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.

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 soirée. 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!

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.

We are so over this, Yazmin.

Being Nice

In the past two weeks, I have been given two whole squashes. They taste like pumpkin, are currently in season, and are my favorite boiled with salt. When I was stuck in the hotel during the hurricane, I came back with five bricks of dulce de leche y coco, a treat made by boiling sugar, milk and coconut for a really long time. I got them for my closest families in town and was received with all sorts of kindness. These are the families that I visit the most even when I really don’t feel like it. If I hadn’t fully realized it before, I think I have learned more about the value of just being nice.

Life is so cruel, it is almost inexplicable that we even do it. Cholera is currently rampaging across Haiti taking lives painfully and tragically. Every day, CNN gives a hodgepodge of the latest horrors. It is not enough to destroy the environment and face natural disasters and wretched health problems, we kill each other in the name of all types of things that don’t make us happy. On a more mild level, we face our less catastrophic daily issues with whatever amount of grace and then bitch about that person who is just so annoying and fight with our most chummy people. Middle school is a minefield of everything despicable and caddy about human nature. Maybe warfare, complaining and cruelty are as inevitable as they seem to be. But, why not add to our horrid ways a little bit of showy love? There are buckets of psych studies showing that faking happiness actually makes you feel better. I am almost certain that even if you don’t feel nice, simulating kindness makes you sweeter.

In my six remaining months, I am resolving to focus on this (among other things). I have already had kids send thoughtful cards to Haiti and am hosting extra movie and art nights that I deeply dread only because I can. The nice ball will continue to roll and I think everyone else should do this, too. Send emails to authors of books you enjoy, packages to your friends, cookies to your neighbors! As the holiday season is upon us, we can do all sorts of cute things and smile while we do them. Peace Corps hosts a huge American Thanksgiving dinner for which I am excited to the point of anxiety. A group of volunteers have been organizing it for months because we are all on this island and holiday food, devoid in our lives, tastes so fantastically like home. We are implementing an all-volunteer Secret Santa which should lead to loads of small surprises.

I am sure everyone in the states is baking, reuniting and telling everyone how great he or she is looking. There will be traditions, treks down memory lane, and excursions (to Santa and such). As the twinkly lights come out and the new hot drink flavors, people trample each other to death for the best Walmart deal. Let’s just employ some considerate niceties and try to minimize the nasty. Everyone is doing it.

Spreading the Cholera Word and Rio Dirty

In the Time of Cholera

I am sitting in a hotel with twenty seven other Peace Corps volunteers waiting for hurricane Tomás. Even with the internet, TV shows, hot water and flush toilets uncharacteristic of our daily living conditions, we complain about feeling stir crazy without permission to even leave the building. My mom had to cancel her visit, a week planned to start tomorrow for which I have been deliriously excited and well-packed. I have forced myself to overcome my pity party for not getting the quality time with her with the gravity of the situation on this island.

About two weeks ago, a cholera epidemic was declared in Haiti. The disease has now infected thousands and killed hundreds. Although it has not yet been declared in the Dominican Republic, it is almost a matter of time because the countries share the contaminated water sources. Public health efforts in the Dominican Republic have been both strong and sad. Cholera is a waterborne bacteria that can be avoided using appropriate hygiene and water treatment practices. Posters, fliers and radio announcements have flooded the country reminding people to wash their hands and boil or bleach all water and produce. In my community, I went house to house with a group of kids handing out fliers and giving little presentations about the disease and prevention.

The sad part of the efforts is the migration control. The border, delineated by a river and an international highway (actually a barely functioning dirt road), is now officially closed. Haitians who live in the DR, including migrant workers, home owners and kids, are dropped off at the river with their possessions and told to cross. Violence and discrimination has been prevalent and only intensified by the ignorant belief that cholera is a Haitian illness. The market in my border town no longer sells anything and people who have lived here for years are being sent somewhere that is no longer their home.

You would hope this is bad enough. An immense natural disaster, cholera, deportation and a total halt on international trading is bad enough. Over a million remain displaced from the earthquake in January. Right now, this extremely vulnerable population is waiting for a hurricane. Unlike myself, they are waiting in tents in refugee camps or in badly constructed wood or earth homes for this tremendous storm. No one knows what will happen but this is not likely to be small. Beyond the inevitable structural damage, flooding can only exasperate the cholera epidemic. So, we all sit in varying levels of comfort passing the time as it starts to rain. I will soon get back to watching Top Chef with my friends, thinking about my mom not coming, and maybe blow an eyelash for the people in Haiti. Knowing nothing about meteorology, I am also wishing for some sort of large unexpected gust of wind to change the trajectory of that terrible Tomás.

As a Prison Tourist

Choosing to join the Peace Corps or any other stint of "voluntary poverty" is a little like going to prison for a stay in a cell where they put the lifers. You, however, can leave whenever you want and bring any food or accessory you want in with you. It is like asking people to understand that you, with your ipod and reeses' peanut butter cups, are nothing to bat an eyelash at. You are just doing it for the experience, maybe to do some education for the deprived inmates and get some professional experience. It is asking the inmates to not be jealous of your true freedom and to please not ask you for things. It is also asking them to trust you and to view your choice of a prison vacation as normal. I realize the similarities of those in poverty and those incarcerated is farfetched and even off-color but the feelings of the scenario are pretty comparable.

