Volunteer Visit Part 5

This array of inverters and batteries attached to Cassidy's lab collects energy
from solar and wind sources. 

By three o'clock the next day, it was obvious that the driver of the public pickup we had consulted the day before had given us bad information when he assured us there would be a pickup at 1:00 pm to take me to Moca. This is a feature of the Dominican Culture; the answers you get from people often have more to do with saving face or telling you what is supposed that you want to hear than they do with providing accurate and useful information.

Luckily, there was a single seat available in a jeep that was headed my way. It was less than ideal since Andrew was also leaving town and had planned to help me negotiate the bus system on the trip back, but in the moment when the jeep arrived it was a matter of taking it or running the risk of arriving home in the capital after dark. I opted for the former, and as I watched the breathtaking mountain views unfold to the sound of bachata music from the stereo, I reflected that for the first time since I arrived in the country, I was alone traveling long-distance without the guidance or companionship of other Americans. It was interesting to remember all the times I had done likewise in Guatemala and recognize how much more quickly that transition from dependent to independent had taken place.

Hiking up to a viewpoint before lunch

Once in Moca, I found the bus station and headed for what I judged to be the ticket window by the appearance of big letters over it that read "ticket window". Behind the counter I found a woman punching keys on a cell phone. "When does the next bus leave for the capital?" I asked. In response she gave me a look that told me I was the stupidest person possibly imaginable and proceeded to look away and place the phone to her ear. A man who was among five or six people inexplicably loitering in the ticket office must have taken pity on me. He pointed to a bus and said "Santo Domingo". I suppose I was expected to intuit this.

On the way to Santo Domingo, our already full bus took on about a third of the passengers of another bus we found broken down alongside the road. Being based in the northwestern suburbs of Santo Domingo, I was among the first people off. This meant several people had to get off to make way. Even still, it was a tight squeeze with my three bags.

Volunteer Visit Part 4

After Escojo and another round of neighbor visits, it was time for a rousing sermon about stories from Genesis and the sermon on the mount led by Doña Elena at the Adventist church. Aftewards we visited her home where she prepared us dinner and through conversation impressed me as remarkably wordly and kind. Well past ten at night, we returned to the house Cassidy shares with a community member and we shared his comfortable bed. 

Cassidy and Magee demonstrate the proper use of a latrine


The next day held a morning spent with our new friends from Iowa and a visit to Magee's community just up the road where Cassidy had arranged to work on the school's computer lab. As we walked there, Cassidy shared a horrific story about a Haitian woman whose husband has allegedly broken her arm. He said that her ordeal was flippantly mentioned to him one day and that when he found her, she sat visibly suffering while Dominicans stood by playing dominoes and cracking jokes.

The patio of the collection of buildings where Cassidy takes his meals

After several hours of troubleshooting computers, Cassidy found a stopping place and we made our way to Magee's house where she made us a spaghetti dinner and the two volunteers regaled me, among other things, with Peace Corps gossip, insight into Dominican Culture, and a particularly amusing conversation about reality television. Back at Cassidy's a drifted off to sleep to the sound of rain his aluminum roof.

Volunteer Visit Part 3

Cassidy and Magee in front of the Salon Tecnologica

In the morning Magee and I left early in order to catch the one daily pickup that would take us to Cassidy's site. Luckily, we managed after a short while to catch a bola (free ride) with friends of hers in the bed of their pickup. For the next forty-five minutes, we climbed into the mountains, discussing how Peace Corps compared to our lives back home and what it was like to join. Meanwhile I drilled her about her living conditions and made a good deal of fuss over how authentic my experience was begining to feel and how incredible the views were.

Cassidy supervises a class during lab hours

Finally we reached Cassidy's school. I observed as group after group of excited children filed into the salon tecnologica (computer lab) for their turn to eagerly click away Encarta Encyclopedia, Alphabet Rain, and a kind of puzzle game with moving balls. Not long after joining a local familh for lunch, we welcomed a group the likes of which few see during their volunteer visit. About thirty high school students from Iowa and a handful of adult chaperones arrived in a guagua (minibus), led by Andrew, a volunteer from Puerto Plata.


Students from St. Albert High School in Council Bluffs, Iowa assemble while
Andrew and Cassidy (foreground, right) catch up.

After a brief interlude with the Americanos we were returned to the lab for Cassidy's afternoon session and, at the end, a lively youth discussion group called Escojo Mi Vida ("I Choose My Life") which many volunteers nationwide are using to encourage children to make healthy choices and steer clear of unprotected sex. This session focused on values and self-esteem. Cassidy performed admirably given the distinctly hormonal circumstances occaisionsed by 27 enthusiastic youths whose only prior exposure to the subject matter was sometimes in the context of admonishments about the potential ills of not pleasing your man or turning into a homosexual.
 

Escojo Mi Vida discussion group

Volunteer Visit Part 2

The place where I found myself with the five girls was incongruous with the rest of Moca. Indeed, upon entering I felt as if I had left the Dominican Republic. The interior was done in a kind of wooden style that resembled the hold of a ship and one entire wall was devoted, ceiling to floor, to wine, beer, rum, whiskey, and scotch. By the way the men working there were dressed, I may have guessed they lived in L.A. At one point, the TV in the corner played a public access program featuring two of them talking about liquor.

