Las Batatas Water System Inauguration, September 24, 2011

*Tim Hall, owner of the nearby ecolodge in Tubagua, took this photo

I officially finished my Peace Corps service this last Saturday, after a voluntary two-month extension. While my Peace Corps duties are over, I’m still hanging around on the island for the next couple of months. I fell in love with a native and decided that with my new technical skills, I can make a living as the plumber of the Las Batatas Water System.

That was a joke.

Not a joke. After taking an Open Water Scuba Diving Course, I fell in love with diving and so I’m here doing an internship with The Dive Academy in Las Galeras, Samana. There isn’t much diving in winter in Maine, or in any New England season for that matter. And I can’t think of a better or more opportune time to live in the Caribbean and enhance my dive qualifications. So there you have it.

Don’t expect me home for the holidays. But I do hope you’ll consider a Caribbean adventure and give me a jingle in the New Year.

I send you my love and good wishes. Please be in touch. I miss you all terribly.

I left my house at 7:30 and the men had already left for the hills. Almost a year since we planted our first PVC pipes and now, as the construction of our water system “take-two” is nearly complete, the work brigades begin the tedious job of unearthing the original pipeline.

Its really comparable to digging potatoes, let’s say, sweet potatoes because we’re living in Las Batatas which means “the sweet potatoes” in Spanish. You plant batatas, they grow, and then you dig them up and use them. No good campesino would leave a crop of batata to rot in the ground, especially if the crop values some 50,000 pesos, about the equivalent of 1,350 US dollars.

With this perspective, asking my community to pull up 120 PVC pipes that were buried in the ground last year, knowing that we will use them to complete the pipeline in the new system seems like campo logic. There aren’t enough funds remaining in the project bank to buy a complete set of pipes for the new system, but what we lack in money, we make up for in big guns, aka strong able-bodied men.

To rewind…in August, a property owner along the proposed pipeline of the Las Batatas water system refused to sign permission for the water project to build within his private cow pasture. The man was unrelenting in his position and the community was left in disbelief. I mean really, how can anyone deny an entire community the right to tap water? My Program Director announced that he would come to the village to help assess the status of the project. The community had potentially lost their chance to build a water system. If property owners along the pipeline won’t give permission, if the water from the spring can’t be re-directed along an alternative route , if there isn’t another water source, well, then Peace Corps pulls out.

Thankfully, I had taken the time in the initial community diagnostic to visit various springs besides the one that we chose for the original design. I suspected that one of these springs would work, and so I presented the plan to the community leaders that we measure the spring’s potency and survey a potential pipeline route. People reluctantly joined me in surveying a new system, all the while hoping that something would magically change and that we would continue with the first project.

The new spring and the new design, were incredibly promising. I presented the plan to the community in October and explained that we would need permission from all the landowners, in writing, before starting. The pipes purchased for the other project, functioned for the alternative system, meaning that work could begin immediately and also making that the new system economically feasible. I ordered that work start at the spring catchment tank and follow down the conduction line to the community. Everyday of work, the people could let the water run through the pipes, visually affirming their progress in bringing piped water to the families of Las Batatas.

On December 6th, I purchased the materials for the spring catchment box and work began on the 7th for the two day tank construction.

And from there, the project took off. We worked January through til March, spent a week on the storage tank and then started down the hill toward the community where we are now in the process of connecting each house to the main distribution line.

The catch. We still have 120 PVC pipes buried discreetly in private cow pastures above the community. The remains of an ill-fated first attempt. Now that we are nearing the end of the construction, there is a shortage of pipes and the only way to move forward is to go back and undo our handy work.

I really doubted that the day of digging up pipes would ever come. People swore to me that they would never do the same work twice. I expected I’d have to make mock departure, pack my bags and threaten to leave for good, before they’d grab a pick-axe and recover the pipes.

But today I was impressed. A brigade showed up early and with five men, a boy, and myself at the rear, we pulled out 26 pipes intact. The men were positive, the work came naturally. And while the work is far from over, I am beginning to reevaluate the capacity of the people of Las Batatas. These ragtag bands that can’t come to work on time (if at all), that gossip and tire easily, leaving the job site early. Their endless complaining. Their irresponsibility and the imperfection of the work.

Today, the brigade captain led the charge and was unbreakable. He pushed the men to dig up more pipes, knowing that he was the first to brave the job and would thus set the precedent. The men were in good spirits and didn’t complain. As a team we were encouraged by our progress and ready to take on the tough work ahead.

It was a good day. When work wrapped up, I rolled down the hill to the Doña’s house, gulped cold water and supped a cafecita, basking in success. I then recruited a crew of girls and boys and we took off to the creekbed where we threw ourselves from one cold natural tub to the next, tumbling down the canyon waterfalls to the river below.

Intercambio

Beach Trip to Playa Cangrejo with youth from my community and from the community of a neighboring volunteer, Justin. The group did a trash pick-up, built stick houses and competed in relay races. The day was supported with funds from Kids to Kids (check out their website)

Encounters en la loma

Risen.

To realize termites are consuming my bed. My NEW BED. Custom-made.

My dollhouse is crumbling around me...

And my enemigo raton is scampering along the zinc panels of my roof as I write.

I wake. Restless. Prepare cafe...Its already 5am.

And encounter my "Fiddler on the Roof" perched above the food cabinet. Daring me to open the treasure chest.

MERCI!

The daily duel to fight for a right to a tranquilo existence is butting up against the fury, creepy-crawly, squawky, squeaky, pajaritos.

Just the other day, in the midst of preparing a concrete floor for a latrine I am constructing in the back patio, I get a hairy surprise...

