Club Wow

Last night every single one of us made it out to Club Wow. And despite the name, it actually was pretty impressive. We pretty much dominated the club until about eleven when the locals started to arrive. But I loved how integrated everyone was, within the group, I mean.

There were twenty-two of us, but everyone danced with each other, talked to each other, and made sure everyone else was having a good time. I’m pretty sure we combined every dance style possible into one evening, but that definitely made it easier for me to dance with someone else. I’ve always found it difficult to be lead, but when it’s crazy to start with, it’s not so bad. We have a couple of Latin guys in our group, so I got some lessons, too!

This morning, the four of us in one part of town met to execute a project we’ve been given. We needed to assemble a group of kids and divide them up by sex, having each group draw a map of their community. We started out with two boys and one girl.

We asked them if they had friends who might want to participate and ended up with maybe ten kids. Everyone had their own idea of what a map was to look like, so we ended up having at least ten, but I think the exercise was successful in that the kids know us now and we’ve seen what places are important to them.

Afterwards, a swarm of them followed me home. Everyone wanted to go to the river or show me their houses. A bunch of them followed me back to my house but eventually lost interest after I had shown them the photos from that morning. One girl stayed and insisted that I see her house. So I went with her across the street. Her house consists of two rooms: one that serves as a sitting area and kitchen and another with two beds where her mother, her grandfather, and herself sleep. It was by far the sparsest accommodations I had seen since I’ve been here, but she was so proud to have me come and visit, to share her house with me. From what I can see, the residents of the community have very different standards of living, though they live in the same neighborhood. There’s no judgment or discrimination within the community, it’s just a place where you live. Most of the time, it’s difficult to discern who lives where anyway, since everyone is constantly at each other’s houses. But I was honored to be a part of it.

After lunch, some of us did end up going to the river. Amber and I, the girl who shared her house with me, a few boys, and of course, my host brother as a guide. It was a different river than yesterday and definitely an exercise in immunity building, but it was close by and we had no trouble walking there. Little Nancy held my hand the whole way.

Most of the river was shallow enough to stand, so we waded up stream to where there was shade somewhat cleaner water. The boys would climb up a mango tree and shake down the ripe ones, which we would then eat. After I got over the fear of contamination, the experience really was quite delightful.

And to end a beautiful day was wonderfully (relatively) cool evening, complete with full moon and barking dogs.

El Seibo - My New Home

We got rain today! It actually just started coming down as we were leaving the river and its vista behind. We saw the water droplets on the water’s surface before we felt them. I like El Seibo so much more than Santo Domingo. It really is a world of difference. The pueblo is more or less contained within two main streets that are kept relatively (and I underscore ‘relatively’) clean. The river was a five-minute car ride away through sugar cane fields and savannah-like expanse of land. From a distance, it seemed untouched. When we got to the water’s edge and saw a car and a slew of motoconchos just hangin out in the water, I was a bit reluctant to partake in the swimming of the river. There were at least 30 people in one area of the river, so we made our way further up stream of the masses and the autos, our guides (my host brother and his friend) not really understanding why.

I’ve settled in with my new host family which is a lot more tranquilo than my other one. Instead of nine kids, my doña has five, but only two live here. The daughter is 32 and has a two year old son who is the sweetest thing. This family actually does instill manners in their children. Her son is twenty and a bit of a tiguere, but not in the worst way – he’s actually sitting next to me now, doesn’t really understand the concept of private time. But then again, not many Dominicans do. Her husband is nice and not as antisocial as most other dons, or so I hear. The doña herself, Ana Celia, works for the Primera Dama and is much calmer than my other doña who stressed me simply with the volume of her voice and high-strung-ed-ness. The best part is that they don’t serve the same food for every meal every day.

My room is clean, which is such a relief, and I have a real shower. What’s more, is that I can stand under the un-heated running water. I still haven’t figured out how to use the toilet yet, as it’s connected to a tank whose water source has to be turned on and off. So that’s been interesting. It’s not as hot here as it was in Santo Domingo, but for some reason my room seems to always be quite warm. And lucky me, the rooster coop is right below my window. P.S> earplugs do nothing in the way of blocking out rooster noise. I might not even mind eating them… as long as I don’t see them butchered.

