Biscochomania

Por fin! It’s here – a new blog entry! - Dogs, Donations, Downpours

Not sure when the last time I wrote something on the blog was. Since elections it has been a bit slow on big news. We keep working away trying to obtain funding for the water project while speculating on whether or not politicians will come through with any money. Talk more about that later.

May is typically a rainy season but May decided to wait until June this year. We’ve had downpours and wind every afternoon for the past week. More exciting, there is also thunder and lightning to go with the rain. As neighbors had said during the drizzle of December, the heavy rains we are experiencing now make far less mud than the light rains. Rather than sitting still, all of the clay and silt is washed down paths, ditches, gutters, and streams into the river. Obviously this has it’s own negative effects – the river looks like hot chocolate, but I’m just happy to be able to walk five minutes from the paved road to my house without accumulating an inch of mud under and around my shoes.

I have nearly finished construction of the block and concrete kitchen counter in my house (it still needs a drain pipe to the outside). I have been buying odds and ends of kitchen ingredients when I am in the town or city. On my last trip to Santiago I bought my first jar of peanut butter, which is now over half gone without really having done much more than eat it with a fork or knife. I really just want to clean out the jar for ant-proof storage of dry milk powder. Since I don’t have a REAL oven and this country is lacking in REAL baked goods, I bought an ‘Olla de Horno’ a while ago. It’s like a fancy bunt pan that you can put on top of a stove burner that functions just as well as a regular oven (most likely with much less fuel too). Since then I have averaged about two cakes a week including vanilla, banana bread, and chocolate banana. Tomorrow I have been contracted to make a cake at a neighbor’s house. The general lack of good baked goods here makes it pretty easy to please people. I’m going to try making bread soon – since the standard bread here is even worse than the standard cake. Possibilities are limitless, except that any baked invention has to be shaped like a giant Cheerio. I expect that genetically modified baking chickens with a 2” diameter hole in the middle will be available soon.

Looking for ripe bananas to make cakes has had a side benefit – various neighbors and kids are donating me ripe or ripening bananas (and related fruits) much more often. One of my favorites in close competition is the RULO. It is a fatter than a banana, shorter than a plantain, and with a flavor different than either. Quite disgusting boiled green, they are great ripe. The chubby RULO is also rumored to fatten up the CULO. If you aren’t sure what body part the C#L* is, check out the song of the same name by Pitbull and Lil Jon – you might figure it out.

Alright, so that is enough of food… What else is fun in life? Puppies! Despite being in the running for “Peace Corps Volunteer least interested in getting a dog”, I inadvertently acquired a campo doggy a few days ago. After a long morning hiking up in the hills from the spring along the future water line route, I got to my house, unlocked the door and soon found a puppy under a table. I took it outside and asked who’s it was. The Neighbor kid said – “Oh, that’s ours we were wondering where it went.!” Then later “it seems to like you, you can have it if you want!” I made no indication that I wanted it, which I guess meant that I did, because he didn’t take it back and the puppy has no intention of leaving. It’s a great little dog except for a couple things:

1) Had or has worms

2) Ticks in its ears

3) Fleas

4) Whines at night because I won’t let her in the house

5) I mentioned her – it is a she-dog

6) My various neighbors have about ten male dogs collectively. The will be very ‘happy’ err ‘excited’ when she’s older.

But still, she’s pretty cute, seems to be just as healthy and possibly bigger than some of her brothers, and hopefully will follow me fearlessly through the hills as I hack my way down paths with my machete and rubber boots.

**Please see latest PICASA album for pictures of Dog (needs a name), rulo, cake, and kitchen counter. **

Besides cooking, parties, and a puppy, I have really been working too. These rains have yet again shown why the community needs a new water system. The mud I mentioned that washes into the river has been clogging up the pipes lately either making the water dirty or causing it not to arrive at the houses at all. In preparation for buying materials, brigade captains recently helped me organize workers to resurvey the line from the source to the tank – allowing for a final pipe design of that portion. The local mayor is to deliver sand and gravel nearby to the water tank construction site this Wednesday. The following week we will begin brigade work by preparing the spring-source and tank sites as well as places to store materials and mix concrete at these sites. This will give brigades and their captains a chance to organize themselves working on relatively simple tasks of shoveling, loading mules and donkeys, and picking/shoveling flat areas. Following that week, we should receive money from the Dominican Fundación ADEMI, to make a first large parchase of PVC pipes from a manufacturer in the Capital. This will allow us to begin construction of the nearly six kilometers of pipeline that have to be dug by hand to a depth of 1.5 to 3 feet. Depending on what other funding sources come through first, we may also construct the ferrocement water tank and part of the spring intake works in July. Burying all of the pipes will take over four months.

Now that local funding is coming through, beneficiaries are doing a decent job of paying the monthly quota, and we are prepared to work, I would like to invite you to contribute to the project. I have applied for a Peace Corps Partnership Project grant to fund Acueducto para un Futuro Mejor de Rio Grande al Medio. Despite the fancy name, this really means Ryan soliciting donations from family, friends, coworkers, acquaintances, or complete strangers who find this project interesting and worthwhile. I have applied for US$5000. This is about a third of the money we need in total (US$16,000) to construct the water system. In the event that the water system is overfunded whether due to lots of success finding other funding sources or due to really great engineering and cost savings during construction, left over materials and funding would be used for equally important projects like latrine or improved cook stove construction.

Here are Peace Corps directions for donating to my project:

The easiest way to donate is to use this link,

https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.donors.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=517-373

, or visit www.peacecorps.gov/donate and search by the project number, 517-373.

Although, the web site is the quickest way to make a donation, you may also make a check payable to Peace Corps Partnership Program and send it to:

Paul D. Coverdell Peace Corps Headquarters

Peace Corps Partnership Program, OPSI

1111 20th Street NW Washington DC 20526

Be sure to indicate the project number, 517-373, on the check so it will be applied to the correct project.

If you donate, I promise to bake you banana bread in my cute little pan while boring you with ‘had to be there’ stories of the Dominican Republic when I return to the US. You are welcome to send me questions via this blog, email, or facebook. If you haven’t yet, visit my PICASA web photo album. There are pictures mixed in specifically related to the water project.

Enjoy the summer wherever you are, and I’ll try to write sooner next time. -Ryan