Bateys and Beaches

Thursday through Sunday we were given the opportunity to visit current volunteers to get a better understanding of what service is really going to be like. I was luckily paired up with Marissa who is serving in a Batey in the South. Not many people get the chance to see Bateys, so I was excited. Bateys are sugar cane fields and are known for both their social and economic complexities and hardships. Historically Haitians, mainly those who are not recognized by the DR, the invisibles, have worked the fields. Most still remain and continue to be the most marginalized population in this country. Needless to say, these communities suffer from little infrastructure and opportunities, and have the most need. She, and the others serving in Bateys, definitely have a dyanmic service with a set of unique challenges. The fact that they are only 2 hours from an amazing beach completely makes up for it though! We went to the beach on Saturday and Sunday and met up with a handful of other volunteers who were also being visited by people in my group! This beach is one of the remaining beaches left untouched by tourism here. There are only local rentals, restaurants and little stores. Check out the pictures, they’re gorgeous! Peace Corps or paradise…I’m not sure. And actually this area is the site of three volunteers. Could you imagine getting this as your site and living here for 2 years??? Unbelievable. The waterfall type thing is a fresh water river that flows right into the ocean and has been dammed in a couple of areas for swimming and recreational use. It was the greatest time. Coming back to the hot city was a bummer.

Vida Dominicana

I haven’t been too terribly good at describing what life is like here. Partly because I am not so sure I can adequately describe everything that goes on, and partly because I wasn’t sure it was interesting enough to record. But the little idiosyncrasies of life here are in fact really comical, and definitely worth a shot at attempting to depict. Here’s a taste of an average day of Dominicana MegMo:

Being woken up by the crowing of roosters outside of my window. No I do not live on a farm, nor is there one near by (that was my first question too), but rather they kind of just roam around every where. Rise from bed feeling like I had spent the entire night in a sauna, which is essentially what I do. No where, I mean nooo where, has air conditioning. And the mosquito net we have to sleep in does a fabulous job keeping out bugs, but it also does a fabulous job at blocking the air flow. So I basically sleep in a pool of my our sweat.

Get ready for training and greet the house pets, Snoopy the dog and Cuca the parrot. Pictures of both are up! Haha I still laugh at Snoopy’s name…so cute. And every time I pass by Cuca, he tries to bite me!!! Mom, I should send him to you and I know you’ll take care of that ;) Hahahahaha!

Drink the best coffee of my life and head to meet the girls in my neighborhood to go to training. Pass by some goats eating trash off of the street and then grab either a public bus or car. I just had to include a video of the public buses here because I have a feeling you guys wouldn’t believe me if I told you!!! To get your imagination flowing, these buses or cars would not have passed an emissions test 60 years ago. Bashed in window shields, no doors, head or brake lights are commonplace. And forget about maximum occupancies or fire hazards…they just don’t exist. The video I put up was of us coming back from a trip to the Historical Colonial Zone in the capital…which is so rich with history by the way. Anyways, there’s about 50 people on this bus, the majority are stuffed, standing in an area about 5 feet by 5 feet, and some sitting outside of the windows. Yaaaah know, just a day in the life!

Go to training for forever. Nope the facility doesn’t have AC either. I wasn’t kidding. So basically spend 9 hours pretending like I’m in Antarctica. Eat rice and beans again.

Hitch a car to go home. Pray that the person with whom I have to share the front seat isn’t too much of a sweaty mess and was generous at putting deodorant on this morning. Pass by the same goats. But this time it’s their carcasses, hanging from the tree and being sold from the street.

Play a round of dominoes. Dinner time. MORE rice and beans.