In which Tim considers new careers...

I mentioned in a recent entry that during the Thanksgiving party I performed a song on stage. It was fun. And it hasn't been the end of my musical displays.

A friend of mine was recently playing his guitar, singing Dominican folk songs, and asked me if I wanted to sing something in English. I provided my best rendition of "country roads, take me home." He loved it, and tried to keep up on guitar.

Lately I've been singing a lot of Christmas carols. Little kids like to try to copy me when I sing. "Hark the herald angels sing" and "O come Emmanuel" are a little tricky for them, but they are catching onto "Jingle Bells" pretty quickly. Last night I found myself surrounded by about twenty teenagers in the park, asking me to regale them with song, so I did. They were quiet as I sang, and then clapped and cheered as I finished.

Who knows? Maybe with the economy being the way it is, I should investigate a career in the fine arts. Any thoughts?

unpublished works: part 1

I submitted a piece to my hometown paper, but I think it was too late for the to use around the holiday weekend.  Here it is for your possible enjoyment:

Thanksgiving from Abroad

Timothy S. Brown

It is late fall, and there is something in my Wisconsinite bones that is telling me to look for that last glorious display of autumn colors, or the first snow flake of winter. I can almost taste the fresh apple cider, and smell the chill building in the air. This is the time of year when #4 likes to lead the Pack to dramatic victories, and something inside me is dreaming of playoff glory. Next week is Thanksgiving day, and my mind is filled with all of these familiar, seasonal images.

On this particular year, though, the images are for me no more than a memory. This year I am serving as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Dominican Republic, far away from the familiar sights and smells of the mid-western autumn. I've traded fall colors and snow for banana trees and hurricanes. Instead of apple cider in my mug I have the coffee that grows on the mountain where I now live. The cool air of winter will never arrive to cut through the eternal Caribbean summer. And we all know what happened to Brett Favre. Still, Thanksgiving is coming regardless of how unfamiliar everything may seem.

I was chatting with my neighbor the other day, explaining in Spanish that in the USA we have a special holiday set aside for thinking about what we are grateful for. It's important to understand that I spend an awful lot of time explaining American culture to Dominicans, and a lot of it doesn't make much sense to them. The idea of a place where everyone has their own car, electricity is abundant, and where it SNOWS is usually more than they can imagine. Life in Southern Wisconsin is so far removed from their experience of subsistence farming in the tropics, that I feel lucky any time I make some kind of connection. Thanksgiving, though, was something that made a lot of sense to my friend. He nodded his head, flashed me a gap-toothed grin, and said “Yes, it is very important to be thankful.”

He is a man who works sun up to sundown all year, planting, harvesting and doing other odd jobs to be able to feed his family. He works hard, so there is usually enough to eat, but not always. On most nights I sit outside with him, watching the sky light up with more stars than anyone could count. We talk about the weather, crops, and life in general. He is glad to have work. He is grateful that his wife and kids are healthy, in a country where public health is not the best. He's happy to live in his two room wooden house, knowing that there are others who are not so blessed. He is a man who recognizes that while he may not be rich, he still has so much to be thankful for. Life itself is a gift, and he understands this better than I do most of the time.

Here I am, thousands of miles from home, living in the jungle. Being a Peace Corps Volunteer is not easy. On some days I miss my family and friends so much that it hurts. Yet I love what I am doing, and I am thankful that my parents taught me to believe in the importance of serving others, and that they encouraged me to take a few years out of the rat race to do just that.

I am thankful that my Dominican neighbors, though they have never been far from home, understand that it must be hard for me. They go out of their way every day to let me know that I am a valued member of their community.

I am thankful that I come from a country that believes in the goodness of humanity enough to have a program like the Peace Corps, recruiting inexperienced young adults like me to be good will ambassadors to the poor and broken parts of the world.

In a world economy that is coming apart at the seams I am thankful that I have a bed to sleep in, and food to eat. I may not be rich, but I have enough for today, and that is a good thing. Life truly is a gift, and I know that my blessings are even greater in number than those stars that I watch come out in the vast sky every night. Even in a world as unpredictable as the one we live in, I hope you will join me in celebration this Thanksgiving. There really is much to be thankful for.

In which Tim eats turkey...

There is nothing quite like celebrating an American holiday in a very non-American environment.  Two years ago I was killing a turkey by hand on a roof in Bangladesh, in the midst of massive political instability that meant the secret police had taken over every street corner.  That was an interesting thanksgiving.  This time I went to a party that Peace Corps puts on every year.  They rent out a country club (with swimming pool) for the day, and arrange for a full turkey dinner.  I have not eaten so much since arriving in country.  Between the turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoe pie, green beans, broccoli, cranberry sauce, and various types of pie I was ready to pop.

I realize that most of you probably take little to no interest in that list of traditional holiday food, but it was an incredible treat for those of us who subsist mainly on rice, beans, and boiled bananas.  We were thankful for the food, but also having lived among the underprivileged for a while, my friends and I talked a lot about other things that we are thankful for.  We all agreed that none of us have had the opportunities we have based on our own merit or abilities.  We were each born into a certain family at a certain time under certain circumstances that has allowed us to have what we do.  We are all recipients of grace, and for that we are thankful.

There was also a talent show in the evening.  At the encouragement of my friends, I agreed  to perform a song I had written.  Yes, you read that correctly.  Tim Brown got up on stage in front of 200 people and sang a song.  It was a lot of fun.  Maybe I can add musical performance to my list of career goals.

Regarding the Presidential Election...

Last night at about one oclock in the morning I found myself sweating in the middle of a crowd of 50 Peace Corps Volunteers, watching a grainy image of Barack Obama on a TV screen. The picture was going in and out, but the audio was constant. What I heard quite literally brought tears to my eyes.

Many of you readers know my politics. Yes, I agree with most of the views that President Elect Obama holds on policy issues. The emotion I felt last night had absolutely nothing to do with health care reform, taxes, or even the war in Iraq. So bear with me...

In my life time four Presidents have lived in the White House, and I remember three of them. I have lived in States with governors, and cities with mayors. I have always been concious that my leaders were somewhere out there, and that they were supposed to be working to serve me. They would make speeches on televison or the radio that were written to tell me how good a job they were doing. To convince me of their goodness, and to pander for my vote. I've grown up in this system, and I guess I've gotten used to it. Never once have my leaders asked ME for service or sacrifice. They seem content with votes.

Barack Obama does not fit into this equation, and that's why he started sticking out to me when he popped onto the national stage in 2004. His message is that if we want to see a better nation and world, we need to work for it. His often repeated anthem "yes, we can" has little to do with empty wishful thinking, and much more to do with joining together in a collective effort to improve things. The slogan is not "Yes, OBAMA can," it's "Yes, WE (meaning all of us) can."

My generation is beginning to understand that we can't count on politicians to fix the world for us. We need to take action. That is why we hold candle light vigils for darfur, or join the Peace Corps. Yet still we hunger for leadership. We are looking for people with wisdom and vision to challenge us to shed our apathy and work harder. To help us find that path. I see this hunger every time that I talk to fellow Peace Corps Volunteers. They want to be challenged, and asked for more than a vote.

My friends and I wept last night because we finally see a leader who understands our desire. He knows why we have moved away from home to take part in an idealistic task that at times seems futile. He is asking us to roll up our sleeves and keep going. "Finally," we say, "a leader who seems to be worth following." This is much more important than "liberal" and "conservative."

I also wept at the thought of how far America has come. Had Barack Obama lived in the South fifty years ago, he would not have been allowed to vote, or ride in the front of a bus. Now he has been elected to the highest office in the land. Perhaps we have reached the day that Dr. King dreamed about, when individuals "would be judged not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character." This is something that is worth celebrating.

Regarding more books...

Here are a few more literary selections for your consideration...

"A Prayer for Owen Meany" by John Irving

One of the most fantastic works of fiction I have read in recent years.  It has wonderful characters, a fantastic plot, and will make you both laugh and cry.  It also tackles some interesting theological/philosophical questions.  I don't know why I had never read this before.  Please, get it and read it, now.

"A Secret History of the CIA" by Joseph Trento

A journalists account of the CIA's history from the end of the second World War, through the end of the cold war.  It is based on twenty years of research and interviews with a lot of the people who were on the inside.  It is saddening to see how much corruption there has been.  There is a very interesting section, though, that makes a strong case for the KGB's involvement with the Kennedy assassination.

"The Poisonwood Bible" by Barbara King-Solver

The fictional story of missionaries in the Congolese bush in the early 1960's.  Great writing, but more than a little depressing.

"Jesus for President" by Shane Claiborne

The author makes a convincing case that as followers of Jesus, our allegiance should be to something much higher than political parties or nation states.  He argues that if we are really doing what Jesus tells us to that we would be living much more controversial lives that are subversive to what our culture considers normal.  I wrestled with this book.  I would love it if some of you would read it, and then discuss it with me over email or something.

