Cogiendo Una Lucha

So those of you who know Spanish may know that the verb coger is used most frequently to refer in a rather vulgar fashion to the act of making love. However, in the DR, people use coger for just about everything. You can coger una guagua (catch a bus), or coger una lucha (have a hard time) like my friend Francisco and I did returning from a day of swimming and hanging out with my friend Ruth and her host family. It had rained a little bit in Juan de Herrera, where Ruth lives, but not too bad so we weren`t too worried about the ride home. Of course, we had forgotten that they graded the road, but had not (and still haven`t) put down gravel or anything like that. So we were going along fine on the paved part, then we hit the dirt part. And things went downhill quickly, although not literally. There was so much mud on the road that the front tire kept getting stuck because the mud would fill up the wheel cover thingy (I`m sure it has a name, I just don`t know it). So we had to stop to take out the mud. In addition, it was so muddy that when we were moving we were sliding all over the place so we decided it would be best for me to walk until the road got better so I/we didn`t fall. However, flip flops and mud don`t get along, so I finally had to take off my flip flops and walk barefoot because the mud was sticking so badly to the bottoms! And so I would walk until I met up with Francisco who had gone ahead but would stop to take the mud out of the wheel cover thingy about every couple hundred meters, hoping that the road would get better. But, it never did, so I ended up walking about 6 kilometers barefoot with my backpack on my back, my bag over my shoulder, a helmet in one hand and my flip flops in the other. The road finally got better when we arrived in El Batey. Here`s a couple picks from the trip (walk) home! Needless to say we went and had a much deserved beer after we washed the motorcycle off in the river.


Almost home! You can see all the mud on the front tire and the frame!


Yep, there`s my feet, covered in mud!! I suppose I should think of it more like a spa treatment, except that the thorns that I stepped on told me otherwise!


I love this picture!! It`s one of those you know you`re in the Peace Corps when moments caught on camera!

Random Pictures

Enjoy!!


Another picture my friend Francisco took while we waited for things to dry out a little after we got caught in a rainstorm on our way back from the swimming hole. I can`t remember this guy`s name unfortunately.


The neighbor Santa and her daughter Mari Estel


Santa, Mari, and I. I still look like I could be her mom, but at least a little less so when she`s with her mom.


My friend Francisco`s grandma, Pompea, me, and Rosa the neighbor down the way.


Muñongo, the neighbor boy using my colored pencils. He had no idea which color was which and no fine motor skills but it was super cute to watch him use them. I`m not sure he`d ever used them before.


This little boy is called Muñeco, which means doll, I`m sure you can see why.


A mule with 3 legs. I`m not sure what happened to the other one, but it still manages to get around somehow.


My friend Francisco with his nephew Cafe.


Francisca cleaning house after getting her hair done.


My friend Toni`s sister Dori feeding her blind chicken.


Francisca grating yucca to make fried yucca balls, pretty much one of my favorite foods here.


Eddy, the mayor of El Batey (he`s only 27) and his son Cafe


This is Emily, the daughter of Cruceli, who lives up the road from me.


These are two more of Cruceli`s daughters although I can`t remember there names off hand.

Cocos!!

Oh Coconuts!! I forget how good it is to drink fresh coconut juice from a coconut that is freshly harvested from the tree. There`s nothing much better really! Especially when you get to eat the yummy meat afterwards. My friend Francisco lives with his grandma Pompea (who is one of my favorite ladies ever), and they have just about every kind of tree imaginable that bears some sort of food. I had fresh grapefruit juice and fresh lemonade. But the cocos are the best. It`s so much fun to go knock a coconut down from the tree, take it back up to the house, have Francisco chop it open with the machete (I definitely don`t have the skill), pour it into a glass with ice, and drink up on a hot summer afternoon. I`m going to make passion fruit juice with Pompea today. Life could be a lot worse!


Francisco chopping open the coconut.


Not sure if you can see it well, but this coconut is full of juice.

Water!!!

