¿Cuánto Tiempo?

2012 has not been good to my blog. I apologize to the 3 of you who regularly check in to see what is happening here in the DR. I didn’t fall off the face of the earth or the side of the island but I have been very busy in my third and final year as a PCV. To get us up to speed, I’m going to list and briefly explain the highlights of the past couple months.

International Women’s Day

March 8th marked International Women’s Day and to celebrate that day fellow Volunteer Phoebe arranged a sort of field trip for the volunteers living in the eastern region working with Chicas Brillantes girls groups.

10 Volunteers and teenaged girls from our communities boarded a bus early in the morning and headed north to Salcedo, the home of the Hermanas Mirabal. The Mirabal Sisters are cultural icons here in the DR. They acted as revolutionaries who stood up to and were eventually assassinated by Dictator Rafael Trujillo before his downfall.

We visited the museum their former home and learned about their lives. We watched a movie (a bad one starring Michelle Rodriguez) telling their story. And we were fortunate enough to hear from the one living Mirabal sister, Dede, who, at age 89, came out of her house, graced us with her presence, answered questions from our girls and inspired us all.

Our girls learned about strong, brave, inspiring Dominican female leaders and met a real life Mirabal sister and Dominican celebrity. A very empowering International Women’s Day.

Posing with Dede Mirabal outside her home in Salcedo

Deportes para la Vida

I’ve organized and facilitated a number of Deportes para la Vida events in the past year and after my final 5-day training in March, I’m just about ready to pass the baton for this initiative on to other volunteers.

The training, the fifth in which I’ve attended and third in which I’ve facilitated, was a success and we certified another 37 people to teach the DPV course in their communities. Since December 2010, 36 PCVs and 98 Dominican counterparts have been trained to teach the DPV curriculum. In just 18 months, well over 1,000 Dominican youth have learned to prevent, combat against and educate others about the spread of HIV/AIDS through this program.

It’s been very cool to see this program start just 1.5 years ago and expand rapidly into a highly successful Peace Corps initiative.

Newest group of Deportes para la Vida Trainers

Camp Superman

Speaking of last camps and baton passing, I organized, facilitated and attended my final Campamentos Superman. The Peace Corps boys’ gender empowerment initiative has also grown rapidly in my time here. What once was a summer camp is now a year-round initiative with a series of American-style camping trips and Volunteers working with boys groups in their communities.

These camps have provided many highlights throughout my service. Some of the highlights of these last two camps include seeing a number of Dominican boys experience the ocean for the first time in Las Galeras, Samaná, and watching boys overcome their fears to zipline through the trees at camp in San Cristóbal. Also in San Cristóbal, Volunteers and boys alike passed through an insanely fun, challenging and muddy obstacle course. The pictures are all kinds of epic.

Again, it’s been great to see this initiative grow in my time here and I’m excited to see how great it will become in the future.

My Superboys Alex, Raudy & Kikel on Playa Rincón

Sirve Con Fuerza

My second trip to Peace Corps’ annual girls volleyball tournament. 10 teams. 60 girls. 1 champion. We played lots of volleyball and learned valuable life lessons about gender, nutrition, proper condom use and more. I am proud to announce that the 6 girls from my community of Batey Cachena won the championship versus the favored-to-win team from Batey Las Pajas and went home as champions.

SCUBA

As I’ve been very busy above ground, I’ve been sure to reward myself with some weekends under the sea. A former Volunteer friend is interning at a SCUBA shop in the beach paradise of Las Galeras, Samaná. She has arranged a number of SCUBA ‘camps’ in which we PCVs have been able to get SCUBA certified for ridiculously low prices. In late February, I spent a 4-day weekend camping on the beach and learning SCUBA basics. In Las Galeras, we are able to suit up and walk right out to a coral reef – avoiding the costly boats and gasoline altogether.

Just last week I returned to seek my Advanced Certification. Now that we had the basics down, we could just dive. We returned to the reef. We dove at night. We dove to depths of 35 meters and explored a sunken cargo ship. It was an awesome weekend and I am now certified to dive anywhere on earth.

SCUBA certification – yet another perk of Peace Corps service on a tropical island.

The home base of SCUBA Camp. Life is rough.

That’s a quick rundown of the happenings here in the DR over the past 3 months. If I should disappear again anytime soon, please refer to my friend Dory’s blog, 27 Stories. She’s an incredible writer and does a brilliant job of capturing the emotional roller coaster of Peace Corps life. While my blog has devolved into little more than monthly recaps and stories of what I do, hers does a good job of explaining what we go through and how we feel. Check it out.

50 Years

The first week in February was hand-down one of the best in my PCV life. For an entire week we celebrated Peace Corps reaching the 50 year milestone working here in the Dominican Republic. Hundreds of RPCVs from the 60’s, 70’s and beyond came down to celebrate with the almost 200 volunteers currently living and working here on the island.

