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.

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."

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. :)

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.

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.

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.

Sick and Tired

A few weeks ago I came down with a fever.  I wasn’t too worried; I get fevers here all the time.  The fever continued, the worst was at night when I had to try to sleep under the tap-dancing pigeons and tail-thumping rats.  They have lately had quite a lot of talent at keeping me up at night.  One night I was so chilled that I decided I should check my temperature.  As I shook the thermometer (we use the old-fashioned mercury kind down here) I crashed it into my cell phone which I was using for light.  The thing shattered broken glass and bits of mercury all over my face.  That was a pretty low moment for the past few years.  I was too sick to change the sheets, especially in the dark, so I rolled over to the other side of the bed and prayed that that stuff about mercury poisoning was all just hype. 

On a Sunday morning I woke up feeling very faint.  I knew I was going to pass out so I had to decide if I’d rather sit or lay down and pass out, still alone and still without anything to help me to feel better, or if I’d rather try to get myself some sugar or something.  I decided to try.  I ate a bite of leftover pasta and realized I couldn’t eat another one. Then I shoved some peanut butter in my mouth and, while drinking water, decided to try to get to the shower, and even sit in it if I had to, to try to cool off.  On my way to the shower I passed out and fell.  When I came to I heard the men outside my house screaming as usual and realized I was lying in the water from my bottle.  It was their screaming and that water that sort of pulled me out of the fainting.  Before I was fully conscious I ran my tongue over my teeth and thought that something felt a little off.  I wondered, briefly, if I’d broken my teeth in the fall, but decided that I hadn’t-my mouth was still full of peanut butter anyways, so what could I really tell.  When I became fully conscious I realized that I had, in fact, broken 3 teeth.  I looked at Lina as I slowly stood up.  She didn’t seem too worried.  Then I looked at myself briefly in the mirror.  It was not a pretty site.  I got immediately in the shower.

I called to my neighbor, who wasn’t home, then called the PC doctor who told me to come down to the capital as soon as possible and go directly to the hotel they have us stay in when we’re sick.  I called another neighbor, who came slowly down the street, to help me.  She helped me to get a ride with a neighbor all the way to Santiago, and even came with.  Before that I had to pack and try to get the house into some sort of shape for my departure.  I filled the cat’s food bowl to the top, as well as the water bowl, and sent Lina off to the house of the woman who watches her.  I had many visitors in those moments, even people who had never been inside my house before.  They all came over to look at my teeth and feel the bump on my head.  (I later figured out that I must have hit my water bottle into the sink, causing the sink to turn over, and then fallen back to hit my head on the bathroom wall.  I didn’t cut my lips or my tongue which is how I figured that I’d fallen with the water bottle in my mouth.) 

I rode to Santiago in a leather-interior jeep, with air conditioning, which was exactly what I needed.  I’d put my foot down about getting a ride just to Isabela (which would have mean that I needed to get myself on 2 buses alone) or about taking a motorcycle anywhere.  I’m so glad I did.  My neighbor and the man who drove me to Santiago got me on the bus to the capital, from where I took a taxi to the hotel.  I was glad to see some other PCVs in the hotel who were all very supportive, and all of them avoided the temptation to laugh at my yokel mouth. 

The next morning I went to the PC doctor who sent me to get blood work done and then to go to the dentist.  When they drew the blood at the lab I got very light-headed again, put this time I didn’t pass out because, as you might imagine, labs are well-equipped to deal with light-headedness.  They put me on a bed with my legs up above my head and I laid there for a while, the lab tech coming in every once in a while to ask if I was ready to move.  I wasn’t.  She finally asked if I should go to the ER, which seemed a little dramatic to me, so I told her to call the PC doctor.  She came back to tell me that the PC doctor said someone would come from PC to pick me up soon.  Then she came back to say that actually, I’d be going to the ER.  I told myself that if I could get up in that moment, I could probably avoid going to the ER, which did seem a little excessive.  But, I really couldn’t do it.  So, I let them put me in a wheel chair and wheel me down the street to the hospital.  It was hot and people on the street stared at me, but I tried not to think about it. 

