Tanques = Tanks
Tanques are the water tanks that are found on the roof of many homes here in the Dominican Republic. They're water storage containers that will give us the appearance and we slightly feel like we have running water when the tanques are full. The water comes to our home here in Constanza every other day. Our host mom makes sure the water is pumped up to the roof and the tanque is filled when the water arrives early in the morning. In the morning, the neighbors call her to the back door to share her water. I think she lives in one of the few houses in the area which receives running water. She is obligated to share the water with her neighbors.
The tanques themselves seem to be like 500 to 1000 gallons plus. (Not real sure about this). Phoebe and I try to fill our 25 gallon trash can at the same time the water comes...then we have water to bathe and flush the toilet until the water comes again. We flush the toilet by dumping about a half gallon of water into the toilet. We didn't know this was even possible until we came here. I bet you could try it back in the states if you want to save water! Occasionally we have the opportunity to use the shower head, but only when the tanque is filled with water and taking a "real" shower is usually very cold. The optional cold shower is a great way to get the blood flowing. Thankfully, our host mom heats up a few gallons of water in the morning so we get to take some hot bucket baths.
As always, please post your comments here. This is an opportunity for us to engage with you while we are abroad. If you have questions, comments, are unclear about something, or just want to say hello; please post.
We had some friends receive care packages from home, which made us think that maybe some of y'all might want to do the same for us! We would love to receive goodies in the mail! Things like movies, books or music on dvd or zip drive, hard candies, chocolate, homemade baked goodies, crayons, markers, construction paper, books, i tunes gift cards, a handwritten note or other fun stuff that you would send to someone in college, or abroad, feel free! You can send items in the fed ex, ups, dhl, or large manilla padded envelopes and they'll be fine.
In love and the spirit of sharing, Danno.
Showing posts with label Dominican Republic. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dominican Republic. Show all posts
Saturday, October 2, 2010
Saturday, September 25, 2010
Some of our daily routine
Life in Contanza has been great so far. As we've mentioned, the climate here is much cooler than Santo Domingo, so we're not drenched in sweat half way through our walk to training in the morning. Contanza is a beautiful community in the mountains of the Dominican Republic and is considered a Pueblo community. Pueblos are basically cities with fewer than a couple hundred thousand people. Constanza, from the word on the street, has about 90,000 people.
Monday through Friday we head to the training site with the other 23 trainees, to a local preschool (the kids have the 5 1/2 weeks off since we're using their school) and have our technical training. Technical training is in English from 8am to 12n. The preschool is about a three minute walk from our house, which is nice compared to the 30 minute walk and carro publico ride in Santo Domingo. Phoebes and I head home for a two hour lunch break from 12-2, which usually includes a huge lunch of rice, beans, chicken, and salad. Coffee follows lunch and of course, a nap!
We have three hours of Spanish classes from 2p to 5p, in Spanish of course. There are three peeps in my Spanish classes again, which makes for ample opportunity to speak and get our individual learning needs met. Phoebe is in class with a total of four students, which gives her some ample opportunity to practice as well! Our Spanish is coming along and we're getting better everyday.
We are excited to be here in Constanza for another three weeks of Community Based training. In the meantime, give us some love, comment please. It is our hope to make this blog an interactive opportunity. When you have a moment, let us know what you think, what questions you have, what information you'd like from us. This is our first time doing this so we're learning as we go. Join us and follow along on our ride. We appreciate your love and support, questions, open mindedness and interaction. We look forward to hearing from you soon!
Monday through Friday we head to the training site with the other 23 trainees, to a local preschool (the kids have the 5 1/2 weeks off since we're using their school) and have our technical training. Technical training is in English from 8am to 12n. The preschool is about a three minute walk from our house, which is nice compared to the 30 minute walk and carro publico ride in Santo Domingo. Phoebes and I head home for a two hour lunch break from 12-2, which usually includes a huge lunch of rice, beans, chicken, and salad. Coffee follows lunch and of course, a nap!
We have three hours of Spanish classes from 2p to 5p, in Spanish of course. There are three peeps in my Spanish classes again, which makes for ample opportunity to speak and get our individual learning needs met. Phoebe is in class with a total of four students, which gives her some ample opportunity to practice as well! Our Spanish is coming along and we're getting better everyday.
We are excited to be here in Constanza for another three weeks of Community Based training. In the meantime, give us some love, comment please. It is our hope to make this blog an interactive opportunity. When you have a moment, let us know what you think, what questions you have, what information you'd like from us. This is our first time doing this so we're learning as we go. Join us and follow along on our ride. We appreciate your love and support, questions, open mindedness and interaction. We look forward to hearing from you soon!
Friday, August 27, 2010
One Week!
Phoebe and I have seen and experienced so much throughout the first week of our Peace Corps work, which makes it and will continue to make it difficult to choose which experiences to share. I’ll do my best to share a taste of what’s been happening over the past week.
Adjusting to life here is going well so far. Phoebe and I are both healthy, eating VERY well, clean“ish’, sweating through our clothes, learning loads of Spanish, getting pricked with vaccinations, attending continuous training sessions, learning to find our way around Santo Domingo using carro publicos and guaguas, and making as many friends as possible. Amazing volunteers, teachers and trainers with lifetimes of experience, knowledge and a desire to live and work in a completely new and different country, surround us. We both feel very blessed to be involved with such a wonderful organization as the Peace Corps and their training group Entrena. Our training program is absolutely phenomenal. We are receiving daily teachings about Dominican culture, transportation and por supuesto language classes. My language class has a grand total of three students! I LOVE IT! Our Spanish is already at the level the Peace Corps expects us to be 10 weeks from now! So, we get to practice, practice, and more practice. By no means are we fluent, nor can we understand the locals when they really get to talking, however our hard language work back in the states is paying off.