Here we volunteers are with our American look, backpacks and Chaco sandals, exercising for fun and drinking as much milk in our coffee that we want. We teach classes, promote environmental responsibility and proper health practices. We work with businesses or community groups and manage projects like improved cook stoves or latrines. Then, we hop on a bus for a weekend of pizza, desserts, beer and maybe even a white sandy beach because, you’ll understand, we’re not here to suffer. We come home and clench our teeth through cheek kisses when people lay on some guilt and ask what we brought them. It is like the penitentiary occupant coming back to their cot tanned and tired with oreos and a hangover. Why isn't she sharing the oreos? Why didn't she bring enough to share? It's an exaggerated metaphor, but it's not entirely off.

Last Sunday, I woke up with a start because it was light. My normal regimen involves a 5:45 cell phone alarm wake up but I later realized that my dependable phone clock was 12 hours off. The disconcerting beginning epitomized the rest of the day. I got ready for a nine o’clock date with my project partner to hike around town preaching hygiene and water treatment. This is the result of two failed attempts of giving a presentation to the beneficiary families of our latrine project. The first workshop, we cordially invited everyone, stressed its importance and it rained so hard, I almost didn’t blame everyone but two little old women for not coming. We moved the date and ignorantly expected word of mouth to be sufficient. It drizzled and after one hour and a new plan, the same two ladies were just arriving.

On Sunday at nine, I was prepared with copies of a sheet I worked on for way too much time. We were to visit the houses, give the basic information and take pictures, an embarrassing aspect of grant-funded projects. At ten to nine, I called my compañero to wake him up and he immediately changed the time to ten, fine. I bought soap made from the Dominican tree Cuava, naturally antibacterial and cheap, and was on my way.

We started with the greeting, kissing, and the obligatory, “Yeah, it’s hot. This sun is so strong.” I then went into my practiced babble about the hygiene, how many illnesses can be prevented by hand washing, when it’s extra important to wash hands and teeth brushing is good too. I went over the ways to treat water if you can’t afford to buy it and once again, wash your hands and your kids hands! Increased hand washing is one of the most effective changes in preventing sicknesses in the developing world so why not hand out informational sheets like candy? It is only fair to note that they already know. It is not a presence of ignorance but a lack of facility. There is no sink with running water or soap dispenser. There is a friend pouring a bit of precious but very contaminated water on your hands as you splash them together, reach for a bar of soap if you have it and repeat. I went over a method of hanging a bottomless two liter bottle and unscrewing the cap for a gravity faucet. No one had a bottle to demonstrate nor will be likely to try it.

While most were receptive and openly grateful, I also got responses like: “Give me another bar of soap for my sister because she’s poor too.”, “Water is difficult, you know.”, “Oh my love, I don’t have any teeth and I can’t read but I’ll give this to the kids.” As our beneficiaries are some of the poorest families in the community, many of the adults never learned to read. I made the info sheet with this in mind, drawings of people coming out of the latrine, washing baby butts and eating (with a hand washing visual in between). However many pictures and arrows one puts on a poster, people unaccustomed to reading probably won’t bother looking.

There I was, hiking around to the poor handing out soap and hygiene drawings and bitching about the heat. My project partner is whispering to me about who has four wives and innumerable kids and the women with no one but a nice neighbor, sick with malnutrition. I am a white tourist visiting with poor prisoners without respite. I went home and chugged water and thought about crying but decided not to. Instead I ate my scrambled eggs with tomato, avocado and no cheese because sometimes, it’s hard for rich Americans to show their face and buy something so extraneous. When I finally looked in the mirror, I saw the two dead bugs stuck on my face with sunscreen and sweat. I drank more water, had coffee with sugar and powdered milk and thought I was free to read and take a bucket bath before church.

How I was mistaken when the kids came a calling! I stuck to my one rule that we don’t do art in my house anymore because I am in session with the art classes. We looked at the map, some pictures and my pretty mini-fridge. I gave them refills of water, little candies and sent them on their way. The wrench in my plan was that they wouldn’t leave and I was reluctant to be rude. I told them about my plan to bathe and it only became hostile when they wanted more candy and therefore more visiting and I politely refused through thick exhaustion and maybe some hurt feelings. A four-year-old yelled through my very open windows, “You are bad with the poor, Yasmin!” I told her she had no idea and nearly laughed at my own self pity.

On my way to church, the four-year-old apologized, a friend ran up asking for a six dollar loan, and I lied about a Peace Corps rule that we can’t lend money. Although I am not Catholic, I hold an impressive church attendance because I like it. The hungry walk home was with neighbors and I prepared dinner as the house was dimming without electricity. When it came on, I almost cringed because it meant a more lively night. I did my walking around town, shouting goodnights to people sitting outside their houses. I sat with the woman I used to live with and chatted mostly about the heat. On my way home as man hissed, gave me a kissy face and a compliment. This is relatively routine in the machismo culture but strikes a different chord depending on my mood. While I will normally acknowledge a compliment with at least a sarcastic remark, I did nothing at first and then, upon repeat, shook my finger violently to signify a serious no thank you and made for home, almost running. I later climbed in my mosquito net with so much enthusiasm, you would think something better was waiting for me than a headlamp and a book.

