29 October 2005

La Finca

So, Kat’s don, a sickly older man, invited us to visit a finca this week. The poor man had/has cancer and had surgery this year, and the most movement we’ve seen out of him is a walk across the street to the colmado (general store). As he has no vehicle, we weren’t quite sure what we were going to see or what we should expect. He began the morning by inviting each of us to visit a finca in the afternoon. Generally a finca is a ranch or farm. When the time came, we made sure to wear walking shoes, and we set off. We crossed the small river leaving our neighbourhood and headed up the steep shortcut to the main road. Although it was slow going, we couldn’t believe he was making it! When we got the main road, we proceeded up an even steeper hill! As we neared the top, we noticed a closed gate. But this was no deterrent! We began walking thru the grass on the hillside and ducked thru some barbed wire… (Of course the view was amazing!) We were about to duck another barbed wire fence (right were the cows were… naturally), when we noticed some people inside the closed property. Dominican-like, they invited us in, and I thought we had escaped our second fence encounter. Little did I know what was in store for us! After enjoying a gorgeous view of Moca, we returned to the second fence crossing. At least the cows had wandered off! A beautiful walk, a steep hill (holding the grass to keep from falling downhill!), lots of clay mud, and 2 more barbed-wire fence crossings later, we arrived back to the shortcut! Apparently in this case – we learned – a finca just meant a large expanse of property! But to round out the visit, we made sure to stop at a chicken and pig farm! More on that below…

28 October 2005

20,000 Chickens?!

Yep, that’s how many chickens one of our neighbors raises. He raises and ships them all over the DR… even as far as 5 hours away. (That’s far for the DR!) Chicken and pig raising is the primary income for many people in this area. And we were lucky enough to visit a farm that had both! Did you know pigs can reach 4 feet tall or more?! These animals are huge! And it’s quite an experience to encounter one being walked down the road! At the farm, each pig is in its own cage – just big enough for it and the trough. It’s really not something I’d want to work with… a feeling doubly reinforced when one sneezed on my foot! Ewww!
The chickens are also raised from birth – usually in 60 day cycles: hatching to growth of about 4 pounds for sale. Chicken is the primary meat in the DR, and these chickens are transported all over the DR for consumption. Can you imagine cleaning up after 1,000 chickens once they are sold? What about 20,000?!?

25 October 2005

Gallera

A couple weekends ago, we got to participate in one of the DR’s favorite pastimes (besides baseball) – a cockfight. One of our dons (fathers) is involved and invited us to one. On top of that, our Spanish teacher raises roosters in the capital for fighting. So Dany took the four of us, plus a Dominican female Spanish teacher, and an African-American trainee. We must have been quite a spectacle! Five women in a place primarily for men, 4 gringas, and 3 native-looking people! Dany explained how the preparation, weighing, fighting, and betting works. (Unfortunately, he lost 70 pesos!) It was quite an interesting experience… although one I don’t feel a great need to do again. But I must say it’s not as violent as bull fighting!

22 October 2005

Moscas in Moca


Ever lived in a small town? Here EVERYONE is related, and naturally everyone knows everything about the 4 gringas staying here! Last week, the biggest town news was that the gringas were sick. Of course, to top off the joys of being sick, within 24 hours I was both asked out on a date AND asked to marry someone so he could go to the States! I guess I didn't look as bad as I felt...
This 2nd month of training is very different from life in the capital, and much more like life will be at our sites. The barrio I'm living in now is primarily an agricultural community. Just about everyone (all 500 habitants) has their own plot of land to grow crops or raise pigs, chickens, or ducks. The roads here are dirt, although stones were laid so it wouldn't be as muddy, and there's a small river just down the hill to ford when leaving. When it rains, the river raises, and nobody SHOULD cross! Naturally with all the water and livestock, flies (moscas) and mosquitos are plentiful here. Water comes twice a week, and the houses fill up their tinacos (water storage tanks). Although, this week we had to wait from Mon to Fri before the water came again, and 2 of our houses ran out of water!
We've had class - Technical Training or Spanish - almost every day. The rest of the time is spent with our families or doing diagnostic interviews in the community. We've only got a couple more weeks here, and then things speed up until December! I get to hear about my site on Nov 7... and I'll be sure to let you all know the details as soon as possible!

15 October 2005

Life in CBT


This last week we began CBT - Community Based Training. It's just the business group of 13 here. We're in a small town in the north of the DR, out in the campo. We all have new host families, and mine is wonderful! My dona loves to talk... She carries on all the time. Of course, for me that's great! She lives with her husband, and her children live in 3 houses surrounding her house. Three of the grandchildren are over all the time, and I am enjoying playing with them and getting to know the families. One of the babies is 11 months old, and she just started taking her first unassisted steps this week! It's an exciting time here. :o)
We have business (technical) class twice a week with all 13 of us. We are further divided into barrios by Spanish class. There are four of us in my Spanish class (which meets every day), and we're all living close together. Three of the four of us are living with sisters! The whole community knows everyone, and almost everyone is related. It's definitely a small town life! My particular house has a flushing toilet... But it's outside. This makes for some interesting problems in the middle of the night since the back door is really hard to reclose! Most of the other families have toilets inside, although there are a couple people in our big group whos families have latrines. Almost all of the families in my community raise some type of livestock - pigs, goats, ducks, geese, chicken... and almost all have some sort of plot of land where they grow some plants, either for consumption or sale - plantains, bananas, beans, corn, avocado, and more. Many of the families have their own fruit trees also - mine has a mandarin orange tree, cherry tree, orange tree, and more! It's been interesting to see how these people live off the land. There's not much of that left in the US!
This last week we started our first big project - a community diagnostic. Unfortunately, we haven't had much time to work on it. Either it's been raining (we have dirt roads), or the power's been out (I'll have to explain the power situation here in the DR at a later date), or we have school or homework. It's definitely been a busy week. On Monday we have to present our findings in Spanish to the rest of the business group. Luckily it's a group project by community, so the 4 of us have been working on it every chance we get!
As this post is getting long, I should bring it to a close. Sorry there's no picture attached to this post... I haven't brought out the camera here yet and I forgot the cord at the house. I'll be sure to at least post one pic next time! If you're sending mail, please send it to the same address in Santo Domingo. Mail will be brought out to us sporadically. Hope all the beautiful people reading this are doing well! Send me a line so I know who's getting this. Miss you all and I'll write again as soon as I can!

03 October 2005

Happy Birthday... to me!

Thanks for all the birthday wishes! A few people here actually knew it was my birthday. :o) My neighbor found out our birthdays are a day apart, so we went to the beach (Boca Chica) on Sunday to celebrate. To give you an idea of Dominican travel, the rule of thumb is to ALWAYS fit one more person than there are seats (ie. 4 people in the back seat). So, I counted the bodies to see how well we did in a personal car. Can you guess how many of us went in one car??? NINE! (ok, ok, only 4 of us were adults, but still!) It was a nice day at the beach, and this weekend I´m going again for a friend´s birthday.
On Monday, my actual birthday, my wonderful fellow trainees dutifully embarrassed me... and sang twice! Of course, the ice cream after class made up for it. :o) In all, it was indeed a happy birthday... and I´m looking forward to a good year!