2nd year campo Christmas

Unlike most of my swear in group, I stayed in site for my 2^nd year Christmas. Since the Dominican Republic is so close to the states, and because Christmas time everything shuts down here in the DR, many volunteers head back to the states for their second Christmas, however, my parents are in Spain, and I enjoy my campo on Christmas so I decided to stay put. The biggest change during Christmas is that everyone comes back home to the campo for Christmas, which means the population about triples, or quadruples, algo asi. The 22^nd and the 23^rd is when everyone kills their pigs, which while for my campo is very normal, many of my friends don’t have that as part of their Christmas tradition because they just buy a piece in the city, but here in my site they kill the pigs in their backyard, and often families will share a pig between two to split up the meat, but there are a few men in my community that go around and help everyone out with the slaughter and business is done. Then on the 24^th, Noche Buena, the holy night, there is a big dinner, and during the day there is all the food preparation. I went up to my host families in the morning, had a breakfast of viveres (root veggies) and salami, and helped take care of the kids all morning (ended up with 3 kids under 1 and 2 under 3 for awhile). It was great to be able to play with all my little host nieces and nephews and to be able to actually help in the house, especially since my host mom just had a surgery and can’t pick up the kids right now, so I helped a lot with the kids and feeding them, putting them to sleep etc. Then in good Dominican fashion we had a big lunch (I knew to cut back in preparation for having to eat a big dinner as well) of rice with pigeon peas and chicken. Unlike last year where I stayed at the house all day, this year I spent the afternoon walking around and saludaring everyone that had come around, and visiting the families that I had promised a visit. It always feel fairly similar to holidays back at home because the family gets together, but since the community is so small, it’s like a huge family reunion every holiday. Especially with all the 30-somethings that have left to work (many to work in the large resorts/hotels on the coast) that come back and get together to catch up, and visit the mothers of all their friends, etc.

I got back to the house right when it was getting dark and the food was about done being prepared. The food filled the main table and then after a prayer the mass preparation of plates began. Besides all the relatives that were there (all my host siblings and their families and a few friends), plates are prepared to send out to many other houses in the community, and some of the houses that do not prepare a meal come by to eat as well (for example the Haitian workers, 20 something men that are here alone) come to eat and hang out for Christmas. And that is why they can cook an entire pig and barely have leftovers. Christmas dinner: lots of pork, yucca empanandas, spaghetti, green salad, french bread, grapes, apples, gummi candies, very tasty. But thats one of the best parts, not only do they share with the rest of their family and have everyone get together, but really whoever doesn't have a place to eat dinner knows that they have a place to go.

Me with one of my donas on her birthday

Me, as a natural rubia

The hair dying process, this is how dominican women traditionally dry their hair, in huge rolos, it didn't do anything to change mine, but it was fun!

The final product, merry christmas to me!

mid December update

I think saying that November was a very busy month just isn’t strong enough to talk about how all over the place I was during that month. I’ve spent half of December recovering and am now in a place where I can write a blog entry. Let’s just say my Peace Corps is far from me just sitting around being isolated, which I’m very grateful for. November was full of celebrating my one year in country with all those that swore in with me, my 1 year in service-training, a youth environmental camp, having a few tour events, thanksgiving dinner (and helping to cook the stuffing, gravy, and brownies for about 180 Peace Corps volunteers and staff that attended the event), presenting to the Peace Corps staff about my service (I was volunteer of the month, go me!), artisan fairs, and ended the month with a guide interpretation conference. I get exhausted just writing all of that out. Was really glad I could participate in all these events, I just wish they were more spread out, as did my community. My community is really good at laying on the guilty when I’m gone for too long, and will often come at with “Alanna, pero tu si estás perdida!” (direct translation would be Alanna, but you have been lost!) whenever they don’t see me for even just a few days. So, after this crazy month at the next meetings I attended and walking around my community I got this campo guilt to an extreme, telling me they thought I had abandoned them and gone back to the states, that they were planning to send out a search party, and that they were going to tie me up to my house so that I couldn’t leave them again. You know, nice to be missed. So the past week I just stayed in my site and went to all my meetings and just walked around and visited everyone so that they would know I’m still here. It’s been like a vacation being back in my site, just relaxing and talking to everyone, playing lots of dominoes, it’s great.

And now it’s back to work with my community projects. Mid December through mid January almost everything goes on break here. All the community groups close, family comes into town, and it’s hard to get a lot done. So I’m taking the time to just sit and schedule and start to prep for the activities in January. One of the most important aspects that the tour is still lacking is promotion, we are having a group from Canada come out in January to film the tour for their program which will hopefully help out in getting groups to come visit. So January will also be super busy, but I'm looking forward to it!

The two girls I took to the environment conference (Brigada Verde) we went to a lagoon as an afternoon outing

The girls presenting on the animal with the largest heart,

The entire group, Brigada Verde, el este!

