Adios Llorona

Llorona died last night. We carried her down to a place in the cañada where the ground was soft enough to dig a deep enough hole to bury her in. She was wrapped in her towel and in the box we had put her in for the night hoping she would make it until this morning and maybe somehow come out danger; that the poison in her system would work it's way through and she would survive. But that didn't happen. When I went out to check on her last night around 9:30 she was gone. Her little body still holding some of the warmth of life, but her breath and her heartbeat no longer there.

I had thought that we had been lucky. The poisoned meat that had killed some of the neighbor dogs last week had been found and burned or buried. We had somehow escaped and still had our little loca with us. I had a dream during this time that Llorona had found a piece of the poisoned meat and that we were trying to save her. Then yesterday morning around 9:00, the little neighbor boy Llorona always played with yelled out to come see what Llorona had. It was a piece of the poisoned meat. We took it away and buried it and hoped that she hadn't eaten enough to make her really sick. I made her drink as much milk as she could and we waited. About an hour later she started staggering like a drunkard around the yard. I fed her more milk. A little later she vomited, and we hoped she had most of the poison out of her system. She couldn't really walk and her tongue was lolling out of her mouth, but she seemed to get better a little later and was walking more steadily. We watched and waited more. She seemed to be holding steady and we were hopeful. I tried to give her more milk but she didn't want any. So I found a water bottle and put the milk in there and forced her drink some. Then I thought that maybe most of the poison was out of her system probably, so I gave her some water. She was so thirsty. But then they told us not to give her water, because the water helps move the poison through her system. So I switched back to milk; prying her little jaws open to pour in a little at a time. Holding her mouth so she would swallow. Then sitting with her to see if it would stay in her system. But it was too little too late, or she ingested more meat than we thought, I don't know.

I keep trying to search for a reason, for a meaning, for some sort of silver lining, but I've yet to find one. It seems like such a senseless, cold-hearted act. Why? Why would someone do this? What purpose did it serve? Other than to strike pain into the hearts of those of us who had to watch our beloved animals suffer and die. I don't know if I'll ever have an answer.

All I know is there is a weight and pain in my chest that I don't know how to get rid of. And a feeling of having failed to protect a little being in my care. All I can hope is that she knew that I loved her and that her short life was joyful. Que en paz descansa, mi Lloronita. I miss you already.

Safe and Sound

Just so you don´t all worry about me, I wanted everyone to know that I am safe and sound after the earthquake in Haiti. Didn´t even feel the thing, although everyone else did. I think I was on my way home on a motorcyle. If you would like to help, the best way is to make monetary donations to well-established programs like, CARE, UNICEF, the Red Cross, and Doctors Without Borders. Thanks for all the thoughts and well wishes everyone has sent and thought. My love to all! I hope everyone is safe and happy and hope this new year brings more happiness to all of you. Oh, I will hopefully be home sometime in late May or early June for about 3 weeks so I hope to see most of you then!

Cooking up Jaiva

This happened a while ago now but I figure better late than never since it was a cool experience. My friend Thony´s brother Marco bought a bunch of freshwater crabs, known here as jaiva, and brought them over to my house to cook up. First we had to find a big caldero (cooking pot) to put them in. Then the crabs had to be cleaned. After that, firewood had to be chopped and the fire started in a traditional outdoor three stone fogon. The little neighbors boys and one neighbor girl came over to watch and enjoy. We cooked them in the caldero for quite a long time with a bunch of sopitas (bouillon cubes) and yucca, and corn and various other veggies and spices. Then we hauled them out one by one and dug in. There´s no crab cruncher things here so it was mainly done by hand. It was delicious although I couldn´t quite bring myself to suck out the innards like the Dominicans did. Supposedly delicious but I was reluctant to believe that. Here´s a few pictures!


Thony chopping firewood for the meal.


Here´s the crab getting cooked up in the pot.


Here´s the neighbor boys Pedro, Carlo, and Niño is the little one.

Haircutting

Men´s haircuts here are a sight to behold. I rather like watching it to be completely honest. If there´s electricity then the people who cut hair use the clippers. This usually takes place out in front of their house, sometimes under a little lean to that they´ve run electricity to from the house. After they buzz whoever is getting their hair cut they whip out a razor blade, universally called Gillette here regardless of the brand name. They then cut these very straight lines along the forehead, down by and up over the ears, all the way to the back. It´s quite unusual. Do people do this in the States? If there isn´t any electricity (luz as they call it here which literally means light) then they pull out a pair of scissors and a comb and cut that way. Here´s some photos. It´s not quite like going to a barber in the states!


My friend Thony getting the lines I was talking about cut straight along his forehead.


Thony cutting Rayito´s hair with the clippers, using my sarong as his drape cloth.


Old guy getting a haircut without luz.

