Sally Struthers, Eat Your Heart Out.

The village of El Yayal and its surrounding communities is located around the Loma Guaconejo Natural Reserve, approximately 30 kilometers outside of the town of Nagua. The population of El Yayal is approximately 300 people, containing roughly 100 homes. The people residing in these communities depend completely on agriculture and animal husbandry as their source of income, farming mainly cocoa, coconut and fruit and raising cattle, chickens, and pigs. The majority of the men work the fields while the women spend most of their time cooking, washing clothes and looking after the house and children.

Within these communities there are a few associations working towards community development. Both the Catholic and Evangelical churches in El Yayal are active contributors to the community, working on road improvement projects, child registration initiatives, and school improvements. Within the Catholic Church there is also a Directiva de Vecinos (neighborhood outreach) that makes sure all members of the community are well informed and able to participate in church and community activities. Each community also has a Club de Madres (mothers’ group) of 25 women who meet once a week to discuss community problems and to try and come up with solutions. Previous projects these groups have worked with are organic farming, small business development, and community aqueducts. They also devote a considerable amount of time to raising money for church improvements and to provide financial assistance for needy members of the community.

Within the community many parents have expressed concern about the increasing level of disease and health problems rising in the community. There is a high level of kidney problems, diabetes, high blood pressure, anemia, parasitic, and respiratory problems in the area, not only according to the community members but also according to the local nurse who runs the community health clinic. The lack of knowledge about dietary needs, nutritional balance, water sanitation and antibacterial cleaning practices can lead to many of the previously mentioned problems and imposes unnecessary health risks on all community members. Consequently, the quality of life in El Yayal is suffering on many levels.

Currently, of the 104 houses in El Yayal, 33% do not have latrines and of the houses that do have latrines, only 27% are in fair or good condition.

Another problem brought up by the women in the area is that few families within El Yayal and the surrounding communities have propane stoves. Those who do own them are restricted by their lack of income and the remote location and the scarcity and high cost of propane. Therefore, the majority of families cook over outdoor stoves. These stoves are either pits made of clay or three cemented blocks raised up on a table. They use a significant amount of firewood, requiring members of the family to spend an average of one and a half hours daily looking for firewood. Due to this high demand of wood, many trees are being cut down, contributing to the deforestation of the area and the threat to the local watershed. Cooking over these fires three times a day, women are inhaling smoke equivalent to smoking 10 cigarettes daily. Amongst major complaints from those who cook include irritated eyes, headaches, lung problems, chest pains, cough and dizziness. Therefore, these traditional stoves pose a threat not only to the environment but also contribute to the worsening health of those around them.

My work in El Yayal as a Peace Corps volunteer focuses on two projects in direct response to these health concerns, VIP (Ventilated Improved Pit) latrines to address the lack of adequate sanitation facilities in the community, and Improved Ceramic Woodburning Cookstoves to address many of the common health concerns. The community is contributing 35% of the total project costs in the form of labor and raw materials. The Women’s Group of El Yayal initially presented the projects to the community and will oversee the construction and education related to the projects. The committee will also address any problems related to the project and will organize the solicitation of any funds needed for maintenance or new beneficiaries.

Each VIP Latrine and Ceramic Cookstove cost approximately US$100.00 a piece. For US$100.00, a family in El Yayal will have the capacity to alleviate many of the ailments that they have come to accept as an inescapable reality. Please consider donating whatever you are able to our project. All donations are tax-deductible and easily processed electronically through the Peace Corps website. Follow this link for more information: https://www.peacecorps.gov/resources/donors/contribute/projdetail.cfm?projdesc=517-230&region=carib

You can help!

Dear Friends and Family,

As friends and family of a Peace Corps Volunteer, you all knew it was coming. That’s right guys, my first donation solicitation! This is a very grassroots project that some of my closest friends from college have been working hard on for the last two years, and it finally has the opportunity to get off the ground. Or, it would have, if the roof of their library hadn’t collapsed. Now, all the money that they have been raising for the last two years has to go to fixing the roof, and they do not have the funds necessary to start up their after-school projects. Their director is a good friend of mine, a former Peace Corps volunteer in Costa Rica, and an exceptionally motivated individual, and I know that your money will be well spent if you consider helping out their cause. Quality education is one of the most appalling deficits in developing countries, almost exclusively due to lack of resources. How can children learn to read if they don’t have any books? Think about how your life would have been limited if you had never been given those simple opportunities that we all take for granted as children. Any donation will help them a great deal, and could have a great effect on the quality of life for many children who otherwise could never have the opportunity to break out of the continually impoverishing cycle of underpaid child labor. Please consider helping out in any way that you can, by visiting their website, http://www.asociacionsolac.org/, giving a donation, and passing this email on to other friends and families.

Thank you all for your support, and continue reading below for more information!
Love,
Liz Cairns
____________________________________

We need your help!

Asociación SOLAC , a young non-profit in located in Lima, Peru, works on a number of grass-roots initiatives from human rights campaigns to community development projects. Our current project is focused on an impoverished community outside of Lima. This community is home to a number of migrant families from all over Peru. The main source of income for these families is the manufacturing of adobe bricks from the desert-like terrain on which they live. This back-breaking work nets families an average of $8 per 1000 bricks they are able to produce (see attached pics). Since these families are being paid per brick, as opposed to an hourly wage, many of the younger children are expected to work in the brick yard, taking away valuable study time and energy.

Asociación SOLAC is currently working through the small elementary school on small development projects that range from water purification to after-school tutoring and lunch program. After a community diagnosis was completed in 2005, it was determined that the school would see measurable improvements with the construction of a library and two study rooms. Unfortunately, just before its completion the roof collapsed due to bad luck with the weather. Now, we have a new engineer hired, and he's drawn up the designs for a new roof that will be both weather and theft resistant. This, of course, means more money. With our overly stretched budget, we are currently about $3000 short. Normally we would apply for grants through various NGOs and funds but in this case we don't have the months that are normally necessary the application process. How can you help? Go to http://www.asociacionsolac.org/ and follow the simple steps to make a donation through our Paypal account. The link is on the homepage after you toggle the language.

If you have any friends or family that may be interested in helping out, or would like more information, please feel free to contact me.

