So, I finally made it to Carnaval. I went to the parade here in Santo Domingo which is the final parade of the season where they invite all of the "winners" of the parades/festivals around the country. It's a much tamer version, only the winners come, it's well guarded and has lots of security, and much less butt-whipping. Butt-whipping? Yeah, the devils (the one's with the masks with the horns) carry whips and use those to slap the ground. They also carry goat bladders that and dried and hardened and they hit you in the butt with them. I had Chulin stand behind me just in case any of them decided to start hitting, but I didn't see any doing that. They where the masks and hit people to scare and hit the sin out of you before lent. Enjoy the pictures! Most of these are the traditional Carnaval characters. You'll see lots of the devils because this parade has a contest for the best devil mask as well. The video is of the devils whipping the ground.

My two projects to finish up my service in Los Cacaos are about planting seeds. First, literally, we are planting citrus trees and oregano in some fields that right now have no income generating plants. We chose 5 families who are very poor but had a little land that wasn’t doing anything. We chose oregano because it is a short cycle crop that can be cut 3 times per year and the market for it is pretty easy to get into. This way, the families have immediate income. This crop will be planted in the field with citrus trees. These trees will start to give fruit in about 4 years and are used for more income and because the trees help immensely with soil erosion which is a huge problem in this area. With these trees, the families won’t be tempted to burn the land before planting other plants (also a huge problem), and they will all be using organic fertilizer. The families received everything and were even paid to prepare their own land and plant their own plants and while it seems like they sacrificed nothing, these families really had nothing to sacrifice. We didn’t want them to feel they couldn’t do the project because they had to take two or three days off from work that pays money that same day. We are writing a contract, though, that if the project works and they make enough income (past a certain amount), that they will use a portion of that income and the help of the coffee association to grow the project and include more poor families. After they become successful, the coffee organization is also planning to help them even more. They will finance a cow, which will give milk (as the doctors from the medical mission know, most children don’t get milk), a calf to sell periodically, and free organic fertilizer. This project, while starting small, has the potential to really make a difference and I’m very excited about it.

The second project is about planting a different kind of seed. Since I only had a couple months left and a huge number of people wanted the training all I could do was “plant the seed” of the importance of family budgets and savings. At first, I was very skeptical about it. I had wanted to private family consultations because this would be more successful in getting the families to actually practice the tips and ideas, but no one really understood that and I only ended up doing private consultations with 3 families and 3 individuals. I did, however, end up giving a lecture on the topic to small groups and I was surprised that at the last group. While I know I probably won’t get back to them to see it through, the group was so enthusiastic at how easy the ideas were that they wanted to do a whole weekend training on it with their spouses. I told them that I was leaving but that they had all the material there and they knew all the information, so they were going to do it themselves! I’m not sure how many lives it will actually change, but even if it just changes some bad habits, I will be happy.

So, the big news is that I will be moving to the capital really soon. My boss, Joy, has had to take on some major extra responsibilities and I will be essentially taking over her normal responsibility for this time of the year. The normal responsibility is finding project sites and projects for the new business volunteers that come in August (and go to their project sites in October). So, since they are coming so soon, I will probably be crashing on an air-mattress in a friend’s apartment for a couple weeks because I won’t have time to find an apartment and I will be running around the country working with Dominicans to find potential projects for new volunteers. I am very excited for this work. It’s like a promotion. I am still a volunteer, but I’ll be living in the capital and doing higher level, managerial type work.

As I am actually facing leaving Los Cacaos and the work of a “normal” volunteer, I am a little sad. There are a lot of projects that didn’t get off the ground. The library (and all subsequent library related projects) and computer center were put on hold indefinitely as both projects required the mayor to work with me and he was never available. The improved cook-stoves didn’t get built, but there are mason’s trained to do the work, so now it’s up to the organizations that already exist to get them done. On the other hand, a lot did get accomplished. The town now has a working hospital, 24 hour emergency care, an ambulance (kind of), trained doctors and nurses, a laboratory, and much better maternity care. I did English classes for the entire time I was here. I taught better business skills to small business owners, families to budget and save their money, the coffee association how to do a cost and price analysis and how to create a marketing strategy. I have also worked on environmental and income generation issues with the oregano/citrus trees project. All in all, I think it’s been a productive 2 years work. It will be a huge change living in the capital. Here, I leave my door open all day, say “hello” to everyone I pass on the street, am welcome into any house, and if I have any problem whatsoever, there are any number of people at my beck and call to come fix it. However in the capital I will have running water in my house, privacy, better electricity, a supermarket with more food choices, internet, and all of the luxuries of a city as far as entertainment. The best part will be that I will have an office to go to everyday. While the work will have a lot of the ebb and flow of my work in Los Cacaos (super busy one month, nothing at all the next), I will at least be able to go to an office and feel like I’m at work. My life will, essentially, be “normal” in terms of America. I’ll still be a volunteer, that is, I still will be living “poor”, but not nearly as much as before and I will have a job that seems more like a job (even though the last two years were definitely a job) and for that, I’m happy.

My next project was going to be teaching individual families about household budgets and wise spending and saving habits. My big idea was to set up a calendar and talk to interested families one-on-one because it is hard to implement any major change in these types of decisions if you just receive a two hour lecture on how to do it. You need to sit down with someone with your real numbers and make a plan, written down, in order to actually make some sort of change. However no one really understood that concept and only a few families signed up for the consultations. So, we are doing a few lectures that will really amount to work for me but no actual results. Hopefully, though, those lectures will get some more families interested in an individual plan and even more hopefully these plans will actually make some positive permanent change in the family’s economic status.

The other project may or may not ever happen. The German volunteer in my site’s parents decided they wanted to fund some sort of project in my site but didn’t know what so she and I approached the coffee association with some ideas. We decided on a sort of sustainable agriculture project that targets the poorest families that have fallow lands and provides them with oregano plants (which are short cycle for immediate income) and citrus tree saplings (which mature in 5 years for long-term growth) and the technical assistance to get things up and going. It’s a great project and actually pretty cheap to help quite a few families but I’m not sure how serious her parents were or if they will get anything up and going before she leaves (which is the end of August).

The biggest problem we are having is that the coffee association and its umbrella organization have put their organic certification in jeopardy by not turning in some essential compliance forms. Because of this all marketing projects (which I’ve been spearheading) have been put on hold and their entire operation could take a major step backward. I attribute this problem entirely to politics. First, this election year the umbrella organization and many of the organizations that make it up (such as my coffee association) were involved in political campaigns, taking their time away from their work. Second, last year there was a change in the administration of the umbrella organization which was cause solely because of a political power struggle (the organization is very well recognized and a successful running of it can help political ambitions) and the new administration is clearly failing. While it’s sad to see such a successful undertaking falling down for something so stupid, it happens a lot in this world and I don’t feel sorry for them in the least. I do feel sorry for the farmers who are complying with the regulations who will not earn the higher prices because the people they entrusted to do the paper-work couldn’t get that done. As always, the person who really suffers is the lowest person the ladder, the one who did nothing wrong and is holding up his part of the deal.

Elections are today (Sunday, May 16th). I decided to write a little about my thoughts right now, on the system here, before the results are in, and then a little more after I find out what direction my work will be headed in for the next couple months.

First, this is a democratic country. The elections this year are for 6-year positions and include things equivalent to our mayors, city councilmen, governors and senators (on both a “state” and “national” level). While the country is working hard and the actual voting part is mostly transparent and legitimate (no one knows who you vote for, you can only vote once, etc.) The “campaign” practices however flow from the normal to absurd, legal to entirely and blatantly illegal.

The normal is this: posters of the candidates plastered to electric poles, along roadsides, houses, etc. Candidates will hand out hats and t-shirts, do “cook-outs”, hand out things like medicine and food to the poor, etc. The absurd can be anything ranging from dropping salami and chickens out of helicopters, hiring trucks loaded with speakers to go around playing your jingle (you’re not a legitimate candidate if you don’t have your own jingle), and my most hated, caravans. Caravans are just that, a huge group of people who get all the trucks, cars and motorcycles they own and can hire and drive around wearing promotional shirts and waving flags. Sounds innocent enough. The problem is most of them are drunk and riotous and block main (and sometimes the only) road passageways for periods of up to an hour. Even if I supported a candidate, I would most certainly drop him after not being able to cross the street for an hour as a result of his booze-filled supporters.

The legal campaigning is basically the same as in the US, radio and TV ads that tout the candidates good qualities (although not on their platforms, more on that later). The illegal is just ridiculous. For example, the current mayor of my town told a group of poor people that receive what are basically food stamps that if they don’t vote for him he will make sure they no longer receive these food stamps. These food stamps are mostly a form of international support and therefore the local mayor’s office only distributes them, they cannot actually decide anything. People, though, believe them, and many turn in their food stamp cards if the guy loses, and the new mayor, just as horrible, collects them to give to his party members. The other tactic is buying “cedula” cards. Your “cedula” is your government ID and you need it to vote. Candidates will go out and pay people from other parties to give them their cedulas so they can’t vote the next day. This is explicitly illegal, but they do it in plain site because the people feel they can’t do anything about it and the police are just apathetic about everything.

Now, onto why the system, besides these ridiculous things, sucks in general. It is, mostly, a 3 party system. However, the parties have no ideologies, no platforms, nothing. They have colors. You like purple; you’re a part of the PLD. Or, your family is PRD, so are you. Because of this, the candidates do nothing along the lines of platforms or ideas they want to implement if they win. There are no debates. It literally is a popularity contest, which is probably not the best way to administer a government. Additionally, the government is run according the party that wins. If your party wins, you can expect a handout from the government, possibly a job. If your party loses, you can expect nothing from them, unless of course you had a job, then you can expect to lose it regardless if that means they’re hiring an illiterate farmer to run the aqueduct and you were a licensed professional.

The elections today will affect my work. A little background: the big election for me is the mayor’s race. The winner will most likely be Neno Ramirez, who is our current mayor and a total thief and scoundrel. His administration is being investigated by the federal government (this NEVER happens) for fraud, he doesn’t live here, and is basically just horrible at his job. But, his party created an alliance with another party, and since you vote for your party no matter the crappy candidate they pick, he has a huge support base. For sake of clarity, two parties (of the three) are supporting him. Then, there is Yrving Corporan. He is supported by the other party and a decent guy who I think would do a good job. He, at least, actually lives here. The third candidate is running as an independent. This independent movement is made up of all of the “head honchos” of the coffee-association I work with and the candidate is the founder of said association, Rufino Herrera. He is, in a word, amazing. And, while I have MAJOR reservations about them creating this movement and how it will, inevitably, win or lose, hurt the coffee organization, if he does win, he will make major positive change in my community. Considering people vote only for their party, it is a testament to his character (and Neno’s lack of character) that he has garnered quite a following and actually has a tiny shot of winning the election. I have a feeling, though, even as there are many people who hate Neno, this will turn into the situation the USA faced in the 2004 elections. Many people did not want to vote for Bush, but were torn between Kerry and Nader. Many people do not want to vote for Neno, and will be torn against Yrving and Rufino. This is how Neno might squeak out the win (I’d like to point out it’s very surprising that he should even be worried, having the backing of 2/3 of the political parties, it just shows how bad of a mayor he really is).

So, now I wait in my house (as it’s too dangerous to go out into the street, everyone gets drunk and angry or happy depending on the results) to find out the results and in which direction my work will go.

