photos

scratch the photos. can't get em to upload. hopefully they'll be on soon!

Lots of updates

Four new posts and hopefully some new photos, so check em out. The one dated 12.18.07 down at the bottom is the oldest one.

XOXOX. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve

It’s going okay so far. A little boring. A little disanimada, but I’m hanging in there. The days leading up to and including Christmas Day are hyped up here, but the reality is things are pretty uneventful. I had a slightly testy chat with my host family last night as they were leaving for a party, expecting me to go, but having not mentioned a word about the party’s existence to me previously. From a philosophical perspective, I don’t like being expected to be available at the drop of a hat. From a practical perspective, I like to be told when meetings and activities are scheduled so that I don’t end up with conflicts. In any case, I didn’t go, but I told them I’d come tonight, and so I will. Hopefully it will be a good time.

I’m looking forward to tomorrow though, and as this week which was said to be lots of fun and activity is turning out to be not so much, I’m very glad I decided to join some other volunteers for Christmas Day at the ex-pat hostel in Santiago. Should be some good food, fun people and maybe a cheesy Christmas movie or three.

I’m a little late getting to it, but several people have asked for an updated care package wish list. Before I do that, thanks to all of you who have sent packages. They still haven’t all arrived, but I’m hoping the next trip to Santo Domingo bears fruit again, and as always, I’ll keep you posted. One of the nearby volunteers is having his computer shipped down through the APOs and he’ll be going to pick it up in the next week, so I have asked him to check my mail and packages. Hopefully he’ll find some of the packages that have been in limbo. I haven’t had a chance to get much work done on setting up the international mail forwarding in Santiago, but it is still on my to-do list. In the meantime, the address in Santo Domingo is still the best. Nobody is obligated to send anything. It’s pretty expensive, and entirely without guarantees. Just keep the good emails coming and the rest is just gravy.

That said, here are a few things I’ve thought of. Some of this stuff will break my advice of sending it in a padded envelope. I don’t expect anyone to send any of it (aside from my mom who only sends boxes), but here it is.

- This season’s basic gray, long sleeved, lightweight, zip up hoodie from Gap. (Mom, use my money for this. The one I brought is disintegrating. I should’ve replaced it before I came.) Actually, it doesn’t have to be from Gap, it’s just that they always have one that is pretty perfect so I just go there and save the trouble of hunting.

- Black Reef flip flops (with the skinny straps and thinner soles). I’m not sure whether mine are a 5.5 or a 6, but they are 10 inches long (Again, mom, you can use my money).

- School supplies (pencils, pencil sharpeners, erasers, markers, pens, post-its, thumbtacks, paperclips, sharpies, manila envelopes, folders etc.)

- Storage containers (like the cheap-but-reusable Glad kind)

- Foam earplugs. Please. Foam earplugs. Campo life starts at 4 am.

- Individual-sized no-refrigeration-needed coffee creamers like at a restaurant (probably best not to put these in an envelope, hehe)

- One of those plastic cone things that you put on top of your coffee mug with a filter and pour hot water so it brews the coffee right into your cup (Michele, you have one of these), and the filters to put in it. OR, the French press I ended up leaving behind when I was packing.

- DVDs (used or older titles are perfectly fine)

- Books and magazines as always (I was sent already Prep; Eat, Pray, Love; The Kite Runner; The Memory Keeper’s Daughter, and Naked)

- Snacks, especially protein-y things like nuts and Luna/Mojo bars

- Instant oatmeal and hot cocoa packets

As for general Peace Corps updates, things are going well here. You guys will feel extremely updated if you read all four of the rather lengthy posts I’ll be putting up at the same time. In any case, things have been going well. I’ve gotten started on my diagnostic, which has made me feel a lot more engaged and productive and thus helped my lost and confused feelings go down a bit. I’ve been working on my map, mostly, and I have sketched out four of the six sectors of my community. I plan to finish the sketching before the New Year and then drawing the large scale map after that. I have also designed my survey (I have to interview 100 families in the community) and am waiting to have a chance to review it with my counterpart, which I hope to do before the New Year as well, so that I can start the interviews first thing in January. I think it will take me at least six weeks to get all the interviews done, and then a couple weeks to write my report (in Spanish). I also have to do some general community history research and an organizational diagnostic (history, finances, structure, work areas, purpose, etc of my counterpart organization) for that presentation at the end of February.

My Spanish is coming along too, although certainly I still have a way to go. I find myself not having to translate as much to understand others or formulate my response, but I’m not feeling fluent or normal speaking it yet. I have had a couple of actual, real, honest to goodness conversations with a few people in the community and I was able to hold my own and talk about real topics, which was really reassuring. I still do better in a one-on-one rather than group conversation though, and I still struggle with following conversations between several Dominicans.

As for the housing situation, it looks like I will probably wait for Dan to move out of his house when he finishes his service in April or May and then move in there. That means instead of moving out of my host family’s house at the end of three months, it will be more like at the end of five months (which does not excite me), but the house I’ll be able to move into is worth it. It’s not glamorous, but it’s comfortable, sturdy, safe, quiet and set up. I’ll probably just give Dan the majority of my settling in allowance and he’ll leave me the bed, stove, house supplies etc. Easy for me, easy for him. It’s glorious because the house just has one neighbor house, instead of being on a compound of seven houses (with probably 15 kids) that starts banging and screaming and crowing at 4 am. The only downside is the extra wait before moving out. Hopefully I’ll be able to save enough of the settling-in allowance (or have enough of my money I brought from home left) to look into buying myself a small refrigerator and a lavadora (a campo-style washing machine). This is a little un-Peace Corps sounding, but PC tells us we are expected to live at the level of the people in our communities and nearly everyone here has both a fridge and a lavadora, so I don’t feel too guilty about it.

Gosh, I talk too much. This is going to take you forever to read. Signing off now. I love you!!!!

Fresh Meat

I am new. I am strange, different. Everything I do is observed, commented on. Fresh meat.

I am new. My blood is foreign and delicious. I am the all-day, all-night, all-you-can-eat buffet for this country’s mosquito clientele (although, thankfully, business is slowly calming down). Fresh meat.

I am in a foreign country. The meat we eat doesn’t come in Styrofoam trays covered in plastic wrap. The pork we will eat tonight squeals and screams as it is butchered behind my house. The benches out back double as the butcher’s block to clean and prepare the meat for cooking. Twice now, I have seen and heard the slaughter. How have I not become a vegetarian? Fresh meat.

12.19.07

Given the choice of only one utensil to eat with, I choose a fork, hands down. Dominicans choose spoons. I have no idea why because you then have to eat the meat with your fingers. I mean, who can eat meat on a bone with a spoon? It’s just not quite that tender here, the meat.

I went to a pot luck dinner tonight to celebrate the holidays with one of the youth groups here, and oh man did I want to whip up an artichoke dip to share. Or a pasta salad. Or brownies. The other day we made a big soup on what is essentially a campfire, and oh man I wanted to roast marshmallows and make smores. I could really go for a 20 oz. Americano with 2 sugars, a Splenda and half an inch of half-and-half, please, by the way. And a Chonga bagel with cream cheese.

I have begun thinking about both my housing situation (as in, looking for one on my own) and my diagnostic (as in, starting it).

As for housing, it started out with a slightly awkward conversation with my dona asking if my room-and-board payment to them would be reduced by the days I was in Santiago for the storm. (The answer is no.) Then it led into that, even though it’s not my fault and she doesn’t want to change anything, she thinks the amount I am paying (RD $110/day) is too little. Then we moved on to the subject of them helping me find a place to move into in February. They are rooting hard for me to rent this little house that is owned by a family member, but to do so would require a LOT of repairs, which would probably be paid for by me having to pay almost or more than my whole two years of rent up front to pay for the repairs, and then live there without further rent payments. This is problematic for me because one, I don’t want to have all my money on the street in the event that I would need to move and have to try and get it back, and two, because it would be shit-ton of work that I’d have to wait around for who knows who to get the work done and on a Dominican schedule it could be ages before the house would be ready. It crossed my mind that because the family has a vested interest in me renting this particular house, they might be less motivated to help me search out more suitable options, so I’ve been trying to make other contacts who can help me. Also, the other volunteer here is leaving in May and his landlord said that they would rent to the next volunteer, so I can always decide to stay with my host family and extra two months (ugh) and then move into Dan’s house. The upside is he says the place is quiet, volunteer-friendly, and I might score some of his stuff, so these are all great things! I’ll keep current on developments as they come along.

As for my diagnostic, I have been thinking that I needed to get started on it to give myself something to do, but then today I was thinking that I need to get started on it in order to be able to finish it in time. I’m not going to be able to do any interviews until after the New Year (because the survey isn’t ready yet and because nobody does anything in December), and once I get started it will take probably close to 7 weeks to do all hundred interviews because I’d like to do them all myself. I also have to make a map of the community before I start interviewing, and I also want to do something called a community business inventory to find out all the businesses in the community, where they are located, what they do, who owns them and so on. I have this idea that maybe I could start some sort of community level Chamber of Commerce or something. I don’t even know if our municipality has a city-level CC. I need to do some research.