"Confessions of an Economic Hitman" by John Perkins

Eye opening.  John Perkins tells the story of how much of his career was spent as a "consultant" who wrote fraudulent economic reports in order to open doors for US aid to developing countries.  The goal of the conspiracy was to make these countries economically dependent on the US.  It is a very interesting read that spans decades of US foreign policy history.

Regarding meat on Sundays...

My neigbor doesn't go off to work every day.  He has a little piece of land, and does some carpentry for his friends, but mostly he just hangs out.  He does work pretty hard on Sunday mornings, though.  

On Saturday nights a large pig is delivered to his house.  At about 7 AM on Sunday I wake up to the sound of very loud squealing as said pig is in the process of having his or her throat cut.  The pig is then shaved, quartered, butchered, and sold to whoever wants some.  The meat is still warm when I start to cook it.

The killing of the pig is a real community event.  Everyone comes out to stand around and chit chat as we watch the guys do the cutting.  Someone usually brings coffee.  There is almost always a little kid who grabs the tail of the pig when it is cut off, and runs around whipping people in the ankles with it.  It is pretty funny.  The dogs also gather, probably because of the delicious smells.

Watching the butchering is not easy on the stomach.  I won't go into details, but I am sure you can imagine.  It has helped me to realize how sterilized a life we lead in the USA.  We go to the store, or the farmers market, and buy our meat wrapped in plastic, and cut into convenient slices.  We don't really have a picture (or smell) in our head of where it has come from.  It is just a thing that we buy, cook, and eat.  Maybe we should try a little bit harder to understand the things that we are putting into our bodies.

I don't think it is wrong to eat meat.  I have just come to believe that is important to understand the process.  The truth is that the pigs here live pretty happy lives.  They stay outdoors, roll in mud, and usually get to wander semi-freely.  And when they are killed, it is a pretty quick death without a lot of suffering.  And the meat has a really good flavor.  I'd love to show you the whole process when you come visit.

Regarding duct tape....

I have long been a big fan of duct tape. I use it for all sorts of stuff. If you have something that needs to be stuck in place, I will recommend duct tape almost every time. My enthusiasm is strong enough that my father pokes fun at me every year by leaving a roll in my Christmas stocking.

Here in the Peace Corps I am discovering hundreds of new uses for the stuff. Here are some examples.

• Duct tape can be used to put anything up on a cement block wall. Posters, maps, newspaper clippings, photos of family, and even mirrors.
• It can be combined with old mosquito netting to make a window covering. This keeps visitors (mosquitoes, fire flies, rats) from entering in the night.
  
• When combined with a piece of sterile gauze, duct tape makes a very durable bandaid to help alleviate the many cuts and scrapes that are a part of life here.
• I used a few pieces of wood and some duct tape to make a roller on which to hang my toilet paper next to the toilet.
• My head phones were starting to come apart, so I used small strips of duct tape to keep them together.  They should last a while now.
• I use it to block off holes in the wall that ants like to crawl in through.  There are a lot of holes, so there is starting to be an awful lot of duct tape put up.

I will let you know if I come up with more creative uses.

In which Tim takes it down a notch...

I realize that some of my recent entries have been kind of exciting. Sitting through hurricanes, swimming in raging rivers, and cave diving are probably not things that most of you do on a daily basis. Some of you probably think that I lead a thrilling life of adventure. Others might just be terrified on my behalf.

The truth is that most days down here are pretty slow and uneventful. I get up around 7:30 and drink some coffee. I spend my mornings doing work in my own garden, or helping out neigbors who have expressed interest in making one. I have also started building some ceramic cook stoves in my neigborhood. By the time sun gets a little higher it is usually too warm to be working outside comfortably, so I read, write, or do work in the house. I often take an afternoon siesta.

When the sun starts to get a little lower I might do a little more work outside, or settle down for a few games of dominoes with the neigbors. In the evenings I sit and visit with people in their houses or at my house if they decide to come over. I am usually in bed by 9:30.

It is important to know that I am almost never alone in any of these activities. I have a good sized discipleship of small children, ranging in age from 2 to 10. As soon as I open the door in the morning I hear the pitter patter of small feet running to greet me. When I work, they try to help (the bigger ones being a little bit more helpful than the small ones). When I read, they page through the old copies of Newsweek that I have in the house. They have little exposure to mass media and they definitely don't have any kids books, so they are absolutely blown away by the bright photographs and the car ads. One family of kids has decided (based on Newsweek) that the dark skinned man running for President of the United States is actually their father (the resemblance is striking). There are times when the kids get a little wild for my taste and I have to lay down a little discipline. A flip-flop is a great object to swing at the back side of a misbehaving kid. They run like the wind. But all in all I am grateful for the constant companionship. Kids are not held back by the same rules of courtesy or inhibitions as their parents.

I usually go down to the town once a week to read email and try to get some news. It has been hard for a junkie like me to be disconnected from the news cycle during such a fun election. Have there been any explanations given as to why the Republicans have insisted on criticizing Obama for inexperience, but are very excited about putting a sports casting beauty queen from Alaska in a position where she might well be President soon? Let me know if that story is published.

As always, thanks for reading.

In which Tim explores a cave and a half...

I was visiting my good buddy Joel for the weekend in the North of the country. He lives in a village a bit bigger than mine, but similar in that it's located in the mountains with stellar views. It was exciting to see friends, and refreshing to spend a few days doing fun things that are completely unrelated to my work.

Yesterday afternoon we went on a hike to some pretty neat caves near his house. By "near" I mean about two miles straight down one mountain, across a river, and then up a second one through thick woods. We soon came to a cliff with a dark cleft that beckoned us toward adventure. We entered to find a cavernous network of darkness where we could hear bats fluttering around our heads. It was pretty awesome.

After playing around for about half an hour and coming back out, our Dominican guides led us to what they told us would be a much cooler cave. After hiking a little further into the woods we came upon a hole in the ground that we could not see the bottom of. We started to get a little bit nervous when they told us that was the way in. I mean, wouldn't you be nervous if you were being told to climb into a dark hole?

Our guides began looking for a branch that we could use to slide down into the abyss. One of them pulled on a vine right above my head, and I watched a massive branch swing down right toward my head. It was too fast for me to duck, and it left me looking like this:

We did all the normal tests for brain damage. I wasn't dizzy. My pupils were acting normally. I remembered my social security number. My head just felt like...well...like it had been whacked by a large and heavy piece of wood. Yet there were adventures to be had, so I got up and carried on. We scrambled into the hole, happy to find that it was only about ten or eleven feet deep, and pretty easy to descend.

This was when things started to get interesting. They told us that we would be following a series of tunnels and exit several hundred yards from where we entered. I looked around and couldn't really tell where the tunnel started. It looked like this cavern with a hole in the ceiling was all that there was. Then I saw the little hole in the corner. We had to get flat and worm our way in and down, and it was pretty steep. We kept going down, and down, and I began to feel like a character in Lord of the Rings wondering whether or not this trip into the mines was such a great idea. I mean, what if we woke up some giant flaming beast in the depths? That would be bad.

Pretty soon we came to this part of the tunnel:

The kid in the picture is looking straight UP at us, through the widest part of the tunnel. We might have fit, with a little twisting and turning. Our agile and skinny Dominican friends certainly had no problems. But we Americans realized that none of us were quite as agile or skinny as them. We debated for about fifteen minutes whether or not we should keep going. Our sense of adventure tempted us to believe our guides word that there was indeed a way out somewhere up ahead, and proceed. Yet our fear of being buried alive got the better of us. We didn't want to find ourselves quite literally between a rock and a hard place with no way out. So we went back the way we came, and climbed back out the eleven foot hole.

In retrospect, I am glad that this story didn't get any more exciting. I might not have lived to tell it... ;-)

Here is a portrait of the merry band of adventurers:

In which Tim tells you what he's been reading...

Here are the books I have finished since last I gave you a list...

"Lake Wobegon Days" by Garrison Keillor
I loved it. It is like a 300 page long version of the radio skit. Although I was a little confused to learn that the same characters I have been following in recent years appear to have been the exact same age when he wrote the book in 1983...

"All Creatures, Great and Small" by James Herriott
The tales (from life) of a young vet in rural Yorkshire in the 1930's. It is interesting to spot the parallels between my rural existence and his.

"Theodore Rex" by Edmund Morris
A biography of Teddy Roosevelt, covering his years in the White House. I recommend it for anyone who is into Presidential history.

Regarding Tim´s roommate(s)...

I have been here long enough that I have a pretty set routine when I go to bed at night. I take a cool bucket bath, I fill out the days events in my diary (by the light of a kerosene lamp), read my bible, brush my teeth, put up the mosquito net, read with the flashlight for a few minutes, and then sleep.

Normally my sleep goes undisturbed.

