Factoria de Cigarros

Yesterday we had the opportunity to tour one of the largest cigar factories in the DR and they are said to have the best cigars in the world. Better that cuba they convinced us! If only dad and leo could have been there! We saw the whole process from the planting and growing to the processing and rolling out! Off to the countryside for a week of work in a rural very poor community close to the border of Haiti in the mountains. See you when I get back next weekend!

Los Bettas and La Competencia

What a wonderful weekend I had swimming in my first international swim meet! I really felt like part of the team, but was still surprised at how different our cultures are even at something as regulated as a swim meet. It began with a procession of all the 15 or so teams from across the country into the pool area. This large parade was led by military personel, a professional-looking band, and a giant chicken mascot dancing to merengue as the cheerleaders lined the side of the pool.

The warm up and start of the meet was a little lax each day and there is no way to predict when you will swim like the programs back at home that had it nearly down to the minute. Here you´ll swim in a little while whenever the next couple events end... it is much more relaxed. However, the competition is just as intense; if not more intense because almost the only thing they care about is your time- What'd you go?! But not to worry- all went well and my years of practicing paid off. So while the roosters where crowing on the fence of the pool I jumped into a couple top places.

I got second in the 100 breaststroke and 4th in the 50. I also placed top ten in the 100 and 50 fly as well as the 100 IM. For all my swims I made the cut (sometimes by less than a second) to swim in their end of the season international meet where there will be over a dozen countries represented. The thought of competing against one US team as we swim with the Dominican colors made us laugh! BG, another girl in my program is also swimming on the team with me and as less than 1 percent of the Dominican swimmers are girls, she won an overall 3rd place trophy (out of 6 girls) but will also be competing in the Capital, Santo Domingo at the end of the season. There was a huge fancy banquet for everyone involved in the meet with a buffet and a trophy ceremony. The most exciting part was that the coach, Freddy, told us he will be paying for everything for us to travel and stay down in the capital for the competition at the end of November!

It was a really great experience, combining two of my greatest loves- the flavor of the latino culture and swimming as reggaeton, salsa and merengue blasted throughout the whole weekend. My host family came to watch one day and I met so many new wonderful Dominicans and had no lack of practicing my spanish! Some parent was commenting on how great it was I was willing to talk with everyone whether I knew them or not because that was the best way to learn- by putting yourself out there.

After a few hot afternoons of sitting under the sun at the pool, we were tired but had made many new friends and had a good time stirring up the Dominican competition in the pool!

Fotos de la Competencia

Nuevo Perrito!

When I came home from my trip to the South, guess what was waiting for me at the door? A brand new puppy, only 8 weeks old. Blog fans meet Canela, which means Cinnamon. She is the cutest sweetest thing I´ve ever seen! She is not house trained and we find little "regalitos" on the floor everywhere. However, she is not allowed to be taken outside past the backyard my host mom informed me because there are dog-nappers here and it is dangerous. I tried to suppress the funny thought of someone waiting out in the neighborhood until they spot a dog to take (especially because there are stray dogs in every side of the city) until I found out that it is worth 20,000 pesos (roughly 600 dollars).

So I try to play with Canela often. With a lack of entertainment (the only form was eating the newspaper she was suppossed to be doing her business on) I went out in the city in quest of a dogtoy. It turns out there is only one store that sells them and they only sell toys for giant wolf-sized dogs, which is ironic because the only type of dog that lives here is the chihuahua and other yippee little things. I bought the smallest chew toy there was and the family and Canela were very happy when I returned. Now we spend the evenings tring to play fetch, but she can barely carry it two feet. What a sight to see!

The Challenges in Community Development

I have successfully met, gotten to know and interviewed 13 artisans over the past couple weeks. As a result of my investigation, it was brought to my attention that there is a desire within the community to formalize an association. All but one said they wanted to form part of an association of artisans within their community. I was very busy coordinating with my boss at Emprende and with each of the artisans a time that would work for everyone to have a meeting to discuss what the group wanted from the association and what the groups goals are in order to start creating a mission and vision and all that.

Of the 15 or so whose houses I visited and who personally told me they would come today to the meeting at 4 in the afternoon on a Saturday, 5 showed up.

Now I knew it was to be expected that not everyone would show up, but I later found out that some were taking a nap, others decided to go to the salon instead, etc... it was frustrating seeing that all the artisans desire something better for themselves, but very few were willing to even take the initiative to TRY and create more opportunities for themselves.

Community Development takes time. It is a slow and non-linear process. It takes patience and flexibility, qualities that I am developing more and more each day. The meeting went well and we got some things done like deciding a name and the mission and vision of the group, but we will have to have another meeting soon in order to formalize the bylaws and all that of the association before we can move forward and do things as a group like identify new markets to enter such as large art fairs or foreign markets to sell to (just a dream now). I will keep working as hard as I can but how does one motivate a community to take their own futures in their own hands when they are worried about how they are going to put food on the table today?