Life in the DR - Little Video

Merry Christmas!

Here is a little video for those of you that would like to see what it looks like around my house and site. It is a shorter version of a video I made for my Nana for Christmas. That being said it is still quite long and hopefully not boring.

Take me home Campo Roads

Amanda, Jean, Sarah and Claire performing at Thanksgiving 2010

Click here for Music Video

Thanks Amanda for video and lyrics and writing the song.




I'm currently stateside visiting with my Nana for Christmas time! Outside is snow and I'm being treated like a fairy princess. Hope friends in DR are doing well and wishing you all a very Merry Christmas, (Especially them ladies and doggies in Imbert).
Love,
Sarah

Thankful

A collection of what I said I am thankful for at Peace Corps Thanksgiving
A different response to every person that asked me

Migratory Song Birds
The peace early morning brings
The opportunities I now see I have
The friends and family that continually support me
Phone calls and letters from home
The sun
Life
Hope

Also Turkey



I will post pics of the desserts our teams made soon. Be well!

Jessica Wall defeats mosquito. In other news: Cholera, TS Tomas, and bamboo barstools

Buenas,

Ok so here we are yet again where I am way behind updating the blog. In recent news my good friend and former co-worker Jessica Wall came out to visit me for a few lovely days that started out with a Cholera prevention training and ended with a hurricane scare. In between were many a peaceful pina colada. She amazingly managed to avoid getting eaten alive by bugs – very impressive J. Here is the requisite waterfall shot. She posted some great ones on her facebook, check it out if you like.

Volunteers were pulled into the capital to do a cholera training due to its presence in neighboring Haiti. My main concern at the moment is my community being that I am already working on sanitation and water projects – I don’t want to see my friends getting this. My AIDS course is finishing up and I’m thinking that my students will start giving Cholera prevention charlas or educational talks to the Mother’s clubs and also the church congregation. We have a little Clinic in our site built by former volunteers, but it unfortunately like the country is not prepared to deal with an epidemic. In relative terms, from what I've heard, Haiti is much less equipped and seems to get hit harder with everything. TS Tomas, Cholera, and still recovering from the Earthquake....a friend of mine working in Haiti right now put it well - 'It's a mess'. On this note - as a current PCV I have no affiliation with this link dealing with Haiti's political elections and was simply shown this by a group of Returned volunteers that are passing this info along (http://bit.ly/haitielection).

The tropical storm barely hit the DR, although I do have to say that it was pretty exciting in my house thinking my tin roof would blow off with mild winds (It didn't and I'm totally fine). You go through a lot of different feelings in a two year time span in another culture - but the storm made actually made me feel a bit fake and torn. You can go from feeling part of the community, a vecina, intergrated - and within a second you can receive a text message that turns you into a fragile Americana saying you need to go to a delux hotel while the storm passes. It's like survivorman really - like I have this emergency escape button that I really don't have the mental struggle...if it gets real bad they pull me out. I understand, they have to. Yet I have my Dominican friends in my site that I just leave there saying, be back after the hard part, 'cuidense mucho, oiste?!' 'What's that Judas? Oh yes, we'll take great care - bring us something back Sarah.' I understand there is nothing I can do about it logically but nonetheless - yes it sucks. That being said I was almost consolidated in the Capital but managed to make it back to my site after dropping J off (which was in the standfast region since we weren't in too much of a danger zone) and hung out with Bija and Rosa for a windy few days. Most of the volunteers were consolidated but nothing really happened. Furthermore, I do not want a hurricane and think it is pretty demented that some volunteers do merely to be consolidated in fancy hotels without any regard to the well being of their Dominican counterparts. That my friend is selfish. Yes I said it.

Ok there is the rant of the day. Here are some photos of the Brigada Verde Conference East that I took my two kids (Orlando and Robercy) to check out. They are great kids and although we don't have a formal BV environmental group we are playing with the idea. They are part of my Aids course (Escojo). The conference was in Sabana de la Mar and it was BEAUTIFUL. We went to Parque los Haitises and it was generally epic. I took them specifically to try and get them pumped about avian conservation being that my site is located between two reserves and we get a lot of migratory songbirds that unfortunately the kids kill for fun. Orlando and Robercy, being guys and older, can help with this problem.

Lastly, my latest invento: a bamboo barstool with a Bija model. Hope all is very well and thanks for reading!

Love,

Sarah

Me, Alanna, Leeann, and Mark - PCVs














Orlando on his first boat ride.













Jovenes at the BV youth conference - caving.



















A beautiful Mr. Bija modeling his new bar stool.

Juan died

El Firme’s big news for the last 9 days has been the unexpected death of my Landlord. I had written a negative blog about him but all said and done the finality that death brings is an odd feeling. He was in his late 40’s and drank too much and didn’t take care of himself. He had a few trips to the hospital and then I’m in the middle of building a latrine and find out that he had died. It was really fast and unexpected. Another great reason to live life to the fullest every day.

