Paz Dispenser: beginnings and endings

Oh, hello there! I'm back from a pretty exciting week in Santo Domingo. Wednesday through Thursday we had our COS (close of service) conference. This was exciting for several reasons: we got to stay at a nice hotel with hot water and buffets, all the members of my COS group got to hang out, and it meant that we're ALMOST DONE! The COS conference is three days designed to prepare us for returning to the US, which we can do on May 7th! We talked about resumes and interview techniques, we learned about our health insurance plan, and we took some rad group photos. Here is the COSing group of IT volunteers, minus Keane, who got tuberculosis and couldn't come. (Like that's a good excuse.)

By the way, yes, it was incredibly nervewracking to hold my laptop that close to the pool. You can see I have one hand lamely curled around it.

Some environment volunteers are COSing too, but who even cares about them?

Anyway, I am getting excited about leaving! The past two years have been a rollercoaster, and I'm definitely glad I did Peace Corps. But I'm also looking forward to first world conveniences, speaking English, not being stared at all the time, not worrying about people killing my cat all the time, and eating delicious, delicious American food. Ohh, yes. America.

After the COS conference--which ended up being somewhat of a plague zone, and most of us left with either a cold (I did) or food poisoning (I did not, gracias a Dios)--we all stayed around the capital for the weekend, because Stephanie got married on Saturday!!