Project Partner Day and my site visit

10/22/08

Tuesday was the dreaded Project Partner Day. This is the day that PCVs describe as the blind date that wouldn’t end. It begins with an awkward meeting of up to five of the people you could be working with for the next two years of just the first three months. After some time together you head out with them to your site where you stay from Tuesday until Sunday and on Sunday you return to Santo Domingo for a week or so. I’ve never heard of anyone looking forward to the day.

Here’s how my Project Partner Day went down: I woke up at 6 and finished packing all my stuff. My APCD told me that I would be getting a ride to my site and thus wouldn’t need to take public transportation so I should bring all my stuff. Thankfully the heavy, unmovable suitcase that I took to CBT was already at Entrena so I didn’t have to deal with it. I also lucked out when I left my house in Los Cocos because one of the PCTs Dons picked us up in a truck so I didn’t have to drag my suitcase the mile up to the front of the neighborhood again. We got to Entrena, loaded our bags up on the trailers and left to meet our new partners- 45 minutes behind schedule.

When we got there we dealt with our bags and were ushered in to meet our partners. For me, meeting my partners consisted of Ann saying, “There, they’re over there. Talk to them and ask them if they have eaten. Good luck.” And with a little push I was off to meet the two people sitting there starting off into space. I sat down and tried and make small talk in Spanish for almost an hour before a presentation started. Turns out, the people who met me are married and are each on a committee in the community. One of them is supposed to help me conduct my diagnostic. They both seem really nice and I was happy to find out that the PCV that was in Los Ruales before me didn’t speak very much Spanish when he arrived either so I was off the hook for now.

After what should have been an awkward half day but I thought was kind of fun (but hey, I also get a kick out of blind dates), we piled into a van with 4 other PCTs and their partners and headed off to our new homes. Four hours later, I got off the van and said good bye to the other PCTs and began the 20 minute drive up the mountain in the back of a truck. My site is so pretty. It reminds me of Lowell Park except with mango, avocado and palm trees instead of pine trees.

We got off of the truck and a bunch of people came up to me and started giving me hugs. We all walked up to a block house that was open and sunny. It wasn’t as great as the house in Las Tablas but I was pretty psyched. Then they pointed to a house right next to this one and said that’s where I’ll be living after three months when I’m allowed to live alone. They own the extra house. What are the odds?!? There are a lot of people who have to live with their host families longer than three months either because they can’t find a house, they can’t contact the landlord or they can’t get the house approved by PC.

We went to my future house and sat and talked. The house is the first one I have seen that has glass in the windows, the front two- how great is that? Now I can put window clings up for decorations!! Looking out the front door I could see mountains to my right and left and a valley in the middle where the city is. At night it’s really pretty because I can see the lights between the mountains. It’s absolutely beautiful, and fresco! I asked the person living there if it was ok I used it and they all laughed and said of course it was fine because the person living there right now is 14. He’s just going to move up the hill back with his parents. I asked about the furniture (a kitchen table with four chairs, two plastic chairs for the porch, a tabletop stove, shelves, and two beds) and they said I could use it all!!! I think they said I won’t have to buy anything because the PCT that lived there before left everything so I should be set.

Just when I thought things couldn’t be better, I was told it was time to meet my host family, which turns out was up the road. So we walked up to this tiny little pinky-peachish, wood house and I said hello to my new Doña and Don. They took me back into my room which has no windows and my Doña started unpacking me. Then she took me around, pulling me by the elbow, showing me where the latrine and the shower were. I was happy to find that the latrine and shower are separate. Showering where people crap makes me want to take bath in hand sanitizer. I asked my Doña about the water source and if she fills up the buckets with water she buys or with water from the tap and she said, “No, this is water YOUR going to buy.” Hmm, I was starting to think my days of having a laid back Doña were over.

Anyways, I went to my room and decided I didn’t really mind the crap hole I was living in (which only has one light bulb in the entire house) because my site was beautiful and my future house is a piece of heaven. Then I realized I had to use the latrine. I worked up some courage and went out to face it. There were two large spiders in there so I yelled for my Doña who then handed me some bug spray. I decided I didn’t want to piss the spiders off before I finished using the latrine so I brushed my teeth and did my business. I was going to spray them but after one of them killed a mosquito I supposed they were contributing to society and thus allowed to live.

When I got back into my room I was really happy to discover that there was a mosquito net already in place and it has a slit to get out of!! No more having to do the limbo!!! The problem was that there were a lot of holes in it so I spent the next hour sewing it until my Dona turned off the light. That’s another thing, I’m super lucky that my house has a generator!! It’s in my room, smells and is noisy but I can plug my stuff right into it and never have to worry about se fue la luz. One other nasty thing about my room is that it smells. I haven’t decided what contributes to this more, the nasty old, wet bed or the latrine outside where a window is supposed to be. Did I mention there are no windows in my room? As far as the smell goes, thanks for the candle Rach because I take the lid off and sleep with it next to my nose every night.

On Wednesday I was super happy to take my bucket bath with hot water!!! That was the first time in over two months I had even warm water. My Doña heats the water up, I’m living the good life:) After that we walked around to meet people my Doña wanted to show me off to. I decided that while my Doña is pretty cool, she’s overbearing and not a good person to take with on interviews. She tells everyone that I’m here to give speeches which is good on one hand so people don’t expect me to build a road or something but I have to clarify that I will not be doing that during the first three months. I don’t want people thinking I’m lazy since it’s going to be a while before my first presentation.

Overall, I am really excited. I know I’ve only been here for a few days but the people here are super nice and patient with my Spanish. I understand a lot of what they say but it’s hard to understand my Doña because she mumbles a lot. When we were doing our visits that first day, one lady was psyched to paint my nails! I also found out that there is a married couple that only lives about a 15 or 20 minute drive from me which my Don drives almost everyday so I can visit whenever I want. Turns out that they’re going to visit the 27 waterfalls site in a few weeks and they invited me to go!! PC says not to leave your site much during the first three months especially but I don’t see what the big deal is as long as I’m still doing my interviews and chilling with people a lot.

So, that’s whats new with me this week. Project partner day is over, my site has a lot of promise and my room is stinky. I’ve got a latrine that you actually sit on which I was afraid to do at first but now, I own that thing. I show it who is boss. I go back to Santo Domingo tomorrow, I think I’m catching a ride with the Pepsi guy at 6 am or something. Then Wednesday I graduate and finally become a Volunteer!! Yay!! Hope you all are doing well there and I hope to hear from you soon!!

Love

B

PS: As far as the mail situation goes, I guess there is a guy, the regional PCVL (PCV Leader) who lives in Santiago and goes to the capitol and collects the mail once a week. He calls when we have mail so I should be able to get my mail once a week or so and I still have the same address.

Last few days of CBT

10/17/08 The last night at CBT

Today I had an epiphany. When my Doña asks me what I want to eat, it’s not really a question but more a transition into what she’s going to tell me to eat. This morning, for example, she asked me what I wanted for breakfast. I know that they have run out of the money PC gave them to feed me and thus don’t have any more food besides plantains and rice. So, when she didn’t give me dinner last night or when she asked if bread was ok for breakfast, I said sure. They she asked what I wanted to drink; “Leche de vaca?” Ok, the thing about this milk is that it sits out on the counter for like a week till it’s gone. I am trying to get my mind around the fact that it may be ok to sit out, I mean she at least has it covered and protected from the flies. But, despite this, I do not like to consume more than one cup in a 24 hour period and even that is a stretch. So, I was like, “No Doña, I’m going to just drink water today.” Apparently that was blasphemy because there are few times my Doña is really pushy but this morning was one. She insisted and insisted and the more I told her water is a health drink the more she pushed milk. I went into the kitchen and saw my breakfast already sitting there, hot chocolate with the cow milk and all. This all happened within about 2 minutes. I took my meal, with the leche de vaca of course and walked, defeated to a chair. I pondered the encounter as I ate and while I was secretly dumping the hot chocolate in the bathroom and came to my epiphany.

I recently learned something about DR Doñas. They have this weird belief that if a person is really hot and they take a cold shower, or the other way around, that they could become paralyzed. Remember when I came back from my PCV visit and I was super hot from walking? My face was the attractive tomato red it gets when I’m really hot and when I got home I just wanted to make a beeline for a bucket bath of ice cold water. My Doña absolutely would not let me take a shower!! She made me sit in a chair and drink juice, which by the way is only 30% juice. I gave in but said I was only sitting till I finished the juice. She gave me a big glass. Thanks to Doña, I’m not paralyzed.