So my plan is to do my map this week and weekend (at least a rough draft so I can figure out what houses to interview); make a date with my counterpart to get a couple hour-long sessions to talk with her about the community in general and my organization in particular, and to go over my survey before I bring it to the families; then, after the New Year I’ll hopefully start doing the interviews, about 16 per week for 6 weeks (in each of the 6 neighborhoods of my community), hopefully finishing around Valentine’s Day. Based on the vague information that our retreat where we present our diagnostic results is at the end of February or the first week of March, this would give me two weeks to compile my results, write the report and build the presentation.

So, Christmas is coming and the goose is getting fat. I’m feeling pretty good about the holidays here, although I certainly know it will be different than at home. I’ll be spending Christmas Eve (Noche Buena) in my community, but Christmas Day I’m headed to Santiago to have a Friends-style Christmas with some other volunteers. There’s this house in Santiago that is run like a hostel for Americans living in the DR. It’s a cross between a hostel and a bed-and-breakfast. I’m going to stay the night there and come back on the 26^th. They’re going to do a big dinner and it should be a good time. I’ll be sure to update on how it goes. Plans for New Year’s aren’t as figured out yet, but I’ve decided not to go to Cabarette, which is the unofficial official Peace Corps Volunteer activity. It was confusing to get in on and expensive and I just don’t want to mess with it. One of the volunteers nearby invited me up to Puerto Plata to go for a hike with her and some of her friends, but I’m not sure if that’s exactly on or just around New Years. We’ll see. My host family keeps asking me if I’ll be here for the ball dropping so I get the impression I’m supposed to stick around. All this darn indirect communication is hard for me. However, I’ve heard that Cabarette is a great beach town, so for those of you thinking of coming and visiting resort-style, be sure to check this town out. Here’s a URL for one of the places that sounded pretty cool (although it’s not an all-inclusive setup): http://wilsonsbeachhouse.com/en/index.html. There’s also a general Cabarette tourism website portal that has links to all sorts of places. I don’t remember what it’s called but I’m sure you savvy folks can figure it out.

Well isn’t that just two much too long blog entries for ya?!?!??!! J Take care, happy holidays, and keep in touch!!! Hugs and kisses to all!!!!

12.16.07

So far, today has been an interesting day. I woke up finding it a bit hard to get out of bed – the day that was ahead of me was void of any plans, and given my slightly precarious emotional state lately, I just wasn’t too sure about things. Things are shaping up to be low key, but I am feeling more peaceful than I have in a while, so that’s good. This morning, I gave myself a pedicure and passed close to two hours soaking, cleaning and painting my toes and I am only slightly exaggerating when I say that this activity was observed and commented on (as are all the mundane things I do throughout the day, like wear earrings, wash my underwear or put my hair up with a pen) – by children and adults alike, with no less fanfare than a girl getting ready for her senior prom.

Next, I decided to tidy up my room, which is rather futile because I don’t have nearly enough space for the things I need to be accessible, so as soon as I move to get something the whole place will be a mess again. I’ve decided to build myself a bookcase, although this will probably take several weeks given that I have to procure someone who can build it and the materials as well (which means a trip to the pueblo).

In any case, when I was cleaning I discovered a huge spider had taken up residence and in trying to help, my 8 year old host sister succeeded in chasing the damn thing INTO my closet where it had endless pockets and shoes to hide in. Susa (my host “mom”) eventually found it, as which time I discovered that my shoes in the closet are growing mold. Yay. So, out I went to wash the mold off and set them in the sun to dry and hopefully bake the mold spores dead. This however, I know, is also a useless fight because of the humidity here.

So now, I have clean feet, red toenails and a tidy room (and a more relaxed state of mind) and I’m perched on the front patio like Julia Stiles in Ten Things I Hate About You.

I got a little bit of a talking to from my counterpart and my dona the other day about they are worried that I seem sad here. I gues I am, but it’s not as simple as I’m sad, and because I don’t feel confident I can explain effectively in Spanish (AND because I am not ready to be so vulnerable with the people here yet) I hesitate to begin the conversation. Aside from these emotional reasons, there are some practical problems as well. Dominicans don’t participate in privacy, so having a one-on-one conversation is nearly impossible (sorry, but I don’t want to have a town-hall discussion about how I’m doing) and when you do happen to get someone alone, there are always interruptions. Even in the las week or so I can’t count how many times my dona has asked me what’s up – and I began to explain – only to have her walk out or someone walk in before I had completed my first sentence. It’s not only that there are interruptions but that the conversation never picks back up. It’s like the person doesn’t even remember the conversation was taking place.

All these obstacles add up to that so far, there isn’t anyone here who I have been able to confide in. In training, they talked to us a lot about the importance of integrating into our communities and building confianza (trust) in order to be happy and successful here. It’s pretty obvious now that I think about it, but what they didn’t mention is that the community has to earn the confianza of the volunteer as well, and this is what has caught me off guard.

The other volunteer here, although I understand he has his own life, projects and commitments, has not done much to lend a hand. He’s so busy I haven’t even had a chance to visit his house yet. I think part of it is that we wants me to be able to have my own experience, but if the situation were reversed, I’d make sure to check on the new person more and offer them a place to visit and relax and such.

However, I am happy to report two things. One, I had an almost-real conversation with one of the girls in the community. It, of course, was interrupted, but at least we actually got started and she was paying attention and being responsive. Second, last night I met my first “peer.” That is, my age, college graduate, employed, not married, no kids yet. Now, I have nothing against people getting married or having kids in their 20s, but it’s been a month in my site now and she’s the first who had all those demographic factors in common. Of course, although she works here, she lives in the next community over, but it’s a start.

Although there are plenty of women in their mid-20s and early 30s, their lives are so different that they seem farther away. I’ve mentioned before that my counterpart is 26 with 12 and 4 year old kids, and my dona is 28 with 12 and 8 year old kids. This is pretty common here and they are just not even close to similar places in their lives as I am. So I feel encouraged to have had two glimmers this week.

Also, why aren’t the damn Dominicans asking me to dance? They warned us up and down in training that the men here would be vying over us. Now, I don’t want to be fought over, but Iv’e been to the disco several times now and the only times I’ve danced are with the grandpa men and some guy who got told to dance with me. What’s up with that???

(Side note, in sitting here writing this I have already gotten THREE mosquito bites).

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that during my peaceful pedi earlier, I also took breaks to watch the cow the men killed today get butchered behind out house. Someone died and there’s a vela (memorial service) tomorrow in Santiago, and this will be lunch. It was interesting to be painting my nails when not 20 feet away there was an ad hoc butcher shop. (Look for pictures!)

Olga

Greetings from Santiago!

Here we are, consolidated in Santiago, waiting out Tropical Storm Olga, or whatever kind of storm it is. After the surprise hit of Noel last month, Peace Corps wasn't taking any chances with the volunteers this time. It's been raining nonstop since Friday last week, and still is. From the sounds of it my site has a few down trees and part of our bridge broke off. When I left yesterday there were rivers running around the community that aren't supposed to be there, and finding a motorcycle to take me out to the road was pretty interesting. It took me about an hour to find one. But here we are, and safe and sound. I talked to my Dona this morning and it sounds like there's a lot of water and some fallen trees and such, but she didn't mention any structural damage. I guess I'll have to wait and see when I get back how everything is. Hopefully nothing is too bad.

Anyways, not too much to report other than that. It sounds like weather is pretty crazy across the US too. Hope you all are warm and dry. Take care!

In the Capital

It's strange, how in the span of minutes my perspective changes, my thoughts on how things are going and what I am doing. Sometimes I stay feeling great or feeling overwhelmed for only moments and sometimes it lasts for longer. The last couple days have been interesting because they have been interesting, fun, varied, busy (although all this has been accomplished by being mostly out of my site) but yet I have been feeling anxious and emotional. I'm not sure what the cause is, but I will keep moving forward, eagerly working toward feeling settled, comfortable and at home.

Insecurities here are many. Am I qualified for this? Can I be an effective volunteer? Can I overcome my shyness and get myself integrated into my community, and find myself a few friends? Is my Spanish ever going to feel comfortable and normal, if not perfect? I mean, I can handle making mistakes but when do I get to just talk and listen and not miss a large chunk of what's going on?

