My Scarlet letter

In Peace Corps we are given an almost unlimited supply of condoms. I have more condoms than I know what to do with. When I went off to my site Peace Corps gave me a box of 150 condom and a big fake wooden penis. I was also given a bag of Trojans at a mini-Vac. All of these condoms are still in my house, save for the few that have been used in demonstrations. I keep them in a bag next to my shoes and the big penis.

I also mentioned that I was recently at a conference. At the conference we spent a bit of time teaching about HIV and AIDS. We also had a condom party where we threw condoms about, blew them up, and taught people how to use them correctly.

Well, during the events of the days I wound up with condoms in my pockets. When I came home from the conference I dumped my laundry in the front and washed my clothes. As I cleaned out my pockets I found a stray condom and set it on the ledge.

Let me tell you about the scandal this condom has faced.

First, there was question of who the condom belonged to. There were people living in my house at the time (hey guys!) and they were asking each other in hushed whispers about it. "Whose condom is that?" Okay. Whatever. Eventually I was asked about the condom and I said that it was in fact mine. Whatever, I have condoms. I have 150 of them…  would you like one?

Later, the condom was moved into the house and someone else asked me about it. "Amanda, do you know whose condom that is?" Well yes, yes I do, it's mine.

I also recently found out that the cleaning lady happened across this same one condom on the table. She shook it in the face of another person in the house and was very ashamed of me. The scandal… I have a condom in my house. What else could I be doing. I didn't have condoms all over my house before I came to Peace Corps, but I also didn't feel much different when I brought a bunch into my house here.

I can't even imagine the scandal that would happen if the cleaning lady ever went into my closet.

I think I'm just going to leave that condom wherever it ends up. I actually don't know where it is, because I keep forgetting to hide it away so I can pretend sex doesn't exist and this island doesn't have the highest preteen pregnancy rate.

Thank you Peace Corps, I now wear a Scarlet letter!

… a work thing.

Just a little picture for me to say one thing.

I am so thankful to all the powers that be, because the guy I work with now has use of a computer so we can work side by side. We are still doing the same stuff, so really not much has changed, but really it is so much better. Peace Corps is all about making sure what you do is sustainable when you leave. Now he and I sit side by side and walk through everything we need to do together. We still have a long way to go, but this is a huge improvement. We can collaborate on so much. I am so excited. 

From what I understand someone donated this computer to the organization I work with and the director has put it to use for the shop. So while it isn't exactly his personal computer, it is exactly what we needed to get this stuff done! 

Excel, we will conquer you. 

…Which reminds me, I need to go fix some things on a spreadsheet before we meet again… 

Time to clean the bathroom...

The house I live in has been invaded this summer. That is a bit of an overstatement, but by my calculations closet to 15 people have slept here this summer. At most I think we had 10 people at one time. All of this was functioning on one bathroom.

At the beginning of the summer I decided I was going to let the cleaning slip. It stands to reason that when the number of people increases the cleaning should increase, but I have my reasons. To start, the volunteers were mostly all short term. They don't and shouldn't be expected to learn the ins and outs of how this house is kept running smoothly. We start with the basics, "Don't put toilet paper in the toilet", and kind of run from there. I didn't expect the volunteers to all learn that it is best to mop the bathroom every time you go in thee because the sink has a hard to find mystery leak. Another important factor to not is that the volunteers all paid trip fees to cover the cleaning of the house. I kept things tidy as best I could and awaited the fateful day when I cold run damage control. My good people, that day was today.

I've actually been a little excited to get down to the nitty gritty and clean up my home. I did a bit of this when I was sick. Most of you probably don't know that when I am coming to the backside of a sickness everything in me wants to clean house. I scrubbed a small corner of the living room near my bookcase that day before I ran out of steam and had to go lie (lay?) back down. Now, with the number of houseguests down to two, I took the opportunity to clean the bathroom.

Now, I didn't take any before shots, because, well, whatever, but I did manage to sneak a few after shots to give you a sense of the last two hours of my life. In short, or long, I was sweating and cleaning and bleaching enough to make my mother or sister very proud.

Above you can see the pile of toiletries left behind like unwanted orphans. 

Don't worry toiletries, Amanda will take advantage of you. 

