April 9, 2008

I can’t believe it—I’m days away from the “quarter-mile mark” of my Peace Corps experience. April 13 will be my 7-month anniversary in the Dominican Republic. I can’t believe so much time has already gone by, or that three-quarters of my time remains. It’s not as though I am counting the days until I go; I am pretty content and generally pleased with my experience so far (I qualify “pleased” and “content” because of the daily, weekly, monthly ups and downs—every day completed is another battle won) and I can feel myself learning, growing and changing. Sometimes it’s empowering, sometimes it’s painful, always it’s powerful.

I am still searching for where I fit within my counterpart organization and trying to resolve my desire to help them on an organizational level with my instinct that the bureaucracy between our “branch” office and the main office in Santo Domingo will prevent me from doing so. Also, although they are certainly “Dominican” about it, these guys are educated (as in at a university, generally, across the organization) and competent. In many ways, positive ways, I am not sure they even need a volunteer. Although with more applied skills and with the youth group, I feel more useful. I have not decided yet whether I want to be focused more in the organization or in the community using the organization as a home base and source of support, but clearly I’m leaning toward the latter. It’s Peace Corps’ “work in your project sector” mantra that keeps me from choosing confidently (or, more accurately, confidently embracing my choice) because of my deeply engrained compulsion to follow rules and do what I am “supposed to do.”

But, I’m doing pretty well, and a few projects are getting up and going (although, again, not within my actual project, but like a friend said, we are “cross-sectoral queens” and getting a little momentum is good for confidence). My English class has started and I have 10 students; things are going pretty well so far. Progress is being made with the child declaration project. The youth group at my organization successfully produced Mistoline—a very profitable income generation project—and is selling it in the community. The youth candle business has hosted a couple of candle-making workshops with some girls to generate interest and hopefully help in the business, and we are working on developing a partnership with another community group to help us sell the products. Planning for the girls’ summer camp is moving along; I am working on a handout for community-based fundraising ideas that volunteers will use to come up with the community contribution required to attend the camp. I’ve got a couple of trips coming up, and hopefully the Gringa Grita, plus my week-long language workshop so there’s quite a bit going on inside and outside of site.

But like I said, other than a couple of very basic brochures, my involvement and contribution in the projects managed by my organization have been limited to attending the activities and meetings. They keep mentioning ideas for more consultative projects but not finding (or making) the time to develop the idea with me and plan goals and expectations. I am to blame for this also because I have not been applying strong enough or consistent enough pressure to force something to come out of the wash, but I’ve got to be honest—that struggle isn’t especially appealing to me!

Personally I’m doing well, but some days are definitely happier, more content, easier, and so on than others. Moving into my own house is still at the top of my list and front of my thoughts. Once I get that taken care of, I’ll probably have more thoughtful things to say about my state of mind and well-being than I’m antsy to get moved out. Stay tuned!

Interesting things happen here

On Easter, our gas stove ran out of gas so for dinner we ate cold leftovers from lunch. Then, we went to the gallera (cock fight). Before any of this, though, someone drowned in the river. I’m still unclear on what happened, but there were other people in the river at the time. I found it upsetting that it appeared nobody tried to help him. News travels fast and before there was time for the medico to show up and remove the body, probably a good hundred-plus people had gathered on the riverbank to gawk. I’m not proud to say I was one of them, but to my credit I didn’t actually figure out what they were going on about until I got there and saw for myself.

I discovered a new unsavory creature recently. Apparently the Dominican Republic has scorpions (or small, scorpion-like creatures). Where did I discover it? On my bare foot, preparing to sink its pincers into me. What did the Dominicans tell me? Cuidate, esa pica duro! (Loosely translated: Careful, that hurts like hell if it bites you!). Thanks, guys.

Plumbing in my community is still fairly unsophisticated. What I mean is that although we have running water from an aqueduct, everything is on a septic system as far as waste water goes. Well, the septic tank for our kitchen sink filled up, oh, two weeks ago, so it doesn’t drain anymore. The solution is build a new septic tank (not drain the existing one), and two weeks later there has been no sign of this work beginning. So, we use the sink and scoop the water out and dump it outside. Super fun. Yesterday, Susa found a little frog playing in the sink. Dominicans aren’t scared of cockroaches, rats, HUGE spiders, but they hate, hate, hate frogs. Hero Kira to the rescue, I scooped the frog and chucked it outside. You would have thought I had saved the house from near destruction, but I was glad to feel useful.

My community has a relatively bustling economy. It is definitely a campo—not a pueblo and definitely not a city—in size, scale, complexity and services, but it is growing in population, quality of life available products and services. They are building constantly. During Semana Santa (week before Easter) a new business opened up, which can most closely be described as a bar—we have colmados and cafeterias here already, but this has more seating, covered seating, a sound system, etc. Also, I learned yesterday that my counterpart (who is already incredibly busy and overworked) is having the guy who owns, well, kindof everything here, build a little shop she can rent and have a little tienda de ropa, or clothing store. This is starkly contrasted to one of my neighbor volunteers who lives a 45 minute walk away (maybe 3 miles) farther into the campo and has one colmado (bodega) and one banca (where you play the lottery) in his whole community.

I saw a frog get tortured and murdered tonight while I was eating dinner. My “host nephew” was having a birthday so his mom did a sopado (a tasty chicken and rice soup with tons of salt and preservatives cooked over, essentially, a campfire in a HUGE pot). You know, cook outside, eat outside. It’s the Dominican equivalent of a backyard bbq. Well, so some kid found a frog and somehow trapped it for a while so he could dig a hole in the ground in which to torture it. Then he puts this frog in the hole, takes a branch out of the fire and pokes the hell out of the poor frog with the red hot end of the stick. When the frog finally escaped and leaped away (and I, sitting innocently nearby almost got clobbered by a mob of Dominican women and their children who have some absurd fear of frogs) they chased it down and clubbed it until it literally exploded its guts all over. This is literally while I’m sitting there with my bowl balanced on my knees eating dinner. Granted, it was a rather large frog, perhaps even a rather large toad, and I wouldn’t have wanted to sit too close to it but it was rather disturbing watching it be tortured and beaten into oblivion.

I had a very, very busy last week and a half or so. The rundown: last weekend I was in Jarabacoa. I got back on Monday and had to help my counterpart with a presentation. Tuesday I had office stuff, and in the afternoon a workshop in the candle fabrica, and then a 2-3 hour impromptu meeting with Dan. Wednesday I had office stuff and then my first English class. Thursday office in the morning. Workshop in the fabrica again. Meeting/dinner/anniversary party in the evening up at Dan’s house for the candle business. Friday in the morning office and a meeting with Dan. In the afternoon birth certificate meeting. In the evening youth group meeting. Saturday in the morning plan English class. In the afternoon/evening produce Mistoline. Sunday am 27 Charcos again and in the afternoon English class. WOW, right?