I need your help!

Hello everyone:)

As you all may know, I am finally beginning to start projects in my site. For those of you who have been reading my blog, you know that racism is a huge issue in the DR. In an effort to turn the tide on racism, each year 30 PCVs get together for Celebrando el Ciabo. El Ciabo is the region where I live so this translates as “Celebrating the Ciabo”. What is this interesting thing you ask? Well, Celebrando el Ciabo is a conference that PCVs host in August to raise awareness with the youth in the DR on racism. Each PCV brings some youth from their community to participate in the 3 day conference where we have games, and charlas on topics like disabilities, American culture, and of course racism among other things. After the conference, each youth is able to go back to their community and teach what they learned, thus achieving the constant goal of sustainability.

Like all things in life, this costs money. In addition to having a goal of raising $30 in our sites, each PCV needs to raise at least $125 to help with the costs of the center, food, transportation and materials. I have included the URL to the website where you can easily donate and any donation is tax deductible. Just copy and past the URL. Please take the time to donate. In reality these kids don't need that much money to go and so if only 5 people donated $25 we could reach our goal. If I am able to raise more than $125 that money will still be used for this conference. I promise to put pictures up on my blog and myspace of the event after wards in effort to keep sharing my PC experience with everyone. You have all been so supportive of me in so many ways since I arrived; please take the time for this as well and support my community too. Thank you so much!

- Betsy

URL: https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.donors.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=517-290




On the right side of the page in blue it says CONTRIBUTIONS. There it lists how much money we are soliciting and how much we have left to raise. Just enter how much you would like to donate in the box and click the DONATE button.

2/14- 2/18 Valentines Day and my new wall

2/18 Wednesday: Brownies for the Workers
There was no power from yesterday morning until about 12:30 last night (I know because I always forget to turn the switch off when they go out and then they wake me up when they turn on) After that we had power from then until about 7:30 this morning. It’s not really helpful when we have power from 12:30 at night until 7:30 in the morning except to charge stuff. But I guess I can’t be too picky, I am in the PC, living on a mountain/large hill in a 3rd world country (well, mostly 3rd world… not so much in the cities).

Thanks to my phone being charged I talked to other PCVs, Randi and Sarah, for a while today while I sat down at the drinking colmado and watched the men working. I don’t know if I have ever explained the stupid phone situation here in the DR. There is no such thing as a phone contract. All the phones are prepaid and the PC phones are, of course, no exception. We do have a perk though and that is that most PCVs are on the “network” or flota. This means that we can talk to each other for free but technically we’re not supposed to use more than 100 minutes a month. They told use in training that the phones have a lock thing on them and won’t call out after 100 minutes but that was just a scare tactic. That’s never happened to anyone so I like to take advantage of the free flota for those friends of mine who are on it. Kenz isn’t on it because the carrier PC uses, Claro, doesn’t have service in her site so she has a phone and PC gives her some money to buy calling cards each month.

Anyways, after I got off of the phone, I tried to appear productive like the guys working so I took my Escojo manual down with me and translated the words I didn’t know while swatting at the stupid rooster who kept walking by me, bugging me. I’m such a multitasker, I know. I managed to stay busy all morning doing this, which I was pretty proud of.

I know I was complaining when there were only two people working on the wall and now I’m complaining where there were 7 men working but it’s a little annoying having so many people focused on my house. For instance, this morning I didn’t leave my house until 8:15 or so because I wanted to make sure I did my exercises today so I did them in the morning (since I didn’t get to do them yesterday). When I walked out to ask who wanted coffee they were like, “You slept a lot last night huh?” I’m not sure why but for some reason it bugs me when people think I slept a lot. I told the dude I was exercising and he was like, “Where? In there?” Yes, it is possible to exercise inside I told him. Who knows, maybe I can try to set some example with exercise; something that would never have even been possible if I hadn’t gained weight. At least something good may come of it.

I have been really tired lately since I have a cold (or la gripe as they call so many sicknesses here) and haven’t been sleeping much and so after I ate lunch at Minga’s I laid in the sun for a bit in her front yard. It’s funny because I would have felt stupid doing that before with people walking in and out right past me but not today; I was tired and comfortable! It’s been really cold here lately (comparatively of course) and so the sun felt good. I was all covered up in pants and had my hoodie over my head and nearly fell asleep right there on the ground when I felt something tickling me… don’t you just love kids? For some reason, maybe it’s the lack of snacking, but I was semi dreaming about making brownies. When I went home I decided I would make some brownies in my new oven thingy. It’s a pot that you put on your stove and it acts like an oven! I’ve never used it before and I’m not much of a cook but I had a good feeling about this. It may have been the thought of brownies that was giving me that warm, encouraging feeling but whatever it was, I was set on making them.

I went home and when I walked by the guys working they were like, “Hey! Bring us coffee or pop or something!” I know this seems a little rude but it’s normal here. When they’re really rude about things (or I think they’re being rude) I tell them so. But in this case I’m more lenient because I feel bad for them. They’re all super glad to have work and they’re working really hard. I wouldn’t want to do their jobs! Not to mention that they haven’t gotten paid yet since last time I checked I hadn’t gotten the money from PC. When they do get paid they’ll get about $10/day. So, I like to bring them coffee in the morning and maybe some candies and then in the afternoon either another cup of coffee (which is extra special since I put creamer in it) or if it’s hot, pop. Although I try really hard to encourage water first.

Anyways, I told them that I wasn’t going to bring them coffee or pop, that I had a surprise for them instead. I had invited a little girl and Marvey kind of tagged along too so I had some helpers. Even though I don’t like little kids much these two were fine, plus it’s more fun to do stuff like that with a little kid around. They loved it. The guys kept trying to guess what the surprise was and the kids kept guard of the door so the guys couldn’t sneak in. Noel was the worst! I was a little nervous that it would turn out bad since I didn’t have vegetable oil (is soy bean oil the same? ) and hadn’t used the oven thingy before. There was all this pressure on me now! On the other hand, I thought it would be interesting to see if who would pretend they were good and eat them anyways. In the morning I got a little overwhelmed with how many cups of coffee I had to make and so some were cold and I knew one of them didn’t have sugar but wasn’t sure which. I thought it was funny. I warned them. The guy who go the one without sugar still drank it (amazing since they have to have a LOT of sugar in them) which I thought was nice of him. I was lucky with the brownies since they turned out really good. Now everyone knows what a brownie is… a very important cultural sharing experience. Plus, I felt really cool since they were all telling me that I was a good cook! They say I make good coffee and good brownies! (The guy who got the sugar free coffee in the morning wasn’t there to share his opinion of my coffee)

While we were sitting there eating the brownies and taking pictures a motorcycle passed by. Right when it drove in front of my house that pesky rooster ran in front of it and it the motorcycle ran over it like it was nothing! It looked like less than a speed bump! While I have played hit and run few animals in my day, I have never actually seen an animal be turned into road kill. I know that this was just a chicken but I felt like it should have bothered me more than it did. My mouth dropped and everyone laughed at me but I didn’t even really feel the need to say, “Poor bird…” All the guys were telling each other to go down and get it so we could cook it for dinner but then the colmado owner walked over and picked it up. It wasn’t even dead all the way but a lot if it’s insides were in the road. It sounds gross but I bet if you saw it you wouldn’t be too fazed by it either for some reason. Weird, I know. Is it sick or am I just adapting?

2/17 Tuesday: Exercise and going to the school.
I know I said I was going to take a nap after I went walking with Minga but I feel bad sleeping when there are people working so hard on the wall for my house. The colmado finally shut off the music around 12:30 last night so I got about 6 1/2 good hours of sleep. I even woke up before Koodbie today! The men started working on the wall earlier today at 7:30 which I wasn’t expecting. I felt a little bad since I didn’t have time to make them coffee before I went to Minga’s but I made them some when I got back.

When I got to Minga’s at about 7:35, she was doing laundry. I know that she only gets to do laundry when there is power and sometimes there’s not much power but I want her to value exercising like she values laundry. I know I have them on the same pedestal. She argued with me a little about going since she was doing laundry. After a little while I convinced her to go since we agreed that we would walk down the mountain for 15 minutes and then back up. I don’t think she understands that it’s faster to walk down, and easier, and that the faster she goes down, the more she’s going to have to walk up. I tried to explain it to her when after literally 3 minutes she asked if we were at the stopping place but I don’t think she got the point. We ended up walking about 3 kms or a little less than 2 miles. I was impressed with how much she could walk. She told me she wants to go further tomorrow since she won’t have to do laundry. It’s good but I’m afraid that if we don’t stick to the 15 minute rule she’s going to tell me later that we don’t have to walk at least 15 minutes.

Yesterday Minga was all riled up, telling me how it wasn’t fair that Ernesto doesn’t look for more people to do work. She said that he is in charge of building the building for the Women’s Meetings (which I think should be a community center, not just a place for the Women’s Club) and in charge of my wall and that he only has his family work for him. Then she started complaining about how each month the person who collects the money for the water taps (they have to each pay 40 pesos a month for maintenance) is always someone from Ernesto’s family too. The person who does this job gets paid so she basically said that Ernesto was being greedy. The thing is that Minga doesn’t want to collect money and she couldn’t list anyone who would want to, she thinks it’s a crappy job. Then she told me about a man down the road with 5 kids and no work, she made it seem like it was Ernesto’s fault the man wasn’t working. I told her that I didn’t know why Ernesto has who he has working for him but that he obviously knows what he’s doing since he’s always the person in charge of construction here. I also said that if people are looking for work, they need to talk to Ernesto at least and ask for work. Ernesto’s not a mind reader. Yesterday I asked Wandy why there were only 2 people working on the wall and he didn’t know. Today there are 5 guys working on it so I guess something changed.

By the end of today, I had had no time to myself, but I wasn’t really bothered by it. I ate lunch with Minga and when I got back to my house around 1:30 I talked with Ernesto about my wall then Santa showed up to go with me to the school. While we were walking there I was told her how I was feeling so much more secure with my Spanish then I had the meeting with the teachers and like no one understood me… so much for self-confidence. I’m not too concerned about it though, I’m kind of over it. I’ll learn however fast I learn and that’s that.

I was really happy with how my meeting at the school went though. I think that the Director is a genius. He asked me when I was going to have my meetings (for Escojo remember) and I said every Wednesday at 5 or 5:30, when the kids get out of school. He told me that he thought that was too late and I should have it at 4:30. Since there will (hopefully) be kids who want to go who are in school, he said that he will give whomever a pass to go to my class. Sweet! So much for being concerned with having enough interest! Now the worry was having too many kids. I have no freaking clue how many kids I can handle…. in Spanish… ick. So, I asked the teachers to ask who is interested, write all the names down and then put stars next to the people who they think are serious, responsible people. If there’s not enough room, I’ll take the “stars” first, then randomly pick from the rest of them. I’m happy that I probably won’t have to worry about recruiting kids but now I’m feeling the pressure!

2/16 Monday: Nothing starts on time but at least I’m not in a hurry
Yesterday when I was at the pool with Minga and Mercedes (she came with us too) they told me that there was a class today teaching women how to have gardens. Since one of the goals of a health PCV is better nutrition, I thought that this was something I would like to see. Class was supposed to start at 8 and Minga was supposed to go be at my house at 7:45. After I made myself and the guys working on my encache (remember, it’s the supporting wall that’s being built for me) some coffee it was 8 am and Minga still wasn’t at my house. I walked to her house to see what was going on and she told me that she knew the car the professor was driving and he hadn’t arrived yet so she was doing laundry and cleaning the house. I guess that made sense.

I sat at her house with her until 9 when she decided we should go. We walked to the clinic, which is next to the school, and waited. While we were there Minga of course had pain somewhere so she went and talked to the doctor who gave her pills for whatever she has. Later she told me that she has swollen feet and pain all over and that it was from high blood pressure. I’m not sure what some symptoms of high blood pressure are but we had a conversation about what she could do differently instead of having pain and then trying to correct it with pastillas de químicas (pills made of chemicals). Her feet really are swollen. Tomorrow morning, bright and early, we’re going to go walking. I told her exercise is good for you and she seemed ok with the idea of going. She wanted to go at 6 in the morning though! Forget that dude! We settled on 7:30 which is early enough.

