Una voluntaria
salió de la República
y dejó en la acera
afuera de su casa
dos sillas plásticas en una pila.
En esos lo
puso un letrero.
¿Qué dijó?
Te digo:
-Gratis para la gente que no puede leer.
Dos primos Dominicanos
quienes estaban paseando
(Sus nombres eran Randrika y Romeano)
vieron la pila y el letrero.
-¿Qué dices? preguntó el varón primo
a su prima alfabeta.
Y en voz alta Randrika lo leyó
a tu primo Romeano:
-Gratis para la gente que no puede leer.
La jóven bien educada pensó
tan grosero el letrero, pero
a su primo no lo molestó.
-Perfecto, el tiguere dijó.
-A ti una silla doy.
Vamos a tu casa y luego me voy.
La pobrecita voluntaria de educación
despidió a su sitio con mucha decepción.
Pero el letrero, su última lección,
enseña que todavía hay cosas que son
gratis para la gente que no puede leer.
---
"Free for People Who Can't Read."
A volunteer left the Republic
and left on the sidewalk outside her house
two plastic chairs in a pile.
On those she hung a sign.
What did it say? I'll tell you:
"Free for people who can't read."
Two Dominican cousins were walking by
(their names were Randrika and Romeano)
and saw the sign and pile.
"What's it say?" the male cousin asked
his literate female cousin.
And to her cousin Romeano
Randrika read in full voice:
"Free for people who can't read."
The well-educated young woman
thought the sign was very rude but
it didn't bother her cousin.
"Perfect," said the tiguere*.
"I'll give you a chair.
Let's take it to your house
and then I'm out of here."
The poor education volunteer
bid farewell to her site
with feelings of great disappointment.
But the sign, her last lesson,
teaches that some things still are
free for people who can't read.
*A word in Dominican Spanish with no direct translation. It comes from the word tigre ("tiger") and is used to describe a person with street smarts.
Sunday, October 23, 2016
Thursday, October 13, 2016
On throwing plastic chairs at fighting dogs
This seems beautiful and simple, but like any other world religion Buddhism is subdivided into different schools of thought and what exactly constitutes "compassion" is a matter of debate. There are probably as many different Buddhist interpretations of compassion as there understandings of God's Love among the different Christian churches.
Zen, the Buddhist school in which I have principally practiced, teaches a very specific understanding of compassion. It is not the self-sacrifice of Christ, nor charity, nor generalized goodwill toward all beings. This is all good stuff but it's just not compassion. In Zen, compassion is not just the desire to help but the correct extension of help itself. And help, also, is a complicated notion.
Sometimes when we "help" someone we do them no favors. We "help" them because it makes us feel good about ourselves and thus we do things that are unnecessary or downright counterproductive. Which is to say no help at all. Sometimes the best help is no help at all! Every parent knows that sometimes the most compassionate thing you can do for your child is to consciously withhold aid so that they will develop the capacity to do things for themselves.
Zen, in all things, is wary of multiplying entities beyond necessity and compassion is no exception. Dogen, perhaps Japan's greatest Zen Master explained Buddhist compassion by likening it to a sleeping person who adjusts their pillow in the middle of the night. They do it selflessly, without thinking of anything at all, let alone how good it will make them look. And they do it just right. No more or less than necessary and without some complicated system of ethics to justify their actions.
The checkered history of international aid is full of examples of ego-gratifying help that was really no help at all. In my Peace Corps service I think a lot about how to get things just right. I tend to err on the side of caution. Many times, it seems like so much more work would get done (and faster!) if I just pushed my Dominican counterparts aside and did things for them. But where will that leave them after I leave?
Instead, I ask questions to make them think, answer questions when I actually have the answers, and show them how to do the things that I know how that they do not, even if it takes me longer than I'd like. I am unsure if this is approach is compassionate. Sometimes though, my work here presents a situation where it is so perfectly clear what help is needed that the compassionate thing almost does itself.
The other day I visited a Dominican counterpart at her home to offer her my aid in preparing for an important, upcoming meeting. Her literacy is only so-so and though she did not ask, I imagined that she would appreciate my help composing the report required of her. She accepted my offer readily and, no, that is not the compassionate act I am talking about.
We sat in plastic picnic chairs on her front patio so she could keep an eye on the kids and as we talked I petted the following dog:
 |
| ¡Superma'! |
In the middle of our conversation, in the blink of an eye, my friends' dog confronted and attacked the dog whose head was in my lap.
There is nothing faster than fighting dogs but I was almost as fast. In the span of a second I stood, lifted the chair on which I had been sitting and launched it into the furry fray. This act so startled the dogs that they parted and fled their separate ways.
