Mayuli's visit

Mayuli is the safety and security coordinator for all of the peace corps volunteers in the DR. I think it's safe to say that her job is extremely important and let me tell you, she does it well. 

If it wasn't for how she handled all of my security incidents, I probably wouldn't still be here, even though sometimes I wanted to scream. Sigh. 

Anyway so her plan was to visit Jackson on Thursday and to do so she has to pass thru my site, so naturally I went too. Jackson lives in a small campo called Vuelta Larga. By chance, my host dad is his project partner and my host family is from there. So we have some good connections going on, plus my pueblo is the closest civilization to Jax. 

To get up to Vuelta Larga is not exactly easy. It's about 45 minutes into the mountainside crossing 5 rivers that do not have bridges and then one hell of an uphill climb. For Jackson to come down he has to walk about an hour and then get on a motorcycle for another 30ish minutes just to get to the highway. 

The first time I went we had to walk (about 2 hours) because the road wasn't in any condition to be passed. I woke up Thursday morning multiple times between 3am and 7am to pounding rain. When you have a zinc roof it gets pretty loud. Hard rain in this country means 2 things. Rising rivers and mud. Since there is zero cell phone service in Vuelta Larga, I called Mayuli to let her know that I doubted we'd be able to get up there because of the rain. She said they were coming anyway. 15 minutes later a drenched Jackson arrived to my house on a motorcycle. Shortly after Mayuli arrived with the peace corps driver and we decided we were going to give it a go, much to my host family's dismay. Mayuli shared with us tht recently in another Latin American country two piece corps volunteers and 2 staff members were killed after being swept away while trying to cross a torrent river after heavy rain. It was going to be an adenture! 

The boss inspecting river #1 to be crossed. 

This is probably the easiest one we crossed. I'm not posting the pics of the last one because I don't need to worry my mother who religiously reads this blog (probably the only person). 

On the way up!

Yes, that pile of rocks is what the entire "road" looks like. 

I will tell you, it sure is pretty up there. But this has got to be one of the most desolate volunteer sites out there. 

Main road through the community. 

Jackson's host family's house an my host family's old house. 

Looking at the river below that was extremely swollen. 

Mayuli and Jackson 

Peeling me an orange like a pro. 

View out Jackson's back door of his new house! 

Each time I go up to Vuelta Larga I appreciate living in a pueblo oh so much more, but I give Jackson a lot of credit. No electricity at all, no cell phone service and basically no way to get out. 

I will admit as will other volunteers and Dominicans alike, sometimes you just have to escape to the campo!

That's all for now, kaley