Anyways, today at the clinic, we ended up waiting for the professor until 10:30, which I think is really crappy. I wouldn’t think much of it if he was 30-45 minutes late since that’s how this culture is but 2 ½ hours is excessive, even here. Despite that, no one complained to the Prof, at least not that I noticed. The class was pretty interesting although I don’t know how realistic it is. The guy wants to teach people how to actually build greenhouses. I would be amazed if people even threw a few seeds in the ground and took care of them. Not to mention that there were several people in the room who told me that the reason they don’t have vegetable gardens is because they don’t have space. Where the heck are they going to put a freaking greenhouse?! I asked if we would only be talking about building one or if we were going to be actually building one and he said we would build one so at least one person will end up with a greenhouse.

I guess its going to be a series of classes ever Sunday from now on, until he teaches 120 hours. I feel like that’s a weird requirement since it should be over material covered and comprehension if there’s no set date to end. I also think that it’s stupid that each person has to pay 1000 pesos by the end of the classes but still have to buy materials to build their own greenhouse. As long as I’m critiquing, I don’t like that we all have to wear a white shirt with sleeves and jeans. Maybe it gets the women to take the class more seriously. I was talking with Minga about it and she told me proudly that it was like going to school since we all had to wear the same thing. Great, I normally avoid white like a plague so I don’t have any white shirts. Guess I’ll have to borrow a shirt from Minga this week until I get paid and can buy a white shirt or two.

Despite my complaining, there were some good things about the class. For instance, there were women in there who made me feel really bad for them during my interviews by telling me how they have noooo money. One of them I really believed since she has a dirt floor. If they can afford to pay 1000 pesos for a class, they’re not that broke. Also, I was told not to make my charlas more than 20 minutes of talking since it won’t hold people’s attention. The professor of this class talked for an hour and everyone was still engaged which takes some of the pressure off of me when I do my charlas. And the last positive thing: there are a lot of women who are enrolled in the class despite having to pay. This gives me hope for my group that I want to form and also hope for meeting my goal of training at least 5 health promoters.

It was 12 when the class ended so I went home for a little bit then headed to Minga’s. Her son (the one that hit a cow on his motor) was there and I was happy to see that he didn’t have his cast on. He told me that he doesn’t have any pain except at night and he’s happily back to work, driving. His bike is broken (or totaled, I’m not sure) so he borrowed Noel’s bike for the afternoon. I have a feeling that it’s a bad idea for someone on crutches to drive but I guess we’ll find out.

After lunch I hung out with Minga and then sat and watched the two guys work on my wall with Noel until about 3:30. It was an interesting afternoon, let me tell you. I feel really bad for anyone who has to build this stuff. It looks like backbreaking, tedious, slow, hot work. I bought the guys and a drink and then went back into my spot in the shade, reading over my youth group stuff. (I tried to get them to drink water but they weren’t interested so a refresco (pop) it was.

Tomorrow I’m supposed to go to the school to talk to the professors about Escojo. That’s the youth group that I want to form. Escojo means “I chose” meaning “I chose my life” or “Escojo mi vida”. It’s all about teaching youth that they have options and they control their life. It’s about STIs, HIV/AIDS and empowering youth to make healthy decisions with their relationships. The goal is, by the time I leave here, to get at least 5 youth who are committed and responsible who can be promoters and teach this stuff to other youth after I leave. Then the youth they teach take over after a while and so on. I have some hope but more so I’m afraid that there won’t be enough interest and no one will go to my meetings. Although, it is very common to pretty much have to bribe people to go to things so we’ll see how inventive I have to get. I’m sooo not paying people.

After getting my fill of watching the two men build (it’s a mystery to me why there were only two dudes on this task), I went to my house, did my exercises, and then went to the Women’s Meeting. It began 45 minutes late. They asked me to give a little speech randomly to fill time which was ok I guess. I feel comfortable enough with my Spanish and with the women so I rambled a nice little ditty about what I’ve been doing and everyone seemed satisfied. I also invited everyone to go with Minga and me walking in the morning. One woman seemed really happy and exclaimed that I was starting a “walking group”. I doubt anyone else will show up but I’m going to hold Minga accountable so at least one person will be getting a little bit of exercise.

Next, I went with Wandy and 4 or 5 little kids down to the river- where I walk each day. (Well, you know, starting yesterday.) I’m proud to say, unlike yesterday when I had to sit in the shade and cool off three times during the climb back up to my house, I didn’t stop at all today but my calves hurt. Ahhh, feel the burn of turning the scale back.

After melting off the calories of the rice I ate for lunch (I hope) I went home, showered, made some weird dinner with powered milk, eggs and canned mixed veggies (something I would have never eaten back home but hey, I’m trying to work with what I have here), shared it with Wandy, did the dishes with Wandy, and finally kicked Wandy out early so I could go to bed at like 9. I’m so tired from all this exercising! Plus, I have to get up at 7 to go walking with Minga.

The only problem I have now is that it’s 11 pm and the stupid colmado is still blaring music for some reason and the men there are still playing Dominoes. They’re yelling over the speakers which are right next to them and my ear plugs just aren’t cutting it right now. Maybe I’ll talk to Ernesto tomorrow and see if I should say something to the colmado owner. I heard the owner say something about people trying to sleep and then one of the men playing Dominoes convinced him to keep the music on. Hopefully they turn it off soon but already, as it stands, after I go walking with Minga tomorrow I’m coming home and taking a nap.

Yes this is annoying but I don’t regret that I’m in this house. Even though there was a landslide that caused me a lot of grief, I’m next to a church where they have service for 5 hours on Sunday’s with a microphone that’s surprisingly loud (and the people can NOT sing at ALL), and I’m next to a colmado that plays music into the night, I wouldn’t trade this house for any other house here:)

2/16 Sunday: The flu, Exercising, Waterfalls and pools and of course the discotecha= a complete Sunday
When I woke up today my whole body hurt. I think maybe the cold was getting the best of me. I woke up at 7:30 as always thanks to Koodbie (I know, I change the way her name is spelled all the time) but I didn’t get out of bed until 10:30. I felt awful. In my mind I was thinking of the poor water PCV who lives about 35 minutes from me and started showing symptoms of Dengue while we were together at IST. He was in the hospital for about 6 days. I haven’t heard good things about the nurses bedside manner or their ability to find a vein to put an IV in (for those of you who don’t know this- I developed an awesome phobia of people who don’t know what they’re doing when around my veins with needles thanks to a few bad experiences when donating plasma and a pre-existing phobia of any type of hematoma on my body) so I was laying in bed contemplating what I would do if I ever did get Dengue. I came to the conclusion that if I could do it, I would try to just stay home. Although I’m a huge whiner so I really doubt I would be able to. The only thing that may keep me from La Capital aside from my fear, would probably be the 4 hour travel there. Hopefully I never have to deal with all that.
I took some medicine and decided that no matter how I felt, I was going to exercise. My body obviously isn’t used to the food here and since I can’t really control what food I eat, I can control how much of it I eat and also I can exercise. Never in my life have I suddenly gained weight ever or been on a real diet but now is my time. This sounds a little vein but, like a car wreck where you don’t want to look but can’t stop looking, I look in the mirror a lot, trying to see where the weight went. I can’t find it! I guess I’m glad for that but then on the other hand, one time I lost like 20 pounds all of the sudden and people kept telling me how good I looked but I really thought I looked the same. So, I guess I’ll have to trust the stupid scale and actually watch what I eat. And…. exercise… errr.
After exercising in my house a little, I went to Minga’s to eat lunch. I took a small helping and was going to only drink water but told Minga too late. She already made me juice but I was able to tell her I didn’t want sugar in it. It was nasty juice. It was mostly water (it was still clear even!) but had some sour oranges in it and a ton of nasty vanilla flavor. I passed it off to her after a bit, figuring she would drink it or give it to a muchucho and went on a walk.
Thanks to the storms, there was a lot of damage to the semi-paved/semi-dirt road that we have. After muchachos fill in the holes, they stand in the road with their hands out collecting money from passing cars so I was able to find a few to go with me easily. I have this thing about walking alone here, maybe because I wasn’t encouraged to do it at first, so I always look for someone to walk with me. I feel super safe here, it’s just that the passing cars can be a nuisance and even the young boys who walk with me help me out. Plus, they’re up for anything. We walked to some waterfalls that I had never seen (small ones that were kind of like slides. The boys found large leaves and rode down the “slides”, it was really fun.) and then on the way back they spotted a tree with mangos on it already so they climbed them and we all ate some mangos on the way home. Delicious!

Despite the great plan of going with muchachos, it was a bad idea to go for a walk when I did. It was about 3pm and it didn’t seem hot until I began walking back up hill. I walk about 1 ½ miles down hill and the same up. It doesn’t seem like much, and I hope to be able to run up it soon, but dang its hard! It’s actually just what I need I decided. When I was in school last year went through a stint where I liked to run and I used to run like 6-7 miles each time. It was annoying because I felt like I wasn’t getting the best workout and it took about an hour. With this, it takes about 40 minutes and I’m sore and beat afterwards. See, things always work out.

After I went for my walk and the medicine kicked in, I was feeling a lot better. I went to Minga’s and Ernie was there, all done up in her Sunday going out clothes, looking for me. Tolo was there and since it was so freaking hot, he suggested we go to the colmado-pool. Ernie was there and she wanted to go too so I wasn’t so afraid. I went home, showered and off we went. I thought I had my memory card in my camera but it was in my computer so I still don’t have pictures of this world wonder. I even brought my camera with me before I realized!

When I got back, Ernie had me under the impression we were going out to the discotecha so I changed into something warmer and waited. We ended up hanging out in my house forever. I was going to tell them that I wanted to leave the discotecha at 8 or so but we were at my house until then! Sure I could have just stayed in but I already changed for it! We ended up staying at the discotecha forever! I guess it was only like 2 hours but it felt like longer. I haven’t decided if I’m going to swear off beer like I’ve sworn off pop due to this “diet” of mine but I definitely value not gaining weight more than I value sharing beers. Maybe that’s not exactly culturally sensitive but I’m back to the leading by example thing, drinking water (after all I am a health PCV).

After my night of no dancing (I think my balance was off or something and didn’t feel like falling over in front of everyone when I broke out my crazy mad dancing moves, not to mention it was the first time I wore heels in el campo- an experiment that I think went fairly well), not drinking, and getting crap from a few guys who were mad I surprised them by being here on Valentines Day when they weren’t prepared, I went home and went to bed. It was way later than I had planned on going to bed and I was pooped.

2/14 Saturday : Happy Valentines Day, I have a cold…
I went to the PC office and made sure I got all the things done that I needed. Pretty much the only other thing I needed to do before leaving was write a grant which was already partially written for me so it didn’t take me long. I’m getting a lot better at this whole Spanish thing (finally) and so writing it in Spanish wasn’t too hard. I left the office loaded up as usual with my one backpack on my form, the other on my back with two PCV tubes full of charla paper sticking out of each side, paper in my hand, my purse (which was loaded up with what wouldn’t fit in my backpacks) and, of course, my power ranger red helmet. Even thought I normally stick out being a gringa and all, there is no chance I wouldn’t stick out with all that stuff loaded on me- and plus.. NO ONE wears helmets here so I MUST be a foreigner.

On my way to Caribe Tours I stopped at the colamdo that owed me money from the day before. How did this happen? Well this country is so weird about change. It’s like the government doesn’t make enough of it or something so people are really freaking stingy with it. Yesterday when I bought some delicious chocolate milk (and asked for a straw since the milk still tastes better when drunk through a straw… even this “milk”) they didn’t have any change. I was a little apprehensive when they told me to come back later for my change but they seem pretty cool and not even a little creepy so I guessed it was ok. I forgot to go back that day and when I went back the next day they were still cool about it and gave me back my change. Whew, I was nervous I was going to lose 30 pesos- that’s more than a milk!

