Week 30

I had my first real cry, during my time in Peace Corps, this morning. I checked my Peace Corps feelings schedule and sobbing uncontrollably at 7 months was planned which reassured me that my feelings are not unique. It was a mixture of homesickness (feeling so sad about missing Charlie and Sarah’s wedding, seeing a beautiful picture of Nicole and Ashley’s garden, missing throwing a faux-hipster engagement party for Emily and Greg, not being able to hug Kristen on her birthday and missing pizza and beer with my family in Columbus- I also miss the rest of you a whole lot!) and feeling exhausted by living in a constant state of confusion. One would think that with all my Dominican colloquialisms and booze recipes understanding simple daily plans would be… simple.

In the beginning of the summer the lady who took me out for Carnival asked me to teach her 13-year-old daughter to swim. I was thrilled because Peace Corps taught me that the summer would be painfully boring which would lead me to make bad decisions that would impair my ability to change the world. Fortunately my summer was not at all boring (check out the video of me scuba diving http://www.facebook.com/#!/photo.php?v=10150277669768892) so today was my first free morning to go to the beach with the young lady.

I pulled myself out of my cry fest (with some help from a Dominican friend who made me a delicious breakfast that did not involve cold, canned cornbeef or hotdogs- as most Dominican breakfasts do) and did like the Peace Corps instructed and went about my day instead of wallowing in my misery. I walked up to the girl’s house and her grandmother was outside peeling grapefruits. Her grandmother is in her 70’s and has been back and forth between the hospital and bedrest since I arrived. She instructed me to go in and start squeezing juice. I stared blankly until she brought me a knife, a juicer, a strainer and a pitcher and then she left. The girl came out almost ready to go followed closely by the grandmother- in her bathing suit (called bath suit in Dominica). We were at approximately 1 mile and 1,000 feet elevation from the beach. I started panicking. Was the grandmother coming swimming with us? How was I going to get her down the enormous hill? How was I going to get her back up the hill? Should I be teaching her to swim? How much sugar do I put in the juice that she keeps telling me “not so much sugar” before I’ve put in any sugar?

Granny finished dressing and the three of us headed down the hill with Granny taking the lead (apparently the past month she has been doing p90x- that is a joke but I have no idea how she went from bed rest to a speed walker). As she passed her friends on their porches she mocked them for their sicknesses that prevented them from going for a “sea bath”. Then Granny hailed a bus, told the driver “I vex with you for not having a drink by me” and “best you drop us at the sea” which got us a free ride down to the bay.

We reached the bay and before the girl and I had our towels out Granny was in the water swimming. She ran into some of her friends, arranged a ride back home for us and pulled down her bath suit to bathe topless while giving her granddaughter pointers on swimming back stroke and complaining about lazy Salisbury fisherman in kweyol.

The morning did not quell my feelings of absolute confusion but at least it changed my self-pity into comic relief.

Dominican Phrase Book: Words regarding the beach and swimming

The Bay: the beach and the sea

Bath suit: bathing suit

Sea bath: going swimming in the sea

Sea bath: the cure to any ailment

Test your knowledge:

Ma Clem: Best you go by the bay for a sea bath to come back. Doe wet your hair. You lookin like you take too much stress.

Erin: Just now. De lady is goin to make noise with me and den I go.

Week 29

Sorry this is so late but nothing happened this week. Not a single thing. Just kidding. My friend Kyle, a Peace Corps Volunteer in St. Lucia, came to visit and it was awesome. We visited some beautiful places, I snorkeled for the first time, I lead us into a terribly dense, un-navigable forest where we got covered in ant bites, Kyle taught me to make homemade flour tortillas for our fish tacos with guacamole, and we visited another village’s feast and danced on the beach in a Tropical Storm warning (for Hurricane Irene before she became a hurricane) which reinforced that Salisbury is hands-down the best village in Dominica. Only about 150 people turned up for their feast (more would have shown up in Salisbury even if there was an actual hurricane) and they opened the night playing songs from Salisbury’s Reunion.

I’d like to use this opportunity to talk about riding the bus. The buses, as I’ve described before, are actually 15 passenger vans (pick-up trucks here are called vans) with flip-out seats in the aisle. One would think that people would file into the bus filling in all the seats to allow for ease of loading new passengers. When I first arrived in made me furious that instead people do not fill the bus in any logical way. People sit in the aisle seats before the rows are filled and for the 10^th – 15^th people getting on the bus half the bus unloads to let them on and reloads back into their seats. I sat balling up my hands and chewing on my cheek as what could be a 40-minute bus ride became an hour, in a non-air-conditioned van with 15+ people. Then I sat in the back row a few times. It is treacherous. There’s no air circulation, they cram 5 people into a row and every pothole feels like it is throwing you through the roof. So now I also climb in and out of the bus 4 or 5 times each morning to avoid the back row.