That is compassion.
The dogs might have hurt each other - they were certainly trying too! They might have hurt my friend or the children playing nearby. If I had tried to intervene more directly I might have gotten hurt. And the implement of my intervention was soft enough that it didn't hurt the dogs. It was just right.
The dogs were fighting because they were angry. Buddhism teaches that anger is one of the three poisons that we must never ingest if we ever wish to be enlightened. Yes, I am aware that dogs enjoy fighting- as do people. But Buddhism teaches that attachments to the excitements of the body (and fighting is exciting if nothing else!) will not lead dogs or people out out of suffering. Yes, Buddhism teaches that the suffering of dogs is important, and what is more, that dogs have what it takes to be enlightened. Yes, Buddhism is kind of weird.
I am confident of everything in the above two paragraphs but I had reasoned none of this before acting. I just chucked the chair like a sleeping woman reaching for her pillow and it was just right.
When the dogs were gone, I grabbed the chair again and sat on it and we resumed our conversation as if nothing major had happened.
Sunday, October 9, 2016
Sunday, October 2, 2016
A suburban house in a medieval village
We we first arrived in our Peace Corps site, I was surprised to discover that our small mountain village near the Haitian border was full of American suburban-style houses. They might be made entirely of concrete but they follow essentially the same "ranch" style floor plan that I grew up in.
Even the lot sizes are similar.
It makes sense when you date the construction - 1990 - and for other reasons that I'll get to later but it was still something of a shock. A slightly bigger shock was discovering that our new neighbors raise pigs in their "suburban" backyard.
It's just enough space for the two pigs to roam and wallow as nature intended with room fo the out-buildings.
I shouldn't have been surprised and the host family where we initially lived raised chickens, and I later learned (that is to say, I noticed) that the neighbors on the other side raised chickens and pigs. And that my preferred chofer raises rabbits in his backyard. And that people graze mules on their front lawns.
I also shouldn't have been surprised since this type of homesteading was once common in the U.S. and is only a generation or two out of fashion. And what is more it is coming back into fashion. Maybe not pigs, but a backyard flock has been a pretty cool things to have in certain circles for a few years now. Also, I actually used to work for an organization that promotes backyard "farming" as a solution to food scarcity in poor neighborhood. But that was in the inner city, in the poor neighborhoods not far from the cool neighborhoods where people raise chickens. The American suburbs have staked out their identity by being located squarely between the city and the country while being neither.
I suppose that the suburban style houses made me think on some unconscious level that the pattern of living had something in common with the American suburbs, when in reality where I live is more like a medieval village, with the population clustered in the middle of productive agriculture lands.
When Americans think of farming they think of a large swath of land with a single house in the middle of it, like a lordly manor or castle. This layout works when you have lots of land to raise commodity crops like corn or soy in huge quantities and reflects our individualist culture. But Dominicans collectivist culture doesn't lend itself to that and nor does the distribution of land. It's hard to grow row crops on the steep slopes of the hills outside (or regrettably, sometimes inside) the national park and in case most people don't own land in enough quantities to make it profitable. Some grow corn as feed but that is in flat parts and those families are few. Most grow a few tarea of cafe or abichuelas (beans) or other staple crops for home consumption and supplement with the kind of backyard ganadería (livestock) or other sources of income if they are fortunate enough to have it.
Last weekend was the Día de la Virgen de Nuestras Mercedes (The Day of the Virgin of our Mercies) and a friend invited Cat and I to a fiesta on his family finca (farm). After a short Catholiic oración before a shrine inside a small house called a rancho we got down to the business of drinking and dancing to merengue típico under the roof of an outdoor pavilion.
"Why do you have the party all the way out here?" I asked my friend.
"We used to live out here!" he shouted over the music. "There was a small pueblecito (village) out here - mostly my family. My abuelo was the last one out here after everyone else moved to town."
This pueblecito was one of many that moved into the main pueblo when the concrete houses were built. I don't know if incentivizing relocation was part of the governments plan when they built the houses but it makes perfect sense from a services perspective. Centralization makes it easier to set up public services like electricity and water.
The rodillas y llanuras (foothills and valleys) that surround the pueblo are cut through with alambre barbed-wire that marks the boundaries of family property. Some of these used to house small family settlements like my friends'. His property is about 2 km outside of town, which is a short distance by motorcycle but a long distance on foot in the rain. Many men and hired hands make a similar trip everyday.
When I think about this daily journey out of town, from home to work, the first word that comes to mind is "commute." In a sense, it is pretty suburban after all.