Regards,

Michael J. Quinzio and David Goodman
Associate Directors, Asociocion Solac

Lima, Peru
51-1-97499994
http://mensajes.claro.com.pe/
http://www.asociocionsolac.org/

One Year Wall

“It’s kind of like camping…”

That is what two of my most recent visitors have said about the way that I live. were champs during their visit to El Yayal – my mom shelled beans, used the latrine, ate the soup, and didn’t hear the mice at night! My dad ate everything that was given to him, including the coconut that my friend Eulises climbed up a tree to get for him. Of course, there had to be a pig loose in the back yard in the morning when Mom had to use the latrine, but she handled it remarkably well. I was very proud of both of them. I have realized in the last months how lucky I have been in my experience here. Upon reaching the 1-year mark, some of my fellow volunteers have decided they just couldn’t handle it anymore. The thought of yet another year of this life was just too much to take. One thing that volunteers say to each other is, “You can’t judge one volunteer’s experience against another,” which is funny, because that is mostly all that we do when we get together – compare horror stories. But really, there is no way to tell who will make it and who will throw in the towel, because it doesn’t have anything to do with your attitude, your willingness to work or your professional all alone with no one to answer to but abilities, though those things can help you get through some bad times. Really, you never know where that final crushing blow is going to come from and you can’t judge anyone when it gets someone, because most of the time it could just as easily have been you. Living here is hard, and Dominicans do a lot of things that don’t make much sense a lot of the time, and sometimes the two worlds collide in a way that makes it impossible to keep going. We didn’t join the Peace Corps because we thought it would be easy, and while we go through it together, we are still ourselves. So I am proud of Ambrosia and Lindsay for knowing when to say enough is enough, but I will miss them, and I hope that they both know how much they are loved and envied by a ragtag gang of crazy people still left on this silly little island. So good luck girls, and I hope you send us chocolate and trashy magazines.

Andariega

First of all, I want to apologize to all of you who have been reading my blog diligently over the last year. It has been far too long since I have kept most of you abreast of what I have been up to. Life has been pretty crazy down here in the DR since late November, that is for sure. I was able to go home for 3 weeks over Christmas, which many of you know because fortunately I was able to see a lot of my friends and family. For those who I missed, I apologize profusely and I encourage you to channel that disappointment into a redoubled effort to make a trip to the DR. Ever since I got back from my vacation though, I have been unbelievably busy, which is a good thing, but it is also very tiring. One of the main reasons my work load has increased so much is that my project partner, a volunteer named Alysia who works as a small business volunteer with the cacao cooperative, was in a horrific car accident on January 8 in which she was thrown out of an out of control truck and cracked her spine.

Alysia was working as a translator for a medical mission of doctors and nurses from the United States when she suffered her injuries. Medical missions are one of the most popular secondary projects that Peace Corps volunteers undertake during their service. We are allowed to participate in one mission a year for one week, and there are on average about 5-6 missions available to volunteers a year. Missions vary in specialty from eye surgeries, hernias, plastic surgeries, and general medicine. Many volunteers say that these opportunities are some of the most gratifying experiences of their Peace Corps service. The style of mission varies greatly however, depending on the participation medical group. The surgeries are performed in hospitals in the largest two cities, but the general medical services are often performed in rural areas. It was on one of the latter missions that Alysia suffered her injuries. She and three other volunteers were working with doctors and nurses that were traveling to rural communities around Santiago to administer routine medical checks and provide medicine. This group had been visiting the same communities every year for the last 10 years and had formed a sustained medical history with the community members they visited. However, this year the Cibao Mountain region that they were traveling in had received record rainfall, and the steep dirt roads had become increasingly difficult to maneuver due to mud. Many vehicles without four-wheel drive found the roads unpassable. The medical mission had been traveling in a convoy of 4x4 pickup trucks and larger Daihatsu front-wheel drive flatbed trucks. On the second day of medical visits, the group was traveling to a very high mountain community that had suffered a lot of rainfall in the previous week. The 4x4 trucks were able to maneuver the hill, but the flatbed was having trouble. The driver tried to downshift to no avail, and then decided to put it in reverse to attempt the ascent from the bottom a second time. However, when the truck was put into reverse, the engine, power steering, and brakes locked up and the driver was not able to get control of the vehicle. The truck began to slide backwards down the hill and when it reached a curve in the road, it slid off the side of the mountain. The truck flipped twice with the driver and two passengers inside, throwing the 6 people in the back of the truck overboard. Alysia suffered the mildest injuries of all of the victims and due to adrenaline was able to send local villagers up the mountain after the other trucks for help. It was only a couple days after the accident that the full extent of her injuries became apparent. However, one of the medical students in the truck suffered a blunt force trauma to the head and died instantly on the scene, and another doctor suffered from a ruptured spleen and had to be operated on immediately. Alysia has been in Washington, DC for the last two weeks receiving medical attention, and we hope that she will rejoin us here in the beginning of March. Amazingly, despite their traumatic experience, the remaining medical team continued their work in the area for the next two weeks, though changed their policy and had the trucks go to the remote communities and bring the patients into the cities for treatment.

Alysia’s accident was particularly upsetting because it happened a week before the inauguration of her primary project with the cacao cooperative, a cocoa powder processing initiative. Through a grant from USAID, the cooperative is now able to market and sell 100% organic cocoa powder processed from their own cacao farms within the Dominican Republic. We are now in the process of investigating US markets as well. Many of you whom I had the pleasure of seeing during Christmas have a sample of this cocoa powder, and if you email me (escairns@gmail.com), I can send you a list of easy recipes for dishes that you can make with it. Until Alysia returns from the US, I am working with the cooperative on their business plan and continued marketing of their cocoa. This weekend marked the 45th anniversary of the Peace Corps work in the Dominican Republic, and the first major sale of cocoa powder by my cooperative. We sold over 300 bags during the anniversary celebration and made many good contacts that we will be using for both Dominican and North American markets. In the next year we hope to open our market to bulk sales to Dagoba Chocolate in the US. All in all though, we are off to a good start. The sales of the cocoa are helping pay for the organic certification program as well. Through IMO Caribe, a Swiss chocolate buyer here in the Dominican Republic, we have 97 farms certified to sell as organic in the US, Europe and Asia, and we hope to reach 150 farms in the coming year.

