Day 65 – HOLY S**T!! - 4/30/08 – Paraiso, DR
Yes,the title of this is Holy Stuff. The reason for this will be evident by the end of the entry, but as Ihave been a huge slacker, I need to start from the top. It has been 26 days since I have lastwritten anything here, so I have some serious work to do. Luckily, I have some time on my hands,so here goes nothing!
Tostart off, I will travel back in time to CBT (community based training). It was a lovely hot as balls day whenwe were to build our first Dominican cook-stove. These stoves are made out of concrete, clay, and earth, andthey use 70% less firewood than the 3-rock method of fire cooking that iscommonly used. In this way, we canhelp slow the process of deforestation, or even reverse it when it is used inconjunction with reforestation. Also, these stoves have a chimney on them, so that the smoke is funneledup and away from the woman who is cooking (yes, only women cook in theDR). I didn’t notice how importantthis was until the first time that I saw a woman cooking over a normal fire. There is so much smoke, and to becooking, standing over this fire and breathing all the smoke must have takenyears off this poor woman’s life. So anyways, the cook-stove we were making was going to be a bighelp.
Wewere building our stove at a house that was still being constructed for a youngfamily of 3. We went to the housearound 7 in the morning, and the whole family was already there eagerlyawaiting our arrival. We met upwith another Volunteer and her mason that she uses in her site. She was what we call a Super-Volunteer,as she and her partner had already made around 70 stoves. In total, the Peace Corps isresponsible for thousands of these things in the DR alone. So with the family watching on, mygroup of 9 trainees with the help of the volunteer and her mason got down towork. This is some dirtywork. Luckily, I thought aboutthis beforehand so I wore my pair of shoes that I plan on wearing insemi-formal occasions. We startedby mixing the cement. I’m nottalking about one of those things where you start off with the ingredients in amachine and press the “on” button, but two shovels, some rock, some cement, andwater. It was quite the fun game,for the first 2 minutes. Westarted by mixing all the ingredients together without the water. Then you make a crater in the middleand add the water into the crater. This is what I like to call the Damn Game. You have to mix the water into the cement without lettingthe water break the crater barrier, or else you have a real mess on yourhands. Sounds easy enough, but ofcourse I ended up with that same huge mess I just mentioned being on myhands. Literally. So after much effort, we were ready toget down to business. We left thetechnical work up to the mason dude, because the rest of us had no idea whatthe hell we were doing. Afterabout 4 hours of work, we called it a day, and on the next day, we returned andfinished thy bidding. It was areally nice experience to stand back and look at a final product, especiallywhen the mother was there admiring her new stove that she would then no doubtshow off to others in the community.
Weafter all that hard manual labor, I needed to blow off some steam. Luckily for me, I have Junior to helpout in that regard. We decidedthat we were going to have a nice relaxing evening over at Danielle’s placeplaying some Dominos and drinking some Rum & Cokes. I must say, it has taken a littlewhile, but I am turning into a Dominos genius, at least for an American. Give me a couple of Americans and Iwill put them to shame, however, the Dominicans still kick my ass up and downthe street. After a few games ofDominos, a few Rum & Cokes, and a watch that read 12:00am, it was time toretire. Or so I thought.
Wewere just about to leave Danielle’s when we heard a car pull up with thosesweet sounds of Bachata music ringing out through the night. Of course it was Junior’s friends, Idon’t think there is a person within 20 miles of his house that he doesn’tknow. We got to talking with thesetwo guys and decided that the most prudent thing to do was to head to the localcolmado, which was closed, wake up the owner (as this is evidently standardpractice) and get one more teensy weensy bottle of Rum. Being the polite gentlemen that we areafter a few hours of Rum, we drove up a few hundred yards so that we were notaround any house. Don’t worry Momand Dad, we did have a DD, which is amazing here in the DR! So with the houses down the road, wewere free to shower the evening with more Bachata music and engage inconversation, or at least the best conversation I can muster in a foreignlanguage at this time. We talkedabout women, surprise surprise, especially since all Dominican men want anyAmerican woman, the insane amount of stars in the Dominican sky, and theintricacies of how life works. Well it was getting late, so around 1:30 we once again decided it wasprudent to retire. However, I wasthe only one who thought this, because as we got back into the car to what Ithought was to return home, we started off in the other direction.