I don’t want to jinx myself but I’m feeling pretty confident with this whole traveling back to my site thing. I was in a really crappy mood still from the weekend and also because I weighed myself (I seriously hope there is something wrong with that scale…) but I have noticed that when I’m in an intensely foul mood, men don’t hit on me. I must either look really ugly when I’m super pissy or I must look like I could beat them up. Either way, it works in my favor here so I’m happy… but not too happy since I want to keep this going.

I hopped on my 3 o’clock bus (the last one for 45 minutes which is a lot since they normally run every 15), the last bus I can catch and still get home before dark. When I arrived in Santiago I opted to walk the 15 min walk with all my junk thanks to the scale in the back of my mind. I got my bus to Navarrette but my mood was slowly getting better (no thanks to Rachael telling me she laughed really hard when she read my IM to Mom that I gained ___ lbs. errrr). While on the bus, the men on it saw my awesome helmet and began talking about how cool I must be that I drive a motorcycle. When people talk about me I enjoy sitting there like I don’t understand it. Maybe it’s because I didn’t understand for soooo long or maybe it’s because I was a spy in another life, who knows? After a while they decided to ask me and I burst their bubble- I don’t know how to drive a motorcycle and I can’t drive in this country anyways thanks to a Peace Corps rule. Then the dude who collects the money on the guagua, the cobrador told me that he normally frequents the discoteca in my town and so maybe he would pay me a visit. I need to get better at this vague “up there” or “over there” thing before I get a stalker or something.

When I got home I put my stuff down and went to talk to Ernesto and Mercedes for a bit. They were all going to the discoteca but I was not feeling so hot since I was getting a cold or something so I took a rain check and instead talked to my great and wonderful Mom for a long time while in my bed. It was a nice ending to my week.

Landslide Drama

2/13 Friday the 13th! Have I gotten all my bad luck out of the way yet?


I was hoping that yesterday was the end of my frustration streak but I was only half right. Today when I went to print my budget, it wouldn’t print. Then it turns out that the thing didn’t save right so I had the budget of an entire aqueduct from the water PCV who helped me instead. The water PCV, Danny, was at the hardware store (for about 4 hours) and so I had to redo the thing by myself. I didn’t have lists of prices of things like the cement or gravel so I ended up just kind of estimating. I remembered the end numbers and I guess that’s what counts.

Before I started that, I began a load of laundry. I love doing laundry at the office because there’s a washer and the clothes smell so nice and are so soft afterwards. I didn’t have room in my backpack for much so I didn’t pack another pair of pants. Because of this I was wearing shorts while my pants were being washed. Well, as I was walking back and forth, trying to get my budget to print, Romeo saw me and told me I wasn’t allowed to wear shorts. Apparently this is a rule that’s not really enforced (since a lot of people wash their clothes here) but today it was being enforced since there was a going away party and people from the Embassy were going to be there. Awesome, I didn’t have any pants.

By this time, after the last few days I had, I was at the end of my rope. I was so frustrated. I walked straight from Romeo to a storage room to have some alone time. After I straightened myself out I went back to the computer room and asked if anyone had some pants I could use. The only person who had any extra pants was this dude named Anthony. I was pretty happy because his pants actually fit me really well. I walked around in them until my laundry was done and no one knew they were dude’s pants… well, they did because I was like, “Hey! Check out my pants! They’re man-pants! Look how they fit, isn’t that cool?!” So, yes, I was pretty impressed that I could cross dress so well. Peace Corps helps Volunteers realize undiscovered talents.

The day began to take a turn finally. I went to the going away party and got another delicious, free lunch. Later I went to a paper store and got some more paper and markers. Its ridiculous- the markers here that I’ve used so far are so crappy. They dry out after one charla. I guess I really took Crayola brand for granted. After that I went to the Embassy and took a hot shower (but those showers aren’t perfect because they don’t drain… ewww). Then I went to the office and used the internet for a little while before being kicked out when they closed. I wanted to go to the Marriott and use their free Wi-Fi but my friend, Iris, who was going to go with me was afraid we would get robbed since it was dark.

For fun at night a group of us bought some beers from Drinks to Go (Which is so weird in itself. It’s a store that sells alcohol but then the people sit outside the store with their stereos in their cars and it’s like an outside bar. Everyone hangs out, drinks and some people dance.) and then went to Burger King where my friends each bought an Angry Whopper and drank their beers (I got water and fries). We stayed at Burger King until 11 when they closed and the store mysteriously began to fill with the stench of sewer. We hit Drinks to Go again and then went to a car wash. I was pretty tired but we ended up staying out until 3 am! I would have gone home sooner but I didn’t want to go alone. I guess it was ok because I needed to work on my dancing anyways. Tomorrow I’m going to the office and working on a grant then I’m heading home. I didn’t have any extra money in my account for the wall for my house today so hopefully it will be here Tuesday. If not, at least I’m going back to the capitol on Friday morning so I can bug Money Man then again if need be.



2/12 Thursday: Another Frustrating Day


When I arrived today at the Peace Corps office around 11, Romeo’s secretary told me he was booked all day and that I would have to come back the next day. I was flustered but figured that it was ok because I had a Plan B. Romeo is notorious for taking PCVs out to lunch that happen to be around when he goes to lunch. So, I sat outside of his office for about 30 minutes and as a result was able to get a very delicious, very free lunch out of it. (This is good because I had to pay for the 4 days I was at the Hub out of my pocket. I’ll get reimbursed but it takes like a month) I talked to Romeo about my problem over lunch and we had a meeting about it after as well.

We talked with a water PCV who studied engineering and a water PCV who worked in construction and they both were so helpful and came up with possible solutions. Sure they’re not experts but they knew a little about the topic. I was so relieved because Romeo told me during lunch that it was definitely a possibility that I would have to move out of my great house. There are only two other houses in my community that I know about that are empty and I don’t think they would pass PC’s minimum living requirements- which is really sad. There aren’t many requirements. (1) Have a door and window’s that are secure and lock (2) Have a latrine (shared with other people in the community or private) or somewhere sanitary (as sanitary as a latrine) to use the bathroom (3) Have a roof and it can’t be made of leaves (4) Has to be somewhat close to neighbors and can’t be somewhere stupid like in a flood plain, …or on a cliff where it may fall off due to a landslide. <- that must have been in the fine print…

So, the two houses are wood and they are CRAPPY. I have a feeling that I would get Leptospirosis from all the rats there. Man, I don’t want to even think about the huge rats- pooping on my stove and food, eating my food, crawling around at night when it’s all I can hear… gross. The two PCVs really thought that it would be ok if we could build a wall like Kevin wanted anyways. Romeo told me to get a budget and turn in it to Money Man and then Money Man would call me when it was all set. Great. I could have done that over the phone! I wasn’t sure what to say since Money Man was in our meeting but Romeo knew that I didn’t want to leave without the money because he told me “You have doubt written all over your face. If you want to stay and wait that’s fine but it’s on your nickel.” Now, that was a bummer to hear since Money Mans incompetence is the reason I was there!!!!! So, I’m going to try to talk to Romeo tomorrow but I’m not sure how to say that I think an employee is inept and I don’t trust him in a non-offensive way and then ask for per diem for being here since I have no money.

I was feeling pretty stressed about the way the afternoon went despite the fact that it was riddled with good things. I got a free lunch, I got a bola yesterday, I can still live in my awesome house… and everything always works out in the end so I need to distress. I wasn’t even sure how to make a budget since I have no training on how far a bag of cement goes or how much it costs or how to build a wall (something that I would need to know to make a budget). I wanted to turn my budget in today but needed to talk to Ernesto. I couldn’t get a hold of him so I called Minga since the only other numbers I had either didn’t have service or were to people in school at the time. Minga told me that she was going to the Club de Madres meeting and Ernesto would be there then but he was out working when I called. She assured me she would be there next to him at 4:00 so I hung up and waited another 30 minutes. When I called her back she said she was in the truck with Tolo and that Ernesto was at the meeting but she wasn’t. Well, that was helpful. I text Wandy and when he got out of school he let me know. I was able to call Ernesto then but by then it was too late to turn the budget it for the day.

So, here I am, in the Pen for the night, wondering how tomorrow will go. I think I’m going to turn the budget in and go home since there’s no way I’ll get the money before Tuesday now. It’s a waste of money to stay here 5 extra days. Plus, I have to be back here on Thursday anyway since its Committee Weekend and I want to get involved with things (its a weekend filled with informational meetings on tons of stuff PCDR offers). Overall, I know I should be happy since things could have been a lot worse but I’m still feeling mildly aggravated about the whole thing.

On a positive note, there are other PCVs here with me from other groups so I’m not alone. Four of us went to the grocery store where I bought a coconut for 20 pesos (remember its 35 pesos to a dollar). At least I was able to eat that and some yogurt for dinner. Maybe I’ll get another free lunch tomorrow, who knows?



Wednesday 2/11: Back to site finally, I hate cats, lots of frustration


This morning I was super lucky that my APCD, Miguel, was in Santiago so I was able to catch a ride with him from the Hub. I originally asked for a ride to wherever he was going, asking for him to just drop me off along the way as close as he was going to my site. He ended up buying me 4 pineapples and told me he thought it was too much to carry up the mountain on the back of a motor along with my normal load of stuff so he took me the whole way to my house! That saved me a lot of money (at least 140 pesos and a lot of wetness since it was raining still), I got 4 free pineapples and we stopped at some of his family’s house on the way so I got some free cake and juice too! What a deal! Plus it was good that Miguel saw my landslide damage since for the first time I was experiencing campo guilt. Having my boss see the damage was somehow vindication for being out of my site 4 extra days. I felt really freaking bad about being out of my site when I was supposed to be getting a move on the stuff I am here for.

After Miguel dropped me off, I went up to my house, around the back way, through Ernesto’s house since my path was covered in dirt (and also not completely intact at the top anymore). When I got to my porch I looked down over the edge and was a little disturbed that right under my front step was a newly formed drop off. Sure it’s only like a 10- 15 foot drop off but hey, I never even liked to go off the high dive let alone fall off of a cliff, I don’t care how little it is. I was a little annoyed because I couldn’t open my door for some reason so I had to go back down the back way and I sat with the colmado man, talking with him about the damage while waiting for someone to come home at Ernesto’s house. Colmado Man was confused why I couldn’t open the door to my house since “el muchaco does it fine” (meaning Wandy). Great, I guess I was confused too.

While I was sitting there, I began to survey the damage. I’m no civil engineer or anything but I really don’t think that it’s such a huge deal. Sure, there was a landslide but I think the way it happened was pretty dang fortunate. No one was in the house thanks to the fact that I was whale watching and I had just told Wandy the night before his happened to take the cat food and cat outside and close the door to the house, not to go in it anymore while I’m not there. So, no one was in the house… probably the first time since Kevin lived there. Also, the land fell away but stopped at my house. It fell and exposed about 3-6 inches under my front side step to the house but that’s it. I decided that I would have to go to Santo Domingo to talk to Romeo about getting some money for it all. I would have rather just called and dealt with everything over the phone but the person who deals with money is notoriously unhelpful. A perfect example of this is how on Wednesday I called Money Man 4-5 times on three different numbers, leaving urgent messages on each one about how I was a PCV who had a landslide and was no homeless and could he please call me back ASAP. Did he call me ever? No. To tell you the truth, the whole situation with this guy really pisses me off. I think that its crap that he sucks so bad.

Anyways, I was waiting at the colmado when Ernesto came home. He opened my door right up, it had just expanded from the rain so it was just stuck again. We sat and talked for a while when I noticed a smell. He left and I looked in my bathroom to discover that the cats had pooped once. Yuck. I was pretty annoyed by the whole situation; the landslide, not being able to get into my house, not getting a call back from Money Man, and then more freaking poop to clean up, when Ernie comes in the door calling me the one name I asked her not to call me: Gringa. They call me Satan Devil and that doesn’t even bug me but for some reason this is so annoying to me. I must have given her a look because when she saw me, she stopped calling me it and went to get some stuff to help me clean- which I thought was really nice of her.

