The Ups and Downs and An Amazing Vacation

Saturday, 14 March 2015

Today was my birthday. Pi Day! And Pi Day to 5 digits (3.1415), which happens rarely. I tried to explain the concept of Pi Day to my host mom, but it didn’t work out so well.

Me: “So, first of all do you know the number Pi?” (I draw π on a sheet of paper)

My host mom looks confused

Me: “It’s a math thing, you know, something to do with circles” (I don’t know the word for diameter or circumference in Spanish. Probably should have looked that up first.) “You know what, never mind, it’s fine.”

Host mom: “No, no let me ask my granddaughter.” (Her granddaughter understands what I’m talking about and explains it.)

Host mom: “Oh, PI!!!” (pronounced pee)

Me: “Yes. Okay, well also it’s important to know that in America we write our dates month/day/year.”

Host mom (very brightly, like she’s so excited to share information I might not already know) “But here in the DR, we write the Day and then the Month!”

Me: “Yes, I—that’s not the point. Because this only works with the American dates…”

So anyway, that was how our conversation went. I explained this concept to my host family, and after a while, I think they understood what I was saying, but still didn’t really buy it. Mostly because it all falls apart when you write the dates the Dominican way. I guess you could celebrate Pi Day here on April 31 (31/4). It just doesn’t have that ring to it.

But I left my family and went with L and a Peace Corps volunteer to the beach, about an hour or so away (the same beach I went to earlier with my Spanish teacher. It was quite windy, and sprinkled a few times, but for the most part was really, really nice. I did manage to get a little sun burnt, however—even though I DID put on sunscreen, Danielle—because I don’t think I reapplied it. It was too overcast to make me think of it.

After a relaxing day at the beach, I came home and took a nap, lounged around, etc. My host mom finally calls me to dinner, and I dawdle a little in my room, and then walk out. I see the table is all set up (usually I eat alone, so this was weird). Then I see a bunch of people assembled, waiting for me. The panic starts to rise. No one except the granddaughter has seen me yet. I stand their frozen and finally my host mom and her daughter realize I’m there, and start clapping and singing Happy Birthday in Spanish.

My face—though it was hard to believe this was even possible—goes even redder. The introvert inside of me is screaming, “Ahhh, get out, run to your room and hide/cry!” But I stay and shyly smile. I comfort myself by thinking that if this party was made up of my real family and friends from home, I would be perfectly within my rights to flat out murder all of them on the spot. (I think I have made it very clear to anyone close to me that any surprise party—especially where I am forced to endure this sort of OMG EVERYONE LOOK AT SHANNON THE BDAY GIRL SHE IS SO SURPRISED, let’s stare at her to watch her reaction—would be most unwelcome.)

But this is not a group of people who know or might remotely understand these sensitivities of mine. I feel a surge of affection for the people in the room. They took such time out of their day and made this great effort to make sure that I had a fun birthday, even when I was miles away from my family. It was so sweet of them. I keep smiling (I smile a lot when I am embarrassed or awkward), which I think they took simply as a “I’m so happy smile”. Despite my initial embarrassment, I thought it was quite lovely. It was a very nice dinner of tacos, and my supervisor, L, made a nice cake.

L and I planned on going out dancing that night, so we sat around and talked for a while as I got ready. However, we both ended up being so tired that we couldn’t convince ourselves to go out. I was actually perfectly fine with this, and I just enjoyed the time we did have hanging out. What a nice day.

Friday, 20 March 2015

The organization I work with focuses on working with local entrepreneurs. They have items that they sells (prescription glasses, water filters and solar lamps) that are aimed to increase people’s ability to work—for example, not getting sick due to unfiltered water. But the main part is that they actually find local people who want to sell these. It gives those people an opportunity to make their own money, and therefore has more money going into the local community, and keeps down costs by, say, not needing to hire an American to do that job.

So anyway, Friday was a quarterly conference with all the local entrepreneurs. They all undergo training, but have these conferences to discuss their progress, needs, and also as kind of a motivation, planning upcoming strategies. I went there to present the Savings and Loans groups that I've been working on, and see if the entrepreneurs knew of any interest in their community in starting a group.

But since I wasn't involved in a lot of it, I took some time to go swimming in the swimming pool at the hotel. It was really nice. There were a lot of kids there, I think as some sort of school trip. (A bunch of older people I assumed to be teachers sat around at a table chatting and not paying much attention to the kids.) For the most part, the teenagers were having a lot of fun going down the slide, or dancing merengue or bachata (whichever was playing at the time) on this little island in the middle of the pool, or just swimming around. I swam laps in the shallow end, and just floated around. Some of the girls were really impressed by my ability to float on my back. I tried to teach them, but I don't really know the mechanics of what I'm doing; I just do it. So I was pretty useless, oh well.

Anyway, it was a pretty nice day, and it was cool to interact with the local partners who were there. I would share pictures from this event (including photos of the people I work with), however, I do not have these photos any more, explained in the next section... 

Wednesday, 25 March 2015

I should start off this next section by saying that I’ve debated if I should share this with you. I know, what could possibly be shocking at this time? I’ve shared everything from defecating in my pants to being stalked/harassed by a man deaf to my protests. I’ve never wanted to pretend that my life is perfect. Growing up—hell, living—can be hard. And certain places are harder to live in than others. But I’ve always maintained this illusion for myself that in all of these travels I am more or less immune from real harm. And somehow burning the entire back of my leg, getting money stolen by my host family, harassed by a crazy man, etc, never really destroyed this illusion. But more recently this illusion has been (slightly) destroyed. I’m FINE, don’t worry, but just a little more worried than usual.

But I would like you to remember as you are reading all of the following that yes, life can be dangerous. And yes, it can be more dangerous in certain places and doing certain things. And furthermore, those increases in danger are not kept out by national boundaries, but let’s just agree that they are definitely hindered by socioeconomic boundaries. So remember for all your worrying, I still have an advantage in life. And that advantage is that I don’t have to be here. I don’t have live in rural West Africa or the Dominican Republic or even the ghettos of Baltimore, DC, Detroit, or wherever there is more poverty and violence. But there are people who do. There are people who do not have parents to help out, money in savings, an American passport, white skin; all things that increase your chances of escaping life’s woes—at least in part. So when you read this, please don’t worry for me. Or at least don’t worry for me more than the people who live here in this same town who might have to deal with this for their whole lives.

…

So some of you may know this already, but Saturday night I was robbed. It was 30 seconds of drama/confusion (the actual incident) which was mostly just the guy smacking my purse off of my wrist (he broke a link, I still have the actual wrist part), and running off with it; followed by an hour of just non-stop rambling, of which I can’t remember much except that I felt if I stopped the constant musing, I would really freak out, followed by two days of depression, and finally today, when I composed this all in my head as I was wondering around El Seibo.

I’m fine, I wasn’t in any way physically hurt in any way. And I’ve been told I should consider myself lucky that I’m alive, and unharmed. And that what I lost, was in all honesty, minimal. I had approximately $5 on me, plus a really old, crummy cell phone, an old (7 years!) camera, and a new flask with cheap rum. I keep contenting myself with the idea that the guy doing the robbing was bummed by his low reward, although maybe that’s just my privilege talking that I would consider a shitty smartphone the raw end of the deal.

