Standing at the counter with my tiny little green and white contact case in my hands, its little drops of solution I only change sporadically to conserve, I swivel my head around, pounding pain in my eyes, neck, and throat looking for my backpack. In doing so, I see the white spots on my shoulders that might be a fungal thing, (note: start using the selenium sulfide lotion Lissette gave me for it). Some of you may find the idea that I might have a fungal thing on my shoulders gross; around the Dominicans and the PCV's its hardly illicits a response stronger than eye contact in recognition of mundane facts related by someone to whom I generally pay attention.
Anyway, after I take of the contacts, I have to know where the backpack is and be confident that I can walk to it and pull out the glasses without fail. If not, I'll be cross and blind until Ben finishes cooking.
“Have we ever washed the round mosquitero,?” Ben asked, referring to the one over our bed.
“No, but its not dirty yet.”
“Claudette, its been like 3 months, we should wash it.”
“We, as you wish, but we haven't even lived in this house for 3 months.”
Moments of pondering - “when did we move in?”
“February 22.”
“Oh, feel like 5 months.”
Wiping the ants off my computer screen and keyboard, I'm typing this thinking: when things seem to take longer than they have, is that because we are feeling the rate of aging? I think so, because I feel more tired today than I ideal and it corresponds with feeling like we've been in this house longer than we have. I remember when we were dating, time flew and I felt young and strong- real young - like a pretty chestnut horse.
Back to this in a minute, gotta go pin the sheet to the bed.
Friday, May 23, 2008
Unremarkable Banana
“Here,” handing Ben an unusual banana, its texture more hearty and its flavor approximately buttery, as compared to the variety we're used to Stateside. I stand beside him, waiting for him to eat it and give me the peel from where he's reading in bed. In the dusky sunlight, the breeze is cool and fresh through the glassless windows. After such heat and humidity on May days, around now I reach for my sweater.
I'm not cold, but like Californians, Dominicans like to pretend its cold when the temperature bottoms lower than 70. In this way, I fit right in, in my fleeces and wool socks (thanks, Les!). Considering that its not been lower than 50 since I arrived, I do think that the sweaters and socks make me feel safe in this foreign land where the comforts are electricity and non-potable water, piped inside from rivers shared with the agriculture irrigation/runoff system, where it is a luxury to ride inside the automobile. Also, they remind me of Leslie, and Andrew, for whom I pray almost subconsciously.
Our afternoon was wholly unremarkable - reading, like its going out of style. I started Eragon again last night, but currently (meaning in the last few hours) its been Interpreter of Maladies. Its so nice to find female voices to love, with all her slightly stinging, depressed Bostonian stories of infidelity or the price of fidelity - her young characters (when did 30's start to be young to me? - uh, now, I think) talking to me- displaying in harsh grey light the diet-of-frightening endemic downsides of the social life of academics.
Unremarkable it had to be, given the past 24 we had in Los Dajaos: several meals of bottomless bowels of salty white rice drizzled with a thin bean sauce or mugs of avena (blended thin oatmeal); the water that mysteriously leaks into the computer lab even when its not raining, turning the concrete floor into a muddy silty sandbox. Hm. I wonder what I'm still mad about that the avenues all look so grey? I'm reminded of Snow, where the caviat the sources lay on the reporter is not to reveal how poor they really are in his writing.
Perhaps its the construction project Ben has tried so faithfully to help ASCAJA plan, where the ground's broken and the contractor refuses to provide the promised revised budget for the project, claiming we should take him on his word that it will be cheaper than proposed. He also says that 'he's working for free' if he has to talk to us outside meetings. Its the principal of the matter, not the lie/ineptitude itself: rather seeing our friends manipulated in this way or rather, I don't understand how this situation is respectful - a contractor to deny its clients revised project budgets just because they don't know better than to force the issue. I'm reading Collapse, by Jared Diamond, and he's coincidentally talking about pacific islands where the chiefs aren't educated about the logging companies enough to realize that they lose everything when they sell cheap leases to loggers who will clear cut their rain forest.
I'm the sort that will eternally struggle to maintain inner piece... back to the mat, the cushion, the running trail to work out the frustrations, where ever I might move and whatever I might do, taking my socks and sweaters with me. If in summery, I say I love working in development. If I paint the story, the painting would be famous for its use of light, me in a bright white sweater surrounded by rich dark hues.
I'm not cold, but like Californians, Dominicans like to pretend its cold when the temperature bottoms lower than 70. In this way, I fit right in, in my fleeces and wool socks (thanks, Les!). Considering that its not been lower than 50 since I arrived, I do think that the sweaters and socks make me feel safe in this foreign land where the comforts are electricity and non-potable water, piped inside from rivers shared with the agriculture irrigation/runoff system, where it is a luxury to ride inside the automobile. Also, they remind me of Leslie, and Andrew, for whom I pray almost subconsciously.
Our afternoon was wholly unremarkable - reading, like its going out of style. I started Eragon again last night, but currently (meaning in the last few hours) its been Interpreter of Maladies. Its so nice to find female voices to love, with all her slightly stinging, depressed Bostonian stories of infidelity or the price of fidelity - her young characters (when did 30's start to be young to me? - uh, now, I think) talking to me- displaying in harsh grey light the diet-of-frightening endemic downsides of the social life of academics.
Unremarkable it had to be, given the past 24 we had in Los Dajaos: several meals of bottomless bowels of salty white rice drizzled with a thin bean sauce or mugs of avena (blended thin oatmeal); the water that mysteriously leaks into the computer lab even when its not raining, turning the concrete floor into a muddy silty sandbox. Hm. I wonder what I'm still mad about that the avenues all look so grey? I'm reminded of Snow, where the caviat the sources lay on the reporter is not to reveal how poor they really are in his writing.
Perhaps its the construction project Ben has tried so faithfully to help ASCAJA plan, where the ground's broken and the contractor refuses to provide the promised revised budget for the project, claiming we should take him on his word that it will be cheaper than proposed. He also says that 'he's working for free' if he has to talk to us outside meetings. Its the principal of the matter, not the lie/ineptitude itself: rather seeing our friends manipulated in this way or rather, I don't understand how this situation is respectful - a contractor to deny its clients revised project budgets just because they don't know better than to force the issue. I'm reading Collapse, by Jared Diamond, and he's coincidentally talking about pacific islands where the chiefs aren't educated about the logging companies enough to realize that they lose everything when they sell cheap leases to loggers who will clear cut their rain forest.
I'm the sort that will eternally struggle to maintain inner piece... back to the mat, the cushion, the running trail to work out the frustrations, where ever I might move and whatever I might do, taking my socks and sweaters with me. If in summery, I say I love working in development. If I paint the story, the painting would be famous for its use of light, me in a bright white sweater surrounded by rich dark hues.
It was getting trying, having people assume left and right that because this was a difficult situation to be in alone, it must be easier to be in it, married. I guess the unbonded-covalently among us, or the careless-but-bonded among us don't know how much work the first few years of marriage are. I do imagine that it gets easier, but to the engaged out there: you do not get handed the script for the rest of your life when you marry. Marriage is a high calling, where the challenges become more valuable and satisfying to surmount. The sky looked hazy in the high valley, and gazing out at the silhouettes of the mountains, it occurred to me again that all the burning, burning, burning of wood, trash, and patches of field in preparation for the next planting makes this haze in Jarabacoa valley more like smog.
Tula is in bad shape. She's got sores all over her underbelly down to her hairless hindquarters that would have hair if I could nourish her well enough for her to grow it. Last week, she was sleeping and shaking all day, rising only to drink milk. The sores, I think, she was making them worse by licking them. She's on puppy house arrest.
The vet, a thick man in jeans and a blue scrub top over a polo shirt, gave her some pills and an injection for parasites along with this month's vaccination. I feel that he doesn't look me in the eye when I talk, something I associate with the listener not understanding my requests. His wife is eager to have me over for Bible study, which I'm cautious to diplomatically regret. What would things be like for my friends and family and random people who ask me for help if, when my answer was poor or my understanding hazy, I just pretended they weren't talking?
We picked up Tula from the vet three days later, hopeful after a great capital trip - thank you Aunt Dorothy, Leslie, Kira, and Tía Florencía - that she would have improved. Instead, it seems the vet took her out of her little cage so rarely (at all?) that she urinated all over herself, her sores, and her leash (left in the cage, why?). It makes me so sad to think that I left Tula with him because she was sick and I thought he would do a better job that I can getting her nutrients and water and ascertaining her progress. Rather, I wasn't even sure she ate food while in the care of he and his family.