For a week we heard words of wisdom from a number of RPCVs, including International Peace Corps Director Aaron Williams and Senator Chris Dodd. It was incredibly inspiring meet so many accomplished people and to get a glimpse into the potential futures of many of us current Volunteers.

A host of current Volunteers spent nearly an entire year planning this reunion, complete with a conference full of presentations by current and former Volunteers. We were invited to a reception at the Ambassador’s home and other swanky events in Santo Domingo. We got to share our projects and the modern day Peace Corps Dominican Republic while learning about how things were here in Peace Corps’ infancy. It is incredible how much has changed over time and, at the exact same time, incredible how much has remained the same.

While 50 Years is a great milestone to hit, it also means there is much work to be done. The ultimate success of the Peace Corps in any one country would be to assist that country in reaching a level of development in which they would no longer need our services. So while celebrating 50 years and looking back at the great work that has been done is important, it is equally important that our work continue and improve to a level that ensures that no 100 year anniversary of Peace Corps in the DR be will necessary.

International Peace Corps Director and RPCV from the DR, Aaron Williams

Mi Futuro Brillante

A big part of my job as a Youth Volunteer and educator is preparing my youth for their future. Informing them of the options available (work, school, etc). Identifying their skills and abilities to best choose a future path. Empowering them to pursue their goals and aspirations and, lastly, helping to prepare them for the next steps. This work can at times be frustrating in its lack of tangibility. I am essentially planting seeds in hopes that one day, long after I’ve left the island, the seeds will grow and prosper. It’s important work but as I only live here for a finite amount of time, I selfishly want to see the results of my efforts and see my youth put the work we do in the community into practice. This past weekend, I got just that.

This year is the second in which Peace Corps DR has put on the Mi Futuro Brillante (My Bright Future) Conference. The conference is offered for those of us who work with girls empowerment groups in our communities and offers an unequaled opportunity for the girls from our bateys, campos and barrios. In this conference, volunteers each bring two girls from their community who are high school-aged and show potential for and have expressed interest in attending college in hopes of someday becoming a professional.

All of the girls descended upon a nice hotel in the Capital last Thursday for three days of future planning. First, the girls took personality tests, telling them their personality types and which types of careers generally work best with their personality type. They received a presentation of professionalism and preparation for the next morning when they would meet and job shadow a Dominican professional. Each of the girls was asked their career aspirations and matched to the best of our abilities with a Dominican woman working in that career field.

Nine professional Dominican women working in and near Santo Domingo agreed to participate in the conference. The women represented a wide variety of careers. There was a lawyer, a gynecologist, an orthodontist, two engineers, a psychologist, a nurse and two women who work for Peace Corps. Most of the women were young and served as ideal role models for our girls. All of the girls and professionals met for breakfast on Friday morning before departing to each of the professional’s office or workplace where the girls would get to interview and job shadow them.

Volunteers accompanied their girls on the visit and my girls, Marta and Caina, visited an Industrial Engineer. Caina hopes to study engineering and Danelis, an Industrial Engineer living and working in Santo Domingo, showed us the plastics factory where she works. Danelis is effectively in charge of all that happens on the plant floor and the management of each of the plant’s 70 employees. The factory makes plastic lids and bottles used for bottled water and other beverages (an environmentalist’s nightmare). We were able to see the machines that made the bottles and learn about the process. The girls were able to see a woman in charge of what is often considered (at least here) to be a “Man’s World”. The visit was very interesting and empowering for the girls.

Friday was the day when the girls saw what they can achieve in the professional lives. Saturday was the day in which they learned how to get there. In the morning we all hopped on Santo Domingo’s Metro and rode the few short stops to the UASD, the Universidad Autónoma de Santo Domingo. The UASD is the largest university in the DR and the oldest university in the Americas, founded in 1538. I had never visited the campus and was astonished to see how beautiful, modern and campus-y it was. The girls got to see a University campus, its buildings, its students and its energy.

The conference served as an educational and empowering tool for the girls and a tangible success for us Volunteers. We tell our youth day in and day out that if they work hard and study hard, they can achieve their goals. Sometimes it can be difficult for them to firmly grasp what that hard work consists of and where exactly it can get them. At Mi Futuro Brillante, the girls were able to see and experience where studying can get you and what you can achieve through hard work. They got to meet young professional Dominicanas and visit the university they could someday attend and the office they could someday work in if they continue working hard and dreaming big.

The girls felt inspired. We Volunteers felt proud. Everybody wins.

Caina (left) and Marta (right) with Industrial Engineer Danelis

Occupy Minivan

December is a tricky time in the DR. The weather cools to more bearable temperatures, school finishes up and life in general winds down before the holiday season. There is often not much work to be done in December and many PCVs go home for the holidays. Just another perk of being a PCV in the DR – flights to the US couldn’t be much easier.

I would attempt to tell you about how I am spending my time in the USA, but my friend Duncan is a bit more eloquent and much more humorous in doing so. A group of us traveled cross-country while Occupying a Minivan. Read more here:

Duncan Peabloggy

Kite Season

Easily one of my favorite Dominican Spanish words is chichigua, or kite. Every year around this time the chichiguas come out in full force. In fact, most fads here seem to be seasonal. Through the holiday season kites will be the rage only for the winds to die down in January when the games of cricket will take over the streets, then marbles, hula hoops and whatever else the kids can get their hands on.

