El Sol...Por Fin!

The sun has finally come out today…cielo azul! Rose, Jordan, and I arrived to the Dominican Republic with Sandy the Hurricane. We have spent the first couple of days adjusting to this new place in gray, cloudy, crazy winds, and buckets of water. The first night we were all laying in bed at 3am awake as the rain came horizontally through our open windows and cracks in the wooden planks attempting to hold up our walls. I swear more rain falls on our tin roofs than the average house around here, or at least it just sounds way louder. When it is not rainy, we have to get used to the unusually loud cricket noises, gallinas, malnourished dogs barking, and roosters.

The food has been a big topic of conversation between both our mama and us. She loves to brag about how she serves us more food and better tasting than other home stays. She might be right. Although there are a few things that are interesting, to say the least, we have been able to stomach it all. However, they have put us on a diet. One day we had a small banana smoothie for breakfast, some rice for lunch, and then a bowl of pina and this nasty papaya like tasting fruit (not surprisingly it is mama’s favorite). The quantity of fruit that day did keep us regular, but we were starving!!! Thank hashem I brought some beef jerky and peanut butter in times of need. We just have to get used to eating a bigger meal for lunch and stalking up for the smaller dinner meals. We also just have to get used to this dish called Guineo, which is mushed up green plantains-essentially a giant bowl of starch. Apparently it is one of their favorites and most common dinners here…not ours.

I instantly feel part of the community here. Day by day we are meeting people. The first night two teenage boys, Ari and Bingo (that’s what we call him because his name is too hard to say) came over to teach us dominos, practice their English with us, and sing reggeton and Nina Bonita songs from their cell phones. The next night we had two other older guys stop by, Miguel and Ignacio. They are Mama’s friends and are super nice. Miguel seems like he will be our older brother protecting us, walking us home at night, and taking us on hikes around the mountains and to a baseball game in the city. He is taking us gringas to a Quincinera Birthday with him tonight. Our host sister, Yuliesy (also know to us as Julie), painted our nails all pretty today so we can fit in at the birthday.

Our host family is probably the best host family I have been a part of. Our mama, Evangelina (Evengelist in English…mmm), is wonderful. She is very active in the community, fast paced, loud, really fun, and has taken really good care of us. At first she was nearly impossible to understand because she spoke way too fast and with this thick Caribbean accent where she take out the “s” from the ends of words. My Spanish is coming back and now I get almost everything she says to me. Yuliesy, our host sister, is 16 and she is great too. Loves her TV, and made us all watch the most gruesome and bloodiest movie about an alien taking over some dudes mind and body. Nearly vomited it was so gross. Would have never watched that movie if I was in the states, but figure its in Spanish and it is a good cultural lesson. The other sister, Angie, is 11 years old and really quiet. I cant wait for Angie, the late bloomer, to one day start dancing around shaking her booty like her mom and older sister do.

Side note: They love their Shakira here. Listening to a Shakira CD in the Centro right now that Diego put on. Waka Waka is big here, and even that weird Korean rap song has made it onto this island.

Now for what we are actually going to do here: Rita and Diego have moved down here 9 years ago and began community development projects. They have a Centro now where kids come for preschool, and an after school like Boys and Girls club. Attached to the Centro is a mini clinic, where two nurses see patients Thursday and Fridays. The other days the nurses go house to house seeing moms.  Run out of the Centro, there are many different projects and groups going on. Mothers Lactation group to be a part of, HIV educational and leadership groups run through US AID foundation, a sisters group for womens empowerment, Dengue and parasite campaigns, and mini classes taught to the kids during the after school program. December 1^st is the Worlds AIDS Day, in which Rita and Diego our preparing for in the community. That day will be a perfect culmination of our time here. We get to participate in it all! Rita is stoked with all the extra hands that we have brought. Additionally, we are going to do our own community project. We are thinking we want to work with the teenage moms and lead a health fitness class for them. Get them moving their bombees (booties), abs, jazzercise, stretches, a little pata pata maybe. We are learning a lot about the culture of relationships here. Moms at age 15, men with multiple women, violence in the house.

Time to give Pinky a shout out! Pinky is our favorite cat here. He hangs around the clinic and looks like me when I wear my white head band. White body with redish hair on top. We might just come back to the states with a cat.

Rita and Diego are so warm and welcoming. Rita is a boss. She is feisty and has her shit together. Diego is more the behind the scenes guy. He prefers English over Spanish as he is still learning Spanish, pays the bills, gets the supplies. They live in a big house, which we have yet to see. They have invited us to watch the birth of a baby cow on their property today—we hope we get to see the whole process …super discovery channel. We are also going to pick oranges on their trees today to squeeze and use for the acid in the process of making fresh cheese!!

We will be quite busy with different things, but also quite Dominican about it all…laid back, easy going, and “on time”.

Time to sort donations of baby clothes to hand out to the community. All donations are used instantly here…if you are reading this blog, start a goodwill pile and I would love to send a box down to them when I return home.

Till next time…