Week 15

This past week taught me that I am a Democrat. I’ve always suspected this, and taken many online quizzes to confirm it, but last Friday it was substantiated.

There are two cell phone companies in Dominica: Lime and Digicel. When I arrived here all the older volunteers had Lime phones with free Lime-to-Lime calling so I also bought a Lime phone and purchased the same plan. Most plans are prepaid here and adding money to your account is called topping up. You can top up in most stores or with someone in your village who has a top up phone. The problem with topping up is that you have no idea what things actually cost. At no point do you see an itemized bill. Short of calling customer service after each call or text there is no way of knowing what services cost (some prices are published online but in a fairly inaccessible location).

Most people in my village either have two phones, both a Lime phone and a Digicel phone or just a Digicel phone. I was told that it is expensive to call from a Lime phone to a Digicel phone and vice versa but I assumed that because I can barely understand what people are saying on the phone I would probably not be talking that much.

Well I’ve made friends now and consequently I used a $30EC top up (the majority of my phone budget for the month) in about 2 days.* So I got myself onto the interwebs to find out how this was possible. It costs 80 cents a minute to call from a Lime phone to a Digicel phone (this is all within Dominica). It costs 90 cents a minute to call the US (and on Digicel after 5 minutes of calling the US the rest of the call is free). Most of Digicel’s rates are not published anywhere. So on Friday I went to purchase a Digicel phone in addition to the Lime phone I own. I now walk around with two almost identical phones. Before I take anyone’s number I find out what kind of phone he/she has and which phone he/she generally tops up more so I can determine which phone to save his/her phone number in. For some people I have a different number in each phone for him/her. Does this sound ridiculous? It is.

I assume that this is a failed attempt at gaining a monopoly. It’s not working. Riding back from town with my second phone I was vexed. This is when I decided that I like big government. Regulate everything.**

Integration news: Last night my host sister spent the night at my apartment***. I went to bed at 10:30 and let her stay up late (she’s 12-years-old) watching TV. At around 11:30 she woke me up in a panic because someone was knocking at my door. I yelled through the door to find out who was waking me up. It was a guy (Matthew) who had come to sell me vegetables before: was this a vegetable selling emergency? Apparently he desperately wanted to sell me some provisions. I didn’t open the door. When I told my landlady’s grandson about this he responded that people will think we are involved if he comes by that late; it is apparently irrelevant that he is about 30 years my senior, maybe homeless and has a very partial set of teeth. On my walk this evening I handled the situation, like a Dominican. I was talking to a young man when Matthew passed. I yelled at him to “come awhile” and then asked if it was him “passing minutes to 12 selling me dasheen, for true?” Then I told him not to “check me past dark again."

Happy Bay to Breakers to everyone from SF! Happy Graduation to everyone graduating! And happy good news to those who shared some exciting news this week!

*When you run out of top up the call gets cut off and the caller is notified that there is an insufficient balance but the receiver just gets hung up on.

**As previously stated this does not represent the view of the Peace Corps. They are not vexed. Just I am.

***As usual I had not understood our conversation and did not know she was planning on spending the night until I saw her wrapping her toothbrush up in aluminum foil.

Hanging out on a banana farm in Calibishie. I'll take you there.