Jack Attack

As I was jack-hammering at Forest Hills swim club I started to think about the pile of plaster rubble that was growing higher and higher. Then I thought about the project of cleaning up an earthquake. Plaster is hard and the hours of trying to control the vibrating jackhammer led my mind on a wild moment of pulsating reflection. Where do you begin in an earthquake clean up? What tools are available? How long until electricity arrives again? Who’s responsible for what space? How long will all the clean up take? Each jab of the long steel shaft on the thick white plaster lining of the pool sent small shocks through my body. Shocks that remind me of the "physicalness" of physical labor and the real work that goes into everything I seem to take for granted, like a nice pool to swim in. I was mad at the jackhammer for quite a while, or rather maybe it was the impervious plaster, nonetheless I needed to allow my mind wander and allow the labor to just happen.

This job is no earthquake clean up. This job is learning a heck of a lot about patience. We’re removing the old plaster lining of a six-lane lap pool so it can be lined anew. I work with two cool guys who have found the Bible and the Christ like example of Jesus as an inspiration, leading them away from a past life of heavy drug addictions. Everyday I look forward to shoveling out plaster in the crisp cool morning and breaking for lunch on the pool deck where I listen to stories of the street life, unwanted drug dealers, soup kitchens, drive by shootings, and a desire to change. Neither the open relationship I’ve built with my co-workers, nor the on the job personal reflection time was written into the contract when I signed up for this temp job. And I am certainly grateful for these unseen opportunities. I think God may have led me wandering down an unmarked road as I await Peace Corps reinstatement, but certainly it is no road of waste or barren. Rather, I find myself stumbling across many treasures, sweet fruits, good Samaritans, and reflection time that challenges my sense of what is a good job for me.

Some wonder how the recent college graduate has found himself at the bottom of a drained pool hammering away at nasty plaster with x-drug attics... and I respond... there’s something to learn from everyone and every moment. This temporary job has certainly humbled me and introduced me to people who are Good men despite their past struggles.

And you can certainly say Dad’s seasoned turkey burgers and squash soup tonight tasted twice as good after the long days work, and I know tonight’s sleep will be nothing less than solid.

So I wish you all a wonderful Holiday Season and may the spirit of Christ bless you all. Sing many songs, drink hot chocolate like it’s going out of style, and write a few personal letters to the people you love.

Drug addicts will always have many interesting stories. Be curious and have them tell you a fun story. It'll open you up.

In the Spirit of Christ,
Jared



Snow fell upon Mt. Diablo this week... a rare occurrence for the mild Bay Area climate, and nearly an impossibility in the tropical Dominican Republic.

What you do with free time?

My time in Pleasant Hill has been extended. Home is where my heart is. I'm anxious to return to the streets of the Dominican Republic and to the sound of kids playing baseball and roosters crowing and my Dona announcing "La Comida esta lista!" or "lunch is ready." In my mind I was there just yesterday, but it's been several months now and I'm still keeping that patience as I wait for Washington to give me medical clearance for return. Meanwhile, home has found my legs churning miles along old running routes with the College Park High cross country team. I love to run and so I thought why not share some time helping to coach and run with high schoolers. However, I've realized youth sports are made way too competitive in America compared with that of Latin American countries. Instead of kids on the street playing catch with their neighbor with any form of weathered ball or hard round fruit they can find, parents have taken over the scheduling and creativity of good old child's play. Now there are rules, there are rule enforcers, there are specified venues where play is appropriate, and perhaps most difficult of all there is a price to pay if you want to play. Some parents say the streets are not safe so they prefer to take their child to those caged in sporting arenas. I'll tell you, the streets aren't safe because no one's out there. No one's playing with the kid across the street in suburbia, and in urban Oakland guns, drugs, and cars seem be instilling fear, and owning the young black boys free time before he can "make it safe to first base." An honest sandlot game of baseball, soccer , or even basketball are rarely just walked upon. I guess I just wish I could sometimes run out in the middle of a rain storm and know that the kids are enjoying a wet game of b-ball down at the local court. Kids get creative and learn how to have fun and work things out as a group when they engage in "child's play." From a coaches perspective I have discovered that athletes in my home town as well as anywhere in the world perform best when they are having fun. So I've chosen to enter practice with a smile on my face and the rest just falls into place.

