Adios November

Time has been going really quickly the past few weeks here, I can’t believe it’s almost December!  I leave in a little over 2 weeks, which is really strange to think about.  This week is more or less my finals week, and I’m hoping to get everything done by Thursday, although Monday is when I have to turn in my last project, the infamous Independent Study, so realistically, it will be Monday.  I haven’t exactly decided what I’m going to do with my free time post-school, because all my original plans are a little cost-prohibitive.  I have spent a lot of time along the north coast and in the capital, so I was hoping to explore more of the country, but our trip to the south got canceled because of the cholera epidemic and there are some reimbursement issues, so we’ll see what actually happens. 

Things at my host family’s house are plugging along, although not ideal.  I haven’t seen my host mom for more than 15 minutes in a few weeks and things are a little tense because she and my host dad are in the middle of a divorce.  I probably interact the most with the woman who works in our house.  She lives with us (in, oh yes, the servants’ quarters) and sometimes sits with my while I eat dinner.  However, she has a super thick accent, so I generally only understand about 35% of what comes out of her mouth. Her favorite topics of conversation include her blood pressure meds, how she doesn’t like sleeping in the heat, and the quality of the mashed plantains of the day.

This weekend I went to a jazz festival in Cabarete, which was a good time, and last weekend I went to Santo Domingo, which was a really good time.  There, I ran in a 10K race along the coast, ate at a delicious Taiwanese Vegetarian restaurant, walked around the Zona Colonial, and went to a concert in a building with no roof!  The lens cap on my camera got stuck shut (problem solved now…AKA lens cap was removed with a Swiss army knife) so I don’t have many pictures, but it was a delightful affair. I’ve kept in touch with some of the people I met at the Greenlover’s camping trip awhile ago and they showed me around Santo Domingo and let me stay in their beach condo in Cabarete.  It’s been great to finally meet some Dominican friends…but let’s be honest, it was a long time coming!    

My program also had a Thanksgiving celebration this weekend, which included a potluck meal and a guitar performance that my friend Maria and I did.  It involved some panicked YouTube tutorials 2 hours before the dinner, but we managed a rough rendition of “I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas” and a pretty solid “Feliz Navidad.” It was strange to be away from home on a major holiday though, I definitely found myself missing homemade stuffing balls, sweet potato casserole and familiar faces more than I was expecting!

I’m mainly just trying to finish up on school right now though.  My sex education project is wrapping up, thankfully.  Last week I went to 3 high-school equivalents to administer my surveys, and it was a series of humbling experiences that left me incredibly happy to no longer be in high school.  But, moral of the story is that data has been collected although with a debatable level of reliability (I was really hoping to have some privacy for the students to fill out the surveys, but that was definitely not happening) and my suspicions that I look 15 have also been confirmed.  Tons of students kept approaching me and asking me if I was a new student.

“The Monument.” After Trujillo’s assassination it was abandoned and just reopened for visitors and tourists in 2004.  I think.  If you pay to go into the museum and climb up to some of the higher levels you are rewarded with a lovely view of the valley.   

Maria, my friend and guitar partner, performing her guitar song for the "Afternoon of Culture" show.  We also played a duet for the adoring crowd.

My friend Pablo in the midst of cooking our delicious eggplant lunch.

Getting some reading in while the eggplant cooks! 

Weather update: It’s been in the low 70’s in the mornings and evenings which has caused me to whip out my flannel and become extremely worried for the transition to Minnesota winter…yikesaroo.  This reminds me, mom, can you bring my winter coat to the airport?

  Also, here’s some Dominican text slang that I thought was funny: DTT.  It’s short for “dónde estás tu?” or “where are you?”  But the way they speak here, no one inverts the verb/subject in questions and they don’t pronounce “s” so it’s like “dónde tu ‘ta?”

The end of blog neglect

This is the frame of the Jeep that was taken from the site and is now a monument in a park outside the house where the Mirabel sisters were born.