We finally graduated sex ed today. It’s amazing how much time they spent on the topic. That and alcohol moderation. And you’d be surprised how many people weren’t well informed. There were tons of people who didn’t know about rip tides either. It’s so hard for me to imagine not knowing, but I guess not everyone lives by the ocean. Apparently there was a PCV whose brother drowned in a rip current because he didn’t know what the hell he was doing. It makes me wonder what I don’t know that’s common knowledge to others. I think Peace Corps has done a pretty good job of telling us what’s culturally acceptable here and how to protect ourselves and so on – but no one can prepare you for everything.

 The twenty-two of us ICTers are getting to know each other much more now that we’ve come to El Seibo. The ones I liked, I like even more, and the ones I haven’t liked, I’m learning to tolerate. We start our lab training on Monday, which means we start memorizing a million technical terms in Spanish. As if I wasn’t having enough trouble with simple words like toilet and floor. But it’s great, because with every step we take in the direction of actual Peace Corps service, things just get better. We’re all antsy to get a move on and do away with all this practicing-giving-surveys thing, but I like having English speakers around. It’ll definitely be a whole ‘nother story when I’m alone in a campo somewhere, unable to communicate with any sort of eloquence. Pero, soy de aquerdo que that’s when you learn the most español.

Baja Panti

Of all the events or ‘dinamicas’ or information the Peace Corps could give, the Volunteer Visit was by far the best. Over the weekend I visited Stephanie who lives in a small barrio of El Limon called Baja Panti in this wonderful house – and she’s the best.

My first day there, we walked over a hill behind her house and swam in a river or crystal blue water, a wonderfully refreshing surprise after the fear they have instilled in us of contaminated water.  In fact, this was the weekend of water. The day after, we hiked to El Limon waterfall and spent some time in the pools there.

 On our final day we took a couple horses over the mountain and to the beach, where the water was so clear I could swim out past where I could stand and see the bottom.

However, contrary to how it might seem, my experience wasn’t simply wonderful because of how often I was able to escape the heat. It was wonderful because I truly got a sense of what life is like a year into PC service (other than being able to take off on a Friday morning to hike to a waterfall). After bathing in the rio, she took me around the town and introduced me to all three labs she works in. The fact that she has three labs is unusual, as most people only have one, but I think her situation is ideal. She has a variety of projects she can work on intermittently as well as all of her self-driven classes. I sat in on three of these classes, one that was a teacher training, one that was a computer class for kids, and another called “escojo mi vida” that is a peace corps wide youth group teaching kids and informing them how they might take control of their lives.

My weekend with Stephanie was fabulous also because it reaffirmed the positivity I’ve begun to feel about working as an ITC PCV. I shared with her some of the ideas I have for youth group projects and technology classes, all of which she gave great feedback for. She gave me advice on how to approach my first three months in site, how to get in with the community and develop a repore, how to best appeal to the youth with printed invitations and other such trifles. The encouragements and truths she offered fed this optimism, in spite of tales of tarantulas.  She’s even interested in collaborating on a documentary project with me and has invited me to be a member of the Gringo Grita staff – the tri-annual magazine printed for DR PCVs.

While in El Limon, we happened across a house in the process of being built on a hill overlooking a green vista, the town beneath hidden from view. The owners of the house emerged and Stephanie stuck up a conversation with them in typical Dominican fashion. As it turns out, they’re the king and queen of El Limon. They own practically half the town, including the expansive vista and the land that the aqueduct is on, all of which was inherited. We assumed that they are descendants of the Spanish and that the land was conquest, they were quite blanca, after all. And as we walked back down the unpaved road into the town, we marveled at how little has really changed since the days of ‘colonization.’ The gringos up on a hill while the others live in squalor.

Walking down this same hill, I couldn’t help but notice how there is an everpresent smell that permates life here in the DR. In the city it’s exauhst, rotting rivers, and littered streets. In the campo its fire. People burn their trash and the smoke seems to cling to everything. I’m not a smoker, but if you checked my lungs, you’d never know it. The only place to really escape it is submerge yourself in the only fresh water remaining.