Today we had our last day of technical training. It was full of papers to fill out and of course, we had to play three games. If I don’t play another stupid game in my life I would die satisfied. I know eventually I will rely on these games but for now, they annoy me.

After training we were supposed to go to my house to learn how to make trigo, my favorite lunch. I’ve been talking this over with my Doña for a while now and explaining how the group doesn’t want to eat here, just learn how to cook it. When I got home today (about an hour before the rest of the group was supposed to arrive) she had made me trigo. I was like, dude we were supposed to make this together remember? She picked the time to have everyone over and then she asked me when they were coming. I told her they would be here in 15 minutes. She looked panicked. She said that she already made it and that she would just give us the recipe for it. Better than nothing I guess. Once everyone got there she started making it. I finally decided that maybe I was just getting what she was saying confused so I asked a more advanced speaker to ask her. She confused Katie too! At first she told her were weren’t going to make it and then she changed it and said we were, and back and forth! That actually made me feel better, it wasn’t my Spanish or my understanding. It was my Doña. So, I guess she decided to make it because there we were, all in her kitchen, cooking away. Lucky for me, it’s a really cheap and fairly simple meal to make. I’ll be taking it home with me for sure.

As long as I’m talking about food, yesterday my Doña gave me some interesting looking meat. There was the normal pork on my plate and then this weird stuff. I was afraid it was an expired hot dog or something so I asked what it was. She told me it was something I had never heard of but recalled a valuable lesson from Spanish class a few weeks ago. One girl ate something and came back to ask Juan what it was. He laughed and told her she could remember what it was because the name sounds like “long and nice” and it’s intestines. So, when my Doña told me the mystery meat was something that sounded like long and nice, I knew I could not put it in my mouth. Not today, maybe not ever. She knew I was up to something because she stood there staring at me, waiting for me to try it. I told her I needed to eat my rice first and then I would try it later. She walked off and I started throwing pieces of it under the table to the cats. I made sure to leave some on my plate, that way she thought I tried it but didn’t like it too much. I have a feeling that won’t be the last I’ll see of long and nice.

After lunch yesterday we had a meeting with the community members we were expected to go to with our Doñas. My Doña skipped out on me, she’s got this weird thing about leaving the house, so my sister Kirses went with me. It was really sweet, some Doñas were there and they were crying. On the other hand, I felt like I was on that MTV show where they have a guest and they just make fun on them. Each Doña was supposed to say something about their PCT, a memory or something. It turned into a session where they just made fun of us, how they had to save us from spiders and how people were running to the bathrooms with diarrhea. Yes, this was a public community meeting. So, needless to say, I was a little relieved when it was over.

The rest of today is planned for us, as usual. We are to meet up at 5:30 to transplant the garden we planted a couple weeks ago. This is not something I’m looking forward to, it’s hot and I’m not a fan of digging through the poopy dirty to move plants around. Ah well, I guess I should learn how to do it incase I have a garden project. After that it’s time for a Domino tournament. Everyone here plays Dominos but I’ve only played twice! Yesterday was my second time and I love it! It’s pretty fun:) After that, at 8 we’re meeting up at one of the Spanish teacher’s houses to have ourselves a little fiesta. We’re going to have nachos (which people don’t eat here) and brownies!! We heard that if we buy a lot from the Colmado that they’ll plug our iPods in and play our music too so that’s an option.

We’re supposed to leave bright and early tomorrow; everyone is meeting up at my house at 8. Kirses said that she has a friend who may be able to take us all into Baní for free where we can catch our bus to Santo Domingo. That’d be nice if we could hitchhike with her but if not we’ll just have to walk about 1 ½ miles to the next town and catch a bus. It wouldn’t be bad though because we don’t have to take our luggage with us, just what we need to last until Monday. Ann is taking our bags back to Entrena for us.

Well, with all that said, I see a mosquito in my net that I need to hunt down and I also need to figure out how I’m getting all this stuff in my suitcase. I hope you’ll all well there, until later…

Love

B

PS: Whoa, the phone just rang and my Doña ran out of the shower, naked to try and answer it. I didn’t expect to see that…

10/15/08 Eight Weeks In!!!

Yep, today marks the eighth week in the Dominican Republic. Some parts have gone fast while others (the first two weeks) went painfully slow. I thought it would be nice to compile a list of interesting things I have or have not done in 8 weeks.

I HAVE NOT:

Thrown any toilet paper in a toilet, only in trash cans

Driven a vehicle

Made a phone call (on purpose, I stepped on my phone the other day at 6 and accidently called my Doña in Los Cocos)

Made a meal

Been able to go somewhere when I want to and stay for more than two hours

Done laundry

Eaten fast food

Gotten a good hug

Been sworn in as a Volunteer

I HAVE:

Sweated than I would in an entire summer at home

Only taken bucket baths

Only had cold water (but its hot here so it’s ok)

Ridden on a LOT of smelly guaguas

Had a woman on a bus brush my butt over and over, I’m assuming I had dirt on it?

Developed an addiction to Casino cookies and then broken it (sort of, I’m eating some now…)

Seen a LOT of large cockroaches

Taken a motoconcho twice

Told three guys to stop “hissing” at me because I don’t like it

Been “hissed” at more than I can count

Bought two cell phones

Bought a LOT of calling cards

Used a latrine and peed on my pants

Stepped in lots of poop, almost always in flip flops

Had a delicate balance between constipation and diarrhea

Had two different days of vomiting

Gotten TONS of support from home:)

Had at somewhere around 10 shots

Woken up to either the cow bells clanging as the walk by at 6 am or by the stupid goat that won’t shut the heck up outside of my widow every day since I’ve been at CBT

Spooned with my lover, Cameron every night (my duck buddy, he’s very soft)

Developed a love for mango… not mangú

Developed a deep hatred for mosquitoes

Made great friendships with other PCTs and my family here

The Hospital Visit

Today we started the day a little later than normal, not meeting up until 8:45. We drove to Baní to visit the hospital there. It specializes in births but it does a little of everything as well. It’s supposed to be one of the better hospitals. The hospital itself kind of shocked me. We visited a hospital in Santo Domingo (the only one I’m allowed to go to unless I can’t make it there without dyeing) and it wasn’t bad at all. I had heard the hospital in Baní was one of the better hospitals in the country so I was expecting more but was way off. I guess PC doesn’t want us going to other hospitals because they don’t even compare with the one in the capitol.

The Baní hospital is an old building and it reminded me of an insane asylum in a horror flick except with more sunlight. To begin, we went into a small room to watch a presentation and the door was guarded with bars. The room also doubled as a library but I don’t know where the books were. The halls were really long with super tall ceilings and, thankfully, a lot of sunlight. The tour we took made me appreciate the hospitals back home because there were 8-10 beds in each large room without privacy curtains or anything. A lot of the beds didn’t have sheets and people were just laying on them, chilling. One area was a large waiting room with benches all lined up but there were also two beds with children on them who were receiving IVs.

The first room we went into, the room that had the premature babies was kind of sad because the babies seemed really alone to me. There were nurses in the room and one baby had its mother but the room itself just seemed kind of lonely to me. Weird, I know.

Next, we were taken to the delivery room where there were three beds lined up. I have been present for three births but this room even mad me curl my lip. They had a sheet of plastic hanging down from each bed into a BUCKET!!! YUCK!! Maybe if I hadn’t seen three births I wouldn’t have been able to visualize that so much. I was relieved there was a delivery room though because that meant that the chick in the adjacent room writhing in pain from labor was just waiting for the right time to go in to the stork room. She was in one of those large rooms with like 10 beds, laying right on a flat bed with no sheet. (yes, the no sheet thing really bugs me for some reason) I was like, “Dude, no way! She’s having a baby there?” What a relief to know she was going to be moved to a bed with a bag and bucket. After this experience I decided I should modify my life long dream of having a baby in the DR… what to do what to do.