When I got there I met what seemed to be hundreds of doctors, none of whom introduced themselves to me, although I was later expected to know whom they all were.  I was so out of it and everyone asked me the same questions, but I tried to answer them all.  A nurse came in and put in an IV needle which, and you must believe me when I tell you that I don’t ordinarily complain about such things this way, was the most uncomfortable, painful feeling.  It felt like she was cutting my hand with a knife, and it didn’t feel much better when the IV entered my arm.  This continued over the next few days that I stayed in the hospital.  Every time the IV ran out, blood would drip into the needle and when they reattached a new IV the blood would reenter, quite painfully, with air bubbles which were also quite unpleasant.  The antibiotics going in weren’t a treat either. 

They finally got me up to a room, but along the way I was put through a few exams, again, no one ever telling me what was going on.  When I got to the room, a very nice doctor explained to me that I’d have to wash my hair because they were going to do an exam of my brain the next day and I needed to have very clean hair.  When I realized that there was no hot water in my room, I asked the nurse if she could get someone to fix it.  She first told me I was doing it wrong.  Then she admitted that it needed to be fixed.  When she found out it would be a while before someone could come to fix it, she suggested that I take a cold shower because of my high fever.  I told her I was cold so I couldn’t take a cold shower, and she told me that was ridiculous.  I’d been working with the faucets for a while and was beginning to notice the lack of IV fluid entering my body so I simply told her I would not be taking a cold shower.  (I was incredibly proud of myself for standing up to her like that.)  Unfortunately this was only the beginning of the incompetence that I would get to see at the hospital among the nursing staff.  I have about 10 other stories, but I bet you’ve heard of similar stories and can imagine pretty well what could have gone wrong: everything.

After my brain exam, and a few nights of getting no sleep, I was finally able to fall asleep.  I looked like crap, and I was sweating profusely.  I was woken up at some point in the afternoon to the PC doctor and my mom walking into the room!  She’d come down as a complete surprise to me, and I was just thrilled to see her, but first I was completely out of it and almost thought I was dreaming.  I can’t imagine what she thought when she looked at me in that state… So we spent the next few days in the hospital talking a ton.  She would always encourage me to eat my soft foods, and I would try to explain how not-hungry I was.  She was an advocate for me to the doctors and nurses, while I interpreted, and she went to get me chocolate and other treats which also helped immensely.  I told someone just the other day, when you’re sick, there’s no one you’d rather see than your mom. 

They took the IV out on a Friday and I was so happy I almost cried.  It had been some of the worst pain I’d ever felt, including all of my aches and pains when I climbed Pico Duarte a few months ago and anything else I can think of, honestly ( besides one ear infection I had in high school which was very bad). 

On Saturday I got cleared to leave the hospital, although they never did diagnose me with anything.  My mom and I went to the hotel and stayed there until Wednesday.  On that Monday I went with her to the dentist and got my teeth fixed, and according to people who have seen them, they look completely natural, although I can obviously tell a difference.  On Tuesday I got some blood work done, a throat culture (my throat had been/still is) covered with white plaque which never responded to antibiotics, and I got my ears cleaned out.   I was starting to feel much better, and now I completely do.  So as I said, Wednesday we came up to my site, with diet coke and snacks in our bags.  We got here quite tired, but came back to a home full of over a weeks’ worth of dust.  I did my best to clean it up for my visitor, who I bet didn’t even care that it was messy.  I had many visitors from my town, coming over to see if I was better and to check out my new teeth.  I wasn’t completely better, but eventually the throat pain went away.  I spent then, 2 full days with my mom in my site, dealing with the heat (we were without power, and so were without a fan) for those 2 days, but she was a great sport.  She got a chance to see my site a bit and everyone remarked at how young she is.  They still are asking me if she’s my sister.  No one, despite the fact that they all have their children quite young, can believe that she is old enough to have a daughter my age.  Maybe it’s also that I look so old. 

I took her to Santiago to get a flight back to the US on Saturday.  I’ll see her again soon, with my 2 younger siblings and my dad in a few weeks, after a trip to visit another PCV in St. Kitts this week.  It’s going to be a very busy summer!  

We Hate It When Our Friends...

