Kira Park

The End

2008-10-11T16:35:00.000-07:00

I write this entry from my mom's house in Oregon as I am working my way back into life in the US. This comes earlier than expected, as my service in the Dominican Republic was not set to finish for another year, but here I am.

Deciding to come home was a very difficult, personal decision, but it was the right one. I could list out all the factors that brought me to this place, but they are many and private, and so suffice it to say that after fighting to be happy for a little more than a year, I decided enough was enough. I had a good hard think, asking myself whether I could change my internal or external environment enough to turn things around for the remainder of my service. My answer to myself was "I don't think so," so, to oversimplify the whole decision making process, I came home.

I am sad Peace Corps didn't work out; I so wanted it to. I was sure. I was committed. I finish what I start. I am disappointed that this amazing experience turned out to not be for me, and I feel like I let my community down. But, I know that I am the only person in the world who can make my happiness a top priority, and I have a responsibility to myself to do that. I have no regrets about going to Peace Corps--not for all it took to get there in the first place or of spending a year of my life there, with all the physical and emotional trials and tribulations. I am glad that I went, and glad that I came home. It would have been a shame to "stick it out" for another 15 months and wind up resenting Peace Corps, my community and the Dominican Republic. I think that might have happened for me. So, I am thankful for what I was able to contribute in my short time, and I am thankful for what I have learned--about the world, about life, about myself.

I am still too close to my experience to be able to prepare my soundbite about being in Peace Corps, but I do know that I am more me now. More comfortable in my skin, more sure of what I want and of who I am. In such an intense environment, I learned a lot about my values and priorities and what I am (or am not) willing to negotiate. The value of this personal growth is not lost on me. I only wish I had been able to contribute as much as I feel I've gained.

That's it for now, for this diary of my time as a PCV in the Caribbean. Thanks for reading!!!!

Updates

2008-09-01T07:28:00.000-07:00

Greetings from the DR!

Things have finally calmed down from all my out-of-site work trips and travels (and my first visitors, family who came and stayed for a week here in Puerto Plata), and I’m trying to use this time to get a few things back up and running, namely another group of kids for the Actas de Nacimiento in addition to helping the Escojo group get back into the swing of things with school starting, and helping CHOCAL (the chocolate project in Fundelosa) get a hold on their costs/prices and keeping track of things (inventory, attendance, sales, cash flow, accounts receivable, etc).

I’m also trying to help Camino de Luz transition from being a “youth business” to having a community member take over running it and being responsible for it. She’s going to have to take out a loan to buy materials and get production back up and running, and because the loan will be through my counterpart organization, I’ll have more responsibility for it than I’d like, although none legal. People in the community want me to do all sorts of things I don’t want to do, which I usually get out of by explaining that it’s not why I’m here… not my job (and not a hobby I’m interested in) (for example, being the Community Photographer Available At Your Beck And Call). Since Day One, Camino de Luz has been my most frustrating, least rewarding and least favorite activity at my site, and leaving it to run its course is tempting. I’d be happy to be rid of the headache. However, I don’t want to fail, and I hate admitting defeat. I don’t want to be the one who throws in the towel. Although the youth “can’t” (read, “don’t want to”) continue, they do want the business to stay open and operating. The community wants it to continue, and they want me to be involved in it. In addition to the woman who is taking over, there are others who had expressed interest in doing so. The “It’s not my job” line doesn’t work, because, well, it IS part of my official project assignment, and the community isn’t totally ambivalent about its success (although they certainly aren’t passionately proactive about it, either). And so I toil, and stress, and beat my head against the wall.

I think part of my problem with Camino de Luz is I’ve never seen any indication that it will be able to sustain itself without a Volunteer constantly harping and nagging to pay the bills, buy more supplies, collect on money due, have a meeting, look for new business, reevaluate market costs and prices, clean, organize. I believe what these kids have learned is important whether the business itself succeeds or fails, and it’s exhausting postponing the inevitable. Also, and perhaps more to the point, I’ve never felt much camaraderie with the people associated with the business, apart from the mother of one of the girls. They’ve never sought me out, made me feel especially welcome, seemed interested in getting to know one another or been more than minimally responsive to me or what we are supposedly trying to accomplish. I have only felt like I’ve been dragging them, kicking and screaming, forcing them (generally unsuccessfully) to do things they aren’t really committed to. So I’m sure you, faithful readers, can imagine how trying it is to continue with this project, not wanting to let myself, my community, the business or Peace Corps down. It is so tempting, so easy, to take advantage of any opportunity to reschedule whatever activity is pending; everybody shares the blame in this one.

Anyways, now that my summer craziness is over (I thought it was just going to be June, but it ended up also being most of July and half of August!) I am trying to get back into my projects in my site. Already I can tell that the next cycle of conferences, workshops and Gringo Grita is going to be busy again, but now I know to be more conscientious of my scheduling so I don’t get so booked up andaring.

Although I am doing pretty well, still feeling good about being here and hopeful (if not confident) that I will leave my community at least a little better than I found it, I am finding that, unfortunately, guilt and anxiety seem to be the constants in my emotional status here. I have always been a worrier, only just in control of my anxious tendencies. It pains me to think that I might let someone down or not fulfill their expectations (my own included). I stress, worry and feel guilty when I am out of my site, be it for work or pleasure, because my community wants me here. But then I feel pissed off that when I am here, people don’t make much an effort to include me or get to know me beyond the basics (I am reprimanded for not coming to visit, but when I visit, I’m given a plastic chair and left by myself), or engage themselves in my projects. I feel guilty for not participating in more recreational volunteer events, or hanging out/bonding with other volunteers. I feel guilty for not being as neighborly and social as I think my community wants me to be. I worry that they think I’m not working enough, not doing enough, not contributing enough because I don’t work very much one-on-one with individual families. I feel guilty and judged when I take the personal time and space I need to stay sane (which too often negates the positive effects of taking it). I feel like I am constantly being measured by and compared to previous volunteers, and that I don’t cut the mustard (even though I rationally know it wasn’t always easy going for those previous volunteers, this doesn’t seem to help). I am surrounded by many acquaintances, few peers and even fewer friends.

This is not to say that my days and weeks here are without happiness, successes. Moments of clarity and inspiration, of feeling wanted, valued, appreciated, respected do come, and not as infrequently as it might seem, given the tone of this entry. It just kind of all cancels itself out to being “okay,” and I want things to be amazing. I want my heart to feel full with pride and love for my community and my work; I want my heart to be “in it,” but, sometimes, the reality is that it is mind-over-matter here to stay motivated, to keep going, to remain positive.

Aside from that, I miss home. Of course I miss my family, although seven years now of living away from home we are all accustomed to not being in touch on a daily basis. But I so miss my niece (who I haven’t even met she’s so new) and my nephew. I miss my friends, and am missing huge events in their lives—weddings, babies, new serious-seeming boyfriends who I don’t get to evaluate and approve. And then there is a certain RPCV who is making my life difficult, although hopefully in a good way. Life continues at home. Everyone is headed full-speed into the futures, and I have no idea what mine holds.

Yet things are progressing, happening. Time, actually, is flying by. Here are some important upcoming milestones:

- September 13: One-year anniversary In-Country

- End of October: Halfway point of Peace Corps Service

- November 20: My BIRTHDAY

- November 24 (mas o menos): One-year anniversary in my site

Although the days sometimes go by oh so slowly, the weeks and months are flying by. I look back, now, and cannot believe it was a year ago that my mom dropped me off at the airport at some absurd hour of the morning to embark on this adventure. When I reflect on what I have done and how smoothly things really have gone (if I’m honest, instead of super-critical of myself), and how quickly time has gone by, I feel bolstered, surer, that I can do this, that I will do this, and that I will do it well.

When I started writing this, I thought it would be more of an update on what I’ve been doing instead of so much about how I’m doing, but it seems I had a lot to say. One wonderful thing I did do was receive my first visitors of my service. Uncle Dennis, Linda and Lila, and my cousin Jami spent a week with me. It was wonderful to see them and spend time with them, not to mention the amazing HUGE suitcases of goodies they brought me. We went to 27 Charcos, spent an afternoon and ate lunch at my site, went souvenir shopping in Puerto Plata, got massages, cut about 10 inches off my hair, laid on the beach, read, ate, took HOT SHOWERS! Of course, I was really the only one who got any mosquito bites to speak of… just my luck. Also, they got to enjoy the anxiety/anticipation and, fortunately, let-down of Tropical Storm Fay (nothing much happened here).

Anyways, thanks for the continued support. Keeping this blog has been more helpful to me than I had thought, both in terms of keeping in touch and documenting my experience, but also in fleshing out what’s going on in my mind. I find it hard to talk about it, or put my thoughts into words on the fly, so writing about it has been important to make sure it all doesn’t stay inside.

Until next time!

Kira

An Avocado a Day, Two and a Half Books a Month

2008-08-23T09:12:00.001-07:00

Only the better off Dominicans have the luxury of eating an apple with any frequency—at US $1 each or more, they have got be imported all the way from Washington State (or else from the moon, at that price!). Most families share one or two at Christmastime, and are a surefire hit if you show up with a few after a trip to the city.

On the other hand, it sure is a good thing I acquired a taste for avocados over the last couple of years, because avocado season here runs from mid-July to oh, nearly March I’d say, and considering that fresh produce is hard to come by here, coupled with the fact that between my neighbor and I we have at least eight trees on our properties, I have overwhelming access to and consumption of these fine, Omega-3-rich green goodies.

A normal person, especially an American 20-something woman, would worry that eating up to 2 (huge) avocados a day, most days, might result in some additional poundage. But I like to be different. Attributable to several factors (it’s hot; I walk A LOT; I am BORED TO TEARS of the food here; anything other than coffee in the morning should be a punishable offense) I am as thin as I’ve been in a while, so it’s cool with me I double my daily fat intake comiendo aguacates. It still doesn’t amount to much. My concern is that these, too, will lose their luster long before the season ends.

***

People ask often enough what we, Volunteers, read, both on the inside and outside of the Peace Corps circle. I just did the math and I have read 31 books since September 13, 2007 when I left the USA. An average of 2.5 per month. What can I say, I’m and Oro…

… in order, with the best in italics:

The Guy Not Taken by Jennifer Weiner
In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez
Monique and the Mango Rains by Kris Holloway
Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld
Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
Naked by David Sedaris
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder
Before We Were Free by Julia Alvarez
The Girls’ Guide to Hunting and Fishing by Melissa Bank
Paula by Isabelle Allende
The History of Love by Nicole Krauss
The Family Tree by Carole Cadwalladr
To Feel Stuff by Andrea Seigel
The Choice by Nicholas Sparks
This is Not Chick Lit by Elizabeth Merrick
The Life of Pi by Yann Martel
A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson
Atonement by Ian McEwan
The Namesake by ?
Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortensen
Feeling Sorry for Celia by Jaclyn Moriarty
Midwives by Chis Bohjalian
The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
The Stories of Eva Luna by Isabelle Allende
Nine Hills to Nambonkaha by Sarah Erdman
In the Name of Salome by Julia Alvarez
Sushi for Beginners by Marian Keynes
Marley and Me by John Grogan

***

Last but definitely not least, please give a warm welcome to the new group of Peace Corps Dominican Republic Volunteers who will be working in health, business, youth and water/sanitation (just like my group!). Volunteer groups arrive about every six months, alternating between these sectors and environment, education and I forget the other. Anyways, the “my sector” group ahead of me is winding down (they leave in November) and the new “my sector” group arrived, well, today, I think. This is a milestone for my own group of Volunteers; it means we are nearly at the half-way mark. We are no longer the “new” group. We have accomplished much and are (supposedly) nearing the elusive “lightbulb” moment they tease us with when all our projects and work and frustration come together and we start seeing fruits of our labor.

