La Boda - The Wedding

Being asked to be part of a wedding is always such an honor, and even more so when its a wedding in a community that you have recently become a part of. One of my best friends is 23 and is the hardest working woman I know here. We talk for hours and she is never afraid to tell it to me like it is. She also edits all my documents in Spanish. I was one of the four bridesmaids in her December wedding to a great guy. As my second time as a bridesmaid I didn't get quite as lucky with the bride's dress selection. These pictures are for your enjoyment.

The handsome couple and my bro will be starting their own greenhouses in the coming year as part of a youth business course.
This cake was huge and came in the back of a station wagon. I don't know how it survived our bumpy dirt road.
Las Damas - the ladies or bridesmaids.

My new roommate and I head to toe in GOLD. Can you see my eyeshadow? Yes, gold. At least we didn't have to buy the dresses!

25 years young!

I was prepared to pass my 25th birthday, a quarter century, my capicua (the name for when you can play your last domino on either end of the train, earning 25 points) here in the campo, a nondescript day of reflection and thanksgiving for all the breaks I’ve been given in 25 years. When people called and asked what I was doing I shrugged, “moving my three suitcases to a new house, relaxing, eating rice and beans and if I get really ambitious I’ll make some pancakes later”…I was surprisingly content about it. I guess that probably comes from a lifetime of having your birthday so close to Christmas that none of your friends are ever around (although I must say that my family has always been phenomenal).

My relaxing day was a bit thrown off by this new allergy I have developed, I believe to dust, which is what my road is made of unfortunately. It had me sneezing uncontrollably, with a runny nose and watery eyes – which my family here now contributes to me crying all day because of their evil conspiracy not to wish me a happy birthday, even though they all knew it was.

She didn’t wish me a happy birthday but my ‘mom’ cooked my favorite – eggplant – for lunch and then we played some dominoes, which I am always happy about. I thought it was quite strange that all of my siblings were nowhere to be found, but figured that our aunt must have cooked something really great for lunch as they were all there, supposedly.

Because it was my birthday my brother said that I could come with him to visit some friends later on in the evening. At about 8pm he came looking for me, exclaiming on sight, “Pero tu estas fea! Ponte linda! Un poco, por lo menos!” – Ah, you look ugly! Get yourself pretty! A little at least! – “Well, this isn’t starting out to be a very nice birthday outing,” I thought, but my mom (the real one) always says “Just slap on a little lipstick and go!” At 25 I still don’t wear lipstick but I generally opt for mascara and heels, and I switched to a sparkly shirt.


Turns out that my group of youth had been planning my big surprise party for a month. They had all chipped in and were waiting in the dark in disco at the end of my driveway, along with half of the community, a giant cake and a photographer. When I walked in they sang me the traditional Dominican birthday song and I took about a million photos with every different combination of people at the party. We danced a little and they had even bought giant bottles of soda and prepared several trays of ketchup/mayo salad sandwiches – not exactly my favorite, but they are vegetarian and fit the budget of a group of 15 year olds.

These pictures don't do them justice, I'm still waiting for the photographers pics, but the decorations were fabulous – pink ‘It’s a girl!’ balloons! I suppose it was a girl, 25 years ago on this day. And a bottle of rum from our local Brugal company rep.

Needless to say I felt extremely special and was even more glad I had passed my 25th here with such generous friends. In case you are wondering my good friends here range in age from 19-25, which is a rare age population in the campo. Usually they all go to the city to work and study, but I am lucky to have so many around.

November 4th OBAMANOS!

We gathered 50 of us around the tv, fighting over CNN, fox or one of the other two channels that we get in English. Each time the results came in the volunteers from the respective state got boos or kisses - I'm so glad Michigan went Obama! But we were all happy when the official declaration came in.

My, I can be proud to be an American, Barack is my president smile!

On integrating

I came back to the Capital to the original training center for language training this week. I was so nervous to come back and visit my original host family. You may remember them as having two adorable girls, ages 3 and 13. I wasn’t able to have serious conversations with them before due to my lack of language skills and I haven’t talked to them since I left in May. I had forgotten how much I adore them.

During this experience as a whole it has not ceased to astound me, how easily we as human beings can move in and out of people’s lives regardless of our temporary dependence on them or their feelings for us. There are volunteers who chose, during this in-service language training, not to stay with their original host families. There are volunteers getting ready to leave this island after working for two years in a place, who consider not telling the people in their community that they’re leaving forever… I do not understand this.

I am not one of these people. I honestly and whole-heartedly put myself into this work and value the incredible friendships I’ve made. I’m not sure that someone can do successful, sustainable development work without gaining an appreciation for the actual people. Not like “Oh those Dominicans are so crazy,” or “I felt bad for this boy who was shining shoes.” Not the people you feel like you know because you see snapshots of them in the brochure and you think that bachata music is really special. I mean the women I know who have unnecessary hysterectomies, who lose babies born alive because their doctors need just a little more training or a few more supplies. I’m talking about the kid in my English class who wants to learn English so bad he pays his weekly earnings to travel an hour from home for a class that’s less than an hour long every week, never missing class. I know the group of 20 or so high school aged guys who ask me every day when we’re going to have another environmental club meeting and when we’re going to pick up all the trash.

