Sunday, February 27, 2011

Muchachos

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These are some of the neighborhood muchachos.  They hang around my house once in a while, ask me questions about living in Nueba Yol, and now, play with Bean. They came cover today with shirtfulls of cahuil fruit that they picked by climbing on the church roof, and we sat on my porch and gorged until the grass was covered with pits and chunks of fruit that the bugs had gotten to first.

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Marcel, showing how careful he is with Bean.

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Josue, climbing on the porch bars.

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Josue, climbing on Micky. Bean, too tired to try to escape.

Earlier in the day, I met with an American who teaches English in the next town down the road, the two CTC managers, and a guy who works in the Ministry of Education to plan some cholera charlas.  I’ve already given slews of these charlas, but hey, it’s always nice to meet new people who are interested in working on projects!

Monday, February 21, 2011

Bean

I sort of got a dog. His name is Bean. I have no idea what kind of dog he is, or how big he’s going to get, or where he came from.

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So that’s cool. Margo will take care of him when I leave site, and it’s kind of fun to have the little guy running around.

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Sure, he poops and pees a lot, but my entire house is cement, and bleach is cheap.

The CTC had a secret santa and pot-luck for valentine’s day, which is Dominican for “let’s scream for no reason.”  The rules for the secret santa were not quite clear, so I bought a pack of gum and some chocolate. The recipient was nonplussed, and threw them on the table and didn’t look at me the rest of the evening. Other people were exchanging plastic knickknacks and stuff… I didn’t get the memo.

Monday, February 14, 2011

CTC Radio

I’m a radio DJ! Today was the first day of La Hora Americana, the American Hour, on 107.9 Radio CTC Yamasa.  Here’s my first playlist:

  • One Republic- Everybody loves me
  • Adele- Chasing Pavements
  • Good Charlotte- Dance floor anthem
  • Santogold- LES Artistes
  • Metro Station- Disco
  • Mute math- Electrify
  • Klaxons- Golden skans
  • One Republic- All the right moves
  • The Ataris- Boys of summer
  • 44- 155
  • Jimmy Eat World- Sweetness
  • Tracks like Trains- Eskimo
  • The Arcade Fire- Rebellion
  • The Postal Service- The district sleeps alone tonight
  • Miike Snow- Song for no one
  • The Temper Trap- Fader
  • Florence + The Machine- Cosmic love
  • Coldplay- Lost!
  • Coldplay- Viva la vida
  • Ratatat- Kennedy
  • U2- Where the streets have no name
  • U2- Sunday bloody sunday
  • U2- With or without you

All this is preceded by an evangelical prayer show, which is pretty much an hour or so of solid chanting, wailing, yelling, and auditory agony, punctuated by spanish gospel-bachata-soft rock. I got to the broadcast room at 8:50am, ready to start at 9, and they were just ending a prayer-shouting session. Well, I thought they were… it went on for a solid 25 minutes longer, by which time Sugeidy appeared and asked why I hadn’t just kicked them out already.

It was pretty cool. I had talked on the radio before, but this was the first time I did it solo.

This afternoon I’m starting a Photoshop course.  It’ll be interesting.  My plan is to make it project-based, instead of just teaching off of Powerpoint… we’ll see how that goes.

I’m looking for a cat. Since my last post, 4 more tomato bushes have appeared in my yard. If I can do that (I’m totally taking credit for it), I can deal with a cat. However, it doesn’t look like Yamasa has many cats available for free. I saw one in front of a house the other day, and seriously thought about swiping it, but I hesitated, and kids came out of the house. So close. There is the crazy cat woman in Santo Domingo who tried to pass off a cat in a bag to us that one time, but I don’t think I ever want to interact with her again. Sugeidy thinks I should get a dog, because they’re less work than cats. I tried to explain that American dogs are actually more work, but that concept was lost.

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Sideshow

I decided to finally mow my lawn again. The horse and goats haven’t been around lately to do the job, so I had a whack with it with my machete. This, of course, drew a crowd of neighbor women, who stood at a distance and smiled and pointed at me as I flailed at the overgrowth with a giant blade. You’d think they’d be used to it by now. Margo came over, holding her granddaughter, and in 5 broad sweeps with my machete, had cleared the area that I had been hacking away at.

One of the nice things about living on a tropical island is that STUFF GROWS. Sure, it sucks having to hack it down, but it also means that you can inadvertently grow big tomato bushes by throwing unused parts of tomatoes out your door (campo compost). Or, about a month ago, I threw out some rotten oranges, and now I have an orange tree. I also have what I think is basil, mint, and peppers. I sure hope the mint is actually mint, because Margo made some tea out of it.

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Kids also grow really fast. Below are Joelvis and Javier, my host mom’s grandkids. When I got here, Joelvis was crawling around. Now, he can run and grow a pretty sweet afro.

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That, of course, makes me kind of sad—my niece was born on December 3rd, and the next time I see her, she’ll probably be walking.

Sunday, February 6, 2011

Med Mission #2

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I spent the last week working in a clinic near Santiago with some other volunteers. The doctors were awesome, and it was a pretty great experience.  In the mornings we translated for patient intake, and in the afternoons we watched surgeries (and got to scrub in and help with a few). 

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They were doing bumps and lumps—hernias, sebaceous cysts, and lipomas. I learned how to do interrupted and subcuticle sutures, cut out lipomas, and some other stuff that’ll come in handy if I ever get into trouble in the campo. 

This med mission was so, so much better than the first one I did.  The doctors were all professional, they knew what they were doing, it was well-planned, and they taught us about all the procedures they were doing. 

There was another group of med students doing gyno stuff, and I ended up translating for their pap smears and breast exams too.  I think it was their first time ever in a room with patients before, and they didn’t know Spanish, so they did a pretty good job of looking freaked out.  It was as if they were reading off a list of steps to do, and couldn’t remember what step they were on. So, while they were wigging out, I just chatted with the patients and kept them from fleeing.