No big surprise, Neno won. The surprise is that he didn’t win by much. Rufino’s party gained 2 city council seats (each party gets a number of seats depending on the % of votes gained, then they pick who they want it to be). There are 5 seats, Neno’s won 2, Rufino’s 2, and Yrving’s 1, so they did well and hope to actually be able to make some change. The bad part about this is that while I want to do a library project with the mayor’s office, now the coffee association is a little bitter and might not want me working with them. Hopefully things cool down soon and I can get going on that. Since I’m not sure how that will work, my new “project” will be teaching farmers’ families how to make a family and farm budget to be able to save more consistently and know exactly where their money is going. It seems like a very simple project, but I plan on doing individual counseling to any family that wants it, so it will probably take me about a month to get through everyone.

The great news is the hospital has gone high-tech! We now have COMPUTERS in all exam rooms that will (soon) have all digital patient records. We have patient records on paper (remember all that work they did a couple months ago) and now they need to be put on the computers, but, that’s the easy part. We also have figured out how to charge the government health insurance for the people who have it, so we should be getting even more money allocated to us! The even greater part is that I really had nothing to do with any of this. Why is that great? That means that the government and hospital staff have finally picked up the slack and are working independently to move forward and when I leave there will still be progress! The saddest thing was when I went to see how things were going, some of the nurses were concerned that because they campaigned for Rufino or Yrving that they would now lose their jobs because Neno won. The Office of Public Health assured them that this wouldn’t happen as the mayor has nothing to do with their employment and I was very pleased that they (normally very political) did not use this moment to scold someone for not being a part of their party. Progress? Definitely.

The title says it all. Because of politics (elections are May 16th), nothing is going to happen. I'm just hanging out until elections pass until I can start work again. The hospital doesn't really need me anymore (which is great), so I am just sitting around until I find out who wins the mayor's seat, and that will direct where I go with my projects...So, until then.

It’s been a month since the medical mission left and the progress continues. The doctors continue to practice and use the ultrasound and have already used to identify a potentially dangerous pregnancy (they explained to me why, but I’m not a doctor and I didn’t understand). We then used our new laboratory to get blood tests done for that woman and the doctors suggested she leave earlier than she thought to give birth because they wanted to make sure she didn’t deliver here. She did deliver (without incident, thank God) in San Cristobal and now has a healthy baby boy named Eric!

The laboratory is taking non-emergency blood samples from Wednesday to Monday and after an incident with a transportation strike the Office of Public Health has decided to pay Milsion (the guy with the keys to the hospital) to take the samples down every Friday and wait for the results and bring them up. This will work SO much better. In case of an emergency situation the nurses will work with the coffee association, the mayor’s office, and public transportation to find someone to take the samples down. We also had our first TB tests done and taken to the city a couple weeks ago. The tests were negative, but because we now have that capability, the family self-quarantined in their house instead of travelling and possibly infecting others.

At first the nurses were not using the EKG machine because they didn’t want to “waste” the electrodes. The other problem is that the doctors are not that comfortable interpreting the results. A book on interpreting the results will be arriving shortly to help them out because they have about 4 patients per week that need an EKG.

Additionally, the Office of Public Health has assured that it will now provide all disposable items (gloves, needles/syringes, electrodes, blood collection tubes, ultrasound gel, etc.) and so far we haven’t been missing any essentials, but we will see in a couple months they keep up with this promise. I have a little more confidence now because they are getting help from an NGO called Operativo Panamericana de Salud (Pan-American Health Operation) which will provide computers for patient records and is working on fixing the electricity in the hospital. I have also noticed the Office of Public Health being much more responsible lately (probably because they have to be accountable to OPS).

On Tuesday we went to Los Hozederos (the first satellite clinic during the medical mission) and started making patient records for every resident there. We also taught Julia how to use the nebulizer and had her practice on the children and adults who will be receiving the treatment. She also will make a schedule so these patients get the regular care they need. Additionally, we passed out parasite medicine to those identified in the medical mission and saw an additional 40 patients.

The hospital is not keep records on every family and when the computers get installed it will all be digital and the doctors will be able to provide much better service.

The remaining money will be used/has been used to purchase a scale for Julia (to calculate the amount of medicine to give in the nebulizer), a cash lock-box (for the laboratory payments), a small cooler (for the blood samples), EKG paper (because I don’t trust the Office of Public Health to get that right), and probe covers for the ear-thermometers. Additionally, mom has sent me some books on the ultrasound, lab, and EKG interpretation to help the doctors learn and to help any new doctor get up to speed. The Office of Public Health is looking into buying us a special printer for the ultrasound so it is easier for the doctors.

Everything else is going well and I have a lot of confidence that this hospital and its services will be very sustainable.

The medical mission went off about as perfect as I could have asked. The medical team arrived only missing two pieces of luggage, one which was recovered before we got out to my site and the other (which we made due just fine without) should be recovered and delivered to the owner. Denise and I went a bought an exam bed, ultrasound gel, a refrigerator, a printer, and a blood drawing table, completing the necessary equipment purchases. When we first got the team together we spent a couple hours in the Peace Corps office, packaging vitamins and other medications and arranging for all travelling. My community members arrived on time and we departed with luggage and equipment in stow to my community.

Tuesday, February 2nd: The team arrives at the hospital with their translators and immediately begins sorting medicine, setting up equipment, and getting ready to go out to Los Manantiales, the outreach clinic for the day. Denise and Julie served that community and saw 100 patients! They also identified patients that need follow up care and realized that the community would be best served if we trained a person in the basics needed to give simple care (first aid, nebulizers, etc.). A woman who I have always loved working with was more than up to that task and we will be training her in the upcoming weeks. Meanwhile, in the hospital, chaos reigned as the huge crowd took advantage of the transportation and filled the waiting room. Mom worked on seeing patients, handing out medication, and trying to keep everything in order to give the community doctors a chance to learn how to use the cardiac monitor and the ultrasound. Joni saw a large number of pregnant women, teaching the doctors how to determine expected due dates, the sex of the baby (it was AMAZING to see the look on my friend’s face when she found out she was having a boy!), and many other indicating observations. Cindy went to the neighboring city to see the laboratory where we will be sending out blood samples to be analyzed and ask all the pertinent questions. Sandy worked on to teach the nurses how to take an EKG reading, until they ran out of the disposable nodes and had to turn their sites on organizing the ER and making the space more workable. Steve worked on building tables (for the cardiac monitor and ultrasound), which we had been missing for 8 months! He also found out the main problem behind the ambulance is that they put gas in an engine that takes diesel…not much he could do there. Diane went to work tackling the problems in the new computer accounting system for my coffee association, a task that is definitely not for the faint of heart.

After work, the team was taking to the coffee association to see the method of making coffee and given insight into the labor intensive process behind the main source of income for my community. After that, most made their way down to the local “discotheque” to try some famous Dominican “Presidente” beer.

Wednesday, February 3rd: Today the outreach clinic was located in Santana and Mom and Denise headed out there in the morning. Upon arrival we learned that the school (where the temporary clinic was set up) sent all the kids home to retrieve their parents and bring them back for a check-up. Needless to say, they were B-U-S-Y all day, seeing over 100 patients! Sandy and her translator went into the capital to try and find more nodes for the EKG and medications and vitamins that we ran out of. They soon found out that nearly all medical supplies and medications have been sold out for the efforts in the DR’s neighbor country, Haiti. They bought all they could (which was not very much, and NO vitamins, which we had since run out of completely). Julie saw patients to free up the doctors to continue learning on the ultrasound where Joni continued (that is, when there was electricity) to try and cram in as much information as she could in three days. Cindy started showing the nurses the intricacies of the lab while her translator took time to show them how to effectively take vital signs before the patients were sent to the doctor. Steve took his “I can fix anything” knowledge and looked at the various mechanical problems on the machinery that my coffee association had been having. Fixing what he could and identifying the other problems that needed certain unavailable equipment, there are now to be NO EXCUSES about mechanical breakdowns! Diane continued to tackle the accounting software and slowly beat it into submission.

Tonight’s activity was one of the best ideas (thanks Mom!). I had explained to many members of my community what a S’more was, but without the actual treat to show them, it was a lost concept. That night the coffee association made delicious cappuccino to share with the team members (which they all loved). Later, they made a campfire and we showed the community how to roast marshmallows and make S’mores. THEY LOVED IT! And not just the kids, the old farmers had a blast roasting the marshmallows and eating the yummy goodness that comes out of a S’more sandwich. I’ve been told that this American traditional has officially been adopted by the community of Los Cacaos.

Thursday, February 4th: Today’s outreach clinic was 3 Veredas. Mom and Julie set out and found a community very willing to do whatever it took to make them comfortable. Crowd control problems? Not here. They community appointed a strict “gate keeper” who kept people in line so the doctors didn’t have to. While they didn’t have vitamins to give out, they identified those patients who need extra care and the hospital in Los Cacaos will send up a doctor for follow up visits to those patients with the appropriate medical care. Denise stayed at the Los Cacaos hospital to help see patients and discuss and problem-solve with the doctors on certain issues. The work with the ultrasound continued and some of the doctors got fairly comfortable on the machine. The lab took samples and showed the nurses more techniques for work in the lab. When we went down the mountain, we officially took and turned in the first samples from the Los Cacaos hospital lab! After doing some more with the EKG and fixing up the ER even more, the nurses felt very comfortable working in that environment as well. Diane continued problem solving (and running anti-virus software!) and we think we can finally get the accounting software working correctly. After a hard day’s work, we headed down the mountain to a hostel before heading to Las Terrenas in the Samana peninsula to see the whales and relax on the beach.

This mission was a HUGE success and it could not have been done without the support of all of you. If you donated money, encouraged me, gave me advice, or even just read this blog, I have to say THANK YOU and all the success we had is owed to you.

Pictures will be coming in the form of a video, hopefully tomorrow.

The medical mission in only a week away! I am REALLY nervous but super excited because everyone in my community and surrounding communities are excited. The timing worked out a little crappy because I am going to visit my sister right beforehand. I am very excited to see my family and dogs and AMERICA...but I'm not relying on the government and community members to tie up the loose ends that couldn't be finished before I left. It will be interesting to see how much running around I have to do when I get back to make everything here.

We are working hard to get the laboratory ready to go. The government wants to follow all the rules, but they don't realize the situation (very rural, very poor) may mean not following those rules. Additionally, they have pressure to get the lab up and running because they're already advertising it as up and running. Getting the logistics up and running is definitely difficult in a down here. We plan on taking collecting samples here and then sending them down for analysis. Planning all that is very difficult

We got all the money needed for the ultrasound and I am SO excited to start offering that service. We had so much support that we have even more money to use to equip the hospital! I cannot begin to express my gratitude to everyone who donated! I will send out pictures and make a video of the mission when it's finished.

I spent another Christmas here in the Dominican Republic and this year I decided to do something a little different. After "noche buena" which is Christmas Eve (where I ate with my host family, the tradition) came Christmas day. I went with my boyfriend up to see the cockfights at the cockfighting ring. This is a HUGE deal on Christmas day. After the fights there is a huge party and is kind of the social event of the year. I really just wanted to see the cockfights as these parties have a tendency to break out in violence.

The point of cockfighting is to bet on the cocks and make money. As you can see from the first picture, the cock handlers go around and take bets on their rooster and the audience also bets amongst themselves. Then, as the fight is taking place, the betting continues and people try to hedge their first bets if they feel they are loosing or make more money if they're winning. The whole thing is based on a honor system and while there is a good amount of shouting and hand gestures, people know what's going on and there usually isn't a problem.

About 2 minutes after we get in they were still settling bets from the last cockfight and two people were arguing over a bet and started fighting physically. We ran out of there and waited until the fighting stopped to go back in and see the rest. After the cockfights were over, we decided to leave before the party really got going. I heard the next day that a huge fight broke out at that party as well, and there was flying glass (guns and knives aren't allowed into the cockfighting arena) everywhere.

I had a good Christmas and need to thank everyone who sent me cards and packages! My friend Chris from Custer is coming to visit me for New Year's, so I'll have another story to tell then!

