Visiting Josh

I started walking from somewhere down there. Where exactly, I couldn't tell you, but it's far.

At the beginning of last week, I spent a couple days in my friend Josh’s site. While only nine kilometers away, it represents a 4.5 hour hike over the “hill.” I put hill in parenthesis because according to this flatlander from the Midwest, it definitely classifies as a mountain. It only took me three hours to get back, although this probably had to do with knowing where I was going.

Between the long hike, recovering from being sick and lack of sleep, I didn’t do much the first day there other than sleep. Like fourteen hours, 6pm-8am type of sleep. It was awesome.

Josh lives in a campo campo. No running water, no electricity, 40 minute walk to the nearest colmado. Open up a Peace Corps brochure and his site is what you get.

The rest of the time I spent helping to line things up for upcoming construction, meeting with his water committee, swimming in the river, playing cribbage and eating. Surprising how just a different brand of hot sauce can put an entirely new take on rice and beans.

Side note: Josh could quite possibly have the biggest latrine ever experienced by a Peace Corps volunteer. Whether the community was so excited to have him come or they weren’t quite sure what they were doing, the caseta itself is larger than the rooms I lived in during training.

The mansion of latrines

This week I’m hoping to get a peanut sheller poured (finally). Stay tuned for pics and details.

Sometimes it rains

 

Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose and sometimes it rains. – Bull Durham.

This quote runs through my head at least a couple times a week. Reminiscent of my summer days playing baseball in high school, I think it relates pretty well to my work trying to organize water committees.

I remember showing up for some games knowing that we’d have to bring our a-game to win. Other days we just needed to focus on taking caring of business so we could call it after five and go uptown.

Then there were the days where we showed up, prepared to play, only to have it rain.

Now fast forward to my Peace Corps service. I work with eleven water committees, meaning I have at least a couple meetings a week. Some meetings I know are going to be a bitter struggle. Community members don’t think they should pay for water. Old directivas don’t want to turn over the money and materials to the newly elected one. Water committees don’t see the need to meet regularly or have a document outlining the rules and organization of the aqueduct. Any number of things.

At others, the hardest part is simply remembering the papers I need signed and remembering which questions I asked last time.

Then there are the rainy days, either literally or figuratively. Figuratively meaning I will attend a meeting, but the meeting won’t focus on water. Then, like a rained out game, I’ll have to go back another day to accomplish what I set out to do.

Take one day last week, for example. I called a community wide meeting to explain the community’s participation in the project, that everyone needed to pay their bills, elections for a new directiva, etc. I instructed each house to send a representative.

When I showed up, a dona told me the meeting was at the greenhouse. Strange, I thought, but I’ve long since stopped questioning the rhyme or reason for where we meet. Walking up to the greenhouse, I counted about ten people gathered. There are 70 houses in this community, so one could see the figurative rain clouds moving in. I began the meeting with introductions, like normal. Turns out half the people there don’t live in the community; they only work in the green house there. And the rain starts before the first pitch. The hour “rain delay” that followed consisted of me learning about the greenhouse and discussing a new date in which to have the community-wide meeting. Here’s hoping this one isn’t rained out as well.

While frustrating at times, I find myself enjoying my work with the water committees more than I originally thought. It’s great to see a community rally behind a project, or to see the light go on when a committee recognizes the need for more organization.

Comfort and seating

If my belt wasn’t pressing into my lower back, I could fall asleep here. This is the most comfortable I’ve been in a long time.

Comfortable sitting arrangements are hard to come by, mainly because there aren’t many options. Some of the houses have sofas, although even those aren’t comfortable. Seriously, take the cushions off your couch and sit on the frame. You now have a Dominican-style couch.

Apart from the occasional couch, you are guaranteed to find three, and only three, types of chairs in the house. Behind door #1 lie the high-backed chairs that go with the dining table. The makers of these chairs define comfort as “sitting with your back ram rod straight.” Any thought of slouching causes your butt to slide off the front and the front of the seat to jab you in the back on your way down. These chair companies also produce the impossible-to-sleep-in desks popular in my high school.

Luckily, unless you’re eating, they won’t offer you this type of chair. If you are eating there, you’ll be the only one at the table For one, the dining table is always shoved in the corner, making it impossible for an entire family to sit around it at once. Second, Dominicans generally don’t sit down at the table to eat because they know the importance of comfort while eating.

Door number two holds the rather short, rope padded chair. This chair looks promising, until you realize that they’ve somehow wrapped the seat so tight and in such a way that it’s not smooth. I haven’t inspected my butt after sitting in one of these chairs, but I imagine it to look similar to courdroy pants.

What, oh what, could possibly lie behind door number three? Ladies, and gentlemen, I present the pride of comfortable seating: plastic lawn chairs. Seriously, that’s it. Every family has at least two and will incessantly offer you one to sit in, even if it means they sit in one of the aforementioned chairs. If at a meeting there is a shortage of plastic chairs, muchachos are sent to round up chairs from neighbors.

Where was I the other day when I could have fallen asleep if only my pants fit me? Laying on my friend’s concrete floor, with my head on top of my bookbag. I miss my recliner. And my bed. Basically anything described as cushiony or soft.