The presentation was all about the missions and goals of the NGO that works with the hospital, Infante Sano. A sad fact is that about 60% of the pregnancies at the hospital are of teens ages 13- 15. Also, the norm here is for women to have cesareans when they give birth; more than half of the women have these. Imagine trying to have three kids (the norm as I understand here) and having a super weak uterine wall with each; no thank you. I guess it’s mostly because the doctors here don’t make very much money so they work two jobs. They work in the hospital for a half day or so but get paid for a full day and then hurry to their private clinic. They make about $500 US dollars/month starting out. So, when they’re at the hospitals, they’re trying to hurry things along so they can get to their other jobs. They tell the mothers that it’d be better and so the mom agrees. And that’s that.

The hospital was so mortifying that one girl from our group threw up in a trash can! Ok, that’s not the whole truth, she threw up but she was actually sick from other factor than the hospital. That means that there are only three (and one new PCV who’s been here a week and a half) left in the health group (out of 14) who hasn’t been sick the whole time at CBT- and I’m one of them!! It’s that grease free food I’m telling you…

My Presentation

We got home and took an hour break or so then went to work on our presentation which we were to give two hours later. It rained a little, not all the way I guess, so it was oppressively hot. We went to the community center and immediately sat down and got to work sharing a Coke. I love love love Coke from a bottle! I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before but I think it tastes so much better coming from a glass bottle, and for only 12 pesos!! What a satisfying deal!

Back to the presentation… after we finally motivated each other to finish up and practice it was time to start. There was a problem though: we didn’t have any kids there. So, at 4:30 we set out in the neighborhood to find some jovenes. I immediately found about 6 young girls that were willing to come and then went with Kenzie to find some others who didn’t know what they were getting into. We spotted a crowd of people across the baseball diamond and decided we may have hit the jack pot. A family of donkeys trotted by us and we were just commenting on how the baby donkey was so cute when I was like, “Whoa! Is that the dad donkey’s… Holy crap!” It was huge!! That donkey was on a mission from nature to procreate which he obviously took very seriously! He was chasing down the female and before we knew it, he was on top on her, running to keep up and hold on with only his back legs on the ground. So there we were, walking across the field, jaws dropped in awe, to get youth to listen to our talk about the ABCs of safe sex, and here was a mom donkey running like mad with her husband donkey on top of her trying to focus and then the little baby donkey awkwardly trotting along beside them. (I say Mom and Dad donkey because they were obviously taking the next step in their relationship so they must be married, come to my presentation if you have any questions) Meanwhile, all the distractions caused me to make a crucial error and not look where I was stepping and so, yep- I stepped in a large pile of some type of poop… in my flip flops.

After all this, we got to the crowed and asked if they wanted to go. They seemed enthusiastic about it but were playing bingo and although they said they would go, I seemed to be getting the gist that they were interested… just not today. One boy went home to take a bath. We told them it already stated and so we needed to go now but eventually walked back alone. It was ok though because Darryl was able to somehow fill up the room with kids and we were able to have our presentation!

I had to start, being A and all. What is Abstinence? It’s different for different people (got to be politically correct you know) Some people define it as no kissing (riiiiight) and others define it as no penetration, no anal sex, oral sex or vaginal sex. Yep, this was how I had to start off the presentation to youth. Awesome, I’m pretty sure I pronounced vagina and anal wrong but, hey who cares right? I think they got the point because for as great visual aide I drew pictures:) Ah, the joys of teaching an awkward subject in Spanish to a room full of kids I don’t even know.

Next was my first game. It was simple. Tell me if you think I’m ready to have sex based on the statements I make. If you agree I am ready, move here. If you’re not sure, move here. If you disagree, move here. Each spot was marked with a sign on the wall which I pointed to with each explanation. So, I read the first sentence and they all just stood there, silently staring at me in front of their chairs. Hmmm, ok I guess they didn’t get it. So, I read the directions again. Still, nothing. This was not good. I put my notes down and tried to explain it a different way. I was trying to say “truth” and accidentally said “vegetable” which I didn’t realize until much later, so once again, they were confused. Finally, on the fourth time, they got it! Whew!! That was painful, I pretty much wanted to go home to my mosquito net sanctuary and take a nap or something.

After that I did a little more talking, a role playing game on how to say no, and then it was time for my last game. As you may have noticed, I wasn’t really excited to be talking about this wonderful topic so I thought I would fill my time requirement with symbolic games- genius I know. There was so much confusion with that first game I probably could have gone home and taken a nap when I wanted to and still reached my time requirement. Not me though, I took it like a champ and acted like I knew what I was doing, like I remembered what the stuff I was reading off my sheet in Spanish meant.

Entonces (next), the new game: Limbo. The stick signified the pressures to have sex and each time we lowered it represented another year older. So, the stick got lower, the person got older and the pressure got higher. We labeled the stick “El Sexo” and moved outside where we had more room. This was a big mistake since all the really little kids (think like 1^st and 2^nd grade) were getting out of school and wanted to play Limbo. Luckily, when the game was over Ann manned the door and wouldn’t let anyone in unless they were at least 10. Two other PCTs took the rejected kids and played the biggest game of duck duck goose I’ve ever seen of about 70 kids.

After I finished I with my part, I was relieved. Kenzie presented on “Be safe” and then Darryl went on about “Condoms”. The kids played a condom race (putting condoms on plantains) and had a pretty crazy but good time. Over all, it was a little weird but aren’t most things? I learned to check to see what time school gets out and also to toss the notes and just wing it when possible. Life’s crazy and even more so in Spanish! Anyways, I hope you’re all enjoying my blog and I’ll be sure to keep adding to it. It’s my therapy. See, I needed a lot of therapy after that donkey encounter. I miss you guys and still want someone to jump in a pile of leaves for me! Until I need more therapy- aka: tomorrow,

Love

B

Quinceanos, beaches and last week at CBT

10/14/08 The last week of CBT, tear:(

Wow, has it really been 5 weeks already? Yup, I guess it has. This is our very last week of CBT and Las Tablas. I feel a little bad because my Doña is sad to see me go and I’m actually leaving a little early so I can go to the PC office and use the internet for free. It’s just the difference of a few hours but a day where I can stay in Santo Domingo and do what I want allll day without having someone tell me I have an hour or two hours is magic. It’s not even like I have all the time in the world, as a rule we have to be back in our neighborhoods by 7 pm but still, that gives me a full 7 hours in Santo Domingo… 7 hours that I could potentially use the internet or go to Taco Bell. You may roll your eyes at me but when was the last time you ate at a fast food place? I would like to say that aside from a small, nasty personal pan pizza, I have not eaten out at all since a McDonalds breakfast August 19^th. Sure I’m in the Peace Corps in the DR but that just means when I say “Yo quiero Taco Bell” it’s actually kind of funny to other Americans. (well a least me:)

Today we had our technical training in the morning and took a walk to check on the garden we planted. Surprisingly, everything is actually growing!! Not that I didn’t have faith in our planting abilities but I just thought that something would happen and it wouldn’t grow. Maybe it was the fact that last summer my efforts at planting a flower garden were crushed under the overpowering weed infestation a couple of weeks after I angrily threw the seeds at the dirt (which may have also contributed to the lack of growth) after discovering that the packets only have a few seeds in each (why so much packaging? It’s false advertisement, like with chips.) So, anyways, thought that you would all like to know that the garden is blooming nicely, good to know that my shoveling poop wasn’t in vain.

Tomorrow we’re going to a hospital in Baní. I should have read a little more to see what the point of this is, I think it’s a OB hospital but who knows. Guess I’ll see tomorrow. By this point, everyone I’ve talked to is sooooo sick of training and so over not having any freedom that we don’t really follow too closely what will be going on for the day. Although, that would have been helpful today; just knowing the day would have been helpful. I thought today was Wednesday and we were going to the hospital. I was wearing nicer clothes, had my camera with me ready to go and left my book bag at home. I was late and had to eat my cereal on the way to the community center because I was trying to get my flash drive ready incase we were going to use internet afterwards. What a surprise, today is Tuesday. So much for that, although I’m getting my computer stuff in order tonight so theoretically I’ll be ahead tomorrow. I don’t think I’ll be able to use the internet tomorrow but who knows. If not tomorrow then maybe Thursday or Friday and DEFINITELY Saturday… for FREE!!! Yay!!