These people are not starving to death, they don’t need handouts, they are not poor people living on the other side of the world who you wish that there was something you could do but you never really follow up on the emotion. These are friends of mine, they are the people who support me physically and emotionally day in and day out, they are family now. I have gained more from them than they will from me, or at least as much.

This trip to the Capital has been one of appreciation for the special things I missed before. I gave it another chance, and thanks to my host family and good friend and volunteer mentor, Ryan, I have come to appreciate it a great deal though of course there is much work to be done.

Giving Thanks

There are 170 Peace Corps volunteers here in the Dominican Republic and nearly all of us came together for the yearly Thanksgiving feast. I won’t make a list but the feast was everything and more than it always is including vegetarian lasagna and pecan, pumpkin pies and three types of brownies and cookies. The volunteers at my table and I shared what we were thankful for including each other, the experience, generous Dominicans and our outhouses among others. We also celebrated with a morning 5.5k Turkey Trot, a domino tournament and an unforgettable “lack of talent” show that turned out to be quite amazing.

The Turkey Trot's anchorwomen - my good friends Cecilia and Kathy. You may remember Cecilia from earlier posts - we came in together and we'll go out together. She's the only one who understands it all!


The joy of being able to stop running!

Ratones

Last night we encountered one of the small beady-eyed friends that has been nibbling my batatas – sweet potatoes - and peanut bars. These are not mean, Nueva York, trash eating street rats. These are wholesome corn fed country rats, gray and quite fluffy. Nonetheless they carry diseases and eat my stuff, I suppose, regardless of cuteness. These rats are a difficult thing for me to deal with. I do not like to kill things, or see things die generally, and especially not mammals in a cruel manner. My brother and best friend, generally feels similar (the only one in my community who doesn’t kill insects on sight) except when you’re talking about rats and praying mantises, I have no idea what anyone could have against a praying mantis, but whatever. So he was on a mission to kill this rat. I was thinking to myself, “Really? This rat is running around in the rafters and he’s going to chase it around the house? What a waste of time, you don’t catch rats. You have to set traps. Never in a million years could I catch a rat running after it.” I told him I didn’t want any part of the rat hunt, both because I didn’t want to kill it and because I didn’t think there was any way it was going to work. He proceeded by telling me that if I was really serious about not killing it than he would leave it, but did I think that this rat was a pet? Had I heard of Leptospirosis? Did I know that with Leptospirosis we were talking about a month in the hospital? “Do you want to get sick? Huh?” I reply in a small squeaky voice, trying to get out of rat killing duty, “…no…” “Okay,” he said, “Grab that mop.” So I tapped the side of the oven a couple times before my allergy to god-knows-what that I’ve been battling with lately flared up. The rat popped out of the oven and I ran for the pantry. He tells the story as between fits of broom handle swinging he looks back, expecting his fearless partner standing strong and angry with mop handle… seeing nobody he pauses to hear uncontrollable sneezing coming from inside the pantry. From the pantry, in between my fits of uncontrollable sneezing I heard broom handle swinging and dishes flying. The chase continued up a wall. And this is where I poked my beady eyes out of the pantry to see what was going on. The cement walls in my house don’t touch the tin roof so he proceeded to scale one and perch himself atop it. Out of nowhere the campo warrior in the war on disease grabbed a piece of loose concrete and drew it back behind his shoulder. Two seconds later the rat appeared atop another wall across the house and he threw the concrete, connecting with amazing accuracy, and falling the rat into an adjacent bedroom. “It’s still alive!” he said, “But not that alive! Call the cats!” he yelled to me. I took a couple steps to the back door and called, instead of kitty kitty kitty, “Meeshee, meeshee, meeshee.” One of the three resident mini panthers comes, a little skeptical about all the racket so late in the evening, is perfectly elated by the juicy find! And in the wake of the tragic death of this relatively small mammal, I couldn’t help but reflect on the impressive hunting skills of this young man, crouched atop a concrete wall with a broom handle in one hand and a chunk of concrete in the other. Mission impossible accomplished. We’ll leave the other rat to my roommate.

November 23, 2008 12am

It’s raining again…

The carretera (road) is too muddy to cross in some parts. Some of the muchachos gather on the grassy knoll next to a big hill on our road to watch suvs and motorcycles attempt to climb and descend. It makes me think of Rio’s favorite sport.

Maybe the rain will realize that tomorrows Monday, the beginning of a new week.