I figured that we needed to dropoff Melvin, one of the other two with us (I didn’t catch the DD’s name, whichis a shame as he was a hell of a guy). Well, after a few miles down the road, I decided it best to ask where wewere going. “Santiago,” was thereply from Junior, with a shit-eating grin from ear-to-ear. Now to describe more in depth as to myarea, we were up in the mountains about 20 kilometers North of Santiago, orabout a 30-minute drive. Well,given that I was obviously extremely concerned about returning home, I repliedto his reply, “Let’s do it!” Aftera stop at a different colmado to restock on beverages, we were off to ourdestination, the Casino. Oh boy,here I only had 300 pesos left and I find myself at a Casino at 2:00am inSantiago. Oh well, may as well trymy luck anyways, I mean what else can happen? I didn’t feel like having to think really hard, so that tookpoker out of the question, so I decided upon Roulette. I mean how hard can it be, Red orBlack? As I was making my firstbet, Junior politely reminded me that to play Red and Black is the mamsy-pansyway to play Roulette, so I took my bet off of the color, and started the greatdistribution across a myriad of numbers. First roll, hit a number… pretty lucky right? Played 8 rolls, hit 6 numbers. Now for those of you that don’t know about Roulette, that isfrickin ridiculous. I had managedto turn 300 pesos into just over 2500. As I cashed out, all I could think was what a strange and crazy blogentry this would make.
We headed out of the casino anddecided to go back to Arenoso. However, of course this could not be done without getting one lastnightcap, but being that it was around 3:00am and the law prohibits alcoholbeing sold after 12:00am, this was going to be difficult. No worries, I was with Junior. We drove around the streets of Santiagotalking out of the window to anyone that was sitting in front of theircolmado. Again, this is evidentlystandard practice, I mean as long as the cops aren’t around, no law reallyexists. We were quite unsuccessfulfor about 30 minutes, but then we pulled up to a small fruit stand on the sideof the highway, which sold beer as well. Junior got out of the car and started to do his thing, shooting the shitwith the storeowners feeling out the situation. A cop drove by down the highway going in the otherdirection, so Junior quickly picked up a pineapple and began to examine its’worthiness. Once the cop was outof sight, he once again began his negotiations. We were not to be so lucky. However, that same cop decided to turn around and see whatwas up.
The cops pull alongside our car,and I am sitting in the back seat thinking, “Oh great, gringo gonna get itnow!” However, I needed to remindmyself once again, I was with Junior. Of course he knew the cops. The first thing he says to them is. “What’s up!? Hey, loan me a fewpesos for a beer.” To put theicing on the cake, he pointed out that he was with an American that was fromthe Peace Corps, so of course we only had the best of intentions in mind. A good chuckle came from the cop, andthey let us be. After that, wedecided to stop pressing our luck and headed to Arenoso, for real this time. Bed was a very pleasant sight at4:00am. I guess I was able to blowoff all that steam I alluded to earlier, eh!?
That following weekend, we wereable to go to the beach at Sosua, which is breathtakingly beautiful. We went with the host family of one ofthe other trainees in his big guagua van. The ride to the beach took about 2 hours, but as we were jammed packedwith 5 volunteers and about 12 Dominicans, there was not a lack ofentertainment for the trip.
We got there, and after standing inthe sand with my mouth down to my knees in disbelief that I was in the PeaceCorps standing at this gorgeous beach (lay off, I work hard too!). We “rented” a few beach chairs, sincethis was a tourist destination, and got down to work. After everyone lathered on plenty of sunscreen (damn whitekids) we headed for the bluest water I have ever seen. Danielle and I were the first to bravethe waves, and I do say brave because of what happened. I guess that in my awe of the beach, Ifailed to notice that unlike any beach I had been to before, the waves here actuallycrashed straight onto the beach. Iam not talking about 10 feet out and washing up. I am talking dry beach being met with the forces of thewave. My second mistake was notlooking around (dumbass) to see that we were going into the ocean at the oneplace where it was rocky on the bottom and not sandy. So after being all smiles and amazed at this place, Danielleand I got about 20 feet out onto these rocks before we were greeted with ourfirst Dominican wave. It wiped usthe hell out. I did flips, flops,and God only knows what else. Danielle did the same. After the wave decided it was done with us and spat us out, we got up,looked at each other, and busted out laughing. That lasted right up until the part that I felt a pain in mybuttocks. Hard rock, meet Destinfleshy butt. No broken skin, but ahell of a purple blue spot to serve as my reminder that I was an idiot, if onlyfor a while.