While some of these fads come and go, kites are one that seem to happen each and every year. Hula Hoops, for example, might be a passing fad brought on by a group of missionaries bringing dozens of toys to my community. Kites, on the other hand, are made and not received.

Along with the increasing winds that pass through this time of year, the sugar cane also begins to flower. Children go into the cane, cut down this flower and use its stalk to make the base of their kite. They then rummage through their homes or the local garbage heap for plastic bags and some string and voila, a kite is born.

If I’ve said it once I’ve said it a million times that the ability of a Dominican child to create and invent with limited resources is truly remarkable. With the most basic of materials they are able to build complex vaina. Whether they are creating a kite from scratch or fixing a broken bicycle, they live the adage that says, “One man’s trash is another muchacho’s treasure”.

As a child, it would have never even occurred to me to make a kite. A kite is something you buy. But here even a 4 year old and scrounge up the necessary materials and creativity to make their very own chichigua. They might not have much but they have that, and that’s something.

Facts, Fun & Firsts

The Dominican Republic is a country well known for its beautiful white sand beaches. It is also a small country – ensuring that all Dominicans live within a relatively short distance from any number of the aforementioned beautiful white sand beaches. This would lead many to the assumption that all Dominicans have been to the beach. That assumption is, regrettably, incorrect.

Can you imagine living in Florida, Southern California or any of the Hawaiian Islands and having never been to the beach? I cannot. I can hardly imagine being from North Dakota and not having traveled to Florida, Southern California, Hawaii or elsewhere to visit a beach and catch a glimpse of an ocean. Lucky for some Dominicans who have been thus far in their lives deprived of swimming in the large bodies of water that surround their country, we Peace Corps Volunteers have Grant Money and we like the beach.

This past weekend myself and 5 other Youth Volunteers who live in bateys offered their girls volleyball teams a weekend of facts, fun and of firsts.

On Saturday, we 6 Volunteers and the 36 young voleibolistas met at a nearby retreat center for a day of learning. We Volunteers led charlas, games and activities dealing with Good Sportsmanship, HIV/AIDS, Teamwork and Dehydration. Lots of facts. At our last Volleyball tournament two girls fainted due to dehydration so we thought we’d drop some knowledge on the importance of pumping your body full of water.

On Sunday morning we all loaded onto buses and headed to nearby Guayacanes, located along the Eastern coast and home to a beautiful white sand beach. We strung up a net and played volleyball in the baking Caribbean sun all day long. Lots of fun.

For some of the girls, it was their first beach trip. That alone made the day worthwhile. I often feel as a Peace Corps Volunteer that what I really do here is offer opportunities. Opportunities for my community members to meet and know an American. Opportunities for my youth to learn about things they otherwise might never learn about. Or for them travel with me to Camps and Conferences in distant parts of their own country they otherwise would never go. Or to take someone to a beach they live less than 50 miles from but would never have seen had a strange white guy not been sent to live in their community for two years.

The day was nearly perfect. The girls thoroughly enjoyed the surf and the sand. The Volunteers thoroughly sun burned themselves. I say nearly perfect because our beach day was on a Sunday – and Sunday is the day people here tend get drunk – and drunk men on the beach are attracted to 36 volleyball playing teenage girls and their 6 white friends like moths to a flame. We spent large amounts of time chasing away persistent drunk men with a Herman Cain-like tendency to sexually harass any female in sight.

It is incredible to me how comfortable I have become in the past two years at scolding people. From children straight on up to adults. I have no reservations telling someone to get lost or stop being such an ass. Two years ago I didn’t even know how to say such things in Spanish. Now not a day goes by without it. Sadly, being blunt and/or short with people is effective here. If you simply ask the drunk assholes on the beach to “Please, go away. We’re trying to hold an activity. Thank you.” they’re simply going to persist. But if you are to say “Seriously dude, go away! How many times do we have to tell you no?” they might just get the picture and go harass someone else.

As a male Volunteer, my life here is exponentially easier than that of a female Volunteer. Female Volunteers here, and I imagine in many (most?)) other countries, have to deal with copious amounts of sexual harassment each and every day. It’s gotta get exhausting. Not to mention ugly and degrading and gross. I knew it was tough to be a female here but after more than two years in this country, it took me one day at the beach for it to really hit home. Dominican men can be gross. Men can be gross. People can be gross. Why do people insist on being gross?

But side rant on the occasional ways of Dominican men and hardship of female PCVs aside, the event was a major success. Our girls learned, they played, they enjoyed themselves and some of them had a major life experience of seeing/swimming in the ocean for the very first time. That’s big. And it’s all because we offered them a simple little opportunity.

