Holidays in the DR

Holidays in my site…

December is a sleepy month in the DR. The first half of the month was filled with the last meetings of various community groups, wrapping up the year with Angelitos (secret santa), eating the Dulces de Navididad (Christmas sweets of apples, raisins and gumdrops), dancing to bachata and merengue and perico ripiao (very fast version of merengue), and playing a game called El Secreto.

                                                                Dulces de Navidad

El Secreto, or the Secret, is a game with many different versions played at parties. Version 1: Wrap a present and attach a chain link of paper to it, with each paper containing a sentence. A person begins, opening the paper that contains a sentence such as: he who is the biggest flirt, the girl with the lightest eyes, the cutest, and the most voluptuous. It really depends on the party and the crowd at how tame the sentences will be. The person reading it chooses the person in the room they think fits that description, and gives them a kiss, usually on the cheek. The game continues until the chain is gone and the last person opens the present. Version two: Put papers in balloon. A boy takes the balloon and a girl comes up and they pop the balloon using their bodies (usually sitting on the lap works best). They read the strip of paper in the balloon and game continues as such.

As food is an integral part of Dominican culture, there are many, many big late night meals with your bowl/plate filled to the brim with amazingly tasty Dominican cuisine (to give you an idea: spaghetti, moro- beans and rice mixed, yucca, guineo or banana served in more ways than you can imagine, plátano maduro frito or fried ripe plantain, guandules- green beans with the beans stripped out and normally cooked with coconut, bread, chicken and pork, goat, Russian salad, potato salad, stewed eggplant, okra, don’t get me started on deserts, etc.).

There is also the aguinardo (caroling a la DR), where groups of people start at one house and begin singing and dancing in the early morning hours, moving from house to house, waking people up that then join the group. The crowd grows as they move through the community.

Christmas is not as big of a deal as is Christmas Eve. Christmas Eve is largely centered on the three F’s- family, food and fun. Preparation for the big Christmas Eve meal often begins the day before, and continues the entire next day. The food is set out and the massive food consumption begins. Many people pass through, sharing the meal and wishing each other a Feliz Noche Buena (Merry Christmas Eve). Some people pass through singing Christmas songs. This continues until very late (12/1 or even later) with music, dancing, and Presidente beer if one so desires.

                                                            Caroling (aguniardo) a la DR:

                                                      
                                    Host parents' daughter, Yamile with excellent food she prepared:         

                                                              host parents dancing:

Unlike American culture, or at least in my experience Christmas presents are not exchanged. Santa doesn’t pass through the DR or much of Latin America from what I understand. Presents are instead given to children on January 6, Dia de los Reyes Magros, which the government changed to the 4th this year because it fell on a Monday and a four- day weekend just wasn’t long enough. Christmas day is a quite and relaxing day where people eat leftovers from Christmas Eve. It was not easy being away from family this year, and although I was quite distracted on Christmas Eve with all the festivities, Christmas Day held more somber tone for me. Luckily, some family friends were heading to the beach and invited Choco and me to come along. We stopped by Los Corbanitos, which is a remote and beautiful beach that happens to be the closest to my town (5 Km away).  Then we continued on to spend some time at Punto Salinas.

                                                    Me and Choco at Los Corbanitos



Christmas Party in the Capital…

A week before Christmas I was also in the capital going to go the Director’s annual Christmas party, held on the top floor of an apartment building that has an amazing view of Santo Domingo and the ocean. We enjoyed some Chinese food and an amazing array of deserts, and some hanging out time. I was asked to attend an event in Azua, a town thirty minutes past Bani to go to a conference hosted by the Secretary of the Environment  (with Jaime David, former Vice-president and now Secretary of Environment) at an off the road beach. Accompanied by three other volunteers and a Peace Corps driver, we finally found the event after much searching, which was to support a sort of local shrimping project sponsored by the Taiwanese government and the Dominican government.

                                                                  Outside Azua:

The beach was quite nice and the day interesting in so many words, with a flat tire on the way home and a nauseous bus passenger who projectile vomited a hot pink substance all over the cobrador (fare taker) and me on the bus ride on the way back to my town from Bani.  Good times.


The New Year….

Two thousand ten a new year and new decade has commenced. Just to think ten short years ago we were all huddled up in our basements with can openers and stacks of bottled water awaiting the impending doom of Y2K (although I was probably dancing to electronic music in some warehouse)!  This new years I brought in 2010 in Caberete with some great PCV friends and also my friend Julieta who happened to be around to celebrate!

