A Whole New Year!

December, I visited the host family I had lived with during training in Monte Plata. I enjoyed Charo and her family very much on this return trip. Their good friends are Swiss and they run a farm, or finca, in the Monte Plata area. One of my best days there was spending time with of their dairy cows. This family loves their animals, and I found mself nourished by being with them.

This is a photo of calves less than a week old! The following are also photos of the farm and the family who own this farm:

Andrea is shown here as she prepares to place the cookies she's made in the oven. The photo below shows the milking equipment on the farm.

Andrea's husband is shown here in front of the family farm. And below is a photo of Sarah, their daughter, on her moped with a friend:

The photo below is taken of Charo's daughter Marianna and her cousins. We all walked out to the farm together on the second day of my visit:

While visiting Monte Plata, I had the opportunity to visit with a number of the wonderful host moms whom we all loved so much during training. The following is a photo of Plancha, my favorite Grand Matriarch in the Dominican Republic: 

And this photo taken in Monte Plata shows Charo shopping for fruits and vegetables. As with most Dominicans, every errand is a joy with Charo, and she never misses an opportunity to chat and joke with everyone in her day:

These are the empanadas Charo made. They are traditional for the Noche Buena celebration. Charo ground yucca for hours and rolled it out into a paste for the "crust." She seasoned pork with garlic and oregano from her garden before cooking and shredding it, which served as the filling.

This photo was taken on Noche Buena with Marianna, Reini and myself. I brought gifts of artist's sets of pencils and paints from Ikea for the girls:

The week after the Navidad, I joined several  Peace Corps friends who invited me to join them on their trip to Puerto Rico. We shared expenses, including food, rental car and hotel costs. We stayed with relatives of one of the volunteers as well as at two different hotels. One of my favorite days during our trip was to El Yunque, a rainforest in Puerto Rico:

 

Thanks to the encouragement of my young friends, I did a considerable amount of  hiking that day, and climbed to the top of a look out tower at El Yunque:

My friends are seen hiking out to the water falls in this photo:

 

I particularly valued this message from the US National Forest Service:

We stayed on a coffee plantation high in central Puerto Rico for 2 days:

Another favorite day in Puerto Rico was one I spent touring the Puerto Rico Art Museum in Santurce, one of the most marvelous art museums I've visited. These are among the pieces I most enjoyed:

Also, I really appreciated an exhibit on masks on the lower floor of the museum. All were made by children ages 11-13, and they are splendid. I'd like to make masks with the children I work with:

I loved all of the masks yet felt this one merited a photo of its own:

The last day in Puerto Rico, I took a ferry to Vieques, and that was my favorite day. The ferry ride took an hour, and then I took a public transportation across the island to Esperanza. I enjoyed a hamburger and beer at Bananas Restaurant:

The following photo shows one of the views I enjoyed on the slow side of the Virgin Island of Vieques:

A man living in Atlanta on vacation with his Puerto Rican wife took this photo! I loved meeting other people on the ferry and the island that day. All were delightful and shared a spirit of generosity.

I paid the young man in the next photo to take me out on his canoe. He had grown up in Vieques and knew the reefs intimately, and shared his knowledge while we went snorkeling together for several hours. Besides many gorgeous varieties of sea life, this man showed me all kinds of urchins, lobsters, lion fish, that I didn't notice on my own! It was one of the best afternoons I've enjoyed in years.

The following photo is a house on the coast of Vieques which I found particularly beautiful:

And this photo is taken of photos grazing across the road from this home:

The following photo is taken at the Vieques Nature Preserve Institute and depicts the illustrious history of Vieques.  The population of Vieques took a lead role in evacuating the US Military so that increased natural resources are now available to people of the Virgin Islands.

The following photo was taken of Peace Corps friends and myself taken New Year's Eve. We were staying together in Hotel Bolivar in Santurce:

And here we are sitting on the steps in front of a sandwich shop in San Juan:

On return to Santo Domingo, there is much I appreciate about being here. Puerto Rico is terrific, yet there is not a very good public transportation system there. The Dominican Republic is vastly superior in this respect. Also, Puerto Rico is very costly. During my trip I felt I obtained a valuable perspective  on the different Caribbean nations and their respective strengths.