Our Beautiful Court

Lunch Break

Bumping, Setting and Spiking for the Tiguere Spectators

Personal Development

October 28th marked the official end of my service as a Peace Corps Volunteer. Or it would have were I not extending my service and sticking around until June. While I and many others from my group have extended and, therefore, treated October 28th as any other day, a number of people did leave. Closing this chapter and moving on to a new, more American one.

I never expected that when November 2011 rolled around I would still find myself here in the DR. I didn’t expect to still be writing these blog posts by candlelight, awaiting the return of the electricity so I can type and upload it to the interwebs. For more than two years now the date, the numbers, 10/28/2011, have been so meaningful. They represented a goal. A milestone. And now it has come and gone with little fanfare.

This fall has been a strange one. September was undoubtedly my most busy and productive month as a PCV. It was followed by a major October slump. All peaks in Peace Corps seem to lead to an inevitable valley. And now November presents itself as another mountain to climb.

Aside from the return of numerous Peace Corps camps, conferences, trainings and more, I’m starting to finally start seriously looking towards my life post-Peace Corps. Attempting to do some personal development on top of the Grassroots development. This includes researching Grad School programs, filling out applications, writing personal statements and deciding where it is I want to live when my time in the Caribbean comes to a close.

America is big. It is home to many good schools. Lots of cool cities. How am I supposed to settle on just one place? Can’t people just commute from Denver to New York? Seattle and the Bay Area look close on a map. In the DR, mountains and cities and beaches and deserts are all just one uncomfortable bus ride away. I’m going from a country roughly the size of New Hampshire to a country in which New Hampshire is among the smallest of 50 fairly large states. America. It’s a daunting place.

An unfortunate accompaniment to applying to Graduate School is the GRE. Yet another godforsaken standardized test in the life of an American student which does nothing to reflect one’s true intelligence/abilities. It costs $200 and requires a fair amount of studying. Trying to study in what is easily one of the world’s loudest countries borders on tortuous. There is literally no where one can go to escape the noise.

I went to a large shopping center called Jumbo (think Latin American Target) last week to sit in the food court and take a GRE practice test. Jumbo is about 30 minutes away in the nearest city. It is glorious there. In the store I mean, not the city. The city, San Pedro de Macoris, is pretty awful. I sat amongst the bustle of people eating, shopping and getting wrapped up into the arms of commerce and even with all the noise and distraction, Jumbo provides a better learning environment than anywhere in my community. It's loud here. It's no wonder schoolchildren in the DR don't learn, they can't hear a god damn thing.

November 2011. Still here. Who woulda thunk it? This country certainly has a strange effect on people. They simply can't leave. And when the finally do, they suffer from chronic hearing loss. Seriously, it's really loud here.

The Homestretch

The end of September marked the end of my 26th month as a Peace Corps Volunteer. Peace Corps service is a 27-month commitment. You do the math.

The end is near. Or it would be anyway had I not made the decision to extend my service and stay on the island for another 7 or 8 months. I’ll be continuing work in my community while taking on leadership roles within Peace Corps DR with our Camp Superman and Deportes para la Vida initiatives.

Even as I’m sticking around for a while, the end of October marks a milestone. A number of Volunteers from my group, those who arrived together to the sweltering summer heat of the DR in August 2009, will be heading back to America to begin their lives as ‘Returned’ Peace Corps Volunteers.

The imminent finish line becomes more apparent and more realistic with every passing week. In early September, the 38 who remain from my group attended a 3-day Close of Service Conference intended to give us all the tools necessary to readjust back into American life.

Then a few weeks later the most recent edition of the PCDR Publication ‘Gringo Grita’ came out and featured surveys filled out by the 38 of us entering our final month of service. It is essentially a yearbook full of our funniest and most cherished experiences of the past two years.

Now we’re in October and people are starting to leave the island. Volunteers are hopping into taxis headed for the airport and simply disappearing off the island. The support system and family of Volunteers we have shared the past two years of our lives with are moving on to different and more American things. It is a strange and nostalgia-filled time of service.

How 27 months can pass by so damn fast I will never know. When someone first applies to the Peace Corps, they can’t help but think 27 months seems like a long time. A sizeable time commitment. It’s not. Well, it is, but it’s not.

It feels like just yesterday we stepped off a plane in Santo Domingo and were thrown headfirst into an endless cycle of cultural and linguistic misunderstanding. To sweat, mosquitoes & colmados. To rice, beans & viveres. To Dengue Fever, Intestinal Parasites & Scabies. To meeting Dominicans who treated you like family and to meeting 50 strange Americans who in two years you would recognize as family.

It’s almost impossible to believe that so many of us are now in our 27th and final month of service. It's strange. It's sad. It's exciting. It's unfathomable. It's here. It's now. It's happening.

Where does time go?

4%

It is September and in some northern parts of the world, summer is turning to fall. Children are back to school. Leafs will soon be changing their color. Weekends will soon be dominated by football.

