4 months later...

Sooooo sup guys…

Apparently I actually have readers!! So here is a new post!

First of all, as many of you know, I just went back to the states. Now I don’t want to over-dramatize this so let me word it as eloquently as I can… IT WAS SO FFFFFFFANTASTIC. Granted, I am very happy to be home where life has the slower pace I am now accustomed to, but I had a great trip back home. What was the best part you ask?

The friends?

Yes.

 The food?

 Yes.

The beer?

Yes.

 So all of it?

 Pretty much.

I have received some flack because while only being home for 7 days, I ate Mexican food twice. All I have to say to you haters out there is, you’re not from Texas, clearly you just don’t understand. I should have eaten fajitas with guacamole and salsa that is actually spicy and not glorified tomato chunks at least 4 times. So yeah. You’re wrong. ;)

Also I went to a Keith Urban concert. It was soooo much fun! Although I was surprised to see how the fashion has changed in the states. Suddenly it seems like under-wear length jean “shorts” are appropriate as long as you are also wearing cowboy boots and a lacy top? I disagree. There were a few too many cheeky ladies out there if you catch my drift. But I am all for the boots and tops, so I guess they’re at least halfway there! And the concert was great. Keith (we are on a first name basis) is so good live. You could tell he loves what he does when he absolutely kills it on stage! Nicole was really sad we weren’t able to meet up and chat, but she has a very busy schedule and neither of us were in Dallas long enough to find a time that worked for both of us.

And now I’m home! I had an amazing homecoming with all my muchachos being thrilled that I’m back and by basically getting mauled by dog hugs. I swear, if Inigo wasn’t touching me he didn’t feel like he was close enough. Which was cute until he played with the pigs. Let’s talk about that smell for a second. Or not actually. I’ll leave it to yalls imaginations.

So now it’s back to the grindstone. Grant writing. Manual writing. Other manual writing. And just general all around kicking peace corps ass. It’s what I do.

So that’s my short and sweet post to get back into the game! I will (maybe) update more frequently in the future!

 

Peace kids.

annnnd the mosquitoes are back

At my friend’s advice I have decided to give the giant spider in my bathroom a better name than “mother of all spiders”. It has gotten bigger by the way. Anyway these critters are less surprising and, let’s face it, scary when they have names. Kind of like when I named the mouse in my house Andre. May he rest in peace. So I would like to welcome Maximilian to the (out)house. May he also rest in peace soon.

So now for some good news! I went to the dentist last Friday (yikes) and I have no cavities or anything! Sweet. I had a “stain” but she put a sealant on it and now I’m good as new. I’ve even been flossing and this was the first time in maybe my entire life when the dentist hasn’t looked at my teeth and patronizingly asked “Do you floss?”. So I scored some universe points there. But that’s good because I had lost some MAJOR universe points the day before. I had gone for a run. It was lovely and I was halfway done (re: as far away as I get from my house before turning around) and I was in the next town over.  A little girl had been calling out to me, “Sarah! Sarah!” and I had stopped to chat and explain that I am not in fact the super extremely long haired blonde who lives in Banica, but rather the short haired way less blonde who lives in Pedro Santana. And my name is Virginia. So we chatted a bit (as much as you can chat with a 3 year old who is absolutely convinced you are Sarah) and I took off running again. My dog loves to follow me on my runs which is adorable by the way. But he got spooked by some other dogs and came running up behind me and straight up took me out. He came barreling into the back of my legs and I ATE IT on the gravelly street. I cussed like nobody’s business in front of the children, oops, and ran home. I stopped to visit with my friend Ramona and as luck has it, she has an aloe plant. So she took some leaves, crushed them up inside a cloth, and squeezed the juices over my cuts. It did not feel good. Then I got home and poured salt water over them. That also did not feel good. Then the next day at the doctors I had the wonderful experience of Lisette taking a pair of tweezers and picking out all the dirt from my hand and knee. That REALLY didn’t feel good. Anyway what it boils down to is that I was due for some positive universe points. PS I haven’t gone running since and my knee is still at least 4 colors.