Here is a photo of one store I'd appreciated while living in California, yet forgot I missed until we went shopping there.  We all went in the cost of our food together for the whole week, cutting down on expenses during our trip:

And this photo brings back poignant memories of our driving around the island of Puerto Rico:

Immediately on return to my community in Villa Mella, I moved to my own apartment. Here is my moving crew on the front steps of my new digs! It was hot, and I can see from this photo that these guys were tired, too. They were a wonderful help, and I really appreciated them that day:

This is the front of my new apartment building. I live in the apartment on the upper left.

 Here is a view from up the street:

These two men kindly loaded my new bed into my bedroom. That was a happy day!



And the following photos are of my neighbors, a couple who has helped me in so many ways to settle in. They have lived in Europe and other countries, as he is a musician and has worked abroad. He had a stroke recently and both have been suffering due to new limitations in their lives after his disability.  I try to be as supportive to them as possible and hope I can return some of the kindnesses they have shared. I love that they know everyone on the block and one of my Peace Corps Community Contacts lives in the next block, so I feel I am safe in my neighborhood.

 This kindly couple invited me over to lunch on the day of my move.

 And below are several photos of the young men in the neighborhood who fixed the wiring in our apartment house so that I can share the electricity with my neighbors. They charged 200 pesos to "pasa la luz" for which I am eternally grateful. I am continually impressed with Dominican ingenuity.

The neighbor downstairs posed for me for the following photo. Of course, it helps that the neighbor below is a police officer and frequently parts his car out front:

While I am posting photos of helpful Dominican guys, I''ll post this one of some fellows in the neighborhood who posed for me as I was walking down the street next to mine the other day:

 I am very much enjoying being in my community, which is a poorer subdivision of Villa Mella known as El Tamarindo. And it's terrific to be back at the Hogar Renacer, now that it has reopened. The staff and their families had Almuerzo together right before the Navidad, which was a beautiful event.

And we all spent a day at a Catholic retreat site together. Here are many of the staff leaving on their way home at the end of the afternoon. I'll close this blog posting with this photo. Happy 2013 to all!

Cynthia, the Only Other Female Peace Corps Volunteer Over 50 in the Dominican Republic, Visits My Site at Villa Mella

Thanksgiving Day, Peace Corps hosted a Dinner and Talent Show at the Hotel BQ in Santo Domingo. My day was wonderful, because I spent it with Cynthia Cowgill, Peace Corps Volunteer serving in Dajabon. Cynthia and her husband, Ricardo, are Environmental Volunteers working on building stoves and water sanitation systems on the Frontera. Cynthia and I had plenty to talk about. Peace Corps states that the average percentage of older volunteers is 7% worldwide. As the only two older female Peace Corps Volunteers in the Dominican Republic, Cynthia and I concluded that the percentage of Volunteers over 50 is much smaller than the international average. There are two male volunteers in the DR at this time over 50. I've been told there care approximately 170 Peace Corps Volunteers in the Dominican Republic at this time. So there are 4 out of 170 Volunteers over 50!

Peace Corps is a strong Youth Culture here in the DR. Everyone here in the Youth Corps is very, very young, most under 25 years old.  Peace Corps has been lonely and frustrating for me at times.  It has been quite delightful to share perspectives with another mature woman, since both of us have decided to leave all that was familiar and bring the fullness of our life experience to the Peace Corps.

This week Cynthia and her husband have been in Santo Domingo while Ricardo completes a language course. Cynthia came out to Villa Mella on the Metro and we spent a marvelous day together at my site! We started out in the morning at the therapy group for the girls living here at the Hogar Renacer. Marcela, one of the Hogar's Psychologists, asked each of the young girls to introduce themselves to Cynthia. In turn, Cynthia introduced herself. Cynthia and I spent the rest of the morning happily chatting away! Others seemed surprised to hear me speaking rapidly and fluently in my own language. I don't think anyone here thought I was capable of speaking in any manner other than rather slowly and with deliberation! It was great to be seen with a friend, rather than on my own all of the time.  Staff and girls alike welcomed the other "Americana Madura" with great warmth! And  Marcella took this photo of the two of us together in her office.