But sometimes I hear the noise of small claws skittering along the wall, or across the floor. The smacking of small lips. The nibbling of crumbs that I carelessly left out. RATS!!

No need to worry, I don't have an infestation. But I live in the middle of the countryside, in a house that has a few nooks and crannies through which a creature of the outside world can make its way in. And they haven't hurt me so far.

Still, it is awfully creepy when you can hear something moving in the next room. I always make sure to tuck my mosquito net in very very tight, so that nothing can crawl up onto the bed and visit me.

I also keep the machete close at hand, in case the sounds come to close. I have not yet killed a rat with a machete, but a friend of mine did at my house a few weeks ago. The rat was up on the wall, and the guy swung the machete like a baseball bat, almost cutting the thing in half. We threw it outside where it was promptly gobbled up by the local dogs.

I am currently in the market for a cat. If anyone has ideas for names, I am open for suggestions.

In which Tim goes swimming (by accident)...

My last entry or two may have given you the impression that hurricane season is mind numbingly boring. It definitely has times where I want to tear my hair out due to the frustration brought on by days and days of inactivity, but those are accented by episodes of excitement verging on terror that quickly get the adrenaline flowing again. I experienced one of these episodes last week.

There are two roads that go up to my site. Most people use the "old road" all the time. It is not terribly steep, and you have to wade through the river at the end. The "new road" is about twice as long, much steeper, but avoids water. So when the storms are here and the river is up, people revert to the new road. That was how I went home after having been sequestered at my friends house for a week.

One day, I noticed that people were crossing the river on foot again, so I decided to hike down to investigate. The water is full of sediment due to the flooding, so one cannot tell how deep it is just by looking. What I could tell is that it was a lot lower than it had been a few days earlier, so I decided to cross. I didn't have anywhere in particular to go. I just wanted to see if the river was crossable.

So I secured my rubber peasant sandals, and picked up a stick to use to test the depth, and in I went. It was fine. Well below my knees, though moving pretty fast. Then I found the hole. I guess when the river is moving faster than usual, it picks up the big rocks that normally just stay put in the river bed, and starts rolling them along. My stick somehow missed an eight inch drop, but my foot found it. I stumbled, but retained my footing, breathing a sigh of relief.

Then I looked up, and noticed something floating away on the current. My left sandal had come off, and was heading for the ocean. So I naturally did what anyone would do in the situation; I took off running after the thing. It's a good sandal, after all!

I didn't really pay attention to the fact that the water was getting deeper until I was in up to my chest, and the current was actually carrying me. I managed to swim over to the bank, and pull myself up on some conveniently placed vines. I never got the shoe back.

So I hiked back up the steep, rocky hill wearing only one sandal, and dripping wet. My neigbors thought it was the funniest thing they had ever seen. I had to agree that I looked pretty ridiculous.

So what did I learn from this exercise in stupidity? 1. Always cross the river either barefoot, or with sandals that are strapped on. 2. Know how deep water is before I go charging into it like a crazed hippo.

All's well that ends well! I have new sandals now.

In which Tim loses his mind...

It is still raining around here. A week ago (when last I wrote) I reported that there were more storms bearing down on us. I was at home when Hannah passed by and gave us three straight days of rain. Then the sun came out, but there were rumors that someone named Ike was following close behind, so I went to investigate my river. It was passable on foot, but muddy and deeper than usual. No vehicles were making it across. So I called up HQ and told them that I could get out, but if it rained for another day or two I would not be able to. So on Friday morning I shouldered my bag, and hiked down the mountain to my fellow volunteers apartment in the town. I expected to be there for maybe two days, then hike back up. So I thought.

Today is Wednesday, and I had expected to go back up today. Another call came in from Peace Corps telling me not to cross any rivers, so I am still here. Stuck. Bored. Watching television. I feel like my brain is turning to mush. There is nothing to do besides read, watch tv, cook, clean, watch a movie, listen to music, call a friend, watch more tv. It is still kind of rainy so all the people around here are staying in their houses, and this isn't my town so I don't have any friends besides the guy whose apartment this is, but he is in the capital due to illness.

There was another volunteer stuck here with me, but she got permission to go home yesterday. So here I sit, alone. I have nothing interesting to write because nothing interesting has happened. I feel useless. Forgive the tediousness of this blog entry

Hopefully I will be able to go home soon.

And now for something different...

I made it back to my home after the hurricane. I had to wade through water up to my waist, but that was made right with a towel when I got home. There was no damage to my community. The were cut off from the world for about a day and a half, so there wasn't much food, but life has more or less returned to normal now.

But I am not encouraged by the presence of three (3!!) tropical storms over the Atlantic right now. Please pray that God might protect us from these consequences of our having abused his world by pumping carbon into the air.



On a lighter note, I have gotten involved with a project to produce a textbook that uses environmental themes to teach the English language. I have been nominated the "master of the spoken word" on the project. For some reason I have become the poet laureate of Peace Corps DR. Not sure how...

But anyway, I thought you might enjoy seeing some of my scribblings.

Enjoy!
---------
Garbage is a problem
when piled in the street.
But if we just recycle
the world will be more neat.

------------

River, river, flowing clear,
full of fish from far to near.
Throwing trash and killing wood,
for its health is just no good.

------------

Though our languages are many,
and our differences are vast,
we must struggle together
if our good world is to last.

-------------

As I watch the bird pass by,
flitting, gliding through the sky,
his graceful flight, a work of art,
wonder overtakes my heart.
This tiny pilot of the blue
is closely bound to me and you.
For all that on this planet live
in harmony must take and give.
Lest one day should one small thing shift
and bring a horrid change most swift.
We of conscience must take care
to keep these beauties in the air.

In which Tim meets Gustav...

Just as we were getting over the little visit that Fay decided to pay to us, her little brother Gustav decided to drop in. Although I suppose "little brother" is a bad designation, since she was just a tropical depression when she was here, but this guy is a full blown hurricane.

No need to worry. I am safe. I came into town yesterday to check my email and buy some groceries, and my phone started ringing. It was the volunteer who is in charge of emergency coordination in this part of the country. He told me that a room had been reserved in my name at a local hotel, and that I was not under any circumstances to return to the countryside until further notice. "Not even to get some clean clothes and my toothbrush?" I replied. He said no, that this was going to be a big storm.

So here I sit, in the rain, wearing dirty clothing. It looks like the eye of the storm is past, so we might be out of the woods. Haiti will be hit pretty hard though. Please pray.

There are about twenty of us who have been evacuated to the same hotel, so at least there is no lack of company. We have AC and cable, which is nice. We might get to go back home this afternoon. As nice as the little luxuries are it is still not the same as sleeping in my own bed at night. Maybe I will be back there soon...

In which Tim gets a cold and goes to a wedding...

I have been in the capital for a loooong time. Almost a week now. Hence my inundation of blog entries. I had four days worth of meetings, and came down with a sore throat somewhere in there. Yesterday morning I was all packed to leave, and dropped by the doctors office to see if she couldn't give me a pill to soothe the throat. She did her poking and prodding, and told me that she wanted me to stay in town for a few days for "observation". The nice part about this is that Peace Corps pays to put me in an air conditioned, PRIVATE hotel room, and gives me a pretty penny to cover my daily expenses. The unpleasant part is that the capital is pretty lonely when there aren't lots of fellow volunteers in town. Being sick isn't a lot of fun either.

The boredom was pleasantly alleviated today by, of all things, a wedding. Anne and Tim are volunteers who came to the country in the same group as me, six months ago. They are dear friends of mine. They met when we all came together in February, and very quickly decided that they liked each other. I guess when it's right it's right, so today they went into the magistrates office and tied the knot. About ten of us packed into a tiny office and cheered them on as they signed the paperwork.

We took them out to a nice dinner, made toasts, took lots of pictures, ate cake (courtesy of the wonderful Peace Corps staff) and did the things that you generally do at a more conventional American wedding. It was a lot of fun, and I feel fortunate to have played a part in the proceedings. None of us have known each other very long (most notably the bride and groom), but I suppose it goes to show that neat friendships, romances, etc. can pop up anywhere.

Congrats, Anne and Tim!

In which Tim opens a window...

I have finally posted photographs of the community I will be calling home for the next few years. You can find them here.

Regarding what I've read...

I spend a lot of time reading. I think it would be cool to begin letting y'all know what I am finishing. If you want reviews (or have suggestions for future reads) let me know!

Here is an approximate list of what I have read so far in this country (excluding the 3 or 4 volumes I am working on right now) and a very concise review of each:

"The Far Pavilions" by M.M. Kaye (Still my favorite novel of all time.)

"Cross of Christ" by John Stott (Meaty and applicable. A new staple of my library.)

"Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff" by Christopher Moore (Funny and thought provoking.)

"The Fellowship of the Ring" by JRR Tolkien (Brilliant.)

