Time has flown here in New Haven. Benjamin and I have been running around trying to keep up with lectures (both), emergency department (Ben), clinical hours at the hospital (CB), labs (both), translating at the Free Haven clinic (both), study groups (CB) and random acts of entertainment. I can't say too much about Ben's experience so I'll say what I know:

Ben's classes are really, really hard. While he prepared for o-chem well before term and has benefited from it, biology has been so much more challenging than anticipated.

Working at the ED at St. Roosevelt's on Dr. Newman's research projects has been rewarding and Ben has found a mentor in primary care. He even took the time to read (on top of the mandatory school stuff) Dr. Newman's book Hippocrates Shadow. Ben has enjoyed interpreting on the daily, shadowing doctors around the hospital, and kicking it old school with our Dominican compadres and comadres when they come in for services. Claudette is totally jealous that she hasn't had even one Spanish-speaking patient at Yale-New Haven or St. Raphael's (pronounced 'Rayfield's' in New Haven, weird).Benja also translates at Haven's Free Clinic some Saturdays.

On the personal side of things, Ben is riding the train four hours a day so that he can still live with me while I immerse myself in nursing school and still finds time to most of the shopping and cooking. Can't thank him enough! But, he did get a really sweet bike that gets lots of compliments. Too bad we can't have a dog. I'm on the mend from the experience of the past two years and find myself less weighed down and more uplifted by the experience. I got my hair back to where it was before I left real estate in 2006 - and, yeah, it really made me feel better. It's a psychological thing - leaving behind the years of not being about to afford haircuts and clothing with no stains or tears feels good. Dominican culture is very sensitive to the fact that one will be judged on appearance in the City - and now that I live in the City, it feels good to get closer and closer to civilized manner and dress. I know my doñas allá would not have me walking around town looking like I'm about to feed chickens!

It's been really nice to connect with other RPCVs, especially María, another student at YSN who served in the DR, too. We like to drink it up some nights and reminisce and it's been invaluable in the reacculturation process.

Get ready for over-dramatic statement: I think nursing school is changing me.This is awkward because I'm not 100% rested from all the continual PCV state of ne'er subsiding sunburn, the richest person in town/ the poorest American I know, the most educated person in town/ the most out-of-the-loop American I know, the least eloquent person in town/the most literate person in town, the healthiest person in town/the most undernourished I've ever been.

But, here goes: taking care of sad, sick, and lonely or non-communicative individuals once or twice a week is bringing out a new side of me - I find myself handling intimate care giving in an official, sometimes neutral manner, while storing up these moment for later existential thought. When I get home, I decide that my whole week will be crippled if I think too long on what I've seen, and instead I write care plans, study for tests, and run. Run, like away, like on a pretend exercise mission, but more on a 'away from all that' mission. This is so different from Peace Corps, where I would see something hard and go to the capital or the beach after dealing with it and process with the other PCVs. Today, there just isn't time or energy to process.

The running is fun! I met a very nice girl in my classes who is encouraging and invites me to run with her all the time even though I stink! I go the gym with another group of girls, and we can often be found on the treadmills or exercise bikes or doing crunches while reviewing such interesting facts as how to place a Foley catheter, clean a tracheostomy, diagnose emphysema or procedural order if a chest tube falls right out of a patient's thorax in front of you.

My classes are going well. In my last post, I said that I was having a hard time paying attention and sitting for hours on end. I've acclimated, my grades improved, and now I enjoy what I'm learning without much trouble. This week is the muskuloskeletal and hepatic systems in medical-surgical nursing, temperature regulation and hepatic system in pathophysiology, and antidepressant drugs in pharmacology. But, I should review a little all that's been covered in the past 10 weeks:

Med-Surg Nursing Seminar: nursing diagnosis, nursing assessment overall, of the lungs, heart, kidneys, pain, gas exchange, circulation, aneurysms, fluid and electrolytes, diabetes I and II, and some other stuffMed-Surg Nursing Skills: taking vitals, administering injections, PO meds (and I mean also by the NG or NJ tubing), hanging IVs, sterile procedure, inserting a Foley catheter- fun!Pathophys: this is a wild class I can't describe - suffice to say, it's like all the cool stuff, and only the cool stuff, you've ever learned in biology, physilogy, and mcd bio.

Pharmacology: by far the class with the most 'bang! memorize this or kill someone' effect. We have learned endlessly how to recognize potential drug interactions, where they come from and what happens, how to treat special populations like pregnant women all while learning about: anti-hyperlipidimics (like Lipitor), anti-hypertensives (like Beta-blockers), anti-dysrhythmics (like digoxin), anti-coagulants (like Coumadin), analgesics (like Aspirin and acetaminophen), and oh so much more. Also, what adverse effects constitute an important allergy.

Other stuff about us and me:

Our apartment is starting to look like a home and we're having fun in there. I got a cool bike, too. My first new one and it's totally awesome! We started drinking coffee and eating butter, milk, cheese, and meat again. It's not my preference but Ben is back with a vengeance, and I like to see him so happy. I recently was Told (with a capital T) to start eating more red meat. I must comply or live in a tired anemic world. I'm still sticking to my green smoothie in the mornings and salad for lunch most days. I'm interpreting at Haven, too. The fall colors were amazing! It's over now, but we snuck out to western Mass for a weekend and had the most lovely time picking apples, foraging for raspberries, and seeing the countryside in an glorious anti-bloom. Fall in New England was the spectacular beauty it's known for being.

Simple Umbilical Cord Cutting Tool to Overcome Infection in Third World

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Hi all! I know it's been a long time since I last posted, but isn't it always? I will try to describe my first few weeks at the Yale School of Nursing (YSN) in New Haven, CT as a graduate-entry student in nursing (a.k.a. 'GEPN') . You may remember that I am enrolled in the midwifery specialty, but this year is spent achieving an RN licensure. Then, I move to my specialty training to achieve competence an advanced practice nurse in midwifery, achieve licensure as such and complete a Masters in Nursing Science.

This evening is the night before my first big exam, in the class which haunts GEPN students - 'Medical-Surgical Nursing.' As I've done all I believe possible to prepare, at this point I chose to reflect on the past weeks since I arrived in New Haven on August 24th. I remember my first visit to Yale in June; I admit the sight of the building, in its concrete brutalism glory, on the other side of the highway from the main Yale campus, actually brought tears of disappointment. At this point, I realize that I was still in culture shock and the reaction was mainly insecurity over closing my service early.

Today, I arrive at the YSN building excited to see my colleagues, who continue to impress me with their sincerity, integrity and intellectual excellence, and proud to be learning from gifted people like Linda Pellico. YSN formally announced and welcomed Holly Kennedy to campus this week and I felt the tug of tears again-this time in relief- when I remember fully the serendipity in which I chose to come to YSN sight unseen, after meeting Angie Chambers and Jessica, a then-student, now alum of this program. I am so proud of my association with this program and appreciate New Haven every morning when I see the view from my place (also rented unseen). I know, I'm emo-Claudette.

Jessica was doing a research project on the other side of the island on Haitian women who experience pica during pregnancy. Benjamin and I were living the Peace Corps Volunteer life, 'the hardest job you'll ever love' and the hard part was over - we were acculturated and 'over' America as much as one can be. I had been cultivating a service in which my primary project, a collective of coffee farmers turned into my professional goal, and helping women be happy, healthy and valued was my joy. I think in that moment I 'got the call' to be a midwife, but I didn't know that word yet.

Jessica and I connected over email and something told me to go see her. I happened to visit on the weekend her faculty advisers came to visit her project. I won't often speak of my faith, but I would be remiss in failing to credit powers larger than I for my, having every reason not to take a bus for 14 hours, decided to do so on a hunch that it might be 'interesting.' Of course, Ben urged me to go and wandered around La Romana eating pica pollo while I ate in a restaurant.

By the time my visit with these three midwives was over, I knew I had been called home, but I was apprehensive - who stops on a dime like that anyway? I went through the rigmarole of application but I was nervous. Even up to my first day of school, I wasn't sure - and now I couldn't be more so! I am so lucky!

Orientation was boring, but there were a few notable happenings:

I met person after person whom for whom I have strong good instincts, many of them my colleagues in midwifery. My class size is 87 and the midwifery specialty claims 14 of those. The YSN has been open since 1923 and has struggled to garner support from the University during it's down cycles. I'm sure you can imagine that nurses can't donate on par with law and medicine graduates even though nurses are entrusted with the well-being of clientele everywhere they serve. It's only through the commitment of the alumni, students, faculty, and several clever deans that it's remained open continuously. I think Yale is probably pretty happy it stood by YSN during the lean years with the current status of health care in our country.

