Hello Blog world...
I wonder if there is still anyone reading this. I just wanted to give a short update on the situation in my town in the DR. But first, some background info:
As you all know I moved from there on November 12th. After that I went for a short visit to Haiti and was hosted by a former PCV of the DR. After the trip I flew home to Chicago, on November 20th.
Since having left my site I have been in touch with various people from there at least once a week. I heard about the earthquake in Haiti and called yesterday (the day of the quake) and like some other RPCVs (returned Peace Corps volunteers) was unable to get through. This morning I made contact and was told that everyone was fine (it appears that the quake did very little, if any, damage in the DR.) They did mention that the bookshelves in our library fell over, making me think that effects of this quake in our town, even though it was so far away, was significantly stronger than the one that hit Puerto Plata in October. (It was pretty tiny and I'm not sure that I even ever blogged about it.)
The situation in Haiti, as you know, was pretty dire before the earthquake. I was so thankful I got a chance to see the country, if just for a long weekend, before leaving Hispanola. I will remember that trip forever. I have seen at least 2 places I visited in Port au Prince in photos on the news- they have both been destroyed, the cathedral and the presidential palace.
I have posted some photos of my November trip as well as some photos of the end of my service on facebook.
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
The List
I realize this blog won’t be posted until after I have left my site… but, today, November 7, 2009, my last Saturday in my site, I felt inspired to detail the things that I will and will not miss about this country.
I will NOT miss
-the stares
-the disrespectful attention from random men
-the unpredictable power
-the unpredictable water
-the dust
-the indirect communication
-the hand-out mentality
- motorcycles when I’m not on them
-the men who yell about baseball, politics, anything and everything else right outside my house
-the metal door across the street that scratches on the pavement
-the pigeons
-my money problems
-people thinking I have money and talking about that belief quite openly with me
-being constantly on my guard when not in my site
-pre-paid phones and calling cards
-the politics and the politicians
-feeling helpless
-feeling like I am not allowed to or shouldn’t express how I truly feel
-watching deep-rooted inequality on a daily basis
-watching adults treat children with disrespect
I will miss
-the clouds
-the weather
-sitting in rocking chairs
-interacting with animals and children on a daily basis
-watching Dominicans crack themselves up
-the fried food stand
-the music
-the dancing
-the fruit (and the juice)
-“red” flavor soda
-most of the people in my site
-most of the PCVs I’ve come to know
-the beach and the fish
-visiting people in their homes
I am (and have been for awhile now) been full of so many different emotions. Sometimes I’ve felt incredible highs, and other times it’s been the opposite. It’s “bittersweet” to be ending service, as many of you have suggested to me, and I guess that’s the right word… It’s an emotional rollercoaster. I’ve had a few personal challenges to deal with at the end that have made the highs and lows seem even more dramatic:
-I was burgled. In October someone (or some people) broke open a metal gate on the front of my house, bent it back and were able to slip inside. My wooden door had had a bad handle for a while and opened easily. They went straight to a drawer were I had been storing DR$58,000 pesos, about US$1600. I went to the bank many times to deposit the money as it had been raised and then took it all out just days before it disappeared. It was the money to purchase the land for the library/community center and we were finally about to purchase it. I was lucky enough to have a friend with me when I realized the money was missing (a few days after I realized the gate had been bent). The thief/thieves took nothing from my personal items, not even any jewelry that was located in a box just inches from the money in the same drawer, which convinced me that he must have been someone who knew me and was just looking for cash. It still stung, and telling the leaders of my community was a pretty sobering experience. (I applied for a grant last minute to help get DR$50,000 of the money back).
This experience obviously complicated what was already becoming an increasingly complicated time in my service. I was up to my head in debt at the hardware store and have since had to come to grips with the fact that I will have to leave my site with 2 large debts: that to the hardware store and that to buy the land. (The debt at the hardware store is the result of major miscalculations on the part of my “engineer” who had admittedly told me early on in the project that he wasn’t good at calculations…)
-My library/community center inauguration took place on October 31. It was attended by a large part of the community and it was a wonderful celebration of the work that we did together. I presented a number of the community members with certificates recognizing their hard work and they presented me with 2 plaques and the fact that they’d decided to name the library after me and had painted my name on the front wall, just under the name of the center. I was very touched and managed to enjoy myself very much despite all of the commotion. It was a little disappointing to not see as much support from Peace Corps as I would have liked, but in no way did it spoil the day.
The fact that we were able to achieve so much so late into my service also added emotion to my life at that point. I spent a month and a half being pretty much the only person in the community who had an idea of what this project was going to be and having any faith that it could be completed before I left. When it was all done (believe it or not, most of the larger projects were completed in the last 48 hours before the inauguration) I could hardly believe how everyone had come together and gotten it together in time for our celebrations. When I turned it over officially to the community during my speech at the inauguration I got a little choked up. How could we have done it so fast in the last few moments to even have anything ready to be turned over? And how could it be time to do that anyways? I got choked up again when my Escojo group presented me with their plaque. They said such wonderful things about me, and I was full of so much love for everyone. I wasn’t the only one with tears in my eyes.
See, it really is a beautiful thing that Peace Corps provided for me. Trouble is, IT’S NOT EASY! This really has been the toughest job I’ll ever love (at least I hope it was) for so many reasons! Some were so very simple to predict: poverty, living in poverty, isolation, losing touch with people back home that matter so much to me, etc. (Those also ended up being the easier ones to deal with.) Some I could have never predicted and suppose no one can ever be prepared for: watching Dominicans commit violence against Haitians, having to explain to people why they can’t receive a stove, coping with repeated deaths in the community, dealing with large quantities of cash, going through a burglary with my community, helping other volunteers through the loss of their pets to various causes, etc.
I have tried, through these blogs, to keep you involved in my service, or at least aware of more or less what I am doing. But, I know you are all intelligent enough to know that some things can never truly be explained; they had to be lived. I lived them, and now they’re almost over, and I can’t really explain this part as well as I used to be able to explain the annoyance of the loud music in the capital or the excitement of riding on motorcycles. The more that these culture differences became more of my life it was harder to know what to write or how to write it. Some of you might notice that frequency with which I wrote, the uniqueness, and the length of my entries beginning in May of this year was significantly changed. May and June were incredibly difficult months in my service. I didn’t want to write dark entries telling you all of my struggles and the struggles I watched a lot of my friends go through as well. This pattern kept up pretty much until now. Things have gotten better, and then worse again, and then better. It’s been a pretty dramatic roller coaster since May, but if it hadn’t been, maybe I wouldn’t feel and know in my heart that it’s okay for me to leave.
