Going to the River

 "Suuuuussssie can we go the the river PLEASE," pleads my host sister

"Okay," I say

"I LOVE YOU," screams my host sister and she hugs and kisses me and the other neighborhood kids cheer.

     If you couldn't tell by that brief conversation, the river is the place to be once school is out for summer. But most parents don't let their kids go to the river without supervision, hence the kids always ask me to take them to the river. Getting to the river is an adventure in itself. The path to the river winds through cow pastures which mean in addition to dodging cow pies,  I also have to carefully cross several barbed wire fences. Sometimes there are gates, sometimes we have to get creative, and sometimes we get sliced.

That barbed wire will get you!

     Once at the river, the coolest thing to do is to tirar, literally throw yourself,  off a ledge. It's not that high, but the kids were really impressed when I tirared for the first time without hesitation. Their minds would be blown if they went to an American amusement park.

The River

Climbing up the ledge

     Before you leave the river it is expected that you whip out your soap and start scrubbing. Since there is no running water in my community and trip to the river kills two birds with one stone; you get to play and you save water. I am not super knowledgable about the environment but I still feel a little uneasy when I see people putting all those chemicals in the river. I also learned that people use the river to clean out cow intestines for the classic Dominican dish Mondongo. I laughed when my host sister told me she was grateful that I don't like Mondongo because she helped was the cow intestines once at the river and she has never been able to eat Mondongo again. Sister Solidarity.

Also going on:

     I am very grateful for my mosquito net:

I have several of these guys in my room.

      The Governor kept one of his promises; bags of food were given to every house in the community. Apparently the bags typically only arrive when politicians come to town, so basically right before elections. Also, the desks at the school are being repaired. Hopefully the Governor will keep up his promise about funding for the library. Keeping my fingers crossed.

 Showing off their rice and beans.

The Governor Comes to Town

     "The governor will be here at 5pm so let's start the meeting at 4pm to make sure everyone arrives before him." - Mayor

    And so it was that a little white lie was spread around town ensuring a packed room to greet the Governor of Samaná, Enriquillo Lalane. Some people were so excited about the governor's arrival that some people arrived early. I had never witnessed Dominicans at an event early; having the governor visit was a big deal. When the governor arrived, on time, there were over 40 residents present to discuss the needs of the community.

    The first concern brought to the governor's attention is the lack of running water in the community. Water is by far the top need in the community. As I have previously mentioned, everyone here collects rain water and when it doesn't rain people either have to carry water from rivers or purchase water, which many residents have told me they consider expensive. Unfortunately the governor's response to this need was not the most compelling. He said there are engineers investigating the issue but as my community is at the top of a hill, water would need to be pumped up hill, so its going to take some time. One resident after the meeting told me he was, like many, unsatisfied with the governor's response. He said if the government truly cared they would have fixed the problem already. He noted that the president travels around the world for meetings and that the money spent on his trips could do a lot of good inside the country.

    The governor was also vague on some of the education issues presented such as the lack of reliable and affordable transportation for high school students (HS is 5km away), and the condition of the chairs at the primary school, which are falling apart after 17 years of use. He said he would call the Ministry of Education and see what they can do. Regarding the library project the mayor forced the governor's hand on this point by presenting a letter from the previous governor pledging his financial support, which never came through. The governor said that the letter embarrassed him and he pledged to fund the repairs to the community building where the library will be located. 

    The governor's response to other community concerns were much better. The governor promised to provide funds to repair a local road, fix several houses, and supply food baskets to all families in the community. I was actually surprised by the level of support offered by the governor. I had been at a similar meeting in the town of Samaná the week before and he did not pledge any concrete action to the concerns presented. I think the meeting in my community was more successful in part because the governor grew up nearby; many residents are family friends and/or were taught by the governor's mother. He probably doesn't want to let people down that can trash talk about him to his family and friends. I am hoping that the local factor will ensure that the governor will come through with his promises but only time will tell.