Buses are privately owned here. Usually on my bus home from town (I only go into town about once a week) someone on the bus will yell “Stop a while” in one of the villages we pass on the way to Salisbury. Sometimes he/she gets out of the bus to relieve his/her bladder on the side of the road. Sometimes another person runs up to the bus and collects a bag of chicken from a passenger on the bus. Sometimes the person gets out of the bus walks into the village and we all wait on the bus with no indication of what is happening for 5 – 10 minutes. Well, if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. About a month ago I was walking up the road to drop something for a woman when a bus was passing down. I got in the bus and asked (questions here sound like demands which is an entirely different sense of confusion) the driver, “Reverse up the road a while for me to drop this for Auntie Connie.” Sure enough he proceeded to reverse 50 yards up the road to Connie’s house and made all the passengers wait while I went into Connie’s house to drop her package.

Dominican Phrase Book: Doe (pronounced like a female deer) means don’t. Sometimes I still have trouble figuring out if people are asking me a question, “Doe you go there?” (Do you go there?) or yelling at me, “Doe you go there!” (Don’t go there!)

Patron at the Reunion Bar: Bush rum and I doe wan’ ice.

Confused Peace Corps Volunteer: You do or you don’t want ice?

Patron at the Reunion Bar: (louder) I DOE want ice.

Confused Peace Corps Volunteer: I’m sorry I just don’t understand- do you want ice or not?

Patron at Reunion Bar: Titus, gimme a bush rum and I doe wan’ ice.

Titus: In a while. (Immediately brings the man a bush rum with no ice in it.)

Curse of the Golden Chain Week

Post-reunion Salisbury is in mourning. In the past week and a half two young boys have died in dangerous accidents. The first accident was during the second week of Reunion when a boy of 15 slipped to his death at a cliff named soloma (in kweyol: if you die, you die) where many young boys jump into the sea. Just hours after the boy had been buried another young man (around 23) was riding a motorbike that went out of control and ran into the house below my apartment. The boy died on the spot but ambulances in Dominica are not allowed to collect bodies of people declared dead so his body was left there for 2+ hours on Saturday night. My porch overlooks the steps the boy died on and I haven’t been able to sit on my porch since. It was the first dead person I have ever seen.


Salisbury is swarming with rumors. According to the bef (gossip) in the village the first boy to die was responsible for beating up and stealing the gold chain of a Haitian woman who attends my English Language class. The second boy who died allegedly bought the chain from the first boy. Thus the Salisbury’s “Curse of the Gold Chain” was born. The boy who bought the chain from the second boy buried it in the cemetery and a round the clock prayer circle for him has been formed.


I have many opinions about this but best (see below for grammatical problems) I do not share them with the internet. To sign up for the “Curse of the Gold Chain” mailing list email me.


Dominican Phrase Book: starting thoughts with “best”. “Best” is used in place of “Would you please…”, “I would appreciate if you…”, “I think you should…”.


Usage: Someone calls me on the phone to request that I deliver a Reunion T-shirt to them by 8 am.
Said person: Best you reach by 8 am when I make for work.
Erin: It would be better for me if you didn’t go to work today and instead passed by my home for the t-shirt.
Said person: That does sound like the best idea. You are such a good problem solver Erin!


Just kidding. I would never say that. Also I love the way “best” is used so much that when people use it I’ll jump as high as they want.


Your first Dominican recipe:
Peanut Punch:
1 bottle of cask rum (local rum that is not bottled that will burn your nose hairs off which you buy by bringing a container to someone’s home or a small shop which they fill up. Appropriate containers include: gas cans, Nalgene’s, empty rum bottles, to-go cups, etc. If you don’t live in Dominica best you use the cheapest, strongest clear rum you can find)
18 oz. of creamy peanut butter
2 cans of evaporated milk
2 cans of condensed milk
Vanilla essence
Nutmeg
Cinnamon
Water
Brown sugar


Blend whatever quantities you so desire until it is a creamy texture (like a melted milkshake) and tastes delicious. Bottle and serve over ice.


A picture of me and a guy I work with at the Oldie Goldie party (he is also a customs officer so you may see him when you reach Dominica):

Week 27

Reunion is over. It feels a bit anti-climatic as it has been my only project since the end of June but I also feel incredibly relieved. Last night I woke up in a Reunion Event panic, feeling certain that there was an event about to happen that I had not yet prepared for. It was actually an earthquake, just a little tremor. Nothing to worry about according to my neighbors. We are sitting on 9 active volcanoes which makes it a bit scarier. I’d like a statue of me in a Bills t-shirt on the site if I die in an earthquake.