It will be so incredibly nice to have some say over my days again. I’m really looking forward to training being over in some regards but in others, is the grass greener on the other side? I like being able to walk down the road to other PCTs and talk in English. I like my family here a lot and I like having some structure to my day. Who knows what kind of a wack job family I could end up with at my site? PC doesn’t even pick these families!! A community member/committee or whatever from the site picks it. So, if my project partner is a butthead and wants to make some extra money, they could just tell the APCD that I should live with them. As far as I know, PC goes and makes sure the house meets safety requirements and then, bam, I’m on my own. Great. I’m hoping I don’t end up living with my project partner since I have not heard one good story about that but who knows. I’m trying to be somewhat optimistic so I don’t go insane with the “what ifs”.

But, needless to say, I’m a little (or a lot) apprehensive as to what I’ll end up with. I’ve decided that it would be good to tell my Doña what I like and don’t like right away, like I did here on the first night. I haven’t gotten mangú, platinos, or yucca since I’ve been here, which has really helped out my digestive issues. It has been kind of beneficial that so many PCTs got sick here because my Doña seemed to think it was from other Doña’s feeding the PTCs too much grease. I had to roll with that one of course, I don’t like greasy food and Doña’s don’t like sick guests. If I get sick, well it must be from the rain, but never from my Doña’s grease-free food.

Well, it’s getting late and I have to get up early to go for my early morning torture (running) so I should stop while I’m still coherent. I miss you all and I hope you’re having a hoot getting ready for Halloween!!! (so jealous!!)

Love

B

10/12/08 The best beach thus far

That’s right, the best. My fellow PCTs and I went to a different beach today and it was GREAT! The other beach we’ve gone to twice in CBT, Las Salinas, is pretty but we would have to walk through a freaking coral reef to get to the deep water (ok not exactly but it was a rough time; there were those sea urchin thingys along with lots of sharp rocks) which is kind of far away from the shore. That’s not a good thing when we all go out into the water, nice and far from shore, and then have conversations about sea creatures that can kill us (which happens disturbingly often). Las Salinas has pretty clean water but there was a huge mosquito issue there the first time we went. The beach near Santo Domingo, Boca Chica, is better than nothing but I’m not sure what more than that. It was dirty, cloudy and had trash floating all over when we went. The water was like dirty-bath-water-warm and it was overcrowded. There was no currant at all because it was circled in by a wall of rocks. So, today the beach we went to- Palmar de Ocoa, was awesome!! There was sand instead of rocks, there were no coral reef to walk through and the water got really deep really fast, unlike Las Salinas, so didn’t have to venture far from shore. It was cool water with warm bursts and it was so clear I felt like I was defying gravity since I could see so far below my feet. I loved it.

Something to look forward to is that this isn’t even a notable beach here in the country. This great beach doesn’t even compare to lots of other beaches. That’s right, come visit. I want you all to know that I am taking the responsibility of finding the very best beaches in the country very serious. I want to make sure when you visit we go to the most beautiful ones, it’s tough but I’ll try to do my best and personally visit as many beaches as possible- a sacrifice just for you.

To make the day better, there were two birthdays this week in our group so Ann bought a cake to celebrate. The cake was soooo good, it was chocolate cherry. I don’t even like cherry but I liked this. I guess she was going to buy a regular old fashioned Dominican birthday cake (the frosting is nasty in my experience) but they were out of them so she bucked up and shelled out 800 pesos for this cake. It was moist and delicious and I loved it.

So, that’s the most important, notable part of my day. In fact, the beach was so good that my memory has been wiped clean of the events prior. I hope you can live vicariously through me and I’ll live through you when my lights go out. Hope you’re all having a good time there. Even though I love the beach, I miss the fall. Jump in a pile of leaves for me or something, well ok… do something fall-ish and tell me about it please. Thanks!!

Love

B

Interesting Comments:

Conversation with Jessica:

Me: Well, time to grope myself in public again to get the water out of the padding. (at the beach)

Jess: That’s ok. Maybe you’ll get a number and then go on a date and eat chips and salsa. Yeah, that would be good.

Me: Do I smell hand sanitizer?! Yum!! (“clean” is the new vanilla)

Katie: (joyfully)Wow! I can’t believe I’ve been in the water this long and nothing has stung me yet!

10/11/08 Saturday night

Today was a fairly normal, non-eventful day with a very abnormal ending for me. I woke up and went running with some of the health group and didn’t fall in the river this time. See last time I was trying to cross it, it’s fairly shallow only going up to my knees in the deepest parts, and I fell off of the rocks and wiped out. On the up side, I got a harder workout since it was like running with weights the whole time, squishy, sandy weights. Today there was a Dominican guy in the river (it’s common to bathe in the river or in front yards, you know the usual) and he was nice enough to help us all cross. Lucky for me, being cautious because of the day before, I let a few girls go first and wouldn’t you know it, a rock came lose and the chick in front of me fell in. The guy was really helpful and secured all the rocks so when I went over them, they were good as gold.

So, after that I came home, showered, ate and decided it was time for a nap. But, I couldn’t sleep so 30 minutes later I was cleaning. See, I kind of have this problem; my room ate one of Jessica’s Sex in the City DVDs. I swear, a few nights ago when I was doing the limbo to get into my mosquito net while un-tucking the smallest amount possible, I had my arms full of the usual stuff: iPod, laptop, book, journal, DVDs, flashlight…. I told you I don’t want to get out of my net once I’m in. So anyways, I was doing my balancing act when the three DVDs I had slid to the ground. I found two of them and the third is still no where to be found! Which is why I thoroughly cleaned my room and so I guess since I didn’t find it, my room must have eaten it. I’m not sure what I’m going to tell Jess. I would be pissed if I lent someone a series and they lost a DVD. If anyone has season 4, disk two of Sex and the City and would like to send me a copy to bail me out that would be helpful, thanks!

After cleaning my room I took off to meet up with my Spanish group to work on our project. We sat and talked and didn’t do our project again and decided it would be a better use of time to go to my house and watch a movie. I checked my watch to see how much time we had before lunch and couldn’t believe it was only 10:30!! How had I done my normal morning stuff, taken a nap and cleaned my room and it still just be 10:30?!

We decided to watch Forgetting Sarah Marshall (ok Darryl decided it but ok) and it went over lunch time. My Doña called me into the kitchen to help her because, surprise, she made us all lunch. So Kenzie and Darryl ate my favorite lunch of wheat and pork and then went home and ate lunch again with their Doñas. I thought that was funny but sweet of my Doña. I also mentioned to her last week that I like honey with bread and I guess she has a friend who has a bee farm. She surprised me with a sheet of honeycomb! We cut out parts of it and ate it, honeycomb and all!! The bee-nest part of it was really chewy and it was so sweet I couldn’t eat more than a bite or two but it was really cool, never done that before!

The rest of the day was pretty uneventful, going to Baní and then just kind of wasting time at home trying to read Newsweek slowly so I absorb a little more in hopes to gain a sincere interest in it one day. (its like beer, right?) The highlight of the day was the quinceaños I went to.

I was feeling a little antisocial after such a lazy day and was contemplating not going but I knew everyone was going and would wonder where I was so I got out of my hermit shell and decided to be fashionably late. Good thing too because the PCT told me she thought it started at 7 and I got there at 8:45 to find that all the other PCTs hadn’t been there for more than 20 minutes. We waited until about 9:30 until the Quinceañera came out.

This was my first one and let me tell you, they are a big deal for sure. The colmado it was at was packed full of people. I asked my Doña if she was going to go and she told me she never got an invitation but something tells me there were people there who weren’t formally invited. The birthday girl was dressed to the 9s in a really pretty dress (like a prom dress) and her hair was all curled, topped with a tiara. She danced the first dance with her dad, to song going on about a butterfly. Then he changed her shoes. I think she was supposed to be wearing flats and he was supposed to put heels on to signify her transition into womanhood but she was already wearing heels so it was kind of weird. They took a ton of pictures, even asking all the PCTs to get in to take a picture with her.

