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------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------{ September 13, 2006 }
To answer a few questions...
Well, I had a request to address some topics. If anyone else has similar requests, ask and I'll post about it. I'll answer the questions and share some more about what's up. Here are the questions: I'm interested in what you like most about the country, people, etc. What you like least. What's surprised you the most. What do you miss the most (and family and friends isn't a choice... I'm talking about creature comfort besides air conditioning) those sort of things.
What I like most: everyone is really nice here- they are extremely welcoming and willing to share whatever they have, even if they have very little. Yesterday, no one was at my house when I got home and I don't have a key, but my neighbors, who I hadn't met yet, invited me to come over and have some coffee with them. It's a woman and her mother (who has to be at least 90) and their house is owned by one of the woman's sons I believe. The majority of the income generated in the DR is from tourism and remittances (money that people send from other countries back to their families here). It's 2-3 billion/year for remittances I think, but I'm not quite sure. If you are from the US, everyone thinks you're from New York (sounds like Nueba Yol) and everyone either has family or knows someone from the DR in New York- there is a highly concentrated population of Dominicans there. I met a woman who's coworker is related to A Rod (too bad it's not Papi or Manny...why AROD????).
What I like least...probably that I never feel totally clean except when I'm in the shower. It's not as though it's just me and I'm dirty (I'm sure there will be some comments about that one...haha) but still, showering twice a day at least and still not feeling clean takes some adjusting. Also, there is trash everywhere. People keep their houses really clean but will throw their trash all over the street. Most don't know that it can have a bad effect on the environment (not including that it looks bad!).
I don't really know what surprised me the most. I haven't had any big surprises because I lived in Latin America before and at least had a decent idea of what to expect. The DR isn't at Costa Rica's level, but I wasn't expecting that either. I think the biggest adjustment I'm making is realizing what I'm actually doing here. That I'm going to pretty much be going around my community, when I finish training, and it's up to me to initiate everything unless I end up working on a project already established. I guess another interesting note in the 'surprise' area is that they eat most parts of the animal here so as not to waste any. Someone said they had fried cow intestines from a street vendor with their family the other day. Mmmmm. (No, I haven't had any and I'm planning on staying away from that one.)
Fine, family and friends would be what I miss most, but I'm going to have to say air conditioning. Consider the humidity in South Carolina when you walk outside and feel sticky...only all the time, without the releif of walking into an air conditioned building. I know later I'll be missing the electricity. Electricity goes out all the time in the DR, sometimes for more than 6 hours a day (at different times). My family here has a backup generator, but all houses don't. Also, some houses don't always have running water. They keep a bucket by the shower in case it isn't working and have to use that water. It's an odd observation that so many people have cell phones and get really mad when they don't work yet the electricity always goes out and they don't always have running water. The electricity is a really big deal here, especially because it costs a whole lot of money and the payment system isn't right. Some people just don't pay, and the goverment doesn't do anything about it and then other people have to pay excessive amounts. Others rig it somehow so their meters don't read right and they don't have to pay. I don't know about that part in detail, but it's a frequent topic of conversation.
Today we had a cultural class in training- we learned merengue, bachata (another type of music and dance) and how to play dominoes, the dominican way. These are all very popular things here. It was a lot of fun- I really enjoyed the dances but they're pretty simple. I'd done merengue a little bit before- it is the official dance of the DR. Training is divided into several different sections- the first four weeks are CORE training- focused on Spanish, some on development/cross-cultural communication, things about the DR, health and a little in our technical areas. The next 5 weeks are technical training. We still have Spanish classes, but we have more specific sessions on our technical area, mine being Community Economic Development, and we go to another town to focus on our technical area where we can do some practice community diagnostics and other things we'll have to do when we go to our community. My group goes to Jarabacoa- in the mountainous area.
Next week everyone goes to a different volunteer that's already doing their project from Thursday to Sunday to see what they're doing and learn more about their area. I'm going to Samana- it's a peninsula in the North and there are some good beaches up there so I may get to go but it's not a vacation so we'll see. Getting there will be interesting if nothing else. I'll have to post on public transportation later. This is already pretty long.
Posted by katie on September 13, 2006 10:34 PM | Permalink
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