My First Dominican Car Accident

2008-08-03T11:53:00.000-07:00

So I was coming back from Chery's site today (congratulations to her on the inauguration of her community and computer center) and our guagua was involved in a car accident on the highway. Two guaguas and one or two private vehicles rearended each other... I think we were last in line. I AM FINE. This was a hysterical Peace Corps Moment, not only because we were not the least bit distressed or hurt, but we saw it coming and STILL weren't worried because the gugaguas here always ALMOST crash but never do. Until today. I am not sore at all or anything, but if that changes I'll be sure to be a grown up and see the doctor. Anyway, so I was with someone who had a plane to catch so we took advantage of our rubia-ness and got ourselves on a different guagua that was going by, and made the trip, which should NEVER take less than 2 h 45 m, in 2.5 hours, including the lost time in the accident. They were FLYING. Incidentally, this was not the cause of the accident as when that happened we were going a much normal pace in traffic.

Anyways, if you read this and several previous entries, you'll notice that I've had some interesting things happen to me of late here in the DR. Thankfully nothing has been too serious!

Ratoncitos en mi ropa interior

2008-08-03T11:51:00.000-07:00

Sunday afternoon, sitting in the neighbor’s enramada, getting good-naturedly chewed out for sleeping with earplugs in because I won’t sentir potential things out of sorts during the night. I sleep with earplugs in because of the chickens cantaring (although I think “singing” is not nearly an annoying enough word), but also because of the critters that scurry and play in my house at night. I have a TON of cute little lizards which don’t bother me at all. I try to ignore the tell-tale little black pellets I find and tell myself that all the scurrying I hear is the friendly lizards.

So, Sunday night I go to bed without the earplugs… maybe I was feeling guilty. I shouldn’t have, because what I need to worry about sentiring at night is rats in my dresser moving my clothes around and pulling things from one drawer into the other. I’ve found rat turds in my drawers all along, but actually hearing them in there was new. Obviously this was not an ideal situation, but I didn’t know what to do at 3 a.m. so I shoved in my trusty neon orange tapones (interestingly, also the word for a traffic jam) and went back to an unrestful sleep.

The phrase in Spanish for “I woke up on the wrong side of the bed” is “Me levanté con el pie izquierda.” IMAGINATE! Obviously I had to get dressed Monday morning so inspecting the damage could only be put off for so long, plus I had somewhere to be. I figured my clothes would be out of ordered, and even perhaps with a few new holes, but I didn’t think I’d pull open the top drawer and find the damn rat STILL THERE. Well, we surprised each other. I squealed, and she ran out the back of the drawer into the safety of the rest of the dresser. I gingerly pulled the top drawer, full of my freshly hand-washed underwear (humph!), and dumped the whole thing out on my cement floor. To my extreme dismay, I heard squeaking. I used the handle of my escoba to fling my panties off the pile one by one. I heard myself let out one of those long, slow, crescendo-ing cries of alarm as I came upon a little, wiggling, pink, furless, newborn baby ratoncito furrowing about in my skivvies.

BEELINE to the neighbor’s house, because I sure as shit don’t want to deal with this. And plus, mom is still hiding in the dresser. So my vecina mandars her 14 year old son over to help me. He whips out my machete (yes, I have a machete, although I feel much less safe with it in my hands than when it’s it the sheath), scoops squealing baby onto the tip (please, please Daivin, don’t poke it and make it bleed it’s baby rat blood on my underwear…) and flings it out the door for the chickens or opossums or whatever to snack on. Then I made him pull out all the rest of the drawers, hopefully finding and getting rid of the mama rat. We found her, but she ran away before he could put down the drawer and arm himself with the machete again.

I just spent 900 pesos (almost 30 dollars, a significant portion of my monthly stipend) on poison… rat poison, cockroach poison, ant traps, Raid spray, and half a Saturday cleaning and placing all this toxic goo. So aside from being totally grossed out (I had the willies all day) I was annoyed that this happened after so much time and financial investment. It was like they were laughing at me.

Well anyways, I really did have somewhere to be and how I was half an hour behind schedule so I had to hurry up and get going, and then my 9 am meeting to weigh sugar (as Claudette calls it) was a mess—literally, the KitchenAid mixer with 2 pounds of melted cocoa butter, 3 pounds of sugar and a pound of pure cacao paste was already turned on when they plugged it in and the whole gloppy mess fell all over the ceramic tile floor (in another entry I will blog about the lovely sanitation resources of our beautiful chocolatera). When we remade the mixture, the women ran it through a machine made for grinding cacao (to make the granulated sugar not feel so grainy, instead of paying for powdered sugar) and sprayed liquid milk chocolate all over themselves, the floor, the walls, the machine and anything else around (I, miraculously, escaped).

Ugh. Jo’s rat story still wins: I make no claims to be able to beat arriving to site to a bed invested by a family of rats, but I now have my own to share. Is it a rite of passage? Something to bond over, or just to laugh at (my mom and Cheryl sure got a good kick out of it yesterday…)?

In other news, the busted part of my toenail (Cheryl also thought that was funny… are we noticing a pattern here?) fell off and I’m on the mend. I handed out the last of the Actas de Nacimiento today, just in time for school registration (a convenient coincidence for me). I thought I had scabies but it seems to have cleared up without taking the medicine, so I’m thinking it was something else, which is good. Other than weighing sugar and passing out birth certificates, I haven’t been doing that much work, but I’ve definitely been busy. Mango season is just about over, but avocado season is off to a delicious, Omega-3-y start. I ate almost two whole ones today… that weight I’ve lost is going to be reappearing de una vez.

Oh yeah, and it’s been H-O-T. How am I going to survive the summer, and is my family ever going to forgive me for letting them come visit me in the hottest month of the year?

Stay tuned!

A New Universal Truth?

2008-08-03T11:50:00.001-07:00

Forgive me for oversimplifying the Peace Corps experience, but I can’t believe a paragraph in the book I’m reading, “Nine Hills to Nambonkaha” by Sarah Erdman:

“… Near the edge of the table, she scatters her best-selling item, her backup, since vanity is a luxury for most of these women: Maggi flavoring cubes of all different persuasions—shrimp, onion, tomato, chicken, bushrat. They are the heart and soul of Ivorian cooking, the only source of spice other than dried hot pepper and bay leaves. The magic little blocks of MSG are a cheap substitute for any ingredient.”

Fellow Volunteers of the world (or at the very least, Ivory Coast and Dominican Republic): Know what I mean?

Lost in Space

2008-07-23T11:52:00.000-07:00

It sounds worse than it is, but really I just can't remember who I have told what to, including the blog, and I don't feel like rereading. Ha!

Well, so let's start with concrete stuff. Literally. Concrete. As in CEMENT BLOCKS. And MY BIG TOE. They met yesterday, and the result was blood, tears, a busted-in-half big toe nail (so much for my nice pedi) and a seriously pissed-off Kira. Seeing as I was having a rough day (had to turn down an invite to do a tourist day, ending in a hotel and an Indian food dinner in Cabarette with some friends to attend MEETINGS, one of with was a total FAILURE in my community), I'm sure all who know me can imagine I was just Perky Polly after this.

Also, it seems I have SCABIES. Now, there's stigma attached to scabies in the US, but it's really, REALLY common here so don't go judging me. We pass it around Peace Corps like the common cold. Although, I haven't taken the medicine yet and it seems to be clearing up, so maybe I don't have scabies? Or, maybe it just comes and goes in cycles. Either way, I can't take the meds until I can WASH and DRY my clothes, bedding, towels in HOT water and HOT dryer. I don't want to talk about how much of a pain in the ASS it will be if I have to schlep all my stuff into the city and pay and arm and a leg to have everything laundered (including staying overnight to do it) because those things certainly aren't going to happen in my campo.

Moving on from these minor annoyances, I wanted to write about Camp GLOW (Campamento Estrellas de Hoy) and my birth certificate campaign.

Birth certificates first. Although it took, fully, TWO MONTHS longer than it should have, I have in my hot little hands the original paperwork for 18 newly declared Dominican munchkins. The population of the DR grew today. I gotta admit they are a little bit of a letdown--I was expecting thick paper with a four-color DR logo and forgery protection technology and what I got is preprinted forms filled in by hand on half-sheets of photocopied paper. Apparently the "master" is in the books they keep in the office and the "originals" that you have to get for all sorts of things are really just certified copies or something... Anyways, since I've been talking about Actas de Nacimiento since before I even got on the plane, I wanted to announce my success. Thank you, thank you... such applause isn't necessary. :)

Camp GLOW (July 14-18) went GREAT. It was a TON of work. I worked on the fundraising (thanks for your donations, thank you cards are in the mail!). I ended up designing our certificates (you MUST give a Dominican a certificate for ANYTHING they participate in) and helping with a t-shirt design file crisis (file got corrupted and the artist was on vacation). All turned out well though. I also co-facilitated a charla on income generation and the advantages of being a financially independent woman in today's society, including making Mistoline (floor disinfectant) and mentol (Vapor Rub) for all the participants. The two girls I brought, Alex and Yossi, live in the community next door to mine, but they were amazing. Alex is in the Brigada Verde (environmental awareness) group my neighbor volunteer has, and Yossi is in the ESCOJO group Dan (my predecessor) started. We had to fund raise to contribute as a community. The space we used was amazing, quiet, beautiful, breezy. Lots of nature and NO TRASH. It's an ecological reserve. The food was OK, the bathing situation not so great.

Coming into it, I was intimidated by the whole thing. Finding girls to bring had been difficult, and the idea of spending 5 days surrounded by people, especially teenagers, had me a little freaked out. I was excited about camp, but excited for it to be over. In the end, the girls were amazing and none of the drama or craziness that could have happened did. The girls learned about their bodies, about cultural relations, especially with Haiti. They learned how to put on condoms (I got teased for doing it too fast, IMAGINE that with all the action I get... HA). They had an open sessions to ask questions about sex, bodies, relationships called Conversaciones de la Cama, Pillow Talk. They talked about sterotypes, friendship, relationships, self-esteem. Aside from the fact that I was just exhausted, it couldn't have gone better. I'm still glad it's over, but I'm looking forward to next year too.

After a month and a half on the move and out of site, coming back has been a little difficult. My projects are at a standstill, but at the same time I've been able to have honest conversations with FUNDELOSA about redirecting my efforts, so now I'll be focusing on the chocolatera, where, hopefully, my efforts will make a difference. Things aren't going well with the youth candle business I'm supposed to be mentoring, and really look like they are about to crumble altogether. I'm trying not to blame myself, but I feel guilty about it. But then, I'd be willing to say that GUILT is one of the most significant emotions and experiences of Peace Corps.

Also, my mom had major back surgery a couple of weeks ago. Making the decision to stay here was not an easy one, and even though (thank goodness) everything went great and she's already improving, it still isn't easy. I feel awful for not having been there. I am so thankful that my family and friends are so supportive of me being here even though it has already meant missing several really important life events.

Sometimes I don't realize how big of a sacrifice PC is, and sometimes I do. Sometimes I realize all the other things I could be doing, experiencing. I am where I should be, but right now I am definitely aware of what I'm missing.