This past weekend I joined the Varsity Boys squad for a 3 mile race in LA. They're a goofy group of 16 and 17 year olds who love to "slug bug" punch each others' 125 pound frames every time they see a Volkswagen Beetle on the road. They also asked for more all you can eat bread sticks after their three course dinner at the Olive Garden had sufficiently filled their stomachs. The thing is I remember living out those teenage days not too long so... I put up with it... and sometimes find myself shamefully joining it. I just want to be a kid... not ready to grow up and own a house and welcome debt.

The other side of sports (and the reason they will always be an exciting part of my every day) is that they bring such a competitive nature out of individuals that allow us all to perform at a higher level and thus challenge ourselves to perform our very best. It's so interesting to observe how this group of 8 goofy teenagers can focus in silence during their 40 minute warm up prior to their race, when during after school practice we coaches have to pry them away from fort building out by the eucalyptus trees so as to begin practice. It a balance of intensity and straight up fun loving attitudes.

In other activity on the Oubre front, my sisters are full of spirit, singing and dancing in the kitchen to oldies while I attempt to sing along and finish washing the dishes... the same dishes I swear I washed three hours ago. Sunday is always a day to go hear Mom read at Church and then retire to the family room with Dad to watch the improved San Francisco 49ers play fundamental football under coach Mike Singletary. I sometimes imagine if I were to go back 50 years ago and meet my grandpa from Louisiana during the volital decade of the 1950s in the South, he would be a lot like Coach Singletary on the football sidelines... no nonsense, intensely spiritual, and a "everybody listens when I talk" kind of guy.

So I'm excited my brother comes back to the Bay Area this Friday for a brief visit and then Saturday I'm off to trick-o-treat with my sister during one of the best Holidays of the year. I'm thinking maybe I'll dress as some scary green leafy creature because my dad and I have been generating plenty of green yard compost as of late or shall I straighten my hair and bring back Michael Jackson. Funny fact, the day I started feeling not so well in the DR was the the day Jackson died. That's coincidence or maybe that's saying something about my deep connection to the "King of Pop."

Have a grateful day, be silly, and get dressed up and get out on the streets for Halloween.

Peace,
Jared


Running buddies of the alma mater and me at Mt. Sac Race in LA


Celebrating win as a team

Why I'm inspired to Volunteer

There are moments when you forget your wallet leaving the house. You forget the Visa card and agenda book, the tie around your neck. You forget about Saturday morning cartoons or a second cup of coffee. Perhaps it's because you are thinking about somebody else. You have set your own schedule aside for the day so that you may give of yourself.

It's time to serve; "to help a brother out." This past weekend was dedicated to community service in my northern California hometown of Pleasant Hill. However, I was surprised to find out that on my creek clean up crew I would meet volunteers from almost every bordering suburb of Pleasant Hill. I thought it was exciting enough that I might see some of my neighbors out on the streets picking up trash, painting the youth center, or collecting donations for the food bank. But I wasn't expecting people to show up to serve in a community that was not their own? Then I thought of the story of the Peace Corps volunteer. Enter a new country, often learn a new language, and open your arms to the possibility of service... or better yet getting to know a stranger. So my goal, beside getting sweaty and dirty, became to meet some new people.

I wanted to know where these people came from and why they came? Just as I'm sure many "vecinos" (neighbors) in my Dominican Republic Village of Ojo de Aguas want to know how it is this foreigner came to move into their town and now is running around every morning with a half dozen kids and a wheel barrow collecting litter.

It was not until the sweat began to pour and our mouths called for a water break that all 20 of us creek cleaners realized we had something in common. No one was being paid and no one was going to complain about getting dirty. Why? Because this was our free time and if you didn't want to be there then why were you there? No one was working off parole hours or reducing the their jail sentence. We now all identified with each other and were no longer strangers despite the fact that the only name I knew in the group for the first half hour was of the one smiling dude who had introduced himself to me as "Jim, I clean pools."