As with everything and everywhere, there were also the small things that brought a sense of wonder and beauty to my short trip. As I lay in bed and watched the fireflies zig zag across the room, the realization struck me that when you meet a fellow Peace Corps volunteer, there’s an automatic assumption that you’re meeting a future friend. Spending the weekend in Samana with Stephanie showed me this for the second time since I’ve been a trainee. She, like Sabrina, didn’t know me from Adam (or Eve), but the faith she had in the yet unseen bond between us, not just as PCVs, but as people, assured a connection. I think that’s what makes Peace Corps volunteers special , at least the ones I’ve met – the idealism and the faith that we all have more in common than we might think

Homesick

Today had a rough start, after a fitful night’s unrest and a bout of something similar to homesickness. The theory that Peace Corps time differs from real time has begun to materialize for me yet again. Each day seems so much longer, for all that we learn and all that we make. When emails get lost or the internet fails us once again, I’ve found that there’s always a way out of what seems like darkness. Since I’ve been here, frustration has materialized in the rather strange form of giddiness and a relishing of humor other than sarcasm. The first time I felt distanced from real time, this was all I needed. I laughed with newfound friends and received a hand made card the next day, though I was already feeling back to normal. This time, it took a little more. When the laughter subsided and I was left to my own devises under the canopy of my mosquito net, I felt uneasy. After an entire day of festering fear, the phone finally connected and all it took was a voice from miles away to restore my relative joviality – even though the phone card ran out at eight minutes flat.

But why have I become so dependant on the spoken reassurance that people are missing me on the other end? Perhaps because I have fallen into Peace Corps time, the Twilight Zone on an island where knowledge of the past seems more like a wish than truth. Or perhaps I have never been able to admit how much strength I draw from knowing people miss me.  So let me say now that every word sent from you to me means the world. That yes, I am able to bear the distance because I have the faith that you’ll be there when I return, our bond as strong as ever – but a reminder every now and then never hurt.

On a completely different note, I had my first interview with my APCD (Associate Peace Corps Director – in charge of the site placements) and my PCVL (volunteer leader), who I of course told that I would really, really, really like a place near a clean water source where I might benefit from the occasional hydrotherapy. Though, in a slight adjustment of procedure, I was asked a question pertaining to skills I never thought would be so popular in the DR. Apparently, a group of second year volunteers has set out on a mission to create a telenovela based on all the charlas for the Escojo Mi Vida series. None of them have much production experience, so they’ve asked me if I’d be interested. Um – yes! So after training and my three months of the community diagnostic phase, I will be taking part in the production and postproduction of the Peace Corps’ very first education soap opera.

And this is why I love my life.

Some DR Trivia

I saw my first parrot here the other day. It was just hanging out on a power line, chattering away. And today I learned that the first recorded Carnaval in the Americas took place in the DR, which makes sense if you consider that Africans were brought over as slaves fairly soon after it’s colonization. The DR is also the largest exporter of organic cacao and a major player in the sugar game. However, the single largest influx of money comes as gifts sent home from Dominicans living in the States. I really didn’t know how to feel about this. Another semi-random though interesting fact is that the word hurricane comes from a Tahino word, for which the Mayans had a similar word to call their god of storms, Hurakan.

Thursday I leave for Samaná, the small peninsula off the northeastern coast of the island, to visit another volunteer for the weekend. The purpose of this visit is to experience life as a volunteer before the real work starts and to get a taste for some of the various living conditions we might be placed in. Apparently, I’m extremely lucky to be visiting this part of the country – though I say I’ll be lucky if I end up there. The volunteer has told me to bring a swimsuit along (great sign!) and to be prepared to hike a little with my camera in hand to visit a waterfall. So I’m quite excited for this weekend.

We talked a little more about race in the DR and watched a brief documentary depicting how Dominicans view themselves. Despite the fact that this film was made in the early 90s, the mentalities still hold true today. Dominicans will never call themselves black and seek whiteness in a partner to better the race by producing whiter children. They hate Haitians because they are black, and often use those words interchangeably. I don’t understand things here. Here, they are not the minority and still they do not want to be who they are. Is there no where in the world where skin color is simply a description?

Sunday, March 14

This weekend was hot. Today was our tour of the colonial zone, which went an hour over schedule, which means we (my friend, Aiden, and I) were out in the sun for about four and half hours including commute time. So, needless to say, there are parts of me that fairly red now. And I have this sweet line across the bridge of my nose. It’s very attractive. And this is all on top of the twenty mosquito bites I have to date. Exciting times. Afterwards we attempted to use an internet café where I was miserably unsuccessful at uploading my photos (I’ll have to reduce their sizes) and then played some Banana Grams! If you like Scrabble, you’ll love this game. It’s so addicting.

