Ocoa -- pajaros, charcos, and pocos tigueres

I've come down from the mountains for the day to write to you all.  our technical training is in a small community called Mancebo in the 'Cordillera Central' (the largest of the the mountain ranges. We're surrounded by cactus, palm, and pine trees all in close proximity. It's much cooler here. We actually feel cold at night sometimes!!!!  The people are great, pretty much all farmers working a mix of subsistence agriculture and potato contracts with Frito Lay. Frito Lay potatoes are really great mashed by the way.  There is a nearby river where I can bath daily, sometimes we jump off the cliffs from a waterfall into the charcos (natural pools).  The community is mostly older dominicans, young kids, and migrant Haitian workers. Despite a steep gender disparity (at least 2:1 men to women) the community is really easy going and fun.  The dominicans are finally starting to believe or realize that I really can speak spanish and the Haitians have been pretty fun all along. I learn creol with a couple of haitians in return for teaching them some english. We use Spanish as the go between language to translate (of course).

I eat enormous proportions of food daily.  The families we live with are somewhat overcompensated perhaps for our meals. I get an enormou

s plate of beans and rice for lunch with various sattelite dishes everday.  for breakfast or dinner I sometimes get fresh, hot cow's milk with various delicious things in it. This week we'll start the construction part of our training. we're going to learn to build a spring box., water tank, latrine, and river crossing among other things.  Gotta go, I'll try to put up a picture of the view from my host family's cook house.