First, the GRANT IS UP! Donate online here!

https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.donors.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=517-340

It's 100% tax deductible and a great gift for Christmas!

As I prepare to spend my second Christmas away from my family and see everyone else in full Christmas mode, I can’t help but reflect on how this season, regardless of your beliefs, makes you contemplate so many things. I’m not trying to say that Christmas is a more valid holiday than any other or that Christianity a more valid religion, but the real message behind the holiday is that the world needs peace.

Why are there so many things wrong with the world when, in general, the majority of the individuals in it are good? I have run into your run of the mill “seedy” individuals here in the DR, but most of the people want nothing more than to help each other. When I did my diagnostic a year ago, the biggest “strength” mentioned was the solidarity among the community. How can we achieve peace on nearly all small scales, but hardly ever on a large one?

Now, I am not a peace worker or even a pacifist, but it seems as though every group of people has its group of people that it hates but every individual in that group can name an individual of that other group that it likes. Imagine what the world would be like if we only pursued that bad individuals and not the whole group that that individual belongs to.

Christmas down here is a big deal. It’s not a big deal like in the US where we all worry about presents and shopping and deals and sales. Most families can’t afford to get presents and it’s not the custom to give them on Christmas (families that can afford it give their children presents on the 6th of January, 3 Kings Day). In my area people are a little better off in general and right now everyone just sold their coffee so they have a little more money. Instead of buying presents they maybe buy new clothes (the only time during the year they have the money to do so) and spend the rest of their “extra” income on food so they can invite their neighbors and friends to eat and share. Don’t get me wrong, I like getting presents and giving them as much as any American, but it does seem nice that the emphasis is on honoring the relationships you have with all people. Now, if we could only get that emphasis to cross boarders and carry beyond Christmas.

I thought I'd give everyone a little update on things. First, the ultrasound grant should be up soon. When it is I'll hopefully have internet and will give you the specific link, but if I don't, you can periodically check this website:

https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.donors

Type in my last name (Borg) and if it's up it will show up and you can donate money to get my community this needed machine!

Things with the medical mission are going along, but I did not realize how much teeth pulling I would have to do on the end of things here (with the government and community members.) I understand with the community members, right now is their busiest time (harvest) and they just don't have time to help me, but the government dodges the idea altogether. Little do they know that I am more stubborn than the donkeys the farmers use to transport coffee. I go back in on Wednesday to hopefully finally meet with the director of it all (who is on my side) and get everything taken care of.

Thanksgiving is a great time for PC volunteers in the DR. We all get together, rent out a country club and cook a traditional Thanksgiving feast. It was a lot of fun catching up and eating good American food. I couldn't believe how much I missed my family this year (no offense guys, but last year everything was so new, I didn't miss you that much), but this year I can tell the holidays are going to make me miss home. Claire (the closest volunteer to me) and the new German volunteer in my site will both be here, so we will celebrate by going to a cock fight. Then, a friend from high school, Chris, will be coming to visit for New Years (MY FIRST VISITOR!)

This week is my one year in service training. This is where all the volunteers from my training group get together to talk about what has gone well, what hasn't, give advice, and basically just give moral support. I am very excited to share the amazing progress of my hospital and other projects, as well as get ideas on how to proceed with certain challenges.

There will hopefully be something more interesting to report next time, but until then, thanks for all of your support, be sure to spend your Christmas bonus on my project (feeling guilty yet?) and I hope you're all enjoying the chilly weather in the US!

So, the coolest thing I've done in a while was this last week. First, I went to the East to help another volunteer with her ecotourism guides. We went to her waterfall and then a couple caves. It was fun and I think the guides learned a lot. Then, on Friday, we went to another volunteers site to help build a playground. This playground was sponsored by Ben and Jerry's ice cream from the US. Ben and Jerry's had a contest around the world for people to create a new flavor using fair trade products. Ben and Jerry's made a fair trade ice cream with chocolate and macadamia and decided to buy their chocolate from this volunteer's chocolate (which is fair trade certified) to use in this ice cream. When they came to visit the chocolate site, they decided it would be great to use for the contest finalists. The finalists (from 15 different countries) came to do community service, and they decided to do a playground. So, a couple volunteers came to help translate (all finalists spoke English) and help build the park. Ben and Jerry's brought ice cream for all of us (AWESOME!) and then at the end Ben and Jerry themselves came to inaugurate the park. It was a lot of fun.

The last couple of weeks I have been working hard on the medical mission. I am jumping through hoops with the government, finding host families, and doing community outreach. I also wrote a grant to get money to buy an ultrasound. The grant will rely on online donations from people like you! The online site isn't up yet, but when it is I will put the link up here so you can help make my project a reality!

Sorry this is short, but I've really got to get going, I'll hopefully get an update next week!

I have now been back in the country for a little over two weeks. What has been accomplished in those two weeks? Not a whole lot.

There are a couple reasons. First, since the due dates for the grants I was working on passed while I was in the US, I now have to wait 4 months to send in for the scholarship grants and the library grant (the library grant is “replacing” the stove grant). Both of these grants need a bit of work (a lot in the case of the library grant), but we have 4 months to do it, so people aren’t feeling too rushed yet. The medical mission in scheduled for February, and while there is a ton of work to do for that, the second, and more prominent reason that nothing has been accomplished keeps getting in the way of my progress. That reason is that right now it’s the coffee harvest. Any of you who are farmers out there can relate a little to this phenomenon of everything coming to a halt except the harvest. Take what you feel as a halt and multiply it by 1000.

Here’s why: coffee is a VERY labor intensive crop. There are no machines to harvest it; it has to be picked by hand. It’s not that these people are just too poor for machines; it’s that coffee is grown under and among other plants on the side of steep mountains, machines just aren’t feasible. EVERYONE picks coffee right now, kids, men, women, and about 7,000 Haitian migrant workers. After it’s picked and de-pulped it’s brought to the warehouse (this is where my association comes in) to be processed. Here is it processed the rest of the way (which includes drying, de-husking, classifying, sorting, bagging and perhaps toasting and grinding.) This process can take anywhere from 1-5 days depending on a variety of factors. Since 80% of the 10,000 residents’ primary income source is coffee and 50% of those utilize my association to process their coffee, the tiny staff has a lot to do during this time, and not a whole lot of time to help me out. Not only that, the people I work with who don’t work in coffee are still working overtime on whatever it is that they sell because now all the coffee farmers have money again.

I know it may seem like that now, after a year, I should be able to do everything on my own. In reality, I can, but there are two factors that stop me from doing that. First, while I know what we’re doing, can speak Spanish, and am actually the one organizing and planning everything, if I execute it by myself without a Dominican with me, people have less trust in the project. Not that they think I don’t know what I’m doing or that they distrust Americans, it’s that they’ve only known me for a year, and in a culture where relationships are the biggest part of your life, a year is nothing. Secondly, I will be gone in a year. The point of my service is sustainability. Clearly these people don’t need to build the library after I’m gone, but they need to know how we organized things and what the goal of the library was, why we did things the way we did.

Since there aren’t a whole lot of people free to do with projects, Claire (the other Peace Corps Volunteer), Theresa (a new volunteer from a German organization) and I have been hanging out a lot. In fact, I think tomorrow I will be going with them (and a Dominican or course) to see the opening cock fight of the season. It will be the first I’ve gone to. I’ll let you know how it went if I go.

So, after a frustrating morning running around to get authorization for my CT scan because things got all screwed up, I am officially cleared to return to the DR and will leave tomorrow morning at 8am! I'll be in the office in the capital tomorrow night and all day on Thursday, so if you have any last minute messages, send them quick, because I will probably retreat to my community (ie, no internet) for a good while since I've been gone so long. Thanks to EVERYONE for your messages and support, I appreciate it all. I am so lucky to have everyone supporting me! Thanks!

So, the kidney stone is passing and I got the stent taken out today. Being here waiting in DC has been very tough. I've been too uncomfortable until today to walk around much or be far from a bathroom because of the stent. Because I've been here, two of my projects (the stoves and the scholarships) will have to be put on hold because I will miss the grant deadlines and I've been feeling a little helpless. Luckily I've had the support of all my friends and family and a couple friends here in DC have gone out of their way to see me and keep me entertained.

Yesterday Peace Corps decided they did not want me to return to the DR because I had a kidney stone before and they didn't want me to have another one in the year I have left. My case worker and I got a plan together to fight their decision and we have won on two conditions. First, I go back in on Tuesday (a week from today) to do a scan to see if I have any more stones. If I am stone free, I can go back. If not, I'm out. Second, if I have a stone within the next year, I am automatically out. So, it's great news to know that I should be going back (it's very unlikely I'll have a stone present in this scan on Tuesday). It stinks that I have to wait until Tuesday and that I've been here as long as I have, but, at least things are proceeding.

Being here has shown me a couple things. First, I miss the DR terribly. I already knew I loved my job and belonged there, but this just reiterates it. I decided that even if I was kicked out, I would still return on my own accord and money. I need to finish my work, it's what I was meant to do with this part of my life. It shows me even more that I have found what will fulfill me in my life and that is a great feeling. I also have realized that it will be very hard to me to adjust mentally to the American lifestyle upon returning. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE the hot water, private cars, food, TV, and all the other luxuries. But, I can't help but feel guilty. I've always felt guilty and the guilt drives me to do the things that I love, but it's different now that I've lived without all those things and realized how easy it was, how simple it would be to give that up to help other people. The ridiculousness of how much we have here is baffling to me. I read an article this morning about how food banks are having to change their strategies because so many middle class people are now having to use them and they want to be discreet and are far more picky when it comes to the type of food they take home. They drive up in their fancy SUVs with their designer purses to pick up food at the food bank because they "have no money." Here's an idea, sell your purse and your car. I was so outraged by the story and how these people were justifying it I almost peed my pants (of course, this was before the stent was removed, so that feeling has become pretty common ;) Everyone knows other people are starving in other countries, but it's different to know it and to live it. I knew PC would change me for life, but I actually think it will drastically effect every decision I make when I get back.

I am in Washington DC on a medical evacuation for a kidney stone. The problem started last Sunday (as in a week and a half ago) when I got a high fever and went in to get it checked out on Monday. The hospital found a raging UTI (which I had no symptoms for except for the fever) and then a large kidney stone on the right side (also, no symptoms). I waited a couple days and then went back to my site for the doctors to figure out what to do with me. I returned on Monday for another exam where the doctor told me that the lithotripsy and laser were too dangerous because of where the stone was. The doctors in Washington DC (the ones who make the ultimate decision on my health) decided that wasn't good enough and on Wednesday decided to send me to the States to do treatment there. I left Thursday morning and when I landed immediately met with a urologist here. He said the lithotripsy wasn't dangerous and now I have plans to get that procedure done tomorrow afternoon. Then I will have to wait 1-2 weeks to make sure all of the stone comes out before being able to be released to return to the DR.

Throughout all of this I did not want to leave the DR. Getting medically evacuated puts my service at jeapordy. If I cannot resolve the problem in less than 45 days, the PC is required to end my service. Additionally, they may decide that the problem is too dangerous to send me back. If you're hoping or praying for anything, let it be that I will be able to return to my country and continue my work. Because I will be here waiting, two of my major projects will miss the deadline for grants submission and will fall through for at least 4 months. This is a huge blow to my work, progress, and general mental well being.

Additionally, this whole process has shown just how much I will never really be integrated into my community. As much as I pride myself on the solidarity I share within my community, when it comes down to it, I am not one of them. When this came up, I went to the best private hospital in the country, was immediately seen by the best urologist in the country, and ultimately sent to the US the very next day it was decided that should happen. There is not one other person in my community who could even access the first hospital I went to, let alone the urologist or the trip to the US. I understand my well-being is important for my work, but being a part of the community is the only way I can get work done. So, it is almost as important as me being healthy.