Living here is wholly my choice and my freedom is pretty thorough. I have a cell phone that can text the states and has free minutes within Peace Corps. Every day I have four or five opportunities to ride a bus to the capital, a little America complete with malls and fast food. I have my $300 per month stipend plus my credit card from home. I could treat myself for a fancy night if I wanted it or buy any clothes or food I desire with only the limits of my own practicality and guilt. Simultaneously, I have to respond when people whose ribs are showing ask me for money. I have to kick children out of my house just because I don’t feel like having them there. I have to choose whether I want to be honest when I come home from eating, dancing and swimming. The difference between the people who live here and me is ugly and obvious. I am here temporarily for fun but they are here involuntarily for good.

This is not just me; it is volunteering or working in a developing country. We are visitors in the penitentiary, half in and half out, clearly different. Sometimes I am shocked that I have friends here. I guess through the confusion and unfairness, there must be some mutual kindness. Maybe I should just make a sign that says “It hurts my feelings when you ask me for things.” That’ll work as well as my hygiene promotion.

I should have made one for myself!

See? Reading can be a hoot!

Piggy People

There is a cultural quality here that involves honesty and bluntness. If you are thin, you’re referred to as skinny, loudly. If you’re a little chubby, you can be renamed Fatty and so on with obvious physical qualities. Getting someone’s attention by saying “Hey ugly!” will never be appropriate if you ask me but I can’t say I hate being called pretty or cool! Just because we don’t do this in the states does not mean that Americans don’t have obvious characteristics. As a whole, we are fat! I will apologize for my lack of tact but I will be talking about it. We are so piggy in so many respects, it should be embarrassing. We climb in our big cars burning up gasoline, go to the grocery store or fast food and buy little more than packaging and food so processed, you forget that it was once raw ingredients. Think about hundred calorie packs of cookies. As you rip open a package or two, you probably can’t guess half of the listed ingredients or where they come from. The metal and plastic industrial encasing went through its own lengthy process of creation. They sit on the shelf, ten little packets are further enveloped in cardboard or plastic or both. What a nightmare of resources and waste! We haven’t even mentioned the factory and transportation factors. As we munch on those snacks, we are munching on an expensive and material intensive process without hesitation. Food, drinks and toys are masking the factory process, money wasted, and consequences to the environment; not to mention our own health.

Let’s hop in the car and buy a derivative of coffee in a huge thick paper cup with a plastic lid and a cardboard sleeve. Throw a napkin, a mixing stick and a straw in the mix and we have more trash than drink. Who grew the coffee, how did it get here, and how much are the pickers making? Where are those cows that gave up the milk? They are probably in land that used to be intact forest and those pickers are probably not making much. One glass of milk takes 53 gallons of water to produce. It is a piggy way we live and we like it. For the past year I have been craving a trip to Starbuck’s with its hot drinks, warm colors and John Mayer serenading the customers. It is just that, in general, we are so not conscientious about our way of life that we are taking way too much of the pie and then getting really fat and ill.

In the U.S., over half of the adults and a quarter of the children are overweight. By not taking care of our body, we are literally making ourselves sick with diabetes, heart problems and cancer. While obesity affects the entire population, poorer and minority demographics are disproportionately impacted. We spend twice as much per capita on health care than any other country. Meanwhile, tons of people are enduring malnutrition with nearly one hundredth of the health care costs, $7,129 US per year to Haiti’s $83. Many African countries are even lower. How can we be letting this happen, putting earphones in and complaining about midriff chub while 80% of Haiti’s population lives below the poverty line and over half are food insecure? They don’t have money for transportation to get to a clinic and we are giving ourselves chronic conditions by eating too much and moving too little. It is like we are being tortured by the success and technology we have created.

Then, there comes the weight loss industry. A $33 billion a year industry (the approximate GDP of Ethiopia) infiltrates TV, magazines, grocery stores, and the internet. Now that we are fat, we should probably spend loads of money on trying to get thin. Instead of promoting cooking with more produce and less crap and outside exercise, the cheaper and more effective solutions, they sell microwave false food, once again locked in and unimaginable amount of material. Without any statistics, I would venture that the amount Americans spend on diet soda could pay for health care improvements in many developing countries. If this sounds like a guilt trip, maybe it is but I am as culpable as anyone. They are patterns that are hard to break. Maybe you love your trip to the smoothie shop or your egg mcmuffin every morning. Those hundred calorie packs could be your perfect little snack that leaves a smile on your face.

I just believe that if we are doing it, we should be conscious of it. Buying food with forty ingredients and then complaining about belly fat is not good for ourselves or the kids (those impressionable people who are becoming addicted to fatty processed food and getting heavier younger and younger). These habits are not great for the world’s resources either. I think some improvements are pretty simple. Clearly it is not like we can change our consumer habits, improve our health and send our health care savings to Ethiopia. We can, however, do things a little differently that lead to long term benefits and can slim down our impact on the world.

