19 September 2006

The dog that gave me a love bite

Last Thursday was the week of crazy animals. 1)I noticed a spider living in my bathroom that only has 5 legs. Does that disqualify it as an arachnid? 2)A big swarm of bees that are bravas (angry) moved into my house that afternoon. The majority left but there's still a big family living in between the two stories of my house. I'm going to see if someone can smoke them out, because they come in at night and I don't want to live with pending stings! 3)My worst fear before coming here came true that morning when a dog bit me on my run. It was one of a pack of four sort of wild and mean dogs that always follow me in a certain spot that I have to go by. I was cornered and so walked, and all of a sudden the smaller fat one bit my calf! I looked down after scaring it away and saw that I was bleeding, and so talked to the owners and went home to scrub it for 20 minutes with soap, water, and an old toothbrush (according to our medical handbook, what we have to do after a bite to kill 90% of rabies). Called the medical office and they wanted me to come in for the post-rabies shots, but I convinced them I didn't need to. With no cases of rabies in La Joya for a long time, I'm pretty sure the dog is just mean and not rabid. Actually, I know it's mean. It used to be the dog at my old host family's house a couple years ago and ran away to become part of the dog gang it's now part of.

In my job, things are going better than my time with animals. We had the inauguration of our Telecenter yesterday, and it went well. The center is now open to the community, and we began our classes today. All six classes that we're offering this round filled up to the brim. It's good to be teaching again after so much time out of the classroom.

I took advantage of my last free weekend for a while to meet up with a couple friends in Constanza this weekend. We spent 3 days in the small town which was beautiful: a little town in the mountains that actually got cool in the nights, enough to need a sweatshirt! And in the days the heat was better, not humid at all. They grow a lot of the country's cooler-weather veggies and fruits like cabbage and broccoli, celery and strawberries. We had strawberry milkshakes or slushes every day there! The main reason we went was to hike, which we did lots of. We walked about 12 kilometers to Aguas Blancas, which is the biggest waterfall in the country. (Pictures to be posted soon!) It was such cold water that none of us swam at the base, but enjoyed its beauty instead from outside. We decided to take a bola (ride) back when a big tractor offered us one. On the back attachment, we had to hold on for dear life as the tractor went on the very bumpy and twisting road, and so after about half an hour we got off. The men on their way back to town from work just laughed with us. Another bola came along not too long afterwards that was in the back of a truck, and that was slightly more comfortable and a whole lot less work on our part of bracing ourselves. Another hike we did was more exploring the side of a very steep hill without a path. It was the beginning weekend of that town's fiestas patronales on Saturday night as well. That's when every town adopts a patron saint and celebrates the week each night with famous singers coming in and voting for a queen (teenager who wears an ugly white sort of wedding dress). But we got to see fireworks, danced in the streets, and went on a ferris wheel that was pretty fast. None of us wanted to leave the cool weather or the amazingly cute town at the end of the weekend.

15 September 2006

Movin on out for real

Life is moving along as swiftly as the hot and steady Caribbean sun permits here. The season is changing -- noticeable only by the later sunrise and earlier sunset. Now one has to be home by 7:15 instead of the deep-summer-almost-8:00 nightfall. Also mangoes have stopped dropping on all but the late season trees; avacados are still going strong, though, and the sweet, juicy oranges and lemons are just beginning to ripen. Life is good here in the Cibao, the breadbasket of the country, where there are so many edible roots, fruits, and veggies that the pigs are fattened with the tons of avacados past their peak.

Changes have been rolling through my life as well. More than a week ago I moved out of the host family house and into my new house to live along. Everything was ready but the stove and gas tank, which we still need to fix/hunt down. For the time being I am still eating at my host family house at lunch, giving us an excuse to see each other often. I was surprisingly sad to leave them, even though I only moved about a mile away. My doña still gets teary every time I leave her now. The second day in my house I brought home Cajuil (Cashew), my baby kitty. I think she is about 2 months old. After a day or two of fearing me, she started to enjoy being pet by me and now climbs all over me. This morning I was getting dressed and the next thing I know she was on my shoulder. She is still little and the other day tried to nurse in my armpit. She was not getting anything from there!

I was afraid that after 7 months of living with host families and having everything done for me that I had forgotten how to cook, clean, and do laundry. Still am unsure about the first category but have reaffirmed my ability to do everything else. Laundry here is different from in the states, but thankfully (thanks to my neighbors who let me use their machine) is not hand-washing. It involves an interesting little washing machine that you can only use when there is power. In fact, I was in the middle of my last load when the power went the other day. You haul water to fill up the machine as high as it should go, add your detergent and clothes, and start the 15 minute cycle that agitates the clothes. After a couple rounds of that, you rinse the clothes in a series of buckets. Then you put the clothes in the other opening in the machine to do a sort of spin cycle to wring the water out, and hang the clothes up to dry.

Things are rolling along in work as well. This week was inscriptions for the computer classes I will be giving for the next few months, and almost every slot is taken. Since we are only able to use 10 computers at a time with our solo inversor, classes fill fast. The center bought a new CD burner with our funds and have our opening on Monday. Everyone is very excited for this new development in the community, including the priest who wants to become proficient in computers. We shall see if that miracle comes to pass.