Two days ago I had the pleasure to visit a friend who works with an association of painters. It was a pleasantly warm day, and we sat around painting and chatting. I was going to paint a political piece concerning my last post about the protests in Egypt. Mid-painting one of the Dominican painters told me stop painting and take a step back. He told me he loved the figures I was drawing and had to stop. He art is an unpredictable process; sometimes you create something completely different that you imagined. I think my friends felt bad since he was basically not allowing me to finish the painting I had envisioned, but over the last two and half years, I have learned to go with the flow. So I cleaned up the lines and had a little definition to the figures and ya!

So, my question to you guys is what do you see in this picture? I will give you clue of what I see. There is a very specific reason I am giving this painting to my old group of artisans... and that's all you get!

Moral of the story, because I always need a moral. Do not stress if things do not turn out as planned... things turn out as they should, and usually for the better.

Hey ya'll! Below is an article I just wrote for one of our Peace Corps publications, Reclama. Enjoy!

The Twitter Revolutions? Revolutions for Democracy in the Middle East and Their Underlying Causes. -Cairo, Egypt The Twitter revolution? The last time I checked, technology cannot start a revolution, people can. However, technology is a powerful tool and the right to information technology should be protected. One commanding reason is because information technology can be strategically used to aid or hinder people to communicate and gather behind a cause. That is exactly what has been happening in the Middle East since mid December 2010. Up until recently, this part of the world has been stubbornly immune to the surge of democratization that swept Europe, Asia, Latin America and Africa in the 1980s and 1990s. The toppling of the dictatorial regime in Tunisia has inspired a domino effect of revolutionary demonstrations in Yemen, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Algeria and probably even more Arab countries by the time this article goes to print. Many news medias sources, have been noting the important role social media sites have been playing in the current Arab revolutions. It’s true that 18% of Tunisia’s population is on Facebook, and since the site was left unblocked by the Tunisian government, many were able to write updates of the protest. Youtube served as a popular forum for current news about the revolution. Wikileaks has exposed much corruption in the governing of these countries. Twitter was widely used to accelerate the mobilization of demonstrators by quickly disseminating information. When citizens of Egypt started using social media to organize their own revolution, the government was so threatened that they shut down all Internet and SMS texting service nationwide. Although social media may be changing how revolutions are organized, lets not forget that social media is not the cause of these revolutions. The underlying factors are the years of poverty, unemployment, income disparity, and political repression that have characterized many modern Arab nations. Although, Tunisia is thought to be one of the richer Arab countries, it is also characterized by income disparity, with powerful elite ruling the country. IT ALL BEGAN IN TUNISIA In Tunisia, demonstrations began in response to police corruption and brutality concerning merchant, Mohamed Buoazizi, when they confiscated his fruits and vegetables he was trying to sell on the street. On December 17th Buoazizi protested the stealing of his merchandise by setting himself on fire in front of the municipal building. Demonstrators began to gather in front of government headquarters in the city Side Bouzid to protest the ill treatment of Buoazizi. Although images of police dispersing youth during the riots were shared on social media sites such as Facebook and Youtube, coverage of the demonstrations was mostly limited to Tunisian media and went widely unnoticed. Demonstrations escalated over the weeks, which included more protests include self-immolation. On December 22nd, Lahseen Naji, a protestor, responded to "hunger and joblessness" by electrocuting himself after climbing and electricity pylon. Ramzi Al-Abboudi also killed himself because of financial difficulties arising from a business debt by a micro-credit program. Larger groups began to protest in solidarity. On December 28th the Tunisian Federation of Labor Unions held a rally in Gafsa, which was blocked by security forces. At the same time about 300 lawyers held a rally near the government's palace in Tunis. As demonstrations by lawyers continued, Mokhtar Trifi, president of the Tunisian Human Rights League (LTDH), said that lawyers across Tunisia had been "savagely beaten.” The demonstrations in Tunisia have been described as non-violent but there are many reports of police brutality in response to protesters. On the 12th of January, a reporter from the Italian state-owned television broadcaster RAI stated that he and his cameraman were beaten with batons by police during a riot in Tunis' central district and that the officers then confiscated their camera. Along with police brutality, protesters ran the risk of arrest. Reporters Without Borders said the arrest of at least six bloggers and activists, who had either been arrested or had disappeared across Tunisia, was brought to their attention and that there were "probably" others. Even with all the fear that the government was trying to instill in the protesters, the demonstrations continued and grew stronger. On January 14, 2011, the military chased off the security forces of the former President Zine El Albidine Ben Ali and forced him into exile. Ben Ali dissolved his government and a “state of emergency” was declared to protect Tunisians and their property. People were also barred from gathering in more than groups of three people otherwise courting arrest or being shot if they try to run away. Ben Ali fled to Saudi Arabia, and he has been excused of extorting gold from the government. Saudi Arabia demanded Ben Ali to remain “out of politics” as a condition for accepting him. AFTER THE OUSTER OF BEN ALI After Ben Ali was removed from the presidency, Prime Minister Mohamed Ghannouchi then briefly took over as acting president. Looting and violence continued days after Ben Ali was ousted, but the perpetrators have not been identified. The main train station was torched. Furthermore, a prison director in Mahdia freed about 1,000 inmates following a deadly prison rebellion that left 5 people dead. Many other prisons also had jailbreaks or raids from external groups to force prisoner releases, some suspected to be aided by prison guards. General pandemonium was said to have occurred in Tunisia as residents who were running out of necessary food supplies had armed themselves and barricaded their homes, even to the extent of having formed armed neighborhood watches. Al Jazeera's correspondent said there were apparently three different armed groups: the police (250,000 people of the country's population were supposedly part of the police force), security forces from the Interior Ministry, and irregular militias supportive of Ben Ali who were vying for control. Demonstrations continued after the removal of Ben Ali to protest the former government and request the removal of all political officials connected with Ben Ali’s regime and his party the Constitutional Democratic Rally (RCD). On January 27th, Prime Minister Mohamed Ghannouchi, enacted a major reshuffling of the government leaving only two ministers from Ben Ali’s old government, the industry and international cooperation ministers -- but neither of these had been a member of his ruling RCD party. Although this was seen has a major concession to protesters, demonstrations have continued to remove the Prime Minister from power. Ghannouchi has declared that he will resign after holding transparent and free with elections within six months. TUNISIA INSPIRED REVOLUTION ACROSS THE ARAB WORLD The recent success of the Tunisia demonstrations have inspired the citizens of other Arab countries such as Egypt, Yemen, Syria, Algeria and Jordan to try to topple their oppressive regimes. An article in Al Jazzera by Lamis Ardoni said that the protests had "brought down the walls of fear, erected by repression and marginalization, thus restoring the Arab peoples' faith in their ability to demand social justice and end tyranny." He also said that the protests that succeeded in toppling the leadership should serve as a "warning to all leaders, whether supported by international or regional powers, that they are no longer immune to popular outcries of fury" even though Tunisia's ostensible change "could still be contained or confiscated by the country's ruling elite, which is desperately clinging to power." Since the 25th of January, Egypt has been in an upheaval of “non-violent” demonstrations with many protesters carrying Tunisian flags as a symbol of their influence as they protest the removal of current President Hosni Mubarak. Although, Egypt has also notably been using Facebook and Twitter to communicate, coordinate, and document events from the protests, the real reasons for their revolt are focused on legal and political issue including police brutality, state of emergency laws, lack of free elections and free speech, and corruption, as well as economic issues including high unemployment, food price inflation, and low minimum wages. Demands from protest organizers included rights of freedom and justice, the end of the Hosni Mubarak regime, and a new government that represents the interests of the Egyptian people. SIMILAR PROTESTS IN EGYPT BUT DIFFERENT SITUATIONS Although, the Egyptian demonstrations have been inspired by successful protests in Tunisia, the two situations are very different and it is unclear if the Egyptian protests will have a similar outcome as Tunisia. First, Egypt is much poorer than Tunisia. Approximately twenty percent of the Egyptian population lives below the poverty line, and another twenty percent live very close to the poverty line. Although GDP growth has been strong in the past for Egypt, the country suffers from a very high inflation rate around 25%. Thus, prices increase much more rapidly than income, making it increasingly more expensive for Egyptians to live. Many products are highly subsidized by the government because the poor cannot buy them. In 2008, 13 people died while fighting in a long line for subsidized bread. Furthermore, Egypt has suffered from much more political oppression than Tunisia because it has been ruled under a continuous state of emergency with a heavy hand, cracking down on Islamic militants since President Anwar El Sadat’s assassination in 1981. Hosni Mubarak has ruled since the assassination under the state of emergency, and is the longest serving president in Egypt’s history. EMERGENCY LAW IN EGYPT Emergency Law (Law No. 162 of 1958) highly restricts the political rights of Egyptians. Under the law, police powers are extended, constitutional rights suspended, censorship is legalized, and the government may imprison individuals indefinitely and without reason. The law sharply limits any non-governmental political activity, including street demonstrations, non-approved political organizations, and unregistered financial donations. Thus, you can see that the law basically outlaws any protest against the current regime. The Mubarak government has cited the threat of terrorism in order to extend the emergency law, claiming that opposition groups like the Muslim Brotherhood could come into power in Egypt if the current government did not forgo parliamentary elections, confiscate the group's main financiers' possessions, and detain group figureheads—actions allowed under emergency law. Therefore there has not been free and fair elections in Egypt since Mubarak has been in office. Pro-democracy advocates in Egypt argue that this goes against the principles of democracy, which include a citizen's right to a fair trial and their right to vote for whichever candidate or party they choose. Human rights organizations estimate that in 2010 between 5,000 and 10,000 people were in long-term detention without charge or trial, and that in the 1990s the number of detainees was over 20,000. THE BRAVERY OF EGYPTIAN PROTESTERS Inspired Egyptian protesters have been taking on extremely high risks to protest for their human rights and a democratic government, since under emergency law; Egyptians can be imprisoned without trial for any reason. Still the demonstrations continue to increase in strength no matter what the regime lays on the protesters. On Friday, January 28th Egyptian government stepped up efforts to limit Internet access, especially to social media. The government turned off almost all Internet access and mobile phone service on the eve of major planned protests on Friday, causing a nationwide "blackout". In response there has been an outpouring of hacktivism with global groups attempting to provide alternative communication methods for the Egyptians. Some limited mobile service was resumed on Saturday, 29 January, but protesters have been left without Internet. In early February, thugs presumed to be supporters of the Mubarak regime slipped into the non-violent demonstrations causing much violence. Similar Mubarak thugs are also thought to behind much of the looting that has been taking place with the motive of making the “non-violent” demonstrations appear chaotic and violent. There have been also reports of violence towards international reporters along with many reporters being detained. The Committee to Protect Journalists said it had received 100 reports of attacks on journalists. A crew from ABC News was carjacked and threatened with beheading. A Swedish journalist was stabbed. Authorities also arrested reporters from the New York Times, Al Jazeera, Washington Post, and other outlets. In addition, backers of Mubarak dismantled satellite equipment making it impossible for most TV stations to broadcast scenes from the square. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned the attacks on journalists and peaceful protesters. "Violent attacks against peaceful protesters are completely unacceptable. It is important to ensure an orderly and peaceful transition. I have urged all parties to engage in such a process without delaying, with a full respect for human rights, in particular the freedoms of speech, expression, association and information." LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL The pain many protesters have endured has reaped already some results in Egypt. Mubarak has made some initial changes to quell dissent, including dissolving his government, and appointing military figure and former head of Egypt's intelligence service Omar Suleiman as Vice-President. On February 5th Vice President Omar Suleiman is meeting with opposition groups to begin negotiations concerning a new government. But representatives of the Muslim Brotherhood - Egypt's largest opposition party - said they had not participated in the talks. Nor did Mohamed ElBaradei, the democracy advocate and Nobel peace laureate, who had earlier been chosen by opposition parties as their spokesman. Mounir Fakhry Abdel Nour, secretary general of the liberal Wafd Party, said he and other party officials had presented Suleiman with their proposals for constitutional change. Nour said that Suleiman ruled out Mubarak's resignation from the presidency. "Not only will he not resign, he will not cede or delegate his powers," Nour said. That stance means it is unlikely other opposition parties will join the talks. Mubarak’s refusal to step down is unacceptable to the protesters and opposition parties, so the demonstrations continue into its twelfth day on February 5th. Although concessions have been made, only time will tell, if real democratic progress will be made in Egypt. A CONTINUED FIGHT FOR DEMOCRACY Although the demonstrations are still continuing, the fervor of youth demonstrating democracy represents a hope for a changed Arab world. Many battles have already been won. On Thursday, the president of Algeria promised to lift a 19-year-old state of emergency and to provide more political freedoms. The move comes as anti-government protesters have announced plans to hold mass protests on February 12th. In Yemen, tens of thousands of anti-government protesters marched on February 3rd and called for the resignation of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who has ruled Yemen for 32 years. On February 2nd, Saleh announced he would not seek to extend his presidency beyond 2013. In Syria, anti-government protesters are planning to demonstrate on February 5th calling on the government to end the state of emergency, which has been in place since 1963. On Wednesday, a small group of Syrian protesters attempted to gather in Damascus to hold a candlelight vigil for the Egyptian demonstrators. According to Human Rights Watch, the protesters were beaten by a group of 20 people dressed in civilian clothing. The police, who were present nearby, failed to intervene. QUESTIONS FOR THE FUTURE? The fight for democracy across the Arab world is truly inspiring. The saga continues, but I have faith that regimes will be toppled and a new era of democracy will ensue. Social media has changed how people can organize and we must continually think how new technology is affecting politics. But, lets not lose sight of the real bravery and fervor for political rights that are the true catalysts for these revolutions. As we continue to follow the demonstrations in the Middle East we must be aware of how the access to technology and information is a basic human right that must be protected. Without the Internet, it would have been much harder for demonstrators in Tunisia to quickly get information out about protests. In China, Google has blocked the word “Egypt” from the search engine, leaving the Chinese oblivious to the current democratic revolutions. Even in the U.S., we were left much in the dark about the Tunisia revolutions because of the lack of press covering the riots. We also must value and protect are right to information and technology. Think of how your current perception would be changed in a world where the government could choose what you could and could not know. In the last session of Congress the Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act, was a proposed bill in the Senate that could lay the foundation for blocking communications in the United States in the case of a "national threat." The bill was struck down, but there is support to reintroduce the bill in the next Congressional session. Let us have the same fervor as the youth population in the Middle East and not stay indifferent to politics. We are lucky to live in a country with many political freedoms, but we must be weary and cognizant of such proposals to take away our rights to information, and thus are rights to free thought.

