Hurricane Survival 101

I wanted to send a message to let you all know that I am OK. We have survived Hurricane Dean, which plowed across the Caribbean and brushed along the coast of the DR Saturday night. Peace Corps Saftey and Security is right on top of any potential danger headed our way, so as of this past Tuesday we knew to be prepared for a possible hurricane. Before the weather news, we had had a nice weekend away planned for the volunteers in our region, scheduling a mandatory meeting in a cool hotel on the north coast that serves Indian food. We were more than disappointed when the PC called to let us know that we were being "consolidated", and everyone had to make their way to the nearest "safety checkpoint" for at least the next three days. That meant no cool hotel, and no Indian food! :´( In my case, I headed to a mediocre hotel in San Francisco de Macorís, just over an hour inland from my site.

I always thought I´d feel like I was betraying my community if they ever pulled me out in an emergency, leaving my friends in the path of disaster. Though, it was hard to believe there was any real danger when I headed out Friday afternoon in sunny skies dotted with fluffy white clouds. No one seemed too worried, the path of the storm was only predicted to skim the southern coast, and in that case only with strong winds and rain. They were right not to worry.

The effects that hit us were disappointing to say the least. Rain came down like a dribble and a light cough would have created a stronger breeze than anything felt outside. (The photo above was actually the day after the hurricane, with heavier rains than during the storm!) If we were going to be evacuated and sheltered in a small hotel for three days, I would have liked to see some action! Well, at least everyone was safe, and I didn´t have to worry about anyone in my town getting hurt.

Instead, we made the most of our evacuation time. I completed the following, hurricane-survival techniques:

1. I went shopping and got some much-needed clothing items (clothes just disintegrate down here!)
2. I watched the following movies:
The Departed - 4 stars
Before Sunset - 4 stars
Coach Carter - 2.5 stars
Also:
Season 1 of The Office - 4 stars
3. Ate lots of food and drank lots of Snapple, with Peace Corps covering the tab (thanks American tax payers!)
4. Got back spasms from lack of physical activity

All in all I think it was a blessing in disguise. I´d been burning myself out with meetings and activities in my site, I needed some good quality rest time.

In having survived this hurricaine, I have the following recommendations for anyone who might find themself in the same situation:

1. Bring your laptop, or know someone who has one. With this, you can get lots of work done, or more importantly, watch lots of DVDs.

2. Bring lots of DVDs.

3. Bring a memory stick so you can transfer music from friends´ laptops onto your own. Key for when you were lacking enough Dominican music.

And that´s that. I´ll head back tomorrow and back to work. Hope all is well up there, and Happy Birthday Dad!

Joan

July 2007

Let’s break it down – boom chicki boom. Here’s the low down on what went down this month down here in the DR:

July 4^th - I get a call from Bianca, fellow volunteer and great friend who lives somewhat close to me two hours away on the north coast. She asks what I am doing for Independence Day. Having forgotten almost entirely about this holiday (thanks to this lack of marketing and no difference between summer and any other season), I agreed that we should do something. The only logical thing that comes to mind is to have some people over your house for a cookout. But how would I find a grill in a country that doesn’t barbeque? As fate would have it, I have an American neighbor, a retired rancher from Colorado named Harry, who has got just about every piece of equipment you could ever dream of. Against all odds of PCDR, I obtained a grill from Harry for this day. Bianca came over and we splurged on hot dogs and hamburger meat. I invited some of my closest friends and their families and we had a true family cookout! It was a great taste of home. Well, I wouldn’t say it tasted great, I royally screwed up the hamburgers, having a hard time getting those coals burning the way they should. You can see the disappointment on their faces as they watched in disbelief at just how bad a cook I can be:

Early July Fundraising – Also against all odds was the likelihood of keeping the Sala de Tarea (after school program) up and running. With no money and no one who cared, the Sala was falling into a bottomless pit. In steps Joan – and the Sala is saved. I don’t mean to toot my own horn, but damn I’m good. Here was one of our efforts to raise some money – we made and sold a common household cleaning product called Mistolin which everyone uses, and sold it for poco dinero (little money), I bought the raw ingredients in the capital and we spent many afternoons mixing a couple of gallons at a time and filling old (recycled!) water bottles with the stuff. It sold at 20 pesos a pop (about 65 cents), and we did great. The kids did most of the selling, they’re cuter and much more convincing. They loved to sell! “Mistolin twenty pesos sala de tarea” was about all they could muster to say, no further explanation, but it did the trick. We’ll probably do another round this month:
Now you see it...