When she came back we were discussing how it stunk over in one corner by the bed Wandy had slept in and we realized that the cats had peed and pooped all over the mattress and mosquito net! YUUUUUCKKK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THIS IS WHY I ALWAYS HAVE DOGS!!!!!!!! We moved the mattress to reveal a TON of more poop and my favorite pair of flip flops fell victim as well mixed in with the feces. I wonder if the cats are smart enough and just don’t like Wandy since one of them pooped in his bed the day I left for training and then at my house they pooped all over the bed he was in but left my bed completely fine. Either way, it took over 2 hours of cleaning to take care of the mess. Before Ernesto came over I had to clean out my fridge thanks to some forgotten food and so by the time I had been home for 3 hours everything in my house had been scrubbed. Ernie did most of the work; it’s amazing how she can mop! She can even dry the floor with the mop.

I was in a pretty foul mood by this point which was a shame since I hadn’t seen anyone in my community for 8 days and had to leave again at 6:30 am to get my bola down the mountain. Ernesto told me that a cable to my house had broken so there were no lights. I must have missed the past tense of that statement because I didn’t realize that he had fixed it already. Although, it’s not that it mattered much since there was only power for about 30 minutes that night.

Before it got dark, I called Romeo and he told me that my situation was a priority so when I come down to visit I would “be first”. I know how Money Man is with getting things done speedy so I wanted to get there before lunch that way I wouldn’t have to stay in the capitol very long. I knew that if I got Money Man to look at what I need on Thursday there would be a chance I would receive the money before the weekend. I didn’t want to stay the weekend in the Pen (the cheapest hostel here in Santo Domingo) or in the Capitol- especially alone. Also, Monday is President’s day so that means that Money Man won’t be in the office then, which of course equals another day in the Capitol for me. Why do I need to wait for the money you may wonder? Well, yes they do have direct deposit here but Money Man is NOTORIOUS for telling people that the money will be in their account a certain day but then an extra week goes by and there’s no money and Money Man’s not answering his phone or returning calls. EVERONE I asked (like 8 people) told me that if I want/need to get something done involving Money Man that I pretty much had to do it in person. It costs me 130 pesos on a good day to get to the ATM from my house. I don’t want to check every day to see if he put funds in when he said he would but then I also don’t want to pay several days to stay here in the capitol.

After I called Romeo, I was a little bummed since Romeo told me I couldn’t sleep in my house that night. That meant I had the pleasure of sleeping in Minga’s house. Ick. I’m fortunate that Minga is so generous and lets me sleep there whenever if I need it but dang, I just got out of there! At least it was easy to get up at 6 since I didn’t really sleep that night between Marvey yelling things during the night and Minga snoring. Also, at least Tolo wasn’t there, it was his night to be in Navarrette I guess.

1/25- 2/10: IST, rain and time out of site

2/3-2/10 IST, Whale watching and a lot of rain…
Feb 3rd marked my 24th week in country! I can hardly believe it’s been 24 weeks- 6 months! Time seems to go pretty quick here but then people always tell me that time always seems to go faster and faster the older we get. I have this theory that being in the Peace Corps actually accelerates time. Not day by day… those go slow, but week and month by month are what are affected by the magic of the Peace Corps. I’m not counting down when its time to leave but I think that its important to be aware of the time left so I can plan out things to the best of my ability. I’m trying not to but I’m stressing about getting things started in my community- something that I really shouldn’t worry about since I can always extend my service if I have something I’m in the middle of when the time comes to leave. But, I’ve been here for 6 months so I have just 21 months left. I wonder how long that is in Peace Corps time…

On Tuesday, Ernesto and I left the campo and arrived in Santiago to meet up with the other PCVs around 9 am. I met with the regional PCVL and received TWO packages from home! I finally got the Thanksgiving package that Rach sent me- which was actually Thanksgiving in a box… complete with a turkey tv dinner! Then the other one I got was from BCHD- thanks sooooo much guys! I felt bad opening it in front on Ernesto so I decided to wait until I got home to open it. I can’t wait! Thanks so much for thinking of me guys:) (I was pretty excited to receive the packages... see picture:)

We had our IST in Jarabacoa which is a beautiful location. It’s pretty much the base of Pico Duarte- the highest mountain in the Caribbean. The only problem with being that high up was that it was cold! We already had to bring our own sheets and towels but some smarty pants were really prepared by bringing a sleeping bag. Unfortunately, I was not one of them. I don’t have a really big backpack so I have to prioritize when I pack. I didn’t pack my computer or a towel even let a lone a blanket. Then, to make it better- the showers were pumping out water from glaciers or something so we felt like we were in the freaking North Pole. With no towel, after showering I squeegee-d off and then warmed up by chugging lots and lots of the Dominican-strong coffee. Needless to say, when I think back of IST, I’ll think of diagnostics, learning about grants and everyone plagued by a mysterious, uncontrollable twitching. (Shivering or caffeine highs... PCVs are plagued throughout service with such questions)

When we arrived in Jarabacoa on Tuesday in IST we began by presenting our diagnostics. Ernesto thought it was really funny that my APCD, Miguel, kept falling asleep and so he kept nudging me saying, “Look at Miguel!!! Hahaha!” Miguel I think is a little narcoleptic or something. One may think that the presentations were really boring due to this but I swear they weren’t bad at all! I guess, no one is perfect and so what’s a little nap here and there? Although there is a debate about whether he’s actually sleeping since he seems to be snoring but then he will sometimes ask questions related to what’s going on. Is Miguel sleeping or awake? The world may never know.

IST was pretty boring but as always, it’s great to be together with all the other PCVs in my sector group so it was a lot of fun but I guess in a boring way. Another great thing about IST was that Ann, my technical trainer is great about bringing us sweets to eat. With the junk food combined with the coffee, it’s amazing we weren’t all in sugar-induced comas or seizures by the end of the 4 days. It is possible the treats were correlated to our twitching.

After IST Sarah, Mark, Randi, Meredith and I headed off to go whale watching. Mark had the GREAT idea of buying two boxes of plants in Jarabacoa so we all had the pleasure of accompanying him during the 5 hour trip while switching from a taxi to a bus to another bus and then walking around Samaná, trying to find our hotel. Lucky for us, we didn’t have to walk around much before we found the hotel- which, by the way, was a sweet, sweet sleeping situation. We had a room with a twin and a full bed and slept 5 to the room, divining up the 500 pesos per night. There was a porch with a great view of a beautiful resort so we were able to sit on the porch at night and stare at the resort, silently sitting in blissful revere. Ahhh, one can dream. Our hotel provided something amazing that we weren’t expecting though: a shower almost like home. It was the first time I have had a shower that was HOT the whole time, had pressure, and the drain drained. What a combination! It was amazing. Not to be creepy but I hope you all think of me when your showering next time so that you will possibly appreciate your shower a little more.

Normally when the PCVs are together we like to go out and go dancing or something but, thanks to the awesome road we were on for about 4 hours in the bus, I was nice and car sick. Randi (a RN) pointed out with exclamation about 3 hours in that I was “gray” in the face and then offered me her paper bag, “You know, just in case.” Thankfully I didn’t need to use the bag but when we got to the hotel I went to bed about the same time my sister in NY goes to bed- which is about as early as I used to go to bed when I was 5. I know I know…I’m just that cool. It was raining and cold so I didn’t miss much.

The bummer was that the rain came and stayed at least the two days I was there. No worries, we were lucky enough that the whale watching boats still went out the day that we went. They didn’t go the day before or the day after since the water was too rough for the boats. The only bad thing was that we were all wet from the rain, it was chilly and the boat was like a freaking roller coaster. I ended up in the back row of seats somehow, on the top level and definitely caught some serious air a few times. I was a little concerned every once in a while when I was still flying up, off of the seat while the boat was going back down off of a wave but don’t worry: no one flew off the boat and got eaten by a whale or anything. A few people got sea sick despite the fact that the guide had free Dramamine which we were popping like candy. Sure this may not sound like fun but I would recommend whale watching to anyone who goes to Samaná. It doesn’t cost much and we saw 3 whales! Sure, they didn’t do any cool tricks or anything (like breaching) but I saw their “humps” and so I was pretty dang happy. I guess some other people saw a tail too.

After about an hour of watching, we were dropped off on an island for three hours and would have gone swimming but it was too freaking cold. Mark went in his orange Speedo that says “Hope” on the butt but even he wasn’t in the water for long. It’s amazing how we are all so wimpy now when it comes to the “cold” here. We were in awe of the people who were walking around in their swimsuits. They didn’t even seem cold! Didn’t they know that it was like 60 out and windy?! We had our sweatshirts on and we were complaining.

(Brace yourself: this is a really important paragraph) One really great thing about the island is that I discovered that I loooooove coconut! I used to HATE coconut at home. I had eaten it but never fresh and (warning: this sounds a little stupid) now I know why it’s called cocoNUT. I ate a piece and was like, “Whoa, it tastes so familiar… what does it taste like…? OH! It tastes like a nut!!!” - I believe that was a word for word repetition of my coconut experience. Its just that coconut never tasted nutty to me before. Now I could just snack on coconut like I snack on peanuts or carrots… it’s amazing to me and soooo tasty!

Ok, so back to my day… Saturday after whale watching and lots of coconut and pineapple I was happily back in the hotel when I got a text from Wandy: Betsy, there is a problem with your house. There was a landslide with the Earth under your house.” Oh, ok…hmmmm, what should I say to that? I was actually at a loss of response. He didn’t say that the house had fallen and anyways I was hours away so I responded with what I think anyone would have responded with- I asked him to please not like the house fall and said thank you. A few minutes later he called me and handed the phone to the creepy guy who speaks English in my town. Creepy Guy told me that the landslide included the land from under the side of my house and that he could see under the house. Great. When I talked to the old PCV who owns the house, Kevin, I told him I would probably be able to build a supporting wall to protect from erosion (he was aware of the problem and had asked me if it was possible) and I was saving for a wall. The bad thing is that I haven’t lived in the house for very long and so I don’t have much saved up. Well, there is no way I’m moving back in with Minga so I guess I should just hope for the best while living in the house and ask for an advance from the Country Director so I can build the wall STAT. Although the wall will help it, it’s no guarantee so I’m hoping the damage isn’t too extensive and I can still stay in the house safely. I don’t know much about landslides and I have this image of the house riding the dirt down the road like a surfer on a board. I have a feeling this is wrong but even if it’s not, there’s an awesome little drop off right next to my house so it may just “surf” itself right off of the cliff one day.

The next day, Sunday, Sarah, Mark and I hopped on a bus from Samaná to Puerta Plata and I was planning on spending the night at Sarah’s house. It was still raining and I was starting to get a little crabby. I was supposed to hang with Kenzie’s family in an all inclusive resort that night but I couldn’t get a hold of her (PC phones are known to break since they’re such high quality) and didn’t want to end up stranded in Samaná alone so I hopped on the bus with Sarah and Mark.

On the way we were beginning to realize how bad the water damage was when we were driving through towns which were completely flooded. We got a phone call from one PCV who had just left his site because he didn’t think it was safe to stay. He had to waddle across a fallen tree in a river to get out of his site. He said that the rain was stronger last night that he had ever experienced in his service and also that on Tuesday there was supposed to be an even bigger storm. Great, if my house didn’t wash away before then Tuesday just may due the trick. I had visions of my house going over the cliff while I was in it Tuesday night and it made me a little nervous. We called the Safety Security Officer and were told that if it wasn’t safe to go to our sites we could stay somewhere else until the weather got better and we would receive per diem for it. Two people have died in the area due to a landslide so far (no, not the landslide under my house smart-alecks) and some people have died in the flooding as well. I called the Hub and have been staying here in Santiago since Sunday night. Wandy told me that on Monday it wasn’t raining and they were going to get started on that wall soon. I feel bad staying in the Hub when it’s not even raining in my site but I’m nervous about tonight (Tuesday) so we shall see. Plus, jus t because it’s not raining right then doesn’t mean that it wasn’t raining earlier. Anyways, I hope I have a place to go home to!

