Some Photos from the Campo

There are few stranger things than finding a crab in your bedroom when you don´t live close to a water source. It was larger than my hand and when I first saw it, it was pretty dark and I was sure it was another rat... but no.

The kitchen and dining area in my house in the campo. I spent more hours than I care to admit to cooking and washing dishes in that kitchen.

A view from a hike I do in my campo.

This is the man of the house in the backyard. He is eighty years old and he works on his land everyday.

This was a tarantula in my bed the first day of my site visit. It lived in my wall and I would see it every once in a while.

Rats, Sickness and Starvation, Oh My!

I will avoid going into detail about the last three weeks at my site. Most of what I would have said would highly resemble complaints and would reflect badly on my host family. The truth is that my living situation has been difficult and the lack of cell phone signal and transportation has not allowed me to work as an effective volunteer. I am happy to report that I will be moving into the town of Pedro Santana into a house with a kind woman. I owe a huge thanks to my stepdad who told me, “If you don’t like your situation and people aren’t treating you well, change it.”

The next day, I packed for a long day and headed out on foot to town. I talked to a development worker who I just barely knew and by the end of the day, I had a new situation where I will be healthier, happier, and more able to work productively. Although I am fighting off waves of guilt and insecurity about my toughness, I can live with being a pansy! I will be visiting the campo frequently to carry out a community diagnostic and keep the connections and friendships I have made.

Today, I am sitting in the air conditioned Peace Corps office in the capital, loving every minute of it. I will be off to a small Haitian community for a weeklong basic Creole training. When I go back, I will make the move. New house, new friends and nutrition here I come! Woohoo!

To the Border!

When I received my site assignment packet, I had no idea where Pedro Santana, Elias Pina was. I frantically flipped through to the map which barely helped to orient me as it was a detailed image of the region. I looked at it for a few seconds before I blurted out, “Is that gray side Haiti”. Pedro Santana is a border town and by first glance, looks to be in Haiti rather than the Dominican Republic. I read on to find that I will be living in a campo of 19 houses outside of Pedro Santana and working with a large development NGO on a binational reforestation project. I took a couple deep breaths and shined a smile to my program director. This should be an interesting two years.

The next day, we met our project partners and set out to visit our sites. After a six hour ride on progressively under maintained roads, we reached Pedro Santana, the poorest pueblo in the Dominican Republic. I was surprised by the quiet streets and clean sidewalks, this is where I will be working and eventually living. Our truck continued up a rough dirt road for fifteen minutes that seemed to last forever when my project partner dropped me off in a campo of nineteen houses, no cell phone service, and no public transportation. I was greeted by an elderly couple who told me they were very poor and kindly asked if I would like chocolate water. I smiled and told them in my still imperfect Spanish that I was happy to be there and thanked them for their hospitality. The Peace Corps recommends that we live with a family for the first three months of our service before moving onto our own but because of safety and logistics, I may move closer to Pedro Santana sooner than three months.

The five day visit was filled with views of the Haitian hills, questions about how to bathe, where I will fit in the NGO, Intstituto Dominicano de Desarrollo Inc., and sitting silently with interested neighbors. I admit that I cried on the phone to my mom, read half a book curled up in my tiny dark room, and questioned my judgment in joining the Peace Corps and my program director’s judgment in placing me here. The visit finished with a fiesta in the capital of our province and a short night in a vacated building before catching a 3:00AM bus to Santo Domingo. We swear in today and move to our site this Friday. I am excited to become accustomed to the very new life I been given. Frontera here I come!

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

A Little Taste of La Cumbre

A Few Photos

Vengan conmigo a La Cumbre

I have spent the past month in La Cumbre, a mountain campo near Santiago for community based training. We got dirty learning erosion control, gardening techniques and building ceramic stoves. I embarrassed myself time and time again with Spanish miscommunications and a four hour Earth Day presentation to eighth graders. We all got a little better at dancing the bachata and merengue at the Plaza, a little outdoor colmado that could easily be mistaken for a storage unit during the daytime but transforms into a hotspot at night with blaring music and a row of parked motorcycles. I ran every day and ate more fried cheese than I would ever care to quantify.

I loved my family even though much of our time was spent in silence. My host sibblings taught me cool Dominican expressions and then laughed hysterically when I would slip them into conversation. I translated an Akon song into Spanish for my host sister to the best of my ability. Akon has to be the most famous American here because not a day goes by that I don´t hear a little kid singing "I want to make love right now now now" with a cute accent. We made a lot of friends through conversations or silence while sipping tiny cups of coffee. I also met some running and hiking buddies who I was really sad to leave. Our time in La Cumbre made me realize that it is possible to feel welcomed into a community, feel comfortable with no doors to the bedrooms or bathroom, and feel at home while blatantly standing out with all the wrong clothes and a really bad accent.

I am back in Santo Dominingo getting wet from sideways rain through an open window in an internet cafe. This coming Tuesday the Peace Corps will disclose our sites. I am of course psyched and nervous to hear where my new home will be and even more anxious to go visit on Wednesday. No matter where it is, I have already decided that I will like it. After all, it´s all about the attitude!