Even the lot sizes are similar.
It makes sense when you date the construction - 1990 - and for other reasons that I'll get to later but it was still something of a shock. A slightly bigger shock was discovering that our new neighbors raise pigs in their "suburban" backyard.
It's just enough space for the two pigs to roam and wallow as nature intended with room fo the out-buildings.
I shouldn't have been surprised and the host family where we initially lived raised chickens, and I later learned (that is to say, I noticed) that the neighbors on the other side raised chickens and pigs. And that my preferred chofer raises rabbits in his backyard. And that people graze mules on their front lawns.
I also shouldn't have been surprised since this type of homesteading was once common in the U.S. and is only a generation or two out of fashion. And what is more it is coming back into fashion. Maybe not pigs, but a backyard flock has been a pretty cool things to have in certain circles for a few years now. Also, I actually used to work for an organization that promotes backyard "farming" as a solution to food scarcity in poor neighborhood. But that was in the inner city, in the poor neighborhoods not far from the cool neighborhoods where people raise chickens. The American suburbs have staked out their identity by being located squarely between the city and the country while being neither.
I suppose that the suburban style houses made me think on some unconscious level that the pattern of living had something in common with the American suburbs, when in reality where I live is more like a medieval village, with the population clustered in the middle of productive agriculture lands.
When Americans think of farming they think of a large swath of land with a single house in the middle of it, like a lordly manor or castle. This layout works when you have lots of land to raise commodity crops like corn or soy in huge quantities and reflects our individualist culture. But Dominicans collectivist culture doesn't lend itself to that and nor does the distribution of land. It's hard to grow row crops on the steep slopes of the hills outside (or regrettably, sometimes inside) the national park and in case most people don't own land in enough quantities to make it profitable. Some grow corn as feed but that is in flat parts and those families are few. Most grow a few tarea of cafe or abichuelas (beans) or other staple crops for home consumption and supplement with the kind of backyard ganadería (livestock) or other sources of income if they are fortunate enough to have it.
Last weekend was the Día de la Virgen de Nuestras Mercedes (The Day of the Virgin of our Mercies) and a friend invited Cat and I to a fiesta on his family finca (farm). After a short Catholiic oración before a shrine inside a small house called a rancho we got down to the business of drinking and dancing to merengue típico under the roof of an outdoor pavilion.
"Why do you have the party all the way out here?" I asked my friend.
"We used to live out here!" he shouted over the music. "There was a small pueblecito (village) out here - mostly my family. My abuelo was the last one out here after everyone else moved to town."
This pueblecito was one of many that moved into the main pueblo when the concrete houses were built. I don't know if incentivizing relocation was part of the governments plan when they built the houses but it makes perfect sense from a services perspective. Centralization makes it easier to set up public services like electricity and water.
The rodillas y llanuras (foothills and valleys) that surround the pueblo are cut through with alambre barbed-wire that marks the boundaries of family property. Some of these used to house small family settlements like my friends'. His property is about 2 km outside of town, which is a short distance by motorcycle but a long distance on foot in the rain. Many men and hired hands make a similar trip everyday.
When I think about this daily journey out of town, from home to work, the first word that comes to mind is "commute." In a sense, it is pretty suburban after all.
Sunday, September 18, 2016
Something that bugs me
One of the first Spanish words I learned was "pájaro." Although I was 18 or so the textbook resembled something designed for kindergartners. Learning a new language makes you a child again in your ability to think, communicate, and be taken seriously. Next to the word pájaro was a brightly colored drawing of a bird.
Some Spanish speaking countries use pájaro to mean that but the DR is not one of them. Dominicans use the word "ave" for bird and pájaro to mean other things.
During CBT when a moth flew into the house my host mom called it a pájaro.
"¿No es un . . . mariposa de la noche?" (It's not a . . . night-time butterfly?)
"No. Es pájaro."
OK. So, if ave = bird then pájaro = moth.
Later, when we were watching a horror movie on TV she called a vampire bat with a human face a pájaro. I didn't ask her but quietly updated my mental definition to mean "weird flying thing."
One day, here in our little town in the mountains near the Haitain border, Cat was walking to a meeting and passed a group of them taking pictures of the fearsome looking scarab, held aloft on a stick.
"Excuse me," she said, "what do you call that insect?"
"Pájaro." Of course.
"Is there another name, maybe more . . specific?"
"Pájaro malo." (Bad pájaro).
We've since heard slugs, spiders and centipedes called pájaro even though they don't fly. So, pájaro = "bug?"
