Soy una Voluntaria

We swore in yesterday afternoon and now are official Peace Corps Volunteers!!!  The ceremony went well with reciting the official oath of office and everything.  58 of us swore in - we lost one this past week to early termination.  There's not really too much to say.

We leave for our sites on Saturday because Friday we have a mandatory meeting about Cholera.  Don't worry they've got it all under control.

Some foods that i now eat:
Tomatoes (right?! completely unHeidi like)
Avocados (The food of the gods, i could eat one everyday)
Chicken livers and gizzards
Cow intestine/stomach (smells like a 4H Fair in your mouth)
Pana (cooked nuts - Haitian style)

Tarantulas, Latrines and Chickens: A New Place to Call Home

The past week has been a whirl wind of traveling; three different cities in 4 days.  Talk about culture shock from the nice small town of Constanza, to the big noisy city of Santo Domingo, to rural batey of Antonci.  I finally felt the culture shock that everyone has told me about when I said I would be living and working in the Dominican Republic for the next 2 years – the culture shock from living with the ‘haves’ to the ‘have nots.’  I have been spoiled in Constanza and Santo Domingo having running water, electricity/generators, food variety, cheap and easy transportation, and people who have an idea of the mission/work of Peace Corps volunteers.

Anotonci is a great little community in the region of Monte Plata.  It used to be a batey for sugar cane plantations, but now had turned to different forms of agriculture.  There is about 500-1000 people living there (depending on which literature you read).  There are two dirt roads in the town that form a T and then a lot of little winding foot paths that lead to different houses.  It is very green and sits up on a hill, and in the distance you can see some low mountains.  There is about 1 colmado (corner store), an elementary school 1-8^th grade where students from surrounding communities attend, a small agriculture project funded by BRA (Batey Relief Alliance), and a Panaderia (bread making facility) that has no equipment funded by MOSCTHA.  The community is used to having mission groups from the US and Canada come in for a week or two to give things and money, so it is going to be an interesting time trying to combat this image that has already been formed.  Some people think that I can automatically get new roads and a pump for their water system that doesn’t work, some think that I can fix all of the problems that the youth have, and they all want English classes to have started about two days ago. 

The community is very welcoming and everyone looks out for me.  I live with this woman named Luisa and two of her children, a 13 year old girl and an 8year old boy.  Luisa works at the BRA agriculture project everyday so I eat breakfast and lunch at her mother’s house where more of her family lives (24 year old son and his 6 month old, and another granddaughter).  I have my normal following of young kids following me about and have made friends with some of the girls my age in the community.  I can’t wait to get to know more people. 

My new house: Luisa’s house is down a little dirt path that is lined by flowering and fruit trees.  There is an outside shower (with a dirt floor) when I can bucket bath it and have the chicken watch me.  There is also a squat latrine in the neighbor’s yard that we use…and although it is only about 10 feet away from the house I am not allowed to go there by myself at night without a chaperone…The other night I came back to my room from bathing and found a HUGE tarantula crawling out from under my bed, so Luisa killed it with a stick (the tarantulas here will jump 6 feet and bite you, it was scary and I don’t get scared that easily).

My project partners are interesting and I want to get to know them better.  So far there has been a lot of miscommunication between them and me.  As in who pays for the moto ride, the trip to Yamasa turning into going to the Capital to a bank, and one just talking really quietly and fast no matter how much I ask him to slow down and speak up.  It is a little frustrating and hard at times, but I know that it can only get better from here, especially once I am in my community for more than 4.5 days.

I can’t wait to settle into my community for good and get to know everyone better, because only 4.5 days do not give justice to what this experience will be like.

Goodbye Constanza

Our 5 week stay in Constanza has come to an end - we leave Saturday for the capital.  It is fair to say that we have all bitter-sweet feelings about leaving, because CBT has been an overall positive experience for everyone here.  We have made and strengthened our friendships with the other trainees, formed bonds with our families, neighbors and youth, and learned about about the Dominican culture and skills that we will need for our future projects.

Highlights from the past 2 weeks:

