Update

Okay, so that first weekend was a little dramatic. But hey, it made a good blog, right? That is what it is all about. I am sure that I am going to get a big talking to from my mom about it though. Things are feeling a bit more normal these days too, so hopefully she won't worry so much. My training is almost over in the capital, which will be nice, because the worst part of this place is the cities. Poverty is most evident when you are surrounded by trash and pollution and the most pathetic excuses of imitation "Nueva York" that you have ever seen. While the campesinos may have next to nothing in comparison to those in the capital, it is a lot easier to have nothing if you are surrounded by lush green mountains and beautiful flowering trees all the time. This is the new perspective that I have after having gone to visit another volunteer in the Cordillera mountain range last weekend. She lives a very simple life, and I had to walk up a very steep hill on a very small dirt path for over an hour to find her, but it was worth it, because that is what I was hoping for when I dreamed of Peace Corps. She has no electricity of course, but shockingly she does get running water thanks to an aquaduct project a peace corps volunteer started before her. She lives on a ridge in the most fertile and oldest mountain range on the island. Her immediate neighbors are only about 10 families that farm this ridge for cacao, coffee, platanos, guineas (bananas), yucca, cassava, etc., but she works with about 4 other communities that are all over the mountain, but within walking distance. And that is pretty much what she does day to day. Walks. Up and down, from house to house, stopping in to trade a cup of the herbal tea she makes every day from her garden for a cup of strong caf that she saw drying in the yard the day before. The word of the year is "compartir", which means "to share". Because she can't walk by without discussing the weather and the food and music and the local kids with every woman she sees. But that is the way people work here, and they all truly believe that they are her mother and are responsible for her. In this light, it makes sense that they would need to know everything about everything. There is NO sense of personal identity or god forbid personal space. Everyone shares everything, and that is just something that I am going to have to get used to. She has started a youth gardening and environmental awareness project with all the kids at the local school, and is working with all of her mothers on a stove project that will get them to stop building open fires on the floor of there houses and give them a more efficient and healthy way to cook. Spending time with Alison showed me what I have to look forward to, and while I will have to adjust to the pace of life up there, and I know that I will be very lonely at some times, I think that it is going to be an amazing and very valuable experience for me and my community when the time comes. But first I have to learn how to build the stoves. So, this weekend I am moving from Santo Domingo to Jarabacoa in the center of the island close to the highest peak at this longitude to do technical training. We will learn how to use worm farms to enrich the soil, how to combine different crops to increase the efficiency of the crop cycles, and how to build these stoves that have made such a difference for the women in Los Lirios. I hope that I am up to the task, but at the very least I am very excited about moving into this next phase. I will try to keep you all updated.