FUNDACION de PERAVIA
Climbing the Pico de Peravia outside of Bani, one can see all the way to the ocean, and even pick out individual palm trees against the faded blue arc of the earth. Sunset memory from a round-hilled jungle taken out of other-space. Faraway river falling down around the mountain in a silver strand. I live on a most beautiful rock in the Caribbean.


PALMITA UNO
*Going to sleep and waking up with the sun *Life without electricity is not life without music. *Drinking daily milk from a cow known personally *BRAYING OF DONKEYS, FRAYING OF BANANA LEAVES* *Beans and lentils, yuca and guineo verde cooked over a stick fire in a coconut-leaf roofed kitchen with woven tejamani walls and a dirt floor *CHICKENS AS VACUUMS* *"Chocolate" made out of hand-ground toasted corn kernals and sugar .:*COSMIC GOAT WEEK*:. *Glowing fireflies in spiderwebs *SWIMMING HOLE IN THE RIVER UNDER A WATERFALL* Fresh oranges from the conuco *Washing by hand, drying by sun over a cactus hedge* *Dog without a fixed name or fixed personality appearing randomly at my heel* +*Trees against starlight-- silohuettes walking up the hill at night*+ *Moonlight bucket baths by the mapuey plants* ++Cascading crows of roosters at various distances-- morning chorus in of _Cacaphony in D#_++ Early-morning-breakfast-smoke, sunlight, and crowing =Multisensory Alarm Clock


COSMIC GOAT WEEK
(to the tune of The 12 Days of Christmas)
On the seventh day of Cosmic Goat Week my trainer gave to me...
Vaccinating sheep (goats) (sheep and goats and goats and sheep) Vitamen Shots, Deworming Fluid, Deparisitant Bath, Disinfectant Spray TUMBAR EL CHIVO Hiking up hills, 16 liters of liquid in a backpack sprayer INTERPLANETARY CHICKEN Spanish teacher ripping the head off of a live chicken, a TWELVE-FINGERED MAN proceeding to tear its breast open while its heart still beats, Cleaning, disinfecting, and painting chicken coops, Vaccinating Pigs, Vitamen B, AB3E, oral deworming SCREAMING PIGS, pesticide bath, rope around snout, six people wrestling one 150 kilo monster, shot behind ear, BABY PIG HAVING ITS TESTICLES CUT OUT WHILE HELD UP IN MID-AIR, Flipping bunnies, cleaning out vents, playing god and chance and destiny MATING RABBITS, yogurt from Menonite Wholestien cows, fresh-baked breads, organizing and implementing a chicken vaccination program against Newcastle Disease in Palmita Uno with youth group
...and a severed goat head hanging from a tree!


BACK TO THE CAPITAL
Walking down the street with my machete, my big black boots, and my motorcycle helmet, I feel pleasantly out of place. ... What kind of woman plants yuca and bananas and batata anyway? ... Probably the same type who prefers to bathe in the conuco instead of in the outhouse. Three more weeks of Beaurocratic B.S. and then it is off to my real life for the next two years... 8km outside of San Jose de Ocoa. Si Dios Quiere.