26 October 2001
Aula, CIMPA
I’ve been sleeping in later than I’d like to, and missing the time for sitting in the morning. Maybe if I bought an alarm, it would help.
A kicks so much ass. She can so have my love child. It’s really pathetic to see me so infatuated. I swear, if she asked me right now to marry her, I’d do it. I don’t know if we’d ever end up dating, but I certainly hope to be her friend.
At night, I borrowed a shortwave radio to listen to the news. It came through in variations of Spanish, Arabic, Hindi, Hebrew, Russian, pidgin languages, German, and then finally English.
The other day, I said I wanted to be like a motoconchista who drives quickly and efficiently and safely to his destination, despite the rocks and mud on the road.
[…later]
Last night after we went to the ISA for our lesson on breeding bunnies, 6/8 of the health trainees hopped on a schoolbus to Santiago. Trainer E hoped that if we had some diversion, we’d be more attentive in class. Trainer L wasn’t supposed to come, but he did anyway. J and N stayed back at CIMPA. N’s uncle had died, and J? I think she did laundry?
But it was good that J stayed home. When I have to make decisions with groups of people, I feel stressed out. It was just as well that J wasn’t there, because she might have found out about our earlier illicit voyage to the mall, being that the same mall was where I wanted to end up with everyone.
(Note to self: the mall from CIMPA is M car to Codatel, walk 1 mile or so)
At the mall, I bought french fries, a coke, a brownie, and my share of three large pizzas. I chose between several English-language films with subtitles in Spanish and one Mexican film in Spanish. Tickets cost RD$80.
I first went and saw Original Sin, a big Hollywood deal. After the unimpressive first ten minutes of the film, I went instead to the Mexican film, Y Tú Mamá, También. It was reminiscent of Amores Perros or Trainspotting. Basically, it was a Mexican roadtrip movie and coming-of-age story about a ultraprivileged 19-year-old son of politicians. He leaves the city with his friend and a girl he met at a party. Shown are multiple bland and random sex acts— just like I was into when I was 18.
The film was in Spanish, and I understood some, but not all, of it. It did make me miss Mexico, especially since a lot of the road trip was through Oaxaca to a beach there. It did make me think about how long it’s been since I’ve had sex (I believe that would be one month, twenty-two days, generally, and much longer since the good-luvin’-huggin-snuggling sort of nookie that I like!) despite the dystopic version of sex portrayed in the film.
Afterwards I felt oversugared and restless. I played several games of Air Hockey, even almost winning a two-on-one match against A and A.
Got back to CIMPA after a long ride. J joked that the driver must have sold the suspension to pay for the interior upholstery. The guy didn’t know where we were headed, and when we got there, he and the driver of the other taxi bickered with trainer L over the price he had bargained.
This morning, I got up around 7:45. I felt pleasantly tired after last night’s soiree. I argued with trainer L about the film. Breakfast was mashed potatoes and boiled eggs, served really late.
At 8:30, we started our check in. I thanked everyone, in English, for the good time last night.
Lecture today was about domestic abuse and women’s reproductive health. I was impressed by the similarities in the strident anti-rape rap by the Dominican woman and other profeminist raps I’ve heard before elsewhere, i.e. in the States. She even said “feminista“— that’s the first time I’d heard that word used here outside of casual conversation here.
Lunch was rice, bacalao, habichuela. I spent my time talking with B, S, and D about their counterparts and about B’s recent unexpected, and very nasty, root canal.
D’s counterpart agency really fucked up. Apparently, they promised to deliver birth control pills monthly, and the forgot for months at a time to distribute anything at all in her community. I certainly hope that my counterpart agency will be useful.
Yesterday’s interest in domestic meat production (gallos y conejos) carried over into today with several conversations about my desire for real cost/benefit analysis. D says that if I did this, it would be a real contribution.
We had Spanish class this afternoon, and now, the other trainees are cooking a special gringo supper. I’m waiting for my practice ACTFL oral proficiency interview. All is well. I want only for a little more freedom so I can settle down into a routine, and do the things I value– meditate, garden, read, learn more guitar– at length.
This is a review of my personal journal from my time as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Dominican Republic in 2001-2003. Even if I feel differently now or found out later that I what I wrote was factually incorrect, I haven’t changed what I wrote then. Part of the joy of reading old journals is seeing a story arc where I’ve learned new things.
Names have been shortened to initials to provide some privacy. Even though those who were there may be able to use these initials to figure out who I wrote about, please remember that my journaling is not about other people or their experience.
- The next entry in this series is Chasing Waterfalls and Mao
- The previous entry in this series is Centro Integral para el Mejoramiento de la Producción de Animales
- You can see the journal entries as I post them here.
- If you’re just starting, here’s the first entry.