2/2 Monday: Presenting my Charla… oh wait, I still have to finish it.
I was taking it easy this morning because I thought, “Well, I just have one page to finish on my charla so what’s the rush?” Not to mention that some tube or something broke in my bathroom so I have no water… back to bucket bathing and throwing water in the toilet for flushing it. That slowed me down in the morning for sure. Bucket bathing takes a lot longer. Lucky for me, something broke in my water tap before and Ernesto fixed it so I had water available at my tap. Although the water is not normally available every day so I need to make sure I get some water in a bucket for tonight and the morning. It’s so handy having a handy man next door that is so helpful. He told me he’d look at the problem while I was gone and see about fixing it. Good thing too or else I’ll have to buy a really big bucket to keep in my house for water. One good thing about not having the tank hooked up or whatever today was that I boiled my water to shower with and it was nice and warm:)

Anyways, I was supposed to finish my charla by 4 to go to the Women’s Meeting. Lucky for me, today was one of the days where the meeting starts really late. I was able to finish my charla and when I showed up 15 minutes late, they hadn’t started yet. One reason I may have been so late was that I was like MacGyver and had to use my kitchen knife to sharpen all my pencils since someone (Ernie) broke my pencil sharpener. It was kind of a bummer; all that work during three months and I presented it in about 10 minutes. Ah well. It went pretty well.

Tomorrow Ernesto wanted to leave at 7 am but we don’t need to be in Santiago until 9. This means that we technically don’t have to leave until 8 so I convinced him to wait to leave until 7:30- whew, that was a lot of numbers! If all goes well we’ll still be really early to In Service Training but I guess better late than never. After IST I’m going to go whale watching. It’s the season for that so although there are no guarantees of seeing one, we have pretty good odds. Well, that’s it for now. Guess I’ll write more later.

1/30 Friday- 2/1 Sunday: Sweet, I made it to February in one, mostly-sane piece!

The power has been really lax lately… we’ve had power for about two hours a day since I got back on Thursday. If I was trying to do my diagnostic on my computer still that would be a big bummer since I even Minga’s inversor (generator) has been losing all its juice between the short spurts of power. The good news: I finished my diagnostic!! Everything but the pretty front page… I still need to think of something cool to put there within my 5th grade drawing ability. That’s one thing that surprised me: I was actually nervous about bringing what I had drawn home since I thought that Wandy and whomever else were going to make fun of it. After all, I draw ok but I think my drawing skills prematurely stopped progressing in the 5th grade and I also found some mistakes that I couldn’t change (like I how spelled community wrong three times on the 2nd page… at least I was consistent). I was trying to prepare myself for them making fun of something that I put hours into and in the meantime I kind of hid it so I didn’t have to deal with it. When I got it out on Friday, Wandy was at my house (of course) and surprisingly he didn’t say anything about it! I was pretty happy but still braced incase he was holding off till later. Then Ernie and Vangie came over and they made a big deal about how cool it looked. They were like, “Why didn’t you tell us you knew how to draw?!” Let me point out that I have several stick people in my charla so I was very sincere when I said that I didn’t know I knew how to draw…

Anyways, pretty much every PCV who was at the office last week told my group and me not to freak about the diagnostic and don’t put too much time into it since it’s not a big deal. I understand that people lied on the interviews like no other (I asked: How often should women get a pap? Every 6 months- 1 year. How often do you get one? Every 6 months- 1 year. How many have you gotten in your life? Two. Take into consideration that the majority of women in my community are 30- 49 years old) and that I changed some numbers myself to make them match the totals in my spreadsheet (never was that good at data entry…) but it’s like I can’t just slack off and do a crappy job on purpose. It’s a little frustrating because I know that I’m only going to present this two or three times total.

When I got home I only had about half of my charla drawn… it takes a looooong time to draw since there are so many dang pictures to think of and draw. So, I did the unthinkable for a somewhat control freak: I asked if Vangie and Wandy wanted to help me by coloring. All that time I put into it and I was letting them color it. This sounds so mean, and it’s not their fault since the schools here don’t encourage ANY creative thinking, but they color like third graders. Every single letter is a different color and they color in the centers of every letter (so, each O has the center colored in, etc…) I guess it shouldn’t be that bad; it kind of matches the theme of the drawings although there were some that I was proud of… there were. I also need to take into account that it’s not very efficient coloring by the light of a lantern.

So, now my charla is colored thanks to the help of 6 other people in Los Ruales. Some things I fixed after people left (like how Vangie colored in the silhouette of a women bright red so I couldn’t even tell what it was) but overall it definitely saved me time. I figure that sure it doesn’t look like I would have liked but at least people helped me and feel like a part of the process. I learned the hard way that I had to erase each line that I didn’t want traced because they traced ALL of them in permanent marker and I also learned that if there was something I really wanted colored a certain way I should just color that part myself. There are about 5 pages colored by them and about 9 colored by me. I can deal with that. I need to learn to let people help anyways so I don’t get stuck doing everything myself and I need to learn that just because I want it a certain way doesn’t mean it’s the best way. (What?!? No way!) This is for Los Ruales and maybe they’ll like the 5 pages more than the 9 I did, who knows?

One cool thing about coloring my diagnostic together is that it was a conversation starter. When we got to the STI/HIV/AIDS page everyone was asking about the different diseases. They thought that syphilis was more dangerous than AIDS! It got me kind of excited to start teaching my classes. Now I’m just going to have to pick what classes to do first! Ernesto asked me if I was going to have gardening classes. Oh boy, I have killed every plant I’ve ever had. But, I guess I’ll just try to read up on it, talk to other PCVs, look around for some free seeds, and try it out. Maybe I’ll discover a hidden talent for gardening.

With all this time in my house and my little helpers wouldn’t you know that Wandy was there all the freaking time. I don’t want to tell him to get lost because he’s more helpful than any other person- and he’s only helpful about 25% of the time. He can be cool but it’s not too often. Anyways, I feel kind of like a snot because I’m so mean to him sometimes. For instance, the first night I got back he was being a brat and giving me crap about how long I was gone, what I was doing for so long if my diagnostic wasn’t even finished, and more. I think he was acting like that because he was pissy that (1) I missed the party he wanted to go to with me (2) I text his cousins Noel and Franklin more than him but tooooo freaking bad. I have pointed out several times that he’s not my boss. So, my first night back I said called curtains things instead of curtains (since I didn’t know the word at the time) and he corrected me in a snotty way (as always) and told me to learn how to talk! Oh no, I know you did not just say that to me! I was like, “Ummm, excuse me? What did you just say to me? If you’re not going to be nice (but I said helpful by mistake) then LEAVE.” He stopped talking and stayed but I was done talking with him.

The one good thing about this is that I seriously practice standing up for myself in Spanish. Then the next night my friend Jake called me long distance from the States and Wandy was like, “Don’t talk forever. You have guests.” Ha! What a little pisser thinking he can tell me how long to talk to my friends from home! I said with a smile, “You know what? If I want to talk, I’m going to talk as looong as I want.” Then the next day he was like, why did you say that to me? I explained that he obviously didn’t understand how much it costs to call from the States and what was I supposed to say, “Sorry can’t talk now. My neighbors who are here all the time are over right now but why don’t you call around 10 when they leave?” No. I know I sound a little hostile but I feel like it got the point across. I also explained in a nicer way that whenever I get a call from home, I’m going to take it. I asked him to try and think how he would feel in a foreign country, a foreign language, with no friends that you’ve known for more than 6 months and no family. Of course I’m going to talk to people from home when they call.

Later that day I was talking with Ernesto and we were talking about it. I guess Ernesto said something to Wandy because Wandy asked why I told his dad. I explained that we were just talking and sorry if I got him in trouble. It’s good to know that I can go to Ernesto if I have a problem with his kids though. Ernesto is so helpful. I feel like he’s American sometimes. He’s got a very forward thinking family and they’ve got a lot of the same ideals I’m familiar with from home. Also, he monitors and fills my water tank with out me asking and I guess some tube is broken in my bathroom so he’s going to go into Navarette and pick up a new one and fix it for me when I give him some money. It’s so nice having such a helpful neighbor. I decided that when I go back to the States I’m really going to miss knowing all my neighbors and the way the whole community is really a community. Guess I should enjoy it while I have it.

1/25- 1/29: My time in La Capital in a nutshell:
Since I was in Santo Domingo for so long, and generally don’t write in my blog at all when there, I have a lot to catch up on so I figured that I would only write the highlights… well, the ones I remember since trying to recall what I did for 5 days is asking a lot from me.

Sunday 1/25: Although I really don’t remember too much about what I did here I can tell you this: Kenzie met me in Santo Domingo this day and we wanted to go to the pool but it’s not open on Sundays:( We worked on our reports but pretty much enjoyed using the internet most of the day.

Monday 1/26: Hmmmm, nope… don’t remember what happened today either. I do remember however, that it was hot and we were able to go to the pool for about an hour. I discovered on this day that writing the report was going to take me forever (and not just because I had to pool and internet at my disposal). Kenzie finished her report today and began drawing her charla. I was starting to feel like I had ADD or something…

Tuesday 1/27: While Kenzie was making beautiful pictures for her charla I was focused on my report. I finally finished writing it and asked someone to help me out by proofreading it. (Something I should maybe do more with my blog…) Kenz and I made an appearance at the pool but the locker rooms were shut and locked. So, being the incredibly motivated PCVs that we are, we decided it wasn’t worth it to hut down the key. We didn’t change into our swim suits and we didn’t get in the water. We also didn’t collect $200 when we passed GO. We did, however, sit on the pool chairs and talk for an hour, looking at the water and commenting on how nice it would feel to swim (but not really bothered by the fact that we weren’t swimming)

Wednesday 1/28: I had been getting texts from Wandy telling me that I needed to come home Wednesday because there was a big party in Los Ruales. This one was going to be at someone’s house as I understood it and it was a pretty big deal. While I felt bad, I was still waiting for my new cell phone (PC now has phones with memory chips that are part of the PC network which means that I can call other PCVs for free. The chip phones get much better service for some reason so I was hoping that this would make it easier to talk in my site. Not to mention that my old phone broke. It was letting people call me but then wouldn’t let me answer the calls or call out.) I did get my new phone and if I had hurried I could have made it back but I was a little apprehensive about going back without have started my charla. So, I stayed but Kenzie insisted that she needed to get back.

About an hour after Kenz left, I was diligently working on my charla when she called me. It was hard to hear her because people were screaming in panic in the background. She said her bus driver had just been shot and she didn’t know what to do. Well, that’s not good. I wasn’t sure what to tell her except remembering when Ryan and I were attacked I just kind of walked away and was spared. So, I told her to walk away. Get out of there but do it calmly if possible. She told me she had to go and hung up. Well, great. Now I was worried. I tell you what; this is getting to be a little much. I thought to myself, “If Kenzie get’s shot, that’s it dude- I’m going home.” It was the first time I seriously thought about going home. I wasn’t sure what to do since I didn’t just want to go back to working on my charla but I didn’t want to tell Romeo incase it wasn’t as big of a deal and I cause a lot of headache for Kenz. Then I remembered the Safety and Security Officer- Jenn. She was really helpful with everything that happened with Ry and I so I went to her office and told her. She called Kenz and told her to come back to the office.

When Kenzie got back to the PC office I found out the whole story. She was on her bus heading home with about 9 other people when the police stopped the bus, saying there was a thief somewhere and they wanted to search the bus. They made everyone get off the bus but everyone piled into the doorway and so Kenz and another woman were still on it. The driver was getting pretty pissed that the cops were slowing his route down. He showed them his papers and said how he needed to get going. The people on the bus knew the driver (since they were mostly all from the same community- the little one that Kenz lives in) and were telling the police that the guy was legit. About that time, Kenz and the other lady decided that the one other bus that was going to the community may be a faster bet so they pushed their way off the bus, past the little crowd and the bus driver. About 20 seconds after the got off the bus they heard gun shots and people screaming. The police had shot her bus driver and killed him. What will happen to the police? Probably nothing. Now poor Kenz has to go back to her community and answer a ton of questions about it to people she knows and doesn’t know, like the driver’s family.