But I still spent some days being very depressed. And I felt like I shouldn’t be. Because after all, it wasn’t that terrible. But I realized that part of the problem was my camera: it’s been with me seven years, and throughout many countries in Europe and Africa, all across the US (multiple times over). I feel like I’ve lost an old friend—even though that didn’t stop me from researching new ones online almost immediately.

I’ve been told (by myself and others) that next time be more careful, now I know, now I won’t even have much valuables to worry about! Just be thankful it wasn’t worse.

When I was talking to Maria, my fellow Kérou post-mate about it (who lives in Puerto Rico, just one island over) I even joked that I’ve done so much stupid shit in my life, I was surprised its taken this long for something this bad to happen.

Her response was:

it isn't an excuse though

it just shouldn't happen. Period

And that was a moment of clarity. I SHOULDN’T be happy that I made it out of this ordeal alive, I SHOULDN’T be happy that I “only” had minimal cash and old devices stolen.

I SHOULD BE HAPPY THAT THIS NEVER HAPPENED AT ALL.

Because it shouldn’t have.

And that’s not a happy thought, but it’s not a sad one either. To go extra nerdy on you, it reminded me of a quote from the 3^rd Harry Potter book where Sirius is talking about how in Azkaban, he was able to say sane, knowing he was innocent. It wasn’t a happy thought that the happiness-sucking dementors could take, but it kept him knowing he who he was.

And that’s kind of how I feel. I know this was wrong. I know this isn’t the way a just world works. I don’t have to feel happy just because it wasn’t worse. I’m allowed to feel frustrated by such lawlessness and disregard for the rights of others.

But then I think about the real causes of this; the real causes that make poor countries dangerous. It’s the poverty, the desperation, and the income inequality, and the INJUSTICE of all of that. I’m not even mad at the kid who did this; I’m mad at the circumstances that told him this was the only option left. There is rampant poverty here, and not always jobs. And I would probably feel the same way about someone who robbed me in America. I don’t think people need tougher policing or laws or whatever. I think they need better opportunities.

Because I’ll be fine. Not even a few hours after I’d been robbed, my supervisor (who was with me, but carrying her things in her pockets, rather than a free-hanging purse, which is what made my things vulnerable) gave me an old smartphone (though I can only use it with wifi), and and old camera.

I remember my friend Ryan, pointing out that in Joburg (where she has also been robbed), there are many cases of robbery, to the extent that the more middle-class inhabitants take out insurance policies, and brush off when this happens as just a cost-of-living.

But how can this be treated so lightly? When people within a population accept crime and violence as just a normal, expected part of life, something is wrong. And in some cases, I’m not convinced that the problem is entirely the person committing the crime.

It is wrong that people living in poor neighborhoods might come to expect crime. But there isn’t anything they can do. They can’t move out. They can’t buy insurance on their items. It’s just a part of life, and it happens and it sucks.

It’s wrong that wealthier people (even myself) might shrug off being robbed because, whatever, they can just replace it anyway. They (might) have insurance to protect them.

We deserve better. We deserve communities—not where people don’t steal, but where they don’t NEED to steal. We deserve a world, where EVERYONE can make a living wage legitimately. Where we can then more freely move about, where there are communities not controlled by criminals and communities that are not harassed by police trying to look tough on crime (or casually just getting the city a nice income flow on the backs of black people). Where criminal becomes a label that can ONLY apply to a BAD person, and NEVER just a DESPERATE one. Because no one should be that desperate.

Sometimes I like to pretend that my work here is helping us move towards that better world. It’s not, but it’s nice to think so.

Sometimes I like to pretend that we’re moving towards that better world. We’re not, but we SHOULD be.

And that’s my cynical/optimistic mash of a statement for the day.

But, oh, for my family who worries: don’t think this means I’m going to ignore whatever safety precautions I should be taking. Just because I shouldn’t be robbed doesn’t mean I wont be, so I intend on being more cautious, as a way of self-preservation.

Saturday, 28 March 2015

So today I had a lesson with my Spanish teacher. I told her about the robbery and my feelings about it. She looks at me pityingly, and tells me that the guy probably wasn’t just poor, he was probably just a drug addict. Suddenly I’m feeling naïve, but also disappointed. Like it was better when I could imagine that this guy was just desperate and trying to feed his family or whatever.

But then again, it doesn’t change my conclusions much, even if he was a drug addict. Because I think that there are still a lot of structural realities that make drugs related to crime. For example, the fact that drugs are illegal makes their prices higher. People with addictions then might need to steal. (Did you know, for example, there was a study done where one community actually set up part of a hospital where heroin users could go and get their heroin for free? As much as they wanted, but they had to consume it in the hospital; they couldn’t take it out. And the actual cost to the town—the facility, the drugs, the doctors, etc—was negated by the greater savings to the town in not having to enforce this law, not having to deal with the crime from addicts, etc). So my philosophy is that internationally we should end the War on Drugs, and treat addicts as people someone who are sick and need help, not as people who lack morals and must be punished. I think communities would fare a lot better if we allowed people to get treatment, instead of scaring them away with threats of punishment.

So anyway, I guess this incident didn’t really change my views on life (I’ve been all for fighting poverty since I was young, and against the War on Drugs for many years now). I just get to add this to my explanation for my desire to change the world, or whatever. I don’t really know this man or his motivations, but I do know mine.

I guess it only robs me of the kind of nobility I was starting to feel. Like, yes, I suffered, but I had helped this guy feed his family. Turns out, I was (possibly) only helping him feed his habit. Now I feel more of the crushing sense of my continued naïvety.

I did have a funny incident related to this whole thing, however. I had immediately used Lia's computer to log out of everything on my phone. But a few days later, I realized that Google actually has the ability to find phones where you have a google account on them. I see one device listed there. It puts it as located in El Seibo, the DR and there is an option to "ring" the device. I get really excited and just know I'm going to freak out my robber (or more likely the person he sold my phone to. I press the button, and suddenly I jump as my tablet besides me starts ringing. I sigh, realizing that, of course, my phones has been logged out of google for days, and has possibly been wiped.

But I install a program on my tablet so that I can find it, as well as remotely erase it if I want to. I plan on doing this as well with my phone, whenever I get a knew one. It's kind of cool. I even read this story of a guy who got his computer stolen in Central America. He had install a computer program before, one that would help you recover it. Essentially it spies on whoever is using the computer. He recorded all of the messaging people were doing, was able to see them log onto facebook, could take videos of them as they were using the computer. Technology can be quite terrifying! Granted, in this case you had to be in physical possession of the computer to install the program initially, but there are different things that hackers do remotely. (Keep a little sticky over your computer cameras, people!) Anyway, he ends up essentially blackmailing the person who now owned it to give it back to him.

I think dreamily of having the knowledge or presence of mind to log onto google and screenshot my phone's movements, then printing this out for the police, who might have had a real investigation. I'm not even sure, however, if my terribly old phone would be up to it. But it's nice to think about. And for the future, I'll always have that. Although, if my phone ever is stolen again, maybe that person will know to wipe everything, so oh well.

Then there's this cute story of a guy that had his phone stolen: http://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/i-followed-my-stolen-iphone-across-the-world-became-a-celebr and traveled to China to meet the man who happened to buy it, lol.

La Semana Santa

But don’t worry everyone. Life, it turns out, gets better. At least for me, right now.