Last week, I had one of those, wow did that really happen moments... I signed up to take a 3 day scuba certification class in the capital, purely for an opportune investment. Scuba diving classes here with the Peace Corps discount are only US$250 as opposed to the same certification in Washington D.C. for US$1,200, not even adding in the aesthetic added value that you are diving in the Caribbean as opposed to the Chesapeake Bay. So clearly by taking this scuba class I have warranted my staying an extra 8 months with Peace Corps.

So, I took the class with some of my new regional friends, or as we call ourselves Beach Corps, since we all live on the beach. We got to dive around two shipwrecks and a taino artifact site, where I saw a taino statue head lying on the ocean floor. I was ecstatic when my instructor told me I was a natural scuba diver, although this really just means I am not fat and a good breather. But, I can breathe with the best of them probably due to my daily yoga. Maybe one day I can enter into a breathing contest with a hindi yogi, but let me not get ahead of myself.

So, I finished the class with flying colors minus that I forgot I was suppose to be drowning during our emergency "no air" situation, and I just leisurely swam to the surface... I figure I won't make the same mistake in the real life situation. Vamos a ver!

The day after I was certified, I was lucky enough to be able to tag on to a free diving trip with Indiana University completely funded by USAID and a foundation with IU (thank you tax payers)! Although I was just certified, I figure I might as just "dive right in" to my new underwater pass time hahah (Puns are the best!)

We first visited a government center in the capital, where the national government is preserving artifacts found in the ocean from shipwrecks and from the previous indigenous population the Tainos. The Tainos apparently sunk objects as underwater offerings to their gods and these artifacts were preserved much better in water than on land. We got to tour the center and learn all about different shipwrecks and how we could distinguish from what era a shipwreck was from by the type of canons we could find. I also got to see a Taino vomit stick, and a really neat medieval flexible bopper weapon that I wish I had to use on my little brothers in middle school. Furthermore, we learned the reason we were brought out here was to help preserve and promote three "underwater living museum" sites, which they hoped to make into national parks. These underwater museums consist of three shipwrecks with coral growing on top of the artifacts.

Then after our lecture we took a bus to Bayahibe, a beautiful harbor town on the south east tip of the country. The next day we made a trip to the only know pirate shipwreck in the caribbean, the shipwreck of Captain William Kidd http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Kidd. You can read more about him yourself, but he is know to be one of the most notorious pirates in history or one of the most misjudged. He abandoned his ship in the Caribbean in I believe 1699, where it was later sunk, and then he was hung for piracy in England in 1701.

So, first we visited the Captain Kidd site. We snorkeled and dived around the site taking note to make sure everything from the wreck was still there and not moved. We checked the wild life and found many endangered corals broken, probably from boats dropping and dragging their anchors. We also checked the site buoys and lines for damage and brainstormed of ways to develop the site, with information about Captain Kidd and how volunteers could help promote community outreach, educating dominicans about marine preservation and the history of this shipwreck.

Later we dove around a second shipwreck site called Guadalupe, which was a ship from 1800 that IU sunk and made into a dive site. There were canon, canon balls, and a huge anchor at the site.

The next day we went back to Kidd and started saving the world... one coral at a time. The coral was called Elkhorn coral and its extremely endangered. So we had teams find broken coral and we zippy tied them to other coral, which would allow them to have a chance to stay a live and grow in the sunlight. Then we went over to one more shipwreck name Morales, which was like the Guadalupe wreck, because it is a historic ship that was purposefully sunk. Here there was also an archeological site, where artifacts had been cemented down around the coral, for divers to explore. After we made all are observations we ended are two wonderful days on the boat and got to work writing Rapid Protocol Assessments of each site.

Then... GET THIS.. we were told we are getting certified by Indiana University in Underwater Archeology, so we can come back and make independant checks of the shipwrecks! I almost feel like a famous person who gets one of those honorary degrees... After this experience, that seems the way to go. I wonder, who thought of that? Honorary degrees? I just hope I am never operated on my an honorary surgeon!

So, to end the story, it was a really fun surprise to be able to learn about pirates, shipwrecks, and marine preservation, while having an all expensed paid trip to one of the most beautiful areas of the country! O yea and free diving! IU was even so nice, as to take us out to dinner again once we had finished and were back in the capital.

Moral of the story... get scuba certified! It's amazing and great things will happen after you are certified!

In other news... I may now be writing a class about "underwater museums", marine preservation with a case study on Captain Kidd.

The innaguration of the site will happen on May 23rd with I believe a concurrent opening of a Captain Kidd exhibit in England along with pirate reinactments from Peace Corps Volunteers!

I just received a grant with 3 other volunteers to hold a volleyball tournament for International Women's Day which will include workshops about women empowerment.

I've applied to 10 grad schools in public policy and international affairs, and almost pulled all my hair out writing all the essays!

I'm finishing up a class on Afghanistan to be a part of a new manual for a kids class about exploring the world, begun my talented boyfriend :)

And I've been exploring management skills to help the volunteers in my region succeed:

As of now I'm planning to create a directory of all current and past projects of volunteers in our region along with funding sources, informational sources, and key contacts to help aid volunteers who want to work with similar products.

Updating a regional handbook/ guidebook, with lists of restaurants, organizations, and useful services in the major regional towns.

Creating a volunteer of the month program and a group service iniative, where instead of just having volunteer gatherings, the gatherings will be centered around helping another volunteer with a project in their site.

In the next blog... I should be hopefully posting an article I'm writing for a Peace Corps Publication about the democratic revolutions in the Middle East, and the role of new technology.

