Sunday, April 19, 2009

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.




Monday, April 13, 2009


Pictures... Just the way it is.

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

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