On the other hand, things are great, too. A couple of days ago I went to 27 Charcos with some volunteers nearby to celebrate one of the guys' birthday in my group, and it was amazing. 27 Charcos was one of the things on the short list of activities I was sure I wanted to do before coming here. Basically, it involves climbing up and then jumping/sliding down a sequence of 27 waterfalls, the highest jump being at the top and about 35 feet (I passed on that one). In any case, it's incredibly beautiful and totally naturally occurring. Then yesterday I got on a really, really early bus (complete with a crowing rooster and a cockroach, and a leaky roof so I got rained on) to come to the capital. Before I even got on the bus I was drenched from the 20 minute-in-the-pouring-down-rain motorcycle ride to catch the bus, so that was kindof rough and cold. However, upon my arrival in the capital for the holiday artisan fair, I came to the PC office and was delighted to find I had a few lovely care packages (which my kindly neighbor volunteer Rob has taken back to my site for me because I couldn't manage all my stuff!), and then I went and spent the day at the fair. The fair is great, and I'm headed back there today, but it's been a little disappointing so far because the candles I brought from the jovenes I'm working with aren't selling very well, and I couldn't bring a very large selection to begin with because they weigh a ton. Also, the quality of the products there are pretty kick ass, and while my group has improved a lot (from what I hear) since they began, they still have a ways to go.

As for in my community, not too much is going on there. I am trying to focus on learning my way around the community and meeting people, but of course this is always a challenge for me. I have been going to a few meetings but I haven't yet made it to all of them, and my project partner and I haven't had very much time to spend on orienting me to their organization and their work. My vision of what I will be doing with them, or what they are hoping for, is still pretty unclear. They are actually pretty organized and developed and functional in Dominican terms, and my counterpart is my same age and level of education, so I don't feel especially confident that I have so much knowledge she doesn't. It will be really good once I can get going on the organizational diagnostic component of my community diagnostic (the only "real" work we are supposed to do the first three months) with my proj partner because it will give me some structure to work in to research the group I work with. It will also give me something to do.

Aside from the blurry vision of my work as a volunteer in my community, I am also still feeling blurry about my role as a person. Finding friends, knowing who's who. Being able to live independently and set my own schedule, activities, meals, projects and commitments. From what I understand, all the difficulties that I am experiencing right now related to host family, autonomy, friends and work are all normal, and I find this reassuring most of the time (although sometimes it doesn't help that much).


Let's see what else? I've been loving the emails and thanks for the phone calls too, from everyone who has been able to be in touch! Hearing from you all has made life grand. Being in a place where nobody knows me, or understands me, or is used to me (at the very least... in the absence of the first two) has made me understand how nice home is. Nobody is perfect; no family, no group of friends, but boy is it nice to not have to explain everything, for example, chilling out solo. Dominican culture just doesn't include a notion of personal time, of solitude. It's very strange to them that we like it, need it, want it. I don't think I'm homesick (that will come when/if... no, when I get sick), but I'm just realizing again that while I can complain until I am blue in th face (because I am, by nature, a complainer), I like you guys!!!

Okay, this is good for now. Check you later!!!! I miss you!!!
Kira

Week One

Having been a little nervous the last time I wrote, just before getting on the bus to come up here, to my site, for real this time, I am happy to report that I am doing well here. I have even had some pretty good adventures and fun days this past week. As with most things so far, there are upsides and downsides already. I’ll start with the upsides:

Friday, I did some exploring, which was great. First, I went to Alta Mira which is the pueblito in whose municipality my site is located. That’s where the local level government offices and such related to my community are located. I also learned where the supermarket is. After that, I went and found my friend and fellow volunteer, Kevin’s, site. It’s a 10 minute walk from where I catch the moto to come into my site, so pretty darn easy. Then we went to Puerta Plata, which was sortof unexciting but I’m glad we went. I think we missed the cool part, if there is one. Although other volunteers tell us that Puerta Plata is kind of a has-been tourist town. The downside of this is that I had money in my bra, just in case, and now I have an itchy, slightly yucky looking, money-shaped rash on my boob. I really hope it is heat rash because we walked a lot and I was sweaty and not some infection from the dirty, dirty money. Ew.

Yesterday, I went on a real expedition, escorted by my good sport but not particularly thrilled about it host brother, to find my other friend and co-volunteer Rob’s site. Rob is much, much more out there in the campo campo than I or Kevin are. There’s no running water or electricity there (he’s a water volunteer). Getting up there was a serious hike, about an hour long, in quicksand like mud, which I had to do mostly in flip flops because we had to walk through the river FOUR times, and the trail was a horse trail, not a foot trail, and not a car trail. We eventually arrived and then went exploring more with Rob, more mud, more impossibly slippery trails. I totally fell and got entirely very muddy. It was hilarious. At one point we actually weren’t even on a trail, or any semblance of a trail, we just hiked right up the hill through the leaves and fallen branches and mud. It was so hard I gave up and took off my flips altogether so I didn’t end up sliding all the way down the hill, which was a very real risk. I am trying not to think of the cooties I was walking in with my bare feet.

Last night I went to the discoteca, which was ok, but I was really, really tired and the music was painfully too loud. I came home early and went to bed. Today I’m supposed to go exploring more with a girl in my community, but it’s the DR so we’ll see if it actually happens.

Also, I discovered that the 10 peso ice cream bar truck comes through most days at like 215 pm, and so most of the week I have been buying myself an after lunch snack. Yum. Tuesday I’m going into Imbert to use the internet and the bank, check out the pueblo and hopefully meet up with Todd, another volunteer in the area. He’s the one working at 27 Charcos (Google it.)

And for the downsides. I like my host family, I really do. They are nice. They give me relatively good food. They are nice to each other and to me. They generally give me my space (although I struggle with feeling guilty for taking it). They are very respectful. The thing is, I think I just don’t like living with a host family. I am just not a fan of the host family experience. I feel too exposed to people I hardly know, and who hardly know me. It’s hard to find stuff to talk to them about, although I think all sides are trying. I feel more guarded with my host family than maybe with other people, probably because of the feeling exposed thing.

In general, it’s hard for me to come up with topics to chat about here still. Between still struggling with Spanish on a daily basis (although, admittedly, not as much as some others in our group) and generally not knowing what’s going on to chit chat about, I find myself being quiet. Not sad so much as lacking much to say, although sometimes I feel sad too.

I know it will just take time. Time to find my stride, time to find stuff to talk about. Time to get comfortable if I don’t have anything to say. Time to find places and people who are for me to rest and rejuvenate. Time in general. I am confident still that as time passes and I get more of a sense of what my work here is (or even what other people’s work here is) I will feel more at ease. I knew this would be hard for me, the sitting around, nothing to do in particular, nowhere to go in particular. Nobody telling me what to do or where to go, but not really being free to do whatever I want or go wherever I want.

So here’s something interesting. The Ducks lost the Civil War football game. That they lost is not what is interesting about it (although it’s a bummer). What is interesting about this fact is that I know it. What is more interesting about this fact is that I know it because I saw it! I am in the Peace Corps in the Dominican Republic and I saw (part) of my alma matter’s Civil War football game on ESPN last night. Now, I’m a little confused because usually the game would have been last weekend, or even two weeks ago (it’s usually on one end or another of my birthday) but alas. I didn’t get to see much, just a few minutes of the third quarter, but I saw the recap, again by freak chance, today so I saw how it all turned out. Loss. Double overtime. Bummer. Hope you guys had a beer for me.


Anyway, as with everything. Salty and sweet come together. I better go for now, I am getting called out on hiding in here and need to go compartir, but I’ll try to come and write again soon!!! New pictures are online!!!

Love you all!
Kira

Swearing in and heading to Site

Wednesday, November 21, 2007: I, and the other volunteers in my training group, swore in and became “real volunteers.” I am now Kira Park, PCV. It’s hard to believe that we have been here 10 weeks, nearly a quarter of a year, and we are now, just, officially volunteers in Peace Corps.

Thursday, November 22, 2007: My first Thanksgiving away from home, family and friends went great. I didn’t really have any expectations, and I had heard the PCV-organized event was a fun time, so I wasn’t too concerned. The food was great, and there were sports tournaments in the morning, turkey and all the fixins for lunch, and entertainment (a dance contest, a talent show and a dating game) in the afternoon. All in all, a good time. We got to meet other volunteers, which was excellent, and I finally met Robyn, the volunteer who I had been emailing with before heading down.

Friday, November 23, 2007: My first All-Volunteer conference in Peace Corps. This is an annual meeting/workshop that everyone comes to in the capital. It was surprisingly interesting and worthwhile. Usually stuff like that seems not particularly relevant or applicable, but this was really good. Also, it was another chance to get to know other volunteers.

The phone situation:
My original phone number (1-809-467-5202) doesn’t work in my site, but I’m keeping the phone so I can take advantage of the PC network when I’m out of my site, so keep that number as a backup. My main phone number is a little confusing, though. We went to the store last night to get it sorted out, and they gave me my phone number, but then they gave me a different number and said they changed it. When I got home and charged the phone to check it out, the phone number that makes my phone ring is the original number I was given, not the number they told me was mine in the end. So, here are both for now until I figure out what’s going on. If one doesn’t work, just call the other. Also, text messaging doesn’t appear to be working still, and voicemail may or may not be, I’m not sure. How Peace Corps of me, right? Haha.
The number that, I think, makes my phone ring: 1-809-708-6839
The number they told me was the number, but doesn’t appear to make my phone ring: 1-809-708-6847

So, that’s that for now.

