The next day, Christmas Eve, is the big celebration day, not Christmas day. At about 10 am my project partner came to get me so that I could eat some of the pork that they had roasted the day before. So I get a big hunk of pork on a plate that he basically just tore right off the pig. They serve it with pan de casabe, which is sort of like a cracker/wafer, similar to Wasa Crackers, if you know what those are. Oh yeah, and no utensils. So I stuffed my face until I was ready to explode. After that is when I began drinking, switching off between rum and scotch, because that’s how they do things here. At about 12 came lunch when I had to eat more, even though I was full.
Then at about 2:30 I had to go home because the pork that my family cooked was ready, yeah more eating. After that I had to take a nap so I slept til about 5. I woke up, showered, drank some more and at 7 was dinner with the whole family. It consisted of pork, a potato salad type dish, salad, rice/beans, pan de casabe, apples and grapes and probably other stuff which I’m forgetting. I swear I was about ready to vomit all over the table from all that food.
At 8:30 we left, I thought to go to a party, but no, it was to a family friend’s house to eat yet another dinner. When we got there I saw that the table was all set and I thought it was some sort of joke, but it wasn’t. I barely ate a thing or I definitely would have vomited all over the place. They seemed kind of upset with me since I wasn’t eating and I got some dirty looks…but that’s how they roll here.
After that we went to drink some more, at first outside under some tents, and at about 12am we went back to the friend’s house where we partied it up til 3:30 or so. Before we left we all got served more food, which at that point I was hungry again because it had been about 6 hours or so, and I was used to eating ever other hour. No wonder they call the night before Christmas, “La Noche Buena,” or the good night, because it was very good.
The next morning I woke up around 10:30 or so, ate breakfast and went to a cockfight with my host dad. After watching the pig get slaughtered, this didn’t even phase me. I have a video of it and I’m trying to figure out how to upload it, as it is too big to upload to the blog.
Thursday, December 27, 2007
Pig Slaughter and Roast
On Sunday, two days prior to Christmas was the day for slaughtering pigs. All throughout the day cries of pigs dying could be heard. I witnessed one pig being put to death, the one that I would be eating the following day. It is very graphic and I don't wish to watch another one die. They take a large knife and stab it and wait for it to bleed to death. After that they put it on a slab where they pour boiling water on it to loosen the hairs so that it is easier to remove the hair. Well, the one I watched hadn't yet died before they began to pour water on it. It was not very pleasurable to watch this occur.
Later that same day I got to try mondongo, which is the intestines of the pig. Needless to say, I did not like it, as they do taste like there had been poo in them a few hours earlier. Unfortunately, it was the first time I had to tell my Dona that I didn't like something.
Even later that same day they began the pig roast, which is a tradition for them every year. Nine pigs were lined up in a row all on their sticks, roasting from about 7 pm til about 4 or 5 am the next morning. This was all taking place about 20 feet outside my bedroom door, so now everything in my room smells like smoke, but it was definitely worth it to see that many pigs roasting at one time...definitely not like Christmas back in the states.
Below are 2 videos of the pigs being slaughtered, if you have a week stomach please do not press play as you will probably vomit. They are very graphic. Enjoy...there are also some still photos that I uploaded to my photos.
Later that same day I got to try mondongo, which is the intestines of the pig. Needless to say, I did not like it, as they do taste like there had been poo in them a few hours earlier. Unfortunately, it was the first time I had to tell my Dona that I didn't like something.
Even later that same day they began the pig roast, which is a tradition for them every year. Nine pigs were lined up in a row all on their sticks, roasting from about 7 pm til about 4 or 5 am the next morning. This was all taking place about 20 feet outside my bedroom door, so now everything in my room smells like smoke, but it was definitely worth it to see that many pigs roasting at one time...definitely not like Christmas back in the states.
Below are 2 videos of the pigs being slaughtered, if you have a week stomach please do not press play as you will probably vomit. They are very graphic. Enjoy...there are also some still photos that I uploaded to my photos.