The vet's family is home schooling their teenage daughter with material sourced from the Jehovah's Witnesses in Pearblossom, CA. Initially, I was relieved to meet a working class family home schooling their child - love to see people making efforts to empower themselves; now, I'm just sad - sad because today I found Tula in the yard, depondant, with hoards of ants munching on her open sores. The vet says he'll see her next week?
I wish Peace Corps supplied a “Where there is no Vet” pamphlet along with my med kit suitcase of drugs and written med advice. My only option here is to continue cooking her the pork I can't eat and hoping the gallons of butt pee stop before she dies. Tula, can I make you some rehydration salts?
No one said this would be easy, and I think about how the lush views, the language acquisition, the endless time to discover the literary greats, how these benefits are supposed to satiate me against the cultural deprivations of being so far from music, art, theater, and mushrooms. Wow, am I how-brow or what? I guess that's this week's gripe: Claudette misses Los Angeles, reason no. 553 - no small theater. That being said, I did love my trip to Los Dajaos to teach computer this week. Mostly, I have been taking it easy the past two weeks, feeling a little burnt out with all the (excuse the pessimism - its stems from hearing the following phrase all-too much in brokerage - and I hate canned lang.) 'hit-the-ground-running' classes Benja and I are teaching our first 6 months. On the other hand, the Spanish is getting to be amazing, and its only been 8 months of the tour! So, the weekly trek up the loma to Los Dajaos.
The kids had taken our absence from the classroom for the week as the go-ahead to install lots of video games mashed with viruses and quitar/sacar/erase some teaching programs. The adults grabbed onto the cute little Intro to Computer Programming program Ben likes to teach, Scratch. To go from adults who would randomly turn off the computer if they got lost in all the haphazard programs they opened to adults getting excited about writing little programs - well, that's gotta feel good. Plus, I got to talk to my Dominican best friend Yaque - my favorite of the few people I know here who are happy and regale me with stories that do not make me feel despondent. Note to self: don't tell stories that make other people pity me. (OK, okay, the adults still turn off the computer when they get confused or think their MS Paint drawing of a house is ugly).
Also since its summer, there are ants everywhere, crawling out the holes in our couches where the rats' nests used to be - on Tula's sores (see above) - everywhere! Good thing a few ants would never stop me from eating something, or we would be throwing out all kinds of food.
Poor Tula died on May 17.
Sámana, Second Public Speaking Gig
Let's talk about the highlights. There is a secret hope in my heart, known only to faithful readers on this Internet blog that I've never told anyone exists, that I become proficient in my second language, Spanish. For me that would mean bilingual - bilingual like I can speak without thinking about it, like I can understand without the digital camera shoot and capture delay... that I can speak in public.
A whole area of my life, I remember speaking on the Speech and Debate team in high school, giving presentations of my phobia research in UCLA's psych department, leadership positions in the sorority, etc. But, I've always been all about shyness. I'm shy and I like me that way, but I used to have a little side of me that would do the center-of-attention thing for the sake of delivering info.
Like most of my talents, it all went down hill when I started to work for Marcus & Millichap, where I was thus, never important enough to make a presentation - the shyness took its chance and four years later, I was actually depressed about public speaking. As in, nervous to the point of tears days in advance of presenting poetry I had written or, (booming low voice), presenting in Spanish. When I got in-country I would say I roughly hated public speaking in my primary language like I hate rocks in my shoes and traverse the dirt roads of life. I hate it, and it we just added in español to the mix, just ensure I have a panic attack.
Thus, the secret goal would be to be good enough in English and then in Spanish, so that I wouldn't have to hate public speaking anymore. Yay!
On April 24th I gave a talk in Sámana to Erika's women's group on sales techniques. I hear they have even taken some of my consejos to heart and done a couple of the things I suggested! What's better, I didn't hate giving the charla - even though I was a humiliating hour late (all my fault) and they were all there waiting for me. For some reason, the fact that they waited made me feel important, instead of intimidated? Weird, inner egoist.
I felt prepared, my Spanish felt natural and easy, and whoosh, they understood me. This latest victory in the long chain of defeats and victories in the hardest skill I've ever acquired, (maybe knitting and long distance swimming compares? - no they were easier, less humiliating), leaves me feeling so much more confident with my project partners and in intimidating situations- like with yelling chofers and cobradores. We all know how easily intimidated I am; I feel intimidated right now, just thinking about posting this.
After my charla, Erika and I spent an awesome day or so bonding and visiting the beaches around Sámana, especially Las Terrenas. Its so beautiful there. Our family on Ben's side flies out in July to visit and we're staying in Las Terranas; its going to be amazing.
To Sámana
I had the most gnarly time getting my site in Jarabacoa to Erika's site in Sámana - so telling of how spoiled I am, my comfort expectations still in 'personal car' expectations.
Erica lives in La Pascuala, which is in the bay of the bracito. Its embarassing to say, but I failed to look at a map, figuring the easiest way to get anywhere in this country is from Santo Domingo or from Santiago. So I headed to Santiago without much thought at the crack of dawn - 2 hours, 2 guagua rides, a stop in La Vega, and 15 minutes late for the 10:30 AM guagua to Sámana. Boo. This means I was going to be late for my charla. Ummmm, my American heart started racing, who ever heard of the speaker being late?
This reminded me of when Chris Thile was late for a show in Philadelphia and he showed up all stressed out. In the audience, I just enjoyed some beers with Benja and waited. (Oh, yeah, that was for Valentine's in 2007. It was cold and after the show in University City we went to a low-brow party near our place in Brewerytown, with all the Phillies who didn't go to college and made art or music and work in restaurants and bakeries. HA, a life time away from all those pierced and inked kids, alternately drugged or straight-edge, like its normal for the two to mix!).
Way too many pesos and guagua rides later, it became obvious that a cursory glance at a map would have gotten me there on-time at half the cost. At least I can say I've been to every tiny town on the way from me to her, which is to say I did the bola race on accident, but I paid.
I was an hour late for my charla, but they loved me and the charla anyway. More details on that in the next post.
Erica lives in La Pascuala, which is in the bay of the bracito. Its embarassing to say, but I failed to look at a map, figuring the easiest way to get anywhere in this country is from Santo Domingo or from Santiago. So I headed to Santiago without much thought at the crack of dawn - 2 hours, 2 guagua rides, a stop in La Vega, and 15 minutes late for the 10:30 AM guagua to Sámana. Boo. This means I was going to be late for my charla. Ummmm, my American heart started racing, who ever heard of the speaker being late?
This reminded me of when Chris Thile was late for a show in Philadelphia and he showed up all stressed out. In the audience, I just enjoyed some beers with Benja and waited. (Oh, yeah, that was for Valentine's in 2007. It was cold and after the show in University City we went to a low-brow party near our place in Brewerytown, with all the Phillies who didn't go to college and made art or music and work in restaurants and bakeries. HA, a life time away from all those pierced and inked kids, alternately drugged or straight-edge, like its normal for the two to mix!).
Way too many pesos and guagua rides later, it became obvious that a cursory glance at a map would have gotten me there on-time at half the cost. At least I can say I've been to every tiny town on the way from me to her, which is to say I did the bola race on accident, but I paid.
I was an hour late for my charla, but they loved me and the charla anyway. More details on that in the next post.
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Light in August
I just drank a long, cold glass of chocolate milk. Goat's milk from Jose Luis' goat, which is what I think he bought with our rent money. One of the reasons why I love Jose Luis is because aside from working like a horse all day, he's never spending his money on gas for his moto or beer - but rather, buying goats. He told me the other day, that in addition to marrying one of my friends, his life goals is to have 5-6 cows and 5-6 goats. Right now he's got one of each, plus a calf and a couple horses. Its a pretty good business with their milk: he sells it to a pasteleria in town every day.
To give him credit, he never actually says that he wants to marry my friends, although he did ask me if he could meet my sisters when they come visit and he all but falls over himself finding reasons to come visit and chat when any other volunteer comes to visit me. Female volunteer, that is. Once I told him that Tod might come visit, and he didn't seem to hear me? Anywho, JL is a great guy, he says that goat's milk is the most nutritious there is.
We took the big pot of fresh goat's milk and boiled it over the stove for a while, then Ben added chocolate powder that's made at Katie's site. Soon, I am hoping to visit the factory in Santiago where they separate the cocoa powder from the cocoa butter and buy some cocoa butter. Then Ben and I try and make our own chocolate!
