Yesterday morning, I was making coffee, and turned around to see this little guy eating out of my dog's bowl. So, I gave it half a sardine, and named it Mir. Also, sugar cane harvesting is still going on. This is the before shot: Then, they set fire to the fields. This is somewhat terrifying. It rains ash for a day or so, and the air is thick with the smell of molasses. Next,
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This morning, Emilio stopped by my house while I was making coffee, and I taught him how to strip. Ethernet cables. You see, today was the day I started teaching my youth about computer networking. Back before the holidays, I got a 16-port DLink switch, a box of CAT-5e cable, and a little bag of Ethernet terminators from World Vision. I had solicited this stuff because the 3g modem/Wi-Fi
I'm staying in my site for New Years. This will be the first major(ish) holiday that I haven't spent with other Volunteers, and while I like the ability to decline participation in large group activities, the site seems to be conspiring to make me regret my decision.
Let's talk about child abuse a bit. Say you have a kid, and the kid falls and hurts himself. Obviously, you go up to the kid, and
Batey life is going well. I spend most of the day playing with kids, supplying endless sheets of paper to draw on and fold into airplanes, and dealing countless hands of Uno. The lab is doing alright, and is pretty much running itself at this point. I have a group of youth who make sure it is open in the morning and in the afternoon, and while I’ve given up on any sort of work shift schedule,
Before she COS’d, Sarah and I started up a QPCV group. Following other PC countries, we may end up naming it Volunteer Diversity and Support. The three main goals are: Q Volunteer support Raise staff and admin awareness Influence new Volunteer training This past Tuesday, Ellen, Nora, and I pulled off the first Safe Space (Espacio Seguro) training in PCDR! The training director gave us an
So. I have less than 9 months left here. Let’s review! DONE: Adult literacy classes Adult literacy computer classes I lost 10 pounds (where’d they go?) Computer repair class American music radio program Ran a half-marathon Got a dog (BEAN!) Sex ed/environmental awareness youth group Taught English in a high school Tons of cholera prevention classes, in
I’m finally making progress with the new house! The living room/kitchen. I spent a long time sweeping it—the owner was using the house to raise chickens. It was not pretty. The bathroom. Yeah, no plumbing, but lots of rocks. Not sure why there are rocks. My bedroom! It has a window, but it is boarded up right now. Notice how nice and flat-ish the floor is—I spent a few hours with some
I’m a sureño! I moved in temporarily with Chloe, and at the moment, an evangelical church has set up massive speakers and about a hundred chairs (a bit hopeful…) two houses down, and everything is vibrating. If they turned it down just a bit, you could hear something besides a billion decibels of static (screaming is…better?). It´s worse than what they do in movies in hostage situations, and has
I’m trying to get the floor poured in my new house, but it’s a lucha since I’m not there. So, I’m going to move to Chloe’s for a while until the new place gets set up. In the mean time, I’ve been spending some quality time with Bean! Bean made friends with a goat. He looks like a fatty in this picture because he still hadn’t digested the pounds of white rice, chicken bones, and full-cream
I’ve been in the Dominican Republic for over 14 months, and in my site for almost a year. I decided a few weeks ago that another year in Yamasa may not be the most productive, and that I was ready for a new challenge. It also didn’t help that, during this period, two of the girls that had been in my youth group, and who had also been in my English workshop in the High School, had won a regional
Jessica, Chloe, and I worked on this article for the PCDR magazine, the Gringo Grita. New Chapters: Alfabetizing Peace Corps Imagine that you can’t look up information in your phonebook, check your child's homework, follow street signs, verify that your bill was correct, or understand the warning labels on medication. Some say that being able to read and write your own name is sufficient to
The newest class of Peace Corps Trainees arrived in March! After a week or two of training, each newbie goes out to visit a volunteer to see what their service is like. I took Blair around to all my classes and groups, out to one of the bateys, and got to see Heidi's kids play baseball. This is the basic computer class for women who have completed basic literacy. Look at your keyboard.