When I showed a local woman a video of the solonodonte and she called it a pájaro I almost yelled at her. It's the size of a small dog! When I was carrying a bucket of water from the river and someone asked me if I had a pájaro in it I just sighed and updated my mental dictionary. Pájaro = "critter."
That definition held rather satisfactorily until last week. Cat and I were sipping coffee in the galería of a neighbor when a local seminarian walked by. He's a nice guy. Thin, always well-dressed, and scrupulously polite. When he borrowed a book from us he made sure to bring it back promptly. After he passed, our friend whispered to us that people say he is a pájaro.
I flashed back to college Spanish, when a professor carefully explained to us that in addition to it's literal meaning pájaro had another less formal connotation. No, he didn't tell us about bats and moths, as helpful as that would have been, but he did explain that pájaro, when applied to the type of sweet young man who helps old ladies to church, has the same connotation as the English word "fairy." That is, a derisive term for homosexual. It's not nearly as offensive as the standard Spanish "maricon" (f*ggot) but it is still not a nice thing to whisper about your neighbor.
Dominicans have adopted the English word "gay" and use it with the same neutrality. When reporting on the Orlando massacre this summer the news here called the nightclub a "discoteque gay." But Dominicans on the whole are not neutral about gayness. The whispers of our neighbor had little to do with Catholic prohibition or rural conservatism. When President Obama appointed the openly gay James Brewster ambassador to the Dominican Republic many Dominicans took it as an offense. When Brewster dared to visit an elementary school with his husband they called for his resignation.
There is a pride parade and a few clubs in Santo Domingo where it is OK for men to dance together but outside of the capital few Dominicans are out and neither are most PC volunteers. Openly gay volunteers might not be exactly unsafe but would not be respected and would have a hard time professionally, especially if they worked in the schools. If you want to get work done, you stay in the closet.
We, a married heterosexual partnership, as privileged a union as exists here, maintain a similar reserve. When we discuss the issue with friends we are careful to phrase our questions neutrally. We do not explain our decidedly pro-gay sympathies or ask where there's lie. It is literally a situation of don't ask don't tell.
There's no good way to end this entry because the issue is not ended. I hope that the DR will undergo a transformation in their attitudes towards homosexuals like what has occurred in the US but I'm not holding my breath. I continue to hold my tongue, however. Dominicans have their own culture and values - distinct from mine - whether I like it or nor. Working around this gap, being "comfortable" with it regardless of how uncomfortable it actually is, is part of service. Even if it bugs me.
Some Spanish speaking countries use pájaro to mean that but the DR is not one of them. Dominicans use the word "ave" for bird and pájaro to mean other things.
During CBT when a moth flew into the house my host mom called it a pájaro.
"¿No es un . . . mariposa de la noche?" (It's not a . . . night-time butterfly?)
"No. Es pájaro."
OK. So, if ave = bird then pájaro = moth.
Later, when we were watching a horror movie on TV she called a vampire bat with a human face a pájaro. I didn't ask her but quietly updated my mental definition to mean "weird flying thing."
One day, here in our little town in the mountains near the Haitain border, Cat was walking to a meeting and passed a group of them taking pictures of the fearsome looking scarab, held aloft on a stick.
"Excuse me," she said, "what do you call that insect?"
"Pájaro." Of course.
"Is there another name, maybe more . . specific?"
"Pájaro malo." (Bad pájaro).
We've since heard slugs, spiders and centipedes called pájaro even though they don't fly. So, pájaro = "bug?"
When I showed a local woman a video of the solonodonte and she called it a pájaro I almost yelled at her. It's the size of a small dog! When I was carrying a bucket of water from the river and someone asked me if I had a pájaro in it I just sighed and updated my mental dictionary. Pájaro = "critter."
That definition held rather satisfactorily until last week. Cat and I were sipping coffee in the galería of a neighbor when a local seminarian walked by. He's a nice guy. Thin, always well-dressed, and scrupulously polite. When he borrowed a book from us he made sure to bring it back promptly. After he passed, our friend whispered to us that people say he is a pájaro.
I flashed back to college Spanish, when a professor carefully explained to us that in addition to it's literal meaning pájaro had another less formal connotation. No, he didn't tell us about bats and moths, as helpful as that would have been, but he did explain that pájaro, when applied to the type of sweet young man who helps old ladies to church, has the same connotation as the English word "fairy." That is, a derisive term for homosexual. It's not nearly as offensive as the standard Spanish "maricon" (f*ggot) but it is still not a nice thing to whisper about your neighbor.