I realized New Haven is a beautiful and special place to live. Of course, what's not to like about the grad student life? I would be some kinda jerk if I didn't admit that it's a privilege priceless to have access to hot water, food, loans, the finest education system in human history and sealed living structures with running water all at once. I'm way in over my head here, academically.

Classes started on September 2. It's been hard. I find sitting forever impossible, I can't seem to be on time, give accurate directions or act civilized - often carelessly cutting in lines, interrupting people, expecting indirect answers to work or pay attention when people talk to me about anything more complicated than what's for lunch. But I'm working on it! Recently the sound of constant electricity stopped irritating me, so that's a step.

In addition, I went to college a long time ago and it's been 10 years plus since I took physics, biology and chemistry. I love my classes but I am a disaster trying to keep up. Meaning I often sit with all my textbooks open around me, my notes and wikipedia on the computer - and I'm still lost. I have been fortunate to be taken in by a few generous people who tutor me and (status post) I passed the first exam (that I mentioned up top of this post).

So why didn't I blog more about leaving the DR, the process, more of my PCV experiences, re-entry in the States? Because it hurt. All that growth hurts. I remember having big scabs on my arms or legs growing up where the scab would dry and separate, ooze, and scab over again in a cycle. When I'm struggling, I'm effectively incohesive like a big scab and I didn't write to you because nothing I would have said would have made any sense. Over the course of this blog, I've only been able to give play-by-play commentary on myself and the job as if I were watching a plastic piece move on a game board circuit. As the actor in the story, my analysis were gaunt, lacking breadth. It's now in these months after Peace Corps, while my memory fades, that I try to reach back - who was I? how was I? why? what was everyone and everything else? I'm trying to take all that raw material and figure out what it means before I lose track of it amongst the high rise skyline of New York City.

I just got in the shower and scrubbed my underwear because my brain turned off, and my auto-pilot is still in Dominican.

Thanks, guys. In the past few months since I've left Peace Corps a few people have asked me why I stopped blogging. I thought that without the American-abroad circumstance, there wasn't a need. But, I love to write and if just one person wants to read - I'll keep it up!

I talked to my Dad this morning. He loves to chat, and he has chat 'modes.' One mode is when he tells a story about how the world is. These are often long stories, relaying his take on a broad human topic, like how good it is that doñas cook or how kind he found my DR neighbors. (True, they are pretty nice). Other times, he likes to give advice. This used to irk me, and now that I'm old enough that I give young'ns unsolicited advice, Dad's doing so seems righteous.

What's great about my Dad's advice is his uncanny ability to make statements that are good measures of most decisions. Today we were talking about my need for furniture in a new apartment. I have so much beautiful furniture in sunny California, but, alas, I am setting up an apartment in green New Haven, CT. Dad says he want to drive our furniture out! I know, he's a dear man. I say, 'Dad, just let me handle this with second-hand furniture from Craigslist and whatnot. It doesn't really matter who will win (Dad likes to debate all topics for weeks, sometimes months), but here are a few of his sage remarks.

'Claudette, the problems really start when you lack imagination. Don't forget that just 5 variables leads to a factorial of 120 solutions. All problems are limited only by your ability to imagine new potential solutions.'

'Claudette, we're not capitalists, but we do conserve capital.'

and my favorite: 'Claudette, don't be dogmatic.'

I've been back in the States for two weeks now. The showers are great! I can't complain about a thing. I love the sky. To me, it looks thin and high. The sky in the DR was close and heavy, like wet, glistening wool. I am so lucky to be from Los Angeles. The first place I went on the way home was New York. My heart kept stumbling over all the wonders on a Park Slope boulevard: stand alone, planned trees, single elegant electric wires like jump rope up above the trees, large smooth concrete slabs to make up a sidewalk. Red brick walk-ups against a grey sky. I felt like telling people 'I'm an American, but I'm new here' because it's just fascinating how darling the city looks.

We flew to Burbank, and that was like going from fairytale to perfection. That golden light the Santa Monica mountains give off, has it always been like that? My house in Burbank, has it always been so cool and quiet inside? My parents bought a couch while I was gone, and the luxury of sitting in it made me feel like I was on vacation. One day, I turned on the shower and no hot water came out. So I'm bathing, thinking, hey, I still know how to take a cold one! As I toweled off, I realized I had just forgotten to turn the hot water on. Apparently, my brain don't remember how to do that so much unless I focus on it. I giggled, remembering Arelis. She says hot water damages your hair, and if you want shiny, you want cold. I think about my Dominican family and friends often' their voices ring like pretty wind chimes a few feet behind me in the breeze.

I stay out of stores, stay away from magazines. I think my favorite moment of the whole two weeks was when my niece fell asleep on my lap during a movie. I have always been a very family oriented person, but my service made that bigger. It's just a DR thing, family is all we thought about, planned for, worked on. (Unless you were a drunk unemployed man, but that's another story). Being around people who spent all day talking about their kids, their parents, their siblings made me wonder more than anything 'what am I doing here? My parents don't live here.' Arelis would always ask about my family. What an embarrassment if I didn't have an update. The stores and magazines send little culture shock waves through me, too, but a girl can only handle so many culture shock waves per day, so I pare it down to the amazing American skylines and cityscapes.

Like I said on Facebook, I saw the LA skyline and it brought me joy. Do I miss the DR?

I miss it a lot. I like Los Angeles for so many selfish reasons, like the city is so clean and the sad things are sectioned off, where I am in control of how much exposure to them I get. My family here is much richer than my family there. As a PCV, I lived in relative poverty and worked with the effects of poverty almost exclusively. A vacation from from that sort of problem solving is rest for my psyche.

I write to you today from the United States of America, specifically from Burbank. I am so happy to report that Ben and I closed our service on May 5, 2009. We are so proud of our work and also ecstatic to be home enjoying our family.

We had a great last month in country. My parents came and there was a huge farewell party where Ben, Dylan and I made a dozen pizzas in our earth oven for the kids. There was 10 lbs of moro for 25 people and 7 roasted chickens. Our PC colleagues were supportive and tender as we said our goodbyes. Leaving Los Dajaos was hard on both of us - service is hard won - and it was extremely painful to give it all up.

Still, it is the right choice. I already miss the hugs and cleaning the beans, the expectation that Ben and I would be together at all times (Columbia kicked me out of an orientation I tried to attend with Ben. The nerve! A Dominican would never do that. The culture shock of it all), the greeting people on public transit. Luckily we had some talkative cabbies in New York, because before that happened, New York was feeling kinda icy. I miss my house. I'm pretty sure my Peace Corps house will always be the nicest house I ever lived in; a tie right up there with my house in Burbank.

Still, it was the right choice to leave. Even though the colleagues exceeded my highest expectations of heart and productivity so often and even though I could get a blow out for $3 or a pineapple for $1.40. It's time to get my career on; it's time to get healthy again. And from what I hear, lots of Dominicans in Connecticut to make me feel at home.

Moving forward, Ben and I are back in America, starting grad school, and wow, living in America again. I couldn't be happier with how Peace Corps turned out, how it's changed my life, or how I performed as a volunteer. If you've considered a tour, too: go for it. And stay, stay, stay. The hardest part is staying, forcing that growth. It is worth it.

I'm going to try to keep this blog up as I start nursing school in August and Ben starts his premed post-bac. My family looks great, a great relief to me. With so long not seeing them or my house, I was driving myself insane worrying. We'll be here for two weeks and then we'll be heading East. If you have any recommendations on how to live through winter, like what kind of coat I should acquire, please tell - I am already nervous about being the So Cal girl in Connecticut. I'm prepared for the lack of all things Mexican, but not for the sleet and snow.

"I had to stop thinking logically and make a right-brain decision. "

How I did it: I gave myself plenty of time to think (several years, in fact) during which I entertained myself by not working, doing a mild office job, and serving in Peace Corps. The latter is very formative and continues to shape me. I have weighed this decision rationally and logically, but the artist's mind that led the way.

It took me 10 months.

It made me excited See more progress on: Pick My Next Career

Yikes! I did not post at all in March. And my February post is sorta boring. This past two months have been ** amazing ** as all my months on the island are. Remember, amazing is not synonymous with positive.

I often sit on the stoop of my house, looking out at the lush, furry green pines around tiny little valley (more like a huge gorge) and ponder the jagged, steep and short strokes of mountain which make my 360 degree view. In the mornings, I count the sheep and goats and call back to the kids as they bleat their way up and down the loma.