When I first got to my site, one of the most depressing things for me to observe was the family across the street from my host family’s house. It consists of 3 little girls (I refer to them as the muchachas) and their mother (who is just a few years older than me) and their father (who drinks all the time and is in his 60s.) She screamed all day long at them, he was never around, and when I did see him at home he had a bottle of rum with him, and the girls treated one another pretty recklessly, even going so far as to earn the littlest of the bunch the nickname of “the football” since she was treated as such. (The incident that cemented in my mind that name for her was one day when they came to play at my host mom’s house. The older 2 sisters had the baby loosely on a chair near the kitchen table. All of the sudden they were no longer near her and though her chin was resting on the table, her body wasn’t being supported by anything and was slipping. She banged her chin down hard on the table and crumpled underneath it. Of course, she was very shook up and cried, which was very unlike her because usually, like most footballs, she didn’t cry when treated roughly.)

But perhaps the most disturbing thing to witness about the family was when the father sent his daughters (of just 5 and 7 years) to the store to buy him some things. Those things: a bottle of rum and a few cigarettes sold individually (commonly referred to in the US as “loosies.”)

Tonight I witnessed an errand even more despicable. At the fried food stand where I spend most of my evenings, a little boy came up with something in his hand. I couldn’t see what it was but he stared intently at the fire going. He reached into the pit with what I guessed was either a cigarette or a cigar, no doubt having been sent to light it for his parent. I was right; when he withdrew his hand from the pit I saw that he held a now lit cigar. But there was something wrong, the flame hadn’t caught. So back he went with the cigar in his hand to attempt to light it again. Again, it wouldn’t take. Finally he withdrew a lit log from the flame and held it up to the cigar which he had placed in his mouth. By inhaling on the cigar while lighting it on the log he was able to get the cigar lit, and this was clearly not the first time he had performed this act. He replaced the log and as he was leaving I asked him how old he was. Six.

May Showers

I have never been afraid in my home. Not once. I say this not to impress you, but merely as a matter of fact. I have never been afraid, although there have been many instances to be afraid, because of this recently-acquired ability not too feel too many real emotions. (It’s called a coping strategy and I do understand that it’s not healthy.)

That was true up until last night. You see, we’ve been having some rains lately. I guess that’s putting it mildly. It has been raining, without fail, at least once, every day for almost 2 weeks. And last night it wasn’t just rain to contend with, it was wild winds, loud thunder, and shiny lightning. (Yes, shiny.) I guess I should start at the beginning…

I was on the phone with a fellow PCV who was telling me about his water project. I commented on the strength of the winds and rain that had just picked up and he concurred that it sounded strong from his end. It continued and as it did, the lightning and thunder began. A bolt came down very near to me and I screamed. I apologized to my friend for having screamed into the phone, and considered hanging up with him but decided the distraction of talking to him might make this storm seem less dramatic. We continued to talk and then all of the sudden what seemed to be about 100 bolts came crashing down all around me. I screamed, took a minute to regroup and then there fell another one, so I screamed again. When I was finally able to put myself together enough to realize that I was screaming into my friend’s ear I got so embarrassed that I couldn’t stop laughing. So it went on like that for a while: screaming, laughing, and of course there was the plugging of the ears and keeling over on the floor because apparently things are less scary from the floor.

He continued to talk and I periodically interrupted his story with a good scream from another bolt. We decided that I was safe in my house, even if my roof was made entirely of metal (which formed a new leak from the rain, dripping into my “closet” which is the cardboard box from my refrigerator). I decided to move to a place where I couldn’t see the lightning as well: my bedroom. The doors in my house all began to crash closed and open from the air coming into the house and I realized that the cat had gotten out of her room. (She and my dog can’t be in the same room because they hate one another, so I’ve been keeping them separated.) So I went chasing after the cat, hoping to catch her before she found my dog, while the lightning and thunder continued. I got her, put her back, and then she was out again from the door having opened back up. She ran under my bed, which I had found out was where the dog was hiding, but neither animal attacked the other. Perhaps they were too petrified. (Certainly their owner would have been giving them reason to be alarmed if the lightning hadn’t had an effect.)

