Getting My Hands Dirty- Community Based Training

I cannot believe that I have already been in the Dominican Republic for a month! I seems like in some ways I have been here for years and in some way I just got here and in a blink of an eye so much has happened! Since my volunteer visit I had my two exams for my core training. The day after my two tests I left Pantoja to travel to a campo outside of the town, Bani, approximatly an hour from the capital. This campo is extremely beautiful. It is a lot cleaner than Pantoja and so much quieter. Also, though there are a lot more power outages and the government only pays for certain hours of light. We are tucked away in beautifully green sloping mountains that concave into a river. Walking around I can see flowers of all colors and animals everywhere. In the backyard of my host family's house there is a mango tree, a avacado tree, bananas, aloe, peas, and more. Early in the morning often I hear a loud "whapam" and am woken up with a startle until I remember, oh its just the ripe avacados falling straight from the tree onto the zinc roof right above my head. If only these kinds of things happened in the US. Anyways, I am a section of my training called CBT or Community Based Training to learn skills appropriate for my sector, health and to practice these skills before I start my service.

It has been a wirlwind ever since. I am now living with a new host family. My host family is so super sweet. There house is so adorable as well. I remember my mom telling me that when I was younger there was this house in our neighborhood that was nearly a neon pink and being the young child that I was thought that it was the most beautiful house in the entire universe. My mother being the stylish woman that she is thought it was very tacky, but still I loved it. The house that I am living in now is painted a neon blue (one of the brightest blues I have every seen). The fence is bright blue the whole inside and outside is bright blue, I love! My family consists of a stylish and adorable Dona who is a hairstylist, smiles all the time and likes to joke around with me. She knows all of the chisme or gossip in the town. She has three daughters and one son. My oldest host sister doesn't live with us and is 22, my other host sister accompanies me a lot and is super friendly, motivated, and super intellegent. My littlest sister is 4 months old. How lucky am I that I get another baby in this host family as well! There is also my host brother who is 10 and super sweet. He doesn't like to say much, but he also gives me a huge smile when he sees me and shakes his had whenever I ask him a question. My Don is also super kind. My abuela lives right behind us in almost a hacienda setup and as such there are constantly tons of family members coming in and out of the house. Cousins, neighbors, aunts, uncles, neighbors, friends, throughout the day are constantly running around coming in and out of the house and if it is meal time they may have a plate given to them and given the option to enjoy some food!

I arrived with this host family last Thursday and since then I have been out dancing twice, taken Spanish classes, had technical training, made my first stove, eaten tons of food, had my first real sick time, and had my first women's group. Here the schedule is slightly different than back in training in Pantoja. It alternates, but generally in the morning I have 4 hours of Spanish class from 8-12. I then walk back to my house and my Dona feeds me the typical huge lunch (lunch is the largest meal of the day here generally). I then usually go to meet for my technical training. Usually this consists of learning about various topics we will be teaching as health volunteers. For example, we just had a talk about sexual anatomy and understanding and domestic violence. Last Saturday we also learned how to start making stoves. Because the environmental program in the Dominican Republic just recently was cut out of the program, many of the projects that were under that sector are being placed under the health sector. As such, we are learning how we can make stoves for people in our communities. These stoves are aimed to replace either stoves that are outside of the house and cause an enormous amount of smoke. These stoves burn wood or coals and are not vented well or not vented at all. With these new stove installations we hope to teach how to maintain them and help to raise funds for the stoves and use local masons. These stoves will hopefully prevent many of the respitory problems that women often have due to constant smoke inhilation, cooking over stoves.

Today I also had my first Hogares Saludables group. This is a women's group that is aimed to teach women how to keep a healthy household. This is one of the two groups we must have during our service. In these sessions we teach about keeping clean water, preventing sickness, how to treat sickeness, sexual health, mental health, nutrition, and other topics. Ultimately these Hogares groups will be trained to then go out and start their own groups and train other people, yet for CBT, we only have 4 weeks and this is more a training opportunity to give a little information about Hogares to these women. While in CBT I have a group of other volunteers that I will work with to host a youth group and a women's group. Our first meeting was very stressful. My Spanish is still stressing me out because I feel like communication is such a large part of my affectiveness as a volunteer, but I have noticed people are extremely patient with my slow learning Spanish and body language and hand signals says a lot.

Today we all showed up at our meeting, which was intended to be an introduction. We introduced ourselves did an icebreaker and went over the general subjects we will be teaching in the future 3 meetings we will have with them. Overall the meeting went super well. But of course there had to be some unbelievably funny occurances for it to be a true Dominican evening. First, there was a son of one of the women at the meeting who was but naked and just began peeing in the middle of the circle while we were talking. Second, a bull started running straight at our circle of chairs as we were starting introductions and the owner had to sprint after it and slap its ass with a stick so that it wouldn't smash right into us. Thrid, the tigueres (men or boys that are kind up to no good, etc) were lingering around the outskirts of the meeting the whole time making faces at us and checking us out. Fourth super loud motos were constantly flying by our meeting place (under a mango tree) so we had to stop every once in a while to hear. Every day I feel like I see more and more that I thought I would not see.

For example, I was just about to sign off and take my bucket bath for the night and since the electricity has gone since it was dark there is no light. Usually I just showing with my bucket in the dark, but today I thought I'd bring my flashlight into the shower. BAD IDEA! I just saw my first tarantula since I've been in the DR. It was as big as my hand and had big furry legs and beady eyes. I can't image what I was showering next to all week when I didn't use my light. Anyways, needless to say I will not be using my light in the shower at night any more, I'd rather be in ignorant bliss about my spider situation.

Anyways besides avoiding spiders and giving woman's groups I also have gone out dancing with my two sisters twice since I have been here. They are so sweet and welcoming and invite me to do so many things which I love. If you have not listened to Romeo Sanchaz please start now! You can hear Romeo being blasted through the streets all across the DR. I have improved my bachata a little bit by practicing when I go out with my sister and I espeically like to dance to Romeo songs. Despite all the fun I had with my sisters, the second night we went dancing it rained and I went to bed with wet hair and clothes and the next morning I was sick. This past week was the first time I really felt sick since I had been here. It was only a cold, but an intense cold with body aches, a headach, extreme fatigue, and just the feeling that I wanted to crawl out of my body. Compared to some other people's sickness this really was nothing, but nonethe less my friends here were so sweet. Another volunteer brought over some vaporub and tylenol PM which was a God send and I swear what got me better. Also one day I mentioned that I was so exhausted and was too tired to move when we were transitioning for classes. So, two of my volunteer friends literately picked up my chair with my in it and carried me across the room so I did not have to move. To get better I slept for 14 hours a night, drank a ton of fluids and a ton of juice and now I feel great! Tomorrow I am presenting with my group interviews we having been doing to get to know the community better and this weekend we are learning about gardening and how to teach organic gardening practices. I am still trying to appreciate every day, but I am also super excited for this weekend and to learn my site.