Dinner at the Embassy

In April, we had a special treat when the Director of Peace Corps worldwide, Aaron Williams (who served in the Dominican Republic and married a Dominican woman) came to visit the Dominican Republic with a group of senators from around the U.S. to celebrate the 50th anniversary. Several of us volunteers were invited to come along with our project partners. Thony came with me and had to borrow a suit and shoes from his brother and friends. I finally had an excuse to wear one of the beautiful dresses that Maw Maw bought me on my trip to the South in November. I must say, I think I looked pretty good. Anyway, we arrived with our invitations to the Embassy all dressed up and there was a cocktail and appetizer hour beforehand as we waited for Director Williams and the senators to arrive. Once they arrived we circled the house and went through the front doors where we were presented to Director Williams and some of the senators as well as the Ambassador and some representatives from the Dominican government. The Dominican Press was in full attendance taking pictures and filming the whole soiree. The Ambassador, Director Williams, one of the senators, our country director Romeo, and one of the volunteers spoke. Afterwards we were treated to a wonderful dinner. It was quite an evening and an honor to be invited and meet this distinguished group of people however briefly.

Brigada Verde Sur

In March we held the Brigada Verde Sur (the Southern Green Brigade) Conference for all of the volunteers that live in the southwest of the country. It was held near San Juan and I helped plan it, including finding the center where we held the conference. It was a fun-filled and tiring weekend. We had lessons about garbage, the human impact on the environment, HIV/AIDS, recycled art projects, water pollution and cholera, deforestation and tree planting, biodiversity, numerous games and movies and some time spent swimming in the lovely swimming pool. All in all it was a great weekend. I took three of the boys from my Brigada Verde group who live near me in the campo. They are all relatively shy boys who have very rarely left the campo to do anything, so it was great to get to take them to the conference and see them come out of their shells and participate with the other kids that were attending the conference. I had to buy them swimsuits for the conference because none of them owned any. I think they had a good time and I was so proud of how they behaved.

Diego

Diego is Thony’s younger sister Deida’s second son. I think he’s just about the most adorable thing I’ve ever seen! Her older son Albert was just a baby when I first met her and now he’s a toddler running around wreaking havoc all the time, although he’s still cute as a button too. Deida is 22 I think. She lives in the capital but comes out a couple of times a year and stays for a couple weeks. Last time I saw her she was pregnant and now she has this big bundle of joy!! He’s going to be a big boy just like his big brother.

Fogon Training at Benjamin´s

In late January Thony and I went up to my friend Ben’s site which is a couple hours from here to teach him and his masons how to make the improved wood stoves. It was a fun week. The first night when we were there, we went down to Ben’s local colmado and hung out and played dominoes with young and old. Ben and I particularly enjoyed it because we were beating the Dominicans pretty regularly. Dominicans are notoriously good at dominoes so whenever you can win it’s exciting.

The next day we were up bright and early to work on the fogon at his doña’s house, which luckily is right next to his little house because they are actually the owners of his house. We had two masons that we were training and Thony leading the training. It worked really well; so much easier to have a Dominican man telling other Dominican men what to do instead of trying to get them to listen to little old me. Don’t get me wrong, some men are very open and willing to work with me and take my instruction but there’s a lot who aren’t. Their machismo gets in the way sometimes. Day 2 we worked over at Ben’s neighbors’ house. It is three boys ages 22, 17, and 14 whose parents died suddenly within a few months of each other since Ben arrived in their site. So the 22-year-old, Freilin, is trying to take care of his little brothers so that they can finish school. Ben is super close with them and they come over to his house every day throughout the day to hang out and visit.

In the evenings, Ben would cook us up some dinner and we’d have a couple beers and relax and enjoy the cool evenings (Ben’s up at a higher elevation so it cools down more there than it does in my site). I actually slept with a sleeping bag on the second and third nights because I was so cold on the first night. Although other than the cool nights and the fact that there’s more hills it’s virtually identical to my site. The same thorn trees and living fences of euphorbia. It was nice to see that at least someone else is living in a similar site to me!

Cholera

Many of you have heard about the cholera outbreak in Haiti and the increasing number of people who have become sick or died. There have now also been confirmed reports and deaths in the Dominican Republic; some of these cases have been as close as communities around San Juan, the closest city to me. After decades without cholera, Hispaniola is ill prepared to deal with such an epidemic. There are many misconceptions that Dominicans have in general about Haitians and particularly about cholera and the Haitian population. Because there hasn’t been cholera in Hispaniola for so long most Haitians and Dominicans (particularly those from rural areas) didn’t know what it was or where it comes from. The Dominican response, has been to limit Haitians from crossing the border, although this has unfortunately involved sending some Haitians who have lived in the Dominican Republic for years across the border to Haiti. There are a number of problems with this solution. First, it is not a specifically Haitian disease. In fact, it is thought that it was possibly brought to Haiti by international relief workers because some people can be infected and never become sick but can still infect others. Second, it is most easily caught through contaminated water. And in countries like Haiti and the Dominican Republic where water is largely not regulated or treated because most people get water from a community constructed aqueduct or simply from the rivers and creeks that run through their villages the disease can run rampant quickly. In addition to this, most water born illnesses will die when dried out. Cholera is an exception. It can be dried and then as soon as water touches it again it will come back to life. This makes it extremely difficult to eradicate.

