SORRRRRY!!!
Ok, this one’s for the two weekends before last weekend..., cause the one before it wasn’t really that notable, except for the excessive amount of avocado involved.
2 weekends ago, the program I’m here with had a work retreat in which we went to a small village in the campo (out in a rural area) to do some work with a peace corps volunteer building some latrines for a few families.
We stayed in a newlyish constructed health facility on the top floor out on an open patio, but there weren’t any mosquitoes (unlike Santiago, where I get ravaged every night).
The people in the town were really nice, we hung out with them, got fed by them (including chicken feet in the stews they made because they cook everything….)
Anyway, so we got there Friday to hang out with the people, get a tour of the town and become acquainted with the work we were going to do.
After dinner and more chatting with the people, (WAY after, like, late) we decided to go star gazing, because you can’t really see stars in Santiago, and we walked out into a field with a bunch of people to sit and watch the stars, and shooting stars (there were so many!) and lightning off in the distance, and to play guitar while waiting for it to be too late to stay up any more.
The next morning, Saturday, we woke up sometime around 7 to the sound of what would eventually be our lunch being slaughtered, an (I imagine) 500 pound pig. There is no mistaking the sound of something dying, and if you’re second guessing yourself then it probably isn’t. When you hear something dying, you know. We knew. This bothered me far less than the other kids, because I’m much more connected to my food that most people, in the sense that meat doesn’t come from saran wrap.
At any rate, we ate that for lunch, but not before splitting up into two groups to construct the latrines, which went pretty well… we didn’t do much though, as there were some Dominicans from the town helping us and didn’t really let us do stuff unless we were adamant. Oh well.
Saturday night we all went to the little disco and danced with the locals, and then to a field (the same one as the night before) where we had a bonfire and some more stargazing until we had to go back and sleep… maybe sometime around 3, I’m really never sure of the time.
So that was fun.
Then the next weekend a whole bunch of fun stuff happened! Friday during the day, CIEE went to a Batay (a taino word for community, in reality they’re communities of Haitian immigrant sugar cane workers who live in horrible conditions, both legally and physically. We went to talk to the people, play with the kids, get a tour of the town and have a voodoo ceremony performed for us by members of the town. The people were incredibly nice and the children couldn’t get enough of us, hanging all over us. The voodoo ceremony was pretty much amazing, as I’m in love with African drumming and dancing, and current day voodoo on the island of hispanola is essentially a translation of that.
That evening back in santiago we went to a Fiesta de Palos (a palo is an African style drum), which is an example of syncretism between African religions and Catholicism, where a catholic saint is celebrated though was is basically a modified voodoo ceremony, but in this one everyone gets to dance and go wild… everyone dances like no one’s watching and it’s basically indescribable, but one of my favorite things to do in Santiago.
On Saturday, I woke up reeeeeaaaalllllyyy early to go to an all day rave on the south coast on the beach with some friends, which was also pretty much amazing because I could swim and listen to deep house and trance, and then dance all night….
Sorry for the short descriptions, but this is a WAY belated entry.
Anyways,
Here we go! There probably won’t be too many descriptions, I apologize.
These are from the campo:
this is the latrine hole!
sugar cane fight! They cut us fresh sugar cane to eat. mmmm
we all tagged the cement floor, which they were going to put over the hole a few days after, when it had dried.
this is going on the front step, it basically says, enjoy yourselves!
my friend kaleigh looking awkward next to lunch. Mmmm fresh pig..
during the afternoons we played volleyball with local kids, it was awesome.
ok the rest of the pictures are from the Batay. I don’t have any pictures from the rave because A.) we weren’t allowed to bring cameras in, and B.) I forgot my camera. :)
we went to a rice factory near the batay where a number of people in the community worked
for the voodoo ceremony, they had various things drawn on the ground in sand, and offerings which mostly consisted of soda, rum, rice, and some other food.
after the ceremony we went to a little temple-y thing inside a house, I’m sure what they do there, but it’s an excellent example of syncretism….
OK, so I think that’s it, sorry about the belatedness and the lack of description, I’ve been WAY too busy… ahhhh… and now I’m still about two weekends behind! I’ll try to catch up next week sometime. Take care!
