dia de elecciones!

Felictaciones a presidente-electivo Obama! (Full disclosure: I’m pretty sure “presidente-electivo” is not actual Spanish for “President elect,” but I do what I want.)

For what it’s worth, Dominicans are generally pretty excited about the US election results, as are Dominican PCVs. The election night party in Santiago was a blast, although I’m feeling a touch of campo guilt for being out of site for the conference AND Halloween AND the election… but, again, I do what I want. Accompanied by intermittent feelings of guilt. (This is standard operating procedure for PCVs, who tend to feel that the more time you spend in your site the more productive you are, regardless of what you’re actually missing out on by being out of site. Peace Corps is a really weird job.)

I haven’t done too much during my time back in site… yesterday turned out to be a school holiday, which also meant that only one student showed up to my English class yesterday. Also, the school building was locked, so we had class for a while just sitting on the curb. In the dark. (If more students had showed up, I probably would have just moved the class to my house, but since it was just the one [male] student, I didn’t want to appear remotely inappropriate.)

However, upon return to my town, my joven asked me to help him form a youth computer group! This was something I’d been meaning to do eventually, like when my school has working computers again, but he proposed having meetings at the town’s other computer center (which is like, across the street from the school), which has a working inversor. The other center’s proprietor is apparently down with this, so I’m going rogue and branching out from my school. (It’s not really going rogue; Peaee Corps supports working with whatever’s available. I just think it sounds a little sexier if I say I’m going rogue, Sarah Palin style.)

So anyway, not much news to report here. Today I’m meeting up with Arianna in La Vega (out of site again! Ack!) for lunch, fast Internet, and fancy groceries (yogurt, tortillas, olive oil). This weekend I’ve got my English class, and I’m planning to andar a bit and visit some people in the neighborhood, since I have been so perdida. Just another glamorous weekend in the life of a Peace Corps volunteer!


Me, Karina, and Justin sporting our snazzy Obamanos shirts.