Caribe Christmas

 

The past few weeks since Thanksgiving I think have been a good representation of what Peace Corps is supposed to be like in the best and ‘worst’ of ways.  During this Advent season, my mission in life has consisted of three goals:

 

1-Make friends with more people and perhaps remember their names

2-While making friends, try to maneuver so as to avoid having to eat three breakfasts, three lunches, and three dinners each day.

3-Accomplish something – when possible  (for example, when it’s not raining) – related to our water project

 

All three goals can be amazingly difficult to accomplish – or on other days, things will work out better than anyone could plan.  As a week passes – and they are passing very quickly – I usually think about what has happened and laugh at myself for having been sad, frustrated, or lonely one day, since the next day inevitably is perfect.  In the past I haven’t much believed in culture shock or simply the clash of cultures.  Whatever the case, I’m definitely pretty arrogant about being a pro at understanding how Latinos think/act. Now the more I learn and get used to how things work here, the less I understand them.  For instance, I mentioned about the rain.  It rained most of last week, which turns everything you walk on into mud.  Not unreasonably, Dominicans don’t like to go out to work / meet/ etc in the rain.  We had planned a water committee meeting for Monday, then switched to Tuesday.  Then it rained.  Not wanting to risk being irresponsible I went to visit some of the committee members to check if we would have the meeting.They told me that of course we would not. There was no need to tell anyone else, they simply would know not to go.  This is really all fine with me, however we then needed to reschedule the meeting.  So, in three days of rain, we rescheduled twice and never had a meeting – we’ll just wait till the new year.  Still, this is all fine.  What’s funny about it is that during the days we COULDN’T have a meeting because of the rain, we probably spent the same amount of time walking around in the mud cancelling and rescheduling as it would have taken to simply have the meeting.

 

Hospitality is also challenging.  The day before, friends from the neighboring community invited me to spend the day of Christmas Eve with them.  This was great because they always want me to eat lunch, dinner, or whatever there and I always try to decline since there is food waiting at home.  I told them to invite me in advance and they finally did. So when I arrived a bit late at midday, I was ready to eat.  However, a dilemma immediately presented itself.  The women who had invited me together had both cooked lunch.  The solution of course was for me to eat a ‘chin’ (cheen – little bit) at one house and the same at the other. So I ate two full meals.  Upon returning to the first house, the grandparents informed me that they had prepared dinner for me as well ‘when I got hungry’.  After losing about ten games of dominoes, I wasn’t really hungry but ate dinner anyways.  Fortunately, there was some super delicious rotisserie pork followed by rum with honey on ice. I went home to find more people who were concerned about whether or not I had eaten.  Late that night I visited a neighbor’s house where there were lots of kids and their aunts and uncles who had been drinking some really disgusting wine and were a bit tipsy. Sitting around in a cramped living room with loud children and tipsy aunts and uncles really reminded me of home!  I’m all out of order here, but the other most Christmas-like thing here was there celebration of Las Mañanitas (Early mornings).  As early as 4 in the morning every day in the week leading up to Christmas, kids get up and start banging a drum, singing/screaming christmas carols.  They walk from one community to the next, and when people hear the drum they get out of bed and throw on jackets and hats that would make you think it snows here and join the procession. The procession ends around six at sort of a community center where they then had a Mass every day at dawn. The whole thing feels sort of like an odd combination of church and mardi gras.  When mass ends, everyone drinks a plastic cup of homemade tea which is way too sweet, but still good.  The celebration ends with everyone throwing their plastic cups on the ground (since that’s where trash belongs, of course).

 

It is definitely a bit tough being away from home for Christmas for the first time, but I’ve been making up for it by taking advantage of Dominican Christmas traditions.  For instance – on Christmas day, the big event is cock fighting and live music in the afternoon.  I paid about three dollars – slightly more than the cost of a liter of beer to watch six chickens beat each other up. It’s really more interesting than it sounds.  At least the first half of a match is sort of beautiful, and the spectators/gamblers are equally entertaining.  After this, I walked up and down the highway for a couple hours with various teenage boys who are probably my best friends here, until we finally headed back up the street to the dance club – it’s name is ‘King Kong’, where I spent the night dancing and sipping weak Dominican beer.  So, however much I miss home and everyone there, at least I can be content to have watched cock fighting and danced on Christmas night for the first time (could be the last too, If I visit home next year, so I might as well enjoy it).