So the story emerged that an active Bible Church near my home had attracted some 60+ members to serve the nearby community and their membership came from all over the East Bay Area to attend church. So here they were on a Saturday morning, some of them a whole hour from home, helping out the city of Pleasant Hill. While we dug out invasive reeds on the side of the creek bed and de-strangled sycamore trees from voracious ivy plants, we shared interesting stories and a similar passion for outreach, or better yet a passion for sharing. The 35 year old dad Jim, the pool cleaner guy, really opened up to me as a best friend would. We tag teamed deep roots with pick axes, chased a too-groovy-to-handle Gardner Snake, and stepped a top an intensely excited hive of yellow jackets. I've since been invited over to his house for a roast beef dinner. Then there was Dakota, the shy 8th grade girl from Benicia, California who worked without ceasing and without need of any instructions. She sure knew how to swing a pick like a pro and seemed to be smiling at the same stubborn roots that would give the rest of us a cringed face. Dakota had lived her toddler years in chilling Alaska before moving to tornado ally in Tulsa, Oklahoma and eventually on to California. We interviewed each other as we help out the community.

So I made some friends and realized that I serve because there's something special in the nature of service that unites us all. There was a spirit that day at Ellinwood Creek. I guess that's why I chose to enter the Peace Corps. Their is no prerequisite to be of service to someone else. You just need to be willing. As Martin Luther King Jr. said, "Everybody can be great, because everyone can serve. You don't have to have a college degree to serve... you only need a heart full of Grace, Soul generated by Love."

Serve because you want to, because you can be great.
Peace

Jared

To the Mountaintop

Mis amigos,
My time resting at home has been an opportunity to imaginatively challenge myself and reflect upon the importance of family life. My dad has nicely outlined roofing fixes, garage reorganization, tree trimming, and other sweaty summer projects. Mom is allowing sister Faith and I to plan summer dinners, all of which surprise the family for better or for worse. Thirteen layer nacho dishes and Chinese chicken salad made the taste buds smile, while sour lemonade forced puckered lips upon Dad’s face. Aside from piles of medical forms and tedious documented messes (wonder why Health Care is outrageously expensive??), much free time has led me on many spontaneous adventures.

The Continental Divide in Colorado captured my attention this past week. My dad and I moved my brother out to a new teaching job in Colorado and I found the opportunity to scale Longs Peak in Rocky Mountain National Park with two extremely nice strangers, now connected friends. The hike began at 4am in a packed parking lot and head lamps scattered across the mountain side. We crawled to the summit for a 9am “lunch break” and returned to the trail head by 3pm before thunderstorms could chase us back below tree line. The air was thin and my heart was pounding up around 14,000 ft., but I can’t be grateful enough for the chance to take such a hike. Piles of rocks owned every square inch of the glacial swept mountain tops. I now wish I had studied geology past Ms. Nelson’s sixth grade natural science class. Rocks rock dude, especially when you’re climbing around on them all day. I was on this same mountain with my family at age 7, now 23 I enjoyed the hike with a humbling spiritual flavor. Nature is some much bigger than human civilization. It pushes on the human mind. It forces one to think outside themselves. I can only contemplate the day when humans will be connected to nature; considered one with nature, “Man WITH Wild.” Perhaps my home in a California suburb will feel more natural and just as sacred as that feeling atop the mountaintop. MLK’s said he’s been to the “mountaintop” and seen the light. My goal is to get there too.

Go hike, it brings you down to Earth.

Les extrano a Uds, Jared


Joy atop Longs Peak, 14,256 ft

Dish Me

Dishes, Dishes, oh what wonderful dishes!
The suds, the foam, oh no mom's home
We're just starting, the kitchen a complete mess
But with 4 hungry children who would expect less

She calls each name, "Jared, Faith, Maya, Joel!"
"Dried corn flakes are caked upon the cereal bowls!"
"And will you look at the stove, all nice and greasy!"
"My goodness children, "The floor needs a squeegee"

So the twenty year olds all point their fingers
At 16 year old Faith, in the bathroom she lingers
"We've been waiting for her." older brother Joel says
Maya adds "Yeah that's right, we though she was dead."