I make myself coffee, and watch my hummingbirds dart through the guineo -banana trees, which are just large plants, actually. Fog rolls up the valley and pours through the windows of my house, like a smoke machine. I scramble to move paper out of moisture's way, and often admire the clouds - I like to look out at those times and note that the house is in a cloud layer, remember that if I can't see sixty feet out, passersby on the closest dirt road can't see my house through the cloud.

Two hummingbirds on one side of my house and two on the other, I know their spots, recognize them distinctly and it's loud when they come inside the house. I spy on them, they spy on me. In the afternoons, small children come to visit. I wish they would bathe first, but they only seem to think of that on Sundays, ok, fine. We play and color, and I feel the tugging of precious time when I see their worn and torn and sewn again sandals outside my door. I'm knitting a lot and playing DS Lite a lot since it rains every day.

Our concrete floors are a blessing with all the dirt we track in from the path. If it's hot I lay on them to get cool. If its cold, I pick up the laundry bag and my shoes and lay them on shelves or moisture collects under them. Our solar panel has been generous lately and Ben and I like to watch 'The Office' before bed.

'The Office' reminds me of life in America: the cars, the vending machines, the sensible clothing, the extra calories, the bosses, and time clocks. When I watch the show, I remember real estate or working for AI, and I don't feel so claustrophobic about Peace Corps. My community frightens me sometimes with its way of always knowing exactly where I am and what I'm doing. And I'm irked when someone I've never met approaches me in town by name. At the very least, I am always conspicuous when I am with Ben. But then I imagine all the hours I spent behind a desk scheduling tee times and chasing property managers and escrow managers on the phone. In conclusion, I'm more myself out in my yard, showing kids a map of the world and trying (endlessly) to teach them to identify the DR on it.

Our community is a trip. Meaning, it seems like something that could only exist in a drug-induced state. But no, its true. Our community partner, Fernando, is always complaining that his riñones - kidneys- hurt, usually while stroking a cock. If he's not plucking its butt or peppering its skin with tobacco, he's usually cutting some giggly part off. I don't watch cock fights, never have, don't want to, am not expected to (as a female), and I know it's an unfortunate practice. In Fernando's defense, I believe that cocks like to be tough and enjoy fighting, they do it spontaneously all the time - although, without the razor blades attached to their hind quarters. (See - trip alert- the image of a cock with razor blades attached to its claws should sound pretty out there to the American sensibility).

Fernando. I do wonder if he has a kidney problem. This may be related to the massive amounts of alcohol he drinks or to lifting and carrying huge sack of coffee about. I, for one, was unconvinced that kidneys could be painful. I was set straight when my 16-yr. old neighbor Miguelina had a kidney infection recently. She was complaining that her kidneys hurt and I told her to stop carrying so much water and give her muscles a rest. I was totally wrong, and three bags of IV fluid better, she's okay. I told her to stop with the big plates of salami.

Ben and I and the niños built a clay oven. It's his story, so ask him about it sometime. It includes his carrying over a hundred pounds of clay to our house in a 5 gallon bucket.

I let the girls put rollers in my hair. I taught them to knit, and they finished the job with a hair net. The next day when I went out with pelo suelto - hair down - I felt like a princess.

A family and I were finally able to get their kids declared as citizens this month. I also baked some cakes on my easy-bake oven.

The youth group and I finished our Escojo Mi Vida - Healthy Choices - curriculum and it was supremely disappointing to see what they learned. Better something than nothing, I guess. They were also so dame, dame dame algo - give me, give me, give me more - about it, having my hair done was the best part. God, I am so glad this is over, despite how much I love teaching sexual health and how much I love making posters. Wow, this format was not for me.

I do like my health community women's group. They are nice and don't usually demand anything but my participation. I taught them to make floor cleaner and they just love me now.

Our campo got cell phone signal - so, yes, most of my neighbors are still teary with joy that they can make phone calls for the first time from home. This is something I have obviously taken for granted my whole life, including Peace Corps. I can always afford to go to town and make calls, and I hate to talk on the phone so no calls to the house is, ideal. My neighbors could never even afford to go to town to call, and so, don't really even know if they like the phone or not. My little 16-year old neighbor, Miguelina, is excited because now her mom, who works in the US, can call her.

We translated on a second med mission, this one was plastic surgery. The team was from Albany Med in New York and we mostly worked on scar repair, cleft palates and tumor removals. I like being in surgery. I find it doesn't unnerve me. Some notable cases were: cutting out raised scars and repairing the face of a woman who had had acid thrown at her, repairing the tendons in the hand of a man who had had them severed in a machete accident, and cutting free the arms of a girl who had been in a bad fire and whose arms had grown a skin scar web, making it impossible for her to extend her arms.

On the one hand, I felt pride being able to help these people receive services. On the other, I went to pat the little girl with the arm burns as she left, fully freed arms totally bandaged up in over 200 stitches per arm. I went to pat her on the head and wish her my love and I realized that most of her hair burned off, too and she's mostly bald. 7 years old, little chance of ever having hair, little chance of so many things and still the head held high and strong. I'm so obviously not the one to be admired for courage. Her name is Dilexis.

I can't remember if I reported on the first med mission, but it was a head and neck surgery team from Loyola in Chicago. That was were Benja found his calling and were I realized that I have to do this nursing thing that's been in my head since last May.

We graduated a bunch of kids from our computer classes. It's still guandules season, and I like that. But the mangoes are almost here, and the avocados too. Yesterday I had my first guava of the year... I'll be happy to branch out again from banana, pineapple, cherry, strawberry, and papaya.

Ben has a cold, and I'm all kinds of sick, but no worries. For those with whom I have not spoken in some time, we'll be home soon.

I am posting my pictures on Picassa now.

I've gotten some requests for video of the DR. Here's one I took at Centro León, the cool museum in Santiago of an expert cigar roller putting together a choice Dominican cigar.

My Peace Corps service is more than halfway complete, and with the new year in mind, I've been thinking about all the changes to my person and views of the world since September 07. Some of the changes are basic and obvious: I'm a better cook, more active walker and hiker, less worried, less harried. I can give trainings, tell stories, and tell jokes in English, Dominican Spanish, and a special blend of the two. My marriage is stronger for two years of adventure together. I'm better at budgeting money, permanently detached from any sort of emotional preoccupation with career climbing. I don't ever feel the need to shop. I'm happy with that - and it is but a small selection of the obvious changes I can name.

Some of the changes are epistemic, less discrete. The other day at my place, I was preparing tea for 3 teens that came to ask me to make good on a promise for a beach day. They had never tasted sweet tea or honey before, and I decided they should try. While I strained the tea, the girls went into why and when I should take them on this gira and the boy stayed silent. If you've been reading this blog for a while (thanks!), you may remember that aggressive teenagers scare me. I went through my arguments for no beach trip: they don't attend my classes, the trip is for students who completed the course, no one helped with a fundraiser so we could afford to go, I was very sick for much of December. After sipping iced tea, the girls started gagging and had to be given mints to kill the pain. The silent boy suffered through all of his with a forced smile. Oh, teenagers and trying new things - you can almost mark a person's emotional age by how well they try new things.

The conversation moved on to the latest person to be hit by a drunk-driver moto this holiday season. It turned out on of girls had gotten married to the brother of the other girl while I was gone.

I launched in a plea to the kids to avoid drinking and driving motos, talking about how much I care for their safety and such. They laughed me off. I offered to help the newlywed with family planning strategies, finishing elementary school, just be around to talk about how life is changing if she ever needs to. They stayed a while and left when it became obvious I would not be taking them to the beach. I know in the past I would have felt so hopeless - like, 'am I helping my community? Obviously not! These kids know what they think and they don't need me pointing out that driving under the influence and family planning is a problem in this community. They just laughed at me!'

But, I didn't feel like that at all. I had to take a step back and redo the logic - did I handle the situation well? yes: absentee participants don't deserve the graduation trip; Yes, someone should point out that the loss of lives and livelihoods to alchohol is tragedy; Yes, someone should offer education and emotional support to child-bearing teenagers.

The underlying change in habit is that I used to evaluate my work performance under the onerous 'did I do my my job?', (click here for the goals of Peace Corps) and now, I evaluate based on whether I think I did the right thing with respect to morals, ethics, and reality. I'll spare the kind reader another convoluted anecdote, but other epistemic professional changes include: approaching work as an opportunity to be a trainer and facilitator to my colleagues in their overall plan, not just with respect to the task at hand.seeing my colleagues as The Benefit of having a job. (I know, I'm a bad person! Its just that in past I used to work in real estate - other desserters of big business will appreciate this comment).seeking jobs and making career decisons based on the diversity and personality of my colleagues. (Okay, I decided on this long ago, but Peace Corps proved it is a wise heuristic to follow). placing the development of my technical abilities in basic human needs like health, water, safety, literacy and numeracy above theoretical thoughtThis is a photo of my teaching my women's health promotor group to make floor cleaner as an income generation project.