I go to the old outdoor kitchen, the rama', outfitted with a 3-stone firepit and cacao-masher. Old PVC pipes from a previous failed private water system hang in the rafters like molding spaghetti. I pull one out to make a mold for the ventilation tube in the latrine floor and as I tilt the tube down to pull it out, SWOOSH! and down slides Mickey, PLOP!, right on my head. He flails onto the ground with the force of my convulsions and screaming. And its a CHOMP and the neighbor's dog bites the thing hole, until the eyeballs pop out of the sockets.

Por Fin! Enough!

My project is presently on hold due to a land dispute. Absentee land owners, a frazzled nervous vieja with her ex-Trujillo Policia of a marido to refer to them in campesino terms, are opposed to passing pipeline over their heirloom farmland. But here in Las Batatas we're flies caught in the honey jar...red-handed so to speak. Some 100 pipes are already buried 2 feet underground and a termite trail crawls right over the landowners' hillsides.

What now?!

We can't just pull the 50 pipes out. And we can't just abandon the project.

The landowners initially responded positively to the project construction. In campesino terms, they had the stamp of approval....under "la mata de 'mendra" the word was a GO. And then the son caretaker who cares for the cows had agreed and given us the pass to start digging. The son was there fixing the fences and tending the finca while we were sweating in the trenches on his family's land.

But. And there's the rub. I had told the community back in March that we needed documented confirmation from all landowners. We had marched up to talk to the two local owners near the water source already. And then my Dona's husband owns the other finca. This stretch of pipeline was the last straw. I went down one night with the alcalde (emotional sheriff of the community) when the woman was in town for the weekend. But she was a nervous-wreck when we arrived at the her neighbors. So we left without even a saludo.

When I go this last time to talk to the jefes, its a big N-O. Oh no you don't pass those pipes inside my finca.

I had gone down to the family's house in the neighboring pueblo of Yasica across from the church while they were in town for an anniversary funeral. A rainy dark day. The only community member who agreed to work on the permission was a younger woman in her 30s, a niece of my Dona. But of no aquaintance with the owners and their former life as Batatateros. Somehow, my Dona and the alcalde, both amigos by family of the owners, refused to join me on such a critical diligencia to secure the success of the water system project. Hmmm

And now I understand.

The husband was duro. We entered the conversation and he was aready livid and tired of me.

I felt crushed

I left defeated

Had I just waisted a year for nothing? To see a project of good-intention frozen by a cold hand.

I returned to Las Batatas to present the news. And tossed in bed that night, unable to sleep. Think.

I felt like a failure.

How had this been over-looked? I had worked, beginning in March to get permission from land owners. It just wasn't a good time when we went down the first time to communicate with the aforementioned landowners. The woman was a set of nerves and couldn't be seen.

But the question stands...when?

I pushed the community for the permission. But then, somehow, the fact that Milito, caretaker, family-member, confirmed to "Go Ahead" and work, we started.

I gave in then...Agreeing to this halfway pass.

The day after the fateful meeting with the owner, the community was prepped to lug sand from the river for various water crossings, the spring box and deposit tank construction. I opened the school and chose to break the news to the workers as they rose to organize for work.

I felt responsible.

I felt guilty.

I called my jefe

I sat like a castigated schoolchild as the community members convinced themselves of their rights...And how all along they had said it. They had warned me.

The stories formulated. Yes, they had warned me.

Untrue.

But this is how campo stories start. Talk yourself into a truth.

Whose to say they didn't talk themselves into the idea the owners first said "Yes" under la mata de 'mendra?

So progress is paralyzed.

The owners returned this past Thursday. The Father of the Church and the Sindico both agreed to support the effort to speak with the couple. Everyone in the Yasica area is privy to our jodona situation up en la loma. Everyone has their opinion, their piece.

We are onto the strategy of convincer.

But who the hell is willing to stand up and fight?

The fated evening (tonight) my Dona, an elderly fellow known as Chuoa, and myself, waited in the evening after the misa until 730pm for the Father to return after a church service in a neighboring community. We approached the house in the dark.

The couple was called for and they came to the door, the marido with a policeman's lantern cast upward. The light placing fire in his black eyes.

And he raged. Confronting the Father like a dog. Barking responses without listening. Throwing the Father's title on the floor. Snarling to throw the Church out of the fight. Questioning the Father's intelligence, a Godly man who had studied law and made a profession of representing the repressed.

The owner, threw us out. We would never have his word to placing a pipeline on his land. He had never given permission. He would not destroy the privacity of his territory, heirloom.

I could hardly keep from crying. I cried in silence. And watched.

And fought myself.

Who was I kidding? What game was I playing?

Sometimes my work is so far outside my experience I feel useless.

So now we are over convincing and onto other options.

Option One, we can fight la ruta de la mala. Mala meaning, by law.

We can see how many rights we can pull as a community that has a right to safe drinking water and can't find an alternative route to pass a pipeline.

Or Option Two, we can drop it and approach another spring source.

One I've already measured. Its not as strong, more susceptible to future contamination, and will not provide the same pressure by gravity. Looking at the survey results again, the tank location would have to be dropped 5 meters just to ensure it could fill with water. The first houses would have, at most, 5 meters of head.

Entonces, one source is secure by la naturaleza and jodona by ownership, the other is a safe go-ahead, but wont provide the consumers half the service they imagine.

Catch 22.

My neighboring volunteer, Duncan, moves forward in his project as he takes off for another adventure weekend drinking or surfing. He shakes his head as I throw excuses for staying at home in the campo to attend meetings that fall through, convincing myself that I'm not wasting my time.

