October 26

Last week my family and I began preparing for Christmas.  We made wine (or at least started the process)!  I currently have a 5 gallon bucket of corn wine and a smaller bucket of banana wine fermenting in my bedroom.  My host family bought the yeast, I bought the sugar, and that night they called me over to teach me the proper way to make wine.  Now, you may think, this is a pretty simple, straightforward process.  If I can pass my freshmen chemistry lab, I should be able to mix the proper amounts of sugar, yeast, water and fruit to yield the desired result.  Yes, that part is simple, but there is so much more that apparently goes into wine making.  I learned the following from my (clearly, sometimes nutso) Dominican family.  First of all, you HAVE to be seated in a comfortable chair.  If you are not completely comfortable, the wine will turn out terrible.  They passed me their best plastic chair (this wine is going to taste like piss).  Second, if anyone in the room is on their period…well SHIT – that wine is just disgusting.  Now just imagine how awkward I made my life at this moment…”Now, if a woman is making wine and she is ‘on her menstruation’ the wine turns out bad.”  Everyone stares at me.  I stare back (normal).  They keep staring.  I’m clearly not getting it.  “So are we in agreement?”  “Huh?…OH GOD, yes, no, I don’t know, go ahead make the wine. Stop looking at me.”  Basically, if the wine doesn’t taste amazing come two months from now, the only girl under 55 that was present, will be blamed for it (unrightly so).  I’m planning on starting a third batch of sugarcane wine for mine and my host dad’s birthdays in January!  Before I start that though, I need to find that plush recliner of mine…

In other less awkward news, my girls group and I planned a clean-up of the batey last Saturday.  We opened it up to all kids, so we even had some boys show up.  I actually got a good 30 minutes of picking up trash out of them (the things I can get these kids to do…).  Afterwards, we had a surprise birthday party for one of the girls.  The kids ran around nonstop, and I got juice thrown at me; you know, the usual.

I have also started teaching one morning a week in the school.  I’m working with the 8^th grade class (11 students).  I’m teaching them the Escojo Mi Vida (I choose my life) course, which focuses on self-esteem, values, decision making skills, and the prevention of STIs/HIV and pregnancy at an early age.  Once they graduate from this course in December, they will go on to teach it to the 7^th grade students.

Plum is thriving, perhaps a little too much.  She’s so large/strong that she has broken her rope several times now to chase me down and generally just cause a ruckus.  Usually she follows me wherever it is that I am going, but occasionally, there are instances that she needs to be tied up to my front porch (ex. If I’m leaving on a moto or horse, or leading a meeting with middle aged women who are terrified of full grown Rottweilers).  This morning, before leaving for the colmado, I decided to tie her up inside the house (it was the only way I could get her to stay in the house while I shut the doors).  I figured, this way, if she broke the rope again, she’d still be inside and unable to cause chaos throughout my site.  Although, if she did succeed in breaking the rope again, I figured half my house would come with it this time.  Anyways, as I go by my house on horse, ready to leave, I see her standing, front paws on the windowsill, staring at me.  I point and laugh (obviously)…and then she launches herself through the open window, while still chained to the center beam of my house.  She easily cleared the window with about 6” of rope left, my host mom unleashed her, and she proceeded to follow me throughout the batey, trying to attack the horse I was on for the rest of the morning.  Well that failed.  Time to install the electric fence…wonder what my neighbors will think of that…

 

Pictures of the clean-up…

 

 

 

The surprised birthday party…

 

 

Plum eating dirt…

Plum and her best friend spooning…