More photos of Llorona

More pictures of my crazy little girl. All she wants to do is play. As soon as I walk out of the house in the morning she attacks my feet. You can hardly pet her because she thinks you want to play with her and starts jumping and nipping at you. She chases the chickens around the yard, and since I don´t have a rubber ball for her, I´ve taken to throwing pop bottles out in the yard which she can´t quite get her mouth around but loves to try and ends up sending them all over the yard. She´s getting adventurous too. At first, she stayed in the yard, but now she´s wandering out and up and down the lane in front of my house, which thank goodness doesn´t have too much traffic other than motorcycles and animals. And she´s chewing everything. She sneaks into the house, she´s not allowed in there, and grabs whatever clothes she can get to. She´s already chewed holes in one of my shirts, two pairs of underwear, and keeps hauling our shoes outside to play with. She´s a terror I tell you. She knows what no means, but is not quick to stop doing something until you literally yell no at her. I think I might need Cesar Millan, the Dog Whisperer to come train her for me! Anybody got any training tips? But she´s awfully cute, and it seems like she will probably be pretty small which is nice cause dog food is expensive. Here´s a few more pictures of my loca playing.

New Paint Job

So my landlord decided to paint the house. He asked me what colors I would like and so I told him I liked the colors the house was. So needless to say he bought this horrendous greenish-yellow color called green apple, although I´ve never seen an apple quite that color. I think it was on sale because I don´t know who would chose that color on purpose. Luckily I talked him into buying a pretty ocean blue color for inside and the edges of doors and windows, and pink for the shutters and some details. And there was this guy at the house four days of the first week of January painting. Luckily he was nice, but it was a process. The days he was painting the outside wasn´t so bad, but the two days he was painting the inside was a pain because we had to move all the furniture in the house around so that he could paint. And we had to feed him breakfast and lunch. At least we didn´t have to pay him. So here are a before and after shot of the house.


Here´s what the house looked like before.


It´s quite bright now isn´t it?

More Pictures

Happy Holidays and Happy New Year!! Hello all! I know I´ve been horrible about writing on this thing for quite a long time now so I´m trying to make up for it. Here´s some older pictures to share. I´m doing well, I´ve been a little homesick over the last couple weeks, after Mom and Dad´s visit and then realizing that this is the first Christmas in my 30 years of life that I haven´t spent with Mom, Dad, and Nate. However, things are going well, I´m enjoying a chance to relax in my site since it´s the holidays and nobody´s in school or doing a whole ton of work either. So I´ve been catching up on visits to people, reading a lot of cheesy historical romance novels, watching movies, sleeping a lot, and generally just relaxing for a few. Come January things are going to get busy again so I´m enjoying the down time while I can. All right, time to head out. But best wishes to all!! I´m thinking about all of you and miss you and hoping for some more visitors whenever anyone has some time and doesn´t mind roughing it for a few days.


Here I am!! I know you guys have missed seeing my lovely face so I thought I´d put up a picture, although this is a couple months old, but I think I look roughly the same.


Taking corn of the cob. This is part of the harvest that my friend Thony´s dad, Chelo, brought down from the loma. It´s used to make chen chen (which is grits), and to feed animals, mainly chickens and pigs.


A cool looking little green snake over on a tree in La Peña at Tima´s house. Tima is the president of the women´s group I´ve been working with and just a really cool lady in general. Speaking of my women´s group I finally got vegetable seeds for them to plant. Although, I´m still waiting for the grant approval and for it to get posted on-line.


We have these celebrations all the time in my community that are called Noche Vela. There´s always a procession from the church to the house where the Noche Vela is going to be. Everyone comes by chanting and singing and playing palos (big bongo type drums), carrying flags, pictures of saints, statues of saints, and in their church dresses. There´s a specific type of dress here that pretty much all the Catholic women in my site have and some men too. It´s usually bright colored and has some sort of cross sewn into it.


This is Nino, who is 97, born in 1912 he told me and has lived his whole life in El Batey. I see him walking all over the community, which is spread out over 10 kilometers so it´s not exactly short distances he´s going. He is one of my favorite old men here!


Efrein is one of the community leaders here in El Batey. He lives in the part of the community called Los Cerros.


Two handsome gentlemen hanging out in La Javilla, the center of town. It´s called La Javilla for the big (huge) trees that are there that are known as Javilla trees. Not sure what they are called in English.


This is my friend Thony and his niece, or is it his second cousin, or maybe his third cousin once removed. Man, I don´t know how people down here keep it straight. Pretty much they just call everyone primo or prima. And it seems at this point that most of the people in town are somehow or other related. If there first cousins then they call each other primo hermano or prima hermana and immediate aunts and uncles and godparents are tio and tia. Either way, this is one of the prettiest little bundles of joy I´ve seen!