Caberete is a beautiful beach town east of Puerto Plata. From Puerto Plata (roughly 3 ½ hours north of Santo Domingo) continue onto Sosúa, the sex tourism capital of the DR, and take a taxi twenty minutes east to Caberete, a once sleepy surfing town turned tourism and water sports destination.  We lucked out on weather really, with the day time being mainly clear to enjoy the gorgeous beach, warm water, and waves fit for challenging body surfing.  We had a nice place with a kitchen and beds for everyone on a place right on the beach. Caberete is nice because everywhere seems to be pretty much on the beach, with the main road running along the beach and nearly everything accessible to the beach. There are a lot of nice beach side places to eat and beach side bars for afternoon/night time. Accommodations are inexpensive compared to other touristy places.  It was a great time and I could not have asked for better food, company, fun and beach time. After new years we had a quick stop in Rio San Juan, a beautiful quiet neighbor of Cabarete with hotels on the cliffs of the ocean and beautiful picturesque beaches just a 10 minutes bus ride away. Gorgeous and I will definitely be going back.

                                                                            Cabarete:

                                                    Playa Grande, Near Rio San Juan:

My trip up north was just what I needed to start of the New Year running with a very work filled January.  Being back in my site feels better than what I expected.  I have already began chipping away at the mountain of community interviews I have to conduct for my survey, the breadth of the work I have to complete in preparation for 3 month IST (in service training held for one week in the capital).

                                                          Host mom phone outside house:

                                                                      Choco sleeping:

My first month in site and a funny story

I have been in my site for over a month now. Things are starting to fall into place a little more each day, although readjusting back at my site after three fun filled pseudo debaucherous days in the capital proved more difficult than I thought it would.

So what exactly have I been up to?

I have been working on my community and organizational diagnostics, and getting to know my community. The first three months of Peace Corps service are a diagnostic phase. As a community economic volunteer you complete two diagnostics: the community diagnostic and the organizational diagnostic in order to form needs assessments for both and to design your projects. Part of the community diagnostic is a community map, where you walk around recording streets, houses, churches, identifying small business and resources for the community (example: where the water comes from; public transportation, etc.).

I started the community map about a week after being here, which I am about ¾ done with at this point. The town, which is a Municipal District already had a map of the streets from the early 90’s when they paved the majority of the roads. I got a copy from the local ayuntamiento (city hall) and it proved useful in navigating and adding houses, new streets that aren’t on the map and filling in the 100 plus micro, small and medium sized business in the town. Walking around I have been meeting a lot of people that don't live in my area but in one of the five other sections, talking to kids, business owners, sitting with residents in plastic chairs under the shade of trees in the street in the early afternoons, to compartir (share) and gain confianza (trust) with the members of the community.

Just getting my face out there and getting to be known is good, even though the crazy and bewildered looks are a bit draining sometimes (although less frequent). Sometimes it is overwhelming, with so many new people that I can hardly keep track of whom I’ve met, who is related to whom, and who is a member of which group(s). Although a town of 6000 seems small and tangible enough, it is a lot at times to be one person trying to remember so many people. I keep reminding myself that it will take time to integrate, and after a month I finally feel like things are slowly beginning to fall into place.

I am just beginning to interview households in order to conduct survey of the community with the help of the local church youth group. With this I can gather basic info on the community, identify needs and potential projects to work on with the community while I am here.

As my town is very organized, I have been going to many community group meetings.  I sit in on many, many conversations involving a lack of water in this dry region that has barely received any rainfall yet this year, affecting the crops, business and life in general.  They are working diligently to get wells working to extract water down below the dry river bed of the Rio Ocoa, but are waiting for government agencies to provide the much needed equipment and resources necessary to get all of them to function. Daily conversations consist of farming and local crops, which I expect to be an expert in by the time I leave (mainly mango, onion, papaya, plantain and banana). 

I also hear a lot of chisme (gossip) about people who I’m not yet familiar with being so new, so it’s hard to follow (so and so from such and such town who is related to Fulana who blah blah blah with Fulano).