My update on books, is that since moving here I feel like I live in a bunch of old books in a very cool way. Who hasn't read books about the Victorian era or pre-induatrial US or Chairman Mao's China. Now, I am living the life of all them. One can hardy leave the house without hearing the slogans invented by the presidential candidates, Leonel, Miguel, y Amable. The slogans of each make up short conversations, so it would seem as you amble about that hundreds of people are having the same propaganda talks over and over again. Also, the candidates are fond of hiring trucks especially outfitted with huge speakers playing their campaign songs so loud my heart skips a beat and constricts fearfully until the rumbling base passes.
I just read Light In August by the greatest American writer ever, William Faulkner. Its about pre-industrial Mississippi. People here are always with a bucket of water, tending a chicken or cow, or scrubbing something, barefoot - just like in Light in August. The delicacy here is to buy at a corner store for instant consumption is sardines canned in oil, people wear their shoes when going to town and they want to look nice, . Full swing into my big adventure in the DR, I feel like I know all about those things.
Lastly, Victorian England - what could it have in common with the DR? Yesterday there was thunder and lighting storm mid-afternoon, and since most people walk - for groceries, to visit their nieces and nephews, to entertain themselves - anyone caught outside had to run for cover quick at the nearest house. The sky was rumbling even louder than the propaganda election rigs. And the water from the sky was quickly turning the downhill streets into muddy rivers. Rubia and Raphael, who live up the road from us where it's impassible by car - had to duck into our house and wait out the storm. I kept thinking and saying that if it didn't let up we would have to invite them to spend the night. This reminded me of when the Jane Bennett goes to visit Mr. Bingley at his house and can't come home that day because she gets a fever. They live in the same town! But those were the times, a fever was serious.
Today a woman came over to show me tire burns on the right side of her little girl's body from where she got underfoot of a moto while crossing the street. All I could say was 'little girls shouldn't be allowed to cross alone, drivers can't see them so well.' As the mama was really hoping I would give her some money to take care of her, my consejos were overlooked. I did recommend aloe from the aloe plant next door. Ben gave some one a tylenol the other day, and lately the Haitian workers that live a few feet away have been asking for 20 pesos. I'm not sure what to make of it, but it does remind me of something.
To give him credit, he never actually says that he wants to marry my friends, although he did ask me if he could meet my sisters when they come visit and he all but falls over himself finding reasons to come visit and chat when any other volunteer comes to visit me. Female volunteer, that is. Once I told him that Tod might come visit, and he didn't seem to hear me? Anywho, JL is a great guy, he says that goat's milk is the most nutritious there is.
We took the big pot of fresh goat's milk and boiled it over the stove for a while, then Ben added chocolate powder that's made at Katie's site. Soon, I am hoping to visit the factory in Santiago where they separate the cocoa powder from the cocoa butter and buy some cocoa butter. Then Ben and I try and make our own chocolate!
My update on books, is that since moving here I feel like I live in a bunch of old books in a very cool way. Who hasn't read books about the Victorian era or pre-induatrial US or Chairman Mao's China. Now, I am living the life of all them. One can hardy leave the house without hearing the slogans invented by the presidential candidates, Leonel, Miguel, y Amable. The slogans of each make up short conversations, so it would seem as you amble about that hundreds of people are having the same propaganda talks over and over again. Also, the candidates are fond of hiring trucks especially outfitted with huge speakers playing their campaign songs so loud my heart skips a beat and constricts fearfully until the rumbling base passes.
I just read Light In August by the greatest American writer ever, William Faulkner. Its about pre-industrial Mississippi. People here are always with a bucket of water, tending a chicken or cow, or scrubbing something, barefoot - just like in Light in August. The delicacy here is to buy at a corner store for instant consumption is sardines canned in oil, people wear their shoes when going to town and they want to look nice, . Full swing into my big adventure in the DR, I feel like I know all about those things.
Lastly, Victorian England - what could it have in common with the DR? Yesterday there was thunder and lighting storm mid-afternoon, and since most people walk - for groceries, to visit their nieces and nephews, to entertain themselves - anyone caught outside had to run for cover quick at the nearest house. The sky was rumbling even louder than the propaganda election rigs. And the water from the sky was quickly turning the downhill streets into muddy rivers. Rubia and Raphael, who live up the road from us where it's impassible by car - had to duck into our house and wait out the storm. I kept thinking and saying that if it didn't let up we would have to invite them to spend the night. This reminded me of when the Jane Bennett goes to visit Mr. Bingley at his house and can't come home that day because she gets a fever. They live in the same town! But those were the times, a fever was serious.
Today a woman came over to show me tire burns on the right side of her little girl's body from where she got underfoot of a moto while crossing the street. All I could say was 'little girls shouldn't be allowed to cross alone, drivers can't see them so well.' As the mama was really hoping I would give her some money to take care of her, my consejos were overlooked. I did recommend aloe from the aloe plant next door. Ben gave some one a tylenol the other day, and lately the Haitian workers that live a few feet away have been asking for 20 pesos. I'm not sure what to make of it, but it does remind me of something.
Eco Couple Makes Good on Promises
I'm always telling people to stop damaging the medioambiente. When I see someone with bottled water, I tisk them. When I lived in Philadelphia, I spent many an hour pontificating that this non-recylcing thing was very wack- as well as trying to get people to quit with all the antibacterial crap. Its so pervasively indestructible, its in human breast milk now because once created it doesn't break down.
When I met Ben we pushed me even further along the path of least damage and stopped me from using fabric softener (which is so bad for the environment and your clothes, you don't even want to know), smoking cigarettes, and he had me eating organic tofu. I one-upped him and sold my car. He one-upped me and sold his. We one-upped each other by always living in these family compounds together, sharing expenses and resources. He got me really riding a bike to run errands, and I got him buying used clothes. Um, we're still electricity hogs.
But then we moved to the DR. And the level of eco-friendly around here went through the roof. Since we moved in two months ago, NO trash has been picked up by the municipality. Trash in this country is only picked up in the densest areas and taken to these piles that 'accidentally' catch fire all the time. So that means that all the trash that we've created at our house in the campo is still on our property - except for the toilet paper we burned once and the bags of absolutely can't-stay trash Ben bikes a half hour to dispose of.
Thus, buying canned food is a serious decsion, seeing as we will always have the can evermore. There's no microwave for anything like a Lean Cuisine. With the amount of styrofoam I see in the gutters waiting to washed out to sea, I hardly want anything in a hardy package anyway. We're using solid shampoo, conditioner, soap, and lotion from Lush. I use talcum as daily deodorant, Ben still uses the regular kind. So in two years we will literally be able to count how many he deodorants he used while we lived here! We might also have to leave it for the next renter to ponder disposal of.
We have started to compost for the patio plants. Yes, at this point, toilet-composting sounds great to me. We never ride in personal automobiles with any less than 25 people (exaggerating, but seriously never less than 5).
When we wash clothes, (I'm considering replacing the nothing softener we use now with vinegar - but vinegar still comes in a bottle), we toss the soapy water, but save the rinse water for the next wash cycle. Except when I'm feeling cheeky and then I use fresh water for both. Either way, the clothes gets washed via me and/or Ben arm power, a couple of buckets that have duct-tape over their holes, and a washing machine that has the agitation action of a cold jacuzzi.
The clothes are all washed cold and dry in the sun. Meaning, if there is no sun, the clothes wait wet.
Since we don't have a carpet we don't use an electricity-sucking vaccum (which would prolly make the electrical wiring short anyway). So, here's a back-breaking eco-action: When I mop, I use a real mop. Not a Swiffer or any of those light-weight devices with disposable cotton pads soaked in soapy cleaner that we love in the trash-multiplying States. No, a stick with a heavy cotton rope head that I can use daily for a few years without throwing anything out. Oddly enough, the common word for mop in Dominican is 'swiffer.' So there's me, with a mop and a bucket all the time. I have become quite good at it. And I appreciate buckets. I realize now that in all my jobs where I had to mop up at the end of the night, I was incompetent. Now, I can mop. Oh my aching elbows.
Baths are cold unless I heat water over the stove. Wow, well I am sure learning a lot. For example, I always new that my wrappers from Oreos, the plastic and cardboard on a box of granola bars, the jug of yogurt (just think - six months ago I was proud of myself for buying yogurt by the gallon - now, I'm sitting here with empty gallon cartons, reprimanding myself), the can of whole tomatoes that saves time on dinner were just piling up some where - but I would say that now I have some an intimate knowledge of it, seeing as I can see all the refuse we've created in the past two months from where I'm typing right now. As for the clothes, I do wish I could wash with warm water at least.
Ben is going to have to build me a solar hot-water heater. Another reason for buying less in packages is that everything that enters the house comes in our back backs. Only every now and then can I afford to bring something here in a taxi. Is this the future of the States?