Unfortunately, because of all the work I have been doing with the cooperative, my English and Reading classes have suffered in the last two months. It has also been difficult to get my students back on track after the New Year. Due to a combination of high levels of rain, teacher strikes, and vacation time, the students had over two months without school between November and February, and are only now being tested on the material they learned in the fall. I don’t have to tell you all again about how I feel about the public education system in this country. However, I have already committed to my community to summer school from June to August for both English and Reading classes. That way will have full use of the school and hopefully help the students maintain the knowledge they learned during the school year. I am also beginning a Healthy Families course with my mother’s group. The course will be once a week for ten weeks, covering nutrition, hygiene, water sanitation, trash disposal and family planning. Each participant will pay approximately $3 a week to attend the course, and at the end of 5 weeks will receive a biosand water filter donated by the Rotary Club. At the end of 10 weeks, they will receive a ceramic woodburning cookstove donated by USAID designed to improve fuel efficiency and limit smoke inhalation. Considering right now most of them are cooking over open flames inside and burning plastic cups and Styrofoam to get the fire going, I think that these will be an improvement. This work, combined with another round of organic certification this summer, should last me until the fall, when I would like to look into a latrine project. I don’t have a grant lined up for that one yet though, so you all might be getting a solicitation email around September. Get ready to start giving!

As of now, I am just sick of traveling, so I am going to go back to my site now and start hanging out with my neighbors so that people will actually come to my meetings. I think that they think that my work is really just going to the beach all the time, and they don’t really get why I am always gone, so I have some trust to regain. Right now my nickname in El Yayal is “la Andariega” instead of “la Americana”. One who travels a lot. I guess I deserve it.

Dear Grandma...

My first memory of Grandma was when I was about 5 years old. We were at the beach for Easter, and she had hidden plastic eggs in the backyard filled with $1 in change each. Grandma really had the grandmothering job down pat. Sam had his friend Patrick visiting, and I was so proud to have such a cool grandmother. Of course, we had just entered the “Arcading” phase of our visits to the beach, so I know that Skeeball came out of the weekend with more money than I did, but after a couple of years of tickets, I think that I finally got that stuffed monkey, so everybody came out on top.

Grandma and Paw Paw’s house defines my childhood more than any other place, and I am sure that this is true for a lot of people. Easters with Bunny-shaped cakes, Summers digging holes in the sand, Thanksgivings making chocolate balls and decorating the tree on the porch. Their house is always stacked with the greatest food. While Paw Paw definitely is in charge of the cooking, Grandma was definitely the one to go to if you wanted a snack. (When we were little it was Grandma Utz’s potato chips, now it is Cheez Curls.) I mean, you can’t beat ice cream in both refrigerators. There were always people stopping by to say hello too- of all ages. I think that it is safe to say that the Ryans are an institution in Bethany Beach.

Of all of the memories I have though, I can only remember seeing Grandma actually at the beach once. And she wasn’t even on the sand. It was about 4 o’clock in the afternoon and we were about to come in for the day, and I saw her standing at the top of the boardwalk, watching the waves. When I was little, I didn’t think about it much, because she was always there sitting in her chair reading or taking one of her classic snoozes when we came back for lunch, ready to make grilled cheese sandwiches or get barbeque from the Fire Department. But now, as I look back, I realize that it was the house itself that was Grandma’s domain. Because while all of us made memories in that house, it held memories too. And even though I never saw Grandma touch the sand, there is overwhelming proof that she did. The glass coffee table filled with sand and sea creatures, the glass whale filled with sea glass- these things served as a window to a Grandma that I never knew. Because, though as a child I never thought about it, Grandma was on the tail end of her life when I met her. As a 91-year old woman, her grandchildren didn’t even get to know her until she was in her 60’s. So much of her life we only know through pictures, knick-knacks on a shelf, or the occasional Japanese words she loved to use at sushi restaurants. So while I didn’t get to see her travel the world, raise her children, walk on the beach, or even smoke a cigarette, the evidence of her life was always around her. And her grandchildren and life in this house in Sussex Shores was the final chapter. I was a part of the end of her life and she was a part of the beginning of mine.

So we are here not only to say goodbye to our grandmother, mother, wife and friend, but also to take stock in our own lives and what Grandma has left behind. She has touched all of us and helped to make us who we are. The Tao Te Ching says, “After finishing the work, withdraw. Though you lose the body, you do not die. This is the Way of Heaven”. I believe that Grandma has finished her work in this life, and I hope that she enters the next in peace and with love. We each carry on a part of her work with us as we move on into the next chapter of our own lives. When I look in the mirror, I see my mother’s strength, and when I look at my mother, I see Grandma’s appreciation of beauty, among other things. Everything I am and I will be I owe to my family, so as we say goodbye to Grandma, I can only hope that I can take what she has given me and make her proud. I love you Grandma, and I will miss you.

The Simple Life

Since being here, I have always appreciated how quickly one’s needs are simplified to the basics. Food and water. If anyone has been paying attention, you know that I have the water situation under control. And if anyone has seen a picture of me lately, you know that the food situation is a bit out of control. So, we have the two most important things covered. So, what comes next? Once I know that I am not going to starve or die of dehydration, I start coming up with ways to make life just a little bit easier. Install an indoor bathing area, cement the front porch, fix my bike, build a sink, etc. The continuation of this process of making things easier for ourselves from a micro to a macroeconomic level is the root of human development. Without running water, you cannot run a washing machine inside your house. Without permanent electricity, an hour dryer cycle is not worth the investment in a real dryer. Thus, these simple things turn an uninvolved couple of hours at night into an all day event, often two days if it is cloudy and the electricity goes out. However, no one in my community is starving or dying of thirst, and on the most basic level, they are fairly comfortable. So why are they less developed? Because there just isn’t enough time in the day to move forward. You’re your day is occupied with the basic duties of maintaining life at the same level. Only once those duties are accomplished can a body set to work on rising above. Families take their children out of school every day in order to help with these duties. Eight-year-olds picking bananas, herding cattle, carrying water from the river on horseback, cooking, cleaning, working in the family store. While we admonish these families for their exploitation of child labor, really, what is the other option? Given the opportunity, of course mothers would rather have their children in school, but sometimes there are just not enough hours in the day. And in their eyes, water comes before reading. I don’t want to be the one to argue their logic either. However, without education, these families are just treading water to stay afloat. And without the knowledge of how to rise from this base level, Dominicans cannot modernize their lives to the extent necessary to find those extra few hours of free time to go to school to get this knowledge. Vicious circle. So really, that is my greatest gift to my community. All of my time is free. So I do all of the things that Dominicans don’t have time to do. I find ways to get them more money for their cacao, I teach English, I play with their kids, and most recently, I teach them how to read.