I feel tempted to move something good down here to the bottom to end on a more positive note, but I'll go with the way it came to me instead. Until next time!!!!

Chao!

Me mordio un perro!

2008-06-30T07:46:00.000-07:00

In the Peace Corps, strange things happen. Or well, it might be more accurate to say that nothing that happens here is considered strange.

Friday, some stupid yappy dog ran out of his front gate and bit me on the back of the leg. Totally unprovoked. I was so mad. Anyways, so in training they gave us the three-part rabies vaccine, and if you ever get bit you have to have two more doses. So Friday afternoon I had to trek down to the PC office to deal with the vaccine stuff. It should have been relatively simple, except for the fact that both our doctors were in Guatemala for the regional PC med conference.

So, go to office to pick up vaccine and a note. Medical Secretary is "pretty sure" it's just one shot. I'm pretty sure I remember it being more. So anyways, I pretty much have to force her to call the doctor in Guatemala and double check, because it was going to make a difference if I needed to stay in the capital an extra day. Turns out it is two shots and I did need to stay. Lame.

Go I to the emergency room to ask them to shoot it into me. Arrive in ER and explain. Am asked: name, age, phone number, province where I live. Am not asked for ID. Am not asked to sign anything. Am not asked to see the dog bite. Sent to sit on the exam table. Given injection. Nurse took the bloody gauze in her bare hands to throw it away, and then rinsed her hands (no soap) and went back to work. Was done with process. Did not need to see doctor or sign anything for leaving. Neither the nurse nor any other medical staff in the ER had ever heard of the vaccine they were shooting into me.

Can you imagine showing up in an ER in the US with a rabies vaccine and them just saying "oh sure, over here, STAB, ok you can leave now."?

Aye, aye, aye.

I've been out of my site for so long, I need to go back today but I'm just not feeling motivated to do it. Oh, and it appears that someone accidentally, or on purpose, took a big bag of new stuff for my house out of the PC office so now I'm $1300 pesos poorer and I don't have the pillow, towel, kitchen stuff, etc. to show for it. Grr.

Dandome cuenta

2008-06-26T05:16:00.000-07:00

Being in the capital for language training this week has been really interesting. The language classes have been fine, although not revolutionary, and being at my original host family’s house has actually been pretty great. I’ve been realizing that I might not ever become accustomed to living in the fishbowl; I prefer the anonymity of city life. In the city, we have that. I remember thinking it strange when I arrived that the houses are actually walled in on three sides and gated facing the street, so they are actually more isolated here than most parts of Portland, anyways.

In some of the conversations we’ve had this week I realized I have had some things to get off my chest. For now, what it boils down to is that the opportunism here, which probably exists in all developing countries, has me feeling constantly guarded. I feel disinclined to share, of my self or of my things. It bothers me that my levels of generosity and openness are shockingly low here. The only explanation I can find is a fear (is it well-founded?) that if I give an inch, many here will expect a mile. I’m not proud that my fear of being taken advantage of is preventing me from forming close relationships and opening myself up to those in my community. The custom of demanding and taking instead of asking and thanking me prende mi sangre (makes my blood boil). Even when it’s not directed at me. Give me a candy. Bring me water. Buy my product. Get me tal cosa. Take my picture (this one is exclusively directed at me). This is tricky because lots of people share with me, and I am always gracious (even though I am teased for it). I want to reciprocate, but I hesitate. There are plenty of people who practice good manners, both in the cities and in my campo. They show me that it not culturally unreasonable to expect it. Living in another culture has and continues to illuminate my own in surprising clarity.

We watched a Dominican movie, Sanky Panky, yesterday afternoon. It’s a satire about Dominican and American stereotypes that glorifies and perpetuates, most egregiously, the practice of being a Sanky Panky: one whose activities and efforts are directed to finding an American who will llevar you to the US. I think of it as visa hunting. I don’t think it’s funny and I certainly don’t think it’s something to be proud of. I don’t have any statistics about what is talk and what portion is real desire (as wonderful as the US is, I can’t imagine that all those who talk about it would actually go, given the opportunity), but there is a lot of talk about it. As far as relationships go here, this idea of being pursued as a means of getting llevared totally and completely turns me off to the idea of getting involved in the first place.

Not all Dominicans expect to receive. Plenty of Dominicans are gracious. Not all Dominicans are looking for their ticket to the American Dream. But some do. Many aren’t. And some are. And so, I am finding that my walls have gone up. Now, how do I bring them down?

Capital, Day Eight

2008-06-18T09:52:00.000-07:00

I have been out of my site for 12 of the last 18 days, pretty impressive, right? WHY, you ask? Well, I'll tell you. First, I went to Bahia de las Aguilas in Pedernales to camp on an uninhabited beach in a national turtle sanctuary on the south coast at the Hatian border. It was beautiful, wonderful, amazing. The mosquitoes were murderous, but the company made up for it. We ate lots of mangos, got TWO flat tires, swam in the most amazing turquoise water I've ever seen and, in total, spent about 24 hours in buses and guaguas to make the trip. It was worth the trouble.

Then, after a quick respite at my house (which I am still getting settled into) it was back to the capital for a back-breaking, eyeball busting week of producing the Gringo Grita--the official magazine of PCDR, an amusing mix between The Onion and The New Yorker (closer to The Onion, though, let's be real). After 7 straight 12-hour days, using day 8 to get caught up on the email I've been neglecting for weeks, I'm about to head back to my site. It was a great experience though, and fun to be back in the saddle of publication design (although working in PageMaker 7.0 felt like I might as well have been using a typewriter). It was hectic but it was really great to see my fellow Volunteers--who have little experience but lots of energy and enthusiasm to learn--taking on the challenges and having lots of success.

It's Wednesday right now, and Sunday afternoon I'm coming back again for another week, this time 5 days of language training. That will be out in the suburbs of Santo Domingo instead of in the area by the office. Yay, Pantoja. About as exciting as a dental appointment.

In the last couple of months, a ton has been going on, but I can't say I've felt especially productive work-wise. My niece, Dakoda, was born at the beginning of May and that had me all funny for a few days. Dan, the other volunteer here, wrapped up and left so there were lots of logistics and coordination so I can follow up on his many projects throughout my service. Then June has and will continue to be lots of time out of site.

Remember Camp GLOW, the girls' empowerment camp I've been talking about and for which we asked for donations? Well, thanks to the generosity of our family and friends, we have the funding we need to put on the camp, which will be for 5 days in mid-July. I'm really looking forward to this. I'll be giving a charla with another volunteer on income generation projects the girls can do in their communities to make money with high-demand products that are easy and inexpensive to produce. It will be great!

I want you guys to read my friend Claudette's blog, the link is over on the right. She does a wonderful job of taking on and really explaining some of the nuanced aspects of the experience and what we deal with here. I am so close to myself right now that I see a lot of details and experiences without having a sense of the big picture, the perspective on how seemingly disparate things are inextricably related. She does a great job of this. I'm not sure if it's because she's so zanily perceptive or articulate or what, but she posts the blog entries I attempt. Mine turn out to be an update of activities, events, the occasional observation, but generally not the thoughtful, intense interpretations I yearn for. That's ok. Documenting what I'm doing and how I'm feeling is important too.

In any case, things are going well for me. My project is going great (as long as you put on your PC context goggles before looking at it) and if I'm not feeling more sure about who I am, what I'm doing or what my role or potential impact in my community might eventually be, then at least I'm not feeling so overwhelmed by this lack of important information. It has been stressful being compared to Dan, especially up in the neighborhood where I live now, and I haven't had much time to andar in the community to visit neighbors, meet everyone. On the other hand, our communities take such pride in having a Volunteer that in some ways it seems like it almost doesn't matter whether you do a little or a lot, they adore you. I haven't actually felt this myself yet, because everyone still talks to me about all the great things Dan did, and I wonder how I will ever measure up. But then, what I need to do is get over it and do my thing, work on my project, and trust that my contribution, whatever it turns out to be, will be of meaningful value for the individuals and the community as a whole in the end.

Although, I am THRILLED to offer an update on the long, difficult struggle I had since the beginning with making friends, fitting in and feeling sure about myself with the other Volunteers, especially in large numbers. It occurred to me that it is probably never reasonable to expect oneself to make friends, all at once, with 50 (and really, 150+) new people. So I stopped trying, relaxed, allowed myself to find the ones with whom I feel comfortable, accepted, valued. I'm not even a person who prefers a huge circle of friends, and now I am really making progress and picking up steam in forming meaningful friendships with a couple of my fellow Volunteers. I'm newly unaffected by the peer pressures of going out, partying, drinking and so on. If picking up some food at the supermarket, going back to the Pen, grabbing a book and the iPod and chilling out is what floats my boat, guess what, I'm doing it. And being in the capital has become exponentially less (although still significantly) stressful. I feel really proud of myself for this. It was a struggle, but I found my way and I feel like the rest of my service can be a pleasant experience of getting to know the people I'm working with instead of worrying what they think of me. GO ME!

I hereby resolve to write more thoughtful blog entries, at least occasionally, henceforth.
Until next time!

Photos

2008-06-12T05:57:00.001-07:00

Finally, I had a few minutes to organize and upload some photos of the past couple of months or so. Please feel free to check them out!

My New House

2008-06-11T16:13:00.000-07:00

It occurred to me that the desensitizing process we go through as PCVs, although rather handy as a survival mechanism, really has its downside. Two specific instances come to mind.

Sometimes I get a glimpse and realize that whole days have gone by without me noticing what a beautiful country I’m in. What can I say—garbage in the road and river, sewage smells in my nose, horse and cow poop in my shoes, mosquitoes biting, days at a stretch without water… mud… oh the mud. I guess it’s easy to get caught up in the details.

You get, if not “used to,” jaded about how long it takes to get anything done here. One of the manifestations of this for me is that I feel like I’m not accomplishing much, even though I feel busy almost all the time. It must be said quite honestly that the definition of “getting things done” is quite different here than stateside. But I realized today when I bumped into a couple other volunteers in Santiago and told them what I’ve been up to that it really isn’t as if I’m sitting around “watching the mangoes ripen,” as they say. It felt good.

###

In other news, I am happy to report that I have, after much anticipation, moved into my own house. There were a few stressful days to do with safety concerns my counterpart had and getting the electricity rigged up, but thankfully all have been worked out now. So, about the house (see more photos at the regular link).

The house is set on a high edge of the community and has excellent views from both front and back. There is a gate at the entrance, two mango trees (one of which has a hammock), several plantain trees, avocado, tamarind, mandarin and guava trees, and a garden than Dan started and I am going to try not to kill. The garden has cucumber, tomato, carrots, okra, spinach, lettuce, squash, melon, cilantro, dill, basil, beets, onions and more. Assuming I discover the green thumb in me, I should be able to eat a decent amount of vegetables, gracias a Dios.

The house is painted a cheery yellow and white. It is made of cement blocks and wood plans, with a zinc roof. The main house is divided into two rooms—a bedroom area and a living room/kitchen area. Attached to the back is a zinc-walled add-on with a jaguar (thatch) roof that I use for washing dishes and storage. Outside of the bedroom is a connected-but-outdoor shower, which, when there is water, provides a pretty decent experience. (I generally do have water, but this is the dry season and the aqueduct is low so they turn it off to ration consumption.) Out the other side of the house is the latrine. This isn’t so bad because it’s in pretty good shape, with a few caveats:

1: When you pee, some of it sneaks under the wall onto the floor. I’m looking into buying a can of caulk.