And yesterday was a very fun day. My friend Matt, who is COSing, came to visit and I gave him the Banica/Pedro Santana tour. We spent most of the day walking around outside in intervals and recovering from the heat in my rocking chairs. Somehow I managed to get a bit burned. You would think after so much time here I would be past burning, but you’d be wrong. Which reminds me: my friend informed me the other day that I am no longer American because my skin isn’t the right color anymore. So I asked him what I am then, and his response “not American.” Ha. But I really loved showing off my town because people are always impressed by how cute it is. And beautiful. I live in a small community, but it still has a town-like feel to it. Well it is a town, but it does not have a super-campo feel despite the fact that it is way smaller than a city. Our empanada stand even put some tables outside! So know we basically have a restaurant. And ice-cream. Recently I think I’ve been feeling down on this place, so it was really nice having someone come visit because it made me feel happy and lucky to be here again. Which is how I should be feeling, because it’s true.

Wanna know the other reason I’m lucky? People have started fighting to see who can bring me the best mangos.  And now one of my muchachos is frying a banana in my house. Life is good.

i still exist i swear

So here’s my list of “oh man my life is different moments”

·         Hanging out at the colmado while my friend is killing and cleaning chickens to sell.

·         Losing the skin on my finger from sweeping my lawn and then still having to wash my dishes in super chloro-ed water.

·         When my neighbor has impromptu cock-fights in his backyard

·         When bathing my dog becomes a barrio-wide activity

·         I’m looking for a cat to keep the rats away

·         Covering the “stove” in my “kitchen” with foil so it’s easier to clean. And yet still finding rat poop under the foil.

·         Cooking by candle-light

·         When chickens (right now)/ puppies/ lizards/ goats (only once) randomly come into my house

·         Hitch-hiking on a weekly basis

·         Napping in a puddle of my own sweat (it’s as gross as it sounds)

·         Loving the bachata and the merengue

·         Judging prices by how many jumbos it would cost

·         Having naked kids come sit in my seats and demand mentas

·         Having my dog follow me on my runs, even when he doesn’t have a leash on

·         When I reached down for a small rock to throw at the rooster sneaking into my house and was like…whoa, ginny, whoa…

·         CHLORO EVERYTHING

·         Buying “flea and tick powder” for my dog and then realizing I got totally gipped. It’s baby powder.

·         Washing machines are for wusses.

·         When I ate the produce here for the first time and realized what I had been missing. Mangos.

 

And the “my life isn’t so different moments” list:

·         Still completely freaked out by cockroaches

·         Still in love with game of thrones, Friday night lights, new girl, and any other tv show that can save me from going campo-crazy

·         Loving dancing

 

Fyi I just took a shower after my run and my bucket of water slipped a bit. As it was slipping in my hand I realized the water was gonna fall on the side of the tank by the wall where Pedro Santana’s biggest spider has been living. So I flipped a bit and tried to hop out of my “shower” quickly just as the spider did in fact come out from behind my tank and start scurrying up the wall. But I didn’t make it very far. Instead I slipped around for a bit, jammed my shin into a cement corner and almost completely ate it. Then I started drying myself off with my towel only to find that ants were all over it. Now there was no electricity, so how did I know about the ants? Because they started biting me all over my body. Then I made it back to the house, not quite dry (like I was gonna keep using that towel…) and it stars to rain. My shin is killing me, I’m out of drinking water, there is no electricity, it’s raining, and a year is feeling like a very long time. Tomorrow will be better though!

so here's something none of probably ever thought would happen...

Alright I’ve been putting off and putting off and putting off writing a new blog post because I have been really busy and I guess it just wasn’t on the top of my list of priorities. I guess I just needed a little kick in the pants, you know? A little inspiration.