...now you don´t!

Also at the Sala de Tarea was a volunteer from Ohio named Betha (see above, right). She came in for six weeks to help out at the Sala, teaching and playing with the kids. She helped with the fundraising as well as the campaign to get people their birth certificates. It was nice to have another American around that I could complain to for a while (I still do that!). Hopefully she enjoyed her time here!

July 7^th – I proposed the idea and helped organize a baby shower for my good friend Jenny. She is the one I lived with during my first three months in my site. It was a success – she never suspected a thing and was totally surprised. Look at her reaction!

More scenes from the baby shower. By the way, the Spanish translation for baby shower is “baby shower”:

July 25^th – The baby is born! My “niece”, Angela Julianny. People often name their kids after themselves, many times combing names of the parents. In this case, Julio + Jenny = Julianny. Pronounced like the old mayor of New York. She is so tiny and white, here’s a photo:

July 8 – 14^th – The new editor of the “Gringo Grita”, the Peace Corps magazine for the DR, steps into position. It was a busy busy week with lots of commas and hyphens and references to the dictionary to check our slowly fading knowledge of English, along with all of the technical problems that come along with this type of work. (What would copy and design be without computer glitches?) In the end I lost a lot of hair but we turned out a great issue. My good friends Bianca and Margo came on board to help, and they were great, with lots of creative ideas and way more energy than I had. I´ll put a link up to the PDF if I can figure out how to do it.

July 23 – 27, Camp GLOW – Thank you so much to everyone who donated, your money went a long way! The girls camp, Camp GLOW, was a big success. It was a great opportunity for the girls to learn about a variety of sensitive topics in a comfortable environment, without the pressure of what the guys are thinking. The camp touched on teamwork, leadership, self-esteem, family planning, HIV/AIDS, nutrition, and more, along with fun activities. I gave a creative writing class and a salsa dance class. I brought two girls from my community, Reylandi and Argenis. Here we are in our cute pink t-shirts:

The trust walk:

Pin the clitoris on the woman:

Learning how to put a condom on a plantain:

Will I do it again? Hell no. Was it great for the girls involved? Absolutely. Is Joan the “camper” type? No sir. I’m still trying to get the tree song out of my head, “E-I-E-I-O!”

July 30^th – Fearing the worst, I took my youth group on a day trip. I worried for nothing – the day went great! We went to a natural fresh water pool about 45 minutes from where we live and spent the day swimming and dancing (there´s always dancing in this country). It was the first real activity that I did with my youth group. I was hoping for it to be a good strengthening activity to help shape the group and involve more people. It worked! Our regularly scheduled meeting last night brought in more people than ever, and everyone was so excited to talk about and plan our next activities. Here is a photo from the pool:

Hope you’re having a great summer!

Tara´s Entry

Joan is so Dominican…

It isn’t that hard really. By the end of 10 days, even I was picking up habits.
Top 6 reasons Joan is so Dominican:

1. She feeds her cat people food. This one was a dilemma for her: I was telling her she was weird for feeding her cat EVERYTHING that she ate and the people of her village told her she was weird for buying cat food. What is one to do? (see picture) 2. She speaks with their accent. Even if you know Spanish you can’t understand what they are saying.
3. She goes to meetings late. And I mean late, like ½ hour to an hour. Basically time means nothing to Dominicans.
4. She got her toes professionally done, pink with floral designs… to match her dress.
5. She no longer craves chocolate after every meal and lives without cereal.
6. She can dance!!

But, I make better tostones. (Below, Joan and Richard making "tostones", or fried plantain)Pretty much it takes forever to do everything. At times it made me feel a little impatient but I was on vacation so I tried to enjoy every minute of it, knowing I was heading back to my reality in too short of time.

The bigger cities, like Santo Domingo and Nagua, I didn’t like so much. Nagua is the city close to her town. If you read any travel guides for the DR, they will tell you not to go there. The cities were full of stray dogs, cars, scooters, and litter. Joan’s town had all the same but the stray dogs looked healthy, the cars were almost non-existent, the scooters were fun, and I got used to the litter. Except for the moment Joan threw a straw wrapper on the ground! My heart almost stopped.