And of course, I go to the beach with my family. I’ve been to the two busier points nearby- Palmar de Ocoa (8 km) and Punto Salinas (Not many kilometers, but more than 8):

(Salt mines at Punto Salinas)

(Boats at Palmar de Ocoa)

Now I am about ¾ done with my organizational diagnostic, which analyzes many areas of an organization in addition to a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) Analysis. In the first week of February the CED volunteers in my training group will come together at the 3-month IST (in-service-training) with our project partners to present the diagnostic and then begin project planning.

My cooperative, Fruticoop, Inc., which produces dried fruit and mango marmalade using solar technology has a wonderful product but has accrued losses in the past several years due to lack of commercialization and sales of their products under the brand FrutiSol. I hope to help promote and sell the product, assist in the internal organization and improving some of the production problems that the currently have, and the quality control of the product as well.

My project partner, also the president of the Cooperative is very motivated, and we have been meeting a lot. Tomorrow I will be going back to Santo Domingo to meet with the directors of the Foundation for Agriculture and the Environment (FAMA, a national NGO that initiated and managed many projects within Fruticoop, inc. since it’s beginnings in 2003/4) to discuss the collaboration between the two and see the organic market they have every Friday where they sell our products and also produce from local farmers. 

That is my work/personal life in a nutshell. In addition I read, a lot. I sleep and enjoy my afternoon nap.  I watch puppies and roosters and palm trees in the hot sun and ponder buying a hammock. And I talk to other volunteers and people from back home about it all, the good and bad. I motivate myself to do work and as soon as I do I realize how much there is to do and while living here there will is no shortage of opportunities for projects and willing parties to take on new projects.

And to wrap up this obnoxiously long blog entry, I have funny misunderstandings- even though I feel comfortable with Spanish and feel like I am improving all the time.  And the story goes that one morning a couple of weeks ago my Dona comes in and tells me that one of the dogs, Lila, has a garrapata. I did not know this word yet so I ask what a garrapata is. She says, oh es un pajarito que chupa la sangre (Literal translation- It is a little blood sucking bird). Having just woken up and still deep in slumber I forget that the word pajarito is also used to describe insects and bugs. So I start imagining this crazy big bird sucking on the dog Lila’s blood, and start wondering if Lila is going to die or is dead, or what this crazy bird is that I have never heard of. After this goes on for awhile (way longer than it should have) I finally realize that garrapata is the word for tick.

Dia de Pavo – Thanksgiving in Santo Domingo

Thanksgiving was last week and many volunteers convened in Santo Domingo to celebrate. I went in on Wednesday (about a two hour trip from my site). After dropping off my things at the Peace Corps office I went to lunch at the Embassy, an amazing refuge with mouthwatering hot turkey sandwiches and a refreshing pool where you’re specifically instructed NOT to throw your toilet paper in the trash, you can take hot showers, and no one is looking at you crazily for wearing a gasp*-  bikini!

From there I went to the vet with a couple of other volunteers to adopt my adorable new puppy! The cachorro (puppy) is the only little boy out of six from a batch of puppies that another volunteer had been raising at her site in Samaná, then brought them all back to Santo Domingo, where they were adopted by other volunteers. He is about seven weeks old, brown (looks kind of like a chocolate lab) and his name is Choco “Don’t call me Viralata” Late (Viralata is the word here for street dog, named for dogs knocking over trash cans). I was going to go with Hank, but that doesn’t exactly translate well into Spanish, and then it would be something like Eris (what people sometimes call me) y Ank (the H doesn’t really get pronounced), so you can see why I decided against it.

(Choco at home)

That night we had a dance party on the second floor of the hotel where most of the youth volunteers were staying after a healthy dinner of comida criollo china (Chinese and fried food joints scattered around the island). The next day was the Thanksgiving extravaganza at a country club near the Botanical Gardens in Santo Domingo. Lots of pool time, excellent brunch with your T-day dinner staples of Turkey, stuffing, pumpkin and pecan pie, mashed potatoes and a new personal favorite, sweet mashed potatoes. Followed by some more poolside fun, a talent show and then out in Santo Domingo to some places that reminded me those I used to frequent in Barcelona while studying abroad.