While on hold, I've started up English classes again and I go into the school when I can to help children learn to write and read. I take care of a cat i call Tigra.

I mop my house my house like a Dona and I've learned to wash sheets by hand in a streambed. I prepare cafe on cue. I fight battles with termites and rats. I accept that things wont happen today and are unlikely to get done tomorrow either. I practice Catholocism to plant ideas of forgiveness and acceptance in my stubborn head. And I am outwardly happy as I forget I have no friends.

Five Star Campo Accomodations coming at ya!

I didn't have a chance to mention previously that I relocated sleeping quarters about 400 meters down the way from my Doña's residence. I'm now shacking up in what was once a little colmado, town grocery, a two room flat set back from the road. The absentee owner, Ana Rosa, is a charming grandmother who recently left the island for Nueba Yol' (Dominican for New York). She left the house and the shack in the hands of her daughter who resides an hour away from Las Batatas in the city of Santiago. The place has become the family's campo get-away. They rarely visit except for holidays, and then of course on the off chance, to pick up a bunch of bananas or a sack of dried cacoa from the conuco (garden/orchard).

So I was actually living exclusively in the shack until my friend, Christi Holmes, decided to visit a week back. I explained to Ana Rosa's daughter my desire to accommodate my American guest who would be plenty overwhelmed after a few candlelit bucket baths, never mind sleeping on the floor without access to "flush facilities". With this in mind, they handed me the key to the house and its kitchen, bedroom and indoor bathroom (a real luxury). So in one fell swoop I went from camping in the sticks to relaxing in a resort. 'at a girl Christi!

Out in front of the house I've got the town sombrero, a giant Mata de 'Mendra, where my sheriff, his family, and all the town caballeros take pause under the branches to watch the world go by. The sheriff's son is the caretaker, watchiman, for Ana Rosa's house, so he and his campo wife (they are not wedded in the books, but who in the campo ever is?), sleep in a room abutting my kitchen. I serve them up sugary cafecitas every morning in exchange for their services as watchiman (security) when I'm away.

I had initially thought that moving into my own place, I'd find more privacy and Me-time to do work and also relax. While I am finding it is nice to call a place my own, I can't say that I am ever short on visitas. The kitchen is almost always bustling with muchachos and muchachas who like to swing by throughout the day, setting themselves up at the table to color with my crayons, hoping they'll receive some sort of brindis (treats). I've already made dozens of chocolate chip cookies and a batch of blueberry pancakes, I'm thinking about branching out to share the wonders of buttery french toast and banana bread.

So, if you've got a recipe or two, send 'em my way...

JUNE ARRIVED

Along with 540 PVC pipes.

Yes friends, we are ready to begin construction on the pipeline.

It seemed almost a lost cause after so many months of struggling to raise funds in what turned out to be a largely unsuccessful tug-of-war with local political candidates campaigning for the May 15th election. As it It turned out, the money for the water project arrived in the form of web donations to my Peace Corps Partnership (PCPP), a grant that permits Peace Corps volunteers to receive direct donations from family, friends, etc. I would like to take the opportunity now to thank and recognize all of you who donated to the fund. Gracias para todo!

The families of the community of Las Batatas are coming up for air following a long period of doubt and pessimism where they could hardly imagine we'd ever find the resources to build the water system. For a while there, I actually felt like they must see me as yet another corrupt politician, filling their heads with empty promises..."Vote Amy, #1 Gringa...segurara tu vaso de agua nunca se seca" (vote for Amy as number one Gringa...ensure your water glass never goes dry). However now with the money from the PCPP as well as support from the Comite de Yasiqueros, a group of Dominican families living in New York, I see a renewed enthusiasm among my Batatas neighbors.

We are ready to pick up the shovels and dig in!

The quest for Los Hobos...

Two hours scrambling up mud-slopped roads through a blur of raindrops.

A Dominican version of a blizzard.

And as always, when the trucks can´t make it, there are always the donkeys and foot soldiers (us) to lug all the clinic´s medical supplies up the mountain...

*** -a memory of just one of many a journey in the course of a Medical Mission executed by the Partners´for Rural Health in the Dominican Republic. This January, I jumped on board the traveling clinic for a week, translating for the nursing students and healthcare providers as they treated people in communities lacking easy access to quality medical services.

At Last! we arrive at the temple in the clouds...

We set up a day clinic in the church, working quickly from eleven to three, which leaves us just enough time to pack up and trek the two hours back to the base of the mountain, escaping the village before dark.

Dowley goes Dominican

and Campo Christmas starts in the Doña's kitchen

My Doña's son, Papolito, awaits his baptism on Christmas morning

Papolito and his pet fighting cock

Morning milk run

Roberto drying cacao beans

Agrimensura (pipeline survey for the water system)

The route of least resistance

Living has become easier in my little campo just as a new, cold bucketload of woes is dumped on my plate for the New Year. Yes, organizing a community and designing a locally sustained water system is a a bit of a project.

My primary assignment for the next two years is health intervention composed of three parts. First and foremost, I am the resident engineer in charge of the design and supervision of the construction of a small gravity fed water system. Secondly, I shall support and advice a community water committee to organize the system´s creation, the work brigades, the service quota, and the succeeding maintenance, operation, and supervision of the completed water system when I leave. Thirdly, I will organize and train hygeine promoters, a group of women in my community, in proper water usage and storage as well as other sanitary practices to ensure that the potable water that arrives at the house serves to improve the health of the community. Hopefully the project will go above and beyond making for a life more comfortable, relieving the woman and children of the trips taken each day to the rivers and streams to wash and bath and fetch water for cooking and cleaning.

