Here are a few pictures that give you a glimpse into our daily lives.
I’ve found it difficult to update since we’re back from vacation. Part of that difficulty is to be blamed on a pair of ladrones who managed to swipe my laptop and other electronics. I was on a carro publico, squeezed in the front with the driver and another unsavory passenger, when the driver asked me to adjust his mirror. He kept shouting that I was not adjusting the mirror right, saying that the gringo didn’t understand while in turn I was yelling at him that yes, I did understand and in fact the confusion was his fault because he clearly didn’t know up from down. Meanwhile his clever-fingered friend was talented enough to get a zipper open on my backpack and amidst the yelling confusion he nicked my laptop. I of course didn’t realize it until later when I opened my bag to get something and realized my computer was missing. After thinking carefully over the previous trip it became obvious that the only place I could have been robbed unawares was in the carro publico.
Yes it was partly my fault. I should have been more careful. Hindsight has 20/20 vision. I’ve been living here a year now and in my campo things are really much more tranquilo. I think if someone robbed me there my neighbors would find out who it was and tar-and-feather them. So I guess I have been too lax in the capital. Thankfully I have insurance so I mostly just lost some photos and various work-related documents.
Thanks to insurance I now have a new computer so I will again be able write updates at home. I didn’t have much internet access this past month and most of my internet time was used up on work-related business.
Our latrine projects are moving forward. We spent a lot of time these past two months in visiting homes, deciding exactly which homes have the greatest need for bathrooms, and getting everything set up so that we’ll be ready to actually officially start soon. We bought materials last week and construction on the first bathrooms is slated to begin the first week in April. I’ll keep you updated.
Last week I organized a tree-planting activity. Along with the school-kids and a neighbor guy we planted about 40 trees around the cisterns of the aqueduct system. The previous week community members had fenced in the cisterns to keep out nosy cows that wander through the pasture and these trees will eventually help shade the cisterns to keep the water cooler.
I took two young boys from my community to a weekend Brigada Verde conference in the beginning of March that was held at a conference center in the south. I gave a talk on deforestation so as part of my class I carried along some tamarind trees and another volunteer brought along a cherry tree, a mango tree, and an avocado tree so as part of learning about the importance of trees the kids actually got to plant trees at. Hopefully future kids at the center get to enjoy the fruit from the trees.
We finally got a saddle for our horse Lucero, affectionately known as Luci. I haven’t ridden her very much. I’m still learning how to ride as I’ve hardly ever ridden before but Anna spends a fair amount of time with her.
As you may know cockfighting is a major sport here in the DR. A cockfighting ring is called a gallera. This is where the parties happen. In my community cockfights are held most Sunday afternoons and it often is as much a part of the day as going to church. It’s where the guys get together to drink a little Dominican rum and roughhouse around betting money on crazy roosters while the ladies hang out gossiping. For some reason they pluck all the feathers off of the fighting roosters’ legs and thighs. I asked my neighbor why and he said that it makes them más fuerte, stronger. I’m pretty sure that it just desensitizes them to pain on the lower part of their body. Another neighbor boy has a fighting cock that has developed a taste for beer. Sometimes on the way to the gallera he stops for a beer and when he does the rooster that he’s holding will drink beer directly out of the same plastic cup that he’s using. Apparently this isn’t all that uncommon. Another neighbor told me that immediately before or after a fight he will often let his rooster take a few sips of rum to really boost its energy. Many men also give their fighting cocks some sort of energy pill (I don’t know what the ingredients are) about an hour before a fight so that their rooster is more aggressive and stronger in the fight. A lot of money is bet on these cockfights. In my rural community I’ve heard that people sometimes bet up to 1,000 pesos($26)on one fight. I know one young guy who is saving up his winnings to buy a motorcycle. At the galleras in the bigger towns hardly anyone bothers with 1,000 peso bets. I know my neighbor kids go to watch the high-tension cockfights in neighboring towns where you supposedly have to pay 25-100 pesos just to get into the gallera. The sizes of the bets there make their eyes bulge. They have reportedly seen bets of over 50,000 pesos (about $1,322) placed on a single cockfight. For obvious reasons tensions are usually simmering in the alcohol-soaked air of the galleras. Just last month a young twenty-something Dominican was killed in a machete fight at a neighboring community’s gallera. Two days ago in a jeep coming down off the mountain I heard about another guy who was killed in pistol fight at a local gallera. I have yet to go to a cockfight and hopefully I’ll never go. Cockfighting is clearly a mistreatment of animals and I’ve met various Dominicans who don’t raise fighting cocks because they just don’t like the bloodiness of it all. But they are in the minority. Cockfighting has been and continues to be a huge part of many Hispanic cultures. Obviously many people find the strong mix of blood-stained roosters, dusty shout-filled air, seemingly endless alcohol, and gambling to be an irresistible and heady combination. So unfortunately for the roosters involved it doesn’t seem likely that cockfighting is about to die out anytime soon.
