5/18 Tuesday: Sick, guest speakers, and Ernestina flips out
You never know what you’re getting into when the day starts. Or do you? I woke up today with full body aches and a headache to match. Little did I know that it was a foreshadowing of the day to come. It was a bummer being sick today but at least I didn’t have anything to do until Escojo at 4- MY Escojo class:) You know I’m sick because I’m worn out from all these kids and all this EMV stuff!! Today I didn’t get out of bed until 11:30 and then I laid back down again at 1:30. I was concerned because I only had about 60 pesos on my phone and the colmados were all out of calling cards. I needed to get in touch with my guest and also I wasn’t even sure if the kids would be out of school at 4 when we were supposed to have class!! School goes until 5:15 but this week they’re in review sessions for the exams and so they’re generally done early. I was hoping so.
The kids showed up on time but it was a disaster with my guest. He got so lost that he couldn’t tell me where he was each time I called. He just kept saying he was on his way. As I watched the balance of my phone card dwindle, it began to rain and the kids got out from school. It was 4:00, the kids were being bratty about waiting and my guest speaker was lost in the rain somewhere. Urg, and I had a headache. Luckily the kids were actually being bratty about waiting because they had forgotten we were having a guest speaker and when I reminded them they perked up. The speaker showed up around 4:45 and we had a fun class.
Nearly at the end of class, Ernestina showed up outside of the Club. I invited her to come in with us and she declined. About 5 minutes later she came in, when the class ended, and she began to talk with the speaker, a Regional Coordinator or RC. I offered her some pop and she declined that as well. As the kids lined up to put their stickers on the attendance sheet, Ernie began to yell something to all the kids about how this 3rd group is terrible. How she is part of the 1st group and no one can pass her up/walk on her. She said she’s a coordinator now and if we have guest speakers she will be informed about them. She said that the 3rd group just wants to work by themselves and she wouldn’t let that happen. Whoa. Can you say “Monster”? Needless to say, the kids all looked petrified. So I told the kids to keep on with the stickers and told Ernie that we would talk after.
She is insane. After the class left, it was me, Ernie, the two guest speakers and 4 other youth that are going to teach these next Escojo classes. I was asking each youth whom they wanted to be paired with from a list I had and when I go to Ernie she said she wasn’t in the project and wasn’t going to do it. Ummm… why not? Well, that did it. She went off. She said that I was the one who left her and all the others from the 1st group out of this one, that SHE was the one who formed the 2nd group while I was fooling around in the States- and for how long was I there? THREE WHOLE WEEKS!! (Dominicans come here from the States and generally stay the entire winter to visit with family) I was the reason she wasn’t a Regional Coordinator (RC) last fall because someone told her I was talking about her, she said it was HER that went to training in SD, it was HER that got that position and she doesn’t need help from anyone, nor did she get it. She said that I took out my angry feelings for Wandi on her whole family, she has been my enemy since last fall (which I was not aware of), I have no friends here, she tells people I didn’t come here to work but to live alone on the hill, I don’t visit anyone, I don’t do anything, she tells everyone that the fist PCV who came here was excellent but the 2nd one sucks and that they don’t want to work with Peace Corps anymore, that they don’t ever want another PCV… on and on.
Don’t get me wrong, I was glad that we were “talking” I would have maybe preferred somewhere where crowds weren’t gathering (literally) or somewhere in front of the 2 guests. But, so be it….
I told her that I never told anyone she shouldn’t be a coordinator last fall. On the contrary, I wanted her to be one, I called her my “Star” but she couldn’t make the interview date because that was the weekend she got married! Also, new rule: RCs are supposed to have at least one year with EMV and she had one class. I didn’t say this but I wish that Miguel had spoken with me about selecting her to be a coordinator for the foundation because I would have suggested against it since she left EMV and has shown no interest in going back. I told her she’s at fault for not being an RC. She needs to change her bad attitude and also she quit EMV last fall. I told her that I’ve tried to fix things with her and her house, I wrote a poem for Mercedes (ok, so I copied it from some website…), I visit, I gave gifts. I tried to talk to Wandi and he ignored me. I tried to talk to Ernie, I even offered her a seat the other day when I found her on my front porch as I was leaving to go run. When I visit I can only visit when Ernesto is there because Mercedes treats me so coldly. What more can I do? Pay them? Don’t think so! I didn’t mention anything about my having no friends or never visiting because I felt it was irreverent to the problem and she apparently wasn’t going to take the high road in problem solving. I didn’t even really feel bad (I felt a teeny bit bad) that she said all that crap to me because I’m used to it from her family!! Ha! In hindsight, I am very happy with the things I said and where this happened. Now everyone can see both sides of the story and I didn’t say anything even remotely bad. Yay for me!
Tomorrow I’m either going to call Miguel or I’m going to tell Ernesto that I am not working with the Foundation from this point on until things change with Mercedes and Ernie. If Ernie can/wants to do it all alone, be my guest but I’m still in charge of the current EMV class and will continue teaching it. Miguel would be a good mediator but it’s not like he’s going to come out here tomorrow and I have to go with Ernesto on Thursday to another EMV thing. Not sure what I’m going to do yet, guess we’ll see. Whatever it is, I’m ready. I feel good about the decisions I’ve made. Mercedes needs to put some effort into this too; it’s always Ernesto telling me to go over there. Forget that. It’s got to be from both sides, I’m done being a doormat. And Ernie needs an attitude change. She thinks she’s always right, she’s perfect, and that she has to be in control of everything. She’s a monster.
The good side of this is that I told Minga and Margara about it and they both back me up 100%. They make me feel so good. I went to each of their houses tonight for a total of about 5 hours. With them behind me, I can do anything!! Also, it made me feel good because Margara walked past the crowd while Ernie and I were discussing things and she heard them saying how Ernie was saying so many lies (maybe I’m not a friendless looser who joined PC just to live alone on a hill!!). It feels good to think that the community supports me, even if it is silently. After all, if I wasn’t already in the fire, I’d avoid being burned by this family too!
5/17 Monday: Escojo takes over Betsy’s life
Today I began the day with a run (less sore today) and then had to hurry and get ready to go with Ernesto to Paradero, a town kind of far from us, to give the 1st Escojo class. When Ernesto told me about the foundation starting 10 Escojo classes I said I’d be glad to help but I’m not going to run 10 classes. That would be insane. Well, I kind of ended up running the workshop to start the classes and now I’m giving at least the 1st class to each group. And while Ernesto was with me in the morning, when we did the one in the afternoon, he dropped me off and went to Navarrete. Great. You know, it’s a good thing Escojo doesn’t make me nervous anymore because there were 25 kids in that class and I didn’t know any of them!! The class in the morning had 12 kids. Anyways, it looks like I’ll have the pleasure of giving classes 5 more times this week in addition to my other stuff. Oh boy! I complain but actually, if this works out I think it could be really cool. Also I like that I get to travel to other communities in my mountain and get to teach classes to other youth. Pretty sweet deal! (when they aren’t driving me insane like the afternoon group who wouldn’t shut the heck up) I just hope it works out because I don’t think I can keep this up for more than 2 weeks without loosing it.
5/16 Sunday: Elections
Elections in this country are insane. Politicians lie in wait outside of the poling areas and pay people for their votes (although many people say that they’ll vote for Fulano, take Fulano’s 100-8,000 pesos and then vote for Pedro). I wanted to see this spectacle but sadly went running super duper far yesterday thus today, the idea of walking .25 miles to the school and back was too much. Instead I stayed in my house the entire day. I was so sore that any ideas of getting out of bed made me ache. Jeesh.
5/12-14 Wednesday-Friday: Newbies Swear In, All PCV Conference, Peace Corps Prom
Talk about negative. Today I was stuck in my site for like 2 hours because I couldn’t find anyone to take me to Navarrete. I decided to kill time at Minga’s house while waiting for a ride or a hitchhike and her daughter, Margara came over. I always refer to her as Minga’s daughter but let it be known that she is also Noel’s mom (btw, I was sick that Sunday so Noel and I didn’t go on a date, I take that to be a sign) and she’s my best friend. She’s really fantastic and my go to for advice. So, imagine my surprise when she came over today and spent about an hour warning me about how terrible the people are in the community!! She wasn’t saying it in a malicious way but man- an entire hour?! I figure something bad must have happened to her recently.
I went to Navarrete finally only to find that the buses were on strike, great. So when I finally got to the capital I missed the meeting by about 2 hours- the meeting I was supposed to be co-running. Then, since I got there so late, I didn’t have time to go to the swearing in of the newbies. Which means I’ll never see a swear in unless I extend (a very likely option). Although, remembering my swear in- they’re boring.
That was all on Wednesday. On Thursday I went to my last ever (and 2nd) All Volunteer Conference. It was ok. They’re kind of boring but fun because you get to meet all of the newbies. The conference is at the training center in Pantoja and it’s far from the office which makes it a pain in the butt to get there by 8 am. Nevertheless, the conference is from 8 am until 4 pm. The great thing was that they gave great snacks this year (DONUTS!!!).
Something about Entrena that makes the weather crappy- it rained. So we ended up spending 45 minutes in the rain before our taxies arrived. Urg. I was surprised at the punctuality of the PCVs because my group was the 1st to get back to the hotel and we got back at 6:30. Prom began at 8! So, imagine 4 girls trying to share one bathroom, one shower and one mirror to get ready. Not to mention we got locked out of our room. But, we got dressed in prom attire and hit the road. Prom was really fun. What made it prom you ask? While we had it at a regular get together for PCVs we got the happy hour extended 2 whole hours and we had to wear nice clothes. Also, some PCVs got together and drew a picture backdrop!! Happy Prom!!!
5/11 Tuesday: Woooo Whoo!!! RAIN DAY!!!
I am an old campesina. I went to bed last night at 9:30 and didn’t get out of bed, officially until 9:30 this morning. I say officially because I had to get up 3x to deal with the psycho puppy who peed in my bed the night before and since has been temporarily band from the bed. She doesn’t like this and so, in addition to waking me up to tell me her puppy bladder is full, she wakes me up to show her disapproval of her not in bed with me. Great.
Today I was also able to sleep in because it was raining. I was supposed to have an Escojo class but had to move it to Saturday due to the school once again being uncooperative with the schedule we’ve have for nearly 3 months and trying to coordinate the new time with a guest speaker who moved and so was going to send someone else. So I was going to keep working on the mural but- hey it’s raining!! Thus, I took the day off… kind of. I cleaned the house, made some cake, am writing in my blog, talked with Ernesto, and am doing that grant jazz I need to get done. Later I’ll prepare to head out to the cap early tomorrow and hang with the Dona some. I mean, sure there’s no power and there’s a lot of mud everywhere, and my cell phone has been lost for about 3 hours now, but those are the worst things about my day!! Life is so good:)
5/10 Monday: A very strange day.
So today was a weird day because everything fell into place in a seemingly productive way. Today I was supposed to meet up with Ernesto in Navarrete at 1pm and we were going to buy the wood for the library. We were both late, getting there at 2 pm. We went to the wood shop and ordered the wood, and strangely the wood shop said they could deliver the wood that same day. (I agreed but figured it’d be delivered Wednesday or Thursday). The wood buying went so quickly that Ernesto and I found ourselves with an hour to kill before our meeting with the Mayor at her house at 4. We went to a furniture store to hang out with a friend of Ernesto. A thing to understand is that furniture stores are a dime a dozen around here. They’re on everyone corner along with the same type of clothing stores and colmados. Well, here is where the day gets weird. We were at this store for maybe 20 minutes when the Mayor shows up to buy a mattress. Of all the furniture stores in all the world… Anyways, we had our meeting right there and she agreed to the amount we asked for on the letter- $150, 000. After a long and confusing conversation with Ernesto (because her agreeing to give this money just like that isn’t what happens here… it’s like trying to convince me that pigs really do fly or something) I discovered that this money has to also be approved by a board (which Ernesto is pretty good friends with) and then they generally approve half. Well dang. If I had known that I would have asked for double instead of 1.5 times more. Anyways, we have to wait for them to have the board meeting and then see how it goes I suppose. I’m not holding my breath. I feel like we will get something from the local government but it’s going to be in the stage where we’re buying books and furniture.
And the day gets suspiciously better: Ernesto told me he talked with one of the people we spoke with last week about getting all of the sand donated for the project. We went there together last… well, some day last week and dropped off a letter explaining our cause. The guy, to me anyways, seemed completely uninterested and after a 2 minute conversation of Ernesto talking, we left. Does that seem promising? No. Well, Sunday when I was with Ernesto, I called the Mayor and set up a meeting with her (luckily being able to set one up for the next day) and then Ernesto called a friend of his. His friend happened to be with Sand Man and so his friend talked to him about the sand. And Sand Man said he’d donate all the sand we need! It would be available next week and we just need to get it transported up, aside from that it’s free! (not sure how we’re going to get it up here, but hey, one step at a time…)
After all this good news, I went to an internet center to write letters to newspapers asking for help in filling the second Peace Corps Community Partnership grant, or PCPP (the one that is posted on the internet and then the funds become available once the grant has reached it’s goal). The letters were going well, I wrote letters to 5 newspapers from my hometown area asking them to write a story about the library we were doing here, and to see if they could run the story on the same day- to see how fast we can fill it. Well, the weirdest thing happened- I wrote a wealthy friend of a friend two months ago about the library and he never responded. Literally 15 minutes after I had finished sending the last letter to the newspapers, the friend of a friend sent me an email asking if I still needed help with the library, how much we needed and where he could send a check!!! Not that I think by any means he’s planning on donating $5K but it’s just another sign of how things that are meant to be always come together. Now I just need to close out the other PCPP (for those interested in this, we spent the entire $2,300 USD from that grant in one trip to the hardware store and still had to use another $1750 USD just to buy the rest of the materials to make the floor of the library and the support columns… so no books, no walls, no electric wiring, no furniture, no paint… we have a long way to go still) and then write up PCPP #2; which I’m doing tomorrow. Today I am so tired. Having a puppy, two kittens and a cat that won’t shut up for the last month and however much more time is making me tired and grumpy.
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Monday, May 10, 2010
sorry I didn't proof read this guys...
5/9: Sunday: Writing less, working more…
For any of you following my blog, you may have noticed that I am writing significantly less and less. This is because I am really super busy. I haven’t even gone to Santiago since my birthday!! Not that I am complaining, I love being busy. Being bored makes me sad. The problem with this is that I say yes to everything and then later realize that I’m actually doing something already that day. Saturday for instance I was supposed to be in 4 places at the same time. Whoops…. I ended up teaching an Escojo workshop. Something I wasn’t expecting. I thought that Ernesto and I were having a meeting for an hour or so with some of the youth from other communities, explaining what Escojo is and all that jazz. Well, nope. There is a super cool guy named Joshua who is PCs Director of Escojo and he was supposed to be here at 9am Saturday to give this workshop. I have never gone to a workshop and wasn’t really sure what it all entailed so I was happy to be there to experience the magic. Well, after waiting for Joshua to show up for an hour, Ernestina and Ernesto looked at me somewhat desperately and asked me to do something. Did I mention there was a full house? Over 70 people from 11 communities. Good thing I’m not shy!! Ha! So, I stalled and rambled and stalled. Until nearly 11 when Joshua arrived. But he was sick. He showed me his agenda and once I had an understanding of what a workshop was exactly I was ok and I took over while he went up to the house to nap. I taught the workshop the rest of the day and the next day he took over again. It great was a success and I felt very satisfied afterwards. We have between 5-7 groups set up to start and we should know who’s serious by next Saturday when I go around with Ernie to collect the lists they’re supposed to make.
Speaking of that, I found out that Ernie recently went to training in SD for Escojo Regional Coordinators. I guess she went last March or April and this is the first I’m hearing of it. I was upset. Annoyed. I talked with the PCV health leader last fall about Ernie being a RC for Escojo and Katie told me that each participant needs to have been in Escojo for at least one year and that it didn’t help her case that she was married since that’s not the image that Escojo wants to project. And now, after Ernie left Escojo for 7 months, she talks with Miguel (who never talks to me about anything) and she’s suddenly in training to be an RC? I can’t tell if I’m annoyed that she’s doing this because she didn’t put her time in and has a bit of a big head about it all or if its more personal and I’m mad that she left EMV, ignores me slightly and now can be an RC without my input on it at all. Not sure really but I guess that’s the way the cookie crumbles. I think that she can be a good RC but she should still have had to have put her time in for the job. Ah well, cosas de la vida.
Anyways, after the workshop ended today I called the Mayor of Navarrete. I got her cell phone number and I called her up today to talk about getting some financial assistance with this library. Ideally we would like to get about $100-$150,000 pesos from her but vamos a ver. She invited me to her house tomorrow at 4 pm. Not only do I expect her to be super late if we even are able to talk to her but I don’t expect to achieve what we hope to achieve tomorrow. Everything in this country is a fight although with the elections being only a week away, we may have an advantage.
Anyways, I’ve been surprised lately how I don’t have much fear about talking in Spanish. Although, Mary Alice you can tell Carmen that if she tries to talk to me in Spanish again when I go home in July I’m going to quedarme callada because I have a ton of vergüenza of my Dominican Spanish to other Spanish speakers. She’d think I had a speech impediment if I can a conversation with her, I know it.
5/1 Saturday: Despedida para Ana y Temo
Today was Anne and Tim’s farewell party. In a nutshell, it made me realize that my group is the next to go!!! Bummer because I really love it here now. I understand what a PCV was telling me right after I swore in now. She was in the group about to leave and she was complaining how right after you get used to being here it’s time to go. I only have 5 months left and I can’t picture leaving. Urg, I also don’t want to think about applying to grad schools (essays, letters of recommendation (ready for that Mary Alice--- er, I mean Bill?), the GRE and the COLD!!!! We finish the end of October although with this library project I may find a reason to stay until December. All I can say is, la vida no es facíl.
4/27 Tuesday: “Maybe I should just go for it and see how it goes?”: when your motorcycle driver asks you on a date.
As you all may have read, I have been extremely happy these last two months in my site. Life is good. No, life is great. Sure things aren’t going great but there are always problems in life. For example, today y pa’ ‘lante I have to change my Escojo class to the afternoon because all the teachers decided they don’t like the time I’m having it at. Later today I was at Margara’s house making tostones and spaghetti for dinner with her and her fam, having a great time when Ernestina and Mercedes showed up. Mercedes saw me and wouldn’t even go into the house. She told Margara that she had to go because Ernesto was sick from some juice and then left. Ernie said she was charging her phone and left. In case you didn’t get that, those were both bunk reasons and they were avoiding me. I am going to make this hard for them. I’m going to go to the Club de Madres each Monday from now on and I’m going to go out of my way to hang out at the houses they go to. And we shall see how long they decide to keep trying to ignoring me! Ha!