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Tropical Storm Olga
So it's been 3 months and I'm already on my second tropical storm. Not too good of odds so far. Peace Corps consolidated us, so right now all the volunteers in my region are staying at a nice hotel in Santiago, complete with hot showers, air conditioning, wireless internet and cable TV with English channels. There is even WGN news from Chicago!
This region of the DR got hit pretty bad by the storm. The big problem was that last night during the night, the government opened the floodgates to prevent a dam from overtopping, and they did not give any warning to the people in the area, so 7 people died that should not have, had there been a warning. They said about 5,000 cubic meters per second was flowing from the floodgates...that's a lot of water.
Not much to report on otherwise. Things are going well at my site and I'll probably be going back tomorrow after we get the go ahead from PC.
Vaya con Dios! (Everyone here says that when you're leaving, it means, "Go with God."
This region of the DR got hit pretty bad by the storm. The big problem was that last night during the night, the government opened the floodgates to prevent a dam from overtopping, and they did not give any warning to the people in the area, so 7 people died that should not have, had there been a warning. They said about 5,000 cubic meters per second was flowing from the floodgates...that's a lot of water.
Not much to report on otherwise. Things are going well at my site and I'll probably be going back tomorrow after we get the go ahead from PC.
Vaya con Dios! (Everyone here says that when you're leaving, it means, "Go with God."
Saturday, December 1, 2007
One Week Down...and Plenty More To Go
So I´ve been at my site for a week and things could not be going any better. Life is pretty boring for the time being. Here´s what my typical day looks like:
9am - Wake Up, Eat Breakfast (some sort of bread and milk drink), Bucket Bathe
10 or 10:30 - Read or go visit people and talk until lunchtime
12pm - Lunch (usually rice, beans, meat and some sort of salad)
1pm - More reading or going to talk to people until dinner time
6 or 7 - Dinnertime - Usually plantains or yucca, some fried salami
Then I either play cards or watch TV until about 10 or 11 and then go to bed.
Some interesting stuff that has happened in the past week:
I witnessed a motorcycle crash last night in front of my house. Everyone was ok. The passenger probably slid 10 or 15 feet from where it crashed. After everyone knew the people were ok they were basically just laughing about it. Interesting.
I went to a double header baseball game in the town of Altamira. If any of you are into baseball, Bartolo Colon is from the town of Altamira here and he built a huge stadium, bigger than necessary for the town. Anyways, both of my host brothers are on a team and they had a double header. For as much as I think baseball is boring I still had a great time and am actually going to another double header tomorrow.
I went to Puerto Plata yesterday. There are some Riu resorts there, which I know they are a pretty reputable chain of resorts. So if you want to live it up tourist style you can go there and you are only about 40 minutes away from me.
Tonight there is some big party in my town as a benefit for the old people. It starts at 8 and then goes til the wee hours of the morning.
I still haven´t taken any pictures, but when I do I promise I´ll post them.
Thanksgiving was glorious. Tons of foods and dessert. Three magnificent hot showers...it practically burned my skin off.
Ok...this internet is really slow and I don´t feel like typing anymore. I´m going to try to get into Santiago in the coming weeks and the internet is supposed to be faster, so I´ll be able to upload pictures and what not.
9am - Wake Up, Eat Breakfast (some sort of bread and milk drink), Bucket Bathe
10 or 10:30 - Read or go visit people and talk until lunchtime
12pm - Lunch (usually rice, beans, meat and some sort of salad)
1pm - More reading or going to talk to people until dinner time
6 or 7 - Dinnertime - Usually plantains or yucca, some fried salami
Then I either play cards or watch TV until about 10 or 11 and then go to bed.
Some interesting stuff that has happened in the past week:
I witnessed a motorcycle crash last night in front of my house. Everyone was ok. The passenger probably slid 10 or 15 feet from where it crashed. After everyone knew the people were ok they were basically just laughing about it. Interesting.
