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.

Quiero una Americana pa’ mangar mi visa

Well it has been a little over a month since I arrived in the Dominican Republic, and I must say that everything is going great!  

My life in Constanza couldn’t be any more different than my life in Santo Domingo.  My house is the furthest away from the Pre-Escolar (pre-school) where we have our technical classes…which means less than a 10 min walk.  I have running water, hot water, and luz (electricity) all the time because we have a ‘generator.’  My host mom here, Sonia, is more of a sister because she is young and very beautiful.  She has one son, Joseph, whose 14^th birthday is today (we sometimes shoot hoops, and watch movies together, he’s pretty sweet), and another son Luifer who attends the University in the capital.  Sonia’s family is large, 14 siblings and 3 of her siblings are hosting other volunteers- so we get together often.

This past Sunday they took us to the campo to where another brother and his wife live on a farm that he bought from their father.  It was a little bit before 11am when I heard a car honking outside and my name being yelled.  So I went outside to investigate.  I found Merry, Kristi (2 other trainees) and Kristi’s family in a truck telling me to get in because we are going to the campo.  I grabbed my shoes and my keys and we were off.  By 11:30am we had stopped at a Colmado (corner store) and were handed a beer, three glasses, crackers and cheese…all for the ride up the mountain.  We were little truck fording rivers and going up inclines like they were a piece of cake.  When we got to the finca (farm), we were given a quick walking tour of the local farm animals: cats, dogs, geese, chicken, ducks, fish and a horse named Peligroso (Dangerous…who was anything but). Then we got a truck ride to the highest mountain peak on the farm and we saw all of the surrounding valleys, the ring of mountains around us and Constanza in the distance.  It was breath taking.  I want to live there.  A little later on, after more wine, we lunched on grill pork chops, vegetables, and rice with beans.  A great day!

Other fun things that I’ve done these past 2 weeks are:

-          Girls’ movie night at my house where we watched About A Boy (this past Thursday)

-          Participated in a Limpieza (Cleaning-trash pickup) in Las Flores

-          Went out dancing for 4 hours on Saturday night

-          Got my first manicure, ever (yesterday)

As much fun as it sounds that we are having, it is not all play and no work.  Every day (Monday-Friday) we have Technical training sessions in the morning for 4 hours.  Some sample topics are community diagnostic, how to teach English, how to teach sexual health/good decision making, fundraising, etc.  Then in the afternoon for 4 hours we have Spanish class.  Then at night and on the weekends there are random assortments of activities for the trainees.  We also have graded presentations and tests that we MUST pass (I’m going well so far!).

Also, we are divided into 6 groups and each group has a youth group that they are working with.  I am working with the youth from El Chorro (the furthest barrio away from where we live, possibly the poorest).  Our kids are a blast – they range in age from about 15 to 22 and they are super invested into helping their community.  Each week we carry out different activities with them such as a community diagnostic (which we had a graded presentation on), brainstorming an idea of what to do in the community, fund raising, planning the project and then implementing the project. 

Last night at about 8:02pm I heard Ice Ice Baby by Vanilla Ice being blared from a car driving down my street.

Our group as the luck to come into country when a certain song is at its peak of popularity, “Quiero una Americana pa’ mangar mi visa. ” Translated: I want an American (female) so that I can get my visa.  A day doesn’t pass that I (or the other girls) don’t hear that song or get the lyrics yelled at me (or the other girls) on the street.  It was rather annoying in the beginning, but I have decided to embrace it and my gringa-ness (plus the song is really catchy).  I just wish that I had a boombox so I could walk down the street with it on my shoulder, blaring “Quiero una Americana. Pa’ que? Pa’ mangar mi visa! Quiero una Americana pa’ mangar mi visa. Pa’ mangar. Pa’ mangar. Pa’ mangar mi visa…”

Bienvenidos a la Republica Dominicana!

  

For the first two days of training (meaning staging then the first official day), the theme was planes.  Planes to take us to and from DC to the Dominican Republic.  Planes to take us away from what is familiar to someplace new and exciting.  Planes to lead us to the next 2.25 (or more) years of our lives.

I arrived to Washington DC after two short flights and not a lot of sleep.  I was tired, hungry, nervous, but most importantly I was excited.  At the luggage claim I spotted a familiar looking blue folder, another PCT.  A taxi drive later, we arrived at our hotel where we meet others like ourselves – all exchanging hopes, fears, backgrounds, and filling out last minute paperwork. 

Icebreaker after icebreaker and activity after lecture, we finally became true PCTs (one activity was the Dot game that my middle schoolers and I facilitated for their peers).  We were then sent out for our last meal, which for me consisted of sushi and plum wine.  A few more hours of sleep and we were all awake and checked out of the hotel by 2 am.  We spent what seemed like days in the DC, and Miami airports and waiting in lines. And then the five words we have all been waiting for…

Bienvenidos a la Republica Dominicana!  We were warmly welcomed by PC officials and current volunteers (and not to mention the weather).  Everything went smoothly with only one lost piece of luggage that was recovered the next day.  Then all 59 of us crammed into about 3 busses (GuaGuas) and were whisked away to the Retreat center. More orientations, shots and food lead us to the finally of our first day in the Dominican Republic (i.e. Santo Domingo).

The next morning, right after breakfast, we got back into the GuaGuas and went to the training site where we had a full day scheduled.  We were then able to meet our host families which felt like an auction because the families were eyeing us looking for their child while we all stood in front of the room nervously, hoping that we wouldn’t be picked last.  It is there that I met my Doña (host mother) and realized that I live directly across the street from another PCT who is from Michigan. (You may begin to sing “It’s a small world after all.”)

My host family is great.  I get wonderful food to eat, a nice room with a fan, and the water/electricity situation isn’t bad at all.  I actually enjoy bucket bathes. (Megan, we toss the toilet paper like in Peru and Ecuador).  I have countless hermanitos (little brothers and sisters) and have taken up playing with them, singing karaoke, and teaching English, as long as they help me with my Spanish (which they do).  I am also learning how to play dominos and dance Bachata y Merengue.

At the Entrena (training facilities) the information keeps flowing in.  We collect more and more papers and information that we can hold.  However, it is all necessary, informative and at times fun.  We spend about 2.5 more weeks here in Santo Domingo, and then we are off to the campo (country) where we will be separated by groups.  I will be with the other Youth, Family and Community Developers (YFCD) – there are 25 of us, the biggest group so far.

The other day we went to the Colonial Zone to get accustom to Santo Domingo and the transportation system.  Everything thing was going well, meaning we didn’t get too wet in the downpour that occurred, until we tried to go back home.  A bunch of us got on GuaGua 10B back to Pantoja and after a few minutes of driving our GuaGua tried to pass some other cars…And we got stuck in about 2 feet of water at a sideways incline.  I was in the third row from the back and was not sure of what was going on other than we were stuck because it stalled and then the driver was having difficulty shifting, thus leading to the transmission to start smoking.  Then another GuaGua tried to push us out, but that didn’t work either.  So we all got off and waited for another 10B to come by so we all could get home.

This coming Thursday through Sunday, we will be visiting Volunteers at their sites.  I will be headed up to Baoba (somewhere in the north near the coast).  Wish me luck that I will be able to find my way there and back again.