Holy Week (La Semana Santa) is a big thing here in the DR. Everyone parties a lot, and takes (family) trips to rivers, swimming holes, wherever they can have a nice day. And it just so happens that Maria, my post-mate from Kérou is in the Dominican Republic! She just finished up with her USAID job in Benin, and is soon headed off to Namibia, where she’ll be working for UNICEF. Her family conveniently has a vacation home in the DR, and so she invited me to join them for this week while they’re here. Also very conveniently, it’s not that far from El Seibo. I headed there Monday. My host mom’s son drives a bus along (part of) the route I needed to take, so he picked me up. His bus has WIFI, which blew my mind. I just kept thinking, “Wait, where am I again?” He was nice and helped me find my connecting bus to my destination.

I arrived, and Maria’s family picked me up and after finishing an extensive grocery store run, we went to their house. It is a community resort that has golf courses and what not. Mostly this place is for people that have second homes (Maria’s family informs me that they are mostly Spanish or Russian families). There is also a hotel on the property.

I took a swim in their pool which was really nice. Maria’s family keeps serving me drinks and what not, and I had a pretty chill evening. I also impressed her and her family with my Spanish. I’m sure it’s not perfect, and I can’t always express exactly what I want to say, but Maria says that since I’ve only been here since February, it’s pretty impressive.

Tuesday, Maria and her family went golfing. I’ve never golfed (since I’ve been informed that putt-putt doesn’t count). I was a little worried about hitting a ball through someone’s window, so I didn’t actually participate, but I went along for fun. I got to drive my own golf cart, which was a great time!!!! I might have gotten a little carried away driving maniacally around the fairway, as people searched for their golf balls… I was also assigned to be bartender, bringing people beers as requested!

I also learned a great lesson that if you ever want to learn how to curse in a new language, just go golfing with native speakers. At one point, Maria's mom had a bad shot (ok, sorry, I really don't know any golf terms. It's whatever the first time you hit the ball at a new hole is called). According to group rules, each person was allowed one do-over for the entire game. So she goes to tee again, and lines the ball right into a water. She yells a word I've never heard before, then, horrified, turns to me with her hand over her mouth and says, "NEVER repeat that!" (Luckily for her I'm really, really bad at learning new vocabulary just by hearing it. I HAVE to write it down to remember. But I made Maria tell me what it was when we got home, so I could add this to my list of fun words to say.)

Maria seemed to get more frustrated as the day went on. It was same frustration I’d feel when I’d bowl or play putt-putt with my family. And my father, who really had no more practice than myself still seemed to do infinitely better. There we were, just trying to have fun (BUT I ALSO REALLY WANTED TO WIN) and he just breezes through this random sport.

I noticed, however, that everyone golfing this day wasn’t particularly good, ESPECIALLY when it came to putting. Like honestly, I haven’t played putt-putt for YEARS, and I could have probably (not really) done better. I amused myself with this thought. But when Maria finished one particular hole where she just couldn’t seem to get the ball in, I whispered to her, “Well the good news is that NO ONE here is actually good at putting.” She looks at me and laughs, knowing the truth of my words, and carries on slightly merrier.

#GolfCartSelfie

Maria and Her Mom, Golfing

At one point, I ran out of rum, because I had been promised that we would actually drive by the house at one of the holes, and stop there for a drink. Therefore, I didn’t bring so much. I was fine, since I was tipsy and enjoying myself, but Maria’s parents hated to see me empty handed. So at one hole, Maria’s dad gave me directions back to the house, and I head off with my golf court. Suddenly I’m driving around this huge resort and nothing looks familiar. Luckily I have an excellent sense of direction, and was able to easily make it back to Maria. She informs me her dad was mistaken, and it was the NEXT hole that is close to her house, her dad was just a little confused. So I head off again, and finally find the house, grab some rum and extra beers, and head back, and enjoy the rest of the time. Afterwards, we headed back to their house. I took a brief nap since I was so tired. That night, Maria and her family had a small party, inviting other people from the neighborhood.

Wednesday was a relaxing day. I spent the late morning swimming in the pool, and then Maria and I went to the clubhouse for internet and a drink. Maria’s family is so wonderful, letting me stay here and making delicious meals for me. I’ve enjoyed talking to her dad as well, in a mix of Spanish and English. He definitely makes some Dad-jokes, and Maria rolls her eyes and says “Papi!” discouragingly, but I go along with it. I'm enjoying it.

Thursday, it was a little drizzly, which Maria informs me is terrible weather for golf. Later it cleared up, though, and the hot sun seemed to be doing an excellent job of drying everything. So Maria and her parents went out golfing. But at hole 4—which happens to be adjacent to their backyard, Maria comes storming over, declaring she has had quite enough of golf for the time being. I feel fine with this announcement and we spend the rest of the day just chilling, mostly in the pool.

That night, one of her parent’s friends was having a little get-together. Conveniently, their house is located only a few houses down. So Maria and I walk over there. The hostess insists on plying me with drinks. The conversation around I only understands bits a pieces—and more when Maria explains it to me. Then I talk for a while with the hostess, a really delightful woman. Turns out, she actually has family in Bel Air, Maryland. We had a really fun conversation. I left this gathering feeling so wonderful about humanity. These people had no reason to like me except that I happened to be plopped down in the same village as their friend’s daughter years ago. Yet they treat me so wonderfully, and are so welcoming and hospitable.

Friday, we go to the beach. It is actually a little drive away. Although we are only on say public road for all of five seconds. From the entrance of Maria’s neighborhood to the entrance of the resort where we are headed is simply the distance to drive around a traffic circle. We go to a hotel’s property. It is part of the resort’s agreement with the place where Maria lives, that all residents get access to the beach there. Or quite possibly the same people own the hotel and community. I’m not exactly sure.

Anyway, the water is absolutely gorgeous, except for a bunch of reeds/leaves. Quite frankly, I’m surprised such high-class resorts wouldn’t have gotten rid of them, say, hours ago, but perhaps they are too difficult of a problem. There are SO MANY people lying around on the beach, and even more doing various water activities, such as paragliding, and taking booze-cruises.

Beach at Bávaro

Maria mentions that the beach is not, say her ultimate vacation spot. That’s partly because that is what she grew up around. The beach is something that is always there. I have to agree with her that this beach isn’t that incredible. For all the raging that is done about Punta Cana, it doesn’t seem all that great. I guess if you’re there to drink and meet Americans who just want to tan, this is a fine place. But for me the beach, obviously involves drinking, but it involves hanging out with friends, and not overrun by tons of people you don’t know, with at least a little space to breathe. And without ropes in the water that restrict your swimming so that you don’t get run over by incoming booze cruises or kayakers, or whatever.

Nevertheless, this experience was fine for what it was. I took a walk along the beach, mostly too absorbed in my own thoughts to really notice the other tourists around. I took a dip in the water. Then I headed up to lay on nice lawn chairs that were provided. Maria and I alternated between reading our book and chatting. In the mean time, some guy working for the hotel brought us drinks that we ordered. It was really all quite relaxing.

Saturday we briefly went to watch Maria’s team—Atletico Madrid—play. Other than that, the weekend was entirely made up of chilling around the house, swimming, chilling, etc. And we played some Rummikub!

Rummikub!!!