I went to a double header baseball game in the town of Altamira. If any of you are into baseball, Bartolo Colon is from the town of Altamira here and he built a huge stadium, bigger than necessary for the town. Anyways, both of my host brothers are on a team and they had a double header. For as much as I think baseball is boring I still had a great time and am actually going to another double header tomorrow.
I went to Puerto Plata yesterday. There are some Riu resorts there, which I know they are a pretty reputable chain of resorts. So if you want to live it up tourist style you can go there and you are only about 40 minutes away from me.
Tonight there is some big party in my town as a benefit for the old people. It starts at 8 and then goes til the wee hours of the morning.
I still haven´t taken any pictures, but when I do I promise I´ll post them.
Thanksgiving was glorious. Tons of foods and dessert. Three magnificent hot showers...it practically burned my skin off.
Ok...this internet is really slow and I don´t feel like typing anymore. I´m going to try to get into Santiago in the coming weeks and the internet is supposed to be faster, so I´ll be able to upload pictures and what not.
Monday, November 19, 2007
My Site
So last week I finally found out where I'm going to be living for the next two years. It's a small town outside of Altamira, about 40 minutes away from the big tourist area of Puerto Plata (just in case you wanted to look at a map of the DR.) I don't have time to go into detail and I didn't take any pictures of it yet (I figure I have 2 years to take pics)
Anyways, there are about 70 houses and about 270 people living there, nicely nestled in some large hills/small mountains. Everyone there seems surprisingly well-off and I'm not exactly sure where they acquire their money, but they definitely have it. I'm only a 10 minute walk off one of the major highways, therefore it is a relatively well-developed community. We have electricity, and a significant number of people even have running water in their houses, complete with flushing toilets and showers. These people buy their water from a truck that occasionally comes around to fill the tanks on their roofs.
Unfortunately the host family that I'm living with does not let me use their bathroom inside; I need to use the latrine and take bucket baths, but alas, I'm in the Peace Corps so I shouldn't have expected differently. I'm currently living in what I guess would be called a basement, although it's not really so much a basement as it is just one room on a lower level which you need to go outside to access. As a result of this "basement," when I stand up in my room my head is about an inch away from the ceiling. I can't even begin to tell you how many times I banged my head against the light fixture in my room. Also, there is only one small window which provides for no ventilation whatsoever, and my room smells faintly of mold. Luckily, the longest I'll have to live there is 3 months, although I'm hoping to move out in 1.5 or 2.
When I went around on my community tour they pointed out a house to me which is currently vacant, and which we would be discussing renting options in the future. The house looked really beatiful, even by some U.S. standards. It's a concrete structure which appeared to be completely furnished, which I'm hoping stays furnished when I rent it. It's about 100 yards away from a river which is really nice because I could then just bathe in the river instead of taking bucket baths. Also, I didn't go inside, but it looked big enough to have 2 bedrooms, so I could have visitors stay with me, so start looking for flights now.
Last Wednesday I had my first community meeting with the water committee and about 50 members of the community. The water committe pretty much ran the whole thing, but I should have arrived knowing that they would probably want me to speak a little, but I really didn't feel like preparing anything, so I went with just a blank notepad, and some Peace Corps handouts that were given to me earlier in the week. Right before the meeting started, the committee president (also my project partner, who is really cool by the way...more to come about him in a future post) came up to me and told me that after he introduced me that he wanted me to talk a little about the philosophy and goals of the Peace Corps...Yikes! Everyone who knows me, knows that I'm not really good at winging things, add to that a foreign language, and yeah...enough said. So I nicely stumbled through a couple minutes of senseless blabber, but everyone applauded me at the end, probably out of pity.
A little about my host family for the next 3 months: they are surprisingly similar to my family back in the states, except with darker skin. The mom and dad are 51 and 53, respectively, very close to my parents' ages. I have an older brother who is 29 who is on a baseball team, and is apparently pretty good because he has traveled to the states a couple times with the team. They have another daughter around 26 who has moved away from home to a nearby pueblo. I have a brother who is my age at 23, and then the youngest is my sister, who is 21. So, two boys and two girls, just like my family, and in similar age ranges too. It's really weird that it turned out that way, but it's comforting.