Well, color me inspired. Let me tell you why:

You know how sometimes you have one of those days in one of those weeks when you’re working really hard, not seeing the outcomes you want, but seriously putting in the time anyway? So you’re working all morning on revamping your literacy manual and then all afternoon trying to force vowels into your students’ heads, and heading home to either plan/have a youth group meeting or work more on the manual at night. And this has been going on for a solid week and a half, and finally you just have one of those days. One of those days when you wake up early to put pictures on someone else’s facebook and end up just sitting in the office for half an hour because they didn’t even bring a computer. Then you go to the next town over to crunch out some new worksheets despite your Word trying to deter your every move. It takes longer than you planned, so when you get back home you don’t have time to nap before school starts, so you just go ahead and get ready instead of bailing, which you really want to do. Sadly you decide to go for the shoes that a cockroach had recently inhabited (upsetting discovery—there are very few experiences as bad as sticking your foot into a not so vacant shoe. But there are some worse experiences…details to come) and while it is this time a safe shoe, it does end up pulling on your skin so much that it essentially cuts you (important detail). By the time recess rolls around you are fed up with your students and life, suffering from a killer headache and a mild fever and just decide to call it quits and go home. You cancel the English class that was supposed to restart that night and sit down to once again work on the new manual. After a few visitors, half an hour of watching Up with the kiddos, you finally have your house to yourself again and sit down to work on a worksheet about farm animals. It’s dark, you’re finally calming down, Word is pretending to work and then WHAT THE WHAT a rat starts nibbling on the cut on your big toe. A rat that I swear to all the gods was not there even yesterday. Now it’s not a huge rat, but who the fuck cares. So you freak out and curl up in your rocking chair trying to deny what just happened, but when you see the rat later on the stand you just can’t deny the truth any longer. My poor feet.

Never, ever in my life have I ever even considered that this would happen to me. Mostly because, despite our little jokes about living in the goonies out here on the border, I am not actually Laura Ingles Wilder. So while I never thought the day might come when I could start a sentence with “oh yeah I remember this one time when a rat was nibbling on my toe…”, it has come. Just when I think I’ve gotten used to life here, the universe throws a curveball my way. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not complaining and do love my life here, but I could do without some of these little surprises that come my way. Life in the peace corps certainly keeps you on your toes! Roach tainted, rat nibbled toes to be specific.

So yeah. That’s my life.

All My Cards are on the Table

You can get used to a lot of things in this country: cold bucket baths, toilets that don’t flush, holes in the ground that are toilets, people constantly telling you how you should be living your life (you want to buy this hose Virginia, you need to wear shoes in your house Virginia, you need to have a boyfriend in the DR Virginia…) but one thing you just can’t get used to: tapeworms.

So full disclosure: I have a tapeworm. Well, hopefully at this point I had a tapeworm. And I really just tried to deny the fact that something was wrong, and to just get used to the, well, symptoms. But, without giving all the gory details away, let’s just say I had an experience that made me realize I needed to get checked out—yesterday. And sure enough I wasn’t just dealing with a month long bout of indigestion and food poisoning. So after waiting 4 days for the lab in the hospital in the next town over to even be open, then for there to be electricity when the lab was open, and then after bring two samples to the lab since the first one was no longer bueno after 3 days, I finally had my results. Then I had a small freakout. I learned that there is a big difference between thinking maybe there is something strange inside of you and knowing that there is a long worm feasting itself in your insides. But the strange thing is that you get tapeworms from eating undercooked pork or beef. I’M VEGETARIAN. So something didn’t quite add up, but as long as the sucker is dead, I’m happy.

In other news, things are going well here on the frontera. My Dad and sister came to visit and we hit up Punta Cana which is one of the most beautiful places I have seen in my life. Also, its airport is a giant tiki-hut. Just because. I went diving and saw a barracuda and an octopus that is camped out in between the legs of this sculpture of a lady kneeling on the ocean floor. The diving instructors had a clever little name for the octopus, as you might imagine. I also saw a coral garden where they are trying to reproduce an endangered species of coral! That was really cool, but the whole time I was afraid I was gonna touch some of it and kill it. There was a bit of a current down there and I kept almost drifting into the little gardens. Also the resort we stayed at had a delicious little drink called a piña merengue. It’s basically a piña colada, but with banana in it. Holy cow it’s amazing.