Joel is my neighbor. He is 13, is in the 4^th grade for the 3^rd time, and he cannot read. They teach reading here in 2^nd and 3^rd grade, but somehow he missed the boat. One of the greatest harms a teacher can do to a student is to pass him before he is ready. Because they don’t teach reading in 4^th grade, and the teacher will not pass him unless he knows how to read. I will grant you, Joel is not a great student, and at this point in his life he would much rather work as a motorcycle errand boy than go to school, but that is because he is fed up with being in the 4^th grade, and there is no one to help him. He lives with his grandparents because his mother moved to a city to work. He hasn’t seen her in about two years. About the same time he was supposed to learn how to read. Hmm. Anyway, no one has time for him. Until I moved in next door. And I have all the time in the world. For one hour the last three days he and I have sat in my room looking at words in “El Arbol Generoso” (The Giving Tree) and learning the alphabet. And what do you know? He is pretty smart. His teacher has already told him that if he keeps it up he will pass the 5^th grade. And that was only 3 days. There are millions of kids who fall through the cracks in overcrowded, underfunded school systems, and I am just one person, so I don’t think that there is much that I can do about those numbers. But Joel is one person that I can do something about. And if he learns to read, maybe he will look beyond the motorcycle and the shoe shining in the park. So this week I found another reason that I am supposed to be here. To show Joel that the world is bigger than he thought.

Movin' on up!

Developing country my butt. I would like to inform all of my loved ones back home that El Yayal is moving up in the world. That’s right, my days of carrying five-gallon buckets of water to my house from the river are over, my friends. Because now I’ve got gutters. I know, I know, don’t get too excited. Let me take you through it. I was in Nagua the other day talking to one of my English students (who is also a truck driver). We were just running through the usual; how hot it is, how rutted and dusty the roads are, etc., when I mentioned that I was thinking about installing a “water-collection system” in my house. Now, the first things I need are buckets, obviously. And not your sissy plastic 5-gallon jobs either. I am talking the metal 50 gallon drums that Jimmy Hoffa sank to the bottom of the river in. And what do you know? Juan is the man who can get them for me. And not just any drum, he is going to find me some good ones. So, two days later Juan and his son Gabby show up at my house with these lovely tanks in their truck, and I am ready to get started. I have already bought 20 feet of PVC pipe, a bag of cement, a pound of nails and 20 feet of “barilla” (I am sorry, my English is no good these days. It is a kind of metal rod that you use to secure cement block when you are building a house). Now with these tanks I am ready to roll. But first we have to clean them out. Oh yes, did I forget to mention that the reason that these tanks only cost $10 a piece is because they were once used to transport blue pen ink and shoe adhesive? That was what Juan meant when he said that he was going to get me some good ones. Because the not-so-good ones are the ones that used to hold toxic chemicals. But I think that you can get those for free, if you want. Since at the moment I don’t remember anyone dying from exploding pens in their mouth or chewing on tennis shoe soles, I think I am in the clear. Plus, my muchachos are all about helping me clean them out. And where is the best place to do that? The River, of course! So, the Environmental Peace Corps volunteer helped her neighbors roll these two tanks down to the river, and with a brillo pad, a stick and some sand, Joel hopped into those tanks and scrubbed ‘em shiny clean. Don’t worry, all of the paint chips and glue bits floated down the river to the next community, so it won’t affect us. Jeez. Not proud of it, but what are you going to do? Anyway, Joel and I borrowed some tools and cut the barilla into 14 pieces (by the way, Joel is 13, weighs 50 pounds, and is repeating the 5th grade for the 3rd time), and convinced Rosita’s brother to help us install the gutters and cement the tanks. Yes, everyone can relax now. In order to prevent rusting, we mixed cement with a lot of sand and lined the insides of the tanks, so I don’t think that I am going to die of disease any time soon. Plus, I am only going to use this water for cooking, bathing, and cleaning. I have bottled water for drinking. Ingenio then cut the PVC into two pieces and bent the metal into hooks and nailed them to either side of my house. And what do you know?!? The next day, it rained buckets, and now both of my tanks are full and I don’t plan on going to the river for a really long time. I am so excited.

So don’t you guys worry about me, I am doing just fine here. My dog, Geronimo, got hit by a motorcycle though, which had me worried for awhile, but he is fine now. Just some scratches. I just did my first long bike ride since I have been here too, which was only about an hour and a half, but I still have to go back. It is good to know that I can get to the town on bike in just twice the amount of time that it takes to take the truck. I am feeling good these days. If anyone has any interest in a bike trip across the DR, let me know, because I think that my bike can handle it. Could be fun. Can’t go into Haiti because I will get kicked out of the Peace Corps if I do, but think about it.

Nothing like a seance to bring the people together.