I decided to lock the dog in, and me and the cat out. In so doing I positioned myself to see what was going on outside again and got to see my power lines fall down as a piece of tin roof came rolling down the street. The sky went yellow from the storm (something I learned in Chicago is a sure sign that the storm is worse than originally thought.) The wind made the rain come in at an angle and before long there was rain coming into my porch and underneath my front door. On the porch I watched as 12 bags of cement got effectively ruined from the rain and as the ceramic, tin and steel beams got a nice bath. The rain also collected in a pool in front of my front door until later in the night when a neighbor was nice enough to dig a trench to lead the water away.

Eventually the sky turned from eerie yellow to mellow pink, and then it got dark. The lightning continued for a while but it wasn’t so bad that I stayed inside. I went to take some videos of the rain waters rushing down our street and forming a river in the unpaved road. It’s manageable, however, because it’s not the first time that has happened here, and it certainly won’t be the last.

How Many Times Can A Person Almost Die?

Seven? Because that’s how many times I almost died this past week.

It began Monday morning. My friend and I were traveling out of civilization (ie: where there are paved roads and cell phone signal) and in order to do this we had to cram our bodies onto the back of an over-stuffed pick-up truck. The man told us there was no more room for 2 other people (let alone room for our 2 friends who would be joining us in a town along the highway later on) and he had a point. When we got on the truck had tons of food in the form of rice sacks and giant oil cans, as well as us and all of our bags. We told the driver to go slow because we didn’t want to die. He agreed but made little effort to live up to his promise once we were on our way. Every time it got bad I yelled at my friend to grab me (I was positioned between her legs) and I reached for some stranger (who I then deemed as my boyfriend). He told me not to worry, just to grab on as much as I needed. I wondered why he wouldn’t make my job easier by moving his arm so I could hold it instead of his pant leg. Then my friend made me reconsider what it was I was even wondering. Of course the creepy Dominican man would want me to grab on to his pant leg every time I got scared.

Along the way we had two episodes which could have been much worse: my backpack (filled, luckily with fluffy items and not with my two, expensive cameras) and a shopping bag belonging to my friend (filled with granola bars and toilet paper) fell off the truck and rolled away from us down the hill. Both times we stopped and the driver sent a young man to get our stuff back. I didn’t realize it right away, but both bags took the drop and roll quite difficultly; unsurprisingly the shopping bag ripped (thank goodness for double-bagging) and my backpack got a tear in it and my water bottle, which was safely attached to the backpack with a cheap karabiner, got a few scrapes. But it could have been much worse. Thinking about the sound my backpack made as it rolled away still sort of makes me laugh. Haha.

We picked up our friends who miraculously were able to mount the truck in some fashion, and even managed to position themselves better than we’d been positioned. Figures.

We made it to the base of Pico Duarte, the point from which we would begin our ascent of the largest mountain in the Caribbean. It was cold, but I knew the worse was to come.

Tuesday morning we awoke to the same sound we’d fallen asleep: river. We ate quickly at our guides’ house and then packed the mules and began our hike. The first hour and a half went quite well. We made this part of the trek in record-breaking time. Little did we know how inaccurate the signs were in terms of their predictions about how long the trails would take, and little did we know how much harder it would get. I’d stretched before we began but I soon found out it hadn’t been enough, or maybe it’d just been the wrong parts. After just a few hours my groin muscle started screaming at me to stop so I decided there was no harm in getting up on the horse. It’d been a while since I’d ridden a horse but I found out when I mounted him without a single problem that I still had it. His name was Sebastian and he was a jerk. He couldn’t handle the downhill parts for the life of him, so after just 15 minutes I got down. I got back up on him for about an half-hour later in the day. But the last stop I was dead tired, both my lungs and my groin muscle were begging me to slow down and take some advil (which I realized I’d left at home). Luckily my friend gave me some of hers and I hit a second wind like no one has ever seen. Two of us were incredibly in shape and another friend and I were not so much. But with this second wind I was able to keep up with the faster two. It didn’t hurt that we passed the time playing movie games, during which I kicked everyone’s ass.

We got to our first cabin after an eleven and a half hour hike. We were so exhausted and I honestly thought that our guide was trying to pull our legs when he told us at dinner (our only real meal that day) that we’d be getting back on the trail at 3:30 the next morning.