"And Jared, what's your dang excuse?"
"Please tell me you wise little goose."
"Well, Joel's never here and maybe Maya sometimes"
"And I've been in the Dominican Republic lovin' sunshine"

"Okay that's nice. What more can be said."
All the twenty year olds begin to scratch their heads.
"We need a miracle, oh what shall we do?"
"Faith's in the bathroom takin' the longest pooh."

"That's not true!" screams a voice through the wall."
All them twenty year olds are straight off the ball."
I been sitting here with a sponge in me hand
While you geezers out there been acting like hams."

And with the snap her fingers and a blink of an eye
She dashed to the kitchen and cleaned them dishes dry
The twenty year olds and mama stood shocked
"She's a dish witch." their voices carried down the block

Papa Oubre woke up and put in his teeth
Upon reaching the scene they had dropped to his feet.
"Enough of this dishes and witches, I been trying to sleep
Like my papa told me, talk is cheap."

Dishes, Dishes, oh what wonderful dishes! He says with a clatter
You stubborn fools, here's the truth of the matter
"They always say the youngest learn from the rest"
"But in the end, they do the dishes best"


(A taste of my recovery life back home in Pleasant Hill, CA)

Bless the Lord!

They say LIFESTRONG. Lance is pumping the petals through Western Europe and I'm strutting with my yellow slippers down the white halls of Jackson Memorial Hospital. So I'm here about to bust out of all this medical attention and finish resting up at Cousin Dee Dee's house in Miami. I've met gracious doctors and nurses who have served me at 3:30am with the sweetest smiles plastered on their faces. I know it's not easy being trapped inside these concrete walls for 12 hour shifts, but these people have the patience and the vision for the job. God has blessed me with peace and a strong recovery from who knows what. My mom sat by my side with bags of nuts and m&ms as well as a library of the richest spiritual writings Mary Baker Eddy has to offer. There's a healing that comes from every challenge in life. This healing for me has involved Dominicans and Americans, moms and dads, pilots and social workers, good people and buena gente. I have so much to be grateful for so I spend much of my day reading and reflecting upon "the good already recieved." To be healed I have to step outside myself and recognize my true identity as a healthy, capable, and humble child of God. No one really knows what happened to me beside me feeling really fatigued one day after cutting some weeds and prunning some trees in Ojo de Agua. It's easy to talk about how my body struggled, but I'd rather report on finding my harmonica again as a friendly companion, or chillin' with "Lazy Richard" the nurse who actually drove my mom home to my cousin's house after a late night visit. Or what about walking outside for the first time in a week in the fresh air and acutely observing the diversity of colors and ages cruise, skip, roll, or crutch across the Jackson Memorial Hospital Plaza. I'm in a new and unfamiliar location, but none the less surrounded by smiles and people getting healthy. Home is where you are, so room #509 to bed #1, and now room #519.... each of you know my sweat and my thoughts and my Bible flopped open to Mark. Bless the Lord! The brother is healing up and 'bout to see his family again. Amen and Amen!

Meeting Friendly People

It wasn´t really the trip to the beach this past weekend that made for a nice break from the mountain barrio of Ojo de Aguas. Taxi driver Wilson and 21 year old Haitian immigrant Manuelito welcomed me into their world with their stories of adventure, hard work, and friendships. You just have to start talking to a stranger and once they find out you´re a friendly english speaker they want to hear your story and they start to test out the little English they know. Wilson happened to be good friends with another Peace Corp Volunteer I know in the mountains. He spoke of his admiration for the adventurous personalities peace corps gringos roaming the island countryside with funky hats and plain worn out clothes. Manuelito took a long walk down the beach in Nagua with me as my curious self proceed to hold a news conference with him. As he divulged his riveting autobiography to me of leaving Haiti alone at age 14 to find work in the DR, we managed to test out 4 different languages, Spanish, English, French, and most fun Creole. ¨Papimal¨ means you are doing well.
I meet new fiends because there is always something precious and invigorating in the story of a stranger. Just listening has helped put my Peace Corps project into perpective. A Project of LISTENING, if nothing else. I want to accomplish a lot, but for now I shall am at peace with just listening.