This is San Antonio! Out in the campo. Green, green, green. The road used to be paved. Then, it got a lot of potholes, so the mayor had it torn up, and never repaved it. The aqueduct is damaged, and only reaches a part of the community when it is working. The school yard. I think the trees may have been planted by a PCV in the 80’s. The Ministry of Ed was fixing it up, then the
These are some of the neighborhood muchachos. They hang around my house once in a while, ask me questions about living in Nueba Yol, and now, play with Bean. They came cover today with shirtfulls of cahuil fruit that they picked by climbing on the church roof, and we sat on my porch and gorged until the grass was covered with pits and chunks of fruit that the bugs had gotten to first.
I sort of got a dog. His name is Bean. I have no idea what kind of dog he is, or how big he’s going to get, or where he came from. So that’s cool. Margo will take care of him when I leave site, and it’s kind of fun to have the little guy running around. Sure, he poops and pees a lot, but my entire house is cement, and bleach is cheap. The CTC had a secret santa and pot-luck for valentine
I’m a radio DJ! Today was the first day of La Hora Americana, the American Hour, on 107.9 Radio CTC Yamasa. Here’s my first playlist: One Republic- Everybody loves me Adele- Chasing Pavements Good Charlotte- Dance floor anthem Santogold- LES Artistes Metro Station- Disco Mute math- Electrify Klaxons- Golden skans One Republic- All the right moves The Ataris- Boys of
I decided to finally mow my lawn again. The horse and goats haven’t been around lately to do the job, so I had a whack with it with my machete. This, of course, drew a crowd of neighbor women, who stood at a distance and smiled and pointed at me as I flailed at the overgrowth with a giant blade. You’d think they’d be used to it by now. Margo came over, holding her granddaughter, and in 5 broad
I spent the last week working in a clinic near Santiago with some other volunteers. The doctors were awesome, and it was a pretty great experience. In the mornings we translated for patient intake, and in the afternoons we watched surgeries (and got to scrub in and help with a few). They were doing bumps and lumps—hernias, sebaceous cysts, and lipomas. I learned how to do interrupted
Projects, in the order I remember them: 1. English workshop in the High School It has been going pretty well—the kids pay attention, want to be there, participate for the most part, and love to play dinamicas (games). The hardest part is planning classes that everyone can participate in, and being consistent across classes. One class was entirely conversations in small groups. Another was
I’m in the States for xmas! The week before I left the DR was pretty hectic, trying to wrap up a few projects, talk to a dozen people, assuage Sugeidy’s fears that I wasn’t going to return, and planning things logistically. The ICT/Education sector’s Encargados del Futuro youth conference was in Licey, outside of Santiago, on the 5th-7th of December, so I headed to Santo Domingo to catch the
Thanksgiving and the All-Volunteer Conference are the two events each year when (almost) all volunteers get together. For Thanksgiving, we went to this place in the capital and spent the whole day holding basketball, volleyball, domino, swimming, and other tournaments. A whole team of volunteers spent the previous day cooking so we could gorge ourselves at lunch time, which was awesome. In
So, another month has passed. At some point, I'll get around to writing about it. I fly home on Dec 7th, my sister is due to give birth any day, I started teaching English, have been traveling, learned how to cook beans, and met some Canadians.
I woke up today thinking it was Thursday. I planned my day for a Thursday. Today is Friday. The last time I remember being this disoriented was in high school, when the summer smushed into one long weekend. Instead, I’ve had a month of weekdays. I need some wins. The little island is chugging along. The new class of volunteers swears in on Wednesday, and on Thursday I get my green card.
