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.

           

Profe in the DR 38

Profe in the DR 38

5-15-12

It is a campaign year and that means the local and national governments doing a lot of last minute construction projects to win votes.  (They do nothing for 3 ½ years, then try to do everything in the months before the election.)  Here in the batey they began to work on our streets. Talk was of sidewalks and asphalt.  They put in cement curbs, no digging, simply pouring the “L” shaped cement about a foot above the current level of the street.  When they finished with the curbs they just disappeared.  Since the election is Sunday, I am guessing they are not coming back.

            The first week of May we received a fair amount of rain, slightly inundating the batey.  The curbs had been put in with little or no thought to drainage routes and as a result blocked or redirected water flows, filling up the streets, or flooding people’s houses.  With all the standing water everywhere, mosquitoes have been abundant and aggressive.

            Lately Profeta, the baseball/softball coach, has been helping me out at night when I am busy.  He has been opening the refugio so kids can read in the library or play chess in the other classroom.  The other night he opened things up and I arrived a half hour later.  As I walked in the library, there were eight kids seated at desks, all reading intently, not a single peep to be heard.  No one does anything quietly here, so to see them so engulfed in their books was wonderful.

            Last week though, Profeta did have a small incident at night at the refugio.  He was inside playing chess when he saw someone outside near the latrines “smoking drugs”.  He went out and proceeded to kick this young man out of the fenced off area that makes up the refugio.  The young man must have been smoking drugs because he started to try to fight with Profeta (who is quite big and muscular.)  People came running to see the fight like sharks to blood.  The young man grabbed a large rock to throw at Profeta.  He in response pulled out his pistol.   Now the crowd was running in the other direction.   The young man’s parents got involved; lots of yelling and screaming, and after about ten minutes, Profeta came back into the refugio like nothing happened. 

            Last Tuesday I planned to head down to Los Patos about 2 ½ hours from here to pick up some books from fellow volunteer Sam.  He had received a very large shipment of books for his library and had four boxes of doubles to pass on to me.  Jairo and I rented a small pickup, and accompanied by the pickup owner’s son, headed towards Barahona.  Jairo was stopped at the police check point for not using his seatbelt, and we quickly realized we didn’t have the registration for the truck.  The police tried to fine us several hundred pesos, but Jairo talked him down to just one hundred.  From there we went to fill the truck up with gas.  The owner had done a homemade conversion job on the truck so it could use propane.  After filling the old tank sitting in a box in the back of the pickup, we couldn’t get the truck to start again.  We tried push starting it numerous times, but it was clear the engine just wasn’t getting gas.  The owner’s sun and Jairo then played with all the valves, hoses, and anything else that might help.  (I stayed off to the side a bit so in case they blew up, someone could call an ambulance.)  The owner’s sun was using a pair of pliers to open and close the valves, and apparently too much force, because he ended up breaking off one of the valves, and we couldn’t get it open after that.  We ended up having to get a mechanic, who ran a hose off of the valve for filling up the tank, problem solved.  Meanwhile, Sam brought the books an hour and a half up the road, meeting us in Barahona.  On the way back, as we passed over a speed bump in Batey 3, we heard the transmission hit the ground.  I called the only other small truck owner in my batey, and had him come pull the truck, us and the books back to Isabela.   The trip ended up taking a lot more time and money than planned, but everyone was very excited about the new additions to the library. 

5-16-12

Today in the afternoon, in the middle of a reading class, some 40-50 cars, vans, pickups and motorcycles carrying people dressed in purple, their political party’s color, drove into the batey and started doing laps around the park, yelling, honking, and revving engines.  It was quite a show that lasted some 15 minutes.  People here take there political party quite serious.   

Profe in the DR 37

Profe in the DR 37

4-29-12

The week after Semana Santa ended up being kind of slow for me as far as teaching.  The kids all took an extra week of vacation even though they were supposed to be in school.  This happens here all the time.  I used the free time to get a bunch of work done that had been piling up. 

My mother and her husband flew in to the DR on the 17^th.   I met them at a resort in Punta Cana.  It was the first time for me to travel to the east side of the island.  The east side is flatter with very few mountains, and far more trees.  They raise cattle and sugar cane.  I noticed that they did not irrigate the sugar cane fields.  I assume that is because they have sufficient rainfall.   In several places I saw them pulling the large sugar cane carts with oxen.  The closer I got to Punta Cana the more built up for tourism it seemed to be.  As the bus passed through towns, you could see people dressed in various uniforms of cook, maids, waiters, etc., waiting for transportation to the different resorts in the area.

It was also the first time for me to stay at an all inclusive resort.  We stayed in the Barceló which was absolutely humungous.  It was one of the earlier built resorts and so had an extremely large amount of land, 2 km of ocean frontage and its own golf course.  There were tons of large 3 story buildings for guests, 8 or more pools, a gym, large theatre, a dozen or so restaurants, a couple dozen stores, tennis courts, its own soccer field, a church, bars, and so much more.  It was quite impressive in its size. 