2: One of the floor boards is a little loose. I’m working on having it replaced so I don’t fall in the hole. That would be, well, unpleasant.

3: The bench is too high so I have to hop on and off to go. Aside from being annoying, this is worrisome because of #2 above. I am working on getting a step so I can reach more comfortably.

4: I pee in a bucket at night so I don’t have to go outside.

I cook on a tabletop gas stove, and keep all my food and dishes covered and sealed because of the ants, rats and cockroaches that are simply a fact of life here. (Remember earlier I mentioned becoming desensitized…) A neighbor brought me a mango the other day that I was really excited to eat for breakfast, but the rats beat me to it and I had to throw it out.

I did some grocery shopping yesterday in Puerto Plata, trying to get myself set up here. A few things I can’t do yet until I get the refrigerator purchased, but I’m making progress.

Anyhow, my new house is definitely a campo house in my campo community, but I’m certain we are going to get along just fine. I can’t wait for you to see it in real life! Did I mention how beautiful it is up here? Definitely worth the slightly hike-ish walk.

Dakoda Lyn

2008-05-13T11:11:00.000-07:00

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

2008-05-13T08:25:00.000-07:00

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

2008-05-03T10:46:00.000-07:00

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

April 9, 2008

2008-04-18T12:06:00.001-07:00

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

2008-04-08T10:53:00.000-07:00

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?

Photos

2008-03-29T07:08:00.001-07:00

Should be some new ones uploaded today!

Dominican onions are tasty!

2008-03-25T10:45:00.001-07:00

Oh my gosh I can’t believe I said that. And I meant it! Wow, what’s happening to me? It’s true though, especially if you sauté them until their kind of brown and crispy—they’re just delicious. Oh, I know Michele, I’m abandoning you in our carte blanche distaste for onions, but I can’t help it. Please forgive me. Who knows if this palatial evolution is permanent, American onions might very well still offend me. Only time will tell.

In other news, we are in Semana Santa now (Holy Week) and although this doesn’t affect me, it is ironic that the beaches on the north coast are closed this week, one of the peak vacation times in the Dominican Republic. Bummer for the tourist industry, and major bummer for the tourists who paid top-dollar to come here and won’t be able to visit the beach.

Holidays here are interesting and seriously over-hyped. Now having been here for Christmas, New Year and Semana Santa, the reality does not live up to the hype. Unintuitively, this has not been especially disappointing for me, but just interesting to observe. The only thing that really happens to scale is the influx of people who come back to the campo from the city to visit their families. Generally not being a fan of large family gatherings for extended periods of time, this is the aspect of holidays in the DR that makes me cringe. Suddenly there are lots of new people, everywhere, for several days. Some seem not to notice my presence, most seem not to particularly care. Regardless, I feel obliged to meet them and compelled to retreat and find a safe place. Only, there’s nowhere to go. Extended family is everywhere. I guess I’m getting used to the constant presence of the people in my community who are constantly present, but all these new people make it like starting over.

However, in the spirit of community integration and cultural exploration, I went to the Thursday-before-Easter Catholic church services yesterday in the chapel in my community. In fact, not only did I go to the service, I got tapped to read one of the scriptures. Aside from the fact that the whole Bible, apparently uses future and vosotros verb forms (which are practically never used in spoken Spanish here, and thus still foreign to my tongue), I’d say it went well. I have a sneaking suspicion I’m getting llevar-ed to the Evangelical service in the loma today on a mule with my “host grandpa,” who is the minister or something.

***

The latest issue of the Gringo Grita came out last week, and in it were the Close-of-Service surveys for the group of volunteers that will be leaving in May. Reading these caused me to reflect on what my COS survey might look like when the time comes; reading them caused me to consider the ways I think I might change, the things I might learn.

A few hypotheses…

- I think I will learn how to truly embrace and accept my introverted side.

- I think I will be more comfortable being uncomfortable (both physically and emotionally).

- I will be even more willing to take a risk if I think the possible outcome is worth the trouble.

- I will make significant progress through my “Mid-Twenties Renaissance,” an experience coined by my friend Claudette.

- I will have had a meaningful opportunity to explore my values and beliefs and think about who I want to be and how I want to live my life.

- I will be more comfortable knowing what I want to do or what will make me happy and doing it without concern for how others perceive it; if they have a problem, they don’t accept me anyways.

- I will be more understanding and accepting of my family.

- I will be more used to and comfortable with kids.

Also, a strange observation on the activities of my mind when allowed to wander: Although I am generally happy and content here I find that I spend a surprising amount of time calculating what remains of my 27-month service and imagining what my life might look like and what directions I might go upon its completion. Is my inability to live exclusively in the present, without looking ahead to what may or may not happen in the future, an intrinsic flaw? I must work on this. I hereby commit (to try) to not plan the next official stage of my life until I am physically in the United States. (However, I permit myself to make plans for a transition period between arriving and beginning the next “official” stage.)

***

Housing update: Still waiting to move into Dan’s house in mid-late May. Feeling eager. Feeling anxious. Hanging in there. Told him he was prohibited from extending again. Was reassured this will not be a problem. Accepted said reassurance with warning that if it should change, he will be forced to co-habitate with me because I’m moving in May. J

***

Wishlist update:

- I’m trying to take up yoga/pilates. If anyone has instructional DVDs laying around that aren’t getting used, I’d love to take them off your hands. (Don’t go buying stuff, though).

- What’s new in the music world? Burned CDs I can import into iTunes on my computer would rock my world.

- Movies (DVDs), magazines (Health and Self are my favorites)

- Chocolate! Luna/Pria/Mojo Bars!

- Off Deep Woods spray mosquito repellent with DEET (a couple people sent me this before and it works great… it’s in a green bottle).

- Soft & Dri deodorant (DermaStripe or PowerStripe).

- Printed pictures of whatever you all have been up to!

***

Activity update:

I’m in the beginning or planning stages of: income generation project (making/selling floor disinfectant) with the youth group; English classes; a campaign to get kids declared who don’t have birth certificates (and thus are not recognized as existing by the government and all the implications and limitations “not existing” entails). Camino de Luz is meeting regularly. We had been out of production for a while because of a materials/cash flow problem, but we finally got the paraffin and are back in production, thank goodness. Planning for Camp GLOW is coming along nicely, as part of the fundraising committee, I have been working on writing a grant to get funding and creating an ideas sheet for community-based fundraising (each community that sends girls has to make a financial contribution).

I’ve made it my goal in the next few months to spend my transportation budget more on traveling than on trips to the Capital (actually this will be a sacrifice because it means less access to good internet and mail), but I really want to make sure I see the country while I’m here and make a point to visit other volunteers. So, next weekend I’m going to visit Ben and Claudette in Jarabacoa (I’ve already been there once, but it was a really quick visit). In mid-April I’m going to visit Robyn in Sabana de la Mar. In May I have to go to the Capital for a GLOW meeting but I have to go for a doctor appointment anyways so I should be able to get reimbursed. Also in late May or early June is the next production cycle of Gringo Grita, of which I will be participating, which is about a week in the Capital. In June I’m planning to go to Bahia de las Aguilas near Pedernales for two nights of camping on what is, from what I understand, one of the most beautiful and pristine beaches in the country. Also in June I have to go to the Capital for my 6-month language workshop and a sector meeting. In July is Camp GLOW, in August is Celebrando Cibao and a camping trip with the youth group at Fundelosa. The spring and summer are shaping up to be busy and full of interesting excursions.

Okay, so that seems like a pretty thorough rundown on what’s new with me. Thanks for reading! Stay tuned for the next installment. Miss you, love you, talk to you later!!!!

Kira

PS. New pictures should be online!

Just an update

2008-03-05T08:53:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone who reads my blog. Thanks for visiting again!

So since the last time I posted, which was right after my IST in La Vega, not a lot has happened, and yet plenty of stuff has happened. Funny how things go like that, right? Well, between the end of my IST and this past Sunday I was having a pretty hard time. Nothing happened, but I was feeling stressed out, overwhelmed and generally anxious. About lots of things. Of course work and projects (or lack there of at this point) is difficult, but through the patience of a few great folks here I think I've decided that the main source of difficulty is that I'm still living with my host family (and all the privacy/personal space/control of environment issues that entails). Now, I want to be very clear that my host family is pretty top-notch--they respect me, my space, my American oddities. They are nice to me, they are nice to each other. They love their kids. Stuff like that. But for me, the very nature of host family life makes me bristle. So, don't think bad thoughts about the host family.

Anyway, yesterday I presented my community diagnostic (this is the thing I also presented for Peace Corps at IST) to my community. It went pretty well but it was lucky that we scheduled it during the weekly meeting of the women's group at Fundelosa (the women who will be working in the cacao processing facility when it opens) because even though I invited 16 community groups/organizations/the school directors, etc. maybe 3 of those groups sent 1-4 people (closer to 1). So there were a total of about 40 people but 30+ of them were already there from their other meeting. Oh well, I actually was happy with how it went (although they were kind of bored) and it was an opportunity for me to be in front of the "community" and show them what I've been doing. I've been trying to find things I can say "yes" to and build up some momentum and confidence. I'm also holding an informational meeting about a short, basic English course on Monday, so we'll see how that goes. I wouldn't be starting classes until April though because the world stops in the DR the week before Easter (Semana Santa).

I also got an opportunity to have a couple good talks with my counterpart to plan some focused activities to help me get directly oriented to the office activities, rather than kindof being there and trying to learn by osmosis. We also got to talk about how we will try to work together and our system for that which was very helpful. We are going to start by meeting weekly away from the confusion and hubub of the office to make sure I know what activities are going on and what we want to accomplish. So I feel good about that for now too.

A couple of fun activities are coming up. Tomorrow I'm meeting with Dan to begin the process of doing a birth certificate campaign (this is work but I'm really excited about it); Friday I'm going to a gardening workshop and on a hike with the youth group; Sunday Dan and I are having a pot luck at "our" house for the volunteers in our area. These will all be fun. I hope!

Anyways, I'll be in touch soon!
Thanks for visiting!
Kira

3-month IST

2008-02-19T08:46:00.000-08:00

Hello!

My, it's been a while. Today has a theme.

Since last Wednesday until yesterday afternoon, I have been at my 3 month In-Service Training for my Community Economic Development at Peace Corps. For those of you who are geographically savvy, we were in Guaigui, La Vega. Actually, the facility we were using is the former house of a former DR president, Balaguer (maybe spelled incorrectly, who knows).

In any case, this was a pretty important mark in my service so far. Basically, the first day and a half or so was a work session with the volunteers and our project partners. I was able to bring someone from Fundelosa, my main project, as well as someone from the candle business I'm working with. I have mentioned my diagnostic several times over the months, and this was the culmination of my diagnostic project. Each of us gave a 20 minute presentation summarizing the results of our diagnostic reports (mine ended up 12 pages in Spanish). After that it was working and planning projects and priorities with our partners. I didn't really feel like this part of the event was particularly useful, because the work sessions were mickey mouse and I really didn't come away from it with any better idea of what I'm going to do as a volunteer.

Things improved greatly after the project partners left and we began the training portion of the week. I got some really good ideas for projects and how to go about some ideas I had already come up with. I learned about a free opensource accounting software (which I have been unsuccessful at downloading, grr) and some tips for teaching English (which everyone wants but the idea has been too intimidating for me to seriously consider). We spent some quality time with the other volunteers and got to hear about projects the more experienced volunteers have been working on.