We could mostly buy whole ingredients. Buy the potato instead of the baggy of sour cream and onion potato chips. We really could pay attention to packaging. The cloth bags in the grocery store are great but oxymoronic when you fill them with cereal, cookies, and drinks that are all double and triple packaged. Buying in bulk is cheaper and more responsible. It is a matter of hogging less. Another change could be going out to eat less. Whether it is fast food, fancy Italian or pastries and coffee, we spend so much unnecessary money and usually have no idea how unhealthy and high calorie it really is. Make some treats at home and indulge at these places knowing that it is special. A pumpkin pie latte with whip sounds amazing to me right now. It probably costs $4.25 by now and weighs in at a high calorie count. Having one a week is understandable but one a day is a little piggy and let’s admit, it dulls the experience! Buying fair trade and organic is usually more ethical if you can afford it. It should also be said that we should be walking or doing some sort of activity. We could drive everywhere, see the world through a fancy phone and then break open that bag of chips. We could also go on a hike and take a sandwich and fruit and maybe enjoy it.

We would be more hopeful about the future if we were a bit more conscious of what we are doing. Even a gradual move toward healthier, less grabby lives could level the world playing field. Also, change can be kind of fun!!

Making Bookmarks, Cards and Masks

Making Promises

Designing T-Shirts

Taking Minutes

Our perception of time is really weird. You are supposed to put little kids in time out for only the amount of minutes that they have in years. Either because they view time as a percentage of their life or because their bitty heart beat faster, a toddler experiences two minutes as I might spend 24. There is geologic time where we are supposed to imagine human beings immerging right before the clock strikes midnight New Year’s Eve of a year that begins with world’s creation, difficult. Then, there’s the time that flies when you’re having fun or crawls when you are in a waiting room. There are the school years that always seem to go by so fast or web pages that seem to take hours to load. We fail to accept that time just passes at one pace as always, minute by minute, year by year.

My Peace Corps island friends and I are the worst at acknowledging this. We talk about the changing velocity of our service, the fraction that went so quickly it almost didn’t happen, the months that dragged, and of course, how much time we have left here. Does seven and a half months or 34 weeks sound shorter? We chat about all the movies we have been missing and where we will rent them from because word has it, video stores have met their fate, huh? In the midst of a discussion of buying a new wardrobe, I look at my stuff and daydream about giving away everything but what fits in a backpack and saying teary goodbyes. Right, seven and a half months and I am pinpointing the logistics of leaving. My Dominican friends make it less easy, already hashing the details of the much anticipated December and asking me why I am leaving and when I will be coming back. It is like we are constantly rewinding and fast-forwarding our life movies or rather hitting skip on the DVD.

Constantly looking forward and backward is a common vice but part of it is just good planning. Worrying about the type of computer I want is pointless but applying to grad school is fine preparation. Remembering comments about my horrible Spanish when I arrived is not so necessary. Remembering the sweet stuff is probably a good thing! For everyone, there is value in attempting to stay in the present to enjoy or at least feel some of what is actually happening. It would be silly if we are numbing ourselves with preoccupation!

Whether I count in months or seconds, I am nearing the end of my service, trying to focus the important stuff. The kids in my community and I will be doing the things I think are cool. We will learn where Africa is, write letters to Haiti, and read to smaller kids. We will use the time I’m here so that I don’t have to look back and pine. I will do my best not to put blinders on pack my bags right now. Hard as it may be, I will try not to fill my hours making lists of what TV series I will rent, U.S. landmarks I will see and food I will eat. Because I’m here, I should actually be here. I hope this badly worded mantra sticks!

Peace Corps Bites

It may be a bad idea to talk about food but I will attempt to be as candid and honest as possible. I live in a little town where over half of the residents have land where they practice subsistence agriculture. This means the crop output is not great enough to export or sell in large quantities but the families live on what they grow. They plant root vegetables like yucca and a type of sweet potato, corn, a pumpkin like squash, beans and even some peanuts. Right now we are in the harvest season so this is no time to complain about food. With enough calories for the whole family, a little that is sold to occasional trucks coming from the capital, the town feels richer. At night, the music is a notch louder and there are even more men sitting in plastic chairs on the street sharing beer. I would guess lotto sales are also skyrocketing, a surprising national past time.

Tuesday morning is the normal food shopping time. A street market arrives, almost entirely from Haiti because they sell for cheaper, and spreads out under an open roof. Because we are in the midst of an avocado season, they are stacked in piles for fifteen cents per large one. I always buy at least one, a piece of squash, carrots if available and three tomatoes. I also stock up on powdered milk if available, and this natural antibacterial soap that I have come to use for everything besides my dishes. You can sift through piles of used clothes that still hold that nauseating scent of Goodwill stores or check out the popular rubber sandals.

Aside from market days, we do have corner stores called colmados where you can buy food as well as toothpaste, toilet paper and matches. They are attached to the owners’ homes and don’t follow a grocery store design. You walk up to a window where can’t see the products well and ask for what you want by commanding “Give me ten pesos of soap”. I thought this was so rude, for months I said “Can I have eight eggs and two toilet papers?” and the vendor always responded with an affirmation without giving me the items. Then, I would say “Okay, I want eight eggs and two toilet papers.” and was finally sold the items. I have since learned to regard “Give me” as more courteous and less confusing.

