A boat

So today (Sunday) I had to work. Not by choice but a lot of associations and organizations at a local level meet on Sundays because it's when most of their members can come. 

A little background. When volunteers arrive to the country for training we have no idea where we will live for the next 2 years. Don't know what out job will be or who the family is that we will live with for our first few months. And for all I know neither does my boss. Hah. 

To find projects for business volunteers there is a decent amount of (dique) sight development involved. The projects must be identified as feasible and workable an the community safe for a volunteer to live. Well 'tis the season. Another batch of business volunteers are arriving in March (yes, that means I've been here for almost a year. No idea how or when that happened) and they are in need of projects and sites for them. Peace corps reaches out to current PCVs for ideas and potential sites. 

So that's what I did today. Thanks to one of my coworkers from SODIN (the development organization I work with) I went out to a community called Boba which is located between nagua and cabrera to check out a fishermans association and ecotourism project in the community. The site is beautiful and right on the beach...

There's also a lagoon 

But the most curious part of my visit? This. 

A fishing boat, right? Nope. A fishing boat doesn't require this kind of security. 

He's a Dominican marine and that's an automatic weapon. 

So what is this thing?

It's a human smuggling boat. Someone back in the mangroves makes them and then they float them out to the ocean to fill with people who have paid roughly 1000 USD to go to Puerto Rico. The trip takes 3-4 days (without any complications) and obvi there is no bathroom on this ship. Give that some thought. The nice marine with the machine gun says this is a smaller boat designed for about 60 people. In that thing?! It's hardly 30 feet long. My family's boat is like 27 feet long and comfortably seats about 8. Do the math. 

This boat didn't make it. When they found it washed up down the beach it was almost empty. It had nothing but some gas tanks and an outboard motor in it. The marine says they don't know if there were ever people in it but that in his year of patrolling this part of the coast they have found about a dozen boats larger than this one that have either been abandoned at sea, caught leaving full of people or confiscated before finishing. 

So when the catch people everyone gets detained for questioning, mostly to find out who runs the operation, and are then let go. The bosses never go with the boats, there is usually a guide with a plan b if they get caught. The marine tells me they've never caught a boat with a guide in it. 

Tomorrow they will burn the boat and send pictures to their superiors as confirmation and it will disappear just like those peoples dreams of illegal immigration. 

All that to go to the US. And here i was thinking I kinda like it here? 

Going to the US is something almost every Dominican talks about. Everyone has a tio or a primo who lives "alla" in nueva yol. It's some peoples lifelong goal to get their kids there (by trying to marry me off to their kids and grand kids. Nice try abuela). Men marry American women to send money to their wives and kids down here. In fact, there is a song that's called "pa mangar mi visa" or "to get my visa" and the main chorus goes a little something like this: 

I want an American girl!

What for?

To get my visa x12

I want an American girl that doesn't understand me at all

I want an American girl who gives me everything I want

I want an American girl who will get me out of here

To get, to get, to get me my visa

For those of you who don't know, there is a huge Dominican population in the Bronx and Washington heights. And I mean huge. Supposedly there are as many Dominicans there as there are on this island. I think that's a myth. I'm anxious to go when I finish my pc service. 

I have a Dominican friend living in New Jersey. He moved to the US 5 years ago and talking to him about the cultural differences has been really interesting. Not to mention fun for both of us because we live in each other's motherlands. And bilingual people are cool. It's a little perspective for both of us. Hi Melvin :) 

If you're interested in learning more about the cultural limbo (if you will) between the United States and the dr (or if you have ever dated a Dominican man or ARE a Dominican man) I encourage you to read the works of Junot Diaz. They are so spot on that they have nearly brought me to tears and I don't cry much people. 

In the meantime I wish Dominicans wanted to stay in their own country to really make it the fabulous place that is has the potential to be. 

Buuuuueno. 

Paz y Amor for your motherland, Kaley 

Coming Home

Greetings loved ones, I'm back. Annnd it's halfway through January...when did that happen???