5 Gallons of Cold Water

That’s all I get and that’s all I need to clean my lanky body every morning. After returning home from my sunrise walk with Pedro I run out to the 60 gallon oil drum, dip my 5 gallon bucket in and I’m off to douse myself in fresh chilling rain water. ¨At least I have water,¨ I tell myself when I start to dream about the comfort of a hot shower. The idea of comfort is all in my head, and I’m not draining an unnecessary 35 gallons of heated water with that of my 5 minute customary shower back home.
So sure my community has kilometers to go before they change their conscience and poor practices of littering trash in their own yards and rivers, but at least they are using 7 times less water than I was using 3 months ago. I’m starting to understand that poverty means fewer resources, which also often means fewer opportunities, but it also means people are living within their means. They use what they need and the rest is left to someone else to enjoy.

Just a few observations of a beautiful occurrence here know as reusing:
-The bird cage is salvaged rebar and chicken wire from a demolished building in town.
-The flower pots are all large coffee cans or the bottom half of a Clorox jug.
-Instead of buying paint to color the cement walls of their dining room, Pedro and Mecho have created a colorful collage of reused bed sheets to decorate their home.
It’s not that these Dominicans are trying to win some abstract, recycled art contest at the Museum of Modern Art... rather it’s how they make use of the resources they have. I thought my concentration in Environmental Science at Williams had prepared me to understand Sustainability in this 21st century, but I find myself being schooled every day in the art of ¨Living with what you have.¨ (Not with what someone else has or with what someone is trying to sell you). I don’t need to purchase something more to be happy. Maybe I’ll look around my house for that strand of extra phone line to help me hang a picture and maybe I won’t fill that 5 gallon bucket all the way to the top when the rainy season stops.

Reuse it to Recreate.

Paz, Jared

The Planting of the Land

It´s Friday. The picks and shovels are waiting in the sun. One Hundred small palm trees arrived to my Donas house. And The Kids are excited to plant. So after lunch at Mecho´s house I´m going to rally the rambuncious troops (Jairo my 10 year side kick is especially energetic) and off we shall march to odorn the entrance to our barrio with beautiful trees. Each kid will be responsible for taking care of each tree they plant for as long as they´re living here in Ojo de Aguas. I´m just imagining how this barrio will look when I return in 20 years with my own kids to show them where I spent two years of my life enjoying a family neighborhood of cousins, trees, and trash.

Basketball continues to flow through my mind as I enjoy time just relaxing with my favorite Dominican father, Pedro. Yesterday I played 5 games, and tonight I think I´m headed to watch a game under the lights. If I continue to live the life with the barrio kids I think I will continue to be a kid. I always dreamed of having the chance to go to ¨Never, Never, Land.¨ Perhaps it has arrived here in the barrio of Ojos de Aguas, at the base of the mountains, in La Republica Dominicana... far different than I imagined it to be, but none the less just as delicious and flavorful as a papaya smoothie.

Hoop Dreams

Obama was on Choco´s cell phone and Choco wanted me to talk with him.
¨Hola, soy Yarred¨ I say in my sloppy Spanish accent.
I listen, I listen while all my youth group is waiting patiently for me to say something more. ¨Okay pues, 3 meses, está bien.¨ I end the call adn let them know that Obama is going to pay our barrio, Ojo de Agua, a visit in three months to construct a basketball court. They all cheer, some laugh.

It´s all a game and they know it, but why not dream big. The thing is these kids dream big every day and every dream is attempted to be realized in the moment. The agenda planner doesn´t exist. The future vacation travel dates don´t exist. The year in which they will be able to read, pass all their exams, and graduate from high school doesn´t exist. So what do you do when everything is in the moment???? You build your own basketball court. The guama tree was chopped down, they took a piece of scrap rebar down to auto body shop to get it welded into a hoop for three and half dollars, and then they nailed it into the tree, dug a hole in the dirt road and within hours we were playing a two on two basketball tournament in our own neighborhood. Creativity has no end here and that is why my first week in site I have focused most all my time with the youth. Studying for Math exams which happen today, playing ¨pelota¨ until we lose the baseball over the cement wall of the foreigners gated summer home, and best of all just passing the entire day outside.

