Monday, December 27, 2010

Making Resolutions

I am opinionated about New Year’s resolutions. I think resolving to be nice is a bad one and finishing a mini triathlon is a good one. It does not take a fool to know that “doing more” of something could easily be ambiguous and “working toward” something could spark procrastination. Taking a Ukrainian egg painting class, however, is nice and measurable. Did you go to class or did you skip it?

Five of the best types of New Year’s Resolutions:


1. Resolve to do something concrete. Run that half marathon, read that bible in entirety, send two hundred cards. You can do it and know that you are doing it. Plus, you can get it done before the year is over and then chill out.

2. Get into something. It is usually discovered when your friends are having a great enthusiastic conversation to which you can contribute nothing. Whether it be jazz music, stand-up comedy, Middle East politics, or that stinking sport to which you have never really paid attention, there is probably something that you have wanted to learn about if not become a total fanatic. This one should be modified by rules like number of operas you will attend or bowling clubs you will join.

3. Do something monthly. Read Glamour magazine, donate to UNICEF, go on one hike or date. Whatever it is, I am pretty sure a month is a manageable amount of time to do an easy task.

4. Learn how to do something. This one could be gray because if you get through a French workbook, you may still struggle when someone actually speaks to you in French. It still works if given specific goal requirements. By December 2011, I want to be able to dance a whole salsa song and not fall down or play that Nirvana song well enough for someone to recognize it. I want to graduate from juggling class.

5. Lastly, and most boring, I think deprivation ones are pretty good but should be modified with exceptions or substitutes. You could cut out reality TV except on Saturdays or at friends’ houses. Stop buying new boots (if that’s your thing) or switch from ice cream sundaes to frozen yogurt sundaes.

There is a secret sixth and that is the kind of resolution that you don’t make public. Maybe it is embarrassing because it reveals a body issue, social goal or secret interest. Maybe it sounds like you are bragging just for having it or it would ruin it if people knew (because they will be receiving homemade chocolate in the mail). I am not completely decided but I think I'm going type six this year.

Happy 2011!!

A Dominican Christmas

Five Holiday Moments:

1. Last year felt like a party invaded with tricked out cars, loud music and candy bars. This year, I asked where everyone was. My friend stage whispered, “Cholera!”

2. The chill. It is about sixty degrees in the evening, making it truly frigid to our Caribbean accustomed bodies. We also live in homes without insulation or windows. My cement walls are superior to wood which allow no protection from the breeze and seem to hold a lower temperature without the influence of the sun. As a result of this freeze, we have been drinking hot coffee, milk and chocolate like it’s obligatory and wearing clothes I have forgotten about. Eighties ski suits with those highlighter colored geometric shapes are all the rage. Socks and flip-flops, leggings and capris and snow jackets are often topped with Santa hats.

3. The eats! I ate with my friend Tago who made macaroni tuna, carrot potato egg salads, spaghetti and chicken eaten with very special capital raisins, apples, almonds in the shell and wine.

4. My alcohol acceptable day (or two)! Through Christmas eve and day I had beer, wine, rum and cranberry, something like champagne and Ponche, which is a very bitter yellow egg nog.

5. My friends and I sang all of the Christmas carols in the book by a bonfire when we climbed Pico Duarte. I felt more holiday spirit than I had in the two years I’ve been here.

Thursday, December 23, 2010

In the Spirit

My Christmas Gift
This is it! I am taking a morning trip to the closest larger town and indulging in all sorts of stuff. I am sitting in an internet center paying 90 cents an hour for as long as I want; CNN, health.com, and even People magazine websites are going to be graced by my presence! I am going to buy all sorts of special holiday things like mandarin oranges, raisins, fancy dairy products and a yet undecided very exceptional Christmas morning meal. Dominican Christmas is a lot like all of the other holidays. Late large dinners with special meat like goat and pork, goopy pasta, drinking, dancing and music so loud, there is little need to make conversation. There are lots of family visits and very little gift giving. I have been invited (maybe because I asked to be invited as I was giving her peanut candy) to eat with one of my favorite families.