Sunday morning I spent as much time left to chill in the pool before packing everything up and heading off. It was easy to take the bus back, and I met up with my host mom’s son for the second leg of the trip. There was a lot of Semana Santa celebrators on the road. It turns out, during celebrations, people just park their cars on the “shoulder” of the road, which is really just half of the lane. Then they walk around in full revelry. Therefore, there was a bit of traffic getting back. I made it though, and thought back to the wonderful week I’d had. How lucky I was to be placed with Maria! She is such a wonderful person, smart, funny, and a good friend. She is now headed off to Namibia (in southern Africa). I wish her so much luck, and maybe now we know where my next adventure will be…

Back in El Seibo

I’ve just been working a bunch. I've created a whole trainers manual, including a schedule. The local coordinators, however, were not impressed by the rigidity of the scheduling, so I developed a sheet to make everything a little more flexible. Also, I've started developing a workshop on financial management, specifically personal budgeting. It's been a challenge, to try to make these trainings as straightforward as possible, while still including all the pertinent details.

The girl who originally started the Savings and Loans groups has actually gotten a grant to continue working with them and growing them. She is flying down at the end of April, and I have therefore extended my time here by two weeks, so we can have some overlapping time to collaborate. Another two weeks before I have to leave this tropical island and start the dreaded job search? Fine by me!!!

Of Hills and Shades of Green

I am really glad that I chose the Spanish teacher that I did! M is really wonderful. She constantly involves me in activities in the community and her life, which is awesome. Plus my Spanish is rapidly improving.

She invited me over on Sunday her first week of teaching—for what I understood to be dinner, but turned out to be lunch. So it was actually lucky that it rained that day, and I didn’t go hiking like I had originally planned! Her brother shows up at my house, minutes before I’m about to sit down with the food my host mom has prepared. “Are you ready?” He asks, to which I offer up only a confused stare. Five minutes later, I am grabbing my keys and purse, running out the door, and muttering an apology to my host mom. She asks me if I just didn’t understand, and I respond, “I don’t understand ANYTHING!” She laughs and tells me she’ll put my meal in the fridge and I can have it for dinner. This is actually great news for me, since lunch tends to be the more delicious meal of the day. Dinner is usually boring mashed potatoes with cheese or egg on top.

So I make it to M’s house, where she apparently lives with her parents. She has her own apartment, but because her kids are out of the house (one in college, one in school in the States), she finds she can save more money this way. She is cooking a nice meal for us, and after eating, we just sit around and chat for a while. She has told me that today’s Spanish is a bonus class, and it is really fun just to sit around and talk about our lives, in a less formal way. It turns out her daughter lives with another relative in Lancaster! I explain that this is actually pretty close to my family!

Monday I printed out the first copies of the accounting sheets I’ve been working on for the Savings and Loans groups. Then I went out to the batays outside of Seibo to meet with the local coordinators, N & F. I showed them the work that I’d done, and asked for any suggestions from them. Then we met with one of N’s groups. It was weird because it was dark by the time we met. The town doesn’t have much lighting, so we were using solar lamps, but just stand-alone ones. N and her groups really don’t understand the accounting system that well, so they will require the most work.

The rest of the week and into the next I just spent making the changes to the system that N., F., and I talked about. Then I also made a worksheet so I could finish and audit of the groups, to make sure they were all where they needed to be. This probably took more time than necessary because I am a perfectionist, but it worked out.

F’s group seems to be doing well. I easily found minor mistakes that they’d made and highlighted these. Their total cash matched up (almost) with their balance in the accounting system.

N’s groups’ accounting, on the other hand, are everywhere. Luckily, they are only doing savings at this point, so there’s no reason that they shouldn’t be perfectly correct. I don’t think N understands accounting very well, and this is why she wasn’t able to explain it sufficiently to the groups. I am hoping the changes I’ve made, however, make everything more straightforward. In the next (now 2) months, I will concentrate training the coordinators, and developing a good manual for further training.

I also spent some of my time just walking around Seibo. It is quite hilly. Oddly enough, the main road that travels east across the north side of the town, and then curves dramatically to go south through the center of town, is actually quite even. It slopes down and up gently. But all of the other side roads travel up for a block, then down; up again, then down. It can be quite tiring, but at least it’s a good workout!

View of Seibo from my Supervisor's House

More views of El Siebo

Saturday, my Spanish teacher, M, invited me to run errands with her—essentially an interactive class! We stopped in the pharmacy, by the phone company to pay her monthly bill, paused to get her shoes cleaned, then walked down to the river just south of Seibo. It was very overcast, but we took some pictures for fun.

My teacher, in front of Seibo River

Then we went up to the Fish Shop that is just off the river. I learned that in the DR, saltwater is called the same, but freshwater is called “sweet” water! I thought that was cool. There were also turtles swimming around under the sink, which apparently some people eat. We watched the owner of the shop clean and cut up the fish for M. The fish was scaled using a simple contraption of metal soda tops that were attached to a short wooden stick.

Then M bought some coconuts, and said that the next day, she would fix me fish in a coconut sauce. If that sounds delicious, that’s because it was! We had another day of a delicious meal and time to chat. In the afternoon, I headed out to the batays. I was meeting with Franklin’s group for a final review of the accounting sheets. I’d made some changes, and wanted to double-check with the actual group that I’d done what they thought was necessary to improve everything.

Throughout the week, I kept working on the accounting sheets. And I took a few more opportunities to walk around Seibo. It’s really quite beautiful. Plus I came across, a New Orleans-style cemetery, which was pretty cool.

Carnival and Adventures in the countryside

February 27 is the Dominican Republic’s independence day. Interestingly, this the date of independence NOT from Spain, but from their neighbor, Haiti.

Haiti, of course, is the site of the most successful slave revolt in history, and became an independent nation in 1804. Dominicans declared independence from Spain in 1821, but two months later, the entire island was united under Haitian rule. Dominicans were not to fond of this move, and fought for their own rule in the Dominican Independence War, finally declaring independence in 1844. (Followed by a brief time that one Dominican politician actually attempted to have Spain come back to be the colonial power)

The history of Haitian-Dominican relations is very fraught. I honestly don’t know much about them, except what I’ve picked up the last few weeks. Dominicans consider the occupation from 1821-1844 by Haiti as offensive. Haiti, however, has remained a much poor nation, and many citizens have sought work in the DR. There is a lot of animosity. The Dominican dictator, Trujillo, order a massacre of Haitians. Haitians are typically much darker than Dominicans, usually being approximately the shade of Africans, while Dominicans are shades of mixed to almost white. According to the stories, Trujillo’s soldiers interrogated all of the dark-skinned individuals they found near the border, and asked them to say perijil. Haitians have a hard time rolling the r’s (more accustomed to the French way of pronouncing r’s), and so those that failed were slaughtered with machetes.

But, recently someone was lecturing me on how this one time (I’m not sure if this was recent or in history) a Haitian stomped on the Dominican flag, so I guess it’s all justified. /sarcasm

Even today, however, Haitians continue to seek out opportunities in the DR. Almost all of the sugarcane workers are Haitian, often here on temporary visas, or descendents of immigrants. There has recently been a crackdown on undocumented workers.

So under these circumstances, the celebration of Independence included such highlights as school-children reenacting the battle for independence by the lighter-skinned students appearing to fight the darker ones (wearing Haitian military garb), and then one student stomping on a paper version of the Haitian flag. Then later, I saw a group of children in black(er) face. So… all that was very awkward.