Unfortunately for me, he was not joking and we had to do that very thing. Well let me just tell you know I HATED hiking in the dark. Everyone else had remembered to bring their headlamps but I had of course left my in good use at home. The idea was that we’d hike up to the top (the last 4 kilometers of ascent) before dawn to be able to watch the sunrise from the top. Me and my slower friend were never going to make it by dawn, even when she decided to get on a mule. But, it was pretty cool to watch the sun rise as we climbed. (I also did enjoy the pre-dawn hike a few times when I turned off my flashlight to look at the stars and listen to the absolute stillness. But it was freezing to stop, and so sweaty when I went, so it made more sense just to keep going.) Even though it was just 4 kilometers up on that second day, I honestly considered repeatedly not going up. I was SO sore and my lungs just hated the atmosphere up there and the fact that I’d been so busy with stoves before this trip that I did absolutely no preparation of myself for the trip.

When I made it up, I almost cried. Our other two friends were already up there and had been for some time. They were frozen to the bone, but waited for us to take some photos and enjoy the view for a little while. We’d hiked all of this with the dog of our guides’ and he amazingly came all the way up as well.

The trip down was almost worse than the trip up. This time instead of my groin muscle and lungs hating me, it was my feet, ankles and knees hating me. Oh and my fingers swelled up to at least twice their normal size. I went so slow, while my other slow party member was off on the mule. The worst part was when I could finally see our camp again. Once I realized we’d made it I slowed way down. When I got there I discovered another problem: blisters. I couldn’t move for a while, even to get the breakfast/dinner we ate more than anything on the trip: hot chocolate with oatmeal.

We leveled with the guides: it would not be possible to hike any more that day after the longest day of our lives and just 4 hours of sleep. They were hesitant but finally agreed (at which point I again almost cried): we’d set out again the next morning. So we all took naps. That night we hung out around the fire making marshmallows and pigging out.

Thursday we woke up at dawn to begin our third day of hiking. We’d been warned that this trail would be dangerous if it rained, and guess what, it rained. We had to hike up and out of a valley to hike back down into another one. My slower friend and I rode the mules all the way up and just before getting to the top, my friend got thrown off of hers. We were all so scared for her, but luckily she wasn’t hurt too bad. After that, and considering the temperature and the rain I thought everyone was insane to want to keep going away from our base. The guide had said we could get stuck down in this new valley if it continued to rain because the mules wouldn’t be able to make the hike. Still, it was supposed to be beautiful down there and I wasn’t about to lose my group so when I was outnumbered, even by my friend who’d gotten thrown from her mule, I went along. Again it was a slow day, but luckily it was mostly down hill; that is, luckily for my groin and lungs. It was rather unfortunate for my feet, ankles and knees and just disgusting for my blisters. (One even began to discharge green puss!) But we made it, and it was beautiful.

When we got there we went straight to a waterfall in a river to bathe our gross bodies. I managed to get the least submerged in the frigid water, but I was able to wash my hair, which was my biggest concern. It started to rain so we went back to camp and ate and ate and ate. I read my friend’s New Yorker (I’d forgotten what culture was like) and then slept like a baby.

Friday morning was another early one. Once again my friend and I would be mule-bound. She would again get on Moreno, the mule who threw her the day before and I would again be on Morena, the wonder-mule who could carry me, my bag, my friend’s bag and a few gallons of water. I was not using a saddle or stirrups, but had once again decided that it would be easier just to go with it and try not to picture my own death. Sitting up there was a little precarious, what with my legs just sort of dangling by the mule’s face, but we made a good pair. I know this because I never did fall off. And neither did my other friend. One of the guides never left her side and when I realized that he’d run straight into a giant mud puddle on the trail with one arm on the mule and one hand reaching for her back, it dawned on me that his entire responsibility for that day was to make sure she didn’t fall off of her mule again. It worked. We both came close, far too many times, but we didn’t fall once! Success! We did have to get down a few times where the trail was just too bad, and so we did get quite muddy. We left the mules for the last 2/3 of the trip as well. It was mostly downhill at that point (even though my main concern on the last day was simply the blisters from hell) so we were able to move faster. We continued to play movie games with the other two and before too long (much later after our guides predicted, but exactly when I’d predicted) we got back to base and were all still alive!