The rest of the day was verypleasant. We swam and played, butthe best part was seeing the Dominicans in the water. Even though they were only a couple of hours away, it takesan event like having volunteers staying at their house to get them down to thebeach. Although the ages of themranged from 7-45, we all played like we were young kids.
After a long day of splashingaround and being in disbelief that we were in the DR in the PC at the beach, itwas time to pack up and head. Onthe way back to the guagua, we got another interesting culturalexperience. Pete, anothervolunteer, and myself were walking back with Junior when a beautiful Dominicanwoman approached us. It took meabout 15 seconds to realize what was going on here. She came up and hugged us all, which is normal, as this is avery friendly touchy culture, and then grabbed Pete by his swim trunks. She continued to talk to us in perfectlynormal conversation, all the while stroking Pete’s happy trail. The look on his face was hilarious, amixture of pure shock, confusion, and curiosity. I decided that this was my cue to turn away and walk. When they were down with theirconversation, I asked Pete what was up. All he could do was look at me and laugh. It’s true, especially in a tourist area; prostitution is areal problem here in the DR.
The following Tuesday, we didn’thave anything planned, so we were going to have a free day. We also had a bit of extra money fortraining that we didn’t plan on having, so we came up with the option of aField Trip. Everyone planned ongoing, and it was to be a very very interesting experience.
The first stop on our venture wasto the dump. Yes, the dump. I know it doesn’t sound all that great,but we are Environment Volunteers after all and it is important to see suchthings. Despite the fact that the smellcould kill a horse, it was a very interesting and eye-opening experience. While I had been angry whenever I sawsomeone burning their trash in their yard, I now have a differentperspective. The collectors takethe trash to the dump, where they instead burn it there! I know that there isn’t any real greatway to dispose of trash, but burning it certainly isn’t an acceptable way. The shock of it reminded myself, aswell as the others, exactly why we are here.
After the completely depressingexperience of the dump, we were to be brought back up with a trip to afantastic museum in Santiago. Idon’t remember the name, and will have to look it up because it is more thanworth mentioning. They had threemain exhibits, the history of the island of Hispaniola, Dominican art, and aBaseball exhibit (of course!). Themuseum was very new, modern, and impressive. I personally enjoyed the art exhibit the most, but theentire experience definitely picked us up from the depressing morning.
From there, it was on tolunch. As we all eat rice, beans,meat, and some kind of salad on a daily basis, it was decided that it would benice to switch it up a little bit. We went to a pizza joint! Oh sweet salvation! It is sofunny that while I have only been gone for a bit more than two months thecomforts of home still ring so wholly, especially pizza. How strange it is for the very normalfood I have eaten my entire life to become the strange food itself.
After lunch, we had twooptions. We could split from themain group and explore Santiago, or head about and hour and a half outside ofSantiago to visit a community garden project. I opted to check out the community garden, and thank god Idid. It was amazing. After the long drive, we pulled into aHaitian Battay. We were greeted bytwo of the most strangly looking dudes from the University of Vermont. Forrest and David are their names. Now they weren’t Peace Corps, but doingsome amazing work nonetheless. Their professor in Vermont bought this piece of land, and sent Daviddown to start planting. He had noexperience in the DR, no Spanish, no Creole, but did have Forrest whovolunteered to come down to help. The arrived and had no idea what they had gotten themselves into. No one in the community knew who theywere; just that these two white guys showed up and started living in their poorcommunity.
They didn’t exactly get the redcarpet welcome they thought of, so instead of sulk, they decided to getstraight to work. They turned this2-acre piece of trash-strewn land into a garden. They began by cleaning, then by planting, having to haulbuckets of water from the local pond to water their plants. Their plan was to divide the gardeninto portions that people could own and farm for free, all they had to do wasask. Because of the skepticism ofthe community, they got no takers for the first 3 months. But with the people seeing them workingtheir asses off every day, they started to change their minds. First it was the kids of the community. They came up and asked for a piece ofland. David and Forrest would showthem their spot, and the kids got to work. One thing is for sure, once they get ownership oversomething, they will bust their butts. When the adults saw the kids getting free land to grow food, they got inon the action. By the time wearrived to check it out, it was a full-fledged garden. Beans, corn, herbs, lettuce, squash,all sorts of food. What a treatand an inspiration to see these guys and what they were able to do. Although they will never read this, Iwant to put in here a special thanks to those two guys, as I will not forgetthat afternoon ever.