¡Feliz Navidad! I want to wish you a Merry Christmas from the bottom of my heart! do do do do do do It pains my heart that I cannot be home with everyone this Christmas to wear silly sweaters, watch childhood Christmas movies, bake a ridiculous amount of cookies, and especially go to glee Christmas concerts. But fear not, I have been partaking in many Dominican Christmas events filling me with dominicanized Christmas cheer! The reason I am not home this year is due to my current promotion in the DR. Now I will a volunteer leader in charge of a group of 20 or so volunteers in the northeast region of the Dominican Republic. Pray tell what does this mean? Well, to my knowledge I will be helping the administration find and develop sites for new volunteers. Thus, I will be doing interviews in prospective communities and help evaluate if the projects seem suitable for a volunteer. I will also be visiting host families, to make sure that they have decent living situations for the volunteers when they first arrive in site, i.e. a door on their room, a private place to shower and go to the bathroom, and most importantly that the family has an upstanding reputation in the community. I’m also now in charge of doing security housing checks, for volunteers whom will be moving into their own houses. But, the most fun part of my new job is volunteer support. Basically, setting up workshops to give extra training for certain projects, planning fun events so volunteers can get together within the region, and visiting volunteers to help motivate people within their projects and just providing general support. Also, I am in charge of contacting and coordinating volunteers in the case of emergencies i.e. hurricanes, strikes, cholera, etc. I have been shadowing a current volunteer leader (my new position), and I have been learning more about what my job entails. Most likely, I will not really start too much work until the New Year, because the Dominican Republic basically shuts down the month of December. I did have a small Christmas brunch for volunteers in my region, with food and some glee Christmas cds that I gave out. Moving on to Christmas! I have been participating in many Dominican festivities. I just came from a small potluck party with my artisan group. Here they call these parties, fiesta de traje (Party of bringing), since everyone brings something. We sat around drinking and eating, and then we all went in a circle saying what we are thankful for and declaring our plans for the New Year. The drinking and eating is very methodical with drinks brindar (given out) first. Then apples (a Christmas treat), grapes, and raisins. Later cheese and crackers. With the main course being a big traditional soup called Sancocho. This consists of starchy veggies and chicken in a salty chicken broth. Usually, the main course is not served to the near end of the party, in the thought that everyone might leave after the good food is served. The party was a great bonding time for the artisans, and some of the older ladies got pretty tipsy, which was pretty hilarious. One really exciting part of the night is that one of the artisans was going crazy taking pictures with the new camera I brought back from the states, which was funded by you guys! The artisans just had a blast taking pictures, and it was so much fun seeing how excited they were. I was really touched near the end, when one of the artisans said she was thankful for all the help I have given them since I’ve been here and that was one of the best Christmas presents I could ask for. Moving on to more Christmas festivities. Soon, I will be awaking about 4:30 A.M. to take part in the early morning Christmas parade called the mañanita (little morning) or the Aguinaldo (Christmas bonus or Caroling). The last 10 days of Christmas, our community has Christmas Caroling very early in the morning throughout the town. We sing and play drums and the guida (basically a metal cheese grater and a stick). Then the Caroling ends at one house and there is a mass followed by ginger tea and crackers. The ginger tea is amazingly delicious, and almost worth the lack of sleep. The whole thing last about an hour and a half, and since I do not have a 9 to 5 job (gracias a Dios), I fall back to sleep afterwards. Tomorrow may be the last early morning caroling for me because I will be moving on Wednesday! I am moving to a city called Nagua on the north coast to be more central to the region I will be in charge of. I will be literally running distance from the ocean… so everyone needs to come and visit before I come home for good in July! I will also be upgrading in amenities, aka 24-hour electricity! So you will not have to rough it too much if you decided to come and vacation. Lastly, what does a volunteer want for Christmas? This year all I ask is that you consider donating to my boyfriend’s community library project in the Dominican Republic. https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=donate.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=517-403 Countless development studies demonstrate that investment in education results in drastic development improvements. As you all know, I have helped start a community library in my old town, but it is a long process to build a library, get people interested, and train community members to run the daily use of the library. Thus, please help my boyfriend quickly fund his library so he can get cracking! I hope everyone is with their loved ones this Christmas! Play in the snow for me and I will be with ya’ll to celebrate next year, promise! Miss you all dearly!

Broken filter piece, which shows the charcoal, which is produced in the inside of the filter during firing. Agua Pure facility in Higüerito, Moca Radhames Carela in the factory with drying filters Current Agua Pure Filter Saludos! (Heeeyyy!)Here is another little diddy I wrote, in one of the most recent volunteer social justice publications. This is the version, before its been edited, so excuse typos. Enjoy!

Water, Water, Everywhere… The Story of a Small Sustainable Water Sanitation Project Written by Kelly Connors CED, Higüerito, Moca Kelly studied business at the University Virginia and has no background in art, but was placed in the mecca for ceramic pottery in the country, and lived for 6 months at the below ceramic filter factory. She now has a vast knowledge of pottery and faceless dolls and aspires to be a starving artist or Secretary of State. Potable water, such a gift that many people take for granted. In the first world countries, practically all water supplied to households, commerce, and industries is potable, meaning of high enough quality to consume with out any risk of long term harm. Only a very small percentage of this water is used for drinking and food preparation, and we take its availability for granted. On average the typical nonconserving single family home uses 69.3 gallons of water per capita per day. Now, for those of you that do not having running water or very sparing water like myself, you can see that this is quite a large number, and represents a lot of wasted drinking water. This is a sad story when large parts of the world have inadequate access to potable water and our forced to use water sources contaminated with diseases, pathogens, or unacceptable levels of dissolved chemicals or suspended solids. Throughout most of the world, the most common contamination of water sources is human sewage in particular human fecal pathogens and parasites. In 2006, waterborne diseases were estimated to cause 1.8 million deaths each year, while 1.1 billion people lacked proper drinking water. Over 90% of deaths from diarrheal diseases in the world today incur in children under 5 years old. In 2000-2003 769,000 children under 5 years old in Sub-Saharan Africa died each year from diarrheal disease. As a result of only 36% of the population in the Sub-Saharan region having access to proper means of sanitation, more than 2,000 children’s’ lives are lost every day. During the same period in developed countries, 700 children under the age of 5 died of diarrheal disease. Improved water supply reduces diarrhea morbidity by 25% and improvements in drinking water through proper storage in the home and chlorination reduces diarrhea episodes by 39% percent. This daunting data of the access to clean water and its resulting affects on the health of a population has been recently brought to the attention of the international political arena. Under Goal 7 of the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDG) signed in September 2000, is Target 7C: Halve the proportion of people without safe access to drinking water between 1990 and 2015. More recently, an historic vote was cast in the UN General Assembly on July 28, 2010 that clean drinking water and sanitation are fundamental rights. 122 countries supported the resolution and over 40 countries abstained from voting including the United States, Canada, and several of the European Union and other industrialized countries. No countries voted against the motion. Bolivia’s representative to the United Nations introduced the resolution to the UN General Assembly on July 28th. There had been no previous declarations of clean water as a fundamental right to all humans in the past. The vote represents a changing attitude towards water a right we must cherish and fight for. Water is a something that many industrialized countries take for granted but in reality right now, we are a world running out of water. The World Bank has declared that demand will exceed supply of clean water by 40% in 20 years. This past June has been declared the hottest June in history. Global warming caused by green house gases is melting glaciers and ice patches, such as in the Great Lakes, which is causing more rapid evaporation, water is eroding and evaporating way too quickly and decreasing our water supply. Conversely, the idea that water is a resource for our convenience and profit, leads us to act like there is no tomorrow with water. We move it all over the place. We take big pipes and move it from watersheds, which is maintaining a healthy rain cycle and hydrating vegetation, which retains water in our soil. We move water to grow crops where we shouldn’t in desserts. We move massive amounts of water to cities where they dump it after its used as trash into the ocean. We move trillions and trillions of water from land-based systems to the ocean every year. The UN declaration declares that the international community will not let large parts of the population fall behind as this crisis unfolds. The new priority will be given to these populations without clean water and sanitation. And what about those countries that abstained from voting for the UN resolution, (cough) the U.S., excuse me I think I have gripe. The different countries have their different reasons. “We do not want to pay for the toilets in Arica,” was a direct quote from a Senior Diplomat from the U.K., which was published in a Canadian paper. Canada states that it does not want to share its water with the U.S., which is a non-issue since NAFTA declares water a commodity. New Zealand and Australia are privatizing water, and a large U.S. firm is buying much of the water rights in Australia. The U.S. also does not want to support water as a public right because they have also privatized it. The divide between supporters and abstainers seems to lie on the thought of water as a public or private item. The supporters view water as a public trust for the use of all and many abstainers are moving towards a market model, viewing water as a commodity with a price. By declaring clean water as a human right, the UN is saying that no one should die from lack of water, and no one should watch their children die because of lack of clean water because they cannot pay. No matter where your views lie that water should be provided free as a public service or be managed through a market model, one idea is unanimous. We need to increase the world population’s access to clean water, to avoid billions of needless deaths. During my service in the DR, I have been lucky enough to be exposed to one of the most innovative organizations working towards this goal of increasing the poor’s access to clean water. And here is the story of one of the most sustainable development projects I have seen first hand, in my short work in development. The organization’s name is Filter Pure and they are U.S. non–profit 501(c)3 and they work in developing countries to facilitate production of a ceramic water filter that eliminates turbidity and micro bacteria at a rate of 99.9%. The subsidiary in the Dominican Republic, works under the name Agua Pure. The facility in the Dominican Republic was begun in August 2006, with my host dad, Radhames Carela, as the head manager of production. In 6 months they were able to design their ceramic filter with almost perfect filtration (99.9%). There is also a Filter Pure facility that was started in Tanzania in 2007 and a project was begun in Haiti in 2010 after the horrible earthquake. Currently there are many proposals to start filter facilities in many developing countries, and Filter Pure is evaluating each proposal to decide where the next facility should be. A BACKGROUND IN WATER FILTERS Appropriate technology options in water treatment include both community-scale and household-scale point-of-use (POU) designs. Because of the high initial investments, many less wealthy nations cannot afford to develop or sustain appropriate infrastructure for community water purification systems and as a consequence people in these areas may pay a much higher percentage of their income on water. 2003 statistics from El Salvador, for example, indicate that the poorest 20% of households spend more than 10% of their total income on water. In the United Kingdom authorities define spending of more than 3% of one's income on water as a hardship. The ceramic water filter by Agua Pure, is a point-of-use system (POU), meaning there is a filter in each house. The ability of POU options to reduce disease is a function of both their ability to remove microbial pathogens if properly applied and such social factors as ease of use and cultural appropriateness. The priority of the POU system is to reach large numbers of low-income households on a sustainable basis. Many may have not heard of these systems because they are a recent development in the last few years and no one organization has reached a grand scale of production, but that is the hope for Agua Pure. Some other POU systems are a similar ceramic filter made by Potters for Peace, which is mainly working in Central America. Also, sand-bio filters are a popular system in the Dominican Republic, but they require more permanent installation. The Agua Pure ceramic filter is placed in an easy to carry 5 gallon bucket, which requires no installation and weighing only 8 lbs. it can be easily moved from place to place. WATER PURIFICATION The technology is simple, appropriate, and, therefore, sustainable. A round-bottom ceramic pot is made from a mixture of clay, a combustible material, and colloidal silver that enables bacteriostasis (aka bacteria killing). Any agricultural waste such as sawdust, rice husks, and/or coffee husks can serve as a combustible material. After the clay and combustible have both been refined through a fine mesh, they are mixed together with a measured amount of silver and water until a homogeneous mixture is formed. The mixture is then made into a filter using a filter press. Afterwards it is fired to about 900 degrees Celsius to burn out the combustible material and leave behind micro pores coated with the silver to filter the water. The micro pore size has been measured at less than 1.3 microns, and this size allows the pores to filter out turbidity by trapping bacteria and parasites which will then come in contact with the silver coating the pores that will kills the bacteria as the water passes through the ceramic membrane. A ½ inch of charcoal is inserted in the membrane during the firing process, to add an extra element of filtration for removing things like taste and odor. The filter eliminates 99.9% of micro-bacteria at a flow rate of 1 drop per 1-4 minutes, or 1 to 2 liters of water per hour, depending on the amount of water in the filter. *A new filter has been developed by Radhames that flows four times faster because of increased surface area for the water to filter through. This model is not currently being commercially sold. CULTURAL SUSTAINIBILITY ENSURES SUCCESS The filter is a successful product, not only because of its effectiveness of filtration but because of how the technology can be easily used in an appropriate cultural manner. The filter can be placed and moved anywhere. To use the filter one, just needs to pour water from any source (river, tap, rain water, etc.), into the filter, and the water flows through the filter into the bucket. Then the water can be just simply used through the tap at the bottom of the bucket. To clean the filter, one just needs to lightly scrub the filter with clean water every week or two, if the water is flowing at a slower rate. Once every month or two, the ceramic membrane, should be submerged in boiling water for 1 to 2 minutes. And that’s it. The directions are both written and drawn on the filter bucket in the case of an illiterate user. If the filter is cleaned properly, it is recommended to last for 5 years, but in reality, should be good for life. SUSTAINIBILITY OF PRODUCTION One of the most sustainable aspects of the project is that the producers of these filters are not based in the U.S., but instead in the country where they are distributed. Lisa Ballantine, the president and founder of Filter Pure, spent two years in the Dominican Republic, searching for a ceramic artisan to help her start her first filter facility. She was directed to my host father Radhames because of his reputation for innovation in ceramics. Radhames Carela is a master ceramics artisan and has won many awards. He has traveled abroad to Europe for his expertise in ceramics and most recently his work has been displayed in Centro de Leon in Santiago, during the International Tile Exhibit. Together, Lisa and Radhames worked for six months with the prime materials to create the perfect formula and design for their water filter. Radhames is the lead engineer behind all production in the Dominican Republic. He has hired 5 employees from my community to help in all filter production. Over the last few years, production capacity has quadrupled. In 2006, the facility could produce 20 to 25 filters per day. Now, they can produce at an astonishing rate of 80 filters a day, partially due to the creation of a second filter press. Agua Pure has not only created the opportunity for Dominicans to have cheap access to clean water. Agua Pure has created a great opportunity for Radhames and his employees, to both increase their annual income, and work in a rewarding project, which is improving the health of their family and friends. A RECIPE FOR A SUSTAINABLE PROJECT Agua Pure has been a very successful project in the Dominican Republic, but one common misconception with development projects, is that one sustainable project can be multiplied anywhere. As Agua Pure and other POU systems develop in other countries, a few factors need to be taken into account to implement successful systems. For 3 months, I had another Americana in my community, Clara, whom interned with Agua Pure and created a very wonderful manual of “How to Create A Filter Factory,” to be used for future filter factories for Filter Pure. While creating the manual we discussed certain aspects, which are essential when replicating a successful filter project. First, is an ample and cost efficient supply of prime materials and equipment. There is a specific type of clay that needs to be used to make an effective filter. A filter facility needs to be placed adequately close to a clay mine of the correct type of clay. There also needs to be sufficient infrastructure, aka roads, and means of transportation to obtain the clay. For instance, the clay for Agua Pure’s filters is delivered by truck from the clay mine in Bonoa, about 1 hour away from the filter facility. Combustible materials are easier to come by, but their ease of supply should also be investigated. To my knowledge, colloidal silver is usually processed in industrialized nations, so the cost of importing should be taken into account. Lastly, the supply for adequate fuel for firing the stove should be analyzed. For example, in a country that is suffering from deforestation, you would not want to use wood as the primary fuel source, or electricity in a country with out a good power grid. The cost and supply of other materials, such as those to make the equipment and stove, and the proper safety equipment, should be taken into account. These materials are just a one time cost, and are thus part of the initial investment, so their costs are less important to the overall sustainability. After looking at supply of materials, there needs to be an analyzation of management and employees in the location. It is essential for the manager of the facility to have a good knowledge of ceramics, a strong work ethic, and a shared belief in the cause to offer clean water to the poor. Without a strong manager to run the facility and train able employees, the facility could be less successful because of lack of efficiency due to work ethic and motivation or general knowledge of ceramics. This is why there should be a thorough interview process, when examining filter facility locations. Thirdly, there should be an adequate analysis of the market. Obviously, filter facilities should be put in countries where there is the most need for clean water. Also, there should be a substantial presence in the country of NGOs or non-profits, whom would act as buyers and distributers of the water filters to poor communities. Also, government support should be analyzed for clean water and sanitation efforts. The national or local government could be potential buyer, but if for instance the government is focused on creating the infrastructure for a community-based filtration system, then a POU system might not be needed in the near future. Other competition should be analyzed in the form of other POU systems or community-based filtration projects. Lastly, the culture of the country must be taken into account. A plan for education of the importance of clean water and how to use the filter is essential. Also, the average income of the locals may want to be taken into account, if the filter will be sold directly to them. Here, in the Dominican Republic, Agua Pure’s filters are sold around RD$700-RD$1,000 (around US $20-30). They are mainly sold to in-country non-profit’s or NGO’s such as Plan International, Save the Children, and Rotary International. In a few cases, filters have been given to poor families for free in a poor village in Jarabacoa called Bayacane, in-turn these families have been monitoring their health improvements and the condition of their filters over time. CLEAN WATER FOR ALL: THE FUTURE FOR AGUA PURE Currently, Agua Pure is creating an International School of Ceramic Water Filters, which will be located at the current DR Filter Facility, aka my host family’s house. They have already had a couple of groups of Americans come work during spring break to both volunteer and learn about Agua Pure’s water filter. One group of engineers from Texas A&M came over spring break 2010, and now have created their own ceramic filter facility in Texas to help serve the poor on the Texas/Mexico border. Yes, even in the U.S. there are people without clean water! The vision for the school is to have the managers of future filter facilities trained at the school on both how to create a perfect water filter and how to build all the equipment and the stove for their facilities. The school will also be open to host many students and groups whom want to come to learn about water sanitation and ceramic filters. My host aunt has even been developing a micro-business of a large bed and breakfast to house incoming groups. Agua Pure and other POU systems are right now just in their development stage. But the number of facilities and distribution will increase. I hope that the recent UN declaration of clean water and sanitation as a basic human right will influence world leaders to promote the cause of clean water. POU systems are developing the adequate technology but it is up to US to promote the necessity of clean water for the poor. It was noted that there was very few members of the press at the UN General Assembly to announce the declaration to the public. So many Americans have no knowledge of how the rest of the world lives. Educate your fellow Americans and help promote clean water for all! More information about Agua Pure can be found by contacting Radhames Carela, Manager of Agua Pure Facility, at radhamescarela@hotmail.com, radhamescarela@gmail.com or Lisa Ballantine, President and Founder of Agua Pure, at lisaballantine@aol.com, info@filterpurefilters.org or you may go to the website at http://www.filterpurefilters.org/. ***Editorial note: Agua Pure sent 2,500 filters to Haiti after the horrible earthquake in 2010. They will continue servicing Haiti until the filter facility is up and running in northern Haiti.

