Thanks giving PCDR style

Enjoying some intermural sports. How sweet.

Charishing some special time together. Good old pals.

Our peace corps doctor´s parrot. Speaks spanish but not today.

Bachata and Merengue dance contest. We got 2nd place in Merengue.

Rebecca y Yo catching some rays

When it rains it pours

When it rains it pours, when it pours it floods, and when it floods, watch out, this little island is in big trouble. It started as any Sunday afternoon shower. Nobody suspected a thing. Then, that shower turned into sheets of rain that continued through Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and finally drizzled off Thursday. Half way through this intense tropical storm, every exit from our campo was flooded. Bridges were taken out or had 5 feet of rain over them making it impossible to get to the next campo. Our little campo survived like a champ, but again we are settled on top a hill, allowing all of the rain to flow down into the river below us. For us, it was 4 days of playing cards, reading books, and watching the news. Here in my campo, we bounced back to life as we have always known it, just our relatives and friends in the south were not as fortunate.
Most Dominicans have never received any type of swimming lessons. When we go to the river, they are sure to stay in the shallow part, the water rising no higher than their waste. Now image being in bed and waking up because there is water filling up your bedroom and every hour it keeps getting deeper and deeper. Instant panic would set in for your children, your family, and your home. You can´t swim, so where do you go? UP! Roof tops, tree tops, second floors of homes (a rarity to find). You wait and wait and hope for a rescue boat to pass or a helicopter to lift you up to safety. But what if those roof tops and tree tops aren´t high enough?

This has happened twice in the last month. It’s just unbelievable how much damage rain can cause. Muck muck and more muck. These people here are survivors. They pick up various part s of their house that has been spread about in each direction and start building again. They mourn their loved ones that were taken by the floods and keep pushing onward. Increíble!

Meeeoooww

Gatita o Ratonita, we couldn't decide if I were a better kitty or rat. You decide.

Only three people dressed up for the fiesta: Me, frankenstein, and death. I was the only was who lasted more than five minutes.

Coffins, pumpkins, spider oh my. Dominicans know how to decorate, they only need help spelling out harrowing nihgt.

Not convingly scared enough. Enmanuel looks way to happy to see that giant spider.

Speaking of spiders, Look what I found in my bed one night while putting up my mosquitero. A giant fuzzy cacata.

I have to say, I was impressed with our halloween bash. The jovenes, who have now named themselves "materia gris" got their stuff together and threw a heck of a party. We spent all afternoon putting up cob webs, carving pumpkin like vegetables, hauling coffins, and making signs. The only thing missing was the costumes. I was a loner on that part, but a cute kitty one if I might say.

Conference of the year

I´m sitting there in the guagua on our way back from Santiago, and I`m looking at my muchacho, who´s proudly wearing his new “encargados del futuro” t-shirt, and I’m imagining what must be going through his mind. Maybe he´s taking in the sites and sounds of his first visit to Santiago, or he’s thinking about all the friends he’s made over the last few days at our first ever IT conference. Possibly there’s a girl he’s fancying or maybe just thinking about all the computer skills he’s just learned and which one he’s going to practice first when he gets home to his new computer.

I ask him, “So, what was your favourite part of the conference?”
“Todo”, he says, “Everything was bellísimo.”

And I’m proud. I’m proud to have given him this opportunity, and I’m proud of all the volunteers who pulled their skills together to make it happen.

High school students from all ends of the DR came with their volunteers to learn about youth groups, techi skills, teaching tips, programming, video conferencing, trouble shooting, body surfing, scavenger hunts, casino games, video confessions, dominos pizza, dance contests, auctions, dinamicas, and just what this whole Peace Corps thing is all about.

The muchachos loved it. Next year I’m bringing three.

So now is the real important moment. We are back in our campos and we need to make use of all these new skills we’ve learned and motivate others to hop on our informática train. An IT youth group is my next goal. I want to make computer geeks out of these kids.