My next notable experience came ona very unsuspecting day. I wasmoved up into the advanced class (go me), however while the others only hadclass 3 times a week I opted to have private class the other 2 days to get mySpanish where I want it. On thisparticular day, I went to my teacher’s house, and rather than sit around andhave conversation about whatever as we normally did, she asked if I would liketo go into Santiago and shop a bit. Against my better judgment, as I know that Tania is a ridiculousshopper, makes other women look weak, I agreed to head into the city for thetrip.
Little did I know that she wasn’ttalking about going to some mall or the La Sirena (The Wal-Mart of the DR), buta street market. It was completelyinsane. People rent out tables inthis market that is covered with a myriad of tarps, then put whatever stuffthey are willing to sell, and do their thing. I know you are all thinking, “Hey Destin, that’s called aflea market,” but it’s not. Firstoff, there are no set prices at all in this place, everything is left up to“regetear”ing, or negotiating. Onething Dominicans love is their haggling. The second thing I noticed was the amazing amount of shoes forsale. It was a woman’s dream, andbeing that I was with Tania, I knew I was in deep shit. Tania told me that the main reason thatwe were going was to practice my bargaining skills. So I started off with some sandals. I needed to get a new pair, as thiscountry has taken a liking to eating my sandals, only been here for 2 monthsand 2 pairs of sandals have bit the dust. So I began my ordeal. Iwent to the first table and asked how much some random pair of sandals was,just to see the difference in price between a gringo and a Dominican. My price was easily 3 times that of anyDominican, damn my white skin. Ilearned right quick that my bargaining skills, for the lack of a better word,blow. But whatever, I was there topractice, so hopefully I’ll get better, or my wallet better start growingmoney. Another thing I noticed wasthat all of the pairs of shoes were brand new, and despite the fact that I wasgetting “gringo price” it was still way cheaper than could possibly beprofitable.
With that in mind, I asked Tania,“How in the world are all these prices so low and yet the shoes brand namebrand new?” She responded to me bysaying, “Yeah, so all those nice charitable drops made over Haiti, you’relooking at them.” My heartdropped. It was like a wave hit mein the face. Really made me thinkabout things differently. I meanhere we are thinking that we are helping by dropping stuff from a plane and yetwe are only fueling an underground market of charity goods. Made me realize the arrogance that wesometimes have when addressing some of the problems in this world. As if this rude awakening wasn’tenough, Tania then had to throw in, “Welcome to the REAL world!” Oh man. This sucks. Iwon’t go into the detail of what’s up in Haiti, as it is some f&*^@d upstuff, but our idea of helping is perhaps just as f#%*&d up in our ownspecial way. However, aftersulking with this revelation, it made me feel kind of good to know that what Iam trying to do here is perhaps the better side of the charitable actscoin.
So anyways, after I bought somesandals (I KNOW!! I’M TERRIBLE!!) it was back to the campo. Don’t hate me for it, I mean someoneelse would have bought them, and plus, I did some hard work to get the ladyfrom 450 pesos to 400, damn white skin. Later I will tell you all about the importance of skin color here,because it’s insane, but for now, I’m going to let the story of our charitableworks marinate with you.
Day 79 – HOLY S%^T Part II – Paraiso, DR – 5/14/08
I’m still playing catch-up with myjournal entries. Don’t think mylazy, I have been really quite busy. Also, I am currently under the grasps of the gripe, which I will explainlater. Anyhow, let me get back tomy stories of CBT so that I can catch up with this mother.
Afterspending close to a month in Arenoso, it was time to give a little somethingback. After all, these people wereabout as nice and pleasant as could be. Well one day I was playing some music on my computer when a group of myfans, or group of little kids, I prefer fans, came into my room. They were extremely curious as to whatI was doing. I thought it would becool if I showed them the Nintendo game emulator I had on my computer, and letthem play a little Mario Brothers in the process. The intrigue factor was indeed high, but when it came togame play, you would think I put a piece of rare alien technology in front ofthem. For the life of me Icouldn’t get them to learn how to use something as basic as a mouse correctly. For this, I decided that this was achance for me to do something nice for the community.
