Hola,
I hope everyone is doing well. Service has been a little bit of a crazy ride so far. When I first got here the presidential elections were looming right around the corner. I haven´t really described my school yet, so here´s the best picture I can paint. It´s a decent size. Their is a morning tanda (session) from 8 to 12 and then an afternoon one from 2 to 6. About 400 kids attend each session. While the kids are supposed to be in school a full 4 hours it rarely ever happens that the kids get in more than 3 classes, and when they do very little learning takes place anyway. The standard teaching method in the DR is dictate and copy.
The computer laboratory has 20 computers from 1996, 14 functioning at a working level. The hard drives are a whopping 3 GB and can´t fit much of anything on them after Windows is installed. The lab is rarely ever used because the inverters were stolen off the wall and the computers only function when their is energy in the town. They don´t have surge protectors despite the energy coming and going all the time. Usually the energy goes around 9 and doesn´t come back for the rest of the morning tanda. I just finished up an inventory and plan on submitting it to the Secretary of Education as soon as possible so I can obtain new equipment.
Anyway, there were classes on Monday, but that´s it. There were supposed to be classes on Tuesday also but they were canceled. The school was the town voting site, and apparently it takes four days to prepare for an election (hope you picked up on the sarcasm). Whatever, I used most of the rest of the week to walk around and meet people. I love dominos, so whenever I see a dominos table I always investigate, I always play, and I always impress. (I´m not cocky.)
On Wednesday my stomach started hurting after I ate lunch and dinner but I dismissed it. When it didn´t go away on Thursday and I was running a fever that night, I called our doctor on Friday (voting day) and told her what was going on. Even though we were on standfast and not supposed to leave our site until Monday I went to the next town over to get the medicine she said I needed. I ran another fever on Friday night.
On Saturday I woke up and I felt a whole lot better. My family was celebrating because the candidate they wanted to win had won the national election at 54%. Because I felt better, I went with them to celebrate at the river in Los Rios where we cooked a goat that was killed the night before and messed around in the river with a lot of other people who were doing the same thing. People looked at me like I was lost or didn´t realize where I was. I felt great until the end when I started running a fever again. I went home to rest for a while so I could go to the park with my friends at night. I still had a small fever but I went for a little bit anyway. I avoided alcohol the whole day.
On Sunday I woke up and felt absolutely horrible. I got ready for mass, but I woke up in my dress clothes on the bed 3 hours later. Even after I woke up again, I felt completely energyless and I was running a fever the other way, where my body temperature was three degrees below normal. I didn´t do much the whole day. I told everyone I was going into the capital the next day to see the doctors at the Peace Corps office.
On Monday I woke up and I no longer had a fever but my stomach was absolutely killing me. I kept planning to head for the bus, but I couldn´t stop using the bathroom or get over the pain, so I stayed until 10 when I felt a little better. I didn´t eat anything for fear of pain on the way there or having to use the bathroom on a 5 hour public bus ride that makes one stop. The trip was wretched too. The bus was ridiculously stuffed. I sat on a non-horizontal pull out seat between two other seats with two parents and two kids to my left and two other people to my right. The kid was crying and moving around the whole way. The busses normally have air conditioning but it was broken on this bus. I sat with my bag on my lap hunched over the entire way. Luckily after the beginning my stomach didn´t feel that bad. I would have taken another bus but one had already passed us that was completely full. Trying to go Santo Domingo on a Monday morning is tough.
Anyway at the Peace Corps office, Lissette sent me to the private clinic to have work done. I checked in at the Pension, a cheap hotel where most volunteers stay when in the capital, and then completed the tests at Clinica Abreu. Once I gave the tests to Lissette I was feeling fine, I hadn´t eaten a thing all day, and it was dinner time. I decided I was hungry enough to go American and try pizza hut even though I was sick. Amazingly I ate an entire small pizza by myself and my stomach barely hurt at all. Afterwards I went back to the hotel and it was only quarter past six, but I fell asleep and woke up at 9:30. Despite this I had no problem falling asleep at 11 and not waking up until after 8 the next day.
At the office Lissette told me that my tests were really strange and I had three seperate things. I had a bacterial intestinal infection which was almost cleared up from the medicine I had bought on election day. That´s why my stomach was finally ok. I also had a UTI and a high white blood cell count from a virus that was on its way out. Lissette thought it was weird so I had to wait around in the capital to get more tests done on Wednesday morning. I went to lunch with a volunteer that I met in the office, and then later I ran into a guy from my volunteer class. We went to dinner at a horrible Chinese place and then went to see Ironman in the theater. It was in Spanish and I even understood most of it, but it was nothing special. On Wednesday I got my test done in the morning and then I ate lunch at the Embassy before going back to my site in much more comfortable conditions with a two person seat to myself.
I´d come back the night before a holiday, so on Thursday morning I went to church with Che, my new best friend here. It would take me forever to get around this place if it weren´t for him and his motorcycle. In the evening I went with him to the next town over where the closest volunteer to me is located. Because of bad relations with Haiti in the past, Dominicans rarely ever recognize their African heritage, but today was one day that they did. After a mass there was a huge bonfire and several people played on the drums and chanted repetitive songs. They did a dance nothing like the Latin American dances commonly found around here. I joined in. Jen took a picture of me that I´ll hopefully post soon.
On Friday I went to the school and started my inventory, but the energy went and I didn´t get to finish checking everything I wanted to. I didn´t do much the rest of the day besides make a visit to the school director´s house. On Saturday we went to an actual pool. I got in a few times because the water was constantly moving in and out of the pool, but the bottom was still mossy and disgusting so I never stayed in for long. We did the same thing we did at the river: cook goat meat and eat and drink. At night I went with Che to the neighboring town for their fiestas de patronales. I had something to drink again for the first time since being sick. Their was live music just like from our fiestas, so it was pretty fun.
Yesterday I went to mass with Che in the morning and then in the afternoon we went back to the neighbor town to play some dominoes. I am officially obsessed. I played from 4 until we left around 11 without ever sitting out a game. We never stopped between games for longer than 15 minutes either. I may need help.
Today I woke up and went to the school to finish my inventory and now I´m here at the local technology center, the only place in town with internet. It sucks because it´s closed a lot and even when its supposed to be open the encargado doesn´t show up very much. I called a committee meeting last week to discuss their expectations of me, why they solicited a volunteer, and where they want to start. So we´re meeting at four.
That´s that for now. Jen and I are probably going to try to go to Barahona which is about an hour away because thats where the nearest bank that volunteers belong to is located. It´s the only place I can withdraw money without being charged an enormous fee. We´ll probably stay a night and catch the new Indiana Jones since there´s a theater in the city. I´m also probably going to try to make it up to Santiago the following weekend. Some volunteers were there this weekend for meetings and have said that it´s a great place.
Take care everyone.