Sad Day

The camera of wonders and dreams is gone. With its absence I have a camera-sized hole in my heart and a ton of love for all of my wonderful friends and family members who have been nothing but supportive.

Its absence also brought me to the end of an almost 10 month cry-free spell. July 5th, in the year of our Lord, 2008, E. Plewa had her first cry session since September 10th in the year of our Lord, 2007. It was well overdue. But you know what, everyone said it would feel so good just to let it all out, and it didn’t. I felt just as guilty and deserving of being yelled at as I did before I let it all out. But, sadly for me, my family would not oblige me in the yelling, so that’s when it happened. This all took place in an internet café in a semi-private ‘workspace’ in the city of Pedernales.

How it happened: I left it on a bus and when I went back for it 3 hours later, it was gone, presumably taken by someone who was also riding the bus. I filed a police report and had it insured (as I had a feeling I wasn’t really meant to own something so lovely) and we’re pretty sure the insurance will cover most of it. Still, word to the wise: DON’T TRUST ME WITH NICE THINGS.

We were in Pedernales to go to a very beautiful bay called Bahia de las Aguilas, AKA: Eagles Bay. It was a few-day long trip to celebrate the Independence of our great land of the free and home of the brave. We had no fireworks and no BBQ but we still had an excellent day. People ate spaghetti o’s, sardines and tuna out of cans. (If you know me even a little bit, you can guess which of those I ate.)

Money, Money, Money, Money, Mon-ey!

So, I only get news through Newsweek (which PC gets us for free but not for much longer, sadly) and very rarely from CNN (but I’m okay with a lack of CNN in my life.) As such, I don’t get news too often, but always in the same way: things aren’t going so well in the world right now. I hear there’s a economy situation with things like loans and oil affecting it, as well as some wars and of course problems in Asia and Africa.

Well, I thought I’d fill you all in on how the economy situation is affecting the life of Dominicans and PC volunteers in the Dominican Republic. Gas, as expensive as it is in the US is much more expensive here, especially if your main source is from someone who sells goes to the gas station that’s 45 minutes away once a week and sells it to the community out of old beer bottles and oil containers. So, this has led to a major increase in prices on the bus. My bus ride to the capital used to be 420 pesos and its now 510. I’m no wiz at math but I’d like to now remind us all that that is a lot more.

There were rumors that the federal government was going to increase our monthly allowances because things cost more lately, but the increase, which was rumored to be given in July, was not. We’ve all got our fingers crossed for August. The amount we get now, by the way is about between $260 and $320 a month. The rumor was that it would be a 17% percent increase. So we’ll see.