Tarantulas

Hi!

This morning in my room I was moving my yoga mat from the corner and saw the figure of a giant tarantula. I specifically learned the word for tarantula in Spanish for when this day came and I was prepared and went to Mata and calmly said, ‘Cacata en mi habitacion’ and she calmly picked up a machete and took my flashlight and promptly killed it. It was huge – like the size of my palm. I was a little scared of it and I’m definitely glad Mata got it so that I’m not thinking about it in my room hiding. Otherwise it was a beautiful spider and I’m sorry things had to end that way.

It has been a while and that is due to the combination of inconvenience/cost of leaving my site and being busy with the community diagnostic where I interview community members. I’ve been finding myself really wanting to check my email lately though. Trying to keep up with the news is pretty difficult. Michael Jackson’s death randomly popped up on the TV in between telenovelas and that was really weird. Speaking of which I’d just like to say that Michael Jackson will always be one of my favorite artists, and although he had his share of problems that any pressured child star with a messed up Dad seems bound to encounter, I think a lot of people tended to focus on media warped stories instead of how much he did to try to help children across the world. Therefore – I personally have no problem saying I will always be a huge fan of Michael Jackson because I think underneath it all he was a good guy and an amazing musician. The caliber of talent doesn’t exist in today’s market. My site only knows vaguely who MJ was and therefore it feel sorta surreal that he’s passed away.

Speaking of passing away – I’ve decided that Dominicans die all the time because I’ve been to way too many funerals in the last month. A man told me that there is a fundamental difference between Americans and Dominicans and that is their value of life. Dominicans don’t value their lives as much and therefore don’t protect themselves against accidents or harm. There are points to disagree and agree – but I found this to be an interesting viewpoint. By the way Dominican funerals are horrible if I haven’t said that yet. They have several women who just seem to sit and moan, actually more like scream, the whole time. It is like a specific job maybe. The whole funeral event is very different and much more complex than in the US.

So I’ll be getting my own house I hope in about a month and a half now. One of the Donas in the Mafia group offered me her mom’s house which was the only option for a while (my rent would go towards paying for an expensive heart med for the mom but the exchange was the guilt I’d feel for kicking an older lady out of her house of 30 years plus it was not that nice of house and right next to the billard/bar hang out). Then just this week during an interview visit with one of the wealthier community members, her daughter in law Marta told me – ‘Oh Sarah so I’m moving and I live right here and you should rent it’…which was really weird because it was one of the only houses in the community that I thought, well that one would be really nice because it’s private and new (with the downfall that it’s close to a gallera – where legal cockfights happen). I talked to the landlord who isn’t my favorite guy in the community but I told him my price and he agreed so if all works out I’ll have that house in mid august. The price by the way is 800 pesos or just around $30 a month for the whole house. I was paying nearly $500 month to rent half a room in a fairly crappy apt in La Jolla. Yeah. Ha. This yard isn’t giant but it has cacao trees, café plants, a giant wonderful tamarindo tree, guayaba trees, bean trees, a view, and importantly space for my future herb and veggie garden. The house It is basically a square divided in half with one of the halves partitioned into two rooms. Therefore anytime someone wants to visit, I should be able to offer a living room and a guestroom to sleep at least. I like drawing my ideas for what I want to build and how the house will look in my spare time. Ben and I are very similar in this aspect – we were talking about sofa designs recently and it makes me really excited to compare notes. We like making stuff.
A lot of the volunteers went to Samana for the Fourth of July. Speaking of making stuff – I took the Chinola Jam I made and put it in a little Malta India bottle and made a cork using a machete and it turned out fairly cute. The jam is a little too thick for the shape of the bottle but it still worked. I also brought my chocolate for the other volunteers to try. Ben brought his peanut butter and we were both saying how we need to join super powers to defeat the enemy of reeses craving. His peanut butter was delicious.

Otherwise, Samana was ok but I started to feel a little sad there. The beaches were beautiful but something was just off. I didn’t get to say happy birthday to Jimmy and I love being at home for the fourth especially with my friends and family. We were surrounded by some older volunteers who really like to get their party on and I caught myself feeling very disconnected. It doesn’t help having the freshmen feeling of ‘new volunteer’ whenever you are around older volunteers. I have to say that I have felt much more awkward around American volunteers than around the Dominicans. I got to play music with Mica again this weekend which I was really looking forward to but I felt like I came off too eager and then just felt like that awk new person again haha. I have good reason to be eager though because it is just absolutely wonderful to play music with anyone que sabe, let alone someone who likes the same type of music, plus Mica is just cool and I feel like I’m playing with Patty Griffin. It took me coming to DR to find that so I have a hard time hiding being stoked. I also was a little sad because Jean and I didn’t get to talk much which sucked. In summary, although it was a pretty place, I felt a bit jipped after Samana in a few ways. I left unfortunately a bit sunburned (I did put on the block), my wallet felt a lot lighter, and generally I was really sleepy and wanting to return to my site! Your site is like a safe haven because it’s what you know and it’s nice to have that. I am looking forward to going to Samana with my family though because now I know the area and I have a friend who lives next to the giant waterfall in El Limon that I want to check out.

My English class is going well – the average on the test was 86% before about 6 kids who avoided the test like the plague came in 4-5 days late and brought that down to something I haven’t calculated yet. The majority know their colors and numbers and basic greetings which I’m jumping for joy about considering how difficult they are to settle down. I’m going to end the beginner class at the end of July and the print their certificates in the capital and have a little graduation ceremony with just the kids in August. I’m thinking about making cookies for them too with the chocolate and jam since that worked out dandy. In terms of the basketball court – I got permission from the owner to use the chunk of land for the court and am currently working out sewing the net (With an old fashioned petal Singer Machine mom!) out of rice sack string and a giant tarp and bottle caps. Otherwise it’s going to be a longer process getting the money for a real court. I told the junto de vecinos club to put up temporary backboards so the community isn’t restless. The kids just have absolutely nothing to do in the summer so I don’t see why we shouldn’t put up temporary hoop right away while I search for funding over the next 6 months. My agenda is basically finish up the useless community interviews (which are all giving me no new information really at this point) and my English class, go to 3 month In Service Training and present diagnostic, settle into house and furnish it while starting gardens, and then start up second English class while looking for grant money for court and aqueduct money. It hasn’t really rained here for over a week and it’s bad. The people have to walk a long way to these spread out wells to carry buckets of water back to their house. Therefore if I can help them get money for any project I’d say the aqueduct is the highest need and the community tends to agree.

There are two sweet little waterfalls near my site. I’d say less than an hour walk. Mark visited and I went with some of my kid friends and it was great. One has a giant tree trunk ladder you jump off of and the other is a ravine you walk through for a bit which is gorgeous and you come upon a small waterfall and swimming hole. It has been so ridiculously hot here that I was thinking about doing it again soon. If you come visit I’ll show you the Indian caves and the little waterfalls!

Ok – so I’m off to Castillo manana to buy a new cell phone charger (somebody took mine! What a jerk thing to take!), to check my email, to buy PVC ¾’’ pipe for my nearly completed shower hand pump, and also to check pricing for planks of wood in the hardware stores and see how much they want to rip me off.

Happy Birthday to Lea! Sorry I wasn’t able to say it sooner.
Miss you!
Love,
Sarah