Thanks for all whom donated to my artisan project! We filled the grant, and got the money so now I am going to work my butt off and try to get home on time. My official day to leave is Oct. 29!

What is faster than a speeding bullet, more curious than a cat, more charged than the Energizer Bunny? 50 muchachos at Superman Summer Camp, ages 9-14, that’s who!

Wow, talk about one tiring and rewarding experience. This week I brought 3 young boys, whom have probably never left more than an hour from home, to camp in the great outdoors of the mountain community called Los Bueys. This is where we held a Peace Corps camp called Camp Superman, which is a young boys camp to give them a fun experience where they can also learn the values to be the best “Superman” they can be.

What did we do in Camp Superman? Fly? Well almost. We made a relay race ending in a large slip-in-slide finish. We also played Survivor, a take on Laser tag, where we used Alka Seltzer tabs tied on necklaces, and the teams were equipped with water bags to try to spray and dissolve the other teams tabs. Once the tab melts and falls off the necklace, you are thus out of the game, but can still help your team by filling up water and cheering or yelling intimidating battle cries. We also did the classic relay race while first spinning around a bat, and then they had to run to their respective team volunteer and then run back. This resulted in every child immediately running sideways and collapsing on the ground. One very small child whom could hardly see, because he always wore his purple plastic glasses only around his neck, ran straight into my surprising arms. Myself not being his volunteer, quickly tried to redirect this poor blind dizzy child to his repective volunteer. Aw it was so cute. There was also the always emotional tug-of-war, team building activities, trust falls, a nature hike, wilderness survival by Dominican Boys Scouts, science projects, instrument making and drum line, paint your own superman plaque, obviously a bonfire and s'mores, and lots and lots of river time. There were no showers so the river also became our bath.

To qualify for our grant funding for the camp, we had a group come to teach about HIV/AIDS through soccer drills and games. I also had the pleasure of trying to teach about gender roles to pre-adolescent boys. I am not sure how much they actually absorbed, but at least they’ve been introduced to the topic, right? We did do improvisation skits, which they did at least like, and repeated through out the camp by saying PAUSA (Pause, in case you couldn’t get that translation), and make their friends freeze, Saved By the Bell style.

The boys got to set up their own tents with the help of volunteers, and I actually slept underneath the stars for lack of tents. One really hilarious coincidence, was one of the 3 dominican made movies, happened to take place in the area that we camped. Just our luck this movie was in the horror genre and it was called Andrea (the same as one of the volunteers at the camp). Think… having a small boys camp in the middle of the Blair Witch Forest. Whoops. The muchachos were thus freaking out and saying Andrea was bothering them all night long. Our first response was, hmm I don’t think Andrea would be doing that (referring to the volunteer not the haunting, killing, spirit). We then later learned about the movie, and I have since bought it for mine and your viewing pleasure once I return.

Scary spirits aside, the boys had a very rewarding experience, leaving their communites, meeting boys from all over the country, camping, and learning to be little gettleman.

We had rewards for a Superman for every day, whom exemplified the values of Superman, hence helping others, justice, strength, and politeness. The last day we gave the boys certificates, t-shirts, and comic books and then rewarded one extra special boy the title of Superman of the Camp! Guess whose kid won??? Yours truly, Superman Alex Rodriguez from Higuerito, Moca! I felt like a proud mother! He won a few different gifts, the best being a brand new baseball glove, which we broke in this weekend playing catch.

Okay get ready with some tissues…

When it started pouring and we finished playing catch, Alex, was asking me how proud I was of him in the camp. He was also asking how we decided on choosing the different Superman’s of the day and camp, and whom else I had nominated for the awards and why. I told him, how we had chosen the most helpful, caring, and polite campers for the awards because they exemplified the values of Superman. I told Alex that besides him, I was extremely impressed by the first day winner, a young boy named Carlin. I asked him, if he had known that Carlin lives on the street half of the time, and the other half in a youth center in Santiago (a nearby city) where a fellow volunteer works. He was silent and shook his head no. I told him how impressed I was by Carlin’s selflessness, always wanting to help others and how gracious he was for everything during the camp. For a child growing up in such harsh conditions, I told him its impressive for Carlin to be growing into such a positive and loving man.

