Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Roofs

Well, this is interesting.  It seems that if I climb up onto my roof, I can pick up an open Wi-Fi signal! Oh Peace Corps… being an IT volunteer is funny sometimes.

Friday, August 27, 2010

I’ll just call you “Peter.”

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We started a new cycle of adult literacy classes at the CTC, so I get to see everything from the first day (this past Tuesday), and have a bigger hand in the classes. Above are three of the women who I am working with, Justina, Carlita, and Maria Jose.  So far, it has been pretty great.  Well, mostly great.  The first class, I locked all my materials in the radio room, and Diomaris, the literacy facilitator, hadn’t received the new workbooks yet. So, about 10 mins before class started, I IM’d Natasha, a literacy volunteer working at an NGO in Santo Domingo, and she quickly emailed me some ideas for class.  They worked amazingly, and saved the class.

We all introduced ourselves, talked about why they were here, and what they hoped to get out of the classes.  Reading the bible was a common goal, as was being able to help their grandchildren.  Then, we showed them how to write their names.  I was struck by how strange and powerful that seemed to me—these women had gone their whole lives without knowing exactly how to write their names, or what their names looked like, and now they were able to write them down.  To represent themselves, to record themselves, to put their names on something.  You have a name—Juana—that is a part of who you are, but it’s always just in the air.  You can say it, but it doesn’t stick like it does when it’s written down.  Then it’s permanent, it’s… I don’t know.  It seems different.  We talked about where their names came from, and who gave them to them. They had history, and stories, and you could tell that they felt proud to share.

So, I sat down next to one of the women, and asked her what her name was.  I wrote it down at the top of the first page of her notebook: Vincenta. I wasn’t sure how to spell her last name—it had either a Y or a LL, which make the same sounds.  I checked the roster, and used the LL. Then, she copied it down to cover the rest of the page.  Vincenta.  Vincenta Vincenta Vincenta…  After she finished, she looked at it, proud. She smiled, and laughed, and retraced the letters with her pencil. The rest of the women were still working, and Vincenta started counting the number of letters in her name. She looked a little confused. 

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Diomaris wrote all the womens’ names on the board so they could see them all together, and my stomach sank. Vicenta. NOT Vincenta.  I had taught this woman how to spell her own name incorrectly. I’m an IT volunteer who thought he could do literacy and just fucking taught someone how to spell her name incorrectly. Shit shitshitshit. Diomaris saw my look of horror, and I told her what I did.  Terror flashed in her eyes, and then she buckled with a stifled burst of laughter. Vicenta was recounting the letters in her name. Shit.  Maybe she won’t notice. Maybe she’d like being Vincenta better! Even if she notices, I have a degree in Spanish… Hell, what have I done? I felt like throwing up. I should ET (early termination) right now.

Here goes: I smiled at her, and said “You know something is wrong, don’t you—I made a mistake. I’m sorry, I taught you how to spell the Americanized version of your name instead of the Spanish one.  I’m still learning Spanish, we’re all students here.” And she thought it was really funny, and wanted to know how to pronounce it in English.  She kept laughing about it through the rest of class, because for a few minutes, she was officially an American with an American name. And I officially worked at Ellis Island.

 

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Lines

Instant message poetry from my Katy Williams, my world-traveling comrade:

tropical countries
eliminating lines on peoples' faces
except for the ones that are poor enough that the daily struggle to make ends meet
creates those lines and makes them leather
by the age of 30

Monday, August 23, 2010

Tienes que ser loco

“You have to be crazy, like me.” said my project partner.  “Two days ago, I said in a meeting that I thought we should have coffee for when important people visit. Today, I got us a stove, gas tank, coffee pot, and cups, in exchange for promoting a local business on the radio. You have to be crazy to make things happen, to make anything change.  Not enough people here are crazy.”

I’m not crazy enough.  I take too much time to figure things out before taking chances.  I want to know everything about something—to be so far above other people’s knowledge of something that I can understand how the decisions I make affect things, and when problems come up, I can have solutions.  In training, they told us to “fake it till you make it.”  I’ve been faking a lot lately, but I’m getting there.

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I think the difference between faking it till you make it and being crazy is that when you fake it, you’re waiting for someone to call you out.  Being crazy dares them to. Being crazy means accepting failure as a possibility and still doing it, instead of pretending failure isn’t there.

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I’m an introspective introvert.  I wait in lines and rely on systems.  What am I doing in a country dominated by the informal sector, where to do anything, you have to have the loudest voice and talk over everyone else? When you walk into a quickie mart, you just yell “GIVE ME 5 PESOS OF BUTTER” without caring if someone was there before you. If you don’t get the butter, you yell again, this time waving your money in the air. You have to be crazy to buy butter.

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I went to Pantoja to drop off some keys with my old Dona, and stopped by the training center to see the new Peace Corps class.  50-some brand-new trainees, fresh off the airplane.  Biggest class ever.  I’ve faked it for over 5.5 months already, and as circles of trainees formed around me as I talked, I couldn’t believe that I was telling them to not freak out.  FREAK OUT. The ways you’re used to doing things won’t work, and you can’t fake learning the ropes.  And then, in a non-neocolonial, non-culturally-imperialistic way, you’re supposed to teach things. Things that, for the most part, I just figured out on my own.  You have to be crazy to sign up for this stuff.

My project partner and her husband were two of the ones arrested by the military my first day in-site… I guess that’s just a possible side effect of being crazy. At least we have coffee now!