It's almost the end of 2008. I'm healthy and happy, I'm working on my plans for 2009. Ben is sleeping across from me. We're waiting at the infamous Pensión Quisqueya to pick up Martin, my little bro, from the airport. He's my first family member to come visit me during my service! I'm so excited!

and Much like I Love Graphic Design and Web Design, I don’t seem to make much time for it, and instead prefer to spend my hours catching up on my google reads or adding more books into my goodreads. in 09, we try to put an end to procrastinating on digital hobbies!See more progress on: take more (and better) photos

There is so little untouched coastline left. The whole idea for me would be solitude and forest close to the water. Something on the northerly coasts of N. America. Could I get what I want without polluting more coastline? Also, I doubt I’ll ever be able to afford this, but like my mountain cabin – it’s ok to dream, right.See more progress on: own a beachfront cottage

The Dominicans in the street just counted down the seconds till Christmas Day. As in 10-9-8-7... happy happy! Interesting. The music keeps pumping next door, an awesome mix of bachatas with Ja' Rule and Mariah Carey hip hop played loud next door. Seems like most people are asleep by now.

You always wake me to brush my teeth. I never wake you to brush yours. I ask... who loves who more?

This entry might have also gone under ‘live frugally,’ but faithful readers will already know my 43things.com shows that goal complete :)An American (from Phillie!) visitor to our community gifted us a little glass jar of citrus preserves she made herself. It reminded me of the jam Maritza serves at Casa Coson, also homemade. In combination with a little goat cheese, fresh bread, olives and a glass of wine: I’m so happy I’m a little teary. Is sustainable living when $15 in groceries finds me so much luxury, to the point of guilt, over the padding of little bare feet outside the door?See more progress on: learn more about sustainable living

Benjamín and I are having a very special holiday season. Last year, we both moped about, missing our families, and were repeatedly pierced by the sharp pokes of culture shock. Coming up on this holiday, I was nervous it would be a repeat. Nothing could be farther from what's happened.

It's Christmas Eve, and I'm listening to what sounds like a group of grown men and a toddler cheer on a drinker or dancer to new feats of festive. We're tucked inside Tara's beach bum apartment in Bayahibe, the scent of sizzling butter still in the air from dinner. Ben made a soft white snapper with tomatoes and boiled potatoes. We had Torón and dark chocolate for dessert. A nice Christmas Eve on the beach.

Today day went much better than yesterday. Yesterday we had no coffee. Ben was face-down on the bed in despair by 3 o'clock and I had to revive him with quick brew ice tea. He had gone into caffeine withdrawal depression and I was on suicide watch, so no way I could go out and buy brewed coffee. The reason: we had not yet located Tara's gas tank, lent to a friend around the corner. Literally, around the corner. Without coffee, we are that muddled.

This morning we jumped out of bed and bought coffee at the closest calmado and found the gas tank, and Abby May, the cutest little black pup on Hispaniola, in minutes. When the neighbor holding onto the gas tank and Tara's dog asked what took so long, and why I called and sent texts instead of just coming over, I was too sheepish to explain that without my morning coffee I am inept and could not find her house for an entire day.

Our 2008 holiday season includes so far: a merengue night in Santiago, an Águilas game in Santiago, cooking up Thanksgiving pies and stuffing for the PC family, the Thanksgiving party itself - complete with more merengue dancing, a dinner party at the country director's swank high rise condo, baking on the fogón (to an American, this would look like an indoor campfire with a dutch oven on it sorta), toasting and packing lots of coffee, and the beloved Christmas Artisan Fare. At the Artisan Fare we sell coffee and I get to buy cool handicrafts. I had been looking forward to a set of hand-carved mahogany serving spoons for soup, sugar, and salad.

Sadly, I had an inner ear infection and spent 8 days wishing the world would stop spinning so fast and lunching around so much. Never made it to purchase my coveted hand-carved spoons. This was the most ill I've been in-country, maybe even ever (I'm built like a semi and a scaredy cat, too). After such, I was not in the mental state to journey up the lomas of the Cordillera Central for Noche Buena (Christmas Eve)- I'm still a little nauseous from all the vertigo. So Ben and I came straight to Bayahibe Beach, where Tara was kind enough to lend us her place while she's in the States for Christmas. Dilana lent us her wireless Internet - so yes, I am very blessed with generous gifts this year!

How do you do this? I try to be outspoken in my community about the general poor treatment of wives and daughters around me, but I think it doesn’t help. If anyone in our community takes notice of the dynamics of my marriage (and I would think so, people regularly stand by and gawk/watch when Benja does laundry or dishes), this is probably doing more than any harping I do to try and get the village boys to give mom a hand in the yard.See more progress on: help end violence against women

After months (maybe even an entire year) of service being a major drain on my emotional resources, I am happy to report that service is no longer difficult.However, I can’t mark this goal as complete until I reach my COS date in November of 09 or chose to early-terminate to attend grad school.See more progress on: complete my Peace Corps Service

I am happy to say that in November I applied to a graduate-entry nursing program and a PhD program in Occupational Science. The nursing program is a specialty in midwifery. I am coming along in making my decision as to which will suit me better should I have the good luck as to be accepted to both.See more progress on: Pick My Next Career

"I have learned to plan and get excited about baking even if I'm not sure who is going to eat the whole thing. "

How I did it: I bought an easy-bake stove-top oven (also called a flanera) for our house. It took a few months, but I also accumulated a lot of baking basics in the house: baking powder, baking soda, cocoa powder (thanks Kate!), multi-purpose flour, vanilla extract, ground spices and whole spices. Some of these purchases required a trip to the capital and then a special trip to the fancy market where these sorts of things are sold.

Then, I had to learn the basics of baking with comes down to (I think) mix wet and dry ingredients separate before you mix them together. Bake, and don't be afraid to subsitute or compost away if necessary!

Lessons & tips: Take your time as budget allows, but one by one buy up the basics.

Resources: How It All Vegan

It took me 3 months.

It made me content See more progress on: become a pastry chef

Today I woke up nervous because its Christmas, a decidedly tough day of service. The DR is not fun for me on Christmas: too much drinking! Not enough being good company! Ben and I took a safe bet and are at the beach this Christmas. The delicious fish, the beautiful views, and the sailboats make missing the fam a little easier and the DR holiday style easier to bear.See more progress on: Do Something Scary Everyday!

During my long stint in the capital feeling dizzy, I heard some PCV anecdotes and witnessed one. Here goes:

So a PCV was watching a friend mix up the food for his chickens. It's great, in the DR we get to see agrochemicals in action all the time! So, the PCV watches as the guy is mixing up the nutrients and lastly, he pulls out a bag of purple powder and, with his bare hands, starts to mix up three gaping hand-fulls of this eerie purple powder into the feed. The PCV thinks to self, 'I wonder if that is some sort of antibiotic. No, its so much; its got to be hormones.' PCV asks. Yes, this person was mixing chicken feed & hormones in the house, with bare hands. It makes the chickens lay more eggs!

Benja and I are in carro publico riding back from Taco Bell lunch. (Hey, you spend 8 days in the capital and over a year away from Mexico and tell me you don't start eating Toxic Hell). I see this guy holding a baby piggy, maybe a 10-lb'er on the side of the road. I think, 'hey, there's a guy with a baby pig! How cute! I bet he's trying to sell it to make a buck for buying Christmas dinner.' I see a couple more piglets.

Turns out it Christmas funda day - Amable was out in handing out holiday bags of groceries and they included a free piglet or chicken! Some readers in the industrialized world may be appalled, but I remind you this is an opportunity to eat a pig or husband one; not a poor gift by any means. Also, in a country where most people do not have refrigerators (I know, you are stone cold baffled on how that would work, don't worry, its cool), it would be unwise to give people prepared meat. Also, everyone but me and Benja here knows how to skin a pig.

Finally, and all sarcasm aside, a PCV saw a drop off to the mental health facility. The man was taken on the public bus and the bus driver and fare-collector, most likely life-long acquaintances of the patient, had to lie the whole way to the hospital and tell the poor patient they were taking him home. That PCV and I felt sad for the patient; my prayers are with him.

On average, I would say a person here interacts much more often, and thus much more normally, with people of varying mental states, capacities, and differing disabilities. Unlike the industrialized countries where disability is handled as privately as possible, both to protect the integrity and privacy of the patient and for the comfort of the able-bodied and minded among us, it is not usual in this country to see fare-collectors hand-holding a blind person into a bus seat. Nor is it unusual for ASCAJA to purchase coffee from a mute farmer, even though neither he or we speak any sort of standard Sign Lang. Its been my experience that in the Dominican Republic, people place brotherly love very high in importance, but I do not intend to say that the average experience of a a person with special needs is easier here. It is not.