"The Two Towers" by JRR Tolkien (Brilliant.)

"The Return of the King" by JRR Tolkien (Brilliant.)

"A People's History of the United States" by Howard Zinn (I alternated between loving it and
wanting to burn it.)

"Truman" by David McCullough (Worthy of the Pulitzer it won.)

"Pride and Prejudice" by Jane Austen (I don't know where this author has been all my life!)

"The Irresistible Revolution" by Shane Claiborne (Get ready to be seriously challenged about the
way you live your faith.)

"Dragon" by Clive Cussler (Terrible. I would rather read toilet paper.)

"Collected Essays" by Ralph Waldo Emerson (I am enjoying being exposed to a brilliant mind.)

More to come!

In which Tim meets Fay...

New Peace Corps Volunteers, much like young children, experience many milestones. From learning to communicate well in the language, to moving into our own houses, or running our first meeting, our lives are full of memorable firsts. I experienced a notable first just the other day. If you watch the news, you may know that a lovely little cloud by the name of Fay is ripping her way across the Caribbean. She happened to be right on top of us when her designation was changed from "tropical depression" to "tropical storm." I mean RIGHT on top. Like if you looked at a radar map, you would not have seen my island through the clouds.

Fortunately I am in the capital right now, where I am able to hear weather reports and do basic things (like buying food) without climbing mountains or crossing rivers. I was completely safe (except for the moment when I needed to cross a street that had turned into a rushing river, but my back-woods skills served me well. I live to ford more streams or streets.). There was a heck of a lot of rain, and the electricity was less reliable than normal for about 24 hours. I saw some downed trees, but no damage to speak of.

I am not sure what the situation is like in my town. I am going back tomorrow morning. I tried calling some friends in the area, but it seems that our one cell phone tower is having problems (maybe related to the storm). I imagine I will return home to find a lot of mud, and the road in crummier shape than usual. It was not that bad a storm, but my community is not well prepared for any kind of super-heavy rainfall. I am praying that we don't get hit by any major storms before some things can be changed.

Only a few more months of hurricane season left...

In which Tim learns about coffee...

Last week I celebrated three months of being a PCV. Rather than giving us a party, Peace Corps mandates that we attend a week of training to "process" our first few months at site, and to brush up on whatever technical skills we feel we might be lacking. It was refreshing to spend several days with so many of my friends, speaking English, telling stories, dozing through lectures from PC officials, and getting into mischief.

One day of our training was dedicated to learning all about all of the processes that take coffee from being a tiny seed in the tropical soil to that flavorful caffeine filled beverage that American society depends on for productivity. The bean is first planted in sand, where it sprouts and grows to a tree of about six inches. It is then transplanted into soil where it takes about two years to reach the point of bearing fruit that looks like this:


The fruit is harvested, and dumped into tanks of water where it is allowed to ferment. Later it is dried, and processed to remove the shells. The result is something that looks like this:



The beans are then judged for quality, shipped, roasted, sold, ground and consumed. Apparently there are very strict guidelines (weight, bean size, color, shape) that govern the quality of coffee. The highest quality coffee here is sold for export (that's the Dominican coffee that we snobby, French pressing using types can get at our expensive stores in the US). The medium grades end up in the cheap brands that folks buy to put in the drip machines. The low grades are deemed not fit for sale.

We were given a lesson in quality control by a gentleman who we were told is one of the "fifteen top coffee experts in the country," whatever that means. I expected him to give us two mugs of coffee, and say "this one is good, and this one is bad" and the taste would be self explanatory. Coffee is just coffee, right? Wrong.

There are a few steps that the coffee critic must take in order to judge the goodness of a given bean.

Step # 1 - Bean Sniffing
This is exactly what it sounds like. One holds the bean close to the nose and sees what sort of flavor can be detected.

Step # 2 - Grinding and Ground Sniffing
The beans are ground to the desired coarseness, stirred up, and smelled very VERY closely (I mean you get your nose within a quarter inch of the grounds). There are layers upon layers of flavor in this stuff. With good coffee (like I have heard about good wine) you can smell fruit flavors, nut flavors, sweetness, acidity, spice, and even more. One of the ones we smelled was a bit like beef stew. At first I thought "don't they all smell like coffee?", and they did. But there was a surprising amount of variety.

Step # 3 - Brewing and Brew Sniffing
Hot water is poured into the bowl of grounds, and allowed to sit for a few minutes. The grounds form a layer on top of the water. The sniffer gets his nose close, and uses a spoon to swish away the layer of grounds. A wave of aroma bubbles up, and is strongest for only a few seconds. The complexity of the aroma tells the sniffer much about the quality of the coffee.

Step # 4 - Tasting
Each part of the tongue is responsible for a different part of taste. The tip of the tongue detects sweetness, another part looks for saltiness, acidity, etc. The point is that in order to get a full sense of what something tastes like, the food has to make contact with as many parts of the tongue as possible. Professional coffee tasters make this happen by slurping the coffee in such a way that it enters the mouth as a fine spray, making contact all over, giving a very good sense of the flavor.

I thought this whole exercise was a little bit silly at first, but it turned out really interesting. All the coffees we tried were very good (and expensive), but also very different. It seems that certain varieties are more popular in various parts of the world. The fruitier/subtler kinds do very well in Australia and Scandinavia. Continental Europeans and Americans think highly of the nuttier and more robust flavors. Our guide told us that serious coffee drinkers tend to look down their noses at the coffee favored by Italians to make espresso and stuff like that. It reminded me that I really live in a pretty neat world. There is tremendous variety and beauty everywhere we look, even in something as simple as what we drink for breakfast.

Where does your coffee come from? What is special about it? Who grew it? Look into it. It is probably more interesting that you suspect.

In which Tim explores the forest in sandals...

It was shortly after seven oclock on a Friday morning, and I had been looking forward to another hour of sleep before beginning a day of seeking out people to do interviews with. A voice came through the window summoning me from sleep.

"Timo! Get up! It's time to go!" It took me a minute to figure out where in the world I was supposed to be going. The sun was barely starting to peep over the surrounding hilltops. Alter attempting to rub the sleep from my eyes I remembered the hydroelectric project that my community is working on, and that I have somehow been appointed a consultant to. There is a good sized stream flowing down a mountain to join the main river, and the plan is to send some of this water along a route of pipe that gets gradually narrower (thus increasing the pressure), and into a plant that will provide enough power for three small communities. It is a neat idea, and I am glad to be involved.

Yet my enthusiasm was tempered on this occasion by the memory of my last trip up to the site. It is a three mile hike from my house to the spring that feeds the stream, and it is all up hill. The rock and gravel road eventually turns into a small, steep and narrow forest trail, then eventually the trail ends and you have the choice between scrambling up the slippery rocks that the stream cascades down, or macheteing your way through the forest on the banks, and still having to do a fair amount of climbing. It had been a long trip that resulted in not much more than looking at the stream, me taking some gps readings, and then turning around to hike home sore, sweaty and scratched up by mean plants. Suffice it to say I did not particularly relish the prospect of getting up on this particular morning to do it all again.

I was told that our plan was to follow the stream down the mountain to evaluate where we could lay a pathway for the pipeline that will eventually be installed. This being the case, I asked if I should opt to wear A) jeans and hiking boots, well suited for scrambling through vegetation, or B) swimsuit and a pair of Dominican rubber sandals, ideal for getting wet and negotiating slippery rocks. I was told without a doubt to go for option B, so I did. Off we we went up the mountain in the cool morning air that was quickly heating up as the sun climbed higher and higher. When we came to the end of the path I was hot and sweaty, and a little blistered from having walked so far up hill in sandals, but I was looking forward to the prospect of soaking my feet in a cool stream for a little while.

We came to within site of the water, and the party of eight suddenly turned and began hacking their way single file through the brush down hill. I expressed curiosity as to why we were not going TO the stream as I had been told. The reply was "Oh, we are going to MAKE a PATH today right where we think the pipe should run." Oh. I guess plans have changed. Now hiking through tight forest on nothing wider than a machete path in a swimsuit is a miserable enough venture given a lot of the plant life that likes to bite, sting and scratch. But add to that the fact that this forest runs straight downhill, and the fact that you are wearing open toed and heeled sandals that like to slip off. It makes for not the most fun of hikes. There was much stumbling, tripping, saying words under my breath that are best not repeated, and thinking about the kinds of things I'd like to do to some of these people who talk about "saving the rainforest" without ever having had to hike through one. It was not one of my shining moments. I was tired, hungry, angry and sore. My hiking companions did not find me very eager for conversation.