And now, after I finish this, I will be packing up the last of my stuff and preparing to head to my site, this time for real. I am a myriad of emotions about this, and today is one of the few times so far in the PC experience that I have felt genuinely physically nervous. This is for real. It’s not training, it’s not a visit.

I feel excited yet scared. Everything is possible, which is amazing and overwhelming. I have a lot to offer, but a lot more to learn. The support, encouragement and enthusiasm I have had behind me from everyone at home has and will continue to help me remember that this is the most amazing thing I could be doing right now. It’s right for me to be here.

I know that I need to be patient with myself – in getting to know my community, and its members; in learning Spanish and living with a host family; in learning my organization and how I can help them; in becoming independent in my own site and building a life for myself there that is fulfilling, rewarding and productive. I know that I need to overcome my fears and put myself out there; be the one who says “Hello” first and looks for ways I can become a part of these people’s lives. I know I can do it. (But make sure to remind me!)

Thank you again for all the packages (most of which have yet to arrive), emails, phone calls and thoughts of support. I miss you, but I’m so happy I’m here. I can’t wait until I feel settled though!!! Looking forward to hearing from you soon.

Kira

site visit

Saludos!

Having visited and returned from my new, permanent site, I thought I’d give a little insight into what my next two years might be like. Which is of course total speculation because there is no way 5 days of a visit can indicate 2 years of living in a community, but this is what I have to go on so here it is.

The community:
Bajabonico Arriba is a sector of the municipality of Alta Mira, in the province of Puerto Plata. It is comprised of about 7 subdivisions, but I will be spending my first three months with a family that lives in Bajabonico Arriba proper. In all, there are about 3000 people (so I’m told) in the community as a whole. The only way to get into the town is by motorconcho, and it’s 50 pesos and about 20 minutes. There’s a road but none of the transport vehicles come in… it’s only if you have a private vehicle you can drive in. Once you get to the road where you can catch a guagua, it’s about 5 or 10 minutes either way, either to Imbert (another volunteer is there) or Alta Mira, and it’s about 35 minutes to Santiago, the nearest major city.

My counterpart:
My primary project is working with an organization called Fundelosa (Fundacion Desarollo Loma y Salud) and they have a bunch of pretty big projects, namely a solar panel project, a bakery, a cacao processing facility, a youth group, and a microcredit loans program. My counterpart is 26 years old and has a 12 year old son. They start early here. Everyone wants English classes, which scares the bejebers out of me cause I’m no teacher, and there is a lot of interest in what I might be able to do there, although I’m trying to not get ahead of myself.

My host family:
Yes, I have electricity (most of the time). Yes, I have running water and a flush toilet (all the time, so they say, but it’s not as glamorous as it sounds). My “dona” is 28 and my “don” is 36 and I put that in quotes because they aren’t hardly older than me, but they have a 12 year old son and an 8 year old daughter and oh what a difference a couple of kids makes. The family is wonderful, and although I have no idea where I can go to get a few minutes of alone time to be quiet and mellow, they are so happy to have me it really touched my heart. The room they had for me only had a wall to about 4 feet high and no door, and when the volunteer who checked them out told them those were problems they built me a door and the rest of the wall because they so wanted to have a volunteer stay with them. They already asked me if I’d stay with them after the three months, but I don’t plan to. It was a little awkward, but I like them a lot. And I don’t think they’re going to make me eat stuff I don’t like, which makes me really happy.

The quirk:
There’s another volunteer in my site. Technically I am following him up but he ended up extending his service for six months or something so he’s not leaving until April or May or something. This is extremely uncommon and I have mixed feelings about it. No matter how it goes or how you slice it, having another volunteer in my community changes my experience. I think it will be fine, and Dan seems really nice (although we scarcely had a chance to say hello when I was there). I’m looking forward to getting to know him a bit better. He’s a health volunteer, but he actually started a youth business plan group last year that won the competition and their business is going to be my main secondary project, so he and I will probably collaborate on that as I get up and running. I don’t know anything about him or his service or his projects or anything yet, but as I find out more I’ll be sure to let everyone know.

Being on my site visit was definitely an eye-opening experience. Like everything in Peace Corps, it had it’s highs and it’s lows, but overall it was great. And exhausting. This being my first time totally immersed in Spanish was definitely hard. My host family yesterday and today was convinced I was sad, but really I was just tired and worn out and needed some rest. It was nice to get back here today although I got caught in a horrible downpour and was soaking wet.

Okay, this is kindof a lame entry but I’m tired and I need to go to bed. I’ll try to write more when I get to the internet place and do a second entry then if I can think of anything more to say that is interesting. Don’t forget to write! I miss you all!!!!!!!

Love,
Kira

More information

CONGRATULATIONS TO UNCLE DENNIS AND LINDA FOR BEING THE FIRST TO GET A CARE PACKAGE TO ME! Another one is being temporarily held hostage in the PC office bc I have to bail it out for $100 pesos, but that´s only 3 dollars, no biggie. I can afford that so far. I don´t know what it is though, I´ll find out soon. Thank you so much!


Okay folks, I got my cell phone today so the mysterious calling situation is now resolved.

1-809-467-5202

When you call, dial it just like a regular long distance call, but it is international and it´s a cell phone, and international rates to cell phones are different than to land lines. If you go to callingcards.com, you can get one to call me that is about $0.10 per minute, which isn´t too bad. The number is over there on the side of the blog and will stay there. The addresses there are still current, since people have been asking me.

Now that I´ve got my site assignment I will be setting up international mail forwarding in Santiago, but that won´t be for a while and even then the peace corps office can recieve mail for me.

Okay, so what´s my plan for the next while?
Tomorrow I meet my project partner and go out to my site. It´s called Bajabonica Arriba or something like that about 15 kilometers from Alta Mira and 30 km from Puerto Plata. I stay until sunday and then have monday and tuesday at the training center. Wednesday we swear in, thursday is thanksgiving, friday is all volunteer conference in the capital and saturday we go out to our sites for good. I still don´t know about my project, really, but i´ll find out.

We did superlatives in our CED group at the end of training in MOca, and go figure, I got voted Mrs. Overachiever and Most LIkely to Marry a Dominican and Bring Him Home. Geesh. You guys all have something in common. I can´t get away from it. Oh well, se la vi. Vamos a ver. hehehe.

Okay, that´s all for now.
More later!
Kira

BIG NEWS

Hey everyone!

The big news came a bit early!

My permanent site assignment is on the north coast!!! The nearest town on the map is called Alta Mira, and it looks to be about 30 kilometers from Puerta Plata. EXCITING! Ill be working with a group called FONDALESA (or something of the sort) on a cocao project, and ill also work with a microbusiness that makes decorative candles and a womens group in the next campo over. Im really excited. Also, this site is right next door to 27 charcos, the ecotourismish site I have mentioned that is basically a hike up 27 waterfalls and then you jump down into the ponds. It sounds exciting and requires a lifejacket, a helmet and a guide. YAY. The others in my barrio are going to Pedernales, Azua, Salcedo and San Cristobal.

Very cool, so you can start planning your trips. Theres an airport in Puerto Plata but its going to be spendy I think, so compare prices between Santiago and Santo Domingo. Santiago is closer, but Santo Domingo is probably a good bit cheaper. It would mean a couple to a few hours of travel to get up to my site, but the nice thing is that wed be able to day trip to my site and check it out and you would still be able to have a soft bed and hot shower at the end of the night!

Anyways, go me. Ill post again on Monday if I can with my cell phone number and some more information about my site.

XOXO
Kira

Bienvenidos de la Republica Dominicana

¡Saludos!

Cuerpo de Paz es lo que yo había imaginado, y también completamente diferente. Como Uds. ya saben, experiencias como así son demasiado complicados para ser simplemente lo que podemos imaginar. No creo que nosotros pensáramos lo fuera fácil, y eso ha sido la verdad.

Bueno. Todavía no siento tanto preparado para escribir a Uds. en español, pero no importa. Cometeré errores, y espero que no se moleste demasiado. Tengo que decir que estoy usando un diccionario, libro de 501 verbos, y la ayudadora de deletrear de la computadora, y pueden decir que yo estoy haciendo trampa un poco. Pero las herramientas existen para usarlas, ¿no? Pienso que mi español parecerá mejor que lo es en realidad. Pero también, y para decir la verdad como Uds. ya saben, soy la jueza más difícil de mi mismo. Eso es lo que todos mis profesores y compañeros me dicen. Yo sé, yo sé. Déjame sola.

Entonces, ayer yo terminé el último requisito de entrenamiento técnica de la comunidad. Tuvo que dar una presentación a un grupo de jóvenes (pero aquí jóvenes significa personas entre 14 y 25 años, más o menos). Tenía una compañera y trabajábamos y presentábamos juntos sobre el tema de “fortalecimiento de grupo.” Era bien, más o menos, pero todavía mi español llega y se va como la luz, y ayer se fue. La cosa más difícil para mi es entender a algunas personas cuando estén hablando, específicamente personas quien hablen por sus dientes o quien hablen demasiado rápido. Y, también, el acento de la región Cibao es difícil para entender porque se cortan las palabras.

