Luz

So here in the DR, light is far from a dependable commodity. In fact, there are times when it's out more than it is on. Thankfully, here in staff house, it's been pretty regular. That was until a nasty storm came tearing through our little city. With the sun still out, it was a nuisance, but the world had not yet ended. However, with darkness coming, things were beginning to look a little desparate. Our fearless leader, Emma Weisser, had a plan.

We got together our most courageous supervisors and gathered war paint. After properly adorning ourselves with as little as the heat would allow, we decorated ourselves in a manner that would appease those that we had angered. Aided with banshee cries and tribal drums, we

threw ourselves at the mercy of the god of luz. We danced and screamed until our throats were raw. We begged and pleaded for the return of the Internet in all of its celestial glory, but to no avail. Then there came a message: all of the members of the household would have to join before we were to be blessed with light. So we gathered our fellow tribeswomen, and as my bloodied hands kept time, we swayed under the tribal sheet, beseeching the powers that be for our beloved luz. And then, like a ray of sunlight, it came, and we rejoiced.

So I thought this was important enough to blog about. Outside in our living room there is a tarantula hanging out under a bucket I had to trap him under. Apparently we have to kill him because Jorge, our native supervisor, says he's dangerous. Wikipedia says he's mostly harmless to humans (which is why some people keep them as pets). I really don't want to kill him. I want to name him Spike and take him home to meet Troubles...

Day 1 - Kind of...

So I've finally convinced myself to sit down and start this after putting it off for so long. It's going to be a long entry so I will try my best not to bore you by adding small anecdotes and my odd sense of humor to the entries.

I left the United States on June 1st after aging an extra six hours in the Miami airport. At long last I got to see my fellow supervisor, Mikal Davis, and so the journey began. When we got to Santo Domingo, we paid an onerous amount of money to the cab driver to get us to our hotel at 1am in the morning. The next day, while waiting for another supervisor, Becca Bolden, to arrive, we proceeded to break as many Amigos rules as we could to prepare for the long haul ahead. Nothing beats smoking a cigarette and drinking a beer on a hotel balcony overlooking a busy street in the capital. Becca arrived, the mini-family was complete, and off we went the next day to our destination: Paraiso.

Paraiso was a lot of fun. It is located in the southwest, about 30 km away from Barahona. It was still balls hot, especially at night, but we stayed cool during the day by walking on the rock beach or chatting in the shade with the Italian family who owned the hotel. We got a chance to go to the larimar mines nearby after a long ride on motorcycles (Amigos rules still not in effect).

On June 6th, we made our way back to San Juan de la Maguana (westish) to begin the project. This summer I am the supervisor of four communities that are spending the summer giving a summer camp on physical education. They are also going to participate in a small development project that the community has decided that it wants. I have two towns that are literally a stone's throw from the Haitian border, and two more towns that are about 25 km west of San Juan. I spend my week riding in small hippie vans whose occupancy levels would put any Mexican to shame (sorry Maclovio) to each of the communities, checking in on my volunteers, forcing them to engage in conversations about their projects, hoping they're not sick, and praying that I won't get stopped at the military checkpoints (who apparently do not understand what an American passport looks like). Each weekend I sleep on a cot under a mosquito net that refuses to stay up with seven other supervisors (now eight- the coup in Honduras has added another memeber to our supervisor team and more volunteers to our family) and our two directors on the first floor of a house on the edge of the city where we pray every day that the water will still be running (today it is not).

So my friends, that is about it. I wish you all a Happy 4th of July. Drink a couple beers for me and I will post another entry when I'm not swamped by work :)