As for life actually in Pedro Santana, aka real life away from the lovely beach, things have been pretty busy and fun! Father O’Hare’s brother and his friend came to visit for a week, and they were a blast! Plus I got to hear some new music I’ve missed and I learned about the new ipad mini (which we were told is not the same thing as an iphone). But basically we just hung out American style and while taking it easy Caribbean style. Cool beans.

My literacy project has been developing a lot this semester, which is both frustrating and yet good. It needs to evolve, and this was always going to be a fluctuating period, but at the same time I am looking forward to the next semester when I can both stabilize and expand my project. For now what was an accelerated reading program had become a pull-out program. We were working with about 40 kids and that has dwindled down to about 13—a much more manageable number. And I can already tell we are more effective now. What is always so rewarding for me though, is how excited my kids are when they see me come into the doorway to pull them out. I got one kid, Manuelsito, to talk for the first time yesterday and it was such a huge win! I don’t know why he was always so scared to make a noise. He is intelligent and can write all the vowels, but for the life of me I couldn’t get him to speak to me directly. So I had him and the other child have a race to see who could identify the vowels faster, and he got so into it! And he has such a cute little voice. I don’t wanna get all corny on you guys, but honestly, it was a very rewarding experience. After feeling so defeated so many times during my work, I needed that win. Plus the other child, Isidro, learned so much faster when he was working with Manuelsito. I’m looking forward to seeing them this afternoon. Although Manuelsito tends to come to school once a week at most… might not see him today. My hope is that the students I work with will start enjoying learning. But that’s a lot to ask. From any child anywhere.

My English class is going to have its first exam in a week. I’m definitely more nervous than they are. I tried to make the test easy enough without it being a joke. I’m afraid some of the students just don’t know how to study. Some are amazing and learn very quickly, and some struggle more with it. You find that in any classroom. But I don’t want to scare away the students who don’t learn as quickly. Actually what I’m considering doing is to have small quizzes every week reviewing what we learned the week before. It’s more work, but I think it will make the class much more effective.

So Inigo is growing so fast! He is too big to sit in my lap anymore but every time I sit in my rocking chair he tries to climb up into my lap. The funny thing is that now, because he is so big, he actually can get up. But he also doesn’t fit! It’s so cute. I’m really lucky to have him. I’m also really lucky to have all my neighbor kids who love Inigo. They play with him, and when he’s wandered too far off they bring him back.

I have the little 2 year old who lives across the street sitting in my lap right now. He is so adorable, and his mom likes to joke that he’s my son too. So this morning she asked me to help her clean out Elian’s eyes because he’s got conjunctivitis for the 3^rd time and last night he’s eyes were sealed shut. I was like…uhhhh ok? But then the grandma did it and wouldn’t let me help. Thank god.

oh yay! rats.

I feel like every blog post is starting the same. So here we go again…sorry it’s been so long! Once again, I have no excuse.

 

So yeah: rats. They’re here. Well, I’ve only seen the one out of the corner of my eye every night, but I mean, if there’s one, there’s more. So that’s exciting. It’s not just Inigo and me anymore. We have a (some) unwanted house guest(s). If I end up getting a cat, that might take care of the rats. But I’m not sure it’s worth it…I would rather not have any more animals in the house if that could somehow be an option. The Dominican method for getting rid of rats is pretty simple:

1)      Get a cat

2)      Starve the cat

3)      Raise it to be a hunter out of necessity

4)      Cat eats the rats and other critters because it’s so hungry

Needless to say, I’m not sure I agree with this methodology.