Alex, turns to me and says, “I guess there are a lot of homeless Haitians living here, whom lost their homes in the earthquake.” I tell him yes that is true. With tears in his eyes, he tells me, “If I could, I would build a hotel with 1 million rooms to house 1 million Haitians, so no one would have to be without a home.” It was maybe one of the sweetest things I have heard in this country. I told him yes maybe one day he could. I also told him I would look into visiting the center where Caralin sometimes stays, if he wanted to. He just shook his head yes.

In a country where racial tensions are quite high, I was quite touched by Alex’s compassion. It goes to show, that change is possible especially through the still forming minds of children.

This year, I have the pleasure of being in charge of a regional diversity camp for youth ages, 13-20 mas o menos. The Camp is called Celebrando Cibao (Celebrating the Cibao, which is the name for the north region of the Dominican Republic).

During the three-day conference, participants have a safe environment in which to examine their own culture, be introduced to other cultures, and gain the tools to combat discrimination in their communities. The conference will give my youth the opportunity to share and learn with 80 other young Dominicans throughout the northern region of the country.

The conference will be financed by a grant through donations from each participating community, and from volunteers’ family and friends.

The grant is through a program called Peace Corps Partnership, which allows family, friends, and the general public to donate to sustainable Peace Corps projects in a tax-deductible safe manner.

Donate! Tax-deductible donations can be made at this link.

https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.donors.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=517-389

I hope everyone’s summer is doing great! Miss you all and good food so much!

As I last wrote, I decided to spend casi todo (almost all) of my remaining vacation days on a Central American Adventure… below if you dare to read further, is what went down, swam around, and got cooked up. -Dominican Republic, 4 PM EST, 27 de Abril. Rachele (fellow Peace Corps volunteer from Kansas) and I start the trip off right, by being bumped up to Business Class, probably due to our classy attire and blonde hair. We take full advantage our first class position, sipping at our complementary alcoholic drinks, and eating our delicious complementary sandwich, later finding out that this was not only to be enjoyed by business class. No matter your class nor if the flight is 45 minutes long, Copa Airlines gives you at least 1 alcoholic drink, coffee, normal beverage, sandwich and or snack on every flight. (We had 3 flights to get to Honduras… FLY COPA!) After our revelery on our 3 flights, Rachele and I arrive in San Pedro Sula, Honduras weary and happy. We are picked up by our delightful hostal owner, and our instantly slapped in the face by a wet blanket tat 11:30 pm at night as we leave the airport. Well this is to signify that it was almost unimaginably humid and hot in Honduras in the middle of the night, which is something to say for someone who has been living on a Caribbean island for 2 years and thinks 75 F is frigid. We met up with Rachele’s college friend and husband, Amy and Adam, whom are quite possibly the coolest married couple I have ever met (outside of Samantha and Mark of course… they baby puts them over the edge). Their wedding was themed with Beatles music, and the reception was at a fancy club, where you can also bowl, and their invitation was a fake tattoo you had to wear to enter. But back to Honduras. The first half of the trip we spent up in the Mountains in small towns call Victoria and Yorito, that were about 5 to 6 hours from the two big cities Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula to visit my friend Janet whom was the Peace Corps volunteer in my site and house before me and extended a year and a half in Honduras with Peace Corps. We also visited Rachele’s other college friend Sarah whom is Janet’s closest volunteer by chance! They lived out in the Sticks, which kind of reminded me of the Wild Wild West. Think: lots of men riding horses with Cowboy hats, and saloon like looking places. I even rode a horse while I was there… although I rode one here last week too. Too top it all off, Sarah told us about a shoot out they had a few months ago where the whole town basically chased and killed a group of bandits that were robbing a general store called a pulperia. As the mayor said later after no one was convicted of the murders “Victoria takes care of its people.” I tell you what; I bet the crime has been down, I would definitely think twice before messing with a bully like Victoria. I would instead choose to pick on a wussy town such as Sally. Sarah’s soon to be Honduran husband happens to be a chef! This worked out wonderfully, although I felt a little bad that they kept feeding us… but not that bad. He made a wonderful mocacinno cake which was moist, chocolately, and delicious. They also made us a pizza that we brought to Janet’s site for and English game night. I might have been a little competitive with the Hondurans during monopoly. I was negotiating up a storm! The next day we helped Janet with her English class, and then headed on public transportation (aka old US school buses that have been pimped out with flat screens, and crazy seat covers… if you are lucky) all the way to the North Coast, to Tela. Tela was not much too look at.. kind of crowded and dirty, but we took a short taxi ride to a nearby village called Torneo Bay where a small sub-culture of Honduras the Garifuna, live. “With their own language, customs, dances, and music the Garifuna have maintained a distinctive lifestyle in the midst of the Honduran north coast society. . . . two completely different cultures, one from Africa and the other from the rainforests of South America, meeting by chance on an island in the middle of the Caribbean. Not only did they get along, but they mixed their blood, their cultures borrowing from each to develop a new language and new customs. . . .Unlike other minority groups in Honduras, they show no signs of losing their culture. The Garifuna have a built-in resilience immediately apparent on the proud, strong faces and direct gazes that greet visitors to any Garifuna community.” Here there was one of the most beautiful beaches in Honduras! Seemingly endless white sand beaches, with little thatched roof houses and restaurants sparsely tucked away on the edges. We saw an impromptu soccer game by locals and had a delicious fish meal at one of the local family owned establishments. The children were absolutely adorable, flocking to our cameras, pouring over all our photos of our travels and of my work in the DR. The next day we said our goodbyes to Janet and headed off to the Bay Islands, which boast the third biggest coral reef in the world! There are three main islands: Roatan, Guanaja, and Utila. We chose to go to Utila because it was known as the backpacker’s island and was assumingly the cheapest. These islands represent another sub-culture of Honduras. Most of the inhabitants are of European descent dating back to Pirate times, where they used these islands as their base. I kept referring to the inhabitants as descendants of the pirates, but no to their faces… I didn’t know if they would take this too kindly. Anyhoo, English is the main language spoken on the islands, and Spanish just started being taught there 30 years ago! The island is a backpacker hippie paradise. The island was absolutely beautiful with white white sand, turquoise water, with almost no waves. We went snorkeling around a ship wreck and at another reef spot, and we saw an innumerable amount of brightly colored fish. We even saw an eel, yikes! I started my scuba diving certification in the DR but I hadn’t finished it, so sadly I did not go scuba diving. Rachele plans on moving back to the Bay Islands, so I figure I will just scuba dive when I come back and visit her. Besides the natural beauty, there was a culinary beauty of a huge variety of types of food, which is unimaginable after the monotony of Honduran and Dominican cuisine. I had falafel! The bar scene was also an experience. Many of the bars were located on docks, where you could hang out and drink over the Caribbean Sea. There was one amazing hotel/bar called the Jade Sea Horse, which was owned by an artisan. He created a sort of Alice in Wonderland effect. He has done mosaics over stone walls, tunnels, and overhangs. The buildings are tilted or overlapping each other, completely bewildering your eyes, until you don’t know if you are believing what your are seeing. We stayed on this magical island for about 3 days, and then headed back to San Pedro Sula to sleep in the airport for our 6:00 flight. We convinced a lovely Dutch youth to share a taxi and stay at the airport with us. The next day we flew with sandwiches and drink in hand to Costa Rica, where we had a 7 hour layover and I was able to visit Hannah at her apartment, swim at the pool, and eat lunch. We also had an adventure in Panama in our overnight layover, but that story will be for another day. LAST BUT NOT LEAST… I must plug my Artisan Store project for donations. Please, Please, Please visit this link and donate and send it to all your friends! I have raised 100 so far, but I have about $2,400 y pico to go! Thanks you all so much in advance. Link to Donate: https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.donors.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=517-380

Receiving, and applying for $$$$ dolla dolla bills for small sustainable development projects. That’s what I have been up to these last 2 weeks. There is nothing like cold hard cash to get you out of a slump. I had been feeling a little lethargic the last month or so, until I found out on the same day that I just received 2 grants (one after 9 months of waiting). The long awaited grant is to help fund activities for my sex-ed/HIV course for pre-teen and teenagers. I started the class with out the funds and am not about to graduate my second course… I had almost given up hope when I found a large lump sum in my bank account. I quickly made a new account for the new funds, as to not by accidentally spend them on empanadas. My second grant is for a kid’s art class for the summer. Since children here do not get many formal outlets for creativity, I figured this would be a fun activity that I could join with our new community library, to promote education in the summer. Furthermore, I got news that a package of educational toys from my mom’s employer Discovery Toys, are now on their way! These kids should have a great time this summer in the library! My scheme is to try to just jam pack the library with kids to pump up interest before I leave, so the project continues forward! One exciting step towards sustainability for the library is a new literacy program started by one of my former students, Emmanuel. Emmanuel is a stellar 14 year old in my community. He came to me with the idea, to start a reading club to help teach small children to read in the morning. The library is usually only open in the afternoons, when the younger grades are in school, so this gives them an opportunity to enjoy the library. I said it sounded great to me, just come to the library meeting and present it to the committee. With the go ahead of the committee, I passed him a copy of the library key, and his face lit up like a flood lamp. His class now meets 3 mornings a week, and he has about 13-20 kids per class. I obviously, had to check this class out… see pictures above! Continuing, on my pathway of fundraising, I applied for two new grants this week. One is to hold an awareness event against violence against women. This idea came up after I gave a presentation on the subject to the 2 women’s groups, and the women loved the idea but wanted to take the message farther. They brought up the idea to have all the community groups involved, giving dramas, and doing a march. I saw an opportunity for a women’s empowerment grant called Mothers to Mothers, and decided to try to see if I can get some money for the event. Either way, we hope to have the event in the summer. Lastly, I just turned in an application for a small grant for my artisan association called the Peace Corps Partnership Program (PCPP). This grant will be funding the creation of a small office for the artisans to better organize their business and finances, improvements on the artisan building to create a central store, and funds to create promotional materials for the association. If approved you will be hearing more about this project later… because this grant is funded by my family and friends back at home! The artisans will be covering 40% of project costs, but I will need to raise US $2,600 as fast as possible. The faster I raise the money means the faster we can implement the project, and the faster I can go home. Meaning… if you want me to return, when the time comes, please help out my cause with donations and/or passing on the link to everyone you can. I have a feeling, the project won’t be approved for a month, but just a heads up! In other news, I just started getting involved with a new movement of volunteers to share and talk about world and political issues and how they relate to development work. We spent the other weekend at my friend’s cabin, where we had debates, presentations, and watched a few documentaries. It was a really fun time to get together with volunteers but also educate each other about world issues, which we can sometimes forget about in our villages, where we our cut off from world news. The group just started a small publication (not sponsored by Peace Corps), if anyone is interested in reading. The first edition in PDF can still be found at this link https://drop.io/progressivecircle/login (password: firstamendment). You will not find anything from me here, but hopefully I will put something together for the second issue. Last but not least…. I just need to say, I PLACED 3RD, in the hitch hiking race last weekend (also not Peace Corps sponsored)! Just think the amazing race with costumes. This is a pretty big honor- which was recognized by a sweet DR hat, I received from the organizers. That’s it for now. But a look ahead…. I will be leaving for Honduras Tuesday the 27th for 11 days! Be ready for some Latin American adventure tales for sure!