 

Sorry there are no pictures this time – my camera recently broke, but I’ll have a new one in a couple days.  Feel like I’ve written a lot and said nothing, but it’s hot inside and you’re probably tired of reading anyways.  As anyone would say who’s learning English:  “Happy Christmas”

 

 

 

 

Thanksgiving Photo update

Feliz Día de Acción de Gracias

 

Yep, the title says it.  Happy Thanksgiving (the translation for the American holiday in Spanish really does sound as akward as it looks by the way).

 

I´m writing on a Thanksgiving Eve, actually.  I’ve returned to the capital for a couple of days. Tomorrow the Peace Corps has its own turkey day celebration. I’m sure the food won’t be quite as good as at Aunt Moe’s but I’ll deal with it.  On the upside, it’s less likely that the turkey will have whatever that sleepy chemical is.  This is important, since after dinner we have a talent show, dance competition (there are no thanksgiving dances as far as I know, so it will be salsa, bachata, and merengue).  Tentatively I’m partnered up to be in the competition, but we’ll see what actually happens.  I’d rather just dance.

 

I really wish I would have taken a picture of one of my family’s turkeys in front of some  tropical vegetation.  Mmmm turkey and bananas.  Just imagine.  I hope to talk or at least yell on the phone at family tomorrow, but if I can’t talk to you…  Feliz dia del Pavo!...

 

Getting back to my real life in the ‘campo’ ---  country living really is best.  Here’s some high and low points – sometimes simultaneously – sorry if I repeat anything from before.

 

Animals: The dog who’s tail my twelve year old friend accidentally shortened – mistaking it for a plantain – is doing fine, despite my failed splint to save the tip from falling off.   In the past week, a shameless ‘sin verguenza’ rat has taken up nighttime lodging in my house. Since it’s only the one, I’m sort of becoming used to it – does the same routine every night.  Part of the routine involves crawling up the wall/window behind the curtain at the foot of my bed.  This inspired me to name the critter ‘cosquillas’ = ‘ tickles’ in Spanish since at least once it brushed my foot while climbing up (don’t worry I had an impenetrable mosquito net and the curtain between me and it).  Nonetheless, I think the incident caused the furry gremlin babies to appear suddenly in my dream before I woke up and realized what was really going on.   However, I’m likely to get a kitten from a friend soon, which just may end my relationship with Cosquillas.

 

Work:  I’ve been working really hard.  This is considering that work and the rest of life are hopelessly intertwined in the Peace Corps.  My community and I have nearly finished preliminary fieldwork (surveying, flow measurements…), water system design, and a proposal/solicitation to take to the local government looking for support ($$$).  On that note, the project is projected to cost about RD$500,000 pesos which is a bit less that $15,000 USD.  We’ll look for money all over the place, but one of them is through donations directly to the project through peace corps, so if you’re interested in contributing, there will be an opportunity.

 

Man stuff:  Since getting a horse really is unnecessary for me, I bought myself a machete, hammer, and tape measure the other day.  Don’t worry, my main goal is not to hurt myself with any of them in two years – I’m fully aware of the hazards of self retracting steel tape measures.

 

Home Improvement, health, and vegetables:  I don’t get enough vegetables in my diet – really miss tomatoes, carrots, and such.  I’m not really sure where my drinking water comes from all the time – although I have yet to get sick.  So… once I get done with the busiest part of my design work in another month or so I’m going to start a garden, do rain harvesting from my roof, and build my own sand filter for drinking water.  Perhaps even paint the house.

 

Gordo!—My various host families are proud and would like my family and girlfriend at home to know that I’ve gotten ‘fatter’ here.  Which of course means I’m stronger and more attractive altogether buenmoso (a combination of the words ‘good’ and ‘beautiful’).  Now that I have proved that a man CAN gain weight in the peace corps (usually the opposite occurs), I’m cutting back on the rice while trying to get ridiculous amounts of exercise every day without ever ‘working out’.

 

Well, that ends my rant. I’ll try to write more for Christmas.

Hoooola,

Sorry it has been so long since I wrote anything. I´m finally in my permanent home for the next two years. It is a community of maybe 100 households near Altamira, Puerto Plata (province). You can find Altamira on google maps. It´s between the cities of Santiago and Puerto Plata.

So, the strangest thing that has happened is that my host mother died of a heart attack while I was in the capital for a week finishing training. Although I had hardly met her she was really nice and loved by the whole community. my host family and the community are finishing up the fairly intense nine day mourning process tomorrow. The ninth day event is called a vela (candle...). I´ll try to report on what it was like later on, at the very least we´re expecting about 400 people to be there. The family killed two pigs this morning for the event, which was interesting.