It’s pretty common that the police stop guaguas to “check” them. They stand on the side of the road with a 6’ or so plank with nails and a big gun. Then the one with the gun gets on the bus, looks around and if it all looks good then we get to go on our way. I’ve been stopped plenty of times but the police have always let us go. Everyone knows that they’re looking for Haitians. Sometimes I ask the person next to me just to see what they say and they always whisper that they’re looking for Haitians. I’m not sure about this but I’ve heard that if someone has really dark skin, they think that they’re Haitians and will take them off the bus. After that, I don’t know what happens. Just a little reminder that I’m not at home I guess.

Thursday 1/29 : Well, although I only got about half of my charla drawn, I was able to get a lot done. I got a new phone, medically cleared to climb Pico Duarte, a re-fill on meds, and my report written and corrected. I feel like it was a pretty productive stay in Santo Domingo.

Sarah, Mark and I left the office around 2 and stopped at the Embassy to get some food to go. It took forever and so we ended up missing our bus by about 4 minutes. That was a bummer because we had to wait 45 minutes for the next one and it was going to be packed. Normally the buses leave every 15- 20 minutes. When we got to Santiago normally we take a carro to the rotunda (bus stop/turn-around) and its 12.5 pesos. We were lucky enough to grab a bus that took us there for 15 pesos each and we had a lot more room. Then, it turns out that the bus was going to drive through Navarette so they took me the whole way and only charged me another 15 pesos! So, normally I would have paid 13 pesos + 45 pesos to get home but today I just had to pay 30! Although, at one point I was a little nervous and contemplated putting my helmet on when my bus and another decided to race. It was faster than I had ever gone on a guagua and faster than I think they were ever intended to go. They didn’t race for that long but the road wasn’t exactly straight and they don’t handle well. It seemed that right when my guagua had taken the lead we arrived in Navarette which was a relief.

Noel was waiting for me at the entrada of Calle Santiago and so I hoped on his motor and headed up the mountain. We stopped to see Minga who had a huge pile of clothing… my clothing… on the couch. I thought it looked like more clothing than I remembered giving her but shrugged it off. Then she told me that she had Ernie gather all the dirty clothes in my house and bring them down to her. That’s a little embarrassing since they were just wadded up on the floor and Ernie would have had to pick them all up. Ah well I guess.

After a little visit Noel and I went up to my house and he helped me carry all my stuff inside. Mark was nice enough to make me two tubes from PVC pipe to put my charla paper in so if I’m ever going down the mountain with them or something in the rain again, I don’t have to worry about them getting wet. When I arrived I was a little surprised at the state of my house. Wandy told me he was going to sleep at my house when I was gone which I thought was weird but I figured it wasn’t causing any harm and it would be better for the devil cat I have. The last time Wandy told me he slept in my house (yes, after the fact) I couldn’t even tell he had been there. This time however… it was no secret. Of course when I got home there was no power so I set about cleaning the house with my great headlamp.

This may be weird but since I knew Wandy has a crush on me I was hesitant to leave my underwear out. Normally it’s in a bag but Minga had taken the bag over a week ago to wash it and never got it back to me (since it was STILL wet) so all my ropa interior had been piled on the bed I don’t sleep on. When I left I took it all and hid it under some curtains on a bench, after all, I didn’t want him like smelling them or something! I don’t know what goes on in the minds of 17 year olds! I also took the pillow cases off of my pillows and made sure to put some on the other bed to encourage him to sleep on the other bed. Needless to say, when I walked into my room and fond my bed made different, complete with pillows in cases, and the other bed piled up with the curtains and my underwear, I shuddered. Who knows why the underwear was there… I don’t want to think about it.

Then, when I walked into the bathroom, I was greeted with an awesome surprise: the cats had pooped and peed at least 8 times in there. They went in my trash bucket on top of the bag, in the corners, in my shower… and I know it was both due to the two distinct sizes of off. Man, yuck! I cleaned out the bucket, filled it with water, added some shampoo for soap and started mopping. Of course as soon as I finished the power came back on. The first time I mopped my house it was because of cat excrement and it was with the light of my headlamp: Welcome home!

1/14- 1/24 Ten Days of Diagnostic stuff and Reflections

Its chilly up on the mountain after a few days of rain!->


1/24 Saturday: Change of Plans and Scenery but not Weather

Yesterday sometime during the 5 ½ hours I was working on my diagnostic, Sarah text me and asked if I would be interested in going to Santo Domingo to work on our diagnostic together. We were planning to go to the Hub in Santiago but we weren’t able to get a hold of the owners to make a reservation. With the rain for the last few days, the cold weather, the constant distractions when I was trying to work and the irregular power schedule, I figured going to the Capitol was a great idea.

I woke up in the morning nice and early at 7 due to my alarm clock, Koodbie. It was so cold and my blanket wasn’t doing the job so I was using my pillows as insulators on each side of my body as well as Koodbie under the blanket, curled up on my leg. Due to the comfort of my bed and the cold environment afuera, I felt the need to stay in bed for an excessive amount of time. When I finally did get out, I knew that it was time to wash my hair. It had been a few days and putting a hat on just wasn’t going to cut it today. I managed to deal with washing my hair but the idea of submerging myself in the icy cold water to scrub a dub dub was too much so I just washed my hair and put on some nice smelling spray to make up for the other part.

When I left my house it wasn’t raining. I asked myself, “Should I take my poncho?” Nah. So, as Noel and I headed down the mountain and it began to rain, I did what any sensible person would do: I ducked behind Noel and chuckled. We ended up stopping at someone’s house to wait out the rain but it was too late; Noel was soaked through his coat and t-shirt. I was wet but nothing compared to Noel, thanks Noel.

I met Sarah and Mark in Santiago and we hopped on a bus to Santo Domingo. The bus company that we took, Caribe Tours, is under the impression that we’re in the freaking desert or something and tries to freeze us with the air conditioning- something amplified this time since we were all wet from the rain. Two and a half hours later we arrived in Santo Domingo, dismayed to discover that the storm had followed us and it was raining. We got some lunch, some delicious yogurt and headed to the office to do some work. Tomorrow is another day and we’ll see how productive I can be:)
1/23 Friday: Still raining… still cold but not as cold
Well, it’s still raining but today it’s not as cold at least. I’ve noticed that people like to use how cold it is as a preface to telling me I need a boyfriend, a Dominican boyfriend. For example, here is a scenario played out yesterday when I went to the colmado…

Colmado Man: “Man, it sure is cold isn’t it?”

Me: “Yep.”

Colmado Man: “What do you do at night? All alone… isn’t it cold? I bet you’re pretty cold. You should get a boyfriend to keep you warm at night. Why don’t you look for one here? There are a lot of good ones here.”

Me: “Sure there are but I have a cat who loves to sleep in bed with me. If I got a boyfriend the cat would get jealous. If my cat was jealous I would be afraid.” (Yes my friends, this is how I actually talk here… somewhat like a 3rd grader)

That generally stops them in their tracks since people are appalled with how I treat the cat which has soooooo many parasites. (You kiss it?! Aye mi madre!!!) After I’m given the advice that the parasites will kill me I ask if I should be buried here or in the States. I mean, there is a cemetery conveniently right down the road. Then I ask if it’s here if they could please make sure I’m in a tomb off of the ground; like maybe on the 3rd level or something. The idea of being in a puddle in the ground makes me even colder. If the cat sleeping with me didn’t distract them from the fact that I’m sleeping solo, the grave thing does it every time. Hehe

My days have been consisting of working on the computer and whatever distraction happens to fall into my lap. Today I was so cold when I got up that I stayed in bed with the hell-cat until 9:30. By the time I put breakfast on (hot chocolate), and got dressed it was 10: time for se fue la luz. I worked on my computer and was distracted by Wandy barging in my front door without knocking- something I yelled at him for. How rude can you be? He left but then returned with a friend. He and his friend sat out on my porch for an hour (making sure to pass by or stand in front of the window incase I didn’t see them) until they finally knocked and I let them in. My battery was just about to die anyways.

I decided to study Spanish while they played cards and looked at the Gringo Grita magazine I somehow have that has the Closing of Service (COS) information of Kevin in it (from Fall 2007). The Gringo Grita comes out 4 times a year and 3 of those 4 issues have COS information from whomever is left in the group about to COS. Each person fills out a survey complete with questions like, “I knew I was Dominican when…”, “Funniest moment in country”, “Advice to new PCVs”… and so on. My neighbors here love to look at the magazine from the fall 2007 since it has pictures of people they knew, even though the magazine’s almost completely in English. The Gringo Grita isn’t online or anything because it’s written by a bunch of people mostly in their 20s with a lot of time on their hands so it’s not exactly politically correct and most likely wouldn’t give the best image of PCDR. It’s freaking hilarious but most of the things are probably inside jokes for PCVs who live here.

Anyways, I was just asking Robin, Wandy’s friend, if he was going to be in my Escojo group (the HIV/AIDS education youth group) when they started getting all excited by something in the magazine. One of the types of dances here is called Reggaton and is pretty risqué. Well, this particular magazine posed the question: What came first in the DR: crazy sex positions or this dance? And it was complete with stick figures demonstrating to ensure the reader was following the descriptions. So much for asking about ways to prevent STIs and such, Robin wanted to know the answer to the question. I don’t know, which do you think came first? Could this be a debate topic at one of my classes? After two years here I’ll be remembered like this: Betsy Spencer, PCV who didn’t teach about abstinence but about different sex positions. “Use a condom kids!”

1/22 Thursday: A visit from Miguel and rain that wouldn’t stop
I got a phone call around 10 am from Miguel’s receptionist letting me know that Miguel would be visiting today around 3. Ernie, Wandy and Noel were here at the time and asked who it was. When I told them they all started cleaning my house in a frenzy. I felt a teeny bit bad since I wasn’t helping but the power was already out and my battery has a very short life for some reason (It’s depressing; during CBT it would last for 3 hours while I typed but now it’s good for about half that) so I wanted to keep working. They cleaned my whole house, mopped and all, in about 25 minutes. After my computer died I felt compelled to do something to help the appearance of my house so I organized the books on my shelf. Every little bit helps right?

When it was lunch time I went to Minga’s house for the bandera of Domincan food: arroz, habichuelas, y carne (rice, beans and meat although I pretty much never eat the meat unless it’s chicken- they know how to cook chicken here let me tell you). Minga had a mini food crisis on her hands today though: she ran out of gas to cook. Luckily, she has a back-up: a fogon, which is a large can fashioned into a stove with wood in the bottom half, a large hole cut into the side for air and to load up the wood, and a shelf near the top to put more coal/wood and the food. She cooked the rice on that and I think she felt happy that she had my food from the day before she could give me- more rice and beans.

I didn’t eat there yesterday because at noon I wasn’t hungry and I told her I’d come by later to get the food. Well, I went to that party and then the discoteca so by the time I went to her house to see if she was still up, it was 9pm and all the lights in the house were out. So, I headed home and ate leftover pancakes from lunch. (I found a box of blueberry ones:) When Minga asked why I never came by and I told her I did she insisted that she wasn’t sleeping. She said although I sleep somewhere else I still live there so she wants me to knock on the door “at 12 in the afternoon or 12 at night”. Awww:) That’s really nice but I still won’t wake her up.

After lunch, I went back home around two, stopping at the colmado for some crackers and Coke to give Miguel when he arrived (I wanted to make the Doñas in LR proud). I sat on my porch and was just about to start reading a book, happily listening to my iPod when Ernesto and Mercedes came over to wait with me for Miguel. Dang, so much for some alone time, I put my book down and took off my headphones. I guess I get enough of that in the mornings when I don’t open my door until 10 or 11 sometimes. Miguel called around 3 to tell us that he got his SUV stuck in the mud and would be late. It has rained every night now for about 3 days and now all day today so there was a lot of mud and I guess he was stuck for about an hour and a half.

