Poncherita.

Hey everyone!
Sorry again for the delay in my responses. My computer unfortunately flashed the blue screen of death and I thought it was no longer functioning for the last month – but thanks to the wonderful being I solely know as Tri (ICT PC Volunteer Leader) who fixed it I am now able to send this note! That was much needed great news this week.

I am now back in Santo Domingo with Dona Roma after a month in La Cumbre hanging out with wonderful people and leaving feeling like I have made real friends in this country – Dominicans and Volunteers both. There is no way I am going to convey everything in this post but I’ll cover the key points. I have a lot of new stories about my homestay experience in La Cumbre involving my Dona going thru possibly a mid life crisis, hours of my homestay dad playing the guira and merengue tipico starting at 7 in the morning and also his lecture relating global warming to Earthquakes, animal fun, and most memorable was the poor grandmother who was ill and lived in the back house but provided me with some very awkward moments. The best part about this is that there is really no word for awkward in Spanish besides uncomfortable, strange. I find this to be very funny because I feel as a PC trainee, it is one of the most essential words you need to learn. I danced a lot, explored, had amazing coffee - yep I’m addicted again – made cheese, music, hackey sacks, helped build some biosand water filters and a ceramic cook stove, spent a lot of time visiting wonderful Donas and friends… and also picked up quite a doozy of a bathroom story that I will hold in to my heart forever and always. I call that story Poncherita and I’ll save that one for in person if you have a strong constitution.

They delivered my notes and birthday packages during a charla about a week ago. I felt super loved because I got a lot of mail (Leeann and I got the most). It is like a warm shower when you get a package of treats. Thank you soo much again to Mom, Nana and Grandpa, Toby, Vanessa, Sanders, Aunt Donna and Meg, Aunt Flo Flo, Tyler and Erika!! The mail gets all collected and delivered at once so some of you have written me that things are on their way and I´ll write to confirm I´ve got them. It is wonderful to hear updates from back home (I´m saving them all) and Reeses Peanut Butter cups, Organic Fair Trade Dark Chocolate bars, and Yerba Tea have reached a new level of amazing to me. Post cards too!

We definitely kept busy in training. My training projects last week were teaching our barrio kids about how to build an abonera (compost pile) and how to maintain it. Ben and I worked together on this at Arturo´s conuco. Arturo is in the La Cumbre song and he is Ben’s sidekick. The La Cumbre song is apparently a hit! It was soooo wonderful to be walking down the street the other day behind two students I’ve never met humming it! Alot of the kids know it now at the school because apparently chisme and our Dominican hit singles spread like wildfire. Ben and I also wrote an Earthday song called ‘El poder es tuyo’ which is pretty much made of cheese and hippi but it was fun too. It´s about how you shouldn´t throw trash in the streets and take care of your land...it ties in a sense of nationalism which is very effective here. I am having a great time writing and playing music here. Ben was saying that it’d be a good project to make a CD by the end of service with Dominican songs to give to Brigada Verde Youth group leaders to play during their sessions and I think it is a good idea.

We presented for a very small school called ´Las Hermanas Mirabal´ which I´m sure some of you have heard about (revolutionaries during the time of Trujillo that were killed right here in La Cumbre on the Carretera Tamboril – we´ve visited the spot and the monument there). Anyways, the school is very different from what we´re used to in the US. There are no places for the kids to play, there are very few visual aids, the kids all wear uniforms but that´s about the only order in the whole place (kids talk over the teacher and are running in and out of the class and it´s really chaotic). They were really excited for us to come though. We did a poster competition and then a talk on Trash reduction and management incorporating a trash pickup, session on how to compost, and arts and crafts out of recycled materials. Then we painted a large blank wall of the school in a DR Geography mural which we had the kids work on. There are a lot of Dominicans who don’t know very much about geography and we decided on the country map of provinces. It looked great until we realized the only varnish our director had given us was meant to go on boats or metal. Now it looks slightly dirty and sneezed on but then we thought that went fluidly with Peace Corps style. It still gives the school some color and helps the kids learn geography – the kids are proud and looking at it and that’s the whole point.

I’m going to be negative Nancy for the next section because that is a part of life too – I was disappointed with the closing activities with training because they had built them up like we were going to have a lot of fun snorkeling, caving and beach camping. That turned into seeing no fish in the rainy/choppy conditions and almost capsizing the boat as a result of poor choice of guide, getting left behind and almost lost in a cave as a result of poor choice of guide (all while having another bathroom story), and finally having our beach camping actually take place on the rocky driveway of one of the guides houses who had a large number of pigs, dogs, and roosters on the same property. Haha, yeah. I also noticed our program’s hypocritical tendencies of excessive waste production and roundabout conversations regarding the work with Solid Waste Management that we really need to be addressing. It is in my opinion a most basic problem and yet the biggest problem in terms of environmental issues in the Dominican Republic. Although I think I’d like to work on Agriculture projects – I feel like all of the volunteers would be utilizing their time in a much more productive manner for the next two years if we all combined together to work on a solid waste management system and campaign. I am frustrated that we’re taught to teach kids to throw away trash into a garbage can when that garbage can won’t even be collected because there is no collection system reaching them. I believe I have a group of very resourceful, experienced and intelligent fellow trainees and volunteers to work with for the next few years so I have a feeling I’ll be using them and contacts back home for real projects.

Jean and Mark left me a note this morning telling me they got sucked into a religious retreat with their homestay families. I feel bad for them and yet wish they would have put their foot down because the gringos only have a few more days to hang out…but I hope they are having one hell of an evangelical party.

Here is my wish list in order of priority as of this exact moment
1) To find out that I’m going to an awesome site in the North
2) To speak Spanish
3) My kitty cat
4) To somehow stop my stomach from deciding to throw a revolution during the most inopportune moments (such as hiking or caving or anytime there is an unsightly latrine as the only option).
5) Mail from friends and family (Still haven’t gotten yours Bay or Lea but I’m hoping).
6) To do yoga today. Also to see Jean and Mark and Kiri.
7) New pants.
8) Peanut Butter.


Ok that’s the update! Thanks for reading and wish me luck for this upcoming week when I find out my site placement. Cuidense.
Love,
Sarah