Algunos ejemplos:
- “Paco ‘ta cotao” significa “Paco está acostada.”
- “El Presidente pa’ ‘lante” significa “El Presidenta para adelante” (un slogan de campaña).
- “¡Echa pa’ ‘lla!” significa “Echa para alla!” (no sé si esa frase es solamente un dominicanismo pero ellos lo dicen como “scoot over,” por ejemplo cuando tú estés en un carro publico y el cuarto persona esté entrando, ellos dicen eso a los otros personas).

Bueno. Por el mejor parte, los requisitos de entrenamiento son bastante terminados. Solamente todavía necesitamos hacer la entrevista del idioma final, una prueba de primeros auxilios, y cosas como así. Y tenemos nuestra última vacuna de rabia. Todo será bastante fácil y no estoy preocupada.

Cuando recibamos nuestros teléfonos y aprendamos nuestros sitios y proyectos, se escribiré pronto. Espero que haya usado la mayoría de los tiempos. Eso es un ejercicio bien para practicar los tiempos y los pronombres para objetos directos e indirectos. Debo mandar eso a mi profesor de español porque él siempre quiere que nosotros hablemos usando todos los tiempos, especialmente el subjuntivo. Pero pienso que hace falta imperfecto de subjuntivo, y entonces: No creía que pudiera escribir eso en tan poco tiempo: solo duraba casi 45 minutos. Pero también, 45 minutos para escribir una página de carta electrónica fuera mucho si lo haría en inglés. No importa. Aquí está. Espero que Uds. les guste. Dígame sus pensamientos y sugerencias, por favor.

Bueno. ¡Adiós y qué Uds. pasen buen día!
¡Me voy!

Kira

Tormenta Tropical Noel, y La Gallera

(okay, the video failed. i waited forever. can´t upload it. check for pictures on the links)

We have rung in our Peace Corps service with our first tropical storm – Tropical Storm Noel. It started raining about 9 pm Sunday and rained hard and constant for about 30 hours until about 10 am on Tuesday, and then it’s been off and on since then. When I woke up Monday morning my house had about 2 inches of standing water. Luckily, my bedroom sits a bit higher than the rest of the house so the water only entered under the door about a food into my room, and nothing important got wet… on the floor anyways. However, the roof is zinc and nailed onto the house so there are holes, and when it really rains, it rains through the roof, so the end of my bed has been damp for a couple of days. It’s great. It brings out all the wonderful stale, musty smells from the mattress. Mmmm. On a sad note, there have been something like 15 document deaths and several people unaccounted for in the DR because of this storm. It’s worse in Haiti, although last we heard there weren’t any reports yet because they don’t have the infrastructure to handle this kind of a storm or to report how bad it is. For us, it was mostly a ton of rain, a few downed banana trees, a small mudslide on the road near my house, and of course, a small flood IN my house. However, to be honest the water in the house here is not as catastrophic as it would be in the US. The floors are all cement and nothing important touches the floor… probably because of situations such as this. Although now it’s 630 Tuesday night and I’ve learned that the electricity, which normally comes and goes throughout the day but often enough to keep the inversor charged (and thus the lights on), has been damaged by the storm, so the inversor isn’t almost out of charge. I just took my first bath-by-headlamp and am now sitting on my bed under the mosquito net typing with my headlamp on. Peace Corps Moment, right? :)

>>>>

Cockfighting. A truly cultural experience.

Saturday afternoon the volunteers in my neighborhood went to the Gallera. One of the Dons in our barrio fights his chickens there, so we went as his guests to check it out.

Five Americans. Four of them women. The only women, in fact, in the place at all. Talk about being in a fishbowl! A few of the men around us were more entertained by our reactions than by the fights themselves.

My thoughts?
Two male chickens (or roosters or whatever they are) in a ring, fighting to the death. Well, pecking each others eyes out and stabbing each other with little spears taped on the backs of their feet, more specifically. These gallos go into the fight with their red rooster thingys on their heads, and they leave without them. Thankfully we weren’t close enough to see too much detail, but it was clear what was happening, and pretty disturbing as well. It wasn’t the fighting part that bothered me so much as the “to the death” part. Quite a lot of time passes between when you can tell who won the fight and when the loser actually dies (and then they STILL flail around for a while when they’re dead), and that’s the hardest part to watch. But it’s like a train wreck – you can’t look away. One round was really sad, and definitely the most disturbing. Not long into the match one of the chickens decided he just didn’t want to fight and tried like hell to surrender. He was running away from the other guy just as fast as he could, making himself small and running circles (because he couldn’t go anywhere else) to get away. It was so cruel that they didn’t just declare him the loser and let him off the hook and out of the ring. Even if his owner decided he wasn’t worthy anymore after that, the slaughter probably would have been a lot faster. It made me a little sick to my stomach.

I guess the moral of the story is that I’m not necessarily opposed to it categorically, but when one of them gives up, they shouldn’t just let them be attacked to death. I’m glad I went because cockfighting is a major cultural activity here, but I don’t think I’ll go again unless I have visitors who want to check it out. My curiosity is satisfied.

Lots of new posts, and photos!

Hi all,

Four posts up today and some new photos, so check it out. I hope all is well with everyone. I love you and miss you all!!!!

Write and tell me how everything is going!
Kira

10.26.07 The Next Best Thing to Breast Milk

It’s been a while since I’ve been able to get to the internet, so I’m getting a bit of a backlog of entries here… sorry about that. We finally made it to the WiFi zone (WiFi in the DR?!?!) on Tuesday but it was totally a bust. Such is life in the Peace Corps, right? I need to stop complaining.

I have been suspecting for a while now that I was getting infant formula in my diet here, and now I have confirmed that this is the case and figured out where it goes. The brand is Infamil (which I’m pretty sure is what we used to feed Cal!) and it’s extra special because it’s the kind loaded up with extra iron. No worrying that Kira will be anemic here.

So anyway, it comes to me in some sort of hot beverage at breakfast, and tastes a lot like a chai tea. Why are they feeding (and drinking themselves!) me baby formula? And anyway, isn’t that stuff really expensive?

Actually, I don’t mind the drink itself, it’s pretty tasty… full of cinnamon and nutmeg and such, but formula???

10.22.07 Book Lists

Hi all,
Thanks so much for being willing to send me some reading materials. Lots of people heard my plea for books and wanted to know some specific requests, and although it took me a couple weeks to do it, I’ve compiled a list of suggestions from fellow volunteers. It was hard because the authors I know I’ve already read a bunch of books and don’t remember which ones, and authors I don’t know, I don’t know, so I can’t really request them J. Anyway, here’s the list of suggestions:

Tom Robbins:
Even Cowgirls Get the Blues
Skinny Legs and All
Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates
Still Life of a Woodpecker

David James Duncan:
The Brothers K
The River Y

Other authors who we didn’t know the names:
The Time Traveler’s Life
The Memory Keeper’s Daughter

Thanks again for the great e-mails of encouragement and news from home. I know I’ve been sending out a lot of requests… None of them are urgent so please don’t feel obligated or otherwise stressed J.

On another note… One of the girls in my family (she doesn’t live here but is always over) who most certainly knows my name has decided today that she is going to call me “Americana.” … As Charley (one of the volunteers in my barrio) pointed out, selective hearing is a wonderful thing.

Okay, I think I get to get on the internet tomorrow and hopefully it will work out the way we are planning (free WiFi, three computers to share between five people instead of the normal one computer to share among all five of us) and I’ll be able to respond to a few emails without the week and a half lag.

I miss you all!!!
Stay tuned!

10.21.07 Choices

At various times in my life I have struggled with answering the question, “What makes an American an American?” because our culture is so unlike many in the rest of the world which have a single (or a few) identifiable roots that go back many generations, into the beginning of time, in some cases.

What is “American Food”? I don’t know. My host family asked me once what my favorite dish was in the US and all I could tell them was that I could maybe pick a favorite Italian, Chinese, Pizza and so on, but that I couldn’t narrow it down to one food or one meal.

What is “American Music”? Um, Pop? Country? Rock? Blue Grass? Hip Hop? Folk?

What do “Americans” look like? They look like everyone in the world, how can you summarize it?

You get the idea.

Well, I was thinking tonight as my training group was working on our assignment for the week, a mini version of the community diagnostic we will do when we arrive in our sites to help us familiarize ourselves with the community and identify potential projects to do in addition to our primary project. Anyhow, in preparing this presentation (which we are giving tomorrow, in Spanish – wish me luck!) we did a lot of looking at what their (our community) resources and needs are and how well they match up, and I got to thinking that maybe one of the things that we can say defines “America” is choice, variety and opportunity. I’m sure this isn’t an original thought, but it explains a lot.

It explains why my Dona gets frustrated at me for hardly eating anything, and why I get frustrated because my dinner, day after day, is all or a rotation of fried eggs, fried salami, fried cheese, mangu, avocado, and… well, that’s about it. All I want is some variety, but variety is just not the way of life here.