That’s why the list helps. At first the “things I will not miss” side was easier to write. (When I got here I couldn’t believe the heat, or the bugs.) But lately the “things I will miss” side is easier to form. I am ready to be home. My adventure is coming to its end and I’m okay with that. In order to be okay with that though, I need to remind myself of the challenges I have faced here, and not just the heat or the bugs, although they’ve been memorable, but the bigger picture ones as well. When I go home and do something nice for my mom I can feel pretty confident that her friends won’t all run over demanding I do them the same favor, and making me feel bad about me if I don’t. I can be pretty sure that the kids in my neighborhood will be allowed to go to school even if they don’t have a pencil, and that the cops will show up to investigate a crime within a week of it being reported (and that they will have gas in the car.) These are the things that have worn on me-caused me stress, and I’m ready for them to be in my past.
I’ve aged. (If they think the presidency ages people they ought to look at Peace Corps volunteers! When I got here people used to guess I was 16, 17 years old. Now I get asked if I’m still in my twenties! And the darkness under my eyes is a lot more pronounced than it used to be. I know the sun has done a lot of damage to me, as I’m sure the high-fat, high-sugar diet has as well.)
It’s hard to say how else I’ve changed: I am a lot more experienced… (Like that’s saying anything.) I know its cliché, but I know myself much better (I think living alone for 2 years forces that.) I am comfortable being alone (although I still like being around people, and a little noise everyone once in a while.) My standards are lower, probably for many things. But this isn’t necessarily such a bad thing; picture your reaction walking into an American fast food place and being told you can order whatever you’d like. Now picture what mine might be like (some of you know from first-hand experience what this reaction is, and this from a person who only used to eat fast food on road trips!) Speaking of road trips, I get carsick with the AC on and the windows up-I need the fresh air on my face. I like a little bling every now and then. I finally got my nails done Dominican style and I must admit, I really like them! (They have designs!) I think I’m more patient with some things and much less so with others. (I can’t really elaborate on that one.) I’m much more resourceful, and think my abilities have grown. (Even though I sometimes can’t believe it, I guess I was able to get some cool shit done here.) My Spanish has gotten much better, unfortunately, it came at the cost of my English. (Seriously, please help me to communicate with you when I get home!) I’m much less willing to do something physical if there could be a man around who could do it better or faster than me. (Like lifting or carrying stuff, although I think I’m still insulted when men assume I can’t do these things.) Here’s a good one for all of you- it doesn’t take as much to crack me up. (I laughed the other day at my hands. You had to have been there for me not to sound so crazy, but seriously, I laughed at my hands.) Probably the most important of all: I appreciate the people in my life so much more now, but I think I also expect more from them than I used to.
I guess that’s just to name a few.
I will NOT miss
-the stares
-the disrespectful attention from random men
-the unpredictable power
-the unpredictable water
-the dust
-the indirect communication
-the hand-out mentality
- motorcycles when I’m not on them
-the men who yell about baseball, politics, anything and everything else right outside my house
-the metal door across the street that scratches on the pavement
-the pigeons
-my money problems
-people thinking I have money and talking about that belief quite openly with me
-being constantly on my guard when not in my site
-pre-paid phones and calling cards
-the politics and the politicians
-feeling helpless
-feeling like I am not allowed to or shouldn’t express how I truly feel
-watching deep-rooted inequality on a daily basis
-watching adults treat children with disrespect
I will miss
-the clouds
-the weather
-sitting in rocking chairs
-interacting with animals and children on a daily basis
-watching Dominicans crack themselves up
-the fried food stand
-the music
-the dancing
-the fruit (and the juice)
-“red” flavor soda
-most of the people in my site
-most of the PCVs I’ve come to know
-the beach and the fish
-visiting people in their homes
I am (and have been for awhile now) been full of so many different emotions. Sometimes I’ve felt incredible highs, and other times it’s been the opposite. It’s “bittersweet” to be ending service, as many of you have suggested to me, and I guess that’s the right word… It’s an emotional rollercoaster. I’ve had a few personal challenges to deal with at the end that have made the highs and lows seem even more dramatic:
-I was burgled. In October someone (or some people) broke open a metal gate on the front of my house, bent it back and were able to slip inside. My wooden door had had a bad handle for a while and opened easily. They went straight to a drawer were I had been storing DR$58,000 pesos, about US$1600. I went to the bank many times to deposit the money as it had been raised and then took it all out just days before it disappeared. It was the money to purchase the land for the library/community center and we were finally about to purchase it. I was lucky enough to have a friend with me when I realized the money was missing (a few days after I realized the gate had been bent). The thief/thieves took nothing from my personal items, not even any jewelry that was located in a box just inches from the money in the same drawer, which convinced me that he must have been someone who knew me and was just looking for cash. It still stung, and telling the leaders of my community was a pretty sobering experience. (I applied for a grant last minute to help get DR$50,000 of the money back).
This experience obviously complicated what was already becoming an increasingly complicated time in my service. I was up to my head in debt at the hardware store and have since had to come to grips with the fact that I will have to leave my site with 2 large debts: that to the hardware store and that to buy the land. (The debt at the hardware store is the result of major miscalculations on the part of my “engineer” who had admittedly told me early on in the project that he wasn’t good at calculations…)
-My library/community center inauguration took place on October 31. It was attended by a large part of the community and it was a wonderful celebration of the work that we did together. I presented a number of the community members with certificates recognizing their hard work and they presented me with 2 plaques and the fact that they’d decided to name the library after me and had painted my name on the front wall, just under the name of the center. I was very touched and managed to enjoy myself very much despite all of the commotion. It was a little disappointing to not see as much support from Peace Corps as I would have liked, but in no way did it spoil the day.
The fact that we were able to achieve so much so late into my service also added emotion to my life at that point. I spent a month and a half being pretty much the only person in the community who had an idea of what this project was going to be and having any faith that it could be completed before I left. When it was all done (believe it or not, most of the larger projects were completed in the last 48 hours before the inauguration) I could hardly believe how everyone had come together and gotten it together in time for our celebrations. When I turned it over officially to the community during my speech at the inauguration I got a little choked up. How could we have done it so fast in the last few moments to even have anything ready to be turned over? And how could it be time to do that anyways? I got choked up again when my Escojo group presented me with their plaque. They said such wonderful things about me, and I was full of so much love for everyone. I wasn’t the only one with tears in my eyes.
