In less than one month...

I'll be moving to the beach!

Yesterday was the big day when all youth volunteers found out the location of where they will be working and living for the next two years. There had been a lot of build up leading up to this day, and since coming to Constanza I felt pretty confident that I wanted to be placed in the mountains. Well in the last few days I started to have a change of heart and felt like it might be nice to live closer to water.

Yesterday morning we set up 25 chairs in a big circle, plus one in the middle. This chair was the hot seat -- we took turns, one by one, sitting in that seat and finding out our site placement. The first girl who went was assigned to a small campo right on the beach, working with MLB. Her site location seemed really cool and I immediately thought about how happy I would be to have her assignment. About ten people later it was my turn to sit in the hot seat... And, to my surprise, I was placed no more than 30 minutes away from her, also on the beach! She is by far the closest volunteer to my site and I am thrilled to have her as my neighbor!



So here is my assignment:

I will be living in a suburb of about 10,000 people called Villa David, which is located on the outskirts of Bani. Bani is the regional capital of Peravia, a province known for its diverse geography of dry forests and extreme humidity, abundance of mangos, and beautiful beaches. Specifically, Bani is a city of about 100,000 people, just 3 miles from Caribbean beaches, and an hour from Santo Domingo.



I only got a brief description of my job assignment but it sounds like I will be working at an elementary school and a technical high school teaching classes, organizing groups, and forming sports teams. Apparently my project partner is a runner, too... I'm so excited!

I get to visit Bani for the first time in a little over two weeks. We've got exactly two weeks left in Constanza, then we spend 3 days in Santo Domingo before a week long trip to our site placements. I am including pictures that I found on the internet... hopefully it actually looks like this!