After dinner I went back to my house and there were 3 kids there who I got into a water fight with until nearly 10pm. It was fun because I wasn’t getting wet, just them! I was sitting out under the moonlight writing in my journal when Noel came over to visit. I have suspected that he has a crush on me because lately he’s been acting a little different. Well, last night he was like, “I’m not just saying this because I’m drunk right now but I’ve had a crush on you since we met”- the paraphrased, shorter version of course. This complicates my life. Not just because he is my motor man but also because it’s his mom and his grandma who are my best friends!! I’ve thought about dating him actually. I mean, I’ve wanted to date a Dominican (this may sound weird to people who don’t live here but it makes sense I swear) and he’s not a player, he’s in my site so I’d get to see him all the time, he’s got a motorcycle and works so he’s not a bum, he’s respectful and has never said anything inappropriate like 95% of the other Dominican men… and I love his family. On the other hand, this could end badly and then I’m screwed. I mean, if we date it’d almost have to be until the end of my service and I don’t think I want a commitment like that! (Sure I only have 6 months left but that’s a lot of hours…) Do I like him like that? Not really but Dominican relationships aren’t started based on that. It’s more of convenience and other simple factors. Then maybe something comes from it. So the question is what are the expectations at first really? I don’t know, I mean maybe I should just go for it and see how it goes? But is he the one I should experiment with? This whole entry sounds bad…
4/25-26 Sunday and Monday: Happy Birthday!!
This weekend was GREAT!!!! There was a regional meeting Sunday and my friend Kelly send out an email to all the PCVs in my region saying that we were going to have a birthday party afterwards for me so people should stay the night. It was the best party I have ever had! The last time I threw a party for myself no one showed up (8th grade graduation, big ego hit) but this time there were like 20- 25 people!! Fun!!! We went to a Mexican food restaurant and I didn’t have to buy any dinner because my little group got there late and ate everyone’s leftovers. So I got to try a bunch of the food there for free!! Then my friend Chris bought me a shot of tequila (which ended up being a double shot) and Mica told the restaurant it was my birthday and she bought me a piece of cheesecake and everyone sang to me when the waiter brought it out!! And they put a huge sombrero on my head. After dinner we went dancing and had a great time. It was so fun!! It was the 25th but close enough to my birthday. Someone was watching the clock in my group because at midnight they played a happy birthday song at the club and everyone clapped for me. It was so nice!!!!
I ended up having to sleep on the floor that night without a pillow or sheet or anything but no big deal. At least it was free! The next day I went out with Ali, Kelly and a girl named Mary who is visiting to lunch and then we all bought matching shoes together. I used the internet and talked with my best friend from home, Becky (1st time since September!), and also with my mom (talk with her online all the time:) though Skype. Later that night my sister, Rach, called me and we talked- 1st time since January! When I got to my campo no one had planned anything but that’s because no one knew about it. I didn’t really make a big deal about it to anyone, just mentioned it to the kids who hang out in my house that Friday before. Someone made me habichuela con dulce though which was delicious!! Ah yes, birthdays get better and better each year. It makes me nervous about next year, will I be sad I’m not here in the DR? I’m sure there won’t be a party with even 10 people to go out dancing with… better enjoy this time in my life while I can. And so I will:)
4/15- 4/18 Bola Race!!!
For those of you reading this who are seriously seriously behind the times and don’t have facebook, Bola Race is essentially hitchhiking across country with a bottle of alcohol in a costume with a partner. Yep, a perfect recipe!!! I wanted to go last year but couldn’t find a male partner (the ratio is ridiculious) so I missed out. This year I considered not going because I’m worn out!! I have been out of my site every weekend and just want to stay in my site and chill. But I went. And it was a hoot. We met up in Hato Mayor Friday and did a white elephant type of alcohol exchange. Then at 9 am the next morning we met up, the destination place was announced and a bunch of oddly dressed, mostly white people began trying to get a bola out of town. The rule is that you have to have an empty bottle before you get to the finish line and you can’t dump it out. Never in my life have I drank that early. I gave a bunch of our bottle to some homeless guy around 9:30 and so I can still say that I have never been drunk before noon. Mine and Andrew’s story was very original. We were newlywed brother and sister who were washed out to sea after a bad storm in LA a few months ago. After 3 days at sea a boat found us and took us to the DR. There is a lawyer at the end destination (a beautiful, calm tourist area called Bayihibe… may have spelled that wrong) who specializes in helping shipwrecked people without passports back to the States. The only part anyone ever double took on was that we were married brother and sister. We placed 7th out of 23 teams:)
4/9- 4/11 Escojo Conference:)
In a nutshell: Rachele, Ali and I planned this conference by ourselves and it went great. It makes me confident that the youth conference in August that Kelly, Rachele and I are planning will go well. We had a Sundae Bar one night and a Snack Bar another night (who’s idea do you think that was?:) along with a talent show. I know it seems like all I do is have fun here but what can I say? The fun stuff is more fun to write about! (Aside from the entry about someone poking out Kouldbie’s eye of course…)
4/7 Wednesday: Someone pokes out Kouldie’s eye.
Today I went to my Doña’s house to eat lunch after taking it easy in the morning with an Indiana Jones movie (until the power went out). Before I went to Minga’s I decided to check on my cat, Kouldbie and her two little kittens. I took some pics to post up on facebook for the next time I was online and then set off for some free rice and beans. About 20 minutes into my visit with Minga, a little boy ran up to me telling me that Kouldbie’s eye was outside of her head, giant and had blood all around it. I assumed that maybe something insignificant had happened to her but that he must be exaggerating. I ate some mangoes and headed up to my house, forgetting about the crazy kid.
When I got to my front door I was surprised to find Kould waiting for me and even more surprised to see that she indeed had a big problem with her left eye. It was bulging out of the socket and surrounded by red tissue. Well great, fantastic. I had to cancel planning English with Jen, loaded up the cat and the kittens into the carrier and got onto the motorcycle headed to the vet in Navarrete.
When I got to town everyone was closed still for the 2 hour lunch break. So we found the vets house and asked him to end his lunch a half hour early. I should have taken it as a sign when the 1st thing the vet did was take out a roll of packing tape and tell me to hold her legs together while he taped them… my jaw dropped and I asked him if he had thought about using some… ohhh I don’t know, anesthesia? Jeesh! He thought about it for a minute and said, oh yeah, I guess we could do that. So he put the tape away and instead of giving her something to put her to sleep he gave her something to dull the pain and tried for the next 45 minutes to force the eye back into the socket while she growled. It made me nauseous as I pet her. Poor thing. I finally convinced the vet that this obviously wasn’t working and so he said that he would give her an anti-inflammatory and maybe the eye would go back in on its own. He said it was important to keep it moist in the meantime and so I had to constantly keep wetting it. The problem was that I wasn’t going to be here this weekend because I have an Escojo conference Friday-Sunday. He offered to keep her until Monday and after weighing the options of taking the cat back on the motorcycle for a day and then bringing her back while I went to the conference, I decided to leave her with the vet. I was worried though, remembering the tap incident and asked him to use pain meds every time he was going to do something that hurt her.
Thursday I was really busy with two art classes, English class and stove making in between but Friday on my way to the conference I stopped at the vet and checked on Kouldbie. The vet wasn’t in yet and when he finally got in, he took about 10 minutes to go and look for her… making me wonder what was going on. When I did see her I was upset to see she looked gaunt. The vet said that her eye was still outside of the socket and that if it didn’t go back in by Monday he would have to operate. Ummm, hello…. It’s been over FOURTY hours. If they anti-inflammatory meds didn’t work yet I doubt they’re going to go into overdrive and shrink her eye back into her head. When we took off the little mask he had made her, I saw that the eye had lost all of the original color and was completely black. I’m no doctor but I know anything black on the body generally gets cut off, STAT. Problem was I didn’t have enough money on me to pay the vet and get to the conference and all of the banks were closed due to some computer problem. So I told him I was just taking her back with me so I could take care of her until Monday when we would operate if they eye was the same and I took Kouldbie to Santiago to the vet there.
When we got to the vet in Santiago (“we” because during all of this I had my youth with me, a timid 13 year old girl who had only been to Santiago 2 times in her life, ah the things I was showing her!) the vet took one look at the eye and said it was too late to save it. But Kouldbie had a fever from infection so they had to wait a day to operate. Poor cat!! I asked how much it would be and laughed when they said it would be $5000 pesos- more than half of my months salary. I thought about putting her to sleep but after she suffered for 2 days, and if we did that her kittens would die too. Urg…. I’m going to have to figure out how to save up $5000…
I left Kouldbie and went to the conference. The conference was really fun and went really well (surprising since I’m one of the head people planning it!). When I picked up Kouldbie the next Wednesday I was happy to find her one happy cat, loving life!! The vet had to sew her eye shut so she looks like a pirate, maybe I should get a patch. Anyways, I’m glad I have her home. She’s one smart cat because there is no way I’m leaving a $6200 (with the vet bill from Navarrete) in the DR!!!
For any of you following my blog, you may have noticed that I am writing significantly less and less. This is because I am really super busy. I haven’t even gone to Santiago since my birthday!! Not that I am complaining, I love being busy. Being bored makes me sad. The problem with this is that I say yes to everything and then later realize that I’m actually doing something already that day. Saturday for instance I was supposed to be in 4 places at the same time. Whoops…. I ended up teaching an Escojo workshop. Something I wasn’t expecting. I thought that Ernesto and I were having a meeting for an hour or so with some of the youth from other communities, explaining what Escojo is and all that jazz. Well, nope. There is a super cool guy named Joshua who is PCs Director of Escojo and he was supposed to be here at 9am Saturday to give this workshop. I have never gone to a workshop and wasn’t really sure what it all entailed so I was happy to be there to experience the magic. Well, after waiting for Joshua to show up for an hour, Ernestina and Ernesto looked at me somewhat desperately and asked me to do something. Did I mention there was a full house? Over 70 people from 11 communities. Good thing I’m not shy!! Ha! So, I stalled and rambled and stalled. Until nearly 11 when Joshua arrived. But he was sick. He showed me his agenda and once I had an understanding of what a workshop was exactly I was ok and I took over while he went up to the house to nap. I taught the workshop the rest of the day and the next day he took over again. It great was a success and I felt very satisfied afterwards. We have between 5-7 groups set up to start and we should know who’s serious by next Saturday when I go around with Ernie to collect the lists they’re supposed to make.
Speaking of that, I found out that Ernie recently went to training in SD for Escojo Regional Coordinators. I guess she went last March or April and this is the first I’m hearing of it. I was upset. Annoyed. I talked with the PCV health leader last fall about Ernie being a RC for Escojo and Katie told me that each participant needs to have been in Escojo for at least one year and that it didn’t help her case that she was married since that’s not the image that Escojo wants to project. And now, after Ernie left Escojo for 7 months, she talks with Miguel (who never talks to me about anything) and she’s suddenly in training to be an RC? I can’t tell if I’m annoyed that she’s doing this because she didn’t put her time in and has a bit of a big head about it all or if its more personal and I’m mad that she left EMV, ignores me slightly and now can be an RC without my input on it at all. Not sure really but I guess that’s the way the cookie crumbles. I think that she can be a good RC but she should still have had to have put her time in for the job. Ah well, cosas de la vida.
Anyways, after the workshop ended today I called the Mayor of Navarrete. I got her cell phone number and I called her up today to talk about getting some financial assistance with this library. Ideally we would like to get about $100-$150,000 pesos from her but vamos a ver. She invited me to her house tomorrow at 4 pm. Not only do I expect her to be super late if we even are able to talk to her but I don’t expect to achieve what we hope to achieve tomorrow. Everything in this country is a fight although with the elections being only a week away, we may have an advantage.
Anyways, I’ve been surprised lately how I don’t have much fear about talking in Spanish. Although, Mary Alice you can tell Carmen that if she tries to talk to me in Spanish again when I go home in July I’m going to quedarme callada because I have a ton of vergüenza of my Dominican Spanish to other Spanish speakers. She’d think I had a speech impediment if I can a conversation with her, I know it.
5/1 Saturday: Despedida para Ana y Temo
Today was Anne and Tim’s farewell party. In a nutshell, it made me realize that my group is the next to go!!! Bummer because I really love it here now. I understand what a PCV was telling me right after I swore in now. She was in the group about to leave and she was complaining how right after you get used to being here it’s time to go. I only have 5 months left and I can’t picture leaving. Urg, I also don’t want to think about applying to grad schools (essays, letters of recommendation (ready for that Mary Alice--- er, I mean Bill?), the GRE and the COLD!!!! We finish the end of October although with this library project I may find a reason to stay until December. All I can say is, la vida no es facíl.
4/27 Tuesday: “Maybe I should just go for it and see how it goes?”: when your motorcycle driver asks you on a date.
As you all may have read, I have been extremely happy these last two months in my site. Life is good. No, life is great. Sure things aren’t going great but there are always problems in life. For example, today y pa’ ‘lante I have to change my Escojo class to the afternoon because all the teachers decided they don’t like the time I’m having it at. Later today I was at Margara’s house making tostones and spaghetti for dinner with her and her fam, having a great time when Ernestina and Mercedes showed up. Mercedes saw me and wouldn’t even go into the house. She told Margara that she had to go because Ernesto was sick from some juice and then left. Ernie said she was charging her phone and left. In case you didn’t get that, those were both bunk reasons and they were avoiding me. I am going to make this hard for them. I’m going to go to the Club de Madres each Monday from now on and I’m going to go out of my way to hang out at the houses they go to. And we shall see how long they decide to keep trying to ignoring me! Ha!
After dinner I went back to my house and there were 3 kids there who I got into a water fight with until nearly 10pm. It was fun because I wasn’t getting wet, just them! I was sitting out under the moonlight writing in my journal when Noel came over to visit. I have suspected that he has a crush on me because lately he’s been acting a little different. Well, last night he was like, “I’m not just saying this because I’m drunk right now but I’ve had a crush on you since we met”- the paraphrased, shorter version of course. This complicates my life. Not just because he is my motor man but also because it’s his mom and his grandma who are my best friends!! I’ve thought about dating him actually. I mean, I’ve wanted to date a Dominican (this may sound weird to people who don’t live here but it makes sense I swear) and he’s not a player, he’s in my site so I’d get to see him all the time, he’s got a motorcycle and works so he’s not a bum, he’s respectful and has never said anything inappropriate like 95% of the other Dominican men… and I love his family. On the other hand, this could end badly and then I’m screwed. I mean, if we date it’d almost have to be until the end of my service and I don’t think I want a commitment like that! (Sure I only have 6 months left but that’s a lot of hours…) Do I like him like that? Not really but Dominican relationships aren’t started based on that. It’s more of convenience and other simple factors. Then maybe something comes from it. So the question is what are the expectations at first really? I don’t know, I mean maybe I should just go for it and see how it goes? But is he the one I should experiment with? This whole entry sounds bad…
4/25-26 Sunday and Monday: Happy Birthday!!
This weekend was GREAT!!!! There was a regional meeting Sunday and my friend Kelly send out an email to all the PCVs in my region saying that we were going to have a birthday party afterwards for me so people should stay the night. It was the best party I have ever had! The last time I threw a party for myself no one showed up (8th grade graduation, big ego hit) but this time there were like 20- 25 people!! Fun!!! We went to a Mexican food restaurant and I didn’t have to buy any dinner because my little group got there late and ate everyone’s leftovers. So I got to try a bunch of the food there for free!! Then my friend Chris bought me a shot of tequila (which ended up being a double shot) and Mica told the restaurant it was my birthday and she bought me a piece of cheesecake and everyone sang to me when the waiter brought it out!! And they put a huge sombrero on my head. After dinner we went dancing and had a great time. It was so fun!! It was the 25th but close enough to my birthday. Someone was watching the clock in my group because at midnight they played a happy birthday song at the club and everyone clapped for me. It was so nice!!!!
I ended up having to sleep on the floor that night without a pillow or sheet or anything but no big deal. At least it was free! The next day I went out with Ali, Kelly and a girl named Mary who is visiting to lunch and then we all bought matching shoes together. I used the internet and talked with my best friend from home, Becky (1st time since September!), and also with my mom (talk with her online all the time:) though Skype. Later that night my sister, Rach, called me and we talked- 1st time since January! When I got to my campo no one had planned anything but that’s because no one knew about it. I didn’t really make a big deal about it to anyone, just mentioned it to the kids who hang out in my house that Friday before. Someone made me habichuela con dulce though which was delicious!! Ah yes, birthdays get better and better each year. It makes me nervous about next year, will I be sad I’m not here in the DR? I’m sure there won’t be a party with even 10 people to go out dancing with… better enjoy this time in my life while I can. And so I will:)
4/15- 4/18 Bola Race!!!
For those of you reading this who are seriously seriously behind the times and don’t have facebook, Bola Race is essentially hitchhiking across country with a bottle of alcohol in a costume with a partner. Yep, a perfect recipe!!! I wanted to go last year but couldn’t find a male partner (the ratio is ridiculious) so I missed out. This year I considered not going because I’m worn out!! I have been out of my site every weekend and just want to stay in my site and chill. But I went. And it was a hoot. We met up in Hato Mayor Friday and did a white elephant type of alcohol exchange. Then at 9 am the next morning we met up, the destination place was announced and a bunch of oddly dressed, mostly white people began trying to get a bola out of town. The rule is that you have to have an empty bottle before you get to the finish line and you can’t dump it out. Never in my life have I drank that early. I gave a bunch of our bottle to some homeless guy around 9:30 and so I can still say that I have never been drunk before noon. Mine and Andrew’s story was very original. We were newlywed brother and sister who were washed out to sea after a bad storm in LA a few months ago. After 3 days at sea a boat found us and took us to the DR. There is a lawyer at the end destination (a beautiful, calm tourist area called Bayihibe… may have spelled that wrong) who specializes in helping shipwrecked people without passports back to the States. The only part anyone ever double took on was that we were married brother and sister. We placed 7th out of 23 teams:)
4/9- 4/11 Escojo Conference:)
In a nutshell: Rachele, Ali and I planned this conference by ourselves and it went great. It makes me confident that the youth conference in August that Kelly, Rachele and I are planning will go well. We had a Sundae Bar one night and a Snack Bar another night (who’s idea do you think that was?:) along with a talent show. I know it seems like all I do is have fun here but what can I say? The fun stuff is more fun to write about! (Aside from the entry about someone poking out Kouldbie’s eye of course…)
4/7 Wednesday: Someone pokes out Kouldie’s eye.