When the cowboys of El Seibo came to use the tour for a day

Parking their horses

Construye Tus Sueños

Now a few weeks ago, excuse my laziness (I’ll blame the frequent loss of electricity recently), 2 groups from my community were invited to a conference called Construye Tus Sueños. I’ll back track and explain that this is the business course that is a secondary project for many volunteers (especially in my sector, Community Economic Development) that teaches community members, especially jovenes/youth how to start a micro business. So there was the course, then any groups that wanted to could submit their plans, and the top 24 plans were chosen to participate in the competition in mid October in the capital.

We ended up with a total of 100 youth, representing 45 plans (we invited those that completed good plans to come and participate although they could not compete). Then the 24 groups first competed in front of a small group of judges then the top 8 were selected to present a second time in front of everyone, and the top 4 were chosen to have their business plans fully funded.

I personally had 2 groups come from my classes to participate. The first are 2 boys who created a plan to develop an egg producing business. Their research of the area discovered that all the eggs sold in the eastern part of the country were produced by a huge company in the north of the DR. They realized they could purchase hens that 1-2 eggs a day and sell those at a lower price then the competition, and also be selling a better quality egg then the eggs that we currently consume.

My other boy worked alone to plan a motor repair shop our in our campo. The importance of his shop is that almost everyone in the area depends on motorcycles for transport into town, to go work on their farms, etc, and the roads are so bad that the motorcycles are often damaged. Then they have to find a way to get their motor back to town to get it fixed because there aren’t any options in the campo.

Both groups did a fantastic job presenting, I was definitely the proud mama in the background with my fingers crossed the entire time.

The motor repair shop was able to make it to the finals, and did a great job presenting in front of everyone (he was really nervous and up until the night before was reading everything off his notecards and spent the whole 10 minutes without breathing or looking up, but on the day of presenting he was smiling and looked at the notecards minimally, it was fantastic! I was so proud!).

Then the big drum roll……HE WON!

He barely got in the top 4 so my campo will soon have an up and running motor repair shop! Which is fantastic and will hopefully help out the community a lot and will give my boy a job and income!

This is 2 of my friends and I working at the conference :)

Now that the conference is over, we are working to get all of the budget finalized and the money will be distributed at the end of the month! The volunteers are also starting to work together to form a team that will take on the planning and organizing of next years conference and program. Construye Tus Sueños only have about 5 years of existance so we are still developing the program a lot. I am working and planning to help with the development of this program and be on the team so that we can work to fund more plans, find strong partner organizations (especially Dominican), find ways to encourage well thought out (not extravagant) budgets, and continue to work to improve accountability (instead of just saying that it will improve the community, how do we know that it is true). The prize money varies because it depends on what their budget is, but it can rise up to 60,000 pesos, about $1,600 dollars, so the program can definitely continue to have a huge impact if we are able to structure it correctly.

Anyways, that is a good solid update about one of the projects I am working on. It is one of my favorite parts about my service because I can see everything that they are learning and to me learning good business skills can make a huge difference in your life, and now I am also taking that material to teach it to adults with businesses in the community, and hopefully will be able to continue to have a positive impact.

Video of my project

For those of you that habla español, you can understand everything, but for those that cannot, here is at least to see a video of what the tour I am working with is all about, especially half way through at 6:40, those are clips of only my site, Los Botados.

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10150323240603459

enjoy!

Sharing a Menta

Dominicans are known for being a compartiendo or sharing culture. Coming from a world where there is a desire for independence and to not have to depend on anyone, it is often a challenge to immerse myself. In general, if I don’t have something I go out and buy it, not just ask someone else for it.

One of my favorite examples here is just how much a Dominican will share. Dominicans are crazy about mentas, most often Hall’s cough drops, but any small candy that you can suck on it considered a menta. Often times I will be at the colmado, corner store, buying some sort of food and if a handful of mentas are bought, they will then be quickly dispersed to whoever is standing around. Or if we are waiting for a meeting to start often times a doña will dig around in her purse and pull out mentas for all in the surrounding area. But what about the case when there are more people then mentas you may ask? Give them to your favorites? No need, that is when the beauty of compartir-ing really takes place. Just bite off your half and pass it over to your companion, so that everyone can enjoy a little of the mint. Maybe not the most hygienic of habits, sorry all you doctors and nurses in the family, but it’s sort of a beautiful tradition in my eyes. To make sure that everyone can enjoy equally, and the desire to share with everyone, is so strong that you will go as far as to break off a piece of a Hall’s cough drop, aka candy, so that everyone can have a piece, is a great thing. One night another volunteer was visiting me (she came to take pictures of my site), and so I had 2 friends come over and we cooked dinner, a huge dinner of river crab, various viveres, the root vegetables, guacamole, and arepitas de yuca, and to finish off our feast, one of my friends breaks out a heart shaped lollipop, and breaks it into four little pieces so that we can all enjoy it. I guess what I’m trying to say is, if you come visit don’t be surprised when I hand you half of a Hall’s cough drop.