     In other news:

•  People cannot stop giving me food! In one week I was gifted the following: 2 bags of mangos, 1 bag of passion fruit, branches of limoncillo, toasted corn on the cob, cacao, some leaves for tea, dulce de coco, and coconut water (straight from the coconut).
• My family has a new baby kitten, my host mom says that our other cat isn't a good mouse hunter but she is going to train the kitten properly. I also got to see 10-day-old kittens at a neighbor's house and was told I can have one when they are bigger! Yay for no rodents! For the record I have yet to see any rodents here but I don't want to take any chances.

  

  Newest Member of the Family

• I rode on a motorcycle without holding onto the driver but don't know how if I am willing to try riding side-saddle.
• I am teaching my host sister how to use a computer. Before we started classes she only knew how to turn a computer on and off. We have yet to have a lesson with internet, as I do not have access at my site, but I am excited to show her Google and Wikipedia - she does know what Facebook is and she really wants to make an account. I'll leave you with a photo us taken while playing with Photobooth.

  

  Funny Photos are a Hit Everywhere

Observations

     I am now a full fledged Peace Corps Volunteer! Hooray!

Me and the other Education Volunteers lookin' spiffy at our Swear-In Ceremony

     So what have I been doing for the past two weeks in Samaná? Making observations. This is what I have found out:

- People here are super friendly and welcoming!

• I have been walking around my community quite a bit and everyone always says hello. Whenever I stop by a house I am always invited to sit down and chat. Often I am offered food or given food as I walk by a house.
• So far people have given me papaya, mangos, pears, bread, fried chicken, and a plate set. The last one was part of a Mother's Day event, even though I am not a mom I will be working with the community's kids so they felt I deserved a gift.

- Living without running water  isn't the hardest thing in the world.

• Taking cold bucket baths in the cool mountain air is the hardest. Hence, I have started exercising every evening. I now have a group of four girls who exercise with me. One of the girls everyone calls gorda (fat) so I hope exercising will get people to stop harassing her and boost her self-esteem.  Side note - running up mountains is hard!

- Meeting start about an hour after they are scheduled.

• I have been to at least 7 meetings in the past two weeks and none of them started on time. I even caught one of my project partners telling someone that a meeting started half an hour earlier than it was scheduled. When I corrected the time she said, "Susan, you know how Dominicans are with meetings!"

- When it rains things don't happen.

• I went to school one day when it was raining and there were less than 50% of the kids at school. As a result, school was in session for only an hour and then everyone went home.
• I waited an hour for a meeting to start with other members of the community but because it was raining not enough people came and the meeting was eventually cancelled.

Aetobatus Narinari aka Chucho aka Spotted Eagle Ray

- There is a diversity of wildlife here.

• I have seen a ton of different lizards, some sizable spiders, and a sting ray just to name a few of the creatures I have spotted.

 - The school is in need of a lot of help.

• There are no reading books, and sometimes not enough textbooks for all students. There are no English textbooks, and the teachers do not know English well enough to teach their students effectively.
• The seats and desks are falling apart and like the textbooks there sometimes are not enough to go around. Some seats are made out of cardboard, others just have the bars.
• Teachers sometimes spend half an hour on one or two problems.

- Students and teachers are motivated.

• All the teachers welcomed me into their classroom and acknowledged the limitations of the school. They want the school to be better and sometimes get used materials from other schools.
• Students asked me to teach them English. I now have a class on Saturday mornings. How many 9-15 year old American kids do you know would be willing to walk more than .5 miles to have Spanish class on the weekend?
• The students love to read. I bring books (lovingly donated by the Peace Corps librarian) to the school everyday for the kids to read. There have been a few occasions where I have had to break-up fights over the books. Again how often would that happen Stateside? 

- There is a lot I have to offer the community.