Below you will see the edge of my shower. Until tonight those very same toiletries lined my showed. As of tonight the ledge is only housing the toiletries of the two ladies still with me. You also have a view of the bath mat I finally decided to splurge for. I'm telling you four hundred pesos is sometimes a lot of pesos. 

I'd go into the ins and outs of the cleaning process, but this is already turning into an Amanda story. Basically I was listening to The Moth podcast and sweating a lot while i wore pink gloves and scrubbed mold and stuff with rags and scrub brushes. 

Yay… the bathroom will be clean for one night! 

A Baby.

Something big is about to happen. Someone is going to have a baby. That someone is America and the baby is ME!

All that to say, I have about the same about of time left in my Peace Corps service and took my Mom to gestate me. After that I will come out screaming and enter the great land of America. After this time, the ability to feel me inside a womb… or see my inside this country during my Peace Corps service, will be over.

So pack your bags, friends, family and stalkers. Are we friends? Visit me. Did we used to be friends, but now you don't like me? Visit me! (I mean… I'm sure we can both get some utility out of the trip right?) Do you think I'm cute? Visit me! Do you read my blog and think, "Amanda doesn't even know who I am? Visit me! Do you wonder what it's like in the Dominican Republic? Visit me! Do you really just want to experience a colmado? Visit me! Do you want the inside scoop on the Dominican Republic from someone who has traveled way more than she ever thought possible on one tiny island? Visit me!

Long story short, my house is nice and it's about to be empty. I've decided I am probs using the rest of my vacation days in country, so I should probably use them with someone next to me. I'm done traveling alone. Come get to know me, and if anything else, I'll introduce you to my cute friends.

What I took from the Chicas Conference...

Because I have a mostly unwritten policy with my blog that I don't mention too many things about work I probably won't talk much about the recent Chicas Brillantes conference I went to. I do want to talk about an "Archie Bunker" activity, but I am still trying to find an Amanda-way to do that. Until then I give you "What I took from Chicas Brillantes".

Two things. 

The first: 

Most of the pages from a 2003 calendar. I was attracted to the images while my group began working on their collages. Unfortunately for them, and fortunately for me, none of the girls in my group were interested in these images.

Imagine my luck when the activity was over and the leadership told people to go ahead and take the leftovers. I offered the images first to the Dominican leader in my group, because she and I had been looking through them the entire time, but she was also ready to trash them.

I've learned a lot from these images. For starters, 2003 was the international year of freshwater. Pretty cool. Also, each piece is made with water from the location in the world it represents (wash image was originally a water color done by Dave Parker.) I also learned that I like "art" in my house. I was going to wait until the volunteers left because I am sharing space with them and since they live here too I want them to be comfortable, but they all liked the pictures, so up they went. It's cool for me to have something to remind myself that water can be scarce for some people. My water goes out, but I have confidence it'll be back the same day. Others don't afford such luxury. 

The second thing I took from the Chicas Brillantes conference was the idea of encouraging notes being sent within a group of people. We all know emotions can run high, especially when a lot of girls live together in one house, so I thought this could be fun. 

I started with white Manila folders I had on hand (you can see I was short one) and I just asked my housemates to each decorate one. You may have noticed a theme, rainbows. I was drawing mine next to Cole and as she began drawing her rainbow I let her know that I was planning on drawing a rainbow too. After that Taylor drew hers and I wondered if she had noticed the rainbow theme too, but she hadn't. The rest we pushed to draw rainbows, I mean after three it's a theme right? 

Hopefully thinking about good qualities someone has, as all of my roommates possess, will help keep good spirits for all. 

For more information about water in asia and maybe this 11 year old calendar www.adb.org/water

A quick update

I haven't spent much time blogging lately. This is mostly because I don't like blogging about work-type stuff and I have been doing a lot of work type stuff lately. Such is life.

I will tell you that I am working at an english immersion camp for the organization that solicited me. Because we didn't have enough American volunteers the first two weeks I had invited a few Peace Corps Volunteers to fill in and therefore have had plenty of time to bond with some PCV's while they stayed with me at my home. I have also had a great time getting to know the American Volunteers who are down here for differing lengths of time during the summer. I will let it be known that I have taught them all how to play spades so my evenings have been filled with some pretty intense bonding.