When Miguel finally arrived it was a little after 4 and we all piled into Ernesto’s house. This means that I got my house cleaned as a freebie, hehe. The meeting was a little annoying because it was pretty much Ernesto talking to Miguel the whole time with other people pitching in at times and I was just sitting there. At one point Miguel told Ernesto that he was talking about the other PCV too much. Which, yeah that happens a lot but it really doesn’t bug me since it’s something to talk about and also I can understand it. He was here for 2 years and I’ve been here for 3 months; there are a lot more stories to talk about dealing with Kevin. When I did finally talk I told Miguel that it was lucky there was an activist group here and I was hoping that they would be motivated enough to do something about the trash. When I mentioned the name Miguel flipped. Guess the group isn’t exactly peaceful. They have strikes, throw rocks and bombs sometimes and sometimes use guns. Hmmmm….. well, so I guess that means I should maybe focus on getting the Mother’s group to do something about the trash. And don’t freak out, there are only like 5 people in the group here so I seriously doubt anything is going to happen here in La Lomota- I wasn’t planning on going down to Navarrete with them to strike or anything. Ah well…

1/21 Wednesday: I’m going insane
Although I know you may not feel bad for me, if I was in your shoes I probably wouldn’t either, but- remember how I said that this job was so great? Having to make posters and be social was right up my alley… well, this is more social than I’ve ever been in my life and for the longest duration too. It’s tiring! Maybe because it’s in Spanish it’s more exhausting but let me just say- dang! Not to mention that finding a balance between being social and doing diagnostic work isn’t easy either.

For instance, today was a holiday. Everyone went to this big party up the road to drink and dance. I was faced with a dilemma because I thought that I should go since I’ve been locked up in the house a lot working, but there was power when everyone was going to the party and I wanted to get some work done. Plus, I’ve never been a partier and this parting all the time thing is wearing me out! It takes extra effort to do willingly do things that are embarrassing and I wouldn’t normally do- like dance in broad daylight to a beat I can’t keep and a dance I don’t know while a lot of people were already staring at me. I would also like to point out again that I never danced while back in the States thanks to an embarrassing incident when I was 16 so dancing in itself is a bit of a push for me. (Although, I really do love dancing:) Anyways, this is hard in a different way, one that I didn’t expect but I still love it here and I love my “job”.

So, back to my story- I ended up staying home from the party today until the power went out. I figured that people will probably forget that I was antisocial in the beginning of my service and besides, I need to get my work done. Not to mention that I’m sick of trying to keep up with trying to get people to think of me a certain way. It seemed like training tried to get us all to do that but you know what? I live here and I’m going to live here for two freaking years. I couldn’t try to be something different (or be on my best, tip top behavior reserved for when relatives visit) for that long even if I wanted to. I’m going to try to be social and have a degree of professionalism but overall I’m going to try to relax finally. I think that’s what’s really been wearing me out.

Anywho, after the power went out I went to the party for about 2 hours. The power was still out so we went to the discoteca where we were supposed to only stay for a little while but ended up staying for over two hours. The power finally came back while we were at the discoteca but it was pouring and chilly- forget walking home in that. After we waited out the storm by dancing, we left and I got home just in time to have a conversation with Wandy about what I did today when we went out that upset him. Ugh.

Finally, I’m here in the house with psycho Koodbie and I can do some work since there will probably be power tonight (generally there is every other night) but I’m pooped! And, I know I told myself I wouldn’t stress about my diagnostic but today I found a CD that had some useful information on it, including another diagnostic (much shorter) that I found out I have to have done and the CD also pointed out that the report I have to write is in Spanish! AHHHHHH!!!! So much for whipping that out at the last minute.

I have 12 days (well, actually 10 since I have two days of meetings in there) to get all that done, plus of course drawing my whole presentation out- all while trying to navigate between the sporadic power schedule. There is something to be glad about here though; the power does have somewhat of a schedule that I can plan around. If it was the night where there wasn’t power, it generally comes back during the night, and it always (so far) goes out at 10 am. The afternoons I haven’t figured out much yet but I think if there’s going to be lights at night, there’s power in the afternoons (from when to when, who knows) but it goes out in the early evening and returns around 8:30pm. The days when there’s not power at night, generally the power is out from 10am until later in the afternoon (like 4) and lasts until 8-9pm. Then it comes back sometime in the night (like 2 or 3 am)- except last night when it didn’t come back at all. Ok, so I wouldn’t try to set my battery powered clock to this schedule but it’s something anyways.

1/20 Tuesday: A different view
Ever since I signed up for PC, people have been telling me that the whole process is an emotional rollercoaster. I hadn’t experienced it much until arriving at my site. Although I have only had about 2 really bad days, (and those were right before I went on my site visit) I have definitely had some rollercoaster-type induced nausea with this whole experience. Life is so absurd in PC. I live in the DR which is somewhat like being in the States at times. I think that makes it difficult in an unexpected way. Sometimes I forget that I’m here and when one of the many different cultural things happens I get really annoyed by them, as if they were happening to me at home. (Like when Dominican men call me like 9 times a day) I need to remember to keep an open mind and not think that just because it’s not what I’m used to its wrong. I hope that this is a habit I get into and take home with me. Each PC experience is unique I’m sure, but I think that overall the experience for every person in PC is just plain bizarre and yet can be so normal.

For instance, today Obama was inaugurated. I had just finished putting the last of the information from the interviews in my computer. Kenzie texted me during this process, telling me that someone at a grocery store had just robbed her. (She’s ok thankfully. It’s a little alarming that my entire Spanish class has been robbed in the last 5 weeks). 20 minutes later, during the inauguration ceremony, Minga was screaming (yes, literally) at Marvey to go to school, I was getting eaten alive by mosquitoes, the annoying roster on the porch wouldn’t shut the heck up, and I was contently eating my rice and beans, trying to concentrate on what Obama was saying and ignore the Spanish translator. I didn’t think about how strange all this was until I noticed the neighbor boy staring at me, I assume to see how I was reacting to the ceremony. Then I remembered that even though, right then at that moment I felt comfortable and at home, I’m not. I’m still in the DR and I still am the center of attention nearly all the time. Even though these things seem normal now, they’re still there and life is anything but my idea of normal. It kind of opened my eyes to ridiculous and relative idea of normalcy.

Sure, at times my situation can be unnerving. This past weekend was a little unnerving for some reason. However, there is always something positive to focus on here in La Lomota. For instance, yesterday I went to the club de madres (an hour late, whoops) and they were having a session on HIV/AIDS awareness. Everyone was sitting, listening intently to a woman reading a brochure. Dang, if that can keep their attention then I should have no trouble with my presentations! I talked to Mercedes and she said that they would love it if I could give presentations at their meetings. This is great news since normally the women want to have their own time at their meetings and want to keep them short.

Also, I was a little relieved at how excited I felt to be able to give a charla (technically translates as a speech but it’s more like a presentation or a mini class). I can’t freaking wait to be done with the diagnostic and begin my English classes and whatever else! I was worried about it before but suddenly, I feel ready. This is great news. I have two weeks from today to finish up my diagnostic presentation and after that I’m free to do what I would like with the community. I can’t wait.

1/19 Monday: And this is why I’m a dog person
I was sitting with Wandy and Ernie, practicing my best “I’m focused, don’t ask me a million questions” face, working on my interviews in the dark when I heard a cat growling. I couldn’t find my headlamp and tried to use the lantern that I had but it wasn’t cutting it. The growling was getting louder and it seemed like Koodbie was about to get beat up by some kind of a tiger or something. Not that I think she doesn’t deserve it after how she treats the kitten next door. Wandy was under the impression that it was the other cat that lived there with Kevin, Grendel, who was about to put Kood in her place. I guess Grendel liked to fight with other cats, was a little feisty with people and was a giant, super-sized beast.

Right when I got to where the growling was coming from, the power came back and Koodbie took off under the bed. Whatever it was that scared her scared her so much that she pooped all over the floor! Right in the doorway and not in a nice little pile either. Gross! I guess it was time for something to happen since I hadn’t mopped the floor yet (I don’t like mopping) Lucky for me, everyone thought it was as funny as I did and Ernie jumped up to help. She’s a machine! She ended up mopping my whole house, and my porch! Sure she did it with the broom for some reason but hey, it was clean. She then made some coffee for everyone and washed the dishes! So, in return I tinkered with her iPod (left from Kevin) and put some more Spanish music on it. What a trade off:)

The thing is, Koodbie is super cool and all but she is annoying! I mean, she has her perks but dogs are so much easier! She scales my mosquito net at least 5 times a day (that I see) and that’s bad news! I also hate cleaning out the poop box. Not to mention that I use dirt instead of buying litter and it’s been raining at least once a day now for the past 4 or 5 days so all the dirt is wet. FYI: wet dirt doesn’t contain the smell like dry dirt does- and I clean the thing every day. I guess I have to take the good with the bad. I feel a little bad since I know that I don’t appreciate her like I should. And Kenzie put it in perspective for me; she’s annoying but not as annoying as Wandy. If I can deal with him, I can deal with her and like her. Plus, she eats cockroaches.

UPDATE: Later that night, it was raining and when Wandy left he shut my front door, mistakenly locking Koodbie out. I didn’t realize it (how I have no idea since she’s extra annoying during the rain storms that she’s afraid of) until about an hour and a half later when I was going to bed. I went outside, looking for her but eventually just went to bed. I thought it was ironic that I had just written something about taking her for granted and then she disappears. She was ok though. It turns out that she broke into Ernesto’s house and spent the night in Wandy’s bed all night. I asked how he slept with her and he said hardly at all! Ha! At least I’m not the only one who thinks she’s obnoxious!

1/18: Sunday Morning: A recap of Friday and Saturday and some insecurities
Friday I went to the school dance party thing with Ernie, Vangie, Ernie’s brother whose name I always forget, and Wandy. It went pretty well for the most part. I had a talk with Wandy about being jealous and how unattractive/annoying it is. He was upset the last time we all went out and acted like a total baby. It was so obnoxious; something like a bad combination of a 17 year old and a 12 year old. Friday he was better but still a little irritating.

I should have remembered that the last time I went out with them to a party type thing we played the game Surprise. This game is a little embarrassing but I guess that’s the point. Someone goes up to the front, pulls out a strip of paper, reads it, and has to give a kiss on the cheek to someone of the opposite sex that the paper applies to. Of course, all the things are slang so I’m never sure what they say- not that it matters because the point is pretty much the same of them all. It’s also so great that all the girls are incredibly enthusiastic; all of them silent as the person reads the paper and chooses who to kiss. Once the person hones in on their target and it’s obvious who will be next, the room fills with cheers and screams while the person makes their way over and delivers the little kiss. What a site.

I got picked pretty much at the beginning, and it was especially great since the boy kissed each of my checks twice to show off, also that it was the boy who told everyone I was his girlfriend at school. (I had a talk with him about this but really, I mean who cares? I can’t be everyone’s girlfriend like a bunch of muchachos are claiming and people are going to think what they’re going to think.) When I picked my note it said something about the skin of a chicken. Apparently saying someone has the skin of a chicken here is a compliment, meaning it’s soft and nice. I personally think this is weird since I think the skin has a nasty texture and always give it to the dog or cat to eat. Anyways, I wanted to pick someone safe; someone who wouldn’t think it was a big deal that I kissed him on the cheek. I went for Ernie’s little brother and he wouldn’t let me! I gave a kiss to my friend Franklin instead and I would have been embarrassed by the failed attempt (since this doesn’t happen) but everyone seemed to peg the shame on him. So I felt really bad instead. I didn’t mean to embarrass him. After about 15 more minutes, I acted like I had a phone call and went outside trying to call whomever.