Here and now, moving forward feels like I´m battling against the current. I am thus grateful for the first three month grace period of service dedicated solely to assessing the social and physical situation of the community and opening time to earn the confianza of my new neighbors, friends, and family. But at some points I feel like I´m putting a chainsaw in the hands of machete artists and offering raw pizza dough to Dona´s who cooked the Bandera Dominicana--arroz, habichuela, y carne--before they learned to walk.

For one, organizing the community.

The schedule of the campo is flojo, patterns of work and activity have a steady inconsistency that inhibits scheduling. I´ve felt pretty lucky to have substantial attendance at community meetings but its is frustrating that the attendance is heavily weighted on the women of the house. This is even after I accomodate for men´s work schedules. This wouldn´t be such a grave problem save for the fact that I will depend primarily on men´s labor for the many months of construction needed to complete the pipeline, tanks, spring box and distribution line. It is to the point where I am scheming to plant a circle of chairs in the middle of the pley (the baseball pitch) Sunday afternoon about 2pm just as the weekend game is about to begin, and announcing that they wont swing a bat until we get through this tarea de agua (water work). In terms of work day attendance, thusfar I´ve completed the pipeline survey with an abney level and have the opportunity to meet and work with a majority of the people from each house and have a sense of the challenges with punctuality, the motivation level, and intellect of many of the leaders in the community.

I´ve started with household interviews, each of which I am accompanied by one of 5 well-respected Doña´s in my community. The interviews include questions of family finances, health, domestic water use, as well as the organization of the project. I´m finding it interesting the fluidity and inconsistency of available work for men in the community as opposed to the relative monogonous schedule for the women-mothers of the community who day after day wake up to cook, wash the dishes, clean the house, care for the kids, cook lunch, wash the dishes, fetch water, wash clothes, care for the kids, cook again, organize cosas (things), and go to bed.

And I am finding that the interviews are actually one the best tools as far as educating houses about the project and the local organization of a water committee. I feel squelched at community meetings where no one can keep attention to follow a discussion or the confidence to contribute in a public setting, but in the gallery of each home I have a captive audience and people are prepared to listen and share. I hope slowly that I will appreciate the same level of communication in community meetings because I am certainly not equipped to organize a person at a time. I am awaiting anxiously for water committee elections in January when I feel that I can truly begin to work primarily with a select group of people that the community agrees to charge with the majority of the responsibilities included in as far as representation, organization, and education.

Una nota sobre desarolla

While there are different methods of community development and empowerment, for this type of project, the organization and support of community leaders is the best way to facilitate a successful intervention that continues to survive once the volunteer leaves. As demonstrated in the academic thesis of my Peace Corps technical trainer and as is true in the experience of many other community development projects, the key to the sustainability or the collapse of the local water system is based on the strength of the water committee. Yet in case after case, this key ¨soft¨ intervention fails to receive enough care and enough attention to properly create a permanent social institution. The ¨hard¨ technical aspect of the design, funding, and construction drive the project and are aportioned the majority of the time and energy of the volunteer. Every day I am in my community I feel the pressure to move forward with construction and even after many explanations about my role as an advisor, a teacher, and a helper, I have not broken the notion that I am the ¨jefa¨(boss, chief) of this project. The notion of community ownership is going to demand a great deal of reeducation of the true capacity of the people and families of Las Batatas to take agency of their own well-being and future.

Que mas...

Attempting to wrench local government resources from hands that are unaccustomed to feeding public service projects in poor campos...Trying print and copy papers when the nearby internet center in town rarely has ink and the next nearest center is an hour guagua (imagine a jalopy van filled with 14 people trundling down a washed out road...now imagine Sunday twilight hour and the driver pulling to the side of the road, not once, but three times, to allow front row passengers to buy President beers to share with the driver on the trip home from the city...la libertad Dominicana igual to live free and die young trying). No phone service and the impossibility of planning any activity last minute or arriving anywhere on time (but at the same time nothing starts on time). Planning to work around the fact that there is never silence or peace in the house. Waiting to make real friends.

A good day

So as far as planning for the unexpected, I met an engineer in Puerto Plato on the Malecon at a cafe along the beachwalk the other week. He, a graduate of Carnegie Mellon, along with his son, visiting from the states, and the dog, are enjoying a drink by the shore and watching the kite surfers carve with waves. Toni, notices the papers I am reading at the cafe bar and strikes up a conversation, noticing the Peace Corps emblem. Well, I got his card and he promised he´d try to help.

I took him up on the offer. Today he swung by in his flashy SUV up my little dirt road, navigating around the cows and kids lugging gallons of water, He was all rigged up with a GPS unit to help me cross-check my pipeline survey as well as provide consultance on the design and development of the project.

Incredible

Its like panning for gold

Hours of filtering through dirty sand, empty promises, road blocks, noncommunication, confusion, and then, a nugget. And you´ve struck it rich. Its these little tokens that continue to keep me optimistic and will keep me smiling through these two years.

So I had Toni advice my president on the importance of securing property rights for the pipeline route and Toni gave great tips on equipping my spring box to measure flow rates as well as designing my deposit tank to check inflow rate and consumption flow rate so my community plummers can secure that there are no breaks in the line and that no one illegally taps the line. Its these problems, such as illegal water capture and the greed of surrounding land owners that is a subject I have still yet to internalize and design for. Because such greed, corruption, the social hazard of immorality, runs deep. Even within the community, I know that we can jointly agree on the domestic use of water forbidding the use of system water for pigs and other livestock or crops. But when I take off its a given that the more well-to-do will have their way and use their water the way they wish. All will likely suffer as a result with low water pressure and potentially periods of no water those years where rains don´t arrive for months and months. Success can wash away as easily as sand castles.