I made it back home to bathe, eat a good meal, and sleep for a few hours. The bad mood eventually passed, and I have been back to the worksite a few times with less frustration. Yet frustration is a BIG part of my work here, and it never goes away completely. There is the issue of communicating with my partners across linguistic and cultural barriers ("what clothes should I wear REALLY?"). There's the challenge of dealing with new environmental conditions, such as sauna-like humidity and ferocious plants. And then there's the fact that when I do come home at the end of the day, the only thing I can speak english to is my journal. It is far from easy, but I think I am learning how to deal. Toward the beginning it felt like I was having one or two days a week where the frustration felt overwhelming. Those days become less and less frequent the longer I am here. There are far more good days than bad. I love figuring out the ins and outs of the language and culture. I admire my environment far more than I whine about it. And I am learning to appreciate solitude as something that can be very healthy, for a season. I live, and learn, and try not to be too afraid of looking like an idiot as I stumble through the jungle in my rubber sandals.

Regarding mangoes...

There is a tree near my house that stretches its arms to heaven and dwarfs all of its neigbors. Its status as the tallest tree in town, as well as its proximity to the road make it something of a local landmark. Everyone knows "the mango tree". Its branches are thickly laden with fruit right now, but the height of the tree prevents fruit lovers from from dining at leisure. We have to wait for a nice stiff breeze, which brings about the "plop, plop, plop" of the falling fruit. Lately the fruit has been fattening, so it falls frequently. Sometimes it seems to be raining mangoes.

The foot of the tree has become a gathering place for the local kids. When the fruit falls the kids gather up as much as they can carry, often taking off their tshirts for use as sacks. They lug their loot off to a corner where they spend a good long while eating their fill. My proximity to the great tree is a wonderful thing. It means that the kids, whether from generosity or guilt, always feel the need to share their harvest with me. They often give me their best mangoes.

At first I was reluctant to accept these frequent gifts. It wasn't because I didn't like mangoes; I love them. Nor was it because I was hesitant to take from people who less than I do materially (their wealth in fruit is great, as testified to by the fact that they can barely carry all the mangoes they have picked up). I was slow to accept the fruit simply because I felt like an idiot trying to eat it in front of people.

Where I come from we deal mostly with fruit of the "user friendly" variety. Bananas and oranges come in wrappers that are easily removed and disposed of. Apples, plums and peaches can be eaten as they are, with special care given to avoiding the pit. Grapes, strawberries, and blueberries can be taken whole. We don't know much about things like mangoes, papayas, or passion fruit. They might be a flavor in an exotic juice that we enjoy, or part of a fruit salad at an expensive restaurant. But most of us could not tell you what a mango fresh off the tree looks like, let alone how to go about eating one. And the mango is certainly no easy fruit to eat. Its inedible skin is more difficult to remove than that of an orange or a banana, and its pit is much more tightly bound to the fibrous fruit than that of an apple or peach. Consumption requires a lot of pulling and cutting, which is no clean work given the sweet juiciness for which the mango has been dubbed "queen of the fruits". If one had a cutting board, a good sharp knife, and a large fork it would be possible to eat a mango with some semblance of neatness. Yet these implements are hardly readily available when a grinning four year old hands you the greenish gold fruit out on the street and tells you to eat. Bashfulness always kicks in, because I see how wet and sticky this kid is, and I don't want to have to take my second bath of the day so early.

The kids have no problem with the process. They tear into the bottom of the fruit and rip off the skin with their teeth. Then they suck the fibers completely dry with a depth of joy that makes me think about life. By the end, their hands and face are completely drenched in the sticky orange colored juice. This process did not appeal to me. It was too messy to fit my attempted image of "professionalism," and I really hated spending hours picking those little fibers out from between my teeth. Eating this fruit is a sticky ordeal with an irritating aftermath.

Ah, but I have forgotten the reward, and the reason that children all over the world always run toward the "plop, plop, plop" of falling mangoes. That taste! The juice of such refreshing sweetness and subtle flavor the beckons the desire, even after years of separation. The queen of the fruits is indeed a temptress, and she quickly seduced me to forget my hesitation. I now eat mangoes in the same way as my young neigbors. Sometimes four or five in an afternoon. I realized that the mango season, much like life, is short. We need to bite that skin and the suck the juice out while we still can, and enjoy that succulent flavor as it drips down the chin. It's what I've decided to do. If you'd like to join me, I know a good tree.

Regarding how I come and go...

You've all heard tell of many things that "half the fun is getting there." This saying certainly holds true of life in the Peace Corps. In the past few months I have used a variety of means to get from the various Point A's to Point B's. Here is a sampling...

Guagua - This is what you would most commonly refer to as a mini-bus. It's the most common way to move between large towns. Most of them are falling apart, and packed with people to the point of being a public health issue, but they are reasonably priced and relatively comfortable.

Passenger Bus - A lot like grey hound. This is what you use to travel very long distances. The bigger companies have buses that are very comfortable (air conditioning!!!), albeit a little festive for the taste of many Americans (they like to blast Meringue music).

Carro Publico - Translated = "Public Car". Used in the cities. They follow routes the same way that a bus would, and you pay based on how far you ride. These are normal sized four door cars, but they put up to four people in the back seat, and two in the passenger seat up front. Watch out for pick pockets.

Bola - In English we would call it hitch hiking. Basically you stand by the road and wave at whoever comes along, hoping they'll pick you up. In this part of the country most of the vehicles are pick up trucks so there is always enough room. You might have to sit next to a goat or a chicken, but at least the open air nature of the vehicle provides adequate ventilation. If the truck is REALLY full (like if you are headed toward a beach on a weekend, and there are a lot of people with the same idea as you) you will probably have to hang off of the bumper. This is not as bad as it sounds. The sense of adventure on the turns makes up for the discomfort.

Moto-concho - This is a motorcycle taxi, and it's the most common way to travel to remote locations in the countryside since the odds of catching a bola are often slim. This is how I get up the mountain to where I live. PCV's are required to wear helmets, so whenever I am out and about I am dragging along my sleek looking motorcycle helmet. It makes me feel cool. The motorcycle ride up a mountain is an interesting experience. A lot of these bikes are not in the best shape, so one spends the entire trip up the hill wondering if the engine will make it or not. On the downhill side there is another cause for worry. These drivers like to go FAST. I won't offer more details here, because I know my mother and grandmother are reading and I do not wish to cause them concern. Just be aware that I ALWAYS wear my helmet.

Mule - A common beast of burden on the farms around where I live. I have used them on a couple visits. They are not fast or flashy, but they get the job done and don't smell that bad.

Horse - Quick, loyal and glamorous. I spent a weekend toward the beginning riding a horse on mountain trails, and had a blast. My own horse should be arriving any week now. I am working on growing my cowboy moustache, and I am going shopping for a suitable hat as soon as I finish this entry.

Anyone who comes to visit me can rest assured that they will experience many of the types of transport on this list, and maybe more. I am sure the list will grow!

Regarding Food

An easy trap to stumble into when describing an experience like mine is to only share the stories that seem sensational, and forget about the everyday stuff. There is so much that has become commonplace for me, but that I forget would strike all of my readers as new and interesting. So from now on I will try to spend more time talking about some of the many routine and often repetitive elements of what it means to be in the Peace Corps.

My diet here is much less varied than it was back home, but still delicious. The big meal of the day is lunch, which almost always consists of white rice, beans (red or black), and some kind of meat (usually chicken). There is sometimes a salad too. This meal is popularly referred to as ¨La Bandera Dominicana¨ (the Dominican flag) because it offers all the colors that are present on the flag. It is nourishing and delicious, and I am starting to think it might be addictive. Around mid-day, every day of the week, I get a craving in my gut. If the menu happens to be different that day, or if I am on the road and not able to sit down to eat, I experience a wave of disappointment at not getting my bandera. I am actually starting to get hungry just writing this.

Breakfast and dinner are made up primarily of what they call ¨vivres¨, what we would usually call starches. Green bananas, plantain, yucca, squash, potatoe, and yam are all common features during these meals, usually boiled but sometimes fried. The vivre will usually come with some salami (basically summer sausage, but not as good as it is back home), fried cheese, or an egg.

I live in a very lush tropical valley where agriculture is the name of the game, so I also eat a lot of amazing fruit. There´s a giant mango tree right next to my house that the kids are always throwing rocks at to get down whatever fruit might be ready. There are THOUSANDS of them on this tree, just waiting to turn orange and drop. Delicious. There´s also a lot of oranges, lemons, bread fruit, banana, and an amazing fruit called ¨guanabana¨ which I never had before coming here, and don´t know the english for.

Despite the fact that my community is poor, the fact that they are farmers means that there is almost always plenty of food. The food shortages that have been striking much of the world have been felt here with rice being more expensive, but fortunately there is no emergency. There have been problems in the past, as we live right in the middle of hurricane alley. When a storm hits directly, it has the potential to wipe out any and all crops that are in the ground at the time. Some of my work is going to focus on growing a greater variety of food to 1) keep the soil healthy and happy and 2) reduce dependence on one or two kinds of crops for income. We will be starting a community vegetable garden project sometime soon here.

Stay tuned!