I am glad that I came to the US because I do not need to have invasive surgery here like was recommended in the DR. However, I feel alone (I have great family and friends support, don't get me wrong, but Washington is not my home) and disconnected from the community I've worked so hard to become connected to. My projects are going to suffer greatly and I only hope that this situation does not highlight to my community that when it boils down to it, I will always be the rich American with priveleges they will never have.

In the meantime, if you want to call me, I am staying at the Virginian Hotel, 703-522-9600

I have officially been in the Dominican Republic for a year. I can think of no other year that has brought as many changes in my world as this one. I have: moved to a developing country, learned Spanish (more or less), forgotten a good bit of English, had a dead rat in my wall, had cockroaches in my bed, taught the English I am rapidly forgetting, learned Dominican culture and politics (both are equally important if you want to work here), opened a working clinic, ridden in the back of a truck 3 hours each way on July 4th to swim in a beautiful bay while singing patriotic songs the whole way with 20 people I didn’t know a year ago, jumped of 27 waterfalls, got a foot infection from those 27 waterfalls, gotten a dog to whom I am now apparently allergic, witnessed my only sister get married, had my mom move to somewhere about as remote (and harder to get to) than me, started an exercise group for the women in my community, laid down the foundations to start a library, computer center, and better cook stoves project, started a scholarship program for unemployed adults, helped secure an ambulance for the area, ridden out 4 hurricanes and countless road destroying rain storms, ridden out 5 transportation strikes, had the Michael Jackson skin disease (vitiligo), had about 10 hot showers (not including Cassie’s wedding where I took more than my fair share), encountered 5 working toilets, had about 4 days of full electricity, learned just how long certain foods last without refrigeration, killed a scorpion trapped in my friends mosquito net, received a TON of love and support (and phone calls, packages and letters!) from my friends and family back home and discovered that this really is the place I should be and what I should be doing. This was reiterated by one of my project partners when he asked me if recently I really had to go in a year and couldn’t I stay for at least two more years? (don’t worry, that’s not going to happen.) There are more things than that, but those were the “biggies”. I know this next year will be more successful (at least that’s the case with most volunteers, after the first year of adjustments and gaining community knowledge; the second year is easier to work). Projects I have planned for next year and two months (training is not a part of service, so while I’ve been in country one year, I have a year and two months of service left) are the library, computer center, stove project, compost project, possible coffee pulp fuel project, medical mission (Feb 2-4) and continued hospital work, and expanding the scholarship program to help ambitious unemployed youth gain capital (through grants or small, low-interest loans) to start businesses with my guidance. I will continue to give English and exercise classes, and when tourist season starts up, work on the eco-tourism project to see if we can’t actually make some money on it this year. I am, of course, always open to: visitors, packages, letters, phone calls, text messages, e-mails, and smoke signals. And, being as the internet and mail services aren’t that great here, smoke signals might be your best bet; I’ll be looking out for them.

I got a dog. A family from the embassy was leaving the country and didn’t want to bring their three year old Shar Pei, unfortunately named Sadie (unfortunate because my dog from the States that died while I was here was named Sadie and unfortunate because Dominicans have a hard time pronouncing Sadie even though both the “Sa” and the “die” sounds occur frequently in Spanish). I decided to take her because she was already spayed and had her shots and came with all the stuff ready to go. One of the reasons I was hesitant to get a dog was because those things are incredibly inconvenient if you live where I do and very expensive (remember, I’m a volunteer, and while I have enough money for myself, it doesn’t extend to cover an operation for a dog.) I also don’t have time to train a hyper puppy, so an already trained, calm dog was perfect. The family decided they could bring to dog to San Cristóbal as there isn’t a viable transportation option for dogs between there and the capital. I picked up the dog in San Cristóbal along with all her toys, necessities, and a 50 lb. bag of dog food. He had never been to San Cristóbal before so I wasn’t about to have him take that stuff to the bus stop (traffic nightmare), so I had my friend, Chulin, help me carry the things from the park to the bus stop (and when I say “help me” he carried it all and I walked the dog). We get to the bus stop and I decide it would be a disaster to try and take her inside one of the crammed buses and better to wait for one of the trucks and ride with her in the back of the truck (this would be a 6 hour wait). Chulin (knowing he is my best friend here) decided he would wait with me. Thank God he did. Apparently, Dominicans are terrified of dogs. She has a wrinkly face and so they automatically think she is a Pitbull. Chulin would explain to everyone who chose to walk on the street instead of the sidewalk where we were standing that she wouldn’t bite them and she’s on a leash, but it didn’t matter. The funny thing is, I have never met a calmer dog. She doesn’t bark, bite, howl, whine, and she hardly even sniffs people or animals. She’s perfect for here because people don’t know how to act around pet dogs that aren’t aggressive (most people have dogs her size for dog fights or to protect their house from thieves), so I’m having to train everyone that they shouldn’t throw rocks at her or hit her. All of the kids near my house love to come because they can pet her, and for a lot of them that’s the first time they’ve been able to pet a dog. This dog will never want for attention and as I’m writing this she’s on her third walk of the day (none of which were by me.) While having her will be more work, I think changing some people’s opinions of how dogs can be if they are raised correctly will be worth it. The reason I haven’t taken her for a walk yet is because I got an infection in a cut on my foot from the 27 Waterfalls. It’s a LOT better than it was but I still cannot wear tennis shoes and walking in flip flops here just fills the cut with dirt and sand. I think it should be completely fixed in a week or so and then I will start trying to burn off the 15 lbs. I’ve gained since coming here. As for projects, things are in the planning stage right now, which means a lot of waiting and not a lot of doing. The hospital’s ambulance is an actual real ambulance, which is good, but it’s having trouble driving around on the streets because it’s so big and doesn’t have enough power to get up some of the horrible mountain roads. We’ll see what ends up happening. They might just switch it to a hollowed out mini-van, which was the plan in the first place before the senator got involved (we don’t really need sirens as it is not Dominican custom to yield to them anyway). The good news is that the idea of having better health care is catching on and the public health committee in my town is seeing how harassing the government relentlessly is starting to get stuff done. Now that we have more equipment (again, I cannot thank Mom and Grandma enough), the stuff left to be done is fine-tuning (you know, like having a sufficient supply of gloves), so now this committee feels more empowered to complain to the government and get what they deserve. It’s a different kind of sustainability, but sustainability none the less. I hope they can keep it up when I’m gone. I found different stoves that cost about half as much, so I’m much more excited about this project. I now have to find a time to go up north where the stoves are being built to see how they are and what the building plans look like. Then, I can talk to people and get the list narrowed down (which, even though I can now help twice as many people, will still be a huge pain) and submit a grant request. The scholarship program for unemployed adults is going well, but it kind of seems like some of the women don’t understand that the purpose of technical training is to then get work and make money. A couple of them live so far away from anything and have so much work to do in the house, that work outside of the house is basically impossible. I feel like this project will greatly benefit about 4 of the 6 that are receiving scholarships, but it sucks that it might be wasted on 2 of them. The municipal government and I are going to start a library project. The old library was destroyed in Hurricane Noel, and while the building was partially restored, it is now being used as a house for a family whose house was destroyed by the same storm. The mayor built a HUGE new building for their offices (as their building was destroyed as well) and the third floor will be used as a multi-purpose room/library. My job will be getting books (in Spanish) or money to buy books to stock the library. There are a couple resources that Peace Corps has for library projects, but a lot of them are for the construction of the building, less for the buying of books, so if any of you know of organizations that donate used books (in Spanish) or work with childhood education, things of that nature, let me know. The ultimate goal, after the library is open, is to have a homework room and reading program. I would really like to have a program such as “Book-It” in America (clearly the prize will not be Pizza Hut gift certificates), but a similar idea, so we are putting together a “culture committee” with representatives from the Teacher’s Union, Mayor’s Office, and University Students Group to assist with these ideas. I am really excited about this project. It will help everyone in the community and hopefully help some of these students catch up to their peers in other parts of the country and world.

So my birthday went well. Unfortunately there are no pictures of the 27 charcos because we left our cameras at the insistance of the guides so they wouldn't get ruined or wet and they told us we could buy a disposable water proof one at the visiter center. We got there and they were out of cameras, so we have no pictures. But, it was a BLAST. If any of you come down here and are into hiking, beauty, and a little adventure, this is what you should do. http://www.27charcos.com/index.php

I got to see two more volunteer's places, so that was nice. It's always nice to see how you live compared to other volunteers.

Apparently our ambulance made it to my site on Saturday while I was here, so at least now we have one. The sad news is that it is supposedly covered with pictures of our Senator who took all the credit for the project.

I am now sticking it out in the capital because there is a transportation strike between here and my site, so I am just hanging out here until it clears up tomorrow. What a pain.

Thanks to everyone who sent me birthday wishes. If you sent me any packages, the mail is backed up so I am not getting anything right now. Hopefully in a couple weeks!

It seems to be official that we are never going to get internet again in my site, so blogs and e-mail answers will be relegated to when I am in the capital. I am passing through the capital today to go to the 27 charcos (a “charco” is the small pool at the bottom of a waterfall). It is a national park that Peace Corps helped developed and there is currently a volunteer working there. You go and you can get a guide to take you up and jump off the waterfalls. It’s really one stream with a 27 different drop offs in succession. I plan on doing all of them on the 27th, my birthday! I have some other volunteer friends coming up there and we are staying at the houses of a couple volunteers that live near there. When I get back to my site my friend, Chulino, told me he was going to show me a Dominican birthday tradition. I asked around and found out what he was planning. The tradition is to through water, eggs, and flour on the person for their birthday. So, on the 28th, I will be covered in water, eggs, and flour in celebration of me turning 23. Chulino’s birthday is on August 5th, so I will at least be able to get him back in a couple weeks. Last week I went to the hospital to set up the cardiac monitor which wasn’t set up because we didn’t have a table to put it on. When I got there and went into the room where it was being stored I realized there were boxes of needles and other supplies that they need and claim they don’t have. They were supplies Mom sent down, so they were “saving” them for when they really needed them. Then, I realized that the doctor I gave the much needed fetal Doppler to had not informed the other doctors that they had it, so between those things, the work at the hospital is still a priority even though we’ve had a huge amount of progress. The ambulance should be arriving on August 2nd and we worked it out with another government organization (that has nothing to do with health) to pay for the gas and driver when we needed to use it. A couple of my projects (the computer center and the homework center) were put on hold until next month because the mayor’s office (the people helping me with these projects) decided to wait to start them until they’ve finished their new building. I think this is a good thing, the new building is huge (and quite frankly a waste of money), but at least I get to put it to good use. We are also going to put a library in the building, so I will start searching for places to donate money or books. The community used to have a library but it was washed out in Hurricane Noel. The building was fixed up but donated to a family who lost their home. They managed to salvage some of the books, but not very many, certainly not enough to have a library. The stove project is coming along. I’ve finally got my project partners to realize there is a finite amount of money and I can’t just give everyone of a free stove. Now, breaking that news to the people will be a pain and a lot of people will probably think I’m just a horrible person, but in I can deal with that as long as I know I’m doing the right thing. It still amazes me how some people understand completely when I tell them about how I can’t give them a free stove and might not be able to help them at all because there are so many people and others yell at me for being a greedy, rich American who doesn’t realize how poor he or she really is (I mean, do they think I’m keeping the money for myself?). A man here has decided he wants to make the making of these stoves a business so Claire and I are setting him on the right path. I’m not sure he’ll have enough clients to make a lot of money (the stoves are expensive, that’s why volunteers do them, they can find money to lower the costs), but he assured us he does. This might actually make my job easier because if he knows how to do the stoves well before I get the money to do the project, I can just hire him and save money training a new person. There was a big rain storm that came through this last week. In one night it turned the stream behind my house into a raging river. The repairs to my tin roof didn’t hold and I woke up to dream where I was swimming in a river and freezing, in reality my bed was soaked and my floor was a lake. I had to move everything out of my bedroom and my mattress is still not dry. My house is positioned so I will never have major structural damage from the rain, but on the other side of the stream from my house there were some people who went to sleep with a backyard and woke up without one. The basketball court that the mayor started rebuilding was completely washed away as well. I’m now working rapidly to fix my roof before we get a real hurricane and I have to turn my bed into a boat.