It’s not so much a matter of I don’t like the food here, but that the cultural values we have about food, eating and meals is so different of a priority.

In the States, in any place most of us live, not only do we have the choice of several different major grocery stores within close distance, but also have several specialty markets, farmers markets and specific vendors where you will find the most obscure ingredients in the world. Here, not only is there a grocery store in this town (it’s ALL colmados, essentially a 7-11) but you are only going to find one type of each thing that is available (which is not to say that everything is available but with a limited selection).

It explains why the locals don’t understand how cooped up we feel when we don’t get out of our barrio for a week, yet the Donas often don’t even get out of their houses, and literally rarely get out of the neighborhood. People here pass the time watching tv or sitting outside on plastic chairs talking about nothing. It doesn’t bother them that we want to go do stuff, but when we ask what there is to do around here, they just chuckle at our Americanness and invite us to sit down in one of the countless plastic chair.

10.18.07

Hi Everyone,

Not much new to report since last time. Tonight was a nice change from the usual here; we had a health class with the nurse from the training center who came up to our site for more information to scare us out of having sex the whole time we’re here. Man, the stuff you can get in developing countries, man oh man. It was a good night though because they gathered all of us together at our trainers’ house and bought us empanadas and made this fantastic pasta and veggie (not something we get often enough here) salad, with RAW vegetables, which is slightly unheard of, so far. We had some great girl talk and ate cake because it was my Spanish teacher’s birthday. A fun day in all, and it was really nice to have some change of pace food-wise.

(the next day)
The weekend is finally upon us, and although I am fairly bummed that it will be too full with work in preparation for our second technical Spanish presentation on Monday to be able to go find internet, there are a few social activities planned, which makes me at once happy and stressed out (because of reasons previously mentioned) but I’m excited to do something fun and have more opportunities to hang out informally with the group. Tonight after dinner my neighborhood is getting together to drink some of the wine we bought on our way out of Santo Domingo last Sunday, and then tomorrow we are celebrating two birthdays in our group and going to the Kiosco Bar in one of the barrios. This is the bar that a couple of weeks from now will be having “Noche de Espuma” (a foam party) that we are also planning to attend. So it will be a fun weekend with a nice mix of work and play (I hope!).
As expected, there are many adjustments and general inconveniences, the majority of which I am not at all surprised by – the food, the bugs, the heat, the unreliable water and electricity, for example. These have been annoying, but so far they haven’t caused too much anxiety or stress. The sneaker pain in the ass is how long it takes to get to internet and how hard it is to fit it in my days. Even in Santo Domingo, where there was an internet place in the barrio, an hour’s worth of internet was easily a two hour affair, and here in Juan Lopez de Moca, it’s easily 3 hours start to finish. Luckily, I have my computer here so I can write off line (thanks, Mom!), save emails to respond to at home. But still, it’s really stressful to try do everything in a reasonable amount of time. Usually when we go there are several volunteers taking turns on computers, so everyone is waiting (as patiently as possible) and nobody can take their time. And then, because we are there together we have to wait until everyone is finished. My level of irritation at this situation has caught me off guard. I know I’m an internet junkie, but I am surprised at how cranky it makes me. I’m looking forward to my site, when I’ll be able to move around more freely and set my own schedule. Right now, we do everything as a barrio – which I generally like – but I’d really like to figure out a more peaceful approach to communicating with folks back home.

In other news, or non-news, more precisely, I have yet to receive my first correspondence from home, and so I ask, “Who’s will be the FIRST I receive???” I don’t know if anything has gotten put in the mail yet, but everyone else has been getting mail for a couple of weeks now so I’m getting impatient! J I really haven’t been gone that long, Only just short of six weeks now, but it seems like longer because we have been so busy and adjusting to so much new stuff. It would be great to get some reinforcements, if anyone is feeling up to the challenge. I know my mom is working on a few things, but other than that… J
Alright, it’s about dinner time. More later.

Update, Two of Two

October 11, 2007

Saludos.

So I am happy to report that this week was much better than last week. I feel like bonding is starting to happen in my subgroup here during CBT. By subgroup what I mean is: all of my Community Economic Development sector (17 people) is here in Juan Lopez, but we are broken up into “residential language classes,” and our living assignments are so that we live with the people we have Spanish with. So by subgroup, I mean my Spanish classmates/neighbors, Jessica, Alissa, Charley and Tara. POR FIN! (Finally!).

Tomorrow morning (Friday Oct. 12) all the CED volunteers head back into the capital until Sunday for the PCDR Business Plan Competition, which is one of the capstone projects for our sector. It’s a youth group to promote business skills education and youth entrepreneurship, and the finalists get to travel to the capital for a weekend retreat. We’ll be staying at the same retreat center as when we first arrived in the country, and one of our first technical assessments is tomorrow: We have to lead 90 minutes worth of ice breakers with the kids who are attending the competition.

PS. I am not sure why, but it smells like PEE in my house today. Also, a funny side note. I’m not sure about other Spanish-speaking countries, but here is some slangy terminology for bathroom duties here: If you say “Yo voy a Miami” it means “I have to pee” (based, apparently, on the verb “mear” (mee-are) which means “to wet oneself” (I think). And “Yo voy a Chicago” means #2… also based on a verb that means “to shit,” I think, but I forget what the verb is and my dictionary is on the outside of my mosquito net…

I finally convinced the Dona to procure some fruit for me to eat, so the last couple days have been a bit more balanced, although I have been eating Mangu (see previous entry on plantains) just about every damn day. Oh, and yesterday for dinner I had chicken that had been walking around on the patio making chicken noises earlier yesterday afternoon. I looked out one minute and Chicken One and Chicken Two were running around happy as clams, and I looked out a few minutes later and their feet were tied and they were ominously still. I had wondered if this experience would gross me out (eating something that I had shooed away just hours earlier), but it didn’t; however, I’m pretty sure they just hacked the poor birds to bits instead of butchering them into normal “chicken pieces” and there were bits of bone scattered throughout, so I got some extra protein from eating the bone chips I couldn’t find in my mouth until I felt them on the way down. EWWW!!! I know it’s not Grub Worms yet, but I figure eating the chicken bones is good warm up. Also, I’m fairly certain that at some point I’ll be eating fried pork skin here… I forget what they call it though.

Okay, I better get going because I have a few emails to write and I need to go take my Aralen and Vitamin B (damn mosquitoes), but in case anyone is working on care packages, here are a couple of ideas J WinkWink.

- linen pants (about size 4)

- sleeveless cotton woven work shirts (about size 2)

- artisan fair-style wrap pants (Suzanne, remember the ones we saw at Country Fair?, how would you describe those?)

- peasant-style blouses with long sleeves, loose, cotton

- Clif brand Mojo Bars

- (mom, can you send my umbrella?)

- Citronella candles

- Fruity, chewy candy

Okay, I miss you guys! Anyone have any questions???

I’ve been getting a few good emails of news from home here and there, but there’s no such thing as too many. Keep ‘em coming, I miss hearing from everyone, even though I realize life is just as busy as ever.

Adios! Stay tuned for my first all-Spanish entry, I think I’m coming along well enough to be able to do it around when I finish training!!! How exciting!!!

Love,

Kira

Update, One of Two -- both a little old.

October 7, 2007

The last few days have been pretty rough for me, emotionally. Nothing remarkable has happened; I think it’s more that the past three week’s stresses and strains are building up. I’m not sure if my head is messing with my stomach or the other way around, but I’ve been having a bit of trouble with both.

Getting comfortable with the group of volunteers is taking longer than I had hoped, and that has been making all the other stuff more challenging because the others in the group seem like they were all fast friends and I don’t know where I fit. I’m trying to keep a positive frame of mind about it because I know if I let it get to me too much it will be even more of an obstacle, and anyways, I know that I have a pretty darn good cheering section back at home and that all of you are rooting for and supporting me from afar. It goes along way, knowing that.

Anyways, a bit of news on the DR front…
My new host family: Dona Ana and Don Yea are the head folks in my new house. Their youngest daughter and her husband also live here. They have a huge family and everyone lives, more or less, on the same street here in the barrio. They gather here daily. Everyone seems really nice, but we don’t have a lot to talk about yet because I’m still learning Spanish in the first place and they have a pretty thick campesino accent out here. I think I understand about 30% less here than I did with most of the folks in Santo Domingo, but like everywhere, some people are easier to understand than others. Overall, though, the people here are harder. The house I’m living in is more humble than the one in SD, but it’s a lot more what I expected from this experience. We still have electricity (most of the time), running water (most of the time), flush toilets, and the like, but the house has a zinc roof (which, actually, I love the sound when it rains)…

It’s about 10 degrees cooler here than it was in the capital. The low here is probably around 72 and it the capital the lowest I ever, ever saw the thermometer on my alarm go was 79… at 4 am or some ridiculous hour like that. The cooler weather has been great, but I wish I had brought another long sleeve shirt or two from the capital. The ones I have with me are going to get a lot of use here.