I have a house sort of two myself next to my host family. My host brother, Manuel, stays with me and sleeps in the second bed. He and everyone else in the very large extended family are very nice, feed me too much, and have made me feel very at home. I´ve begun my project sort of slowly because of the death of my Doña, but none the less, it´s going well. We´ve measured the flow in the water source, visited lots of homes, and had some water comittee meetings.

Some of the more fun things i´ve done include climbing an orange tree to ´tumbar´- tumble oranges to the ground, collected plantains, learn to chop firewood dominican style, and yesterday helped rebuild a letrine. Today I´m in Altamira to get some money to pay ´rent´, buy a machete and measuring tape hopefully, and use some internet. It´s a beautiful motorcycle ride between my community and Altamira up and down the small hills-mountains on a rural paved road. The economy in the area seems to depend a lot on harvesting cacao and coffee beans from the forest. So I regularly drink amazing hot chocolate and coffee. I´m going to try to process my own chocolate and coffee from start to finish.

well, gotta go, I´ll have to send some pictures later.

'Ryan

picture link

www.flickr.com/photos/42992225@N06/

Some picures of the water volunteer group´s latest adventures. see you in a couple weeks.
'ryan

Ocoa -- pajaros, charcos, and pocos tigueres

I've come down from the mountains for the day to write to you all.  our technical training is in a small community called Mancebo in the 'Cordillera Central' (the largest of the the mountain ranges. We're surrounded by cactus, palm, and pine trees all in close proximity. It's much cooler here. We actually feel cold at night sometimes!!!!  The people are great, pretty much all farmers working a mix of subsistence agriculture and potato contracts with Frito Lay. Frito Lay potatoes are really great mashed by the way.  There is a nearby river where I can bath daily, sometimes we jump off the cliffs from a waterfall into the charcos (natural pools).  The community is mostly older dominicans, young kids, and migrant Haitian workers. Despite a steep gender disparity (at least 2:1 men to women) the community is really easy going and fun.  The dominicans are finally starting to believe or realize that I really can speak spanish and the Haitians have been pretty fun all along. I learn creol with a couple of haitians in return for teaching them some english. We use Spanish as the go between language to translate (of course).

I eat enormous proportions of food daily.  The families we live with are somewhat overcompensated perhaps for our meals. I get an enormou

s plate of beans and rice for lunch with various sattelite dishes everday.  for breakfast or dinner I sometimes get fresh, hot cow's milk with various delicious things in it. This week we'll start the construction part of our training. we're going to learn to build a spring box., water tank, latrine, and river crossing among other things.  Gotta go, I'll try to put up a picture of the view from my host family's cook house.

El Castillo de Maico

The ridiculously over-structured (but worthwhile) part of my training is coming to a close. Tomorrow I'll head north a bit to the mountains near San Jose de Ocoa for community based training. This goes til almost the end of october when I'll begin my real service.  In the second part of training we'll be doing more training related to the water and sanitation projects I actually be working on. Of course, we'll keep learning more spanish, etc. Mostly what I know is that it will be colder (good), it's a community of about 200 people, and it's a pretty area. I'll tell you more when I experience it.

This past week I spent thursday through sunday visiting a current water volunteer.   On friday we spent the morning in the trenches digging and placing a water line.  It's really impressive what a crew of 10 men can do in 5 hrs with just pickaxes and shovels (and of course, lots of food).  As usual, I got some wicked blisters on my hands, but they're better now.  Mark (the volunteer I visited -- from Holland, Michigan) has been at site for a year.  Friday was the fourth day of construction, so it was an exciting time to be there.

On saturday, we took a 1 1/2 hr hike through the mountains (sort of like walking in michigan forests -- just with really big leaves, lizards, and bigger climbs).  Anyways, after up down, and down a river we arrived at aguas largas (long waters). It was a site of a previous volunteer who left just weeks ago.  We had to troubleshoot a solar pump that brings water to the higher parts of the community.  As is the case for most good work, we were rewarded with an awesome meal of rice, beans, chicken and an avocado that tasted like butter.  On our hike back, slightly more tired, we stopped at los caraballos, another volunteer community where the spring box (collects water from the spring) had been damaged by a landslide.  Anyways, the hike was beautiful, and it was great to have seen three different possible living and working situations for me over the next couple years.  To put things in perspective, water volunteers, by definition are placed in communities that do not have running water. As this is generally considered basic infrastructure, it is also uncommon for these communities to have electricity or phone service. As such, they may to be some of the prettiest communities with trustworthy and down to earth people.