Here in the DR, fall doesn’t exist. It’s as hot as ever and the Tropical Storms and Hurricanes that keep passing through have allowed mosquitoes to reproduce in alarming, Dengue Fever-inflicting numbers. There unfortunately is no football, though the Dominican Baseball League will start up again in October, which is better than nothing. And children will return to class whenever the hell they feel like it.

Classes were to officially begin nationwide on the 17th of August. That was three weeks ago. But neither the teachers nor the students had any interest in holding class so early in August. It’s hot after all.

The overwhelming majority of children in this country attend public school (if they attend school at all). Public school is held in sessions, or tandas, taking place in the morning from 8-12 or in the afternoon from 2-6. The tanda system lessens the inevitable issue of overcrowded classrooms and the limited number of trained teachers in the country. The tanda system also allows for just 4 hours of class time per day. Of those 4 hours, maybe 2 are actually devoted to education. The other two involve arriving late, leaving early, idly sitting and throwing rocks at one another.

The education system is a problem. A big one. For my money, it is the biggest issue this country faces.

There is a big push here to bump federal spending for K-12 Education up to 4%. Currently, the government devotes just 2.3% of the GDP to K-12 Ed. This is one of the lowest percentages in the Americas and in the world and goes a long way to explain how the school system here can be so abysmal.

For reference: the US gives 5.8%, placing us 37th internationally. Socialist Scandinavia gives the most of all developed countries (naturally) with Denmark giving the most at 8.5%, ranking 8th internationally. Fellow Caribbean nation Cuba gives the most at 18.7%.

With Presidential elections upcoming in 2012, this push for 4% has gained a lot of traction and presidential candidates are hopping on the 4% bandwagon. Meanwhile, the city of Santo Domingo is building a second line on their Subway system, the Metro. Yes, here in a country that suffers from daily power outages and where millions have no access to potable water, there exists a beautiful and well-functioning Subway system in the Capital city. The new line of the Metro is under construction and receiving a whopping 6% of the GDP this year.

6% for one stretch of subway tracks in one city. 2.3% for K-12 Education across the entire country.

I don’t mean to suggest for one second that money is the one single ingredient that makes for a functioning education system. It is one of many factors. But if a country places such little value and such little investment into education and its society’s future, it should expect little results.

I would also argue that the United States should offer a far higher percentage of its GDP to education. The richest, most powerful country on Earth shouldn’t be 37th at anything. Students in Denmark receive free, high level education through college. American students receive an education of varying quality depending on whether they live in a suburb, an inner city or somewhere in between before entering a university system that will leave them under a mountain of debt. The education system in the US has all kinds of problems but looks positively ideal next the DR’s system.

Kids in my community have finally decided it is time to go back to school this week. They have dusted off their uniforms, donned their new backpacks and braved the sun's rays to walk down the dirt road to their modest school. Maybe they'll keep going every day. Maybe they'll learn something. Maybe someday their government will invest as much in their future as it will for one Metro line stretching a few short miles. Maybe.

Off to school

Eliecel heads to his first day of Kindergarten

Melinda & Loren look to beat the heat under the shade of an umbrella

Celebrating Education

Dominicans generally have little knowledge of the world outside this small island. While I recognize this to be a generalization, after two years here I also recognize it to be accurate. This is especially true for Dominicans living in the more marginalized communities where Peace Corps Volunteers live and work. I obviously don’t expect people in developing countries to jet set across the globe, but I would expect the local education system to offer, well, some basic education. I’ve also been here long enough to know this is too much to ask.

In order to educate our Youth about the world outside the island, some volunteers teach world geography courses. Another way we teach our youth about the world is through annual regional diversity conferences. These conferences take place in the Northern part of the DR (Celebrando el Cibao), the Southern region (Celebrando el Sur), and here in the Eastern region (Celebrando el Este). These conferences bring youth from around the DR together to discuss their diversity, their communities, their country and to learn about important themes like discrimination, immigration, culture and religion in the world.

This year, along with another volunteer, I planned and organized the Celebrando el Este conference. In mid-August, 35 Dominican youth aged 12-20 got together to do a number of activities and learn about the region, the country and the planet they call home.

Like most human beings, Dominican youth learn best by doing. So instead of simply talking at the kids, we got interactive. The kids learned about DR culture and history by playing Jeopardy. They painted a giant map of the world and learned some facts about World Geography. They used that same map to discuss immigration patterns and treatment of immigrants in the world; a very pertinent topic with the DR’s own immigration issues with Haiti.

Learning an Irish Jig as we Dance Around the World

The kids exercised by doing Yoga, learned new dances by ‘Dancing Around the World’ and made Hummus, Pesto & Bruschetta in our ‘Dips Around the World’ activity. They traveled around the globe and ‘visited’ 9 countries, learning about each one and earning a stamp in their Passport. They saw discrimination firsthand in a powerful activity known in the Peace Corps DR World as ‘Archie Bunker’s Neighborhood’.