We showered, some drank the beer they thought they’d earned and I drank the coke I knew I’d earned. We sat around shooting the shit with our guides and their family and were entertained for a while by a neighbor who was quite drunk. He started his interaction by calling me “Hey blondie!” (Why is it, I wondered, that I am getting so much attention on this trip when I’ve never looked or felt worse!) He kept calling to me, even though I ignored him, and finally came over, offering to sell me his cabbage for just 2 pesos. I took a photo which only egged him on more. He stuck his whiskey bottle to his two teeth and begged me to keep taking his photo. He finally left us, greeting each flower as “hello mother, how is your daughter? And you daughter, how is your father?” as he walked away.

The next morning we rode the very truck we came in on out to the city, and back into civilization. Again it was driven far too fast, but again we didn’t die, although we did get a little car sick. I got back to my site on Sunday, after spending one night in Santiago. I am nearly completely physically recovered at this point. The only things left are the blisters which were a couple of layers deep so I don’t expect them to go away right away. I’ll let you know when they do though.

Today in Animals

When my friend was at my site learning how to make stoves I decided, with her help, that my rat problem had gotten out of hand and that something needed to be done immediately. So, we decided I would borrow my neighbor’s cat until November. She’s really cute and she’s NOT coming home with me! I named her months ago, Luna (moon, because she’s totally white), which I had completely forgotten, and I’m obviously smart enough to not call her Luna in a house where there live a Lina and an Eliza. So I’m calling her what I think is the only name that really fits a cat you’re unwilling to keep: Kitty. (But it’s also a really cute name.)

She and Lina do not get along and I know they never will. My friend and I tried a few things to get them to get along and they all failed. When she left I felt a bit like I wasn’t going to be able to handle the two animals on my own, but what I’ve been doing is leaving the cat in the house all day while I have Lina at stove construction, and then tying Lina up when I get home, tucking Kitty in one room, and then letting Lina have full range of the house. With stove construction, Lina and I spend very little time at home, so it works out pretty well anyways. Once Kitty is used to the house I’ll let her in and out of the back room so that she’ll still be able to come in to eat and hunt (which she will hopefully begin to do soon) but not get in Lina’s space. Lina can be a bit territorial.

But, if you can believe it, there is more news in the world of animals. At stove construction the other day I saw something quite frightening: my one neighbor’s dog came to the house where we were working and attacked one of the small dogs at the house. He really had the little guy in his jaws and he ended up only letting go when the mason smacked him in the side with a shovel. It was really scary to watch. When the dog got free he was obviously quite scared. At first I didn’t realize how badly he was hurt. He was bleeding a lot and went to hide behind the refrigerator. The mean dog’s owner ended up having to laso a rope around the little dog’s neck, right where it had been bitten to get it out of the corner. When he finally did the dog was such a mess. I did not take a step back because this felt like an emergency where I might actually be able to be of help maybe because I felt like I actually knew what needed to do, or maybe because I knew I’d take it more seriously than the Dominicans, or maybe a little of both. I got the hose and washed the dog’s neck thoroughly. The bleeding stopped and I got a look at the two areas where he’d been wounded, which were luckily not too deep and not too big. I told the owner to speak to him softly to calm him down and to make sure to wash the area with soap or alcohol (and not lemon and salt like the mean dog’s owner had said) and she mentioned she was going to get an antibiotic to give him as well. He made it through the night, which I took as a really good sign.
I was so grateful that Lina was not with me! I hadn’t been able to go to get her the night before because I’d gone straight from the bola race to a talent show in another town with my kids. Lina had been at every other day of stove construction and has been at the days since as well. She would have been tied up, so I can’t assume that the dog would have attacked her, but I’m just glad she got to avoid the whole thing.