Then the dancing began. There was some crazy dancing!! I took the liberty of looking like a weirdo and videotaped some dances which I plan on posting on youtube and will put the links on the side by my picture link if its user-friendly enough for me. There are two main types of dancing here; merenge, and bachatta (there’s also reggaeton which is pretty much dry humping to music in creative positions). The first two have different variations of fast, faster, and psycho fast. Tonight I was more than amused to see a man in his 60s or 70s really shake it. I had to videotape him, it was too funny. If I can move like that when I’m that old I’d be pretty happy too! Then there were the performers, these girls probably between the ages of 7 and 11 who had choreographed 4 or 5 dances for the evening. Dominican people are very forthcoming with their sexuality. I guess that’s an applicable statement for all ages because these girls did some things only the most skilled dancers on my college campus could do. They moved their hips, abdomen and chest as three completely different entities! The preformed kind of a lap dance on empty chairs and shock things I didn’t know could shake that way. I also videotaped this phenomenon.

I could be disturbed from the evening, that young girls see no problem exploiting their bodies this way but I prefer to use it to boost my confidence for my charla on Wednesday. My Spanish group and I have to give a presentation to youth about sex, whatever topic we want with it. We chose to do the ABCs; Abstinence, Being safe, and Condoms. I took abstinence, thinking I wouldn’t have to talk too much in detail about doing the deed itself. However, I realized that because I chose a topic about not having sex doesn’t mean I don’t have to talk much about sex. The thought of talking to kids between 12 and 15 years old about how masturbation is a natural alternative to sex and defining it, all in Spanish, is really not something I’m looking forward to. However, after tonight I decided that these “kids” are obviously comfortable with the topic, more than I am since I felt like I violated them just by watching them dance! Also, if there’s this much sexuality in their culture then I think it’s necessary to define abstinence, and talk about how to say no, possible situations one could find themselves in, alternatives to sex. If all else fails, I’m going to use good old denial and pretend I’m not actually talking about this with a bunch of junior high kids.

So, I hope you enjoyed another day in the life of me. I wonder if these 15^th birthday parties are the same in the States for Hispanics and other Latin Americans. They’re pretty crazy but it was pretty fun too. I’m glad I left the shell at home for a bit and had a good time. Hope you’re all staying sane there at home and staying warm! Until next time,

Love

B

A Day in the Life

10/9/08

Hey there fan club:) Say, that’s a nice way to look at this! Sorry but I just don’t have that much to talk about so far this week. Plus, I confess I’ve been working on a super long letter to someone and it’s put my time for blogging to shame. But, in true Betsy form, I’m sure I can find something to talk about so here goes:)

My Day In a Nutshell:

Since there isn’t really anything new going on I’ll take up space talking about the everyday annoying things here. Today was kind of interesting I guess. I woke up and went running (I have to get up at 5:45 to have time to run and shower before breakfast so I can eat with Kirses, my “sister” here), came home and took a “shower” (bucket bath or course with cold water), got dressed and doused myself with the first of three applications of bug spray for the day, and was greeted with pancakes for breakfast, yum! The past few days my family has just been feeding me bread (pretty much since I didn’t eat the hot dog- chicken noodle soup for breakfast) and I can’t help but feel like they’re annoyed with making food now. It works out ok though because I just bought a package of crackers and peanut butter and mangos to sustain me plus I haven’t been having a “hungry” week.

So, anyways, I next head to Darryl’s house because I seem to remember having some Spanish homework but it escaped me as to what it was. The day before we went to a family planning clinic in Santo Domingo (where I pretty much spaced out the whole time since it was in Spanish and it overloaded my brain to think that long in Spanish) and I bought this neat looking ready-to –eat pineapple. They cut it all fancy pantsy, to me it looked like pineapple on the cob, but I had eaten a lot of fruit so I decided to save it for the next day. So, the next day- today, I did my homework at Darryl’s house and enjoyed my pineapple on the cob while making a huge, juicy mess as usual. It was delicious and Darryl took a picture of it for me:) I put a link up to the right that leads to my myspace profile where a bunch of pictures are if you want to take a look.

After my wonder treat it was off to Spanish class and about half way though I realized I forgot something very important. A few days ago I bought what I thought was laundry soap to wash my clothes in and thought since I had extra time in the morning that I would wash my underwear. The directions said to put the clothes in a bucket with water and let them soak for like 10 minutes. Well, I remembered that I left them soaking but it was about 2 hours after they had been in the soapy water, ekk! Then my Spanish teacher tells me what I bought isn’t even soap, it’s more like Downy fabric softener!! Which I guess is good because my ropa interior was anything but soft, it felt kind of crusty- washing stuff by hand will do that.

When I got home I was going to take care of the super Downy smelling clothes but I’ve been so tired that I completely forgot. I told my Dona I would just eat later and went to bed. It wasn’t exactly restful because the lights went out about 30 minutes later and so goodbye fan. It’s ok though, I have developed coping mechanisms and I didn’t even sweat. (well, either that or I’m dehydrated…) Sadly, my coping mechanisms haven’t’ developed enough for me to sleep well so two hours later I had slept for maybe 45 minutes. Then when I was trying to get out of my mosquitero there were like 6 mosquitoes on my net, right where I needed to un-tuck it to get out!! I couldn’t get out because I didn’t want them in my net! They can live up to a month with me as their buffet every night, no thank you! So, I un-tucked a teeny bit and grabbed my bug spray (always close) and sprayed the perimeter of my bed. In the time I had my net open, a mosquito got in so I had to stay in my net until I could catch her in the air and kill her, no easy task with these super mosquitoes here. My victory reminded me that I had my clothes still soaking about 7 hours longer than recommended so I went to deal with that. Three buckets of rinse water later, I figured they were as rinsed as they could be and set them in the sun to dry figuring that should take some of the smell from them. Besides, when things don’t dry in the sun, they smell.

When I walked out to the living room my Dona was there to greet me, and so was lunch which had been sitting on the table for over 2 hours. It was chicken and rice with corn. I ate the rice and fed the chicken to the cats. In the meantime I was supposed to meet up with my Spanish group so we could set up plans for our next and final CBT presentation for next week. Darryl came to my house to see where I was and inform me that there was a big fight going on past his house so we couldn’t walk by anyways. It worked out well for me because I was working on that long letter.

After a little while we went to the park to meet Kenzie who had been waiting for about 45 minutes but wasn’t upset because we are on Dominican time after all. Plus, I brought a mango as a peace offering. There were two other girls there and we all sat around and talked about lots of different things, sometimes even our Spanish homework that we were supposed to be doing. After an hour or so it started to rain which was nice because it cooled everything off and gave us more of a reason to sit there even longer. After a tough afternoon we decided to go to the river, well I decided to walk to my house while they went to the river, but we made plans for them to meet up at my house later for some more mango.

When I got home I found all my underwear neatly stacked on the fan in my room. The problem with this is that the clothes were wet from the rain (since they were still outside supposed to be drying), and they were on top of the fan that which I noticed this morning had dead flies hanging from it. So much for the sun making them smell clean, now they’re stinky and have dead bugs in them. At least the rain rinsed them a little better. My room still smelled overwhelmingly like fabric softener though, cosas de la vida I guess.

After that the other PCTs all ended up at my house somehow and we hung out for a while. Then I worked on my letter more, read Newsweek some since it’s my only source of outside news (although I don’t really have a clue what its talking about, I figure its like Spanish and eventually I’ll catch on) Later my Dona asked me what I want for dinner. Generally this happens and when I say what I would like she says oh, how about this…. And that’s what I get. So, I’m not sure why she asks. Tonight she asked with the same enthusiasm as a kid in a circus and a huge smile, “How about bread!?” Mmmm- bread again, can’t wait! I asked if she sill had mac n cheese and she did so I narrowly avoided another meal of bread. It tasted weird this time though so maybe next time I should just eat the bread, after all it is wheat bread. After all that, I wrote in my blog a little, as you can see, and then it’s time to shower by lantern while the mosquitoes feast on me. After that, who knows? Sex in the City? I have to say, season 4 is pretty good and I can watch a couple episodes before my battery dies. (remember the lights go out around 8:30) Once I’m in my mosquito net there’s no leaving until 5:45 am so I better make sure everything I need is in my bed!

Interesting comments recently:

Darryl: “I think my plate this morning that had my breakfast on it had a bugar too. (spell check doesn’t like the word bugar, did I spell it wrong?) I just ate around it, it’s amazing how far I’ve come. I used to be a bit of a germ-a-phob (spell check doesn’t like this either) in the States.”

Jessica: “Yeah? Well, my site has electricity, twenty four hour electricity” (we have to clarify that here in the DR and that’s something to envy for sure!)