Enjoying freshly self-prepared Hummus, Pesto and Bruschetta

Celebrando el Este was the most educational Conference I have been part of in Peace Corps. Our kids not only learned a great deal in one weekend, but retained the information as well. The two girls I brought to the Conference couldn’t stop talking about how much they enjoyed themselves and are inspired to paint a World Map Mural in our community. The Conference has also inspired me to teach a Celebrando el Mundo course to my Boys Club.

My girls from Cachena receiving their certificates in front of our beautifully painted World Map

Just as a lack of access to books leads to lower literacy rates, a lack of maps and no knowledge of geography can lead to a lesser curiosity of the world. I hope a large map mural in the community and some educated youngsters will spark the interest of others to learn more about the DR and the world we live in.

Celebrando an Educational Weekend

Emily

The first Tropical Storm of the season has come and gone. Here in the Eastern region of the DR the storm, named Emily, brought some wind gusts and about 24 hours of rain but nothing too fuerte. My site resembled a lake through Thursday afternoon but now things are drying up and the mosquitoes (and probably the cholera too) are coming out in record numbers.

I’ve been very fortunate in my now two years here in the Caribbean to avoid any major Tropical Storms or Hurricanes. In 2009 there were no notable storms and in 2010 one hurricane passed through but did most of its damage in Haiti, naturally. I think we won’t be so fortunate in 2011. August begins the height of the storm season and already we’ve had a named storm and many more predicted.

I am generally one of those people who kind of enjoys storms. The claps of thunder. The smell of wet grass. And here in the DR, rainy days allow for socially acceptable laziness and exorbitant amounts of sleep and/or good reading. Win Win Win. On rainy days, meetings are cancelled, classes are unattended and humans are indoors. You see, the only things Dominicans like less than direct sunlight (see recent post) is rain and being wet. I am also generally one of those people who like to try everything or experience everything at least once. So part of me wants to be able to say I experienced a hurricane, earthquake or other natural disaster that occasionally wreaks havoc on this part of the planet.

That being said, I am also accustomed to experiencing storms from inside a structurally sound house or even a basement if the occasion calls for it. Here I have neither a structurally sound house nor a basement (nor anything resembling either, for that matter). Even Emily’s modest wind gusts had the zinc roof trembling and the rains leaked through it all day. A mild hurricane could lift my house a la The Wizard of Oz and carry it far from Kansas.

So while I would love to one day say I have lived through a hurricane, I would prefer it happened in a post-Peace Corps stage of my life. Maybe in my retirement years when I live in a beachfront, hurricane-proof fortress. Or when Richard Branson invites me to holiday on his private island; he surely has a storm shelter. Until either of those absurdly unrealistic dreams becomes a reality, I'd prefer the hurricanes keep a safe distance from this island.

The Dream Team

Barcelona, Spain. 1992. The best basketball team ever and one of the most illustrious collections of talent assembled in the history of international sport wins an Olympic Gold Medal and brings pride to a nation.

Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic. 2011. An extremely mediocre group of PCVs competes against a city’s best ballers and brings pride to no one.

A Volunteer friend & fellow Iowan just put on a weeklong basketball tournament in his urban barrio in the city of Puerto Plata, on the DR’s north coast. This past Saturday, a compilation of the best local Dominican players in the tournament was invited to test their skills versus a team of Peace Corps Volunteers. The Peace Corps Dominican Republic Dream Team, if you will. A number of the best players among the Volunteers were unable to make the trip, but we liked our chances nonetheless.

Due to transport issues (read: Santo Domingo traffic), myself and two other Dream Team members arrived late and missed the entire 1st Quarter of the game. After emptying our bladders following the 5-hour car ride and quickly lacing up our sneakers, we erased a 6-20 deficit and took a halftime lead into the nonexistent locker-room. We had averted disaster and a win by the Americans looked inevitable. In the 4th Quarter, the younger Dominicans caught fire, regained the lead and defeated the mighty Americanos.

It was not the Dream Team’s best showing. We won no medals. There was no national anthem. Our pride took a hit. But after the game the Dominican players were taught a few things about HIV/AIDS and were filled with self-confidence and pride of their own after defeating an American Equipo de Sueños. I suppose that's an acceptable consolation prize. And the beer we bought afterwards, used to regenerate our deflated self-esteem, that was a good consolation too.

Hace Calor

It seems to be hot just about everywhere. A heat wave is devouring North America and pushing thermometers even in northern lands like Minnesota and Ontario well into the 100s. While it’s not that hot down here, each day brings a debilitating temperature consistently in the 90s. This would be easily tolerable if air conditioning was commonplace or even if the electricity was on during daylight hours to power fans. Alas, we sweat.

Dominicans, for being a Caribbean people, are not fond of the sun. They avoid sun as fervently as American children avoid broccoli. They are professionals at seeking out even the smallest slivers of shade. They do everything in their power to avoid making their skin color darker. If they get too dark, people might think they are Haitian and being a Haitian is not a popular thing here in the DR. Being racist against Haitians is a popular thing though.

