This past week has been pretty good, besides the fact that they closed down the internet cafe in la cumbre... so it´s a 45 minute walk to the next one. I made my dona french toast monday... which I´m not sure she liked because she only ate one piece... but she did buy more vinilla so I could make it again wednesday. I´ve kept up the walking in the morning which is probably the best part of my day because it´s very relaxing and gives me some exercise. My dona made some sort of past alfredo the other day which was pretty good. This last week all of the spanish goups made a stove.... it was really interesting... Next week we´re going to be doing presentations in the local schools for earth day. We have three more weeks left in la cumbre before we head back to Santo Domingo and get our assignments. Its making me insanely nervous, the whole not knowing and then only have like a week of knowing before your there.
Thursday was the first day I offered to do the dishes for my dona... I started doing them and one slipped out of my hand and broke another one and itself... I had a little ohh shit moment in my head before I told my dona... but once I told her she was really sweet about it and told me about how when her daughter was young she would do the dishes and when she would break one she would throw it out the window into the back of the house... One day my Dona walked back behind the house and found like 10 broken dishes...
In other notes I know that I´m about to miss some birthdays... if I haven´t already... so... Happy Birthday Feiven, Alana, and Jeffy! I miss you all and I hope all is going well.
Saturday, April 14, 2012
Saturday, April 7, 2012
La Cumbre
La Cumbre…
I don’t
really remember what I wrote about last time but I think I should try to
explain my host family in La Cumbre a little more… and the types of stuff I’ve
learned here. Since I’ve been we’ve
done a community diagnostic…. Which helped us get to know the community a lot
better and the types of resources it has and doesn’t have… I’m getting more and more used to the beans
and rice… it helps a little that my dona likes rice and peas more… which is the
same basic thing but I like it better too.
She figured out that I wasn’t terrible fond of the boiled green bananas
that they eat every day, and that I love their fried plantinos and bananas… so
I get them with lunch and dinner. I kind
of which I could eat more of the green boiled bananas because I’m trying to
develop a taste for them. For breakfast
I usually get crackers, juice, and coffee.
The juice is always fresh, and I think my favorite is Cantaloupe juice. Lunch is the biggest meal and for lunch I get
rice, beans, salad, and fried/boiled Plantinos and a little coffee. Then for dinner I get something smaller like
a plate of cut up salami, or cheese and potatoes. Yesterday I got fried cheese, which was tasty
(but probably not the best for me).
All last week I got up at 5:55 to go running/walking down the mountain
with my dona… the hard part is coming back up.
I now have two other volunteers coming with some of the days so we have
a little cohort of runners. I’m pretty
sure it makes the rest of my day better.
This week
was Semana Santo so it was very active here with celebrations and I’ve spent a
lot of time with my dona’s family. We
also started to learn how to make stoves which I think is what a majority of
our projects will be. I’m not sure what
I think of that yet… the stove model they’re teaching us now is only about a
year old, and is still kind of being tested out. Also I’m not so sure about the sustainability
of the project since while we can train people in our community to make them,
they won’t be able to afford to get the internal parts once their volunteer is
gone. Hopefully our group will help to
work our some of the kinks. Also this
week we started our gardening project by doing the French double dig method in
a garden bed. This involves removing the
first three layers of earth. Putting the
top layer of debri on the bottom and the putting the middle lay back and then
the top soil back where it started. I
guess this helps to aerate the soil and create a thicker layer of topsoil.
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