November 22, 2008 10am

Today is Sunday. It has been raining since noon on Wednesday. I washed my clothes Tuesday late afternoon and they weren’t dry so I left them out on Wednesday morning while I went to the office. So they got wet again and they will remain wet until the sun comes out as I have yet to see an electric dryer in this country. Let me take a moment to say that they definitely exist, as a few weeks ago I met some young women my age who were so privileged as to never have done their own laundry…these types of young women and their families do not live in the campo…but that’s a whole ‘nother entry. It has actually stopped raining but the sun still has not made its appearance. I didn’t think it was possible for it to rain three and a half days straight or that wool sweaters were really an appropriate thing to pack for two years on a Caribbean island…Turns out that both are the case.

Brigada Verde

Back in April I attended a regional conference of Brigada Verde, our environmental youth organization, and I was taken aback to see what the topic of conversation was. What an unusual sight to see a room full of 11 – 16 year olds spending their weekend learning about ecotourism and the meanings of biodiversity, endemic species and Dominican tourism (endemic = fancy science word for a species that occurs no where else in the world). The mix of American volunteers and Dominican youth has become commonplace in my work here, groups of young people aiming to contribute to the conservation of the natural environment and the development of their communities. But what struck me as an urgent realization was that they were all gathered for an extracurricular activity that has the power to lift their communities to a higher quality of life. Money from international tourism comprises the largest income to this country, aside from remittances from family members who have become residents of the States. By obtaining information on the natural environment, what tourists seek from their country and how to start a community based tourism project they, at 15 years old have the power to change the course of their community’s future. In the States its not as crucial to teach a rural Nebraska 12 year old how to show a French couple around the savannah but the reality here is, as one Dominican boy said when asked to define the word, “Tourism is when the Gringo comes.” Their present, and more importantly, their future economy depends on tourism from France, Germany and The United States of America.
The photo above is from the conference that my great friend Ryan and I were in charge of planning. We had about 40 youth from the central region of the country come for the weekend to learn all about ecosystems, trash, water, trees, themselves and each other. At the end we had a little ceremony where we handed out certificates which are now hanging up in most of their homes. It was a stressful but very rewarding weekend. That was the weekend on November 7th and my kids are still asking me when we're going to do it again.

October 20 2008

Hallelujah I wore a jacket today! What a thrill to wake up a little chilly, to be reminded again that I am alive. The days have passed here (almost 240 of them!) some days are rainier some are hotter but relatively all the same, and it adds a great deal of monotonous convenience…being able to always go outside, farm etc…which I guess is a fair trade off for having a life in which you have to go out to the latrine to pee. Can you imagine going outside in Michigan winter every time you had to use the restroom?!?! Anyway, the morning air is gorgeous when it’s cool like this. Especially the mornings after a good rain when I open the back door and I can see the mountains so clearly in the distance as to see the shapes of trees where a uniform green mat lays every other day. This place is really beautiful.

I had an amazing day today – I went to the city to meet a friend who had received my absentee ballot from the capital and with a belly full of nutritious vegetarian food from the Adventist church restaurant, I voted from Santiago, Republica Dominicana! Although I wanted to be in the States for the campaign season it has been a really amazing experience being here in the DR with all the other expats!

October 17, 2008

The hardest working people in miles, working 5 days a week 8-4pm in the office, and who knows how many hours outside of it, but they are never in the office without smiles on their faces. The morning starts with a smile, handshake or hug for everyone, and around the circle again every time a new face enters the room. For an hour or so we catch up on the week’s events, drinking tea and coffee as everyone arrives. I’m not in the office everyday and so I share my thrilling stories of my adventures in the outside world as we joke and laugh. They love to hear what’s going on in the Capital whenever I have work to do there, committee meetings etc, and without fail we talk about how much hotter and uncomfortable it is there as opposed to the climate here in the foothills.

Today is unusual, as there is a serious, political corruption conversation going on. Although it’s difficult to be super productive and efficient in the beginning of your Peace Corps service without being fluent in the language, my inability to understand their conversations and communicate my personal opinions from day one here has kept me out of the political and chisme (gossip) circles. They know now that they can ask my opinion on topics, but that I’m not going to sit around and share the silly office gossip. When I share my opinion it's because they've asked me personally and they all fall silent waiting to hear my response. My response is usually laced with a female inspiring message that leaves all the women in the office like "Hell yes I should be allowed to leave the house whenever I want!" Which is unfortunately a big problem with some of couples here.

Not knowing the language right away has also given me the opportunity to get to know the people and the culture before sharing my opinions on things, which are typically quite different from what they are used to hearing. It is really beautiful coming from the world’s melting pot, to become part of a country with such a strong culture (though theirs too has roots on three or four continents). The food, music, dancing, speech and customs are their own and they have great pride in it all. My experience here over the last 8 months is that sometimes the tradeoff for having a strong national culture is tolerance and an open mind. For example, of the approximately 9.8 million people in this country 95% of them declare themselves Catholic. Although I am involved in and supportive of the church here, I believe that it a major cause of abstinence only promotion and homophobia, which I am not supportive of.