And by Saturday morning I was back my site with the puppy, getting back into the campo life. Now at the house we have two dogs, and four puppies.  As my Dona says my dog is still pegado a la teta (stuck to the teet) because he keeps trying to feed off of the Mom that is feeding her puppies that are about a third his size. The photo explains it all:

(Mamando con los otros cachorros)

Project Partner Day and First Site Visit

I finally got my site and have already gone for a visit. I am living in a small pueblo of about 6000 people southwest of Santo Domingo, about 30 minutes southwest of Bani. I am right near the sand dunes that are famous in the Caribbean, a few nice beaches within a short motoconcho or guagua rides reach. It is semi arid desert weather, with lower humidity than Santo Domingo (gracias a Dios) and temperatures usually in the 90s right about now. It is pretty much summer all year round and doesn't rain much. Since it is fall I am coming into their cool season, which is still hot.


Before you permanently move into your project site, trainees go for a five day site visit. It begins with the madness that is project partner day, where we meet our project partners who we will be working with the next two years. After working with them in the morning and having lunch, everyone departs to their respective sites and brings as much of their belongings as possible to make for an easier trip on the permanent move on Friday the 30th. We lugged all of our stuff to Entrena, hopped on buses over to San Pablo where the day happens (this was the same convent we had all spent our first night in the DR two and a half months earlier). I met my two project partners, a man and a women who were both very nice, good first impression. The woman is a member of the cooperative that produces dried fruit (my actual project partner is the president of the cooperative, but she couldn't make it), and the man is a member of the local development association.

Shortly following lunch we set out to my site. First we made a quick stop at FAMA in Santo Domingo, a local NGO that supports sustainable development projects in my site and around the DR. We met with the staff and then headed southwest on the highway.


We finally get there (ok, it is close only a little over two hours) and I am pretty surprised at how nice the town is. Little tree lines streets with sidewalks and paved roads throughout most of the town- notably clean.  Some areas are more marginalized and poorer than others, not all roads are paved but nearly all and there are about six parts of town. There is also a Haitian community here so I look forward to Creole training in the spring to integrate with the entire community.

My host parents are in their early seventies, and their granddaughter in her twenties lives there as well. My host dad is the president of the development association and the granddaughter is the secretary. Also there is a parrot that whips out phrases in Spanish asking the important philisophical questions like hay platano? I get a special gold medal if I can teach the parrot my name, since Erin usually becomes Eris here (parrot in the photo, chilling in its tree in our backyard). There are also a couple of shaggy dogs, a couple of roosters, a cat and her kitten (standoffish but it will come around) and some other birds. The little shaggy white dog is pregnant so I may be getting a puppy very soon.


                                                               Back yard at my new house.

My house is nice, there is a normal bathroom and shower, fan in room, nicest place Ive lived out so far. So its comfy. And there are three cooperatives: two mango cooperatives that sell mangoes domestically and export, and a cooperative that produces dried fruit using a solar powered drier. The dried fruit cooperative is my main project and is mainly comprised of women, with some male members. My other project partner works in the local development association (the president is also my host dad) which is down the street from my house. There seem to be a lot of motivated people that I met at the various community group meetings I went to throughout the week, and a lot of opportunities to work with the community.
                                                                                                                                                                                                  

                                                                                            Below: View of the Caribbean from a church                                                                                                                 down the street from my house.

The town has the local hospital for the region, highschool, primary school, two baseball fields, a central square, and lots of small businesses (little clothing stores, colmados, colmadons, ferreterias, auto repairs shops, paint shops, cafeterias, etc). There have been a lot of development projects over the years due to some very active a forward thinking community associations and residents, and remittance money being reinvested from the large Diaspora living mainly in the Bronx (also Boston and Florida). Every household seems to have half of their family in the little DR, aka the Bronx. 

The town also has trash collection and organic trash collection that they have a large organic compost, where they make fertilizer and sell it. Basically Ill be learning a lot and working with some sustainable development projects. (See photo at left, the Planta Abono Organico or Compost and my host dad).








So my first impression is good and I am excited to go back next weekend and get started. We swear in as volunteers on Wednesday, and will offically start our two years then. Made it through training and now the real work begins!!

Living in the Campo and shortly returning to Pantoja

We have been in the campo for almost three weeks now, and have about a week and a half left here before we head back to Santo Domingo for the Business Plan competition (something that Community Economic Development Sector works with' volunteers work with youth to form business plans, and the winners of the competition are given seed money to start their business).

Campo life is definitely very relaxing, and I enjoy my outdoor shower under the stars, or in the plain daylight dumping refreshing cool buckets of water on my head while looking up at my avocado and cherry trees.  (Photo at left: in my favorite avocado tree next to my house). It is nice to get to know the community more because it is that much more tangible because it is smaller. The volunteers are spread out between four different communities, so we all come together for technical training and the occasional get together.