(A view from Las Terrenas)

The beaches were so pretty and the water was so warm. We went to two that were touristy – Puerto Plata and Las Terrenas, and the one by her village. All beautiful. One of my favorite things of the trip was the fruit. I ate more mangos and pineapple than I have in my lifetime. And the fresh juice was so good. The people were also really nice. The first thing everyone says when you meet them is “this is my house, if you need anything…” One of her neighbors, Nina, cooked us many meals and was so proud that we liked them. We then made them brownies. This is real treat because they don’t have ovens.

(Tara with Richard)

We were involved in two fender benders. The first- we were on an overcrowded guagua on our way to Puerto Plata. As we made out way through a congested area our driver hit the car in front of us and took off. The second- we were in a Peace Corps truck and were rear-ended in Santo Domingo. The divers traded info this time. No one was hurt. I actually think it’s quite comical and surprised it doesn’t happen more often. Traffic laws there are merely suggestions. I have to say though, I didn’t usually feel nervous, and I am a nervous passenger; they know what they’re doing… or at least look like they do.

I was sad to leave. (Although, I did get a marriage proposal at the airport from one of the security guards and contemplated it for a moment. He was hot, but I know better.) As I was getting on the plane to go home the stewardess made a remark that everyone getting off the plane was smiling and everyone getting on looked so unhappy. I guess we were all sad to leave.

Tara

Getting Down to Business

It was a dark, stormy night. Thunder roared as a warm, suspicious breeze swept along the town and invited nocturnal creatures out from their murky depths. The creatures heard the call and heard the thunder and emerged, making their way out from the river bed, across the dirt paths and to my front patio. I heard a motorcycle in front of my house at 11:00 that night, keeping my headlamp hidden so they would think I was not home, not realizing they were there for a different purpose. As I woke the next morning and started making my way down the street, the Doñas were beginning to prepare lunch for their families, and I received my invitation.

“Juana, ven a comer almuerzo aquí, tenemos cangrejo hoy!” “Juana, come here to eat lunch today, we’re having crab!”

Lots of rain had gathered up all of the crabs, and the thunder scared them out of their riverbeds. This week was like crab week in my town, the crabs were running wild and the people went out late at night with their flashlights to round them up for lunch the next day. Being along the ocean, (in fact, below sea level), you often get some interesting sights. I have found crabs in my bedroom on two occasions. Shrimp can be seen paddling their way through the puddles that collect in the empty plots of land. Even in the dirt roads, pieces of coral are mixed in with the rocks and stones.

José Miguel showed me some of the crabs his father found, as they picked off the legs from the still-living creatures and threw them in the cooking pot. With a little work and dedication, they can be pretty fun to eat, sucking the meat out of the legs like a straw. I may have even eaten the crab that made it to my front porch!

Speaking of creatures in my bedroom, I now have a cat! He takes care of all of the other unwanted creatures in my house, often to my dismay. I´m used to my cats in the states finding a mouse or a bird, severely injuring it, then batting it around, never actually sure what that primordial instinct was trying to tell them to do with it. The Dominican cats are different. They go for the kill, and then go for the meal. I witnessed my cat tossing around a freshly killed mouse, and before I had time to spit out my toothpaste, I heard the bones crunching and was too late to stop him from eating the mouse in its entirety – tail, fur, and head included. I didn´t let him sleep with me that night. He also kills and eats frogs, lizards, cockroaches, and giant spiders, among other things I´m sure, but have not had the misfortune to witness.
Though he´s still really cute and full of spastic kitten energy. He loves his mum and is with me wherever I go in the house. At night he sleeps with me, though rather than in my bed he actually sleeps ON TOP of the mosquito net, like it’s a hammock! His name is Moreno, a popular nickname here meaning “dark-skinned”, which is just so taboo in the states that I decided to take advantage of the opportunity to use a name like this and thought it a interesting play on the cultures. Also, when I got the cat, it had been one year since I had visited the Moreno Glacier in Patagonia, Argentina. Remember those photos???