It’s amazing how alive and well racism and discrimination are in every part of the globe. And everyone considers their specific racist leanings justified for whatever reason.

Most of the day’s celebrations, however, focused on Dominican pride (rather than racism disguised as nationalism). In the morning, there was a parade of all the school children in the area.

M (my Spanish teacher) invited me, which I thought would simply be watching the parade from the sidelines. Sleeping through my alarm, I hastily dressed (forgetting my little jacket to cover up my scandalously exposed shoulders. Arriving at the space beside the governors mansion, I find M on the steps with the governor, alongside other important politicians and school officials. As I hurry up to her, she introduces me to the man in front. “This is the governor!” she proclaims. I sputter a bit, before finally managing to spit out “¡Mucho gusto!” (Good to meet you), and when I shake his hand, I show respect by gripping my elbow—a method used sometimes in Benin and all the time in South Africa, when I was there—instead of doing it the Dominican way, which is to grab your co-shaker’s hand with both hands. I'm just so flustered!

All the sudden I’m standing with (aka trying to hide myself in the back row) the governor as official pictures are taken. And during the parade, I’m in his procession. The parade ends at the church, and there is a short service, in which, only the most important people (myself included, apparently) take part. I felt so awkward being thrown into this group. I'm not an important person! I voice this thought to M, who laughs and says that I am here as her "Special Guest".

Picture of the governor (in Green) during the ceremony

Afterwards, there is a presentation of all of the schools. For the entirety of this, I sit beside M, up on stage, across from the governor. The performances of each of the schools is pretty cool. A lot of them include merengue/bachata dances. Some are chants, or some interpretive dances.

One of the most interesting involved presenting facts about the DR (a priest to represent the national religion in Christianity, a “tourist” to represent the biggest industry is tourism, etc.) This was followed by an interpretative dance and chanting, which apparently brought M to tears, it was so patriotic.

These demonstrations were followed by the performances of the color guard of the various high schools, which I thought was pretty cool. So many Dominican flags!

After this was finished, I went home for lunch. Then I went to M’s house. She had to complete some school-related work, so I went to the parade myself. It was kind of a Mardi Gras/Halloween combo. In fact, people here don’t celebrate Mardi Gras (called Carnival in Spanish-speaking nations), but celebrate “Carnival” on their Independence Day. I guess it makes sense, because so much celebrating in one month might be too much.

Some of the costumes

Everyone was positioned out on the street; a small huddle of friends standing in a circle, surrounding their bottle of liquor and whatever mixer they decided on (usually rum and OJ). I thought it was funny, the absolute lack of open container laws in existence. The parade—which was supposed to start around 3, but obviously started late—contained various people marching, some floats, and tons of costumes. It was quite a sight, and everyone really seemed to be enjoying themselves.

Dancers in the Parade

One of the floats

A Ferris Wheel Float filled with terrified children

The night would have hypothetically devolved into more revelry (some of the crowd was stationed in the usual spot, which is a open-air bar next to the discoteca), however, I was whisked off by Milagros to her countryside house.

It’s a simple, cement house, with only one room (with two bunkbeds), a bathroom, small kitchen and a porch that wraps ¾ of the way around the house. There is running water, but no electricity, since apparently people would just come and steal the electrical wires (which can be worth a lot of money) and the family would be none the wiser until their next visit. So M brings candles and torches. I also had a little battery for charging through USBs (Thanks Mom!). I think of how much this would have been helpful in Benin, but then I remember that this was not true when I left. When I initially left for Benin, the only thing I had that would charge through a USB was my iPod and speakers (and this is why I didn’t think the solar-panel my mom wanted to get me then would be useful). While I was there, I acquired a Smartphone, and since being home, a tablet, plus a little USB-LED light (again, Thanks Mom!). And of course, the battery-USB-charger I doubt was a thing (or at least an affordable thing) two years ago. My how things have changed, and quickly!

Outside the house was a fire pit, and M told me how much she enjoys cooking over the fire when she is the “campo” (countryside). We swapped stories of campfire foods (I explained camp-cookers). One day she made a traditional soup-ish thing, which was basically a bunch of viveres (plantains, potatoes, yams) and chicken, in a nice tomato sauce.

M, boiling water for some hot chocolate

Saturday we went to the beach, in a town called Miches. There are, of course, many, many beaches in the DR (the country being an island), but this one is the closest. The drive there is stunning. It was a little overcast/foggy while we were going, but you could still see the beautiful green landscape on both sides. The road was often cut into the side of the mountain (or at one point a lonely high point, with a sharp drop on both sides), reminding me of some of the drives my family took when I was younger.

Curve in the road...

View from the drive with the beach in the distance

The beach at Miches isn’t as pristine as one might imagine, since there is a river that spills out into the water in the middle of the beach. The river being brown murks up the crystal blue waters a bit, but regardless the whole area is quite lovely. We walked along the beach for a bit, and came across a mangrove cove. Then we went and got lunch at a street-food-esque place famous for it’s crab (no Old Bay seasoning, though L ). Then we went back to the beach, and sat in a nice open patio. There was music playing too, and M convinced some male acquaintances to dance with me and teach me the merengue and bachata.

Sunday morning, M’s daughter, and nephew showed me this beautiful site, which involves crossing a creek and then walking up a short hill. The view is absolutely gorgeous! It’s amazing to think about how many different shades of green there are to see! Especially considering that living in the Sahel for two years, the most dominant color was brown/red.

I add to the green with my dress!

I made it home in time on Sunday to go to F’s Savings and Loans group, where I am continuing to introduce the improved accounting system.

Wednesday, I went on a “Chocolate Tour”. One of the volunteers stationed northeast of El Seibo works with an organization that puts these on. It is through the group “CONCADO”, which is a cooperative that ensures quality in the organic cocoa of members, as well as fair trade with the buyers. The tour was for a group with World Vision, but I hopped in just to see.

The tour started in the main processing plant, which is just outside El Seibo. Here, groups bring in all of their chocolate. Lesser-quality chocolate goes immediately to the drying process, and then is sold for cosmetic purposes. The better chocolate, however, goes through a 5-day fermenting process.

Cocoa comes wrapped in this kind of white film inside the plants. The seeds are thrown—with this film—into wooden bins. There are three rows, and the seeds start in the top row, before being shoveled down into the lower levels after a period of 24-48 hours. The levels simply give the cocoa beans a chance to be stirred up and aired out, and ferment better. It’s quite an ingenious system! This process is what gives the beans a dark color and a strong taste.

Cocoa plant, freshly cut open

The fermentation system

After this the beans are dried. There are two options for drying. One is natural (laid out on racks in greenhouse-esque structures)—which is the cheaper but longer option—or drying in a machine fueled by fire—which is more expensive, but quicker. The latter option is only used when there is a surplus of beans being brought into the plant, which must be quickly dried.

After being dried, the beans are then bagged and ready to be sold.

The tour of the processing plant ends here, but there is another part in Los Batados (where the PCV is stationed). Here is a women’s group that actually harvests some of the cocoa, AND then takes some of the cocoa to make chocolate products (hot chocolate, bars, etc). They provide a place for groups to dine as well after each tour. So I got to go to this community—which is spectacularly gorgeous—dine on some nice food, see the home-made chocolate process, eat fresh made chocolate, drink cocoa wine, and have a short tour of the nearby cocoa orchard. It was all very lovely!!!