Kenzie: “My Dad told me he found this thing for like $180 that he can send me so I’ll be able to watch whatever tv they watch at home wherever I am. I just need internet. Thanks Dad.” (If we had internet at home wouldn’t we have tv?)

PCT : “The mosquitoes that bite are all females so I really can’t call them basterds anymore. Bitches doesn’t sound strong enough so I call them Fuckers. That’s what they deserve, Fuckers.” (so true, these are some type of evolved super mosquito here. If I ever would drop the f bomb and not feel bad about it, this would be when.)

On that note, I hope you enjoyed a day in the life of Betsy. For not having much to talk about I still managed to write 4 pages, thanks for the genes Dad! To everyone, the next time you squish a mosquito, please dedicate its death to a PCV and remember to mentally celebrate. One for the team, go you! And as always, feel free to send me a note telling me of anything new in your lives. How are things at BCHD? Also, I heard that Uncle Greg and Karen moved into a new house? That’s exciting, congrats; I’d love to see some pictures!! Hope you’re all doing well there, I miss you all.

Love

B

PS: We went to the PC office yesterday but they had taken our mail to the training center in another part of town so we weren’t able to get it. It looks like I won’t be able to get anything until a week from Sunday or Monday (so either the 19th or 20th). So for those of you who sent something, don’t worry about it maybe being lost since I haven’t mentioned that I received it. It may be waiting for me but I won’t be able to check for a while. And Dad, I’m only moving to one more town so feel free to send me anything you want, I don’t mind really:) Yes, a flashlight is something I can still use since the one you shake (the one I have) is not really efficient. I can buy the common stuff like flashlights here in country though. I’m hoping when I get to my site (which is just three weeks from today, ekkk!!) and have some freedom I’ll be able to get out some and pick up some stuff I need. So don’t worry too much about it and save some cash (or of course feel free to donate it to my bank account:)

Not- so- new Newbies

10/7/08 Tuesday night

Well, we got our new PCVs. They’re two girls who were stationed in Bolivia. I think one of them was there for like 18 months and the other for 7. It seems pretty cool to be able to live in another country but at the same time, wow- that would suck! I mean, these girls were told that they had to get to the capitol in Bolivia within 12 hours and to bring all their stuff just in case they had to leave the country. Then they were evacuated into Peru, they didn’t know if they would be going back or not. Next thing you know they’re all being given the option to transfer to another country or early terminate! Poor girls had friends and projects; they just had to walk away from it all. And how do you say goodbye that fast? I think there were about 150 PCVs there at the time and just 38 of them transferred. I believe they were also given the option as to how long they wanted to stay here in the DR (one year or two). They were given a list of countries which were able to accept transfers and then asked to pick their first three choices. Amazingly, they all got their first choices. Only two of the 38 came to the DR and my health group got them both. It’s nice because we’re just down one from our original number now.

This is a short blog but I guess there’s not much to write about today. Tomorrow we’re going to the capitol to see a clinic… but I forgot which one. That should be interesting. I’m glad we don’t have to take public transportation there because Santo Domingo is so smoggy and when I’m on the guagas I get car sick. Not a good combo when you’re crammed in like sardines. Always something to be happy about!! I hope you all doing great and I get to hear from you all soon, leave a comment if you’re reading this (even if I don’t know you!) so I know its getting read by people I don’t talk to on the phone. (Oh yeah, and I changed the settings so I approve all messages first, that way I know when there’s a new one and don’t have to fish through my huge novel of a blog and waste time).

Miss you guys and home!!

Love

B

10/5/08 Sunday Lessons Learned

Some things happened on the home front these past few days which made me pretty upset. I was antisocial here at in the DR, tucked away in the safety of my mosquito net to watch Sex in the City marathons and bootlegged movies for so long my computer began to protest. I had no appetite and I know my Dona was wondering what the heck was wrong with me. She was probably worried I was getting sick or something, a BIG concern with everything that’s been going around. (another girl got sick and spent all day in her house yesterday, that puts the total up to 5 PCTs sick with whatever weird thing is going around… just three of us left to run in fear!!:(

Anyways, so my poor Dona was concerned and to tell you the truth, I really didn’t care. It seems when it rains it pours and makes one thing- which may not normally be a big deal- combined with other things a huge deal. Not to mention I’m however many miles away from the issue/home and so the control freak in me is helpless to do anything about it. So, on top of being upset, and pissy for not being able to do a thing about it, I was learning even more needed PC (and I guess life over all) traits: patience (of which I have none), trust, and dependence.

That’s right, I said DE-pendence. It’s weird isn’t it? You would think that this experience would make you more independent but, nope definitely not, at least not yet. Hopefully one day... And to tell you the truth, that in itself can be maddening, no wait; it is maddening. Normally however my lack of independence doesn’t upset me; I just kind of ignore the issue. But, when I told my Dona I didn’t want breakfast and she guilted me into eating at least toast (she made me chicken noodle soup too, with hotdogs in it but my stomach wasn’t having it), I could hear myself cursing my dependence.

So, what got me out of this awful, mean funk you wonder? Well, actually the poor girl who was sick yesterday got our Spanish teachers to agree to take us to the beach today (sympathy card all the way). Never being one to turn down the beach, I planned on going- funk or no funk. When I showed up, there was only about half of the group there. I was a teeny bit apprehensive about going to the beach because the three girls I normally hang out with weren’t going. Once we got on the road my anxieties were put to ease and after a little while I found myself sharing my story. To my surprise, they were all interested and had somewhat similar stories of their own as well as insight and empathy. What’s better than a little “friend therapy”?:) I got support from an unlikely source that picked me up when I wasn’t expecting it.

I’m so glad I left the house and went with my group. It was really nice, despite being harassed a lot by the nasty guys at the beach who never cease to amaze and disgust me with the very select words of English they have learned and also despite the fact we got rained on and kind of beat up by the beach. I had a great time and learned another lesson today: just because you think you don’t have a connection with some people, don’t underestimate the prospect of a relationship.

That’s it for now, hope all is well with you all!

Love

B

PS: We’re actually getting two transfer Volunteers from Bolivia tomorrow! In true PC style, I just found out today at the beach and I am PSYCHED!

Markets, Site Placement, Gardens and more!!

Week of 9/27/08- 10/4/08

I can’t believe it’s been a week since I was able to post! I didn’t even have time to write in my blog until about half way through the week and man I feel like there’s so much to write I could never remember it all but here goes…

BUT FIRST….
Today is my brother Aarons 25th birthday!!! I wish I could be there (birthdays are a BIG deal in my family) and I’ll be thinking of Aaron a lot today. I hope you have a GREAT birthday and can’t wait to talk to you all today during the party!!! :D HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

Illnesses

So, last Saturday the lone guy in our group got really sick. At first we were all afraid he had Dengue since he had a lot of the classic symptoms and seemed miserable but the next day he was pretty much better. Then on Sunday another member of the group came down with the same thing he was sick with. At least we knew she would most likely be better the next day although she was so ill and was losing so much fluid that she was worried she would have to go to the capitol to the hospital for an IV to rehydrate. Thankfully that didn’t happen. The then next day, Monday, another girl got really sick but it was different from the first two; she was only vomiting like crazy. All three lasted for a strong day but then just as quickly as they came, they left. Last week one girl found out she has Scabies (it’s gone now) and someone else had bedbugs!! Monday or Tuesday one of the language teachers discovered she had pink eye and I’m not sure but I think another one has it. People in the town have pink eye like crazy and they don’t use medicine to get rid of it, they use cherry juice or Vicks (Vicks is used for a lot here, I’ve put in on my mosquito bites so far)- that’s right, they put that crap in their eyes. Not good. Anyways, we’ve ALL had diarrhea here and with two weeks left I’m wondering what else is in store for us here at CBT. At least we have each other for support. When we get to our sites, we’ll be on our own.

DR Moments worth noting:

1) It’s customary here for a person to offer you a chair to sit in. This includes when you’re in the park with friends I guess since a child came out of no where with one of those plastic yard chairs on his head for us to sit in. When he walked up to us, dropped the chair and took off I think I had a “DR moment”- aka- “Wow, that was different… and yet normal”.

2) A PCT left the community building we were having class in at the time to use the bathroom in a host family’s house and when she came back she asked if anyone wanted the coffee. We looked up to see that in the five minutes she was gone the Dona had managed to give her coffee. People looooove to offer coffee or juice here and Patty just couldn’t get out of it that time.