• Aside from my English skills there is a lot of stuff I know and take for granted that I can use to help my community. For example, my host sisters asked me to teach them how to use a computer. They don't know what Google is. Also, the members of my community's library committee have never been inside a library. That means they don't know what are typical library rules, how books are arranged, etc.

Overall, my observations have given me a lot of hope and inspiration of how I can help my community. Only time will tell what I am actually able to do but I have a lot of ideas so stay tuned!

Susie's in Samaná

                           Me: "Hola, mi nombre es Susan" (Hi, my name is Susan)

                           New Host Mom: "Suuuzzzaan"

                           Me: "O Susie" (or Susie)

                           New Host Mom: "¡Susie es preciosa!" (Susie is precious!)

View of Samaná from above

     And like so I have been re-named. To my new community in Samaná my name is Susie. Yes, I have arrived at my permanent site here in the DR, and it is in the lush peninsula of Samaná! I live in a small community of 800 people along the side of the road between the towns of Samaná and El Límon. I have already visited all the families in my community minus one or two. There are also two corner stores, a church, hairdresser's, a bar, a lottery, a community building and, a four classroom school. The homes are made of cement or wood, some have zinc roofs others cement. The region of Samaná is a mountain range, which means I can see the ocean from parts of town. The ocean itself is only a 10 minute drive from my house and happens to be the launching off point to go see the humpback whales which come to Samaná every January-April to find love.

Mural in Santa Barbara de Samaná

    Rest assured, live in Samaná is not going to be one long vacation for me (although you are welcome to use your vacation time to visit). My primary project is going to be establishing a library in the community. There is a space set aside for the library but it needs some TLC, such as a floor, a 3rd wall, and books. While I am not working on the library I will be working on other education related projects that are TBD. Part of the beauty of Peace Corps is that the first three months I am in my community I am supposed to focus my attention on getting to know my neighbors and along the way the strengths and weakness of the community.

     For example, while visiting my community I learned that there is no running water in town. All residents collect rain water and when that runs out they gather water from nearby rivers or pay for water to be delivered. My community is the only one in the area without water and they feel neglected by the government. Last year they held a peaceful protest about the lack of water and a man in the community was shot and killed by the police. My host sister said that the dead man did not approve of a policeman who liked his married daughter, and the police used the protest as an excuse to kill an innocent man. It made national headlines when it occurred. And you thought telenovelas exaggerated things. I would like to help improve the situation but I am not sure in what way I can be of best use for my community in this situation. Hopefully, I will figure something out in the next three months.

   To end on a positive note, next Saturday I am going here with a church group from my community:

Las Terrenas

Dominicanisms Part 2

It's time for the second installment of my Dominicanisms series! (Check out part 1 here) If you know of more please let me know!

