A beginning of a new era in which lion and hyena live together to form a glorious future!

Yesterday I was walking with some neighbor girls of mine to fetch water from the cistern down the street and they told me to sing in English, and the only song I would think of was the theme from Lion King. They thought it was pretty funny. Okay, I have a lot of catching up to do. First of all, for those who are keeping track of me (the few and the proud), I finally moved to my site. For the next two years, I will be living in a cocoa farming community called El Yayal, 22 kilometers outside of the city of Nagua, which is on the northeastern coast of the Dominican Republic, just above the Samana Peninsula. I have just finished my first week in El Yayal, living with Rosa, a mid-sixties lady who, though mystified by my inexplicable dislike of fully carbo-loaded meals, is an excellent woman who has been taking care of me in a commendable fashion. She has seven children, all of which live within walking distance of her house. Her oldest, Nia (42) suffers from extreme mental disability due to a very high and strong fever she experienced as a child. She is for all intents and purposes blind and non-verbal and sleeps in the room next to me. Her sister Luz (36) who lives next door says that people didnt think that she would live past 18, but there she is, puttering around the yard wailing for her grandmother that died 15 years ago. Because while she is incapable of forming coherent sentences, she has got some pipes on her, that is for sure. Everyone in the house wakes up at 6 AM sharp, whether they want to or not, because that is when Nia starts her crying. Most of the time no one can tell what she wants, and she is just in a general state of discontentment. She is well known as the town kook, and when she wanders away down the street to where her grandmother used to live, someone always brings her back. The men living with us are Papa and Misterio. Papa is Rosas father, and when I asked him how old he was, he said hundreds, hundreds, which I guess means a long time. He lives in a small shack behind the kitchen that I have yet to find, but he always appears every morning to help Misterio dry the cacao and sit around with me. He is a wonderfully sweet, cheerful man and he has the most leathered feet I have ever seen. He wears the same purple sweater every day and constantly complains about the heat as he sits in the shade under the zinc roof in an overstuffed armchair, baking. While he has only the one shirt, Misterio alternates every two days between two collared shirts always untucked with his pants unbuttoned so that his catheter bag that he pees in and is stuck to his stomach isnt uncomfortable. He says that the doctor thought that he had cancer, but once he got the catheter about 10 years ago, he has been just fine. If he isnt drying cacao, he is either sleeping in his hammock or playing dominoes with me. In the short time I have been there, Misterio and I have become the dominating domino team in he neighborhood. I dont know if it is because I am better at counting and adding than they are, but I am really starting to pick up the game. It is gaining me a little bit of street credit on the block too, let me tell you. We kicked both of Luzs kids butts the other night, and Julia was really pissed. Luz is one of my good friends so far, and though it might have a little bit to do with the fact that she has a big mango tree in her front yard, but she is also a lot of fun to talk to. She has a friend/cousin/relative of some sort that lives in Orlando and she is taking care of her kids for her for an undetermined length of time. Julia is about 13, and Chi-Chi is 5ish, and they are both really really cute. Chi-Chi looks almost completely Spanish, with olive skin, big eyes, and dirty blonde hair, and he is just adorable. He reminds me of my sister Allison when she was little, always running around covered with dirt and just being as cute as can be. Plus, due to the fact that he was born without his right ear and he has pelo bueno (meaning that his hair is not kinky, and lies straight without chemicals or assistance from appliances), his hair has already grown down to his shoulders and he looks like just the cutest little girl you ever saw. It took me 2-3 days to figure out that he was in fact a boy. No one seemed to notice my gender mistakes though. Everyone has been very understanding and helpful when it comes to my language abilities, and as long as I can get my point across and occasionally kick someones butt in dominoes, I am still considered muy inteligente. Yesterday, four people sat in my room for 10 minutes and listened to me read a passage from In Cold Blood in English out loud, no one understanding a thing. They thought it was great fun. This first week was kind of like a trial run for the next two years. I met with my project partner, a very touchy, friendly man who has equal tendencies towards sketchiness as he does to being a really great guy. Only time will tell though. Anyway, I got back from training in Jarabacoa on Friday, got my project assignment on Monday, met with Frank and