Week 33

I had both a Buffalo miracle and a Buffalo whatever-the-word-for-uncertainty-about-whether-it-is-a-good-or-bad-thing this week.

First and foremost, the Buffalo Bills Backers Bar in Dominica had access to NFL on NBC for the first time ever for exactly 32 minutes on Sunday afternoon. Those 32 minutes were the crucial 4^th quarter of the Bills embarrassing the Raiders. For clarification, that was the miracle.

The uncertainty was on Monday afternoon when I got a call from a number I didn’t recognize. I have not “topped up” my phone this month so I have almost no credit. Dominicans don’t leave voicemails so call screening is irrelevant. As it will cost me money to call people back, I now answer every phone call regardless of whether I know who is calling. The gentleman calling was none other than the towel guy (TG) from my post about networking in March (to refresh your memory he came out to a networking session in just a towel and mimed to sit down at us before he returned to yell at everyone about their Godlessness and only liked me because his children live in Buffalo). He informed me that he had a project to be written up and had requested assistance from a Peace Corps. He was directed to me by the Peace Corps office and was “pleased that is was the girl from Buffalo”.

I met with TG on Tuesday and while I was more prepared for the meeting it was still just as ridiculous. He showed up in a full boy scout uniform. I complimented him on how nice the building looked, windows and doors had been put in and it had been painted. This was the wrong thing to say. The group that owns the building had decided that they want to use it again after TG and his group repaired it. The project TG wants to work on is building a new rehab center because they have been asked to leave the building. I asked if they needed to leave soon, TG told me they need to leave in March. I explained that there was no way to get funding and build by March. He informed me that they had to leave by March 31, 2011.

The project he wants to work on will be incredible if he is successful. He donated a plot of land adjacent to a river in the south of Dominica and wants to build an eco-friendly, organic farm/sustainable rehab center. His idea is to have a center, which improves and protects the land around it while providing a rehab program. He wants to clean the river and reintroduce native species that are endangered, plant trees to increase the water level and maintain an organic farm, which will provide work therapy for the clients and sustain the center financially.

The need is extreme (there is not a single alcohol or drug rehab center in the nation) and his program is already quite successful (they have reintegrated into society 12 out of the 60 people who have come through the program). The project will be enormous though. The land is not yet “accessible by transport” thus a bridge will need to be built before anything begins, there have been no surveys of the land and while he wants a building that “flows with the landscape” no such building prototype or architect has been identified making it impossible to produce any sort of budget.

So the idealist in me agreed to come on board of the now two-person team as the grant writer.

No Dominican Phrase Book this week. Check back next time.