See, it really is a beautiful thing that Peace Corps provided for me. Trouble is, IT’S NOT EASY! This really has been the toughest job I’ll ever love (at least I hope it was) for so many reasons! Some were so very simple to predict: poverty, living in poverty, isolation, losing touch with people back home that matter so much to me, etc. (Those also ended up being the easier ones to deal with.) Some I could have never predicted and suppose no one can ever be prepared for: watching Dominicans commit violence against Haitians, having to explain to people why they can’t receive a stove, coping with repeated deaths in the community, dealing with large quantities of cash, going through a burglary with my community, helping other volunteers through the loss of their pets to various causes, etc.
I have tried, through these blogs, to keep you involved in my service, or at least aware of more or less what I am doing. But, I know you are all intelligent enough to know that some things can never truly be explained; they had to be lived. I lived them, and now they’re almost over, and I can’t really explain this part as well as I used to be able to explain the annoyance of the loud music in the capital or the excitement of riding on motorcycles. The more that these culture differences became more of my life it was harder to know what to write or how to write it. Some of you might notice that frequency with which I wrote, the uniqueness, and the length of my entries beginning in May of this year was significantly changed. May and June were incredibly difficult months in my service. I didn’t want to write dark entries telling you all of my struggles and the struggles I watched a lot of my friends go through as well. This pattern kept up pretty much until now. Things have gotten better, and then worse again, and then better. It’s been a pretty dramatic roller coaster since May, but if it hadn’t been, maybe I wouldn’t feel and know in my heart that it’s okay for me to leave.
That’s why the list helps. At first the “things I will not miss” side was easier to write. (When I got here I couldn’t believe the heat, or the bugs.) But lately the “things I will miss” side is easier to form. I am ready to be home. My adventure is coming to its end and I’m okay with that. In order to be okay with that though, I need to remind myself of the challenges I have faced here, and not just the heat or the bugs, although they’ve been memorable, but the bigger picture ones as well. When I go home and do something nice for my mom I can feel pretty confident that her friends won’t all run over demanding I do them the same favor, and making me feel bad about me if I don’t. I can be pretty sure that the kids in my neighborhood will be allowed to go to school even if they don’t have a pencil, and that the cops will show up to investigate a crime within a week of it being reported (and that they will have gas in the car.) These are the things that have worn on me-caused me stress, and I’m ready for them to be in my past.
I’ve aged. (If they think the presidency ages people they ought to look at Peace Corps volunteers! When I got here people used to guess I was 16, 17 years old. Now I get asked if I’m still in my twenties! And the darkness under my eyes is a lot more pronounced than it used to be. I know the sun has done a lot of damage to me, as I’m sure the high-fat, high-sugar diet has as well.)
It’s hard to say how else I’ve changed: I am a lot more experienced… (Like that’s saying anything.) I know its cliché, but I know myself much better (I think living alone for 2 years forces that.) I am comfortable being alone (although I still like being around people, and a little noise everyone once in a while.) My standards are lower, probably for many things. But this isn’t necessarily such a bad thing; picture your reaction walking into an American fast food place and being told you can order whatever you’d like. Now picture what mine might be like (some of you know from first-hand experience what this reaction is, and this from a person who only used to eat fast food on road trips!) Speaking of road trips, I get carsick with the AC on and the windows up-I need the fresh air on my face. I like a little bling every now and then. I finally got my nails done Dominican style and I must admit, I really like them! (They have designs!) I think I’m more patient with some things and much less so with others. (I can’t really elaborate on that one.) I’m much more resourceful, and think my abilities have grown. (Even though I sometimes can’t believe it, I guess I was able to get some cool shit done here.) My Spanish has gotten much better, unfortunately, it came at the cost of my English. (Seriously, please help me to communicate with you when I get home!) I’m much less willing to do something physical if there could be a man around who could do it better or faster than me. (Like lifting or carrying stuff, although I think I’m still insulted when men assume I can’t do these things.) Here’s a good one for all of you- it doesn’t take as much to crack me up. (I laughed the other day at my hands. You had to have been there for me not to sound so crazy, but seriously, I laughed at my hands.) Probably the most important of all: I appreciate the people in my life so much more now, but I think I also expect more from them than I used to.
I guess that’s just to name a few.
Monday, October 26, 2009
And in the end...
So I realize I haven't written a good, long update in quite some time. I feel bad, but I also have a good excuse: it's been busy. At this point I feel like it would be better to fill you all in on the last few months of my service when I get to see you in person, or maybe I'll give an account on this blog when I get home. The following is from an email I recently sent and I thought it might be worth it to post it here too.
"These past few weeks (and months really) have flown by and the moments I've had to just enjoy my site have been great, but mostly I've been running around trying to finish my projects and I've had a few major setbacks, which of course were upsetting. I hope that the library will be completed this week so it will be ready for our inaugurationon Saturday, with maybe a few finishing touches next week. Then I'll have about a week to just enjoy myself, do visits to donas and take a lot of pictures. It's going to be incredibly difficult to leave my site, but I hope that rejoining you all in the US will make up for it."
"These past few weeks (and months really) have flown by and the moments I've had to just enjoy my site have been great, but mostly I've been running around trying to finish my projects and I've had a few major setbacks, which of course were upsetting. I hope that the library will be completed this week so it will be ready for our inaugurationon Saturday, with maybe a few finishing touches next week. Then I'll have about a week to just enjoy myself, do visits to donas and take a lot of pictures. It's going to be incredibly difficult to leave my site, but I hope that rejoining you all in the US will make up for it."
Saturday, September 26, 2009
We Started Construction!
Look! We finally began!
Also, Mike finally came to visit and was a huge hit with everyone in my town. Everyone agreed we wished his trip could have been for more time, but at least he was finally able to make it here.
And, as you can probably tell, I'm happy these days because construction makes me happy. :)
Also, Mike finally came to visit and was a huge hit with everyone in my town. Everyone agreed we wished his trip could have been for more time, but at least he was finally able to make it here.