My community is pretty awesome! Yesterday once again confirmed that for me when we had a meeting to celebrate the aqueduct that was put in. The previous volunteer who was here Adriana spent two years walking down to the river every day with buckets, filling them up and walking with them back up to her house. No easy task I can assure you. Especially since during the drier periods of the year the water gets particularly low in our little río. Then a few years ago the community decided it was high time they had access to potable water, so the community leaders started making some inquiries and found an organization that would provide the engineers to help design an aqueduct and help them get it installed. Then they found some other organizations that were willing to donate some money. Then the men and women of my community spent the next three years volunteering days up in the mountains clearing a path, digging trenches, crossing rivers, laying tubes, and cooking for the crowd of people that came to help. The culmination of which was yesterday in a really long meeting that started 3 hours late. But it was cool to hear the story of how my community banded together and worked to get this project done which has made a huge difference in the community. It was not an easy process and just when they thought everything was good they had some tubes break up in the hills. So we were back to carrying buckets and jugs of water from the river to the house, and bathing in the river (which I actually like better because then I had an excuse to go to Macoca every day) for about 6 weeks while they tried to resolve the problem. This, of course, became more complicated because the son of the guy who had donated land suddenly decided he wanted to be paid. This guy ended up trying to put handcuffs on the leader of our Catholic Church and they threatened him with a machete and he had to run and jump into a moving car to get away. But gracias a Dios, as they say here for everything, the water is finally up and running again. They are installing the llaves (taps) and hopefully things will be good for awhile, although with hurricane season coming up you just never know. Here`s some pictures.


Nivin working on the form for the cement that goes around the base of the tube that has the tap on it. (You´ll get it when you see the last 2 pictures)


Francisca talking to Nivin while he`s working on making stakes to mark the spot for the form.


Who knew running water from a tap could be so exciting! But let me tell you it was. Thus why I had to take a picture!


The pigs were happy about it too!

Interviews

Just so you know I`ve been working, here`s some pictures I`ve taken while doing interviews in my community. I had to do 100 interviews in my community which I divided up based on the number of houses in all 13 barrios (neighborhoods). Then I spent a lot of time walking, talking, eating, sitting, riding on motorcycles, etc. to get to all the locations because my campo is quite spread out. Luckily, either my friend Toni or my friend Francisco went with me to all of them, because although my Spanish is good, some Dominicans are particularly hard to understand.


I couldn´t resist taking a picture of this little boy.


Check out those eyes!


Two of the cutest little girls ever!


One of the houses in the community.


My friend Francisco took this one. Isn`t it beautiful!?


Another house.


Another house!


Fixin` the table.


Breakfast in the rice fields. They were thinning the rice.


Negra and I. Negra is one of the ladies I did an interview with.


The water truck watering down the road with a few of the 22 people that live at my tia Dulce`s house running behind it.


Interviewing Manuel.


Freddy, plucking the feathers off a chicken.


Claudio. Every time I see him now he asks if I remember the old man with the machete.


Another house!


Yep, still working!


This is what some of the paths to arrive at the houses looked like.


Eating breakfast at Freddy`s in the hammock. You can always count on the generosity of Dominicans. It`s overwhelming and awesome!


Hanging with a parrot that this lady had at her house! It was quite friendly.

Macoca

I don`t know if I`ve mentioned it before, but I ought to have because Macoca is my favorite place in my town. The town has spent the last 5 years almost installing an aqueduct. However, one of the tubes broke in a heavy rainstorm that we had. So we`ve had to bathe in the river. Which, luckily for me, the previous volunteer had showed me the spot and my buddies in town are usually more than happy to take me there. So I`ve been going there pretty much every day with one or a group of my friends. It`s a pretty little spot that has a little pool at the bottom of some little rapids. I usually end up spending a couple hours there. Several times now the boys have been cooking locrio (rice with seasonings and chunks of some sort of meat, usually chicken or salami) which is delicious. They cook it over a traditional fogon of three rocks on the ground. We spend the afternoon hanging out, swimming, eating, playing dominoes, and sometimes sharing a bottle of rum or clerin.

I`m having problems uploading the videos so I`ll put them up another time.


Hanging out at Macoca


Some of my buddies. Martin, Francisco, Miguel, Willy, and Pollo (yes, that means chicken, and no, I don`t know his real name).


A busy day at Macoca!


Some more friends. Not sure who the little boy in back is. But from left to right are Andrioli, Criceli, another boy who`s name I ought to know, Toni, and Pivo.


Angeli, me, and Criceli


Pollo showing the kids a crab that someone found. It was huge. We had to pose for pictures with it of course.


The underwater feature definitely works.


The boys and Maria. I`m usually the only girl, although more girls have been coming now since I go every day.


Apparently a common pastime with the boys around here. They try to see how high they can get. This was the highest they got.


The bottom of the tower of boys! I love the foot on the head as the muchacho is trying to climb up to the top.


There is always a fight over who gets the concon which is the burned crusty rice at the bottom of the paila (pan). I have never seen a group of grown men and boys get so excited over burned rice.


Chiquilin