Today I went to my Doña’s house to eat lunch after taking it easy in the morning with an Indiana Jones movie (until the power went out). Before I went to Minga’s I decided to check on my cat, Kouldbie and her two little kittens. I took some pics to post up on facebook for the next time I was online and then set off for some free rice and beans. About 20 minutes into my visit with Minga, a little boy ran up to me telling me that Kouldbie’s eye was outside of her head, giant and had blood all around it. I assumed that maybe something insignificant had happened to her but that he must be exaggerating. I ate some mangoes and headed up to my house, forgetting about the crazy kid.
When I got to my front door I was surprised to find Kould waiting for me and even more surprised to see that she indeed had a big problem with her left eye. It was bulging out of the socket and surrounded by red tissue. Well great, fantastic. I had to cancel planning English with Jen, loaded up the cat and the kittens into the carrier and got onto the motorcycle headed to the vet in Navarrete.
When I got to town everyone was closed still for the 2 hour lunch break. So we found the vets house and asked him to end his lunch a half hour early. I should have taken it as a sign when the 1st thing the vet did was take out a roll of packing tape and tell me to hold her legs together while he taped them… my jaw dropped and I asked him if he had thought about using some… ohhh I don’t know, anesthesia? Jeesh! He thought about it for a minute and said, oh yeah, I guess we could do that. So he put the tape away and instead of giving her something to put her to sleep he gave her something to dull the pain and tried for the next 45 minutes to force the eye back into the socket while she growled. It made me nauseous as I pet her. Poor thing. I finally convinced the vet that this obviously wasn’t working and so he said that he would give her an anti-inflammatory and maybe the eye would go back in on its own. He said it was important to keep it moist in the meantime and so I had to constantly keep wetting it. The problem was that I wasn’t going to be here this weekend because I have an Escojo conference Friday-Sunday. He offered to keep her until Monday and after weighing the options of taking the cat back on the motorcycle for a day and then bringing her back while I went to the conference, I decided to leave her with the vet. I was worried though, remembering the tap incident and asked him to use pain meds every time he was going to do something that hurt her.
Thursday I was really busy with two art classes, English class and stove making in between but Friday on my way to the conference I stopped at the vet and checked on Kouldbie. The vet wasn’t in yet and when he finally got in, he took about 10 minutes to go and look for her… making me wonder what was going on. When I did see her I was upset to see she looked gaunt. The vet said that her eye was still outside of the socket and that if it didn’t go back in by Monday he would have to operate. Ummm, hello…. It’s been over FOURTY hours. If they anti-inflammatory meds didn’t work yet I doubt they’re going to go into overdrive and shrink her eye back into her head. When we took off the little mask he had made her, I saw that the eye had lost all of the original color and was completely black. I’m no doctor but I know anything black on the body generally gets cut off, STAT. Problem was I didn’t have enough money on me to pay the vet and get to the conference and all of the banks were closed due to some computer problem. So I told him I was just taking her back with me so I could take care of her until Monday when we would operate if they eye was the same and I took Kouldbie to Santiago to the vet there.
When we got to the vet in Santiago (“we” because during all of this I had my youth with me, a timid 13 year old girl who had only been to Santiago 2 times in her life, ah the things I was showing her!) the vet took one look at the eye and said it was too late to save it. But Kouldbie had a fever from infection so they had to wait a day to operate. Poor cat!! I asked how much it would be and laughed when they said it would be $5000 pesos- more than half of my months salary. I thought about putting her to sleep but after she suffered for 2 days, and if we did that her kittens would die too. Urg…. I’m going to have to figure out how to save up $5000…
I left Kouldbie and went to the conference. The conference was really fun and went really well (surprising since I’m one of the head people planning it!). When I picked up Kouldbie the next Wednesday I was happy to find her one happy cat, loving life!! The vet had to sew her eye shut so she looks like a pirate, maybe I should get a patch. Anyways, I’m glad I have her home. She’s one smart cat because there is no way I’m leaving a $6200 (with the vet bill from Navarrete) in the DR!!!
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
yay!!!!!!!! 3/29- 4/6
4/6 Tuesday: So this is what it feels like to finally be adjusted… well, mostly adjusted.
Today was the day of the condom races in Escojo. This is the best class ever, something about spinning blindfolded kids around and watching them trying to put a condom on a plantain is great. So great in fact that last year I planned to have this class around my mom and sister’s visit so they could be in the most fun class. I really like my Escojo class this time around. I regret not putting myself in the last class 100% because I think all the classes have potential to be great if they’re lead properly. This class and my first class are great. Sure they fight and argue and say the other team cheated and yada yada yada but that’s a given with these kids- maybe all kids, I really don’t know. But with my kids I expect it. I’m so glad that I have Escojo. Sure I don’t feel like drawing/planning the 4 new topics we’re going to do in the upcoming weeks because drawing the classes takes forever and I am quemada, but I really love my classes. Teaching kids is really fun, something that seriously surprises me. (Remember I am the one who when asked what I wanted from my host fam in CBT I said, “I just don’t want to be in a house with children.”) I’m so grateful that Escojo is my project (or one of them) because I never would have volunteered to teach anything before PC. Now I know I can do it, I understand how to do it and I really enjoy it (although not enough to do it for a career). One great thing about Peace Corps I’m discovering, aside from the friendships and freedom, is that in a very hands-off way it throws you into things you probably would have never done before and makes you do them. I realize I really can do anything. It’s not about being smart or super talented- it’s about determination and motivation. If you stick to anything and have the right attitude you will become good at it. I never wanted to do things before that I wasn’t fairly good at but I embarrass myself alllllll the time here and it’s fine. I am so glad that I am here, that I did this because it’s opened up my world: to food (I ate my 1st and hopefully last, full bowl of boiled bananas the other week because a poor family gave them to me and it was so nice of them), to experiences, to culture, to friendships, to an entire world I never would have experienced simply because I didn’t speak the same language. I can say for certain that I am adjusted to my situation here. Yes I will continue to adjust and to grow but I am comfortable and happy now. I know not everyone likes me and that’s how it’s going to be. I love it here (but am still counting down till I go home!!!) and I appreciate all the opportunities I have been given. I am finally not living being really careful not to become attached because I’m leaving in X number of days. I got a dog for heavens sake! With only 7 months left, who does that?! The main thing I want to do now is work on Dominican relationships. I want a Dominican best friend who is really a best friend. I really love my Doña and her daughter but that’s it. Noel and I are becoming pretty good friends, surprisingly. It’s strange but the last week or two, I have begun seeing my service and Dominicans through different eyes and I really like this new outlook. I’m excited for each day to come and grateful for each that passes. I think I am gaining a better understanding of Peace Corps and what it means to be a Volunteer.
Later that day… I went looking for Lucy Loquita (I changed my dog’s name) and ended up sitting and talking with Ernesto for a loooooooong time. How long I will never know as the watch fixer in the community has my watch (hopefully just a dead battery). But it was a nice talk and I’m glad to have Ernesto as a friend to hang out with. I never just hang out with people. I always feel like I’m passing time because I have to and am waiting until I can leave. What a bad attitude. Anyways, I left his house and called the grants coordinator of Peace Corps (who I have been calling a lot lately so my grants for the library move along quickly). I was on the phone with him working out this and that with the grants when he told me that- oh! The money from the PCPP (the grant that was online) was sitting there waiting for me and he just noticed he had forgotten to approve its deposit. And also, oh! The money for the SPA grant has arrived!! Not for me in particular-however, my SPA was written and since I had been calling it moved along quickly and was approved in Washington already which just means that I have to wait for the divining up of the money. That was the one I was really afraid of. SPA can take FOREVER to finally come in for the people who are on the waiting list and Conrado told me that he didn’t know if there would be enough money in the funds (whenever they finally came in) for my project since I was at the end of that waiting list. So I called Miguel last week who told me he would make sure that I was bumped up on the waiting list since I’m in the next group to COS (leave). YAYYYY!!!! The SPA grant is $5000 USD!!!! And the PCPP is $2300 USD!!!! And the other grant I wrote and should hear back from by this Friday is for $2500 which means that potentially by the end of this week I could have gone from having no funds for the library to having everything I requested- $9500!!!!!!!!!! WHOOOOOOT!
More good news: I wanted to write a grant for a small latrine project and Conrado kept telling me there were none that were applicable. Then I read about a new one that seemed applicable but Conrado told me it wasn’t. Knowing that he deals with lots of people and wouldn’t remember that it was me that asked him every time we spoke about that grant for latrines I kept asking him if this grant was applicable for latrines. I figured he would double check after “so many people” were asking him about this grant and latrines. It worked and today when I asked him about it again he reread it with me and realized that it can be used for latrines! So now I can write one for that and do a latrine project too if I get approved!! The only two other things I would like to do before I leave in the way of projects are the basketball court and garbage pick up. Well, murals too but that’s just a few days of work and doesn’t involve much planning. The other two involve a lot of harassing. I am so pumped right now!! We are meant to have this library!!! :)
4/3 Saturday: Concert at a water park= genius idea
I had heard that Santiago and Puerta Plata have water parks but I never had gone to one here. To tell you the truth I was scared to go thinking that I would contract some nasty fungus or disease. I pictured the water in a park like this, in a country with no general regulations for anything, to be cloudy and full of pee- maybe even poop. I vowed that if I went and the smell of chlorine was not in the air then I was absolutely not getting in the water. I also thought it was going to be a joke in size, having one small, crappy pool full of people and maybe having two slides. I was ready for the worst and ended up being pleasantly surprised. The water was pretty clean, the park was waaaaaay bigger that I had expected with multiple slides and pools- it even had a sprinkle area, platforms to jump from into deep water (with Dominicans actually in lines and waiting!) and, my favorite part because I have never used one before: it had a bar in the water!!! The prices to drink were double or triple that of a colmado but I guess that’s to be expected, especially on a day where there was going to be a concert with multiple singers, some really famous.
We were mildly concerned that we would miss a singer since they claimed that the concert was going to be from 10 am to 10 pm and, since we had to get ready by going to the salon beforehand, we didn’t get to the park until around 3. Luckily we are in the DR and so they didn’t start singing until around 3:30 or 4.
Overall we all had a great time. I haven’t gone to many concerts in my time but I think I prefer Dominican concerts. No one has any shame and so they’re singing and dancing. I must have danced for 3 hours Saturday night. The park closed around 10 or 10:30 and we took a cab home. There was a group of 7 of us and we all went to my friend Kelly’s house because she lives pretty close. If you are ever in the DR and can go to a concert, I recommend that you go!
4/1 Thursday: Easter Egg Hunt!!!!!
In honor of Semana Santa, today is my only class this week. I canceled all the others for “spring break” but I still wanted to have my art class. I really wanted to have an egg hunt for them and this week is the most appropriate time for that so we had to have art class! The only issue was figuring out a way to dye the eggs. After lots of searching and research I have decided to dye the eggs using the DR version of kool aid. The only sad thing is that we only have red and orange but I was fortunate to come across some actual Kool Aid grape flavored powder on Monday! At least we will have purple which is all that really matters, verdad?
I knew today was going to be crazy but fun. I only let 30 kids participate since we had a limited number of eggs and it’s nearly impossible to control more than 30 kids at a time. I bought 120 eggs and Minga hardboiled them on her new stove for me that morning. I set up all the bowls with juice and explained to the kids how to use the crayons and then dye the eggs. Then I told them to collect their eggs and memorize which eggs were theirs before trading eggs with a partner. Then they had to go out and hide their partner’s eggs and after, return to the Club. Of course chaos ensued. All 30 kids went right up next to the side of the Club and hid all three of their eggs TOGETHER in a pile- when they had the entire baseball diamond at their disposal!! This would not do. I herded the kids back into the Club and said they weren’t allowed to hide them next to the Club and they couldn’t be together, that the point was that the person had to really try to find them so they needed to use all the space in the play and put them separate from one another. I saw their light bulbs turn on, now this was going to be fun. The went out and re-hid the eggs and then came in for a lesson on why we have the Easter Bunny in the States and why we do fun stuff with eggs. Then I let them go out to find the eggs before the big dog in the neighborhood found them and ate them, and that was equally funny. Ah, I love my “job”:)
3/31 Wednesday: A talk with a neighbor.
Today I spoke with Ernesto about Mercedes. I have done everything else. I’ve avoided her, I’ve talked to her, I’ve been super nice, I’m sucked up, I’ve gone to her house to hang out, I tell her when I’m leaving and when I’m back… after 4 months of this, there are no other options aside from talking to Ernesto. And I was a little nervous because if Ernesto decided that I suck as well after this conversation, I would be in a pickle. Surprisingly it went well. I explained my problem, telling him that I wanted to talk to him about this because he randomly told me the day before that if he were in the US and I was his project partner and he had a problem with someone, he would talk to me. I told him how I have really tried to make things better between Mercedes and myself and have not been seeing the fruits of my labor. I told him I care for his whole family and when I first realized she was angry with me, it really upset me. I also told him even other women have approached me telling me that I should talk to her about this because she seems really mad at me. He told me he would talk to her so we shall see how it turns out but, as usual, I’m hopeful.
3/29 Monday: This is kind of a boring story but I thought it was funny: A trip to the vet….
Last Friday I went to the only vet I knew about near the downtown area where I always go in Santiago. I was nervous that is was going to be one of those agro-veterinarians which are a dime a dozen here and is staffed by people who don’t generally know how to care for a “pet” rather than just shoveling vaccines down farm animal’s throats. Sure I def have a different opinion of them in the States but they’re different here. For instance, I went into one of these shops last week in Puerta Plata. I told the guy behind the counter I needed a deparasite med for my puppy. He didn’t ask how big she was or how old she was, he just gave me a bottle and said to give it all to her. I decided not to buy anything and instead went to a different place. With common sense stuff like that I know it’s no big deal but with actually giving vaccines I need a legit vet. So, I was very happy to find on Friday that VetBoca in Santiago seems very legit. I would prefer that they spoke English but Spanish isn’t really an issue anymore so that ok. I had decided to bring Caramelita into the vet on Monday and wasn’t sure how I was going to go about it still. I have heard many many horror stories about PCV’s animals freaking out on the bus rides, throwing up, defecating or urinating all over everything. I hoped that if I was calm she would be calm. But also I had some errands to run in Santiago and didn’t know about getting her into the stores.
Getting out of my site was a piece of cake. I assumed the motorcycle ride would be ok because we had already been on a motor when we went to paint the mural last week. We ended up getting a bola down in a truck with Tolo, went to a lumberyard to buy some wood for the stoves and then waited at the expresso bus stop to Santiago. To my relief she rode on the bus like a champ and slept. We got off at the giant hardware store in Santiago, Ochoa, and I decided to put her in my shoulder bag and see what happened. Success! We got in! I picked out some paint, bought some seeds for the gardens and checked out, all the while with her being a very good girl in my bag. It wasn’t until as I was leaving, I went to pick up the bag I had checked that they saw her. And they didn’t even care!! They thought it was so cute that she was in there the whole time! So, I took her out of my bag and put the harness I had just bought for her on her. Stop at Ochoa to get some stuff: Check.
Next we walked for a while… she doesn’t understand how to walk (a) in a place with lots of stuff to distract her (b) on a leash (c) with a harness. So when I say “we” walked I really mean it took her about 15 minutes to walk one block and then I carried her the rest of the way. We went into the next store, her carefully stowed away in my shoulder bag, and I went to the counter to get some tickets to a concert “water park” this weekend. Apparently only one guy can sell tickets and he wasn’t going to be in for another 30 minutes. So I walked around the store, found grape Kool Aid for my egg dying art class on Thursday, tried on some clothes, looked at makeup… a little of this a little of that. An hour later I went back to the counter and the dude still wasn’t there. Not surprising. But there was another store that sold tickets that wasn’t too far from this one so I set out to find that store. All the while Caramelita was zonked out in my bag. Overstimulation can be a good thing sometimes! I went into the next store and bought the tickets without a problem. Buy 7 tickets for this weekend: Check.
After that I decided that now would be as good of a time as any to buy some paper for my Escojo class. When I went into this store Caramelita was readjusting and the door checker said, “Let me see what’s in your bag.” I showed her and it was our 1st rejection: she said I couldn’t go into the store with her. So I asked her to get me some paper and glitter for my art class and she stared at me for a minute and then said I could go in. Stop to get supplies for Escojo and art: Check.
Now I was really beginning to become loaded down with stuff so we went to the park and played fetch and then went to the vet. She did a good job with the vet and so I left her to go to the normal spot to use internet: the hotel Aloha Sol. They have free wireless for their guests and while I have never stayed there, that’s the hotel PC uses when we need to be consolidated (for hurricanes generally) so they let us use it.
When I went to pick Caramelita up she was laying peacefully on her side staring at the wall. I asked if she had been sleeping the whole time and the vet said no it was just the opposite. She had been crying so much that they thought maybe she was hot so they moved her to a different cage on top of all the other cages so that she was closer to the fan, they gave her water and even shut their front door and turned on the AC! What a diva!! I put her in my bag, grabbed all my stuff and walked to my bus stop. She slept for a while but woke up when we were half way home and was standing at attention looking out the window on the way home. Then on the motorcycle she didn’t behave quite as well as the 1st ride but overall she was good.
I thought this day was funny. All those stores and only one cared that I had a dog in my bag!! Hopefully when I take her back to the vet for her 2nd vaccine set she still fits in my bag!