And, as you can probably tell, I'm happy these days because construction makes me happy. :)
Thursday, September 10, 2009
A Big, Long Update
It has been a long, long time since I’ve updated my blog. I used to encourage other volunteers to do better updating theirs, always sure I’d never let more than a few weeks go by without updating mine. The truth is, I’ve been pretty darn busy and haven’t been spending as long on reliable internet as I would like.
So, to begin a proper update on my life:
June was pretty much taken up by my being sick and having my mom here to take care of me.
July was pretty much taken up by my trip to St. Kitts and having my sister come to visit.
August was pretty much taken up by my family coming to join me and my sister for a week, followed by me giving a class (and spending 2 nights) at the site of 2 friends of mine, followed by a few days in my site, followed by my the Close Of Service training in the capital for my whole training group, followed by 2 nights at a resort in Punta Cana with some people from that training group, followed by a few days in the capital to see 2 friends off (they were both leaving early from service), followed by lots of efforts in fundraising for the library/community center in my site, followed by the “Celebrating the Cibao” diversity conference that a bunch of us volunteers put on for some of the teens of our sites in the mountains, followed by more fundraising efforts in my site.
That brings us to September. On a work level, aka: not the time I was traveling or had visitors in my site, this summer hasn’t been so easy. Why? Fundraising for the land for the library/community center. Being reminded by other volunteers repeatedly that land has never been an issue for their construction projects, either because it was public land that they built upon or because someone donated the land, was very disappointing. It seemed like everyone I talked to was working on some sort of a construction project and that I was the only one with land issues. PC visitors have come to my site and remarked that people tend to be cheaper here than in other sites, ie: not offering coffee or juice to my visitors immediately upon our arrival to their homes. I didn’t really think it was such a big deal, and I always still loved my site and the people in it, but this was pretty ridiculous. (I still love the people in my site.) So, in addition to our need to purchase land, we were met with the obstacle of needing to pay a lot for land that my entire community told me wasn’t worth that much. A few weeks ago we were finally able to get the price of a piece of land next to the school down to about US$3,333. We have had about half of that raised and in the bank since April, but started to run out of ideas for fundraising. The price astounded all of us, but we were determined to get it all. Since April we’ve gotten money from a few community donors and a politician from our area. We hope to have the rest of the money by the end of this week so that we can begin construction next week. This was the date that I decided would be the very last day we could begin, if construction was going to be completed by the time I leave here.
The stoves project has been moving along slowly, with a couple of bumps delaying construction such as storms, sickness of both construction workers and my own, families not being able to pay the half-labor fee of $15 and being quite good at avoiding me when I’ve come to collect, and finally, running out of some of our supplies. (I did calculations repeatedly so the lack of supplies means that some people took too many of certain supplies or that the hardware store ripped me off.) There are 3 stoves left and they could be finished this week. We’ll see!
Escojo has been pretty weak this summer. Volunteers often decide to suspend meetings for the summer since its pretty common for kids to visit their relatives in other cities and for kids from those cities to come to the campo. I decided we should keep holding meetings because we did, with some success, last year. But, meetings this summer conflicted with baseball games and practices and with a group that’s more than 50% male, I rarely had more than 10 participants at a meeting. When we did meet we talked about fundraising, library organization, field trips, conferences, etc. Since the school year started up a few weeks ago, more kids have been coming to the meetings and we’re hoping to form a new group in another town not too far from here. Mostly though, we’ve been pretty busy with the library. I wonder what will happen to Escojo when I leave. I used to think it had the potential to keep going so long as an adult leader could attend meetings and help with logistics. Now I wonder if someone will ever step up and if we haven’t exhausted the topics that Escojo deals with in this area.
I was giving a course to the women’s community bank on women’s health until I got sick in June. They stopped holding meetings for a few weeks and it seemed like every time I was around there was no meeting, and every time I was gone they had meetings. Their interest in the course was okay, but they certainly have been fine without it. In general they are a group with a lot of potential, but they are missing some of the basics, like attendance and consistency.
So I certainly won’t remember this summer for huge work successes. I’ll remember wonderful visits. Perhaps if we’d been able to begin construction, regardless of having had the money to pay for the land or not, in May or June as was our original plan I would have thought differently about work successes these last 3 months… but, we’ll get there. A lot of people who talk to me with some regularity have been asking me lately what I would do if I couldn’t figure out the mess with the land. It was sad to realize that people were beginning to prepare me for Plan B, even when I wasn’t thinking about it. The truth was, and still is, that I wouldn’t take no for an answer with this project. I wouldn’t let the greedy parents of this community ruin this opportunity for their children. At the very least my project partner, my host mom and I would figure something out so that the books were utilized. But if it had been necessary, or if it is necessary someday soon, to call these land-owners out on the fact that they will singlehandedly destroy this opportunity for the community, I would, and I’m sure I’d have the support of the entire community. Everyone sees the necessity of this community center and people have been coming to read the books in my house for months. There is so much support for this project, that I know it will be successful, as long as we all decide not to take no for an answer.
So, to begin a proper update on my life:
June was pretty much taken up by my being sick and having my mom here to take care of me.
July was pretty much taken up by my trip to St. Kitts and having my sister come to visit.
August was pretty much taken up by my family coming to join me and my sister for a week, followed by me giving a class (and spending 2 nights) at the site of 2 friends of mine, followed by a few days in my site, followed by my the Close Of Service training in the capital for my whole training group, followed by 2 nights at a resort in Punta Cana with some people from that training group, followed by a few days in the capital to see 2 friends off (they were both leaving early from service), followed by lots of efforts in fundraising for the library/community center in my site, followed by the “Celebrating the Cibao” diversity conference that a bunch of us volunteers put on for some of the teens of our sites in the mountains, followed by more fundraising efforts in my site.
That brings us to September. On a work level, aka: not the time I was traveling or had visitors in my site, this summer hasn’t been so easy. Why? Fundraising for the land for the library/community center. Being reminded by other volunteers repeatedly that land has never been an issue for their construction projects, either because it was public land that they built upon or because someone donated the land, was very disappointing. It seemed like everyone I talked to was working on some sort of a construction project and that I was the only one with land issues. PC visitors have come to my site and remarked that people tend to be cheaper here than in other sites, ie: not offering coffee or juice to my visitors immediately upon our arrival to their homes. I didn’t really think it was such a big deal, and I always still loved my site and the people in it, but this was pretty ridiculous. (I still love the people in my site.) So, in addition to our need to purchase land, we were met with the obstacle of needing to pay a lot for land that my entire community told me wasn’t worth that much. A few weeks ago we were finally able to get the price of a piece of land next to the school down to about US$3,333. We have had about half of that raised and in the bank since April, but started to run out of ideas for fundraising. The price astounded all of us, but we were determined to get it all. Since April we’ve gotten money from a few community donors and a politician from our area. We hope to have the rest of the money by the end of this week so that we can begin construction next week. This was the date that I decided would be the very last day we could begin, if construction was going to be completed by the time I leave here.
