I live on a chocolate farm.

Hi!

I am sitting in my room at Dona Roma’s house spooning the peanut butter that I just bought from La Sirena and the plastic cup of chocolate sauce (THAT I MADE!) into my mouth. My parents along with Peanut butter and chocolate give me faith in lasting relationships.

So yes I have my site!! I live in a ‘campo campo’ apparently outside of the little town of Castillo in the Duarte Province. From my experience so far, you take a singular windy very rocky road up to my community and it basically consists of this same singular road that takes you through some fairly lush tropical forest with lots of tiny houses, a school house, a church, and several colmados. You will also find fields of horses grazing and tons of cacao trees. Yes, I get to say that I live on a chocolate farm basically. Yes, that is really cool.

My experience upon arrival was really quite something. I met my project partners (Elizabeth 25, and Richard 21) who are both very nice and want to be involved and help but seem a little muddled when it comes to what Peace Corps is and what their role should actually be. I am also muddled about this though so I’m pretty sure it’ll work itself out with time because I already have ideas of projects that these kids can help me implement. Anyways – upon arrival….I got into a truck with my partners and head off to my site. They are trying to talk to me and I am realizing that I’m having a really hard time understanding them because of how quickly they are speaking and their Cibaoeno accent. We drop off a vegetable delivery on the way and the driver is a little insane to put it lightly, but we finally reach my homestay house where about 20-30 community members are waiting on the front porch with a big banner saying ‘Sea beinbenida a este hogar y a nuestra comunidad’ and a little guy playing the guitar and them all singing a welcome song to me! I cried a little because of how overwhelming it was but then ended up explaining that my Spanish isn’t that great but I want to thank them for the welcome and then started playing guitar for them because I’ve found that goes over very well with Dominicans when you have nothing left to say. Haha. I met a bunch of people and didn’t even realize when I met my homestay mom who is named Mata (nickname for Mathilda). She is a skinny quirkly little lady with really long dyed black hair (much longer that mom’s) but she very well could be one of my distant aunts. The whole family VERY much so reminds me of how my Mom describes her childhood with her family and especially uncles in Lake Charles Louisiana since I am basically living on a little farm. All of the neighbors work together as a unit, as a family, to survive. They kept gesturing to their arm running their finger down it and I figured out shortly this meant that the person they were referring to is like family – ie the blood in their veins is the same.

My house is basically one of the nicer houses in my little community. Everyone hangs out there and there are always people in the kitchen area talking really fast and joking around – I can’t wait until I start understanding these jokes. There are lots of old farmer guys who are the most difficult to understand, probably even in English, but are super nice and comical – they love playing little tricks on each other and slapping each other’s caps around. My house consists of the main house where my room is, which is very small but has a nice sized bed, mosquito net, small dresser and little table with a really tiny window. Mata and Chiche (my homestay dad who is a nice guy and can be playful but I think is generally stressed out about getting chores done and is sort of serious) and Chichi (serious brother, just like his dad, who is 19) all sleep in the main house also so there are three rooms all together. They also have a little place to put their motorbike and a little living room area where they put 4 fold up chairs and a table and have the TV. Then there is a separate building for the kitchen which has a table, little stove, a nice sink with tiled surface although no running water, and basically is my favorite part of the house because it is very homey. People come from all over the village and sit in the kitchen and hang out. Then you have the outside shack where chickens, dogs, and the little kitten Mauricio wander in and out of. This area also houses the fogon which is the outside wood stove commonly found in the campo but unfortunately is an aspect volunteers are trying to change since fogons contribute to deforestation problems. Then there are the pigs that live behind this (don’t make swine flu comments – peace corps will if needed). Then there are the rainwater tanks where we collect rainwater for all water purposes besides drinking and finally the outside bathroom which has a toilet actually but you have to put water in it to flush. There is also a dark little shower stall where you bathe with rainwater and a bucket! It is actually not that bad and sorta cool I think. There are also little gardens around the house where they are growing tomato plants, lechosa trees, oregano, aji (peppers) and juandules. Around the area you can find Mango trees, cherry trees, pear trees, zapote, tomatos, name, aguacate, and seriously a ton of stuff. It is soooo cool because basically all of what I’m eating comes directly from right around me and is organically grown (there is a chorus of bioindicating frogs in my backyard so that is good news). I immediately told Mata what I could and couldn’t eat and she didn’t seem to have any problem with the no red meat idea but I did see the process of chicken preparation from start to finish. I do know that these chickens are free range and live quite well in comparison to US CAFO birds but I’m not going to say it’s easy to see the process. I was explaining this and another story about how badly Dominicans treat domestic animals to Jean (who lives in the Santiago Region now in a sweet spot also) when she came to visit me today and she made an interesting comment – She had noticed the same thing and noted that Americans come in here and are all compassionate for domestic animals when behind the scenes we do much worse with our livestock. It’s the reverse for Dominicans. They treat their domestic animals very badly by American standards but have ‘freerange’ livestock. I am not saying I think that is better by any means….just at least out in the open. I had a couple of really hard encounters with animal treatment so far and I hope that my strong reactions will teach the kids that I don’t like seeing that and hopefully it will have a sustainable impact. That’s all you can hope for.