What's it like to live in a Dominican campo? This is a good question. In the Close-of-Service essays PCVs write in our Gringo Grita DR Peace Corps magazine, everyone answers the question... when did you know you were in the Peace Corps? I think I knew as I poured the first of 200,000 buckets of cold water over my head in my 'bathing area.' Or maybe it was when I stopped thinking of myself as chubby and started thinking of myself as buena. Also, I now wear make-up and do my hair the same as if I was living in the US with a job. So, when I first got here I had this quasi-safari look that had something to do with being sick all the time, not having enough clothes or knowing how to look good here, and being hot all the time. Now, I'm not sick, have enough clothes, know how to dress to impress Dominican-style, and actually go around with a sweather that I put on if the temperature dips below 75. Simply the absense of feeling foreign here makes me feel more 'Dominican.' I guess also the look of being Latina helps, I'm so rarely called out on being a foreigner anymore!

Bathing area? In the campo you might have an indoor bathroom, similar to US-style but with no hot water (or sometimes no water at all) or you might have a latrine. A latrine is generally a little closet made of zinc a few feet from the house, detached, where you can get clean or go potty. A favorite configuration where we live is a latrine shower attached to the house. So really, you're outside when you bath in there.

What's the difference between outside and in? In the Dominican Republic, the lines are blurrier than in the US. Here, I think the consensus is that if you are under a roof and there are walls, you are inside. Whether you can still see outside through the walls or whether birds can fly in or rats and cats can walk in through holes in the wall has no bearing. Generally, the level to which your house is sealed from the elements is directly related to how poor you are. Nonetheless, I think one lovely trait of Dominican culture is how much people like to be outside. I don't think many people reflect on being on dirt roads or having bats and cats and rats in the house as nuisances of nature like we do in the States. Americans are so hyper-active about these things, I've realized.

In the campo, I like to sit with my legs hanging out over the step-up into the house and peel guineos. Guineos are green bananas. We eat them green so much that I forgot for a time that you could let them go yellow and sweet. Some were going yellow and I wanted to compost them (compost is when you let your biodegradable trash become fertilizer for the garden). Ben had to remind me that yellow bananas are edible and that some people prefer them that way. Oh yeah.

So, I sit peeling the guineos in the afternoons, my hands covered in mancha. Mancha is this horrible black glue-stuff that comes out of the guineo and stains and sticks to everything like tar. Mancha must be the original tar. The afternoon becomes dusky and I listen to the zinc roof retracting as the temperature drops. The green luscious, inveterate hills and valleys that are my high-altitude view go less luminent and the night sky pops out. It's fall. The fall sky has less crackling thunder shows than spring and summer, and I'm left to watch the stars pop out, one by one and then all at once, it's a bursting night sky. Always at least one shooter in the royal blues and purples before it's truly dark. The moon rises. With no city luminance to distract, the moon is often so bright, I can't look straight at it. It makes me giddy and we like to run out and bathe in the strange weird light. The Milky Way looks like its pouring right down into our mouths. We're so high up in Jarabacoa, it's like our necks are touching the sky.

I bake on my easy-bake oven. The easy-bake oven is actually a flanera. In American English, we would call it a double boiler. Inside, its shaped like a bundt cake. So everything I bake is shaped like a bundt cake. I bake banana bread and chocolate bread and the occasional birthday cake. It's easy-bake because you mix up the batter and double-boil it done. No temperature gauge. The thing goes on the stovetop and my ability to control the cooking is limited to the on/off action of my stove. However, one must look after the level of water in the boiler. Very important!

Leaving our house, one must climb no matter the direction. It is actually uphill both ways to and from everyplace in Los Marranitos (our barrio).

By kerosene lamp, I sometimes draw posters for my charlas (talks) and I sometimes entertain a neighbor. People pop over all the time for coffee. Ben and I hand-mash hummus and hand-roll flour tortillas.

Ben and I are in the middle of the rockin blessing of staying with an embassy family this week while we do prep and cooking for the pc family thanksgiving. We've got bagels and fresh pasta, newspapers, Internet, and along with all that - electricity! The family we're staying with is warm and kind, and that's always nice, being so far from our own. Today, I'm thankful for Ben (but that's everyday), and I'm thankful for (what, Claudette? I almost mumbled, I so humbled) my co-workers!

Thanks Peace Corps for giving me a home, away from home, often in no locale at all, where I can pretend for minute that I'm not just a soldier in the struggle for equity, bad hair-cut, ridden with bug bites and rumpled clothes with mysterious holes.

Yesterday, I hung out all day with Kate and Pam at Betty's (classy, lovely RPCV still in-country) cooking - get this - 20 pumpkin pies, magic bars, rice crispy treats, a pecan pies, and muffins. Towards the end of the day, we were all stretching our tired and dry dough-kneading hands and dancing to Estelle's 'American Boy.' Their companionship and the cool comforts of an apartment flat in the city relaxed the stresses of facing constant paucity, and for a few hours I forgot to worry about the Dominican Republic.

Still I came home a little sad. It took hours, lacking self-awareness as I am, to realize I miss Los Angeles and all it's special-to-me people. I would be remiss to neglect Omaha, Nebraska, though, where another set of much-loved people toast life.

I'm off to our Thanksgiving now, I've already eaten too many sweets in-the-baking to want another, but that home-away-from-home thing, I'm making for it.

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao: I loved it. Junot Diaz's Pulitzer Price winning novel, set in Nueva Yol, it's the story of a Dominican family's origins in Baní, Républica Dominicana, their move to Nueva Yol, and the subsequent years of the heart of the family being in both countries. The text is inlaid with gems of the Caribeño Spanish language and references to sci fi, comic, and gaming culture. What I love about this book is seeing myself, seeing us Latinos, portrayed in such a sincere, unapologetic fashion.

Latinos and the descendants of our diaspora make up a goodly percentage of the people in the world. Diaz and the Pulitzer people made me proud when our culture got to be up in front, and, for once, everyone else had to look it up if their mono-cultural lifestyle led them not to know about Latinos and such because we don't need no stinking badges. When I read a book with foreign-language words in the mix or about places on the map I can't identify, I look it up. It ticks me off that some people would look at Oscar Wao and be so closed-minded as to be pithy about looking up some Spanish or getting hip to a new culture. Does anyone say that when they read Faulkner? No. Act like you got some class, people.

It's just like when I watch 'Ugly Betty' or 'Manny El Tigre:' I'm bursting with joy to see myself positively portrayed in the media and, to paraphrase Michelle Serros, let's see some respect for the 1%.

This is also me, who has read most of the Pulitzer prize winners and the short-listers over the past years.

¡Obámanos! Dominican nationals are watching our elections closely, and several have asked me and Ben if we've voted. They want Obama, but some also say Americans are too rascist to elect a person of color to office! Let's show 'em America. ¡Imagínate! I'm just telling you what these islanders say about us based on that they see in our media and read in our news.

Ben and I voted by fax from the Peace Corps office last Wednesday. Its fun to vote from abroad. I hope that high-speed rail ballot initiative in my state passes. Tomorrow, Benjamín and I are going to get together with all the volunteers on the north coast at the Hub (our north coast hang out in Santiago), and watch the states turn blue and red. Should be a thing to remember, watching from abroad.

Side note: it occurred to me that today that when Dominican taxi drivers and other such talk to me about the presidential election, they really talk about the election like it's Really going to effect them as much as it effects us. Now, that reminds me of what Dominicans say about Puerto Rico.

Every person I've ever asked has said that PR and the DR are the same, except PR gets the infrastructure of the US. I've seen first hand how the US economy and US policy effect the DR. I wonder how many Dominican descendants are serving abroad.

I invite you to check out the blog of girl serving in Burkina Faso. I'm really enjoying her words, and I hope you do too. I've given her some comments, one of which I'm going to past below because I thought it was a good overall reflection of how I feel about my service:

Cultural exchange may be the only humane method of reducing inequality and poverty. There is no machine or method better than the human heart and mind for addressing the needs of another individual. YOU are appropriate technology because YOU can be held accountable for your actions, because YOU can reason and decide and investigate until you are sure what is acceptable, responsible, or sustainable or whatever benchmark to which you hold yourself. Research can’t right its wrongs - its a vehicle for expressing and testing human ideas, nothing more. It’s humans who have to do the work and then have to decide if it was good, using research as our tool not our guide.