Its this lack of, abuse of, usurpation of, public goods-services that is in large part what cripples the majority of people in this country. People work around and live around the discomfort rather than confronting it. Its a point of incredible frustration for a volunteer working from the bottom up, knowing full well that the top is building casinos over the pastures of the poor rather than planting seeds for tomorrow.

Nos vemos si dios quiere...

I feel like my spanish and my sweat glands are slowly aclimating to la vida Dominicana.

And I'm getting aquainted to the small wonders of campo life...the rats that knaw on the walls at night and sometimes find their way inside your mosquitero!...the excessive amounts of coffee, second suppers and second breakfasts at the ready...every activity happening ¨Dominican time¨, ahorrita, which does not translate to right right now on schedule, but rather, in an hour, or maybe more...bathing in a river every day... hand washing my clothes in a stream bed and then lugging up the 2 gallons of water that I'll need to wash my hands and face the rest of the day.

My Doña's kitchen is always filled lots of kids, lots of yelling, lots of chickens, and and lots of dogs. And the dirt road is not without its cow and donkey road blocks. I aprovechar (take advantage) of the infrequent bouts of luz in the house every other evening that allows for a few hours of entertainment and juice with ice.

And its wonderful.

The nights are filled with the enormous moons and the outlines of palm trees. And endless games of dominoes. Its orange season here in Las Batatas and every time I march off into el monte, the outback, with my ayudantes (volunteers) to survey, check the water system's spring source, or even just visit a neighbor, it is mandatory to go orange picking. My compañero scrambles up the tree to toss down 10 or 20 fruits. I tuck in my shirt and rapidly fill it like a potato sack. Pregnant with oranges, I wabble adelante (forward). We then proceed to peel the fruit and check if it is sweet for eating or sour to squeeze into juice later. If its dulce (sweet), the next kilometer of the hike finds us stumblling, as if drunk, our mouths full of juice, spitting the seeds and tossing the orange peels behind us to mark our route.

Scrambling up orange trees and diving fully clothed into pools of crystal clear spring water, its hard to imagine that its snowing somewhere. But I know that Christmas is approaching because the houses in my little campo have put up colorful lights that twinkle on the nights we are lucky and have electricity. And so I've started sharing traditional carols that I play for people on my computer. And I sing about snow in English.

Miss you, happy holidays.

At Las Batatas

So I just found out where i´ll be living the next 2 years of my life...

After a long formal day of introduction ceremonies and a 5 hour ride up from Santo Domingo, I arrive in the campo de campo on the back of a pickup with my fellow volunteer, Duncan, who´ll be living on the mountain above my site. The two of us are greeted by a bright yellow sign ¨Welcome Cuerpo de Paz to Las Batatas¨. The whole town, sitting in a giant circle of chairs on my project partner´s front lawn, stands up and begins to clap. Duncan and I are led to chairs in the center of the circle. My project partner puts his hand on my shoulder and begins a grand speech telling everyone that I am to be their sister, their neice, their daughter, their family and that the town is incredibly fortunate to have me. At this point I am beyond words...exhausted and overwhelmed and controlling my desire to burst out in nervous laughter over the scene playing out before me. I manage to just splutter out how fortunate I am to build a water system together with the community and that I can´t wait to meet everyone.

After my less than captivating oration, which involves a lot of smilling a graciases, I am ushered forcefully toward a pudgy, featureless fellow who I find out is the Sindico (senator dude whose gonna get me mad fundos to start construction) and commence in forced small talk about how I love to dance bachata and eat pico pollo. I can´t understand any of his slurred Northern drawl so instead I just answer questions that I think that he should be asking.

After this whole production, my Project Partner turns to Duncan, as an afterthought...oh, and he´s working up on the mountain.

Hilarious.

So its a town called the sweet potatoes, except that there aren´t really any sweet potatoes. the prices plunged a few years back and everyone just figured that milking cows is now a better bet. Four houses have luz part of the day, a failed project slapped together by some phony politician attempting to raise votes.

People ride to the big downtown of Yasica for groceries, drinks, and chisme (gossip) on horseback. I drink hot chocolate milk every morning and bath in the river every afternoon. I´m an hour from some of the most renowned resort areas (Sosua and Puerto Plato) in the country.

I´ve replaced the city´s dirty high rises for the pueblo´s grassy fincas, I´ve left behind the traffic jams and guaguas for cattle stampedes and horseback bolas (bola equals a hitch).

River on the way to the mystery noria (spring).

Cascada on the same trip to the mystery noria...my dedicated water committee

November 2

Day of the Dead...or Day of Naranjas...

Aye, check out the latest Brigada pics on our flickr site!

The action of extrañar

The Brigada Mojada departed on the morning guaga out of Mancebo, leaving behind concrete tanks, Doña tears, and a CD of “anything but” bachata tunes.

No me olvides mi hija…Va a volver…

No preoccupes Doña voy a volver para la Navidad. Siempre, tu eres familia de mi…

After five weeks in a campo house you realize you become attached.

To the early morning sounds of the Haitian workers heading to the fields. To the guagua rumbling up the road.

Your Doña chastising you to Come Come…eat eat…Happy Happy. Fuerte! Squeezing her biceps to convince you that all those carbohydrates build muscle. And then, of course, she checks to see that your tummy has grown a watermelon worth of viveres.

