Puercos, piedras, and piernas

Pig-selling and slaughtering time is here. The other day the truck pulled up to help cart the pigs away that my little brother here wanted to sell, and all morning long the pigs were squealing like crazy as they were carried out to the truck. Understandable since some of the guys carried the fat things by the ears. Then today my family went and killed one of the ones they’d kept around to eat tonight at a birthday celebration. I’m glad I’m a vegetarian.

This past week has been an adventure. I was invited to go walk to the much-talked-about Casa de las Piedras, or Virgen de las Piedras. One of the youth motivators in church from the next community over invited me, and he told me there were several other people going along. Most people in my community have been at some point, and I was interested in seeing what all the fuss was about, so I agreed to go. We left at 6:00 am, and it turned out to be only me, the leader guy, and the semi-crazy gardener from the church, Benito. It was actually a really good time, and it turned out to be a 20 km round trip, which is about 13 miles. My butt is still sore from when we came back on steep downhill inclines through the cacao. The place we visited was a church in the middle of nowhere, with some cave-like rocks and a place carved out for a statue of the Virgen Mary. It was in the middle of lots of lush vegetation and really beautiful. We meditated and said a rosary, rested a bit, and found some sweet lemons to snack on before heading back. I had to share my water bottle with the two guys that had not thought to bring water (who doesn’t bring water on a 13 mile hike??), which did not make me happy. But definitely a worthwhile trip.

Last Saturday I tagged along to an English class at one of the institutes that everyone seems to go to in the city. My neighbor was the person that had invited me, but after arriving the director dragged me around to all the classes to have them practice some English with me. After the director found out I had graduated in language education, he asked if I would be interested in doing some teacher training… and I agreed, figuring that it was for the better of education even though for a for-profit organization! Our first session was Friday afternoon, and another American was there who was from Minnesota and visiting her fiancé for a month or so. She studies Spanish in grad school, and it turned out that she had done the Costa Rica study abroad program through KU, and knows several of the same people that went to school with me – Melissa Hartnett, for one. Small world!

This weekend I headed out to help Iris, another IT volunteer. Between her, Laura, and me, we pimped out her lab with some fun games and got it all ready for the grand opening with slide shows of her community and the ads for classes all over. Her site is a good site, but I’ve decided that since Dominicans in general are very likeable and fun people, it would be hard to find a bad site. We danced a little bachata Saturday afternoon in front of her colmado, which I had been craving to do for some reason lately! Like always, it was fun to see other volunteers. Iris did have her little guy friends look for some horses for us to ride down through the cacao and to the river close by her house, and we all had trouble jumping onto the horses – it is hard to get on without stirrups or anything to grab on to. On the ride back in the guagua to Macoris, I was in the same seat of a pickup as 3 very heavy, if not obese, adults, and sat sideways to accomodate them. After 40 minutes or so, my left leg was so asleep that I lost my flip flop as I got out and almost fell over from having no feeling in the leg. But I survived.