I finally received my staging information yesterday! It gives me the go-ahead to book my flights, pack, etc. We will be having our staging event in Washington D.C. on March 3. I have been talking to a few other PC Dominican Republic volunteers through a Facebook group, and it seems like everyone is really excited to get started and see what's going to happen next. It will be fun to finally meet these people in DC! We will check out of our hotel at 3:45am on March 4 and then fly to Santo Domingo to begin training...so exciting!
I thought it would be nice to post a few pictures of where I will be living/working over the next couple of years... (I got these off of a current PC volunteer's Facebook page...hope that's legal and everything)
not too shabby, right?
All of the excitement aside, it is impossible to overlook the devastation that Haiti suffered from the 7.0 earthquake that struck earlier this month. The island of Hispaniola is split between the Dominican Republic and Haiti, and hundreds of thousands of Haitians have already fled to the DR. Although we received notification that the current situation will not affect our departure date, job description, or our assignment locations, it is inevitable that it will be a unique time to be on the island. My thoughts and prayers go out to the people in Haiti, as well as those that lost loved ones in the disaster, and I hope that the other volunteers and I will be able to provide assistance in some way once we are down there.
Good night and I will attempt to post at least one more time before the official departure...31 and counting....