Well, I have reached a new level of understanding of Dominican rural culture in the last week. You have all read my rants and raves about what it is like to live here, so I will spare you a complete description of Geronimo and I sitting in my house in the pouring rain typing on a dying battery because we haven..t had electricity in three days, constantly moving my chair around the house because new leaks keep chasing my computer around the house. That is old news. Funerals, man; that is what I am talking about. I never thought about it before, but I really think that you can learn a lot from a culture by how they treat their dead. About three weeks ago, my neighbor Carolina came back from summer vacation in Santiago with her uncle Pablo..s family. While it is very common for kids to spend time with their extended families during school breaks here, Carolina went to help her aunt take care of Pablo, who was in the final stages of treatment for what people say was bone cancer. Of course, I am not really sure what kind of cancer he had, because the extent of people..s medical knowledge beyond the common cold consists of two things: 1.) Bad blood, or 2.) Bad bones. Anyway, three weeks ago, it seemed that the last course of treatment was ineffective, and Carolina brought Pablo back to his family here to die. For two weeks he laid in bed, not eating, not speaking- just wasting away and waiting to die. Before I continue, I want to explain that death is the rural Dominican..s specialty. Since I have been living in El Yayal, I have been to over 20 "velas", or deathdays, and not a single birthday. The saying that death is a part of life really takes on new meaning here. When a person dies here, the funeral starts immediately with a vigil through the night and into the day until he or she is buried 24 hours after death. During the funeral, the local deacon announces the schedule for the following 9-day period of mourning that will take place at the family's house. There is a scheduled service every evening, but the week is scattered with other gatherings, religious readings, and events that could only be described as séances where they attempt to speak directly to God on Pablo..s behalf to ensure his place in heaven. All of the surrounding communities, churches and civic organizations are assigned days in which they must attend, though they are welcome to attend more. This ensures that there is an adequate amount of people at each service. Of course, any close neighbors, friends and relatives in addition to attending all services, are assumed to keep watch over the house throughout the nine days, cleaning in the morning, preparing food and drink for the mourners during the day, and tending to the late night stragglers that often fall asleep at the house. From what I can tell, it is somewhat of a contest between these ..elite mourners.. to see who can spend the most time at the house and go without sleep for the longest. Every morning for these 9 days the only conversation in the street and the market is about who ..amanecio.. (watched the sun rise) at Pablo..s house the night before. The ninth day of mourning is completed with the first vela/deathday. This first vela, which will be one of seven held yearly on the anniversary of Pablo..s death, is the most important, more so even than the funeral, and it is when the majority of relatives from out of town come to mourn. This is also when the elite squad is most important, because in addition to the traditional tea, juice, boiled plantains, coffee, etc., velas require that the family prepare a dessert called arroz con leche, which, to be honest, was really the main draw to those first 5-10 velas that I went to, before I really knew what was going on. It is just basically rice and milk with an unmentionable amount of sugar and a dash of cinnamon, but it is a great Dominican version of a Deathday cake. So that is the basic rundown of how death is handled in the Domincan Republic. But dare you ask the question, ..Why?... Well, here it is believed that only by the effort of those left behind can Pablo..s place in heaven be secured, so you better believe that everybody is going to give it their all. They keep vigil, say the rosary, pray, sing, hold services. And then there is the crying. How do I explain the crying..From the moment a loved one dies, the family and all the members of the elite squad are expected to bawl their eyes out on command until the end of the 9 days of mourning. Not to do so is to be considered a heartless, unfeeling, even Godless creature who just may be possessed by the devil or cursed by some local witch. Even before I had been to a funeral, I had heard stories about men and women who didn..t cry at their loved ones funerals. You don..t want to go there. The family clears out one room of their house to be reserved solely for crying. All of the closest family members stay in the room during the night vigil before the funeral, and it is expected that everyone who comes to pay their respects make their rounds in this room. This duty is one that I would not recommend attempting alone. My friend Pepsi waited outside for over an hour because she couldn..t find anyone to come in with her. The reason that it is best to have a partner is because you need someone to hand off to. When you enter the room, you are confronted with a seemingly unending mass of hysterical men and women all wailing and hurtling themselves at you. If you don't work in pairs, you are liable to get stuck with a mourner, and there is nothing worse than pulling away from the hysteria without giving them someone else to grab on to. Luckily for the second tier mourners, once you go through the hysteria ritual once you are exempt for the rest of the nine days. This is a nice clause in the mourning contract, because it allows the family to get things done. Somehow though, through the hundreds of people that come through the house during these nine days, the family keeps a running tally of those who they have and have not cried with. And any time someone new shows up the elite squad has to drop everything, go to the crying room and really let it loose for all its worth. It looks exhausting. I made the mistake of taking a break during a low time one day in the crying room because that was where the fan was, and before I knew it a whole truck of out-of-town relatives arrived before I could escape to the kitchen. I got stuck in there before I knew what happened, and I just left halfway through the crying circle because I couldn..t do it. I was on the outs with the grandmother for quite awhile for that one. I had to pull the stupid American card, or I don..t think that she ever would have forgiven me. One thing about the crying thing that has been tough for me to reconcile has been how easy it is for these women to turn it off. I understand it, because you can..t run a good funeral and wake if you are hysterically sobbing the entire time, but there is just something peculiar about watching a woman wail her guts out for 5 minutes and then walk out of the room and make jokes with me about how fat I am getting the next second. Something about it just doesn..t ring true, but that is just me. Seriously though, the other day they were having a séance in the back yard and this girl was crying so hysterically she started to have seizures/be possessed by the dead spirit of Pablo. Everyone laid their hands on to help her deal with her possession which lasted the duration of the service. After it was over, she got up and started handing out cups of juice. No one batted an eye.If you would like to get a better idea of what I am talking about, I have uploaded some pictures of the funeral. I have become the town photographer, and the ones where they actually open the casket and lift Pablo up to get the good shot are especially nice. You should take a look. http://www.kodakgallery.com/Slideshow.jsp?Uc=1s2qj9un.7vmk9fiv&Uy=rfxmfa&Upost_signin=Slideshow.jsp%3Fmode%3Dfromshare&Ux=0&mode=fromshare&conn_speed=1

Or, if you would just like to see some of my other recent adventures, check this link out:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/50079515@N00/

New highs, new lows.

