There's a Bills Bar in Dominica: Week 31

EMERGENCY UPDATE: I completely forgot to mention that last week I ate accra, a pancake made out of tiny fish without bones, and over the weekend I ate black pudding, sausage made out of congealed blood. I am using these as my two biggest integration steps for my Peace Corps report. BLOOD SAUSAGE!

Most of the moments when I want to laugh out loud by myself happen on the bus. This is quite troublesome because there is nothing to pretend I am laughing at. I’ll table bus stories for a couple weeks after this.

Yesterday morning I heard the bus pass up the hill so I grabbed my partially packed bag and a banana for breakfast. I got on the bus and ate my banana before we left Salisbury. The bus was not full and I had nothing to put my banana peel in so I held it curled up in my hand. As we left Salisbury the woman next to me who I have never seen before yelled at the driver, “Aaron, stop a while at the trash!” Aaron pulled up alongside the trash and I thought, how lucky, now I can throw away my banana peel. Before I had a chance to the woman next to me strongly advised, “Throw that ripe (as opposed to green bananas with are a starch Dominicans eat) banana peel in the trash now!” I threw it and turned to see if she wanted me to throw anything but she did not. She stopped the bus to allow me to throw away my banana peel. I was not sure if this was incredibly kind or rather rude that my banana peel was so offensive to her and she was so bossy.

During training the Dominica Associate Director (Patrick- who is outstanding) told us a story/joke. Two men leave their respective villages, separately, to find a new place to live. The first man reaches a new village and finds an old man sitting at the entry to the village. He asks the old man, “I’ve left my old village in search of a new place to live. What are the people here like?” The old man responds, “What were the people in your old village like?” “They were all a** holes, that’s why I left!” The old man spends a moment thinking, “They are exactly the same here!” The man mutters about jerks and walks off. A bit later the other man looking for a new village to live in sees the old man and says “I’ve left my old village in search of a new place to live. What are the people here like?” The old man responds, “What were the people in your old village like?” “They were wonderful! They were so kind and generous. Leaving my village was very hard.” The old man doesn’t hesitate and says, “They are exactly the same here!”

I try to remember this story whenever I’m unsure about whether I should be offended or not.

Dominican phrase book: “Where da road be?” The Chinese Government has a large rather complicated agreement with the Dominican Government to donate/lend the money for several big infrastructural projects. There are many political issues that I do not completely understand but if you like developing country politics be sure to look into it.

One of the projects is the repaving and building of a road down the west coast of Dominica. The road before was painfully terrible, with so many potholes that you weren’t quite sure what level the road should be at. The repaving has just reached Salisbury. Salisbury is perpendicular to this road with one main road and 2 feeder roads coming off of it. Starting last week each time I leave Salisbury and come back someone asks, “Where da road be?” meaning “Where are they currently paving the road?”

Favorite usage:

Teacher at my school: “Air-een, where da road be now?”

Me: “Ummm… in front of the school? Which road? What?”

Other teacher: “The road is just so, I saw it this morning. Where Frederick for Sylvia’s son lives. Just so by the church.”

1^st teacher: “Frederick’s son with the green van?”

Other teacher: “Wi. Air-een, you must have seen that coming down from town.”

Me: “Oh yes, it was just so.” (Just so is the correct answer for any direction question. You point in the general direction and say “Just so.”)

Here are lots of pictures of my friend Kyle’s visit. Luckily he takes pictures.

Kyle in front of the waterfall we will climb tooth and nail to reach.

The treacherous ascent to the waterfall.

Kyle made it to the waterfall!

Kyle trying to heal his scrapes and bug bites in a natural, hot sulpher pool. I'm not sure why he looks so uncomfortable. Maybe because this was the 7th picture I took trying to make him not look blurry.