Today at stove construction we got to see a good mixing of the animal kingdom. At one time in the house (where 13 people live, the most occupied house in the town) we had puppies from 2 litters (6), adult dogs (5), piggies (2), pigeons (2-3), hens (4), and chicks (10) all in the same 6 square foot area. I’m used to there being lots of hens and dogs, but the pigs were a new one, even for me, and I think Lina got a little scared. She’s not been enjoying the sounds that the metal used in the construction make, and with so many tiny animals around on top of that, I think she got a little stressed. She took it out on one of the animals but we got her to stop…still, it scared me and I’m nervous she’s nothing but a big bitch now. Oh and don’t ever think that she’ll share her food with you, because she won’t, and she’s all too happy to make you incredibly aware of that fact.

Bolas and Dead Things

Some of you might remember that last year I participated in a “Bola Race.” It’s a hitch-hiking race sort of like the Amazing Race in which male and female pairs form and this year we raced from Santiago to Rio San Juan on the north coast. It was an incredible time, just like last year. Our group theme this year (as me and my partner decided to go in a larger group until he ditched us/me at the last leg) was Ninjas and it wasn’t just very creative, but it was also a lot of fun. We didn’t have to explain to too many people that we were ninjas, and amazingly some people were able to identify that in an effort to be ridiculous (which is almost always a common goal among volunteers) we’d incorrectly depicted the flags of Japan and South Korea on our headbands! (Who knew Dominicans could be so culturally aware, and about Asia nonetheless!) The idea with the theme is just another chance to be, as aforementioned, ridiculous, as well as to have a reason to be needed the free lifts (in our case it was because we were ninjas and people should feel it necessary to help ninjas) and to avoid mentioning that we are with Peace Corps. Most of the time, although as aforementioned we like to be ridiculous, we don’t like to give Peace Corps a bad name.

It turned out to be quite an adventure as I’m sure you could imagine. We were doing pretty well, and might have even been among the first to arrive, but we weren’t in it to win, and we were with the planners of the event, so it would have been wrong for us to win anyways. The hotel was lovely; it overlooked the ocean with a small beach right next to it. The cold water was a nice relief from the heat of riding in the backs of trucks all afternoon but we were hungry and in need of waves, so after some food we went to Playa Grande which is said by some (who haven’t been to my beach) to be the best beach in the country. I will agree it is beautiful, the sand was soft, and the waves were quite enjoyable, but I still think my beach is better (and I’m not big on the waves.) I managed, even though I was outdoors for a good 10 hours, to avoid getting sunburned nearly everywhere. My knees were bright red at the end of the day, but thanks to a strict regimen of aloe vera gel, I was able to avoid pealing. (I’m telling those of you who burn-invest in it!)

The next day I went home, and had to pay for those rides. When I got back there was a large, black, gross, dead bug waiting for me at my front door. It dawned on me after I took a photo of it next to a ruler that this is the second time I’ve come home and found something dead at my front door. The first time I just thought it flew into the door and died, but now I’m wondering if someone is trying to tell me something…

Wholy Holy

On Holy Thursday, in preparation for Good Friday, a PCV friend of mine was going to go with some friends of hers from her town to get fish at the beach town near mine. She stopped through my town on the way to get me and her neighbors ended up knowing quite a few of my neighbors and we stopped by to say hi to quite a few people from my world. It’s always interesting and even a little bit weird for people from my life in my town to meet people from my PC life, but this topped all of that because it was Dominicans from another PCVs town who knew people in my town even before we each got to our towns. So we sat and talked a bit in English as they sat and talked in Spanish.

The fish at the beach was incredibly delicious! My favorite meal here, without a doubt is fried fish with fried sweet potatoes (but not the ones we have in the US) with a cold beer or a cold coke, depending on what time it is/sort of mood you’re in. My friend and I sat and visited with her neighbors and their friends at the beach as well as with two volunteers who live at the beach. Because it was Holy Week it was incredibly noisy with all of the traffic coming through to go to the beach.