Regarding stomach problems...

WARNING: The following entry contains graphic and disturbing descriptions of the things that can happen to one's digestive tract when traveling in the developing world. Proceed with caution.
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It all started very early on a Wednesday morning. I had been back in the city for a few days since visiting my site, and was getting ready to graduate on Thursday, and move out to the country on Friday. I had to get up around five thirty in order to make it all the way to the heart of the city for important meetings that were scheduled to last all day. My alarm clock sounded, I arose, and folded up my mosquito net. Suddenly I had a feeling that is best described as one of extremely urgent pressure in the lower regions of my intestines. I am not talking about the kind of pressure where you say "Oh, I should visit the bathroom in the next little while." No. This was the kind where I thought to myself "If I don't RUN to the bathroom I will soon have a situation on the floor that I would rather not try to explain to my host mother." So I ran, and made it to the commode.

The next few minutes involved a series of minor explosions that are not a regular part of my bodily cycle. Uh oh. Apparently I had eaten something that my body did not like. My assessment was proved correct when a few minutes later I found myself shedding liquid from the other end of my body.

You know a day is going to be rough when you both vomit and experience diarrhea before six oclock in the morning. I could have gone back to bed and avoided having to do anything that day. No meetings, no travel on packed and uncomfortable public transport. Just my bed, a toilet close by, and a concerned host family to keep me full of soda and saltines. I could have chosen that, but you've already probably guessed that I didn't. I am not very good at listening to my body when it tells me to rest. If there is work to be done, then gosh darn it I will roll up my sleeves and do it. Not snow, nor sleet, nor hurricanes, nor diarrhea will prevent me from doing my duty for Uncle Sam. Besides, what kind of a story would it have made if I'd just gone back to bed?

So I got dressed, filled my nalgene with oral rehydration fluid, and headed out into the world, despite the adamant protests of my host family. I had taken some pepto, so the forty five minute walk to the training center passed without incident, though I did visit the bathroom immediately upon arriving. The hour and a half ride into the city was a different story. I was packed onto a bus with thirty of my companions for a bumper to bumper, stop and go claustrophobic experience that might well have made me nauseous under normal circumstances. As I sat there with my gut sounding like a particularly morbid sort of orchestra I found myself thinking about those Buddhist monks who can concentrate to the point of making themselves immune to physical distractions. I have never before put more focused mental energy into controlling the actions of my body. It was exhausting, but I succeeded. I made it to the bathroom at the Peace Corps office in down town, and fortunately there was a doctor in the house. She gave me some pills that helped, but at the end of the day I had visited five different bathrooms for a total of nine individual trips.

It was four days until the flow subsided, with each day a little easier than the last. During this time I managed to finish my training, pass a bunch of exams, attend my swearing in ceremony, pack, and move ALL of my stuff to my new home in a remote village on the far side of the country (via public transport). I was ready to sleep for a week, and also very glad that I was now able to take solid food. A mountain of rice, beans, plantains, mangoes, and other assorted tropical goodies was waiting for me, so I am gaining back a little bit of the weight that the disease took from me. And avocado season is right around the corner so I will be eating much more. I recently tried describing the idea of guacamole to my family, and they thought it sounded weird. I guess I can do a little cultural exchange as soon as that fruit ripens.

As always, thanks for reading.

In which Tim updates you...

I descend from my mountain abode to update my faithful readers. I rode on the back of a motorcycle through a rain storm, and waited on a street corner for half an hour to squeeze myself into a van to ride along the sea shore for another hour, and now I am here. I have been living on my mountain for about two and a half weeks now, and I am learning how to adjust to life way out there in the country. Forgive me if my English is a little sticky. I have not used it for about a week.

Many of you have asked for more details regarding the work I will be doing, so here it goes. I am partnered with a small NGO that tries to help poor rural farming communities improve their situations a little bit. I am living in one of the main communities where they work, and I think my job will be to sort of serve as the eyes and ears of the organization, looking for new opportunities to help them do what they do. I am connected with a local farming association, and will probably use that as a jumping off point for work with soil erosion, organic fertilizers, and environmental youth activism.

For the first few months I am working on a diagnostic project. I am trying to go door to door in my community, meeting with each family to introduce myself and get to know them. In the process I am tabulating things like level of income, source of income, number of kids, level of education, etc. When I finish getting the numbers together I will probably post it all so that you get some kind of idea of what the basic situation is here.

Most days I get up around seven, drink some strong coffee, and visit with the family for a bit. Then I might go for a walk, or out with some of the farmers to learn about pruning coffee trees or harvesting cocoa. I have seen a few pigs butchered already. When the sun is nice and high I go back to my house and try to get some work done. At night there is usually a game of dominoes to be won. It´s not a bad little routine. We´ll see how it evolves as I find things to do.

Stay tuned!

In which Tim reveals his location...

I have beheld the location where I will be spending the next two years of my life, and it is good.

But before I get into the description, there's a funny little bit of irony. My close friends and family back home will remember that during the months before I came here I had a special way of describing my upcoming Peace Corps service. Instead of prefacing statements with "When I am in the Dominican Republic..." or "When I am in the Peace Corps..." I started saying "When I live in the jungle...". This turn of phrase was usually in jest. I did NOT actually expect to be living in the jungle. But it turns out that either I have a gift of prophecy, or God has a sense of humor, because Tim REALLY is moving to the jungle.

My site is in a small forested valley with a river running down the middle of it. To get to my village you have drive down dirt roads, and straight through the river. It's not possible to get there without a good motorcycle, or a pretty powerful four wheel drive truck. Then you go up some rough, rocky track and you are at my front door. I live in a cement brick house in the middle of a cluster of houses that I believe were built by habitat for humanity. The houses are cement-gray, and the inside of my bedroom looks a bit like a prison cell, but the walls are solid and the roof keeps the rain out so I am happy. And the boringness of the house is more than made up for by the view and the sounds. The surrounding slopes are covered in more kinds of trees than I know the names for, and there are birds everywhere. At night I hear the crickets singing and river flowing. It's a very beautiful place.

I haven't yet figured out exactly what work I will be doing. It will probably have something to do with helping coffee farmers to figure out cheap and environmentally friendly ways to improve their productivity. There is a lot of soil erosion, and problems associated with the more and more frequent hurricanes that like to batter this part of the country. The people are very poor. Most of the houses I see are little more than wooden shacks with tin sheets for roofs. I've been told that a lot of the adults are illiterate. Many are Haitian refugees, so they don't speak the Spanish that they would need to really do well here. Of course, even if they did speak good Spanish they would still have to deal with the massive discrimination this society has against Haitians.

So here I am. I live in a cement house in the jungle, and I am trying to help desperately poor people help themselves and the earth. It's a big job, and I would be lying if I said I didn't feel a little bit overwhelmed. This fun little trip in the Caribbean just became serious. Please keep me in your thoughts and prayers, and I will try to keep the stories coming!

P.S. Security regulations prohibit me from revealing my exact location on the blog. If you want the GPS coordinates, feel free to email me and ask.

In which Tim meets with the Japanese...

It was 10:30 on a humid Santo Domingo morning, and my assignment was simple. I was to meet the director of the organization to which I have been assigned at the office of a group called JICA. JICA is more or less the Japanese equivalent of the Peace Corps. Japanese professionals volunteer to live for two years in a developing country, sharing their culture along with various technical expertise. A JICA volunteer had been assigned to the same organization as me, so I assumed that my director and I were just going to be picking the guy up and high tailing it for the countryside. Because it would just be an in and out affair, I figured there would be no problem with the fact that I had sweated through my shirt on the walk across the city and looked a little bit like I had forgotten to dry off from my morning shower before getting dressed that morning.

I got off the elevator at the seventh floor, and felt like I had been teleported to a part of the world quite far from the North Caribbean. The hallways were full of Japanese people running this way and that, and the decor had the sleek silverish look that I have come to associate with twenty first century Tokyo. I was ushered into a waiting room where I sat down in chair that looked like it could have come from a spaceship, and I was soon met by my director. Far from simply meeting the Japanese volunteer, we were actually about to attend their swearing in ceremony that was to be officiated by none other than the Japanese ambassador. There would also be in attendance a number of very important people in the world of Dominican development.

Great. Here I am about to hob knob with the cream of NGO society, and I am in a sweaty shirt. On top of that, the Peace Corps has a lot of very strict rules governing everything from what I am allowed to post on my blog, right down to the food I put in my body. I wasn't quite sure how they would feel about me representing the Corps, as well as the entire U.S of A. at a semi-diplomatic function. And there was really no way around this since I came into the building wearing my standard issue Peace Corps ID badge, and couldn't very well take it off and stow it in my pocket while sitting in the spaceship chair in the quickly filling room. Then I remembered that one of the things that my Peace Corps drill sergeants are big on is the art of improvisation. When one finds oneself in an ambiguous situation, just keep on rolling.