This week my host mom, took me to her (family’s) countryside house. It actually is where her sister and sister’s family live (as opposed to just a vacation home). Her sister does a lot of agriculture things, and A LOT of animal husbandry. She tells me there is a lot of “money” in the countryside (she repeats this a lot while looking at the pigs: pigs can be big money-makers). However, she—my host mom—has no desire to live there. There are pineapples, sour cherries, orange trees, passion fruit trees and the like growing around the house. There are quite a lot of pigs, also chickens and rabbits. In the fields, there is some corn, plus a number of cows, and some horses.

My host mom, picking sour cherries

Me and my host mom

My host mom with her daughter

A tree outside the house

Little piggies

I accidentally/on purpose have mentioned now to multiple people that I want a horse. I think they’re so lovely. AND, PC Volunteers in the DR are actually allowed to own them if they choose!!!!! Ah!! Anyway, my repeated voicing of how much I want a horse, meant that Ermna demanded that her son (who was also kind enough to give us a ride to this house in the first place), saddle up the horse and let me ride. And by that, of course, I mean, I can sit on it while he slowly guides the horse along the path, and Ernma and her daughter gasp if they horse shows any sign of wanting to do more than plod along.

HORSE SELFIE

Regardless, I was quite happy. Of course, I have great visions of galloping along in the countryside of the DR, but at this point it’s been a while since I did any such thing. The horses I rode in South Africa were trained very well to be amenable to any rider and not to break out much. To think that I could completely control a horse left free to gallop along would be foolish, so I very much welcome these opportunities to get be on horses, and get back into being comfortable with them in baby-steps.

Plus, I found in Miches there is a little hotel that offers horseback rides along the beach (at $10 for a few hours), and all I can say is, “YES PLEASE!!!!!!” Plus my Spanish teacher has mentioned the possibility of going to some caves west of El Seibo. You have to take horses out to the entrance of the caves, which is a fine idea, in my opinion.

So that’s basically been my life for the past few weeks: exploring this stunning Caribbean country, learning about its culture and economic activity, and developing materials for the Savings and Loans groups.

Oh, and a sidenote: in the DR, one of the common ways to point out that someone is, say not the best is to call them a “tiguere” (pronounced TEE-ger-ey). It can be used to refer to hoodlums in the street or just someone teasing you. It literally means “tiger” but here it means “smart-ass”. My mom would be proud: I’ve been called a “tiguere” multiple times, mostly by my Spanish teacher. Usually it was when she was simply trying to get me to expand my Spanish, but I came back with a smart-ass remark.

Welcome to the Dominican Republic

So here we are again, I’m writing from a random, different location: The Dominican Republic. “How did you end up there?” you ask. Umm, basically, a friend of mine told me years ago that she though I would like it, so I made up my mind that I’d come here, and now I am here. I am completing a three-month internship with an organization here. I’m not going to mention the name of the organization, mostly for their benefit. They do have a clause in their agreement that if I’m not allowed to say anything bad about them on the internets. And I don’t intend to, because so far I think they’re a really great organization. However, perhaps they wouldn’t want someone to google their organization and have it link to my blog and all its craziness.

Week One: Sometimes Things Don’t Make Sense in Any Language

So I flew down to the DR on Sunday, February 1^st. (What? It *only* took a few hours? Not two days?).

As I was going through customs, I got to use one of my classic fall-back, understood-in-many-cultures joke (these are few and far between). The man verifying my suitcases says, reading my passport, “Smith. Like Will Smith!”

“Yes,” I respond with a straight face. “He’s my brother.”

“What!?” exclaims the man. “He can’t be your brother!”

“Why not?” I demand, feigning offense. But we’re both laughing at this point. I insist again that he’s my brother while the man shakes his head, and waves me through. I continue, giggling to myself.

My supervisor, L., was there to great me. We hopped in a cab for the long ride back downtown, where we got a hostel for the night. After I put my stuff down, we hopped in a taxi that was public (as opposed to your own, personal taxi). I didn’t understand really anything (other than studying vocab and doing Rosetta Stone, I haven’t actually spoken Spanish). We got off, and walked around a cool part of the city, lined with shops and dotted with a few public squares. Eventually we set off to this restaurant. L. wasn’t exactly sure of the location, so she asked people. I think, in the end she asked over 20 people as we walked along, each of whom was very unwilling to admit if they didn’t actually know where this restaurant was. But little by little, we got closer, and eventually found it. We had a nice meal of falafel (not exactly Dominican, but L. pointed out I would be eating Dominican food every day with my host family for the next few months).

The next day, we set off on one of the mini-buses. About an hour in, we stopped at this little beach town. There is a hostel owned by an Italian woman, and Indian-themed. There are lounge areas with Indian hangings, pillows, etc, and more hangings everywhere. Since L., others in her organization, and Peace Corps friends use this hostel all the time, she allowed us to simply put our stuff there, as we went to the beach.

It was really, really glorious to be at the beach, on February 2^nd, while the Northwest was quite possibly under a lot of snow (okay, I wasn’t actually paying that much attention). The water was absolutely beautiful; nice and clear. I stayed out there for a while, and then came in and laid on the beach.

Eventually we left, collected our belongings, and got back on the bus heading to El Seibo, where I’d be staying. I met my host mom, E, who seems very nice. She sells Avon products. Her husband’s name is A. They have a teenage granddaughter that lives with them, and one that is away at college. They also have a little dog named Sammy, who is only 4 months old!

Sammy and I. (Sorry no pics with host family yet, I'm just an awkward person)

E. took me to the “office” which is really just the living room of L’s house. (L says she likes and dislikes this setup). I had my first Spanish lesson, with a local teacher. I’m really excited to get into the Spanish part.

Going into this, I kind of imagined that I would just laze around learning Spanish for the first month, and THEN get into the actual work. Apparently this was not what my supervisor had in mind! She’s just ready for me to jump into the work. At first this was a little terrifying. How am I supposed to work if I can’t really communicate with my colleagues or anyone else? However, in retrospect, this is really the best way to go. I’m only here for three months, so I can’t waste any time.

Wednesday, I went to a small community, about an hour away. It is a half an hour west to Hato Mayor (on a paved road), then another half an hour on a dirt road, north to the town.

I met a Peace Corps Volunteer there, who is doing Community Economic Development, like I did. She works with a group of women who are making Sugar Cane Wine. I actually got to try the wine, which essentially tastes like sweeter moscato. We talked a little about Peace Corps, and her experience. It was cool to meet another volunteer, in a different country. My organization is working with these women to expand their services here.

I was asked to introduce myself, which I realized I did a terrible job with (and I made a mental note to formulate a standard introduction in Spanish). But the women were understanding, apparently because the current volunteer came in with very little Spanish originally.

Thursday I met with two of the “local coordinators” of the Savings and Loans groups. Basically this organization really focuses on using locals; rather than paying a bunch of Americans to work here. It is a good model to firstly have the actual community participation, and secondly in an effort to make it sustainable. Of course, for people like me, who just want to live abroad, it means that those jobs aren’t available for us. However, I think that’s a good thing. There’s always something else to do, and the people here are better served.

Anyway, L. happened to have a last-minute skype, so she wasn’t there to help with the Spanish. I really, really struggled. I think I barely made myself comprehensible to either coordinator. Eventually, L. was done, and she helped more. I could only hope that during this part, they came to see that even with my faulty Spanish, I still had a lot of knowledge regarding Savings & Loans groups, which can help them.