• Funda - bag (for shopping or a purse). Do not use “bolsa” it is a vulgar term (Email me if you want to know what it means. I have to keep this child friendly!)
• Flow - Someone’s style. For example, my host mom got a new hair cut and she asked, ¿Te gusta mi nuevo flow? or Do you like my new flow?
• Guagua - bus, also can be used to refer to SUVs, and trucks.
• Guapo - angry, NOT attractive, which is what it means almost everywhere else Spanish is spoken
• Guindar los tennis - said when a person has dies, literally they hung up their sneakers.
• Hablador/a  - a talker, can also mean a liar
• Heavy - cool or serious
• Jevi - Awesome
• Lambon - moocher
• Luz - electricity. “La luz se fue” - the electricity went out, literally the light left. “La luz llegó” - the electricity returned, typically someone will shout this when the lights come on thus letting the neighborhood now they can go back to blasting their music and watching telenovelas.
• Mangar - to obtain, a popular song has the line “para manga mi visa” referring to getting hitched to an American so they can get their visa to the States.
• Motoconcho - motorcycle
• Motoconchista - driver of a motorcycle taxi
• No quiero morir contigo - jinx (what you yell when two people say the same thing at the same time), literally translates to “I don’t want to die with you.”
• Pariguayo - party watcher, creeper
• Pelota - baseball (the sport), or any kind of ball used for sports
• Piropo - cat call
• Pley - baseball field
• ¿Qué lo qué?: Used as a greeting, especially among young people, equivalent to “What’s up?”
• Rebulú - a physical fight with many people involved
• Tapón - heavy traffic
• Toyo - something that didn’t go well, something that fell, something written poorly
• Tramposo/a - cheater (at a game) or sneaky. Example: grabbing someone’s
• food when they are not looking.
• Tiguere - gangsta, hoodlum, ne’er-do-well, delinquent, stylish male youth.  A tiguere is difficult to describe, I think of a tiguere as they guy who can be nice but also gets into trouble and spends most of his time around the neighborhood. Tigueres are very machismo, they hiss and throw cat calls at women passing by.  They also dress in a style similar to the guys on the Jersey Shore, dark wash jeans with details, and shirts with angel wings and rhinestones; only difference is tigueres tend to also wear baseball caps. Tiguere can also describe someone who is good at something. Sample sentences: “Mira, no andes por el pley de noche por que los tigueres te atracan.” = “Look, don’t go near the baseball field at night because the delinquents will mug you.”  “Jimi es un tiguere de domino!” = “Jimi is surprisingly good at dominoes!”
• Vaina - Anything (an object, a situation, a behavior, an idea).  People use it to refer to anything they can’t remember the word for or to discuss something when they don’t want to name what they are talking about. Almost interchangeable with cosa (thing) except vaina can be considered vulgar. You would not use vaina in a professional setting. It is more commonly used in the countryside than urban areas.

Painting the School Red (And Blue, Green, Yellow and White)

     I have difficulty painting within the lines. For example, within the last year my dad offered to pay for me to get my nails done because he thought I had done such a terrible job painting them myself. It therefore may be a surprise to many of you that I was entrusted with painting an alphabet, the Dominican Flag, the world, and values on the walls of the school where I have been working the past month. Luckily, I was not along in my endeavor, I worked with six other trainees to complete the project. Nonetheless, I still managed to make some mistakes, such as painting a letter in the alphabet the wrong color. But we were able to fix that, and I have to give a shout out to Julie and Caitlin who touched up all the letters of the alphabet I painted! I have to say, I think we did an awesome job. Especially considering before the walls had graffiti, as well as, Santa and the 3 Kings.

    On Tuesday night I was at the school for another project, a presentation on classroom management. As I mentioned in a previous blog post some of the teachers at the school lack any significant control of their classroom. So, the workshop was needed. The teacher workshop was attended by 22 teachers and focused on classroom management. My co-presenters and I did a skit of a classroom without any rules or organization and another that utilized classroom management strategies. We then had the teachers discuss what they saw and then come up with more strategies they use and explain why they are important. Then we went over other strategies such as using positive reinforcement, having a  behavior scale that holds the entire classroom accountable, and how to implement classroom rules (many classrooms have rules but they are not followed). We ended the presentation with a raffle with educational prizes, flashcards etc. Dominicans love raffles our technical trainer thought that was the cherry on top of our presentation, "The presentation was great, the teachers were involved, and when you mentioned raffle at the beginning, oh my god even I got excited!"

    This week I also had a cockroach in my room and it was FLYING! Thank goodness I was underneath my mosquito net! At one point it decided to land inside the metal barrier of my fan, which is right above my bed. I debated for some time about if I should turn my fan on, which might kill it but also left the possibility that I would be splattered with cockroach juice. Luckily it decided to fly away before I took the risk of turning on the fan. However, that night I had a dream that I was baking something and when I opened the oven door a cockroach popped out and hopped all over my body. Since it had been in the oven the cockroach was burning hot, which caused me to wake up in the middle of the night. Fortunately I had no trouble going back to sleep.