Chilling at Heather's (from left to right): Zenia, Keeton, Heather

A round of coffee drinks were ordered including mocha frapucinos and we discussed life in the DR, and talked about relationships. A volunteer named Phil arrived and rounds of beer and mojitos began to flow. Day turned to night and house music started blaring from a speaker somewhere. Though tested in my resolve not to drink, I found it quite easy to enjoy myself sober given the company.

After a cab to Heather's place we ventured out for fried chicken and karaoke, the latter of which was quite the scene. About a block of the main drag in Heather's neighborhood was astir with people milling loosely about the focal point of a some lyrics projected against the wall of a colmado (general store). On both sides of the road, people sat in green plastic patio chairs, watching as patrons belted balladas into the night air.

Phil and Sabrina hang out at Heather's place

Heather's admirer, a drunken thirty-something named Horse with slicked-back hair and a shirt that read "Soy Dewarista" acosted the poor woman, fawning over her and pawing her with such dogged persistence that we felt a need to stall while she got rid of him to keep him from following us home.

Volunteer Visit Part 1

On Thursday, I left Santo Domingo for the first time. One of my activities as a trainee is to go visit a volunteer assigned to me by the Assistant Peace Corps Director (APCD) and Peace Corps Volunteer Leader (PCVL) for my sector (Information and Communication Technology). Based on information I gave them during a short interview the week before, it was decided that I should go visit an ICT volunteer in a small community outside the town of Moca, about an hour from the north coast.

A preview of what I had in store: Indotel contructed the community computer
lab. My volunteer would describe them as the Johnny Appleseed of Computers,
Installing them wherever in hopes that they will one day be of use to someone. 

With me on the Moca bus were Zenia and Keeton and we gabbed about hair, and food and our respective places of origin as the windows of our air-conditioned charter bus revealed an autopista flanked by mountains, subtropical forest, and even a rice field planted in cooperation with the Taiwanese government. In Moca we were greeted by volunteers Heather and Sabrina who would be hosts to my travel companions and Magee, who was going to help me find Cassidy, my volunteer. After an unremarkable hamburger and delicious Zapote shake. We settled in their favorite hangout for mojitos and beers.

History Tour

The western hemisphere's oldest cathedral

You'll have to forgive me. Today I'm two hours north of Santo Domingo in the rural hub of Moca, a town of about 30,000 just across the Septentrional mountain range from the island's north coast. The sad part is that I somehow managed to leave my camera at my host home in the capital so there will be no images for the next few updates.

New soldiers used to swear allegiance to Spain in this tower

On Sunday we had a tour of some of Santo Domingo's historical sites. Our guide, Lynn Guitar is an anthropologist and historian who expatriated to the DR after her doctoral work brought her here for primary research. Lynn's insights and stories were many but in particular one stood out about a wealthy family that adopted a chimpanzee in order to overcome its childlessness.

The ruins of the New World's oldest sanitarium overlook the mouth of the Ozama 

Another story involved a despicable member of a catholic order who used to have his way with the daughters of Santo Domingo's upper class who were placed in a convent a safeguard while their families sought suitable. According to the story, this man bragged to a visiting member of the church heirarchy from Spain who went on to fictionalize the man in order marshal the powers that be to bring him to justice. The fictional account was none other than that of Don Juan.

Julie checks out the country's most-filmed street. It is often used in cinematic portrayals of Cuba.

Getting Around Downtown

On Wednesday we had our first outing from the training center to visit the historical Villa Bellisa, a distiguished old estate next door to the American embassy which was once home to one of Trujillo's cronies. Located in Santo Domingo's upscale Gazcue district, the property is now home home to Peace Corps Dominican Republic (PCDR), housing its administrative offices and medical unit, plus a lounge, two libraries and a computer lab for the use of visiting volunteers. After a tour there, we were shown the way to a nearby pension (hostel) where volunteers often stay when visiting the capital.

Next we were shown the way to Clinica Abreu, the facility used by PCDR when a referral is needed for a specialist, blood/urine/stool test, or such a thing as an X-ray or MRI. Here we were broken into two groups, the first of which I was told got a riveting 20-minute overview of the clinic's oncology department before Doctor Ariel established that he was supposed be leading the tour and devoting less time to things like how to cure cancer. I was part of the second group which had the misfortune to losing about ten minutes when 12 of its member got stuck in an elevator that had an eleven-person capacity.

Next came a stroll down the pedestrian-only Conde street whose quaint 19th-century highrises lend it a certain european charm, somewhat broken by the conspicuous presence of KFC and vendors hawking rosaries and plastic sunglasses. Conde deposited us, amid waves of German and Dutch tourists in a pidgeon-filled plaza where the new World's oldest cathedral can be photographed from the comfort of Santo Domingo's Hard Rock Cafe, a few scant yards away. On Sunday we will get a tour of this district led historian, Lynn Guitar. It won't all be fun and games, though, as we are assigned the task of negotiating by ourselves the three busses and two carros publicos needed to get there at back. It's times like these that I am grateful for my Spanish.