sábado, 27 de octubre de 2007


i think they worked here.
first, let me say that the picture below was from my CED group, the 17 of us developing communities economically from 2007 to 2009 in the dr. we are way sweet.
Well, we have more than halfway through community-based training. We go off to our own sites for the 2 years in less than four weeks. Its been great up here so far. We did a practice community diagnostic, which involves interviewing members of the community, attending community meetings, and just wandering around taking notes. It has been fascinating getting to know this community of about 750 (my estimate) really well. Even in this small place, there are very specific mini-neighborhoods, and I’d say pretty much everyone of Haitian descent lives on one very poor block. This unfortunately seems to be symptomatic of many areas and is a sad part of Dominican culture. Many of us will end up working with communities with large Haitian populations, which presents its own opportunities and difficulties. Besides that, I find out that everyone is interrelated and intermarriage is not uncommon. I guess the "country" is the same everywhere.
Lets see, the other day my family took me to a river/beach thing in the pouring rain. I was a little pissed because it was raining but they refused to let me stay home. Of course, we got there as it stopped raining and it was a beautiful site. One great thing about the Caribbean is that cold mountain rivers aren’t that cold.
Did I mention I live in a rain forest? It seems to rain on and off all day, every day. Nothing works when it rains, which presents some problems, such as leaving the house. This does not occur if it is raining. Another fun bug story – the other day my friends host brother smashed a massive spider in the house. In the ensuing explosion, dozens of baby spiders pretended they were shrapnel and flew out of the dead momma spider, leading the entire family to chase and attempt to kill all the baby spiders running around the house. Hours of family entertainment indeed.
Finally, I am a master at dominos. Challenge me and fail.
Also, apologies for not posting pictures recently. I know you wanted to see me and my shaved head but the internet is too slow here to put any pictures up. Ill try soon. Also, send me postcards. They make me feel good.
lets see if these pictures came out right, it should be one of my street and one of my ride to training in the morning. hope it works

martes, 23 de octubre de 2007

lunes, 15 de octubre de 2007

more training fun

My Spanish professor is hysterical. He has been teaching us la lengua de la calle, so we can improve out street cred. We also learned some fascinating insights into Dominican culture: men shouldn’t drink passionfruit juice, it makes you less manly, as does using an umbrella. Men shouldn’t drink red rock (a pretty nasty tasting soda), it makes you sterile. Men should also protect themselves from the harmful effects of copying machines and jeans for similar reasons. He also encouraged everyone in our class with significant others in the States to partake in the festivities of this country, because of the “fiesta del 4” – you and your boy/girlfriend should take another one, and then everyone is happy.
My host family is entertaining. I live with a single mother and her two teenage daughters (my host sisters… nada mas… although one seems to be deeply in love), but they are related to most of the people on the block, as well the host family of another Trainee. A bunch of people in their mid-20s hang out at my house with my sisters and cousins and they adopted me into their group, I have a nickname, they feed me cerveza, and invited me to the beach. I have eaten avocado at every meal since I got here. 3 meals a day, 10 days – that’s a lot of avocados. Boiled plantains often accompany the avocado. They are one of the more unfortunate parts of the Dominican cuisine. They also really enjoy sugar, salt, and oil. For example, to make eggs, the recipe is the 3 parts oil, 1 part eggs, put in pan, cook until center is still really runny and you can easily get food poisoning.
Dominican machismo was on a little too thick the other day for me, when several male friends and relatives were over, and my host sisters were obliged to give up their seats, fetch food and drink, and act as entertainment for the guests. We aren’t here to change our host country’s culture, but sometimes it would be nice if we could tweak a couple things. We also visited a public high school. The grounds were nice enough, but the classes were a huge mess. There are 60 – 70 students in each class that has 40 desks, they lack books for all students, and there is no order or discipline in the class. Certainly plenty to work on.