Onto the fun part. I got to make my own chocolate as I said earlier. Thanks to Reedly I now know that Chocolate tree, Theobroma, is a member of the Malvaceae family which is the same family as hibiscus. That was for you Lea. I will tell you the process: So you take the fruit pod (which is yellow and sort of looks squash like) from the tree and take out all the seeds and they are whitish and liquidy and goopy. Then you put them in a sack and let them ferment for about 9 days. Then you take them out and dry them in the sun in a really large tray like contraption with a sliding roof. Then you take the seeds out of this and toast them in a frying pan until nice and dark brown and they smell like chocolate and then you take off the seed coat called the cascara. Then you put these in a pilon and you mash them up really good and hard until you start seeing the grasa and the whole thing is a creamy texture. Then you take the chocolate and roll it into a little ball and put it in a banana leaf and at this point let it dry and then can grate it into your coffee before you brew it or make hot chocolate. I decided that I wanted to take it a step further and make a fine chocolate sauce or bar so I came back to the city and bought a really fine strainer. I took my cocoa ball and cut it up, added milk, sugar, and vanilla, and then brought it to a boil and strained it into cups to make a mold in the freezer. They are currently freezing and I’ll see if it works and then I’ll start my chocolate factory and Willy Wonka will have nothing on me. Except for little orange men and lickable wallpaper maybe.

My family also makes café which I’m excited to try and make when I return next week after graduation. I live relatively close to Mark and Leeann which I’m excited about! Leeann lives with a family that also is in a Cacao area but also makes CHEESE. I will definitely be visiting her since I loved the Cheese in La Cumbre. Ben lives to the South West of the country and his area makes Peanut Butter. We are all already talking about our upcoming visits to different regions to barter goods.

In terms of my project ideas so far at my site it’s basically a giant drawing board since I am orienting myself but from just the first week the ideas of helping some of the farmers who are involved with the Cacao cooperative be certified organic/fair trade is a potential project that I talked briefly with another business volunteer about. That’d be sweet somehow if I could be in touch with Toby and Jess Wall to see if I could somehow set up Perks with a Dom Rep fair trade chocolate delivery from my community. Also setting up a trash collection system and constructing own trashcans, working with the school in various ways including a community garden, brigade verde youth groups, English classes, music classes, reusable cup and bag campaign for the colmados, hackey sacks out of reusable biodegradable materials, maybe solar stove projects being that I prefer them to the ceramic stoves that still use wood, and also trying to set up a cancha or field for the kids to play baseball since they currently have nowhere to play (although this may be tricky since all the land is uneven and hilly as well as costly). They also have asked me to help them raise money to finish an aqueduct project that they started out and are well on their way with. The community seems very motivated to improve their situation which is great news and they have groups that meet regularly. They just need resources which I hope that I will be able to learn about and connect them to. I am definitely excited with the potential but am realistic with the situation given that my Spanish is minimal and I’m brand new. They tell you a lot that you need to be flexible and patient and this makes a lot of sense.

Other than that I rode back home with Mark and Leeann today to the capital and hung out with Dona Roma and Jean visited and we swapped stories. Then Bay and my parents called and that was wonderful to hear from friends and family since I have my new cell phone! If you want my number please send me an email. The cell phone reception at my site is not that good but you can leave me a message and I stand in my window to get it! I can’t call out but can receive incoming calls for free along with texts I’ve been told. We apparently have a test today and then graduate on Weds! I’m sad to leave Dona Roma but I’m hoping she’ll let me visit whenever I want – I’m going to get her flowers when I do leave since she has been so wonderful to me.

I have to travel an hour of site to get internet so once I’m settled for real after this week the updates will calm down for a good while probably. Ok I should sleep! That’s all for now. Hope all is well and to talk to you soon!