Hopefully this works for everyone!

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=617837297580&ref=mf

If it doesn't, and you don't have facebook (you can find it on my profile if you do), then find someone who does!

The back of the truck going 3 hours on a bad road to the Bay. There are 20 of us!

Another volunteer, Jesse, and I looking out over the ocean. This is the view from our hostel.

One view of the bay.

Second view of the bay.

In Peace Corps, poop is a big deal. Whether you are pooping too much or not enough, it's usually an issue being discussed. After the 4th of July, which was AMAZING, I went to Batey 6. Batey's were created to house the Haitian migrants working in the sugar cane harvest. Now, they are permanent residents for the Haitians that work on the sugar cane harvest and then don't leave because, well, Haiti doesn't have any opportunities either. Needless to say, this place is POOR. Hardly anyone has a bathroom or latrine. They bathe in the river, which is gross, and use the sugar cane fields to go the bathroom. My volunteer friend that lives there uses the NGO office she works with to go to the bathroom and bathes on her cement floor. This morning, however, before I left to go home, I had to use the bathroom. It was 6AM and the office wasn't open and most people were sleeping. The bus was 4 hours, so I decided to have the Batey experience and use the sugar cane fields. It was...interesting. You never realize how incredibly good you have it until you have to use a field to go to the bathroom, and that's just normal for the people that live there.

The other bad thing about the Bateys is they are dry and deforested. That means, there are dust storms really bad. In the states it wouldn't matter so much because your houses can easily be shut, but here that is not possible. You get dust EVERYWHERE. In your teeth, in your cup of water while you're drinking it, everywhere. It was such a change from my mostly wet community where we have dust, just not to the point where it could be considered a health hazard.

Back up to my site today, no internet until I come down for my birthday on the 26th. Hope you're all doing well!

I made a little video on the hospital. It was taking too long to load so I left it for now. What we really need are: Nurses, medicines, and replacements for the disposable items like gloves. The problem is that our liaison between here and the regional office sucks. So, I am going to do an analysis of the hospital’s daily needs and record how much it can’t meet them because we don’t have the correct medicines or supplies (because the regional office sends us the wrong stuff) and then bring it to the regional office myself because, seriously, who ever heard of a hospital without gloves? We did get a ambulance that should be arriving on the 2nd of August and we got a different government agency (a coffee and agriculture association, not a health association) to agree to pay for the gas and driver when someone needs to be taken in. That will be an amazing thing to have because right now people have to wait up to an hour to be taken to a hospital with the equipment to help a serious emergency (think blood transfusions, head injuries), and then it will cost the patient about 2,000 pesos (the average family makes about 5,000/month), so it's clearly not affordable. The stove project is going along but I did put my foot down about what kind of people I would find funding for. I thought it was a little selfish that the people with gas stoves and the money to buy one of these other stoves (which, they probably won’t even use) still want me to find money for them. I get so sick of hearing how “poor” someone is. I understand they are poor, but that is such a relative word and compared to their neighbors, these people are rich. I explained to my project partners that there was a finite amount of funding and I wasn’t going to take it from someone else who really needed it to give it to someone who doesn’t. They didn’t seem too pleased, but frankly I don’t care. It’s not that I don’t want to help these people; it’s just that there are other people that need more help. I can tell that this project is going to make me some enemies and be a huge pain; I just hope it really helps someone and it’s worth it. For the 4th of July I am going to the very southern part of the country toward the Haitian border. Some friends and I are going to Bahía de las Aguilas (Bay of Eagles) to enjoy a gorgeous, undeveloped, protected beach. It also happens to be sea turtle birthing season, so hopefully I get to see some of those little guys hatch and swim to sea. Happy Independence Day!

This will probably be a long post, I still have no internet, so here's an update on the last few weeks.

Wedding:  I finally got to see a Dominican Wedding.  There are two ways to get married here.  The first is to leave the house where you live with your father (if your a girl) and go spend the night at your boyfriends house.  You stay there for 7 days and then you're married and there's a big party.  Obviously, it's just common law marriage, but that's what the majority of people in the rural areas are.  This wedding was the other way to get married, in the church, with papers.  It was basically an American wedding, there is a "Maid of Honor" and a "Best Man", and the dad walks the Bride down the isle.  This one was fancy and there was a GORGEOUS cake and pictures.  There were two big differences.  One, as the wedding party is walking down the isle, the "MC" is announcing what is going on, kind of like a beauty pageant:  "Here comes the bride's sister, her maid of honor, isn't she precious ladies and gentlemen, oh and here is the ring bearer, Carlos, son of Manuel and Julia, how adorable."  Then, while there is an "official" photographer, he just has a regular digital camera, so everyone else is running up and down the aisle and getting close and taking pictures.  For the first kiss, the entire audience had their camera phones out and walked up to take pictures, it was crazy.

Hospital:  We have FOUR doctors now.  Each doctor has an assigned health promotor and they should be going to the mountain communities once a week to see the people who can't get to the hospital easily.  We are still working on getting patients to be able to stay overnight, but we are at least making progress.

Business Classes:  My business classes are actually going OK.  I have about 10 people showing up.  I know a lot of it is going over their heads, but just taking the initiative to come is good.  The harder stuff (accounting, costing/pricing) is coming up, and I've told them I'd be available to go over things individually if they want.  That is where the most change will come, hopefully.

Stoves:  The volunteer next to me, Claire, is doing a stove project.  All of the women in her community cook on an open fire, these stoves are wood burning stoves that use less wood and have a chimnea to keep the fire out of their faces.  They're very good for those who have to cook outside on an open fire.  Now, my community wants them as well.  Most of the people in my community have an indoor kitchen and a gas stove.  Gas is expensive, so they want these stoves. I'm not too thrilled about doing this for people that don't need them, but there are some people in my community that really do need them.  So, I will start working on this project, but I have a feeling it will be a huge headache, wish me luck.

I am in a Spanish training session until next week, so I should have internet pretty much every day!  Use this time to talk to me because who knows when the internet will be back in my site!

I am most likely getting a cat now because a mouse crawled on my mosquito net while I was in it and I'm not putting up with that.  I found a woman who has a pregnant cat and told her I wanted one of the kittens, she thinks she'll give birth in a month, we'll see if I actually get one once the kittens are born, but I hope so, I can't live with mice IN my house...

If you’ve ever seen a Rube-Goldberg machine, you know that there is usually one part that happens really slowly, such as the burning of a string, but as soon as it’s done, everything else falls into place rather quickly.  Everything up until that point happens quickly, and everything after that point happens quickly, but there’s that point where it all slows down.  We were at that point with the hospital project.  We got the people organized and behind the project rather fast, we got the equipment (again, thanks Mom!) quickly, we had appointments with the government in quick succession.  Then, we were just at a standstill, waiting for the government to come repair the hospital building and allow us to move in.  In my last blog I was ecstatic that they were finally working on the hospital, but imagined it would take quite a while for them to finish.  In two days, they finished the hospital and we moved in!  Then, three days later, they sent a commission with two more doctors (that are married to each other, so they won’t feel so lonely here), some reception area furniture, and the promise that they will send more stuff and even picked a date to meet about the progress!  It’s all finally fallen into place and we are the first rural hospital in our province and the municipality has 24/7 medical care for the first time EVER!  It is such a great accomplishment, I am so happy, and I was really overwhelmed when the people and the government representatives suggested naming the hospital after me!  I don’t deserve the recognition (ok, maybe my blonde hair deserves recognition as it motivated the government), but I am so happy to know that the people in my community are as excited about this as I am. I start giving business classes tomorrow, hopefully people show up.  I set it up in a way that gives people the option of coming to any or all of the classes.  We will start and finish each topic in on class, so if they are interested in costing and pricing but not marketing, they don’t need to attend that class.  I also decided to make them all free.  When I passed out the information about the classes, people seemed disinterested (even though when I asked them before if they’d be interested they all said ‘yes’).  We’ll see if anyone shows up. The technology center should be open this week and I should start giving classes (I have 53 students for a total of 4 classes, twice a week!) the next week.  I’ll start out with very basic computer classes and then we will start with more advanced things.  My project partner’s daughter, Lina, got a full scholarship to college and thinks she wants to study systems engineering.  She is worried about not being able to find a job so I’m hoping with this class and the technology volunteer I’m bringing in she can learn if she wants to study that or not.  All in all, things are going well here, even though we are still suffering from the effects of all the rain (still no internet and the roads are really washed out), and I’m very content at the moment.

That should be the saying here in the DR.  I just got back from vacation, which was fabulous, and started my journey home with more luggage than I could carry.  Normally, this would be a problem, but Dominicans are so accustomed to making exceptions for weird things, it really wasn’t.  After my bus from Santo Domingo to San Cristobal, I hauled by luggage out the window (easier than the door) and paid two boys 25 pesos (about 75 cents) each to carry my luggage with me to my bus stop for Los Cacaos.  When I get there the truck that was ready to leave was full except for room in the back, which I offered to take, but was told that was a very bad idea, it’s May, therefore, it’s raining.  Mind you, it wasn’t raining in San Cristobal, it didn’t even look like it was going to rain.  I relented and waited the 3.5 hours it was for the next bus to leave.  When this bus got there (a mini-van, really) we realized that with all of my crap, I would have to pay for an extra seat to keep it all inside, which wasn’t really a big deal to me, or I could not pay and strap it on top…if it was waterproof.  I considered this, since, again, it wasn’t raining, and I figured there wasn’t anything too important in my suitcase, but changed my mind and paid the extra fair. Thank God. After about 45 minutes, it starts sprinkling.  The farther we get up the mountain, the harder it is raining.  Then, we slow down and I wonder why.  I look down and realize that we are driving through a river that is meandering across the road.  Normally I am very trusting of these drivers, they do this multiple times a day, but there is a river going across the road.  Now, I see what they mean when it rains in May.  I was told it’s been raining since the 10th non-stop, it’s now the 19th.  We pass a bridge over a river-bed that I’ve never actually seen water run through before and notice that you could probably get a boat on it now.  As we pass through more rivers running across the road and it continues to pour, we finally reach my community.  Just as we do, the lights go out.  Great.  It’s dark, raining, and there is no electricity.  I get into my house just as one of my project partner’s sons is passing, so he helps me carry my stuff in and I notice a few water patches on my floor, but thankfully nothing is ruined.  My bed feels damp, but I can’t figure out if there’s a new roof leak or if it’s just that humid (I realized that it was just that humid), so I fall into my wet bed, exhausted, a weird mix of hot (from the humidity) and cold (from being pelted with rain), and fall asleep at 8pm. Now, there are many problems that come with this sort of rain.  First, pretty much everything stops.  There are no meetings, school, and lots of businesses are shut down.  Then, the electricity, which normally has a sort of pattern as to when it will work, goes off a lot more and for a greater amount of time.  When we do have electricity, the internet is down, so I can’t do the things I like to do, like post this blog (in fact, I’m wasting precious laptop battery writing this).  The cell phone signal is also going in and out, so communication out of my community is limited to land-lines (which a whopping two places in my community have) and driving out.  The pretty flowers that bloomed this spring got their petals ripped off by the rain and am I now lulled to sleep by the stream behind my house that has turned into a raging river. (Don’t worry, it’d have to rise about 10 feet to be of any threat to me) Getting back has given me a renewed faith in my community.  First, the technology center is about open.  In about a month it should be up and going and I will be teaching classes and figuring out how to fix the wide range of problems that arise on public use computers.  Second, the government finally listened to our cries and sent the engineer to look at our hospital and they’ve actually been making progress on getting it open.  They tell me the end of June, I’m hoping for the end of October. It was a GREAT vacation and I was so happy to see my friends and family.  It real life was like vacation, I probably wouldn’t have came back, but since it’s not, I’m back in my community, toughing out the rain, and hoping that this progress doesn’t slow down.  Oh, and on another positive note, the normally quiet, docile 8 month old baby, Carlos, that is my neighbor, is sick and therefore quite unhappy most of the time.  For how much I love children already, I’m now in heaven…