The stoves project has been moving along slowly, with a couple of bumps delaying construction such as storms, sickness of both construction workers and my own, families not being able to pay the half-labor fee of $15 and being quite good at avoiding me when I’ve come to collect, and finally, running out of some of our supplies. (I did calculations repeatedly so the lack of supplies means that some people took too many of certain supplies or that the hardware store ripped me off.) There are 3 stoves left and they could be finished this week. We’ll see!
Escojo has been pretty weak this summer. Volunteers often decide to suspend meetings for the summer since its pretty common for kids to visit their relatives in other cities and for kids from those cities to come to the campo. I decided we should keep holding meetings because we did, with some success, last year. But, meetings this summer conflicted with baseball games and practices and with a group that’s more than 50% male, I rarely had more than 10 participants at a meeting. When we did meet we talked about fundraising, library organization, field trips, conferences, etc. Since the school year started up a few weeks ago, more kids have been coming to the meetings and we’re hoping to form a new group in another town not too far from here. Mostly though, we’ve been pretty busy with the library. I wonder what will happen to Escojo when I leave. I used to think it had the potential to keep going so long as an adult leader could attend meetings and help with logistics. Now I wonder if someone will ever step up and if we haven’t exhausted the topics that Escojo deals with in this area.
I was giving a course to the women’s community bank on women’s health until I got sick in June. They stopped holding meetings for a few weeks and it seemed like every time I was around there was no meeting, and every time I was gone they had meetings. Their interest in the course was okay, but they certainly have been fine without it. In general they are a group with a lot of potential, but they are missing some of the basics, like attendance and consistency.
So I certainly won’t remember this summer for huge work successes. I’ll remember wonderful visits. Perhaps if we’d been able to begin construction, regardless of having had the money to pay for the land or not, in May or June as was our original plan I would have thought differently about work successes these last 3 months… but, we’ll get there. A lot of people who talk to me with some regularity have been asking me lately what I would do if I couldn’t figure out the mess with the land. It was sad to realize that people were beginning to prepare me for Plan B, even when I wasn’t thinking about it. The truth was, and still is, that I wouldn’t take no for an answer with this project. I wouldn’t let the greedy parents of this community ruin this opportunity for their children. At the very least my project partner, my host mom and I would figure something out so that the books were utilized. But if it had been necessary, or if it is necessary someday soon, to call these land-owners out on the fact that they will singlehandedly destroy this opportunity for the community, I would, and I’m sure I’d have the support of the entire community. Everyone sees the necessity of this community center and people have been coming to read the books in my house for months. There is so much support for this project, that I know it will be successful, as long as we all decide not to take no for an answer.
Friday, July 24, 2009
We sawed, We sanded, We stained…We conquered.
Julie arrived on a Tuesday. I’d spent the time between my visit to St. Kitts and getting her in Puerto Plata waiting, in the capital and at a friend’s site, for my community members to get it together and get us the land for the library already. (They finally did the Thursday after Julie got here.)
She arrived without her bags, as has become typical for people traveling to visit me. The first night we went to a hotel with AC (thanks Dad,) and ate (and drank) our hearts out. It was all soda, I swear. The next morning we swam and walked along the beachfront. Then we went to Cabarete to meet up with some of my friends who were celebrating their birthdays. We spent the night at another hotel with a pool, and swam again later. We had pizza and went to some bars and saw a man eating fire! The next morning included a ice cream-cake breakfast, with some leftover pizza followed by a sweaty journey home. Julie had brought with her 2 checked bags (with which we were reunited in Cabarete) full of surprises for me, including over 50 lbs of books for the library! Traveling all over the north coast of the island with these bags was a little less than ideal, as was the fact that every single bus driver tried to rip us off. I handled this repeated situation a little less-than gracefully, but Julie was a good sport about everything. Once we loaded up on groceries, we headed back to my site and arrived tired, sweaty and quite covered with dust.
We spent the next few days trying to figure stuff out with the supposedly completed land agreement. It was a little annoying to have to wait for the answers from my neighbors, but eventually it all got worked out and I am happy to say that we should be beginning construction on Monday! While we waited we spent our days organizing the books that Julie had brought me and playing softball once it wasn’t quite so hot outside. We also played a bit with Lina and Kitty… mostly Julie.
A few days ago we went to the hardware store. We ordered some wood and nails and whatnot to build a bookshelf for the library. The first step was measuring, then sawing, which both attracted some viewers. Once we had it sawed we sanded the wood and then stained it. By that time it was dark outside so we had to leave the second coat of stain for the following day. That afternoon we were finally able to begin constructing the bookcase and found that bookshelves take a long time to complete! Again we had onlookers and trying to drive those nails into our low-quality boards with an audience was quite difficult. This is largely due to the fact that the onlookers were all males and they had spent the past 2 days making bets with one another whether or not 2 American girls could actually accomplish such a huge task as to build a 4.5 foot bookshelf.
She arrived without her bags, as has become typical for people traveling to visit me. The first night we went to a hotel with AC (thanks Dad,) and ate (and drank) our hearts out. It was all soda, I swear. The next morning we swam and walked along the beachfront. Then we went to Cabarete to meet up with some of my friends who were celebrating their birthdays. We spent the night at another hotel with a pool, and swam again later. We had pizza and went to some bars and saw a man eating fire! The next morning included a ice cream-cake breakfast, with some leftover pizza followed by a sweaty journey home. Julie had brought with her 2 checked bags (with which we were reunited in Cabarete) full of surprises for me, including over 50 lbs of books for the library! Traveling all over the north coast of the island with these bags was a little less than ideal, as was the fact that every single bus driver tried to rip us off. I handled this repeated situation a little less-than gracefully, but Julie was a good sport about everything. Once we loaded up on groceries, we headed back to my site and arrived tired, sweaty and quite covered with dust.
