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------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------{ October 14, 2006 }
I'm in the campo
It's beautiful here. The mountains are gorgeous- you wouldn't really think this was a Caribbean island by the area that I'm in- there are coniferous trees and it's cool at night. It's very different here from Santo Domingo...a lot more rural. Jarabacoa is the main town and is touristy, but we l ive about 30 minutes outside of it farther up in the mountains. Our group is in 4 different communities, grouped by Spanish classes, and my class is in Los Dajaos, the farthest away from everyone else. The roads are terrible and it's really hilly so I'm getting a workout just walking around the community (it's too much of a stretch to call it a town), but I am really enjoying it. Everyone is incredibly welcoming. They had a little welcome party for us the other day and I'm meeting so many people that it's impossible for me to remember their names.
I like my family- my house is one of the community hang out places because my mom has a colmado. A colmado is a small store that sells basic products...they are everywhere here. Supermarkets tend to be far from a lot of communities and many families don't have transportation or can't afford to go to them often, so there are a lot of colmados. They sell in small quantities and it's common for people to go every day or more than once a day at times. Microenterprise is very important here; many people don't leave their communities but there are tons of tiny local businesses that are supported- colmados, bread shops, people selling this and that out of their houses. Competition here does not mean what it does in the US.
I cross the river every day here...the bridge? It washed down the river the other day in the rain so we cross over the rocks and the log. It'll be a while, but eventually I'll post a picture. I'm working on my dominoes skills- they play it a lot here and it's nightly at my house that a big crew gathers around and takes turns.
For training, we're working on a condensed version of our community assessment that we'll have to do when we go to our own sites. My class and I went up to a mountaintop yesterday to see where some coffee is going to be planted and talked to guy who works for a big coffee cooperative here about how they plant it. Next week our whole group goes somewhere to learn about the whole process and the week after that we do something with ecotourism. I'm giving a talk on marketing next Friday as well.
It's cooler here so that is really nice. I've had to wear my sweatshirt...amazing. What's up at home?
Posted by katie on October 14, 2006 11:11 AM | Permalink
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