Friday I skyped with a guy who is working for the organization in Guatemala. He is working on “Charlas”, which are basically small trainings/workshops. So we talked about collaborating on developing these. My priority is the Savings and Loans groups, but Charlas could definitely be helpful (for these groups and others). Plus I have some good resources and experience from my time in Benin, including a “Financial Literacy for Illiterates” that I attempted to teach. I might also focus on helping develop the ideas of the Charlas, and let this guy worry about the Spanish.

Thursday and Friday my Spanish teacher failed to show up. L—a former teacher herself—had not been to thrilled with his lessons when he was there. They mostly involved me saying things in English, and him telling me how to say them in Spanish, which is absolutely not the way to learn a language. So L starts looking for a new Spanish teacher. I’m really disappointed (not at all in L, but just in the situation). I really want to learn, and be able to communicate well as quickly as possible. I have continued studying a lot on my own. I use Anki—which is a great, free app that lets you create flashcards—to study more and more vocab. Also, I have a few books with which I can practice grammar. Plus I’m trying to read a novel in Spanish. It’s still not the same thing as a lesson by a real Spanish teacher, however.

Saturday, I had a mostly relaxed day. I wandered around a bit with L. in the morning to get to know the town better. I really have just been walking from my host family’s house, to her’s and back, which is only a few blocks. But she showed me where she gets her weekly veggies, her freshly-killed chicken, and so on. We also stopped at a little place on the main street to get a cup of tea, which was nice.

On the way back, I stopped in a store on my own to get a bottle of rum, and had an interesting encounter there.

I think, sometimes the most frustrating part of being a volunteer—or whatever other similar-stationed ex-pat—is those most futile arguments. The arguments where there is clearly someone wrong (the other, local person), but their lack of reason or scientific backing fails to have any bearing on the argument.

This was my first time really going out, interacting with some stranger, without the help of L or someone else. So I stroll in, armed with my small grasp of Spanish, and ask—of course—for a bottle of rum.

The guy brings a few bottles of different sizes over. Apparently he doesn’t have the prices memorized, so he pulls out a little sheet of paper. I can read Spanish a lot better than I can speak it, so almost immediately I find the line for a liter of rum. I pick out the liter-sized bottle and point to the price.

“Okay, so I want the liter one, which is 340 pesos.”

“No, that’s not the liter,” the guy behind the counter replies.

“What?” I ask bewildered. I pull the bottle towards me and look at the back. 1000ml. I show this to him.

“Oh, yes, 1000ml. That’s a liter and a half.”

“No…what?” I sputter. “1000ml…it’s…milla is…” WHY DIDN’T I KNOW THE SPANISH WORD FOR ONE ONE-THOUSANDTH???

“This is a liter,” he says pulling up a smaller bottle. I look at the back: 700ml.

“THIS IS NOT A LITER!” I exclaim.

“Yes, this is a liter. And this is half a liter,” he says, pointing to a smaller bottle, which proclaims to contain 350ml.

“But, but…this is a liter,” I reply hopelessly, pointing to the bottle that is, by mathematical definition a liter.

“No, no,” he replies, laughing. “THIS (the 700ml one) is a liter. This (pointing to my 1000ml bottle), is a FULL liter.”

My head proceeds to explode as I numbly hand over the cash, realizing I can’t win against this—albeit very fallible—argument. The difference, he explains, turns out to be about $1. I don’t even mind paying it. Because it’s not like he’s trying to rip off a dumb tourist, it’s that he truly believes he can call 700ml a liter. And some days you just realize that if you don’t just accept local logic, you will never actually get things done.

And, hey, I still got a liter of rum for under $10. I go home, work a little more on my Spanish (just to make sure I wasn’t saying something wrong). Then L and I go out dancing at a local club, which is fun. There is a store right next door that sells sodas and alcohol by the bottle. A lot of people go here and sit outside, then eventually wander over to the club to dance. I had a lot of fun, but I guess I always do when I’m dancing.

Sunday was mostly a relaxing day. In the evening, I went with L. to one of the Savings and Loans groups. It is located about $1 moto-taxi ride (maybe 20 minutes?) outside of El Seibo, in a “batay”.

So a batay is basically a company town where sugar-cane workers live. Sugar cane is a really big industry in this area (eastern DR). Most of the workers are poor Haitian immigrants (and I’m sure at some point in this blog you will get more information regarding the tensions between the darker, French-creole-speaking Haitians, and the lighter, Spanish-speaking Dominicans).

Once we hit the dirt road, a few minutes outside of Seibo, there are fields of sugar cane on both side, and train tracks on the east side of the road. L. explains that people here work in groups, and are paid based on the weight of the sugar cane that they load onto the train. The train takes the sugar cane down to a processing plant in the south.

Me, talking with local coordinator alongside the two secretaries

The advantage of the groups being Haitian, is that they speak French Creole, which I more or less understand. Actually speaking it may be a different thing, because the pronunciation is quite different. But the numbers are the same as French, as are a lot of the words. So that’s really exciting. L. seems to think this is a huge advantage…if I can actually understand the meetings, this is even more than she can do. Though, of course, expressing myself remains an issue. I did manage to wrangle enough words together to ask the local coordinator, F, and the secretary what they thought about the current accounting system, and if there was anything they wanted to understand more clearly, or anything they wanted to change. As we were leaving, there was a beautiful sunset, and I felt so grateful to be here, and excited for my upcoming work.

Sunset with toolshed in foreground, sugar cane field on other side

Railroad tracks and train that takes the cane

Railroad tracks, there to transport the cane

Week Two: Jumping Right Into Work

Monday, my Spanish teacher failed to come, AGAIN! L. had gotten in touch with a few people in an effort to find me a new one, so we interviewed two people. Both were women, which was exciting. L. mentioned that, yeah, men here can be quite unreliable (is there anywhere in the world where they can actually be depended upon??), but it’s just harder because women often have less free time. These two women would have free evenings, however. The second lady seemed like a boss; she was forceful and upfront, but she absolutely terrified me. I think if I had chosen her, there is a possibility I would learn a lot—kind of a learning-by-fire thing—but also a large chance that I would be too intimidated to even attempt to throw a sentence together, ever. Because I like to process things, I can come off as slow or not really knowing something. But when L. made her pause to listen to me, she was like, “oh, you actually already know a lot”. But would I have the courage to say, “Stop, let me figure this out on my own. Slowly and deliberately!”

So despite my admiration of such a forceful spirit in a gender that is repeatedly told to be quiet, I did go with the calmer lady, M. who is much more like my own personality. I really like her. She makes me come up with the Spanish (as opposed to just telling me, which is really important), and patiently waits for me to stumble through and correct myself. She did a little evaluation and determined that I know a lot of vocab, I more or less understand the grammar (it’s pretty similar to French), but I just need a lot of work actually conjugating verbs. Which I already knew; but now we can actually work on it. I asked about more complicated verb tenses, and L, who was listening, laughed and said I was being too much of a perfectionist (am I that transparent?).