Today was the day of the condom races in Escojo. This is the best class ever, something about spinning blindfolded kids around and watching them trying to put a condom on a plantain is great. So great in fact that last year I planned to have this class around my mom and sister’s visit so they could be in the most fun class. I really like my Escojo class this time around. I regret not putting myself in the last class 100% because I think all the classes have potential to be great if they’re lead properly. This class and my first class are great. Sure they fight and argue and say the other team cheated and yada yada yada but that’s a given with these kids- maybe all kids, I really don’t know. But with my kids I expect it. I’m so glad that I have Escojo. Sure I don’t feel like drawing/planning the 4 new topics we’re going to do in the upcoming weeks because drawing the classes takes forever and I am quemada, but I really love my classes. Teaching kids is really fun, something that seriously surprises me. (Remember I am the one who when asked what I wanted from my host fam in CBT I said, “I just don’t want to be in a house with children.”) I’m so grateful that Escojo is my project (or one of them) because I never would have volunteered to teach anything before PC. Now I know I can do it, I understand how to do it and I really enjoy it (although not enough to do it for a career). One great thing about Peace Corps I’m discovering, aside from the friendships and freedom, is that in a very hands-off way it throws you into things you probably would have never done before and makes you do them. I realize I really can do anything. It’s not about being smart or super talented- it’s about determination and motivation. If you stick to anything and have the right attitude you will become good at it. I never wanted to do things before that I wasn’t fairly good at but I embarrass myself alllllll the time here and it’s fine. I am so glad that I am here, that I did this because it’s opened up my world: to food (I ate my 1st and hopefully last, full bowl of boiled bananas the other week because a poor family gave them to me and it was so nice of them), to experiences, to culture, to friendships, to an entire world I never would have experienced simply because I didn’t speak the same language. I can say for certain that I am adjusted to my situation here. Yes I will continue to adjust and to grow but I am comfortable and happy now. I know not everyone likes me and that’s how it’s going to be. I love it here (but am still counting down till I go home!!!) and I appreciate all the opportunities I have been given. I am finally not living being really careful not to become attached because I’m leaving in X number of days. I got a dog for heavens sake! With only 7 months left, who does that?! The main thing I want to do now is work on Dominican relationships. I want a Dominican best friend who is really a best friend. I really love my Doña and her daughter but that’s it. Noel and I are becoming pretty good friends, surprisingly. It’s strange but the last week or two, I have begun seeing my service and Dominicans through different eyes and I really like this new outlook. I’m excited for each day to come and grateful for each that passes. I think I am gaining a better understanding of Peace Corps and what it means to be a Volunteer.
Later that day… I went looking for Lucy Loquita (I changed my dog’s name) and ended up sitting and talking with Ernesto for a loooooooong time. How long I will never know as the watch fixer in the community has my watch (hopefully just a dead battery). But it was a nice talk and I’m glad to have Ernesto as a friend to hang out with. I never just hang out with people. I always feel like I’m passing time because I have to and am waiting until I can leave. What a bad attitude. Anyways, I left his house and called the grants coordinator of Peace Corps (who I have been calling a lot lately so my grants for the library move along quickly). I was on the phone with him working out this and that with the grants when he told me that- oh! The money from the PCPP (the grant that was online) was sitting there waiting for me and he just noticed he had forgotten to approve its deposit. And also, oh! The money for the SPA grant has arrived!! Not for me in particular-however, my SPA was written and since I had been calling it moved along quickly and was approved in Washington already which just means that I have to wait for the divining up of the money. That was the one I was really afraid of. SPA can take FOREVER to finally come in for the people who are on the waiting list and Conrado told me that he didn’t know if there would be enough money in the funds (whenever they finally came in) for my project since I was at the end of that waiting list. So I called Miguel last week who told me he would make sure that I was bumped up on the waiting list since I’m in the next group to COS (leave). YAYYYY!!!! The SPA grant is $5000 USD!!!! And the PCPP is $2300 USD!!!! And the other grant I wrote and should hear back from by this Friday is for $2500 which means that potentially by the end of this week I could have gone from having no funds for the library to having everything I requested- $9500!!!!!!!!!! WHOOOOOOT!
More good news: I wanted to write a grant for a small latrine project and Conrado kept telling me there were none that were applicable. Then I read about a new one that seemed applicable but Conrado told me it wasn’t. Knowing that he deals with lots of people and wouldn’t remember that it was me that asked him every time we spoke about that grant for latrines I kept asking him if this grant was applicable for latrines. I figured he would double check after “so many people” were asking him about this grant and latrines. It worked and today when I asked him about it again he reread it with me and realized that it can be used for latrines! So now I can write one for that and do a latrine project too if I get approved!! The only two other things I would like to do before I leave in the way of projects are the basketball court and garbage pick up. Well, murals too but that’s just a few days of work and doesn’t involve much planning. The other two involve a lot of harassing. I am so pumped right now!! We are meant to have this library!!! :)
4/3 Saturday: Concert at a water park= genius idea
I had heard that Santiago and Puerta Plata have water parks but I never had gone to one here. To tell you the truth I was scared to go thinking that I would contract some nasty fungus or disease. I pictured the water in a park like this, in a country with no general regulations for anything, to be cloudy and full of pee- maybe even poop. I vowed that if I went and the smell of chlorine was not in the air then I was absolutely not getting in the water. I also thought it was going to be a joke in size, having one small, crappy pool full of people and maybe having two slides. I was ready for the worst and ended up being pleasantly surprised. The water was pretty clean, the park was waaaaaay bigger that I had expected with multiple slides and pools- it even had a sprinkle area, platforms to jump from into deep water (with Dominicans actually in lines and waiting!) and, my favorite part because I have never used one before: it had a bar in the water!!! The prices to drink were double or triple that of a colmado but I guess that’s to be expected, especially on a day where there was going to be a concert with multiple singers, some really famous.
We were mildly concerned that we would miss a singer since they claimed that the concert was going to be from 10 am to 10 pm and, since we had to get ready by going to the salon beforehand, we didn’t get to the park until around 3. Luckily we are in the DR and so they didn’t start singing until around 3:30 or 4.
Overall we all had a great time. I haven’t gone to many concerts in my time but I think I prefer Dominican concerts. No one has any shame and so they’re singing and dancing. I must have danced for 3 hours Saturday night. The park closed around 10 or 10:30 and we took a cab home. There was a group of 7 of us and we all went to my friend Kelly’s house because she lives pretty close. If you are ever in the DR and can go to a concert, I recommend that you go!
4/1 Thursday: Easter Egg Hunt!!!!!
In honor of Semana Santa, today is my only class this week. I canceled all the others for “spring break” but I still wanted to have my art class. I really wanted to have an egg hunt for them and this week is the most appropriate time for that so we had to have art class! The only issue was figuring out a way to dye the eggs. After lots of searching and research I have decided to dye the eggs using the DR version of kool aid. The only sad thing is that we only have red and orange but I was fortunate to come across some actual Kool Aid grape flavored powder on Monday! At least we will have purple which is all that really matters, verdad?
I knew today was going to be crazy but fun. I only let 30 kids participate since we had a limited number of eggs and it’s nearly impossible to control more than 30 kids at a time. I bought 120 eggs and Minga hardboiled them on her new stove for me that morning. I set up all the bowls with juice and explained to the kids how to use the crayons and then dye the eggs. Then I told them to collect their eggs and memorize which eggs were theirs before trading eggs with a partner. Then they had to go out and hide their partner’s eggs and after, return to the Club. Of course chaos ensued. All 30 kids went right up next to the side of the Club and hid all three of their eggs TOGETHER in a pile- when they had the entire baseball diamond at their disposal!! This would not do. I herded the kids back into the Club and said they weren’t allowed to hide them next to the Club and they couldn’t be together, that the point was that the person had to really try to find them so they needed to use all the space in the play and put them separate from one another. I saw their light bulbs turn on, now this was going to be fun. The went out and re-hid the eggs and then came in for a lesson on why we have the Easter Bunny in the States and why we do fun stuff with eggs. Then I let them go out to find the eggs before the big dog in the neighborhood found them and ate them, and that was equally funny. Ah, I love my “job”:)
3/31 Wednesday: A talk with a neighbor.
Today I spoke with Ernesto about Mercedes. I have done everything else. I’ve avoided her, I’ve talked to her, I’ve been super nice, I’m sucked up, I’ve gone to her house to hang out, I tell her when I’m leaving and when I’m back… after 4 months of this, there are no other options aside from talking to Ernesto. And I was a little nervous because if Ernesto decided that I suck as well after this conversation, I would be in a pickle. Surprisingly it went well. I explained my problem, telling him that I wanted to talk to him about this because he randomly told me the day before that if he were in the US and I was his project partner and he had a problem with someone, he would talk to me. I told him how I have really tried to make things better between Mercedes and myself and have not been seeing the fruits of my labor. I told him I care for his whole family and when I first realized she was angry with me, it really upset me. I also told him even other women have approached me telling me that I should talk to her about this because she seems really mad at me. He told me he would talk to her so we shall see how it turns out but, as usual, I’m hopeful.
3/29 Monday: This is kind of a boring story but I thought it was funny: A trip to the vet….
Last Friday I went to the only vet I knew about near the downtown area where I always go in Santiago. I was nervous that is was going to be one of those agro-veterinarians which are a dime a dozen here and is staffed by people who don’t generally know how to care for a “pet” rather than just shoveling vaccines down farm animal’s throats. Sure I def have a different opinion of them in the States but they’re different here. For instance, I went into one of these shops last week in Puerta Plata. I told the guy behind the counter I needed a deparasite med for my puppy. He didn’t ask how big she was or how old she was, he just gave me a bottle and said to give it all to her. I decided not to buy anything and instead went to a different place. With common sense stuff like that I know it’s no big deal but with actually giving vaccines I need a legit vet. So, I was very happy to find on Friday that VetBoca in Santiago seems very legit. I would prefer that they spoke English but Spanish isn’t really an issue anymore so that ok. I had decided to bring Caramelita into the vet on Monday and wasn’t sure how I was going to go about it still. I have heard many many horror stories about PCV’s animals freaking out on the bus rides, throwing up, defecating or urinating all over everything. I hoped that if I was calm she would be calm. But also I had some errands to run in Santiago and didn’t know about getting her into the stores.
Getting out of my site was a piece of cake. I assumed the motorcycle ride would be ok because we had already been on a motor when we went to paint the mural last week. We ended up getting a bola down in a truck with Tolo, went to a lumberyard to buy some wood for the stoves and then waited at the expresso bus stop to Santiago. To my relief she rode on the bus like a champ and slept. We got off at the giant hardware store in Santiago, Ochoa, and I decided to put her in my shoulder bag and see what happened. Success! We got in! I picked out some paint, bought some seeds for the gardens and checked out, all the while with her being a very good girl in my bag. It wasn’t until as I was leaving, I went to pick up the bag I had checked that they saw her. And they didn’t even care!! They thought it was so cute that she was in there the whole time! So, I took her out of my bag and put the harness I had just bought for her on her. Stop at Ochoa to get some stuff: Check.
Next we walked for a while… she doesn’t understand how to walk (a) in a place with lots of stuff to distract her (b) on a leash (c) with a harness. So when I say “we” walked I really mean it took her about 15 minutes to walk one block and then I carried her the rest of the way. We went into the next store, her carefully stowed away in my shoulder bag, and I went to the counter to get some tickets to a concert “water park” this weekend. Apparently only one guy can sell tickets and he wasn’t going to be in for another 30 minutes. So I walked around the store, found grape Kool Aid for my egg dying art class on Thursday, tried on some clothes, looked at makeup… a little of this a little of that. An hour later I went back to the counter and the dude still wasn’t there. Not surprising. But there was another store that sold tickets that wasn’t too far from this one so I set out to find that store. All the while Caramelita was zonked out in my bag. Overstimulation can be a good thing sometimes! I went into the next store and bought the tickets without a problem. Buy 7 tickets for this weekend: Check.
After that I decided that now would be as good of a time as any to buy some paper for my Escojo class. When I went into this store Caramelita was readjusting and the door checker said, “Let me see what’s in your bag.” I showed her and it was our 1st rejection: she said I couldn’t go into the store with her. So I asked her to get me some paper and glitter for my art class and she stared at me for a minute and then said I could go in. Stop to get supplies for Escojo and art: Check.
Now I was really beginning to become loaded down with stuff so we went to the park and played fetch and then went to the vet. She did a good job with the vet and so I left her to go to the normal spot to use internet: the hotel Aloha Sol. They have free wireless for their guests and while I have never stayed there, that’s the hotel PC uses when we need to be consolidated (for hurricanes generally) so they let us use it.
When I went to pick Caramelita up she was laying peacefully on her side staring at the wall. I asked if she had been sleeping the whole time and the vet said no it was just the opposite. She had been crying so much that they thought maybe she was hot so they moved her to a different cage on top of all the other cages so that she was closer to the fan, they gave her water and even shut their front door and turned on the AC! What a diva!! I put her in my bag, grabbed all my stuff and walked to my bus stop. She slept for a while but woke up when we were half way home and was standing at attention looking out the window on the way home. Then on the motorcycle she didn’t behave quite as well as the 1st ride but overall she was good.
I thought this day was funny. All those stores and only one cared that I had a dog in my bag!! Hopefully when I take her back to the vet for her 2nd vaccine set she still fits in my bag!
Monday, March 29, 2010
so many things!!! 3/7- 3/29
3/26 Friday: A trip to the mayor’s office, the public health office, the vet and a miracle!!!!!!!!!!!
Yesterday I told Ernesto that I have that letter asking for trash service but wanted someone to go with me to talk to the mayor about it. He immediately volunteered to go with me the next morning, Friday. So, today I really prepared myself. I picked out my nicest blouse, my dress sandals, even scrubbed my feet and pained my nails!! We went to the office after printing out the letter and an envelope only to find out that all the prep was in vain. She is out sick from an operation! What a pain!! So we explained to her secretary and I guess I’ll go back alone sometime after Samana Santa (Easter week) to see if she’s back in.
I felt like the day was off to a bad start and Ernesto seemed pretty crabby too. He dropped me off at the bus stop and I headed for Santiago. 1st stop was SESPAS- the department of Public Health- to try and get condoms. For those of you who remember, last year this was a bit of a challenge. I need condoms for my Escojo class and don’t want to use grant money to buy them when I can get them for free. Last year I was in the office for a good 45 minutes trying to get someone to give me condoms, I even left defeated and then went back in, deciding I wasn’t going to take no for an answer. I did eventually get some condoms but the experience was not forgotten. This time I went to the clinic in my community and asked the doctor if they had condoms. They didn’t have any but the doctor said he could get some for me the next day. I knew that he would forget so I said I could swing by SESPAS the next day and get them. But, if he would please write me a note with his name on it and the stamp of our clinic my life would be easier. When I went to SESPAS the security guard wasn’t going to let me in because I was wearing my nice blouse still which was sleeveless. I told him I was from far away and couldn’t change so he offered me HIS shirt- a denim button down SESPAS shirt. I said thanks, put it on (sure it was a little big) and walked in like I knew what I was doing. I walked right past the secretary, flashing my SESPAS badge on my shirt and went to the room in the back with the condoms. I asked them to give me condoms and they drilled me- Condoms for who, when do you need them, what’s the name of your organization, what’s the name of this youth group, how many kids are in it, what are you going to do with them, where are you from, what community…. Really? They’re condoms people, not your 1st born son. Then I pulled out the gold: The Note. Almost right away they passed me an entire box of condoms; 144 brand spanking new condoms. Now I think we’ll have enough for our Escojo conference in April as well!! Yippee!
After that triumph I went to the find the vet I was recommended to see if it was legit. It was a decent walk in my nice sandals but I made it and the vet was pretty nice. I bought some cute stuff for my little puppy, made an “appointment” for next week and set off to use the internet.
Once I was on the internet, I was upset to see that my grant had disappeared! Where did it go? I called Conrado, the grants coordinator and he said if it was gone that meant it was filled! No way dude, as much as I would like to believe that the hours I spent writing emails to friends and family asking for donations (which makes me feel guilty since everyone at home has already given so much) I just don’t see $1500 being donated in 4 days. Conrado said he would check and call me back. He never called back.
That night my mom called me to ask me why I didn’t tell her I was interviewed for the Dixon Telegraph and Sauk Valley Newspaper. I told her I must have forgotten to tell her, whoops. I also didn’t know the story was going to be printed today. The reporter wanted to interview me because of a grant I received called Kids to Kids. It’s a great grant where kids from the States raise money for other kids in impoverished countries. The grant is for $500 and it’s what I’m using to do my art class. So when Kids to Kids contacted me asking if I would be willing to interview for my local newspaper to get them some publicity of course I said I would be more than happy to! After all, if it weren’t for them I wouldn’t have my most fun project right now- art class. I asked the reporter if she could include a little tidbit about how I’m trying to fill this grant to build a library and she said she didn’t know if she could but she would check. My mom read me the story and I was super happy to find that the reporter was able to include the URL for my grant and so it is VERY possible that my grant was filled that same day!!!!! Can you believe it!??! $1500 filled in ONE DAY!!! I am soo happy!! I did a happy dance in my house when I finished talking with my mom. Amazing the way things always work out and fit together. I was so worried about getting that grant filled and now it’s probably filled, after just a few weeks online!! (I just have to get a hold of Conrado to confirm it is actually filled and not MIA.) Fantastic and thank you soooo much to everyone who donated!!!
3/25 Thursday: Don’t procrastinate and your dreams will come true.
In hindsight this was wrong of me but after not having anything to do during my 1st three months in site I developed this habit of procrastination. See I thought that I would always try to“save” some things to do for tomorrow so that I would always have something to do. Ever since I saw how the new PCV, Jenn was acting- doing everything as soon as she could, not only was I a little embarrassed about my behavior and impressed by hers but I took note of how she was always busy. Hmmm, maybe this newbie is on to something. Since then I’ve tried to do things right away and, yep my theory has proven true, I have had more to do. The moral of this story is that once again I am very glad to have Jenn living so close to me and that even here with the slower pace of things, you can get more done if you don’t procrastinate. (Genius I know)
An example of a typical “workday” for me these days is like today: wake up at 7, take puppy out and clean any messes. Get dressed and find where the stove workers are at the moment. Meet up with them around 8 and stay with them until 9:50 or so. Then find the key to the Club and go have my art class from 10 until 12. From 12- 1 hang out with the Doña and get a free lunch. 1-2 shower if I’m really hot or relax away for a bit. 2-4:00 have second art class. 4:30 head up to the intersection (about 1.5 miles up) to teach English. From 5:30- 7:30 have English and from 7:30- 8:15 walk home. Hang out with the kids who were at my house waiting for me to get back until 9 or 9:30 and then shoo them away so I can grasp at the few strands of sanity I have remaining.
3/24 Wednesday: A mural and nice walk.
Today as I was preparing for my next English class I received a phone call from Anne asking me to go over to her site to help her paint. As any of you who know me are aware, I love painting and decorating. I don’t like painting alone or painting a wall one boring color but help paint a mural? Yes. Especially since I went to her house last week and helped her design the mural. Caramelita (my new puppy) and I hopped on a motorcycle and went to the mural site (about 4.5 miles away) and had fun painting. We didn’t finish it so I said I would come back Saturday or Sunday to help again. Anne and I discovered that Caramelita likes to eat paint and paint brushes.
