Friday, May 14, 2010
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
One Down, One to Go!
I am one year in. This means that I am exactly halfway through my service. The word service makes it sound like I think I am a selfless, philanthropic worker, giving everything I have and do to the poor. In reality, May 13 marks my anniversary of moving to my site which is not unlike when you are one year into college, a new job or a new city in the states. I have spent all the holidays and four seasons, really just the two (hot and hotter with rain), with my peeps in Pedro Santana. Now, I will try to sum up some insight into a year of Peace Corps in the Dominican Republic. If it sounds like I am bragging, it’s because blogs always seem to sound like bragging or complaining. I hope to illustrate that I really am getting way more out of this than I could dream of contributing. Also, it’s just not that hard!
In the past year, I have learned quite a bit of Spanish. I still have some funny miscommunications but I can usually understand what is being said and can get my point across. I have also learned a little Creole. It’s not pretty when I am trying to communicate but I hear it enough around me and have done enough of my workbook to be partially useful translating for American doctors.
Before my computer broke, I watched the entire Season 5 of The Office six times.
I have read 46 books, 17 of which are non-fiction. Honestly, I was never much of a pleasure reader at home, with required reading and the lures of TV and talking. Here, however, my books are kind of my English speaking friends. I always have a second book in progress before I finish the first or if one is boring or depressing. Am I sounding boring and depressing?
My town has implemented a plastic bottle collection for a successful solar disinfection project in Haiti. Google SODIS.
I have eaten so much good food and so much crap. I am positive that I have surpassed 500 eggs. I have probably eaten a field full of a pumpkin-like squash, auyama, an avocado a day through its two month season, and some good poundage of root vegetables. Recently, I got into a powdered milk phase and was eating 125g every two days, it’s a lot. In the capital, I have probably consumed more fatty food and junk food than I had in my whole life before Peace Corps. While I like to get my fruits and veggies in the city with everything, Santo Domingo, I also buy drinkable yogurt and eat ice cream like it’s my job. I almost can’t bear to order salad that doesn’t come with cheese, buy at least one diet coke a day and drink beer.
I have taught many classes and almost surely changed my mind about wanting to go into education. This includes my weekly hour and a half trek to the small rural school to make leaf prints and color on recycled paper. I taught environmental education in the high school for what seemed like an eternity but was actually a surprisingly little amount of time. I offered an art class that evolved from lessons on color, symmetry and facial proportions (when we spent two classes drawing J-Lo) to a more creative atmosphere (paper, paint, go). I have spent an exorbitant amount of time planning and teaching English mostly to kids whose favorite phrase is still “Oh my Gaw!”
I can say with certainty that I have lied more than ever before. It is usually about food or visiting but that doesn’t make it right.
More than seven whole days have been spent, or rather wasted, just going between my site and Santo Domingo. Many of these hours I have slept away as my favorite ride starts at 4:30 AM.
My life has been inhabited and infested by lots of friends (no window panes or screens). There have been many parades of ants in my kitchen, where there is currently a dreadful cockroach infestation. My (actually my roommate’s) mini-fridge that has been the only way to keep food from the critters was taken away yesterday. Good bye to cold water! I have had one tarantula, one crab pictured in an earlier entry, one large snail, tons of salamanders, and many leech look-alikes. My patio is hang-out grounds for many cats and chickens. One chicken got on my bed and another tried to die outside my door. A bee stung me inside my mouth and I was bitten by a guard dog in my armpit enhancing my existent childhood fear. I was just scared this past weekend by a goat in my bedroom. Reading and drinking my millionth bottle of water, I saw the nose of the goat in my doorway. Before I said anything, he screamed like small child and galloped out of my house. I went back to my book because I didn’t want to explain to my neighbors what happened.
I have volunteered in two medical missions, one the Haitian relief hospital and the other a moving clinic in the mountains. I really enjoyed both and have felt more useful than I ever have in my life.
After this year, I have decided to transfer sectors from Community Environmental Development to Waiting. I have waited too many months for too many grants. After proposing the project in November, I just received and spent my book drive money. Apparently the rest of the literacy promotion project will be postponed until August because the library is in the school which cannot be opened during summer hours. I am also currently waiting for funding for a latrine construction project while people continue to go potty everywhere, then it rains and we get our water directly from the river. This brings us to a potable water project of biosand filters (google.com) which, after a training and an approved application, I am so ready for! Killing time extends into my everyday life as I count the hours until the power comes on, sit for the half hour before the second person arrives for a meeting, and my favorite, anticipating transportation at intersections and military checkpoints. With some reading material and maybe a notebook, one can embrace the tranquility of hanging around.
Some things, I probably only do because I want to be hard core. The walk to the little rural school is one. I run with a stick to look cool, but also for my fear of dogs. I am probably not going back to the states in these two years. Self-inflicted deprivation is also a huge one. I don’t buy expensive or junk food in my site. I kind of like that my computer broke and that I am without fridge. Making things hard on oneself just for fun is impractical, even ridiculous, but somehow satiates my guilty conscience for just being American. I also cry about this guilt which is not very hard core, I admit.
