Dakoda Lyn

Please join me in welcoming my new, beautiful niece, Dakoda Lyn, to the world. She was born on Wednesday, May 7 and we are all thrilled to have her. Cal loves her like crazy, as you can see here. I knew this would be bittersweet, and it sure is. I wish I was there. Missing her birth has been pretty tough this week, and I'm finally knee-deep in my first real battle with homesickness. But hey, I made it 8 months, that's pretty good. Anyway, here she is. Perfect. Wonderful. I love her already. Congratulations to Heather, TJ and Cal. I love you!

The Latest

It’s been a while since I’ve updated the blog, sorry for those of you who read regularly. Hopefully I can bring things up to speed without writing a novel!

But before I update on my life in Peace Corps, I want to update on my life at HOME!!!! My sister gave birth to my new niece on Wednesday, May 7^th. Her name is Dakoda Lyn and she was 7 pounds and some ounces and 21 inches long. My mom says she looks like me!!!!! I haven’t seen pictures yet, but they tell me she’s beautiful, healthy, and wonderful. The birth went well and mother and baby are back at home. Cal is in love with his new baby sister, as I am sure TJ and Heather are as well. Congratulations to you guys, I love you!!! It was very sad for me to not be able to be there for the birth and to meet Dakoda, and this was one of my more homesick feeling weeks to date, but you guys were on my mind every minute and I can’t wait to meet Dakoda and see Cal and give you all real hugs!

OK, an update on my work activities.

When the other volunteer in my community leaves I’ll be taking over management of some grants he’s got in progress, so I’ll essentially be the accountant. One is a grant for his Escojo (health promoters) youth group, another is for Escojo expenses for the regional coordinator, who happens to be from my community, and then a few small scholarships for several kids in the community.

I’m also still working on the child declaration project. First thing next week I’ll pick up the paperwork from the office in my pueblo to take up to the provincial capital, and then it will take them a couple of weeks to process the forms. Then I can pick up that paperwork and bring it back to the pueblo and get the birth certificates made up.

We are at the half-way point in my 16-class English course, and things are going pretty well. I feel like they aren’t learning that much, but I’m trying to be realistic. We’re going to finish before all my trips and out-of-site work start in June, and then I’ll figure out what to do once July rolls around. I don’t want to stop if they are still interested in continuing, but we might take a different direction, and maybe just once a week so my evenings aren’t so full.

The cacao processing facility had its inauguration ceremonies a couple of weeks ago, which was great, but now we’ve all realized that business planning was not part of the requirements of their grant, and so they really don’t have any business planning done. They don’t know what their costs or prices are; how or what they are going to pay their workers; they don’t have a marketing or sales plan or packaging or a system in place of taking, communicating and fulfilling orders. Essentially, all the planning that a business plan addresses is absent, so the factory, before ever actually beginning, is already at a standstill. This has been pretty stressful recently, but I’m trying to help them see the topics they need to address and get some decisions made.

Another project within my organization is a bakery which operates like a business just like the chocolate factory, although they are more established and up and running. Their whole system of invoicing and billing is done by hand, for 48 schools every two weeks, and is incredibly tedious and time consuming. So I’ve been trying to help them computerize some of the forms so they can automate and copy-paste a lot of the stuff. This is a little dangerous because they only have one computer and there isn’t always electricity; and because computerizing things means they are going to want me to do it instead of struggle to learn themselves, but hopefully it will be worth it in the long run, both because it will make it necessary to learn to use a computer and because it will save a ton of time. I guess that means I also need to do computer training in my office.

Also coming up is Camp GLOW, the summer camp I am soliciting donations for, for a week in July. And June is the magazine and language training. I sound really super busy, and I feel busy, but in comparison to life in the states, I am so not busy. I mean, essentially 12 hours a day is devoted to sleeping or being in bed, so my window for productivity is quite a bit smaller. Also, lunch is 2 hours long, and I spend at least 30 minutes every morning drinking coffee. J

Alright, moving on… Until this week I have encountered very few instances of inappropriate behavior directed toward me that caused me to feel genuinely upset, offended or violated. This week, however, one of the men who works in my organization and is often on the verge of being inappropriate (innuendo-laden comments, telling me once I’d look nice sunbathing naked, general commentary on my clothes and body) crossed the line. He started caressing my back and tugging on my bra like he was going to unsnap it and asked me why I use it… Dominican women don’t… wink wink. I was really upset and offended and spoke with one of the women in the office about it and I’ll also be talking to my counterpart. I’m lucky because my encounters with harassment and discrimination in my life have been minor and infrequent, but this was a reality check. This is a good time to mention that cultural norms are different here, and the degree of physical contact and commentary of a physical or sexual nature that is generally acceptable here in the DR would be considered extremely inappropriate in the US. Keeping this in mind, I generally remind people who speak to me in ways I don’t like that I am American, not Dominican, and for me this or that is offensive, while not letting myself get too upset by it. However, I know the difference between feeling annoyed and feeling threatened, and when I feel threatened I have no problem speaking up and putting the other person at risk of looking bad (which is very serious here) in front of their community. And anyways, the couple of women I’ve told about this in the community agreed with me that this was out of line even by Dominican standards. And they gave me some good lines for telling off the skeezy dudes who go too far.

My moving date is getting so close I can taste it and I am so, so looking forward to it. I met with Dan and the co-owners of the house yesterday to do the rental contract, but we hit a snag which, although it should work out fine, has me in a bit of a tizzy. It’s the LUZ! Electricity in this country is such a pain in the ass. Basically, right now Dan has the house connected to his neighbor, and he chips in for her bill. But she doesn’t want this to continue because of lots of reasons that make perfect sense. So we either have to find a different neighbor who will let me connect, or run wire all the way down to the nearest transformer and connect “legitimately” and set up a contract with the electrical company. Either way I am going to have to invest money up front to buy the electrical wire to make the connection, and then reduce my rent payment to recuperate the investment. The problem with the first scenario is that the houses up there are pretty far apart; also, if we do it this way I might not be able to have a refrigerator because of the amount of current they draw. The problem with the second scenario is that the transformer where you make a “real” connection is really far away and the wire to do it would be a huge expense up front (although we agreed on a limit for the investment I’m willing to make—and they’ll have to cover what remains); also, connecting directly would require a contract, and I am not allowed to have contracts and the two guys who own the house already have reached the limit of contracts they can have in their name. Also, with the second option, it’s possible that the whole thing could drag out if the owners have to come up with any significant quantity of money to connect the house, which could mean that I either have to wait longer to move in or live there without electricity until it gets resolved. Aside from the fact that I find this generally annoying and worrisome, it is compounded because I’m going to be out of site (and thus not around to nag people about getting stuff done) almost all of June! I really want to get moved it, set up and settled BEFORE I’m gone for the better part of a month. Dan and I are both pretty adamant that the whole thing needs to be resolved and taken care of in its entirety before he leaves the community on like, May 22, so hopefully we’ll be able to make that happen.

So, I guess that’s it for now. I think I touched on all the more exciting things that are going on. I promise to take pictures of the house just as soon as I get moved in, and I’ll get them online as soon as I can. Thanks to everyone for keeping in touch! Keep the great e-mails coming!!!! Tuesday, May 18 is my 8-month anniversary in-country!!!! Go me!

Love,

Kira

Children's Books

Hey Everyone! I'm trying to collect some spanish-language children's books to read to kids in my community. I found a bunch along the lines at Chronicle Books, so I made a wishlist. They're pretty cheap! I'm so shameless! Any kinds of short children's stories in spanish would be great, not just the ones on the list. Go to this website to see my wishlist.



Thanks! I'll blog soon!
Kira