Well, I ate ants today. To be fair though, they were boiled. I have been saving this package of Lipton Noodle mix for about two months now, waiting for the right time to break it open. Well, apparently I waited too long. I saw the whole in the package about a month back, and though I knew what that meant, I just ignored it, placed the noodles in a Ziploc and hoped for the best. Now, I am sitting here, eating Pasta Alfredo with Ants. If they are really big, I try to pick them out, but a couple of times I only managed to get half, so I guess in a country where you are always fighting to get protein, it is just best not to over think it. Eww, I just found a grub. Grubs are not okay. I am not to that point yet. I think I might feed the rest of this to my neighbor. He is staring over my shoulder watching me type this, and I find it kind of annoying.That is one thing that is still trying about this whole thing. The little kids just cant get enough of the Gringa. There is a little girl that comes into my house every day (Never asks to come in, by the way. Knocking hasnt reached this country yet. To be fair though, I think doors are a recent addition.) named Carina, and no matter whether I am washing my face, reading, napping, whatever, she just sits and watches me. I am willing to take some of the blame though, because in lieu of a sofa, I installed a very comfortable and very colorful hammock in front corner of my house (were going to call that the living room). It is the closest thing to a swing that these kids have ever seen, so now my living room is the new hangout for anyone under the age of 13 within a 200 yard radius of my house (that constitutes about 15 kids on a regular rotation). And we dont want to disregard friends of these younguns, or the kids that just happen to be walking by on their way to the market. I think that the word is spreading. My neighbor asked me today if I would give him the hammock when I leave because he wants to get married. Apparently it is much harder to get a woman to move in with you if she will have to sleep on the floor. I briefly questioned the possibility of investing in something more substantial (ie: a bed), but that seemed to be a little too much of a commitment. I am entertaining building a rope swing out back just to cut down on the traffic, but we will see how expensive rope is first. One good thing that all of these visitors have brought me though is a new friend. Her name is Carolina, she is 17, and she just got back from visiting her aunt for the summer in Santiago, but now she is living with her Grandmother, my friend Andrea, who is just the cutest little hunchback you ever met. Anyway, she apparently is the president of the youth group of which I had heard rumors, but never actually could pin down the existence of. The group was on hold for the summer until Carolina got back, but I get to go to my first group meeting this evening! I am very excited. I talked to her a little bit last night about starting up a youth girls volleyball team, and she was pretty pumped about it. Apparently they used to have one, but it disbanded a couple of years ago when the captain moved away. There is already a boys baseball and basketball team in the town, and they get to compete against other communities and everything, so it would be nice for the girls to have something to do. Every now and then one of them wants to go running with me, and whenever I go down to the river, I try to teach my neighbor Juri how to swim, but this could be something a little more substantial. I will let you know how it goes. Another not-so-welcome new arrival is Pelu. He is Geronimos new friend, and I can not keep this mangy mutt out of my house. He belongs to Caridad, my neighbor, but he is intent on joining up with Geros set-up, as he seems to have gathered that Geros living situation is superior to his own. I have already had to drag him out from under the kitchen table by the scruff of the neck and literally kick him out of the house 4 times today, and it is only 4 PM. I am expecting at least 3 more of these episodes before I go to bed, more if it keeps raining. For the last three days, I have woken up to find him sleeping on my front porch, waiting for either the door to open or for Gero to come out and play. I wouldnt mind so much, but he has this really long hair, and no one bathes him because he is afraid of water, apparently, so he is covered in fleas, ticks, and mud. I dont think that he is a good influence on Gero, who has only this week started taking daily baths with me in the river. He is a great little swimmer, undeterred by the current, and it keeps him much prettier looking and nicer smelling.Another recent development is that Annelly, one of my English students, is 3 months pregnant. She is 17, but she has been married for 2 years, so everyone says that it is about time they started having kids. I went to her sisters wedding last weekend, too. Angeli is also in my English class, is 15, and is now married to a 25 year old. I am just not used to that being considered normal. Everyone thinks that it is completely absurd that I am not married. Another girl in my English class, Glenny, is my age and has 3 kids. The oldest one is 8. I try and tell them that where I come from it is more common to wait to get married until you are older and have a good job, but that doesnt seem to be sinking in. The fact that my parents were 28 when they got married doesnt seem to convince them that I am not a freak. Not to worry though, everyone is on the lookout for a nice Dominican man for me to marry. I dont think that I will have to wait much longer to reach my full potential as a Dominican baby maker. Mom will be so proud.

Finalmente!

And now for the announcement you have all been waiting forI am moved into my house! Sorry, I forgot to take a picture, because I just got my camera back, but they will be forthcoming, I promise. I have to give the majority of the credit to my sister too though, because she finally broke the cultural barrier and came to visit me! She was here for a week, and it was wonderful. I took her to the beach, made her sit in the back of a most uncomfortable van, ride a motorcycle with a very large backpack on, use a latrine, bathe in the river, and sweat her blonde head off. Everyone in my village really liked her too, which was a mixed blessing. Everyone was ecstatic to meet her, but of course I had to hear how much prettier she is than me, and yet another lecture on how I should let my hair grow out. To be fair though, I think that after moving day in the Dominican heat, my sister was contemplating chopping her hair off too. She didnt speak Spanish much while she was here, but she listened a lot, and surprised people every now and then by responding to something, thus indicating that she knew what they were talking about. The pinnacle of the visit was moving me and supplying me with most of the necessities for sustainable living. She was a trooper and very supportive- though I think her encouragement was mostly fueled by the possibility of being able to sleep on the new bed with the new fan. My bed in my host mothers house was significantly less comfortable with significantly more rats living in the boxspring. I thought that might put her over the edge when we were packing up my room to move too. First, I found 4 rats living in my sweatshirt that I hadnt used and had been hanging on the wall for three months. Next, my host mother killed two of them by stomping on them as they scurried to find another hiding place. And the icing on the cake was the nest of baby rats (I am conservatively guessing over 10) living in the bed itself. I guess that explained the pee smell! Allison stopped entering my room after that, and took on a more supervisory role in the moving process after that. Nevertheless, ever since she has left, the standard greeting around here is Hi Eli, how are you? And your sister? When is she coming back? For some reason they all thought she was coming here to live with me, and cant understand why she isnt here anymore. I am done explaining the $500 plane ticket to them, but they just cannot fathom the concept of living alone. I dont know how they can really call it living alone though, since my walls are made of palm fronds and my two neighbors can talk to me through the walls from their houses without raising their voices, but again, I am tired of explaining that too. Now my main goal is to establish a system of boundaries with the muchachos that have taken up residence in my living room. If the door is open, I have at least 1-2 kids in my house and 2 on the porch in full stare mode, watching my every move. Joel, my next door neighbor, is the worst though. Yesterday I literally had to stand in the door way blocking his entrance for a good 15 minutes before he went away. I have already declared my room off limits, but the rest of the house is fair game, and he has been eyeing my bicycle ever since I moved in. Demasiado intruso, according to the neighbors. But what are you going to do? I still need someone to go fetch me things from the market, right? And I am learning who I can count on for things though, and my three ladies who live around me have really come through for me. Whether it is giving me buckets of water until my gutters get set up, bringing me food every day, holding up the shelves while I nail them to the wall, or inspecting my house before I go to bed to make sure that it is bien seguro, I know that Nelly, Rosita, and Caridad have my back. I like it a lot better too, because I dont feel beholden to them, and I can eat whatever I want. It is a much nicer system. I have already lost 2 pounds too, so that is making me feel better. And to be fair, this is the first time I have lived on my own too, so I am learning a lot. Two days ago I installed my own electricity, which while I dont think I could get a job at General Electric, I was pretty proud of. Leon, my neighbor, strung some wire from the electric pole to my house, and I installed the switches, lights, and a plug! Nothing has caught on fire yet, and while one of the switches is just screwing and unscrewing the lightbulb with a towel, I was pretty proud of myself. I was dubbed electricita by Caridad, and everyone was very impressed. However, the next day I sawed a long plank into shelves and hammered all day long, and eventhough Rosita was helping me, Caridad asked me if perhaps I was half man, half woman? I didnt know what to say to that so I just laughed and called her mala. That seemed to be appropriate. Tomorrow I am experimenting with cement in order to make a shower in my house (read: a small wall of cement blocks in the back corner of the house with a hole in the floor so the water will drain in the back yard, and I can pour buckets of water over myself somewhere besides the latrine and the river), and I cant wait to hear what Caridad has to say about that. Luckily we are in the hurricane season and there is a lot of rain these days, so I can put off putting up the gutters for another week or so. I am also having a stand off with my landlord over the front porch, because it is collecting water, and he doesnt want to put a drainage pipe in. I am withholding $60 until he does it though, so I am hoping that I will win. That is about all from the home front, but just to let you all know, I am planning on coming home in December for 3 weeks, so if you are able, I would love to see you all. Also, the cacao cooperative I am working with has started packaging the organic cocoa they have made and is selling it for $4 a pound, and I will be bringing lots of it home with me, so let me know. I packed it myself.

