Or not.
I know it’s been a
while since I’ve posted, but I haven’t had internet, so sue me. In fact, I
still don’t have internet, I’m just writing this in the hope that soon Pedro
Santana will recover from election immobility and I may be able to get into the
CTC (computer lab) soon. Because, yeah, it’s been election times which means a)
no one does anything and b) I can’t get to work, because the kids don’t even go
to school. they should be back in full swing by Wednesday though (today is
Monday fyi) at which point I’m hoping to observe as many classes as I can
before the school year ends (technically in june).
So Danilo is gonna
be our next president. We aren’t allowed to have political opinions though, so
this is me saying without any emotion whatsoever, “papá lost, and Danilo is
gonna be our next president.” You’re wondering how I feel about it aren’t you?
You’re all “oh man, I can’t tell if she’s disappointed or not”. The truth is I
don’t know enough about the politics here to have an opinion, so I’m actually completely
ambivalent about the whole thing. Except that it has prevented me from being
able to stuff in my community (that and me being ever so slightly timid). I’m
less ambivalent about that.
So these past few
days all I’ve done is walk around town, explore outside of town, study Spanish,
read (Harry Potter in Spanish, and West with the Night when I just can’t handle
any more Spanish) and eat way too much. I would like to take this opportunity
to welcome back all the weight I accidently lost during training. I would also
like to take this opportunity to say a less than fond farewell to the
“diapation” I’ve been suffering from. Thanks so much for your visit, please
don’t come again.
Is that TMI? I
don’t really care. This kind of talk is commonplace among us volunteers. Ps, I
have not gotten tired of saying “us volunteers” yet. I may not be doing much of
anything in my site yet, and I may be feeling slightly overwhelmed, but at
least I can say “yeah, I’m a Peace Corps volunteer. What of it?” with a
nonchalant shrug of my shoulders, hands in my pockets, “modestly” downcast
eyes, and a casual sniff. The sniff obviously being a side-effect of the gripe
I can’t quite kick.
Ok Sudoku break (what was all that I was saying before about being a
useless volunteer?)
--Dominican hour later)—
So I just forced
myself out of the house, and decided to sit across the street with my Doña for
an hour mas or menos. I played myself some dominoes with some of the dudes
sitting nearby after my Doña figured out that I can play…because I told her. I
won a few games, got myself some respect, lost a few games, lost myself some of
said respect. But hey, a gringa winning a few games? I came out ahead
there. Then I sat and “listened” to some
other elders talking for a while. I say “listened” because I still haven’t
figured out the accent here entirely and can only sometimes get the gist of
what is being said when they aren’t slowing down their speech for the Americana
who just stares blankly back at you if you talk to fast at her. Too be fair,
it’s the same for me in English. But anyway, I could tell they were chisme-ing
(aka gossiping for those of you aren’t as proficient in Spanglish as I am)
about family in Santiago, and then about guagua drivers and their cobredors
(the guys who handle the money). I am just proud I figured out that much!
So lesson learned:
stop feeling lame and/or sorry for yourself and go sit with neighbors. You will
feel better, somehow you will feel productive, and you will no longer be a
useless slob. Cool beans!
So about that
catch up: I got back from kreyòl camp on Friday. That was an experience. The
camp, and the getting back home fiasco. Let’s start with the getting back home
fiasco because it’s a fun little story. Kreyòl camp was in the south of the
country in a little place called Batey 9. That means nothing to you, I know,
but the important part is that it is in a place I had never been to, traveled
through, or nada. Getting there, I had taken the bus from Pedro Santana to Azua
where the private bus (full of all the other volunteers who were allowed to
meet in Santo Domingo before camp) picked me up. So that was easy. But on the
way back I was gonna have that private bus drop me off at a crossroads called
Cruz 15 de Azua because that is a common stop for my bus, and when it went
through I would definitely see it, whereas my chances of randomly finding it in
Azua were close to 0%. But luckily the genius driver dropped me off at a
different tiny Cruz 15 a solid 45 kilometers away from anywhere my bus would be
even remotely close to (aka the correct Cruz 15). So after several halting
conversations with roadside stall owners and one guagua driver we figured out
that I was in the wrong spot. Actually those guys had figured it out a bit
before me and spent about 8 minutes trying to convince me to get on the
driver’s guagua so he could take me to the right spot. 30 minutes later I was
finally at the correct crossroads and sat by the road for 4 hours reading West
with the Night and journaling. I wasn’t about to whip out my ipod, call me
paranoid. Oh and here’s the best part. If the busses were running on time, then
I absolutely had to catch the one I saw to my site, because it would be the
last one of the day, so if I missed it, I would be royally fucked. Now let’s rewind
to elections again: here everyone has to return to where they are registered in
order to vote. Like Mary and Joseph. Which means everyone was leaving the big
cities to go to the campos where they were born this weekend. And I knew this,
so the big fear wasn’t my missing the bus, but rather that I would see it and
it would be full. There would almost be no room in the inn for me and my
backpack. If the inn was a rundown piece of public transportation. So here’s
what went down: I saw the bus and barely flagged it down on time (I was on the
phone with my mom and wasn’t paying perfect attention, oops). Was there space?
Kind of. I forced my bag under the last fold out seat on which I sat
side-saddle because there were a bunch of laundry hampers where my legs were
supposed to go. Then the cobredor basically had to sit on me every time he
wanted to open or close the door. But I fit! I figured out later that there
actually was another bus after that one, simply because all the busses were
running so late that day, due to parades for the elections—thank god, I will
never have to live through another Dominican election. I mean, never say never,
but yeah—never. At 7 I practically fell out of the bus, left butt cheek
completely asleep, just thrilled to see a bowl of piping hot vegetable soup
waiting for me on the table!
Ok so camp: it was
awesome. I can now speak a tiny bit of kreyòl. M’pale kreyòl yon tikras. Boom!
Yeah nine of us volunteers (there I go again) hung out in the batey eating
delicious Haitian bread called biskwit, and delicious Haitian spicy peanut
butter called mamba. It was the best. We had seven hours of class a day, which
was not nearly as tedious as it sounds. Two nights Arthur spun fire which was
epic! I had never seen anyone spin fire before, so I was as mesmerized as the
group of kids who circled around Arthur completely hypnotized by the whirling
flames. I may have nerded out a bit. Thanks Brendan. Also, there was a medical
mission using the girls dorm when we arrived, which made me nervous that my
mattress was gonna be full of germs, but then I felt like a foolish American
when we realized that they were really only using the dorm as a pharmacy. Oops.
Also you should all know initially I typed farmacy and couldn’t figure out why
there was a red squiggly line under it. Sorry English.
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