Last weekend was the inauguration of the new town hall building in my town. They have a mayor, or “Sindico”, but they had just been working out of a rented house. Now they have a beautiful new space in the most modern building in town! I got all dressed up for the special occasion in a pink dress I borrowed from a friend. It was a nice treat, how often do you have the opportunity to get all decked out in dresses and jewelry?! Here is a photo of myself with the Sindico:This is my friend Richard with two friends and neighbors, sisters Clara and Deisy:

More pictures from the inauguration:Things have really picked up lately on the work front. Lots of planning and research are finally starting to take shape into more tangible projects. I’ve got a youth group now, which I hope to be a fun outlet for the youth where they can do activities as well as educational things to keep them off the streets and more educated about the decisions they make. Sexual education is virtually non-existent amongst Dominicans and therefore teenage pregnancy is a big problem, which for kids here simultaneously means marriage and starting a family. I’ll educate them in this area and about AIDS, STDs, etc. My goal is that not one of my youth gets pregnant nor gets someone pregnant unintentionally during my time here! It seems a little silly but its and honest-to-goodness goal, and I honestly don’t know how hard it will be!

I’ve also got an after school program, a “Sala de Tarea” (homework room) which I’m taking under my wing to help maintain because no one else wants to do it! Its very important as it is the only other option outside of the school where kids can get help with their schoolwork. Many kids who have learning disabilities do not otherwise have focused attention to help them learn, so if they don’t understand the way they teach in the classroom they may get discouraged and not continue with school (a common problem). The Sala was started with funds from a local community organization, and since the funds ran out in January we have been barely hanging on by a thread! I’ve been doing some small-scale fundraising activities this month (making and selling household cleaning soap from scratch, as well as a “Jeans day” at the school where they can pay to wear jeans instead of their uniforms), and both have been pretty successful. Meanwhile, we have a small committee of people who are working to come up with a more regular method of sustainability. Here are some of the kids waving from the morning session: Also on the agenda is a campaign to get people registered who do not have their birth certificates. I started the weekly meetings in my community two weeks ago, and there are a lot of people who want to be involved! It is a big problem and there are many people without birth certificates, so I’m hoping we can help at least some of them get registered.

We’re applying for funds as well for my community organization to finish the construction of their new building. As of now they don’t have a place to meet, and when this is finished (its still got a ways to go) they’ll have not only their own location, but a space for English and computer classes, as well as for other community and youth groups to meet.

And there are more ideas and plans in the works! Of course, as you know I am also working to help organize the girl’s camp, Camp GLOW in July. I will be selecting the girls who will accompany me this week, they have filled out applications and I will select the two that I believe would benefit most or could give back the most to the community from their experience. Thank you so much to all who donated, together we raised $540!

May I also add that you are all reading the blog of the new EDITOR of the Peace Corps DR magazine! I was asked to take over as the past editor has just finished his service. I’m very excited about it, I love working on the magazine and know it is such a great outlet for the volunteers here! They can read stories from other volunteers amongst humorous plays on the culture of the DR, the US, or the Peace Corps in general! Since I’ve still got a year and a half to go, I’ll be able to do about five issues.

My friend Tara is here visiting right now for ten days! She’s already developed a love for plantains, has learned how to dance Merengue and Bachata, and learned not to trust Dominican men. I’ll have her write about her impressions soon.

Thanks!
Joan

Marc's Impressions

It has now been about 3 weeks since I have come back from the Dominican and in lieu of payment for staying at Joan's house I will be doing a blog entry.

Arrival was a bit shaky since my luggage was not on the plane and I didn't get it until 3 days later (luckily they dropped it off at Joan's house). So there wasn't the cheesy greeting of us seeing each other and running into a big hug, it was more like me turning the corner with a pissed off look on my face and Joanie knowing that something happened. But it all worked out in the end.

The first night we stayed in Santo Domingo at a youth hostel near the Peace Corps headquarters. The first order of business was to get me some clothes. I bought a shirt and some underwear, just the essentials. The brand name of the underwear was "Sexyman" so I knew I had to get that one. We then did a good amount of walking around the city and grabbed a bite to eat at a restaurant. I had some really good shrimp and rice with the Dominican beer of choice, Presidente. Then took a cab back to the hostel and called it a night.