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Friday, February 11, 2011
. . . and the fun begins
We’re back in the mountains. We got back from Philadelphia the night of the 31st and took an early bus from Santo Domingo the following morning. Although I had an amazing time in the states it’s wonderful to be back again. Schnickelfritz had moved in with the neighbors and seemed rather confused for the first 30 minutes after I brought him back home but within the hour he was all cuddles and purrs.
Our vacation was sublime. We send a big thank-you hug to everyone who made the trip possible! We ate tons of cheese of course. A lot of days I didn’t even eat a regular meal. I just snacked on the things that I rarely get here like good cheese, apples, pretzels, grapes, and apple cider, just to name a few. We ate so well that even I, notoriously difficult that it may be, gained a few pounds. Eighteen days of catching up with friends and family and eating all the things I’d fantasized about for so many months was nothing short of a winter paradise. And to top it all off we were gifted quite a valuable pile of Clif and Luna bars. They really are the equivalent of Peace Corps gold, so thank you!
In other news, we finally found a horse. We’re still working on a name; I’ll update you on that once we get to know her better. She’s not very big and has a rather mulish-looking face but she’s super tame and has a very smooth trot. Like most Dominican campo horses she’s rather desensitized. To make her step sideways you can’t just tap one of her hindquarters, you have to give her a good shove. Also, unlike every horsey book you’ve ever read, she doesn’t want to eat treats out of your hand. So far Anna has tried sugar, a carrot, and a handful of grass but she wants nothing to do with it. She eats weeds and that’s it. It’s clear that no one has ever tried to hand-feed her before. So Anna is working her horse charms. Pictures are on the way.
One of the hens that likes to hang around our house showed up the other day with eight peeping chicks. After two of the chicks disappeared we decided we’d better cage up the hen so that the chicks are safer. I caught her and put her in a large mesh cage which allows the chicks to slip through the cage and peck around in the immediate area. When they wander too far the hen clucks them back. Often when a hen is loose she wanders around too far too fast and chicks get lost or a hawk gets one. So now they are (hopefully) safe under the mango tree. We’ll probably let the mother range free in a week or two. We feed them pancakes and cracked corn kernels while they cheep-cheep-cheep all around our house. Fritz has taken an interest in them, but so far I’ve always chased him away before he pounced. He thinks that he can attack all moving things smaller than himself.
We've finally received some grant money! We've been waiting for months for this so we're pretty ecstatic. We got a small grant to start off our latrine project while we wait for more latrine funds. We also received funds to build improved cookstoves. My community is also working on building their own landfill to properly dispose of inorganic waste and I received grant money for art supplies so that the youth of the community can help put up posters and signs that will visually educate others about this (and other) environmental projects. In other words we'll be pretty busy for awhile. I'll keep you updated.
-paz
Our vacation was sublime. We send a big thank-you hug to everyone who made the trip possible! We ate tons of cheese of course. A lot of days I didn’t even eat a regular meal. I just snacked on the things that I rarely get here like good cheese, apples, pretzels, grapes, and apple cider, just to name a few. We ate so well that even I, notoriously difficult that it may be, gained a few pounds. Eighteen days of catching up with friends and family and eating all the things I’d fantasized about for so many months was nothing short of a winter paradise. And to top it all off we were gifted quite a valuable pile of Clif and Luna bars. They really are the equivalent of Peace Corps gold, so thank you!
In other news, we finally found a horse. We’re still working on a name; I’ll update you on that once we get to know her better. She’s not very big and has a rather mulish-looking face but she’s super tame and has a very smooth trot. Like most Dominican campo horses she’s rather desensitized. To make her step sideways you can’t just tap one of her hindquarters, you have to give her a good shove. Also, unlike every horsey book you’ve ever read, she doesn’t want to eat treats out of your hand. So far Anna has tried sugar, a carrot, and a handful of grass but she wants nothing to do with it. She eats weeds and that’s it. It’s clear that no one has ever tried to hand-feed her before. So Anna is working her horse charms. Pictures are on the way.
One of the hens that likes to hang around our house showed up the other day with eight peeping chicks. After two of the chicks disappeared we decided we’d better cage up the hen so that the chicks are safer. I caught her and put her in a large mesh cage which allows the chicks to slip through the cage and peck around in the immediate area. When they wander too far the hen clucks them back. Often when a hen is loose she wanders around too far too fast and chicks get lost or a hawk gets one. So now they are (hopefully) safe under the mango tree. We’ll probably let the mother range free in a week or two. We feed them pancakes and cracked corn kernels while they cheep-cheep-cheep all around our house. Fritz has taken an interest in them, but so far I’ve always chased him away before he pounced. He thinks that he can attack all moving things smaller than himself.
We've finally received some grant money! We've been waiting for months for this so we're pretty ecstatic. We got a small grant to start off our latrine project while we wait for more latrine funds. We also received funds to build improved cookstoves. My community is also working on building their own landfill to properly dispose of inorganic waste and I received grant money for art supplies so that the youth of the community can help put up posters and signs that will visually educate others about this (and other) environmental projects. In other words we'll be pretty busy for awhile. I'll keep you updated.