I'm going to be translating my diagnostic into English for archiving purposes in case I might want it for a job later on or something, and I'll be sending one or the other or both to people who seem interested, but if you want to make sure I send it to you, just shoot me an email.

La Vega is (I think) the "best" Carnaval site in the country, and actually attending was a "training activity" for our group. The other sectors had already finished their ISTs, but since ours was still in session they still wanted us to be able to go. You can see lots of pictures on my Picassa site (link to the right). I don't really know much about the history or point of Carnaval other than in most countries it coincides with the beginning of Lent, but not here. Basically it was just a lot of people with the monsters parading by. They have these balloon things filled with wax so they are really hard and if they wail on anyone whose ass is available, especially if you enter the street. There were a bunch of us there, and it was a pretty good time but I don't know what the fuss is about, other than it was a fantastic opportunity to take some really striking photos. I didn't end up getting hit at all, but I was being really careful. Several people in our group have rediculous bruises.

Up until IST, the name of the game at site has been working on the diagnostic, getting a sense of what's going on and getting integrated into the community. Some people have already been doing work and actively participating, but not me so much. Now that IST and diagnostic is over, this is when we are to begin planning and implementing organizational, community and personal projects at our sites. This is overwhelming on a number of levels, and getting started is the hardest part, I think. I have lots of ideas of things I might want to do, but figuring out what order to pursue them and how to go about it is tricky. I am feeling nervous about going back to my site today, but part of that is just that this is the longest time I've been out of site. The nice thing is that I have a meeting on the 29th in the capital, and I'm going to go in a day or two early to use my "free" days for February, so I have about a week in my site and then I'll be out for three days, so it will be good for me to get in and be able to come back out again before too long.

In any case, it's strange. There is so much to say about what I'm doing here but it's pretty impossible to describe. Someone described PC to me as like developing a photograph, and that the image won't become clear until sometime after the whole experience has concluded. She was exactly right when she said that. I really want to have some way to record my evolution and experiences over this time, and I guess this blog is the way to do it. It will be interesting to look back a year or so after I return to the states and remember how I was feeling and all the things I went through. As much as there's so much that can't possibly be included, I hope I am at least getting the general idea across. Let's just say whatever one thinks PC will be, it will be different. Better, worse and just generally different.

Okay, that's all for now. Keep the emails coming, and thanks for all the support!

More later!

Realtime

2008-02-02T09:52:00.000-08:00

Hey folks,

It's not very often that I get to write on the blog and post it right away, so even though I already put up four or something posts plus pictures today, I thought it would be nice to add one now, especially since I actually have some interesting things to report.

I'm in the capital again, although not for as long this time (I'm leaving tomorrow morning). The purpose of this visit is Committee Weekend, which is basically every four months there's a weekend devoted to all kinds of committees, so that volunteers can go to the various meetings they need to be at in one trip. Committees are things like the Volunteer Advisory Committee (gives input to PCDR Administration), Website Committee, Gringo Grita (the Onion-esque publication I'll be working on the next cycle, I hope), and various conference committees to plan and put on activities to do with self esteem, diversity, gender empowerment and so on.

So even though the specifics of my in-site, project related work are still unclear (more on that later), I have now signed up to participate in Gringo Grita, probably doing the majority of the layout/design stuff; I am on the fund-raising committee for Camp GLOW, a week-long summer camp that volunteers put on and we each bring a couple girls to participate in activities related to self-esteem and empowerment, health, rights etc.; and I'm also going to participate in a different conference called Celebrando Cibao, a regional diversity conference that lasts 2 or 3 days and we bring in speakers and workshop leaders to talk and lead activities on ethnic, gender, racial, religious and whatever else kind of diversity we can think of. Especially the fund-raising for Camp GLOW will be really good for my resume because it's a pretty big deal as far as price tags go, I think they said the operating budget is something like US$10,000, which in Peace Corps money is quite a lot. Plus, both events sound like a lot of fun.

Yesterday I went to a meeting for Brigada Verde, which is the youth group initiative for the Environmental Education group, and although I'm not sure exactly what form it will take, I think I'm going to use some of their materials in my primary project. What happens is my counterpart organization, Fundelosa, has numerous projects including a youth group. One of the underlying themes of all the projects Fundelosa manages is environmental education and conservation, and they want me to participate pretty actively in the youth group. So I don't know if I will migrate the youth group to be Fundelosa/Brigada Verde per se, but I've gotten pretty good feedback from the PC and Fundelosa folks about at least using some of their charlas and activities and such as something I can contribute.

It's interesting because I am finding at least as many opportunities for interesting projects outside of my official CED project plan and assignment as within in. I found 30+ kids while doing my surveys who don't have their Acta de Nacimiento (birth certificates, very important!) so I think I want to do an initiative to help get their documents sorted out. I also really like the idea of working with the environmental stuff. Some of the health/gender/environment activities and secondary projects seem more applicable and adoptable than some of the CED stuff. My community, even though it's pretty developed, is still a bit of a reach to have relevance for some of the key aspects of the CED stuff.

Anyhow, I finally finished my community surveys (thank goodness) and when I get back to my site tomorrow afternoon I will be spending the next week fairly devoted to compiling my data, writing my community & organizational diagnostic report and building my presentation for my In-Service Training which is Feb. 13-18. I have a few commitments fit in there as well to work with Camino De Luz (the candle business) and a meeting or two, but it will work out. I'm really looking forward to the whole diagnostic process being over. For one, it was kind of a pain in the ass, and for two, it really hasn't resulted in a whole lot of particularly valuable information for me, either on a social level or on a programmatic level. Also, at the IST I'll be able to finally outline my project/work goals for my first year of service so that when I get back to my site I can work on planning and thinking about starting my own projects. I'm very, very much looking forward to having my own life/schedule/work/projects and things so that I feel more in charge of my life. Communication is frustratingly indirect here, so I am forever not knowing about meetings and activities until the very last minute or sometimes even after the fact. It will be nice to have my own activities and work to do.

So here are a few things on my brainstorming list of ideas for my work projects:
- Youth group for Business Plan Competition (12-week business skills course, the writing of a basic business plan, and a 3-day conference)
- Computerize the data for the micro-credit and solar panel projects at Fundelosa
- Brigada Verde (environmental education) stuff with the youth group at Fundelosa
- Income generation projects and workshops (home-made household products) with the women's group at Fundelosa
- Get computers donated to Fundelosa, get the office computerized and the data transfered
- Do computer skills training with office staff
- Do organizational, project and performance evaluations for Fundelosa and staff
- Improve data keeping and administration of Camino de Luz
- Work on marketing/promoting and developing new sales opportunities for Camino de Luz products
- Get Fundelosa online
- Help develop and launch a website for Fundelosa
- Work on Actas de Nacimiento (birth certificates)
- Camp GLOW, Celebrando Cibao

This is getting pretty long, but hopefully this helps give a more concrete idea of the kinds of things I might be doing here in the upcoming months and years. Life is pretty good, no major complaints. Although I am still very much looking forward to moving out on my own, I am adjusting to life in the host family's house, although not completely. I just have to remember that everyone's site and experience is different, everyone's trials and tribulations are different, and do the best I can with what I've got to work with internally and externally at my site. Especially when I come to the capital and actually have a chance to talk to other volunteers. We are all doing well though. Hanging in there. Finding our way. Looking forward to feeling sure, confident and under control. I know I'll get there though.

Anyhow, take care! Thanks for reading!!!! Oh, and if your looking at my Facebook, I'm holding a newborn pig. View all about it at the pictures link. :)

Pigs and Publisher and Goats, Oh My

2008-02-02T06:56:00.000-08:00

Oh, it’s been an interesting couple of days in a pretty funny Peace Corps kind of way.

To all my current and future fellow lovers of publication design and the Adobe Creative Suite, I must confess. I used Microsoft Publisher. No, it’s worse. I installed it on my computer. I feel horrible about it, but, aside from the fact that it’s not available here (literally or cost-wise), inDesign just isn’t sustainable in the Peace Corps. Oh man, could you imagine trying to teach people who don’t know how to set a margin in Word about all the beautiful complexities of graphic design software. I used it for my official Peace Corps business card, but I’m also about to get roped into to building a brochure for Fundelosa about the chocolate factory they are getting ready to launch.

Friday, I woke up and sat outside drinking my morning café con leche. Sitting there, I noticed there were six or so goats hanging around the house, and I thought to myself Hey, I wonder why there are so many chivos hanging out today. And then it left my mind and I went to the office to install (as previously confessed) Publisher on my computer and the desktop at the office. When I came home for lunch, I figured out about those goats. Their skins were on the ground. Their heads on the cement table. Their bodies chopped up into five-gallon buckets. Two hundred fifty pounds of chivo in all.

Saturday, I woke up to a ruckus (which is sadly normal here, but this was a special, extra-hurried ruckus) and discovered that the pregnant pig in the posigla out back had gone into labor and was dar-ing luz to an indeterminate number of puercitos. I really wanted to watch so I grabbed my camera and headed out to watch the action. All said and done, she delivered 11 piggies, but one died mid-term (they chucked it into the foliage with the placenta for the dogs…). I got some great pictures!

After that, at noon, we went to some crazy neighborhood block party and proceeded to eat the 250 pounds of previously slaughtered goat. And drink. And dance. And sit around for 7 hours listening and dancing to merengue and bachata. Rob came and visited for the day and then stayed the night in a neighbor’s extra bed. He got in on the goat and rum action as well, checked out the pigs and we ate fried chicken and tostadas (grilled ham and cheese sandwiches) for dinner.

Today was a long day (SUNDAY) of meetings at the office (SUNDAY, did I mention it’s SUNDAY?). We were there from 9-5. It was in Spanish. Meetings in Spanish are still generally indecipherable for me. I’m exhausted.

Oh, and I learned a new phrase today.

To fart is hacer peo. Hehhehhehehe.

Daily Life

2008-02-02T06:54:00.002-08:00

What’s it like here? Well, this changes depending on what stage I’m in. Training in Santo Domingo was different than in CBT; my first month here, before my diagnostic, was different than now; right after my IST in February will be different from now as well as different from whatever routine I might settle into as my work and projects get underway. However, since you asked…

I usually wake up around 630 or 7 to a racket, and then doze until 8 or so if I can tune out the banging and shouting and rearranging of furniture that defines campo mornings. Then I usually lay around until about 830 before getting out of bed. Sometimes I go to the Fundelosa office in the mornings, but since I don’t really do anything there yet I get bored quickly. Sometimes I wander around the community in the morning visiting people or doing various errand-y tasks. Sometimes I stay at home, drink a coffee, tidy up my room, do laundry, take a shower, read/write, etc.

Either way, lunch is at noon and I usually eat at 1230. Camp life stops from 12-2, so sometimes after lunch I take a siesta (two things on this: 1) They don’t use siesta here. They say echar una pavita, which roughly translated means “To throw a little turkey,” but echar is a verb that doesn’t translate well and has many meanings. 2) Contrary to popular belief, my experience has been that Dominicans don’t nap and they find me peculiar for doing so.)

Usually I work on my surveys (at this writing, 70 out of 100 are completed) from 2-5ish, and then I meander back up home. Dinner is usually around 630 and then I hang around until 830 or 9 when I go to my room for the night. Sometimes I go right to sleep, but usually I read or write for a while.

