Ye Olde First Blog Post

Welcome! I decided to start a blog so I could keep a running journal of my experiences in the Dominican Republic (the DR), and so I could share it with other people. The title, "En Desarrollo", is Spanish for "In Development".

If you are here, chances are you already know me to some extent. But just in case, here's a little background info about me. I'm Jon, and I am a student at UC Berkeley, studying development economics. In my spare time I do theatre, play and listen to music, read (mostly nonfiction or sci-fi/fantasy), and enjoy the company and conversation of interesting folks.

My interest in development, working abroad, and improving my Spanish led me to apply for and accept a summer internship with Esperanza International. In the DR I will be spending time both in the field, visiting borrowers and assisting loan officers, and in an office, blogging about aforementioned borrowers and posting their business profiles on Kiva. These activities will hardly make up the full extent of what I'll be doing, much of which will depend on my own initiative and creativity in making the most of my time in the DR.

All that said, I sincerely plan to post here consistently and in significant detail. I will also be posting stories on Kiva's blog for the DR, but anything I post there I will post here as well. Please feel free to comment on posts or send my questions about stuff! I love hearing people's feedback.

Today is my last full day of packing and preparation before I leave. I'll admit that I'm somewhat OCD about how I pack; I worry constantly that I may be forgetting something, that I'm packing too much/not enough of one thing or another, even about how I should arrange things in my bag.

Included in what I'm bringing:
-A UPA-standard disc (a 175-gram frisbee of the kind used to play Ultimate)
-A foxtail (those rubber balls with a long nylon tail that you swing around and throw by its tail; it's a gift for the neighborhood kids, I'm wondering how long it will take them to try to play baseball with it)
-A twenty-four pack of Breathsavers peppermint breath mints (this is my one addiction, cut me some slack)
-A costco-sized box of sour skittles (a gift for my host family, my coordinator recommended candy as a gift)
-A stack of books. I did some research into highly recommended fantasy series and ordered several different ones on amazon. I won't be able to read everything I bought, so I'm only taking about half of the books with me. The two series I'm bringing are The Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone by Greg Keyes, and The Farseer Trilogy by Robin Hobb (yes, I know the titles are dumb but the books are still good).
-Digital camera. I've never been big into taking pictures but I'm going to try and take more this summer and post a lot of them here.

My basic itinerary is as follows:
June 15: Depart SF at 10:50 pm
June 16: Land in Atlanta at 6:28 am. Depart Atlanta at 10:00 am. Land in Santo Domingo at 1:34 pm.