Saturday there was power for a good portion of the day, an amazing phenomenon. I should have worked on my interviews more than I did but I felt like studying Spanish instead. I was out on my beautiful porch when these two old dudes came over. One of them is a neighbor of mine but the other was some dude from Santiago and was a total showoff. He was like, “Oh, I have three cars…I have a great job… I go to the States for business conferences…” Great. What do you want a sticker or something because I’m fresh out. I had to sit and listen politely to him for like an hour. Then he got his 13 year old son to come up and wanted us to talk English. Well, the poor kid didn’t know much or was nervous or something because I asked where he was from and he told me his name. I asked his age and he told me his name. I asked how he was and he told me where he went to school. So on and so on. After that, one of the old dudes invited us (me and Ernie) to go down to the drinking colmado and hang out a bit. It’s rude not to go so we went and were the only females with 15 drunken men. There were 7 empty bottles of rum on the ground and countless bottles of beer. Ernie and I each took a glass of beer and then I said I had to get back to studying. Awkward.

The night was a pretty quite one. We all just hung out at a friend’s house. Ernie called Wandy out on his crush on me in front of 4 other people which was nice and awkward. She also started this annoying thing calling me gringa. I told her not to but she keeps doing it. I’m not sure why this bothers me, maybe because it’s what they call the white chickens. Quien sabe but it’s obnoxious. I don’t mind Americana, or Rubia but that one bugs me.

Sometimes I wonder what the heck I’m doing here. I mean, I know that I’m going to walk away with Spanish and friends but what else? What am I doing in my community? And will I go about it the best way possible? I don’t expect to change the world or even make a huge, noticeable, measurable difference but I want to make sure I’m helping/changing at least a little. The time in my site has been going sooooo fast and I wonder how I’m going to get going on things. That’s the thing about development, it’s not something you can jump into and change. It’s frustrating and takes a lot of time. (So, I hear… I haven’t had a lot of experience with it yet you know) It’s been going fast but I still have a lot of time left. I get down when I over-think things. I don’t know how my community is going to respond to the programs I want to do here like English classes, Nutrition, Women’s Health, HIV/AIDS education with the youth, school murals, the garbage… there are a lot of opportunities and I haven’t started anything. I know it’s early and as soon as I can, I’ll jump into it like I have with this whole PC thing. The truth is that I’m afraid to start. I will but I’m nervous. It’s like, how the heck do I get started? I’m afraid of the things I can’t control. I know it’s useless to think about it but I can’t help it sometimes. For instance, where is the line on going out to the discoteca? I know that each community is different but during training they warned us a lot not to go out a lot since we shouldn’t seem like partiers. I’m anything but a partier. My community seems to encourage going out, to socialize. I want to socialize but I want to make sure I’m not secluding myself from the people who don’t believe in dancing and singing. Also, I’ve noticed that training seemed to take the extreme on everything so that we were prepared. I know I can’t please everyone but I’m hoping I can find the balance so I can bounce between the most groups possible. Not worrying about this stuff and telling myself not to worry about it are two completely different things.

For now, I’m trying to just go with the flow and see where it leads me. Today Ernie, Franklin and I are supposed to go on Franklin’s motórrr to “get to know” a street. I’m not sure which one or why but I love riding motórrrs so I’m down with it. It’s been raining for about 10 hours though so I’m not sure if we’ll be going. Vamos a ver.

1/16 Friday: Rants
So, yesterday and today I woke up to music from my great neighbors. I’m not sure if it’s just because it’s only happened twice or what but for some reason it doesn’t bother me at all. In fact, I kind of like the music that they play. Lucky for me, their kitten slept at their house last night so I was able to sleep a little better. Today though Wandy brought the kitten (him) to my house, concerned that he wasn’t eating the rice they were giving him. Poor little guy hadn’t eaten in like 2 days. I put some of Koodbie’s food in water and gave it to the kitten who happily ate it.

So, Wandy told me last night that he has a crush on me which was no surprise since he’s always at my house. I told him I didn’t want to date him and didn’t want to be friends if he was going to be all jealous all the time. I feel a little bad for him but at the same time it’s annoying. He wants to talk about it all the freaking time but at least understands, I think. He’s at my house a LOT. This morning I had my door shut and when I went outside to throw out the food scraps he was on my porch! It scared the crap out of me! I wasn’t expecting to see him there. Also, I’m not sure if I said this, but when I left for Santiago Monday I asked Ernie to play with Koodbie and to make sure she had food. When I got back I found out that Wandy took over the job. He slept at my house too…. I’m thinking in my bed since it’s the one with pillows. That could be a little creepy. I don’t think that he’s creepy or anything, I just think that he’s a 17 year old with a crush. I’m not sure what to do about this; first I tried to be nice about it. That didn’t work. Then I was snotty about it. That didn’t work. Then I ignored him. That didn’t work. Now, I’m just waiting it out. After all, he can’t be persistent forever. What a pain.

I don’t know if I’m getting stingy or what but I’m starting to get annoyed with Minga again. She was one of the people who told me not to give Angie my clothes since she takes so long to give them back (like 5 days to give back a dress) and here Minga had one of my sweaters so long I forgot she had it! Then she talks about how I let her borrow it so she’s going to wear it. I was like, “Ummm, yeah I let you borrow it- not forever.” She asked if I wanted it back and I said of course. It’s cold today (and raining) so I asked if she was going to wear it today and she said no and gave it back. I like to share clothes but a lot of people here are looking for handouts. It’s the mentality of a lot of 3rd world countries. People come, build a school or give a bunch of stuff and leave so it’s what’s expected. I get pissy when people ask me to give them stuff. I say; “No, what do you think am I? A store?” Besides that, the majority of people here have more clothes than I have! (Amazing I know:)

Another thing that gets me is that now that I’m paying 2000 pesos a month, I’m not going to be supplying food. When I moved I saw that Minga used half of a container of my chocolate power (which I never even opened) and like half of the cinnamon I had. I figured after I moved that she wasn’t going to ask for my stuff since I’m not walking home to get things to share. Today she had some fruit and was like, “Oh, we’ll save this for tomorrow when you can bring some milk to make a smoothie.” Guess I need to lay down the law. I feel a little confrontational doing this but I’m sure I’ll think of a way to do it where it’s not confrontational. One great thing about this culture is that you can be as blunt as you want and it’s not rude. Great for me.

1/15 Thursday: Power, Activist Group, Drive, Dance= my day
The lights were finicky today. They were here, then they were gone…. completely unreliable but maybe that’s because no one pays for electricity. I don’t like to have my computer plugged in when there are surges like that even though I have a surge protector. I have a method for charging my computer. I use it in the morning until it dies. Then I do the dishes from the cooking fiasco from the night before. Next it’s time for lunch and I bring the computer to Minga’s house to charge it. It takes forever to charge so I plug it in, eat and then watch a telenovella with Minga while it’s charging. I’ve noticed that for some reason the battery monitor thingy in the corner lies and doesn’t tell me how much charge I have left really so it’s a guessing game for how long to let the computer charge.

After the novella, I head back to the house and see what distractions are there to entertain me. Today it was one of the boys who used to live in the house I’m living in, Jeraldo. He was telling me all about the movie he had seen called Hanky Panky. It’s pretty interesting; an entire movie set in the DR about how a guy (or two, I’m not sure) is trying to get an American wife. That seems pretty comparable to real life here. So that took like two hours. When I first met Jeraldo I thought that he didn’t like me much. He was a little snotty with me and quiet. He’s really funny though and surprising. I guess you shouldn’t judge a person by the first impression (or maybe the impression for the first 3 months.) Anyways, that makes me want to get to know more people in the community.

Right after Jeraldo left Minga came over to walk with me to the school to pick up a map someone drew for me. Not what I was looking for but I appreciate the effort. Going to the school reminded me of my site visit when I went to the school and everyone was hissing and saying nasty things to me in English and Spanish. Then, I was horrified and kind of embarrassed. This time when I went I was able to look the students in the eyes who were doing it and at least shake my head at them. It was still awkward but I felt a lot more confident about the whole thing.

After that I went to Minga’s house to drop off my computer to charge while I went to a meeting for a group whose name I forgot. Turns out that there is this activist group in my community! This is really good news if they’re actually active. There are like 3 places in the DR that are really active and strike a lot; Naravette is one of them. Well, I guess this group is really large in Navarette and take part in a lot of the strikes. Strikes can be dangerous so PC wants me to stay away from them if possible of course. I almost got stuck in one once but thankfully it was just beginning so I was able to get right past it without problems. Since the larger part of this group (the part in Navarette) takes part in strikes a lot, people in the community are afraid to join because they correlate the group in LR with being killed by the police. A bit of a jump, I know. Well, yesterday I went to the group and brought up the issue with the trash. (Recap: there is no trash pick up here so people either toss the trash out in the ditches of the road to wash down when it rains or they burn it. There is a school in my community that has trash pick up from the city so I don’t see why they can’t pick up trash for the community too.) I want to talk to the Women’s group and the Water Committee as well. I can’t solve the problem myself. I would like to go to City Hall with someone or a group and help but I don’t want to actually do it. Doing things for the community instead of helping people do it themselves isn’t going to sustain after I leave.

When the meeting was finished I went to Minga’s house to get my computer. She insisted that I go with her and Tolo to Rosa’s house. I asked like 6 times who Rosa was or where she lived and they were like, “Up! Up!” Wow, so specific. I told her I had work to do but she assured me that we wouldn’t be there long. While that was true, we went like three other places as well so I was gone for over an hour and didn’t get home until about 6:30.

Amazingly the power came back around 8 but instead of doing more interviews, we had a dance party at my house. It was me, Ernie, Vandy and Wandy. They said that it looks like I can dance Merenge (finally) but I need to work on Bachatta. Well, that actually gave me some hope. I guess tomorrow is a party at one of the discotecas for Ernie and Wandy’s grade- invite only. Vangy and I have been invited by Ernie and Wandy so it’s a good thing that I had some lessons!

1/14 Wednesday: a kitten and dinner in the dark
Yesterday Ernesto sent Wandy to get a new kitten for his house. For some reason the kitten had to sleep in my house which I didn’t think was a big deal until I realized that it was going to cry endlessly. Plus, Kubdie like to “play” with the kitten who doesn’t seem to want to play. The only way I could get the kitten to shut the heck up was to let it sleep with me in the bed. Somehow the two cats slept peacefully next to each other and so I had one on either side of me the whole night.

There wasn’t power at night but I felt safe in the house with two guard cats. The power has gone out at 10 am each day and sometimes comes back at night and sometimes doesn’t. For this, making dinner can be a mild challenge. Writing in my blog is also a minor challenge since I have to use my computer for my interviews and the battery only lasts about 90 mins.

Anyways, tonight Wandy and Noel were “helping” me make dinner. I was trying to make a stir fry with the only meat I have: salami, but it ended badly. I couldn’t see how much oil I was putting in or how the meal looked when I was done cooking it. So, when I thought it was done… well, let’s just say that it was nasty. I was pretty glad that Noel and Wandy left early so my cooking shame wasn’t made public. Even though it didn’t’ turn out like something from the cooking channel, I ate it. I am not deterred. I’ll have a lot of time to practice and hopefully I’ll be a decent chef after 2 years, especially in the dark.

Well, I was going to write more about this but the power was out for a long time and my computer died. I don’t remember what else I did that day so I’ll use this opportunity to say thanks a bunch Grandma and Grandpa for your contribution to my Christmas fund:) There’s nothing like having a little extra cash for when I’m in the Capitol or who knows where- maybe at the beach! I’ll probably use it for food, to eat something other than the Dominican Plato del Día of rice and beans when I’m out. Or maybe I’ll add it to a savings that I haven’t started yet to pay for scuba diving lessons. I guess there’s a guy here who gives a discount to PCVs and it’s a type of scuba cert that’s good for life and I can use anywhere. Sounds like fun but I’m going to have to save for a while for that so maybe I’ll go with the more instant gratification of a big, juicy bacon cheeseburger. Thanks so much! :)