Our trainer, Tim, said that pig and chicken poop only smells when it rains. Well, it’s been monsooning here for the most part. And boy is it smelly. Good think my stomach problems have been achy, instead of queasy, or I’d be in big trouble right now.

The mosquitoes are doing better as far as leaving me alone. I’d say I’m down to an average of 1.5-2.5 new bites per day. Los mosquitoes me pican mucho. This is a result of much effort, between the vitamin b, repellent, long pants/shoes/socks, so it hasn’t been without a cost to my comfort. It’s definitely been worth it though, because the 8 bites a day thing was driving me absolutely bananas. There is some other biting critter here, some sort of mite or something, but we think they are harmless and except for the fact that they leave red blotches with little droplets of blood, they don’t itch or hurt or anything.

Yesterday was, shall we say, an adventure. Definitely a lesson for Kira in patience. It was absolutely infuriating. We went into Moca to find an internet café, and first of all I forgot to bring the phone number where I can be reached here, so that was annoying. Anyway, we went to two cafes that were closed before we found one that would be opening in 45 minutes. So we wandered around and came back at the indicated time, and what do we find? Well, we found that the center only had four functioning computers, two of which had been snapped up by a couple of pervy teenagers who had prepaid for three hours and spent the whole time watching Japanese anime porn (on public computers!!! They have NO SHAME!) and taking bathroom breaks with the animated sex just got too hot for them. It was frustrating because there ended up being a line of 8 or so volunteers and we only had two computers, and these stupid guys just didn’t have any sense of public courtesy (or 8 gringas STARING THEM DOWN WITH EVIL EYES) to realize a lot of people were waiting and just cash out their remaining time to be polite. Whatever. Anyway, we got back and it was dark as shit and we had to walk from the main road to our barrio in the bitch black and lots of lodo (mud). I was really irritated from the long wait (almost 3 hours) and because my feelings of being an outsider had been getting to me, but I’m feeling better today.

The first day we were here (Thursday) we saw the hugest pig I have ever seen in my life. I wasn’t close enough to say for sure, but I’m willing to bet he went as high as my shoulders (or higher) and his ball sack was probably as bit as two bowling balls sitting side by side. That was one potent pig. Hahaha.

(break for BINGO)

I just got back from the Sunday tradition of bingo with the dona and the family up the road, and what a riot. I didn’t play for long because they only told me to bring 15 pesos, and I would have needed 200 or something to play as many games as they played, but it was fun regardless. I had a hard time with the numbers because of the accent – for example, what would be 66 is “sesenta seis” or even “pareja de seis” (pair of sixes) would have made sense, but here they say “pai say,” which took me forever to figure out. And what’s worse, they have crazy thinks like “la bruja” means 13 and “mariaelena” is 69… I have no idea.

Let’s see… what else…
Moca, well, Juan Lopez de Mocha, where I’m living for my CBT these six weeks, is absolutely beautiful. It is surrounded by lush (almost) forest, with what appears to be deciduous trees mixed with palm trees and all sorts of fruit and other trees and foliage. There are avocados, oranges (but they’re green on the outside here), plantains and banana trees everywhere!

A side note on PLANTAINS aka. Platanos:
If you are not careful here, you could very easily end up being served plantanos, in one form or another, in every meal. Here are some examples, and I’m sure there are more than the types of preparations I have thus far encountered:
- Tostones: this dish uses “platanos verdes” or green/unripe plantains. They are sliced into chips and fried, and served with salt and ketchup like French fries. Pretty good.
- Platanos Herbidos: This dish is simply boiled platanos verdes. Totally bland, and so pretty hard for me to eat because they are dense and tasteless.
- Mangu: Platanos verdes cut into chunks, then boiled, then mashed into a really thick mashed potato kind of dish. Hopefully served with butter and slightly crispy sautéed onions and garlic, and pepper. With all this, mangu is decent, but without it its pretty much just as bland and boring as platanos herbidos, above, and they serve it as the main dish so it’s not like you can get away with a tablespoon size portion of this stuff.
- Platanos Maduros Fritos: Fried ripe plantain slices. The platanos maduros are a bit sweeter and do actually have some flavor. This is how plantains are usually served if your order them in the States, and the sweetness of the ripe fruit caramelizes when you fry it so it’s kindof a dessert.

Okay… moving on (sorry this is so long but this is kindof my first chance in a while to do a rundown on the latest information)….

Our group overall is holidng fast – we’ve only had two people ET (early terminate) so far, and from what I hear that’s a pretty good number for where we are at in the service process. I think I wrote about the guy a while back who pretty much left our second day in-country. The second one was a girl in Youth, I think, who left our first day back after our site visits last week. I guess she was just not feeling the PCDR thing, and I’m not sure she had really looked inside herself to be sure why she was here. You really have to know why you came in the first place in order to pull yourself through when the going gets tough. I think she was having a hard time with the language too, which makes all of it that much harder.

One of the things here that is challenging is that, as with everything, all host families are not created equal, and especially when it comes to feeding us a balanced diet. My host family in Santo Domingo was pretty top-notch when it came to my meals, but Dona here is not so much on top of the fruit and vegetable situation. So yesterday, I really wnted some fresh fruit, so I walked over to the colmado (more on that in a bit) to get some and there wasn’t ANY. NONE. No fruit available for purchase. How can it be that there is no fruit available in a country where they grow orange and banana trees on the side of the road like a maple grows in Oregon?... I have no idea.

Ok, what is a colmado? Did I already write about this??? I forget. Oh well. If you are still reading this insanely long entry you can probably stand two more minutes, right?

A colmado is like a really small mini mart, but they are on every corner and every block, and I don’t mean one at each intersection either. I mean it is not uncommon to have one colmado on each corner of the same intersection (or equivalent distance bc this country isn’t really laid out in an organized grid pattern), multiple blocks in a row. In addition to the fact that colmados are about as numerous here as mosquitoes, they sell everything (except, apparently, fruit on an odd Saturday in October). Really, they sell evertying. They take the place of a grocery store altogether for many people. The folks here do their grocery shopping 60 pesos at a time (US $2). You can buy 5 pesos of vegetable oil (they put it in a little plastic sack and tie a knot at the top). You can buy 20 pesos of cheese, 3 tsp of flour, two eggs, one cookie, one cigarette and a trial size of Pert Plus shampoo and conditioner. Again, it’s crazy.

Ok, enough for now. In case you wondered, this entry is almost 1900 words long. Thanks for your attention!!!!

Love, Kira

Administrative things

hey everyone,

there are just a couple of things i wanted to mention, because i´m neurotic.

first, i just put some new pictures online, so be sure to check them out.

second, i apologize for the oddly timed and sometimes rushed emails. i have been working offline in my freetime and then coming to the internet cafe about once a week to send off the stuff i´ve written and save the emails i have in my inbox. sometimes i respond quickly if its just a short answer or whatever, so things get kind of out of order. i´m trying to respond to everything though, and to get good, real emails out to everyone as often as i can. hopefully i´ll be able to figure out a bit better routine or something here soon, and not be as dorky sounding.

third, i leave tomorrow to go into the interior, as i have mentioned before. my phone number will be different, and actually i´m not even sure if these folks have a phone i´ll be able to use, so stay tuned. if not, i can probably get to a call center and then have you guys call me back, if you want to do that.

ok, that´s all.

xoxo, i miss you guys!!!

i´ll put up photos of the new diggs soon because i hear that this one is going to be a good bit more ´humble´than the one im in now... time will tell. hehehe.

okay, bye!

Dominican Dumplings

What is a Dominican Dumpling, you ask? Well, I will tell you… but all in good time.

The last four days, as you all know, I have been out in another town visiting a current volunteer in my sector. The purpose of the visit is to see the real life situation of a volunteer; to have a chance to ask questions outside of the uber-structured training schedule; to travel to the interior independently using public transportation, and so on.

Well, my visit went splendidly. The volunteer I visited, Alexis, and I did a great blend of activities while I was there. We went to a couple of meetings that were related to her primary project, and a few for some of her secondary projects (like a youth group focusing on self esteem) as well. We did a pretty thorough walking tour of the pueblo, ate pica pollo, drank beer, went to the disco. We visited a couple of (mostly Hatian) bateys, but unfortunately I didn’t have my camera with me for that, and got seriously stuck in the mud. Today, before I left to come back to the capital, we met up with two other volunteers in the area and their visiting trainees, and we went to the beach! There should be some pictures in the DR Photos link over to the right of the blog. (I also took some pictures of the house where I’m staying here in Santo Domingo, so be sure to check them out.)

OK, now what you’ve all been waiting for!!!

I had my first Dominican Cooking Lesson during my volunteer visit, and we made dumplings! Now, these are probably the least nutritional, most easy thing I could make here, but that is not the point. The point is that this was the first time I was allowed to have anything to do with the preparation of food in this country the whole time I’ve been here. Basically, the dish is: flour, oil, water, salt (made into a dough), balled up and boiled until they float, and then for a while more. Then, a sauce of melted cheese and sautéed green peppers, tomatoes, onions and spicy stuff is poured overtop the dumplings, and voila! Dominican Dumplings.