Describing Reunion is almost impossible. Hundreds of people from Salisbury, or whose parents were from Salisbury, came down from the rest of the Caribbean, the US, and the UK. Salisbury is a village of 1,800 so the 300 – 400 people who visited made a huge impact on the community. I loved meeting the Salisburians living abroad and it was fascinating to think about them having the opposite experiences I am having. Realizing all the cultural adjustments they face, without 2 months of training, was very humbling.

Friday night (July 29^th) we hosted a Calypso show in our community- the show started around 10 pm and I left early at 3:30 am before it was done. As Wilmina (a Peace Corps visiting me) and I headed home we passed dozens of people heading down the road to get ready for Jouvert (a parade starting at 4:30 am that is a big moving party that follows a truck playing music). Around 5:00 am we woke up to hear Jouvert passing up the hill and at 6:00 am woke again to hear them passing back down the hill. We left my apartment around 6:30 am to head down to the Market Day event, which showcased the agriculture in the community. It was a hilarious experience. People had been up and drinking for 12 hours were dancing in the road alongside pious farmers who had set up booths to sell produce. After Market Day I headed into town to shop for the next three events (Saturday night’s jam, Sunday night’s jam and Monday’s beach day) as stores are closed on Sunday and Monday was a holiday. I was put in charge of buying 600 pounds of chicken thighs and wings, 15 pounds of goat, several rabbits and 2 gallons of local rum, which is bought in containers that we use for gas in the US. I didn’t realize that the next logical step would be skinning and cleaning the 400 pounds of chicken. Meg, Kelly and Jenna will remember when I moved in and asked how to cook boneless, skinless chicken breasts. That was about 2 years ago. Until Saturday I had still never cooked chicken that was not boneless, skinless chicken breasts. It was trial by fire as 4 of us cleaned and seasoned hundreds of pounds of chicken (please note that I was the slowest and least useful so I should not be complaining). Once everything smelled like raw chicken I returned home to shower and prepare myself for the party. Another Peace Corps, Jeff, had come to help and we headed to the party at around 9:30 pm with no idea that we would not be returning home until 7:30 am. At 9:00 am we were woken by a text message from the Peace Corps that a storm was headed right for Dominica and we should prepare ourselves to consolidate (gather all of our important possessions and head to a hotel in town). Jeff headed home and I prayed for consolidation to avoid an afternoon of cleaning chicken and a night of serving drinks in the bar. My wish was not granted but I had a wonderful night and made sure to “free myself up” that evening.

Luckily the rest of Reunion was a bit less hectic.

Dominican Phrase Book: “Making noise”

“Noise” is a complaint or an argument. “We have noise” means we have a disagreement or “I’m angry with you about something”. Men are always telling me they have “noise” with me, generally because I don’t chat with them enough or dance with them. I’ve taken my Outward Bound training and now respond with “thanks for your feedback” which is confusing to everyone. “Making noise” is complaining loudly and angrily. During the first 4 days of Reunion we ran out of food at every event. People were always making noise at me about it.

Usage:

The Chairman of the Reunion Committee and I were walking down to the last celebration of Reunion, a Block-o (block party) and the music truck had still not arrived. It was 9:30 pm and the party was scheduled to begin at 4 pm.

Mr. Chairman: “Air-een, I’m not going down until the truck arrives, everyone’s going to be making too much noise.”

Erin: “Wi, I’m not taking any noise. I’m going to tell them I didn’t know Block-os had music.”

I’m walking home from a meeting and the man I had yelled at months ago for trying to sell me fruit late at night stops me on the road.

Angry man: “Air-een, I have noise with you!”

Erin: “Yes?”

Angry man: “You saying hi to me but never stopping and you never say my name, you say good afternoon, you making me vex (angry).”

Erin: “Thanks for the feedback.”

Week 26

I’ve been in Dominica for 6 months! This is the longest I’ve ever been away from Buffalo.

Reunion is still happening. I worked from 6 am on Saturday until 7:30 am on Sunday- almost 12 hours of that was serving drinks at a day-break (an all-night long party.) That was the first daybreak I made it through. On Monday we had our first emergency drill when Tropical Storm Emily passed us.

I have so much more to share but not enough time. Look forward to a mega-post next week!

For your Dominican phrase book:

“Teefing” is stealing. It’s a derivative of thiefing (which I’m pretty sure is not a word). “Teef” is the noun, a stealer. Also involved with teefing is “touching.” Touching is not quite stealing but taking what is not yours without asking and giving it back eventually, maybe. Touching seems to be a less bad thing than teefing. People who teef and touch are not ostracized from the community which is fascinating to me.

Dominican lady: “He always touching things. He touched DaDa’s ring and the DVD. Every time he come by me he touching tings.”

Dominican man: “He a teef. He teefing my partner’ computer but da police not doing noting about it. He getting thumped (hit).”