Dominicans’ reasons for avoiding el sol are not simply racial but also very practical. Not surprisingly, it is quite a bit cooler in the shade. When it is too hot to be indoors and AC is decades (maybe longer) away from being a household staple, the shade is a good place to be. I suspect shade-sitting is a sort of national pastime in many developing nations.

Shade-sitting. A national pastime.

My daily uniform while here in my community usually consists of khaki shorts, a t-shirt and flip-flops. Not exactly the business casual ensembles other Americans my age sport to their day jobs. But the current heat wave here has downgraded my uniform to basketball shorts, a sleeveless t-shirt and occasional barefootedness. Part of me thinks this is lazy. Another part of me thinks I am really beginning to dress like a local.

Sometimes it rains in the afternoon and the heat takes a break from its onslaught. Then the rain stops and the humidity sweeps in like a wet blanket, making people long for the unrelenting dry(er) heat of the mornings.

I suppose heat is preferable to the hurricanes predicted on the horizon. August and September mark the high point of hurricane season. People educated in the way weather works say this will be a highly active hurricane season. Hopefully the people who predict weather patterns are as incorrect about this as they are about most everything else.

Easily one of the things I dislike most about living in the DR is the lack of seasons. I want four distinct seasons in my life. I want to wake up, feel the early morning temperature and be able to judge, by that alone, what month it is. With the exception of the few months in late spring when the rainy season is upon us, it is always summer. An endless summer. Many Americans probably think that sounds great. But I want seasons. Four of them. Changing leaves, mounds of snow, rainy springs and hot summers is the climate for me.

Hang in there America. Soon enough it will be fall and you will be able to slip on a light jacket and watch the leaves change. Or spend a crisp Saturday afternoon tailgating at a football game, letting cold beer keep you body warm. Our summer never ends. The heat wave lasts 12 months, and then it starts all over again.

Camp Superman

The first week in July, PCVs in the DR attempted something previously undone in PCDR history. A 5-day Camp for Dominican muchachos aged 10-14. This marked the third summer in which Volunteers here in the DR have put on Camp Superman. The first camp in 2009 took place over three days, 2010’s camp stretched to four days and this year we upped the ante to five. More days, more activities, more fun and more knowledge dropped.

Along with two fellow volunteers, I helped plan, organize and coordinate the camp beginning back in February and saw it through its fifth and final day last week. It required much work but ended as an epic, muddy success.

On July 6^th, 16 Peace Corps Volunteers left their respective communities throughout the country and made for the idyllic mountain town of Los Bueyes for the 3^rd Annual Camp Superman. As in all Camp Supermans, the idea is to teach young boys how to become young men. To reach young boys in their more formative years before they reach the vulnerable ages in which far too many young Dominican males succumb to delinquency or premature fatherhood. The Camp offers the boys a chance to meet boys from other parts of the country and the unique opportunity to camp in tents, go on hikes, eat s’mores and simply enjoy the great outdoors.

Through various educational activities revolving around themes such as Gender, Nutrition, HIV/AIDS Prevention and more, the boys learned valuable information to take home with them to their respective communities. There is also much time allotted for sports, arts & crafts, science experiments, swimming in a beautiful river and doing other fun activities synonymous with Summer Camp.

On the Saturday of Camp, we had spent the morning hiking to a beautiful waterfall and were on the homestretch of five days when the skies opened up and the rains fell hard. Our initial reaction was to play. Some boys played dominoes and board games under cover from the rain. Others joined a large game of mud soccer and got dirty. Boys and Volunteers alike were covered head to toe in mud and loving every second of it. Then the flash flood warnings came, tents got flooded, clothes got wet and things almost hit the fan. Fortunately, Peace Corps Volunteers are a resourceful bunch. 16 people worked together to clean tents, hang dry clothes, build a super tent where all 42 boys had a slumber party and saved the day. There are few other people I would want on my side during a torrential Caribbean downpour while caring for 42 muchachos than PCVs.

Camp Superman 2011 was an enormous success for both Dominican boys and PCVs alike. The boys were able to enjoy a unique life experience and Volunteers were able to watch the young boys they work with day in and day out in their communities grow and mature before their eyes.

In just 5 days, an ordinary boy can learn to become Super.

*Pictures forthcoming. Si dios quiere.

Mira Mi Pinta

My Escojo Mi Vida youth group graduated from my Sex Ed / Life Skills course in late May. With the course finished and the summer months ahead, we arranged to do 3 community service projects. One in June, another in July and a third in August.

Project #1 – A Community Mural

Among the first sights one takes in upon entering Batey Cachena is a large wall on the side of a row house barrack that is peeling away multiple layers of decades old political campaign ads. The wall is ugly. So we painted it.

My youth came up with a design that offers a welcome to and description of the community. The wall includes baseball players, sugar cane cutters, a school and an open bible featuring a verse chosen by one of my Christian youth. Each of these are accompanied by the words: Land of Baseball Players, Land of Hard Workers, Land of Professionals and Holy Land (a bit much).

We are not nor do we pretend to be proper artists. For that reason the final product was a little lackluster and nothing resembling a work of artistic genius. But my kids did the work themselves and the townspeople seem to like it. Success.

