Profe in the DR 40

Profe in the DR 40

6-15-2012

Today is Kaori and my 14^th wedding anniversary.  I really wish I was with her to celebrate it.  

Working on getting ready for the new summer soccer league.  We are adding Batey 8 to the league and on Friday Nicole and I went there to make sure their teams are ready.  The boy’s team has been practicing but the girl’s team is still not together.  We spoke with the coaches and hopefully motivated them to get the girls team up and running.  Girl’s teams are harder to form since girls have to help work around the house more than boys, and some girls won’ t be able to get permission to play.  They are also harder to keep going since they will often lose a couple of key girls to early marriage and then the team falls apart.

The boys here had there first workday on the field of the new league.  We worked on picking up glass (It is mind blowing just how much glass is embedded in our soccer field!), cutting back thornbush and burning it.  We will continue to work on the play every Sunday until the end of the league (end of August). 

I had left a half opened package of re-hydration salts in my food bin figuring nothing would touch it since it wasn’t food.  I merely just folded over the top of the foil envelope twice and called it good.  Yesterday after a baking hot hour and a half mt.bike ride in the sun, I unfolded the foil envelope and poured its contents into a cup, but instead of white fine salts coming out; small roach like bugs came out instead.  I guess I wasn’t the only one in need of re-hydrating.   (It has been quite hot and dry lately.)

On Tuesday I was in the capital.  On my way out, my bus was passed by another bus on the busy 6-8 lane 27 de Febrero.  As the bus flew by, I noticed that there was a man in a wheelchair hanging on to the back bumper behind the bus.  I watched the bus until it was out of site, and the man was still hanging on last I saw of him.  It was definitely one of the crazier things I have seen in a while (and I have seen a lot of crazy things here!)

I forgot to tuck my mosquito net in last night and had a cockroach try to crawl in bed with me.  Its pillow talk just wasn’t that good so I had to kick it out of bed.  (Then smash it!)

I just walked into my bathroom now and discovered that ants had built a nest in the base of my toilet.  I have been suspecting this for some time now as I keep finding dead, drowned ants in the toilet bowl, but never new where the nest was.  Just now there were hundreds of ants coming out from where the base of the toilet hits the cement floor.  Once again I called on chemical weaponry and blasted them with nerve gas.  Luckily you can buy that in spray cans (AKA- Insecticide.)

6-17-2012

Last night around 9pm, two pickup trucks full of about 25-30 policemen in bullet proof vests and carrying automatic rifles came barreling into the batey, quickly passing by my house.  People’s reaction to them was quite interesting.  Upon seeing the police, many people ran away, fearing trouble.  Once they left, everyone came back out and was talking excitedly about them for some time.   It is rare to see police in the batey, especially in such force.  According to my project partner, they were going after people selling drugs and arrested 3 people.  It seems that drugs are becoming a bigger and bigger problem in the bateys with more and more people selling and using.  Just more evidence of how important my work here with the youth is.

6-29-2012

Saturday we had the first games of the new soccer league.  I was a little worried that the Sugar Consorcio wasn’t going to come through with the transportation, but the old school bus showed up 15 minutes early.  The soccer field in Batey 9 was all messed up after the latest rain.  A bunch of cows got onto the field while it was muddy and tore it all up, and then it dried that way, full of large hoof prints.   Since it wasn’t safe to play on, we took all the kids to Batey 8 and used their soccer field.  With the new summer soccer league, we have separated the genders.  No more mixed teams.  The girls wanted their own teams because the boys didn’t pass them the ball enough.  Both teams play the same day in the same place, first the girls, then the boys.   Isabela’s girls team had 13 girls ready to play, but Batey 9 unfortunately only had 4, so we divided Isabela in two and added two girls from Batey 9 to each side and played a game like that.  Spectators from Batey 8 were impressed with the level of play.  After the girls finished, the boys had their game.  This was a battle between the two strongest teams in the league and it was a great game.  Unfortunately, by the end of the game, not a single goal had been scored, and it ended in a tie. 

            Batey 8 did manage to get a girls team together, and traveled to Batey 5 to play.  Both the boys and the girls teams lost, but you would never have guessed so by the way they were cheering and singing as the bus pulled back in to Batey 8. 

            The players in Batey 7 are all Seventh Day Adventists and can not play on Saturdays, so their game against Batey Cuchilla was Sunday.  The cell tower nearby my house isn’t working again so I haven’t had any cell phone service for the last week, and haven’t heard who won.

            The European Cup has been going on the last couple of weeks, and the games have been televised on local channels.  This has been the first time since I have been here that the kids have had a chance to watch soccer on local TV.  They have been enjoying watching the games, and have been slowly learning the names of different countries in Europe.  They have all been rooting for Spain (wise choice) and are looking forward to Sunday’s game, as Spain and Italy play for the cup.  Hopefully there will be electricity in the afternoon so we can watch the game.

Profe in the DR 39

Profe in the DR 39

5-19-12

Today marks 21 months in country for me.  My life here in the batey has not been easy, and I have had a lot of injuries, but the hardest thing has been not having Kaori with me. 