Food I Miss (notice the lack of chocolate/candy on the list, that’s because my family and friends are amazing and have been sending me some!):  pie, cake, ice cream, scallops, asparagus, lobster, crab, cereal, steak, mushrooms, bacon, Reese’s peanut butter cups, cinnamon rolls, goat cheese, muffins, sausage, creamy soups, cheese, toaster strudels, pizza, ranch dressing, nuts, donuts, milkshakes, beef jerky, sub-sandwich, chips & dip, root beer, cream soda, wine, fajitas, gyros, BW3’s boneless honey barbeque wings, Hostess cupcakes   Things I Miss (besides my family and friends!): vending machines, hot showers, air conditioning/heaters, carpet, flushing toilets, running water, electricity (that works and is always there), restaurants, TV, private cars/taxis, English, pets, mini-golf, seatbelts, diapers on kids, windows, mufflers, microwaves, Wal-Mart, washing machines, refrigerators 

On Tuesday we went to the Secretary of Public Health to try and pick a date to fix and open the hospital.  We went with a bunch of people who are leaders in the community, but don’t really know anything about the project.  They, of course, didn’t call ahead like I suggested, so the person they wanted to see wasn’t there.  So, we met with this other person, who, being a politician, dodged most of our questions.  He did finally point out to these people that the hospital that was built it WAY too big for our area, and maybe they’ll stop thinking that we’ll have operating rooms and 15 beds.  When we got to the point that the white girl (me) got some equipment donated and it’s just sitting there, we then started to get some progress made.  Not much, but enough that I think we might actually get the engineer down here to fix the building.  It was damaged in Hurricane Noel and it’s still not been fixed.  The big hurry in fixing the hospital is that May is the rainy month here and they don’t want it to get even more damaged.  I didn’t figure it could be THAT rainy, until last night, when it POURED all night.  Usually, I like the sound of the rain of my tin roof, but tonight it was so loud, even with ear plugs, it sounded like a thousand guns were shooting nonstop.  Apparently, cockroaches don’t like the rain and they all decided to invade my house last night.  Normally, I see about one a month, but last night, I woke to one crawling on my leg.  I jumped up and turned on the light (because of course, we have electricity at 1AM when everyone needs it) and saw the one inside my mosquito net and 4 other ones on the walls.  I killed the one in my mosquito net and tucked that sucker in a lot tighter.  Then, I killed 2 others before and the other two scurried off. Yesterday was a good day in that we finally did our cost and price analysis of the ecotourism project.  It was difficult to explain what we needed to do and keep people on course, but after two hours we finally got the first section done and realized why they are losing money.  Then, I showed them a pricing scheme that would make them make money, while still pleasing their tour operator.  They didn’t understand it at first, so I went to the internet to show them that’s how other tour operators price things all the time and it really wasn’t complicated.  Then, they were telling me that it was too expensive, which, while it is expensive, is the price needed to cover their costs.  I think they’re starting to realize that this tour isn’t such a great idea after all.  I did confirm in this meeting that it is the two women in the office who actually know and understand everything that is going on, even though they would never be elected to a position to make decisions, this time they basically wrote out what the man needed to say when he called the tour operator because he still didn’t understand what was going on. It is ONE WEEK until I leave!

Warning:  Not for those with a weak stomach or who are eating.  Consider yourself warned. Oh. My. God.  An area of my house smelled for a day, the area I work at.  It smelled kind of like diapers and kitty litter.  It was near a window, so I thought maybe it was coming from outside.  That window doesn’t open, so I just figured it would go away.  Then, the next morning, it smelled like what it was, a dead animal.  I figured it was a dead rat in one of the holes in my concrete wall or on top of the wall in the space before the roof starts.  I looked where I could, but I couldn’t find it, so I figured it was outside.  I brought my Dona over to tell me if my gas tank was still full (I don’t know how much it weighs empty, so I can never tell if it’s close to being empty).  I tell her about the smell.  Then, we see it.  On the floor.  A dead rat.  A big one.  It was partly eaten by maggots, and since it wasn’t there before, I can only assume the maggots moved it out of the nearby hole onto the floor.  It was disgusting.  Thank GOD my Dona was there so she could clean it up for me, I probably would have puked.  Just as I was feeling like the dirtiest human being ever for having a dead, half-eaten, maggot filled rat on the floor, she starts telling me of all the times a dead rat in her house as stumped her as to where it was hidden.  One was in the stove part of her oven (she only uses the stove top), one was on the space between the wall and the roof.  She described the hunt, the find, and the removal and disinfecting.  Just a normal part of life, right?

This week was “la Semana Santa” which means, as you all know, Holy Week.  Here, they celebrate all week, from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday.  That means, no work, no school, no nothing.  It was rather boring for me, because I don’t have a bunch of friends here, but for everyone else it was a big party.  People swam in the river and drink and a bunch of people not from here come up here to swim in the river too.  With all these visitors I’ve realized how much more integrated into my community I am.  I don’t get so many cat-calls and people questioning who I am anymore, but since people have arrived for the week, I’ve been getting a lot of it.  It’s very annoying, but good to know that I am fitting into my community well enough that that stuff is going away some. On Friday, my host mom called me and said, “I’m calling to tell you not to cook today, you’re going to come eat here.”  OK.  Eating there was nothing special, but then they made habichuelas con dulce.  Literally, sweet beans.  I tried them once, they were gross.  But, my host mom is a good cook and the ones she made weren’t that bad.  It’s liquefied red beans stewed in sugar, milk, and spices.  It’s definitely not for everyone.  She also made these fried yam balls which were then soaked in this juice of spices, and there were FANTASTIC, I’m definitely getting the recipe.  I tried getting my “video diary” up on the internet, but the internet is too slow here to make it work before my blog times out.  I will do another one and post it for next week as I will be in the capital for a couple days and can use faster internet.  I hopefully will be getting a yoga mat (to work on my flab), a cooking dutch oven, and a bunch of other little things to make life better.  I am also hoping some packages that you guys have sent me are on their way and will be there when I get there! I also realized I will have to do a lot of campaigning for this doctor and clinic and hospital to get people to use it.  A couple nights ago there was a car accident.  This is quite rare here.  The people found transportation and went to San Cristobal to the hospital because they knew the clinic here couldn’t do much for them.  But, here’s the rub, San Cristobal is an hour drive.  They waited an hour to be seen by any doctor just because this doctor couldn’t “do much.”  It took a lot to convince them that while he could not have “done much” he could have stopped the bleeding with clean bandages instead of shirts and checked for any signs of things that needed to be done immediately to prevent a lot of serious problems or death.  They really didn’t understand that taking them to this doctor for a 5 or 10 minute assessment could save the people’s life and wouldn’t exactly tack on too much to the hour drive they were going to make.  If it were that severe, I’m sure the doctor would have even gone with them to try and stabilize the patients in the car.  Getting people to see things that way will be a challenge.

As promised, pictures of my flower wall, covered in a map and your cards.  Every card I've received is up there, I want to fill it by November 2010, so keep them coming!

So, I gave my English class a test.  They failed.  All of them by US standards.  And these are people who are teaching in the high school.  So, I decided to pass 6 of them to level 2.  The thing is, the test was easy, it's just that they are so used to being passed without learning anything, none of them even tried.  It was very frustrating, and I'm almost ready to just give up on them.

Espejo=mirror.

It seems as though mirrors are the one thing no volunteer has in their house.  Why?  They're not that expensive.  But, here's the rub, let's say you go into town to buy a mirror (it's not like you can buy them at your site), then you have to get it home.  The busses and not exactly conducive to transporting a mirror safely.  By some miracle, you get it home safely, you then have to find a way to hang it in your house.  Most likely you have cement walls, so you have to find someone to come put a nail in for you, since you don't have power tools.  It's just a hassle.  So, when we do come to places that have mirrors, you may be seeing yourself for the first time in a long time and you completely forgot that you even use a mirror.  You see yourself and think, "woah, hey there...who's that?  Haven't changed much, that's good"  Then you forget why you used to stand in front of a mirror and used one every day.  Until you see the mirror a few times a day for a few days in a row, and then you want one again.  I think I'm going to buy a mirror.The video is a tour of my house.  You have to turn your volume up really loud to hear my voice.  In case you can’t hear, I’ll write what you’re seeing.  First, is the dining room/work area.  There’s my table and the ugly flower wall that is going to be covered up soon.  The window in that room would go to the house next to me, but it’s covered up on the other side.  Next is the kitchen.  You can see my stove and my blue tank that holds water that I bring in from the outside faucet.  The red bowls you see are what I wash my dishes in, the big one is for washing and the little one is for rinsing.  When I’m done, I throw the water out the back door.  Then you go into my bedroom and see my bed and then I open the back door and show you the “bathroom”.  The toilet doesn’t flush, so you have to through water down it.  To shower, I stand in that room and dump water on myself and just let it fall out between the tin wall and the floor and the dirt soaks up the water.

Current Clinic

New Hospital

Doctor

I've been asked to upload some pictures of the hospital, clinic, and doctor.  The doctor is about done with his year of practice (kind of like a residency) and then will probably leave the area.  We are looking for a doctor that is used to the rural area and would want to live here, but that's hard to find.  We had a woman doctor for about two weeks and she didn't like it.  The government can't find doctors for here, so they send people here for their one year residency.  As a result, we get inexperienced doctors that have no committment to the area and will leave in a year.  This will be hard to break, but we at least need to get more than one of these residents for the time being.  The other thing is nurses.  We have a couple trained nurses in the town, but the government hasn't ordered them to work in Los Cacaos, they travel to Cambita or San Cristobal to work, even though there is a need for them to work here.

The hospital is what I am trying to equip.  The clinic is what they use now.  It's run down and not adequate.  The municipal police will take over this building shortly as they tore down the old building to build the new high school.  The hospital building was built by a foreign NGO about 7 years ago and has yet to be used.  With this equipment we can get into the hospital and better serve our people.  The last piece of the equipment puzzle is an inversor, so hopefully I can meet with the public health people next week.

I spoke to the new group of trainees yesterday, it's good not to be the "newbies" anymore.  On Thursday-Sunday my neighbor, Claire, will have one of these volunteers staying with her to see how she lives, so that will be fun as well.  

When you first walk into my house, you see this.

The two neighbor girls, Milkely and Hilary, they helped me move.

my kitchen, behind the flower wall in the first picture.

The backdoor, leading out from my bedroom.

My bed and mosquito net.