Anyway, yesterday was our trek-to-the-grocery store day. Sabrina and I walked the mile there and the mile back, chatting the whole time so that we barely noticed the distance or the dead pigs hanging from a line. This was all without sunscreen, of course, so we had a nice tan to jumpstart the sunburn of today. But the grocery store was interesting, not vastly different from ours but still enough so that you know you’re not in the richest country. What I found more interesting was our trip to a Colmado earlier in the week where we practiced our buying skills in Spanish. We were instructed to buy half an onion there. Half an onion! At first I couldn’t imagine why, but having little money and no electricity often means no refrigerators.

The night ended with a conversation on heredity. I asked my doña if she had any Torino (the native people of the island) in her ancestry or if they were of African descent, even if they had any Spanish in them. But the answer I got was very round-a-bout. She kept saying, no, we’re not African or Torino, we’re just Dominican. After a little bit of this, my neighbor, Topher, explained to me that those who live in the Caribbean consider African descent something to be ashamed of. They consider whiter to be better, so they try to either squeeze in as much white as they can or simply say that they’re Dominican. And that they’re never black, only Moreno. As if on que, my doña then said that her grandmother was white and that someone else was white, too. But they didn’t ever say if they had native Torino blood. Their ancestors apparently, just appeared out of thin air.

Friday March 12, 2010

Okay, so yesterday is over and today is a new day! This morning, on our way out of the house we saw some ducks mating – that was interesting. Anyway, it’s only morning. I’m sure I’ll have more to say later.

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After being a little sick to my stomach and experiencing that whole ordeal without being able to just drop toilet paper into the toilet – I bounced right back. I’m now eating normal food after the treat of only being able to eat boiled potatoes and bananas. My new found friend, Sabrina, gave me a “have a good day” card because of yesterday, which was really sweet and amazing. It was in Spanish, too!

Now that I’m looking at yesterday and today with a renewed sense of positivity, I shall discuss our discussion! It was absolutely horrendous to find out that the Dominican culture revolves around a system of indirect communication. Basically, yes often means no, and you never say exactly what you want. This is great, considering I had just started coming to terms with direct communication! FML. Anyway, that’ll be a fun challenge.

Tomorrow we get the day off! Talk to you later J

Wednesday March 10, 2010

We had our second public transportation training session today during which we spent the whole day getting to the city center, visiting the PC office, the clinic, the colonial zone, and getting back home. This experience pretty much reaffirmed my previous statement of never wanting to leave my barrio because transportation here sucks. I wish I could convey how awful it actually is. You could probably kick through the floorboards of the buses if you tried, and it’s a miracle they don’t collapse with all the people they cram into them. The doors don’t close either, so you got people hanging out the side as they drive along, sometimes coming within millimeters of another vehicle. The public cars can be just as crammed – with three people in the front and four in the back, sometimes more.

The Peace Corps office is really nice, though. It’s a colonial style house in the ritzy part of town that used to be where the big shots of the dictatorship lived. Now, it’s still where big shots live, but they drive Audi’s and H3s instead of armored cars. We met with all the staff there, including the doctors. Apparently, the PC health care in the DR was voted the best throughout all their country stations and everybody says that we’ll never have better health care in our lives. Just with the little exposure I’ve had, I can already attest to this. And it extends beyond the health care. I could definitely get used to saying “I need this” and being given it – no charge, no hassle, and really fast. Thanks tax payers. I’ll pay it forward, I promise.

The colonial zone was alright. We’ll be given a more extensive tour of it on Sunday, but today we simply learned how to get around and saw Christopher Columbus’s house. We didn’t see his monument, but when we do, I’ll have to try really hard not to pee or vomit on it as an expression of adoration. My favorite part of the entire experience was… get this… FROZEN YOGURT! Yes. Santo Domingo has a frozen yogurt shop. It’s much like what Mom was talking about, actually, a machine that blends in the frozen fruit with the frozen yogurt. So – yeah – basically – I’m saved.

We nearly fell asleep on the bus home due to the heat and fatigue, but we made it. I promptly took a nap and then a bucket shower which was relatively free of mosquitoes. I did my homework and am now currently installing Windows XP in Spanish on my computer! Pretty sweet. The ITC trainer had copies for those who wanted them yesterday at the meeting along with Office in Spanish, too. So I figured I’d get a head start in my own training, since the hardest part for me will be acclimatizing myself to the environment using Spanish vocabulary.

