FYI

Here´s an article published by a fellow volunteer in a local U.S. newspaper.

The article

Mealtime

I thought maybe some people might be curious as to what I usually eat down here. There are actually a number of options since this is a tourist destination. On the beach there are quite a few restaurants that have prices that are average by American standards, but expensive on a volunteer´s budget. I usually avoid those places. The times I do eat on the beach, I usually go to a couple of places that have some good cheap dishes and also half price or two for one happy hour specials. In those situations, I can get something decent for a very low price ($3-$5).

Other good places are what are basically Dominican restaurants. At these places you can eat for about $3-$4 at any hour. The basic Dominican dish is chicken, rice, beans, and maybe a little salad. Really not a bad deal at all. There is some variety too, as you can get beef and fish and other variations, but generally it´s all pretty much in the same category as the traditional dish.

Another type of place I like is the colmado. A colmado is a small Dominican store, that sometimes is only a walk up booth type of setup. They sell small food items, soft drinks, beer, rum, and other basic things. Some of them sell food, which is usually pretty good and pretty cheap. My favorite is the pork sandwich at the colmado closest to me. It costs 80 pesos (about $2.50) and is pretty filling.

This isn´t to say, however, that I eat out all the time, or even a lot. I eat breakfast and lunch almost every day in my room. Breakfast is usually corn flakes, milk, bananas, coffee, and water. All in all, it probably comes to about 25-30 pesos ($1 or less). For lunch, I usually have a couple peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (sometimes tuna fish or ham), a couple more bananas, and maybe some cookies. That probably costs another 30 pesos or so.

Breakfast

Lunch

Sunday night through Thursday night, six of us eat dinner at a local Dominican family´s house. We choose what we would like to have and then Anthony goes with her to buy and pay for the groceries. At the end of the month we give her another amount for her time and labor. We eat outside on their little patio area, and it´s also kind of nice to have a regular meeting with some of the other volunteers. She is a pretty good cook, and we have had a lot of variety. Chicken or beef with rice and beans, burritos, sandwiches, salads, stew, stir-fry are all some of the dishes we´ve had. I also take care of handling the money for the group, putting my wonderful accounting skills to use.

5 of the 6 regular dinner group members

Here´s Jessie and Anthony displaying Jessie´s wonderful burrito making skills. If that Dartmouth education fails to get her somewhere, there´s always a job waiting at Chipotle.

The other nights I either eat out somewhere or occasionally make something in my room. That isn´t often, however, as the only things I´ve made in my room are rice and beans, sandwiches, and eggs (for breakfast).

Well, that´s about it for food. As you can see, I generally try to be a cheap bastard and make my stipend go as far as I can. That way I have more money to spend on rum and beer. Just kidding. Sort of.

Just Checking In

There hasn´t really been anything interesting happening here to report. It´s been a lot of the same routine this week. But anyway, I figured I would just check in here and spout off some nonsense to hopefully make someone´s day slightly more interesting. Here are some things I´ve learned recenty:

• Josh Brown was a state high jump champion in high school.
• I have the same birthday as Will Foster (10 years apart).
• Gonzaga Prep is a bunch of dirty cheaters (see following story).

High school football
Bullpups forfeit non-league game

Gonzaga Prep, ranked as high as second in the State 4A, has forfeited its 48-7 non-league football win against Tacoma's Bellarmine Prep.
During the Sept. 9 game, the Bullpups used an ineligible player, a sophomore transfer who had been brought up as a practice reward, for four plays. It was self-reported by the school.
"It was an administrative error," said activities coordinator Paul Manfred. "He shouldn't have been suited up. We are looking at it like a life lesson. We did screw up."The forfeit loss drops the Bullpups' record to 7-1 overall, but their Greater Spokane League-leading 7-0 record is unaffected.Well, that´s about it I guess.

Oh, I think NBC is coming in here in Cabarete, so perhaps I´ll get to watch the Irish tomorrow.

You can´t make up this stuff

Apparently yesterday was some sort of holiday called Dia de las Razas (Day of the Races). I guess the idea is to celebrate multiculturalism and all of the influences that have combined to make up Dominican culture--mainly Spanish, African, and Taino (the native people here when Columbus arrived). As you may know, I spend my mornings in the DREAM Project office in town, and don´t go in to school until noon. Unfortunately, this means I missed the Dia de las Razas celebration in school yesterday morning. Apparently there were some dances, skits, and a cockfight. Yes, that´s right, a cockfight right here on the school grounds. If you aren´t aware, cockfighting is huge in this country, so it´s not that surprising on one level. I just didn´t expect to have one during school hours on school grounds. Maybe we´ll get to have one in the afternoon later in the year. I can only hope.

Something that happened this afternoon

I´ll tell you what can be really frustrating. When I feel like some kid is making fun of another kid, but I´m not quite sure, and I don´t know exactly what he´s saying. I really wish I knew exactly what was said, and had the capacity to discipline this kid in a specific and effective way. Unfortunately, I don´t and have to resort to telling the offender to go away (from the computer lab, where this took place) and ensure that the other student is not too upset about it. I hope at some point this year, I´ll be able to understand them enough to at least know what´s going on all the time.

Random Musings

• Beyond the typical Juans, Marías, and Alejandros, there are a lot of odd (to me anyway) names here. For example I just had an Oreibys and a Surdilenia in my computer class. Then they can really throw you a curveball and spell there names in atypical ways, like Deivid. I just don´t know if that is in fact his name, or if he´s just spelling David incorrectly. I´ve come across countless examples of that over the last three months.
• Speaking of curveballs, the baseball playoffs began yesterday and I´m interested to see how that goes here. I´ve heard the people here get really into it, especially if there are teams involved with popular Dominican players. I plan on watching some of the Mets/Dodgers game later with my friend Anthony (a Met´s fan) and some Dominicans.
• Last Saturday, as I was all pumped up to watch the ND game, the NBC feed went out at José O´Shays. I kept waiting for it to come back, but it never did. I had every game in the country, including Idaho/Utah St. at my disposal, but couldn´t see the one game I wanted. I just hope it´s fixed sometime by this Saturday.
• What does it say about a school when I want to use a computer for another student in my computer class, and the assistant principal won´t get off of it? It´s been stated very clearly that these computers are for student use between the hours of 12-2, but I guess the students just aren´t that important. Sometimes this place can be quite frustrating. And by sometimes, I mean almost always.