2 weekends ago, the program I’m here with had a work retreat in which we went to a small village in the campo (out in a rural area) to do some work with a peace corps volunteer building some latrines for a few families.
We stayed in a newlyish constructed health facility on the top floor out on an open patio, but there weren’t any mosquitoes (unlike Santiago, where I get ravaged every night).
The people in the town were really nice, we hung out with them, got fed by them (including chicken feet in the stews they made because they cook everything….)
Anyway, so we got there Friday to hang out with the people, get a tour of the town and become acquainted with the work we were going to do.
After dinner and more chatting with the people, (WAY after, like, late) we decided to go star gazing, because you can’t really see stars in Santiago, and we walked out into a field with a bunch of people to sit and watch the stars, and shooting stars (there were so many!) and lightning off in the distance, and to play guitar while waiting for it to be too late to stay up any more.
The next morning, Saturday, we woke up sometime around 7 to the sound of what would eventually be our lunch being slaughtered, an (I imagine) 500 pound pig. There is no mistaking the sound of something dying, and if you’re second guessing yourself then it probably isn’t. When you hear something dying, you know. We knew. This bothered me far less than the other kids, because I’m much more connected to my food that most people, in the sense that meat doesn’t come from saran wrap.
At any rate, we ate that for lunch, but not before splitting up into two groups to construct the latrines, which went pretty well… we didn’t do much though, as there were some Dominicans from the town helping us and didn’t really let us do stuff unless we were adamant. Oh well.
Saturday night we all went to the little disco and danced with the locals, and then to a field (the same one as the night before) where we had a bonfire and some more stargazing until we had to go back and sleep… maybe sometime around 3, I’m really never sure of the time.
So that was fun.
Then the next weekend a whole bunch of fun stuff happened! Friday during the day, CIEE went to a Batay (a taino word for community, in reality they’re communities of Haitian immigrant sugar cane workers who live in horrible conditions, both legally and physically. We went to talk to the people, play with the kids, get a tour of the town and have a voodoo ceremony performed for us by members of the town. The people were incredibly nice and the children couldn’t get enough of us, hanging all over us. The voodoo ceremony was pretty much amazing, as I’m in love with African drumming and dancing, and current day voodoo on the island of hispanola is essentially a translation of that.
That evening back in santiago we went to a Fiesta de Palos (a palo is an African style drum), which is an example of syncretism between African religions and Catholicism, where a catholic saint is celebrated though was is basically a modified voodoo ceremony, but in this one everyone gets to dance and go wild… everyone dances like no one’s watching and it’s basically indescribable, but one of my favorite things to do in Santiago.
On Saturday, I woke up reeeeeaaaalllllyyy early to go to an all day rave on the south coast on the beach with some friends, which was also pretty much amazing because I could swim and listen to deep house and trance, and then dance all night….
Sorry for the short descriptions, but this is a WAY belated entry.
Anyways,
Here we go! There probably won’t be too many descriptions, I apologize.
These are from the campo:
this is the latrine hole!
sugar cane fight! They cut us fresh sugar cane to eat. mmmm
we all tagged the cement floor, which they were going to put over the hole a few days after, when it had dried.
this is going on the front step, it basically says, enjoy yourselves!
my friend kaleigh looking awkward next to lunch. Mmmm fresh pig..
during the afternoons we played volleyball with local kids, it was awesome.
ok the rest of the pictures are from the Batay. I don’t have any pictures from the rave because A.) we weren’t allowed to bring cameras in, and B.) I forgot my camera. :)
we went to a rice factory near the batay where a number of people in the community worked
for the voodoo ceremony, they had various things drawn on the ground in sand, and offerings which mostly consisted of soda, rum, rice, and some other food.
after the ceremony we went to a little temple-y thing inside a house, I’m sure what they do there, but it’s an excellent example of syncretism….
OK, so I think that’s it, sorry about the belatedness and the lack of description, I’ve been WAY too busy… ahhhh… and now I’m still about two weekends behind! I’ll try to catch up next week sometime. Take care!