The two tricks about colmados in my town are that there is no produce and although there are probably over twelve in town, they all have exactly the same products. This is because certain commercial trucks come from larger towns come and sell to each vendor. Some are smaller and don’t have generators to keep things cold. My next door neighbor has one from where I can lug my water, occasionally buy eggs and do virtually nothing else. I used to see humor in the fact that she literally only sells junk food that I would never buy. She has bright red and purple soda, cookies and crackers in little packets, and lollipops (which I do admit to consuming daily in one unfortunate phase but no longer buy).

The general Dominican daily diet is weighted in the center of the day. Breakfast and dinner consist of similar choices. I later realized they are all things that cook more quickly and leave less of a mess. Some common meals are yucca or plantains with fried eggs or salami, more expensive but popular hot chocolates and hot milks with water bread, or occasional soups or pasta with red sauce so oily and overcooked I can barely swallow it. Breakfast is always served with a small cup of really strong coffee with an obscene amount of raw sugar. Lunch, which lives up to its name of “the hour of food”, is the time consuming heavy meal. Most families eat a variety of rice and beans, mixed together or separate depending on the day. Their salads, which are fairly special, seem common to me I think only because they are made when I am invited to eat. They are usually either cold with white cabbage, which must be washed and soaked with bleach water, and tomatoes or cooked like boiled carrots, potatoes and eggs. They are dressed with oil and vinegar and are truly the bomb.

I apologize if I have not done justice to Dominican cuisine but I think if the country is not famous for its food, Pedro Santana is certainly not a dining attraction. My service has certainly gone through some funny food phases to which I will try to admit knowing that they sound really strange. Living with host families in the beginning was a battle. I entered Peace Corps after a life of vegetarianism and three years of a health conscious, almost entirely vegan diet. Being plated fried salami and starchy boiled plantains was a major test to my flexibility. I basically tiptoed around mentioning my vegetarianism, complimenting the food and barely eating things I didn’t want to be fed daily claiming to be full after a couple bites.

After moving out, I excitedly made pancakes for breakfast and ate egg and avocado sandwiches every day for lunch and decided I would skip dinner to avoid dishwashing but then succumb to unhealthy snacks from colmados (thus the lollipops). I also tried to buy healthy ingredients in the capital to take back and eat in moderation. When I ate all of the oatmeal, whole wheat pasta, dried soy, and my Dominican roommate ate all my peanut butter within one week, I new that my plan was both crappy and expensive. I would also irrationally avoid milk and homemade cheese because they are somewhat luxury items and I was embarrassed to buy them in town. I would like to say going on a year and a half, I am so much wiser about food purchases but it is funny how untrue that would be. I do eat with families occasionally but generally cook for myself.

My current food phase is still pretty silly. After running in the morning I make coffee in a metal stovetop greca, Spanish for moka pot. At the same time, I boil water for two eggs. When I take the eggs out to cool, I pour the strong coffee in the egg water to make two milder cups instead of one. If I have them I put splenda and powdered milk in the coffee and drink it with my eggs. Think about the dirty dish avoidance, just a swish of the pot and voila. For lunch, there is always the question of dishes but one faves is squash, avocado and eggs. Another is a fried sandwich with cheese, a fresh white cheese that is kind of like salty mozzarella but always a little different, and tomato with as little bread as possible. On occasion, I have had only avocado, only cheese and only eggs. When I go to the larger town to get some bank, internet and town relief, I buy dried lentils, whole wheat, splenda, partly to avoid the horror of the ants when I was spilling sugar, and powdered milk in larger bags. For dinner, I will have boiled lentils, boiled wheat, milk or yet again, eggs.

I do eat vitamins, drink an obscene amount of water and have lost a little weight. When I go to the capital, I have to ignore the shame of eating the things I crave because of the price or questionable health values. I always have lots of apples, bananas and drinkable yogurt. I guiltily drink diet coke and coffee with milk and sometimes get my hands on ice cream. At restaurants, I almost always get a salad or a sandwich and yet again, some sort of pop. I buy cereal, cold milk and almost never eat eggs!

On an entirely different note, my latrines are built and two out of the twelve filters are installed. We are very slowly planning for a hygiene and health workshop to go along with the projects. As school is in session, I am walking up to my campo school, doing another nature art class for kids and have started my literacy club at the middle and high school. We have a reading competition that I think is going strong but the real word will come later. Thank you to everyone who contributed to my book drive and any library activity ideas would be greatly appreciated! Eight months to go and I will be back in the states eating loads of good stuff. Apparently this Greek yogurt is all the buzz, huh?

My Friend with 8 Kids and Peanuts!

Looking for a Book?

Right now, I am reading a fat blue book with an earth on it by Bill Bryson called A Short History of Nearly Everything and a novel by Anna Quindlen called Rise and Shine. I joke that I have to read a pink book at the same time I read a non-fiction to have a little mental relief. A lot of times novels meant for female readers have pink somewhere on the cover whether the whole book is fuscia, the text is rose colored or the publisher’s emblem is a light ballet hue. The pink is like a little subliminal signal that the book has some sisters, cell phone conversations about relationships and pregnancy inside.