Artists at work.

Welcome to Cachena. The finished product.

Oz

I'm back to the noise and unrelenting heat of the DR after 2 weeks Down Under. Australia was a great time but it was somewhat of a tease to be in such a large country for such a small period of time. Can't wait for a return trip to visit other great cities and the bush. That said, experiencing Sydney, diving in the Great Barrier Reef and cuddling koalas with the fam isn't a bad way to spend a vacation.

Sydney Opera House

Sydney Harbor Bridge. We climbed to the top!

Giraffes, Zebras and a skyline view at Sydney's Taronga Zoo

SCUBA Diving in the Great Barrier Reef

Hand Feeding Kangaroos

'Cuddling' Koalas

The Day that Wasn't

We left Los Angeles on June 2. We arrived in Sydney on June 4. And June 3? It would seem to have not existed for myself and the other 200+ people on our massive Airbus. For the first time in my life, an entire day has escaped me. Bill Bryson, Iowa’s greatest author, is able to put it more poignantly than I:

“Each time you fly from North America to Australia, and without anyone asking how you feel about it, a day is taken away from you when you cross the International Date Line. I left Los Angeles on January 3 and arrived in Sydney fourteen hours later on January 5. For me there was no January 4. None at all. Where it went exactly I couldn’t tell you. All I know is that for one twenty-four-hour period in the history of the earth, it appears I had no being.” – Bill Bryson, In a Sunburned Country

Off to See the Wizard

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

On Thursday June 2, I will board a plane in Santo Domingo and on Saturday June 4, I will land in Sydney, Australia.

My youngest sister has been studying abroad Down Under since February and the rest of the fam is going to join her for 2 weeks Aussie greatness. The journey to the world’s largest island, the only island that doubles as a continent and an overall desirable vacation destination will be a long one. But the ends will most surely justify the means.

Escojo Graduation

My Escojo Mi Vida group celebrated their graduation last night. Escojo is a Peace Corps initiative in which we volunteers teach Dominican youth about sexual health and life skills. Over the course of the past 3 months, I have met weekly with my Escojo group to discuss themes ranging from decision-making, HIV/AIDS, discrimination, STIs, the human reproductive system and more.

The HIV rate in the DR is (arguably) between 1-2% and higher still in batey communities like my own. The teenage pregnancy rate is also high and a large part of the problem is lack of education and lack of easy access to condoms and other birth control methods. The goal of Escojo is to educate youth in volunteer's communities to make good life decisions and to educate themselves about sex and HIV/AIDS.

Eleven youth aged 13-20 graduated on Monday. Looking ahead, we hope to do a number of community service projects over the summer. A strong youth group has been lacking here in Cachena for some time and we hope to change that with Escojo.

Sirve Con Fuerza

10 teams. 60 girls. 4 days. 1 camp/volleyball tournament. Sirve Con Fuerza.

Sirve Con Fuerza is Peace Corps’ national volleyball tournament. Teams from Volunteer’s sites all over the country come together to test their talents, practice, play, learn and meet new people.

I am far from a volleyball coach. I do live in a site where most everyone, male or female, enjoys playing sports. The boys are constantly playing baseball and hoping to be the next local phenomenon to get a Major League contract. The girls focus their attention not on the baseball diamond but the volleyball court. In November the women in my site erected two large poles into a patch of dirt, wrapped a snow fence across the poles and a volleyball court was born. Since then there has been scarcely a single day in which the girls and women of Cachena have not played volleyball.

While I’m not a coach and have been hesitant to take on a more formal role with the local players, I wanted to reward my girls for their hard work and persistent practice by bringing them to Sirve Con Fuerza. Since February I have been teaching a course for young girls called Chicas Brillantes. My Chicas group is made up of 16 girls ages 9-16. Each week we talk about a subject involving gender, gender empowerment and showing young girls what they can achieve in this machismo, male-dominated culture. A number of my older Chicas Brillantes are volleyball players and were invited to compete against young girls from all over the DR.

The tournament/camp was a great success. The teams were placed into two separate brackets based on talent levels and played lots of volleyball over the course of 4 days. My girls turned out to be one of the better teams and took home the award for Good Sportsmanship. While the girls obviously want to win, a volunteer is likely to be more pleased that their team won a Sportsmanship award than a Championship. The girls also learned about Gender, Nutrition, HIV/AIDS and more.

Since arriving back in Cachena after the camp, my girls have been playing lots of volleyball. The entire community was impressed with how much they improved in such a short time and many people made a point to come to my house and tell me how well the girls are playing now. All the boys are now begging for a Basketball Camp where they can improve their skills.

I recently received a grant to work on sports, and specifically girls volleyball, in my site and hope to keep working with these girls in the future. They will definitely be a favorite to win Sirve Con Fuerza in 2012.

The volleyball court in Batey Cachena.

Sirve Con Fuerza. Cachena were in the orange t-shirts on the far side of the court.