Striking Out

It's the smile, and, besides, that'll be her bike soon

Kitchen workshop

Home's sweet

welcome, no waiting

School

                So I struck out. We had our despedida, our farewell to our community and to our host families…an affair that was washed by doñas’ tears of some lucky, I think, volunteers who really did click with their host families—and some like mine, no tears shed, the family somewhat confused and perhaps glad to be relieved of what I have come to categorize myself as, “el perro del rey”, the king’s dog, that precious animal put into one’s care that you don’t know what to do with but must care for, don’t speak to, feed (special food, separately at its own table, away from the family,) water, house, clean its cage, wash it’s clothes, worry about it when it’s out late, staying up to let it in when it come home, at 11:00 or midnight, never complaining about it—and we piled into our busses, our gear compressed into a too-small trailer, and left town.

                We got back to a long weekend, the DR’s labor-day and volunteers made their plans to get into Santo Domingo, go to the bars, party. Our reunion with volunteers from other CBT’s--we were a group of 16 in the appropriate technologies division and there were four other groups each sent to their own corner of the country for CBT—would make for an entry in itself but I’m so far behind and so much is happening so fast that that will have to wait. They’d had their time, some good, some not so good, stories of cliques excluding and making fun of other volunteers more frequent that I’d like to hear (childish and being here in training is tough enough without that un-necessity) and one particular story of a female volunteer and friend having discovered alcohol and taking full advantage, becoming a flirt while drunk. I’d pointed out that she wasn’t a drinker, she said, “I am now!” I imagine there will be those stories in every group, but, too, stories of good experiences. Our group has become known as the one which supported each other perhaps the best, nice to hear, whether true or not. Our lord-of-the-flies group did pretty well.

                Facing Saturday, Sunday and the holiday, Monday, with no training scheduled I decided to fashion my own training…and my own comfort. I struck out. When I visited “my volunteer,” his project partner and her sister, in our last evening together, in candle light, the “luz” having gone out as it usually did, circulated a torn slip of paper somewhat obviously and presented me with their cell phone numbers and a request to visit again. Not speaking Spanish particularly, as I’ve said, I couldn’t gage well what was really going on and wondered about this invitation. Fellows from The States get invitations, as I’d mentioned, that are, shall we say, cloaked, so I was suspicious. I did recognize that there would likely be no opportunity to actually accept their invitation and this relieved me of any particular responsibility regarding it. I stashed the slip of paper where I expected it to stay, occasionally re-discovered but otherwise unmolested, for the next two years…or twenty as these things go.

But here I had three days wherein I could either stay in my cave at home (my room was essentially a concrete box,) with the colmado on the corner two doors up playing music which sounded and felt from inside that room like there was a mining crew working the all-night shift right under it, spend the time spending my little money in Santo Domingo or do something more imaginative. The plan developed late-ish Friday evening. I called one of the women. If you think speaking a new foreign language face to face is hard…try exchanging important information over a cell phone link with the little speaker warbling in your ear and bachata thumping the walls. I understood among the considerable confusion that they were excited I’d be coming, they’d be waiting, and I promised to try to get there by noon. I failed at that, getting there around one, but not bad considering it was a jail break planned at the last minute. I exercised “whereabouts” (called to let PC know I’d be away from my “site” for more than 24 hours and, in this case, overnight—that important practice alone justifying my actions—packed for two days of I had no idea what, and began working my way first into Santo Domingo and then out on public transportation. I caught the “express” bus to Bani, the nearest city and spent the next three hours on that bus as it stopped at every roadside stand, bridge overpass and side road corner and wobbled and lurched its lazy way toward my destination. A crazy moto (motorcycle) ride on roads sometimes paved, sometimes not, and I was there, only an hour late. It was good to see them again, hugs and bright smiles.  I was shown the project I’d helped work on for an afternoon weeks earlier, gathered and ate mangos and tamarind with them, got to know Boti better (whose picture is on a recent post,) met other friends, went to an Evangelical church service I was surprised to find I enjoyed perhaps partly because the sound level didn’t hurt my ears, there being no amplification system with its enormous speakers, woke and walked out from my little cabin to pee sometime well after midnight to cool air and a sky speckled with stars: quality time.