I have acquired the love for reading that I have always wanted but never had. It is how I feel about art I am working on and others feel about playing music, baking, or sports. You genuinely want to do it to do it not because you feel like you should. I have always trudged through books about homelessness, development efforts, fallen addict to a few novels and taken to my text books seriously with a highlighter. Through my Peace Corps experience, I can honestly say that I love to read and admit to loving novels way more than science books and memoirs with happy endings worlds more than true tragedies.

Bryson’s A Short History is reminding me of all of those things that I have found interesting about geologic history and biology but haven´t thought about for at least two years. It makes me feel good but I have to force myself to crack it and read for hours at a time so that I will finish in a timely manner and can move on to the next thick one. I read Anna Quindlen when my project partner doesn’t show up for a meeting yet again, when I eat my breakfast eggs and tea, or ride to wear I am today four across in the broken truck. I have to tear myself away from the lives of the elaborate charachters. I have to start another one before I finish to avoid that really sad feeling. He’s a bit of a job and she’s the reward.

You can see all the books I’ve read so far on the side but I have categorized them in case you feel the need to read! Please read with a bran muffin and a hot drink, apple pie or a smoothie... it will make it so much better... ooh, dark chocolate.

General Non Fiction:

• Animal Vegetable Mineral, Barbara Kinsolver- Good one about food!
• Eat Pray Love, Elizabeth Gilbert
• Nickel and Dimed, Barbara Ehrenreich- Interesting about low income US.
• The Things They Carried, Tim O´Brien
• Pledged, Alexandra Robbins- very quick read about sororities, loved it.
• Marley and Me, John Grogan
• Genome, Matt Ridley- Read it in two days because it was so fascinating.
• Jesus Land, Julia Scheeres
• The New New Thing, Michael Lewis
• The 100-Mile Diet, Alisa Smith, J B MacKinnon- Made me homesick.
• Desert Solitaire, Edward Abbey
• Essentials of Infectious Disease Epidemiology, Manya Magnus
• The Color of Water, James McBride- Very well written and inspiring.

About development:
• Mountains Beyond Mountains, Paul Farmer- Highly recommend.
• Why the Cocks Fight, Michele Wucker
• Eyes of the Heart, Jean Bertrand Aristide
• Nine Hills to Nambakaha, Sarah Erdman
• In the River They Swim, Michael Fairbanks...- This took me forever to read.
• On That Day, Everybody Ate, Margaret Trost
• Banker to the Poor, Muhammad Yunus- Really informative about micro-finance.
• Kabul Beauty School, Deborah Rodriguez
• Dead Aid, Dambisa Moyo and Niall Ferguson

Notable novels:
• Little Earthquakes, Jennifer Weiner- Pink book that I couldn't put down.
• The Friday Night Knitting Club, Kate Jacobs
• Prep, Curtis Sittenfeld- I couldn´t believe this wasn´t non fiction.
• Garden Spells, Sarah Addison Allen- Set in Washington.
• Belong to Me, Marisa de los Santos- So well written, I cried when I was done.
• Best Friends, Martha Moody- Awesome but a pink book for sure.
• The Namesake, Jhumpa Lahiri- Recommend it to anyone.
• A Thousand Splendid Suns, Khaled Hosseini- I haven't read the Kite Runner yet.

Take care and comment on my blog!

Already August

There are generally only two reasons I go a long period without writing on my blog. One is that I find myself in a bad place, a slump of sorts, and don’t want to be that girl complaining about doing something hard that she chose to do. In these times it is much better to keep quiet until I actually feel strong than fake resilience. The other reason I don’t write is that I am actually busy. Thank goodness this has been the case!

I graduated my art camp and my English class with tests, certificates, treats just in time for July 4th. I celebrated our Independence Day with Peace Corps volunteers on a beautiful peninsula in the north east. We rented apartments, ate, swam and had a little fun at night too. My volunteer friends have been an amazing part of my service. We come from all over the place with totally different reasons for being here. We bond during training, talk on the phone in our sites and ultimately form an invaluable network of support. While Dominican friends can give me hugs and my family at home can listen to me cry, my fellow volunteers are the only people who truly understand what I am talking about. Instead of pity, we give each other the, “Ugh, I know” that somehow makes you feel better. Needless to say, our weekend together was great.

I then had a week in my site to organize latrine material snafus and was off for another vacation. Two college friends, Tess and Kristin, came for a week and we went to the northern beach town of Cabarete. We caught up on our year apart, lounged on the sand and saw some impressive kite boarding and wind surfing action. We jumped the famous 27 waterfalls and didn’t injure ourselves. Mostly, it just felt healthy for the soul to hang out with old friends, laugh, and chat about things. There was a little hurricane scare for the last couple of days which had us wet and sometimes a little stuck. It’s just that time of year!