*****

What other choice have we? If we wait until some group of academics publishes proof that whatever method is sane, how many more girls will marry before their bodies can safely carry babies? We don’t need to consensus amongst the whole of western academia or humankind before one woman can say to another ‘I can teach you read’ or ‘I’m here to listen’ or ‘Hey Kid, let me show you a map of the world.’ Also, if we never ‘compartir’ - that’s what we call ‘cultural exchange in the DR - how else can we be brothers and sisters in the world? I think its an everyday miracle that you may leave your service knowing a couple people well as you know your best college roommate. And the next time you hear about that person’s country in the news… you’ll actually have an idea what the f* that news really means. The same way you know what the fall colors mean in Pennsylvania.***

Hello reader! Thanks for reading! Benjamin and I just got back from a fun week traveling around the country. We went to the capital for a few days to have a meeting with the country directory and training officer regarding the volunteer activities report Peace Corps asks for three times a year.

Right now its a 900+ Excel doc with some really 90's visual basic components - so you can imagine how hasslesome it is to fill out. Ben and I are hoping to design a web application that can handle the task more gracefully and make the reports more accessible amongst our community. Right now it feels like we fill them out and they get tossed into the abyss. The meeting went real well. We have support to make the concept come alive, and I think it might be the most interesting thing I do here, professionally, should it work out. I think before I learned Spanish I would have made that last statement in an assertive, positive tense but if there is one thing the DR has taught me, its the need for the subjunctive 'who-can-say-but-God' tense.

I had a terrible flu this past week, so twice we had to spend an extra night somewhere because I couldn't travel. Still, it wasn't a loss, I finished my application to the Yale School of Nursing. I truly doubt I will be accepted, and even if I was, I doubt I can afford the place, but after meeting Drs. Grey and Chambers when they came to visit their midwifery student this past May, I couldn't help but give it a shot. I think I would make a good midwife, but I'm not at all dissuaded from persuing Occupational Science at USC as I had planned before. In fact, I turned my Yale app today and will waste no time starting my USC essay this afternoon.

On the project front, Ben and I have been working with ASCAJA on their accounting (the never ending task - he just finished with the '08 harvest and its past time to set up the '09 harvest books), working on their toasted coffee deliveries (we delivered 60 lbs. on Wednesday to the US Embassy and PC office and it was all sold by Friday), and getting more and more jaded by the development game. More on this below, but I start here with a long explicit 'Thank You!' to my colleagues and friends here in-country this month. The way development dollars roll in the Los Dajaos neck of the woods is alternately frightening or frustrating, and its all the big hearts and positive attitudes of our colleagues in the chaos of 'bridges to no where' that keeps me going.

In terms of capacitation, (William Strunk must hate that word), Ben has been tirelessly teaching Arelis, the ASCAJA secretary with a high school junior education, computerized accounting and I have been tirelessly motivating Ben to do this. I really believe she will be proficient before we depart in 2009.

Up in the campo, the computer classes and Escjo Mi Vida (sex education) classes are slow with lots of breaks. Really, we try to be consistent, but between all the ASCAJA stuff, the la vida Dominicana, and Peace Corps errands, its hard to have as many as I think they deserve. Well, its when I try to be everything I think our community deserves that I feel overwhelmed, so I will just put a period on this thought right here.

Up in the campo, our gardens are looking nice. Dylan has been working hard in Los Marranitos and I have been working more on the El Manguito Women's group garden and ours at the house. The El Manguito garden will hopefully produce, the spot is a little shadey for a garden and it used to be a trash pit. We cleared all the nasty junk out of the spot, but that one random hyperdermic needle we found freaked me out. Nah, it'll be fine. Our garden at home is looking delicious. Its getting plenty of sun and almost everything germanated fast. Fresh basil and kale here we come.

Books: I just finished the Golden Compass and The Subtle Knife. Oh I loved them so. I also enjoed my long-awaited Brinsingr. For three solid days all I did was fly around with Eragon and Saphira in Alagaesia. But that I thought it was supposed to be a damn trilogy. At the end, I come to find out that Chris couldn't fit it all in three and now what. I have to wait another year. Sure, I love this story, but apparently Chris loves it so much he can't end it.

Ben and I have spend some very nice time at the re-openned Hub in Santiago. This country sure is more pleasant when you can chill in Santiago. We got to hang out at cool tea and coffee cafe with Wi-Fi. They even serve boba on the weekends! It might just be civilized on the island after all. I also ate a hamburger from Burgers Ya!

Closing out this month, Kate (fellow CED volunteer, works for a cacao cooperative) put together a little schindig for us 1 yr. CED volunteers at my favorite little Central Cordillera gettaway, Blue Moon. We spent one night cocktailing in Cabarete, one night having a delicious Indian dinner at Blue Moon and chilling in their pool, and then one night at Kate's site. The food and conversation with the gang were just the decompress I needed after 2 months of solid mountain time. I had been having a serious bought of consternation with my job, and what I really needed was a weekend off. The last night was even more fun that the Cabarete-Blue Moon combo. A few of us headed over to Kate's site beside Guaconejo.

Its so personal seeing someone's site. In a heart beat, you get a picture of what her service is like. We toured the cacao cooperative, mixed up some rum fruit smoothies and went out dancing on the beach. We ate delicious fish, ordered 3 servicios of rum and coke, and danced to tipico until 10 PM, all under the swaying palm trees of the tropical breeze! Yeah, Dominicans know the truth about partying: early=often. We were on the dancefloor by 6 PM and setting up a tent tipsy inside Kate's house by 11 PM with no electricity. Ben and I danced a lot and we ate a couple coconuts.

Thanks again for all the love and support to us on this adventure. Your warm thoughts and words make this possible.

Oh! I'm sad, I finished The Shipping News this week. I enjoyed this book so thoroughly, its unique and reads like one's own memories. I also finished The Gravedigger's Daughter; I had been meaning to read a Carol Joyce Oats. It was a great work, as well. Reminded me of East of Eden.

Days have been big and long in Los Dajaos. Dylan and I are working on several community garden projects. I'm so lucky he's such a hard worker. While Ben and I were at Kreyòl training last week, he built us a top-notch compost pit. Saturday is a workday up in the Los Marranitos community garden site. All the politico drama seems to have cleared up while I was away. Good thing, I hate drama about who's deserving. Looking forward to getting into the dirt. We built the garden fence out of bamboo strips. Its fun learning to work with bamboo. If there's time, I'm hoping to make some bamboo furniture before this is all over. Here's a picture of the El Manguito kids behind the computer center where we teach.

Keeping up with the house gardening is big work. I cut the grass with a macheté. On Monday, I spent 3 hours in the hot Caribbean sun trimming grass and pulling weeds by hand. I found out why everyone has back problems. That night during yoga, I could hear my spine realigning into the upright position. However, cutting the grass by hand is rewarding and I prefer it to being choked by the gasoline fumes of a mower.

I also went out on Monday into our steep gulley-yard and grabbed guavas off our trees for juice. I love guava season. I wish I had some pectin, I would make jam out of it. City-dwellers complain that we campesinos let our fruit just go to waste. Its true, lots of guava is all over the floor right now, but I am eating as fast as I can! When hundreds of trees just start throwing fruit at you (remember mango season a couple posts ago?), one just can't keep up. Guavas have copious annoying little seeds that you have to strain out of the juice. They resemble crushed peanuts, but can't be chewed. A guava is yellow on the outside, baby pink on the inside, and you eat the rind.

On the project front, there is lots going on. There is a cool, community-minded doctor living here with her family, her name is Xiomara. Xiomara is quickly becoming the project partner I never had in Rómulo. She's helped me start my sexual health and family planning class (starts September 27th!), and she's helped me get into the Health Promoter's groups and women's groups in the area. It seems I will making the famous buckets of income-generating floor cleaner called Mistolín, yet. The women's group has a coffee tree nursery, which I had fun helping to week and prune this week. The health promoters and I are getting together these big concrete and sand water filters for the community. I'm looking forward to that construction project, coming soon.

Last week Benjamín and I took a Kreyòl language training in the capital. We stayed with our host family from training. It was a pleasure and a joy to stay with them again. The kids have grown so much in the past year. The day we arrived to their house in 2007, our host mom's sister had passed away. Naturally, the family was in mourning. Aside from the feelings you can imagine were in the house, the family was struggling to keep up with the Dominican/Catholic Latino mourning process which includes saying the rosary daily for 9 days, several masses, months of only wearing black, white or grey, and no happy radio or television.