Onthat note, I scheduled a computer class for the following week. I was to teach the class with the helpof one of my new Dominican friends, Waldo. Waldo is a cool dude. He speaks a bit of English and is a Computer Design student. He showed me his portfolio, and let metell you, this guy is a true artist. Some of his work could easily be on the wall of some art museum. Anyways, since he has good knowledge oncomputers, and a hell of a lot better knowledge of Spanish, he was an obviousally. I offered the class towhoever desired to learn computers, and with the help of some other laptoploans from other volunteers, the class was set to start. Of course, here in the DR, you operatein “Dominican Time” which means that time doesn’t really matter. It is perfectly normal for people toshow up an hour late without realizing that perhaps they were doing somethingwrong. I made sure to get themessage across to everyone that the class would be starting in “American Time.” Surprisingly, the message wasreceived and everyone showed up at 6:00pm on the dot.
WhileI had originally intended to show them how to navigate through the computer, itquickly became obvious that it was needed to start with the extremebasics. Some of the people thatattended the class had never seen a computer before. This thought crossed my mind before, but I figured thatbecause Arenoso was only 40 minutes outside of the second largest city in thecountry that perhaps they had more experience. So Waldo and I started by explaining the basic parts;monitor, keyboard, mouse, etc. They were more than eager to learn, and more than more than eager to gettheir hands on the computers. Itwas such a good experience to see them so ready to learn and gain some skillsthat before were inaccessible to them. Next, we showed them how to open a program, Microsoft Word, to typesomething, and then save it. Thisprocess took quite some time. Whatwe see as such an everyday basic skill is foreign to these guys. Then, to really blow their minds, wetaught them how to open their saved file. Before we did this, they had no concept that what they had typed wassaved in the computer. It tooknearly 2 ½ hours to get my 12 students through this. Since we planned on teaching much more, Waldo and I decidedto hold class again the next night.
Thenext night, only 9 of the 12 showed up. Believe it or not, that is a hell of a retention rate. We have been warned that our classes,whether they be computer, English, or otherwise would see a dramatic drop instudents as people figured out that work is needed to learn. For this second class, I let Waldo takethe reigns and do his thing. Hewent through other skills, other programs and their uses, and in the end, eachone of the guys at the class came away with at least enough knowledge so thatthe next time they saw a computer, it wasn’t alien technology.
Only2 days after the computer classes, it was time to leave CBT. I couldn’t believe that I had spent alittle over a month in Arenoso. Injust that small amount of time, I managed to make some amazing friends and haveeven more outlandish adventures. The guys like Junior, Marino, and Melvin will always be in my mind, andheck, I plan on visiting them again, and perhaps even them visiting me. When the morning came for me to leave,my family was all there to say goodbye, and my Dona even cried! She was so damn cute. I really felt like I was walking awayfrom yet another group of people that I can now call my family.
Thetrek back to Santo Domingo wasn’t all that bad. We got a couple of private guaguas, which includedair-conditioning!, and made it back in a matter of a couple hours. We went to Entrena, our training centerin San D, only to eat lunch and drop our big luggage. We then were off to Sabana de la Mar. Sabana is in the east close to Samana,which is a growing tourist destination here. In fact, we were going for that exact reason, to see thetourist area and spend some time with another volunteer, Joe, and see hisproject with local guides.
Day 90 – Holy S*%T Almost There – Paraiso, DR – 5/25/08
Ok,so 11 days have passes and still I am yet to catch up with this journal. It’s really quite sad, because now thatI am here in my site, I do in all actuality have a bit of free time eachday. Ok, so that’s a lie, I have awhole bunch of free time. So I amfinally going to stop putting it off and get all this down right now, whether Ilike it or not.
Sabanade la Mar. It was about a 3 ½ hourride there, which isn’t the most interesting drive you have ever been oneither. The east of the DR is muchlike Florida, same kind of plants, hot as heck, and flat. Picture I-10, yeah, it’s thatinteresting. Anyways, once wefinally got there, it is a completely different story. Sabana de la Mar is right on the bay,across from Samana. The bay is ahuge place for fishing, but also this is a great place for tourism. There are cliffs that go down into thebay, many times forming little caves. Where the cliffs are not found, there are huge mangrove forests. In addition to that, there is thenational park Los Haitises there. In the times before Columbus, the Taino Indians inhabited this area, andduring their time there, they painted in the caves. The same caves that go down into the water were places ofworship and painting for the Tainos. But before we got to experience all of that, we had some work to do.