It’s not that I have anything against hanging out with the family, but the TV they watch bores me to tears (and the chairs are really uncomfortable, and they change the channel constantly), and if it’s not TV it’s some mundane conversation entirely void of details that I can’t follow. So I get bored and go to my own thing.

Sometimes I have to go the pueblo and that eats at least half a day. More if I am accompanying a Dominican.

Here are some examples of meals here:

Breakfast:

Either fresh-squeezed juice or a hot drink made from pureed and strained oatmeal (rather tasty but I’d rather have a bowl of oatmeal AND either two pieces of bread (like a dinner roll) or a pack of saltine crackers roughly the quantity of three graham crackers, sometimes with squeaky cheese. I also usually make myself a coffee.

Lunch:

Salad (shredded cabbage, sometimes with shredded carrots or a cucumber or beets) with oil, vinegar and salt. Meat, usually pork or chicken. Rice (white, seasoned or with beans/lentils). If the rice doesn’t have beans/lentils, sometimes there are habichuelas (red beans in a yummy sauce). Sometimes there is a scary looking but tasty eggplant dish or yummy potato salad instead of rice. But that’s pretty much the extent of the variety for lunch.

Dinner:

Two piece of bread (same as breakfast) with the hot oatmeal drink again; cream of wheat (except its made with corn); or fried ham or salami and tostones or other root vegetable.

Yep. That’s a pretty thorough summary of my diet here. Notice the 3 square meals and 6 servings of fruit and vegetables. Maybe when I’m on my own. To be fair, though, having talked to several people from my training group this week, my situation in general with my host family is relatively good in comparison. It will still be a challenge to stay until May when I can move into my own place, but at least I know it could be worse.

Fat?

2008-02-02T06:54:00.001-08:00

Twice so far today I’ve been told I’m bien gorda (pretty chubby) and it’s only noon. Apparently Dominicans stand by their practice that clothes only fit well if they are so tight you can see goosebumps through the fabric. I’m wearing a really cute cap-sleeve, empire waist peasant-y blouse thing Kyle sent me. I think I look cute, so they can keep their too-small spandex and we will all be happy. I understand that being called gorda here, if not a compliment per se these days, is not an insult, and I am not actually offended in the least. However, I do use these moments as an opportunity for cultural exchange and explain that Americans, especially women, are not flattered if you point out that they are chubby or have put on weight.

And anyways, I don’t even think I’ve gained weight. Last I checked at the end of November, I had lost 8 pounds since leaving the States. It’s possible that I gained a bit of it back (thanks to all the Starbursts and cookies I eat), but everything still fits, so whatever.

Aralen

2008-02-02T06:53:00.001-08:00

Oh, before I forget. Last week I met Bartolome Colon (o algo asi), pitcher for the Anaheim Angels (I think… definitely a pitcher for an Angels team, but I’m uncertain about the Anaheim part). Apparently he is from Alta Mira and was in town for a visit. How strange to come into the “central” part of my campo community and find THREE brand-new HUMMERS parked in front of the colmado. One of them even had California plates. Now, please tell me, even if you are rich and famous, why would you go to the trouble of taking a car on an international flight for a vacation?

In other news, four whole months into the Peace Corps-mandated weekly Aralen regimen, I had my first “Aralen” dream. Now, if you feel morbidly compelled to read reviews of this malaria-fighting drug (Dan Beigh gleefully did extensive research before I came here), there are some pretty interesting stories. Suffice it to say that one of the more common side effects is extremely vivid—almost hallucinatory—dreams. Normally I take my Aralen in the morning, so it must wear off enough by nighttime. Yesterday, though, I took it right before bed and had this crazy dream that I rescued a puppy (whose name I couldn’t remember) and a newborn kitten. I then put them in the bathroom and “nursed” them back to health by checking on them once a week. I was distraught at how skinny and sickly they were. It was odd though, because I was both inside and outside of the dream, knowing the whole time that it wasn’t real, but still being upset by it. So now I have another notch on my Peace Corps Moments bedpost.

In the Capital

2008-01-18T07:30:00.000-08:00

Hey, that's funny. I've already used this title before.

So I've been out of my site since Tuesday early and it is now Friday almost lunchtime. First I was in Santiago for a regional meeting, and Wednesday I came into the capital with my "neighbor" Rob. It wasn't totally a lazy few days, since I did take care of some administrative stuff (replace lost debit card, have business cards printed, pick up packages, talk to APCD), but also we have definitley gotten in some good internet time, watched a couple of DVDs, ate snacks, went out to eat, rested. It was lovely.

I need to get back to my site, and continue working on my diagnostic (surveys, etc) but it has been nice and refreshing to be out. Other times that I've been out of my site I always felt a little stressed and anxious for some reason, but I have felt a lot better this trip.

Once I get back to site, I need to continue working on my diagnostic and stuff. I got the information from my APCD (peace corps boss) so now I have the guidelines and stuff for the report and presentation, and that will be a pretty extenstive thing to write up once I finish collecting all the information. Once I have everything done maybe I'll email stuff to those who are interested.

So interesting things that are coming up in the world of Peace Corps... The first weekend in February is "Committee Weekend" when all the various extracurricular committees have their quarterly meetings. I think I'm going to go to the Gender & Development and Celebrando Cibao (a regional conference on diversity issues) and then also participate in the Gringo Grita (the un-official PCDR magazine). That will be a day or two. Then Feb 13 for a week is my 3-month In Service training in La Vega, where I'll present my diagnostic stuff and do my work plan for my first year of service. I got invited to be on the gringa this cycle, but their production week is exactly during my IST and i HAVE to go to IST, so I think I'm going to start working with the magazine the next time it gets to publishing time.

Anyhow, I might be away from internet for a while but next time I hit a WiFi zone, I'll be in touch. Thanks again for everything, and keep me posted on developments at home!!!

Hasta Luego!
Kira

PACKAGES!

2008-01-16T10:27:00.000-08:00

I LOVE YOU! YOU GUYS ARE WONDERFUL AND AMAZING!

Many, many packages got delivered in my hot little hands today!

Two packages from Megan and Justin
One package from Uncle Dennis and Linda
One package from Kathy Carbone
One package from KyleAnne and Sharon Mabey
One package from my Mom

Including, lots of books, some clothes, candy, magazines, snacks, toiletries all sorts of wonderful goodies. Thanks to all of you who have been thinking of me and sending packages. I can't even remember everything that was there, it was definitely like Christmas day. I am so touched and excited. I got so many goodies that I'm not going to be able to bring everything back to my site all at once!!! Don't feel bad though, I am definitely NOT complaining.

At the risk of being very, very boring, I'm going to list the titles of books I received to prevent doubling up.
The Choice by Nicholas Sparks
This is Not Chick Lit by Elizabeth Merrick
To Feel Stuff by Andrea Seigel
Feeling Sorry for Celia by Jacklyn Moriarty
Getting Over It by Anna Maxted
Spitting Feathers by Kelly Harte
The Family Tree by Carole Cadwalladr
Daughters of Fortune by Isabelle Allende
Paula by Isabelle Allende
Midwives by Bohjalian
Even Cowgirls Get the Blues by Tom Robbins
Life of Pi by Yann Martel
The Rainmaker by John Grisham
Lucky You by Carl Hiaasen
Tell No One by Harlan Coben
The Girls Guide to Hunting and Melissa Bank
The Sotires of Eva Luna by Isabelle Allende
A Breach of Promise by Anne Perry
Of Love and Shadows by Isabelle Allende

Other highlights included some much needed new pants and socks, some lotions, bug stuff, hand sanitizer and, did I mention I got SNACKS???? hehehehhehehe.

You guys are amazing, thank you so much!
Love,
Kira

Reflecting

2008-01-15T12:09:00.001-08:00

Can you believe it? I’ve been in Peace Corps, in the Dominican Republic, for four months already. WOW. I made it through training, my first holiday season away from my family and friends, living in a new culture and language, two tropical storms, several rough days, mosquitoes, cockroaches, spiders, wading through rivers that should be creeks, blasting music and prayer on the radio and countless other expected and unexpected challenges. However, my Spanish is getting better every day. I’m meeting people and learning connections within my community every day (for example, who is family with who, married to who, and children of who). I’m making progress on my diagnostic. Yesterday was special because one of the women in the community, after I did the interview with her, told me that I had confianza with their family and whatever I needed or questions I had I could go to them. This is a really big deal because confianza (trust) is the foundation of society in Dominican culture, and until you have it, you really will not be able to be effective in anything. I think they grant you the benefit of the doubt at first and give you a little bit to get started, but it was really fulfilling to hear from this family that I was “in.” One family in many – I have a lot to go – but there is success in even small accomplishments.

I am tempted to count the number of new people I have met, but I cannot begin. Between my training class of volunteers, the training staff, PC staff, host families, other volunteers and all the people in my community and the communities of the volunteers whom I have visited, it would be very difficult (and boring for you guys to read). But, suffice it to say that I am meeting more people than ever before in my life.

Even though I am less communicado here than I had hoped – getting to the internet is time consuming and expensive, cell phone reception is spotty, and calling internationally is expensive (but thank you oodles to those of you who have splurged on special occasions to call me for a few minutes, it means the world!), I wanted to say how grateful I am for the support of my friends and family (and even a few nice strangers who have stumbled upon my blog and enjoyed reading about my adventures) back home. Thank you to all of you who have e-mailed, called and sent packages, letters and cards. I know life is moving at light speed for you guys and that you have taken the time out of your days to send your love my way makes everything so much easier. I wonder sometimes about volunteers who might not have the support of their families and friends, and am amazed that they can do it. I know not everyone exactly understands me or my path in life (including myself!), but what a nice gift that I have so much support in spite of that.

In the last, oh, ten years or so, one of the things that I have struggled with in myself is finding a place of acceptance in the quirks and differences in the people who are close to me… in the places in common and the places where understanding cannot be found… in the choices and priorities that we don’t understand about each other… in the different goals and directions we take. I have been searching for a way to think about the people I love and who love me that accepts them the way they are while recognizing that nobody is, or will ever be, exactly what you want them to be (including ourselves). This is probably a life-long process, but my short time in Peace Corps so far has reminded me of someone I think I have always known. My family is my family, we have our problems, but in the end, it’s home. Same for my friends. There will always be drama, tensions, whatever. But living in a community where nobody knows me or my history and where I don’t know theirs; living in a country where “how it’s done” is quite elusive, I really appreciate how comfortable and familiar and comforting it is to have people who know you on many different levels and have been through life with you.

In training I didn’t have that much time to read because we were in “class” from 8-5 every day and I was actually going to sleep at 830 or 9 pm because I was so tired, but since I’ve been at my site I have been reading at a pace a little faster than a book a week. This has its ups and downs. The downside, obviously, is that reading material is hard to come by in the campo (but thanks to those who are sending books, and also there is a library at the PC office I can get books from), but the upside is great. I’m reading fiction, and non-fiction; English and Spanish (although mostly English still); and I’ve been reading books recommended to me that I might never otherwise have stumbled upon. All have been interesting; several have been inspiring and educational about current events and world politics. Here they are:

The Guy Not Taken by Jennifer Weiner

In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez

Monique and the Mango Rains by Kris Holloway

Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld

Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

Naked by David Sedaris

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder

Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortensen and David Oliver Relin

I’d say the best so far, and maybe one of the best books I’ve ever read, is The Kite Runner. It’s fiction but based in fact, riveting, touching, and it tells a story in the Afghanistan/Pakistan conflict in a way that puts you in touch with the reality of life. But it doesn’t read like an essay on current events (which for me makes all the difference). Anyway, I highly recommend it. I’m going to keep this list going throughout my service. I figure it will be interesting to have a record of all my reading when I finish, and never in my life am I going to have the opportunity to read so voraciously.