-paz
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Community Latrine Project
So I've been talking about projects for a while now, and finally one of our grants is online. And you can help! Check out the links on the right. We are trying to do a latrine project in each of our communities. I'm just going to clarify briefly what a latrine project is. A latrine is an outdoor bathroom, often called an outhouse. Basically you dig a hole, if the soil is crumbly you may have to line the hole with rocks, and then you build a concrete pad over the excavated hole. You then construct a small box-shaped seat over a hole in the concrete floor and that's your toilet seat. Then you erect a small house over this concrete pad so that you can use the bathroom in privacy. It's quite simple really.
The people in our communities live in a very rural area. They are mostly coffee farmers and generally have an abundance of clean drinking water from underground springs and food that they produce themselves. What they are desperately short of is cash. Without cash they can't buy the concrete and tin needed to construct a safe and sanitary bathroom. I've posted a few photos of what types of bathrooms many of our neighbors use right now. Some latrines are full and need replaced. Others are a safety hazard because they are about to cave in. Others are in the beginning of the construction process and just need a funding boost to be finished. What I didn't show are the houses that have no latrines at all. It's hard to photograph what doesn't exist.
Why are latrines important?
If you don't have a bathroom to use you will go in the bushes. If you go in the bushes it's likely that some curious dog or child will stumble across this makeshift bathroom which increases the likelihood that certain diseases will be contracted and spread from person to person. This is so much more important now that cholera has spread to the Dominican Republic. Since mid-October 2010 cholera has killed over 4,000 people in Haiti and sickened more than 200,000. Cholera has now spread to the DR where more than 200 people have contracted the disease and one has died. We all fear a cholera epidemic in the DR. Cholera is a bacteria that is spread principally through fecal matter and vomit from infected persons. Once these infected body fluids contact a water source like a river, the entire river becomes infected passing on the disease to anyone who bathes (and accidentally ingests a bit of water) in the river or drinks the water. Sanitary latrines help ensure that all fecal matter ends up in an enclosed area where it does not jeopardize the health of other community members.
To learn more about these projects or to donate please see the corresponding links on the right side of this web page. Also we welcome any questions you may have about what we're doing. By following one of the links you can donate by check, credit card, or electronic debit (ACH bank check). All donations are tax deductible. Check it out! Tell your your friends and acquaintances. Every peso counts. Ya ustedes saben. Now you know.
The people in our communities live in a very rural area. They are mostly coffee farmers and generally have an abundance of clean drinking water from underground springs and food that they produce themselves. What they are desperately short of is cash. Without cash they can't buy the concrete and tin needed to construct a safe and sanitary bathroom. I've posted a few photos of what types of bathrooms many of our neighbors use right now. Some latrines are full and need replaced. Others are a safety hazard because they are about to cave in. Others are in the beginning of the construction process and just need a funding boost to be finished. What I didn't show are the houses that have no latrines at all. It's hard to photograph what doesn't exist.
Why are latrines important?
If you don't have a bathroom to use you will go in the bushes. If you go in the bushes it's likely that some curious dog or child will stumble across this makeshift bathroom which increases the likelihood that certain diseases will be contracted and spread from person to person. This is so much more important now that cholera has spread to the Dominican Republic. Since mid-October 2010 cholera has killed over 4,000 people in Haiti and sickened more than 200,000. Cholera has now spread to the DR where more than 200 people have contracted the disease and one has died. We all fear a cholera epidemic in the DR. Cholera is a bacteria that is spread principally through fecal matter and vomit from infected persons. Once these infected body fluids contact a water source like a river, the entire river becomes infected passing on the disease to anyone who bathes (and accidentally ingests a bit of water) in the river or drinks the water. Sanitary latrines help ensure that all fecal matter ends up in an enclosed area where it does not jeopardize the health of other community members.
To learn more about these projects or to donate please see the corresponding links on the right side of this web page. Also we welcome any questions you may have about what we're doing. By following one of the links you can donate by check, credit card, or electronic debit (ACH bank check). All donations are tax deductible. Check it out! Tell your your friends and acquaintances. Every peso counts. Ya ustedes saben. Now you know.
Friday, January 28, 2011
More photos: mangos and auyama seeds
I really don't have much more to say with all this updating I'm doing today. But I do have more photos of the past months. Salud.
Dance party at the Americans' house
We recently acquired a small speaker for our house. We also got some Dominican music. The combination is potent. We were making supper one evening and to celebrate finally having a speaker we started playing Dominican tunes. As if by magic a handful of neighbor kids showed up to shake it. They danced and they danced while we made supper and let them taste tidbits. We all had a great time. I posted a few photos for your enjoyment. Here's to more dance parties at the Americans' house.
Christmas pig roast
Our neighbors celebrated Christmas a week early with a traditional Dominican pig roast. Although I'm not a big pork fan, I got caught up in the excitement and found the roast to be quite fun. Enjoy the photos.
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