We spent the next few days trying to figure stuff out with the supposedly completed land agreement. It was a little annoying to have to wait for the answers from my neighbors, but eventually it all got worked out and I am happy to say that we should be beginning construction on Monday! While we waited we spent our days organizing the books that Julie had brought me and playing softball once it wasn’t quite so hot outside. We also played a bit with Lina and Kitty… mostly Julie.
A few days ago we went to the hardware store. We ordered some wood and nails and whatnot to build a bookshelf for the library. The first step was measuring, then sawing, which both attracted some viewers. Once we had it sawed we sanded the wood and then stained it. By that time it was dark outside so we had to leave the second coat of stain for the following day. That afternoon we were finally able to begin constructing the bookcase and found that bookshelves take a long time to complete! Again we had onlookers and trying to drive those nails into our low-quality boards with an audience was quite difficult. This is largely due to the fact that the onlookers were all males and they had spent the past 2 days making bets with one another whether or not 2 American girls could actually accomplish such a huge task as to build a 4.5 foot bookshelf.
St. Kitts Adventure
I arrived in St. Kitts just days after arriving back in my site after some time in the hospital. So, the vacation time came upon on me quite quickly, leaving me not super prepared for it all. Luckily, my friend Caroline had my back and had planned a marvelous week and a half full of activities for us to share.
It started with her and her friend Angel picking me up at the airport. I had woken up incredibly early to get my flight from Santo Domingo to San Juan. (Flying over Puerto Rico was incredible.) I then flew from San Juan to Basseterre. I was very glad to be greeted at the airport by both of them. Angel graciously drove us to the ATM, grocery store, and then to Caroline’s house. It was incredible! (I would undoubtedly spend much of the first few days with Caroline comparing everything to the DR, sometimes to the point that I must have been getting on Caroline’s nerves. I had to do this not only because this was my first time visiting a PCV in another country, but also because this was my first time visiting, for such a length of time, another Caribbean country.) Her “apartment” is lovely and very comfortable; it feels like it could be easily found in the US. We took our first day slowly, which I was more than happy to do, considering the lack of sleep I’d had the night before.
Thursday was a great day for getting a feel for her communities. She used to live in one and then moved to another and continues to work extensively in both. In the morning we went for a walk around the other community and to the school-library where she holds reading hours with school children. (The kids are encouraged to come to school after the school year officially ends to get them off the streets.) I could tell that a lot of the kids really look forward to Caroline opening the library and letting them show her how well they can read. I was all-too-happy to let a couple of kids show me how well they can read. It was really cool to show them little tricks about reading and watch them reuse those tricks later in the stories. (I know it seems like I should have encountered this dozens of times already in the DR with the slew of books in my house. Problem is, the kids in my town who can’t read yet either don’t come to read or don’t want to read and would just rather look at the pictures (which I encourage). Also, I don’t know that I’d be so great with Spanish phonics considering I learned to read in English…) The library was incredible. It struck me that the donations of English books must just be so much more abundant than of Spanish. And while I am thrilled for Caroline and the success of her projects as a result of this, I can’t help but feel a little jealous. (I also can’t help but thank my lucky stars that the population in my community speaks Spanish and not some language that would be even more difficult to solicit book donations.) Later that day we went to the community library in the community where she currently lives. There we organized books. This library, like the other, had a large selection (I’d estimate at least 10,000 books), all which had been donated, many it seemed came from Britain (which such memorable titles as “Football Greats,” “Exploring Britain,” and “Victorian Times.”) Caroline and her community have reached the luxurious point of having too many duplicates and donations in less-than-ideal states that she and I worked to weed some books out of the stock. Lucky for me, there were a number of books in French and Spanish that Caroline believed would be wasted sitting on her library shelves that she was happy to release to me!
Friday was another day for the catalog of adventures that only a PCV could experience. We went to Basseterre (on the other side of the island from where Caroline lives) and met up with 2 of her friends to go south, onto the peninsula. Our first stop, I was thrilled to hear, would be to a shallow, relatively calm stretch of swimming area (once you past the super-slippery rocks) to snorkel around a ship wreck! It was my first chance seeing a ship wreck on a snorkel adventure. (I’ve been snorkeling in Cozumel, Maui, Cayo Arena 3 times (near my site) and now to this incredible ship wreck. I was SO glad to have the waterproof camera from my parents, to photograph the whole experience. (You are definitely going to want to check out those photos.) After snorkeling we moved southward to a beach where a Rasta guy named Leon keeps an incredible beach bar. While sitting and looking out towards the ocean we saw what we thought were two sting rays either fighting or mating, because of their flying out of the ocean. After a moment, almost simultaneously, we realized that it was only 1 sting ray flying out of the ocean and that the other fin was actually that belonging to a shark! Leon got a pretty good look at the scene with his binoculars. The sting ray itself was huge, and fin of the shark was also quite large, leading me, and the other observers, to conquer that the shark must have been over 7 feet long. Eventually the sting ray stopped flying around and there was a lot less commotion. We’re pretty sure that the shark won that fight. Later we watched another huge sting ray swim almost completely on shore. There was a pretty large group of kids no the beach who started to throw rocks at the ray, so after a little while it swam away. We stopped to take some great scenery shots on the way home before passing through a sand strip of beach accurately called “the strip.” There we watched the sun set. Then we headed to a house party of another one of Caroline’s friends and ate delicious BBQ food. The next stop was a “concert” which ended up being just a political rally. At one point, a few minutes after I’d made myself comfortable stretched out on the lawn, there was rush of people from the crowd running toward our group. It took me a second to realize what was going on, and I was glad for Caroline’s guiding arm. Apparently the people started running when someone yelled, “shot!” It had obviously been a false alarm, and we later heard that the reason might have been to distract the audience from the speech of a teen member of the labour party, who was believed to be gay. (A group of pro-labour party teens had been invited on stage to give a presentation.) This led me to ask Caroline about tolerance of homosexuality on the island of 35,000 residents. (There are an additional 10,000 residents of Nevis, which brings the country population of St. Kitts and Nevis to a total of 45,000.) She told me that homosexuality is heavily discouraged under Rastafarianism, one of the religious bodies on the islands. Others practice one of many sects of Christianity with churches all over the island. Culturally, homosexuality is taboo, and Caroline gave me accounts of Kittitians laughing (out of feeling uncomfortable) about the issue. After the rush, we couldn’t really get comfortable again, mostly me. I went back to where I’d been laying down to get my flip-flops (I’d run away barefoot), and Caroline went back to get her cell phone which had been resting in her lap. So, we decided to go. It was July 3rd and right around midnight, the labour party blew off some fireworks. I wonder if they knew the significance of fireworks on what had only just become July 4th for the Americans watching from the sidewalk outside the arena.
