Bucket Bath, Awckwardness and Basura

      So I am writing this  from under my mosquitero in my new bedroom – or what will be for the next two and a half weeks. I have a fan blowing, which feels amazing, and there are plenty of dogs barking out there…I’m waiting for the roosters to start going. Last night I woke up almost every hour to the roosters, I never knew exactly how loud they actually are. I know I must get used to it…it’s going to be hard L

So yesterday I met my Dona who wants me to call her Blanca. I live in a bottom floor of a two story cement house with nice porches. The whole Patio is her family, above is her sister who is also hosting another volunteer so we have definitely been hanging out. Then right across our patio is another Dona who is hosting another volunteer – sometimes the three of us have hung out or have come over while I’m eating dinner (more about this bellows).  I have 5 brothers, I think, and one sister. One of the brothers has a son who stays here too. I really can’t tell who is who since all the kids run from one house to the other. The two little ones have taught me how to play dominoes and are excited for me to show them where Boston is on a map….I gotta get on that… Alll of the brothers have English names (Justin, james, William) I just forget who is who! My sister’s name is Yanibel and she works as a second grade teacher’s aid – she is currently on vacation and helping out her mother, Blanca, at her cafeteria. Her cafeteria is literally a tin room with four posts. It has a LOT of trash under it and they serve food there….ewww.

Blanca has been great about feeding me and providing me clean water. I have an incredible room, I think for volunteer living, with a locking door and key. We have bonded over my new found knowledge of how vinegar can cure a lot of things (thanks to your mom Bill) and also my love for granadilla back in Colombia. By PC standards she must provide me with two meals per day, clean water, a functional bathroom and a private room. Luckily my walls go all the way up to the roof. A lot of volunteers have walls in there room that are open at the top so you can hear everything. My toilet flushes!!! Even though I am excited about this I am also ready to learn how to properly flush my toilet without water…we’ll see what comes.

One thing I am having a hard time getting used to is that Blanca and some of her kids share a bed out near the living room. I feel bad that I have so much privacy and space when the head of the house is out there with so many kids. I have talked to other volunteers and some training staff and they have said that when you’re a guest you get the best of the best – it is a cultural thing so not to worry.

Ok, so for the long awaited part of the bucket bath.  When Blanca was showing me the house she pointed out the bathroom – of course the first thing I did was see how  I was going to be clean. I have already mastered brushing my teeth without water…how do I take a full shower with about 5 cups of water? With little demonstration last week and too much pena to ask how to do it I went for it. I took my shampoo and face wash with me, undressed in the bathroom and stepped into the shower where a painter’s bucket full of water was staring back at me with a smaller cup in it. I didn’t know if I could use the whole bucket, I didn’t know if I should stand in it to save water when it runs off, I had no idea. So I took the cup and splashed it on my body, soaped up, put shampoo in my hair and then realized that they haven’t gotten water in days so I should probably only use one or two more cups. The problem was that I got nervous about this only AFTER I was all soapy and shampoo-y.  So I decided to dunk my hair in the full bucket assuming the run off from my hair would stay in there. Next thing I knew I was getting out of the shower feeling semi-clean with shampoo in my hair and hoping that no-one was bathing after me. I was embarrassed that I left shampoo-y water in the bucket. Something I was definitely not supposed to do, I found out today. I will be bathing tomorrow morning (Tuesday) but not washing my hair every time. I think I will be washing my hair only during times when we have more water. This will get a bit difficult but it’s the sacrifices that we must make.

Today we started our public transportation traning where we went out into the pueblo where our training center is and had to show our profesora where we live by having her show us on public transportation how to get to the area and then we have to walk her to our neighborhood to confirm that we know where we live. We took a guagua on the way (a small bus that smells like vomit and the guy who collects the fare is hanging out the side door yelling out where this bus is ending up. That way the people on the sidewalk just need to listen to where the person is saying and if they are on the way they hop on. In a nutshell, it is complete chaos. The four of us showed our profesora where we lived (all semi close to each other) and headed back in a carro  publico. There are exactly 7 spaces in the carros. You flag one down by pointing your index finger our and wiggling it side to side. You get one htat is going in the direction you are going in and just say “aca me quedo” when you are approaching your stop. The carros will pick up as many people on the way to make up 7 – we learned at the training center how to situate ourselves exactly in it. Zig-zag form.

We also learned a ton about theft, robbery and burglary. How the ladrones do it, the most common ways the steal in this country and who to look out for.

The training is incredibly comprehensive. They use so many different learning tools that it is enaging and fun to participate in!!!! Today, to learn about cross-cultural communication we had to learn how to play a game of cards by having all of us be silent, read the directions, she took the directions away, and we have to play – still in silence. It was interesting to see how we communicated.

I got the meningitis shot today and I have another shot on Wednesday (a bunch more to come).

After training a bunch of us went to a Colmado to have a beer then headed home (don’t worry I always walk  with the two volunteers that are my neighbors and I know more about mitigating ANY situation regarding safety and security than I am sure any normal person does.

Observations:

-          - Every time I eat as many people in the family as they can will come in the kitchen, sit at the kitchen table and watch me eat – mostly in silence.  It’s very uncomfortable but I guess common for when they have guests.

-         -  Blanca will never eat before or during when I eat. Some Dona’s even eat the left overs of the whole family and the father must have the biggest meal.

-         -  I have NEVER seen so much trash in my life out in the streets. It is interesting because you walk into any Dominican home and it is spotless and so clean but the streets are something I have never experienced. The Dominican culture is a collectivism one and a particularism one. This means that life is not fair and everyone has to do whatever they have to do for themselves and their families. They are very protective of each other and find security in numbers. Dominican families are HUGE! They clean their own space and whatever is out in the world is for everyone else to take care of. They also value the concept of saving face – meaning they will lie to you about whatever to save face. This keeps with the whole my house is clean I look well put together and bath twice a day thing. I already feel kinda bad because I didn’t shower today and I kinda smell…

-         -  If you finish your meal it means you want more food and are expected to eat it. Yup big mistake yesterday!

-        -   Dominicans are soooooo nice.

-        -   Fun fact I learned doing my homework : over 50% of Dominicans were born after 1990

-        -   I feel like my host brothers are over-protective of me when it comes to tigeres (young men who come and what to “mangar mi visa” / marry me for my visa). This hasn’t happened yet, don’t worry.

-         -  So many dogs and roosters – EVERYWHERE!

      -  The concept of not working  8AM to 5PM M-F and 8AM to NOON is incredibly foreign and weird to them.

-        -   I LOOOVE having little kids in the house. I have been teaching them words in English and I love breaking down the word to different parts – it brings awesome energy when they finally get the whole word after practicing the different parts.

Other stuff:

-        -   I learned that I will be going on a site visit with another current volunteer. So next Thursday (September 6^th) I will be heading on public transportation somewhere in the interior of the country for a few days to see how and where the volunteer lives and their project. Because there are currently about 8 Health volunteers and 15 of us Health trainees, we are doing 2 trainees per site! Yay, I was really nervous for this “doing it solo” part.

-          - For CBT, where I live in the interior of the country for 5 weeks during tech training I will be living in a Batey called El Cabreto. They have never had volunteers there so it will be cool to start some foundational stuff if we can.

I will be posting pictures soon...when I have more internet connection!

Happy Reading