You know what else I have? Giant spiders. But as long as they aren’t tarantulas I’m good. I went to use the bathroom the other night and there was a giant spider and I debated for a second if it was worth it and decided that it was. The night before the same thing had happened, but there was also a giant juicy cockroach on the wall. I held it that night.

Anyway things have changed quite a bit here since my last post (which I can’t even remember, coincidently). I started English classes. This is loosely stated because I have yet to get more than 20% of my students to show up. But it was the first week and I’m hoping for a greater turnout net Wednesday. But if only 2 come, then you know what? They’re gonna get a semi-private English class and I get to stress less about it. So that’s cool. I got facilitators for my literacy program, lost one, and then got two more. It’s a pretty sad story about why one facilitator had to go. See, these youth who are helping me are the recipients of scholarships from the Church. Turns out this 19 year old has an 7 month old illegitimate child with a Haitian woman who was living in his house in the campo. When he told Father, Father had to tell him he couldn’t participate in the program anymore. I understand it all, but it’s really sad. He is a very serious student and was great with the kids. But I am holding out hope that he can continue with his studies in some other way. Continuing on: I have made several work schedules to try to accommodate all the teachers’ wishes (next to impossible btw). It’s pretty frustrating when you spend forever creating in depth evaluations, giving them to the students, dividing up the students by their respective levels in four different categories, and then have the teachers be like “oh yeah, this isn’t working well for me. Maybe we could try a different way.” And you respect their wishes because some of their points are valid. So instead of going to your friend’s birthday party in Santiago, you spend all weekend creating a new schedule by rearranging ALL 37 students in new groups, taking into consideration your facilitators’ schedules (which are all different). Then come Monday you meet with the teachers to show them this new fantastic plan you have lined up which meets all of their requests and they proceed to say that maybe we could change it again. Without giving any ideas except one which would never work because the kids never ever stay for the entire school day. Actually the teachers don’t even stay for the entire allotted time aka to 6 o’clock. But that’s a whole different story. So yeah. I basically told them we were gonna try out this new schedule and if it didn’t work we could change it again. But if I change it again, they are gonna help me, because I can’t comply to all of their wishes when it seems they don’t even know what they want. Besides maybe a magic spell that will teach their children to read. That’d be cool actually. I’d be down with that. Anyway that’s my bitch-fest. On to better things!

So every town here has its patron saint. The patron saint of Banica (4 km away) is St. Francis of Assisi. Which is so cool to me, considering I have the cross of St. Francis tattooed on my foot. It was fate that I came here and am working with this church. Anyway this week is the patronales in Banica aka they celebrate all week long. There is this pilgrimage people make to a cave that is up the nearby hill, and people come from the capital, Santiago, and even from farther off to climb the hill. So I did it yesterday, and there were SO MANY people. At times it was hard to walk, and this was a steep hill at points so I’m surprised some people could make it. Aka the larger or older ones. But we got to the top and the cave is amazing. There are gaps in the ceiling where the light just spills in. It was so gorgeous and filled with candles people have lit in prayer. So the smoke from the candles mixed with the light from above creates a very ethereal atmosphere. Plus it’s limestone and the tradition is to hack away at the lime to put the resulting powder on your face. I think the story is that St. Francis appeared in the cave and so now there’s a pilgrimage here. Anyway it was a wonderful experience that I may not repeat next year. I think next time I go up to the caves I will go when there are fewer people. But this whole week there are parties in town and on Saturday they are bringing in a singer whose name I can’t remember, so I want to go. It should be a good time complete with merengue, pizza, and maybe even, dare I even think it, a beer.

Another big thing is happening tomorrow: I’m finally getting a fridge! A little dorm fridge. It’s gonna be great. I can finally have cold water! What a lame problem… but it will be nice to have that cold water. Plus it will also be nice to store vegetables so they don’t go bad in a day and a half. Oh snap I just had a genius idea: ICED COFFEE. That’s soooo happening. It’s not exactly cheap, because I can’t find a second hand fridge to buy, and they charge me to transport it to my home, but it’s worth it. At first when they told me it was 500 pesos to take it to my house, I was a bit put off because that’s more than I pay to go to the capital. But then I realized it’s somewhere around 13 bucks so decided not to fight that battle.