Those mornings you make the trek to the river to bath alone, protected by the rush of water and the shadows. Before the first hot rim of sunshine catches you sin verguenza.

The afternoon cafe…layered in various mixes of concrete, carefully sipping from tiny porcelain cups.

Parading down to the river like gringo Pide Pipers, all the kids of Mancebo in tow…down, down, down the dirt track and up the riverbed to the waterfall.

You become vecina, amiga, trabajadora, familia, mi hija…mami.

A little less extranjera a little more compañera everyday.

###

I arrived in Mancebo with a little bit of home…some maple syrup and a pancake dinner. Dried cranberries. An album of my family and photos of lobsters and puffins and moose. I showed the kids how to walk my slack line.

I left my Doña with a shell-adorned tap stand, a card of thanks, and many abrazos.

...

We left pizza cooked over an open fire. Our first attempt with the pizza stone ending in an explosion when the rock overheated and shattered, throwing pizza everywhere. The kids still ate it.

We left a night of heavy dancing in the neighboring town of Los Palmaritos’…a night with the famous mellizas.

I left a Mancebo novio. Yes, I went dar a vuelta and kissed a boy with a blue shirt. His name was Alex. A guapo tomato picker that I fell for on my Cumpleaño. Him in his sweet smelling, clean blue shirt and I reeking of cerveza, my clothing drenched…in keeping with the birthday tradition in Mancebo. On the week of my departure, I told him we had to be friends. He still promises he’ll wait faithfully for my return.

We left with photos of a journey to find Savana Abajo, a pilgrimage arriba 5 hours…beyond the noria (the village’s spring source), beyond the tilled habichuela fields, over the dry cactus lined hillsides, through the mist-sheltered pine forests. A trek for the farmers, passable only by foot or mule or horse. An amazing journey that took us to, well, a little campo town smaller than Mancebo. A place where the Colmado music played softly enough for conversation, and the town’s water source for cleaning, bathing, watering, drinking, was nothing but a trickle of river too shallow even to cool our tired bones. After a Doña packed lunch of sardines, yucca and mashed potatoes, washed down with a strong cup of campo cafe, we made for home, crawling the last three hours along a dusty carretera (roadway).

And we left the soundtrack of Mancebo, wishing farewell to our musical friend Benedicto. A little old man with a big smile and an even bigger beaded cruz hanging down his belly. The self-appointed town cantador, a broken record of heart-strung love songs about loving women who already have novios… “voy a demonstrar, yo soy un macho de hombre”…Benedicto joined us on our work brigades, our evening fiestas, or just in passing. Always ready to sing the three songs in his repertoire…and the only songs the Brigada Mojada now know by heart, for life.

So now I'm back in the city...a sweet breeze of dusty fumes ushering me back to the life of horns, cat calls and overloaded stereo systems. I thought I had adjusted to the Caribbean climate. Hells no. Its just tha Mancebo appreciates a bit of fresca.

Days in the campo blur together. Many days layered in various types of concrete mix, many meals of viveres and aguactae and many afternoons marching down the giant hill to the rio to swim in the charco and scale the cliffs along the waterfall.

It was a time of mixed emotions...our CBT instructor became very ill during the second week of CBT...we thought it was dengue. He was shipped to the states and promptly diagnosed with Leukemia. All we heard throughout training was that he was receiving treatment and the recovery process would take months. His absence certainly shook the morale of the group.

Thankfully a nearby second year water volunteer, Bailey, was able to step in to work with us on theory and support our technical training. Our local mason, Felix "the Gato", and our local project liason, Raphael, took up the slack. All incredibly giving, wonderful people. With their help we built a sedimentation tank atop the community"s water storage tank, a river crossing for the pipeline close to the spring source, and in our final project, we installed three piletas (tap stands) at the beginning of the village water distribution system. My Doña was one of the homes to receive a tap and I capped it with a white snail shell I had found on a hiking trip the previous week. I felt like it was my going away gift, a thank you for being my Dominican mama for five weeks.

And then there was the anticipated day when we all received word of our site assignments. The country water project coordinator drove up from the city to give us each our little red dot on the map. My red dot was a no name town on the map, closest to Yasica Abajo, a little town enroute to Puerto Plato. I was told the community had mujeres lidres, aligning with my initial request to be stationed in a pueblo where I could engage in secondary health promotion projects with women.

After the site assignment, I didn't really think a whole lot about my little red dot, my future home. But as I left the campo, left my Doña in tears and waved goodbye to the kids and the families lined along the roadside, I realized how much I'm going to miss Mancebo and how scared I am that my project site might not invite me with the same warm amistad.

And yes I found a Dominican novio...escondido that is. It was a little crush. A trial run. Its a bit hard not to find a crush when the young men are all guapo, available and dying to find an American chica. Whether for the thrill or the green card, were in high demand. And this is no small statement...in the last four years about 50 women volunteers have married Dominican men compared with about 4 men in the same period of time. Yeah, the hombres are toastie. Jen's been fighting off a fifteen year old who sent her no less than three love notes flowered in prose about how he cares for her more than his own mother. She repeatedly told him she was not interested and would not speak to him and that a relationship was, in fact, illegal. He retorted that in three years they'd be legal and she should keep his number, he'd be waiting. He continued to walk her to class and around the village, in his words, to keep the Hatians at bay.

I suppose with that type of behavior I shouldn't have been surprised when I invited a boy to take a walk that in reality hed been waiting for me to drop the question even before a gringita ever stepped foot in Mancebo.

His name is Alex.