Now I am home sweet home. I have been constructing latrines with the best construction worker I have encountered here. We work in the blistering heat, shoveling cement, sawing wood and hammering nails. I am something in between a laborer and an accessory but it feels good to get my hands dirty… and then hit them with a hammer. Sometimes we just have to accept that we are not naturals with some tasks. I am not a pretty sight with zinc, nails and wood but each latrine has me looking a little better. The long construction days have also been essential to get to know the beneficiary families. We have had meetings and will be doing a hygiene course but the days of sweating, giggling about going to the bathroom and eating lunch in the shade are more influential in truly meeting those involved in the project.

And now I have to look into the future. The exposure I have had to poverty has led me to know I want to always work with underprivileged populations both in the states and abroad. I hope to use my biology degree and the perspectives I have gained from volunteering to do something. I have nine months left and have to start my application processes if I hope to enter grad school next fall. I will be applying to masters in public health programs in epidemiology. Although I have no idea what will happen (such as whether I will be accepted), I would love to do infectious disease research. I think that everyone should have the right to be healthy and know that disease prevention and control are integral parts of that goal. There is no reason why parasites and dengue fever should be common, while hand washing, water filters and window screens are not.

As I look at great programs and draft my statement of purpose in this internet center, I am paying a dollar an hour, Dominican music blasts in my ear and a little boy emphatically narrates the computer game he is playing. I guess this is what they call facing adversity!

A Little Joking About Development Doesn't Hurt Anybody

Haiti Relief Art

Art for Kids Graduation!!

Serious in Art Camp

Summer Days

I am becoming accustomed to summer and rainy season. We are beginning latrine construction which has only meant frustrating trips to the bank and hardware store an hour away, a meeting with the beneficiaries, a lot of rain and no actual construction. My water filter project hit a catastrophic low point in which 13 out of 25 of the cement filters broke irreparably on the bad road to my community. I will try to salvage the project and offer a talk about hygiene and sickness prevention and present solar disinfection (SODIS). This was already going to be a component of both the latrine and filter projects but will become the beef of a redesigned ¨Safe Water¨ project. My apprehensions are as always, in avoiding being the Foreigner Santa Claus Wise One. Instead of being Santa bringing gifts of stuff and wisdom, I spend most of my time scheming how to get myself out of the spotlight. I have written grants with community members entirely in Spanish that I then rewrite in English. I have asked the clinic workers to present the hygiene talk giving them main points be covered and crossing my fingers.

These projects take about a half hour of my time a day. I used to be a champ at filling time with internet, exercising, driving, buying stuff, eating, TV, a plethora of miscellaneous activities and options. My life here is different and certainly slower. I start my morning with a walk or run with my stick and immediately take my cold bucket bath outside in my underwear with a bar of soap. I make a cup of tea with sugar and powdered milk and successfully avoid dirtying dishes to be washed. While I am a little afraid my drab personality is really shining through this blog, it’s important to shed light on the inherent bore that is the Peace Corps.

From eight to noon and two to six, when I don’t give art camp or English classes, I am trying to be moderately productive. I have two sitting places outside of my house; one is a big shared office space complete with drinking water and no flush toilets, the other the church salon cold water and a dirty latrine. Reading is my favorite activity but English books, however good quality are not productive to my service, so I make myself work for it and employ a schedule much like rotating subjects when doing homework in college.

For art camp, I will make confetti from shiny cracker packets and cut thousands of stars out of magazine paper for gaudy, yet very stylish reuse crowns. Then, I fill out one lesson of my Creole workbook and write the rough draft of the English final, call my project partner about cutting wood for the latrines or money earning myself an article from the National Geographic or a chapter in my book. At noon, I am tormented by what to make for lunch. I have been recovering from a stomach bug that makes me only want to eat white things. Shall it be eggs and bread or milk and crackers? I always try to avoid making too many dishes and eat fast because I don´t have running water and lunch is the time for kids to color at my house. At two, the sitting spots open and I continue until in either rains, when I position buckets to be filled and go on another run/walk, or threatens rain in which I follow my schedule and take another bucket bath. Sprinkle in craving the internet when we have electricity, a little bit of visiting and cheek kissing and there is my weekday.

Lately, nights have been dark, without power, which makes me more social. Sitting in my house with my headlamp and candles is less appealing than hanging with families and chatting. Sometimes I walk around and worry about falling or stepping in something gross to visit my old host mom or buy eggs in the corner store. Other times, I sit in my house and make tea from mint on my patio or more powdered milk and talk on the phone. My favorite Peace Corps present is free minutes between volunteers. It is a lifesaver that allows us to make friends with people we only get to see in person every so often.

I have written a whole entry about global poverty that I won´t post. Through this comparatively slow lifestyle there is certainly no shortage of time to think. I don´t have music blaring in my ears or celebrity lives to follow. I don´t ever think about TV and I don´t even get very much news. I never drive. With no ability to drown out reality, I have no choice but to try to understand what surrounds me and the state of the world. I have read and seen a lot and figured out little. I hope to live conscientiously through the rest of my service but I know it will be so much harder when I go back to still care about people who don´t have access to water. I won´t feel the least bit responsible for people who have to ration food for their kids. I know I am going to want to eat frozen yogurt and watch Friends but hopefully I can use my rotating device. Read one chapter of Depressing Poverty Book, watch one episode of Friends, something like that.

