Many people have been asking me what it is we are doing here, and the short answer is that we are gathering information about institutes, putting them on GIS mapping system, and using the new information in accordance with other more social information that has been gathered by my professors and others who have been involved in this project for years. The long answer is... I have no idea. A lot of the work we are doing has been pieced together day by day and it feels as if a final plan will not be solidified until we leave.
An important purpose of mapping, anywhere in the world, is to have the ability to compare information on graphs such as; in New York, I can look at a map of all of the homeless shelters and places that offer services to homeless people. I can also have a map locating all of the homeless people in New York by talking to them and finding out where they go and what they do and how it is that they live. I can then take the two maps and put them together to show the relationship between the homeless care facilities and the actual homeless people... what services are offered, versus what services are needed. And that is exactly what we are doing here... however, we're not working with homelessness. A part of what we are doing is taking the information about the institutes and understanding life in Sosua with that information and the information will go towards an ongoing project here.
We have started exploring sections of the town one area at a time, and it requires a lot of walking and a lot of water. The weather has been raining here for a couple of weeks, and although I am not afraid of mosquitos, I am afraid of the possible diseases they carry. Mosquitos tend to go a little nuts in the rain.
Other than mapping, and the many components that are attached to that, we have also begun our Spanish classes. Myself, and two other more advanced students learn in one classroom while my roommates are a much more beginners type class. Our first class was long, but not very boring. We went over 100 verbos that I mostly do not remember or use enough, and then we talked the rest of the class about Sosua; los pervertos, prostitutas, vida de la noche, and one of my classmates even educated my professor about what a "cougar" is. The professor came in saying "ay me duele en la cabeza por que bailé anoche" ("oh my head hurts because I was out dancing late last night"). She's was a hot ticket, and was not shy or hesitant to talk about all of these topics in Spanish, and did not think it odd whenever we asked what simple words meant. Not to mention, she is trying to learn English, so we have been tending to help one another. "Ay necesito escribir esto" ("oh i need to write this") when we explained what a cougar is in Spanish. We had an entire discussion on what it means to be a cougar.
I now have an idea of what the daily activity will be on most days, Mon-Sat. With classes running 4 hours Mon-Fri, and the mapping not really having any kind of set schedule like classes. Tonight we're going to have our first night excursion, hopefully going to dinner and dancing (weather depending) and tomorrow we're going to look into some good ol'Sosua horseback riding! Yay!
Also, one of the project workers is Dominican, and does not speak English. I have heard that we may some time go to his home where I will be able to check off milking a cow on my list of goals! Wahoooo. Pictures will come soon on facebook. Lots of landscape and beauty.
Gracias por leer.
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