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!

Llorona

So this is my new little puppy Llorona. She's called Llorona because she cries a lot and Llorona means the crier. She doesn't cry as much now but she's a handful. Although she won't go to the bathroom on the cement. She stays at the house by herself when I leave. She loves to play and I have a feeling she's going to eat my flip-flops before long. I need to get her some little toys to play with. More on all later. Lots of love to all. And since I may not be on for a bit: Happy Holidays! and Happy New Year!

'Leners and Papi's Visit

Mom and Dad came down for 3 weeks in November. It was fun to get to show them around and see their impressions of my life and the culture in the DR. We started with a couple of days in the capital. I took them up to Entrena, the place where we had training at the beginning of our time here. Then we went and visited my first host family, which was really fun because I hadn't seen them since May and it was great to be able to introduce my parents and my dona to each other. We also walked down the Malecon, which is like the boardwalk by the ocean in Santo Domingo and went down to the Colonial Zone and I showed them some of the Columbus era buildings around there.

Then we headed out to the campo for 10 days. It happened to be the first ever patronales in my campo, which is usually associated with some kind of saint. However, being called El Batey we don't really have a saint associated with us so it was really just a big party all week long until midnight every night. Unfortunately, Mom and Dad, and later I came down with gripe (flu), but we still managed to do some wandering around. We went up to Elias Piña on the border to go to the Haitian market, which was huge, but pretty neat. It had everything under the sun from vegetables, to little barbecues, to blankets.



Also, the little neighbor kids stopped by every day to hang out with Mom and Dad. Here's the kids with Dad, Madelin, Cristofer, and Carlo.



And we went and visited my friends and neighbors. Here's 'Leners with one of my favorite doña, Miladi.



Also, Dad worked on some projects. He made a path with cement and rocks that leads from my back step to the letrine, which is so nice because before when it rained it was a muddy mess. He also made a dry well around my water spigot that looks great and again, keeps it from being a muddy mess. Mom took lots of pictures and videos, played the guitar, did some cooking. They both did a lot of reading which you can see from the picture below. I think my favorite 'Leners quote from the time was, "It's kind of like camping." Which I'd never really thought of before, but I guess is kind of true. I got cold water from the spigot outside for washing, bathing, dish washing etc., a nice latrine out in the back, although I do have a nice comfy bed and tables and chairs and a cement floor and a roof, even if the walls don't reach the ceiling.



After hanging out in the campo we went to the beach for a few days. We checked out the rocky beach at Los Patos and stayed at a little Italian run hotel/restaurant and had some great pizza for dinner, then we moved to a very pretty resort called Playazul which had a pool, private beach, a yummy French-inspired restaurant. It was great! Much nicer than the digs I usually stay in when I'm traveling around the country.

Hanging out drinking coconut milk straight from the coconut at Playazul.




Mom and Dad walking down the beach in Los Patos.



It was a great visit and so good to get to show Mom and Dad what my daily life is like here in the DR and to get a little vacation to the beach as well. Thanks Mom and Dad!! Miss you!!