Everyone in my host family is really wonderful. My host mom isn’t really employed (except by her own self), so she’s available at any hour that I wake up, to make me coffee. I’ve had to explain to her that I don’t like sugar that much. The first day when I said, please, no sugar in my coffee, she was flabbergasted. Later, she made a shake and called me over to show that she was only putting in “a little bit” of sugar. That, of course, meant two heaping tablespoons, leading me to wonder what the normal amount was. She also make a really, really delicious lunch (lunch is the main meal here, NOT dinner). I said from the beginning that I don’t eat meat, but I’ll eat fish. And I even had a conversation with the older granddaughter, that it’s not so much that I don’t like eating meat (because, yes, I believe that meat is quite tasty), but more so that I hold an objection to the overall environmental damage done by our vast production of meat. And yes, ideally, I shouldn’t eat fish either. I think once I’m done living with this family, I’ll stop that too. But it does make things easier. I also explained to my host mom that I don’t like eating many, many carbs. She would give me a meal with a heap of potatoes AND rice. Finally, I talked her down to only giving only one carb (or I’d eat half the amount of two). Then one day, she was gone for a medical trip to the capital, so her daughter comes by to fix me lunch. She fixes me a meal with Potatoes, yucca (manioc/cassava), plantains, AND rice. When I didn’t finish all of these things, she looks at my plate, shakes her head, and says something like, “My mother told me you didn’t want this much [carbs], but I fixed them just in case.” Lol.

In general the family is super nice. One night I went out, and I apologized later to my family for coming in late. My host mom simply said that she was absolutely delighted that I was going out and enjoying myself. So I really, really appreciate the environment that they’ve created. I guess they understand that I’m capable too. The second day I was going to Lia’s office (literally 4 blocks away), my host mom didn’t believe I knew the route. But when I showed her that I did, she was impressed, and I guess understood that I have my shiz together. They take care of me, but don’t baby me. It’s great. They laugh at how much I play with their dog, but think it’s adorable. It took a few days, but now that I’ve gotten more comfortable, I really enjoy having conversations about life, ideas, dogs, whatever. Their teenage granddaughter showed me as she made their dog “sit” like a human, and I showed her a picture I have of making my cat do the same thing. Then she was having the dog look in the mirror, and I told her about my sister’s cat, who stares at himself in the mirror for hours. Okay, my point is a lot of my conversation may or may not revolve around pets. Oops.

Monday evening L and I went to the second community with a Savings and Loans group. It is even further out than the first, but along the same road. There we met with the local coordinator, a girl named N. We didn’t actually meet the group, just chatted with N, a more of a get-to-know-you session. I think N was really put off by my lack of Spanish the first time, but impressed by my quick improvement. L asked her a few questions, but encouraged me to do more of the talking. I didn’t always understand N, and sometimes I’d ask L for a word I didn’t know in Spanish. But all in all, we had a great conversation. L complimented me at the end, saying I really did a great job, considering. I felt really great about myself.

Then 20 minutes later, I mistook some coins when paying the motoconcho (moto-taxi), and almost vastly underpaid him. I felt like such an incapable jerk, and all the good feelings were gone. (Oh, the rollercoaster of working in a new environment).

I really like L’s style, though. She refuses to baby me (in some ways opposite of what Peace Corps did my first three months, except that one time when they gave us bikes and were like, “Figure out your own way home. Ha ha ha ha ha.). She has said repeatedly “Well, you’re an adult.” It’s especially incredible because she does work with college-age interns during the summer, who do need a lot more care and attention, having—for the most part—never set foot in a developing country. Sometimes I want to whine and say, “But PLEASE, won’t you just do this for me? Or tell me exactly what to do?” But no, she preempts those requests by casually saying things like, “Okay, so you’re gonna figure out what you want to say, and call F & N to finalize the meeting plans for next week, right?” My heart rate rises, and I feel a surge of panic, and mutter something like, “sure”, (while internally fantasizing about a world where cellphones do not exist for calling people—but you can text). I mean for goodness sakes, I lived in a tiny village in the bush of Benin for two years, and had almost zero support. But now that I have a figure here that could coddle me, I find myself trying to latch on. Okay, yes, some of it is that this is a new language and a culture/country in which I am not yet familiar. But I am really grateful to L. that she won’t even let me try to take the easy way out. I am able to grow a lot faster.

And, shocking even myself, I’ve managed to rise to the occasion. I wrote out goals that I have for my work over the next three months (and translated them—badly—into Spanish). Tuesday I sent her a preview for what I saw myself accomplishing on a weekly basis, and daily tasks/events to meet these goals. She was really impressed by not only the completion of this task, but by actual goals themselves. I think, for me, this is a realization of “Woah—I actually can do things!” Like Peace Corps was just me bumbling through grants and projects, haphazardly throwing together accounting papers, and praying that everything worked. Doing things last minute, with now clear plan, except something like, “Okay, I need to work on this thing…sometime before next Monday!” But it’s news to me that I can translate this into a professional, “I basically know what steps I need to take to make this project work, and here they are.”

Also this week, I managed to merge together the accounting sheets that I’d made up in Benin with the accounting sheets already being used by this organization. There were flaws and excess in both, and I’m working to create an easier, user-friendly, highly (okay that part is questionable) accurate system. I do feel kind of guilty that I’ve made these improvements without the ability to give them to my groups in Benin. “If only I’d thought of this earlier!” I berate myself. Furthermore, I wish there was a lot more collaboration between NGOs doing the same projects. But unfortunately, even when there is, there is so much material to wade through, it’s often too hard. Seriously, can we figure this out? Instead of 20 different organizations running around the same country doing the same things with slightly different forms, let’s just calm down and talk about it.

L was impressed with this work as well. “I wouldn’t even know where to begin!” she exclaimed.

“Well I did have a whole two years in Benin to figure out, so I guess that’s a slight advantage,” I jest back.

On Friday, I got to attend a training of "entrepreneurs" that will be working for the group. One of the aspects of this organization is that they sell things like solar lamps/chargers, prescription glasses, water filters, and improved cookstoves. But instead of selling them directly, they use local entrepreneurs, who go out and do the promotion, and actually get the products to sell; then pay back to my organization the cost of the product. This way, locals are the ones that actually get to make the profit, while distributing helpful products to the populace. The training is just teaching them what it means to work for this organization, how they'll be paid, how to fill out the paperwork, and also how to sell the various products (including giving an informal assessment of someone's glasses prescription needs.

Demonstrating an Eye Interview/Exam

In some ways I feel like this was always the experience I wanted going into Peace Corps. To work a bit—you know, casually save the world—and dance every Friday and Saturday.

Because—well here’s a confession—I didn’t join Peace Corps because I wanted to serve. I joined Peace Corps because I was unemployed, and I really, really, really wanted to go back to West Africa. The spring before I started applying to PC, I had gotten rejected from four PhD programs in African History. So essentially I had to find another way to convince people to pay for me to go to West Africa. And Peace Corps seemed like a great option. (If you have been an avid reader of my blog, you’ll probably remember me saying things like “Waaaaahhhh, I’m going to live in a rural village and not be able to party all the time,” when I was assigned to Kérou) I wanted to live out the dream of West Africa that I pictured—a dream that does occasionally exist in the capitals, where more well-off—or at least urban—citizens of West Africa congregate and have clubs that go until all hours of the morning. (Technically, these establishments exist in the rural parts of Africa, but are less frequent and have less space for women.) But instead of that, I got placed in a far away village, and over the two years I accidentally fell in love with economic development.

So here I am, continuing this new-found love of economic development on a different continent, in a different language. You’ll get to see how it turns out.