So basically campo love consists of dancing, taking walks in the dark, talking, besitas. He'd give me little gifts of halls cough drops.

He went on a hike with our group to a neighboring town of Savana Abajo and submitted himself to about 9 miles of hiking on his day off from harvesting tomatoes on his father's conuco.

He continually and emphatically told me that he would wait for me for always and that I was the one and only girl in his life.

And I did my part, stumbling through unrehearsed spanish, to explain how the future was uncertain and that my promise to serve in Peace Corps cripled any opportunity for us to share a sustainable relationship. That we should embrace friendship and aprovechar the few moments together.

Basically, as I look back, I created my own telenovela, a “real world” Mancebo. As with all campo romances...the escondido front meant nada. My Doña knew, the neighbors knew, Justin's seven little brothers all knew (and frequently spied on us). Oh, and I kept up my end of the bargain, providing a daily live journal for my agua compañeros. The jokes and comments were endless.

I guess I'm writing this because, well, driving back to Santo Domingo in Saturday's early morning light, I couldn't help but feel like I had torn a little piece out of a campo boy's heart. And I think I learned a lesson about lovin' in the campo and the truth about men and women in the DR.

Community Reunion Numero 2: Let's make a comite de agua

Brigada Mojada (as we agua trainees like to call ourselves) decides to compose some kickin' skits dramatizing the need for a water committee...

Skit numero 1...Super Comite!!!

Act one: Hurricane Ryan strikes pueblo X and Duncan the tuberia gets doused with a giant bucket-load of water. The taps run dry and people go without water.

Act two: The community struggles to raise funds and barely scrapes enough pesos together to fix the pipeline.

Act three: Super Comite!!! Super Comite (Justin decked out in a motoconcho helmet and a cape made out of a green first aid sling) saves the day by establishing a quota to ensure the community has enough money to maintain the water system.

Act four: Hurricane Amy ravages the water pipelines and Duncan is doused (yet again) with a bucket-load of agua. But this time the community is prepared with enough savings for the needed repairs. Si se puede!

Skit numero 2...Porque una Mujer?

Note to reader: So Dominican women are pretty suave with the dinero and, to make a gross generalization, men tend to be a bit flojo with the pesos. Additionally, promoting women as community leaders is always a good idea. So we composed a skit to demonstrate why a woman treasurer was a good idea in Mancebo.

Act one: The election. Ronaldo the borracho (Amy in botas fuertes) and Maria (Justin in Jen's red polka dot dress) duke it out for the position of water committee treasurer.

Ronaldo wins by a landslide.

Act two: Ronaldo drinks away the funds and the local chisme goes that with every bottle of cerveza he drinks away the community's water and soon enough the town will go thirsty.

Act three: Ronaldo repents and convinces the President to redo the election. Ronaldo urges the community to see Maria, a mujer seria, as a great candidate for managing the community's savings. Maria, of course, wins by a landslide. But, by an interesting twist, she starts her term with a toast to the people's health (brindis!!!) Maybe this Maria really is just a borracho in a dress?

Ah, life in the campo.

Feliz Cumpleanos

Dominican Birthdays are greeted with a bucket of water and shirt-full of cerveza. At least in the little pueblo of Mancebo. I danced the entire night of my cumpleano smelling of Presidente Light and the various colognes and sweats of every man in the community. As one of two Gringitas in Mancebo and one of six women the 40 or so men have to choose from, the muchachos tend to keep me on my toes.

Checklist for training (the nitty-gritty):

VIP latrine...got 'er done

Water Committee Election...yeppers, and Justin will forever be Mancebo's favorite Maria. And yes, I am the community borracho con mi botas fuertes.

Obra de Toma (spring box to protect water source)...done

Sedimentation Tank...almost complete

River Crossing...next week

Two more weeks of CBT...the countdown begins.

Oh, and check out this Flickr site with some of the brigada mujada's fabulous photos

Abrazos

Community Mapping Excercise...

We divided the men and women into two groups to draw what they found important in their community...the women drew the casas, schools, churches...the men drew farm fields and colmados. Hmmmm

Intensive Community Based Training in a remote campo with five other American campañeros (Loud merengue booming from the colmado but no lights in the casa. Bucket baths and muddy streets...). The scenario invites itself to a bit of the loca.

Mellizas, Viveres, Pajaros

Viveres

…the mountains of yucca, platano, gineo and potato that fill our plates three meals a day is beyond words. I’ve seriously dreamt about saving them up in a bucket for a day when I finally construct a vivere gun to propel starchy boiled vegetables across the charco (waterfall) above our village (I don't think that would translate as an appropriate form of cross-cultural exchange).

Pajaro

To start with, words are over-rated. In the campo, general grunts and “Awepa!” retorts are appropriate for general conversation. Hand signals cover another 40 percent. And verbal conversation generally fluctuates around the quality and type of food and the weather. Sitting together in silence is just another way to compartir (share). Another form of indirect communication, the more viveres a Doña feeds you, the more she loves you.

So onto pajaro. The original meaning of the word being a parrot, however in the campo the word takes on a life of its own (and I should note that its true across the Dominican…) A pajaro can be a derogatory name for a homosexual, a name for a tiguere (bad boy) or a saucy chica. Well, as one of the water volunteers, Gabe, sat together with his doña in relative silence, one evening, the dona suddenly retorted “que pajaro tiguere” gesturing with her lips (another characteristic Dominican gesture). Gabe was a bit bewildered. Where was the parrot in the house? And what was she pointing at? He quickly realized she was yelling at a rat. So goes it. Cockroaches, tigueres, rats, parrots, you name it, it’s a pajaro.