When I met Ben we pushed me even further along the path of least damage and stopped me from using fabric softener (which is so bad for the environment and your clothes, you don't even want to know), smoking cigarettes, and he had me eating organic tofu. I one-upped him and sold my car. He one-upped me and sold his. We one-upped each other by always living in these family compounds together, sharing expenses and resources. He got me really riding a bike to run errands, and I got him buying used clothes. Um, we're still electricity hogs.
But then we moved to the DR. And the level of eco-friendly around here went through the roof. Since we moved in two months ago, NO trash has been picked up by the municipality. Trash in this country is only picked up in the densest areas and taken to these piles that 'accidentally' catch fire all the time. So that means that all the trash that we've created at our house in the campo is still on our property - except for the toilet paper we burned once and the bags of absolutely can't-stay trash Ben bikes a half hour to dispose of.
Thus, buying canned food is a serious decsion, seeing as we will always have the can evermore. There's no microwave for anything like a Lean Cuisine. With the amount of styrofoam I see in the gutters waiting to washed out to sea, I hardly want anything in a hardy package anyway. We're using solid shampoo, conditioner, soap, and lotion from Lush. I use talcum as daily deodorant, Ben still uses the regular kind. So in two years we will literally be able to count how many he deodorants he used while we lived here! We might also have to leave it for the next renter to ponder disposal of.
We have started to compost for the patio plants. Yes, at this point, toilet-composting sounds great to me. We never ride in personal automobiles with any less than 25 people (exaggerating, but seriously never less than 5).
When we wash clothes, (I'm considering replacing the nothing softener we use now with vinegar - but vinegar still comes in a bottle), we toss the soapy water, but save the rinse water for the next wash cycle. Except when I'm feeling cheeky and then I use fresh water for both. Either way, the clothes gets washed via me and/or Ben arm power, a couple of buckets that have duct-tape over their holes, and a washing machine that has the agitation action of a cold jacuzzi.
The clothes are all washed cold and dry in the sun. Meaning, if there is no sun, the clothes wait wet.
Since we don't have a carpet we don't use an electricity-sucking vaccum (which would prolly make the electrical wiring short anyway). So, here's a back-breaking eco-action: When I mop, I use a real mop. Not a Swiffer or any of those light-weight devices with disposable cotton pads soaked in soapy cleaner that we love in the trash-multiplying States. No, a stick with a heavy cotton rope head that I can use daily for a few years without throwing anything out. Oddly enough, the common word for mop in Dominican is 'swiffer.' So there's me, with a mop and a bucket all the time. I have become quite good at it. And I appreciate buckets. I realize now that in all my jobs where I had to mop up at the end of the night, I was incompetent. Now, I can mop. Oh my aching elbows.
Baths are cold unless I heat water over the stove. Wow, well I am sure learning a lot. For example, I always new that my wrappers from Oreos, the plastic and cardboard on a box of granola bars, the jug of yogurt (just think - six months ago I was proud of myself for buying yogurt by the gallon - now, I'm sitting here with empty gallon cartons, reprimanding myself), the can of whole tomatoes that saves time on dinner were just piling up some where - but I would say that now I have some an intimate knowledge of it, seeing as I can see all the refuse we've created in the past two months from where I'm typing right now. As for the clothes, I do wish I could wash with warm water at least.
Ben is going to have to build me a solar hot-water heater. Another reason for buying less in packages is that everything that enters the house comes in our back backs. Only every now and then can I afford to bring something here in a taxi. Is this the future of the States?
First Manguito Computer Class
The stress of excitement and expectation at work still overwhelms me, so far, every time I start something. The day Ben and I first opened the Los Dajaos computer lab was just like that. When we arrived little kids where everywhere, arguing and looking at me expectantly, without even a couple minutes to collect myself after the frightening ride up the mountain. We made our way through them from the guagua to the door of the computer lab - all the while the kids jumping and breathing all around us like flies or a pack of puppies. As soon as the door was open, they were inside trying to turn the machines on, trying to open Encarta. Ungracefully, the first order of class prep was to kick all the munchkins out using big, loud, pleading bad Spanish and enrollment. There were about 20 of them waiting and only 10 computers!
I tried to talk to Yani (the community adult defacto helping us) about it. She's a sweet, sweet lady who runs the colmado next to the lab, cooks the meals for the huge 'Pedro' family (so called by me because all the men are named Pedro - Pedro Fernando, Pedro Francisco, Pedro Oscar. I think there are seven of them, and some of the Pedros have male children also named Pedro. Personally, I think its great. I've previously only heard of female siblings being tortured by all being named Mary-something), and has lots of health problems including some cysts on her ovaries. As I tried to talk to Yani, asking her to save me from eenie-meenie-minie-moeing the kids into the class, she was reviewing a clipboard of their names, sweetly asking me if I could do the legwork to get them a full-time paid computer teach in Los Dajoas - a PCV perhaps?
I, of the high exceptions, overwhelmed, angry nature was speechless. I just got here and I'm asking for your help and you want me to get to work on getting you another volunteer. I wasn't sure if the indirect communication was that I'm good enough for this and they want someone else OR I need to calm down. Blood pressure rising. At times like this I wish I was 23 or 24 and still in my mid-twenties rennaissance. Choosing the kids was a drama with the angry ones running off in angry tears.
The first lesson was class room rules, parts of the computer... and Mouserciso. Mouserciso is supposed to help you teach kids to use a mouse. Oh boy, this program leaves a lot to be desired. The kids were smart, so they were getting it, but the drama was that I just could not, comoquiera, get these kids to take the time to read the screen. I would sit by one kid after he bellowed at me for a while for my attention and ask how I could help. He would tell me that he couldn't figure out how to go on. I would say, 'did you read the directions?' Blank stare. 'Ok,' I says, 'let's read them together.' Child reads them to me. Child still has no idea was to do. This is stressful. They can read, but not unless hand-help through the sentence; and even so, the content isn't understood. What to do? If any reader has any ideas, or knows of a better program - recommendations are welcome.
I would say that after two classes all the kids were good at using a mouse. Mostly because I stopped trying to have them infer what they should do by reading the directions and just explained and pointed them through the program. Yes, that removed the problem-solving portion of the exercise. But now they can use a mouse pretty good. Leaning to read directions is a critical skill. However, this is computer class, and I didn't want them all to quit because I made them feel dumb. Again, advice welcomed.
Afterward, I was so tired from pretending to speak Spanish for 2 hours and the belligerent over-use of the verb coger. The bridge of my nose and my corneas aching dully from all the propane exhaust fumes that were caught in my sinuses and gas-permeable contact lenses. So I grabbed a Coke, my DR cure-all - its sugary party in my mouth! - and sat down to write this essay about the first computer class.
What's cool is the improvement in my Spanish. Giving technical directions is awesome. Awesomely challenging - sort of like running your first marathon - you're not actually sure you're going to finish until you cross the line. Awesomely tiring - sore throat from yelling over all the hot little frustrated bodies who insist of hard restarting when the they get lost. Awesomely bonding for me and my partner. He's a more improvisational type. I'm a more like over-planner who can't leave the house (and is thus stuck in to alot) without being exactly sure that I've brought all the possible things that I could need and am fully prepared for all situations.
I tried to talk to Yani (the community adult defacto helping us) about it. She's a sweet, sweet lady who runs the colmado next to the lab, cooks the meals for the huge 'Pedro' family (so called by me because all the men are named Pedro - Pedro Fernando, Pedro Francisco, Pedro Oscar. I think there are seven of them, and some of the Pedros have male children also named Pedro. Personally, I think its great. I've previously only heard of female siblings being tortured by all being named Mary-something), and has lots of health problems including some cysts on her ovaries. As I tried to talk to Yani, asking her to save me from eenie-meenie-minie-moeing the kids into the class, she was reviewing a clipboard of their names, sweetly asking me if I could do the legwork to get them a full-time paid computer teach in Los Dajoas - a PCV perhaps?
I, of the high exceptions, overwhelmed, angry nature was speechless. I just got here and I'm asking for your help and you want me to get to work on getting you another volunteer. I wasn't sure if the indirect communication was that I'm good enough for this and they want someone else OR I need to calm down. Blood pressure rising. At times like this I wish I was 23 or 24 and still in my mid-twenties rennaissance. Choosing the kids was a drama with the angry ones running off in angry tears.