I told my motor man to come and get me around 6 and by 6:45 it was getting dark and I was still at Anne and Tim’s. So I called him and he said he would leave right then to get me. I told him I would begin walking back so look for me along the road. I was a little freaked out because there are lots of parts of the road where there are no houses and it was foggy. Can you say creepy?! Tito showed up after I had not only walked all the way home in the dark and fog but also had the time to go to Minga’s and then to the colmado to chat. Thanks Tito. He’s Noel’s step dad and I was thinking I would split my business between him and Noel since Tito’s money goes to the family and Noel’s doesn’t but on second thought…. maybe I’ll just call Tito when I’m not creeped out or in a hurry.
3/20-22 Saturday- Monday: A legit vacay in Cabarete
This weekend was fantastic. Saturday morning I went to the hardware store before skipping town to pick up some supplies and send them up with Noel. I was waiting for them to be prepared when the hardware store owner told me that he would get them ready and send them in about 10 minutes. So far he has been very reliable and so I trusted him. He took down 2 numbers for me, Noel’s and Franklins, and assured me it wouldn’t take long. So I set off for Cabarete!
When I got to Cabarete about 3 hours later I met Kenzie’s mom and her godmother. They’re both really nice and we had a great time. They reserved a hotel room which was more like a sweet apartment with a balcony, ocean view, two bedrooms, comfy couch, kitchen with dishwasher… it was great. And the hotel had a pool and a hot tub! The 4 of us along with Kenzie’s host brother and boyfriends spent the rest of Saturday, all of Sunday and part of Monday together before I had to get going. I was planning on picking up my puppy later that day and I needed to get food, a collar and parasite medicine for her. Little Manchita Gallenia Cabrera Espencer was going to have one comfy night ahead of her!
When I finally got back to my house I passed by Ernesto. He seemed annoyed. I asked what time the tin and rivet gun arrived on Sat and he said they never came. He finally went to Navarrete on Monday and had to wait until 11 am for the owner of the store to arrive. I guess the owner, Leo, had an emergency with his wife (interesting he’s married since he always hits on me and once last week sent me a love poem text) and that’s why he was late. I’m annoyed because it looked bad on me that I was on a vacay while things here were falling apart. Urg.
After I put my stuff down and put some time in with Ernesto and his fam and then I went to pick up my new puppy, Manchita or Little Spot only to find out that she had died on Saturday. And so did one of her sister’s leaving just one sister puppy left. And Manolo, the owner told me that the puppies died dramatically and painfully. Apparently they were whining in pain and then just died. I was sad for them and not sure what to do about the last puppy. If I left her she would probably meet the same fate but then again if I took here would she die in the same manner, leaving me to dispose of a puppy body!? I took her and hoped for the best. I had picked up some de-parasite meds and gave them to her that night. The next day she pooped out a ton of worms and was in considerably higher spirits. Maybe there’s hope for her yet, little Caramelita Yautia Cabrera Espencer.
3/19 Friday night: Payday for the men
Jimmy, Oney and Ernesto weren’t able to complete any stoves this week since we were missing a rivet gun and tin to make the chimneys. They took the initiative and built 10 stove bottoms, which impressed me and showed their commitment to the project and eagerness to make money. They are supposed to make $500/stove so I was thinking I would give them half since the stoves were half done but that only would have been about $800 pesos or about $24 USD each for the entire week. As they have all done prep work for this going back about two weeks I decided to pay them $1500 or about $43 USD each which was nearly all of the money if they had finished the stoves. I know that they will finish the project and so I figured it was ok. Well, when I was talking with Ernesto, one of my favorite people, we were discussing how many stoves to build. I said we should have enough to do about 60 or 65 stoves. I also want to give at least 5 for “free” (meaning they don’t have to pay the $500 labor) to the poorest families- probably Haitians. The problem with that is most all of the Haitians live in group living, in a house provided by a rich farmer who gives them free living and pays them to farm his field. So the issues with this grand idea are that (1) Dominicans don’t think we should give free stuff to Haitians despite the fact that they may have been born here and should be entitled to the same things as Dominicans (2) Many of the Haitians are migrant workers and so Dominican’s don’t want to put something in the house for them when they’re just going to leave (although many Haitians live here for years and years if not their entire lives) (3) The owner of the home can afford to improve the living conditions but won’t pay for it. What a conundrum!
Anyways, back to the point. I was talking with Ernesto and he seems to think that 40 stoves is enough here. I think that’s a huge waste of a perfectly good grant (the money that isn’t used is returned) and so I want to use it all. We have 100 houses here and I’m sure 60 of them would like a stove and the majority of them can pay for one too. If there aren’t 60 that need a stove then we can reach out a little to other surrounding communities. If we have to donate the labor for 10 stoves instead of 5 then we’ll do that. Sure I have to lie to the community and say it was a separate grant I wrote and so I have to give stoves to Haitians or something like that but whatever. The thing is, everyone here thinks they’re entitled to a free stove and that they are dirt poor but that’s not the case. I am sure there will be a little uproar over this but I’m prepared to deal with it because I support it. And, let’s face it; people have been upset with me for less than that here so… why not?! :)
Then Ernesto tells me he has 3 houses in mind to donate to. One I agree with completely, one I’m not sure who it is and one is not going to happen. He wants to donate one to his mother in law- who doesn’t even live in the community and I think Ernesto can afford to pay for one! I was annoyed that he suggested it. Not only to see if we could build one there (which I probably would have agreed to since she lives in the neighboring community) but to have her be one of the donated ones? No way dude! Not to mention it looks bad giving him extra perks because he’s my project partner. Since he is a worker, if he wants to work on her stove for free and donate his time that would be ok but I am not going to pay him $500 from the grant to do her stove.
Then he tells me that he doesn’t think we should do all the stoves because it’s better to have extra materials rather than not enough. Sure I agree to that but doing 20 less? Not an option. While I’m letting my mind wrap around all this he tells me that doing 40 stoves is the way to go to save money and that we can make up receipts for whatever. Oh great. Just fantastic. I was disappointed. I couldn’t believe my Ernesto was talking like that. I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume I misunderstood but then there’s the issue of the change from the hardware store. He went 2xs to buy stuff in the same week and each time I gave him $1000 pesos. I didn’t know how much he had spent but tonight I finally asked and he had spent just $500 pesos. I asked about the $1500 pesos in change 3 times and he never went and got it. I think he spent it. And so I need to figure out a way to get it back without offending him. No matter what, he is still the best person I have here. I just need to watch him more closely I suppose until I figure out something else.
Then, a few days later I found out that he asked Jimmy to lend him $1500 from the paid money which Jimmy didn’t have since he gave it to me already (thank goodness) and that Ernesto collected $500 from two houses and wouldn’t give the money to Jimmy to give to me. I mentioned to Ernesto how weird it was that only one new person had requested a stove this week and he said, “Well you know how it is here, everyone wants something for free.” And so he had the chance to tell me, “Oh yeah- by the way Fulana and Bob paid and I collected the money. I’ll give it to you later.” But he didn’t. So, this sucks. It also sucks because I feel like an enabler. I knew when he did my wall that there was no way it cost over $48,000 pesos and the wall still supposedly wasn’t able to be completed. That wall should be done and lined in gold for that amount of money. It’s upsetting for me and now I’m not sure where that leaves me with the library project. The only thing I can say about it is that I’ll have to wait to do that until the summer when all my other projects are done and I can carefully monitor supplies each day. How sad and what a pain.
3/18 Thursday: My 1st English class and possibly an offense...
The Offense: Today I was in the Club de Madres, attempting to multitask but failing miserably. I was supervising the art class while trying to draw out the papers for the English class Jenn and I were going to give that night, and it wasn’t going well. The kids were insane as usual, the wind kept blowing my large paper away and the guy I sent to buy some materials from the hardware shop came back after buying stuff from the wrong place and not getting something I still need to look the definition up of… something like a rivet gun?? (How did I know he didn’t have it if I didn’t know what it was you ask? Because I am just that great of a detective, what can I say?) Anyways, in the middle of all this confusion that has become my life, some dude walks in and tries to take a water filter. If you remember this project, there were 30 filters delivered to our community in December and it’s been a process getting people to pay for them. So, resisting the urge to simply give them away to get rid of them finally, I have been holding out telling everyone who tells me that they’ll pay later that they have to pay BEFORE and then they can pick up their filter. Imagine my surprise then when this guy shows up to take one and I have no idea who he is. I found out he was picking it up for Minga’s sister. She had given me $300 pesos towards the filter that day or the day before and I was very clear that AFTER she paid the other $250 she could pick up the filter. So I told the guy he would have to come back later to get it and he was a little rude, telling me I was going to have to pay for his gas and time. I asked how much she was paying him (just because I’m nosey, obviously I’m not paying for anything of the sorts) and he said he was just helping her. So I was feeling double annoyed that A) She sent him to get the filter after I told her she had to pay 1st (B) This guy was trying to haggle me, in my community, in my art class, and with my project. I sighed, told him he couldn’t take it right now and went back to trying to draw out my lesson for English. Then Monino walked in, Minga’s sister. When I tried to explain (yet again) that the rule is that EVERYONE has to pay BEFORE she got really mad at me and started yelling and getting all frantic. Then she said, “If you think I can’t pay, I can!! I have your money right here I just have to get change!!” as she began waving a $1000 peso bill around. Before I could say anything she handed the bill to Santa and told her to guard it since I obviously didn’t believe she was good for the money and when she got change for it, she would give it to me. Then she walked over with her rude helper man and took the filter. At this point I would have been fine with her taking the filter and then making change to pay for it. But what a way to go about it. And what drama in my art class. After the class I walked to her house to make sure there were no hard feelings since I’m pretty sure I offended her. We hung out a little bit before I had to leave for English class and I think she’s mad at me. Look, everyone has to pay before, the only people who haven’t paid beforehand are the richer people who live in the weekend homes and that’s because they came and took one after they got my permission to have a filter. I guess I didn’t convey that they had to pay for it first. I’m not concerned though because I don’t think they’ll try to finagle their way out of paying. Monino I think would. She’s asked me for money before, her son is the one who stole from me for months on end and she is one of the types that always says she has no money and is trying to get people to give her stuff for free yet she lives in a pretty sweet house.
English Class: On Sunday Jenn called me and asked me if I wanted to participate in teaching an English class with her. I have been avoiding English simply because it’s not like Escojo where there are clear and immediate results and because they aren’t going to be fluent in 16- 90 minute sessions over 4 months but that’s what they think will happen. I guess Jenn is pretty good friends with the pastor of the church there and he wanted her to teach a class. Poor girl is in her digging stage of building the aqueduct which means she leaves her house at 7 am each day, walks 2.5 miles with a pickaxe over her shoulder to the site and digs 3 ft deep trenches until 2-3 each day. Sooooo glad I’m not a water PCV. Needless to say, she is tired. I however am like the Teaching Master now and love working with someone else on projects so I said I would love to! It works out well for both of us: we have a reason to meet up during the week to plan the class, I prepare the class (why not when I already have all the markers and paper?) relieving Jenn of that duty, I get exercise walking the 3 miles round trip to where we have the class or walking the little over 4 miles round trip to her house each week to plan and I feel satisfied that I am going to give an English class, something that I simply feel I should do. Win win. We anticipated having a lot of people in the 1st class and there were a lot of people but it wasn’t out of control. I only told about 6 people from my community so there weren’t many from La Lomota but there were a lot from the other communities. Where we have the class is far for everyone to walk but it’s the most central location and a lot of communities can participate. I think we had about 40 kids there, which was a little crazy but manageable since we have a large space and there are two of us teaching. Other PCVs have had 80 people show up to their 1st classes, thank goodness that didn’t happen since we wouldn’t have gotten anything done. Overall I think it went really well. We talked about the rules, took attendance, did some kind of little drama and played a game with greetings and farewells. We have this electronic manual but I think we’re going to more use that as a reference and do our own thing. I personally like to play at least one game in each class and the manual doesn’t have any games so we’re going to have to get creative. Aside from the fact everyone from my community except my little 12 year old friend, Niña, and I got a free ride back- leaving her and I to walk the 1.5 miles alone in the dark and in the rain, the experience was a good one. Even the walk back was fun. Messy but fun!
3/17 Wednesday: Stove Training, new puppy!!
Today we were all supposed to go to Ane and Tim’s site to see how a stove is built. Out of the 4 of us working on the stoves (Jimmy, Oney, Ernesto and myself) Ernesto and I are the only ones who really needed to go to this training as we are the ones who have never see a stove built before. That’s why I was a little disappointed when the morning of Ernesto told me he couldn’t go because he had a doctor’s appointment. He had a bad kidney infection last week but I just wish he had mentioned the checkup to me before so I could have made the training for a different day. No matter, at least the guys are getting a 2nd training and I’m getting a 1st. The training went well. The stove is simple enough and right when we got to the part where we’re going to add the mouth (the hardest part) to the stove Ernesto showed up!! He’s so dependable. We made some changes to the design and hopefully each of the two pots will heat up now (it’s a two “burner” stove).
Something you should know about Oney and Jimmy is that they think its hilarious to tease me with things such as slamming on the brakes of the motorcycle so I slam into the driver or making up stupid names for me. I’m pretty accustomed to this by now and so what happened today shouldn’t have surprised me. A little background for this story: I have decided to care for a puppy while I’m here. I wasn’t going to but I broke down and now I am getting a puppy with only 7 months of service left! There was this really fuzzy cute one I liked a lot- I walked around with it before returning it to its home and I even named it. It makes all kids of weird noises so I named it Chewbacca. I have it set up so that when I’m out of site and when my service is over a certain family will care for little Chewy. The daughter wanted to name him Beethoven so I decided to be very Dominican and gave him the name…. drum roll… Chewbacca Beethoven Cabrera Espencer with a nickname of Chewy (Dominicans have two last names and nearly everyone has a nickname). Fantastic! Well, Jimmy saw me walking around with this puppy the day before and during our stove training he decided to start calling me Chewbac. I was hoping they would forget about it after a day or so, especially when I bring Chewy home to live. Well, when I got home that day I went to play with the puppy and had he died. Bummer. And Jimmy and Oney still call me Chewbac… oh my.
This sounds cruel but since Chewy died (I would have been much sadder in the States but for some reason am more disconnected from animals here… maybe its watching all the chickens die or listening to the pigs get slaughtered) I picked out his sister, a cute and spunky little white thing with brown spots, and not at all furry (sadly). She likes to cuddle and already sleeps on a pillow!! I need to name her something cool that can be pronounced in English and Spanish so if anyone has some ideas… let me know! Thanks! (Just not “Spot”)
3/12-3/13: Hellllllooooooo Committee Weekend and Christmas in March!!
The reason I had to go to committee weekend was because I am in a co-planner for the Celebrando el Cibao kids camp this summer (a fun 3 day camp on diversity for kids at the end of August, something very important especially considering the level of discrimination against Haitians here) and so I had to hold an informational meeting for PCVs. To my grand surprise, I checked my mailbox and had a package slip. I was sooooo excited because that means that my Christmas package from my mom and sister had arrived:) Imagine my shock to find that I had TWO Christmas packages- one from Mom and Rach and one from the Health Dept!!! THANK YOU SO MUCH GUYS!!!! For those of you interested in the goodies, Mom and Rach sent me fun yet practical things like a super colorful table clothe and curtains but also included the essential bag of candy- YUM!! Then BCHD gave me two DVDs (Blood Diamond and Pirates of the Caribbean- great choices guys) and the rest was CANDY CANDY CANDY!!! Which as I opened each box I realized that it was everything off of my wish list on my blog- lol!! So, not only do I now know that you do read my blog but I am fat with sweets! Merry Christmas and thanks soo much for thinking of me! :)
3/12 Friday: Getting the brick for the stoves…
THURSDAY: I received the grant money nearly 2 weeks ago and yet we still don’t have all the materials to make the stoves. This is largely due to the rain. I didn’t want to repeat the same craziness that ensued after/during heavy rains when we had the water filters delivered so I put the brakes on the project and said we had to wait until it had been sunny for at least 2 days. Well, this week the weather finally began to cooperate and on Thursday the hardware store began delivering the supplies. This surprised me since no one mentioned to me that they had spoken with the hardware owner to have the supplies delivered today. Minga was at my house around 8 am calling me, saying that the truck was here and they were waiting for me. I was awake but needed a few minutes to get dressed and by the time I arrived to the park where the truck was waiting about 10 minutes had passed. The annoying guy in my community who speaks English was there, perfectly playing his role of being annoying, acting like he knew what was going on or that he was somehow in charge of the project. When I got past him I was slightly dismayed to find out that none of the workers were around since some family member had died the night before. So I took inventory of what was there and we began looking for spots to unload. The truck had to make 4 trips that day and it took alllll day. I was running back and forth between my art class and driving with the truck, dropping the supplies in different locations. Ernesto was there off and on (thank goodness!) and so he helped with where we would put the supplies.
Then on Friday I’m supposed to go to the capital for committee weekend but we really needed these ceramic pieces to make the mouth of the stove (where you load the wood) which means we have to go to Santiago since that’s where the pieces are. Ernesto is a valuable person to have with you because he knows everyone and everyone respects him. People say no to me or tell me a super high price but when Ernesto walks over they say yes and give him a discount. He was able to find us a truck to take us to Santiago for great price. When we got there they didn’t have the right sized pieces and, once again- thank goodness Ernesto was there because he said he could cut the pieces that were too big because he has a saw. We got the brick, loaded it up and Ernesto and the driver headed back while I headed in to Santiago, making my way to the capital.
Yesterday I told Ernesto that I have that letter asking for trash service but wanted someone to go with me to talk to the mayor about it. He immediately volunteered to go with me the next morning, Friday. So, today I really prepared myself. I picked out my nicest blouse, my dress sandals, even scrubbed my feet and pained my nails!! We went to the office after printing out the letter and an envelope only to find out that all the prep was in vain. She is out sick from an operation! What a pain!! So we explained to her secretary and I guess I’ll go back alone sometime after Samana Santa (Easter week) to see if she’s back in.