Man, I gotta keep these entries shorter. You guys must get exhausted by the end. Until next time!

I love you!

photos

2007-12-26T11:37:00.001-08:00

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

Lots of updates

2007-12-26T09:36:00.001-08:00

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

2007-12-26T09:35:00.001-08:00

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

2007-12-26T09:34:00.002-08:00

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

2007-12-26T09:34:00.001-08:00

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

2007-12-26T09:31:00.000-08:00

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

2007-12-12T07:04:00.000-08:00

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

2007-12-08T05:03:00.000-08:00

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

2007-12-04T05:44:00.000-08:00

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

2007-11-24T06:16:00.001-08:00

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

2007-11-19T12:59:00.000-08:00

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

2007-11-12T13:45:00.000-08:00

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

2007-11-08T07:08:00.000-08:00

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

2007-11-08T06:24:00.000-08:00

¡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

2007-11-03T11:15:00.000-07:00

(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!

2007-10-27T07:57:00.000-07:00

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

2007-10-27T07:56:00.002-07:00

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

2007-10-27T07:56:00.001-07:00

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

2007-10-27T07:55:00.001-07:00

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

2007-10-27T07:54:00.001-07:00

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

2007-10-16T14:24:00.001-07:00

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.

2007-10-16T14:23:00.001-07:00

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

2007-10-03T14:38:00.000-07:00

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

2007-10-03T14:28:00.000-07:00

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

2007-09-28T11:28:00.000-07:00

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

2007-09-26T14:40:00.000-07:00

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

2007-09-21T15:49:00.001-07:00

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

Tidbits, in no particular order

2007-09-21T15:10:00.001-07:00

- 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

2007-09-17T15:45:00.001-07:00

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!

peace corps day one

2007-09-17T15:43:00.000-07:00

Prologue (Staging)

Getting to DC on Monday was interesting. Because of thunderstorms and major rain in Dallas early in the morning, everything was messed up. Well, it just so happens that I needed to fly through Dallas to get to DC. Here’s the rundown:
- Upon landing in Dallas, there was a wait for gates because of all the delayed planes showing up at once. We waited on the tarmac for a little more than an hour.
- I got off the plane about ten minutes after my connecting flight should have departed. However, because of the delays, that flight was running late as well so I miraculously made it.
- Upon landing in DC, there was a wait for gates because by this time, the screwed up weather had affected airports across the country. We waited on the tarmac for half an hour for our turn at the gate.
- HOWEVER, when we got to the gate, a lighting storm started and the ground crew wouldn’t come out to deplane us. We waited another half hour.
- In the airport, the shuttle folks told me I might have to wait up to TWO HOURS to get in the shuttle (it was certainly 11 pm by then and I was at the Portland airport at 630 am, so this was not an appealing situation.)

Blah blah blah… I eventually made it to the hotel and got checked in without further problems, other than I had had zero real meals that day and all the food options were shut by then. I was so hungry that when my roommate at the hotel offered me her doggie bag from dinner, I took it! IT WAS A TUNA FISH SANDWICH. Point One for the Kira-Eating-Weird-Things Contest.

Alright, so staging was essentially four 3-hour sessions sitting in a meeting room at the hotel. We talked about safety, security, policies, logistics, our aspirations and fears, medical concerns, the Peace Corps mission and so on. Since I was an early arrival I had Tuesday morning free, and then we all had Tuesday and Wednesday free from dinner onward. Not too much to say about staging other than it was a lot of good information, if a bit overwhelming. And learning 53 names and faces at once is impossible.

The Good Stuff
Here’s a rundown of today (FYI: current time: 820 pm)

145 am: Wake up, shower, pack up, etc.
230 am: Hotel checkout and baggage dealing-with
330 am: Board busses and leave for airport. Check in, go through security, wait at gate.
715 am: Leave DC for Miami. Take off with ALL airplane blinds closed for some reason, and become rather motion sick. Stinky airplane bathroom makes problem worse.
10ish am: Bond with Emily in airport bathroom because she’s in the stall next to me and knows I’m yaking, and is extra nice to me. J
1010 am: Board plane for Santo Domingo
1 pm: Arrive Santo Domingo. Go through Immigrations, Customs. Board teeny bus with lots of people and stuff and drive to where we spend our first night, at a retreat center outside of Santo Domingo (probably, oh, 4 pm by now).
4 pm: Snack, dibs rooms at the retreat center. Get THREE mosquito bites in first 3 hours in country.
4.30-6: Listen to PCDR staff talk and tell us stuff. Pick up mosquito net. Pick up mosquito repellent. Get first RABIES shot. Take first dose of ARALEN (for malaria. If you have any questions about this, ask Dan Beigh).
630-8: Hang mosquito net. Find first COCKROACH UNDER BED while doing so. Eat dinner. Take first cold shower. Immediately slather myself in mosquito repellent again.
8.10: Spend ten minutes trying to get into bed with the laptop, water bottle and other end-of-night entertainment.

Haha… that’s all. I’ve been up since before 2 am today. We are exhausted but happy to be here. Tomorrow they take us to Pantoja, which is the town outside of the capital where we will be having the urban part of our training, and we’ll see the training center and meet our host families, and tomorrow is our first night with our host families.

Whatelsewhatelse. Still doing great. I was a little under the weather today for a while but since I’m feeling all better I think it was probably more motion sick than nerves getting to me. I’m so excited and looking forward to this experience, and I’m excited to be able to share it with all of you. We’ve had so much information thrown at us in the last 72 hours that we feel a little muddled, but we’ll sort it out.

The other people in my training group are great so far. I’m looking forward to bonding with them and really getting to know each other and building the support system that we all know we’ll need while we’re here.

More later!

Oh yeah, can someone look into getting me something (a chemical, probably a spray bottle) called Permethrin? The info they gave us says that clothes treated with it provide maximum protection from the DENGUE and MALARIA infested mosquitoes, which, incidentally, take shifts preying on us and are on duty 24-7.

Another thing I’ve heard of is a supplement called Vitamin B Complex,
which is apparently very helpful in deterring mosquitoes as well. I’d love a bottle!

Thanks, love you!
Kp

…. Off I go to my vivid, technicolor dreams… wish me luck.

The next steps

2007-09-12T16:17:00.000-07:00

Ok... So staging is over. It was, well, in a word. Long.

There are 54 people in my group, about 18 in my same sector (Community Econ Dev).
We check out of the hotel at 230 am Thursday (as in 7 hours from now).
We leave for the airport at 330 am.
Our flight is at 715 am.
Our first two days (only one night) will be at some sort of retreat. Then we meet our host families and begin three weeks of training at the training center outside of Santo Domingo. (host family #1)
Weeks 4-8 we are broken up by sector and sent into rural communities in the interior of the country to do hands on technical and more language training. (host family #2)
Around the end of week 8 we find out our sites.
Swearing in (official date of the beginning of my two years): Nov. 21.

Thats all i can think of now and i really have to pee and go to dinner.
I don't know the next time I have internet, so until then, no news is good news, ok? It could be a week or longer... or less... we don't know.

XOXO!
kp

In DC

2007-09-10T21:33:00.001-07:00

GRR. I made it, i just wrote a big thing but it deleted it. Internet is expensive here. gotta run. xoxox!

Goodbye!!!!

2007-09-09T22:23:00.000-07:00

My flight leaves in 11 hours. I fly Portland to Dallas to DC, and will arrive there tomorrow (Monday) evening around 8 pm local time. I'm meeting Espie, one of the other volunteers in my group, in the airport and we are going to share a cab to the hotel. We'll be on our own until 1 pm Tuesday, when opening ceremonies start. Tuesday 1-dinner and Wednesday 8-dinner are orientation events, and the evenings are free. Wednesday night/Thursday morning at about 2.30 am we check out of the hotel, and then around 3.30 we head to the airport. Not really sure how it takes an hour to check out of a hotel, but this is supposed to be an adventure, so here we go... :)

Our international flight is DC to Miami to Santo Domingo, the capital of the Dominican Republic. Once we get there we go to a short retreat (two nights, I think) before we are introduced to and sent home with our host families. Then training starts and lasts until something like mid-November. Around that time, I'll find out where my actual site and job assignment will be, and I'll also know more about my permanent communication details, like where you'll be able to send packages, how often I'll have access to internet and how you might be able to get me on a phone.

Stay tuned to the blog for arrival updates and general information, as well, of course, as updates on how I'm doing and what I'm up to. Thank you guys so much for all your support, encouragement and good wishes as I head off into this crazy adventure. You have made this such a smooth and empowering transition. I love you!!!!

Please keep in touch, and notice that there are blogs for other volunteers listed to the right of here so you can read more about the whole situation from lots of points of views, if you are so inclined. MUAH!!!

Me

Packing

2007-09-03T18:04:00.000-07:00

I didn't mean to actually pack today, but I thought I'd make sure what I want to bring actually fits. It does, but now it's all packed and it seems silly to undo my hard work. It looks like I'll be living out of the stuff from my carry-on and items that didn't make the final cut.

Notice the lovely double-backpack look. Very good for mobility.

Scary smile!

This is a bit hard to read, but I got on the scale holding ALL my gear, including two bags that will be checked and two carry-ons -- the clothes, supplies and necessities for two years and three months. WELL, me and my stuff, according to mom's scale, weigh 213.5 pounds.

JUST in case you were wondering... :-D

The countdown is on

2007-09-03T10:59:00.000-07:00

I've been keeping a countdown, as I'm sure everyone else in my group is. My flight to DC leaves in 7 sleeps (easier to calculate than "days") and we leave for DR on Thursday, September 13.

What do I have left to do?

Take my car to the place to have it cleaned inside and out for storage, so the dust and dirt don't petrify.
Go to Kinkos and copy the important medical and etc. records I'm taking with me.
Teach my mom how to use my accounts online (she's my power of attorney).
Drive to Seattle (where my car and stuff will be stored) and take the train back to Portland.
Have a goodbye dinner with the family.
See the rest of my local friends before I leave; call out-of-town friends to say goodbye.
Pack my bags, making sure I stay within all the various restrictions and requirements.
Call and set up my car insurance to be for storage purposes only.
Pay the last of the pending bills.

I'm sure there's more, I just haven't had my coffee yet.
Make sure to check out the other blogs listed over on the side of my blog. A bunch of volunteers from my training class have found each other through Facebook and Blogger, which is pretty cool. Hopefully more will turn up before we go. It will be fun to see the people I've been emailing with. I'm really looking forward to this!!! Whoohoo!!!

More later!

What I learned about staging today

2007-08-29T23:01:00.001-07:00

Thanks to Robyn, for the great information...

So here is how staging will work. You pretty much just have two days full of conference type stuff at the same hotel that you will be staying at. They give you like $13 dollars a day to buy your food. We didn't sleep the night before we left. Big mistake. I recommend sleeping if you can. We stood in line for like 3 hours in DC at the airport. Almost missed the flight. Then almost missed the flight in Miami. I was so tired. They pick you up at the airport. Romeo, the Country Director should be there to greet you. They will take your bags with them and drop them off at your host family's house at that time. They take you to this fairly nice retreat center where you can sort of unwind a little. Beware though. They take your PC ID picture the minute you arrive. Didn't know that was what it was for so my picture is horrible, but whatever. The days at the retreat center are nice because they talk to you a little more about your homestay, training, etc. I believe you start getting some shots there too. But it is nice to be able to stay there a night or two an not go right away to the new families house. Then they ship you off to the training center in Pantoja and your host family will come and get you there. Crazy times, but good all the same. You should have somewhat regular access to internet.