The first lesson was class room rules, parts of the computer... and Mouserciso. Mouserciso is supposed to help you teach kids to use a mouse. Oh boy, this program leaves a lot to be desired. The kids were smart, so they were getting it, but the drama was that I just could not, comoquiera, get these kids to take the time to read the screen. I would sit by one kid after he bellowed at me for a while for my attention and ask how I could help. He would tell me that he couldn't figure out how to go on. I would say, 'did you read the directions?' Blank stare. 'Ok,' I says, 'let's read them together.' Child reads them to me. Child still has no idea was to do. This is stressful. They can read, but not unless hand-help through the sentence; and even so, the content isn't understood. What to do? If any reader has any ideas, or knows of a better program - recommendations are welcome.
I would say that after two classes all the kids were good at using a mouse. Mostly because I stopped trying to have them infer what they should do by reading the directions and just explained and pointed them through the program. Yes, that removed the problem-solving portion of the exercise. But now they can use a mouse pretty good. Leaning to read directions is a critical skill. However, this is computer class, and I didn't want them all to quit because I made them feel dumb. Again, advice welcomed.
Afterward, I was so tired from pretending to speak Spanish for 2 hours and the belligerent over-use of the verb coger. The bridge of my nose and my corneas aching dully from all the propane exhaust fumes that were caught in my sinuses and gas-permeable contact lenses. So I grabbed a Coke, my DR cure-all - its sugary party in my mouth! - and sat down to write this essay about the first computer class.
What's cool is the improvement in my Spanish. Giving technical directions is awesome. Awesomely challenging - sort of like running your first marathon - you're not actually sure you're going to finish until you cross the line. Awesomely tiring - sore throat from yelling over all the hot little frustrated bodies who insist of hard restarting when the they get lost. Awesomely bonding for me and my partner. He's a more improvisational type. I'm a more like over-planner who can't leave the house (and is thus stuck in to alot) without being exactly sure that I've brought all the possible things that I could need and am fully prepared for all situations.
One Solid Plank
My meandering, love to hate, hate to love opinion of exercise may be coming to a close. When I was 16, having never played a sport in my life, I started buying running shoes and trying to pick that up. So that would be 13 years of attempting to run, a couple 5K's and no significant periods of running to my name. When I was 18, I took my first yoga class. When I was 23, I decided I should learn to ride a bike. I bought one off Craigslist; I have learned and just recently (meaning last month) stopped being afraid of accidentally biking too far to be able to get back home with the thing.
When I was 25, I told Ben I had always dreamed of swimming to shore from Alcatraz Island. He signed us up, we were jumping out of a boat in wetsuits for my 26th birthday. Let's not count gym memberships and personal training sessions (which are awesome) or hiking trips. Its March 2008, and I just crossed the threshhold (in my opinion) from athlete hack to athletic yogi: I can do a plank position! I can practice yoga alone for 35-45 minutes at a time! I can change the gears on my bike! I can run for a couple miles, just because I feel like it!
This post is dedicated to Cheryl, who's inspired me to 'make a commitment' to running and biking. Of course, I owe my success to Benja and my whole DR lifestyle. How and why this experience it causing all this athleticism is completely obvious to me, but I have no idea how to describe it. I suppose frame one of the story would show me, how I spent my first few months here exhausted all the time from the mandatory extra exercise (carrying buckets of water; walking miles upon miles upon miles just to get to the public transit point).
When I was 25, I told Ben I had always dreamed of swimming to shore from Alcatraz Island. He signed us up, we were jumping out of a boat in wetsuits for my 26th birthday. Let's not count gym memberships and personal training sessions (which are awesome) or hiking trips. Its March 2008, and I just crossed the threshhold (in my opinion) from athlete hack to athletic yogi: I can do a plank position! I can practice yoga alone for 35-45 minutes at a time! I can change the gears on my bike! I can run for a couple miles, just because I feel like it!
This post is dedicated to Cheryl, who's inspired me to 'make a commitment' to running and biking. Of course, I owe my success to Benja and my whole DR lifestyle. How and why this experience it causing all this athleticism is completely obvious to me, but I have no idea how to describe it. I suppose frame one of the story would show me, how I spent my first few months here exhausted all the time from the mandatory extra exercise (carrying buckets of water; walking miles upon miles upon miles just to get to the public transit point).
Yogi Teached the Feasibility Study
I love being newlywed. Its a big challenge, but not in the usual ways for us, I don't think. The whole moving across the country, the corporate burn-out thing, and then moving out of the country: it's made for a first two years of marriage that were even more exciting and strenuous than the 1.5 years of managing the universe re-configuation that was 'meeting my soulmate.' I always hear of the newlywed years as the ones when you learn to fight and to put up with the other's bad habits, etc. I can't deny that stuff like that happens, it's just not the bulk of change that's occurring. More and more, I see relationships where one person is the 'star of the show' professionally or publically, and the other is the sidekick, copyediting the star's work. I like this configuration; its what I'm used to. This relationship type, in my opinion, generally applies to families where the couple works together or at least are in the same profession. I don't claim to know a thing about relationships where the members have non-interlapping careers.
So we meet, laughing sternly at corporate burn-outs. We start designing websites. It turns out not to pay the bills so great right off; we move, I take on a pay-the-bills sales job. Ben takes on some similar things. And all at once, the ties are totally cut from the pleasant breezy life of the double-income-no-kids set (DINK's). We are still without kids, but we are also without the double income. We've been married three months and we live so far from Los Angeles, where goodness is like a cold well in summer - just dip your cup! A year later, we're in the DR, attempting to make sense of the acute status of this tiny country on half an island.
Categorizing and analyzing the Volunteer Experience, I remember talking to my friend Dilena about a month after we had been in site and her saying that she thought it was absurd or anithetical to her nature to 'explore her feelings' and that she didn't believe in 'self-discovery.' And she followed with “But I can't deny, I have learned somethings about myself since I got here. Me, I love self-discovery!
Recently I discovered that the feminine hormones really do start whining and progress into rabid barks for babies in the late 20's. Yes, it happened to me. Also, I discovered that Benja and I are going to have to locate a new paradigm for couples in the same career - since it has become completely obvious that while we form a covalent bond, neither makes a very good sidekick. We have to be more like Bert and Ernie, they're both famous.
As such, last week Ben had to attend an ASCAJA meeting at the same time as our business class. Our pattern had been that I would help him plan the lesson, the homework, grade the homework, talk to the administration of the school - all the behind the scenes stuff, and he would actually teach the class. As it turns out, I was furious to have no face time because it felt to me, like the students would see me as Benja's little sidekick wifey.
Let's just say this happened many times, in different contexts, for a few reasons the first 3 months at site. The bottom line was it made me furious! And it wasn't even Ben's fault. I was doing it; blindly and defaultedly following a pattern I realized recently, I have seen many times. He was just following along my lead. Even after I understood how I felt, what was happening, and why; well, I was still afraid to change it. Luckily, the PVC experience is good at pushing one to the their best; through no action of my own, I was nominated to teach the business class on my own. It happened. It was good. Rather, no one was hurt in the process - me or them.
So we meet, laughing sternly at corporate burn-outs. We start designing websites. It turns out not to pay the bills so great right off; we move, I take on a pay-the-bills sales job. Ben takes on some similar things. And all at once, the ties are totally cut from the pleasant breezy life of the double-income-no-kids set (DINK's). We are still without kids, but we are also without the double income. We've been married three months and we live so far from Los Angeles, where goodness is like a cold well in summer - just dip your cup! A year later, we're in the DR, attempting to make sense of the acute status of this tiny country on half an island.
Categorizing and analyzing the Volunteer Experience, I remember talking to my friend Dilena about a month after we had been in site and her saying that she thought it was absurd or anithetical to her nature to 'explore her feelings' and that she didn't believe in 'self-discovery.' And she followed with “But I can't deny, I have learned somethings about myself since I got here. Me, I love self-discovery!
Recently I discovered that the feminine hormones really do start whining and progress into rabid barks for babies in the late 20's. Yes, it happened to me. Also, I discovered that Benja and I are going to have to locate a new paradigm for couples in the same career - since it has become completely obvious that while we form a covalent bond, neither makes a very good sidekick. We have to be more like Bert and Ernie, they're both famous.
As such, last week Ben had to attend an ASCAJA meeting at the same time as our business class. Our pattern had been that I would help him plan the lesson, the homework, grade the homework, talk to the administration of the school - all the behind the scenes stuff, and he would actually teach the class. As it turns out, I was furious to have no face time because it felt to me, like the students would see me as Benja's little sidekick wifey.
Let's just say this happened many times, in different contexts, for a few reasons the first 3 months at site. The bottom line was it made me furious! And it wasn't even Ben's fault. I was doing it; blindly and defaultedly following a pattern I realized recently, I have seen many times. He was just following along my lead. Even after I understood how I felt, what was happening, and why; well, I was still afraid to change it. Luckily, the PVC experience is good at pushing one to the their best; through no action of my own, I was nominated to teach the business class on my own. It happened. It was good. Rather, no one was hurt in the process - me or them.