This trip I really felt like I got to know the family - as my Spanish is fluent and it was not a moment of crisis for them. The kids had learned to read in the year I was gone, so our Scrabble games went off better. We ate ice cream twice! And a lady down the street through a yummy taco party. Other capital joys were had: trips to Carrefour (the French owned Target of the island) and Pamela (another PCV) baked brownies at the taco party. But I saved the best for last: a care package mailed to me in April arrived. It was a biggie, and I thought it had been lost. It contained my Chaco's. Chaco's are the PCV shoe of choice and my first pair were stolen off the porch during my training. I had thought this second replacement pair were stolen from the mail. But no, the island taketh away casi siempre, but occasionally the island giveth. I took the arrival of this key package 4 months and 4 weeks late to be a sign, a good omen.

Here's a picture of the kids filling up buckets of rain water as it collects off the roofs during an afternoon thunder storm in the capital. Not only does everyone go out and bathe, but we also get all the water we can into the house just in case its days before the municipality sends water again through the pipes. This thunderstorm was tremendous - total darkness except for the lighting and crashing thunder. In all the wind, I got soaked standing on the covered porch. I didn't want to be wet, but the all the kids in the neighborhood waited just long enough for the lightning to pass to run screaming for joy into the streets. Playing soccer, laughing, and chasing each other, a thunder storm is the perfect time to go out and play. It's cool out.

After filling up all those buckets and 50-gallon cans of water, the moms came out of the houses with the shampoo and soap, plastic bang tied over their permed and styled hair, and washed the kids on the sidewalks. The rinsed the kids with rain water. Everyone was in a good mood. The Haitian sellers of avocado and bullion cubes idled under trees, happy to have the loads of good off their heads, chiming musically in Kreyól. All too soon the rain ended, abruptly as it started, the sun shone again, it was hot and humid again, steam coming off the broken asphalt under the sun's intensity. The kids are in, dry now in clean clothes. We all sit down, sit still, and try not to sweat.

Speaking of campo living, for the second time, a roach crawled out of my backpack today at someone else's house. How embarrassing.

Ben and I got all moved into our new place. Its a beautiful country house out about an hour y pico from Jarabacoa, in a neighborhood they call 'Los Marranitos,' which I think means the little pigs.

Our new place has the most amazing views of Jarabacoa valley and Manabao valley. The house is a 'Peace Corps house' (meaning another volunteer lived there before us) and its owned by an American, so let's just say- despite there being no power, we have it pretty easy- it's equipped to the nines with kitchen stuff and blankets, it's painted beautifully, and is oriented to enjoy the spectacular views. The grounds have gorgeous pine trees, guava trees, banana trees, and flowers. Finally, I live in a place where food 'aparece' (just appears). To me, an integral experiance in this country is living in a place where food just appears, falling off trees where ever you look. Finally, I have arrived.

I love the community of individuals we're in, too. There are people to talk to during the day, and I've already been able to spend more time daily speaking Spanish and having more quality conversation time. Out in the pueblo (before), I spent most of my time doing technical things and had very little time to chat. Here in the campo, that's all we do... chat.

Lately, we're chatting a lot about the tropical storms. People are worried about their homes. The storms keeps blowing the houses away or flooding them with water. Anxiety is high over this, with people opting to sleep in the safest home in the neighborhood (a concrete block one) as opposed to their own wooden places. Ben and I are lucky. We live in a concrete place with a zinc roof. The zinc could fly away, but so far so good. I will keep updating on this, but please know that Peace Coprs takes very good care of us.

Dillon (odd story who he is, suffice to say he's another American who lives near us) and I started planning our community garden and compost project. Between Hannah downpours, we chopped all the grass where we're going to plant at my place. Tomorrow, if Ike lets us be, I may start turning the soil.

Ben and I started back up the computer classes, and all the old students came back for more. That made us feel good. Back from vacation, finally, settled into the new place, and back to being productive.

Many people have asked me about working with coffee growers in the DR and about coffee quality. I think the zeitgeist of the US is just breaching the existing body of knowledge surrounding how coffee is grown, processed, roasted and measured for quality. I'm continually amazed at the personalities of the growers and the personalities of their farms. To that end, this post is about a recent visit to Julia Alvarez's research farm in Los Dajaos.

Our trainer, Tim Keifer, set up a training day on the farm for the 3-month in-service training (IST) for the environment volunteers who arrived in March 08. There are about 15 of them, and since Ben and I live in Jarabacoa and work in coffee, we were invited to participate in the training. Ben wrote a short training on techniques for simple financial analysis on drying tunnel construction. I was really excited to go and get more involved in coffee plant nursery stuff - germination, greenhouse transfer, in-ground transfer, pruning.

When Ben and I return from Our Big Miami Trip 2008, we're moving to Los Dajaos, a coffee community up the mountain from Jarabacoa and La Yautia (where we live now). The reasons are tri-fold: my primary project with Junta Yaque never emerged, ASCAJA (Ben's primary) is building a water treatment plant for washing coffee, and they'll be needing some assistance organizing the administration there. Lastly, Ben and I would like to try out a more rural location where we'll encounter (here's hoping) a stronger community vibe.

A doctor names Xiomara lives in Los Dajaos. She's young and interested in community health. I think we'll be able to work together on delivering a series of talks on reproduction education. I'm hoping for the opportunity to work on prenatal and toddler nutrition.

After the training on coffee trees, from germination to transplanting, the CoDoCafe people put on a 'cupping.' This is how toasted coffee is finally graded for aroma of the bean, aroma in the cup, and taste.

First, the three coffees to be graded were not labeled with their established qualities. Two were award winners and one was tria, (really low quality junkie coffee). We went around smelling the ground coffee.

Second, boiling water was poured into the grounds and the coffee was allowed to brew a bit. The next step was to really get your nose in there and inhale the brew's aroma.

Third, after the coffee cooled a minute, we each sipped, swished, and spit. You try and get each coffee all over your mouth to receive info on all parts of the tongue.

There are some more technical details, but that's the gist of the cupping experience. Its amazing how different all three coffees were when placed in comparison like so. The most important thing is to prepare all three exactly the same way. For professional cuppings, they usually toast a small amount on the spot for the event, but I would recommend that anyone who wants to have a little fun try it at home with their favorite coffees.

This post is overdue. Camp GLOW took place in July, but its just now after months of travel that I'm catching up on the summer stories of service to the Dominican Republic. Ben is dancing around to CSS; we gave him a haircut on the front porch this morning. There's some tropical storm overhead, raining and pouring on and on. The beans are boiling in the pressure cooker; their sizzling stream gives the air a warm humidity to combat the cold muddy rain smell outside. The cold rain smell is fine from inside the concrete house. But when I have to walk in it, the smell just reminds me of how muddy I'm getting and the cold perspiration soaking my bra and my blouse.

Things are happy. We returned from la gloria yesterday, and our plane rides were uneventful except in that they were so short - an hour to Puerto Rico and an hour to Dominicana. How upsetting to see the DR, in all its fumbling poverty again, and still have the air-conditioned air of Miami all over me. Our flight left Ft. Lauderdale at 6 AM, and we were cozy in our house in Jarabacoa by 5 o'clock that afternoon. It's Tuesday, and Ben I have to move to Los Dajaos by Friday. I'm still not sure how we are going to swing it, logistically.

As for Camp GLOW, its a summer sleep-away camp some Peace Corps countries put together for the female teens. I worked on the finance committee, and helped out a bit with the tee shirts and the bonding activity. I had a really good time at camp, although it was the most stressful PC week since training. I was in such close proximity with my fellow PCV's, which is like putting as many pressure cookers at pressure together on a fire. I felt more comfortable with the other PCV's than I ever had before, so they got a more base version of my personality. Um, I'm not sure that it made me any friends, but there we have it.

The girls had a great time, though, and that's what counts.

I saw so much growth and opportunity in their eyes as the campers had the chance to express themselves in freedom, freedom from their parents and freedom from men. Dominicana has a more structured and prescribed gender hierarchy than the middle and upper class American culture does. Being around us nutso PCV's is interesting for them - seeing female PCV's use power tools and go about childless; seeing male PCV's sweep up and the like.

But at camp, they get to step outside those barriers as well. First off, there's a pool. These girls are not shy about wearing their cute bathing suits, but its just awesome to see them start games and start racing each other, shamelessly competitive.

The girls made dream catchers to symbolize their ability to make goals and plan to attain them. I felt the young audience's wan desire make for strong commitment when the panel of professional Dominicanas spoke about their careers as doctors and newscasters. In my everyday experiences in La Yautia its troubling to see how little in the way of opportunity these girls have, but at camp its livening to feel a part of what positive support there is for them.