3) During class the only girl who has a latrine stood up to demonstrate to me the proper way to balance on a latrine for me so I don’t pee on my pants again when I have to use one. No one though it was weird, just informative.

4) “I love using other people’s toilets” – PCT who has a latrine at her house.

5) When we talk about not wanting to get up at night to pee either due to sheer laziness from not wanting to un-tuck our mosquito nets only to have to re-tuck them a few minutes later or because we can hear something scurrying around on our floor. (The latter hasn’t happened to me thankfully)

6) The weird new sensation that I would rather know what’s crawling on me before getting it off of me.

7) The strange but strong satisfaction that comes with lying in bed and looking at all the mosquitoes that can’t get in my net.

8) Finally understanding why people shut their windows at night when it’s the best time to cool off their house. One word: insects (or in my case, spiders).

9) Waking up each night, not sure why and then realizing it was because the power came back on and the coolness of the fan freaked me out.

10) Not ever being able to sleep through a storm due to the zinc roof. Also, not being able to have a conversation when it’s raining hard since I can’t hear the person sitting next to me.

11) Fitting 22 people in a van that is supposed to hold like 15. (This happened just yesterday when we stopped to pick up a huge group of kids walking home from school).

12) Going from hating to tuck my mosquito net in since it scratches up the back of my hand every time to enjoying it since it scratches my various bites.

Building a Garden

So, on Monday (9/29) my group and I set out to build a garden. The house had already been selected by the technical trainer, Ann so we all showed up at 5 pm, after our Spanish classes, somewhat ready to work. Ann walked us over to the site of the future garden which didn’t seem very spectacular. It was nice and shady but not very flat, and our garden was going to be kind of small. Well, that was ok with me actually. So the group got to work- well about half of the group since there weren’t enough tools for everyone to work or enough space really. I stood there watching the others pick- ax away at the dirt and starting thinking that I would maybe prefer to just supervise this project. One problem: I had never constructed a garden before! I tried to do some flowery things at home last summer but they were quickly overtaken by weeds and I realized that gardening is NO easy task.

So, as I stood there pondering life I was brought back to reality as I somehow had volunteered myself to help get the manure. I strolled off to the van and we drove to a pig pen where two other girls and I shoveled pig poop into bags. This part proved easy but the challenging part was not stepping in the fresh stuff. I didn’t want my tennis shoes to get all nasty so I had worn my Crocs- that’s right, shoes with holes. We went back to the house with the soon to be garden and I was still shaking suspect pieces of “dirt” out of my shoes. Two hours later we had finished! The garden had three raised beds in it and we planted something like 8 plants: onion, garlic, carrots, cilantro, and I forgot the rest.

During the process we had the usual weird person come up to see what we were doing. We were in someone’s fenced in backyard but someone walking by and seen all of us and had to know what was going on. I guess it was some important person from Santo Domingo. After haggling Ann for a few minutes about what we were doing, who we were and why the garden was so small he decided he knew a better way to work and, in his dress shoes and business casual office clothing, he took the pick ax from a PCT and began hacking the dirt. He did a pretty good job I thought, except he didn’t look first before he swung the instrument and almost took out the Spanish teacher standing behind him! As quickly as he came, he was gone again… but not before getting something to drink from the Dona of course!!

The Market Field Trip

Well I can’t remember what day it was exactly but sometime this week we were informed that we were going to the market in our Spanish groups, something we were supposed to do forever ago. (I know I’ve been at CBT for like 3 weeks but a week ago feels like forever!) The whole health group went to the market together and broke up into our groups when we got there. To my surprise, Juan (my teacher) walked us to the entrance and said, “Good luck, remember to bargain!” and then walked off. Hmm, that’s not what I had in mind.

Well, ok then and off we were. My group decided to make cookies (recipe compliments of Rach:) and we had to get the ingredients for the presentation we were doing the next day. (making Super Eggs but I’ll get to that later) We were able to find a stand with items for our Super Eggs pretty early on and gathered up the ingredients. The guy told us it was 45 pesos and Darryl (guy in my group) said ok and handed him the money. I was like, “Darryl!! Why’d you do that? We’re supposed to bargain, remember?” Ok, I said the next place I would try to haggle.

So we went into this place with most of the goods for the cookies where a really helpful guy assisted us. We asked for half cups of this and tablespoons of that and he would scoop stuff out randomly and say, “That looks about right.” Not exactly an exact science but ok. When we got it all it was supposed to be 90 pesos without the eggs. “90 pesos! Oh, but that’s soooo expensive!” I said. “How about 50?” The guy laughed and joked a little but didn’t say no. Kenzie and Darryl felt a little bad for him I think so they were like, “Ok, how about 80?” The guy was happy with that and so off we went. I still think we could have at least gotten away with it all for like 65 or 70 though.

Next we had to find chocolate chips. They are impossible to find in this country!! We had some random boy who was about 12 trying to help us and he was leading us all over the place looking for chocolate. He was helpful but a little annoying and Bossy Betsy had to shush him at the end finally. He kept trying to get us to buy these bitter chocolate candy pieces which people use in hot chocolate. Being the inquisitive chocolate pig that I am, I had already sampled those bars and they are soooo not ok to use in cookies. Thanks to the lesson Jackie and Rach taught me when I was like 13, I know for sure that chocolate bark is gross if you’re going to be consuming it when it’s not totally mixed in with something. 10 years later and their mean trick finally came in handy!

So we walked and walked and finally we found a candy store. They were selling chocolate bell thingys for 3 pesos each. Well, we needed like 20 and that’s a lot to spend on chocolate when all other other ingredients cost us 80 pesos. I asked her if we bought 20 would she give them to us for 2 pesos each. I have no idea what she said but when I counted out 20 so told me it was 40 pesos so I guess it worked.

Next I went to buy some fruit and the mango dude was selling them for 10 pesos EACH! I just bought them last weekend somewhere else for 5 pesos each. I asked if he would give me two for 10, he said 2 for 15 and I said 2 for 12 and we had a deal! Needless to say, I was pretty dang satisfied. After all the walking and looking though me and my group were about 30 minutes late for meeting everyone else so as we were walking back we were met by our Spanish teacher who was pretty worried. Poor guy thought he lost his whole class!

Nutrition Center

Wednesday we all went to the nutrition center in Bani. It’s the only nutrition center in the whole country. Its way more than just a regular nutrition center though, it’s for children under the age of five and so it doubles as a day care. People have to pay a little per month to take their kids there (to help with the costs since its run solely on donations) but in the morning the kids are fed breakfast, then they play and run around until snack time. They get milk as a snack at 10 and then lunch at 11 or 12. Then they are all given baths and lay down to nap while their clothes are washed. After more playing and another snack of milk, the parents can either pick their children up or let them stay for preschool. Children get a lot of milk at the clinic since they generally don’t get it at home. Due to the global food crisis, the cost of food has gone up a ridiculous amount in the last few years. Milk is much too expensive for the average person to buy and so they just go without.

The clinic is run by a nun who is from Canada. She’s lived here in the DR for more than 30 years and had the nutrition clinic for a looong time. I’m not sure how long but I know that she moved from a church to her current building and has been there for the past 12 years. It seems she runs the clinic pretty well. In order for a person to bring their child to the center they have to come and volunteer one day a week. The children come to the clinic five days a week for up to a year. By then the mothers should know how to properly nourish their children with what they have and the child should be close to normal expected weight.

You all know that I am no fan of kids so playing with them for an entire hour was less than entertaining for me but it wasn’t too bad as long as I wasn’t one of the people holding the bubbles. After the kids at their lunch of “green soup” (which is made of green leaves made into a paste and noodles) my fellow PCTs and I were treated to lunch. It was the best lunch I have had in the country with delicious cheese, (the cheese from the colmados has the nick name “squeaky cheese” since it squeaks against your teeth when you eat it and this is the only cheese I’ve been eating pretty much since I got here), healthy cookies with oatmeal, fresh cantaloupe (which ALWAYS makes me think of you Rach since you loaded me up with it my last few days there:), fresh veggies which weren’t cooked, nice fluffy rolls and of course green soup. It was great!