Tula No!
This morning Ben and I woke up late and when I went to take Tula out, the sky had a steamy overcast look. I have been wondering when it's going to rain since the farmers I know have been talking about how dry it is. Doing a little dance to Franz Ferdinand, I made us some breakfast and by the end of the morning I was in a really bad mood.
Why? Well, today was the day, the day when I needed to face Yaniri, the secretary at the Junta Yaque (my infamous project partner). She's a good girl, but her despondent looks when I mention working on the accounting system, a system they desperately need; well, it had me depressed. Good grief! How was I going to explain GnuCash to her when she hardly gives me the time of day... this project is going to take weeks.
Since I have tons and tons of other things to do (seriously) the slow progress on the accounting system has not been pressing me on the chest. But, Ben. He reminds me that it's my initiative that's going to get this project done. And, also. They hired me for capacity building, but they also hired me to get them excited about things they don't know they need. Fine. I swallow my nerves, do my sun salutations, eat my porridge with raisins, and we amble down the road to the office. The day before I had warned Yaniri: 'tomorrow when I come to the office, I want to do the accounting.' This is to force her to manage her workload so as to make the most of the little time I can spend in the office.
I arrived, and we puddled about as usual. And I just kept asking when we would start. We started. In the month since we last attempted an accounting training session, I had forgotten how to use the system I designed. Go, me. I had to send her off to lunch with tears in my eyes over how I had blown my precious hard-won morning of her time just because I didn't go over it last night. I worked through lunch (mmm... Ben brought me homemade pea soup and a fried egg with bread and a soda to eat while I worked - we also downloaded the first episode in Season 4 of Lost). In the afternoon, OMG. She actually agreed to work on the accounting system with me again. My work-lunch was worth it! We cleared five loan files through the system! That's 4+ training hours with a service provider I log today. Woo to the hoo!
I also opened this blog today. It's called 'No Se Moje' which means 'Don't Get Wet.' I know, I with how it hasn't rained much lately. Well, a downpour started a few hours after I opened the blog, a good sign for the blog, eh? When Dominicans are safe on their porches from the rain, and you see some poor schmuck who has to work or carry firewood barefoot in a soaker, it's customary to yell as the walk by in all their dripping glory: 'No Se Moje!'
Why? Well, today was the day, the day when I needed to face Yaniri, the secretary at the Junta Yaque (my infamous project partner). She's a good girl, but her despondent looks when I mention working on the accounting system, a system they desperately need; well, it had me depressed. Good grief! How was I going to explain GnuCash to her when she hardly gives me the time of day... this project is going to take weeks.
Since I have tons and tons of other things to do (seriously) the slow progress on the accounting system has not been pressing me on the chest. But, Ben. He reminds me that it's my initiative that's going to get this project done. And, also. They hired me for capacity building, but they also hired me to get them excited about things they don't know they need. Fine. I swallow my nerves, do my sun salutations, eat my porridge with raisins, and we amble down the road to the office. The day before I had warned Yaniri: 'tomorrow when I come to the office, I want to do the accounting.' This is to force her to manage her workload so as to make the most of the little time I can spend in the office.
I arrived, and we puddled about as usual. And I just kept asking when we would start. We started. In the month since we last attempted an accounting training session, I had forgotten how to use the system I designed. Go, me. I had to send her off to lunch with tears in my eyes over how I had blown my precious hard-won morning of her time just because I didn't go over it last night. I worked through lunch (mmm... Ben brought me homemade pea soup and a fried egg with bread and a soda to eat while I worked - we also downloaded the first episode in Season 4 of Lost). In the afternoon, OMG. She actually agreed to work on the accounting system with me again. My work-lunch was worth it! We cleared five loan files through the system! That's 4+ training hours with a service provider I log today. Woo to the hoo!
I also opened this blog today. It's called 'No Se Moje' which means 'Don't Get Wet.' I know, I with how it hasn't rained much lately. Well, a downpour started a few hours after I opened the blog, a good sign for the blog, eh? When Dominicans are safe on their porches from the rain, and you see some poor schmuck who has to work or carry firewood barefoot in a soaker, it's customary to yell as the walk by in all their dripping glory: 'No Se Moje!'
I Feel Like Drawing
Is it wrong to make wish lists on shopping sites and snoop through eBay? Looking at Google Reader, enjoying and marking things I want to make and bake and create when I get home, all of a sudden I feel like drawing. Living in the DR is good at making me want to draw but creating crafty things is nearly impossible. Oh well. I made a huge list of clothes that I want, further developing my personal style. Hee hee. Love browsing Lush.com and looking at recipes that call for a blender or a food processor. All the (internet) window shopping. It makes me mad, makes me wish that I could get away from consumerism. But is it consumerism to be so interested in design, art, culture? To read about my culture which keeps on while I'm away? I wish I could imagine living on this level in the DR forever. But I can't. One day, I'm going to have to paint and embroider and visit a museum again, hear the Philharmonic...
Why Can't You See?
The fun thing about when Ben and are apart for a night here and there, is the visiting of the neighbors. Generally we don't go over to people's houses to eat because food for two unexpected guests gets expensive. Plus, Dominicans are extremely hospitable. If you arrive at the eating hour, no matter how little food they have, the guest receives a huge plate. So, we stay away from visiting people if we're not invited. On the other hand, eating at other people's houses is the only way to party.
Last week when Ben subió to teach computer in El Manguito without me (as I had a conference in Santiago the next morning), I was free to barge right into the neighbors house at the eating hour and get served lots o' beans and rice. See, single people easily can eat with other families (actually they're culturally expected to).
During and after, it's a great time for conversation. Sometimes we talk about how girls can get married at 13. I love this conversation! Its my opportunity to talk to people about why its so important for girls and boys to finish school. Also, about how marriages are more successful when the people are fully formed when they marry. (Although, I know plenty of couples where the girl was 13 when she married and she's perfectly happy and they have been married 10, 20, 30, 40 years already!) (Also, dear reader, do not forget that many of our grand-parents married this young and the DR is a developing country which should make you think of how things were in the US pre-industrialization - which obviously was the best thing that ever happened, right?). (Obviously, I am not for this practice, but me getting defensive about it is not going to lead to open conversation about practices, is it? I have to be nice when I give advice.) So, that's a cool talk to have.
The most funny time we talked about that was when my 33-year old landlord asked me if he could marry my 13-year old sister, and I had to tell him it was illegal where she lives! I really do need to tell Bob that she has already received her first marriage proposal.
Anyway, today we talked about something else. We talked about glasses. How I wear them. How so many people don't. I got to explain the wonders of why some people can see and others need glasses. I talked about eye damage and how some people are born with poor sight (like me). No, no one present already knew that; it was a sincere question. 'Claudia, why do some people wear glasses?'
Last week when Ben subió to teach computer in El Manguito without me (as I had a conference in Santiago the next morning), I was free to barge right into the neighbors house at the eating hour and get served lots o' beans and rice. See, single people easily can eat with other families (actually they're culturally expected to).
During and after, it's a great time for conversation. Sometimes we talk about how girls can get married at 13. I love this conversation! Its my opportunity to talk to people about why its so important for girls and boys to finish school. Also, about how marriages are more successful when the people are fully formed when they marry. (Although, I know plenty of couples where the girl was 13 when she married and she's perfectly happy and they have been married 10, 20, 30, 40 years already!) (Also, dear reader, do not forget that many of our grand-parents married this young and the DR is a developing country which should make you think of how things were in the US pre-industrialization - which obviously was the best thing that ever happened, right?). (Obviously, I am not for this practice, but me getting defensive about it is not going to lead to open conversation about practices, is it? I have to be nice when I give advice.) So, that's a cool talk to have.
The most funny time we talked about that was when my 33-year old landlord asked me if he could marry my 13-year old sister, and I had to tell him it was illegal where she lives! I really do need to tell Bob that she has already received her first marriage proposal.
Anyway, today we talked about something else. We talked about glasses. How I wear them. How so many people don't. I got to explain the wonders of why some people can see and others need glasses. I talked about eye damage and how some people are born with poor sight (like me). No, no one present already knew that; it was a sincere question. 'Claudia, why do some people wear glasses?'