Okay, well I realize I’ve been writing novels a day, so I’ll taper off – I promise. How wants to read all this anyway? Lol. It’s all good. I’m actually really happy here, more so than I anticipated, which is great. Hasta mañana!

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Today started off with a bang – well, it was more like a flood. We were given all these horrific statistics about hunger and mortality and poverty and environmental destruction followed by a video that actually made me so mad I had tears in my eyes at some point. It was an amateur video using footage taken in a town in the DR. You see the town with it’s meager stream running through it, the women using the rocks as stepping stones, the kids wading through the water. Then it starts to rain. It wasn’t a hurricane or anything close to a major storm, but it was enough rain for the stream to overflow to the size of the Colorado river and for the houses to fill with what might as well be sewage water. And all the while, this town continued to intentionally push their 6 foot pile of garbage into the flowing water. The river runs black with trash, you cannot see the water for all the cans and wrappers and bottles that litter it. This waterway leads to the ocean.

This brought up a major issue for me – that of determinism versus fatalism, topics which we discussed previously in our Dominican cultural introduction. I just cannot imagine how people would be content living amongst their garbage, how they would do nothing to change their situation, to find options, to make an effort to improve their situation because they believe everything is in the hands of god. I do not understand it, it makes me angry, and I’m trying very hard to reconcile this.

Along the same lines, we had our first project specific meeting today in which the ICT leader came and got to know us. One of the questions we were asked to answer was what we predicted our biggest struggle would be. For many, it was the language, working with hardware, or not being able to construct a curriculum. For me, it was the difficulty in reconciling the benefit of instituting and dedicating such resources to the promotion of computer technology when there is SO MUCH else that needs to be done. Though I did not say it in these words, my biggest challenge is to not only tell myself but actually believe whole heartedly that by teaching the youth of the country this technology we are serving to enhance their skills, their marketability, and ability to access the world’s knowledge. I need to tell myself that there are five other Peace Corps projects working on Environment, Water, Community Development, Health, and… something else. Most moments I’m pretty enthusiastic about what we’ll be doing – but I did have that one of critical introspection.

One thing that I got really excited about was a mini project that we’ll have the opportunity to work on during our community based training. During those five weeks, we’ll be trained in all the principal skills needed to set up and maintain computer labs, but we’ll also be involved with the youth in creative projects. She mentioned one that teaches a group of kids to use a program called movie maker. I imagine it’s nothing like Final Cut Pro, but I’m sure I can handle the transition. During my interview with the trainer on Thursday, I can’t wait to tell her that that’s right up my alley and that I would love, love, love to head up that project. I might even be able to get some footage of it.

In addition to all this, we also got a Dominican Dating 101 which included Meringue dance lessons – Bachata, Rigaton, Traditional and all! First they scared us all by saying that the DR has the highest rate of PCV reported daily sexual harassment across all PC countries. Then they said we’re six times more likely to contract HIV here than in the US. Then they told us fifty something volunteers have married Dominicans since the director of the PCDR has been here, including the training director herself. They tell us all the indirect communication that takes place, how to recognize it, how to avoid ending up in a pay-by-the-hour motel without knowing what’s going on, or saying yes to something that’s actually much more than what you think it is. Then they say – but just like in America, there are people who want the casual sex, and those who are looking for relationships, too. So great – we’re pretty much back to square one and have no idea what to think when approached. Apparently, though, this topic is quite important, as there is another discussion group dedicated to it – lead by PCVs without the staff.

Monday, March 8, 2010

Yesterday, I forgot to mention one of the more fascinating things I witnessed. After we had returned from our walk and settled in our little housing area, two of the little boys, one 8 and one 6, found a couple of plastic bags, a piece of broken glass, some string, and a few sticks. With these items, they each made their own kite and ran around with them, fully made, in less than an hour. I’m not sure why, but this stood out in my mind.

Today we had our first lesson in transportation. I don’t think I’ll be going anywhere ever. It’s so frustrating to wait around for a “guagua” (bus) or a caro publico. The city is – um – interesting. Perhaps once I’ve spent more time there, I’ll learn to like it more.