One week has passed fast. I´m in my own modest house next to my Power House Dona(Casa de Potencial) and eat a variety of food which is always served with white rice or plaintains. It rains every day around 2pm and that means I just chill... something I am still learning how to do correctly.

I´m trying not to use my planner much, but I do know in two days I will be talking it up with the kids about imortance of NO trash and LOTS of trees in their community.

Eat well every day because it´s worth it!
Jared

Leaving City Behind

Last of Dona Aton and Alcarrizos, the Santo Domingo barrio where the kids run wild and the elders bring their plastic chairs out onto the sidewalks to observe the urban climate and play dominos. I know I'll won't miss the noise, but it's always fun to be around such activity. Everyone knows when little barefooted Fernando ('Nando) is being called by his mom to get his butt home, and everyone knows that the garbage trucks has arrived when it blows its air horm 5 feet from your dinning room table, and everyone knows when a mango falls from above onto your neigbors tin roof in the middle of the night... It's the Barrio and everyone knows.

Now I'm off to the Campo where at the base of the mountains rests a small pueblo with incredibly humble people who know what good food is, especially casaba (yuca panacakes with garlic or penuts sprinkled on top.

Life is changing...I'm on my own.

Write is your jounal for 1 week straight. It's healthy to reflect

Houston we have landed… ohhh so Pretty!

We were at the base of the mountains within 4 hours and meeting with the leaders of the community within 24. The call it “Ojo de Agua” (Eye of Water), the oldest community in San Jose de Las Matas (SaJOMA). I think I counted one car in the neighborhood, a host of motor scooters, and children and chickens enough to fill the dirt paths. The houses sit almost on top of each other with narrow ally ways connecting one family compound to the next. Old fruit trees and calabaza vines stretch across the patches of soil where extended family members have not tried to cram in their own house on the Dona’s small piece of property. It’s a healthy rural slum barrio and I’m proud to call it my home for the next two years. The people life with what they have, and if that means unwinding close hangers to make a fence, then that’s what’s going to happen. If you come to visit we’ll find space and without a doubt we’ll find food. I’m in the richest agricultural region of the country, El Cibao…and that means Jared, or “Yarred” as they say here, is going to be eating more than his share of rice, beans, yucca, and all that other good news.

I will certainly miss my fellow Peace Corps Volunteers with whom I trained, but Dominican time is NOW. I am sworn in as an official Volunteer this Wednesday and I’m not looking back. I’ll be working closely with Plan Sierra, a well known local NGO, and playing with kids as much as possible. We already have a youth meeting scheduled for two days after I get back to my site. The 400 people of Ojo de Agua will be hoppin’!

“El que quiere hacer algo encuentra el camino. El que no quiere hacer nada encuentra una excusa.”

“He who wants to do something finds a way. He who does not want to do anything finds an excuse.”

(words written on the wall next to my project partner’s desk)

Yarred en las Montanas

DR Comes to Life

Last day of April, 2009

Two months came faster than I ever imagined. I’ve traveled and danced the Dominican Republic with comfort, smiles, and with enough home cooked food each night to feed three persons or one extra tall “Americano.” Coco sweets and mashed red beans with sugar and a host of other sweet ingredients rank among the top on my dessert list. All I have to say is that the Peace Corps has its act together. I don’t think I’ll be laid off and tomorrow my training group is going reef checking (aka. Snorkeling around the coral reefs near Santo Domingo). I am privileged to be part of an organization that has given me the opportunity to thoroughly question my definition of poverty. As a fellow volunteer reminded me today, “It is only when we have nothing, that we are free to have anything.” – Today was that example for me. We traveled to the urban slum of Las Casetas on the outskirts of the capital and held interviews with many households where the daily expenditures amounted to $2-3. Ones vision of transport, choices of food, or even purchasing children’s school uniforms is severely limited under such budget constraints. However, the people share the warmth of lots of face time and frequent sips of coffee on the plastic chairs of their front porch. One Dona even poured me (the stranger in the barrio) a fresh cup of tamarind juice to welcome me into a front porch conversation; a cup of juice that she would have ordinarily sold for 10 pesos (35 cents), but for me was welcoming refreshment from walking the humid and hot streets.
So I count down 6 more days before I receive my final placement. I’m hoping for the mountains, but good people grow like weeds here so they can plant me anywhere.

