Fetching Water

First of all, let me explain the title a little further, and tell you why I used the word fetch. The word we use here for when people go to get water is "buscar." I don't have my dictionary near me and I don't feel like going to look up the word, but I'm pretty sure the literal translation is "search for." The verb buscar is also used if you are asking someone to get you something, as in "buscame un vaso de jugo," or "fetch me a glass of juice." (The more I look at the word fetch, the more it is not making sense to me anymore, because dogs fetch, but whatever, I'm rolling with it for now.) So anyways, I didn't want to the title the post "searching for water," because we already know where it is located, we just have to go get it. I also didn't think that "getting water" had a nice enough ring to it. Anyways, enough with the thought processes that go on in my head and on to the actual meat and potatoes of the the story.

After lunch I was playing with the little kids that live near me. We were playing tag, frisbee, they took me to the guava tree to pick some fresh fruit. (By the way, when we were playing tag they were amazed at how fast I ran. They were all saying in Spanish: "ay Kelvin, no sabíamos que tú puedes corre tan rápido así," which translates to, "Kevin, we didn't know you could run so fast like that." This is usually because they see me sitting on the porch reading. Now that I think about it, it probably was the first time I really ran ran at my site here. I play frisbee all the time but usually that only involves jogging. Playing tag is another story. You have to run and escape and what not. So yeah, the fat American guy can run.) After I was all wore out from running around, I took a rest on the porch, and after a few minutes, some other older kids and some of the younger ones came back with gallons in their hands and asked me if I wanted to go to the river with them to get water. I figured sure why not. I hadn't been to the river in a long time, nor in that part of the community, and thought it would be a chance to make my appearance down there and say hi to everyone along the way.

On the way down I had an interesting conversation with some of the boys. The poorer families here still use wood burning stoves as they don't have money to buy the propane. The wood that they use for cooking is called leña. Just like they do with the water, they also have to buscar leña. So the boys were telling me that after we're done with the aqueduct they won't have to buscar water anymore, and that wouldn't it be awesome if we could do a leña project so they don't have to buscar leña anymore either and they would have so much free time. They were even coming up with ideas on how we could go about doing it. We could either go upstream in the river and put all the logs in the river and float them down, or we could build a train-like system. This way, they would only have to go once a month and just cut down a lot of wood at a time, and bring it down through the river or the train, rather than having to do it daily. I could tell they were just joking around, but it was still pretty ingenious of them to be coming up with ideas and stuff.

So we arrived at the river and they filled up their gallons and they were also going to bathe. They asked me if I was going to bathe as well, but I said no, because it had been raining the past couple of days, and the water wasn't that clean looking and I figured that bathing in it was kind of counter productive. I did get my feet wet a little though.

On the way back up we had a discussion about apodos (nicknames) and what mine was. They all know me as Kevin (well really, Kelvin, because that is a more common name here and so they are accustomed to having the L there.) They were all asking me what my other names were. Here in the DR, it is very common to have at least two names. One is your real true name that is on your birth certificate and the other is just the nickname that everyone calls you. I would say that the majority of the times, the nickname is either just another regular name, or something about your appearance. I told them that I didn't have any, but that where I was working back in the states, that people called me K-Sed. Unfortunately, Dominicans can't pronounce that too well, nor do they understand why it's funny because the Dominicans that I live with probably don't even know who Britney Spears is, let alone Kevin Federline. So, I still don't have a nickname here, just Kelvin. I quite certain though that once we start construction on the aqueduct that people will come up with a few.

On the way back I also helped carry some of the water and some of the leña they found along the way. They also knocked down some oranges that aren't exactly ripe yet but were good nonetheless. I showed them how to juggle and they were pretty amazed, though they still haven't learned how to do it with three. They could only do it with two.

So that is your little peak into the lives of the muchachos (younger boys) here.