December 25, 2003

Is that Hotstream person still alive?

No, you aren't dreaming, this is a long-awaited Peace Corps Dominican Republic update. Sort of. I've been letting these things slide for a while because, well, for a lot of reasons. For one thing, I'm not really doing much with the community center anymore so I don't have free email access as often as I used to. And after a while it starts to feel weird writing about my own life as if I expect everyone to be interested in it. After two years here, I've kind of settled into a routine that doesn't seem very exciting to me, at least. I get up, I take a motorcycle to Haiti to work with the clinic, I look at goiters and hernias, I paint and build furniture, I count pills and go over the books, and then I climb onto the back of a rice truck and go home. Still, with less than four months left before I finish my service and head home, I'm realizing how much I'm going to miss this place and the people here. At least some of them.

Sometimes, even after two years of speaking Spanish every day, there are times when I feel like the dog in that Far Side cartoon. People are talking to me but all I hear is "Blah blah blah DANIEL blah blah blah blah DANIEL blah blah..." But last week a Dominican from the capital told me that my accent was so good that he never would have guessed I was American if I hadn't told him. So the Spanish comes and goes, kind of like having good and bad hair days. Some days it's almost second nature and others it's a struggle to understand a phrase as simple as "There will be no dinner tonight, the pig ate all the yuca."

In January my training group will hold what we call our "Close of Service" conference, where we talk about wrapping up our work here and figuring out what we're going to do with ourselves back in the States, or wherever we might end up. This will also include a "COS Survey," a list of questions each of us is asked to answer which is then published in the PCDR newsletter, the "Gringo Grita." It's sort of like the Senior section of a high school yearbook, really. So instead of giving a long rundown of what I've been up to in the months since I've written last, I'm just going to present my readers with my own COS survey as a kind of overview of my two years saving the world. It's hard to talk about Peace Corps without resorting to cliches, i.e. "it was an amazing experience," "it changed my life," etc. but I tried my best to avoid them. And where I have used them, it's only because they just happen to be true in this case.

One last note: This survey was meant mainly to be read by other Peace Corps Volunteers and staff, so some of it will read as inside jokes or things that non-volunteers might not "get." Some of it is even in Spanish, Spanglish, Kreyol, or a combination of all three sometimes referred to as "Kranglish." Try to enjoy it anyway, it's the best I can do right now, and come April I'll answer any questions over a beer at the Jazz Fest. So here it is:

Name: Dave "Daniel" Hotstream

DR Apodos: "Dame un peso", "Ven aca", "Gason", Blan", "pssst!"

Project Assignment: Teaching basic computer skills in a high school lab with no electricity.

Project Reality: Starting a clinic, health education, and mini-medical missions in Haiti.

Most useful thing brought into country: Josh and Chrisie Malpass.

Least useful thing brought into country: Firearms.

Favorite Dominican dish: El Rubio Chimi in the Zona Colonial.

Most beautiful place in the country: The ride from Restauracion to Tilory as seen from the back of a truck full of campesinos.

Favorite Latin music group: Johnny Cash.

Best books read: The Grapes of Wrath, Where There Is No Doctor.

Most memorable illness or injury: Two years of chronic crotch rot will be hard to forget.

Funniest experience(s) in country: The 3-hour search for "Pan Doggy" in San Juan with Hooker and Maria; Sleeping through a 6.5 earthquake and then telling Casey he was drunk when he woke me up to tell me the ground had been shaking; Pat Cunningham and Jason Chancer doing "The Humpty Dance" at the Medicinal Plants Taller; My CBT Doña cooling my harina in front of the fan every morning; Sleeping with five Dominican jovenes and Josh in a leaky Defensa Civil tent; Riding from Cotui to the capital with Angel Ripol doing Bill Cosby routines the entire way; Teaching a septugenarian campesino about the joys of masturbation at the USM Medical Mission with Justin Overdevest; Our Dominican guest speaker at Campamento Vida Silvestre telling the kids that clouds were made of ice and that thunder was caused by them crashing into each other; Vanessa Fernandez' "Emergency Blanket" on her trainee visit; That all-nighter on the Malecon about which I am sworn to secrecy (only Ramiro, Amanda, and the Dominican police department know the whole story); And, of course, the "Pig-Spanking Incident."

Best story, joke or phrase a Dominican ever told you: "Ahorita."

What are you glad you did here?: Discovered just how badly it is possible for the human body to smell.

What do you wish you had done here?: Convinced at least one of my friends to quit their job and join the Corps; Been evacuated in the Blackhawk chopper, just for a day or so.

What or whom will you miss six months from now?: Mamajuana; Communicating with the neighbors by "muchacho-gram"; Oatmeal served as a beverage; My commute to and from work; Peeing out the back door; Having a doña to cook, do my laundry, and keep me out of trouble; Haitian women carrying purses and backpacks on their heads; Saludaring passing neighbors while I shower in the yard; That colmado I could never walk into without having to drink at least one shot of Brugal; Watching cows graze under giant palm trees from my porch; The Dominican gift for stating the obvious; Restauracion's famous swimming hole.

What or whom will you NOT miss six months from now?: "No hay..."; Eating chicken with a spoon; My leaky roof; Chasing roaches, lizards, spiders, frogs, and snakes out of the latrine every morning; Ants on my toothbrush; Dominicans yelling everything they say and then asking "oiste?" at the end of every sentence; Midnight dogfights under my bedroom window; That whiny bachatero voice; Slogging through the swamp that forms around my house every time it rains (which is every day); Strangers asking me for money, passports, etc.; Giggling teenage girls staking out my house; Pausing conversations while mufflerless motorcycles roar by; My neighbor who can't seem to walk past my house without stopping to beat her kids for a good ten minutes; Living in a country with a good 1:3 ratio of human beings to enormous blown-out speakers; The rampant nose-picking.

What is your post-COS dream?: To have my next Invitation To Serve waiting for me when I get home and just start all over again.

What is your post-COS reality?: Road-tripping to Graceland in my brother's new 1962 Pontiac Catalina, hitchhiking to Oregon and Alaska, organic beekeeping, and then crashing with my long-suffering fake girlfriend and continuing my role as the Malpasses' wacky neighbor in Asheville while I wait for that Invitation.

What advice would you give to a new volunteer?: Chew slowly. Sometimes the rice has rocks in it.

Algo mas?: "We are here for no purpose unless we can invent one. Of that much I am certain." --Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

So there it is. Two years condensed into a list of one-liners.

One last thing while I have everyone's attention (if in fact I still do): The competition for this year's Mix Tape Contest was every bit as intense as last time, but as always, there could only be one winner. Miss Candy Sue Ellison of New York City sent in this year's unanimously-elected champion and will soon be the proud owner of one hand-carved wooden ashtray. Congratulations, booger! I still think we should get married and join the Corps together.

Merry Christmas,
Dave