Peace Corps is on Standfast because of the elections.  Things have been a little crazy this week, and I am told that things can get violent after the elections with people getting upset if their candidate doesn’t win.  Yesterday the other major political party, whose color is white, held rallies all over, including marching on the capital.  The US embassy sent Peace Corps staff home early.  Here in the batey, a very large parade of hundreds of people in cars, vans, motorcycles and on foot passed through the main streets and right by my house, everyone yelling, waving white flags, revving motors, honking, and raising a ton of dust.  The whole batey seemed to be in an excited state after that for the rest of the day. 

The white party is the preferred party in the bateys by a ratio of 2:1.  Their presidential candidate is predicted to win.  The other party has been in power for some time and the people want change.

            Yesterday we received soccer nets from a donor in the states.  Some doctors from the US who frequently do medical missions to Batey 9 had found someone to donate the nets, and brought them down with them on their visit Monday.  Another volunteer then brought them here from Batey 9 yesterday.  We have been trying to get nets for so long, so the boys and girls were extremely excited.  They quickly laced them on the goals and started to practice.  It was great playing with nets.  We could easily tell when a shot was a goal or not, no more arguing, and a lot less chasing after balls.  To whoever you are that donated the nets:  Muchísimas gracias!

            Yesterday I saw a young boy with an old bicycle who was using an upside down coffee can as a seat.  Now that’s hard core!

           

5-29-12

Well, the elections are over.  Sunday, the day of the election was fairly quiet.  I don’t think that the bars were allowed to be open, so there wasn’t even any loud music.  As evening came on, people were getting more and more excited, and wanted to know who won.  Finally around 11pm, people started yelling and chanting that the purple party candidate scored an upset win, and started demanding that the bar next to me play music and sell beer, which they did until midnight.  The next morning, the purple party supporters started celebrating at 8:30am in a big group, drinking beer and continuing until midnight.  The white party supporters were also drinking early in the morning, but they were drinking rum quietly and in small groups in the shade here and there.  The white party candidate accused the purple party of buying votes (not that the white party didn’t, just that the purple party did it better.)  There were talk of problems, but so far nothing happened, and things seem to have calmed down. 

            It seems that the discs in my back are herniated again.  I didn’t lift anything or ride on the back of a motorcycle with a loaded backpack or anything this time, so I don’t know why they are out of place.  I was quite frustrated when I notice that my left side of my foot is numb again.   I went to see the doctor on Thursday.  She wants me to wait until I go back to the states to do physical therapy.  She doesn’t trust any of the Dominican physical therapists here.  (She is a Dominican as well.)  So I am back wearing the back support.  It is extremely uncomfortable, especially in the heat of the summer.

This weekend I helped put on a 3 day conference on mobilizing marginalized populations.   The conference went great, but I hardly slept the whole time.  The bed I had was sagging in the middle and didn’t fair well with my back.  Also, seems there was something with the food, as just about everyone had stomach problems after the conference. 

This is the last week of classes for the students.  The school year doesn’t actually end for another week or two, but no one seems to care what happens in the bateys, so the director is ending school early.

6-7-12

This weekend I helped put on a 3 day soccer leadership conference, an idea I had for quite some time.  I am still trying to recuperate from the conference the weekend before, and have had a cold all week.  This conference was for teenage boys from nine different communities, four of which traveled some distance to attend.  In total we had 36 boys, 8 volunteers and one guest participate.  We taught about leadership, teamwork, positive attitudes and speech, etc. and also about AIDS/HIV.  We also taught some soccer skills and drills they could take back to their teams.  We held the conference in Batey 9, and for the boys from non-batey communities, it was a bit of an eye-opening experience.  They were surprised by the living conditions, and the fact that many of the boys from the bateys didn’t have shoes.   The difference in the education levels was quite notable, for example when I asked the boys to sign a card, the non-batey boys quickly wrote a well practiced signature, while the batey boys struggled just to print their names.  It was quite expensive inviting the outside communities, but the interchange of ideas it created was worth it.  My four boys came back from the conference all excited and quickly started sharing what they had learned.  I have let them run the practices the last two days, letting them teach the rest of the team the new drills they learned.  Papito began teaching younger boys about HIV/AIDS, and started back up coaching the little boys’ team.  Planning and implementing the conference was a lot of work, and my back was killing me the whole time, but it came out great, and I am very pleased at the results I am already seeing.  My team is already working on creating a more positive environment within the team, and are trying to support the girls team more.

Yesterday, Shawn, a PCV living in Batey 7 came by and taught my kids karate.  They loved it.  Afterwards, he took on a few boys in chess.  He squeaked by one of the younger boys, but was taken to town by the older boys.  Shawn considers himself a very good chess player, and was quite impressed with the level of play of my boys.  Jairo and I are now trying to see if we can get a few boys to a regional or national competition.  We are also trying to get a chess clock so they can prepare themselves for tournaments.  I have come across the clocks in the capital, but they are quite pricey.