I wish I had carved out quality time with the two girls I brought, Yasmín and Yohida (pronounced 'jo-high-dah'). I ended up teaching yoga, leading a pillow talk round table, and then doing some miscellany during each day's free time. I didn't come away from camp knowing them too much better, and I wish I had. Still, it may be for the best this way as the move this month will make working with the two of them impossible.

I thought camp was run extremely well; it was a pleasure to work with such a sure-footed planning team. Still, I left the week feeling over-taxed. Perhaps next year, Planning will a few PCV's to participate in the camp without bringing girls and schedule PCV's true free time.

August turned into a big surprise month when my mom found great tickets for the whole family to Miami. My mama moved to the States in the 50's from Venezuela, and all 13 kids and my grandparents settled down in Miami. My mom and some of her siblings moved to California in the 70's (along with all the hippies!), and most of my uncles were back and forth to California during their Vietnam deployments. Today, about a quarter of my mom's family lives in California, and the rest live in either Atlanta or south Florida. So what's funny about that is the California people are Democrats who recycle, and the southerners have framed pictures of W., religious art icons, and Walmart!

Now, when I was young, we took family trips driving from Los Angeles, CA to Hollywood, FL. Those were epic journeys where I would read LRH's 10-volume sci-fi series Mission Earth between trips to the Alamo, swimming in KOA pools, and fighting with my brothers and sisters. Some years, we would take short (meaning 2 weeks+) journeys to Mexico, too. These vacations were a month plus, and I was never delivered home in time to attend the first day of school. A trip to Miami hasn't happened since the 80's, so my littlest sister (the Bob) didn't even know all the Miami family until this 2008 Miracle Airfare Trip.

Ben and I getting the Dominican Republic as our Peace Corps assignment: it's weird thinking that I would be geographically closer to half my aunts and uncles than I am usually! Also, getting to know my Caribbean culture, more, too - ironic, poetic justice, idyllic? In California, we mostly have Mexicans like my dad, and assorted latinos from Central America; my mom has generally been a cultural outlier with all her Caribbean habits, like being freakishly loud and the argument conversation style. There's a lot more to be said about that, but back to the vacation.

My moms gets these great, cheap fares on August 1st and by 4 PM that day, I'm booked on a flight out off the island over to Miami on the 9th. I had resigned myself to completing service without a break to the States, and I took this as just another sign that when you live in the DR, what happens is what “Dios quiere” (what God wants). There have been times when I wished for home pretty bad, and part of my struggle with my service is homesickness. For the most part, the stories of my companions center on angst or disappointment with Dominicana as a country or its nationals, and project troubles.

I concur that the culture clash is tiresome and draining, and the fate of one's project is a strain on the heart muscle. But my personal struggle is homesickness - homesickness for family, art supplies, textile arts, theater, food - my people and those activities that are a part of my personality.

Well, Ben and I had concentrated much effort on fortifying me against waves of homesickness, installing storm windows, against the flying coconut in the tormenta of homesickness, and then Dios kicks me a great long trip home. Now, we've been Stateside 13 days with 4 to go, and I am so relaxed.

I think I had forgotten how easy we have in the US. And I remember now some things about American living that I had forgotten in months 3-9 of my service. These things that were apparent in the first three months are now obvious again as the pendulum of experience swings back and I the US and DR at once, feel them at once.

Here in the States, I take these beautiful showers, hop in the pool, watch the Olympics on a flat screen tv, head to the movies, gratuitously enjoy the Internet - revel in beautiful green lawns and draining highways with smooth clean asphalt like a clear complexion. My toes are snuggled in carpet and the leather couch is like a hug, too. Its so much to enjoy! In the afternoons, my dad likes to take us to Barnes and Noble to browse books.

In the DR, life is so different is incomparable. I started off trying to qualify and quantify what it takes to make the DR a safer, healthier place. I'm still manifestly interested in the question, but the scheme of comparison - I'm not sure it exists. I'm happy to be going back, to be able to offer my education to the community we'll be returning to; and still, I will need to invent a method, personally mine, to working within the development model and in the DR.

Finally, I would like to say that this trip has made clear to me where and how my personal growth occurred. I have a little list of accomplishments to make the hard days easier, but this trip was nice in that, much like the visit from the Berry's in July, I saw those personality changes I had as goals when I left back in September 07.

Yesterday I was sitting on the Caribe Tours bus, white fleece and SmartWool socks on against the best air conditioning in a sol caribe county, resting my eyes against the strain of 5 days of teenage girls at Camp GLOW, 10 days of friendly visitas by Lisa and Seth, etc, when my nose wrinkled in response to the scent of a pure, golden sunset mango. From my chair, I pretended to sleep, leaving my eyes just open a wink to watch two men peel mangos. And in that moment, I was enamored again with Santo Domingo. Which is good, at this point, I feel like I know how to live here, drunk men grabbing at me in the mornings or constantly being overcharged on account of my accent, but finding happiness is still elusive. I'm fit as a fiddle (gracias a dios), and I've made some wonderful friends, confident as I ever am, and more blessings - but the work, it ain't easy. Also, the coffee addiction is out of hand.

Even though I may have to change my primary project.

I have lots more to explain, but I'm at a lack for a them this post. Let's see, maybe I should just make a little bullet list of things that are current:

A project success! I took 2 girls to Estrellas de Hoy, a leadership camp for 5 days, after I participated in the planning process for the past 8 months. The girls and I bonded, they learned a ton, and this may lead to a year 1 goal: the formation of a couple of girls groups in Jarabacoa. Pictures soon!We may move. I had a tumultuous reporting moment on this June's trimester report which carried over to our sector meeting. I wrote the darn thing, and I'm proud of my work these past months, but dang, it just became obvious that Junta Yaque (my primary project partner) is just bringing me down. My APCD and others agree that a strong step would be to move to Los Dajaos, work with the women's group, the rural health clinic, and the tourism project near there. I still face having to explain this to Romulo, my JY boss. And for that reason, to you, Junta Yaque, I say: "Te castigue por jugar con me amor!"

Thanks Anthony Santos for giving me the words to explain the anguish of having the whole JY thing fall flat.

Seth came and we all three andar-ed like crazy. In just 8 days we visited the charcos, went horseback riding for 2 days, visited our site, went to a movie (wall-e) in the capital, and dove in Bayahibe. Pictures posted soon. Lisa came up for the weekend and we took a day trip to Los Dajaos to see what may become Ben and I's new place, if we move. A friend of my passed away after months in a coma. I'm totally ok, as he was in a coma for quite some time. But I feel shaken, a little more sensitive than usual. I try to make this blog reflective of my thoughts as I move from all-my-life American to the next level. This is a laundry list of sorts of the recent events, and when I get back home, and have to process it, I'll get into these topics and what the sites and sounds were a little more. For now, I'm off to the airport to pick up the Berry's fresh off the plane for a week on the isla de amor.

Late in coming, but faithful readers I must own it for all to know. I went to the Maná concert in the capital on June 12th. (Hey, don't roll your eyes about how I was on another gettaway from Pinar Quemado - I had a Campamento Estrellas de Hoy meeting to go to, too).

So, yes, we were in a flashback to 1996 with the guitar heroes of ole Mexico, remembering what it was like when rock en español was new, singing “mariposa, mariposa.” The days of my long, black Chicana hair were eminently missed, as were my fake Timberlands and plaid grunge flannel button-downs.

All these upper class Dominicans were there. That was sweet, seeing the other side of Dominican tastes a little, where there's more than just bachata and salami to meet the eye. Sorry, sarcasm again. The thing is, I'm here working with the poor and the rural, this means that what they have access to is very limited. This means that my average interaction will involve one of two dozen common topics of which we will speak in very rote form. To this end, it often feels like my Spanish is better than it is because I am so often having an identical conversation. These include:

piropos (casual flirtatious comments which often go too far)gripe (the flu)bachata (type of music)platanos or guineos (platanos or bananas)cuarto (money, who's got it, who needs it, can I share some today)daños (hurts - different kinds ranging from the kind you get if you take a bath while sweaty to the kind you get if your wife leaves you to live in Santiago)traigos (drinking)Nueva Yol (New York, where everyone knows someone)beísbol or pelota (baseball, last night's game)lluvia (rain, when its coming)Americanos (yes, we are)2009 (how long we'll he here)café (coffee, do we want one)and the #1 thing:

casada (as in, am I married? or when will he be home?)which always leads to, with emphasis:

niños (where are your kids????!?!! usually a pitying or puzzled looks comes with free)

At the time, I was stunned silent by the poverty of the whole thing. But, looking back, I'm glad I went. And yes, its a great place to buy what you're looking for. And mangos.