Cencha, my new host mother on Tuesday morning, and left that afternoon for El Yayal. Cencha and her husband Moreno own the colmado across the street from Franks house, and the room they have for me is not finished yet (i.e., no doors, no bed, too many broken kitchen appliances in there), so I spent the week at Rosas house instead, Morenos mother. Frank took me to visit the school, where, as I was warned by Peace Corps, I had to give an impromptu speech about myself to about 50 kids. I also visited the local health clinic, police department (two guys in brown shirts with guns sitting in plastic chairs in an empty building), and attended a Wednesday night catechism. On Thursday Frank took me with his family to go pick cacao on his farm, which, to my surprise, required me to wade across a chest-deep river in my clothes, something that I handled surprisingly well considering I was wearing the new pants Mom had just sent me for Easter. On the other side I sank mid-thigh deep into a mud pit giving birth to a surprising amount of mosquitoes. As we walked around the farm, the mosquitoes started to build up steam, but Franks niece took it upon herself to assume the job of Americana-Eating-Mosquito-Killer, which was nice of her, it was tough to get used to letting her just randomly smack all parts of my body with a banana tree branch. To be fair though, she killed three at once on my calf. I also discovered a my new least favorite weed- it even looks mean, with bumps and spikes all over its leaves. When you touch it it feels like you have rubbed your hand on raw fiberglass, and I think I still have a little bit of it in my index finger. Bugger of a plant. Apart from the battle with flora and fauna though, the trip was quite enjoyable. I really appreciate the simplicity of wandering around in the forest and looking for food to eat. With Franks machete, we cut down about four plantain and one banana tree, all of which his kids swam back across the river and we have been eating for the last three days. Its nice to be able to side step commerce and know that you would still be able to survive if you have to. I am getting pretty sick of plantains though. On the whole, my first experience with El Yayal has been a positive one. Other volunteers have worked in the area, but this is the first time there has been one in El Yayal, so everyone is really excited to meet me and to have me here. I also think that my new family here is my favorite of all three, which is a relief. I feel really comfortable with them and I feel like we could all be really close. Cencha and Moreno, who I am going to live with when I go back next week, cant have any kids, so they are really excited to have me in their house, and they are so proud of me; it is really sweet. I have also been able to stand up for the things that I will and will not eat this time, mostly because I have had two families to practice on. I think that I have had unpasturized milk a couple of times, but other than that I feel pretty good. I have established a good running schedule, and everyone seems pretty used to it. Most of the community meetings are at Rosas house and the church and school are right down the road, so I think that those will be good places to start. The director of the school has already come to visit me twice, and I think that I am going to go when I get back just to observe how everything works and talk with the teachers a little bit more. The math teacher apparently also teaches English, so that could turn into something interesting. They also just built their own aquaduct, and while it broke the second day I was there, I think that there are lots of opportunities to do good work in El Yayal. Rosa asked me a few agriculture questions the other day (She basically took me on a tour of her yard and asked me why a bunch of things that she planted wouldnt grow, but I think that I B.S.ed my way out of it well enough that she never suspected a thing), which was kind of intimidating, and the task of converting the cacao planters here to organic farming makes me kind of nauseous to think about, but luckily all I have to do for the next three months is walk around and get to know everyone, so we can take it little steps at a time. During training, for some reason I never thought that I would be placed in the East. I always pictured myself somewhere along the Northwest border with Haiti (which I visited, by the way, and it is way intense. Ill post some pictures.), and I am pretty far away from all of my friends from training too, but I hope that I can get used to the idea and start doing some good work here. Oh, I got a cell phone too! It doesnt work in Yayal right now, but I might be switching it out for one that does soon, so you all can call me whenever you want! My phone number is: 829-797-9026, and from what I understand there is no country code, so you can just call me straight through if you want! I am still working on phone cards, but when I get it figured out, get ready for some champion birthday calls! I am sitting on a bus back to the capital right now, and I am kind of getting car sick, so I am going to stop typing now.