After almuerzo, the lunch served here at the Hogar, Cynthia and I went over to visit my host mom as well as a neighbor who is Community Contact here in Villa Mella.  My Community Contacts Candida Rodriquez and  her husband, Javier "Tiko" Rodriquez, had located an apartment nearby that they wanted me to look at because of knowing that I was chomping at the bit to get out of my current host family situation. What a thrill for me that Cynthia was able to come with me and my Community Contacts that afternoon for a view! Turns out the apartment is quite lovely and after the holidays, I'll be moving out of my host family's residence and living on my own. Not only were Cynthia, Candida,  and Tiko, along to view my new abode; the Social Worker (another Community Contact) and Psychologist came along. What an amazing experience of support I enjoyed that day.

These two photos are taken at the home of Javier and Tiko Rodriquez. Candida, Cynthia, and Dulce Maria Cruz Jimenez, the Hogar Renacer Social Worker and my Community Contact, appear here.

All three of these women are pictured above, in front of a Nativity Scene at the home of Candida and Javier Rodriguez.

Many group activities at the Hogar lately have revolved around the approaching holidays, of course. The Hogar Renacer will be closed three weeks around the holidays so that staff can have some much needed rest. Still the closing strikes me as very sad for the girls. I find myself wondering, who gets kicked out of their home during Christmas unless they are poor or have been found to have been abused, and are thus stigmatized? Some of the girls will go to their families for the three weeks, and these families are in general not happy ones. Others will go to Conani, an institution here in the Dominican Republic not favored by these girls, at least according to what I've heard.

Two weekends the  women from the BankReservas came to teach the girls how to bead and fasten clasps on their own necklaces and earrings, an experience I found very delightful. The girls were thrilled by the gifts they received at the end of the second weekend, which included caps and t-shirts advertising the BankReservas. I was less than thrilled to see the girls wearing  blatent marketing messages on behalf of the Bank given as "presents" from the bank. Corporate Greed is everywhere folks, especially in Third World Countries! The women (Bank Employees) who came to be with the girls for two weekends were very warm and generous, and I loved them!

Another Group, organized by a Dominican woman living in Miami and her aunt, living here in Santo Domingo, held a day's outing at the Parque Mirador last week on behalf of the Hogar Renacer. The photo below shows the girls participating in the Girasoles outing with their gifts:

The day at the Hogar Renacer I enjoyed most lately was one in which I baked Gingerbread Men! I didn't have a mold, so made a pattern of a Gingerbread Man and cut each man out by hand. The recipe was a little heavier on the molasses than recipes I've used in the past, which made forming the gingerbread men more difficult than I anticipated. The Cook here at the Hogar laughingly told me that the men were not hombres, but "Tigres." I brought the girls into the kitchen, one at a time, to decorate their own Gingerbread man. Below are photos of the girls and Gingerbread "Tigres."

These photos are of Nydia, the very loving Concinera here at the Hogar Renacer, along with the girls!

I

I'll leave off with these two photos of Gingerbread Tigres and Gingerbread Cookies! Last week I went to the Santo Domingo IKEA store, where I found some Gingerbread Men and other Cookie Molds. Next week I'm making more cookies.

Aside from cookie making, I've been busy here at the Hogar Renacer teaching English classes twice a week, and conducting interviews with staff as part of the "Community Diagnostic"  (not a term I find endearing) Peace Corps advocates Volunteers complete in the first three months of being on site. The first week of February, all of of us in the Youth Sector will be getting together to share our findings. Our community Partners participate in this two day retreat as well.   Everything I've heard about the Three Month Retreat, (or IST, as Peace Corps terms this event) has been positive. Presentations will be short, as twenty minutes in allocated each Volunteer and their Partner, and I plan to do my best, learn from the presentations of others, and enjoy the experience. My Spanish is getting better every day, which is the main thing, and I am really happy about that.

Other highlights of the last few weeks have included attending the Circus du Soleil, as well as the performances of Latin Musicians Marc Anthony, Marc Antony Solis, and Chayanne in Santo Domingo. Dominicans all know all the words to every song and sing along with each cancione. I enjoyed watching them as much as I enjoyed the stars themselves. Additionally, I'm going with my Spanish teacher, Patria, to see Dominican Bachata Legend (or The King, as he likes to be called), Romeo Santos, December 15!