Just one little problem. Right now our gas plant, which provides electricity to our computer lab, won’t turn on. It just decided to quite, done, finished. The plant works somewhat like a car. You have to fill it with diesel, check the filters, change the oil, and when it dies, someone else has to fix it. Well we can’t take our lab to a shop, so we have to wait until the mechanic comes to us. And this, this is in the hands of the secretary of education, who controls all of the labs in the entire Dominican Republic. Unfortunately, it might take awhile.

So we cross our fingers and call and call and call everyday until we get our lab back up and running.

But when the lab is ready, we will be as well. Our invitations in hand and jóvenes waiting for the best club our campo has seen yet.

Juegos and Fun

Thanks for all the games, familia, we´re enjoying them to the fullest.
XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

Lavando the First Time

This is the advanced dominican washing machine. Washer and ringer in one. And thank God for it. I would die if I had to wash all my clothes by hand. Imaginate! Raw knuckles, no thank you.

Let me tell you how it goes.

Primero- You haul the lavadora out from the back room to the back yard and connect it to an outlet nearby.

segundo - Connect drain tube to the back of the machine. Make sure the opening of the tube is pointing away from house (very important)

tercero- Fill left side with 3 buckets of water, a shake or two of FAB laudry soap, and throw in a load of whites. Set to 15 minutes.

Cuarto- When 15 minutes are up, pick out wet soapy clothes and throw them in a bucket of water nearby. Plunge an swirl, plunge and swirl until it looks like the soap is out (it never really is).

Quinto- Then haul the wet less soapy clothes up to the ringer (the right side of the machine). Set the timer for 5 minutes. It spins the clothes at an unimaginable speed until most of the water is out.

Sexto- Carry less wet clothes to clothes line to dry in the super dominican sun.

Repeat step 1-6 over and over, changing dirty water when needed. Haul machine back to bedroom when finished.

my pimpin´ pad

Soooooo, when we thought Angela would be living in a mud hut with dirt floor, we were´t exactly getting the complete picture. First all the run down shacks were taken by all the poor families. Second all the run down shacks have zero security, and that wasn´t going to fly with all overly protective family and friends. Even though there are rare occurances of any acts of violence, I had to have the segurist of segure houses in the hood. So what are my options? I could continue to live with my host family, which I love my family but I rarely got a moment of peace and quiet or any privacy, or find a super nice house with bars on the windows and padlocks on all the doors. Sorry Doña, I went with the second route

Water, electricity, inversor when there isn´t electricity, 3 bedrooms, fully furnished, and and an acre full of platanos all for 2.000$ pesos a month (about 60 bucks).

Not quite what I was expecting.

When Alissa and Megan came for a visit their first words were:

¨Holy, this is your house!¨

¨Wow, you have chairs!¨

¨You´re living in America!¨

¨When you go back to the states and are living in a crappy little apartment you´re going to say, ´boy, I wish I was in the Peace Corps again´¨.

This hook up wasn´t all my doing. I have to give much credit to Enmanuel because the house I´m living in is his grandma´s. She lives in the US year round and only visits here a couple weeks out of the summer.
So even though I wanted at one time to have the unforgiving mud hut, I’m happy that I’m living in comfort in my American like home. There is enough stress everyday without having to look for your water every morning or stare at your doo doo in an unflushable hole or toilet.

My first weekend in the house. Nana and Ruth are teaching me how to make Moro (rice, beans, veggie mix). The trick to good rice is if the spoon stands straight up when you put it in the pot, you have the right combo of rice and water.

My acre of platanos. Due to my growing waistline, I´ve sworn off platanos for a year.

Where one would catch a cool breeze.

My beautiful patio.

Enmanuel, a much better house keeper than I will ever be. He, along with many dominicans, is worried about having dead leaves scattered in the front yard. What would the neighbors think!

My bedroom. My Favorite blanky. My mosquito net.

Common visitors. This one in particular likes to watch me fregar the dishes.