I set it up a last weekend to take the volunteers to Santiago. This was probably going to be their last chance to get out of Puerto Plata for a while, so we met up with Chris and went to the Centro Leon museum in the city. I'll have to find a link to the museum, because it really was worth the price.  I also bought the coolest book I have ever bought. It was written by children from across this country. USAID and some other organizations put it together. The illustrations were added and the text was typed up. It is really well done.

The rest of the week was camp.

The Fourth of July was a lot of fun as well. Most of the PCV's in this country were heading east for an event, but I stayed in site with Conner and the volunteers. I am trying to spend a lot of time in my site right now, really getting to know the gente here in Muñoz. That has really been working out. I like having the volunteers here, but I have wanted my neighbors to know I am not just here for the summer. Conner and some of the girls and I went dancing in Cabarete for the evening. It is super close to my site, but I hardly ever go.

All right. I shall add in some photos and you will see them and be happy. Unless you are reading this from the DR and have slow internet… I suggest killing the page, because the pics are already on the fabu! 

Centro Leon Peeps. The two girls on the ends helped at camp. 

My new room mates and the guy hitting on them. 

I was embracing big hair and Facebook blew up over it! 

Cutest book in the world. 

Yogen Fruz and packed carro publicos in Santiago. 

My shower wasn't draining so I had the landlord let me help work on things. He was shocked when I told him my mom and Uncle taught me about "house-stuff". He didn't let me help much, but it was cool to see how the DR handles plumbing y etc. 

Fourth of July in Cabarete. I love this girl. Also, I look tan. 

Pizza and Moro

Sharing is a big part of the culture in the Dominican Republic. I've recently started sharing my time with the neighbors by frescaring across the street with mi gente. I also made brownies recently and brought them to the sharing space. One particular neighbor gave me a bunch of free milk this morning and another gives me fruit on occasion.

Today I was talking with the young guy next door. His arms are covered in this black gunk and his legs are peeling away. He was recently in a moto accident, so he has basically been frescoing ever since. He has scabs and weird black dried cream falling off of his legs. When I look at the infection, blood, dried cream, and dead skin cracking and flaking I go back to my childhood and imagine that I would be picking at that all day if I were him…. back to the story at hand. This guy asked me what time is was and when we noticed that it was food time I told him I was going to make pizza. When I asked if he wanted one he said just un chin to probar. I went ahead and made two broccoli, pepperoni, and onion pizzas and but them into small pieces.

When I went back outside he wasn't across the street, so I went to his house to see if he was eating with his mom. He wasn't there, but I gave her pizza and in exchange she gave me chicken and moro. Long story short, Amanda shared pizza with the Mom and all the other guys outside. The guys were reluctant at first. They even claimed to be having stomach issues, but finally took a piece. When I went back home and was pulling clothing off of my room they shouted up at me… "Amanda, do you have any more pizza?"

The guy that didn't want any at first wanted more. They asked who made it and were impressed when I told them it was all me. Yay. Amanda can make personal pizza in a skillet that even Dominicans love.

We ended with me promising that the next time I made pizza I would share.

Hair is happening...

Natural hair is a challenge, but I'm having fun with it on the island. 

Chicas camp

A few weeks back I received a call letting me know that someone had dropped out of GLOW camp and that I could now bring two girls to camp in their place. 

I've met with two parents in regards to three girls. I don't think I realized how hard getting the girls would be. So far the problem isn't the distance as I currently thought, the problem is that the girls do so much house work and the mother's don't think they can afford to lose them for five days. One set of girls is a cousin set. The mother cares for both of them and they do all of the cooking and cleaning in the house. So far it looks as if one may be able to come and the other would have to stay behind. I also don't know that parents see the value of the camp. 

I just hope my limited Spanish was enough to explain the value of a girls camp. 

I have another parent meeting set for tomorrow. A girl asked me to talk to her father. It sounds like she lives with her two older sisters and I may have more luck with them. 

Not in America

"That would never happen in America!"

Today I was buying ice cream. When the cashier handed me my treat I took a bite. Then she tried to hand me another. 

The other cashier was waving her arms. "Wait! You have the other persons ice cream!" 

Sad face. I looked at the woman ashamed. "I'm sorry!" She took the ice cream. "But... I already tried some." She waved it off and we both paid for the correct ice cream. 

That would never happen in America.