How do I pack for this?

2007-08-27T20:27:00.000-07:00

It's a simple question, right?

Travel plans

2007-08-23T18:44:00.000-07:00

18 days and counting!

Because of time zone differences, travel time and event schedules, I'll be flying to DC a day early, on September 10.

Portland to Dallas/Ft Worth @ 9.20 am
Dallas/Ft Worth to Washington/National @ 4.25 pm
Arrive Washington DC @ 8.15 pm

There was a little sentence in a little letter to the effect of I better pack my carry-on so that I can live out of it for a while, as we will be separated from our baggage for a couple of days when we arrive in the Dominican Republic. Uh... good to know.

An Excerpt

2007-08-13T18:53:00.000-07:00

I've been in touch with another volunteer who will be in my training class, trading thoughts on how we are feeling. Here's some of what I said to him:

This Peace Corps business is definitely a complicated personal life decision. I have always, always wanted to do this but until last year it was more in the hypothetical way that everyone who thinks the PC is cool wants to do it. It's really important to me that I have some real life-living under my belt before I settle down. I'm kind of getting ready to think about maybe settling down some day (obviously it's still a ways off), and there are some big things I want to do before that comes, so I decided to get a move on.

I know this will be really challenging but I have done a lot of research into the hardships and challenges that volunteers face during their service, and I feel like the lessons learned from those hardships (patience, flexibility, Spanish) are things I'd like to improve about myself. I studied abroad when I was in high school, and although there wasn't much in the way of culture shock, poverty or language barrier to deal with, there was the sheer physical distance and unfamiliarity of people and place. I experienced homesickness and that feeling of nobody knowing my history, and I came out okay in the end, although the experience has me anxious about living with a host family again.

The internal dialog I have with myself has to do with my fears about what will happen and where I will go in my life when I return. I am not certain what I want to do for my career, but I'd like to go to grad school. After Peace Corps would be a perfect time to do that, but then when I think of the timeline, I'll be 27 when I get home and then would probably take a year to get residency and apply to grad school (28); then two years for school (30) and THEN I'm finished with school and ready for "life." I'll be 30 more or less before I anticipate being ready to think about doing the things "grownups" do (marriage, family, house, career), and I'll be way behind.

And then I think... But wait, isn't all this life, anyway? College, working, Peace Corps, grad school... these things are living, right?

AND I also think... What am I in such a hurry for? 30 is not old. The rat race never made anyone happy. I don't have to live my life one thing at a time in perfect chronological order.

... Life is a series of forks in the road. I worry that I will wake up someday and realize I am not where I wanted to be and have no idea how I ended up where I am. I always worry, at every turning point in my life, "Am I turning the wrong way?" These are fears, but there is a saying about courage not being the absence of fear but the ability to pursue that which scares you. I remind myself of this often.

What's really getting me right now is, of course, the normal anxiety of leaving: finishing my job, moving out of my apartment, dealing with my belongings, packing, saying goodbye... It's stressing me out.

Long story short, I'm scared, but I'm sure. And I'm excited. And I hope it's great.

ACK!

2007-08-13T14:10:00.000-07:00

GRRRR. They said they sent the staging kits out on Tuesday last week and it's still not here! AND the silly postal worker at my apartment put my mail forwarding into action about two whole weeks early, so now I don't even know where the package will be sent — my apartment or my mom's house. I really, really hope the Peace Corps folks request mail forwarding because it would really suck if my envelope and I just keep passing each other on the damn I-5 corridor over the next weeks.

Keeping In Touch

2007-08-08T16:37:00.000-07:00

Lots of people have been asking about keeping in touch while I'm gone. It sounds like for the first three months I'll have reasonably ready access to e-mail. After that, when I'm at my site, e-mail might be trickier, but I'll be issued a cell phone and have FREE incoming calls and text messages (although service availability is TBD). So I've been researching calling programs, plans and rates and other similar topics. I'll post the fruits of my labor — the ones that seem like good leads — here, although know that I haven't tried them out or anything. Be discriminating!

Koala Calling ($0.082 per minute)
They charge your credit card monthly or whenever you spend $200, whichever comes first. NOTE: Most calling services charge different (higher) rates to call a mobile phone, and my number will be a mobile, so be careful of this. This company doesn't indicate whether this is the land line rate only or if it's the same either way; check first.

NobelCom "Hello Dominican Republic Cellular" phone card
This is a rechargeable phone card that you can buy in increments as small as $20. The per-minute rate is $0.089 per minute, but they charge in 4-minute increments. The company offers cards with shorter billing increments, but the per-minute rate is higher. The good thing is their rates are broken out so this is the rate you'd actually pay to call my cell phone. They do, however, charge a $0.99/week maintenance fee, and I can't tell whether there's a connection fee per call.

Too much of a good thing

2007-08-05T16:56:00.000-07:00

If you had to pack in preparation for being away for 2.25 years, what would you bring? How much do you think it would weigh? How much physical space do you think it would use?

***

The Peace Corps says: 2 checked bags, totaling no more than 80 pounds and 107 linear inches (L+W+H), with the heavier bag being no more than 50 pounds. Also, you can have one carry-on bag. Super. My preliminary list of stuff to pack takes up the whole white board!

So, back in June I found this seemingly GREAT find at REI. It was a HUGE bag for a really good deal. (like, 70 bucks!). I could have easily fit inside this bag, probably even with stuff for a weekend getaway. I figured I was in business because between this wheeled monster of a duffel bag and the more traditional internal-frame pack I have, it seemed remotely manageable to fit most of what I wanted.

Problem A: VERY hard to keep this bag under 50 pounds, which I learned when Leah and I traveled to San Fran for KASJB's wedding when I had to take a bunch of stuff out at the baggage check place and carry it onto the plane.

Problem B: This bag, combined with my very reasonably sized pack was WAAAYYYY over the linear limits! Like, by half again as many inches (review: limit = 107 inches; these two bags = 145-150 or something). Tengo un problemo.

Image A: The (Actually Not So) Fantastic Bag
6,400 cubic inches
33 x 16 x 11 inches

So, I realize that I'm going to have to reassess my luggage situation, and REI is having a sale where this bag (Image B) was up for grabs. It's a happy little bag (not THAT little, actually) but only half the size of the other one (good for staying in the limit; bad for space)

Well, props to REI because they let me return the huge bag - even though I didn't have the receipt and it was used. Guess that's why you want to be an REI member. I hadn't planned on returning it until, when I mentioned to a sales person there the dilemma I had encountered with it, I was encouraged to bring it back. HOORAY! I felt like a moron, but I traded it for some other stuff that was on my list so that was great.

Anyway, here's the new bag.
Image B: The (Half-the-size-but-only-1-inch-more-than-the-limit) Fantastic Bag

3,550 cubic inches
25 x 13 x 12 inches

The plus side?

I actually stand a chance of being able to carry (albeit probably not gracefully) my own gear, which is also the requirement for what you are allowed to bring.

***
In other leaving-related news:
• No word on my staging (pre-departure orientation). However, since I leave in 5 weeks, I imagine it will be here in a week or so.
• The Power of Attorney project is going well, half of the accounts are confirmed, and the rest are still going smoothly from what I can tell.
• My freaking out level is a fairly orange-ish yellow, so I'm doing pretty good so far. I expect to be on Orange Alert later this month, but am determined to keep myself below Red at all times. :-D

Stay tuned!

Getting ready to get ready

2007-07-18T11:33:00.001-07:00

In case you don't know (because someone not too long ago told me I should try and visit New Zealand while I'm in the DR...), the Dominican Republic is an island in the Caribbean. It is the eastern two thirds of the island of Hispañola, and Haiti is on the west third of the island. Here's a map from the CIA World Factbook that shows some reference points.

The first half (or so) of my training I'll be in Santo Domingo, the capital, and then in a community for training more along the lines of what my service experience will be.

Things are starting to pick up as far as making arrangements to vacate my life.

What do I do with my cat?
Is it better to ditch my stuff and start from scratch when I get home, or keep the stuff and deal with having to store it and haul it now?
How can I make my car set up to be stored in Washington?
Will the bank and credit card people give me a hard time about getting my power of attorney stuff on file?
What do I need to bring? What am I going to regret bringing, and regret NOT bringing?
How am I going to get everything done????

I've been making headway on getting rid of stuff from my apartment that I'm not debating about whether to keep or sell, and my place is getting seriously empty looking. It seems early to be fussing with all this now, and I'm going to have to live in the broken down apartment for almost two months still, so it's pretty crazy.

I just keep telling myself this is going to be worth it. I know it will be. Just in the meantime, I'm feeling overwhelmed. Not overwhelmed about going as much as about leaving. It's hard to pack up and take off.

A Pending Departure

2007-07-03T09:01:00.001-07:00

In a couple of days, I'll be telling the people at work I'm leaving to join the Peace Corps. I'm going to keep working through the end of August, though, so I hope things aren't too awkward! I think they'll be excited for me, for the most part.

I leave for my pre-departure orientation on September 11. I'm not particularly superstitious, but really, what a day to leave!!! The Peace Corps likes to be mysterious so they don't tell you where your state-side orientation will be until just a couple of weeks out, but based on my top-notch sleuthing skills, I think it will be in Miami. Then on September 13, we (whoever we is — don't know that either!) leave for the Dominican Republic where I'll be working on Community Economic Development projects. Click on the image to learn all about it. This is the Welcome Book they send you when they (eventually!) tell you where you'll be serving.

The whole application process is quite an ordeal. I think they make it that way to weed out the weak and faint of heart. It's been exactly a year since I started the application process, and I'm still not leaving for two months. To be fair, they do say it takes about a year to leave. Applying for the Peace Corps is like applying for college, except you spend a lot more time at the doctor, dentist, optometrist and so on getting checked out. It is several brief but very intense periods of activity, appointments, phone calls, paperwork and anxiety followed by long periods of (im)patient waiting for news — any news. Inevitably you hit a snag or two along the way that make you think the whole house of cards is going to fall and then you start coming up with contingency plans of what to do if this falls through. I think it's for the best though, because just as much as I think the process is designed so the Peace Corps is confident in volunteers' commitment, it has forced me to make sure I am as well.

My life is very much in the calm before the storm. I've started sorting my apartment into various piles. Store. Sell. Donate. Trash. It's a disaster. I look like I'm moving in or moving out, but I'm doing neither for EIGHT more weeks. I'm going a little crazy. I'm also tackling the un-fun process of creating a Durable Power of Attorney so my mom can handle my business when I'm gone and then communicating that information to all my credit cards, student loan institutions, banks and insurance companies. Also, figuring out student loan deferrment is a treat too. I don't want to cancel my credit-generating accounts, because that hurts your credit score, but it sure is a pain to set things up to be okay while I'm gone. Oh yeah, and most of my stuff that I'm keeping, including my car, are going to be stored in a city other than my "official" home. I say "official" because it's my mom's house, but I've never actually lived there. She's handling my accounts but doesn't have room for my stuff, so that's going to be in Seattle, 3 hours away. Another logisitical challenge.

More later!