Anniversary
Today is our Wedding Anniversary. Of course, Ben remembered. He came home from a trip to the capital on the Vegano Express and popped back into the house with arms full of groceries from the pueblo and a bottle of white wine. Here in the campo, a bottle of white wine - a movement of classical music - a square of fine dark chocolate - they are enough to make me tear up unexpectedly. The Los Angelino likes a lot of things, fitted clothes, face soap, soft skin and clean feet. To that end, I boiled some water, wasting gas, money, and time, and took it to the bathroom, so I could hear Ben tell tales from the city while I shaved my legs - the dry, ashy skin peeling off in itchy patches. I then bathed, and emerged, ready to slather on my ration of skin cream for the week on the legs.
That's called 'dressing up.' We opened the wine, and sipped it from Glass Tumblers, gifts from Maritza our host mom in the capital - that's our 'going on a date.'
That's called 'dressing up.' We opened the wine, and sipped it from Glass Tumblers, gifts from Maritza our host mom in the capital - that's our 'going on a date.'
Imagine the sky as a light blue table cloth, tacked up high and draped over the entire world a hundred thousand feet about your head: how opaque the sky would be, no other than a blue cloth over everything. From the inside you stand, admiring the thick blue fabric by the light of a golden disk - a disk not made of light but rather metallic and yet coursing and pulsing penetrating the small blood vessels in your eyes. Should you look up, at all up past the level of your chin, expect the sun to punish you, dashing strong beams of power into your brain, and there you have the sky over Padre Nuestro. Sí, Ud. está en el cielo.
To that end, the morning it happened, I was cleaning my house. All built by US Aid, like an American project brought to the DR, I lived in a house that looked exactly like the houses of my neighbors and the houses of my entire town. My eyes were shaded by the white-washed walls of my home, and a small girl played gingerly on my front steps, her brown feet bare on the baking concrete, calloused and cracked. It gave me pleasure to see her there, from the cool shaded interiors, I watched a minute. She was just outside, just, and it seems an apt metaphor for the progress I was making in Padre Nuestro. I arrived months ago, I had no idea what was going on, I understood nothing they said, and embarked up the greatest challenge of my journey thus far - gaining acceptance to the poorest community of odd characters I could have imagined. Our town is on the cusp of Bayahibe, secret vacation spot to the stars, or so I hear of it from my neighbors. Our town was built to replace the shantytown that had grown up around the jobs tourism created in Bayahibe. Janitors, and cooks, prostitutes, and drug runners to the stars, you might call us - and their kids, parents, and crazy cousins, too. Thus, imagine me, trying to grasp and assimilate into a group of people who moved to a shanty for jobs in hotels. Months later, here I am in my own home, a little girl playing just on the step outside my front door - had I come this far? Could it possibly be that truth-telling fire in the sky revealed that but the door-frame separated my sphere from the world of Padre Nuestro?
No actual reason to stand and ponder a ragamuffin playing with bottle caps in the dirt. I swept. I filled the bucket. I thought about mopping, mulling over the carpets of dust that could form on my concrete floors daily, and I sprinkled Mistolin liberally. Let me just grab that trash can off the bathroom floor, and I'll be ready to mop this place up, slowly' I said to myself aloud, in English.
Emerging, trash can in hand, I surveyed the area. Something is not right, I'm ready to mop. The mop is not where I left it. The little girl is gone. The mop isn't behind the door, its not on the back step: it's not anywhere.
To that end, the morning it happened, I was cleaning my house. All built by US Aid, like an American project brought to the DR, I lived in a house that looked exactly like the houses of my neighbors and the houses of my entire town. My eyes were shaded by the white-washed walls of my home, and a small girl played gingerly on my front steps, her brown feet bare on the baking concrete, calloused and cracked. It gave me pleasure to see her there, from the cool shaded interiors, I watched a minute. She was just outside, just, and it seems an apt metaphor for the progress I was making in Padre Nuestro. I arrived months ago, I had no idea what was going on, I understood nothing they said, and embarked up the greatest challenge of my journey thus far - gaining acceptance to the poorest community of odd characters I could have imagined. Our town is on the cusp of Bayahibe, secret vacation spot to the stars, or so I hear of it from my neighbors. Our town was built to replace the shantytown that had grown up around the jobs tourism created in Bayahibe. Janitors, and cooks, prostitutes, and drug runners to the stars, you might call us - and their kids, parents, and crazy cousins, too. Thus, imagine me, trying to grasp and assimilate into a group of people who moved to a shanty for jobs in hotels. Months later, here I am in my own home, a little girl playing just on the step outside my front door - had I come this far? Could it possibly be that truth-telling fire in the sky revealed that but the door-frame separated my sphere from the world of Padre Nuestro?
No actual reason to stand and ponder a ragamuffin playing with bottle caps in the dirt. I swept. I filled the bucket. I thought about mopping, mulling over the carpets of dust that could form on my concrete floors daily, and I sprinkled Mistolin liberally. Let me just grab that trash can off the bathroom floor, and I'll be ready to mop this place up, slowly' I said to myself aloud, in English.
Emerging, trash can in hand, I surveyed the area. Something is not right, I'm ready to mop. The mop is not where I left it. The little girl is gone. The mop isn't behind the door, its not on the back step: it's not anywhere.
He came close to the van, begging: a tall, slender, but not starved, young man. I could tell right off that he had health problems. Not many people were out on Good Friday, so when we got to the bus depot for Jarabacoa in La Vega we had to wait a while to get the van full enough to pull out. Sometimes the driver will leave the engine running, with the air and the music on, and the door closed; it leaves beggers just a minute to beg when the driver opens the door to admit a passenger. I love it that way. Minutes sheltered from the sun are precious, and my eyes are instantly soothed by the purple tint of the windows and dark upholstery. I relish these small comforts.
But yesterday it was not to be; the van was off, the door open, and in the glare, I watched three children sorting through the trash for useful things, edible things, and plastic bottles. I had one peso I wanted to give, but there were three children. I was saddened to think that I couldn't give it to them, but its a bad enough to see them in the trash opening discarded paper bags methodically. I can't bear to start a quarrel between them over a peso. So when the man comes toward, it seems I might have the chance to give the peso to someone else. He approached, and was his leg dragging? I think that's just a walk. And he asks for money, quickly lifting his shirt to show the passengers of the van a plastic tube extending from his abdomen into a sack in his pocket for his piss. My first thought was that the hole had healed well, the skin around the tube looked healthy. My second was a little mental album of all the sad medical emergencies I've seen in the past months, adding his image at the end.
But yesterday it was not to be; the van was off, the door open, and in the glare, I watched three children sorting through the trash for useful things, edible things, and plastic bottles. I had one peso I wanted to give, but there were three children. I was saddened to think that I couldn't give it to them, but its a bad enough to see them in the trash opening discarded paper bags methodically. I can't bear to start a quarrel between them over a peso. So when the man comes toward, it seems I might have the chance to give the peso to someone else. He approached, and was his leg dragging? I think that's just a walk. And he asks for money, quickly lifting his shirt to show the passengers of the van a plastic tube extending from his abdomen into a sack in his pocket for his piss. My first thought was that the hole had healed well, the skin around the tube looked healthy. My second was a little mental album of all the sad medical emergencies I've seen in the past months, adding his image at the end.
The Canadians are Coming
This morning I woke up in Los Calabazos, a sleepy hidden grouping of houses a 200 ft drop off the climbing highway to Manabao; I had rested well, and was up early, packing up the duffel, grateful the bathing suits were dry despite the high humidity. But how and why was I in that sleepy little place, hidden by avocado trees and steep drops?
One of my cool PCV jobs is to meet guests who come to stay at Junta Yaque's ecotourism project “El Sonido del Yaque.” There are 10 cabañas, a restaurant, outdoor seating areas, and a path to where guests (and all the whole campo) can bathe in the river. It's a beautiful project site, and it's powered by another of the Junta Yaque's projects, a hydroelectric plant. But not in the kitchen, in there we're still using fogones. So yesterday I met a 15 college-aged Quebecois who had decided to visit our project and spend their spring break doing humanitarian/development work.
One fun thing was that the community was so excited and happy to have guests! I was up early yesterday too, duffel bag packed, in sunglasses and dusty jeans and on a motorcycle taxi into the pueblo early to meet them at the bus depot. Our phone conversations and emails conveyed they were anxious about arrival and logistics from the bus depot to the campo. The group was loading the Junta Yaque people-mover truck up with their bags as I pulled in, and if I hadn't known them because they were with Alfonso and Toño, I would have known them by their fair-skinned hipster types fits. Now I definitely know what I looked like when I set foot here: nervous: no language skills; daunted. I launched into an introduction of me and all in Spanish. I mumbled on through their blank looks, figuring they would acclimate to my cracked and sputtering language skills presently. Turned out they spoke more English than Spanish, but mostly just French.