The nutrition center also has a clinic on the property which offers consultations, vaccines and other common services. It’s really a great asset in the middle of a very poor community. The nun showed us pictures of various children she has had there, some that have made it and others than died. Right now they have a child who is 9 months old and just 11 pounds. It’s really sad to see the pictures of the children who died because the mothers were unable to feed them or unwilling to take them to the clinic each day.

Presentation

So, yesterday was the day that I had to give my first presentation in front of the members of the community. When I first heard about this I was nervous but later I felt ok with it but then right before it I began to get nervous. Here it’s normal to take a nap after lunch (which is when I write my blog since it’s too hot to nap) but the day of our presentation I fell back into Bossy Betsy mode and our Spanish teacher didn’t take a nap either. I worked on this with my Spanish group and with two of the three of us being sick on Saturday and Monday it put us a little behind. So, college style, we were working on finishing it up a few hours before we had to present. I figured we needed all the time we could get and there wasn’t time for naps, but then I felt bad. I was later reassured that I’m not that bossy and that in this country all the women are bossy so it’s ok.

When it came time to present we had dealt with all the issues that come up right before hand and were ready. We went outside (it was held in my Dona’s backyard) and saw that the crowd of what we thought was going to be 8 grew a LOT. By the end of the presentation there were probably over 30 people there. For our presentation we could talk on either nutrition or breastfeeding. We chose nutrition. Giving a 45 minute speech in Spanish where you can’t read it straight off of paper is no easy task. We played games and cooked a meal for everyone (super eggs) with green leaves in the community. The presentation got off to a rocky start with a turkey mistaking me for its mate (or dinner) as it followed me around all puffed up but by the end, it went well.

Spanish

Last night proved to me that my Spanish MUST be getting better. We were planning on cooking our meal in the kitchen and having the 8-10 expected to show up in there with us. There was no way 30 people were fitting in the kitchen though, in fact when I said it no one moved from their chair. So my two other presenters were in the kitchen cooking while I was trying to explain the steps and then ad-lib so I wasn’t standing in front of a crowd in awkward silence. Ad-libbing in Spanish is no easy thing but you all know me and I guess I can babble in more than just English!

Also, today we had to take another proficiency exam to see where we are in our Spanish. When I took the first one I was placed at a level 3. I was pretty nervous since I was afraid I would be having a bad Spanish day or something and she would tell me I was like a level 2 now. But, I did in interview and can happily report that I’ve improved to a level 4. I need one more level by the 29th; I think I can do it! The professor told me that I am a good conversationalist but I need to work on using the imperfect more, I’m not sure but I think she said she would have put me at a 5 if I had done that more. Luckily for me, she told me not to study but to practice by speaking. I told her that’s good news because I like to talk and don’t like to study!

MY SITE!!!

So, the moment you’ve all been waiting for…. Where will I be for the next two years? Drum roll please… As I said in my last blog, I was nervous about having to live in the south or having to live in a batey. I was surprised to find out that we were being told our sites so early since I had heard from other volunteers that they didn’t find out until the week they were to leave for their sites! Well, to add to the suspense, let me just say that we were all having class and the APCD began calling us out of the classroom one by one to tell us where we would be going. I found out that some people were being given a choice between a few places. After one after another went, I found myself the last person to be called to go, which could have meant that I got the last pick!! I was so nervous when I finally got to talk to Miguel that I had prepared myself for the worst.

I got the opposite. Miguel began by telling me that the area he was thinking of sending me was in the mountains and was cool and crisp. He said that there had been water volunteers in the area on several occasions and so PC is known there (and kind of celebrities since water volunteers are almost thought of as gods since they “bring water” to the communities) and so PC is very popular as well. He said there is a team of community members for me to work with and that the community is excited to have me. At first it sounded really good but then I wondered if I would be far up on some side of a mountain that I would need a whole day to get to my site or that my phone wouldn’t work! He told me the nearest town is about 20 minutes away by car and that my cell phone should work there since it worked with the other volunteers. I guess Miguel is really found of the site, he told me he goes there just to get away sometimes and relax. He said it’s more than beautiful, that it’s “God’s gift to the Earth”. If you knew Miguel, you would be shocked to hear such vivacious statements from him, I know I was. He also said the people are great there, that they are very open and kind.

Where is it you ask? Just where I wanted to be, in the North in the beautiful, fertile area of the country!! It’s really close (I’m guessing within an hour) of a ton of tourist resorts (which are in Puerta Plata- the region directly north of mine- but there are a lot more in other regions of the country) so you all can visit a resort and swing by to pick me up at my site!! My site is in a town called Los Ruales which I think is outside of a town called Villa Bisoró or Nayarreto. It’s a campo (which may even be a campo campo since it’s pretty small) with a total of about 125 houses and that sounds perfect to me:) If you find anything out about it on google or something let me know!!

I’m excited too because it’s pretty close to Santiago and there is a regional PC office there. This means I can get mail there and won’t have to go all the way to Santo Domingo for mail and I expect that will save me a ton of money in traveling. So I’m going to change my mailing address as soon as I get the Santiago address. Don’t worry if you forget and send something to the Santo Domingo address because I will always have a mailbox in Santo Domingo, it’s just that I’ll be going to Santiago much more often than Santo Domingo.

Feliz Navidad

Ok so today was mail day and let me tell everyone it was like Christmas here!! Let me say thank you sooooo much Rach, Mom, Sarah and Stewy for your letter/packages!! I was soooo surprised; there was a ton of mail for a lot of people today too which was nice since almost everyone got something. Dad, just so you know I have not gotten any other flashlight. Rach send a light but it’s not a flashlight, it’s like a light you stick to things and leave in place (thanks Rach!!). And I think the book bag will be great Mom, thanks a LOT!! It was good today to use to carry my mail back in! I got a letter you mailed me on September 4th Sar and I always love to hear what’s going on and look at pictures of family so thanks for that! Gabe and Isaiah, thanks for the new words! I don’t know my animals or body parts at all so maybe you can send me body parts next time. I informed the class that a fox is called a zorro, so we all learned something new thanks to you guys! And Stewy, aside from planning a movie night at my house on Friday thanks to all the great movies you sent me, I really enjoyed munching on some snacks while I worked on this super long blog!! You’re a freaking genius for stuffing that gladwear full of starbursts!! So thank you so much guys!! You’re really spoiling me here.

Other Random Things (added the next night 10/3…)

So, one other person in the total group left this week. He was in the youth group. Guess he woke up one morning and just thought to himself that he had had enough. And that was that I guess. The health group may be getting some new additions from Bolivia. I guess that there was a program there and something happened so the PC pulled out of the country. So the news is that there are possibly two volunteers who may be coming here to the DR this weekend and join us as early as Monday! But here it is Friday night and I haven’t heard anything so who knows.

Movie Night!

Friday night we had a great time at my house! Everyone came over between 5:45 and 7:30 (well, the Spanish teachers were fashionably late showing up at 8:30) and we made a bunch of food. My group made our chocolate chip cookies and they were sure a gamble! No one has measuring cups here and I’m no cook. So we guessed and did our best with what he had. Turns out the vanilla we got was white vanilla, aren’t we supposed to use brown vanilla? Well, aside from burning a few of them, and the fact that there may have been a little too much sugar since they were crystally, they were goooood:) The other two groups made a HUGE fruit salad and salsa with avocado, garlic, tomato and other good stuff. We didn’t have chips so we used this crunchy bread made out of yucca and it was good too! Then sat out in our plastic chairs and watched What Happens in Vegas with Spanish subtitles for the teachers. We were pretty happy because we got through the whole movie without my battery dying.

The next day I woke up disappointed to find that the power had not come back during the night so my computer was dead still. Normally it comes on between 11 pm and 2 am. So, I had a lot of stuff I needed to get off out my lap top since today we’re going to go to Bani and use the internet for the first time in a week. Luckily my Dona is a genius and told me to ask a colmado for a favor since some of them have generators. Three colmados later here I am hooked up to the generator in a colmado, drinking a coke from a bottle, my favorite:)

In Conclusion...

So that was my week, nice and busy!! I guess next week is finally supposed to be slow down a bit which is good. Hopefully I’ll be able to charge my laptop so I don’t always have to go to the colmado and use the power but boy am I happy they had one!! I miss you all and hope you’re all doing well there. Can’t wait to hear from you and read your responses!

Love
B