viernes, 29 de febrero de 2008

tomorrow is february 29th

You know the saying, “like moths to a flame.”? Well, have you ever seen moths to a flame? I suppose its possible. But normally we just see moths to a light bulb, hopefully an energy-efficient one in these days of high gas prices. Here in the countryside, we use candles a lot. I’d say that we don’t have electricity after dark about 3 days a week. I’m pretty lucky though, since it will always come on by 10PM, and some of the other volunteers almost never have it at night. Anyway, when my host family and I sit around the table for dinner, or after dinner to talk, there is one light on in the house, which is the solitary candle in the middle of the table. Besides the gossip floating around the room and off the lips of my host mom, the house has its fair share of bugs floating around, too. Perhaps directed by our need for entertainment, they flock to the candle flame. The bugs zoom excitedly up to the flame, barely escape being burned, circle around again, and fly right into the candle. Usually it takes two or three time for the bugs to completely burn themselves to death. Sometimes the fall into the melted wax below, on fire, and get caught in the hot wax. The most fun comes when one wing has burned off, and the bug falls on the table. My host sister will stab the bug with a pencil, pick it up and hold it in the flame, until the thing is completely burned up. Such is campo entertainment.
Campo entertainment, unfortunately, also includes drinking. A fair amount of it as well. On any given day, especially as the day wears on, men of all ages gather in the street outside of the colmados (general store type things) and drink beer, rum and whiskey (the latter two straight from the bottle and warm… not especially pleasant). Pretty much the only jobs here are in agriculture. The entire place is essentially one big plantain farm. My host dad own the parcel behind his house, but he actually works it every day. I guess some of the other men in town give less importance to that and more to the more direct pleasure of the midafternoon buzz. I get offered alcohol pretty much every time I leave my house in the evening. It is hard to resist, especially a cold beer after another hot day under the Caribbean sun. So I usually take the beer. Warm whiskey, however, isn’t especially my thing, especially when half the population’s mouth has been on the bottle already. Así es la vida (such is life), they say here. I’m not a huge fan of this, either, since its pretty defeatist. I think that is why I haven’t been able to get too much done so far. Motivating people necessitates a cultural shift, which I didn’t get in training. Maybe I was sick that day.
Lets talk about me for a second. I haven’t written here in way too long. The first three months of being at my site is supposed to be taken up by a community diagnostic. Two weeks ago, I presented my findings in front of my colleagues and various bosses/trainers in a retreat center in the mountains that was an old home of Joaquin Balaguer, the dictator/”president” who came after Trujillo. I have both the powerpoint and word document if anyone is interested, just email me. Some pertinent findings: My little farming village (“campo”) has 110 houses and about 450 people. Almost half of the population is under 20. The majority of people have not made it out of primary school, though 30 percent of 20 year olds are in or have finished college. Most houses here are made of wood and have tin roofs, and the most popular occupation is farmer. I did interviews with 93 families. They told me the most important thing to them in the community was the church. Next was the school, and then electricity. They want me to develop the community so their children have a better future.
Now that I have finished my diagnostic, I now begin the phase of project implementation, which lasts until three months before I leave. I have some ideas of what I will do. I hope even just a couple of them succeed. This also signals the end of my class being the “newbies.” A new class just arrived, just as lost as we were six months ago. Welcome to the toughest job you’ll ever love.