After a snowy, cold 2 weeks in the US I've now been back in the DR for about 15 days.

There was a lot of snow. But I got to see almost allll the important people in my life and it was great.

Our annual post-Christmas Chicago trip to shop and eat. 

I brought 2 full size jam-packed suitcases back with me (mostly clothes and christmas presents and stuff for volunteers who didn't go home for the holidays). Because obviously I wouldn't travel light. Not me, ever. But I will tell you my new clothes were much needed (flow.so.hard).

I must tell you I was a bit nervous to come back. Would I hate it now that I had been back in the first world enjoying modern conveniences, hot water, driving and throwing the TP in the toilet? Luckily my dear friend Sam and I (this is her blog) arrived to the DR almost at the same time, which was a fabulous culture shock/coping mechanism. We were greeted at the airport by some familiar faces and made our way into the concrete jungle of Santo Domingo. 

The truth? It was great to be back. We eased into the new year with a hundred something other volunteers in the beach town of Cabarete on the north coast and even though the weather wasn't ideal (rains in the winter here) it was great to see everyone. 

Sam and I

Kate Sam and I

Some people I like. 

Then we headed back to site on the 4th. I spent a couple days with my host family finishing out the Christmas season (which ends January 6th here because of the King's Day) and then...........I MOVED!

Yep. Move number like 15 since I've been in Peace Corps? meh. I moved into a rooftop apartment about 5 minutes walking from my host family's house...let's just say it's pretty different from my previous living situation. 

So that's it! 2013 ended a little rough, so I have high hopes for 2014. 

More updates on my projects and "work" coming soon. 

Besos!! Kaley

Quick update before I go to the Motherland!

So this will probably be my last blog post for a week or two and I'll warn ya, the next post will be all the food I eat in the US...

It's weird, a week in half ago I was totally checked out from work and all things Peace Corps related because I was so excited to go home. Then I started making a slideshow of pictures from my service so far and it almost brought me to tears!! Wtf!!!
No but in all seriousness I do love it here and my new site is totally to thank for that. I had dozens of people tell me that everyone who gets a site change loves their new site and I somehow couldn't believe them. Guilty.
I am nonetheless ecstatic to be going home even though theres a lot of snow. It's only 2 weeks, right?! and then I'll be joining all of my fellow PCVs in Cabarete for a few days at the beach to ring in the new year.


So real quick, on Thursday we participated in an activity in Santo Domingo put on the PNUD, which is the United Nations development agency. The objective of the activity was awesome- instead of just throwing money at what they thought was necessary, the invited actual cacao producers, the farmers, to the activity to get their opinion on what is needed to make the cacao industry successful and sustainable. In addition to producers there were buyers, development workers (like myself), cooperatives and management companies, among others. We chose what theme we wanted to work with, broke up into groups and created objectives, goals and indicators. I obviously chose social and economic sustainability. At the end, we presented our findings and agreed to continue meeting monthly in Santo Domingo until July in order to put together the framework for the platform of the project. Super exciting.

Andres, Ramon and Juana (cacao producers) participating in the activity.

Frank (the new president of the cooperative) and Angel (our accounting/sales guy and my project partner) participating in the accounting activities. 

That night I stayed with Lucija, our FSO that we stayed with on Thanksgiving. With the little time we were together we went down to the park on Bolivar to check out the Christmas lights. I have NEVER seen lights like this!

Obviously Presidente sponsored like, all of it. And what DOESN'T a giant can of beer have to do with Christmas?! 

blurry iphone pics. always a treat!

Happy Holidays!! Kaley

Mayuli's visit

Mayuli is the safety and security coordinator for all of the peace corps volunteers in the DR. I think it's safe to say that her job is extremely important and let me tell you, she does it well. 

If it wasn't for how she handled all of my security incidents, I probably wouldn't still be here, even though sometimes I wanted to scream. Sigh. 