So I realized I may have broke my every 2-week blog entry new years goal. But, who really keeps their new years resolutions? Have you kept yours? Accepting my defeat and moving forward let me tell you about 2 of the biggest holidays/ elongated vacations in the Dominican Republic. Carnaval and Semana Santa. Carnaval is a pagan celebration that results in huge parades and parties every Sunday in February. It culminates in the biggest, most badass party on the Dominican Republic’s Independence Day, February 27th. Many of the large cities hold their own distinct parade, but the biggest is known to be in La Vega (just down the highway from my site!). The parades could be compared to a Mardi Gras like setting with elaborate costumes, lots of food, drink, and music. The parades consist of Diablos (Devils that look like Dragons), in many different beautiful costumes. The Diablos carry around pig bladders covered in colored latex, and they will hit innocent passerbies if they stumble into the street (sidewalks are safe), accept on Independence Day when anywhere is fair game! You can also by these big bladders from street vendors, for the price of US$1. I have one covered in pink flowers. But putting these pig bladders in the common persons hand is a dangerous game. Some people think its fun to fill theie pig bladder with rocks instead of air, which makes for a quite a painful hit! (Kids think this is extra especially funny… little brats!) I visited Carnaval 3 times this year. Twice in La Vega (one of them being Independence Day), and I went to go see Carnaval in Santiago. I was able to make it out of the festivities pretty unharmed. This was partially due to a friend, whom after a few drinks, liked to willingly go into the street and take most of the brunt of the golpes (hits) by pig bladder. (Picture above). That night there was a great concert from and Puerto Rican band (a little ironic on the Dominican Independence Day but o well). The night got even more interesting as a man with a very large snake came through, and we decided to have a photo shoot with it. All I can say is the Dominicans sure know how to celebrate their Independence! This last week was another huge Dominican holiday, Semana Santa (Holy Week). Almost everyone takes the full week off and visits family, goes to the beach, and to church. Thursday, Friday, and Saturday are the days with the most church activities. I would even say that Good Friday was a bigger deal than Easter Sunday. On Good Friday, none of the colmados (convenient stores) can play music. The town was very pleasantly peaceful. Almost everything is shut down. Villa Cruz, the living cross, is a very popular ritual. Usually the church youth group puts on a play of the crucifixion of Jesus that processes through the community. I was able to go last year, but when I went this year, I ended up just with just a normal mass. At the end of mass we did do a once around circle in the community, but no play. You can’t win them all. For most of Semana Santa, I helped out my friend in the next community over build a basketball court with a group of Americans who came to help out. We laid the cement, and then once it dried, the last day we taught the kids in the community basketball and volleyball technique. It was a blast, and my friend did an amazing job coordinating it all! Although I did not make it to a beach, I did make it to a water park. A water park? Yes, there is a water park here just about 15 minutes from my house. They had a really good lineup of concerts going on there last Saturday. A few friends and I went and danced in our bathing suits, it was a pretty good time. I went down 2 slides (there was only about 5, and 2 you needed to rent a tube, but they had run out). They had some other pools, and a decent stage, so I was pretty impressed. I had come with real low expectations aka I was expecting a glorified plastic kiddie pool. I also had a small Easter Party to lure my kids to my sex-ed class during the week. We painted eggs with juice packets, and I made some really funny faces. I also made a cake with jelly beans (thanks mom). I tried to explain the neo-paganism significance of the hare and egg as signs of the fertility of Mother Earth and the bountifulness of spring, but I think that flew right over their heads. But they had their eggs and sugar, hopefully learned something, and had a good time, so it went pretty well. Semana Santa was a great week, but now its back to work! Well hopefully, no one showed up to our artisan meeting Monday, the Dominicans like easing back into things. I am trying to catch on. O before I forget… a recipe for a Dominican favorite for Semana Santa Habichuelas con Dulce (Beans with sugar) Puree in a blender cooked red beans, ½ pound of sugar, vanilla, sweet potato, short bread cookies, milk, and coconut milk. Add a few whole beans for effect, and chill. It is actually really delicious, but be careful to not eat this whole serving. You may go into diabetic shock!

Happy Belated Valentines Day everyone! Also, happy Independence Day for the Dominican Republic, Japan, and Korea!

For Valentines Day, I happened to be with my parents in Puerto Rico! (Do not tell my brothers)! I was there with an incentive trip my mom had earned with her company Discovery Toys, because she is an awesome sales lady. The whole time we had gourmet Caribbean food.. all the Caribbean flavors, I had been tasting but prepared in a way I have never experienced!

But Valentines Day took the win for most amazing meal of the year! The night was a recognition dinner for the employees whom had earned the trip. You were able to bring dates according to your performance this year. My mom had earned just one extra spot, for my dad, and after sob stories to the coordinators, we couldn't buy an extra spot for me... since it was all based on recognition. (My dad's response: Kelly will give recognition, she is a great clapper).

So anyways, I had a feeling I would be spending my Valentines Day alone in the hotel room watching the olympics, while everyone would be at this swanky dinner. I even have a boyfriend, but I will be feeling sorry for myself in my pajamas eating chocolates...

But as luck would have it, or malsuerte (bad luck for another), my mom's best friend sadly came down with food poisoning from local sea food the night before. She was one of my parents good friends from the trips, and she said I could go with her husband as his date to the Valentines Dinner!

So my parents and I got all dressed up, after a day of sitting by the pool, and we took a bunch of prom photos, and made a lot of jokes of me and my sugar-daddy, and then proceeded to the dinner.

As luck would have it again, we had assigned seats, and I was seated next to the new owner of the company! But, first let me tell you about the food!

Okay, well this was Top Chef level food. We started off with a Caribbean salad, with fresh greens and very finely cut fruit, with a fruity balsamic dressing. Then for the main course we had a tender steak topped with a layer of smashed and lightly friend yuca (a sweet root vegetable), and then in cased by a croissant cage. This was served in a savory sauce with mashed potatoes and medley of incredibly fine cut veggies.

Then for the dessert, there was a tower of 3 different type of chocolate mouse, that were inside a white chocolate cage, with an opening in the top, like a double shot. There were berries inside, and 3 different caribbean fruit sauces, with a dolop of whip cream at the end and a strawberry! Wow!

I wish I had pictures but here are some some ideas! But these pictures would definitely lose very quickly in a duel with this dessert.

At the end of the night, there was an amazing band that played many oldies but goodies! The lead singer looked about 10 but was belting Tina Turner and Diana Ross. I first thought it was a CD... it was amazing. I think my date, my parents, and I sat out 1.5 songs! It was such a fun night!

O and how did conversation with the owner of my mom's employer go??? AMAZING! I wrote up a proposal for an educational toy lending system, and an educational toy club, and he is donating all these amazing toys to the community library I have been working on!

I also just applied this week for a grant, to teach a summer children's art camp.

This week, I am suppose to be hosting about 12 students in my community, to help set up our lending system in the library, and do some painting! Hopefully everything will go well, but I have a lot to coordinate, such as finding places for these kids to sleep! I am also trying to coordinate my artisans to give a tour... so vamos a ver! Other plans are a big dominican style cook out, and smores!

Next blog... I will let you know how this all went.

Also coming soon... I will write about this weekend and CARNAVAL! It was a a crazy cultural experience!

I hope everyone is doing well and staying interesting!

Miss you!

P.S. I have a new artisan site about my project. It is really simple, but check it out! http://artisansofhiguerito.yolasite.com/

One of the Americans holding real chocolate. Thats what the fruit looks like when its picked off the tree.

Mercedes and her recycles rice bag purses.

A soap stone carver, making an elephant.

Ladies making chocolate bars mmm....

Trying to play a drum made out of a recycled gas tank. It sounds kind of like steel drums, but one side is just in one key.

So when I last left you I was about to leave for a medical mission up in the mountains. I left with a bunch of my close friends from the economic development sector to go help a fellow volunteer with translating for a medical mission in her town where she started a hospital, and her mom and fellow doctors were coming to train the doctors and nurses on the new equipment they were donating.... Sustainability! Great! But wow was this ride cozy. In Dominican Fashion they squished more people in the guagua (a run down van) then you would ever think is humanly possible. (A rather large dominican lady insisted sitting in the front seat with Justin and I and the chofer, and then continuously complained that she was uncomfortable, no duh lady!) So I was basically squished for a good hour and half up the mountain, but I made the most of it and sung the entire way up.

But the ride was worth it! My friend has done an awesome job getting this once vacant hospital up in running, which is really essential since its a hub town on top of this mountain for all the other smaller towns where it would take about 2 hours to reach a place to receive medical attention. In emergency situations, that is just not acceptable. So I helped set up logistically the hospital for the mission, and then I translated for my friends mom as they were giving general care. There was also a convoy of doctors and translators that would go to a different remote town every day to give care. The doctors had brought a Sonogram and EKG machine, and a bunch more equipment that they worked training the doctors and nurses on and also dualing helping patients by giving them these tests. I was only able to stay a day and a half because I had to get back for my library hours and artisan meeting, but it was a very neat experience especially to see one of my friends projects taking off!

Medical Missions are a big part of the volunteer life here in the Dominican Republic. There is a committee just to help organize getting volunteers to help translate. Sometimes volunteers can even bring in patients! Thats what I was able to do yesterday. On Saturday I brought down a young woman and her four your old son, whom had a hot water burn all down is body. The year before, he had gotten surgery on his foot at the same medical mission, and this year they were hoping to get surgery on his arm so he could fully move it. So on Saturday we went down and stayed at a small hotel in the capital. I tried to do what I could to make the boy feel comfortable, we went and got sandwiches and cookies. I forgot to bring any spanish movies, so we watched 3 episodes of Modern Family, a new sitcom, and he loved it! Then bright and early yesterday we made our way down to the Hospital where there were lines of people. Because the family was with me, we got to jump the line, and he was second to be seen, and he got his surgery scheduled! He should be getting surgery right now as I write this!

Last but not least. Since I have written, there were a group of Americans in my town helping out with the ceramic water filter production that my host dominican dad is involved with. They were planning on helping getting filters over to Haiti, but when it came down to it, it would of been them on the planes or more filters and rice, so they opted to stay here, since there were actually plenty of people to bring the food and filters over.