Thiswas our last trip, our last task, our last charla before we were finallyvolunteers. Because of this, theyhad to pack in as many things as they could in the 3 days we were to bethere. The first night, we checkedinto our hotel, and then went down to a restaurant on the water for dinner. All of us looked at one another withthe same grin that said, “You have to be kidding me, this is not the PeaceCorps.” Well, to bring us back toreality they followed up dinner with another charla. These little talks were getting old fast, since we had about30 or so during our time in training.
Thesleeping arrangements were completely hilarious. We had the entire hotel to ourselves, as I suppose would benecessary with over 30 of us. Itwas on a first come, first serve basis. The funny part came in when it was evident that the infamous “PeaceCorps Hookups” had begun. Therewas some fun switch-a-roos going on so that new-found love could flourish. As I said back in the beginning of theblog, chisme (gossip) is one of the most loved things in this country, so thereis a little piece of the chisme for all of you at home.
Thenext day was a packed out day. Wewere going to go to Los Haitises to do some work on the trails, visit aneco-tourism lodge, go on a boat tour of the Taino caves, and finish it all offwith… guess… one last charla.
LosHaitises is amazing. It is simplybeautiful, untainted nature. Thereis only one trail that leads through the entire park; with trees, flours,animals, and spectacular cliffs being more than abundant. We were there to work on thisparticular day. First we collectedour tools, which was when I took the opportunity to test the sharpness of onemachete on my finger. The testyielded results that in fact the machete was quite sharp. Nothing a Band-Aid can’t handle. With my stupidity out of the way, wewere off. After about a mile hikeinto the park, we picked up the shovels and pick-axes and got to work buildingwater bars to try and prevent erosion from happening on the trial. It’s pretty good work, lots of manuallabor, which thanks to my mom and pops, I’m an expert. It was only about an hour of work,since there were 30 of us to make 2 bars. It’s not too hard, you have to dig out a trench that goes with the slopeof the mountain to allow water to run through the trail rather than down thetrail. Line it with rocks to keepit up and you have yourself a nice way to prevent the trial from being washedout. With that work done, it wason to bigger and better things.
Thereis an eco-tourist lodge on the edge of Los Haitises that is called CanoHondo. It is as eco-friendly as itcan be while still running a good business. They only wash the sheets twice a week, which does in facthelp. They also use naturefriendly detergents, lights, they grow their own food, they produce their ownenergy, and a myriad of other activities that make it at least a bit morenature friendly than the normal tourist destination. For those of you that are thinking about visiting me, Ihighly recommend checking into this place. Anyways, the main attraction here is the river. It runs right in front of thehotel. They then dammed the riverat a couple of spots to create these natural pools that the water of the riverflows through. It’s refreshingcold water, since I am in the hottest damn place ever. We were lucky enough to spare an houror two from our day to splash around in the pools after lunch. Sure went a long way.
Theboat tour of the mangrove forest and the Taino caves was the highlight of thetrip. I have never been to a placequite like this. I mean it’s rightout of the movies with these quasi islands that rise on all sides with cliffsand topped with vegetation. It wasalso cool to see that there was a project going on through some university backin the States that was reforestation of mangroves. Since mangroves are a crucially important part of theaquatic ecosystem, it’s nice that someone was paying special attention tothem.
Thecaves were humongous. The firstone looked more like a airplane hanger made from rock than a cave. The ceiling was about 120 feet up, andyou could easily fit an army of people inside. The second cave was the one that I took a particular likingto. It was right on the water, andwas a series of caves that I personally want to create my house in. Parts of the caves have openings out intothe bay where water gently lapped at the sides. There were Taino paintings as well as carvings that we werelucky enough to see. The onlydownside to the caves was the warning signs before going in that there are somedevil-spider thing living inside. This buggers are said to be huge, and while they are spiders, they havetwo claws, making it a spider/crap looking monstrosity. Being a big wuss, I kept a special eyeout for those guys. However, theview inside the caves was good enough to keep my mind off of all that.
Withthe end of the day, after the ever so interesting charla (I hope you can pickup on my sarcasm there) it was off to bed. I was way to tired to do anything else, as some in my groupwent boozing.