The bridge over where Phil lives in El Cercadillo (a neighborhood/part of the road a 15 minute walk from my house) eats cars and people. Lots of them. So, the community decided to get together and clean it up, and build a pedestrian walkway on the side. My youth group kids participated in the cleanup effort, hiking up their pants and picking up trash in the river, whacking away at overgrowth
I spent the last week on a medical mission up in the mountains outside Santiago, translating for American doctors and dentists. It was a good experience, and I was surprised at how much I was able to say—I didn’t know much medical terminology, but neither did the patients. The group comes three times a year to the community, and over about 13 years, has constructed three clinics, a church, and a
You remember that episode of The Simpsons where Springfield is competing for the Olympics, and Lisa’s class is on the bleachers singing “Children! Children! Future! Future! Children are the future!” ? That was playing through my head this morning while I was trying to plan activities for my Escojo mi Vida youth group. I’m mostly terrified of this group. So many 14/15/16 year olds, so few of
I filled out a Vacation Request Form, took a picture of it, and emailed it to my program coordinator. If it gets approved, I’ll be back in the States from December 8th to the 28th. That will more than wipe out all my accrued vacation days… Also, I’m really happy to have a job where I have vacation days, and health care, and the ability to stay in my house reading David Sedaris books all day if
Avocados are EVERYWHERE right now. I would eat them in my house, I would eat them with a mouse. In my pueblo, they go for 5 to 10 pesos, which is about $0.13 to $0.26 each. I eat a lot of avocado.
My basic recipe for guacamole is avocado, olive oil, garlic, and salt. You can add tomato, onion, or ginger too. You can add it to scrambled eggs (makes green eggs, ham is extra), pasta, eggplant,
The computer teachers are in the capital for training, so Sugeidy has been covering some of their classes. She doesn’t know much about computers, but has no shame in throwing herself out there. Which is probably more important than knowing much about computers. Today, she brought me into the classroom, about 20 minutes after the class was supposed to start, and told me that I was going to
Well, this is interesting. It seems that if I climb up onto my roof, I can pick up an open Wi-Fi signal! Oh Peace Corps… being an IT volunteer is funny sometimes.
We started a new cycle of adult literacy classes at the CTC, so I get to see everything from the first day (this past Tuesday), and have a bigger hand in the classes. Above are three of the women who I am working with, Justina, Carlita, and Maria Jose. So far, it has been pretty great. Well, mostly great. The first class, I locked all my materials in the radio room, and Diomaris, the
Instant message poetry from my Katy Williams, my world-traveling comrade:
tropical countries eliminating lines on peoples' facesexcept for the ones that are poor enough that the daily struggle to make ends meetcreates those lines and makes them leatherby the age of 30
“You have to be crazy, like me.” said my project partner. “Two days ago, I said in a meeting that I thought we should have coffee for when important people visit. Today, I got us a stove, gas tank, coffee pot, and cups, in exchange for promoting a local business on the radio. You have to be crazy to make things happen, to make anything change. Not enough people here are crazy.” I’m not crazy
Today was my first class on computer repair at the CTC! Sadly, no one showed up for it. I've been a bit sick, and didn't show up in the morning, but still had every intention of giving class. So, I guess that was my fault. I even had a lesson plan, powerpoint, and challenge questions planned out.
Next class is on Tuesday; I'll be sure not to look ill then. Now back to bed.
I took the weekend off, and visited Chloe, Jeff, and Justin at Justin’s site down south. Justin lives in a little cane-board shack right on the beach. It was pretty amazing to sit on the empty beach at night with a bonfire, watching the Perseid meteor shower. The beach. The back of Justin’s house, from the beach (it’s the one with the two red chairs). Yes, it is falling apart, and it’
Dengue-free! Today was an all around memorable day. I love my house, and the neighborhood is great. I have a tinaco, which is a big black drum that sits on your roof and stores water for when the pipes are dry. It turns out that you can go through 250 gallons of water in two days when all the muchachos in the neighborhood are filling up 5 gallon buckets at the outside spigot when you're gone or
So I’m in the capital. I have dengue, but it isn’t a really bad case. My eyes started hurting like hell on Thursday, and I called the Peace Corps doctors on Saturday, and they had me come in. Earlier on Saturday, Sugeidy and I went in to Villa Mella at 6am to go hunting for a bed/stove/gas tank/table, bought said items, and found a truck to carry them back to site (which HAPPENED to be
Finally, here are a few pictures from the 4th of July beach trip. Playa San Rafael, from the San Rafael House porch. I never wanted to leave this place. Clayton’s project site in Paraiso (Paradise). Pool, beach, camping. Catching a ride in the back of a construction truck from San Rafael to Paraiso.
