Pulling dinner out of the ground

I am finished with the second round of site visits. Some of you may be saying, " i did not realize you were doing a second round of site visits". You are now caught up.

I just got back from Restauracion (on the border) today, and I am fairly tired due to the loud rap music that permeated the night. A cockroach scurried across my neck all night and went in my mouth and pooped in my eyeball...ok that last part didnt happen, and its really gross, but I was woken to the light fleeting sensation of a cockroach on more than one occasion. I have been off visiting sites and preparing budgets for volunteer costs; lodging, food, transportation, rat poison( for the rats, not volunteers) and all that jazz. I took public transport to the 2 of the sites so I could compare the trips.......I like my motorcycle.

In between site visits I may or may not have been to the beach.....twice.....

Gotta stay motivated, right?

I don't really have much to tell you guys, but I wanted to update you on where i'm at in my life. I have a fancy new cell phone now with unlimited data so if you have a smartphone download the app Whatsapp and we can text for FREE.....UNLIMITED....WAAAAAOOOOO. My number is 829-562-9792. Hook it up brotha.

Ummmm......what else......nothing. Here are some photos of what we had for dinner last night. Its called yuka and its a root, literally:

So its a little tree and you pull it out to the roots, cut the roots ( the thick poop looking things), peel the roots, boil and eat the roots.....its actually very good with some onions and cheese. This guys just went into his field and picked some out.

Little taste of the Dominican diet for ya, Adios!

Tall brooms

Things are sssllllooooowwwwwwwww.

We have narrowed down options to our top-3 sites! Drumroll..........Restauracion, Tres Ceibas, Paradero! I know that probably means nothing to you guys, but there it is. I feel like we can't really go wrong with any of these sites, so what we have to do now is research the volunteer program costs. I will be traveling back to these 3 sites to collect data on lodging, transportation, food costs. For the most part, volunteers will have to stay with host families, so I have to go back to the villages and check out a few families recommended by the leadership in the community as well as current PC volunteers. Once we get all the costs figured out, we can analyze which project makes the most sense cost-wise since we already like the work aspect in each one. Rosalia and I will be back on the road!

I have until November 12 do to all of this. My CEO is coming on the 12th, to check out final suggestions. This means I have a month to visit 3 sites....

I am trying to learn a whole bunch of stuff on random health topics. I have a whole dropbox full of manuals and lessons that I need to look over in order to familiarize myself with the material that I will be teaching. It is hard to fill the day with that, so I am really just taking it easy for the next 30 days. I am learning a bunch of new stuff......and am really really bored.

I went to some local waterfalls with my buddy Jake (not the same waterfalls for those of you who have been here). It was really cool, we made our own trail of sorts which ended up being a tad illegal what with all the trampsing through protected land and what not. It was a really cool experience. We climbed up, down and around these sheer rock faces bare-foot, and jumped off random cliffs into deep ice-cold spring water. Of course, I caught a touch of poison ivy/oak whatever, which has since gone away, but was pretty uncomfortable all over my arms. Pretty neat falls, though:

This is in front of the falls.

Behind the falls, swimming through mystery caverns and climbing up rocks.

Also! how could I forget this? I recently became the proud owner of the worlds longest/skinniest broom. This old guy was selling them door to door, and it is clearly worth 2 cents, but I paid top dollar. Check it out:

This picture doesn't even really do it justice. On your right is a conventional broom.
It is so long and skinny, and the broom top is a haphazardly strewn together collection of pine straw. I tried to sweep my room and it all started shedding off. It is purely a show broom from this point on......

See how bored I am? Adios!

Perejil

So, my post site visit day-to-day has been a little slow. I have been reading up on health education materials to try and learn what i will be teaching in the next few months. Currently, I am 1/4 of the way through Donde No Hay Doctor (Where there is no Doctor), and I must say, i'm overwhelmed, ha!

I ended up meeting a great group of people during their stay the the HUB, whom were organizing a solidarity march towards the border of Haiti to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Perejil Massacre that took place in the Dominican Republic. Long story short, upwards of 20,000 ethnic Haitians were slaughtered with machetes and shot-guns by the Dominican military under the harsh rule of dictator Rafael Trujillo. It was an event that was covered up by the Dominican government, and news never leaked out of the island so the world was kept in the dark while one of the most heinous acts against mankind was carried out. It was never labeled a genocide, but a "systematic campaign of extermination". There was a litmus test to verify if you were Haitian or Dominican, because Dominicans can be very dark skinned as well. They had to say the word Perejil (parsley). That Haitian accent makes it very difficult to pronounce the word correctly, so it was a dead give away.
The motives of the massacre are uncertain and range from land acquisition to general hatred. Members of the  dictatorship were never prosecuted or sentenced because of some legal mumbo jumbo (love politics). Racism against dark-skinned people was very strong all over the world at this time, so its no real surprise that it did not make the headlines.

I was ignorant to this whole incident, and I have been living here for almost 3 years. Dominicans do not really know of it either. Anyways, I hitched a ride with Elaine (most incredible woman ever) her daughter Portia and a handful of study abroad students to the border to join the march (which was only like 1/4 mile). It was a very neat event: 2 simultaneous catholic masses (1 in DR, 1 in Haiti), we lit candles and marched to the border where a river separates the two countries. The river is called Rio Massacre, which means massacre river, and they say that when the killings were taking place that the river was pure blood red. There were not thousands of people, but a small group of maybe over a hundred. It was a very intimate event, very quiet, and moving. We sang hymns, people read poems they had written:

Reminds me of a quote that is on the wall here in the HUB, "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has. "- Margaret Mead

I remember being there last night and as the event started to wind down you could hear a voice in the dark distance. From the poorest country in the western hemisphere, a country that has seen so much strife and turmoil in even the past decade, a country marginalized by the rest of the world, came a solitary little voice over and over again, "Merci Anpil!" , which means, "Thank you so much!" in Haitian Kreyol. It brought the entire night into focus. Two small groups of Haitians and Dominicans coming together in the name of solidarity to remember the past and make sure it never happens again. Mutual respect and appreciation. My heart stopped for a second. It was very cool to be a part of this event.

Other than that, I have just been hanging out. I am enjoying the peace, because things are gonna get hot and heavy here soon once we decide on a site. I made arrangements to visit one more site, because it seemed to good to be true. I'm doing that on Monday, but after that we should be good to go.

Adios!