thoughts on our work

So I am going to try to write here more often. This means I’m writing now, and has no influence on how often I may or may not write in the future. This entry might be the last one ever. Likely not true, but you can never tell. Among the volunteers here in la RD, there are 6 areas of work, or sectors: Youth, Health, Education (Special Ed and IT), Environment, Water and Business. Generally, business volunteers like myself (yes, ironic that I was assigned to this sector, but where else was I supposed to go? Health?) are placed in campos, or small villages, but nothing especially isolated, since we are usually assigned an organization or institution with which to work. By nature, we can’t live in cut off villages with no resources, because they also would lack organizations. Although my campo seems pretty out there (it is one of the poorest in the province, but the province itself is fairly rich), it is only a seven-minute motorcycle ride to the nearest town, fifteen minutes to the provincial capital, and a two-hour AC bus ride to Santo Domingo. Last weekend, I visited a few Water volunteer friends. The task of the water volunteer is daunting – find a water source and then create a gravity-fed system of tubes to bring running water down to the particular village in which they live. Unsurprisingly, these are small, isolated mountain villages with tiny populations. Most lack electricity as well as water, in addition to other services such as transportation infrastructure, local schools, and cell phone service. The volunteers must raise all of the money through grants and other means (Peace Corps itself does not supply funding), and interestingly are often unable to find money from the local or national government. Perhaps most daunting of all is organizing local Dominicans as workers on the project. [Any project we do in our sites must include local participation. Our understanding of development begins with a foundation of willing local populations. To arrive at a site, implement projects without any local input and leave is not only inefficient and unproductive, but also insulting to local customs, values, and intelligence. That being said, we often spend time with local leaders in discourse about the value of said projects that we believe are of importance.] In these villages where water volunteers live, the majority of the population is unemployed, getting by on only a subsistence level. Thus organized, daily work based on time-specific goals can be somewhat foreign, and compound construction difficulties. Nevertheless, obtaining running water (often potable, because the sources are from mountaintop springs or streams) in these villages can vastly improve quality of life. Visiting this kind of site was like visiting a different country, just like it is every time I go to the capital. The disconnect between the capital and where I live is enormous, and is even more so with these places. Interestingly, it looks like I might be turning into something of a water volunteer, if only helping coordinate the digging of a few wells around here. The tap water here is dirty and unreliable, so many people get it from the polluted river, catch it from the roof when it rains, or pay for it to be delivered. I am hoping that with these wells, people, mostly women, will spend less time and money looking for water for their families. Incidentally, I have learned to shower with about 2/3 of a gallon of water. Next week, I will be heading home for a nice-sized vacation. You may find me sitting on my parents’ couch with the remote, marveling at how pretty the picture is on the television and astounded at how many channels there are. Until next time, whenever that is. Si Dios quiere.
Also including a picture, because they look nice on here. This is me at another volunteer's site hiking up a river.

July 4 and new house

July 4 in the DR. Peace Corps Volunteers. How do you envision this? I am curious to find out how things like this go in other countries. For us, we had a beach party. Fully half of the volunteers here took a bus 8 hours from the capital to the border with Haiti to a deserted beach in a national park called Bahia de las Aguilas (Eagle Bay). For the first time in known history, the park did not let volunteers spend the night at the beach. This is because it is turtle nesting season. You might say, well, don’t turtles nest at the same time every year? The answer is yes, but the park only decided to enforce its rules this year, possibly because of capacity building due to a volunteer being placed at the park. Still a good time, and absolutely beautiful.

I have finally moved into my new house. Specs: Tin roof, wooden walls, two bedrooms, living room, kitchen, no running water, latrine, two light bulbs, four windows (window means angled wooden slats), rickety gazebo, baths taken outside or at neighbor’s. I repainted the whole thing except the kitchen (which is white) bright blue, and the windows brown. I live with dozens of lizards, the occasional tarantula or cockroach, any number of spiders, and hundreds of mosquitoes. No rats. Visitors welcome.




When I was in Spain, people my age called each other “tío” and sometimes “tía.” Literally, uncle and aunt, this roughly translated as “dude.” Tío doesn’t fly here. Like “vale,” (meaning OK), it just confuses them, and I dropped the habit. But what to call my friends besides their names? This has been my quest since I got here, among others. I think that I have picked up on something, the terms “tipo” and “sujeto” and their feminine counterparts. Literally type and subject, they seem to roughly correlate to “guy/gal” and “dude/man.” “Tipo” is never used to call someone, just to refer to them. For example: “Este tipo estaba dando la muela a mi mujer, entonces le dí una galleta.” More or less meaning “This guy was hitting on my girl, so I hit him.” To call one another, people say “sujeto,” as in “Que lo que sujeto,” roughly “Whats up, dude.” All this is based on the four Dominican males my age who I hang out with; everyone else is over 40 with kids or 13. So they could have made all of this up.
Speaking of word choice, I’ve always been interested in place names. At home, they are all named after dead Indians or something nauseatingly bucolic. At least they sounded nice. Here, at least in my area, they tend to be much more literal. Many villages are nature-themed. My village and the neighboring one are both named after endemic trees, and there are other, more familiar fruit and tree names: Mahogany, The Almond Trees, The Limes, The Palm Trees, Fresh Mango, Coconut Number One and Coconut Number Two, among others. Water themes are also very popular: Coldwater, Headwater, Dry Stream, Beautiful Stream, Big Stream, Clear Canal and Little Lake. Other geographic features are often used, like Narrow Plain, Rock Heights, The Caves, Summit, Mountain Plain, and Inner Mountain. Agriculture is big here, so there are places called Ranch, Upper Ranch, Farm, St. Joseph of the Farm, Farmyard Hill, and Goat Heights. There are colors: Orange, The Blues, Upper White, Lower White, Middle White, and Little Whites. Finally, the self-explanatory and most interesting: Snake, Pleasure, and Death.