The guests were from all over.  You could hear all sorts of languages, French, German, Chinese, Russian, Italian, and many more.  Europeans seemed to be in the majority.  One Russian woman I spoke with said she had a twelve hour flight to get to the DR.  She and her husband just wanted to go somewhere warm because it had been such a cold winter in Europe and Russia.

            After more than a year and a half in a dirty, dusty batey, it was nice to be somewhere clean for a while.  I enjoyed hot showers, good food, and a decent bed.  I swam daily, trying to strengthen and stretch my left shoulder, which I injured about a month ago.  I also ran on the beach and in the pool, and racked up several hours on the exercise bike in the gym.  Despite all the good food I actually left the resort weighing less than when I arrived. (Not an easy feat at an all inclusive.)

            It was good to see my mother and her husband Larry.  Larry got three days of golf in and my mom joined him for one.  They also spent a lot of time just relaxing on the beach. I taught my mom how to play the card game Casino and we played each night.  It was a nice peaceful week, but I really wish that my wife Kaori could have been there with us. 

            It was hard coming back to the batey, especially since it had rained hard the night before and the whole batey was flooded and full of mud.  The kids didn’t go to school the rest of the week because of all the water everywhere.  I fixed the brakes on my bike yesterday and headed out for an hour.  I got to test the new brake pads out when a large swarm of bees crossed my path.  I noticed them just in time to come to a screeching halt right at the edge of the swarm; having only a few of them bump into me as I quickly backed up.

The bike trip

4-9-12

This last week was semana santa.  I joined 3 other volunteers for a multi-day mt.bike ride in the mountains in the center of the country.  Paul, Justin, Will and I set out early from Paul’s house and headed west.  We started out on asphalt following along a fast flowing river, winding up into the mountains, looking across the valley at terraced farms and forests running up the hills.  The further away from Jarabacoa we headed the more remote it became.  We had lunch in Manobao, and from there the road turned to dirt.  We finished the day by climbing hard to the top of a mountain overlooking the valley on the other side and the little town of Ciénaga.  We descended into the valley, rode through a small river and into Ciénaga.  Five minutes after arriving it began to rain.   We spent the night at a visitor’s center for those climbing Pico Duarte.  It was located next to a river and surrounded by forest.  The guard there was nice enough to loan us sleeping bags and mattresses, and we found a little comedor to cook us up some rice and beans and fried chicken.   We played some cards and slept well in the fresh air coming through the open-sided building. 

            The next day we set out early and instantly were confronted with the mountains.  The climbs were steep, wet, and full of loose rock.  After about 20-30 minutes of climbing we came across a tall gate across the road, locked of course.   I checked for the keys at a house about 100 yards up a steep slope along side the road, no luck.  We then lifted the bikes above our heads and handed them over the fence.  This fence would be the last piece of civilization that we would see for the next 4-5 hours.  The washed out, wet, steep road was horrendous, but the views were absolutely incredible.  Mountains upon mountains filled with pine forest and streams.  It was such a pleasant change from the flat, dusty, dirty batey where I live.  Will and Justin had to walk up the majority of the climbs.  Paul only had to walk a few.  I managed to make all the climbs except a 30 yard section that was so steep I couldn’t keep the front wheel down, and the back one was spinning out.  I don’t think I have ever spent so much time in granny gear on one ride.  Around 2pm we finally encountered a long hard descent coming out in a small valley.  There we got lost twice, rode through a few streams, cleaned off the bikes, and finally found the correct route out, naturally going back up.   After quite some time climbing we all started to run out of water, and Paul brought out the iodine tablets, filling up a bottle in a small stream.  The water had so much silt in it, it looked like weak coffee.  Luckily, we came across a house before we had to result to drinking the runoff water.  From there we started to descend again, coming out in a valley full of farms of all sorts.  We stopped momentarily in the small town, and then started climbing out of the valley.   After a half hour or so we reached a point overlooking the city of Constanza.  From there it was a hard descent down to the town.  The road had widened out and the curbs were full of loose sand.  Will missed a turn and went flying off his bike.  Luckily he was taught in the Marines how to roll and escaped with only a few small scratches.  (All good mt. biking trips should have a little blood.) We arrived around 4:45pm.  It began to rain shortly after that.  We spent the night in a hotel.  The next day the three of them wanted to rest so we spent another night in Constanza.  Since it was Good Friday the town was just about shut down.  We had problems finding places to eat.  On Saturday, we set out from Constanza around 9:30am and rode up out of the valley.  We gained 1000m of altitude in about 3 hours.  Around 1:30pm we came across an eco-lodge.  The owner’s daughter is married to a friend of Paul’s.  We stopped to say hello and just as we were about to leave it started pouring.  It rained so hard that it wasn’t just a matter of getting soaked, but also whether we could ride safely on such bad roads.  The owner offered us a cabin to stay in, so under the circumstances we accepted.  The cabin was huge and very nice.  It was quite chilly so we sat around the fireplace and played cards at night.  Will tried his best to make something to eat out of what little he could find in a colmado a few kilometers away.  He tried making a spaghetti sauce out of tomato paste and garlic.  I just threw a poached egg on my noodles instead; life sustaining, but not gourmet.  We set out Sunday morning early and continued climbing until we reached 2500 meters altitude.  From there we rolled up and down hills for a while and eventually started encountering longer downs.  The road was so washed out and full of rocks, bumps and loose gravel that it was not possible to go too fast.  My breaks had taken quite a beating heading down into Constanza that now there was very little grab (or break pads) left.  The descending with all its bumps etc, seemed harder on my body than the climbing.  We were threatened by rain when we passed the pyramids that Trujillo built to commemorate having made the road between San Jose Ocoa and Constanza.  Luckily we out road the storm and stayed dry once again.  We pulled into San Jose Ocoa at 3:15pm.  Here I said goodbye to my riding partners and took off on my own. They were planning to catch a bus from there to the capital.  I needed to get 28km up the road to Cruce de Ocoa to catch a bus heading back to my site.  I wasn’t sure how long that would take me considering there were still a few mountains in between the two places.   I was worried I might miss the last bus heading my way so I pushed myself and rode hard, and arrived at Cruce de Ocoa in one hour, covered in sweat, but once again, just beating the rain.  From there I threw the bike on a guagau and returned home.  It was a great ride, great weather, and great company. 

