though – albeit very slowly.
I showed my friends a Vegetarian Restaurant that Ben and I came across when we were looking for guitars yesterday in Santo Domingo. I started eating red meat again and there have been several meals offered to me that I didn’t have to turn down but overall so far I could have kept up a completely vegetarian lifestyle if I really wanted. I will go back to not eating red meat and also fish once I am out of the homestays. Besides the major environmental impacts I also have a health concern being the fish here as in many other places is most likely contaminated because of how much pollution goes into the ocean. It is a lot – I was fairly surprised to see how bad the problem is. I was also really impressed by two of the girls on my program – Jean who was a vegetarian for the past 13 years and Jazzmin who was a lifelong vegetarian! They both started eating meat right before they came. That is dedication to the program. I really like Jean (25 from Philadelphia), she is the type of person that makes you feel like she’s really interested in what you are saying and we seem to have a lot in common (she even likes Patty Griffin!). I also really like Jazzmin (22 from Wash who looks remarkably like Erika to me)– we started talking about the Animal Vegetable Miracle by Kingsolver and basically it was nice talking to think someone is on the same page. We have also been doing Yoga classes with another Trainee named Helen who I find to be very peaceful and it has basically been wonderful. About 6 of us took our mats and laid them out under the trees in a school park area and a big group of Dominican kids came up to us and started doing Yoga with us. It was really fun.
I made a duct tape purse (I hope Emily reads this!) for my friend Alanna because she said she didn’t have a bag today. It only took me about 2 hours to do it and Laura helped me make the trenza (braid) that serves as the strap. I think it turned out ok. Maybe I can make it into a project for the kids around my future barrio. They are waterproof durable little products so maybe?
We went to the Peace Corps office in Santo Domingo last Weds and it was really neat. They have a big library that Volunteers can check out resources from (I got a flowering tree guide there and it’s really useful). They have wifi there so I can always just take a break from my project and go to Santo Domingo and stay there for 2 days to get internet research done.
Dad and Mom called me tonight and it was lovely to hear from them and tell them what I’ve been up to. I played with a tiny cat the other day named Mussie and I missed Chester. Chester is like a giant beaver compared to this kitten.
I’m heading to Santiago on Thursday to visit with a real live Volunteer named Mica to see what her life is like and how her project is going and basically ask her any and all questions I have. I’m excited about this – specifically because I get to see more of the interior of the country and apparently go thru a lot of sugar cane fields.

I’m healthy and safe and happy! I’d definitely appreciate any dark chocolate, tea, cookies, photos, notes, my cat Chester, threadless t-shirts, or anything involving peanut butter if you want to send me something in a padded envelope :)

Hope all is well with you – Thanks for reading
Love,
Sarah