Almost 2 months at my site!

Well, I havent written in a long time, and I apologize for that. I think that you all were getting spoiled while I was in training though, because, while the amount of free time may have increased, access to the internet has plummeted. On the brighter side, it only costs about $.70 an hour where I live, which is much nicer on my dwindling budget. Now for the update: El Yayal. My opinion of this place changes every day. Today was a good day. My project partner and I certified four of my neighbors farms for organic, and I got to visit all the farms in the area. I felt like I was actually doing something for once, which was a nice change. I spend a lot of days doing very little, so in comparison today was monumental. Tomorrow I have a meeting to plan the budget for a fermentation plot the cooperative is planning to build in my community, so hopefully tomorrow will be a winner too. I havent been working very hard on my diagnostic though, mostly because the idea of walking house-to-house and asking people where their latrine is just doesnt sound appealing. I was supposed to start an English class today, but with the certification going on, I didnt have time to make the copies of the book that everyone is going to use, so we are starting on Thursday. I hope that it works out, because honestly, teaching English is really the only thing that I am qualified to do in this country. I felt a bit like a fish out of water today when people were asking me questions about organic certification criteria, I have to say. So at least I can build a little credibility by doing something I actually know how to do. But enough about work. I am also trying to move houses. I just cant handle living where I am anymore. I have actually gotten used to my house-mother watching bathe and change, but I think that my community partner is a child molester, and he really grosses me out. Unfortunately, I dont think that 45-year-old men groping 15-year-old girls is considered a felony in this country, but that doesnt change the disgust I feel when I am around him. He is an egotistical macho idiot who has no respect for my professional position (nor for any woman, so far as I can tell), and I cant wait to get away from him. I found a house that I can move to that is nowhere near him, and I am hoping to move by the middle of July. I will miss his wife, who is 27 and a good friend of mine, but I think that we will have a better relationship when I am not forced to be in her husbands presence all of the time anyway. Plus, it is becoming almost impossible not to get fat in this country, and I really need to start cooking for myself if I want to limit my oil and carb intake. I feel like a balloon most of the time. I hardly eat anything if I can help it, but it doesnt seem to matter. And for icing on the cake, it is considered a good thing if you are fat here, so people are so proud of the fact that I am gaining weight here that at least 2-3 times a day women come up to me, smack me on the hips, and tell me how fat I am. Mom, I think only you will understand how much this bothers me. I am going to buy a scale and tell these women where they can put their beans and rice. As you can tell, there are a lot of different emotions running through my experience here right now, and I have been trying to temper my mood swings by taking breaks and going to the beach every couple of weeks. There is only so long that one can last talking about the weather and feeling completely uncomfortable all of the time. There is a kite surfing competition in Cabarete this weekend, and there is a volunteer trip to the beach for the 4th of July that I have been looking forward to as well, and it is these beacons in the distance that keep me going. Oh, and Geronimo has developed a fun habit of eating my shoes, so that has been fun too. He is teething of course, so I have sacrificed a number of flip flops, but he is growing pretty fast too, so he is still nice to have around. I think I might bring him kite-surfing this weekend. He is getting neutered soon too, so hopefully that will help. Wish me luck.
PS- If anyone wants to send me a package, here is the list I have been keeping of things that I would like to have. Just if anyone is curious:
1. Sewing kit
2. Spice kit
3. Real Tabasco sauce/good hot sauce
4. Vitamin supplements
5. Emergen-C packets (Vitamin-C powder)
6. Portable alarm clock
7. Witch hazel
8. Blender
9. Repel Lemon and Eucalyptus Insect Repellent (works better than anything I have found)
10. Made brand tank-tops and t-shirts
11. Fat-free mayonnaise
12. Nutella
13. Sugar-free iced tea mix
14. No-Ad SPF 8 Sunscreen
15. Map of the world/map of USA
16. Good new music
17. Granola Bars
18. Luna Bars
19. Good books
20. Doggie chew toys
21. Radio/CD player/Speakers

Happy Independence Day!