One thing that was funny, in Pies de los Picos, Mark, who would be called Marco in standard spanish, is referred to as Maico.  Some dominican accents have a tendency to switch the 'r' for an 'i' or 'l' sound.  Anyways, Maico sounds more like michael, so I wasn't even sure at first if Mark was his real name.

Well, I've got to get home and pack for my move tomorrow. We're going to a 'Car Wash' this evening before the volunteer groups go there different ways.  Car Washes have evolved here as social scenes where people have their cars washed by day and dance, drink, and hang out at night. Apparently people even wash cars as the festivities go on, although I haven't seen this. It's a pretty fun concept and an efficient use of space.

I'll leave a couple of pictures from my visit with Mark. I promise to post some eventually of me with host family(s), volunteers, and so on.  later...

bananaland

Hey,

so I've been here a few weeks now.  I'm trying to get in a few words and a picture, and then walk home before a rainstorm hits. I'm finishing up the first part of my training in the capital city of Santo Domingo. I've been living with a wonderful host family who make sure to get me my daily ration of fruits and various carbohydrates (plantains, bananas, yucca, plantains, etc).  Fortunately they're also way into beans which they call habichuelas, not frijoles. Chickens are our favorite animal to bite into. they're sort of a pet and food source in my neighborhood.

Improving my spanish and more importantly learning to understand and speak like Dominicans, who are known for a pretty strong and difficult to follow accent has gone well.  As usual, guys are the hardest to understand.  Evidence of my improvement is that I can now joke with my host father, Milongo and his son who lives near by.  At first I could hardly understand a word of the 'old man' style or 'street' style dominican spanish.  Our neighborhood is I think the way a neighborhood is supposed to be. everyone knows eachother and social activities break out unexpectedly.

one of my favorite activities has been chatting outside the house with neighbors/relatives/ peace corps friends while waiting for the electricity to come back on at night.  the electricity is important just to keep the fans going to make sleeping better.  I've played a bit of baseball both in the street and on a field mostly with other volunteers and/or young kids.  I'm pretty good at dominoes (for an Americano -- still need to get better at counting the tiles).  I think I'm probably on par with the average Dominican dude at dancing bachata and merengue.  Besides being a lot of fun in itself, knowing latin american music and how to dance to it seems to be an easy way to make conversation and gain respect -- since they assume americans can't dance.

My training thus far has been a lot like school. I walk about 1/2 an hour everyday to a training center among various school children and other ridiculous looking gringos and then have various lessons throughout the day. The big differences are that our classes are outside in ramadas (huts -- sort of) and the school lunch is awesome - although there is no grilled cheese and tomato soup.

Tomorrow I'm traveling north, past Santiago to a place near Altamira in the mountains to visit a current water volunteer and learn more about my future service. I'll be there thru the weekend and then later next week I'll begin technical, community based training in a different mountainous region more to the south. besides more spanish and cultural stuff, we'll learn (and build) water and sanitation infrastructure for a community that needs water, etc. It's sort of like practice for our individual projects.

My actual service begins at the end of october. not til then will I know exactly where I'll be for the next 2 years.

Anyways, gotta get home before the donya gets too worried.  In summary, yes it's hot here, I sweat a ton every day, but I feel super healthy; the people are great; certainly different and similar enough to Mexicans or Bolivians or whoever to keep me happy. how's that for grammar.  I'll try to throw in an insufficient picture of something here. hasta luego!

Getting ready?

Well, as a few of my peers already have super nice blogs started for their Peace Corps assignments, I figured I'd get one going too. I have just a couple weeks left now, and of course, I'm finding all kinds of things I wish I would have gotten done earlier. I have yet to buy some clothing and other stuff I'll probably regret bringing, sell my car, deal with my cell phone contract, and decide what to bring with me to the island. I've really gotten a lot done this summer, and most importantly; I've really enjoyed spending time at home and at school with so many of the people I love and will miss over the next couple years.

I have been doing some cultural training as well. Occasionally I find time to dance a merengue, make absurd comments in Spanish to people who don't understand them, throw a baseball, or hit rocks on the beach with a stick.

Despite fenomenal gastronomic explorations, my goal to fatten up over the summer has gone nowhere. At the very least, working with my dad, commuting on my bike, and windsurfing have probably got me in a little better shape..

Well, I'll post a picture of me having fun in Paradise so you can understand why I don't feel like writing more at the moment. I promise a more epic beginning to my story later on including more details of where I'm going and what I'll be doing.