Thenext day was charlas and visiting with Joe and his group. They were a great bunch. These kids ran in age from 15-21, andthey had their stuff together. They were teaching each other charlas, playing games, teaching us, andjust all around good kids. However, the focus of this day was on the Environment Volunteer Leader,Adam.
Adamis one of the two people in the DR that decides where our sites are. We were all dying to know, because wehad been in country for two months, and yet still didn’t know where we would beliving for the next two years. Well, the opportunity arose that night to change the situation. It was divulged to us that if we werewilling to get Adam drunk, he just may have a slip of the tongue and tell usour sites. How could I possiblyignore this opportunity?
Afterdinner, we went to a different restaurant to have a drink. Surprisingly to me, most of the othersin my group decided they didn’t have the energy to persuade Adam and went backto the hotel (shouldn’t have gone out the night before). Danielle, Rosa, and myself were theonly three that took on the challenge. So at the restaurant, the wallet opened and the drinks started tocome. Of course one destination anda couple beers wasn’t going to do the trick, so we went off to the discotecafor follow-up. After a few moredrinks there, Adam began to open up. It probably did help that we were practically begging for any info onour sites. The game of cat andmouse continued until almost midnight. Finally, after a couple of hours of dropping hints to us that we couldnever decipher, Adam dropped the bomb. He first told me to go ask Yahaira, one of the Entrena teachers with us,what Paraiso is. Paraisotranslates to Paradise, but I didn’t know what that meant. Yahaira told me that it means that Iwould have water and electricity, it would be beautiful, and that I had a lotof luck. When I went back to Adamto confirm that he was just giving me details, he said no, and to ask her againabout Paraiso the place. When Itold Yahaira that, I could see the light bulb go off over her head and she toldme yet again that I am one lucky guy. She didn’t have anything else really to say, so I was content knowingthe name of my site and that it was in the South. I desperately wanted to go to an internet café to see what Icould find on my site, but being that it was now around 2 in the morning, thatwasn’t exactly possible. Besides,while I didn’t go out the night before, that didn’t mean I wasn’t tired, so Iretired.
Thenext day we went back to Santo Domingo for our last week before we were off toour sites. The light at the end ofthe tunnel was so near. The realfun part was the following day, site assignment day.
Day 96 – HOLY S*@T The Conclusion – Santo Domingo, DR –6/1/08
Iam here in Santo Domingo for the weekend getting some R&R. After spending my first month in mysite, all alone, the only gringo in town, it’s nice getting out and seeing someof my fellow volunteers. This alsogives me the perfect opportunity to finally end this madness and get this blogwritten and updated.
Soback to where I was, site assignment day. The big day had finally arrived. We were all at the Entrena training center with nervous ticks as weawaiting the big news. I mean,don’t get my wrong, I was all good since I had got the PCVL (Peace CorpsVolunteer Leader) a few drinks and coaxed my site out of him, but the otherswere a bit nervous. We broke upinto our program groups and then Alberto, my APCD (Assistant Peace CorpsDirector) called names one by one to hand out the folders with all theinformation about what the deuce the next two years of our lives would belike. The funny part was thatdespite the fact that we all had our sites, and brief descriptions of our jobs,many people still had no idea what the hell was going on. It was pretty fun going up to the bigmap and seeing who was going to be around and who you had to drive 18 hours tovisit. My job description was thatI am to be working with coffee farmers to help better the quality of theircoffee, using organic methods. Also, getting the farmers organically certified so that they can selltheir coffee for a much higher price. The big one is just getting them organized. Right now they are selling their coffee to an intermediarywho then sells it to companies or markets for the larger share of theprofit. I want to get these guyscertified and organized so that we can sell our coffee straight to market so myfarmers see more Benjamin’s. Anyways, after pouring over and letting the imagination run wild withour sites and jobs, it was time to get down to business.