The small Americana problem is that everything is celebrated on the 24th. This makes the actual day that we like to cozy up and walk town memory lane one big anticlimactic hangover. Last year, orange juice, a grilled cheese sandwich and coffee with milk and cinnamon was the perfect breakfast before church. This year, I just don’t know. I do know I will be on the phone quite a bit, visiting mass multiple times and trying to get into a spirit of sorts!

What’s New in the Water?
We have had cases of cholera in my community but it does not seem to be exploding the way an outbreak implies. It feels more like a new town gossip topic than a very real and scary epidemic.

I just went with a group of kids to the aqueduct and learned so much! They have remodeled the tank and filtering system and I had no idea how our river water was showing up so clean looking. The tour guide told us we were the first to see it, a curious fact since it is around six months old. I have realized and accepted that the only way to ensure high educational event attendance is to give them something. Call it unethical or bribery but I will be busy putting on a contest with rewards and handing out snacks over sitting in an empty classroom with my scientific talk prepared. I accept that our aqueduct trip was full of kids because they were hiking for prizes from an art competition that we held the week before and not because their thirst for knowledge. We are all human, after all.

A Time to Travel
Peace Corps is different for every volunteer but it is a stretch to call it a job. No matter where we are and what we do, we get our US$300 per month. Most of us prefer to be busy and make it happen ourselves. We run clubs, teach classes and solicit grants to implement projects making it a lot more like a game to fill our schedule than a nine to five. In the same sentiment, we don't vacation like your average worker but rather more frequently and more stingily. At least once a month, I go to the capital city on a 4:30 AM bus filled with people and blasting merengue. I pack two hardboiled eggs and splurge on coffee at the only stop to the six hour ride. On my way to the Peace Corps office, I stop at the embassy to take a hot shower in the locker room and use their flushing toilets. Hot showers are the ultimate luxury and of course, do wonders for cleanliness. My trips usually involve hostels, cold showers, lots of bananas, bottles of drinkable yogurt and expensive apples for that Northwest reminiscence. I wear my special clothes, enjoy unlimited internet, freeze in air conditioning, and sweat in public transportation.

In the past month, I went to an all day Thanksgiving party, had a fabulous outdoor time on Pico Duarte (the highest mountain in the Caribbean) and wore a dress at the country director’s soirĂ©e. I am also planning to go to the beach for New Year’s Eve. The best is that I am going to Atlanta in January officially to look at Emory but really to be with my mom. It will be my first time off this island and into the states in 22 months! Bangarang!

Thursday, December 16, 2010

An American Perspective




Living in the Dominican Republic for the past 21 months has been a learning experience. While the view I have gotten of the states has not become more positive or negative, it has certainly changed. Seeing America through my Dominican friends and websites like CNN has given it a clarity that it previously lacked. Another factor is that I also think a lot more. Riding on the bus, dreaming about muffins and hot showers, I have to also ponder wealth discrepancies and resource use. Eating carrot cake and lounging in a living room watching TV with constant electricity sounds fantastic but what it comes with can be scary.

The Number One Nation

I am so proud to be from the US.
Apple pie and Big Macs are the best.
I ride high and cool in an SUV
Because I like the space it gives me.
People say they take a lot of gas,
But I say, suck my humongous ass.
Environmentalists are so depressing
With all their stupid resource stressing.

I like to be blind to anything bad.
The stories in the news could make me sad.
I will worry about what I please
Such as diabetes, my damn disease.
It means I need a lot of snacks
Like those sweet hundred calorie packs.
With loads of packaging, so pretty and fun
They're really small, like a taste and then done.

I love the support technology lends;
Status updates, videos and Facebook friends.
We can chat all day on my iPhone,
So in my big body I don't feel alone.
I keep internet and chips at my seat
Assured I don’t have to get to my feet.
On my couch with my food and clicker,
I can block out my kids getting sicker.

With high cholesterol and ADHD,
The kids are really starting to annoy me.
They say it's the crap in what we eat,
The preservatives, sugar and all that meat,
That makes us fat and makes us ill.
I say, shut up and give me a pill.
Over half of us are overweight,
So it’s not my fault; it’s just fate.

Obesity, chronic illness, weight loss cash,
Eating disorders, fuel consumption, and all that trash,
Health care costs and environmental degradation,
I live in the number one nation!
We are first in everything we do,
As we soar our red, white and blue.
I am truly proud to be from the US.
Everything American is the biggest and best.