Carnaval

Orange. A cell phone company with their super cave.

I lasted about 5 seconds.

Examples of the many elaborate costumes and masks.

Black object in the middle is a hitting butt tool. Sand, rocks, and if your lucky filled with just air.

Carnaval. Carnaval. Carnaval.

What an INSANE fiesta! Streets are packed, butts are wacked, and you will be a sweating like no other.

Enmanuel, myself and the family headed out to La Vega for the last sunday parade in February. Around 1pm the streets were nearly empty allowing us to visit the ¨caves¨ put up by local company. The caves provided the richies with VIP shady chairs and cold beverages. Us campo folks wandered the streets trying to avoided getting wacked in the butt with an air (or sometimes rock filled) beating bags. Those participating in the parade were dressed with elaborate beautifully ugly devilish costumes parading through and dancing like wild jungle beasts.

Fusimania Med Mission

So, At the beginning of January, I went for a trek with my good buddy Jon up to the Mountains north of Santiago. Our night were spent in this retreat center and our days spent traveling out to the surrounding villages to visit the patients and translate for the Med people.

Our Maine Crew. Docs, Pediatricians, Sports Med, Gynocologists, Nurses, students, and translators all coming together to help out in the DR.

We were set up in churches, schools, and houses, any building that were availabe in their communities. The clinics were set up with 4-6 stations, all with a translator, a student, and a nurse or doctor.We saw everything from Diabetes, to open sores, to fungi, to parasites. The patients got a full analysis and were sent on their way with any medications that needed filling.

Rain or Shine we were ready to roll.

When the patients were too sick or old to come in to the clinic, we brought the clinic to them.

But not without stopping for a quick game of baseball with the local muchachos. An old plastic juice bottle for a ball and a stick for the bat. Med mission vs. Campo muchachos. Despite the lack of my eye-ball skills, I got a few good hits.

And now after such a successful mission, Jon and I have decided to take over Med Mission Chairs and run the whole show. Well, peace corps side of the whole show. Wish us luck.

a DR christmas

Santa Georgina with gifts for the kids over her shoulder.

A small part of the Reinoso Duran Family. Gathering to bless the abundance of food.

And then you just dig in!

Enmanuel, Sylvana, Francis, and I

Evony, Lily and I on Christmas Eve

Christmas here isn’t quite like back home. 70 degree weather instead of -20, platanos instead of scalloped potatoes, Christmas merengue instead of jingle bells, raisins, apples and grapes instead endless Christmas cookies, and of course my Dominican family instead of my ND family. I was a trooper, but I can`t say I wasn`t home sick.

Traditions are quite different as well. Christmas Eve is celebrated with enough food to fill a large family of elephants. We had roasted pork, roasted chicken, platanos maduro, boiled green bananas, spaghetti, bread, chicken pastries, beef in a leaf, some eggplant dish, and much more. Sophy mixed up an Alexander cocktail and Georgina pretended to be Santa. Even I got a few gifts, isn´t that special. Normally gifts aren’t given on Christmas but instead el dia de Reyes (Kings day, Jan. 6), but relatives were here from the capital so we had to aprovechar.

Christmas day is spent drinking, chatting and dancing, nothing too out of the ordinary. I was a little under the weather with a mucusy cough so I didn´t partake in the drunken dancing so much. I’ve been served various concoctions of natural foods with a guarantee it will clear up my gripe. Right now, I’m drinking a mixture of honey and aloe plant filling. Tastey.

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.