The next day we were still trying to figure out the luggage situation, but we weren't having much luck since it was Easter Sunday and it seemed like basically no one was working. Since we couldn't get through we decided to go to the supermarket for some food. Along the way I noticed that the streets were real dirty (her site isn't nearly as bad) and there were huge holes in the middle of the sidewalk that seemed to go down six feet and were mostly filled with trash. I was being very careful walking around these but Joan hardly seemed to notice and just kind of walked around them while still talking to me. Definitely something that she has gotten used to.

Since we were in the city she wanted to take advantage of the Chinese restaurant since there isn't anything like it near her site. It was probably the sweetest Chinese food I have had but still pretty good, it just seemed odd seeing a bunch of Dominicans cooking 'Chinese food'. Then we were off to her site for the 4 hour bus ride.

Along the way is a really cool looking tree that Joan made sure to point out.

Then we were at her site and I met her friend Reylandi while we were walking to her house. It was raining pretty heavily so not many people were out we went over to meet one of her neighbors who made us some unbelievable cherry juice. I was shocked to see that the kids in the house were playing a PS2, definitely not something I was expecting.

The heavy rain on the tin roof was very loud yet also peaceful that first night in her house.

I then got the chance to visit the beach in her town. It was only a 5-10 minute walk when it was just Joan and I but the times we had a Dominican with us they turned it into a 20-25 minute walk. I guess they just aren't in the same rush as we were. The Dominican part of the beach was very nice and the white object you can see in the water is an over turned refrigerator/boat.

Later that night we went to a big dance a little down the beach and had a little bit to drink. It was a blast with everyone dancing and listening to the music. We had some rum with coconut water, which was surprisingly good. I normally don't like rum too much but it was a very good mix and the coconuts were coming down straight from the trees around us!


The next few days I just sort of followed Joan around the town as she did her normal day to day business. Basically walk around and talk to people. This was a little difficult for me since I can barely say anything outside of "Hola" and "Si", although I picked up on a little bit as the week went on.

Everyone in the town was incredibly nice and clearly like Joanie. One of the old men said (through Joan's translation of course), "The world loves Joan".

Also throughout the week I quickly learned about all of the 'other things' that live in peoples houses down there. Back home if Joanie saw any sort of bug, especially spiders, she would scream. Here it is a completely different story, most of the times she would kill the bug before I even knew it was there.



Here you can see the victim, the assailant and the weapon. Luckily I only saw two cockroaches during the week and this was one of them.




There were other creatures that were harmless and good to have around since they would eat some of the other bugs like mosquitoes.





At first when I got there I wondered why none of the Dominicans wore shorts even though it was 80+ and humid every day I was there, but after walking around in shorts for two days and counting 52 bug bites on my left leg alone it suddenly made sense to me and I tried wearing pants more for the rest of the week.

After walking around the town for a few days we went to a touristy town a few hours away. It was interesting getting there and back. We had to take Gua-Guas, which is basically just a truck or a van that drives a certain route. The thing is, they will fit as many people in the vehicles as they possibly can. On the way back we were in the equivalent of a Volkswagen Van and there were 19 people including the driver in the van. The route we were on was also a very steep mountain path, so I was a bit nervous for a bit.

Transportation aside, it was well worth the trip. The beaches were amazing.











There was a rope swing hanging from one of the palm trees that Joanie had to take advantage of.










I also happened to be there for her birthday, Friday the 13th!!! Normally Dominicans don't really do much for birthdays, apparently they don't even like to have them regardless of their age but they did get a cake for Joanie and we went out.

We went to the club near her house, the gave us free rum and cokes when we got in there. There was our group and another group in there so we left, but they told us to take the free drinks with us so we took our drinks into the cab to go to another bar in the town nearby and we walked into the bar with our own drinks from the previous bar without any problem. I just couldn't stop thinking about how there was absolutely no way that could ever happen in the states.

We went to a few places and had a blast, at one of the bars they made an announcement that for the next 2 minutes every beer was 1 peso. The exchange rate is about 33 pesos= $1, so that is about a 3 cent beer. Oh ya.

That was my last night and we left early in the morning to take the long bus ride to the airport and time for me to go home. I had a blast and cant wait to go back again, hopefully they will have the new highway finished so it will cut the bus ride from the airport from 3.5-4 hours to about 1.5 hours.

Joan´s Brother,
Marc