So I did what I do best. I put on a smile and turned up the charm. Fortunately the powerful air conditioner was able to take care of my sweat situation before it came time to mix and mingle. Since my Japanese is a little rusty, and most Japanese living in the Dominican Republic have little to no reason to be fluent in English, the language of conversation was Spanish. More specifically, my conversation partners were speaking Spanish with fairly heavy Japanese accents. I had never before paused to wonder what Spanish would sound like when combined with the East Asian manner of speaking, but now I know. If you, dear reader, ever have the opportunity to speak Spanish with a Japanese person, please use it and use it well.

I also discovered very quickly that the Japanese people around here really like the Peace Corps. A lot. When I met the deputy director of JICA, I thought he was going to bounce through the roof. We engaged in an extended hand shake and series of bows that lasted a very long time, with him continually saying "Peace Corps!! USA!! Very good!! Muy bien, muy bien!!" And when he left the room at the end he came up to me, smiled ear to ear, and said in his heavy Japanese accent "Estados Unidos y Japon. Juntos siempre!" ("The United States, and Japan. Always together!"). He bowed deeply, turned around, and quickly marched from the room.

After the program with speeches, there was a reception complete with sushi and a bunch of those amazing cookie and cracker concoctions that the Japanese have invented. The Dominicans present did not think much of the sushi, but loved the cookies and the chicken terriyaki. So I got to eat a little extra sushi. I was as happy as a pig in mud.

At the reception I met the volunteer who will be a part of my program, and he's a stellar guy. Smart and excited to get started with his volunteer work. We spent the next couple of days together, travelling to our site and meeting a lot of new people who's names we've probably both forgotten by now. But despite the fact that he and I come from totally different cultures and can only communicate in a language that is native to neither of us, there was a tremendous spirit of shared adventure. We've both left home and family to come to this tiny island, and try to do something that will make the world a little bit better.

It's neat to know that no matter what ambiguous, random, or strange cultural situation I find myself in, there are some things that persist. Like people everywhere loving good food. And decent people recognizing the fact that our world has a lot of problems, and being willing to work hard to fix it. It was a cool day.

In which Tim announces the big news...

This will be a whirlwind entry due to lack of time. Today we received our project site assignments, so I know where I will be living the for the next two years. I will be in a very small community in the mountains above a town called Paraiso, in the South of the country. Do a google search for images, and I guarantee you will want to visit.

I have to run now, but expect a longer entry next week because I will be visiting my site for the remainder of the week.

In which Tim checks in...

Yes, I live. I am reporting to you literally from the top of a mountain where I have discovered a wireless connection at training center for coffee growers. For you history buffs out there, this training center is located in a large country house that used to belong to the dictator Trujillo.

I am living with a family in the town that is quite different from the family I stayed with in the city. They make a living off of farming, so economically they are not quite as well off. There are ten kids in the family, most of whom have grown up and moved on. A few of the brothers still live at home, owing to the fact that they are deaf. So my Spanish is not getting much work, but I am becoming not-that-bad at sign language!

The biggest change in moving from country to city has been the interconnectedness of the community. Everyone knows EVERYONE here, and everyone always knows exactly what everyone else is up to. And I am sure you can imagine the kind of attention that a group of Americans moving into the middle of a small town is getting...we're pretty much rock stars.

There are about eight of us who live within a mile of each other, and it's a little unnerving but often hilarious to see how gossip travels. For example, my friend Claire who lives up the road from me is often told by her host mother what Tim had for breakfast and what time he got up that day. Last week Claire entered the kitchen and found her host mother laughing very hard at something. She asked what was funny, and was told "Tim got up early to do his homework, but the power is out so he has to use a flash light! HA HA HA HA HA!" Apparently it was very funny. I will let you draw your own conclusions.

On that note, a normal part of life here is that the lights go out often, with no warning. So I will stop writing here, and post the blog lest it be lost to a power outage.

Please keep sending the emails. I enjoy reading them, and I will probably be able to keep checking a couple times a week.

In which Tim signs off (temporarily)...

The first stage of our training is complete. On Monday we leave the capital city, and move to the countryside for five weeks of community based technical training. The family I am living with does not have a telephone, and I doubt there will be readily available internet access. If possible, I will try to get to a city every few weeks to read email and possibly post on the blog.

I assure you that I will continue to collect stories, and probably have a deluge of posts as soon as I get regular internet back.

Please feel free to continue sending emails, or even snail mail (there's a possibility that will get to me faster than email). My address is:

Tim Brown, PCT
Cuerpo de Paz
APDO 1412
Santo Domingo,
Republica Dominicana

Send that mail, and cheer for Sparty in the tourny!!

In which Tim bathes...

*WARNING: The following story contains nudity.*

Last week I traveled out to the countryside to visit a Peace Corps Volunteer who's been on the job for a few months already. The purpose of the trip was to learn first hand what a volunteers living situation is like, and how they spend their time. Getting to my assigned volunteer was an adventure in and of itself. It required a bus ride to another large city (pretty straightforward), followed by a two hour ride up a mountain spent hanging off the rear bumper of a pickup truck that was loaded down with people, sacks of rice, and live chickens (less straight forward, but mission accomplished). My first thought was that this experience was starting to feel a little bit more like what I expected from the peace corps.

Patrick, the volunteer I visited, lives virtually on top of a mountain. His house is built right next to a very steep slope that drops down about 500 ft. into a lush and picturesque valley. The view is westward, so you can only imagine how gorgeous the sunsets are. Definitely a cool place to live.

On my first night there, I was shown where I could bathe to get myself a little cleaned up from the road. The "shower" is a barrel of water out back with a bucket used to pour the water over oneself. There are no walls or curtains to conceal the process from the outside world. This isn't much of an issue since there aren't really that many passersby, and everyone in the house would know you were bathing so they would be courteous enough to not come and start a conversation. Or so I thought.

I very much enjoyed my first outdoor bathing experience. The cool water was very welcome after the heat of the dusty road. It was a little strange to be buck naked in the open air, but it didn't bother me that much. In fact, as I looked out at the sun setting over the tropical valley, heard the crickets chirp, and felt the cool breeze, I truly began to feel at one with nature. I felt like Adam at the beginning of time, surveying the purity of creation, unspoiled and unashamed.

The poetic gears were just beginning to spin in my head when it suddenly all came to a very awkward stop. I glanced over my shoulder and noticed that I was not alone. There was an elderly gentleman sitting about ten feet away from me, chowing down on his dinner of yucca and salami. We made eye contact, and he wished me a good evening before continuing with his food. It was as if nothing was out of the ordinary. I began to think that nudity might not represent the same taboo in this culture that it does back home. This conclusion was confirmed later in the evening when another member of the household on his way to bathe came walking through the area where myself and others were sitting, wearing nothing but his birthday suit.

So my moment of intimacy with nature may have been interrupted, but I learned a little bit more about what may or may not be taboo here. But I can assure you that this is not a social norm that I intend to conduct experimentation with. That is a promise.

In which Tim cooks...

Within a few days of moving in, I made it clear to my host mother that I was very interested in learning how to cook Dominican food. At first she didn't really believe me (this is a very "macho" culture, with some pretty strict expectations for what men and women choose to take interest in), but after repeated expression of interest by me, she caved. I was told on Tuesday that on Sunday I would be taught to cook. What ensued was a day by day countdown during which more and more people became interested in what would happen on Sunday. Each day it was "three more days until you learn how to cook...", "only two more days...", "Timo, are you really going to learn how to cook tomorrow...?". Grandma Maria was so excited that for the last several days she has been confused about what day it is, thinking that tomorrow was the big day.

The day dawned, and I stepped up to the stove. We cooked a dish called "Lokria" which is really quite tasty. We employed a few techniques that I've not used before. The following is a step by step description of what we did. Feel free to try it out and let me know how it tastes...

1. We took a full chicken, cut it into it's various pieces (legs, thighs, wings, etc.) and cleaned it using freshly squeezed orange juice and a little bit of water.

2. With a mortor and pestle I crushed up a handful of rock salt, about two spoonfulls of oregano, and six full garlic cloves. It came out as a nice pungent smelling paste that we rubbed on the chicken along with some chicken bouillon. We put it in a pot, and added onion (quartered), a green pepper (uncut), and a splash of red wine. We let it sit for about fifteen minutes.

3. We got some oil heated up in a large pan, and put a lump of sugar in to cook (I was told that it would give color to the chicken). When the oil was bubbling nicely we added the chicken/veggie mix, stirred it around a bit, and covered it to cook.

4. When the chicken is almost finished, we added corn, peas, a can of tomato paste, and some full stalks of cilantro, and enough water to make it look like a soup or stew. We let it sit until it came to a boil and tasted it to see that the seasoning was right. At this point, we fished out the cilantro stalks and added a ton of rice.