Also, we went to visit the water source that will feed my gravity-fed aqueduct. I found out that there is already a spring box there which was built back in 1986 with a small aqueduct in place which reaches about 7 or 8 houses. Apparently my community is in agreement with this other community to share this source, although I definitely anticipate some problems with this in the future. It is nice, however, to know that my community is really well-organized and well-educated, and has technical skill with respect to both design and construction. Hopefully this will make my job a little less stressfull, but we'll see. I'm a little intimidated at the moment with the prospect of designing this water system, but plenty of people have constructed theirs before me, in probably much worse off situations, so I know that I can do it too.
There are 5 other volunteers from my group that are within an hour or so of me. One of them is about a 10 minute ride down the highway, so that is pretty nice. There are also probably about 10 or so others from previous volunteer groups that are stationed around there.
Hopefully next time I'll have some pictures for you all, but for now you will just have to anxiously await them.
I officially swear-in and become a volunteer on Wednesday. Today I had the last of all my Spanish testing and a bunch of other random tests and I passed them all. Woohoo!
Also, on random note, there seems to be a bought of scabies in our group. Three people apparently have it, and although I haven't been in close contact with any of them, I'm feeling awfully itchy.
Finally, several people before I left inquired as to how I would get my hair cut here in the DR. Apparently these people (I'm not mentioning any names) were not aware that Dominicans do in fact cut their hair. Tonight I went to the barber for the first time and got myselft a nice Dominican hairdo. It's a little different than how it would have been cut in the states, but my Spanish still isn't that great and I wasn't able to communicate to them exactly how I wanted it cut. They have the same hair clippers as they do in the states, complete with different numbered attachments, so I told the barber that I would like a 2 on the sides and a 3 on the top, just like my brother at home had done numerous times in the past. The barber nodded in agreement and proceeded to cut my hair. I did not have my glasses on and as a result, when I put them on at the end it definitely was not cut with a 2 on the sides and 3 on top. Also, my widow's peak was razored off (sorry Denise, I know you really loved that). I'll try to take some pictures tonight so you all can see my lovely new do.
I hope everyone has a glorious Thanksgiving...I will be living it up for 2 nights at the Barcelo Lina in downtown Santo Domingo, complete with a pool and hot showers...what luxury (all for a grand total of $37 US). Thanksgiving dinner is at some ritzy place in a really nice neighborhood and it's all put together and cooked by volunteers. I'm sure it will not even come close to Thanksgiving dinner at home, but gosh darnit I'm going to enjoy it. In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I would like to say one thing that I'm thankful for: that it's the end of November here and the temperature is a nice hot and sweaty 85-90 degrees...how lovely. Meanwhile, all you guys back in Chicago will be enjoying a nice high of 35 on Thanksgiving...haha!
Anyways, there are about 70 houses and about 270 people living there, nicely nestled in some large hills/small mountains. Everyone there seems surprisingly well-off and I'm not exactly sure where they acquire their money, but they definitely have it. I'm only a 10 minute walk off one of the major highways, therefore it is a relatively well-developed community. We have electricity, and a significant number of people even have running water in their houses, complete with flushing toilets and showers. These people buy their water from a truck that occasionally comes around to fill the tanks on their roofs.
Unfortunately the host family that I'm living with does not let me use their bathroom inside; I need to use the latrine and take bucket baths, but alas, I'm in the Peace Corps so I shouldn't have expected differently. I'm currently living in what I guess would be called a basement, although it's not really so much a basement as it is just one room on a lower level which you need to go outside to access. As a result of this "basement," when I stand up in my room my head is about an inch away from the ceiling. I can't even begin to tell you how many times I banged my head against the light fixture in my room. Also, there is only one small window which provides for no ventilation whatsoever, and my room smells faintly of mold. Luckily, the longest I'll have to live there is 3 months, although I'm hoping to move out in 1.5 or 2.