jueves, 11 de octubre de 2007

wireless and lizards

first: its guanabana, not guayabana.
second: i shaved my head. it is much cooler now.
in addition:
in this little farming town of 7000, we happened upon a farm supply store with a little WiFi logo on the fence. We walked in, hoping for the best, and were warmly welcomed to stay and use the wifi for free. damn.
in this country, there are a lot of bugs. mosquitos, cockroaches, flies, other assorted things. there are many, and some are quite large. they are bothersome. many carry diseases, such as malaria and dengue, the latter of which already one of my fellow trainees has had already. naturally an ecosystem develops where these bugs are eaten by something - in this case, lizards, usually green or brown and 4 to 8 inches long. they like to hide in dark places. we also know that here catholocism is very important. jesus is pretty much everywhere. what do lizards and jesus have in common? in a fellow trainee's house, the lizards live in jesus's head, a painting on the wall. whenever a bug comes by, lizards pop out of jesus, chase, catch and eat the fresh local catch of the day. this provides hours of entertainment.

martes, 2 de octubre de 2007

guyabana

Guayabana

I thought maybe I should write this entry in the mode of the Dominican-slash-PCV conversation. Some parts will have to be left out to protect the privacy of some individuals.
Holy Dios, its hot here. Hace un calor. Etc etc. I hope it will rain, then it will be cooler. It looks like it might rain. No, I don’t think it will rain. But boy, is it hot. Hot, hot, hot. (Note: even if its not that hot, its still hot.)
Chisme! Chisme is the yente (ie gossip) of the Dominican. For instance, it is rumored that Juan-Pablo has a thing for Marta. It has been confirmed by several sources that Pedro and Mercedes are together, and rumors are swirling around Lisbet and Jorge. Lisbet has a boyfriend already, so that is especially interesting. The above was inspired by true stories. In addition, say these are real people, they would be called by nicknames, or apodos. These include morena, negrito, la flaca, and various other blunt descriptions that may or may not be based in a realm of accuracy. They also seem to be not big fans of Haitians. For another time. Additional chisme includes the fact that a trainee who lives on my block already got dengue fever. She’s a trooper. Apparently dengue is really in right now, 65 PCVs have had it this year.
Anyway, I did manage to go to Yom Kippur services here in the capital. I also fasted, very difficult when my dona is telling me I am too skinny. Speaking of my dona, she just fed me a tropical fruit that grows on the street. Think of all the best parts of a mango, papaya and banana, put it together and multiply that by a high number of your choice, and that is how tasty this fruit is, I think called guayabana. I was too busy taking in its delicious interior to make much sense of what she was saying. Right, so atoning – the synagogue is a small but beautiful building that had snipers on the roof to ward off evil spirits and the like. I think they only come out for the big days. Half of the people there seemed to be local, and the other half expats from the US, Israel, or other American countries. All very nice, though none invited the three of us trainees back for break-fast. Tear.
This weekend, all of us trainees fanned out across the country to visit current volunteers who were so kind as to lead us around for four days. My site visit was in the north of the country, about a half hour from the coast in a town of about 15,000. My volunteer works with an artisan association that makes very detailed and beautiful soapstone and sandstone carvings for what I figure is quite a bargain. He helped organize the association from a bunch of carvers into a more effective, well, association. It was great being out of the big city. I prefer the cooler, friendlier campo. On Saturday, 4 of us trainees and our respective volunteers hiked the “27 charcos” roughly translated as 27 waterfalls. If you are in the DR, you must visit. Absolutely incredible. It is a series of deep pools, waterfalls and rock formations in the jungle. We hiked up to the top, and then jumped our way down off of cliffs or slid down natural rock slides into the successive pools. One of the volunteers works with the guides to the charcos, organized them and received a grant from USAID to improve infrastructure. This is the website: http://www.27charcos.com. If seeing me wasn’t incentive enough to visit, this should be.
This Friday, we will split up into sectors for separate trainings, so I won’t be seeing anyone outside of CED (community economic development, in case you forgot) for almost 6 weeks. On the plus side, I get to learn how to develop communities economically. I’ll let you know how that goes.
Lastly, there was supposed to be a huelga, or strike, today, so we got the day off, as well as my 4 host siblings from school. It seems like there won’t be a strike, but anyway now I get to spend the day with my host siblings playing a surprisingly violent version of monopoly that includes crying, screaming, and flying crayons.
cheers