Rats..

So I have two great pictures to share.

The first is sort of depressing as well, but it happened a few days ago so now I've come to terms and thing and have just added it on to my list of Peace Corps experiences. I came with dollars to have some extra money, just in case, you know. The other part of the story is that the downside of living in a warehouse in the campo is that there are critters that come and go. The worst thus far being a few rats, that one by one have tried to set up shop in my house (I always shoot them down). The latest, unfortunately, found my dollars and for some ridiculous reason ate through ALL of them. Leave them to look like this:
2nd quick story: Dominicans love their crocs, almost everyone has a pair. Anyone that knows me knows that I have a dislike of crocs, however, I recently found these awesome crocs that are very similar to converse, and look super awesome, so I'm going against my previous stance and bought them, and am now sharing them with all of you. Look how stylish my feet look! And they are good for my muddy site.
Alright, back to my site, hope to post soon.

My First Visitor!

2 blog updates in 1 week! I am on fire! Or way way behind so I have a plethora of stories to write about. It also helps that we already have another storm coming through so I’m trapped in my house for the night and know I will have internet tomorrow.

So I also recently (although already not so recently) had my first visitor! Hurrah!!! Finally! I was openly getting jealous of other volunteers who have had multiple visitors already, so it was nice to get on the scoreboard and have a visitor from home! My brother, Sean, came out for a month to hang out. It was surprising how quickly the visit went, we weren’t able to get to a lot of what I was hoping for, but I think he definitely got a feel for my campo and some of the problems that are going on in the DR and a good view at Dominican culture. Also, especially in his first days here, I realized how integrated I am becoming, to the point that I am no longer surprised by what was previously unfamiliar. I guess I hadn’t really noticed before because it’s become so second-nature to me but traveling around with my brother, down to how I communicate with the bus drivers has become much more Dominicanized. So that’s cool. Unfortunately I also had a lot of work going on when he visited, and decided to not take any time off since he was here for so long. We had a few tours and even had a group come to film the tour to do a promotional video, which is very exciting!

Anyways, Sean’s first week and a little we were in my site, lots of meetings and tour activities going on, so a lot of times I would just leave Sean with a neighbor or host family member and take care of what I had to do. It worked out pretty well because then he got to know my community, when I was around they would tell my to translate, or we would start talking too fast, or about business that isn’t that interesting if you don’t know everything that is going on. Sean got to go to the farm a lot though, went to gather avocado for a day, went to milk the cows one morning, etc. Then we went up to visit my other host family that lives in the north for a few days. I hadn’t seen them since training (almost 9 months), so it was great to have an excuse to go see them. We did a lot of what I usually did there, went to the farm, hung out in the house playing around, lots of dominoes, and went to watch my host dad play baseball, it was perfect. I also almost killed a chicken. It would have died eventually, but I didn’t make the cut deep enough so my host mom had to step in and re-cut it. But definite progress.

Then we went and worked a kids camp in Caberete for a week through the Dream Project (Dominican Republic Education And Mentoring Project), which is a great organization here in the DR that works to better educational opportunities for low income kids here, they also do work in racism, documentation, etc. It was challenging at points (large groups of kids and lots of energy) but well worth it. It also gave Sean the chance to see a different part of the country, Caberete is like a little America compared to my pueblo, with lots of foreigners and foreign stores.

When we got back to my site I realized we only had a week and a half left and still had a huge list of things we wanted to do. One of my favorites was that one night one of the dons took us out to go catch river crab. It was us and our flashlights trudging through the river for like 2 hours catching these crabs.

The don helped me to catch 3 crabs, but Sean was able to get one without any help, which was impressive. It was crazy to watch the don catching them because he was just so fast! To catch a river crab you look for their holes on the riverbank and then dart your hand and have to catch them behind the pinchers. If you are too slow they see you and run into their cave deep in the hole. But if you are a don that doesn’t stop you and you throw your arm into the cave until you physically cannot put it any further and don’t worry about them pinching off your finger, it’s intense. Then the next morning he taught us how to cook jibah en salsa de coco (coconut sauce), it is so tasty. Then we feasted on all our hard work. It was cute he is already talking about when my dad comes how he wants to take my dad out too.

2 of my favorite doñas also had Sean come over to teach him how to make dulce de coco con leche and to roast and grind some coffee to send back to the family. We also had the chance to go and see a few nearby Peace Corps projects, talking to a girl about creating a water treatment center and another that is working with a women’s group to make jewelry, which was fun and good to show some of the variety of Peace Corps projects.

Sean and some of the muchachas, waiting as the dulce is cooked

My dona making the dulce

My dona mashing the coffee

Sean grinding the coffee

final product