Our first Spanish class was intense. A total of four people classified at “intermediate low” listening and responding to an instructor who will only speak in Spanish. It’s a lot to take in – three hours of Spanish, at least, during the training day, then you go home and there’s more Spanish. I definitely find myself going to bed earlier because my brain can only strain so much in a day. Of course there are the roosters and the such to deal with once I do go to bed – but whatev.

Sunday, March 7 2010

It’s only a quarter till four, and I got pretty decent sleep last night, but for some reason, I’d just love to take a nap right now. Today has been nicer than the rest so far. The temperature is nice and the sky is partially blue. The humidity is going to take some getting used to. My neighbor-teers and I got a little tour around the back areas of the neighborhood – so we tromped around through some brush and greener lands. There was one area we came across with a stream that ran through vibrantly green hills and massive stone steps, which could have looked like ruins had they not been contained by chain link and littered with bottles. The water running through this place was grey. Contaminated. One of the little boys found a toy car caught against some other trash, stuck in the current.

So far, I’ve been bitten twice by mosquitoes. Once on the bottom of my foot and one close enough to my butt that I’m seriously concerned as to how they reach the places they do. It’s going to be a challenge for me to remember to but on the repellent. But I think waking up at three in the morning and attempting to scratch my foot for the next hour will offer some incentive.

I took plenty of pictures – not of the mosquito bites, of the other things – so I’ll post them later.

Saturday, March 6, 2010

Today we covered some cultural norms of the Dominican, I had my medical interview and my Spanish placement test (I’ll be interested to find out how they’ve ranked me on Monday), and we met a couple more present volunteers who have never had malaria! So yay for that. Saturdays at the training center end early, so I had more time to spend with my host family and with my fellow volunteer neighbors. I was actually able to convey the rules of “uno” in Spanish. It was cold out again, raining today, but the porch is sheltered so quite a few of us sat out in the rocking chairs for a few hours.

The area I’m staying in has four or five smallish houses clustered around one another. Mine is actually quite nice, I’d say the family has some money according to standards. There is running water and electricity, though throughout the country it’s rather unreliable. I’m not sure if the chickens, ducks, and roosters that run around the property are theirs or communal, but I am pretty sure the whole neighborhood hears them in the wee hours of the morning. There are also goats, cats, and the typical stray dogs that roam the community.

There isn’t much of a distinction between residential and commercial areas. On my way from the house to the training center, I pass mercados and bancas (which means a place to drink, not a bank), along with fruit stands and various other street vendors which we’ve been told not to buy food from. There is also a recycling plant on the way, which doesn’t seem to be very active judging by the amount of trash and plastics that line the bigger streets. Don’t get me wrong, the natural surroundings are gorgeous, but as with many developing countries, the land isn’t taken care of so well. There doesn’t seem to be much distinction between the street and the sidewalk either. Fortunately, the cars don’t traverse both, but the people do. As well as the dogs. But though they lay right in the middle of the streets, always seem to know how to get out of the way.

The family here constantly asks me if I miss my family. Of course I say yes, but also describe to them that I’m okay being away because I know they’ll always be there. I’m not sure if I conveyed this message with as much strength as I intended, but I think it got across. I also explained to them my reasons for joining PC and said that I’m happy to be here and to be busy. I am their seventh volunteer, so I think they understand all that. The doña is very sweet and maternal. She even heated water for me on the stove so I could wash my hair with warm water.

Friday March 5, 2010

Today was a fire hose of information. The morning presentations revolved around the dos and don’ts, PC policy and so on. My favorite piece of info was that Peace Corps volunteers can own a horse! And it costs a grand total of about $200 US to buy horse and saddle. So if anyone wants to contribute to the “buy Elisa a horse fund” – it definitely won’t be refused :-D.

I had every intention of going into more detail about the things we learned today, but I’m afraid most of it has sunk somewhere down deep in my memory do to minor overload. I can tell you, however, that Peace Corps is prepared for everything and I’m in the hands of extremely competent people. We learned a little bit more about the training for our specific programs as well. The ICT training involves a stay with current volunteers, three presentations in Spanish to Dominicans, an ‘internship’ of about 5.5 weeks where we’re in the field, work with a youth group, and a final series of exams before we are sworn in as official volunteers.