                But yall wanna know what the biggest news is? My dad’s coming in 9 days!! It’s the light at the end of my relatively stressful tunnel. What with my ever changing literacy program, my English classes, my youth group, my annoying enamorados, and my not so annoying enamorados, and my daily responsibilities, it’s gonna be absolute bliss to show my dad my site, let him “live” here for a day and then ship out for a resort. I’ve never been to a resort and I can’t think of a better time to give it a whirl! Can you say piña colada? I can just see it: drink in one hand, giant ass salad in the other, lying on the beach somewhere under an umbrella because I just don’t need to get tanner. (I’d like to take this opportunity to give a shout out to the Dominican sun that is doing its best to prematurely destroy my skin.)

Knee deep in the water somewhere, got the blue sky, breeze blowing wind through my hair. Only worry in the world: is the tide gonna reach my chair?

Be jealous.

things are actually happening!

Ok in my defense the reason I haven’t posted in forever isn’t entirely my fault. We haven’t had internet for a long time. Or at least not while I’m at the centro. They say they have it when I’m not here, but what are the chances that it only ever works when I’m not here? Sheesh.

 

So I got my dog! He’s growing like crazy which I’m really glad about. He loves to play with the kids, which works well for me because it makes him sleep longer through the night. Last night we made it all the way to 5 with no accidents! It’s so nice when you don’t have to wipe pee or something worse of your floor first thing in the morning. Just saying. His name is inigo, which I believe I already stated in a different post, but I’m repeating in case I haven’t. inigo. As in Montoya. And I’m getting a cat (apparently) from the woman who actually owns my house, so I’ve decided to name it buttercup. Unless it’s a dude. Then I should name in andre. That’d be funny, because it’s a pretty small cat.

 

We’ve had some pretty big rainstorms recently which are worth mentioning because they made me realize something very important: my roof still leaks. Right above my bed. Apparently the chewing gum remedy wasn’t entirely effective. Who could have seen that coming? Actually I thought it would work, but I guess that was wishful thinking. The other cure is to mix gasoline with Styrofoam and it makes this paste which patches up the roof as well. So maybe with round 2 we will use more of that and less of the cheap-o chewing gum.

 

I love that I’m writing all of this with no hope of having internet anytime in the foreseeable future. Until Tuesday at least. I’ll be in the capital then, so the hotel there should have internet. Si dios quiere.

 

I’m finally making legit friends in my site! It’s so nice having a comfortable little crew that I’m becoming more and more comfortable just chilling with. It helps that I can finally carry something similar to a conversation now. That always tends to make friendships just a little more real, know what I’m saying? Also I have started up a girls group called chicas brillantes. It’s a peace corps initiative throughout the DR for the purpose of empowering girls to make good life decisions: to have plans and goals for the future, to wait to have kids until they graduate highschool, and to learn about HIV and AIDS and how to practices safe sex. So I’m really excited to have started this group because I think it’s really gonna help them out. The other goal of the club is to create leaders so these girls can inspire other girls in turn, and maybe even create their own groups later. Hello sustainability! So things are looking up with both of these recent developments in my life.

 

The sadder part is that I’ve started the evaluations of my 1^st graders and it’s disappointing to see how little they know. But that’s why I’m here! I wouldn’t be able to help them if there wasn’t a need. They don’t know their vowels or how to identify individual sounds. But after a year with me and my facilitators I hope they will all be little reading champs! My boss is calling my program an “accelerated reading program” which is different than the pull out program I had initially thought I would be running. So to a certain extent I’m kind of making this up as I go, but I have a good foundation of related training to fall back on. And I’m excited to have a project that the peace corps hasn’t really had here before. At least not recently.

 

Well now I have a nice little post written and someday hopefully I will have internet again to post it! Peace out kids.