Now I remembered, they travel with a translator. That afternoon, we all hiked across onto the planted fields. Ben and the Quebecois tried their might at coaxing red beans out of their shells. It's done in this manner: you pick the pods and pile them in huge unbound bales on a ditch patch, you take sticks and beat the pods for hours by hand with sticks. You move the pod husks over off the patch and pick up shovel fulls of dirt, where the beans have fallen down out of their pods. Then, what looks like a wooden trash can lid is used to toss the dirt and beans high. The dirt and debris fly out in the breeze, leaving piles of shiny red beans to put in the sack.
After dinner, a típico band came played and everyone danced merengue.
Ben had totally fallen asleep after all that sun and swimming in the cold, cold river. The water was briskly running downstream and we played hard, swimming against the current. Tula hopped right in and swam to us! Albeit she was not into the cold water like Benja and me. One of the Canadians gave me a whole bar of white chocolate with cocoa nibs. On our bed in the cabin, Tula asleep at our feet, we uncovered the chocolate like kids at fat-camp, meaning we never actually saw the chocolate, but our molars tell us it was quite good.
So this morning, I wake up in Los Calabazos and the three of us catch a bola (hitched a ride) down the loma, back to town. We're in the bed of the truck, weight shifting constantly around each curve of the highway. The guy's got all these plastic jugs back there, empty ones. We take a pit stop over this landslide area where its popular to mine rock and also to bottle water.
One of my cool PCV jobs is to meet guests who come to stay at Junta Yaque's ecotourism project “El Sonido del Yaque.” There are 10 cabañas, a restaurant, outdoor seating areas, and a path to where guests (and all the whole campo) can bathe in the river. It's a beautiful project site, and it's powered by another of the Junta Yaque's projects, a hydroelectric plant. But not in the kitchen, in there we're still using fogones. So yesterday I met a 15 college-aged Quebecois who had decided to visit our project and spend their spring break doing humanitarian/development work.
One fun thing was that the community was so excited and happy to have guests! I was up early yesterday too, duffel bag packed, in sunglasses and dusty jeans and on a motorcycle taxi into the pueblo early to meet them at the bus depot. Our phone conversations and emails conveyed they were anxious about arrival and logistics from the bus depot to the campo. The group was loading the Junta Yaque people-mover truck up with their bags as I pulled in, and if I hadn't known them because they were with Alfonso and Toño, I would have known them by their fair-skinned hipster types fits. Now I definitely know what I looked like when I set foot here: nervous: no language skills; daunted. I launched into an introduction of me and all in Spanish. I mumbled on through their blank looks, figuring they would acclimate to my cracked and sputtering language skills presently. Turned out they spoke more English than Spanish, but mostly just French.
Now I remembered, they travel with a translator. That afternoon, we all hiked across onto the planted fields. Ben and the Quebecois tried their might at coaxing red beans out of their shells. It's done in this manner: you pick the pods and pile them in huge unbound bales on a ditch patch, you take sticks and beat the pods for hours by hand with sticks. You move the pod husks over off the patch and pick up shovel fulls of dirt, where the beans have fallen down out of their pods. Then, what looks like a wooden trash can lid is used to toss the dirt and beans high. The dirt and debris fly out in the breeze, leaving piles of shiny red beans to put in the sack.
After dinner, a típico band came played and everyone danced merengue.
Ben had totally fallen asleep after all that sun and swimming in the cold, cold river. The water was briskly running downstream and we played hard, swimming against the current. Tula hopped right in and swam to us! Albeit she was not into the cold water like Benja and me. One of the Canadians gave me a whole bar of white chocolate with cocoa nibs. On our bed in the cabin, Tula asleep at our feet, we uncovered the chocolate like kids at fat-camp, meaning we never actually saw the chocolate, but our molars tell us it was quite good.
So this morning, I wake up in Los Calabazos and the three of us catch a bola (hitched a ride) down the loma, back to town. We're in the bed of the truck, weight shifting constantly around each curve of the highway. The guy's got all these plastic jugs back there, empty ones. We take a pit stop over this landslide area where its popular to mine rock and also to bottle water.
Bad Moods in the Morning
I awoke this morning, a film of bad dreams all over- dreams where I'm endlessly shopping at a discount retailer, cheap tee shirts messily piled high here, pots in and out of their cardboard boxes here, and I not finding for all my wreckless intention, a check-out line. So my eyes are open, and before I can even admire my pale periwinkle knit throw over my dark beige fleece blanket or the yellow mango sunlight cascading through the mosquito net, my right shoulder smarts badly, sending white streaks of electric pain to the base of my neck and up, out my tear ducts. No time for hugs and sighs and 'good morning life.' I got out of bed fast, massaging all the throbbing parts, muttering a quick list of 25 things that I didn't do yesterday, 95 reasons I'm dissatisfied with my performance, and 32 things that must be done today. Mopping the floor would be one of them.
Its the little things that calm me down. Smooth, silvery from wear, brown leather sandals between my leathery toes, the stripes of the tan lines on my feet disappear under the thongs of the sandal; fine specs of coffee over my my teeth; sweet purple onions; Ben. Poor Ben, he would really like someone kind to wake up to, and here I am with my tear ducts leaking and an arm that had better get lost. In the afternoon, packed duffels and puppy dog in tow, we went to Los Dajaos, to teach our first computer class in the brand-new Indotel computer lab. It seems stark, entering the area called “El Manguito (de Los Dajaos)” and seeing what appears to be nothing. From the highway, after cresting a steep 2 kilometer incline, there's a colmado, fritura, and small concrete block home on the one side and a bamboo furniture workshop in a yellow grass field on the other.
Aside from the choking and coughing from the burning of trash, trees, or what-have-you outside the windows of the lab, I really love teaching up here. It's cool at night, quieter than La Yautía where we live, and foggier too. The people are campo people. Meaning they have their country ways that are warm to the touch, sincere, and unmeditated. What's nice about teaching the computer classes is that the participants don't have too much access to printed materials. So all the computer stuff, really strengthens their reading and writing skills. We have an Encarta Encyclopedia program where everyone can learn about cool stuff, like Buddha and the Three Stooges. My Spanish rally improves with each class, I'm fluent but not exactly fluid. Here in Manguito, we stay with Yaquie, her huband Castillo, and their little boy Jaime. Our bedroom in their house is totally cute. It's a bed in a little room where the full bed touches three of the four walls and there's a wooden window above the pillows that open out to the mountainside view. Tula usually sleeps on the 5' by 1.5' floor space of the room on Ben's dirty shirt from the day. Tula loves to sleep on our clothes. She'll sleep anywhere you put down a piece of smelly clothing. Our bed has a threadbare flat sheet on the bottom and a pale pink wool blanket with toad sized holes.
Its the little things that calm me down. Smooth, silvery from wear, brown leather sandals between my leathery toes, the stripes of the tan lines on my feet disappear under the thongs of the sandal; fine specs of coffee over my my teeth; sweet purple onions; Ben. Poor Ben, he would really like someone kind to wake up to, and here I am with my tear ducts leaking and an arm that had better get lost. In the afternoon, packed duffels and puppy dog in tow, we went to Los Dajaos, to teach our first computer class in the brand-new Indotel computer lab. It seems stark, entering the area called “El Manguito (de Los Dajaos)” and seeing what appears to be nothing. From the highway, after cresting a steep 2 kilometer incline, there's a colmado, fritura, and small concrete block home on the one side and a bamboo furniture workshop in a yellow grass field on the other.
Aside from the choking and coughing from the burning of trash, trees, or what-have-you outside the windows of the lab, I really love teaching up here. It's cool at night, quieter than La Yautía where we live, and foggier too. The people are campo people. Meaning they have their country ways that are warm to the touch, sincere, and unmeditated. What's nice about teaching the computer classes is that the participants don't have too much access to printed materials. So all the computer stuff, really strengthens their reading and writing skills. We have an Encarta Encyclopedia program where everyone can learn about cool stuff, like Buddha and the Three Stooges. My Spanish rally improves with each class, I'm fluent but not exactly fluid. Here in Manguito, we stay with Yaquie, her huband Castillo, and their little boy Jaime. Our bedroom in their house is totally cute. It's a bed in a little room where the full bed touches three of the four walls and there's a wooden window above the pillows that open out to the mountainside view. Tula usually sleeps on the 5' by 1.5' floor space of the room on Ben's dirty shirt from the day. Tula loves to sleep on our clothes. She'll sleep anywhere you put down a piece of smelly clothing. Our bed has a threadbare flat sheet on the bottom and a pale pink wool blanket with toad sized holes.
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