In the name of Tim Keifer, our environmental training director, “Feed your soils and let your soils fed your plants.

Love, Jared

Waterfalls on Easter

The fog roled in, I turned over the soil, and “Big Mama” tries to break out of her pig pen. This all happens daily in the mountain town of La Cumbre. I wake early to run and enjoy six pieces of buttered toast and home made hot chocolate from Dona Nenita and view the deep valleys and rolling ridges sloping their way from my host families block house down to the Caribbean waters 40 kilometers to the north. I know I am in paradise, it just it’s not the view nor the tremendous food that has brough me there. Certainly I’ve enjoyed spending time making good food and then eating good food with the Oubre family, and for sure we’ve traveled along that picturesque California coastline man times admiring the great Pacfic waves, but never have I found people who open their doors to guests as easily as Dominicans do. There’s not a house in La Cumbre that I can walk past and not be invited in by a Dona shouting, “Entra! Sientase!” Then I’m served a fresh cup of home grown coffee and forced to just chill. I’m not going to complain about being delayed in my Peace Corps work because I’m chilling. In fact they keep stressing that the most meaningful work I can do right now is to get to know the culture and the people. “Convivencia” they call it, or “Chilling” I call it.
This Easter Weekend was filled with walking... the most primitive of human actions. I set foot passing through farms, avoiding muddy shoes at the edge of the lagoon, bush wacking through an abandoned cocoa orchard (sure I ate some), and following a river bed upstream to a beautiful waterfall where a group of us enjoyed a wonderful picnic. Listening to the water fall from 60 feet above was a highlight. I would repeat the weekend 52 times a year if I could despite missing a little chocolate and egg hunt action and dressing up all nice for Easter Sunday.
Tomorrow I interview the kids, parents, teachers, and administrators of the local Hermanas Mirabal elementary school. Don’t know if anyone’s read “In the time of the Butterfly’s”, but part of it takes place here in the town I’m now training in, La Cumbre. So environemental technical training keeps me busy 8-12noon and 1:30-5:30pm everyday. I’m really begining to enjoy my fellow Peace Corps volunteers and entertaining Spanish classes in which you can only laugh at yourself as you state, “My leaves (“hojas”) itch,” instead of “My eyes (“ojos”) itch.” We’re all attempting to share our talents with the community most recent of which have been squash pie making, lyric writing, and telling bad stories in broken Spanish.

Walk to your next destination. Don’t be in a rush, listen, and you’re sure to enjoy it.

Pictures... Just the way it is.

Work Feels Chill

I have made it to the mountains where the people know how to grow their food, mine for Amber, and keep it real. If you want to know what it really means to chill out them come to the La Cumbre and stay with Dona Carmen “Nenita and Freddy’s family. I’m not talking about remaining mute on the couch for two and a half hours while you watch the Warriors barely lose another b-ball game... I am talking about sitting on the front porch with my host families chatting it up until the sun sets and we decide it will rise again soon enough so we hit the sack early. I’m talking about wanting a sweet snack so I take 10 steps out of the house with a machette in hand and I find myself a sugar cane stalk and the rest is history.

Morning is for work and evening is family time. I haven’t met one organization, instituion, association, clan, whatever you want to call them...that can out sustain the bond of the Dominican family. I watch the young sister give here even younger brother a nice cold bucket bath, while the mother sends her 18 year old son out to the fields to collect another bunch of green bananas that she will boil for dinner, while the father sharpens his machette with a rock for another hard days work tomorrow in the family canuco.
In my morning studying Spanish with 5 other Peace Corps volunteers, returning home for a larger than life lunch (rice, spaghetti, beans, eggs, salad, and a papaya smoothie) and then by afternoon learning how make natural fertilizer from horse manure or compost from coffee shells and leaves. They days are long, but the weeks pass faster than I want them to and I’m not sweating nearly enough. However, I’m finding it plenty easy to dirty my clothes through a game of baseball with the millions of kids that are every where in this country. The longer you play the more the field fills up until you have to see if you can get two game going at the same time on a diamond that only has a left field. Right field is a hill that has been comendeared by roaming goats.
I guess the tropical heat will come in the summer, but for now there are no complaints with the beautiful weather and rich green scenery.