Mellizas.

Campo living is pretty slim pickings in the mujer department. In our little pueblo of Mancebo with about 90 inhabitants we’re working with about 2/3 male population (largely comprised of Hatain migratory workers). And since women in the campo are married off at age 16, there are really no single chicas to speak of. Needless to say, Jen and I, the two women water trainees, are hot commodities.

With that said, the story of the beautiful mellizas (twins) has been passed down the Peace Corps chain from volunteer to trainee for what’s going on more than three years now. Who is gonna get with the mellizas? For our group its been a chronic topic of conversation (although we’ve only caught glimpses of her from the back of a pick-up as we drive through the neighboring village).

We decided to start a bit of chisme with the other Peace Corps trainee groups, mailing hand-written letters about the fate of two water trainees, Duncan and Justin. Duncan, on the edge of quitting PC for good, just up and leaves Mancebo on the back of a pick-up to destination unknown…a week later he returns on a burro with a melliza. “She changed my life”. Inspired, Justin decides he needs a melliza and thus goes out to win the other mellizas heart . They quickly discover that they are dating the same melliza and decide to stick-it-out and “share” for the rest.

The chisme letter wraps up with my compañeros going to look for me in the latrine and actually finding me in the latrine. And then us rescuing Gabe after a suicide attempt with his mosquitero net (one too many viveres).

So goes the campo.

Brindis!

Dominoes in the Plaza de Colon.

Street Vendor making cane juice. He pushes the sugar cane through a press to squeeze out the juice, slips in some lime and ice and voila! muy rica!

La Colorada...I visited a one-year water volunteer at her site in the North. Here she is walking with her homestay sister on the back-40.

Five weeks of Community Based Training (CBT) start today!

Tuesday, our trainee group appreciated a special visit from the new Peace Corps Director, Aaron S. Williams! He was sworn in just this past August. Fun fact: Aaron served in the Dominican Republic in Monte Plata back in the '60s and met his wife, a Dominican, while in service.

New Surroundings...

Views from my homestay in el barrio de Los Angeles...My Doña makes a delicious juice squeezed from the fruits!

Local pollo butcher in Los Angeles

Girl walking to a photo shoot for her Quinceañera(15th birthday bash) in the Botanical Garden, Santo Domingo.

I cradled the moonlight from my balcony…heavy beats of reggatone peeling out with the passing tigueres in their rides. A candlelit vendedor serving up tostones. Three Doñas cooking up some juicy chisme gossip with knee-high niños nipping at their madre’s nerves…

Yo…just back from a successful venture “out on the town” with my amiga voluntaria, Jennifer. A meet-up with the Peace Corps trainees at the Car Wash (an open-air discoteca, and yes, a functioning car wash)…returned safely to the shelter of the casa and the Doña’s eye. Sweaty and smiling.

So goes una noche en la Dominicana.

You'll have to forgive me for the lapse in communication. With frequent power outages and a busy training schedule…along with hours of nonstop attention from mi hermana menor…it has proven muy difícil to capture a moment to put thoughts to Word (as is the condition of our post-paper existence)…

For the moment, I am living with a wonderful host family in a little barrio in Pantoja, a northwestern section of Santo Domingo. And there is never a dull moment—two volunteers, two Doñas and two hermanas. Muchas Mujeres Madness.

It’s a short walk to La Sirena, the local supermarket. And its about a 10 minute trip on a carro público to the Peace Corps training center where I am getting a full-course meal in Española dominicana, nonverbal Española dominicana, la cultura dominicana…and of course, the challenges and responsibilities I will shoulder as an Americana—an ambassador of the US.

So ¿cómo te fue?, you might ask. How goes you?

Eating a lot of boiled guinneo, yucca, and platano…a lot of fried huevos con cebolla. A lot of cheese-mayo-ketchup paninis. And when I’m lucky, thick hot chocolate laced with canela. Muy rica!

…Watching a lot of very sexy soaps a.k.a. telenovelas.

…Working on my bachata and the merengue.

Trying to piece together Dominicana.

Some of the volunteers in my barrio and I took off for the botanical garden today. Tomorrow the trainees get a professional tour of the Zona Colonial down by Independence Square (Check out some of these pics on panoramia).

This Thursday, I'm off to the campo to visit an Agua volunteer serving in a little pueblo outside Santiago. A sneak preview of the next two years...

Love you all! Be in touch.

The Downeast Dowleys' resident muscovy sentinel is now a daddy duck!!!!

14 ducklings hatched on this morning that marks my departure for Peace Corps Service. And I can't help but believe that these baby duckies startling arrival is a sign that most wonderful transformations are about to take place....

The next few days I will be swept up in a flurry of flights with all the baggage checks and peanut-less snacks that accompany airplane transport.

Tomorrow morning I take off to DC for a brief orientation (some rubber stamping) and by Thursday morning the DR "August 09-er" volunteer crew will jet onto a Santo Domingo airstrip, ready-or-not for pre-service training.

I suspect with all the hustle and bustle of training in the next 10 weeks that my internet correspondence will be sporadic. However, I will update this blog soon enough. And I will do my "bestest" to provide you little sips of the discoveries and experiences flooding my day-to-day from now through 2011.

It'd be great to hear from you via email...or post to:

Amy Dowley PCT

Cuerpo de Paz

Av Bolivar 451, Gazcue

Apartado Postal 1412

Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic

Pumpkin seeds and red maple leaves most welcome.

Sending you love and laughter,

~Amy

The contents of this Web site are mine personally and do not reflect any position of the U.S. Government or the Peace Corps.