The people who "helped" me clean my house...in actually, they did everything and I stood there.  They are Mirta (Milkely's mom), Luz (my host mom), and Chulino (one of my project partner's sons)

I have finally moved into my little house.  It's actually a part of another house with a wall down the middle.  It took forever to move because I had to install electricty and fix a bunch of stuff, windows, locks, and the bathroom door.  I share an outside bathroom with the neighbors, which isn't a problem, it was a problem though when the door wouldn't shut, I didn't like the idea of my neighbors walking in on me showering.  All is fixed now and I have moved all my stuff (although its not all put away) and I will sleep there for the first time tonight!  My neighbors are all great people, I live in the teacher/professionals neighborhood.  My immediate neighbors (the ones on the other side of the wall) are both university graduates and one is a teacher, the mom stays at home and takes care of their 8 month old son.  They have internet which will be good in case I need to do something quick and don't want to walk to my host family's house.  I am definitely spoiled.  On the other side is a colmado (which is like a convenience store, kind of) so I barely have to open my door to get food (I really don't even have to open my door because my window opens to the back of their store, so I could just tell them from the window what I want).

I was just about done with the ecotourism grant proposal when I went in to see one of our advisors about the budget.  She looks and the budget and says, "This looks very familiar, I think I'm doing the same thing you are."  Turns out we were both filling out the SAME grant and didn't know it!  It was both a good and bad thing.  Good because we put ours together and got the best of both, bad because we both would have saved time had we been working on it together.  At least now we can turn it in and have a good shot at actually getting the money.

I am going to the capital the 12th and 13th to get my green card, which is a stupid process and I'm mad I even have to go (I have to go to sign the paper, that's it) but I can check my mail and hopefully some of the medical supplies will be there.  I have had such great support with that project from my mom and that has really put me in the good graces of the community.  The next step is to continue working with the government to get full time doctors and nurses (they found us another doctor, but I guess she doesn't like it and wants to leave.  The other issue is that there are trained nurses that LIVE in our community but have to travel every day to the city to work, it would be great if the government would pay them to work here, we don't have one single nurse).  The other step is finding someone to get us an inversor.  That is a type of power generator and we need that because the power here is only on about 50% of the time.  

After meeting the Sec. of Public Health twice and a trip to Santo Domingo, so progress is being made.     First, hospital project.  I've met with the Public Health Secretary for my province twice and at first she was very confusing and her ideas were very far fetched, but the second time she seemed much more open to starting with opening our hospital in the Los Cacaos center first before trying to bring NINE doctors (while we currently don't even have one) to the area.  It also sounds like she is very optimistic about being able to find two part time doctors (one for the week and one for the weekend) and at least two part time nurses.  My job is still to bring in the equipment and the trip to Santo Domingo proved fruitful as my boss gave me permission to use his a special mail-box to bring down the supplies=lots of $ savings for mom!  Hopefully the stuff will be here fairly shortly and I can start getting the hospital open for business.  At first they didn't want to use the equipment without a permanent doctor until I explained we should at least let this doctor do the best job he can for the time he's here.     Ecotourism project:  Me not being here for 4 days because I was working in Santo Domingo gave my ecotourism counterparts time to get some thinking and work done.  I got about half of what I wanted, but that's half more than I expected and I should get the rest in a couple days.  Then it's on to the bigger project, in Spanish, and much more in depth, the 2nd pass of the grant writing project.  Even if we don't get the grant, we'll at least be on this organization's radar and can apply again next year and use this year to get up to speed.  I also found out our tour is being advertised online!  http://www.tequiaexperiences.com/  Go to full-day tours and pick the coffee experience, that's a picture of a street in my town!  We are only the part of the coffee picking, processing, and tasting, the meal is at a restaurant on the way to town that I can't afford to eat at...and it's also a German restaurant...talk about your Dominican Experience.   House:  It's official, I've found one!  It's tiny compared to what other volunteers can afford for the same price, but I'll take what I can get considering the housing in my area.  It's three "rooms", a living room, bedroom, and a room I will turn into a kitchen.  It doesn't have water inside, so I have to carry it in from the outside, but it's not that bad.  I have to share my outside toilet and shower area with my neighbors, but that won't be that bad either.  I am paying to get lights installed and the locks changed and then I will move in, hopefully next week sometime!  When they are finished cleaning it and I'm moving in, I will take and post pictures.

On Monday of last week one of my project partner's sons and I (see last post) went to a training for Peace Corps.  We presented my diagnostic, which went suprisingly well, and then did two days of planning for my first year-ish of service.  This went really well and I was glad that I ended up taking this guy instead of my real project partner, and all the other volunteers wished they had someone has smart and interested as my partner.  We decided that my two main projects would be the hospital and the ecotourism project.

The Hospital:  We have this huge hosptial building that is not being used.  We don't have a permanent doctor, but we are a zone of 10,000 people.  The plan is to equip the hospital building by in-kind donations (thanks Mom!  if you've got some medical equipment or supplies lying around, give me a shout...) and using an organization called Infante Sano (Healthy Baby).  While the government has $ (or so I've been told) to equip this hospital, they have yet to do so.  We are going to talk to the Office of Public Health in our province and try to get her to sign a contract that if we equip the hospital they will finally fullfill their obligation to staff it with a permanent medical staff.  The best part about this was when I suggested this to my project partners they were super excited and said, "If she doesn't say yes, we'll go straight to the capital office".  It's good to know they are 100% behind me on this and really want to make it work.  Long term vision:  medical mission in our now open hospital with my mom, step-mom, sister, and others in March 2010.

Ecotourism Project:  There is a brand new USAID project in the DR to help local, community based ecotourism projects.  These projects are great because they provide the most money directly to the community (ie, not huge, foreign owned hotels) and sustain the environment and share the culture.  Developing my site's ecotourism project is the reason my site wanted me.  I was a little skeptical because they have somewhat unrealistic expectations for this project.  Thankfully, with this new project, someone in authority will tell them how it is and they will realize what I've been telling them all along.  It's a great idea, but you're not going to get enough tourists to warrant 20 full-time guides.  In reality, we don't WANT enough tourists to warrant 20 full-time guides, for how small our area is, that would take away from the essence of ecotourism, and I think they are starting to see that.  Hopefully this USAID project will help with that and we could get $50,000 to develop our site (I have yet to tell them that, as money tends to blur people's visions.)

So, that was the ups.  Now for the downs:Sadie died.  I did get to see her the day she died over SKYPE, but it's not the same.  It sucks to go through that here because they don't have pets like we do and no one really understood why I was crying.  When I explained that it was my dog, my Dona asked me if it was really something else, like being homesick, and that she really didn't want me to go home (they know we can, technically, leave whenever we want and not stay two years).  So, mourning my beautiful princess was kind of a loss.

Then, my project partner told me they found me a house for RD$1500!  Perfect price.  Plus, it was right next to the association, great location, and it was in really good shape with a bathroom inside!  They were going to change the blinds and I'd be set.  This was yesterday.  Today, he tells me that the person who's renting it has family that wants it now and I can't move in there and we're back at square one.  I'm not a happy camper about this.  

It's been raining straight in the entire country and we are all on flood and landslide watch.  Telling people you enjoy watching the rain here is like telling someone in the US you like watching their house burn down.  With all the damage rain and hurricanes bring, they don't see the beauty in it, understandably, anymore.

I went to my first birthday party here on Thursday. It was for my project partners twins, they turned 18. The girl, Lina, is my "best" friend here, she helps me out a lot and she's taking English courses, so I help her a lot as well. The party was a surprise, and it was really fun. Then, they decided to play a game. The game was this: a person read strips of paper that had things people had to perform on them, mostly dancing. For example, one of them was for the twins to dance with eachother, one was for my project partner to dance with his daughter. Then there were things like, the people wearing glasses or red shirts, or things like this. There was one that said, the person with the lightest hair, by default, me. Then there was one about the person with the straightest hair, again, me. I wiggled my way out of that one, but it was a little humiliating.

Then, my host brother got crabs from the river for us to eat. They are small, but good. We cooked the whole thing and then, ate it. First, trying to crack those suckers open with no tools was hard. Then, once you did get them open, the shells aren't like ocean crabs and you'd get little pieces of shell everywhere, like sand. Then, after you eat the legs, you tear into the body. It was at this point that my host brother realized my crab was carrying baby crabs in her tail. At first he was like, "that sucks that we killed all those babies", then, he was like, "but you're lucky because you get to eat them". HA! I was not about to eat a bunch of baby crabs that looked like head-lice. So, he did. It was nasty. Then, I busted the body apart and ate the meat on the inside. He asked me why I wasn't eating the rest, meaning the guts and fatty stuff, I said, I refused to eat that but he could help himself....and he did. My stomache had turned by then and I was done eating crab for the night, but we still have a lot of crabs left to cook. Plus, he is going to get some people together to go crab hunting one night, so that should be fun.

Until next time...

Rats: I think there may be one living in my box spring. My bed has a box spring, a mattress, and then a mattress pad on top. A few nights ago I started feeling like something was running through my mattress. I turned on the light and it stopped. Then I felt something tugging on my mosquito net. I realize, it's probably a rat. So I open my mattress and realize, thank God, it can't be living in there, but there is a hole in my box spring and it's probably living there. Since my mosquito net was tucked between the mattress and the box spring, it was probably trying to chew some of it off for bedding. We were going to kill it with poision but the thought of a rotting rat in my box spring isn't that appealing. So, we are continuing to try and trap it, but he's a tricky little bugger.

English: The other volunteer near here and I started our community English classes on Sunday. We still teach in the high school, but this is for whoever wants it, including high school students who want more. We have a huge turnout (like always for the first meetings of things like this), including the principal and the high school English teachers (who, in reality, don't speak a lot of English) The teachers insisted that we start a class just for them, because they want to learn the methodology of teaching English. We relented on the condition that all the adults take one class and the younger students take another. Here comes our two problems: 1-Neither Claire or I know the "methodology" of teaching English, and in reality there are only two teachers that need to know this. Plus, as they already teach English, the methodology should already be known, right? 2-Since we had so many students, we wanted to split it into two classes, but to us, the logical way to split them was to put the students who already had some English knowledge in one and those who don't in another. They thought it was smarter to put adults in one and students in the other, never mind some adults know nothing and some teach English and some students know a lot and some have never been exposed. Heaven forbid a teacher sits in the same class as a child. So now, some of them will be pushed to go faster than they should and others will drop out because they are being taught stuff they already know. Will be interesting.

Luz: Translation, light. When the lights go out here the saying is "La luz se fue", meaning "the light went out." The last few days have been one storm after another and the "luz" has "se fue" a ridiculous amount of time, as has the internet. It is still shocking to me, even though the lights go out all the time here, people are still almost shocked when it happens a lot. I sit on the porch and watch the high school kids cheer (They go to school at night and if there isn't any light or it goes out, school is cancelled).

Thanksgiving is in a week and I am super excited. The volunteers put on this huge feast in the capital, so I actually get Thanksgiving type food!

At this point in my service, you'd think I'd be better at being prepared for anything. Usually, I am, these past two days, I have not been.

Sunday morning I was working on the PPS grant when one of my project partners came in to see if I wanted to go take pictures of the walking path that they wanted money from PPS to repair. It was 9:30 and Claire was going to be there sometime in the afternoon, so I thought, yes, perfect, I have plenty of time and I need these pictures. So I hop up and go with him. We get in a truck and drive for an HOUR through this windy road. Still, optimistic, I think I will hop out, take a picture or two, and come back. No, now we have to walk the ENTIRE path because he wants me to see the end (granted, it's beautiful and the end is also in need of a picture). Keep in mind we are walking a path that they need a grant to fix because it is so trashed from the storm and I am wearing flip flops because I thought I would just take some pictures and go. It takes another 2 hours to get up and back down the path and then another hour to get back into town. It is now 1:30. I arrive home to find Claire who came down to eat lunch with us at 11 sitting there. I felt awful, she was at least used to this.