Go visit a long time friend. Hang out. It’s worth it.
Jared

Dona, City Life, B-ball create smile

Doña Tempora has probably four times the age of me and I still don’t understand how she outworks me sun up to sun down every day. I think of the generations of people she’s fed. How many times she’s cleaned out that black, favorite, and dented caldron of hers. The number of days she’s sat at here bed side and humbled herself in front of the Bible. She inspires me when I start to daydream during Spanish class and I catch myself drooling as I look up to those green mangos hanging outside the classroom that will soon ripen and fall to the ground like free candy from a piñata. She reminds me to stay focused on why I’m doing what I’m doing, not what others think I ought to be doing. So she’s the “ama de casa,” “leader of the house,” “washer and folder of 10 peoples laundry,” and makes the best random mixture of dog food I’ve seen this side of the universe.

Tonight was perhaps the most exciting game of basketball I have ever played with Latinos. We’re creating our own live March Madness tournament here in the barrios. They play hard with the spirit of tigers. They call the men of streets here in Santo Domingo “Tigeres” because there’s no holding back on the “cat” calls or foolishly courageous remarks they exclaim to gain the ear of ANY lady passing by on the street. Anyways, the “Americanos” held on to win two games, despite the hot-damp tropical island climate, and a gang of international basketball rules that seem to change the game for a more friendly, yet more foul prone game. But I don’t know what I’m talking about basketball for because they say here Baseball is the national religion. I say the Dona’s presence in church and their ability to mobilize an entire family is more powerful than a loud Dominican baseball game at the end of Calle Ocho, but there really is no kid here who doesn’t adamantly declare baseball to be his or her favorite sport. That is all the while the old men play dominos and a funny checkers games called “tablero” where they use recycled bottle caps as game pieces.

These people know how to enjoy themselves, their friends, and their family, despite the difficult economic situation they endure. They are a culture of survivors and always find a way to fix their car tire (sometimes with a banana peal) or save an extra few pesos so they can share a candy from the Colmado with their best friend after school. I love the culture… I don’t care for the taste or sound of muffler-less motorcycles… I love the smile of eight year old Willis next door… I don’t care for the fact that other kids on the block think he’s not a good kid because his skin in darker than most Dominicans and that makes him Haitian, and Haitians “don’t belong here.” I see a world full of potential. I wish I could share this experience with you all but for now I can offer a little electronic update and the fact that Jared is smiling a whole lot.

I train for another 2 months (Spanish class, learn to build an efficient cooking stove, learn how to plant trees and what it means to manage a coffee farm, teach youth how to organize and mobilize in their communities, etc.) then I’m off to my project site for two years, probably in a rural area.

I know you all are doing well and so am I!

Share all you have. It will make a difference.

One Week In

One week past and I'm living it up here in the DR.  Santo Domingo, the urban jungle is in an your face city! Motocicletas flying by on street, sometimes even on the sidewalks if the young drivers have enough courage, music blasting through the night, and intense games of dominos manifesting themselves on every street corner.  I eat more than enough food; that means seconds on Pollo y Arroz for lunch and two meals from Dona Tempora each night.  The nice thing is I always have a healthy appetite after walking through the tropical sun and long days in Spanish class.  I'm sweating right now after Marenge and Bachata lessons.  So everything is packed into the day during this Peace Corps training process and I'm well taken care of.  Perhaps most fun is sandlot baseball every afternoon with the barrio kids.  They play without gloves, they share sips of water from the one bottle the wealthier kid can afford, and they laugh without ceasing.  Everyday I gain more confidence, everyday I talk to more neighbors, and I'm learning to listen to the Dominican tongue.  Que Chevere!  Hasta otra semana!

I left my heart in San Francisco, but will find it again in the DR

So Long My Friends.
Adios mis amigos.
Come sandia.

Check this blog for my life DR style. The Peace Corps Experience has begun.