Wednesday, September 4, 2013

New house nightmare

Well, I have officially become that volunteer who totally neglects their blog. It's with good reason, I swear.

First, I'll start by informing you all that I did in fact move into my new house about a week and a half ago. After about 4 days, I had everything moved in and my water situation all figured out. I really do love my house though and I am super happy to have my own space.

Buuuut on Sunday night I decided to go out for a couple hours with my host mom and one of my friends. I left my house at about 9:45 PM and came back at 12:30 AM to find my front door wide open. I knew immediately I had been robbed. Turns out they bent open the metal shutters on the side of my house to get in and walked out the front door. The thief made off with just about every valuable item in my house. Laptop, tablet, iphone, external hard drive, perfume, watches etc. Yes, it was awful. I cried. A lot. Told my friends I wanted to go home.

But now a few days later I realize that I don't want to go home. If I go home, the punk that robbed me wins. Through the entire situation I have come to realize that I still love my community and that I am lucky to have such great friends and project partners. As I write this from my office in Santo Domingo, sicker than a dog with a cold I can't help but think about how much this experience has changed my life. On Saturday I will have been here for 6 months and I would not trade those 6 months for anything.

IN OTHER NEWS. I will be receiving my first visitors on the 18th, for which I am VERY excited!!!
Also, my project is going super well. The new office for the women is almost done, I wish I could post pics but I no longer have a device to do that.
Also we just finished a grant application for the American Chamber of Commerce to purchase some water quality control equipment for the project. More on that to come.
Once I get back online with some sort of computer I will hopefully be able to get started on some other things like a girls youth group (chicas brillantes) and some business technical classes for the women in my community.

Like I said I have no picture taking devices so you'll just have to deal with some photo-less blog posts for a lil bit.

Love from the DR, Kaley


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