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

Direct from Colinas Mall!

Just chillin here in an air conditioned mall in Santiago.  It's very strange go to such places in this country when I live in such a different place.  The free internet is worth enduring the suffocating atmosphere.  The atmosphere sort of yells at a volunteer -- "you are too poor to shop here!" "Why do you have mud on your shoes?"  I make ten thousand or so pesos a month (300 some dollars) a tenth of it I could suddenly spend on a few Hanes t-shirts if I were so silly.  Instead I bought a nice green one for about a dollar, and then realized it has two holes in it, but it's still comfy.

I was on a mission to buy a small tabletop stove and gas tank for my house so I can begin cooking again.  No luck today, but maybe I'll make another trip tomorrow.  I think I will enjoy my own food and my host family's food more if I can simply do dinner and breakfast for myself a few times a week.  It will also be fun to make stuff for my neighbors to try.  Side note -- ocassionally my one neighbor sends me hot chocalate with peanuts.  Actually I'm not sure if it has chocolate, but I don't think she even knows how happy you can make an American by giving them a drink that tastes like peanut butter on a spoon without the gagging (it's warm and more liquified) and without the guilt -- it's supposed to be eaten that way.

Anyways, see the link to the pictures on Picasa that I posted (previous post).  thanks to everyone who sent postcards to me with my mom -- they'll be fun to share with people here.  This week I'm busy with chasing politicians and other people here looking for their money.  The community is confident that elections in may are going to turn into more local funding than usual for our water project.  I hope its true!  More than actually completing the water system or improving people's health, I think my own goal here is to simply do these things with a lot of local and national dominican resources.  This means  the community figuring out how to mobilize resources on its own.  On that front, I think we're doing well, but I can see how it is easy for NGOs and development workers to simply do everything themselves. As one of the Professors at MTU told us, you have to play catch with the community (here we say 'parar' -- to stop the ball)...  Sometimes I play catch letting them do something before I do.  Basketball is now more popular here too though, so for me thats a good analogy -- The water committee might make a few passes by talking to some people, then I'll pass by writing and printing a letter, and then someone will shoot by turning it into an office.  We then celebrate by bragging to others about the work we've done without even checking to see if we actually made the basket (i.e. did we get any money...).  Hope this has confused you.

See new pictures!

muchachos y mas

Well, this is my five minute update.  I just finished a three month “In service training conference” in the most likely Amazing and beautiful mountains of Jarabacoa.  We didn’t really see mucho of the landscape since we were working the three days we were there. The city seemed very nice and I had good bread for the first time simce arriving in this country. I also got my shoes cleaned by a kid in the park. They’re so much better at Cleaning my shoes than I am! However, as I walked away, one of the kids apparently squirted soapy water on my clean shoe – destroying its beautiful luster however temporarily.  Before I realizad what had happened they were done Laughing and had dissapeared.  Hopefully I can go back to Jarabacoa some day, it would be a great place to take visitors.

 

Thursday afternoon and Friday morning I spent in the big city of Santiago – this is on my way home.  It was great since I was able to tour around the city some with other volunteers who actually live there and I also got a few different errands done related to my project ( the current price of 1/4inch rebar is 33pesos by the way). I even went to a mall -- in the food court there was burger king, kfc, pizza hut, and dominoes. I ate chinese -- it was actually pretty good.

 

This weekend besides a bunch of work I need to do writing reports and funding requests/applications, I’m hoping to make some valentine\s day phone calls and perhaps dance a valentine’s day merengue. The merengue really won’t be that exciting since its what we’d do here for any holiday or random day of partying.  I’m curious to see if people pass out those chalky candy hearts that say BE MINE or LOVE’S 4 EVR on them.  I sure hope they do, but I imagine they would need to have longer and more intricate Dominican cat calls on them.

 

Until next time - & sorry this one wasn\t really very funny or interesting. Haven't been taking many photos lately but maybe I'll put a couple up -- it's tough to get a good enough internet connection to accomplish this.

Letter to grandma

The following is an email I sent to my grandma some time ago. I liked it and didn't want to write more, so I thought I would share it. I don't  think she'll mind.

Hi Grandma,

 

I realized that I haven’t sent you a letter or postcard yet, perhaps in February!  Anyways, I’m going to try to call you today but am not sure if it will work. Hope that you got to try the hot chocolate and coffee I sent.  I’m not sure if the coffee will be all that great.  – It is certainly a very very dark roast. Sometimes it’s really good here and other times I think it’s only enjoyable because they put SO much sugar in it.  Reminds me of Nick and his tea cups, except these are grown adults and Nick’s tea would be considered lacking sugar – or even ‘bitter’.

 

Nina mentioned to me the other day that all I ever write about in my blog is food – at least it’s always mentioned.  But I sort of have to, life is very simple here in that way (which I like). There isn’t a whole lot to think about here besides the heat, the cold, the rain, the mud, and the fruits.  Some volunteers suspect that this is why so many Dominicans spend a good part of their day and pocketbook on lottery tickets. Each day they wait around for signs telling them which numbers to play – it’s simultaneously amusing and sickening to a cheap but romantic guy like me.  Just now I’m watching some lizards make love – they aren’t nearly as funny to watch as the ducks.  We recently finished some rainy cold weather, which reminded me of a rainy day in the summer in the trailer in Paradise. The ducks, which live nowhere near any pond or other body of water really liked it, but I had a constant longing for the ‘walk like an Egyptian’ song, sandy carpeting, ritz crackers, and ‘The Gods must be crazy’.

 

Movies and reading are fun here.  I’ve begun reading at night.  I generally am avoiding reading since it’s probably the most common way for volunteers to avoid their work.  By work I mean sitting around and chilling with the gente (people).  If you can imagine, Dominicans don’t sit around in their living room quietly each reading their own novel.  However, we did sit in the living room this morning watching RAMBO, now that’s America! So anyways, Rambo and Jackie Chan by day, and at night I fall asleep reading about some guy’s adventures in Austrailia living with Aboriginees. It’s really nothing like Crocodile Dundee, a bit like The God’s must be Crazy, and has interesting parallels to my experiences here.

 

            I’ll close with more mention of food. The day before yesterday we picked a couple grapefruit while collecting firewood. I had a desire to eat them as I would at home – cut in half and with a serrated grapefruit spoon.  WE do not have grapefruit spoons here. So I was a bit worried. As the dishes were dirty I couldn’t even find a decent sized regular teaspoon.  I ended up applying the Dominican method for eating an orange (maybe I’ll send pictures later).  After perhaps six months here, my life is changed forever, I will never have to search for a grapefruit spoon again.  I can now enjoy delicious grapefruit with no more than a knife or machete and my own face.

 

However silly, I thought this was a good example of how the Peace Corps is a unique and life changing experience.  There are so many things big and small, good and bad that I will learn here about life, people, grapefruit, and myself that I never could have imagined or planned for.

 

Love,

 

Ryan