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