I felt like the day was off to a bad start and Ernesto seemed pretty crabby too. He dropped me off at the bus stop and I headed for Santiago. 1st stop was SESPAS- the department of Public Health- to try and get condoms. For those of you who remember, last year this was a bit of a challenge. I need condoms for my Escojo class and don’t want to use grant money to buy them when I can get them for free. Last year I was in the office for a good 45 minutes trying to get someone to give me condoms, I even left defeated and then went back in, deciding I wasn’t going to take no for an answer. I did eventually get some condoms but the experience was not forgotten. This time I went to the clinic in my community and asked the doctor if they had condoms. They didn’t have any but the doctor said he could get some for me the next day. I knew that he would forget so I said I could swing by SESPAS the next day and get them. But, if he would please write me a note with his name on it and the stamp of our clinic my life would be easier. When I went to SESPAS the security guard wasn’t going to let me in because I was wearing my nice blouse still which was sleeveless. I told him I was from far away and couldn’t change so he offered me HIS shirt- a denim button down SESPAS shirt. I said thanks, put it on (sure it was a little big) and walked in like I knew what I was doing. I walked right past the secretary, flashing my SESPAS badge on my shirt and went to the room in the back with the condoms. I asked them to give me condoms and they drilled me- Condoms for who, when do you need them, what’s the name of your organization, what’s the name of this youth group, how many kids are in it, what are you going to do with them, where are you from, what community…. Really? They’re condoms people, not your 1st born son. Then I pulled out the gold: The Note. Almost right away they passed me an entire box of condoms; 144 brand spanking new condoms. Now I think we’ll have enough for our Escojo conference in April as well!! Yippee!
After that triumph I went to the find the vet I was recommended to see if it was legit. It was a decent walk in my nice sandals but I made it and the vet was pretty nice. I bought some cute stuff for my little puppy, made an “appointment” for next week and set off to use the internet.
Once I was on the internet, I was upset to see that my grant had disappeared! Where did it go? I called Conrado, the grants coordinator and he said if it was gone that meant it was filled! No way dude, as much as I would like to believe that the hours I spent writing emails to friends and family asking for donations (which makes me feel guilty since everyone at home has already given so much) I just don’t see $1500 being donated in 4 days. Conrado said he would check and call me back. He never called back.
That night my mom called me to ask me why I didn’t tell her I was interviewed for the Dixon Telegraph and Sauk Valley Newspaper. I told her I must have forgotten to tell her, whoops. I also didn’t know the story was going to be printed today. The reporter wanted to interview me because of a grant I received called Kids to Kids. It’s a great grant where kids from the States raise money for other kids in impoverished countries. The grant is for $500 and it’s what I’m using to do my art class. So when Kids to Kids contacted me asking if I would be willing to interview for my local newspaper to get them some publicity of course I said I would be more than happy to! After all, if it weren’t for them I wouldn’t have my most fun project right now- art class. I asked the reporter if she could include a little tidbit about how I’m trying to fill this grant to build a library and she said she didn’t know if she could but she would check. My mom read me the story and I was super happy to find that the reporter was able to include the URL for my grant and so it is VERY possible that my grant was filled that same day!!!!! Can you believe it!??! $1500 filled in ONE DAY!!! I am soo happy!! I did a happy dance in my house when I finished talking with my mom. Amazing the way things always work out and fit together. I was so worried about getting that grant filled and now it’s probably filled, after just a few weeks online!! (I just have to get a hold of Conrado to confirm it is actually filled and not MIA.) Fantastic and thank you soooo much to everyone who donated!!!
3/25 Thursday: Don’t procrastinate and your dreams will come true.
In hindsight this was wrong of me but after not having anything to do during my 1st three months in site I developed this habit of procrastination. See I thought that I would always try to“save” some things to do for tomorrow so that I would always have something to do. Ever since I saw how the new PCV, Jenn was acting- doing everything as soon as she could, not only was I a little embarrassed about my behavior and impressed by hers but I took note of how she was always busy. Hmmm, maybe this newbie is on to something. Since then I’ve tried to do things right away and, yep my theory has proven true, I have had more to do. The moral of this story is that once again I am very glad to have Jenn living so close to me and that even here with the slower pace of things, you can get more done if you don’t procrastinate. (Genius I know)
An example of a typical “workday” for me these days is like today: wake up at 7, take puppy out and clean any messes. Get dressed and find where the stove workers are at the moment. Meet up with them around 8 and stay with them until 9:50 or so. Then find the key to the Club and go have my art class from 10 until 12. From 12- 1 hang out with the Doña and get a free lunch. 1-2 shower if I’m really hot or relax away for a bit. 2-4:00 have second art class. 4:30 head up to the intersection (about 1.5 miles up) to teach English. From 5:30- 7:30 have English and from 7:30- 8:15 walk home. Hang out with the kids who were at my house waiting for me to get back until 9 or 9:30 and then shoo them away so I can grasp at the few strands of sanity I have remaining.
3/24 Wednesday: A mural and nice walk.
Today as I was preparing for my next English class I received a phone call from Anne asking me to go over to her site to help her paint. As any of you who know me are aware, I love painting and decorating. I don’t like painting alone or painting a wall one boring color but help paint a mural? Yes. Especially since I went to her house last week and helped her design the mural. Caramelita (my new puppy) and I hopped on a motorcycle and went to the mural site (about 4.5 miles away) and had fun painting. We didn’t finish it so I said I would come back Saturday or Sunday to help again. Anne and I discovered that Caramelita likes to eat paint and paint brushes.
I told my motor man to come and get me around 6 and by 6:45 it was getting dark and I was still at Anne and Tim’s. So I called him and he said he would leave right then to get me. I told him I would begin walking back so look for me along the road. I was a little freaked out because there are lots of parts of the road where there are no houses and it was foggy. Can you say creepy?! Tito showed up after I had not only walked all the way home in the dark and fog but also had the time to go to Minga’s and then to the colmado to chat. Thanks Tito. He’s Noel’s step dad and I was thinking I would split my business between him and Noel since Tito’s money goes to the family and Noel’s doesn’t but on second thought…. maybe I’ll just call Tito when I’m not creeped out or in a hurry.
3/20-22 Saturday- Monday: A legit vacay in Cabarete
This weekend was fantastic. Saturday morning I went to the hardware store before skipping town to pick up some supplies and send them up with Noel. I was waiting for them to be prepared when the hardware store owner told me that he would get them ready and send them in about 10 minutes. So far he has been very reliable and so I trusted him. He took down 2 numbers for me, Noel’s and Franklins, and assured me it wouldn’t take long. So I set off for Cabarete!
When I got to Cabarete about 3 hours later I met Kenzie’s mom and her godmother. They’re both really nice and we had a great time. They reserved a hotel room which was more like a sweet apartment with a balcony, ocean view, two bedrooms, comfy couch, kitchen with dishwasher… it was great. And the hotel had a pool and a hot tub! The 4 of us along with Kenzie’s host brother and boyfriends spent the rest of Saturday, all of Sunday and part of Monday together before I had to get going. I was planning on picking up my puppy later that day and I needed to get food, a collar and parasite medicine for her. Little Manchita Gallenia Cabrera Espencer was going to have one comfy night ahead of her!
When I finally got back to my house I passed by Ernesto. He seemed annoyed. I asked what time the tin and rivet gun arrived on Sat and he said they never came. He finally went to Navarrete on Monday and had to wait until 11 am for the owner of the store to arrive. I guess the owner, Leo, had an emergency with his wife (interesting he’s married since he always hits on me and once last week sent me a love poem text) and that’s why he was late. I’m annoyed because it looked bad on me that I was on a vacay while things here were falling apart. Urg.
After I put my stuff down and put some time in with Ernesto and his fam and then I went to pick up my new puppy, Manchita or Little Spot only to find out that she had died on Saturday. And so did one of her sister’s leaving just one sister puppy left. And Manolo, the owner told me that the puppies died dramatically and painfully. Apparently they were whining in pain and then just died. I was sad for them and not sure what to do about the last puppy. If I left her she would probably meet the same fate but then again if I took here would she die in the same manner, leaving me to dispose of a puppy body!? I took her and hoped for the best. I had picked up some de-parasite meds and gave them to her that night. The next day she pooped out a ton of worms and was in considerably higher spirits. Maybe there’s hope for her yet, little Caramelita Yautia Cabrera Espencer.
3/19 Friday night: Payday for the men
Jimmy, Oney and Ernesto weren’t able to complete any stoves this week since we were missing a rivet gun and tin to make the chimneys. They took the initiative and built 10 stove bottoms, which impressed me and showed their commitment to the project and eagerness to make money. They are supposed to make $500/stove so I was thinking I would give them half since the stoves were half done but that only would have been about $800 pesos or about $24 USD each for the entire week. As they have all done prep work for this going back about two weeks I decided to pay them $1500 or about $43 USD each which was nearly all of the money if they had finished the stoves. I know that they will finish the project and so I figured it was ok. Well, when I was talking with Ernesto, one of my favorite people, we were discussing how many stoves to build. I said we should have enough to do about 60 or 65 stoves. I also want to give at least 5 for “free” (meaning they don’t have to pay the $500 labor) to the poorest families- probably Haitians. The problem with that is most all of the Haitians live in group living, in a house provided by a rich farmer who gives them free living and pays them to farm his field. So the issues with this grand idea are that (1) Dominicans don’t think we should give free stuff to Haitians despite the fact that they may have been born here and should be entitled to the same things as Dominicans (2) Many of the Haitians are migrant workers and so Dominican’s don’t want to put something in the house for them when they’re just going to leave (although many Haitians live here for years and years if not their entire lives) (3) The owner of the home can afford to improve the living conditions but won’t pay for it. What a conundrum!
Anyways, back to the point. I was talking with Ernesto and he seems to think that 40 stoves is enough here. I think that’s a huge waste of a perfectly good grant (the money that isn’t used is returned) and so I want to use it all. We have 100 houses here and I’m sure 60 of them would like a stove and the majority of them can pay for one too. If there aren’t 60 that need a stove then we can reach out a little to other surrounding communities. If we have to donate the labor for 10 stoves instead of 5 then we’ll do that. Sure I have to lie to the community and say it was a separate grant I wrote and so I have to give stoves to Haitians or something like that but whatever. The thing is, everyone here thinks they’re entitled to a free stove and that they are dirt poor but that’s not the case. I am sure there will be a little uproar over this but I’m prepared to deal with it because I support it. And, let’s face it; people have been upset with me for less than that here so… why not?! :)
Then Ernesto tells me he has 3 houses in mind to donate to. One I agree with completely, one I’m not sure who it is and one is not going to happen. He wants to donate one to his mother in law- who doesn’t even live in the community and I think Ernesto can afford to pay for one! I was annoyed that he suggested it. Not only to see if we could build one there (which I probably would have agreed to since she lives in the neighboring community) but to have her be one of the donated ones? No way dude! Not to mention it looks bad giving him extra perks because he’s my project partner. Since he is a worker, if he wants to work on her stove for free and donate his time that would be ok but I am not going to pay him $500 from the grant to do her stove.
Then he tells me that he doesn’t think we should do all the stoves because it’s better to have extra materials rather than not enough. Sure I agree to that but doing 20 less? Not an option. While I’m letting my mind wrap around all this he tells me that doing 40 stoves is the way to go to save money and that we can make up receipts for whatever. Oh great. Just fantastic. I was disappointed. I couldn’t believe my Ernesto was talking like that. I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume I misunderstood but then there’s the issue of the change from the hardware store. He went 2xs to buy stuff in the same week and each time I gave him $1000 pesos. I didn’t know how much he had spent but tonight I finally asked and he had spent just $500 pesos. I asked about the $1500 pesos in change 3 times and he never went and got it. I think he spent it. And so I need to figure out a way to get it back without offending him. No matter what, he is still the best person I have here. I just need to watch him more closely I suppose until I figure out something else.
Then, a few days later I found out that he asked Jimmy to lend him $1500 from the paid money which Jimmy didn’t have since he gave it to me already (thank goodness) and that Ernesto collected $500 from two houses and wouldn’t give the money to Jimmy to give to me. I mentioned to Ernesto how weird it was that only one new person had requested a stove this week and he said, “Well you know how it is here, everyone wants something for free.” And so he had the chance to tell me, “Oh yeah- by the way Fulana and Bob paid and I collected the money. I’ll give it to you later.” But he didn’t. So, this sucks. It also sucks because I feel like an enabler. I knew when he did my wall that there was no way it cost over $48,000 pesos and the wall still supposedly wasn’t able to be completed. That wall should be done and lined in gold for that amount of money. It’s upsetting for me and now I’m not sure where that leaves me with the library project. The only thing I can say about it is that I’ll have to wait to do that until the summer when all my other projects are done and I can carefully monitor supplies each day. How sad and what a pain.
3/18 Thursday: My 1st English class and possibly an offense...
The Offense: Today I was in the Club de Madres, attempting to multitask but failing miserably. I was supervising the art class while trying to draw out the papers for the English class Jenn and I were going to give that night, and it wasn’t going well. The kids were insane as usual, the wind kept blowing my large paper away and the guy I sent to buy some materials from the hardware shop came back after buying stuff from the wrong place and not getting something I still need to look the definition up of… something like a rivet gun?? (How did I know he didn’t have it if I didn’t know what it was you ask? Because I am just that great of a detective, what can I say?) Anyways, in the middle of all this confusion that has become my life, some dude walks in and tries to take a water filter. If you remember this project, there were 30 filters delivered to our community in December and it’s been a process getting people to pay for them. So, resisting the urge to simply give them away to get rid of them finally, I have been holding out telling everyone who tells me that they’ll pay later that they have to pay BEFORE and then they can pick up their filter. Imagine my surprise then when this guy shows up to take one and I have no idea who he is. I found out he was picking it up for Minga’s sister. She had given me $300 pesos towards the filter that day or the day before and I was very clear that AFTER she paid the other $250 she could pick up the filter. So I told the guy he would have to come back later to get it and he was a little rude, telling me I was going to have to pay for his gas and time. I asked how much she was paying him (just because I’m nosey, obviously I’m not paying for anything of the sorts) and he said he was just helping her. So I was feeling double annoyed that A) She sent him to get the filter after I told her she had to pay 1st (B) This guy was trying to haggle me, in my community, in my art class, and with my project. I sighed, told him he couldn’t take it right now and went back to trying to draw out my lesson for English. Then Monino walked in, Minga’s sister. When I tried to explain (yet again) that the rule is that EVERYONE has to pay BEFORE she got really mad at me and started yelling and getting all frantic. Then she said, “If you think I can’t pay, I can!! I have your money right here I just have to get change!!” as she began waving a $1000 peso bill around. Before I could say anything she handed the bill to Santa and told her to guard it since I obviously didn’t believe she was good for the money and when she got change for it, she would give it to me. Then she walked over with her rude helper man and took the filter. At this point I would have been fine with her taking the filter and then making change to pay for it. But what a way to go about it. And what drama in my art class. After the class I walked to her house to make sure there were no hard feelings since I’m pretty sure I offended her. We hung out a little bit before I had to leave for English class and I think she’s mad at me. Look, everyone has to pay before, the only people who haven’t paid beforehand are the richer people who live in the weekend homes and that’s because they came and took one after they got my permission to have a filter. I guess I didn’t convey that they had to pay for it first. I’m not concerned though because I don’t think they’ll try to finagle their way out of paying. Monino I think would. She’s asked me for money before, her son is the one who stole from me for months on end and she is one of the types that always says she has no money and is trying to get people to give her stuff for free yet she lives in a pretty sweet house.
English Class: On Sunday Jenn called me and asked me if I wanted to participate in teaching an English class with her. I have been avoiding English simply because it’s not like Escojo where there are clear and immediate results and because they aren’t going to be fluent in 16- 90 minute sessions over 4 months but that’s what they think will happen. I guess Jenn is pretty good friends with the pastor of the church there and he wanted her to teach a class. Poor girl is in her digging stage of building the aqueduct which means she leaves her house at 7 am each day, walks 2.5 miles with a pickaxe over her shoulder to the site and digs 3 ft deep trenches until 2-3 each day. Sooooo glad I’m not a water PCV. Needless to say, she is tired. I however am like the Teaching Master now and love working with someone else on projects so I said I would love to! It works out well for both of us: we have a reason to meet up during the week to plan the class, I prepare the class (why not when I already have all the markers and paper?) relieving Jenn of that duty, I get exercise walking the 3 miles round trip to where we have the class or walking the little over 4 miles round trip to her house each week to plan and I feel satisfied that I am going to give an English class, something that I simply feel I should do. Win win. We anticipated having a lot of people in the 1st class and there were a lot of people but it wasn’t out of control. I only told about 6 people from my community so there weren’t many from La Lomota but there were a lot from the other communities. Where we have the class is far for everyone to walk but it’s the most central location and a lot of communities can participate. I think we had about 40 kids there, which was a little crazy but manageable since we have a large space and there are two of us teaching. Other PCVs have had 80 people show up to their 1st classes, thank goodness that didn’t happen since we wouldn’t have gotten anything done. Overall I think it went really well. We talked about the rules, took attendance, did some kind of little drama and played a game with greetings and farewells. We have this electronic manual but I think we’re going to more use that as a reference and do our own thing. I personally like to play at least one game in each class and the manual doesn’t have any games so we’re going to have to get creative. Aside from the fact everyone from my community except my little 12 year old friend, Niña, and I got a free ride back- leaving her and I to walk the 1.5 miles alone in the dark and in the rain, the experience was a good one. Even the walk back was fun. Messy but fun!
3/17 Wednesday: Stove Training, new puppy!!
Today we were all supposed to go to Ane and Tim’s site to see how a stove is built. Out of the 4 of us working on the stoves (Jimmy, Oney, Ernesto and myself) Ernesto and I are the only ones who really needed to go to this training as we are the ones who have never see a stove built before. That’s why I was a little disappointed when the morning of Ernesto told me he couldn’t go because he had a doctor’s appointment. He had a bad kidney infection last week but I just wish he had mentioned the checkup to me before so I could have made the training for a different day. No matter, at least the guys are getting a 2nd training and I’m getting a 1st. The training went well. The stove is simple enough and right when we got to the part where we’re going to add the mouth (the hardest part) to the stove Ernesto showed up!! He’s so dependable. We made some changes to the design and hopefully each of the two pots will heat up now (it’s a two “burner” stove).
Something you should know about Oney and Jimmy is that they think its hilarious to tease me with things such as slamming on the brakes of the motorcycle so I slam into the driver or making up stupid names for me. I’m pretty accustomed to this by now and so what happened today shouldn’t have surprised me. A little background for this story: I have decided to care for a puppy while I’m here. I wasn’t going to but I broke down and now I am getting a puppy with only 7 months of service left! There was this really fuzzy cute one I liked a lot- I walked around with it before returning it to its home and I even named it. It makes all kids of weird noises so I named it Chewbacca. I have it set up so that when I’m out of site and when my service is over a certain family will care for little Chewy. The daughter wanted to name him Beethoven so I decided to be very Dominican and gave him the name…. drum roll… Chewbacca Beethoven Cabrera Espencer with a nickname of Chewy (Dominicans have two last names and nearly everyone has a nickname). Fantastic! Well, Jimmy saw me walking around with this puppy the day before and during our stove training he decided to start calling me Chewbac. I was hoping they would forget about it after a day or so, especially when I bring Chewy home to live. Well, when I got home that day I went to play with the puppy and had he died. Bummer. And Jimmy and Oney still call me Chewbac… oh my.