One couple both were potters, and the wife owned an art gallery but is interested in collecting Latin American Art and maybe from small artisan groups, kind of like Fair Trade. So they rented a car for 24 hours and we went exploring for small artisan projects. (After I gave them a full tour of our artisan workshops, obviously). The first man we visited makes musical instruments from recycled materials... he invited us but at first hesitantly to the opening of his friend's store, where he would be playing a concert that night. Although he was first hesitant he said we could be his special guests, so we took him up on it. We then later visited, my friends small chocolate factory. Then some stone carvers, and later a lady whom lives on the top of the mountain and makes bags from old rice sacks, with pockets and everything. To find her, we followed an old lady up on a motorcycle, and where she got off we asked for help to finds Mercedes house, and low and behold that was it. They was a group of the cutest old ladies having some singing mass. We overheard them saying they should invite us to listen the the World of the Lord, but we were able to buy our purses and make a quick escape. The next day we went exploring and found a group of basket weavers, whom had been practicing this heart for about 80 years! There bags and hats were beautiful, and were only US$5! Then we found the Amber mine and visited some mom and pop amber stores, I got some earings! We also stumbled upon the memorial of the Sisters Mirables. (For those of you whom haven't read the time of the butterflies, 3 high class woman were killed during the time of Trujillo, the evil dictator, because of their involvement with an uprising group. They were killed on the side of the mountain where I was, on the way back from visiting their husbands in jail). It was a fun and exciting time, and the woman I was with is now inspired to start an affordable artisan tour, that I will try to help her coordinate, where people can see the real Dominican Republic, and the different artisan mediums that they practice here. Neat huh?

But what about that party? Wow was it swanky. I went with my host parents, the visiting American couple, and another volunteer. We were served cosmopolitans and kabobs in martini glasses. Everything was pink, and the music, (world music genre), was amazing! The store from the outside appeared to be a victoria secret store, and it was placed as one of the first stores when you enter the new all glass mall in the center of Santiago. Then we were given giftbags and brochures, and realized it was not Victoria Secret... it was a swanky sex shop. We walked in and the hand held vibrators, and fallic images gave it away. Now, we understood our friends pause in inviting us! Either way it was a fun and free time, and we to listen to great music and free glow in the dark condom give-aways! Just another way, things appear similiar but our o-so different here.

Well with that I hope everyone is doing well! Send me an email or a card sometime, I have been getting a little lonely! And once again, only 9 more months for scheduling your trips on this beautiful Caribbean island!

I have been back for about 3 weeks now, and things seem like they are just beginning to start back up. There has been a seemingly endless amount of holidays this month (last weekend was a 5 day weekend!). It is either a Saint Day or a historical day and then lets just add on some more days just for fun. So hopefully tomorrow we will have a first artisan meeting of the year pero vamos a ver, si dios quiere (We will see if God wishes), which is always the response. Hopefully we will though because we need to talk about the urgent situation, of the artisan building, which may be taken away this month! This is because the artisans have had an impending debt for 5 years, and we have tried many quotas, but no artisans seem to care to pay. I have tried peer pressure, a payment plan, star charts, but to no avail so maybe this will be good for them to finally see the consequences of their lack of action. Anyways since the bank came this week, I am hoping it will force a meeting (fingers crossed). On brighter news, 2 weeks ago I started my second round of a health/ sex-ed course which focuses on preventing HIV/AIDS and youth pregnancies. The kids whom graduated my last class are now teaching along with my help. The last class was a little unruly, so I had to give them a talking to (Please only come if you want to learn etc.), I told them I was sad with how they were acting because I don’t know the word for disappointed, but I think they got the picture. Some of the little hellions can be seen above, posing sadly (they love staged photos)! If any of you teachers have any good suggestions for controlling students, let me know! I do really enjoy the class, so I have hope they will calm down a little, although the next week is about body parts, so I think the snickers are unavoidable! So my favorite new project is a women’s exercise/health class, that I started having once a week. Think jazzer-size meets yoga and overweight donas (housewives), jumping around in circles, kind of to a hip hop beat! IT IS HILARIOUS to say the least. I will maybe try to video it one week for your viewing pleasure. The women seem to be loving the class though. I have organized it into a mash-up of weightwatchers and fitness class. I bought a cheap scale, and made them small health booklets where they write down their health goals and keep track of their weight every week. I have been giving them homework every week too. This week is to try to drink 8 glasses of water a day and not to drink soda. Most of the health problems here seem to be closely linked to a lack of knowledge on diet and exercise, so I hope to help educate the woman and thus their families while jumping around to GIRL TALK and other ridiculous hip-hop jams. I knew all those exercise classes and tapes would pay off! Last but not least… more Haiti updates from the DR. A few friends have been to the southern border working in the clinics in the town Jimani. There are two clinics functioning. One is American run and pretty well organized, and one Dominican clinic, which apparently is considerably less organized. Although originally the borders were more or less open to Haitians whom needed medical care, it seems now that Haitians are being turned away at the border, so some volunteers left early because there wasn’t enough for them to do. It is really a shame. Furthermore, I believe that there has been some negative propoganda on the news stations. Hatian attacks on relief are not often and I think portrayed out of context. Small towns are pulling together to help each other, and are really being helpful letting Aid workers know where the more needy people are. Furthermore, I believe that the roads although not great are passable. From those on the border, it seems that the roads were probably always bad and it is not so much due to the earthquake as it is portrayed. Right now, there are a few Americans in my town that were solicited to help with getting water filters over to Haiti and to just generally help out. It has been nice to have other Americans in town, and I have felt helpful, translating for them and helping them get acquainted here. They have both passed on my name to other relief efforts. One is to help translate with aid relief. The other is to help logistically coordinate aid with a bunch of different NGOs. I haven’t heard too much yet, but I hope I will be able to get involved in one-way or another. To come… This upcoming week I am translating for a medical mission of doctors which are coming to my friend’s site to the new hospital she facilitated opening. Sadly, the night before the med mission, I will be heading to the capital to say goodbye to one of my best friends in Peace Corps whom has decided to leave early because of his life at home. Hopefully we will send him off right, typical dancing with live music at ancient ruins might be in the plans, so stay tuned! Side note: If you are interested in reading about Haiti, two books of interest are Mountains Beyond Mountains (a biography of Paul Farmer), and Farming for Bones which I believe talks about Haitian Dominican relations. They were suggested by me from one of the American volunteers helping with Haiti relief, whom lived in Haiti for 4 years. Until next time… stay warm and plan your visit here!

Hey guys, Here are a few other resources for the relief situation in Haiti.

PEACE CORPSPeace Corps suggests checking out these two websites for making donations. www.charitynavigator.org & www.cnn.com/impact.

WATER FILTERSAs most of you know, my project is to work with ceramic artisans, and my Host Dad makes water filters which are connected to an American company called FilterPure. Right now they are taking donations to buy filters to supply Haiti, below is information.Only $30 will provide clean water for a family of 6 and can be their lifeline at this time of tragedy. Check out our facebook cause for updates on Filter Pure International or the FilterPure website. We have a goal to raise $50,000 to buy 2,000 filters and ship them into the country. We have a FilterPure distributor in Haiti, but all of our filters were destroyed in the earthquake so we must ship them from the Dominican Republic.

OTHER INFO. Also if you know anyone whom has family or friends in Haiti, networks have been established to help people connect with loved ones lost in the quake: ü Americans with family in Haiti should contact the U.S. State Department Operations Center at 1-888-407-4747. ü Red Cross Missing Persons Database: http://www.familylinks.icrc.org/haiti ü Post your missing loved one on the Haiti missing people board and the EARTHQUAKE HAITI Facebook groups. In my town, the school has been collecting local donations and the Catholic Church has been donating its collections for the week. Since, as Peace Corps volunteers we are restricted from going into Haiti, volunteers have been giving a hand with organizations in the capital such as USAID in coordinating relief. I hope to be able to help out in the upcoming in weeks. Thank you to everyone for all your emails and concerns. It was very touching to hear how much everyone has been thinking of me.

One of my New Years resolutions this year is to try and write in my blog at least every 2 weeks. This may not seem too hard for those with constant Internet, but here in the country where internet is an hour and a half round trip adventure, and internet time is frantic and precious, sometimes the blog would slip my mind. Thus I must apologize for my less than frequent updates, spanning 2 or 3 months. I realize that my close family and friends are those that give me the strength here and in life, so I will try to follow through with my New Resolution and update often.

So let me wipe the dust off my blog, and I hope to deliver to you guys a better or more frequent update on my happenings in Peace Corps Dominican Republic.

A DIZZYING EXPERIENCE

I returned to the Dominican Republic the first week after New Years, and I am right now just getting back into the swing of things. Yesterday, we had our first library meeting of the New Year, to talk about further construction and programs to be planned for students in the library. A fellow friend and I went after the meeting to go talk to the director of the high school. We asked if he could create a list of 10 of the brightest senior students, and we would offer them the opportunity to do their required service hours in the library. While standing in the school, things suddenly began to move in a circular manner, almost like the school was made of Jell-O. My whole vision was wobbling like something out of Alice and Wonderland, and I thought I was dizzy and going to faint. My first thoughts were “Wow I just got really sick, and I’m going to faint.” And/OR “Wow this school is really made poorly, it’s shaking from all the students.” We all had gone silent, and took a moment to realize that everyone else had felt the same sensation. Then someone addressed the elephant in the school. We just experienced a terremoto, AN EARTHQUAKE.

Being born and raised on the East Coast, I had never experienced an earthquake. That’s why I didn’t realize at first what was happening. I also didn’t realize the impact that this wobbling had created. With no experience with earthquakes, I first assumed that this was an isolated small quake and I did not think much of it. Then the phone calls began to ring. My friend is an emergency coordinator for the Peace Corps and she had to get contact with all volunteers on our region especially those on the coast because of the threat of a typhoon. Then there were the calls from family, and emails from friends, and I began to learn that what I had thought was just a wobble had created devastation just across the border. I initially called my friends whom were near the border, and it appears that everyone is fine and there has not been any destruction that I have heard of in Peace Corps sites. What I gathered from Spanish CNN today was that the worst destruction was in Port-au-Prince and to its South West, i.e. away from the Dominican Republic.

Last I heard, there were an estimated 100,000 deaths in Haiti. Having devastation so close to home, really makes you think, why not here, why not me? I feel like I have always read about monumental earthquakes on the other side of the world, but having one on the other side of the island is frightening. Especially with earthquakes, there is basically no warning or evacuation time. And of all countries, why Haiti? By UN standards, Haiti is the least developed country in the Americas, and it really needs all the help it can get. There is a huge illegal Diaspora of Haitians into the Dominican. They take very low-income labor-intensive jobs and live with out documentation robbing them of rights such as basic education after 5th grade. They are discriminated against and thought to be of a lower class because of where they are from. As may be true for many immigrants, they are constantly broken down and taught to be ashamed of where they are from, and now this? It just doesn’t seem fair. Granted aid is already on the way, but Haiti had enough on its plate before this disastrous destruction!

