Last weekend, Volunteers enjoyed a fun and relaxing midterm at the beach in Barahona and project staff got to pull off a great surprise - supervisors vehemently lied to their Volunteers in the days and weeks leading up to midterm and told them that midterm was going to take place at the monastery in Santo Domingo where briefing was held in June. While Volunteers were less than enthusiastic about spending their midterm with nuns, they believed their trustworthy supervisors and accepted their holy fate. Luckily, project staff had the forethought to invent a monastic pool and told Volunteers to bring their nun-appropriate swim gear. Before boarding the buses to "Santo Domingo," the oblivious Volunteers were given time in Azua and San Juan to call home, go shopping and eat lunch in their routes. A few hours later, all Volunteers were pleasantly surprised to arrive at Hotel Paraíso in Barahona next to the beach instead of the Casa Sagrada monastery in the capital. Both staff and Volunteers enjoyed some beach time on Thursday and got some much-needed rest to prepare for a full day of activities.

On Friday, Volunteers had the opportunity in the morning to share ideas and best-practices for campamentos and learn strategies for bilingual communication with their partners and youth counterparts. After more time at the beach, the volunteers participated in route Olympics - a fun and energetic even that viciously pitted supervisor against supervisor and friend against friend. While striving for pride and glory, volunteers swam in a relay race while clutching paper dolls, chugged Nalgene bottles full of water, made human pyramids and pushed mangos around the ground with their noses. In addition to pride and glory and the respect of their peers, the winners received a five gallon bottle of water. Runners up received root vegetables and lollipops. After the Olympics, Volunteers and staff enjoyed a beach bonfire where everyone was given the opportunity to share amongst themselves their goals for the rest of the summer.

Other highlights from the weekend include: two successful and educational youth encuentros (workshops)! The Volunteers from the province of San Juan held their youth encuentro before midterm on July 6 while the Azua Volunteers had their encuentro on July 9, after midterm. Both events saw great youth participation and gave Volunteers the opportunity to evaluate the AMIGOS program with their youth counterparts and share their CBI (Community-based initiative) ideas with other communities. Of course, both events also included plenty of fun energizers and lots of good food. Since midterm last weekend, Volunteers have a lot to look forward to for the rest of the summer. All communities are well into the CBI process and supervisors will be out and about purchasing materials starting this week. Meanwhile, Volunteers are encouraged to begin fund-raising activities in their communities and are continuing with campamentos (day camps for children).

Midterm was a great opportunity for Volunteers to relax with their friends and get a bunch of new ideas from other Volunteers. We know that everyone returned to their communities feeling refreshed and ready to get started with the rest of their summer. We can't wait to see all the amazing things they'll accomplish over the next few weeks!

Check out more photos from our project on our Project's Facebook page!