Time to get Crakin'

"Your community has worked hard; go big on the budget, and submit the grant by the end of the month and you should have the money in your account by October. I see a library inauguration in your community's near-future."

     Clearly impressed by the presentation my community partner and I gave about our project this past week, my boss has green-lighted us to apply for a Peace Corps grant (funded by USAID) for upwards of $5,000 to support our library project. We now have two weeks to get everything together for the grant. This includes: 1. Tracking down all the key partners in the project, including the Governor of Samaná and the Mayor of Santa Barbara (the principal town in the region) 2. Talking with Volunteers who have built technology centers. 3. Planning a budget . 4. Determining our goals and objectives for the library. 5. Figuring-out how we will monitor and evaluate the success of said goals and objectives. 6. Responding to questions about why we deserve the grant. I am getting antsy just thinking about it all. Oh, and I will be also moving out into my own house on September first. More on that later.

     My community has, thankfully, made our task for the next two week a little easier. Part of the grant application requires that communities explain how they plan to contribute an additional 25% of funds to the project. In my case, the community has already fundraised 30% ($1,500) of the maximum amount we can apply for, and that is excluding the voluntary labor that will be used during construction of the building. It is because of the effort my community has already put into the development of a local library that my boss is permitting me to submit a grant so early in my service. It is all very exciting and I am confident we will be able to get everything together in time, but I do not doubt there will be some surprises popping up over the next two weeks.

     The conference where my community partner and I presented our library project was my 3-month in service training a.k.a. 3-month IST. At the conference all the Volunteers from my sector, education, who have been in country for 3 months presented a diagnostic analysis of their community. The purpose of a Volunteer's first 3 months at site is to get to know the community better and in doing so create a concise overview of the community. You can check out my presentation and expanded written report here. Sorry it is all in Spanish.

     After our presentations we spent the conference planning out what we will be working on in our sites over the next year. In my case this includes: building a library, literacy tutoring, a reading club, girls and boys clubs, an environment club, 3 English classes, an adult literacy class, teacher training, starting a pre-school, an after-school study hall, and computer classes. It is a lot, but we have already started some projects, hopefully that will make starting the others easier. The last three projects (pre-k, study hall, and computer classes) will only start after the library is up and running, which - fingers crossed - will happen before January.

     The conference lasted almost an entire week. It was great to spend time with other Volunteers for an extended period of time. The main topic of discussion over the week was moving out of our host families houses. Who had already moved, who is about to move, how much people are paying in rent, if the house have a zinc or cement roof, etc. As I mentioned earlier, my move-out day is quickly approaching. I am still negotiating with the land lady how much rent I will pay but it will be under $4,000 pesos or $100. For that $100 I will be getting a cement house with a cement roof, bars on the windows, a porch, a kitchen, a living room, an indoor bathroom (!), a bedroom, a mudroom, and a tiny room whose use I have yet to determine. Electricity is included and but I will have to collect rainwater or purchase it. I will  have neighbors in the house located on my roof. I don't like to call it the second floor because the house was built separately from my own; it reminds me of the house in the Wizard of Oz, whisked up in the tornado and then plopped down somewhere else. Next week I will be going to the city of Nagua with my host-mom to purchase all of the essential things I will need for my house. It should be an adventure.

Other things going on in my site:

• My neighbor Ossidy has determined that we are boyfriend and girlfriend. He even told his mom about us. He is four years-old.

  

  My New Boyfriend

• My host family suspects there may be a snake in the house so my host-mom had her grandson search the rafters for the intruder. No snakes were found.



Searching for Snakes

• A cycling race passed through my community! It was very surreal for me because every summer my family watches the Tour-de-France, a 3-week cycling race in France. Sometimes my sister and I spend our entire mornings being couch potatoes watching a stage of the race from start to finnish, about four hours. Last summer we even got to see in race in person. However, this year I barely kept up with the race at all; there isn't even a sports section in the local news broadcast. Anyway, seeing the cyclists ride right in front of my house was a surprise. Cycling isn't a popular sport here so my neighbors didn't know how to react to the cyclists, they just stared. I quickly taught them how to cheer on the riders with shouts of "Keep going!", "Go, go, go!" "You can do it!", and of course "WHHHOOOOOO." After that we all started to have a good time, and I think the cyclists where even surprised to find some fans.

  

  View of the race from my house