We are going to be given a cell phone when we leave for our first days of field work, until then, we are pretty much contained with in the community where the training center is. The community itself is lower-middle class, but the facility where we train is on beautiful grounds. Our classrooms are actually just open areas with a tin and grass roof surrounded by mango and palm trees. Our language classes are in little bungalow-type things in which we’ll be learning with up to 5 other people at our same language competency.

The biggest news of today is that I met my host family. The doña’s (mother/woman of the house) name is Patricia; she has 9 kids and 16 grandkids thus far, I think. Apparently all families here are huge. Everyone comes and goes freely, everything is shared, they talk pretty loud, and a little too fast for me to understand more than about of a quarter of what they’re saying. But, for the most part, I think I’m staying afloat in the language department. I have my own room, which is more spacious than expected, though I think I’ve discovered I over packed a little. But – in my defense, today was evidence that it does get cold here – well, cool in comparison to some places, but enough so that I had goose bumps and wished for a sweatshirt. My host mom has told me that it’s my private space and that I should see this room as well as the house as mine. This was quite a relief after the dream I had last night about finding out they had gone through my luggage.

Tomorrow’s another early rise day, we do train six days a week, so I have a feeling my body clock is going to have to quickly readjust to waking up somewhere around 6 and going to bed at 10.

Thursday, March 4, 2010

The first day of my journey toward Peace Corps Volunteer status began with me somehow managing to negotiate my 100 pounds of luggage, not including my two hefty carry-ons, down a ramp, in heels, to the shuttle which would take me to my hotel. It was only after I had met my roommate, whose presence to me in the room was a complete surprise, and settled in that I realized I had left my absolute favorite nalgene water bottle with a sippy sports top and my brand new and much anticipated, blank paged travel journal on the SmarteCarte kiosk. FML, right? Not off to the best start in the world, but moving on. My roommate’s name happens to be Elise and she’s even had Little Bear’s Ice Cream in Montana! Crazy small world.

Yesterday, the first set of Dominican Republic volunteers for 2010 gathered at Holiday Inn Georgetown in Washington D.C. where we were given a crash course on the mission of the Peace Corps and our role in it. Director Aaron Williams, a previous DR volunteer himself with the charisma of Obama and Morgan Frieman rolled into one, also privileged us by attending our staging event. He spoke of the Dominican people and how the experience changed his life – all what I would expect the director of the PC to say, yet inspiring nonetheless. Our activities that day were meant to and succeeded in helping us to realize that we, the 18 men and 21 women in that room, are each other’s best support, that we share many of the same anxieties and aspirations, and that the next twenty-seven months will change the way we see the world. That said, we, or at least I, retired early for the night.

At a quarter till four the next morning (today), thirty-seven of us were herded onto two buses and driven to Regan Airport, where after a good three hours, we finally boarded our flight to the DR (stopping in Miami, of course). Upon arrival in the Dominican, we had a very basic welcome training where they sketched out what will be presented to us in the coming 10 weeks, the different ways in which we should be preventative in terms of contracting malaria or other such unnamable diseases from the water, and shot up with our first of the 10 vaccines we will be given over the course of a very short period of time. We were given malaria pills (which supposedly bring on Technicolor dreams), sunscreen, and mosquito nets with instructions on how to hang them – the canopy bed I always wanted.

Apparently, the language training we are about to receive is worth a good chunk of money, upwards in the six digits, they tell us. And we’re promised to be fluent by the end of our stay here – something I greatly look forward to. The humidity is indeed a force to be reckoned with – the 77 degrees felt like a million. And supposedly, this is relatively cool. The poverty is as expected, though the litter lining the streets is a bit more than I had envisioned. From north to south, it’s about a four hour drive to cross the island. My fellow ICTers (Information and Communication Technology volunteers) and I will be traveling north east in a few weeks to begin our CBT (community based training) which will total about half of our total training time.

That’s pretty much all I know as of now – but much much more is sure to come rather swiftly. Tomorrow we meet our host families after another day of primary training and introductions.

As you can see, I’ve decided to keep a blog (in part because of my lost journal), but that does not mean that I don’t still hope to correspond on more of a personal basis. Although… I would love to have a more personalized blog/web page in which I can arrange text and images in an aesthetically pleasing manner… Sooo if anyone would like to build one for me :-D… say after Carnaval ;-)… I’d be ever so grateful.

Until next time, this is Elisa Paltenghe updating you from Santo Domingo, DR.