Anyway so her plan was to visit Jackson on Thursday and to do so she has to pass thru my site, so naturally I went too. Jackson lives in a small campo called Vuelta Larga. By chance, my host dad is his project partner and my host family is from there. So we have some good connections going on, plus my pueblo is the closest civilization to Jax. 

To get up to Vuelta Larga is not exactly easy. It's about 45 minutes into the mountainside crossing 5 rivers that do not have bridges and then one hell of an uphill climb. For Jackson to come down he has to walk about an hour and then get on a motorcycle for another 30ish minutes just to get to the highway. 

The first time I went we had to walk (about 2 hours) because the road wasn't in any condition to be passed. I woke up Thursday morning multiple times between 3am and 7am to pounding rain. When you have a zinc roof it gets pretty loud. Hard rain in this country means 2 things. Rising rivers and mud. Since there is zero cell phone service in Vuelta Larga, I called Mayuli to let her know that I doubted we'd be able to get up there because of the rain. She said they were coming anyway. 15 minutes later a drenched Jackson arrived to my house on a motorcycle. Shortly after Mayuli arrived with the peace corps driver and we decided we were going to give it a go, much to my host family's dismay. Mayuli shared with us tht recently in another Latin American country two piece corps volunteers and 2 staff members were killed after being swept away while trying to cross a torrent river after heavy rain. It was going to be an adenture! 

The boss inspecting river #1 to be crossed. 

This is probably the easiest one we crossed. I'm not posting the pics of the last one because I don't need to worry my mother who religiously reads this blog (probably the only person). 

On the way up!

Yes, that pile of rocks is what the entire "road" looks like. 

I will tell you, it sure is pretty up there. But this has got to be one of the most desolate volunteer sites out there. 

Main road through the community. 

Jackson's host family's house an my host family's old house. 

Looking at the river below that was extremely swollen. 

Mayuli and Jackson 

Peeling me an orange like a pro. 

View out Jackson's back door of his new house! 

Each time I go up to Vuelta Larga I appreciate living in a pueblo oh so much more, but I give Jackson a lot of credit. No electricity at all, no cell phone service and basically no way to get out. 

I will admit as will other volunteers and Dominicans alike, sometimes you just have to escape to the campo!

That's all for now, kaley 

#selfie

So I hear the selfie is like a thing in the developed world too, in fact I think I saw the Today Show hosts taking selfies one morning while I was in Santo Domingo, proclaiming that the term "selfie" has been added to the dictionary. 

Dominicans have taken the selfie to a whole new level. We'll wait let's back up. For me, when I arrive to a new place I gravitate to the pop culture. I did a post about Dominican fashion awhile back and I think I'm due for a music post. This post however, will be dedicated to the (tackless) art of selfie taking and photo posing. 

First thing a guy asks you when he's hitting on you? If you have feyboo. Also known as Facebook. Why? Because what better way to get to know someone (and not waste cell phone minutes)?!

So this post could get real interesting because all of the photos you are about to see are straight off my feyboo news feed. But these ppl are my friends (including my boyfriend and that of another volunteer, host sisters and coworkers) and I'm merely complimenting them on their impressive ability to take a photo of themselves. Duh. 

We can start easy with a selfie of yours truly taken in true Dominican form (no smile). Why do I have this photo? I think you already know why. 

Yep. Putting myself on blast. 

But then we have a few different kinds of selfies. Those taken with mirrors, but the catch is most Dominicans don't have mirrors in their house so this means the pics are taken at someone else's house or in a bathroom usually. Exhibits A:

So there's that. Then there's the sans mirror variety:

Then there are the pics that are not selfies for the sole reason that their pose will not allow them to take the selfie because their arms are not like gumby's and the whole body needs to be seen. Thus, the help of someone else is solicited. 

And they learn young, let me tell ya. 

Look at the left foot all popped for hip emphasis. Sheesh. 

I'll end the post with this and my greatest appreciation to this culture and their love for photographing themselves. 

#selfiesforlife 

Kaley