The beginning of the Next Two Years of My Life (by Dominic)

I have almost three months in country and things are going well. I have learned that this county is an aggressive one. If you are walking down the street and a motoconcho rides by while you are on foot, they will ask a donde va? I will reply I don’t need a ride, I’m walking. But, that is not enough they will reply with pero hace calor, muy incomodo a caminar, it’s not an uncomfortable aggressive but it’s very funny. Guess what, my job is working with the ayutamiento (city hall) in the city of San Pedro De Macoris. We live in this barrio of about 4,000 gentes called El Brisal. I am going to do an analysis of the community to find strengths, weakness, needs, etc. of the community and will then work with the city hall and present those finding to them for their presupuesto participatorio (participatory budget) program. This will give funds to my community for needs like paved roads and street lights. Everyone in the community acknowledges that they have had funds in the past but because there was no intermediary the funds were not used efficiently (that’s where I come in).

After about 2 weeks at our site, it feels good to be making progress on what I will be doing. The first week was great just hanging out with our host family. Our family consist of a Don who is about 54 and a Dona who‘s about 38. I can not count with two hands the times that Tina and I laugh during the day. There relationship is like this…he acts like a 16 year old joking around and playing around all day, she gets annoyed at him and tells him to stop talking so much. He responds by sitting in the chair not talking at all acting like a big baby. My Don also calls me a tiguere and a ladron roughly 20 times a day in good humor. Por ejemplo, now when I arrive home the first thing I do is take off my shirt and hang it on the outside line. I also cut down branches from a tree with a machete sin camisa, which was a highlight so far in country. Tina will not like this, but it has not taken me long to be sin vergüenza.

Our host parent’s relationship makes spending hours on the porch quit comical. This came into play our second week in site when it rained 4 days straight because of the hurricane. We did not have to be evacuated like some volunteers in rural areas. The thought of a comfortable hotel with bed, hot water and television did sound like a great idea. Our reality was not setting foot outside our property for 3 days. Our roads were flooded and some houses as well. The people are resilient though; they just sweep the water from the concrete floor and get on with life as they know. From talking with our vecinos the roads are definitely a priority and a major concern of this community. It doesn’t rain much in our area but when it does our calles cannot handle it…

Su hombre,

Dominic