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?

It's Time to Celebrate

First, I want to say thank you for the book drive money! The grant was filled and so now it is a waiting game to get the money from the states. Funding is always a struggle and I admit to lacking grace and patience when it comes to money. I am soliciting for a latrine project in my site and can quickly turn a conversation into a venting session if I am not careful. In another bit of unfortunate news, I have had some theft from my patio at night, the church’s tools, which feels violating and my computer is irreparably broken so I will likely be writing less.

It has actually been nice to not be tempted to watch shows, after my lack of discipline resulted in watching the entire season five of the office more than six times, shocking really. I have noticed that my restraint is so lacking that anything that fun or tasty proves to be impossible to resist. Even oatmeal and powdered milk can be wildly alluring. Oh, how we change! I have become so lazy and unhealthy about food, I am going to have to stage my own intervention, ha. It is a matter of getting myself to the market on Tuesday, wanting to cook and do dishes and eating balanced meals. We all need goals, right? I secretly think the lack of fun in the house leads me to be a better volunteer, whatever that means. Because I don’t have computer TV, maybe I do more visiting and perhaps more inspired to do work related tasks. Right now, I am teaching environmental education, art and English. An environmental coloring book is also in the making but we’ll see about implementation. How a coloring book can be complicated is beyond me. Show me the money and the Kinko’s and I would be rocking, even a scanner, come on!

I had a trainee come visit to see the life of a volunteer. She got lost in a different border town and had to take a very pricey taxi over an hour from my site. Other than that, the rest of the weekend went smoothly with lots of community events and visits. We went to a cockfight, a greasy poll climbing competition, a meringue concert and of course, the dirty river that separates us from Haiti. We had a huge spider, a leech and an exorbitant amount of salamanders in my house. There is nothing like a visitor to make you realize how dirty your life is. I also realized that I let ants crawl all over me without brushing them off and that I had unnecessarily gone the ten months in site without a pillow. I bought one right before she came and now I feel like a queen in a hotel… or something. We also ate things I never normally get like soda, chocolate milk and cheese, woop!

Now, for Semana Santa! The week before Easter is a huge holiday here with no school, lots of family visits and beach vacations. Apparently, our river fills with people and the nights are full of parties. I’m sure I’ll be busy going to church and shaking my groove thing, ha ha!