Medical Mission

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!

Coloring with the Neighbors

Dizzy in the DR

If you don’t like gross details, please don’t read this.

I was headed to the capital, Santo Domingo, on a 4 AM bus. We received the funds for my literacy project and I was off with a community partner to the book fair to supply our school’s library. I was already uncomfortable because I wasn’t traveling alone and further, would be staying with her in a part of the city I don’t know. Settled for a long ride, the surprisingly sparse bus allowed us to sit in seats alone, my project partner in a seat in front of mine.

I should backup to the fact that for the past week to two weeks, I have not been feeling great. I have generally been pretty lucky health wise but lately I have been a little off, dizzy and unstable. I notice that my runs have been less than enjoyable and even walking can leave me with the urge to sit immediately. I have been trying to ignore it and blame it on low blood sugar but I had an inkling, because of a funny sensation in my ears, that I had an inner ear infection. Having one before, I know that it is an imbalance of fluids in your inner ears that gives you vertigo and nausea, especially in moving vehicles. There is nothing you can do other than take medicine to make you less dizzy so I was still deciding to ignore it with all my might.

Now fast forward to 4:30 in the morning beginning my partly dreaded trip to the capital. I feel nauseous but I barely slept and can hardly expect myself to feel great at that hour. Then, I notice the bumpy road more acutely than I’ve ever noticed it before. It’s bumpy because the way to my site is not completely paved and because elections are coming, there is a lot of campaign road work which seems to make them worse. I’m sure you could guess where this is going but let me spell it out. The driver stops at military checkpoints and then turns on a worse road to pick up a passenger. I feel like he is driving in wild circles and I desperately find my toiletry Ziploc bag, empty it and start throwing up so hard I am sure everyone is staring at me. When I look up, no one sees me. It is pitch black with no streetlights and people are sleeping or looking out the window. You know how puking just makes you want to puke so I just keep going, now retching and coughing. One woman sees me and looks away in disgust, but luckily keeps quiet.

So there I am a big Ziploc baggy full of puke on a bus that I can’t get off until we stop to get breakfast four hours later with no water nor anything to get rid of that taste. I didn’t consider not going on the trip because I was going to buy these damn books if it was the last thing I would do and also there would be no way to get back to my house at that hour. What I did consider was attempting to get the bag of puke that I was holding off the bus. While this was an attractive goal, it would involve telling the bus driver what I did and inevitably divulging the information to my community partner with whom I would be spending the next day and a half. It would also mean I wouldn’t have a barf bag and I might have people thinking I am really sickly, which I’m not. After much thought, I zipped the bag, thank you Ziploc, set it carefully on the ground and slept for the next three hours. I woke a few times to make sure the throw up was staying put and that no one was stepping on it. There have been incidences when I have watched flowing vomit soil people’s luggage, ha ha, really gross.

Disgusting as it was, I got off the bus at our one stop, clandestinely threw away my large bag of puke as I was walking with my project partner and started my day. This day was full of food, including fried ham that I have managed to almost entirely avoid through service (as a vegetarian). Almost all the food was made and offered and would have been rude to turn down.

I am now in the Peace Corps office safe and sound. I have made it through the book purchases and the Dominican family time and tomorrow I am off to an environmental education conference where I will attend and present with two youth from my community. I still can’t walk well or stand on one foot to save my life but I will get through, vertigo included. I am nervous about the ride to the conference but I will forever travel with an empty baggy, water and mint gum… at least for the next little while.

Missing Things

So I try to be positive. It´s so wonderful facing adversity, I chose to do this, I´m just lucky to have food and my limbs! That can be the mantra but it is not the truth. I am honestly happy here but sometimes I just want to feel bad for myself and miss stuff from home. Notice that I am on this island for two years and I still call the U.S. home. This entry is about the things I miss, a shameless pity party. A disclaimer is that I can find most of these in country so, I am being a bit of a poser as well as a complainer.

Feeling and Staying Clean

Real Hugs

Running Errands and Grocery Stores

Coffee Shops

Camping

Couches

Running Water

Libraries

Getting Picked Up in a Car (Literally)

Watching TV

Working and Getting Off Work

Anonymity

Carpet

Dessert, Pie and Other Baked Goods

Magazines

Socks

Working Out Followed by a Shower

Social Shopping

Parties and Dinners at Houses

I just realized that I could do this all in one day. I´m almost a year in which means halfway! In May of 2011, I´m going to go home (my parents’ house, ha ha) for a time and look back at this list. I will wake up, go on a run, take a shower, ooh bath, stay clean, put on socks, hug someone, get picked up or driven by my mom to go buy coffee and a muffin before going social shopping and visiting the library. We will stop at a grocery store to read magazines and buy food for dinner. I will sit on a couch before a dinner party, then have dessert, TV, carpet, done. Woops, camping! I´d actually settle for just the hug. I do lots of cheek kissing, some child holding and the classic upper body hug but I still miss the good ones. The real, full body, comfortable with the person embraces are few and far between. Next time I will have to be a leprechaun to make up for this complaining!

My Oldies Are Moving!

Cock Fight Fun?