In other news:

• I am slowly learning the bachata; I'm glad I have two years to perfect my dancing skills.
• I ate all my rice at lunch for the first time this week!
• My freckles have become so numerous that I remind myself of a speckled pony when I look in the mirror; they are even covering my ears!
• For those of you who love to read manuals (a rare breed of person) the Peace Corps has great resources on their website including: how to start a library, classroom management strategies, female empowerment, environmental lesson plans, the world map project, and much more.
• In nearly a week I will know where I will be living for the next two years! 
• Tomorrow is the Dominican equivalent of labor day so I will be spending at a river, and enjoying Dominicans staple river/beach day lunch of...spaghetti. The reasoning is you can make a lot of it for cheap and eat it cold, still I think sandwiches are a more reasonable choice. I'll let you know if my mind is changed tomorrow.
• I would love to hear how all of you are doing! I am writing this blog to keep you all up-to-date with my life, so don't forget to let me know what exciting (or mundane) things are going on in your life!
• Lastly, Senator Lautenberg (D-NJ) has introduced a bill that would expand Peace Corps Volunteers health insurance to include abortions in the case of rape, incest, and when the health of the Volunteer is in danger, a policy that is covered by all other federal employee health plans. I support this bill, because Volunteers are federal employees and we deserve the same access to healthcare as those in the States. Furthermore, I hate the idea of a Volunteer, who after experiencing such a traumatic event and making the decision to have an abortion, is then put through even more stress because she cannot afford an abortion and will therefore have to terminate her Peace Corps service. (For a variety of reasons female Volunteers cannot serve if they become pregnant.) If you are interested in learning more about the proposed bill, and/or how to help it get passed, please click here. On a final note, I realize abortion rights is a very sensitive topic, and I have respect for both sides of the debate. - Sorry to end this post of such a serious topic.

Dominicanisms Part 1

I have lived in the Dominican Republic for 49 days. In that brief period of time I have become acquainted with A LOT of words and phrases that are almost exclusively used by Dominicans. Below is an alphabetical list of the Dominicanisms I have so far discovered, it is so long I am splitting it into two parts. Enjoy!

• Amarrar la chiva- goes to work but does nothing while there
• Apagón - blackout
• Avion - plane, slang for a promiscuous female
• Baboso/a - someone who talks a lot
• Bola - a free ride
• Bandera - flag, but also refers to the traditional Dominican lunch. Consists of rice, beans, meat, and a salad on the side.
• Banca - a store where bets can be made on the lottery and other things
• Bipear - to call someone but hang up once the phone rings, this causes them to call you back and you save your phone minutes
• Boltar el golpe - when you go to the bar straight from work
• Buen tiempo - good timing, said when a visitor arrives as people are eating
• Bulla - loud noise
• Cañada - stream that swells during heavy rains, these can be very dangerous as they often become impassable and can swallow up nearby pathways and flood houses.
• Chapa - butt cheek, a current popular song is called “La Chapa” and is about shaking it
• Chévere - cool
• Chin - a little bit
• Chulo - cool
• Cocina - kitchen, slang for the back of the guagua (bus) because it gets so hot
• Cocotazo - the smack a kid receives on the head when they behave poorly.
• Conjo - esaid when something bad happens, sometimes yelled
• Crillollo - natural to the DR, typically refers to fruits, vegetables, or traditional meals
• Cuero - prostitute, literally means leather; “quema de cuero” - muffler burn
• Diablo - damn, typically yelled while in pain or surprise, literally translates to devil
• Echar un boche - describes the action of doing something to make another person yell at you, such as when you step on a clean floor in muddy shoes or grab some cookie batter without asking your sister’s permission…
• Estoy harto - I’m full or I’ve had enough of a particular person/thing. This term is considered vulgar but is often heard in the countryside.
• Flojo/a - lazy person
• Fulano/a - John/Jane Doe, used when you don’t want to name a person, such as Fulano told me you went on a date with Jerry.