I went back to visit with those two neighbors again the following afternoon and spent the night. I went to see the one volunteer’s library the following morning which was great because I’d been so focused on stoves for so long and realized, with her help, that I’m going to need to devote a lot of time to the library as well. I bought some materials to get more organized after my meeting with her and have been sporadically organizing the books to get them library-ready. Kids have been by to help and to read, and they mostly like books that have lots of pictures of different things like Spanish-English vocabularly books, books about the human body, and atlases. It has been really interesting to see which books they enjoy and which they leave on the shelves.
I successfully avoided eating the big Holy Week treat which is called “habicuelas con dulce,” which roughly translates to beans with sugar or sugar beans. Believe me; they are in no way jelly beans! It’s a dish a lot like a pudding, which is typically served cold consisting of beans, sweet water that cooked the beans, and little, round, soaked sweet crackers. I had it last year and a few times before and since then and decided to avoid it at all costs in the future. Anything “con dulce” is likely to be something that I don’t enjoy.

On Saturday we executed a talent show to raise money for the library. The idea was inspired in large part by a talent show which took place at the Escojo regional conference the weekend prior, which of all of the PC conference talent shows was definitely the best. It was so good that I even decided to participate in ours and formed a dance to the song “Nuna Nuna.” Me and 3 kids performed and won 3rd place (out of about 6 acts) which made me realize, you’ve got to give a prize to the PC volunteer who organized the event! Still, it was exciting. The 2 acts that placed better than mine were also dances, one consisting of one guy and 6 or 8 girls dancing appropriately, and one of 3 girls dancing quite inappropriately, even though they are all very self-respecting girls. During the time I was setting up for it (which you can probably imagine was a bit stressful) I was being introduced to a child from New York who is here visiting his dad’s family. He is eight and he lives in Brooklyn and his dad brought him over to the house to present him to me. (Dominican parents tend to be incredibly proud of their bilingual children, and rightfully so, especially at eight years!) The boy could not be cuter and talking with him about life and the talent show in particular was really fun. I forgot how many questions little American kids ask and he was full of them that night. Even though I was busy I was happy to answer them (which made me wonder yet again why I shouldn’t be an elementary teacher, and why I shouldn’t move to Nueva Yol to work with Dominican populations). He decided to perform a few jokes which he practiced with me: are you smart or are you a slave? (Then you say you’re smart.) Count to three. (And then when you do it proves you’re a slave.) I was a little bit distracted when it was his turn to go on and it took me a second to realize he was just standing there. He turned around to find me and asked me to come out on the stage. He told me he’d forgotten what it was he was supposed to say, so I reminded him, and then he told me he forgot the Spanish words, so I reminded him. The audience wasn’t perhaps as forgiving as an American audience might be so they needed a little encouragement to laugh and clap, but I think he still felt pretty good at the end. It was an interesting night to say the least.

And I haven’t even mentioned the most interesting part about it: it was also a coming-out party! I had believed an adult neighbor of mine to be homosexual just based on the fact that he was single in his 30s (which really only happens here when the guy is mentally ill or gay) and that his job was as a housekeeper, which seems like it would be the last thing a Dominican man would do. I asked him early on about his being single and his response further confirmed my belief. He’d been missing for a while, off in the “town,” and the city. He came back for Holy Week and on the night of our talent show he put on quite a performance. In some down time we had before we were able to get the music system to work, people got restless. All of the sudden he had taken the stage in nothing but a pair of shorts. He started thrusting his body around very sexually, making everyone laugh hysterically. I was glad for the distraction from the fact that we weren’t ready on time. Later on in the show, during another period of downtime he came back. This time he had on a pair of silky, purple (and even though I hate using this word, it’s really the only word to describe what they were) panties, a see-through silky robe, a long wig, and a pair of platform heels. The who ensemble, I figured, probably wasn’t procured from his mom’s closet, but even if I could convince myself that it was, there was no way his shoes came from anyone else. They fit him perfectly and he knew how to move in them. My understanding of the lives of homosexual males in this country is that they sometimes (or always) dress in drag and don’t tend to stay in the campo. I took his performance to mean that he lives a separate life outside of our town and that this was his coming out party.

Easter Sunday was a little bit sad. I bought some eggs to hard boil and a coke to spoil myself with. Later my friend came to be ready to learn how to make a stove Monday morning. The stove making went well and that afternoon we went to the beach with a number of kids who ditched school that afternoon. The beach was so much cleaner than I’d thought it would be which was such a delightful surprise. We played in the sand and took pictures with Lina and, once again, ate some fish.