5. The trick seems to be to make sure you have the exact right rice to water ratio, because when it had cooked up completely it no longer looked like a soup. It was a red colored rice based dish with chicken and veggies in it. Almost like a paella. Absolutely delicious and very easy to make.

It was a very satisfying and filling lunch. The best part was that the many neighbors who had heard about my foray into the culinary arts decided to swing by for a taste. The agreement seemed to be that I was a decent cook, and might just be able to survive when I move to the country side on my own in a few months.

In which Tim discovers that some of his skills translate better than others...

Last week we had a session on "acculturation" in which we were taught first to play dominoes, and then to dance the Merengue. Apparently this is a critical element of training, as Dominicans spend much of their free time either playing dominoes or dancing. The dominoes lesson was uneventful and fun. Game play is pretty simple (you just match numbers), but the strategy gets pretty elaborate. The most skilled players will know instinctually who has which piece, and how they are going to play them. Apparently it can be a very intense game.

The dance lesson was much more amusing. Let me preface the following by stating that my ancestry has not equipped me with the necessary hardware or software to be an amazing dancer. Half of my ancestors were New England puritans who were not allowed to dance, and the other half were stalwart midwestern farmers who had no reason to dance...

Merengue is a fast and rhythmic style of dance that requires a lot of swing in the hips while the feet barely shuffle across the floor. When done well it is really a beautiful dance. Those who know me well understand that I do not often have trouble finding the words that I need to describe a situation. But I cannot for the life of me begin to describe what I looked like trying to get my butt to move more than my feet. Please let your imagination do the work. It was downright embarassing, especially when I discovered that a friend had decided to spend her time taking video of others rather than practicing the dance...(this video will NOT be made available for main-stream consumption)...

Of course, the embarassment was mildly relieved by the fact that most of my comrades looked just as ridiculous, if not more so, than myself. And fortunately the day did not end with humiliation. When I got home that evening I told my host mother that I had learned dominoes that day, and would very much like to play sometime. Later that night she took me over to the neigbors where I have noticed that they play very spirited games every night (lots of slamming pieces down on the table and yelling at each other). I was a little intimidated to have my skills tested so early on so competitive a crowd, but I sucked up my fear, sat down at the table, and picked up my pieces.

I won the first few hands, and they laughed it off as beginners luck. But then I won the game, and they decided to play a little harder. After winning the next two games in a row they acknowledged that I possessed no small amount of skill, and told me that I was welcome at their table any time.

So while my dance skills may leave something to be desired, at least I can hold my own at the dominoes table. All in all, not too bad for a day's worth of learning.

In which Tim rides a bus...

Last Monday our training schedule informed me that the entire afternoon would be given over to learning how to navigate the local bus system. We were to spend an hour in a classroom learning about how things worked, and then be sent out (accompanied by staff) to practice our newly acquired knowledge. Naturally, I rolled my eyes. I mean, come on. How hard could it possibly be to catch a bus and ride it across town? Give me a map, show me which way is North, and I am good. Teach me something IMPORTANT that I haven't already done in plenty of other countries. As the dear reader can probably imagine, my pride was about to have the wind knocked out of it.

We walked out to the street to find a bus (here called "guaguas"). We did not go to a bus stop, because there is no such thing here. You more or less stand by the road looking for a bus that is going in the right direction, and has the markings that tell you what it's ultimate destination is. I have yet to see a poster or pamphlet that explains the bus routes or how they are organized. Everyone just sort of knows what bus goes where. The 10 B bus goes from Pantoja to Maximo Gomez Blvd and back again. Everyone just knows that. And there is no 9 A bus, or 11 C bus. The names are arbitrary.

This is the part of the story that involved my friends and I waiting by the side of the road without really knowing what the plan was. Apparently one chooses a spot along the route and waits for the bus to come along, at which point it is advisable to stick out ones thumb or wave exuberantly so that the bus actually stops. There is no schedule, so the wait could take a while. It's possible to wait half an hour without seeing a bus, and then have three come by within five minutes of each other. It is advisable, especially in the middle of the day, to pick a spot with a lot of shade.

When the bus came we found seats in the "cocina" (lit. translation = "kitchen"), or the very back row. The music was blasting, I was getting a nice lung-full of exhaust, and there were quite a few more people on that vehicle than would have been legal back home. But we were on the bus, and we were learning the route. It still seemed pretty basic, with the greatest ordeal being that of fitting my not-so-short legs into a not-so-large amount of space.

After about half an hour we made it to our destination in the heart of the city, got our bearings by looking at a map, and got ready to cross the street and pick up the same bus route going in the opposite direction to get home. At this point I stole a glance at the horizon, and couldn't help but notice a great, dark mass quickly blocking the sun and bearing down on us. I was momentarily nostalgic about the fact that I was about to experience my first rain storm in the country that is now my home for the next few years, but I quickly remembered a similar incident in Bangladesh, and my nostalgia melted away like ice cream on a hot summer day. The rain came fast, and it came hard. It was not as torrential as other down pours I have experienced, but I was pretty wet. My small group sprinted a few blocks to find shelter under a marquee in a spot where our teacher assured us we could catch a bus back to the training center. Great.

The buses started coming by, and my first response was "I guess we will have to wait, these buses are way too full". Little did I understand of what was to come. The rain was coming harder, and we wanted to get home. A bus came that appeared to have enough standing room for our group. We ran to get on, but it appeared that we were not the only pedestrians seeking shelter and transportation. There were legions of people evacuating the sidewalks for vehicles. We joined the squeeze to get on, and somehow I was the last one. I suddenly found myself hanging out the open door of a bus that was moving at no low speed through very tight traffic. Over the next few blocks I managed to pull myself further in, and got wedged between two of my female colleagues who had also found standing room. At this point I breathed a sigh of relief, thinking "well, we are on the bus, and there is absolutely no way they are going to put more people on this thing". Once again, little did I know. The people kept coming, and coming, AND COMING. I got shoved further in, to the middle of the aisle directly in front of the door. The only solid thing for me to hold on to was the door of the bus. I latched on like a limpit. The two girls on either side of me could not reach anything either, so I had one clawing on to my left arm to keep from falling over, and the other squeezing the life out of my right shoulder. And still they kept shoving people onto that bus. There was definitely a person riding in my armpit for a little while. I think I might have been sitting on someones shoulder. I lost track of the number of people that I was in close physical contact with. I wondered for a moment if I wouldn't be sucked into the vortex-like crowd and be permanently stuck on this Santo Domingo bus.

But eventually we came to our stop, and I was able to somehow pry myself from the midst of the forest of limbs with which I was entangled. It would be a lie to say that I wasn't frustrated, irritated, and just plain grumpy. I was ready to never ride a bus again. But after a tasty dinner and a good night's sleep I felt significantly better. And I got on a bus again the next day, and had a better experience. I've learned how the system works, what routes go where, and how to be more comfortable. I realize now that what I perceive as disorganization and chaos may really be a form of order with which I am not yet familiar. I see that comfort and convenience are culturally relative, and that it seldom pays off to come into a situation assuming that I am an expert before I know what's really involved. I have learned a little bit about humility. And I am sure that the next two years will have many more such lessons for me...

In which Tim tells you about his house...

I live in a medium sized, single story orange house in the suburbs of the capital. The head of the house hold, or Dona, has two grown children who live in the USA. She is pretty much my Dominican mother, giving me more food than I could possibly eat, laughing when I put up my mosquito net wrong, and always checking on where I am going and when I will be back. Speaking Spanish has turned out to be a lot easier for me than I thought it would (it HAS been six years, after all), so communication has been really easy. I feel like this lady is the godmother of the neigborhood. She speaks with a commanding voice, immediately capturing all attention when she is in the room. She really rules the roost. The whole neigborhood knows her, and I am beginning to think that the whole neigborhood is related to her in one way or another. She never calls me by my name, but always by "mi amor" ("my love").

Also living here is Carlos, a cousin of the Dona's. From what I can tell, he owns a farm in the country side but likes to come into the city for extended visits. He and I have bonded over a mutual appreciation of the Boston Redsox. Maria is another person in the house. I am not sure if she's a friend, or a relative, but she has certainly been around for a while. I think she might be in her eighties or nineties. She is very small, and sort of reminds me of the pictures of Mother Teresa. She spends all day in the kitchen, cooking and cleaning, talking to her pet parrot, singing, and even dancing on occasion. Every time I enter the room she gives me a big hug and tells me she loves me. It's easy to feel welcome when I am being shown such affection all the time.

I live on a street that is usually sleepy and quiet. The silence is broken when a truck comes by that is completely loaded up with speakers blairing Salsa or Meringue music. It happened three times yesterday afternoon. I haven't figured out yet whether or not these trucks are trying to advertise something. Carlos told me that the music is so that people can stop whatever they are doing and dance in the streets. I am definitely not in Kansas anymore.