Saturday, October 25, 2008

YouTube Video Site

I welcome all of you to take a look at some videos of my campo and life and work in the Dominican Republic. I started this video site to connect with an elementary school in MA - to have a penpal/exchange project that is available through the Peace Corps World Wise Schools.

Enjoy!


http://www.youtube.com/user/LosCerrosDR

Ok well ya did

Ok so good news, the grant was actually filled this week! I am not sure how because I do not yet have access to the donor list, but a HUGE thank you to everyone!

THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Oh no you didn't...

Every once and a while something GREAT happens....so great that you can't believe it has happened. You celebrate, you call your friends..tell them the good news. Something like that happened to me about 2 months ago...my grant was filled..yay!

I told my campo that they will finally have those latrines they have been waiting on for the past few years, one day diarrhea would be a thing of the past....or so I thought.

Fast forward two months, to today. I DO NOT have the money for the latrine grant that I was assured I had per the people I work for... A donor apparently promised to donate the remainder of the funds but there was never any follow-up with the organization...and I find all this out two months later. Two months after my community have been told they will have latrines, now I have lost two months of fundraising, two months of work, two months....of a lot.

Now I have gained two months of problems that I need to fix within the next two weeks before I go back to my campo.

I ask you to donate, this money is not for me, this money is for women, men and children who do not have enough money to construct an outside toilet....just think of that. At times you may not have money to buy a latte, an appletini perhaps...but a place to go the bathroom...well that's in another category all together isn't it? And even if you do not care if people have a place to go the bathroom, donate for me. As this is my project, and I am the responsible one and if it is not funded I basically fail, and I fail my community.

Just think about it...but remember I do not have 2 months to wait, more like 2 weeks or better yet 2 days...now if you have 20 dollars PLEASE help me out!

You can also go to peacecorps.gov and on the right hand side click on the DONATE NOW button, then donate to volunteer project, search by volunteer state or last name (MA and Goode).

http://peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.donors.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=517-259

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

One year and break.....

the camp was a sucess. In November I´ll start construction and work on a few other projects I have in the works. One, a Diabetes Education Campaign. Two, Fixing the school and adding a library and computer room. Three, getting running water in my community.

I have graduated my Escojo group and Nutrition group and plan on having more classes in January. The after'school program is still running, and a lot of the kids have learned the alphabet and have learned to read. All is good. I felt that with the graduation completed and my latrines funded I deserved a lil break to the old USA, plus I have to help my mother with some stuff for awhile. So off I go in October to Boston for a week then on to Florida with my mums. I´ll also get to see my sister Christine give birth to our first nephew!!!!