Two of the more recent eco tour sights included a trip to 27 charchos, beautiful waterfalls near our sites that boast 27 pools of water beneath a canopy of trees. We hiked only half of them in the interest
of saving some time and cash since we had to get back before the afternoon to go to community meetings. We went equipped with helmuts and life jackets and fun guides with interesting animal calling talents that jumped out at us from randomn spots in the bushes. My ego definately came down a few notches after being tricked way more than once. But the water was beautiful, we for the most part all made it off of even the larget charcos, and enjoyed swimming in the cool blue-green waters underneath the trees in stone water ways, sliding in some parts through rocks that were crafted into natural water slides falling into pools.
                                                                                                  Below: The jeep we roll 20 deep in...
The second of our ecotourism trips was, well, interesting. What was supposed to be a three hour round trip hike turned into a bushwacking extravaganza up the face of a mountain and back around the other side to the much anticipated water falls, the source of the 27 charcos and was supposedly well worth it. After hiking up the front of the mountain to a dry pool at the top (where I think the guides thought the pools were, but they were actually way on the other side), we scaled back down and went right up the face of the mountain to the top in order to hike down the other side to find the what seemed to be imaginary pools. We made it up eventually but were at times quite frustrated beacuse we ran out of water and didnt anticipate such a trek nor were we prepared for it at all. We hiked down the other side to a trickling pool and filled up our water bottles with fresh spring water. Good thing because on my way back up a few of us ended up having to drink the water (I had to have water) but took anti-parasitic medication after we got back. But in the end it was worth it with a beautiful view from the top and a wealth of experience, plus we had a good group experience to tell the others. I definitely will be asking more questions beforehand next time around.



This past weekend members of the Junta de Vecinos and all of us living in Los Claveles went to the beach in Puerto Plata to take in the sun. It was beautiful and right on the beach, one of the days that truly reminds me that I live in the Caribbean, except for the fact that I am sweating in October. And since it took us four hours to go in a big group to get there, when it was only 45 minutes away, I was also reminded I live in the DR. The beach itself was amazing, with crystal blue waters stretching out for miles, palm trees and white sands stretching on either side as far as you can see. And the water was relatively shallow and calm. I am getting used to the fact that I have to wear my tank top and shorts in the water, since I was around the community (although I prefer the bikini, what can I say). But it was also a tourist beach, so it wasn´t a huge deal if you were in a bikini, but it is definitely weird for Dominicans, who like to cover up while swimming.

The way to and from the beach was crazy and wild. We were piled eleven in a minivan while the rest of the people were piled in an old school bus. The entire way there the two drivers enjoyed a fun game of chicken, darting in front of oncoming traffic to cut in front of each other. My life flashed before my eyes several times but I wasn´t about to get around in walk soooo, I hung on for the ride. Most of the drivers here are pretty crazy and questionable two lane roads are often three lane roads with the middle (and the other lanes) used for passing no matter if you are in a blind turn, hill, or whatever. I guess I am not that disappointed that we don´t get to drive here!

Besides all that, lots of technical training and I have become surprisingly accustomed to certain aspects of campo life. For example large spiders in my bed, effective latrine use and flicking off ´pajaritos¨, which literally means little birds but it is the word used for insects. I often get laughed at for dodging the pajaritos and ¨mariposas¨(Literally a butterfly, but no this also means big moths), but all in good fun.  



So far it has been fun, ups downs, we are all getting closer and I am especially excited to see all the other groups of volunteers when we reunite in Pantoja in the coming weeks!!
                                                                                
                                                                                          Photo above: Ladies of Los Claveles

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

Volunteer site visit and last week or so

A lot has happened in the past week and a half.

Where to begin, well as a recap we had a visit from Aaron Williams, the newly appointed director of the Peace Corps last Tuesday. He began his career as a volunteer in the Dominican Republic and served with another returned Peace Corps volunteer, Senator Dodd. He spoke to our training group and then had lunch at the Entrena center. He is a charismatic and very friendly guy--it was inspiring to think that he had come full circle all of this way, beginning in the DR and ending up as the director of PC- afterall, that could be one of us some day.