This sounds cruel but since Chewy died (I would have been much sadder in the States but for some reason am more disconnected from animals here… maybe its watching all the chickens die or listening to the pigs get slaughtered) I picked out his sister, a cute and spunky little white thing with brown spots, and not at all furry (sadly). She likes to cuddle and already sleeps on a pillow!! I need to name her something cool that can be pronounced in English and Spanish so if anyone has some ideas… let me know! Thanks! (Just not “Spot”)
3/12-3/13: Hellllllooooooo Committee Weekend and Christmas in March!!
The reason I had to go to committee weekend was because I am in a co-planner for the Celebrando el Cibao kids camp this summer (a fun 3 day camp on diversity for kids at the end of August, something very important especially considering the level of discrimination against Haitians here) and so I had to hold an informational meeting for PCVs. To my grand surprise, I checked my mailbox and had a package slip. I was sooooo excited because that means that my Christmas package from my mom and sister had arrived:) Imagine my shock to find that I had TWO Christmas packages- one from Mom and Rach and one from the Health Dept!!! THANK YOU SO MUCH GUYS!!!! For those of you interested in the goodies, Mom and Rach sent me fun yet practical things like a super colorful table clothe and curtains but also included the essential bag of candy- YUM!! Then BCHD gave me two DVDs (Blood Diamond and Pirates of the Caribbean- great choices guys) and the rest was CANDY CANDY CANDY!!! Which as I opened each box I realized that it was everything off of my wish list on my blog- lol!! So, not only do I now know that you do read my blog but I am fat with sweets! Merry Christmas and thanks soo much for thinking of me! :)
3/12 Friday: Getting the brick for the stoves…
THURSDAY: I received the grant money nearly 2 weeks ago and yet we still don’t have all the materials to make the stoves. This is largely due to the rain. I didn’t want to repeat the same craziness that ensued after/during heavy rains when we had the water filters delivered so I put the brakes on the project and said we had to wait until it had been sunny for at least 2 days. Well, this week the weather finally began to cooperate and on Thursday the hardware store began delivering the supplies. This surprised me since no one mentioned to me that they had spoken with the hardware owner to have the supplies delivered today. Minga was at my house around 8 am calling me, saying that the truck was here and they were waiting for me. I was awake but needed a few minutes to get dressed and by the time I arrived to the park where the truck was waiting about 10 minutes had passed. The annoying guy in my community who speaks English was there, perfectly playing his role of being annoying, acting like he knew what was going on or that he was somehow in charge of the project. When I got past him I was slightly dismayed to find out that none of the workers were around since some family member had died the night before. So I took inventory of what was there and we began looking for spots to unload. The truck had to make 4 trips that day and it took alllll day. I was running back and forth between my art class and driving with the truck, dropping the supplies in different locations. Ernesto was there off and on (thank goodness!) and so he helped with where we would put the supplies.
Then on Friday I’m supposed to go to the capital for committee weekend but we really needed these ceramic pieces to make the mouth of the stove (where you load the wood) which means we have to go to Santiago since that’s where the pieces are. Ernesto is a valuable person to have with you because he knows everyone and everyone respects him. People say no to me or tell me a super high price but when Ernesto walks over they say yes and give him a discount. He was able to find us a truck to take us to Santiago for great price. When we got there they didn’t have the right sized pieces and, once again- thank goodness Ernesto was there because he said he could cut the pieces that were too big because he has a saw. We got the brick, loaded it up and Ernesto and the driver headed back while I headed in to Santiago, making my way to the capital.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
This and that from 2/19- 3/7
3/8 Monday: The Carnaval Parade
Today was a good day. It was finally sunny but still cold (a high of 70 with a cold breeze is cold here people). I wanted to leave the house but I had a bunch of stuff to get done on the computer and there was power so I stayed in (well on the porch, plugged in) until nearly 4 pm when I went to the Women’s Club for the meeting and after the parade. When I was walking up, a woman who I was surprised to see on that side of town (her and Mercedes hate each other so she stays on her side of the community) approached me and handed me a pamphlet about interfamily abuse. Then she said that I would be the one to present the presentation. Wait, what? I stared at her for a minute and then figured, what the heck. It’s just reading and I think my accent has gotten quite a bit better since I began reading Harry Potter in Spanish aloud. It went over pretty well. After the meeting there were a lot of kids waiting for me, asking about the candies I said I would give. Dominican culture has no order. People don’t say please or thank you. They say, give me. Add that to 25 crazy kids who are hopped up on the idea of a parade and candy and you have a recipe for disaster. They were insane. I wanted to choke them. There were 50 little hands in my face, palms up and wide open, swaying back and forth frantically accompanied by 25 little children’s voices shouting at different octaves GIVE ME CANDY ELIZABETH. Holy crap. There was grabbing, shouting, and shoving. I tried to get them to line up but forget about it, they’re not programmed that since kindergarten like US kids. So I took my baggie of mints and put it in my satchel and we went on the parade candy-less. Not how I had pictured it but aside from the little candy gremlins it went really well. We walked from the Women’s Club to the school (1/4 mile) and back with me taking pictures of them all along the way. I think it was a success!
3/7 Sunday: Visit from Jenn!!!
I loooooooooove having a neighbor who likes to visit. Don’t get me wrong, I really like Ane and Tim but they’re got each other so they don’t visit. I think in the 16 months I’ve been in my site they’ve come to my house maybe 2 times. I’ve gone to theirs at least 5 or 6 but I don’t feel like that’s very much for being only about 5 miles from each other. Jenn and I were talking last week and she’s going through some hard times in her site so last week I showed up to her new house with some dinner and dessert. It was so nice!! Then yesterday she came over and we talked, made cake and kind of watched a movie. It’s really nice to be able to make someone newer feel comfortable like I thought my neighbors were going to do with me. I’m looking forward to the rest of my service in my site for several reasons, one of which is a great friendship with Jenn:)
3/6 Saturday: Escojo Fieldtrip to Marks’ Escojo graduation:
This field trip was fun. I told my kids about it when we started Escojo which was 3 classes before. We had some fundraisers selling raffle tickets and a floor cleaner similar to pine sol. With that money we bought the group a recognition plaque and some pop and cookies. I didn’t even try to find a driver to take us until 3 days beforehand which wasn’t a great idea but thankfully it worked out fine. I asked Tolo if he could do it, actually I invited Minga and got her all excited about it and then she asked Tolo. They agreed and Saturday morning 14 of us piled into Tolo’s truck- two kids less than were originally going to go since it was raining and their parents didn’t want them to get wet. We arrived to Marks and all the kids were pretty excited. To my dismay several of them felt it would be more fun to hang out in someone’s house watching tv instead of participating but kids will be kids I suppose. We stayed for about 3 hours and then most of the kids were antsy to get going since they were all really cold. We headed back without a hitch! Amazing, no breakdowns, we didn’t run out of gas or get lost… the biggest obstacle was the rain! Ha!
3/1 Friday: My Quarterly Report…. Maybe I shouldn’t have said that…
So, every 3 months we have to write a report that is basically a number tally but PCDR tries to make it more personal for PCVs by adding little personal sections for our APCDs to read. All of health and water are pretty sure our APCD doesn’t read them but supposedly the APCDs are going to start reading them and giving feedback. I was skeptical but then what wasn’t I skeptical of at the time? Well when I had to write my report I was in the slum of my funk and was pretty negative in my report. For example, on the Success Story section where it asked for me to share a success story I wrote: not applicable. So when I heard that two months later Miguel was beginning to respond to people I was NERVOUS!! I don’t like confrontation and I wasn’t looking forward to what could possibly come from this. Well, Miguel wrote me back March 4th and I was nauseous before opening it. I brought this upon myself. I read it and Miguel was really cool about it all. He told me he understood how much it must suck to have community members steal from you and that having Mercedes not like me must be rough as well. I was shocked and relieved, whew! Yet another thing to be grateful for!
2/27-28 Friday and Saturday: Carnaval!!!
Last year I went to La Vega and was the only one in my group that didn’t get wacked really hard by the swinging goat bladders. Sure it was because I ran shamelessly like a huge chicken but hey, I wasn’t sore the next day at least. This year we went back to La Vega but we went with other kids from the new group, the group one year after me. And it was funny!! The newbies were all really drunk and some of them threw themselves in the streets to get the butts kicked by the carnaval men. One of them really deserved it because he bought a souvenir goat bladder and was hitting all the females that walked by! Including me!! He freaking attacked me and I was so surprised I dropped my phone in a NASTY puddle. So, when he got smacked, that’s karma baby. Hehehe. At the end of the day we went to a concert with some band from Puerto Rico and we all danced in the streets to the music. It was really fun. And aside from the PCV, I didn’t get hit at all again this year!
The next day Kelly and I went to Santiago to see their Carnaval. I liked that one better. Maybe it’s because they use whips instead of bladders so they don’t hit you but also because its more like a parade. They throw candy and do little dances. It’s a performance. We were only there for about 15 minutes before it began to DOWNPOUR and we got soaked! We ran to McDonalds for some shelter (and McFlurries) but by the time we got there it had stopped raining and we were soaked and cold. We still ate the ice cream though:) We went home and made soup and it was a good day!
2/18 Thursday: Art Class!!
So I had my 1st art classes today. I decided to have two each Thursday that way all ages can participate. I have one at 10 am and one at 2 pm. Today I wanted to make face masks for carnaval with the kids and I wasn’t sure how many kids would go since I didn’t make any official announcements for it. I just told as many kids as were around me when I thought of it and counted on the fact that the 1st class was so cool it would attract more kids. The 10 class had a small but comfortable amount of kids; about 15. Then at 2 pm there were about 35 kids… which was a LOT. And we only had two pairs of scissors. All the kids really struggled with what they were going to do. They have never learned how to be creative so to speak so they were like, “Elizabeth, cut my mask for me because I don’t know how to do it. Glue for me because I don’t know how. Paint for me because I don’t know how. What colors should I use?” And so it went. Well I compromised and cut the mask for them since there were only 2 pairs of scissors and there were so many of them but the rest I made them do. After a while they really seemed to get the hang of it. It was really great to see them blossom into having more confidence. On the 8th we’re going to have a parade with all the kids and their masks which should be fun and interesting. I have no idea what it’s going to entail aside from bribing them with candy to go. But I’m looking forward to it.
Random things that happened sometime between Feb 19th and March 5th
Money Money Money!!
Well my grants finally came in on the 24th or so. In the past it has always been that you have to go to the PC office in SD to pick up the check which would be in your project partners name and then you have to go to a bank with your project partner to cash it. This time was different though as I discovered when I went to the ATM to withdraw the last few little pesos out of my account for the month. I took the most I could and when I checked my receipt in hopes of seeing an extra 1,000 pesos from some surprise reimbursement, my jaw dropped at the 181,000 pesos that was in my account! I checked the balance again and then was concerned. I don’t want that much money!! So the next day I was relieved to find out that PC is now doing grants different, simply depositing them into your account. Thank goodness!! Also because I was having a nervous breakdown that very day of boredom. I mean I was BORED. I was in near tears to my fellow PCVs asking the normal questions, Why am I here, What am I doing with my time… yada yada yada and let me tell you, being bored does not help. I was pretty much biding my time until my grants arrived, not a great use of time. So, now I have my grants- one for my Escojo class, one for the more efficient wood burning stoves, one for my art class… all in the same week! I am one happy camper.
What I’m going to do with all that money!
Thanks to all this money I can now repay myself a LOT of money I lent my classes for supplies which is reason to party! Also I can order the supplies for the stoves which people in my community seem to really want. (After the filter fiasco I’m not holding my breath that they’re going to be willing to pay the 500 pesos for the labor but I remain optimistic!) I went to a few hardware stores with Ernesto to recheck the prices to the ones I got back in November. They went up quite a bit so instead of being able to do 80 stoves I think we’ll be able to do more like 70. I think that should be more than enough.
The one thing we need that the hardware store doesn’t have is the special ingredient: ceramic bricks. We have to go to one special place in Santiago to get those which means we need a truck. Well the hardware store dude, Leonardo, seems like a cool guy so I went to his store and asked if we could pay him for transport and go get some bricks. He agreed and then tried to get my number (ugh) and I left without giving my number.
A lesson in Dominican Men from Betsy:
The next day I was supposed to go with Ernesto down to the hardware store but it was raining. After the chaos when the filters were delivered I know that I don’t ever want anything delivered when it’s rainy or muddy again if I can help it. So, I called Leo and told him we weren’t going to be able to go until the weather shaped up. He agreed and at the end of the conversation he said how great it was that now he had my number. Oh brother. Later that day he sent me a 4 page love poem text. Gag. I tell you, when I get home I’m going to be upset with myself for not taking advantage of so many options in men but it’s just that I don’t trust Dominican men! They generally cheat, like nearly all of them! Sure they may be great looking, romantic, sweet… but they’re that way with their other 2 girlfriends too. And it’s a sure sign I’m right when every single one I ask tells me they don’t have a girlfriend. All of them, really? Jeesh.
Today was a good day. It was finally sunny but still cold (a high of 70 with a cold breeze is cold here people). I wanted to leave the house but I had a bunch of stuff to get done on the computer and there was power so I stayed in (well on the porch, plugged in) until nearly 4 pm when I went to the Women’s Club for the meeting and after the parade. When I was walking up, a woman who I was surprised to see on that side of town (her and Mercedes hate each other so she stays on her side of the community) approached me and handed me a pamphlet about interfamily abuse. Then she said that I would be the one to present the presentation. Wait, what? I stared at her for a minute and then figured, what the heck. It’s just reading and I think my accent has gotten quite a bit better since I began reading Harry Potter in Spanish aloud. It went over pretty well. After the meeting there were a lot of kids waiting for me, asking about the candies I said I would give. Dominican culture has no order. People don’t say please or thank you. They say, give me. Add that to 25 crazy kids who are hopped up on the idea of a parade and candy and you have a recipe for disaster. They were insane. I wanted to choke them. There were 50 little hands in my face, palms up and wide open, swaying back and forth frantically accompanied by 25 little children’s voices shouting at different octaves GIVE ME CANDY ELIZABETH. Holy crap. There was grabbing, shouting, and shoving. I tried to get them to line up but forget about it, they’re not programmed that since kindergarten like US kids. So I took my baggie of mints and put it in my satchel and we went on the parade candy-less. Not how I had pictured it but aside from the little candy gremlins it went really well. We walked from the Women’s Club to the school (1/4 mile) and back with me taking pictures of them all along the way. I think it was a success!
3/7 Sunday: Visit from Jenn!!!
I loooooooooove having a neighbor who likes to visit. Don’t get me wrong, I really like Ane and Tim but they’re got each other so they don’t visit. I think in the 16 months I’ve been in my site they’ve come to my house maybe 2 times. I’ve gone to theirs at least 5 or 6 but I don’t feel like that’s very much for being only about 5 miles from each other. Jenn and I were talking last week and she’s going through some hard times in her site so last week I showed up to her new house with some dinner and dessert. It was so nice!! Then yesterday she came over and we talked, made cake and kind of watched a movie. It’s really nice to be able to make someone newer feel comfortable like I thought my neighbors were going to do with me. I’m looking forward to the rest of my service in my site for several reasons, one of which is a great friendship with Jenn:)
3/6 Saturday: Escojo Fieldtrip to Marks’ Escojo graduation:
This field trip was fun. I told my kids about it when we started Escojo which was 3 classes before. We had some fundraisers selling raffle tickets and a floor cleaner similar to pine sol. With that money we bought the group a recognition plaque and some pop and cookies. I didn’t even try to find a driver to take us until 3 days beforehand which wasn’t a great idea but thankfully it worked out fine. I asked Tolo if he could do it, actually I invited Minga and got her all excited about it and then she asked Tolo. They agreed and Saturday morning 14 of us piled into Tolo’s truck- two kids less than were originally going to go since it was raining and their parents didn’t want them to get wet. We arrived to Marks and all the kids were pretty excited. To my dismay several of them felt it would be more fun to hang out in someone’s house watching tv instead of participating but kids will be kids I suppose. We stayed for about 3 hours and then most of the kids were antsy to get going since they were all really cold. We headed back without a hitch! Amazing, no breakdowns, we didn’t run out of gas or get lost… the biggest obstacle was the rain! Ha!
3/1 Friday: My Quarterly Report…. Maybe I shouldn’t have said that…
So, every 3 months we have to write a report that is basically a number tally but PCDR tries to make it more personal for PCVs by adding little personal sections for our APCDs to read. All of health and water are pretty sure our APCD doesn’t read them but supposedly the APCDs are going to start reading them and giving feedback. I was skeptical but then what wasn’t I skeptical of at the time? Well when I had to write my report I was in the slum of my funk and was pretty negative in my report. For example, on the Success Story section where it asked for me to share a success story I wrote: not applicable. So when I heard that two months later Miguel was beginning to respond to people I was NERVOUS!! I don’t like confrontation and I wasn’t looking forward to what could possibly come from this. Well, Miguel wrote me back March 4th and I was nauseous before opening it. I brought this upon myself. I read it and Miguel was really cool about it all. He told me he understood how much it must suck to have community members steal from you and that having Mercedes not like me must be rough as well. I was shocked and relieved, whew! Yet another thing to be grateful for!
2/27-28 Friday and Saturday: Carnaval!!!
Last year I went to La Vega and was the only one in my group that didn’t get wacked really hard by the swinging goat bladders. Sure it was because I ran shamelessly like a huge chicken but hey, I wasn’t sore the next day at least. This year we went back to La Vega but we went with other kids from the new group, the group one year after me. And it was funny!! The newbies were all really drunk and some of them threw themselves in the streets to get the butts kicked by the carnaval men. One of them really deserved it because he bought a souvenir goat bladder and was hitting all the females that walked by! Including me!! He freaking attacked me and I was so surprised I dropped my phone in a NASTY puddle. So, when he got smacked, that’s karma baby. Hehehe. At the end of the day we went to a concert with some band from Puerto Rico and we all danced in the streets to the music. It was really fun. And aside from the PCV, I didn’t get hit at all again this year!