I have gone to many funerals here but this was the first person I really knew and interacted with that has passed away. The funeral process last nine days, called the novena, with the first and last being the most important to attend. People wear black and white or specific other colors to demonstrate their relationship to the deceased. Dominican kids are taught that you should cry and moan to show your sadness and it will help you get through it I was recently told. I have been asked many times if I cry and I tell them I try not to in public, and they wonder why that is. I hear myself trying to explain why that is but even I think it’s overall sort of ridiculous of me. I think that 4 year olds are emotionally evolved. When they are mad, they are mad. When they are sad, they are sad. Life is that simple. Somewhere along the line maybe we worry about appearance or impression and get emotionally constipated and can’t figure out what or why we feel things.

Juan’s wife Mica has been a good friend to me since I arrived in my site. She has participated in many of my events and is a main component in the success of the reusable bag competition. She also dealt with her husband hitting on countless women who came through the colmado as the culture here unfortunately generally permits with no second thought. At the funeral, Mica was mourning as she was expected to do. She will be the only one that will really ever know what she thinks about the whole matter.

The whole community depends on their store for their main daily purchases and without Juan in the community it has affected a lot of people’s daily routines. Finding a reliable source of a few veggies is now even harder. I disliked Juan but had learned how to deal with him simply because I had to but his death leaves the whole community with a strange feeling of finality and a lot of questions.

La luz llego

Great news: I have electricity again. The transformer in my neighborhood blew up 6 months ago and after doing everything I could think of and losing faith that I’d ever drink cold water at my house again, miraculously I hear the sweet hum of my mini fridge.

Living here tests me in ways I never would have imagined and an experience allowing me to live without electricity for this amount of time has produced a few unexpected outcomes. Without being able to refrigerate my food, I ate at my friend Rosa’s house much more often and consequently during lunch time formed my closest friendship with a very young 74 year old Dona. My Spanish is better after spending this time with her and venturing into conversations about the meaning of life, food, and local gossip. I found myself looking forward to these meetings to discuss my projects and voice frustrations/seek advice. Along with eliminating any possible distraction my computer and cell phone could provide, this attributed to feeling more productive in my site. I planned events and meetings to keep me busy. I visited people more while charging my cell phone at their houses. I read books I’ve always wanted to read but never had time to. I played music and sang, loudly. I got really good at eating everything I cooked the same day. I feel asleep at 9 and woke up at 6, a schedule I much prefer after the insanity of college hours.
Then there is the negative. I have lost trust in people. I am skeptical. I am angry. I see corruption. I see good people who aren’t being helped, who have just come to accept that is life – Jean told me the other day, Sarah you are being so Dominican about this….the fatalism I had developed regarding the situation. I did everything I could and I just wouldn’t have electricity again. The plethora of lies. A light company that strings its clientele along and breaks their end of the contract over and over again. Jose, the not much better than a con artist who took our money and appeared to be on the run for a month then tried to hike up the price when he finally brought us the promised transformer a month later. Jerkface. Wasted phone cards with more lies. The frustration dealing with uneducated neighbors and the impossibility to get them to care and unite to take care about a very basic issue, let alone my projects. The hope that would grow repeatedly into a strong rooted weed to only be pulled up and composted after every rain of lies beat down on us. Hah.
It was rough.

Now I am here, 11:30 at night typing on my laptop after just having an hour long phone call, both light bulbs turned on and yes I am listening to that sweet hum of my fridge. Yet, a bittersweet hum. I don’t like that I am connected to this grid and all that it really means to me now. I wish more than anything I could have gotten enough solar panels without thinking how expensive they are and how they would be instantly stolen to run my lightbulb and little fridge so Bija’s wet food wouldn’t be an issue. Still, I’ve learned that I can be happy and feel productive without any luz. Granted I recognize its need for development but also the addiction and absolute panic most feel without it once accustomed to it. Before coming here, a light out was sort of a big deal. Where else could I ever have gone without electricity for so long, (realistically although I respect his ideas, I’m never going to be the guy from into the wild)? I couldn’t more strongly agree now after this experience that what really is needed is a developed independence to be able to take care of your own basic needs and realize you can get used to most anything and still be ok. The definition of basic would greatly differ between a Dominican Dona and an American housewife. Will it still differ for me once I wake up from the campo? Don’t get me wrong, I love having this little fridge back again and not having to walk to the colmado fridge where I was storing Gatorade bottles of filtered water – but there is definitely something in the nights illuminated solely by fireflies and candle lights that provoke the wonder.

Toby Hammer does the DR. In other news - Escojo mi Vida and bugs.

Mr. Toby Hammer came for a lovely visit before he goes out to Panama to research leaf cutter ants. Here are some pics.

PCV Alanna and Toby helping me with the World Map Mural. THANKS!

Toby teaching kids how to use condoms with my Escojo group. Escojo mi Vida is an HIV awareness and family planning course. That is a platano. No shame, fighting AIDS.

PCV Eva also made a special visit up to my site with her Escojo group to teach the Reproductive System.

Beetles and Japanese Cukes.

Ominous rainclouds.