Okay, I’m really tired. If anyone has topics you’re wondering about, please shoot me an email and I’ll answer them as I get a chance. It’s hard to decide what exactly to write about on here because there’s just so much happening!

Oh yeah, and a word on my itinerary. Like I have been mentioning before, I will be leaving on Thursday, September 4 for my community based training. We’ll be in a campo called Juan Lopez (I think) which is outside the pueblo of Moca, which is near Santiago (if you feel like looking on a map). I’ll be there for 5.5 weeks, and have no idea what my access to internet and the like will be while I’m there. I also don’t know if I’ll have any or regular enough electricity to keep the laptop charged, but I’ll do my best. However, I will be in the capital for three or four days or something the couple days around October 11 for part of our technical training that happens in the capital, so I should (I think) be able to get to an internet place at least once during that time. We’ll see. Please write me though!!!! I look forward to hearing from all of you!!!
Take care!
Kira

Consuelo, San Pedro De Macoris, Republica Dominicana

Hey guys,

So right now I´m a day into my 4-day volunteer visit. Basically I´m hanging out with a volunteer (mine has been here for two years and is about to finish up her service) from the business sector for four days to find out what life is really like, in once instance anyway, for a real volunteer. The volunteer I´m visiting works with an NGO called Esperanza International, and that´s where we are at now, and they offered me a few minutes of free internet to check email and hit the blog and such, so aqui esta.

I came out yesterday on the guagua, but by some miracle it was like the rolls royce of guaguas. Air conditioning, plenty of room, leather seats, etc etc. It cost 80 pesos, which is about $2.50US and it was an hour and a half trip. Can you imagine!!! We visited a couple of bateys yesterday with Esperanza, which is a microcredit lending institution, and that was interesting. The bateys, I think, originated along with the cultivation and farming of sugarcane here, and they are usually hard to access, really poor, and predominantly Hatian. These are all gross generalizations, since I´ve only been to two so far, but Alexis (my volunteer) said that those things, in the general sense, are fairly accruate.

This visit here has been three significant firsts for me... first bucket bath, first night without lights, first time without water. The reason is my house at training is a bit of a luxury for this country, and the volunteers live a little more grounded in reality. It´s not so bad though, I survived. And I only used half a bucket of water for my bath, which is pretty good! ... thought I´ll admit I didn´t take on the challenge of trying to wash my hair.

Ok, I think my free internet time is up. I´ll write a full debrief on Sunday when I get back to Pantoja and put it up here when I can.

Take care!!!
Kira

A bit of a rough day

Nothing really happened today, but it was slightly excruciating. I thought I was on a role avoiding the mosquitoes yesterday and the first half of today, but then I got absolutely eaten alive this afternoon and evening. I think I got seven or something new bites in this one afternoon. What a bummer.

Also, it was bloody hot today. Today was the first day since I’ve been here that I actually thought I might overheat and spontaneously combust. It was so uncomfortable.

The day got off to an excellent start… I finally got to sit and stare at the wall for an hour while drinking my morning coffee in perfect quietude, eating breakfast at my leisure and taking my time. It started going downhill as it got hotter and hotter and hotter, and then really annoyed me when the mosquitoes decided I was lunch, dinner and dessert.

Tomorrow for training we have to go into Santo Domingo for a guided tour of the Colonial Zone, and I’m a little worried because I’m not sure how to get there by myself, and I haven’t heard from the people I thought I was going to head down there with. Hopefully we manage to get in touch with each other in the morning, or else I’ll just have to leave plenty early to get down there and get it figured out in time. Good thing I didn’t sign up for the 9 am trip, huh?

Anyway, as I’ve been saying, things are going well here. I just needed to bitch and moan a little today. I tried to explain to my Dona that while I’m doing ok at communicating the necessities and asking questions and stuff, I really can’t express myself yet and I don’t have enough Spanish to vent yet.

Someone has been trying to call me at my host family’s house, but the only messages I’ve gotten was that the gringos are calling. I’m going to try and work out a better solution for coordinating so I can talk to someone at least before I head into the interior in about a week and a half/two weeks. Probably I’ll go buy a few minutes of a phone card so I can call and say “call me back” and then we can chat for a few.

Ok, bedtime. I’m pooped from my boring day.


PS. Can someone pretty please send me some books to read? I finished the book I brought already and am having trouble locating English language novels here… go figure. Thanks a bunch! The address is on the right.

photos

i got a few online. click the link on the right side!!!

Tidbits, in no particular order

- On Monday, my dinner was: Three pieces of fried white cheese, an entire boiled plantain and a quarter of an avocado.
- I have almost gone through an entire bottle of bad-ass bug repellent AND I’ve been using my mosquito net, but I have at least ten mosquito bits right now, and probably five of them are from today.
- On Sunday, another volunteer came over to visit. Her dona and my dona are sisters. Anyhow, Don Francisco (my host dad) came home and was out compartiring (visiting) with us on the back porch (terraza). I went to get us some juice and when I came back he had her reading from the bible. I have NO IDEA why, other than the Don and Dona are Evangelical Christians, but really… That was pretty funny.
- The national dish in the DR “La Bandera” is habichuelas, arroz, pollo y vegetales (beans, rice, chicken and veggies). Can I just say “Beans, Beans the Musical Fruit”?!?!?!?!??!?
- I have no idea how it happened, but through some very weird twist of fate I have tested into an advanced Spanish class. I am the least advanced speaker and am concerned about holding my class (of four in total) back, but I think I worked out a system with them and the instructor so that I can stay and keep being challenged – essentially I’m right between two levels and I’d rather be a bit high that be bored. Anyhow, isn’t that crazy? I’ve never even been in a Spanish-speaking country before! Oy ve!
- Today we went into the downtown part of Santo Domingo to learn how to use the public transportation system and find some important places in the city (like the PC office and the medical clinic, etc) and we also had lunch. Would you believe that we had FIVE lunch specials, including tip, and the total was SIXTEEN US DOLLARS, nada mas? We all had La Bandera (rice, beans, chicken, veggies) and it was quite a good amount of food for essentially $4 US per person.

Ok, that’s good for now. There’s too much to write about without making gross omissions or writing a novel, so ask me questions or something until I figure out a good system for this blogging business, okay? Hope you guys are all doing well, send me some news!!!!

I’ll be in touch. There’s an internet café about two blocks away from me here, but I’ll be gone for Thurs-Sun next week and then about a week after that I go to CBT for 5 weeks and might not have internet the whole time I’m there. It’s going to be a little hit and miss until I get to my site in late November, so please bear with me!

Also, the phone number if you guys want to call me at my host family’s house (which is totally fine and free for them to have incoming calls) is: 809-372-6886. You’ll have to do research and find out what comes before the 809 part, but that’s the country code and everyone uses it. When you call, say:
“Hola. Puedo hablar con Kira, por favor?” (but they say my name Keeda here).

Ok, that’s all I got for now!!!
Take care!
Me

I think I´ll survive

Today was our first at the Pantoja Training Center and it was chock full of information. A lot of what we did was more introductions to training and such, but we really got into it toward the end of the day. I’ve already spoken more Spanish today than probably in my entire life, and while my verb tenses stink, I seem to be getting my point across for the most part, which is extremely reassuring.
We had our first immersion Spanish class this afternoon; there were four people plus a language facilitator in my group. No problem with the content of the class, but Dominican Spanish sure isn’t like Spanish at Parkrose High School… no offence Profi. I also had my placement test for my language class, which uses the ACTFL international scoring system. We’ll see how I did on Monday, but in order to swear-in in November, we have to score at least Intermediate Mid, so stay tuned for my results. Then it was off to the host families, and what an ordeal that was. Imagine 53 donas trying to find “their” child, in a sea of 53 gringos they’ve never met. It took a while for my dona to find me – a little like being picked last for the dodgeball team. It’s cool though, she’s great. Another volunteer is living with my donas sister and we are only about 5 minutes away from each other. I think there are several other volunteers in our neighborhood as well.

The house I’m living in isn’t what you’d expect in a country that needs the Peace Corps. The family has two cars, a three bedroom house that has (count em) THREE bathrooms, electricity, running (not very warm) water, a tv/dvd/vcr, a TV IN MY ROOM (don’t know if it works), two dining tables, two seating areas (one inside, one outside on the terrazza). Etc, etc etc. Like I said, I think I’ll survive. Hehe.

I’ll live at this host family for three weeks, then another one in the interior of the country for 5.5 weeks after that. Then, we find out our site and project assignments and head out for a week long site visit. Upon returning to the capital, we swear in, celebrate Thanksgiving in the capital and head back out to our sites for good, were we live with our third host family for three months.

We already had our first person change his mind and go home today though, which was quite a bummer. They say it happens sometimes like that though, and being here is a huge decision, so he really needed to make the right decision for himself. It was sad to see him go, though.

Ok, more later!