Community Based Training and Campo Life

We have arrived in the campo to our campo site for community based training. Our training group for Community Economic Development has been placed in four small communities off of Altamira, a small pueblo off of the main highway. Of the four communities me and six other volunteers are placed in the most remote of the communities, called Los Claveles, which is a community comprised of about a couple of hundred people. Our Spanish teachers are placed in the community with us, so we can have intensive language courses daily, mostly applied Spanish and pretty relaxed. The other half of the day is spent in technical training, which was initially going to be in the community furthest from us at 8 km away, called La Fundacion, but since it seems to be cooler in our site we will now have the technical courses in the cooler mornings of Los Claveles, a bit higher up.


I live quite high up on a mountain, and it is breathtakingly beautiful. There are lush green sub tropical mountains rolling for miles, as far as the eye can see. It is quite a hike to get up to my house, so I am expecting to be in great shape! And about a twenty minute hike up the road you reach another town called La Loma, where there is a magnificent view. Below: view from my house.

Leaving Santo Domingo was like a weight being lifted off my shoulders. This last week was fun, but also intense and filled with ups and downs. Three people left so far, and I hope that we will not be losing many more during CBT training. We all went out to the car wash (car washes that are also make shift dance clubs at night, with merengue, bachata, reggaeton and el presidente, a popular beer to your hearts content) on Wednesday night to have a big send off and let off some steam before we all went our respective ways for the next five weeks. Good times.

We took the ride all the way up north and I was a bit nervous about how the site was going to be. Our technical trainer used an effective strategy that painted a picture of the worst scenario possible, so our expectations were very low. I think that it worked well because my house was described to me as the humblest and I was to share a room with my host sister who was living there, and if I was lucky I might have a sheet dividing our room. But, upon arrival I was pleasantly surprised to find a large space enclosed by sheets as my room. And a home nestled on the top of a hill with a view, and a very welcoming family!! I live with my host mom, Ramona, her husband Seney (in their forties), their daughter, Fanny (20), grandpa who is visiting from Santiago, grandson Carlos (5) and cousin Juan (16). The walls of the house are made of old soy oil tin(or zinc) of a faded blue and green painting a colorful picture of a soy field, reminiscent of warhol in that it is one label on top of another, and some wood with a zinc roof. It is very communal living, in that you can pretty much hear everything, especially since most of the rooms are divided by sheets. But families here are very close and spend a lot of time together, so they are all very close anyway and have nothing to hide! I shower outside under an avocado tree, right next to the outdoor kitchen with a precarious curtain clinging to the tin. I listen to mom and dad and the family chatting while I pour refreshingly chilly water down my body and cross my fingers that I don´t see an eyeball peering through a little peep hole (my own paranoia creeping, I hope).

Blackouts are rampant, and often you here apago la luz, or se fue la luz (the lights went out). A while later this is followed by vino la luz,inidcating its welcoming return. So often I fish through my stuff in the dark or sift by flashlight. Mostly I eat by lantern, too. Or outside on the patio, which is nice and refreshing. But my best icebreaker now is the joke told to me by a fellow trainee, which has been working out pretty well to lighten the mood upon meeting new people. Q.What kind of wine do all Dominicans, I mean ALL Dominicans love (Que tipo de vino les gusta a todos los Dominicanos). A. The lights came on (Vino la luz!). Of course this does not translate well, but for those of you who speak Spanish it works. And vino la luz can also be substituted with Vino el agua, because the water often goes out as well.  

Some photos of the campo (below: my sweet ride up the Loma)

As an ending note, there is lots of dancing. Merengue, bachata, less reggaeton than I thought so far. I am thrilled to report that my Merengue is coming along quite nicely, so I expect to be up to speed by the end of CBT. We have been out dancing a couple of nights with people in the hood, and everyone knows each other so each of us volunteers are always going out with our little brothers, cousins, sisters, the works. Chisme also travels fast here. One volunteer wasn't allowed to go out one night and the next morning three people stopped by my house to talk about how so and so didnt let her volunteer go to the dance. No puede ser. She was definitely allowed to come out the next night after all that chisme.

And last but not least the motoconcho rides, the crazy motoconcho rides. I love riding around on the back of these tranport motorcycle taxis, and enjoying the lush green sub tropics around me and warm breeze through my helmut while I ponder in wonderment that this is my job, but I can´t help but imagine flying through the air and crashing and burning on one sometime. Hopefully I will never see that day, or it will be minimal damage! They arent so bad and these choferes (drivers) know what they are doing, so I think we are in pretty good hands. And pictures will come up next week to make things more intersting, si Dios quiere (common Dominican phrase used to say something may or may not happen!).

                                                 CBT host dad's parents a few houses down