When I went around on my community tour they pointed out a house to me which is currently vacant, and which we would be discussing renting options in the future. The house looked really beatiful, even by some U.S. standards. It's a concrete structure which appeared to be completely furnished, which I'm hoping stays furnished when I rent it. It's about 100 yards away from a river which is really nice because I could then just bathe in the river instead of taking bucket baths. Also, I didn't go inside, but it looked big enough to have 2 bedrooms, so I could have visitors stay with me, so start looking for flights now.
Last Wednesday I had my first community meeting with the water committee and about 50 members of the community. The water committe pretty much ran the whole thing, but I should have arrived knowing that they would probably want me to speak a little, but I really didn't feel like preparing anything, so I went with just a blank notepad, and some Peace Corps handouts that were given to me earlier in the week. Right before the meeting started, the committee president (also my project partner, who is really cool by the way...more to come about him in a future post) came up to me and told me that after he introduced me that he wanted me to talk a little about the philosophy and goals of the Peace Corps...Yikes! Everyone who knows me, knows that I'm not really good at winging things, add to that a foreign language, and yeah...enough said. So I nicely stumbled through a couple minutes of senseless blabber, but everyone applauded me at the end, probably out of pity.
A little about my host family for the next 3 months: they are surprisingly similar to my family back in the states, except with darker skin. The mom and dad are 51 and 53, respectively, very close to my parents' ages. I have an older brother who is 29 who is on a baseball team, and is apparently pretty good because he has traveled to the states a couple times with the team. They have another daughter around 26 who has moved away from home to a nearby pueblo. I have a brother who is my age at 23, and then the youngest is my sister, who is 21. So, two boys and two girls, just like my family, and in similar age ranges too. It's really weird that it turned out that way, but it's comforting.
Also, we went to visit the water source that will feed my gravity-fed aqueduct. I found out that there is already a spring box there which was built back in 1986 with a small aqueduct in place which reaches about 7 or 8 houses. Apparently my community is in agreement with this other community to share this source, although I definitely anticipate some problems with this in the future. It is nice, however, to know that my community is really well-organized and well-educated, and has technical skill with respect to both design and construction. Hopefully this will make my job a little less stressfull, but we'll see. I'm a little intimidated at the moment with the prospect of designing this water system, but plenty of people have constructed theirs before me, in probably much worse off situations, so I know that I can do it too.
There are 5 other volunteers from my group that are within an hour or so of me. One of them is about a 10 minute ride down the highway, so that is pretty nice. There are also probably about 10 or so others from previous volunteer groups that are stationed around there.
Hopefully next time I'll have some pictures for you all, but for now you will just have to anxiously await them.
I officially swear-in and become a volunteer on Wednesday. Today I had the last of all my Spanish testing and a bunch of other random tests and I passed them all. Woohoo!
Also, on random note, there seems to be a bought of scabies in our group. Three people apparently have it, and although I haven't been in close contact with any of them, I'm feeling awfully itchy.
Finally, several people before I left inquired as to how I would get my hair cut here in the DR. Apparently these people (I'm not mentioning any names) were not aware that Dominicans do in fact cut their hair. Tonight I went to the barber for the first time and got myselft a nice Dominican hairdo. It's a little different than how it would have been cut in the states, but my Spanish still isn't that great and I wasn't able to communicate to them exactly how I wanted it cut. They have the same hair clippers as they do in the states, complete with different numbered attachments, so I told the barber that I would like a 2 on the sides and a 3 on the top, just like my brother at home had done numerous times in the past. The barber nodded in agreement and proceeded to cut my hair. I did not have my glasses on and as a result, when I put them on at the end it definitely was not cut with a 2 on the sides and 3 on top. Also, my widow's peak was razored off (sorry Denise, I know you really loved that). I'll try to take some pictures tonight so you all can see my lovely new do.