• Created and presented didactic material to 7-13 year olds in a Sala de Tarea.  My group made large domino cards to help students with their math skills.
• Kristi, Merry and I made a pumpkin pie and toasted pumpkin seeds for our host families.  There was a struggle with making the crust but in the end it turned out fabulous and everyone loved it.
• Family photos/photo shoot
• Last Fri. Movie night- As a fundraiser my youth decided that we should put on a movie night.  It was organized pretty last minute, and there were many loud and rude children/youth.  But overall it went well - meaning we raised money and watched the Karate Kid (the newest one, which is pretty much just the same as the old).
• Last Sat. there was another limpieza and painting of trashcans (with oil based paint and children = not a good mix).  After lunch my group went to the Fire station to hang out with our boys before wen went to buy paint (water based) and other supplies for our mural.  Then dancing at night with Sonia (my host mom/sister), Wendy (Merry's host mom), Ingrid (my neighbor and Sara's host mom), other trainees and our youth.
• Last Sun. I got up at the crack of dawn...and woke up the other members of my group to be at the fire station at 8:30.  We waited around for a while and then headed over to El Chorro to wait around for our youth, the artist and the paint to arrive.  Then we finally got started cleaning the wall and painting the world with a saying around it: Our world is your world, take care of it. There is only one.  It was going well until all of the children in the barrio decided to watch, we let them get their hands painted and place them around the world.  After that it was chaos -with little girls fighting, children screaming and running around.  We eventually had to kick all of them out and barricade ourselves in the community center.  It was like a zombie attack and we were the only survivors.  The children were pounding on the windows denting the metal, trying to push the door open even with someone sitting on the desk that was up against the door, yelling, throwing rocks...Eventually many of them got tired, left or went home for lunch.  The mural was finished and looks really good.  We then walked back to eat pizza and beer.
• Tuesday we had a final meeting with our boys and they made up grilled bbq chicken ---SOOO good!
• Yesterday, Wednesday we donated clothes in the morning, which was a weird experience because we had no buy-in to the community at all.  Learned how to properly use a machete.  Then Merry, Kristi, Sarayu, Caitlin and I made brownies.
• Tonight we are going to make an apple crisp.
• Tomorrow we will have class in the morning and then in the afternoon there will be a Despedida - a goodbye party at the Pre-Escolar.  Tomorrow is also the birthday of about 5 people so there will be a Lot of celebrating before we leave at 8:00am on Sat.
• Also, I seem to be collecting Dominican males. I haven't felt this popular since getting contacts and a rockstar hair cut in the summer before sophomore year of college.  Weird.

It is going to be great but interesting going back to Santo Domingo then visiting our sites by ourselves for a week...Bring on the adventures!

Rabbit Rabbit!

Our fate has been determined.  The decision has been made.  We, the Youth Trainees, know where we will be placed for the next 2 years.  I am headed to Antonci, a Batey near Don Juan and Yamasa. Feel free to google map it...good luck finding it.  There are also a couple volunteers nearby in Batey Cana, Gusamita and El Triple.  Here is some information about Bateys. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batey_(sugar_workers'_town).  My Batey doesn't do a whole lot with sugar cane anymore and i have a really strong women's groups who already like to make jewelry. So i am pretty excited about it.  I also get to learn some Creole! 

The week in recap:

The 24^th was Patronales (Celebration of the Patron of the city = La Virgin de la Merced) so there was a festival all weekend long.  Friday, I finally met my elusive ‘brother’ Luifer.  Both Friday and Saturday, groups of us went down to the Park where they had live music and danced all night long…I was out way past my bed time.  Sunday was another family/extended family day.

Saturday we had a teambuilding activity to Ebano Verde, an ecological reserve nearby.  It was very beautiful – picture mountains covered in pine and palm trees peaking out through the clouds with a few small waterfalls and rivers to play in.  We hiked about 10 Kilometers and were all sore the next day.  The most eventful story from that trip occurred in the morning on our way up the mountain in the bus.  I found myself in the very back seat of the bus once again with Kristy, Phoebe and Dan.  Everything was going great; we were laughing, telling stories, the three were talking about being married (I was the odd man out there).  The driver was whipping around the corners of the switchback as fast as he could, and by 3/4^th of the way to our destination the four of us were feeling a bit nauseous.  So Phoebe whips out a plastic bag just in case we would need it.  Fast forward a few minutes and Kristy and I are sharing a plastic grocery bag, in perfect harmony, taking turns vomiting.  We felt great after…and arrived 2 minutes after our sickness.  It was truly a bonding moment and pretty hilarious.  We made sure to get seats in the front of the Bus on the way back home.  (And it was a good thing that I only had corn flakes and milk for breakfast)

(Side Note: This is the first time that I have gotten motion sickness since the Sprinkled Donut Incident in the 90’s when I was 8ish…I still can’t eat sprinkled donuts to this day.)

This week I visited a primary school and it was an interesting experience, because the Dominican education system is one of the worst in the world and is the worst in all of South, Central America and the Caribbean.  The students attend school for about 4 hours a day with an average of 2.6 hours ‘learning.’  One classroom that we visited had about 42 students (1^st graders) with one teacher.  She said this was manageable in comparison to the 60 students she had last year.  Grade levels don’t correspond with age here either – there can be students who are 18 years old in 5^th grade.  This is usually caused by an Act that enforces pushing students through early grades until they reach 3^rd or 4^th.  It is kind of like and as useless as ‘No Child Left Behind’ – it allows for students who don’t know how to read or write advance grade levels until usually 3^rd or 4^th grade, although there are high schoolers who have trouble writing their names. 

In a response to this issue, many Youth volunteers work with Salas de Tarea, after school tutoring programs to help the students who most need it.  In fact, our 3^rd presentation will be at a Sala de Tarea using didactic materials that we created to help children ages 7-13 learn to read or do basic math. 

Speaking of presentations, we just had our 2^nd on Wednesday and the community was invited.  My group’s topic was La Violencia (Violence) so we discussed the different types, the cycle, the consequences, what we can do to combat it.  It was a lot of fun because it was very interactive and we had skits (one where I got ‘beat up’ to show physical violence).  All of the other presentations went well too.  Everyone’s spanish has improved as well as everyone’s confidence.

Here is Quiero una Americana  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2ozfHaiZ0o   I haven't watched the video so i don't know if it is racy at all.

This is another song that is very popular here (it is Italian) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWlrQDUjL9Q

P.S. If you want to see pictures check them out of Facebook. It is easier for me to upload them there.