The next day Kelly and I went to Santiago to see their Carnaval. I liked that one better. Maybe it’s because they use whips instead of bladders so they don’t hit you but also because its more like a parade. They throw candy and do little dances. It’s a performance. We were only there for about 15 minutes before it began to DOWNPOUR and we got soaked! We ran to McDonalds for some shelter (and McFlurries) but by the time we got there it had stopped raining and we were soaked and cold. We still ate the ice cream though:) We went home and made soup and it was a good day!
2/18 Thursday: Art Class!!
So I had my 1st art classes today. I decided to have two each Thursday that way all ages can participate. I have one at 10 am and one at 2 pm. Today I wanted to make face masks for carnaval with the kids and I wasn’t sure how many kids would go since I didn’t make any official announcements for it. I just told as many kids as were around me when I thought of it and counted on the fact that the 1st class was so cool it would attract more kids. The 10 class had a small but comfortable amount of kids; about 15. Then at 2 pm there were about 35 kids… which was a LOT. And we only had two pairs of scissors. All the kids really struggled with what they were going to do. They have never learned how to be creative so to speak so they were like, “Elizabeth, cut my mask for me because I don’t know how to do it. Glue for me because I don’t know how. Paint for me because I don’t know how. What colors should I use?” And so it went. Well I compromised and cut the mask for them since there were only 2 pairs of scissors and there were so many of them but the rest I made them do. After a while they really seemed to get the hang of it. It was really great to see them blossom into having more confidence. On the 8th we’re going to have a parade with all the kids and their masks which should be fun and interesting. I have no idea what it’s going to entail aside from bribing them with candy to go. But I’m looking forward to it.
Random things that happened sometime between Feb 19th and March 5th
Money Money Money!!
Well my grants finally came in on the 24th or so. In the past it has always been that you have to go to the PC office in SD to pick up the check which would be in your project partners name and then you have to go to a bank with your project partner to cash it. This time was different though as I discovered when I went to the ATM to withdraw the last few little pesos out of my account for the month. I took the most I could and when I checked my receipt in hopes of seeing an extra 1,000 pesos from some surprise reimbursement, my jaw dropped at the 181,000 pesos that was in my account! I checked the balance again and then was concerned. I don’t want that much money!! So the next day I was relieved to find out that PC is now doing grants different, simply depositing them into your account. Thank goodness!! Also because I was having a nervous breakdown that very day of boredom. I mean I was BORED. I was in near tears to my fellow PCVs asking the normal questions, Why am I here, What am I doing with my time… yada yada yada and let me tell you, being bored does not help. I was pretty much biding my time until my grants arrived, not a great use of time. So, now I have my grants- one for my Escojo class, one for the more efficient wood burning stoves, one for my art class… all in the same week! I am one happy camper.
What I’m going to do with all that money!
Thanks to all this money I can now repay myself a LOT of money I lent my classes for supplies which is reason to party! Also I can order the supplies for the stoves which people in my community seem to really want. (After the filter fiasco I’m not holding my breath that they’re going to be willing to pay the 500 pesos for the labor but I remain optimistic!) I went to a few hardware stores with Ernesto to recheck the prices to the ones I got back in November. They went up quite a bit so instead of being able to do 80 stoves I think we’ll be able to do more like 70. I think that should be more than enough.
The one thing we need that the hardware store doesn’t have is the special ingredient: ceramic bricks. We have to go to one special place in Santiago to get those which means we need a truck. Well the hardware store dude, Leonardo, seems like a cool guy so I went to his store and asked if we could pay him for transport and go get some bricks. He agreed and then tried to get my number (ugh) and I left without giving my number.
A lesson in Dominican Men from Betsy:
The next day I was supposed to go with Ernesto down to the hardware store but it was raining. After the chaos when the filters were delivered I know that I don’t ever want anything delivered when it’s rainy or muddy again if I can help it. So, I called Leo and told him we weren’t going to be able to go until the weather shaped up. He agreed and at the end of the conversation he said how great it was that now he had my number. Oh brother. Later that day he sent me a 4 page love poem text. Gag. I tell you, when I get home I’m going to be upset with myself for not taking advantage of so many options in men but it’s just that I don’t trust Dominican men! They generally cheat, like nearly all of them! Sure they may be great looking, romantic, sweet… but they’re that way with their other 2 girlfriends too. And it’s a sure sign I’m right when every single one I ask tells me they don’t have a girlfriend. All of them, really? Jeesh.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
but overall I am bored out of my mind...
2/19 Friday: Filter Charla
In a nutshell: I am soooo over dealing with these filters. I made announcements and personally told people about this presentation and only 1 new person showed up. The requirements to get a filter are easy: pay $550 pesos and go to a class. Then you get your water filter and stop getting parasites. $550 isn’t so much that people can’t do it. Every single person in my community could do it if they set aside a little money here and there. Today was the 4th time I gave the same class and out of the 30 original filters we still have 6. People are so freaking lazy! I refuse to just give these away. I think that people think that I will just give them away if they wait long enough. The thing that really annoys me is that I had at least 5 people come up to me and tell me they really wanted a filter and they would be at the class but not one of them was there. There are two houses where the people want filters but they’re just weekend homes and I wanted to give the filters to someone who lived in the house all the time. Sometimes I get so frustrated by the mentality here. A lot of people want stuff but they won’t do anything to get it except complain. Well until they decide to do something about it, those filters are staying in the Women’s Club. People have to put something in for them or they won’t take care of them. I’d rather give them to someone in a different community who will take care of it than give them to someone who doesn’t appreciate it here.
2/16 y 2/18: Tuesday and Thursday: Escojo
In a nutshell: Tuesday was my 1st Escojo class. It went soooooo well!! My 1st Escojo class I ever had was incredibly boring but this one, with all the promoters there (kids who got at least an 80% on the final exam and didn’t have a lot of absences) went fantastic! I hope this round goes better! I have a feeling it will since my old promoter group had a bad attitude and this time around there are only two from the previous group. Mostly Wandi and Argeni were the worst. Oh, and the time Ernie, Vanji and Yameliza walked out… that was pretty bad. Vaji and Yameliza are still in it but being the only old ones makes them less bad. They’re not the type of girls who are bad on their own but are obnoxious when paired with someone bad. Anyways, the class went great! Afterwards I invited all the promoters to my friend Mark’s Escojo graduation on the 6th of March. I said we should get the other group something as a happy graduation gift. All the kids agreed so we decided to have a raffle and also to make and sell Pine Sol again. I was a teeny bit concerned for the making of the floor cleaner but decided to just roll with it. I was nominated to get something “cool” for the raffle and when I went to Santiago on Wednesday for an Escojo meeting I stopped at a store which is more like a huge garage sale (very disorganized but cheap!) and found the perfect thing: a thermos! Doñas will like it because they will only have to make coffee 1x/day and it will stay warm and men will like it because, well why not?
On Thursday the Pine Sol making went soooooo smooth! It was amazing!! I kept having flashbacks of my other promoters sitting and watching while just 2 people worked and then all arguing about the amount of work to be done. We made about 60 bottles in about 90 minutes. That includes looking for the bottles, cleaning them, making the floor cleaner and bottling it. They didn’t help clean up much but I was planning on being there for about 3 hours anyways so I was happy! Now we’ll see how many they can sell. No matter what though we’ll have enough money for the gift. The raffle alone raised enough money as the gift costs about $500. I told them we could use the rest for a party or something.
2/15 Monday: The Mother’s Club gift exchange
In a nutshell: I wasn’t sure how Mercedes was going to treat me this week since we have since talked about our issues. She was civil and even kind of friendly which was a nice change. I bought the gift for my secret santa to exchange but I also wanted to get a gift for Minga. So, when I was in Santiago today coming back up from the concert, I stopped at a great store called Jumbo. I found a flower pot with little hearts all over it and got it for Minga. Then I went to the counter and had them wrap it (all the stores here will wrap presents for free) and Jumbo takes FOREVER but they do a great job. Minga liked the wrapping job so much she refused to open the gift! I found this hilarious so I took a picture of it. Finally her daughter came by a few days later and opened it for her. Next time I’ll save the money and get a rock wrapped for her!
2/13 Saturday: Adventura!!!!!!!!!!!!!
In a nutshell: My favorite band is Adventura. They’re great and sing my favorite type of music, bachata. I found out last December that they were going to come to the DR for a concert and definitely wanted to go. Through some miscommunications with friends buying tickets, I didn’t get one in time and unless I wanted to pay 700 pesos more ($20) for better seats, I wasn’t going. Well, I am too cheap to pay 1600 pesos for a ticket so I resolved to not go. Then, a miracle happened: one of my friends had an extra ticket and called me on Thursday to see if I wanted it!!!! So, I went to see Adventura in concert. We got there about an hour late and were really far away but who cares?! The crowd was amazing and we all agreed it was one of the best concerts we had ever seen. Yippee, my 1st concert in the DR!!!!
2/12 Friday: A short example of why school here no cive para nada
In a nutshell: This entire week I have been trying to go to the school to talk to the director. I’ve been trying to go during the least intrusive time of day so as to not disrupt classes too much but I need to get Escojo started again and have to compile a list of interested kids. I can’t do that if I don’t have permission from the Director, Humberto. Well, to be blunt- school here sucks. I know I have said this before but here is a great example of why it sucks. Every single day this week I was going to go around 5, near the end of school to talk to Humberto and then come back the next day to talk to the students. Every single day my plans were foiled because, after beginning school at 2 pm each day, school was let out no later than 4 every each day this week for reasons such as meetings with other teachers, the school is being remodeled and they’re putting in windows…. I finally just went on Friday in the morning to talk to him but he wasn’t there. So, I sat and had a 20 minute conversation with Violeta, his wife and a school teacher, about Christmas, New York (aka the States) and how everything is so organized (so says her husband who was there for 45 days over Dec and Jan), and other random things. While this was during her class I have decided that it really doesn’t matter if we have a long conversation in the middle of it. She’s more likely to be agreeable if I chit chat with her for a while before getting to the point. Finally we began the topic of Escojo. I made a list of kids who were old enough to participate who have school in the morning and said I would come back in the afternoon to talk to Humberto. I went back later, school once again got out early but I was able to make a list of kids and talk to Humberto. Even though I’m not having class in the school anymore he insisted I write a letter to him about it again before he would agree (agree to what?). So, I wrote the letter and I have a very small class. Only about 10 kids are interested in it as opposed to 40 I had this time last year. That was a little discouraging since I’m sure a few will drop out of it but at least it will be more manageable.
2/10 Wednesday: Controlling the situation
In a nutshell: It made me very happy today when Pimbi came over. This is the woman who stole my clothing from Minga’s house and gave it to her prego daughter (I still haven’t say anything to her about it). She came to my house to see when I was going to fix her filter and then told me she wanted me to “gift” her one of my shirts. My first reaction was laughing out loud thinking, well, at least she’s ASKING me now! But then I was annoyed not only because its rude even in this culture to ask people for stuff like that but because it was the 2nd time this week people have out right asked me for something. One woman I don’t even hang out with sent a little kid to my house 2x asking for nail polish. Anyways, after the initial shock of this woman’s audacity in asking me for a shirt, I asked her if she knew the story about someone stealing from me. She said she did and I then went on and on about how it made me feel so terrible and sad. I thought the community didn’t like me and after leaving all my family and friends in the States, people here treat me like that… so sad, yada yada yada. She agreed, said of course it wasn’t her (to which I of course agreed) and said her goodbye- without a shirt of mine. Adios mujer!
In a nutshell: I am soooo over dealing with these filters. I made announcements and personally told people about this presentation and only 1 new person showed up. The requirements to get a filter are easy: pay $550 pesos and go to a class. Then you get your water filter and stop getting parasites. $550 isn’t so much that people can’t do it. Every single person in my community could do it if they set aside a little money here and there. Today was the 4th time I gave the same class and out of the 30 original filters we still have 6. People are so freaking lazy! I refuse to just give these away. I think that people think that I will just give them away if they wait long enough. The thing that really annoys me is that I had at least 5 people come up to me and tell me they really wanted a filter and they would be at the class but not one of them was there. There are two houses where the people want filters but they’re just weekend homes and I wanted to give the filters to someone who lived in the house all the time. Sometimes I get so frustrated by the mentality here. A lot of people want stuff but they won’t do anything to get it except complain. Well until they decide to do something about it, those filters are staying in the Women’s Club. People have to put something in for them or they won’t take care of them. I’d rather give them to someone in a different community who will take care of it than give them to someone who doesn’t appreciate it here.
2/16 y 2/18: Tuesday and Thursday: Escojo
In a nutshell: Tuesday was my 1st Escojo class. It went soooooo well!! My 1st Escojo class I ever had was incredibly boring but this one, with all the promoters there (kids who got at least an 80% on the final exam and didn’t have a lot of absences) went fantastic! I hope this round goes better! I have a feeling it will since my old promoter group had a bad attitude and this time around there are only two from the previous group. Mostly Wandi and Argeni were the worst. Oh, and the time Ernie, Vanji and Yameliza walked out… that was pretty bad. Vaji and Yameliza are still in it but being the only old ones makes them less bad. They’re not the type of girls who are bad on their own but are obnoxious when paired with someone bad. Anyways, the class went great! Afterwards I invited all the promoters to my friend Mark’s Escojo graduation on the 6th of March. I said we should get the other group something as a happy graduation gift. All the kids agreed so we decided to have a raffle and also to make and sell Pine Sol again. I was a teeny bit concerned for the making of the floor cleaner but decided to just roll with it. I was nominated to get something “cool” for the raffle and when I went to Santiago on Wednesday for an Escojo meeting I stopped at a store which is more like a huge garage sale (very disorganized but cheap!) and found the perfect thing: a thermos! Doñas will like it because they will only have to make coffee 1x/day and it will stay warm and men will like it because, well why not?
On Thursday the Pine Sol making went soooooo smooth! It was amazing!! I kept having flashbacks of my other promoters sitting and watching while just 2 people worked and then all arguing about the amount of work to be done. We made about 60 bottles in about 90 minutes. That includes looking for the bottles, cleaning them, making the floor cleaner and bottling it. They didn’t help clean up much but I was planning on being there for about 3 hours anyways so I was happy! Now we’ll see how many they can sell. No matter what though we’ll have enough money for the gift. The raffle alone raised enough money as the gift costs about $500. I told them we could use the rest for a party or something.
2/15 Monday: The Mother’s Club gift exchange
In a nutshell: I wasn’t sure how Mercedes was going to treat me this week since we have since talked about our issues. She was civil and even kind of friendly which was a nice change. I bought the gift for my secret santa to exchange but I also wanted to get a gift for Minga. So, when I was in Santiago today coming back up from the concert, I stopped at a great store called Jumbo. I found a flower pot with little hearts all over it and got it for Minga. Then I went to the counter and had them wrap it (all the stores here will wrap presents for free) and Jumbo takes FOREVER but they do a great job. Minga liked the wrapping job so much she refused to open the gift! I found this hilarious so I took a picture of it. Finally her daughter came by a few days later and opened it for her. Next time I’ll save the money and get a rock wrapped for her!
2/13 Saturday: Adventura!!!!!!!!!!!!!
In a nutshell: My favorite band is Adventura. They’re great and sing my favorite type of music, bachata. I found out last December that they were going to come to the DR for a concert and definitely wanted to go. Through some miscommunications with friends buying tickets, I didn’t get one in time and unless I wanted to pay 700 pesos more ($20) for better seats, I wasn’t going. Well, I am too cheap to pay 1600 pesos for a ticket so I resolved to not go. Then, a miracle happened: one of my friends had an extra ticket and called me on Thursday to see if I wanted it!!!! So, I went to see Adventura in concert. We got there about an hour late and were really far away but who cares?! The crowd was amazing and we all agreed it was one of the best concerts we had ever seen. Yippee, my 1st concert in the DR!!!!
2/12 Friday: A short example of why school here no cive para nada
In a nutshell: This entire week I have been trying to go to the school to talk to the director. I’ve been trying to go during the least intrusive time of day so as to not disrupt classes too much but I need to get Escojo started again and have to compile a list of interested kids. I can’t do that if I don’t have permission from the Director, Humberto. Well, to be blunt- school here sucks. I know I have said this before but here is a great example of why it sucks. Every single day this week I was going to go around 5, near the end of school to talk to Humberto and then come back the next day to talk to the students. Every single day my plans were foiled because, after beginning school at 2 pm each day, school was let out no later than 4 every each day this week for reasons such as meetings with other teachers, the school is being remodeled and they’re putting in windows…. I finally just went on Friday in the morning to talk to him but he wasn’t there. So, I sat and had a 20 minute conversation with Violeta, his wife and a school teacher, about Christmas, New York (aka the States) and how everything is so organized (so says her husband who was there for 45 days over Dec and Jan), and other random things. While this was during her class I have decided that it really doesn’t matter if we have a long conversation in the middle of it. She’s more likely to be agreeable if I chit chat with her for a while before getting to the point. Finally we began the topic of Escojo. I made a list of kids who were old enough to participate who have school in the morning and said I would come back in the afternoon to talk to Humberto. I went back later, school once again got out early but I was able to make a list of kids and talk to Humberto. Even though I’m not having class in the school anymore he insisted I write a letter to him about it again before he would agree (agree to what?). So, I wrote the letter and I have a very small class. Only about 10 kids are interested in it as opposed to 40 I had this time last year. That was a little discouraging since I’m sure a few will drop out of it but at least it will be more manageable.
2/10 Wednesday: Controlling the situation
In a nutshell: It made me very happy today when Pimbi came over. This is the woman who stole my clothing from Minga’s house and gave it to her prego daughter (I still haven’t say anything to her about it). She came to my house to see when I was going to fix her filter and then told me she wanted me to “gift” her one of my shirts. My first reaction was laughing out loud thinking, well, at least she’s ASKING me now! But then I was annoyed not only because its rude even in this culture to ask people for stuff like that but because it was the 2nd time this week people have out right asked me for something. One woman I don’t even hang out with sent a little kid to my house 2x asking for nail polish. Anyways, after the initial shock of this woman’s audacity in asking me for a shirt, I asked her if she knew the story about someone stealing from me. She said she did and I then went on and on about how it made me feel so terrible and sad. I thought the community didn’t like me and after leaving all my family and friends in the States, people here treat me like that… so sad, yada yada yada. She agreed, said of course it wasn’t her (to which I of course agreed) and said her goodbye- without a shirt of mine. Adios mujer!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)