On Thursday, I had about 25 middleschoolers from New Jersey visit my site. It was a Friends Without Borders trip, organized by Tours Trips Treks & Travel. I gave them a tour of the CTC, and talked about what Peace Corps is like, what we do, and a bit about Dominican culture. We played some games, and then a girl got locked in the bathroom. We spent a few minutes with a knife and pen trying to
Alright! I have two options for living on my own. Here is option 1. It would need a lot of work—bars on the windows, lots of cleaning, etc. This is option 2: It is the right half of a duplex in a government housing project, freshly painted and with new metal window bars and slats. My project partner lives across the street, and I have a few friends nearby. Pottery! They
I realized that I haven’t posted any pictures of my actual site… So, here we go! Here is my host family’s house! The top is my host sister’s one-room apartment, the bottom right part is the little store my host dad runs, and the bottom left part is the actual house. This is my room in my host family’s house. My lightbulb, towel, and clothes line This is the bathroom. To shower, you
I am showing my project partner pictures of sandwiches online. Delicious sandwiches, gyros, subs, paninis, and sliders. With tomato, lettuce, cucumbers, spinach, peppers, ham, turkey, bacon, roast beef, salami, avocado, mustard, spicy mayo, onions, pineapple, all kinds of cheeses, and different types of bread.
Sandwiches here are not sandwiches. One typical attempt is to slather lots of
Kudos, Argentina. Here is an article (below) that I originally posted on Jim Neal’s blog. A Dirty War, Crisis, and Human Rights In voting to extend the full and complete rights of marriage and adoption to same-sex couples, the Argentine government has taken another step away from the nightmare of military bureaucratic authoritarian regimes, and has opened a new chapter in South American
Look, I got a certificate from the First Lady’s office for attending a camp on how to give a camp! meta? Just look at those green green shirts.
Chickens. In the States, we have all these words like “free-range”, “organic”,” and “cage-free.” In the DR, chickens are one of three animals that replaced all native mammals except for a venomous rat and something i can’t remember right now. The other two are dogs and cats. There are no poisonous snakes or spiders to speak of here, just tarantulas that can apparently jump 6 feet. This is
July has been a whirlwind so far. I went down to San Rafael for my birthday, and then on to Los Patos and Paraiso with the rest of my training class for the 4th. The southern beaches are almost all pebble beaches, with smooth oval stones that make a really neat noise when the tide goes out. We got bolas (hitchhiking) from town to town, swam in river mouthes, and ate fish fried in little beach
On Sunday, something like 20 volunteers and I ran in the 15th annual Maratón Hispaniola in Santo Domingo. I had “trained” for about 4 weeks, which mainly consisted of running every evening that it wasn´t raining, for as long as it wasn´t raining. We´re in the rainy season… and are on the tail end of a hurricane, I think. We picked up our microchips and running shirts in the morning, and
I've been looking for places to live, and have had two leads so far. One is a one bedroom apartment above this lady's house, and I have to wait for her to get her US visa before I can rent it (she married an American, is leaving the country.) The other is an apartment above a hardware store that is under construction, but I think I'll have to disconsider it... I look at it every morning when I
My sister (real, not host) is having a girl! Above is Adelyn. I think she's looking pretty fly for a fetus.
I'm going to be going back to the States sometime in December to meet her!
I’ve been teaching kids how to play chess for the past few days. I don’t especially like the game, and I’m not very good at it, but everyone is amazed by it. Most of them have picked it up really quickly, but very few seem to grasp how the pawns move. They constantly try to make them move sideways, backwards, and diagonal, and attack by moving forward. One girl picked up the game really
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