Thenext day was Project Partner Day. This was when our Dominican counterparts were to come meet us here inSan D, and then after some orientation, finally go to our sites and check outour lives. We got to the place ofthe meeting and a group of Dominicans were milling around in the patioarea. This was our first directcontact with anything to do with our projects, so the pressure was on to make agood impression. Slowly usvolunteers were showed to our respective project partners to make that awkwardfirst conversation. When they gotme to help me find my project partner, there was one problem. He wasn’t there. Now this should have been a sign to meof what to expect, but I would need to learn this lesson a few times more. We couldn’t wait forever, so we startedProject Partner Day without a project partner for Destin. Finally, about an hour and a half late(Dominican time), Fernando arrived. He is actually a super cool guy, just doesn’t exactly have the sameconcepts of punctuality as I do. After some super fun (NOT) team building exercise (..notto-nigh-igh-ight) we were off to Paraiso, my paradise. On the guagua ride I tried to get asmuch information out of Fernando as possible. I mean what a strange feeling to be headed to your destinywithout knowing anything about it save a few pages of cryptic writing aboutyour site. After about a 6-hourtrip (don’t worry, when you guys come it won’t take that long) we were inParaiso. Talk about gorgeous. It was simply the most amazing place Ihave seen. The beach and theCaribbean Sea on one side, mountains on the other three sides. In the distance down the beach arecliffs that go straight into the water. It really is a scene out of “Pirates of the Caribbean”. Lucky me.
Thenit was on to the new host family’s house. This was the last host family (thank God). My Dona’s name is Senda, and she is a really sweet lady thatlives in Paraiso, but has a finca up in Leonardo, where my actual work is. This works out great because she is,just as I am, living in one place and working in the same other place. She lives with her nephew, Walli, whois a cool guy, 22, and works for the local politicians as a driver. They were very welcoming to me, andafter some delicious fresh made juice it was off to bed, what a day!
Thenext day I was supposed to go around Paraiso with my project partner to get anidea of my town. Actually, thenext 4 days I was supposed to do activities like this. However, Fernando is a pretty busydude. I’m ok with that, but whenyou don’t show up for 4 days, and don’t call to tell me that, it kind of wearson your nerves. Oh well, I guess Ihave a bit more adjustment to go through before I am truly Dominican.
Thelast two days of my site visit made everything better. Fernando came with a huge group ofpeople, and we were going camping! We headed down to Bahia de las Aguilas, which as I am sure you guysdon’t know, is the most beautiful place I have seen. It is a desert with cacti everywhere. Cliffs edge the 2-kilometer beach ofwhite sand that is so fine that when you go in the water and pick it up it ismore of the consistency of clay. It was nice hanging out there, but since we didn’t have tents, shadebecame a problem. My nice sexy tanturned to lobster boy. What ashame. But that’s just how it goessometimes. After our day at Bahia,we went to the Baharuco National Park up in the mountains. The change from the hot beach to thecold mountains all within a couple hour drive was a bit hard to handle, as Iwas still in board shorts and t-shirt. Camping in the mountains was cold, believe it or not.
Thecamping trip was nice, and a good way to round out what was rather a veryuneventful site visit. I was backto the capitol for a couple days before we were to be sworn-in as volunteers.
Theswear-in ceremony was interesting at best. All of our host families from Santo Domingo came to theceremony to see their Dominican children blossom into Volunteers. (yeah I said it, blossom) The ambassador from the US was there,as well as a panel of Dominican officials. The only real highlight was having to raise the right handand doing the whole “Protect the Constitution… yadda yadda yadda”. With that all done, it was back tosite, this time for real, as official PCVs!
Comingback to Paraiso was nice. The tripwas rough, as we had all of our crap with us, which 2 years of stuff will morethan pack out a couple of suitcases. But the feeling of having all of your stuff in your site, where you willlive, is a bit of a sigh of relief. However, the next day came with an unpleasant surprise, the gripe!
AsI have said earlier in this blog, the gripe is any kind of sickness. Well my gripe came in the form of whatI believe was a sinus infection. If put me out of commission for the first week and a half of myservice. What a great start. On the other hand, while some of theother volunteers were having some difficulties adjusting to our new isolatedlives, I had a pretty good excuse, and even then I was still enjoyingmyself. In that way I feel like Igot off to a pretty good start.
Thelast few weeks have been pretty good. I’m not doing too much, just trying to get to know my community and themgetting to know me. I walk aroundthe town for about 1 ½ hours each day just to get my face out there. I play casino or dominos with theneighborhood people, and basketball with some of the youth. There are groups of American volunteersfrom various organizations that come into Paraiso for a week or so to do somework, so unlike many of the other volunteers, I am not the lone gringo intown. However, getting out thereinto the community has gotten me the title of “The Peace Corps Gringo”, so it’sa start. And now, with a greatsigh of relief I have basically caught up with my journal and blog. Thanks for reading all of that, I knowit was a bit of a big post. Buthey, your guys get to live a little bit vicariously through me…