Dede Mirabel and I in her house in Salcedo, DR.  On the wall are photos of the three sisters.  I did not get the memo about which camera to look at...

Worry not Mother!  So far I have successfully avoided both cholera and hurricane danger!

Things are chugging along here in Santiago de los Caballeros. Nothing incredibly notable occurred last week, except that November is mint-chocolate month at Yogenfruz, my favorite frozen yogurt joint. I had an unprecedented amount of homework, that, for the most part, is out of the way now.  I’m feeling rather relieved because I turned in the rough draft of the literature review of my independent study project, AKA 27 pages in Spanish of research that barely scratches the surface of the issues surrounding sexuality and sexual education in the DR. I have been wondering what my family, particularly the housekeeper, must think considering the number of “How to say no” and “Consequences of teenage pregnancy” pamphlets I have casually lying around my room.

Last week, a friend invited me to a class party at the house of one of her Dominican classmates.  It was a potluck that yielded an eclectic collection of Dominican and American food, with highlights of Sancocho, a traditional Dominican stew and everyone’s grandma’s favorite--Ambrosia salad.  I had a great time, and it was definitely the first class party I’ve been to where someone was specifically put on rum duty and the professor was cutting a rug on the dance floor. 

For most meals in my family, there is a definite status quo.  Lunch, which is the big meal of the day always involves the standard rice and beans dish, with some vegetables (pureed or boiled) and iceberg lettuce salad.  Things get a little crazy sometimes with some avocado or tostones, but for the most part, that’s what’s to be expected.  Dinner is generally yucca or mangú (with onions, cheese, and a fried egg on a good day).  This leaves breakfast as the wild card.  There are some classic options: mangú again for the true aficionado, pancakes, oatmeal, cereal (all cereal, regardless of brand or flavor is called cornflakes) or eggs. But recently, I’ve been starting my day off with the beloved breakfast sandwich.  To clarify, I say “breakfast sandwich” solely because it is eaten at breakfast time, not because it incorporates any breakfast food whatsoever. There is nothing quite like starting the day with a steaming sandwich of toasted bread, a Kraft single, ketchup and a healthy dollop of mayo.  Buen provecho.

This has been a very food-centric post, so I’m going to try to divert directions here to give the impression that I do more than continuously gorge myself. 

Yesterday, I went to Salcedo to visit the Mirabel Sister Museum and the house where they were born, which is where Doña Déde, the only surviving sister still lives.  The house and gardens were beautiful and all the plants must have been attracting butterflies (quite fitting because the nickname for the Maribel sisters was “The Butterflies”) because there were various species flying around. 

Despite being 86  years old, she received us  on the patio and talked with us for about half an hour before letting us walk around the house and take photos with her.  She was full of energy and very engaged in the conversation we were having.  She even continues to run an organic cocoa farm from her house.  Although she was very hospitable and open to conversation and questions, I think we were all a little uncertain about what topics were appropriate to ask about, so we covered everything from the night she found out Trujillo had been assassinated to how the Canadian side of Niagara Falls is much better than the American side.

The actual museum, which is located in the house where the sisters spent the last 10 months of their lives is located 3 Km down the road and was strategically built right off of a major highway so they would be less likely to be secretly murdered.  In the garden of this house is the burial site of Minerva, Patria, Maria Teresa, and Minerva’s husband who was also assassinated for his revolutionary behaviors. The museum is small, basically just the living room, the women’s bedrooms, and the kitchen, but it is full of the possessions of the sisters-clothes, wedding photos, watercolor paintings, Minerva’s law school dissertation, rosaries, Maria Teresa’s braid that Déde cut off after her death, and more.  There was one exhibit with the items found with the bodies of the sisters at the “crash site” that was a little unnerving.  It had the sister’s handbags, little notes, personal touches, and a single shoe of Maria Teresa’s. 
Well on that note, my break is officially over so back to using internet time wisely...