Some april pictures

April - politics and (very) small scale gardening

Pictures from March

March

Power outages make for a bad wardrobe

I pulled a short sleeve dress shirt off the hanger this morning wanting to look good as I roamed about santiago visiting prestigious hose dealers and hardware stores.  Little did I know it was stained at the bottom. Fortunately though, I think I stand out so much for my skin and hair color here that Its unlikely that many people have noticed the telltale color of spilled beans (or something similar).

Whatever the case, a well dressed white dude who's not dominican, but speaks spanish, has a motorcycle helmet but no motorcycle, getting in and out of public transportation at hose dealerships, and presenting himself as an engineer from a tiny town  -- where? must confuse and amuse a lot of people.  I still enjoy telling the truth of why I have a helmet but no bike, but a friend who's been here longer says he's switched over to extravagant lies about where his motorcycle is.  I'll probably try this soon.

It has been a crazy few weeks.  First, Nina visited for a week on spring break from Houghton.  Although it was ridiculously cold and rainy the first couple days, we had fun taking walks around where I lived, going to the beach for a couple days, and visiting Santiago and the capital.  Her was so amazement/disgust at the amount of sugar in the coffee, has made me consider stopping drinking it in the morning, but people seem to enjoy giving it to me, so its tough.  I think for my teeth though, things will have to change.  When we were in the capital, it so happened that the acting US ambassador to the DR was throwing a barbecue and pool party at his house for peace corps volunteers in town at the time.  So we went to that, the ambassador, his pool, and burgers with good mustard and other toppings were all great.  Nina flew out of the capital that saturday night.  Expecting a sad, hot, boring night in a hotel after she left, I ended up running into some other volunteers and went out to see some live music.  It was a few bands playing Son, the predecessor to salsa (i.e. Buena Vista Social Club).  Although it was too hot to dance, the music was amazing as were the old guys in fancy suits who knew how to dance to it.

I expected to dive back into work the next week, but a call from my mom sent me back to the capital to catch a plane to Detroit for my Grandmother's funeral.  I was in Michigan for a week, and despite being sad that I couldn't actually spend it with grandma, it was really nice seeing so much of my family.  I had sort of hoped that my grandma would have been able to visit me while I was in the Peace Corps. Although she won't be able to now, I think that she's with me here one way or another and will be up in paradise at her cabin with us when I get back in a couple years.

Although I haven't been too stressed out about being away for so long anyways, the trip home made me realize how quick this experience is going by.  I'll probably either be home or have someone visiting me here again within another 6 months.  Sure there's a year left after that, but I'm determined to enjoy it.

this past week I turned in an application for Peace Corps Partnership funds, which once it is approved will be available on the internet.  I will be be contacting friends, family and others in the US to raise $5000, which is roughly a third of the cost of our water project.  We have already been approved for some funding from the local government -which makes me very happy and other dominican funding is on the way.

whenever this water project is finished (perhaps 7 months to a year into the future), I'm looking forward to spending more time on simple things I want to do here like gardening.  Currently I have a good crop of basil, weird variety of cilantro, and some ginger.  When I get ahold of some seeds I like to plant some carrots and tomatoes..  Apparently I can plant lots of flowers just by sticking clippings in the ground.  For how bad these tropical soils are supposed to be, a lot of things do grow with very little effort.

As we are in Easter week, work has halted until monday.  Yesterday I went to a sandbagged swimming hole on the river -- people create swimming holes for the holiday.  The water was surprisingly fairly clean looking and certainly warm enough.  After that I played my most serious game of baseball here yet.  It was on a real field with many dominicans over the age of 12.  I did pretty bad, but acceptable considering how long it had been since I had played.  If I'm allowed I will probably play more and certainly improve.

The other big event of Easter (besides the same church schedule as in the US), are lots of parties with live music on Holy Saturday.  I'm torn between various events and invitations, but I'm sure whichever I go to will be fun.     Adios