profe in the DR 36

3-25-12

Last week I spent Thursday and Friday in the capital doing some work in the PC office.  When I got back I didn’t have any power whatsoever for four days.  Someone had knocked down a wire.  Electrical wiring here is mind blowing.  They use an overly small gauge wire, not designed for outside.  Then they splice into it anywhere they please, and many times as they please, running a million connections off it.  They tie a piece of a plastic bag over the connections.  It’s an electrician’s nightmare.

Sunday I got out on my bike for 5 hours 12 minutes.  I went out 3 hours and turned around.  When I did I noticed a big storm coming over the mountains so I rode as hard as I could to keep ahead of it.  It started to catch me as I was climbing the steepest hill on the way back, and I was starting to get wet, but on the long descent down, I got back in front of it and stayed there the rest of the way back.

            The rest of the week I was only able to get out on the bike once for an hour and a half.  It’s been a busy week.  In addition to my normal hustle and bustle, Thursday the APCD (Associate Peace Corps Director) for the education program came out and had a meeting with the teachers, director of the school and me.  She is thinking about placing a volunteer from that program here in May.  If she does the new volunteer and I would overlap by about 3 months or so.  Today we had an event with the Department of Sports.  They gave the baseball, softball, and soccer teams uniforms.  They are new but have the names of other towns, but the baseball and softball teams didn’t have uniforms so it is a big help.  Bateys 5, 7, 9 and Cuchilla were supposed to come as well and get uniforms and afterward we were going to play an all-star soccer game, but the Sugar Consorcio reneged on their promise to provide transportation, so the other bateys couldn’t come.  Instead my soccer team divided in two and played a game using the new uniforms.  

                        3-31-12

Another busy week, thank God semana santa is coming.  My math and English classes are all going well.  I am especially please with the progress in my reading classes.  I wish I had more time and resources because more and more kids want to join the classes but I am already maxed out.  I continue my quest for books for our library.   I spoke with three different people this week promising me books.    Art, chess, and soccer are also going well.  Tried to meet with the Sugar Consorcio on Thursday to ask for transportation for the summer soccer league but the public relations guy keeps putting us off.  He canceled our meeting at the last moment again.  Always says he will call me and never does.  Starting to think we need to speak to someone higher up the ladder.  Transportation is vital to making the league work.  I still can’t find another coach for the boys’ team, so I am teaching the two captains how to coach once I leave. 

Today a religious group from Canada stopped by the batey. They do so every year.  Half of the group was in the park preaching, the other half was in a church handing out medical supplies.  There was also a doctor from the capital with them.  They had a lot of sports equipment in the two buses they came in, but it was intended for some other locations.  However, after speaking with them, they were nice enough to change their minds and give us about 9 baseball gloves for smaller children and a baseball.  We have been trying to get gloves for the younger boys’ team for a while, so this was very helpful.

We’re about 2/3 of the way through the zafra (sugar cutting season).  When they burn the cane, the black ash from the leaves floats high up in the air and comes down far away, falling like snow.   My house is covered with ash, inside and out.  It gets inside even when the windows and door are closed, it’s amazing. 

            4-1-12

            Today the boys played soccer against Batey 7.  It was hot and windy, and I had to ref the game.  It was still 0-0 at the end of regulation play, but the boys looked so tired that I just called the game a tie.  Batey 7 was happy to tie us, and our boys were just happy to get out of the sun.