Saturday was July 4th, and we were going to Nevis to explore and go to an expat party. We rode the ferry over to Nevis (it was a 45 min ride) with another one of Caroline’s friends. We were met by a number of her friends when we got to the ferry terminal in Nevis and we soon went to the Nevis Botanical Garden. It was beautiful, and a lovely way to spend the afternoon. After that we went to the party, which was at an old stone house, which had been beautifully refurnished. We passed a few hours there, listening to music and eating tons of delicious food. BBQ. I’ve missed it much. Eventually it got pretty late, and we all got pretty tired, and so we went to another volunteer’s house and spent the night.
Sunday July 5th we went to breakfast to a place that clearly caters to the large expat community on the island of Nevis (there are only 10,000 inhabitants of that island as it is, the bulk of which are expats.) After breakfast we checked out a few roof-covered restaurants on the beaches of Nevis but couldn’t do any swimming because of the rain. After a few hours we rode the ferry back over to St. Kitts.
Monday July 6th Caroline took me to a great store called Caribelle Batik which sells sarongs and other tropical-looking fabrics. It is located on the grounds of a relative of Thomas Jefferson (his uncle?). We also got to see the oldest tree on St. Kitts, which is over 350 years old. Then we went to Basseterre to look around and check out the PC office. It was much smaller than the one we have here in Santo Domingo, one more way I could compare PC in St. Kitts to the DR! Later that evening we went to a 6th grade graduation in her community which was quite interesting. It was certainly politically charged (Caroline lives in the hometown of the Prime Minister) and he was in attendance. The election is expected to be called in the next few months and the campaigns have begun. It was interested to get a sense for the political atmosphere of such a small country.
Tuesday July 7th we went to her reading hour with the kids at the school in her other village. The kids are very cute and once again I enjoyed listening to them read the same books that I grew up on. Later that day we took a walk with Caroline’s host sister to the coast near their home and got to play around in the sand and water. The sand up there was black, from the volcano, and the sand on the southern part of the island, the peninsula, was white. That night we attended a meeting held at the health center in the community where Caroline lives for teen mothers.
Wednesday July 8th we spent on a big circle around the island. We went to visit some shops and to see two plantation-inns, which were both lovely and probably very far out of our price-range. That evening we went to Brimstone Hill Fortress, a site I’d been looking forward to seeing since Caroline mentioned it to me in a pre-trip email. We went at dusk for a beautiful (rainbow-filled) sunset. It was picture-perfect. We met up with some volunteers later and went to get dinner and see a movie.
Thursday July 9th we woke up early to watch the sun rise over the “black rocks.” It was beautiful, despite the clouds blocking the sun for most of the sunrise. Later that day we went out to celebrate the birthday of another PCV at a touristy, though nice restaurant overlooking the port where the cruises park. Then we went to a seafood place and we all ordered pizza. Typical Americans I guess. We played with the Kittitian flag, trying to get it to stay upright for a photo, and seeing who could get it to stick to their head for the longest.
Friday July 10th was my last full day on St. Kitts. We did it right: day at the beach, nice showers and dinner at Caroline’s friend’s house and then we went out late, just like the Kittitians. We stayed out late, even later than some of the Kittitians and got one beautiful chance to dance, and I’m pretty sure I didn’t embarrass myself or anyone else either.
On Saturday July 11th we grabbed some breakfast with some PCVs and then took me to the airport, and so ended my St. Kitts adventure. All in all it was a great time, and I got to meet some wonderful people. I loved looking at the whole island, and trying some new food and listening to some new music, but most of all it was great to see Caroline.
It started with her and her friend Angel picking me up at the airport. I had woken up incredibly early to get my flight from Santo Domingo to San Juan. (Flying over Puerto Rico was incredible.) I then flew from San Juan to Basseterre. I was very glad to be greeted at the airport by both of them. Angel graciously drove us to the ATM, grocery store, and then to Caroline’s house. It was incredible! (I would undoubtedly spend much of the first few days with Caroline comparing everything to the DR, sometimes to the point that I must have been getting on Caroline’s nerves. I had to do this not only because this was my first time visiting a PCV in another country, but also because this was my first time visiting, for such a length of time, another Caribbean country.) Her “apartment” is lovely and very comfortable; it feels like it could be easily found in the US. We took our first day slowly, which I was more than happy to do, considering the lack of sleep I’d had the night before.
Thursday was a great day for getting a feel for her communities. She used to live in one and then moved to another and continues to work extensively in both. In the morning we went for a walk around the other community and to the school-library where she holds reading hours with school children. (The kids are encouraged to come to school after the school year officially ends to get them off the streets.) I could tell that a lot of the kids really look forward to Caroline opening the library and letting them show her how well they can read. I was all-too-happy to let a couple of kids show me how well they can read. It was really cool to show them little tricks about reading and watch them reuse those tricks later in the stories. (I know it seems like I should have encountered this dozens of times already in the DR with the slew of books in my house. Problem is, the kids in my town who can’t read yet either don’t come to read or don’t want to read and would just rather look at the pictures (which I encourage). Also, I don’t know that I’d be so great with Spanish phonics considering I learned to read in English…) The library was incredible. It struck me that the donations of English books must just be so much more abundant than of Spanish. And while I am thrilled for Caroline and the success of her projects as a result of this, I can’t help but feel a little jealous. (I also can’t help but thank my lucky stars that the population in my community speaks Spanish and not some language that would be even more difficult to solicit book donations.) Later that day we went to the community library in the community where she currently lives. There we organized books. This library, like the other, had a large selection (I’d estimate at least 10,000 books), all which had been donated, many it seemed came from Britain (which such memorable titles as “Football Greats,” “Exploring Britain,” and “Victorian Times.”) Caroline and her community have reached the luxurious point of having too many duplicates and donations in less-than-ideal states that she and I worked to weed some books out of the stock. Lucky for me, there were a number of books in French and Spanish that Caroline believed would be wasted sitting on her library shelves that she was happy to release to me!