UPDATE ON CHICKENS: The chicken truck came around, and my neighbor bought a live one.  She tried to talk the guy into giving me a chick to take care of, and for about 4 seconds I was hoping he would give me one. He didn’t.  But thanks to him, the neighborhood has about 5 times as many chickens! hooray!

Thursday, August 19, 2010

First class

Today was my first class on computer repair at the CTC!  Sadly, no one showed up for it.  I've been a bit sick, and didn't show up in the morning, but still had every intention of giving class.  So, I guess that was my fault.  I even had a lesson plan, powerpoint, and challenge questions planned out.

Next class is on Tuesday; I'll be sure not to look ill then.  Now back to bed.

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Bahoruco

I took the weekend off, and visited Chloe, Jeff, and Justin at Justin’s site down south.  Justin lives in a little cane-board shack right on the beach.  It was pretty amazing to sit on the empty beach at night with a bonfire, watching the Perseid meteor shower. 

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The beach.

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The back of Justin’s house, from the beach (it’s the one with the two red chairs).  Yes, it is falling apart, and it’s awesome.

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Two of the dozens of local muchachos.

Saturday, August 7, 2010

Tragedy of the Commons

Dengue-free!

Today was an all around memorable day. I love my house, and the neighborhood is great. I have a tinaco, which is a big black drum that sits on your roof and stores water for when the pipes are dry. It turns out that you can go through 250 gallons of water in two days when all the muchachos in the neighborhood are filling up 5 gallon buckets at the outside spigot when you're gone or not looking. It also turns out that the tinaco will not refill with water if a neighbor cuts your water pipe.

So, I went to Sugeidy's mom, Margo, who is my new in-country mother. She brings me coffee in the morning, rice at lunchtime, and tried to explain to me how to stir spaghetti with a fork when it is cooking. "Like this!" She also had her son build me a little table to put my stove on, and sent a muchacho to fill up my gas tank. Within 10 minutes, she had yelled at the neighbor who had cut the pipe, scolded a few muchachos who stole water, and was finding me a bucket of water to bathe with. She kept assuring me that the tinaco would refill with water soon, but nothing was happening. We went to the neighborhood well, next to a colmado (quickie mart) on the entry street, and filled up the bucket with water. The colmado owner showed me how this switch in the dirt a bit off the sidewalk turns on the water for half the barrio at a time. When we left, Sugeidy made sure the switch was on our side. Still no water in the tinaco. The neighbor who had cut the pipe supposedly repaired it, but who knows.

When I moved into this house, I thought it was a magical place. I took showers, washed dishes, and flushed the toilet. In 5 months, my hands had never been so clean. At first, the tinaco was overflowing with water because there is no off valve--it just keeps filling whenever there is water. It bothered me when I had to shoo away a muchacho who was filling his bucket at the spigot, but I thought, "hey, it's overflowing with water, it's ok." Then it was empty, and my bright sunny land of unicorns and care bears vanished.

They don't see it as stealing water. I have water, they need water, so they take my water. It all comes from a community well, and no one pays. It is like the Tragedy of the Commons playing out on my roof. One bucket here or there doesn't make a difference if the system is working properly, but rampant tinaco abuse and no refilling equals everyone, especially me, is screwed. That's what happened to Haiti's trees, and Dominicans pride themselves on the fact that they care about the environment. Then, they toss bags of trash in the street, litter at every opportunity, and don't devise a cutoff valve for overflowing tinacos. Everything is incredibly polluted, and the water is undrinkable, and while they recognize there is a problem, it is difficult to change when "it has always been that way." But, jesus, I don't think I can just wash my hands of the unnecessary pollution and litter. Right now, I can't even wash my hands.

Monday, August 2, 2010

Sick.

So I’m in the capital.  I have dengue, but it isn’t a really bad case.  My eyes started hurting like hell on Thursday, and I called the Peace Corps doctors on Saturday, and they had me come in. 

Earlier on Saturday, Sugeidy and I went in to Villa Mella at 6am to go hunting for a bed/stove/gas tank/table, bought said items, and found a truck to carry them back to site (which HAPPENED to be driven by Sugeidy’s cousin.  She knows everyone in this country).  Then, I packed everything I had at my host family’s house, and transported it on the back of a friend’s brother’s moped.  In 3 trips.  And piled it in the middle of the floor of my new house. And then got in one of the last cars leaving Yamasa to Santo Domingo.

I thought my eyes were just hurting because of staring at my computer for too long, and it wasn’t until the military gave me a flyer about dengue that I realized I had most of the symptoms. 

So, I have three free nights in the capital, in a hotel room with AC, hot water, and satellite TV, and am getting paid per diem too.  So, it isn’t too bad, and all i have to do is poop in a cup a few times, and have my blood checked every once in a while.  Pizza Hut even delivers to the hotel! I’m feeling good, the Peace Corps doctors are calling me every few hours, and they stop by and check in.  No DR volunteers have ever died from dengue, and if anything serious happens, they’ll send me to the States.  But everything is good, i’m feeling better, and am on the uptick.

My CTC is having a youth summer camp this week, and they cancelled the first day because I wasn’t there.  I let them know that it is OK for them to go ahead with it, and sent them all the water conservation information I have from Peace Corps.  Elvis is leaving tomorrow, so I’ll be the only male working in the CTC…. eeeek!

 

Here are some pictures from Yamasa:

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