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Published: January 21st 2010
I have had a lot of questions about what it is I do with my time here and I realized that until I got here I had no real idea what a Peace Corps volunteer did with their two years. My days look a bit like this at the moment:
Midnight finally fall asleep only to be woken up between
1 -3 am to one of several possibilities
a) the town drunk has won money in the lottery and decided to tell everyone
b) the town drunk is really drunk and wandering around, maybe looking for the house he grew up in, maybe looking for his horse, maybe just talking
c) the slightly crazy man from the town over has chosen to serenade us
d) the slightly crazy man from the town over is trying to steal our cow (of course in his mind, his cow, who at that very moment needs to go to pasture)
e) the slightly crazy dog at the next house over going crazy over one of the previously listed possibilities
f) the man who lives down the street but has two other women in town finally “sneaks” home, but revving his motor the whole way
g) a rat running around in my room - though now that I find the bag of marshmallows I had forgotten about this is a less frequent occurrence
h) the donkey next door braying
3-6 am usually sleep, though sometimes am woken up by my host mom or dad peeing in a bucket so they don’t have to wander to the latrine in the pitch black, only to realize I really have to pee and having declined the offer for a bucket of my own, have to wander out to the latrine in the pitch black, usually after having to fight with my extremely well tucked in mosquito net (protection from those damned rats)
6-7 am deep sleep
7 am alarm goes off/ host brother gets up for school. If its raining, I go back to bed. If not, a fight ensues between my bed and my self control over whether I should get up and exercise. The score is about even by now.
7-8 am If I have managed to get myself up, I go for a run. The next town over, a loop up to where they milk the cows and back - this involves 4 rivers that change height about every time I cross them, 3 dogs that go crazy, 1 giant bull that is easily startled and saying hello to about 50 people.
8-11 am drink coffee right away and then eat breakfast at whatever time it gets put on the table. When we have yucca, we first have to go pick it, so that can mean breakfast closer to 11. But when its something like hot chocolate with bread or porridge, well, it can still be closer to 11. Luckily I generally horde peanut butter in my room to get me through the waiting period. I could offer to help my dona make breakfast, but I have proven myself not very useful so far. The music usually starts at about 8:30 (the sun is starting to hit the solar panel).
10 am on if it’s the weekend, I go walking. If not, I do one of several things: read; do crossword puzzles, bathe (at the house or at the river), wash clothes (though this is a once every two weeks thing for the most part, and it generally takes me about 4 hours); go to my house to be and kill hornets and bend nails; think of different projects I could do - home improvement projects about as often as health related projects; work on my slowly coming together what I hope will be a book case, but it could also end up a perfectly good xylophone - no pressure either way; weave - that’s right, I’ve learned to weave; hang out with some kids; stare off into space (this has probably been what I’ve done the most). Women tend to do housework at this time so its not ideal for visiting.
1 pm-2pm eat - almost always rice and beans, and usually more than I really should, though I still am nowhere near matching the amount my host dad puts down
2 -3 pm food coma/ coffee drinking, sometimes a break from the music
3-6 pm wander around town and visit people usually. It had been that every afternoon I did interviews with people in one of the three towns I will be working in, but I finished this the day of the earthquake. So now I just visit and talk about whatever. Or just sit there in silence together. Both work. When the men who like to drink too much come out, I tend to head out. Usually manage to mooch coffee or a snack of someone (its not so much mooching as it is the most basic Dominican trait of always offering visitors something). On Sundays I have English class, though thank goodness this will be ending soon! If I see anyone whomsoever I stop and chat. This prolongs the would be twenty minute walk from one end of the village to the other and several hour-long venture. Perfect - because I have a lot of time.
6 pm wander back home and sit around with my host family. We like to make jokes. I am very funny in Spanish. Or something like that.
7 -10 pm eat dinner/ snack and sit around - often in the dark because we have been playing the radio all day and our battery is exhausted from all that bachata. Sometimes we wander over to other peoples houses to chat and sometimes people wander over here. Every once in a while we play some cards or dominoes. A lot of nights its just me and my dona since my host brother is now too cool for school with his motorcycle and my host dad likes to play dominoes and billiards with the other men at one of the colmados. We talk a lot about her children. I try to explain the book I am reading to her or tell her stories from growing up (I usually do a pretty funny job explaining them since she has never seen an escalator and there is not a word I know of for a Jinn/Genie). She tells me jokes and riddles, which she usually then has to explain to me three or four times before I finally get it. Then we all start to yawn.
10-12 pm get ready for bed - which usually means find where water is at the moment first - could be in the shower hut, could be in the giant trashcan, could be in the tinaco (that might be Spanish - it’s a giant tank that holds water). Almost guaranteed the first place I look will be the wrong place. I then enjoy brushing my teeth under the stars, where I find the two constellations I know for sure and then spend a while identifying other possibilities (they are stars, really they can be whatever I want). Tuck my mosquito net in super tight, do some reading or playing of solitaire on my ipod and off to sweet dreams (or malaria medicine induced craziness).
Now, my schedule it about to change. The first three months of service here are about integration and getting to know the community (or communities) you will be working in. I had to interview 75 households (25 in each community), which is probably a little over half of the households in the three communities I will be working in. The health sector has a somewhat predetermined set of diagnostic questions that we use. This is because we have three main goals we work towards through rather specific programmes-
1. Improved nutrition through family scale food production unit of some sort and general health practices through health promoters
2. reduced number of unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections (health decisions in sexual lives)
3. improved maternal and child health through health promoters
Our results serve as the basic of the work we do to help us target our work to the most in need or most interested, to help us start with the most important projects, to help us know what kind of experiences and knowledge exists in the community that we can utilize and build up on and to help us get the ever necessary funds to support our work. So right now I am working on putting together those results to present back to the community so we can start discussing what kind of work we can do together. There are certain projects that we all do - home gardens, health promoters, youth groups, nutrition courses. Other things like latrines, chicken projects, improved stoves, etc. depend more on the needs or really the interests of the community.
So it really isn’t until February that I start working specifically in the health field. So far the closest I’ve gotten is making hand washing stations with kids from two litre bottles, tying up tomato plants, telling people you can’t get HIV from mosquitoes and trying to convince my host mom to get her first pap smear. But I’ve got a while and I doubt any of it would work had we not spent the few months just becoming a community member and opening up to everyone here. I think a lot of the work will be fun and that which isn’t will probably manage to be funny.
I am also pretty excited to be moving out on my own. I love my host family and know I will still spend a lot of time at the house but I look forward to cooking on my own, having a space free of the radio (mainly because I will also be free of electricity once out on my own) and being able to invite people over so for once I get to share back. So my schedule may soon have a little real work thrown in, but I have a feeling a lot of it will stay relatively the same. Anyway, work is only 1/3 of the peace corps, the other 2/3rds are about the people you get to know and the relationships and experiences you build.
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Sue Daube
non-member comment
Hola from Sue Daube
Hola, Margarita! Is that what they call you over there? I was so glad to hear that you had no problems where you are from the horrible earthquake in Haiti. Those poor people. Your blog is quite fascinating. I admire you for being comfortable living in such a primitive environment. Searching for water at bedtime is not my idea of fun. I hope you are successful in accomplishing your goals. Love, Sue