So, only two weeks before I can move into my house! I am very excited, and I think that Geronimo and I are going to get some cats to live with to scare the mice away from his dog food. There are just so many bugs where I live, it is oppressive. Cockroaches, flies, mosquitos, ants, mice, lizards- you name it, it tries to eat everything I own. And the whole in my favorite skirt cant have tasted that great. To be fair, Geronimo is trying to keep up his end of the bargain by chewing up all of my shoes, but at least he doesnt have as many diseases as the rats.

In the next two weeks I will be working very hard on my diagnostic presentation that I have to give on July 25-27, so I will be at my site drinking a lot of coffee for the most part. I am just finishing up with a nice 4th of July vacation with a bunch of other volunteers though, so hopefully that will hold me through. We went to a beach on the Haitian border called Bahia de las Aguilas, which is one of the only preserved natural beaches left on the island. There was nothing there, either. We took a boat to the beach, camped in the sand, and roasted chickens over a bonfire. It was really far away, but it was definitely worth it. There were about 50 other volunteers there too, so it was really good to meet some of the older ones. I always love going to Haiti too. There was a market on the border that sold everything under the sun, and of course, I went a little crazy. Allison is coming to visit right after the meeting too, which is going to be really exciting. I dont know what we are going to do yet, but I am hoping that purchasing a gas stove for my house will be on the top of the list. She will be my first visitor, which I am so happy about. I have been gone for 5 months now, can you believe it? So officially, this is the longest I have been away from my family in my whole life. And we still have 22 months left to go! Anyway, sorry that this entry is going to be so short, but I have to get back to my site! I will give you more information later.

Oh, also, I posted more photos, so if you want to see them, click here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/50079515@N00/

Two weeks in...

Well, for those who were attempting to enter the challenging Call Liz event in the Peace Corps Communication Games, I am sorry to say that all the medals have been awarded. In first place by a landslide we have Trimble, with a considerable lead in the time trials, clocking in a full week before the silver medalist, and receiving extra marks with the judges for one failed call attempt and a short preliminary call made while I was out to dinner. A well deserved gold, Trimble. Well done. Connor pulled out a strong second about two weeks ago, with an endurance run in which our conversation lasted almost an hour. You all should also look out for him in the Visitation games starting up in August, because I think he may go for the gold in the friend division, as well as medal overall, competing against the family bracket. An ambitious one, he is. Excellent work, Connor. The bronze was clinched only yesterday by a surprise entry in the Year and Under friend bracket. Dan pulled out a shocking and well deserved 3rd place with an excellent and successful call while he was in Northern VA traffic on the way home from work. I am trying to get him to enter the Visitation games as well, but only time will tell. I am also awarding an honorable mention to Austen in the otherwise uncontested girls division, as she claims an attempted, though ultimately unsuccessful, call. While technically unconfirmed, this alleged call attempt gets extra weight as she is in the final stages of her wedding plans. I appreciate your efforts, girl, and we hope to see you in the V-Games this fall. I have to say that the girls have really fallen behind to a shocking degree, sad to say. I dont how to analyze these results, but I do want everyone to know that there is also a junior division that everyone can enter, and that is instant messaging. 1-809-723-9787, look into it, it works! All kidding around, I really appreciate so much all of you have called me, emailed, written letters, and the couple of packages that I have gotten from the front runners have been wonderful. I realized yesterday after talking to Dan that every little bit of contact I have with my life at home really makes what I am doing here easier to handle. I honestly get very lonely here sometimes, and my Dominican friends are of course nothing like the ones that I left in the States, much less family, so every time I get a connection to home, it rejuvenates me and really gives me a great pickup. Also, being able to talk about what I am doing here makes me realize that while I some days I may never leave the front porch, I am in fact doing something of substance, and it makes the bad days seem less oppressive.

In related news, another thing that has helped me with my transition in my community is the newest addition to the Cairns family, Geronimo. He is about 2 months old with a black head and black and white markings, and he really has given me something to connect to. My neighbors brought him to me from only God knows where, and he is the cutest puppy. Of course, he will most likely grow up to look just like every other street dog here, but I am hoping that with a nutritional diet, he can at least avoid that hollowed look. He is very well behaved for his age- always comes when he calls, tries his hardest not to go to the bathroom during the night, and a very loving temperament. We are going through a chewing phase right now that my tennis shoe laces didnt take very kindly to, and we still have a little problem with crossing the road at inopportune times, but all in all I think that it is going very well. As for my community, it is a slow process, and it can be frustrating at times, but I think that it is coming along. Unfortunately, integrating into a community is a slow process that consists of a lot of similar conversations, a lot of cups of coffee and food I dont want to eat, a considerable number of trips to church (is 4 times a week a lot?), and an impressive amount of time sitting on the porch doing absolutely nothing. I have been here two weeks now, and I am onto my 7th book. Dont worry, none of them were under 200 pages, and the 500-some pages of Jane Eyre, which I caught at a particularly dull period, only took 2 days. So, if my previous paragraph inspired any of you to look into package sending, any particularly good books that you happen to have read recently would be very much appreciated. However, I am trying to remind myself that getting to know your neighbors is really something that you cannot rush, and the dullest part is hopefully behind me. I will be starting to write my community diagnostic next week, which requires that I visit and interview every household in El Yayal, as well as any outlying communities, community groups, organizations, and businesses. It should take up most of my time for the next 2.5 months, during which I will also be looking for my own house to live in, which is an exciting prospect. So when the winners of the fall trials come to call, hopefully you will have your very own rancho to come and stay in. Exciting, I know, but dont hold your breath. Nothing in this country is easy to accomplish; it usually takes forever and the process is completely counterproductive and stupid. But I am getting used to it. And on the bright side, I havent gotten sick yet. That will be a whole other blog.

New Phone Number

There have been some problems getting my phone to work in my site, so my phone number has changed, and it will probably change again in the next month, but until then, you can call me at 1-809-723-9787 and it should supposedly work in my site! I am a little bit skeptical still, but we shall see. CALL ME! Trimble broke the ice and won 1st Place, but 2nd is not too shabby either! I think it isn't that expensive, and nobody likes a loser!

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.