Friday was another day for the catalog of adventures that only a PCV could experience. We went to Basseterre (on the other side of the island from where Caroline lives) and met up with 2 of her friends to go south, onto the peninsula. Our first stop, I was thrilled to hear, would be to a shallow, relatively calm stretch of swimming area (once you past the super-slippery rocks) to snorkel around a ship wreck! It was my first chance seeing a ship wreck on a snorkel adventure. (I’ve been snorkeling in Cozumel, Maui, Cayo Arena 3 times (near my site) and now to this incredible ship wreck. I was SO glad to have the waterproof camera from my parents, to photograph the whole experience. (You are definitely going to want to check out those photos.) After snorkeling we moved southward to a beach where a Rasta guy named Leon keeps an incredible beach bar. While sitting and looking out towards the ocean we saw what we thought were two sting rays either fighting or mating, because of their flying out of the ocean. After a moment, almost simultaneously, we realized that it was only 1 sting ray flying out of the ocean and that the other fin was actually that belonging to a shark! Leon got a pretty good look at the scene with his binoculars. The sting ray itself was huge, and fin of the shark was also quite large, leading me, and the other observers, to conquer that the shark must have been over 7 feet long. Eventually the sting ray stopped flying around and there was a lot less commotion. We’re pretty sure that the shark won that fight. Later we watched another huge sting ray swim almost completely on shore. There was a pretty large group of kids no the beach who started to throw rocks at the ray, so after a little while it swam away. We stopped to take some great scenery shots on the way home before passing through a sand strip of beach accurately called “the strip.” There we watched the sun set. Then we headed to a house party of another one of Caroline’s friends and ate delicious BBQ food. The next stop was a “concert” which ended up being just a political rally. At one point, a few minutes after I’d made myself comfortable stretched out on the lawn, there was rush of people from the crowd running toward our group. It took me a second to realize what was going on, and I was glad for Caroline’s guiding arm. Apparently the people started running when someone yelled, “shot!” It had obviously been a false alarm, and we later heard that the reason might have been to distract the audience from the speech of a teen member of the labour party, who was believed to be gay. (A group of pro-labour party teens had been invited on stage to give a presentation.) This led me to ask Caroline about tolerance of homosexuality on the island of 35,000 residents. (There are an additional 10,000 residents of Nevis, which brings the country population of St. Kitts and Nevis to a total of 45,000.) She told me that homosexuality is heavily discouraged under Rastafarianism, one of the religious bodies on the islands. Others practice one of many sects of Christianity with churches all over the island. Culturally, homosexuality is taboo, and Caroline gave me accounts of Kittitians laughing (out of feeling uncomfortable) about the issue. After the rush, we couldn’t really get comfortable again, mostly me. I went back to where I’d been laying down to get my flip-flops (I’d run away barefoot), and Caroline went back to get her cell phone which had been resting in her lap. So, we decided to go. It was July 3rd and right around midnight, the labour party blew off some fireworks. I wonder if they knew the significance of fireworks on what had only just become July 4th for the Americans watching from the sidewalk outside the arena.
Saturday was July 4th, and we were going to Nevis to explore and go to an expat party. We rode the ferry over to Nevis (it was a 45 min ride) with another one of Caroline’s friends. We were met by a number of her friends when we got to the ferry terminal in Nevis and we soon went to the Nevis Botanical Garden. It was beautiful, and a lovely way to spend the afternoon. After that we went to the party, which was at an old stone house, which had been beautifully refurnished. We passed a few hours there, listening to music and eating tons of delicious food. BBQ. I’ve missed it much. Eventually it got pretty late, and we all got pretty tired, and so we went to another volunteer’s house and spent the night.
Sunday July 5th we went to breakfast to a place that clearly caters to the large expat community on the island of Nevis (there are only 10,000 inhabitants of that island as it is, the bulk of which are expats.) After breakfast we checked out a few roof-covered restaurants on the beaches of Nevis but couldn’t do any swimming because of the rain. After a few hours we rode the ferry back over to St. Kitts.
Monday July 6th Caroline took me to a great store called Caribelle Batik which sells sarongs and other tropical-looking fabrics. It is located on the grounds of a relative of Thomas Jefferson (his uncle?). We also got to see the oldest tree on St. Kitts, which is over 350 years old. Then we went to Basseterre to look around and check out the PC office. It was much smaller than the one we have here in Santo Domingo, one more way I could compare PC in St. Kitts to the DR! Later that evening we went to a 6th grade graduation in her community which was quite interesting. It was certainly politically charged (Caroline lives in the hometown of the Prime Minister) and he was in attendance. The election is expected to be called in the next few months and the campaigns have begun. It was interested to get a sense for the political atmosphere of such a small country.
Tuesday July 7th we went to her reading hour with the kids at the school in her other village. The kids are very cute and once again I enjoyed listening to them read the same books that I grew up on. Later that day we took a walk with Caroline’s host sister to the coast near their home and got to play around in the sand and water. The sand up there was black, from the volcano, and the sand on the southern part of the island, the peninsula, was white. That night we attended a meeting held at the health center in the community where Caroline lives for teen mothers.
Wednesday July 8th we spent on a big circle around the island. We went to visit some shops and to see two plantation-inns, which were both lovely and probably very far out of our price-range. That evening we went to Brimstone Hill Fortress, a site I’d been looking forward to seeing since Caroline mentioned it to me in a pre-trip email. We went at dusk for a beautiful (rainbow-filled) sunset. It was picture-perfect. We met up with some volunteers later and went to get dinner and see a movie.
Thursday July 9th we woke up early to watch the sun rise over the “black rocks.” It was beautiful, despite the clouds blocking the sun for most of the sunrise. Later that day we went out to celebrate the birthday of another PCV at a touristy, though nice restaurant overlooking the port where the cruises park. Then we went to a seafood place and we all ordered pizza. Typical Americans I guess. We played with the Kittitian flag, trying to get it to stay upright for a photo, and seeing who could get it to stick to their head for the longest.
Friday July 10th was my last full day on St. Kitts. We did it right: day at the beach, nice showers and dinner at Caroline’s friend’s house and then we went out late, just like the Kittitians. We stayed out late, even later than some of the Kittitians and got one beautiful chance to dance, and I’m pretty sure I didn’t embarrass myself or anyone else either.
On Saturday July 11th we grabbed some breakfast with some PCVs and then took me to the airport, and so ended my St. Kitts adventure. All in all it was a great time, and I got to meet some wonderful people. I loved looking at the whole island, and trying some new food and listening to some new music, but most of all it was great to see Caroline.
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