Moving on, we had our volunteer site visit this weekend. Thursday morning I got up early and headed to the bus stop to go to Hato Mayor, a province (and small city) about two hours north east of Santo Domingo. From there I took another small gua gua (gua gua is literally a word for baby, but also a local term used for bus- generally over crowded and packed to the brim in Santo Domingo, but not so bad in the outer city buses SO far) to Vincentillo in the El Seibo neighboring province. Thirty minutes later, after passing across a couple of small rivers and through small towns I arrive at the volunteer´s site who I am supposed to visit, who has been in her site for a year in a campo (small rural town).

We have lunch and begin chatting. The point of the visit is to gain perspective on what life will actually be like as a volunteer serving in the DR. We go next door to a local cafteria-auto part store and have a tamarind juice replete with sugar. We are chatting with some local communiy members and I know I am getting in good with them when I spill juice on my shirt, and one of the locals feels comfortable enough to laugh and say oh, just like a baby!! I think he was laughing with me not at me.

As far as project sites there are four different settings you can get placed in: Batey (poorest communities, majority population comprised of Haitians or of Haitian descent, usually nearby sugar cane fields as the communities would generally harvest sugar cane), Campo (small rural towns, can be very remote or nearby small town or city), Pueblo (small town or city, larger than campo), or city (bigger city, regional urban center, etc). She has project partners in the campo and in the pueblo, as she works with a cacao block based out of Hato Mayor, and also has a project partner at the women´s association in her town where she lives (rough population of 1500 people). Half of the time she is working in town and the other half she is hanging out in the campo.

She works with the cacao block that is made up of 27 small producers or so in the region. I learned all about the process of growing, harvesting, fermenting and drying cacao, the different grades, fair trade processes, etc. She is also working on a local chocolate tour where tourists leave from Hato Mayor to visit different fincas (small farms) nearby and then stop at the women´s association in her town for lunch, where they also produce sub products such as cacao marmelade and wine. I definately wouldn´t mind working with a similar project with cacao producers, eco tourism, coffee producers, etc. She also has a bunch of side projects working with local youth and artisans, developing a business plan through one of the CED initiatives Construir tus suenos (build your dreams).

We got along really well and it was great to see how she lived, worked and to finally get out of Pantoja! Plus, I was able to get a better idea of what I want out of my service, and what kind of setting I want to be in. At the moment I am thinking I want to be in a pueblo, not a campo. Of course, right near the beach boyeee.

The campo was an experience. It is exactly what you would think, smaller town, fewer people but a tight knit community, a bit slower lifestyle with a lot of hanging out. And beautiful. We went to a river by her house settled in green lush mountains with a climate that is slightly less suffocating than Santo Domingos heat and pollution sticking to your skin. There was a full moon one of the nights right when we were hit by frequent blackouts, so we played dominos and this awesome card game called casino by candle light with some of her friends from the neighborhood. It is peaceful especially once you get used to the occasional dog and cat fight noises in the distance, crowing roosters, etc. And lots of lightening bugs flashing a light green color in the distance (called cucuyos).

Of course I now have important info regarding campo life- including latrine use, latrine use at night (flash light to scare the roaches back down into the latrine or keep your eye on them at least- I gained the courage for this after a couple of nights), bucket baths and dishwashing, amongst other things. Also, dealing with tarantulas that supposedly get prettty big (but we are lucky to have no venomous snakes or spiders in the DR).

Overall I walk away encouraged because I feel that with motivation, a good project parter or two, a lot of perserverance, and hard skin (not taking things too personally), I can be succesful working and living here on a project for two years. And there seem to be a lot of opportunities for good projects for CED. It took her awhile to become integrated into the community, and I think the first three months will be the most difficult, trying to become integrated into the community, respected and trusted, and make strong comnnections and friends within.

To wrap it up Ill say a few random things. One, I think I have heard the several extremely popular DR songs about 100 times since this past weekend. One is called Pepe, and literally just repeats Pepe over and over again. In fact, I´ve heard it three times already since being in this internet cafe!! Not so annoying yet but I suspect it may be in the future. Two, I´m getting better at bachata, a popular partner dance. I got plenty of practice Saturday night. Merengue, a little slower but coming along. And three, I finally went to the beach on Sunday with a group of volunteers. It was awesome, warm crystal blue/green water in the Caribbean, hot, white sands and palm trees. I am ecstatic to be here in this gorgeous country. Thursday we seperate into our sector groups and head up north the Alta Mira to do five weeks of Community Based Training. Will add pictures soon!