During one of our Spanish language courses, we learned about the public transportation system in the Dominican Republic. We are learning about the public transit through practical application, class discussion and getting out there in small groups. The public transportation in the Dominican Republic appears to be organized chaos. I couldn’t even tell there was such a thing as public transportation when we arrived in the country last Thursday. Now, I’ve ridden in several full carro publicos (like a taxi, but taxis here are private and cost more) and an extremely full guagua (bus) from our barrio into the central part of the city. The carro publicos are wild. You flag a carro publico down similar to the way you’d try and catch a taxi in the states. Instead of whistling, you simply stand on the side of the road, hold out your arm and point down to the ground when you want one to stop. The drivers often see you waaaay before you are able to see them coming, so often it isn’t even necessary to flag it. Most of us gringos stand out anyway, especially with our bolsas full of schoolbooks in the morning, so we can be easy to spot. Hector has been our driver over the last two days, so we’ll see if he picks us up again.
The carro publicos seat six passengers and one driver for a grand total of seven people in a 1982 Toyota Camry. I hope to get a picture up here for you. One of my new Peace Corps friends and I were talking about the messages we received growing up in the states. Our parents and teachers used to tell us, “Do not to get into a car with strangers” and “You must always wear your seatbelt.” Those rules are obviously out the window! Two people squeeze into the front seat and four into the back. I don’t believe the carro publicos even have seatbelts.
The guaguas are another experience all together. With meringue, salsa or bachata music blaring, the guagua bounces down the road stopping for every potential passenger. The cobrador (literal translation is ‘collector’) hangs himself out of the door yelling the route of the guagua. Passengers hop on, fit at least five to a row, with only four seats, and squish each other cheek to cheek! It seems as though people say, “Hey, we can fit one more booty in the seats, squish on over!” The guaguas appear to be older Volkswagen style vehicles but a little bit bigger…I was in one two days ago and the driver tried to drive us through a giant “river” in the road. He got stuck, of course, and after about ten minutes of trying to get unstuck, everyone in the guagua exited, including the group of 30 Peace Corps gringos squishing into the bus. The cobrador handed me a random child as we were exiting the bus, a brief glimpse into the culture of the Dominican people, who trusted this random gringo with their child, even if only for a few brief momentitos.
The adventure is just beginning and my smiles are getting bigger.
Adjusting to life here is going well so far. Phoebe and I are both healthy, eating VERY well, clean“ish’, sweating through our clothes, learning loads of Spanish, getting pricked with vaccinations, attending continuous training sessions, learning to find our way around Santo Domingo using carro publicos and guaguas, and making as many friends as possible. Amazing volunteers, teachers and trainers with lifetimes of experience, knowledge and a desire to live and work in a completely new and different country, surround us. We both feel very blessed to be involved with such a wonderful organization as the Peace Corps and their training group Entrena. Our training program is absolutely phenomenal. We are receiving daily teachings about Dominican culture, transportation and por supuesto language classes. My language class has a grand total of three students! I LOVE IT! Our Spanish is already at the level the Peace Corps expects us to be 10 weeks from now! So, we get to practice, practice, and more practice. By no means are we fluent, nor can we understand the locals when they really get to talking, however our hard language work back in the states is paying off.
During one of our Spanish language courses, we learned about the public transportation system in the Dominican Republic. We are learning about the public transit through practical application, class discussion and getting out there in small groups. The public transportation in the Dominican Republic appears to be organized chaos. I couldn’t even tell there was such a thing as public transportation when we arrived in the country last Thursday. Now, I’ve ridden in several full carro publicos (like a taxi, but taxis here are private and cost more) and an extremely full guagua (bus) from our barrio into the central part of the city. The carro publicos are wild. You flag a carro publico down similar to the way you’d try and catch a taxi in the states. Instead of whistling, you simply stand on the side of the road, hold out your arm and point down to the ground when you want one to stop. The drivers often see you waaaay before you are able to see them coming, so often it isn’t even necessary to flag it. Most of us gringos stand out anyway, especially with our bolsas full of schoolbooks in the morning, so we can be easy to spot. Hector has been our driver over the last two days, so we’ll see if he picks us up again.
The carro publicos seat six passengers and one driver for a grand total of seven people in a 1982 Toyota Camry. I hope to get a picture up here for you. One of my new Peace Corps friends and I were talking about the messages we received growing up in the states. Our parents and teachers used to tell us, “Do not to get into a car with strangers” and “You must always wear your seatbelt.” Those rules are obviously out the window! Two people squeeze into the front seat and four into the back. I don’t believe the carro publicos even have seatbelts.
The guaguas are another experience all together. With meringue, salsa or bachata music blaring, the guagua bounces down the road stopping for every potential passenger. The cobrador (literal translation is ‘collector’) hangs himself out of the door yelling the route of the guagua. Passengers hop on, fit at least five to a row, with only four seats, and squish each other cheek to cheek! It seems as though people say, “Hey, we can fit one more booty in the seats, squish on over!” The guaguas appear to be older Volkswagen style vehicles but a little bit bigger…I was in one two days ago and the driver tried to drive us through a giant “river” in the road. He got stuck, of course, and after about ten minutes of trying to get unstuck, everyone in the guagua exited, including the group of 30 Peace Corps gringos squishing into the bus. The cobrador handed me a random child as we were exiting the bus, a brief glimpse into the culture of the Dominican people, who trusted this random gringo with their child, even if only for a few brief momentitos.
The adventure is just beginning and my smiles are getting bigger.
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