Luckily for volunteers, we have the Peace Corps which is ever vigilant in trying to ensure the health, safety, and well-being of all volunteers. As such, we were required to attend a training in the capital at the end of October to learn more about it and how to protect ourselves and educate our communities. During our training we learned about signs and symptoms of cholera, which I will spare all of you from, and we learned ways to protect ourselves. First and foremost, bleach. Bleach in any water we are going to use for washing dishes, for washing any food that we might eat without boiling it first. Although cholera is easily treatable with antibiotics, prevention is the best weapon. A current volunteer down here who was a volunteer in Guatemala several years ago, came up and told us about having cholera and just how miserable it is. It makes parasites sound like nothing more than a nuisance. It can kill a child or an elderly person in 24 hours and a healthy adult in 48-72 hours.

Now that I’ve scared all of you, let me assure you that I’m taking all the precautions I can and as of today, we have no reported cases of cholera in the community.

Consolidation

A few days after cholera training and the robbery we were consolidated to San Juan because of the threat of Hurricane Tomas. Everyone in regions 1 and 2, which means everyone in the southwest of the country, was required to come to a hotel in San Juan until the danger of the hurricane had passed. We arrived on Tuesday afternoon and were there until Sunday. Luckily for us, the hurricane moved farther west and we didn’t see much of anything except some light, but steady rain for about 24 hours. We had all seen worse rainstorms in the past. The rest of the time was sunny and beautiful. It was particularly amusing to those of us who live close to San Juan because it felt like we would have been fine in our homes, but Peace Corps has a better safe than sorry policy which is probably a good idea. However, spending 6 days in a hotel, particularly when you aren’t supposed to leave the hotel at all for a couple of those days gets exhausting. In the beginning we were all excited. We had nice air-conditioned rooms, cable TV, free wireless internet, and free meals (admittedly mediocre Dominican food), and San Juan to wander around in when we weren’t required to stay in the hotel. Also, there were a bunch of new volunteers that had just sworn in, so it was fun to get to know them over the course of our stay. However, even with all these perks, six days of hotel living and never being alone takes its toll. I think we were all relieved when we got the okay to return to our sites.

Burglary

Several months have passed now since this happened, but I still believe it’s affected me a lot and feel that it’s important to share it. As I mentioned in the previous post, I went to the capital for cholera training at the end of October. As I was returning the next day with several other volunteers, I received a call from my friend who takes care of my house, who told me that my house had been broken into the night before when he had left for a couple of hours in the evening. I was shocked. I had never really worried about that happening as I’d already been living in the house for more than a year and on several occasions had gone out at night to compartir (share time with) friends in the community. Also, my house is fairly secure as far as Peace Corps volunteer houses go.

When I arrived at my house it was time to survey the damage. They had broken one of the wooden slats on the window to right of the front door of the house and reached inside and opened the lock. I’m not sure exactly what they were looking for, but they managed to take quite a bit. The worst thing they took was 5000 pesos (about $150 US) that was money community members had given me as part of their contribution for our improved cookstove project. They also took several pairs of pants and shorts, some T-shirts and tank tops, several pairs of shoes, some skirts and a dress, a bunch of paints that Mom had brought me when she came, a backpack, most of my sheets, my towel, and a damaged greca (a stovetop coffee maker).

By the time I arrived home they had three people in custody that had been seen near the house around the time the robbery happened. I had to go down and give a report to the police that evening and then return the next morning where I had to sit and listen while the detectives questioned the men one by one as they sat in a chair next to me. As there was no proof, they were allowed to go. In the end, only one is still suspected of having been involved, although the other two had information they later shared, not with police but with other members of the community which eventually trickled back to me. Another man who is believed to be involved was later arrested on unrelated charges to the robbery and is still in jail.

I have to say, I lost a little bit of faith in my community initially when I found out what happened, and definitely felt less secure in my own house, which is a terrible feeling to have. I still get freaked out every now and again and am very careful about leaving my house unattended. However, things could have been much worse. Had I been here and left the house alone at night, they probably would have stolen my computer and my camera which would have been irreplaceable as they have all of my work information and all of my photos from my time here saved on them. And ultimately, my faith was restored in my community on the night I returned from the capital. It was patronales (kind of like a festival with booths that sell alcohol and dance competitions) and as I mentioned several of my volunteer friends had come back to my site with me so we could go enjoy patronales. So while some people stayed at my house, a few of us went out. When we arrived I was immediately approached by friends in the community, who were concerned about the robbery. They all felt so horrible that it had happened to me. It was a strange feeling. On the one hand, I felt violated and like an outsider because my house had been robbed, and on the other hand I felt so loved and like such a part of the community because all these people were so concerned for me. In the end, I think it may have been a blessing in disguise. The things that were stolen held no sentimental value and could be replaced and my community banded around me.