Then, the whole reason Claire came down was to go the river as mentioned in the previous post. So I get everyone together and then the search for the way to get there starts. Finally we get together 4 motorcycles and jam 2 to 4 people on each. As we're driving up I am riding with a 3 year old who gets car sick and starts puking all over the moto. Then, since the storm, no one knows where the best places to swim are. We drive around for an hour before finally heading back to almost where we started to swim there. By this time it is 4:30 and kind of chilly. We all froze to death as we sat in the waterfall (you need to swim by the waterfalls because they carve out a deep enough pool, the rest is too shallow). Then, wet, we drove home in the dusk, freezing our butts off.

On Monday I found out I should be going to Azua with my project partner and some youth to a youth conference. My project partner assures me that as we are leaving at 7AM, we will be back early and I will be able to finish the grant that was due Tuesday (today). I did not realize Azua is a 2.5 hour drive, at least, from here and that when he said "temprano" he meant before dark. As it turns out we didn't even arrive home before dark, more like 8:30. What was incredibly funny though was the guy who was presenting on the environment was an imported white guy wearing a STURGIS BIKE RALLY t'shirt! I was laughing so hard and asked him where he got it, apparently his friend went and brought it back for him. I wish I had my camera, it was so funny.

Today, when I tried to work on the grant, I had the unpleasant surprise that last nights rains knocked out the internet so I could not get the updates I needed. So, instead, I started washing my clothes (which, to say the least, is a process that cannot just be left if interrupted). Then, about half way through, my partner called me that the internet was one and he wanted this sent ASAP. I half-assed the washing of the rest of my clothes and left to use the internet while it was still working.

Either way, I strung together the grant today and while I am not that confident in it because it is not exactly on the lines of what PPS wants, we will see. They have been confident in my community before so maybe the familiarity of their success will push us over into the finalist round. That would be a nice early big win for me.

As for now I am listening to my host brothers list of American music which includes the likes of the Backstreet Boys, Hillary Duff, High School Musical, and a lot of Alicia Keys, the pop princess of the DR right behind Shakira. Can't wait to see what tomorrow brings.

Well, this is officially the end of my first week. Some comments:

The grant issue is hard. I do not speak the best spanish and everything is in spanish. Plus, the people working on the grant with me are not all on the same page and I am really thinking their proposal is not what the UNDP has in mind and we will not get this grant. I guess we will see. It is also hard because we only had a week to put this together.

My computer crashed. The harddrive is gone. I got nothing saved. I need to buy a new one. This majorly sucks.

I am going to start teaching English to my own class next Sunday. Should be interesting. Hopefully they pay attention.

Today I went with Claire (the PCV next to me) and her environmental youth group to a small waterfall in the river to swim and pick up trash. It was fun, but it continues to amaze me how different our towns are even though they are very close to eachother. For example, most of the men that came with us (to help carry the trash, but more to gawk at the girls) were fairly sleazy, by American standards anyway. None of the older men could read or write. The youngs girls (12 to 13 years old) all had boyfriends that were older than 18 and they were expected to marry at 14 or 15. In my town, nearly everyone can read, the men are polite, and many people my age are just getting married or waiting.

Tomorrow my host brother, Claire, and some other friends here and I are going to another part of the river. At least everything here is beautiful. Hopefully I will get a new computer fairly soon and be able to send more pictures.

This is my Dona from Santo Domingo, Ramona, and me on our swearing in day.

I am officially a volunteer. I know what you're thinking: "What the hell have you been doing down there for 2 months if you're not a volunteer?" Training. And now, it's done. I'm headed to Los Cacaos (see previous post) for two years in about two hours. By myself. With my luggage. Going to be pretty horrible. Wish me luck.

I actually have a pretty big week planned. On Monday I will go back to San Cristobal to meet with another coffee association and have a meeting about a UNDP grant that my association is going to apply for. The preliminary paper is due on Friday and this is the first meeting about it, so I'll be super busy (hopefully) helping prepare that. My spanish will definately be tested. My knowledge of development will be tested as well. The grant is super competitive so keep your fingers crossed for me.

On Tuesday our first real group of tourists comes to take the tour. The test tours have not gone so well, I'm hoping that this one will go better. If not, we can start making adjustments. It will be interesting to see. Also on Tuesday, my boss is coming out to see how things are going at my site and make sure it's all going OK.

Also on Tuesday is elections. I am going to try and find some place with cable (not likely) or hover by our radio and hope the electricity doesn't go out and the signal stays strong. Also, not likely. If anyone would like to text me the results, I can get them Wednesday when I go to a neighboring town with cell phone service (By the way, my new number is 1-829-990-2364).

Last night we went downtown to an American-ish bar for Halloween. It's not really a big holiday here, but it's starting to catch on. I did not dress up since most of my clothes are at my site, but some other people did. I also took some pictures (which aren't up here yet because my computer is being stupid) to show my sister that we celebrated her birthday without her since she chose to go to London instead of here. Look for those later.

I have a feeling it will be awhile before I'm on here again (unless, miraculously, the internet starts working at the office again). Keep your fingers crossed.

That is my official assignment. I will be working with a Coffee growers association. They are pretty on the game with their coffee, they export and are organicially certified, but they are starting a ¨Ruta de Cafe¨ tour for tourists in Santo Domingo that they need help on. On top of that their community was devestated by hurricanes last year and they still need helping getting things back to normal. I have a lot of ideas and am anxious to get started.

The downside: The town, as of now, has no cell phone service or internet. They promise me that in a couple weeks, at the most, there will be both. I have my doubts.

The upside: The area is gorgeous. It is a mountain covered in rain forest. Also, I am lucky to be place really close to another volunteer and we already have collaboration ideas. It will be nice to work with her.

So, besides not being able to communicate with the outside world, it should be a good next two years. The family I live with is nice and their son works as the assistant to the mayor, so I have some connections with him too. Aside from being super bored some times (I am going to put down a lot of books), the last few days went well and I am excited to finish up in Santo Domingo and go back and work there. Hopefully I can eventually put up pictures too.

Also, my cell phone number is going to change. It should work for this week, but I´m getting a different carrier, one that is actually supposed to start service in my area....eventually.

This is the waterfall I jumped off in the last blog....

We went to Higuerito to an artisan’s fair put on by the Secretary of Culture. It was really interesting because the entire thing was basically coordinated by a Peace Corps volunteer in my sector (CED). The town is known for its artisans and she works with a group of them there, so she put on this fair and the Secretary of Culture got involved. Then he declared Saturday as the National Day of Artisans. There were all the artists and their works and we also got to see some of their shops and see some of them create their pieces. Most of it is clay pottery or clay figurines. Then there was a community band and some baton twirlers and lots of music. It was cool to see such a huge celebration that was put together by a PCV. She is leaving this year and someone from our group is probably going to take her spot and continue working with the artisans.

We had our final interviews with our director and now we are all super anxious to find out where we are going. All the other sectors (health, youth, and water) know where they are going to live the next two years, but we don’t! I’d rather her take her time and put us in the sites that are right for all of us, but I am so anxious to find out what I will be working in and where in the country I will be living.

On Saturday we leave to go back to Santo Domingo. It will be such a pain because we have to take our luggage on public transportation. Then, on Tuesday we meet our project partners from the communities we will be living in and leave for the rest of the week to our sites. It’s hard to believe training is almost over and we will all be leaving each other soon. It’s going to be hard to be by myself at first. I'll update you all on Monday (hopefully) when I get my site assignment!

My name is Brittany. I kill scorpions. Those of you that know me from home know that I am terrified of scorpions. I hate scorpions and bees. That’s it. No other animals really bother me except scorpions and bees. As Amy and I were walking home the other night we passed Jesse’s house. We hear him yell, “Hey guys, there’s a scorpion in my bed!” We rush inside to find him alone, sans Dona, with a scorpion caught in his mosquitero. He had tried smashing it with his helmet against the mattress, but that didn’t work. His pocket knife was right there so I took it (some how my fear of scorpions wasn’t there) and I impaled the little guy. Still refusing to fully die, Amy slid a hard object under him so I could squish him even more. It was a great experience even though I probably won’t have the same valor if the scorpion is any bigger or not caught in a mosquitero.

We took an amazing trip to a near by campo called Los Buoeys (that’s probably not how you spell it, but it’s close). There is a Peace Corps Volunteer near there working with ecotourism. They are building cabanas on the valley near a hiking spot. We walked on the trail and it ended in this gorgeous waterfall. We got to swim in the pool under the waterfall and climb up the waterfall and jump in! I didn’t get a good picture of me actually jumping (I have before and after shots), but I think one of our professors did so I’ll share that when I get it. The whole ride out there and back was beautiful as well. Sitting in the back of a truck, driving through palm tree covered mountains and overlooking a valley is amazing, especially when it’s your JOB! It was a great day at the office.

Last weekend I got to visit an IT volunteer in a town near Santiago. I was glad to see that Santiago is much more pleasant than the capital. I had a great time and got to eat BURGER KING, along with awesome BBQ chicken and French toast. I can’t wait to get my own place and eat American food again!

Since the last time I wrote I have gone to Noche, Noche, Noche de Espuma, had a fever and vomiting, rode in the back of a pick-up around a mountain side on pretty sketchy roads, and gone to the Hermanas Maribel museum.

Noche de Espuma should have been called Noche sin Espuma. The foam machine barely worked. We got the 200 peso entry fee down to 100 pesos and Marissa and I scored some free drinks by looking American (I was told by a family I looked like Barbie), so all was not completely lost. At the end of the night Amy and Kelly got hot dogs from a street vendor and we got in a taxi to go home. They played American dance music the whole time, from “Jump Around” (think 1994ish) to “Get Low.” While Dominicans don’t know the words to “Get Low” they sure know how to. I have never seen so much “sex on a dance floor” in my life... even in American clubs.

The combination of staying out late at Noche de Espuma and walking to all the barrios that day (probably about 6 miles or so in the Caribbean sun) made me an exhausted and dehydrated person the next day. I threw up my breakfast and spent the rest of the day in bed with a fever. It wasn’t all the bad because it passed that night and I felt a lot better the next day, but you feel like an animal in the zoo when you get sick. Your Dona tells everyone (even people that call from far away) that the American is sick. Then they discuss why you are sick and how you can get better. One thing that was sweet (and a weird) was my Dona blessed my stomach by saying prayers to it and making a cross symbol over it.

We went to a couple other neighboring campos farther up the mountain and saw some agro-forestry projects. They were very interesting and I definitely wouldn’t mind working in that field. The most fun part, though, was riding around to these farms (not like you’re thinking, when I say farm, I mean a patch of land with a TON of different kinds of plants on it, not like corn fields you see in the US.) We rode in the back of pick-ups (normal enough if you’re from South Dakota), but through really rocky roads that were steep and windy. It was a lot of fun.

Then we went to the house/museum of the Hermanas Maribel (the Maribel sisters that were assasinated by the dictator Trujillo.) It was really cool to see that kind of history. The sisters were incredible and we got to meet the one surviving sister. The story is (if you don't know) that when Trujillo (a pretty evil dictator here from 1930s-1960s) was getting really bad, these sisters started getting into a resistance movement. They were jailed and an international protest got them out, but not their husbands. They went to see their husbands in prison and on the way home Trujillo's men stopped them, killed them, and then sent the car over a cliff to make it look like an accident. People realized it wasn't and that was the unifying factor that got the resistance to finally kill Trujillo. International Women's Day (March 8th) is set on that day in memory of the day these sisters were killed. One sister, Dede, did not go on the trip and survived and turned their house into a memorial museum, and we met her today.

Saturday I leave to spend the weekend in a pueblo near Santiago with another volunteer. Should be interesting because she didn't give me the greatest directions....wish me luck!