Haiti came from humble beginnings. It was the only nation who gained independence from a successful slave rebellion. It is also the first post-colonial black- led nation. Haiti has known the hardships of slavery and overcame them. Despite the adversity, I hope Haiti can rise again from this tragedy, but the road seems like a long one. Pray for Haiti and its people. Pray for inspiration for Haiti’s government and all international players that they will arrive to productive solutions.

If you would like to help out, here our two website where you could donate. www.MercyCorps.org or www.google.com/haitiearthquake. You could also try organizing donations in your communities, especially with water, food, and soap.

To conclude, remember to not take things always at face value. A wobble in your life could actually be devastation in another’s. A smile to a stranger, could change a person’s day.

As the days wind by, and it is getting closer and closer to when I am coming home for Christmas, I have been trying to wind down my current projects, to start fresh in the new year. I just taught my last class of ESCOJO MI VIDA (Choose my Life), which is class for youth teaching them about making healthy decisions about sex, alcohol, drugs, discrimination etc. I am giving them an exam on Tuesday, which many have told me they will score a 100%, I hope so! I will probably have a Christmas themed graduation, because I love celebrating Christmas as everyone knows, and since 99.9% of people are some form of Christian, I figure this will be fine. We just received some more grant money for the library, so this morning we are working on doing some more construction on the outside wall, and we just bought some new books and finally book stands (we had been using rocks). Anyways, I think we will be able to finish with spending the money before I leave. With my artisans, I have been visiting all the different workshops and conducting evaluations with them of how the year has went and what projects they would like to accomplish in my last year with them. I am planning a afternoon event, where we will do team building activities, and talk about the results of the evaluations. Then we will create a plan of action for the coming year. Right now we are gearing up for a few artisan fairs. We are participating in a fair at the US Embassy and a 5 day Christmas Fair in the beginning of December. I have been doing sales trainings for my artisans who will be selling at the fairs and making very basic promotional brochures in English and Spanish to educate customers about our products. I planned my flight to work out so I would be leaving from the capital the day after the Christmas fair (where I will also do much of my gift shopping). Let me know if there is anything anyone wants before I come home! Again the website to our merchandise is http://picasaweb.google.com/kconnorsdrv. In December we should know if we are accepted for an international folk art festival in Santa Fe New Mexico. If so this will be a big break for the artisan association and a great chance to make networking contacts for exporting. I am also now preparing for our 1 year in Service Peace Corps Conference where I will be presenting my work in the last year along with challenges and successes. We will also be preparing a certain tool for the group that everyone can use in their service. I will be creating a sales training class, so if anyone has any good research on sales technique email them my way! We will also be problem solving about a challenge, and I think I will be presenting a case study to better organize meetings or to create a better system of organization of the association. Also, if anyone has material on management techniques for meetings or for small businesses, let me know! I am getting so excited about coming home and I can’t wait to see everyone! But right now I am just focusing to tie up all projects so I can really relax during vacation!

Hey guys,

So I realized I haven't posted in almost 2 months so I better write something. Basically here things have been really busy. I helped my artisan group plan a national art fair, which was a four day event. Pictures are on Picassa. It was fun but stressful, but a good learning experience. I also had taught a 14 class business course and after the class the kids could write their own business plan with a chance to travel to a national competition. Well it just so happened that two of my groups were selected to go! But it happened to begin the same day as the last day of the fair, so my kids went down with Justin in the morning, and I followed them at night after the fair. Not only did this clash of dates add to my stress, but the morning of the competition, one girl decides to drop out to leave her 13 year old teammate stranded to present by himself. So that night I did as best I could to prepare him for his presentation the next day of his business plan.

Neither of my groups won, but they both had stellar attitudes, talking about how much fun they had, and how much they learned, and asking if they could maybe do new projects next year. I was like a proud mother, it almost brought tears to my eyes.

Another event to add to the lump, I am planning the Inauguration of the first ever community library in Higuerito this Saturday at 4! The library is already open, but the Dominican Republic is all about ceremonies to make things official, so we are doing a shoe string Inauguration since we are low on funds (meaning there aren't any). But we are getting by fine, and I actually just received acceptance on a grant I had just written for the library, so soon we should have so more money to work with.

So I am trying to think of something funny... Well as those of you know, I am all about holidays, so I want to throw a Halloween party in my community. My friend and I just bought scary masks for 50 cents, so I kind of want to scare the little kids as they come through the door. I am still undecided up a costume, so let me know if anyone has any good/easy ideas.

O in further news, I think I will be meeting the BEN AND JERRY! My best friend here works on a chocolate and wine tour at a chocolate factory. Since Ben and Jerry is all about fair trade, they buy from my friends factory, and they are hosting a competition to create a new flavor and the winner comes to her chocolate tour. Anyways BEN AND JERRY are coming with their ice cream to her site, and they are going on the tour and building a community park. I am going to help be a translator!!! So hopefully I will have some fun pictures from this soon!

Lastly, I am celebrating my 1 year in service in a week! Meaning only a year and a week until I am home for good! So we might do a little celebrating before the Ben and Jerry experience.

Okay I will try to be more vigilant with my blogs, and write something more interesting next time!

I miss everyone so much! See you in December!

So my recent Peace Corps effort is finding a larger market to sell my Association's products.  I just recently began updating pictures to picassa http://picasaweb.google.com/kconnorsdrv, so check it out!  Also, I have been trying to research free trade organizations, and trying to find access to international markets.  If anyone has any insight into connecting with international buyers or becoming free trade certified or of any good free trade associations please let me know!  More updates about my efforts to come.   

So right now, I’m sitting in one crazy regero (mess).  My apartment has been in the process of being painted for the last week and a half, and I am hoping all the fumes are not doing any permanent damage.  Like the UV rays I have been absorbing, I won’t worry about these effects until the rear their heads in the future where I am sure with our great medical advancements, there will be cures for everything!    So, back to painting as anyone whom has gone through it, you know it’s a process packing up all your things, having strangers in your house, not being able to get to your things.  Take all that trouble times it by a million and add some crazy and that’s what I have been going through here!  First, let me explain… this painting was not my idea.  The owner of my apartment is visiting from Puerto Rico (I still have not met this mystery man), and he decided he wanted to do some improvements meaning paint the whole house!  The first day his sons arrive and paint for a good 45 minutes until they decide that it wasn’t so fun painting in the insane heat that is the summer on a subtropical island (I don’t blame them, what kind of vacation is that?).  So then we are painterless for a few days, so I have some smattering of paint to admire.  Then of course the day I head to the capital for a meeting is the day some people were hired to paint the base for the apartment.  I do not call them painters, because they were not, they must have been some guys with nothing to do that were found on the street.  I come home from the capital, to find o yes the painters had come, and they had moved all my things in the most complicated and inconvenient way possible, putting most of my clothes and necessary items in a room, and then blocking it with my table filled with papers and binders, and other miscellaneous items, so I could not reach anything.  Furthermore, it seemed as if monkeys and entered my house and thrown paint around the apartment.  Literally, everything has white base paint on in now.  I have a matching set of paint splattered dishes, silverware, cups, mugs, shoes, tables, doors, tile.  Even my paintings now have extra paint on them!  I like to match, but this is a little ridiculous.  To top it off, there are beer bottles all over, and they had been using my only nice big knife to file down paint!  Luckily, today arrived an actual professional painter with just his son.  They are painting over the splatter, with a very pretty yellow cream color.  But, things are even messier now!  Hopefully, tomorrow this delightful paint adventure will end, and I will upload pictures of my new painted house!  Hopefully, the pain will be worth it! In other news, a pool was just built at the discotecha (club) near my house.  This last Sunday, Rachele and I ventured to the pool party, as it cannot be described any other way.  The pool is actually two pools and a Jacuzzi, fully equipped with a swim up bar with underwater bar stools!  And both of us being rubias (blondes), you know that means free drinks always!  There is also a restaurant, but we snuck in some snacks because we’re poor.  So, this pool is not a quiet lay out and relax pool. There was techno music pumping, and I danced merengue a few times in the pool (Once someone even cut in!)  Around 6 the first band arrived, Krispie, which is a merengue tipico band… I think my favorite Dominican genre of music, mainly because this type of music includes the accordion!  Rachele and I watched the first band from the Jacuzzi, mainly because we were too afraid of being cold and getting out of the water… I don’t know how I’m going to manage Christmas back home.  We used all our bravery and left the Jacuzzi for the second band and danced up by the stage!  These bands all have professional male dancers, whom twirl around and dance with quick succinct steps.  It is incredibly contagious and no matter who you are, you cannot watch and not want to dance with them!   Fast Forward... its been two weeks and they are still painting!

First, I apologize for the lack of posts so far.  This month has been quite busy to say the least.  My first week I was in the capital for my follow-up language training.  Then I had a lovely visit for a week and a half with my family.  And I just returned yesterday, from an Artisan Fair in the East of the Country (an 8 hour trip if the bus hadn't broke down for 2 hours on the side of the highway, and the driver abandoned us).  

So needless to say, I feel like I have been running around the country.  I am about to leave on Friday, to head down to the South for a 4th of July Celebration.   Myself and 14 other volunteers are trecking out to a desserted and protected to beach on the south west tip of the country.  I have heard that there is little nothing there, so we are coming in the day before to get all food and supplies (toilet paper), before we go.  The beach though, is supposedly breath-taking, and I will surely post- pictures afterwards.

Traveling around has been fun, but I am really looking forward to settle- down in my site for awhile after the fourth of July trip.  This week, I finished my last class of the Youth business course that I have been teaching, and tomorrow I will be having a review and party for the class.  Today, I am in the city to buy materials to make a 4th of July themed cake.  I decided I would make the fiesta also fourth of July themed, to provide some cultural interchange for the kids.  Pretty soon, I will be working with this class to help them write their own business plans, for businesses they want to start in the community.  We are still working on opening our library, I plan on doing some digging tomorrow to help level the land before my class.  I am also working on a Marketing Strategy for my artisans, so I am currently researching Fair Trade Associations to evaluate if this would help us gain more access to markets.  So that is it for now, because the internet is about to turn off.  I will write a more interesting post soon!

Hello, welcome to the first post of my blog in the Dominican Republic.  This blog will describe my experiences, adventures, and every day life in the Dominican Republic for the next year and a half.  A small background, I am a community economic volunteer in the small town of Higuerito, Moca (population 3,500).  It's close to Santiago, in the north central area of the country. My primary project is working with a ceramic artisan association.  My secondary projects include building a community library, teaching English and Business classes, and participating in youth leadership camps.  My aim of this blog, is to share my experiences about working and living in a foreign developing country.  I hope that you aren't completely bored by my life, and I will try to spice it up as much as I can.  So, sit back and relax, grab a cold fruity drink... and enjoy learning about the life of the Poor and Fabulous in the Caribbean.