I hope everyone has a glorious Thanksgiving...I will be living it up for 2 nights at the Barcelo Lina in downtown Santo Domingo, complete with a pool and hot showers...what luxury (all for a grand total of $37 US). Thanksgiving dinner is at some ritzy place in a really nice neighborhood and it's all put together and cooked by volunteers. I'm sure it will not even come close to Thanksgiving dinner at home, but gosh darnit I'm going to enjoy it. In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I would like to say one thing that I'm thankful for: that it's the end of November here and the temperature is a nice hot and sweaty 85-90 degrees...how lovely. Meanwhile, all you guys back in Chicago will be enjoying a nice high of 35 on Thanksgiving...haha!
Monday, November 12, 2007
Cell Phone
I just received my cell phone today. I'm not going to post it on here because I don't want telemarketers to get a hold of it, so if you want it, send me an email.
It's free for me to receive calls and text messages, so call and text whenever you want. Apparently you can go to www.callingcards.com and get pretty cheap rates on calling the DR. Also, I think there are some places online where you can make international calls for really cheap, such as Skype. Figure it out and give me a call. I'm supposed to have pretty good service at my site and I have electricity so I'll it should be on all the time.
I found out what my site will be for the next two years. If anyone wants to visit just let me know. You could fly into Santiago or Puerto Plata as they are about the same distance from me. If you want to stay with me lodging and food will practically be free, so the most expensive thing will be the flight.
It's free for me to receive calls and text messages, so call and text whenever you want. Apparently you can go to www.callingcards.com and get pretty cheap rates on calling the DR. Also, I think there are some places online where you can make international calls for really cheap, such as Skype. Figure it out and give me a call. I'm supposed to have pretty good service at my site and I have electricity so I'll it should be on all the time.
I found out what my site will be for the next two years. If anyone wants to visit just let me know. You could fly into Santiago or Puerto Plata as they are about the same distance from me. If you want to stay with me lodging and food will practically be free, so the most expensive thing will be the flight.
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
USAID
Today turned out to be quite the interesting day. The other 5 trainees and I arrived at the training facility prepared for a long day of Spanish class, but before class began we received a call from our program and training officer (PTO) asking us if we would like to help USAID load helicopters with supplies to assist in the relief effort of the recent storms. We gladly obliged since that would be a lot more exciting than a whole day of Spanish.
We took a taxi to the Peace Corps office in Santo Domingo where we met Richard Goughnour, the mission director of USAID in the Dominican Republic and Jeff Cohen, the program officer. We then went to the Las Americas airport where we had to pass through security in order to get onto the tarmac.
We arrived at the destination and probably waited an hour before we actually began to load stuff. We were loading blankets (why I don't know because it's really hot) and toiletries for the refugees. We loaded up 3 U.S. Coast Guard helicopters and one cargo plane. Most of the time was actually spent making an obstacle course and shelters for shade out of the bags of blankets, because there were hours inbetween each loading. Unfortunately we did not get to take a ride on this helicpoter.
I did not have my camera with me since I wasn't expecting to do anything exciting today, but another volunteer had his, so when he posts his I'll link to it.
We took a taxi to the Peace Corps office in Santo Domingo where we met Richard Goughnour, the mission director of USAID in the Dominican Republic and Jeff Cohen, the program officer. We then went to the Las Americas airport where we had to pass through security in order to get onto the tarmac.
We arrived at the destination and probably waited an hour before we actually began to load stuff. We were loading blankets (why I don't know because it's really hot) and toiletries for the refugees. We loaded up 3 U.S. Coast Guard helicopters and one cargo plane. Most of the time was actually spent making an obstacle course and shelters for shade out of the bags of blankets, because there were hours inbetween each loading. Unfortunately we did not get to take a ride on this helicpoter.
I did not have my camera with me since I wasn't expecting to do anything exciting today, but another volunteer had his, so when he posts his I'll link to it.
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