That was my year! It has been 365 days of waiting, working and eating. It has not been my most productive year but I have made amazing friends, seen gorgeous places and only thrown up the one time! My family came for a wonderful visit, I have gotten zero cavities, and have a net weight loss of eight pounds. I now wear sparkly clothes, yell at people who try to rip me off and carry an umbrella when I walk in the sun. I know more about the realities of development (of which I am still incredibly confused) and less about celebrity gossip. One year down and one to go!
In the past year, I have learned quite a bit of Spanish. I still have some funny miscommunications but I can usually understand what is being said and can get my point across. I have also learned a little Creole. It’s not pretty when I am trying to communicate but I hear it enough around me and have done enough of my workbook to be partially useful translating for American doctors.
Before my computer broke, I watched the entire Season 5 of The Office six times.
I have read 46 books, 17 of which are non-fiction. Honestly, I was never much of a pleasure reader at home, with required reading and the lures of TV and talking. Here, however, my books are kind of my English speaking friends. I always have a second book in progress before I finish the first or if one is boring or depressing. Am I sounding boring and depressing?
My town has implemented a plastic bottle collection for a successful solar disinfection project in Haiti. Google SODIS.
I have eaten so much good food and so much crap. I am positive that I have surpassed 500 eggs. I have probably eaten a field full of a pumpkin-like squash, auyama, an avocado a day through its two month season, and some good poundage of root vegetables. Recently, I got into a powdered milk phase and was eating 125g every two days, it’s a lot. In the capital, I have probably consumed more fatty food and junk food than I had in my whole life before Peace Corps. While I like to get my fruits and veggies in the city with everything, Santo Domingo, I also buy drinkable yogurt and eat ice cream like it’s my job. I almost can’t bear to order salad that doesn’t come with cheese, buy at least one diet coke a day and drink beer.
I have taught many classes and almost surely changed my mind about wanting to go into education. This includes my weekly hour and a half trek to the small rural school to make leaf prints and color on recycled paper. I taught environmental education in the high school for what seemed like an eternity but was actually a surprisingly little amount of time. I offered an art class that evolved from lessons on color, symmetry and facial proportions (when we spent two classes drawing J-Lo) to a more creative atmosphere (paper, paint, go). I have spent an exorbitant amount of time planning and teaching English mostly to kids whose favorite phrase is still “Oh my Gaw!”
I can say with certainty that I have lied more than ever before. It is usually about food or visiting but that doesn’t make it right.
More than seven whole days have been spent, or rather wasted, just going between my site and Santo Domingo. Many of these hours I have slept away as my favorite ride starts at 4:30 AM.
My life has been inhabited and infested by lots of friends (no window panes or screens). There have been many parades of ants in my kitchen, where there is currently a dreadful cockroach infestation. My (actually my roommate’s) mini-fridge that has been the only way to keep food from the critters was taken away yesterday. Good bye to cold water! I have had one tarantula, one crab pictured in an earlier entry, one large snail, tons of salamanders, and many leech look-alikes. My patio is hang-out grounds for many cats and chickens. One chicken got on my bed and another tried to die outside my door. A bee stung me inside my mouth and I was bitten by a guard dog in my armpit enhancing my existent childhood fear. I was just scared this past weekend by a goat in my bedroom. Reading and drinking my millionth bottle of water, I saw the nose of the goat in my doorway. Before I said anything, he screamed like small child and galloped out of my house. I went back to my book because I didn’t want to explain to my neighbors what happened.
I have volunteered in two medical missions, one the Haitian relief hospital and the other a moving clinic in the mountains. I really enjoyed both and have felt more useful than I ever have in my life.
After this year, I have decided to transfer sectors from Community Environmental Development to Waiting. I have waited too many months for too many grants. After proposing the project in November, I just received and spent my book drive money. Apparently the rest of the literacy promotion project will be postponed until August because the library is in the school which cannot be opened during summer hours. I am also currently waiting for funding for a latrine construction project while people continue to go potty everywhere, then it rains and we get our water directly from the river. This brings us to a potable water project of biosand filters (google.com) which, after a training and an approved application, I am so ready for! Killing time extends into my everyday life as I count the hours until the power comes on, sit for the half hour before the second person arrives for a meeting, and my favorite, anticipating transportation at intersections and military checkpoints. With some reading material and maybe a notebook, one can embrace the tranquility of hanging around.
Some things, I probably only do because I want to be hard core. The walk to the little rural school is one. I run with a stick to look cool, but also for my fear of dogs. I am probably not going back to the states in these two years. Self-inflicted deprivation is also a huge one. I don’t buy expensive or junk food in my site. I kind of like that my computer broke and that I am without fridge. Making things hard on oneself just for fun is impractical, even ridiculous, but somehow satiates my guilty conscience for just being American. I also cry about this guilt which is not very hard core, I admit.
That was my year! It has been 365 days of waiting, working and eating. It has not been my most productive year but I have made amazing friends, seen gorgeous places and only thrown up the one time! My family came for a wonderful visit, I have gotten zero cavities, and have a net weight loss of eight pounds. I now wear sparkly clothes, yell at people who try to rip me off and carry an umbrella when I walk in the sun. I know more about the realities of development (of which I am still incredibly confused) and less about celebrity gossip. One year down and one to go!
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