Dominicans have adopted the English word "gay" and use it with the same neutrality. When reporting on the Orlando massacre this summer the news here called the nightclub a "discoteque gay." But Dominicans on the whole are not neutral about gayness. The whispers of our neighbor had little to do with Catholic prohibition or rural conservatism. When President Obama appointed the openly gay James Brewster ambassador to the Dominican Republic many Dominicans took it as an offense. When Brewster dared to visit an elementary school with his husband they called for his resignation.
There is a pride parade and a few clubs in Santo Domingo where it is OK for men to dance together but outside of the capital few Dominicans are out and neither are most PC volunteers. Openly gay volunteers might not be exactly unsafe but would not be respected and would have a hard time professionally, especially if they worked in the schools. If you want to get work done, you stay in the closet.
We, a married heterosexual partnership, as privileged a union as exists here, maintain a similar reserve. When we discuss the issue with friends we are careful to phrase our questions neutrally. We do not explain our decidedly pro-gay sympathies or ask where there's lie. It is literally a situation of don't ask don't tell.
There's no good way to end this entry because the issue is not ended. I hope that the DR will undergo a transformation in their attitudes towards homosexuals like what has occurred in the US but I'm not holding my breath. I continue to hold my tongue, however. Dominicans have their own culture and values - distinct from mine - whether I like it or nor. Working around this gap, being "comfortable" with it regardless of how uncomfortable it actually is, is part of service. Even if it bugs me.
Sunday, August 14, 2016
Brief Break
Cat and I are returning to attend a family wedding. Since we won't be living in the Dominican Republic during this time I will have very little to say about it!
I hope to return to a regular schedule in early September.
I hope to return to a regular schedule in early September.
Sunday, August 7, 2016
On living without running water
Before we moved out, Cat asked our host mother if people in the pueblo collect rain water. We lived on the Big Island of Hawaii for a while, which has a similar climate and rains a similar amount. There, the people use catchment tanks the size of above-ground swimming pools as either their principal source of water or to guardar it in case there is a drought.
Our Dominican mom said ¨No, not since they installed the acueducto." Most of the houses have running water now, though some poorer families still take plastic buckets to the river. Later, after a couple of days of steady rain, the water stopped coming out of the tap and we put out buckets to collect the rainfall.
Yes, you read that right. When it rains a lot we are less likely to have water. The acueducto draws from the river in las rodillas of the mountain nearby. Due to erosion free flowing sediment sometimes clogs the pipes. When this happens you abre el llave and the pipe coughs like an asthmatic.
The longest we've gone without water is five days. When we moved house one of the first things we bought was a 50 gallon tanque and a mangera (hose) to fill it with. I just passed 3 days by myself (Cat's in the capital for a conference) with no water from the llave and was able to get along fine thanks to the tanque. Instead of taking a shower, I washed myself from a bucket. Instead of flushing the toilet, I dumped a bucket in the bowl. Instead of filling the sink to wash dishes, I- you get the idea.
The water from the llave is safe use to brush your teeth but not safe to swallow. You have to boil it if you are going to cook with it. For straight drinking we use a botellón, which you might recognize from your office water cooler. This purified water costs $50 RD (a little more than a dollar) a jug and lasts the two of us about a week.
When we walked to Naranjito the guías drank straight from the river near the acueducto. I have heard that the water is generally cleaner and safer straight from the source but I declined to follow their example. They probably wouldn't have let me either, being concerned for my safety as they were.
I have tried the agua filtrada, though, and I did not die. The filters are a previous PC project. All of the houses I have visited have them in their out kitchen. The local water is heavy with calcium and prior to filters the incidence of kidney stones was alarmingly high. There are three filters in the acueducto system but I believe they only filter particulate matter.
And that water? It´s cold. I have yet to encounter a hot water heater in this country, even in the capital. I imagine they exist in the all inclusive resorts where the high energy cost can be bundled into the price of the package. But out here Cat heats up her bath the shower "traditional" way by putting a plastic jug, ideally painted black, in the sun to heat up over the course of the day.
Not being able to rely on either water or power makes doing laundry an extra chore. Poorer families still use the river while wealthy (relatively speaking) people have washing machines. This still takes time more time than back home, though. The type of machine than can run on a solar inversor has only one chamber, which means you have to rinse off excess soap in a bucket. There are no gas lines to power machines so the wash needs to hang on a line or the roof to dry. This is yet another example of how much extra time and works it takes to be poor.
All this thinking about water hasn't facilitated the sort of change in consciousness that living without reliable luz has. California, the state where we lived for five years before coming here, is entering its 6th consecutive year of drought. Cat and I were a "if it's yellow, let it mellow" household there and we continue to be here, though I have taken to peeing in (you guessed it!) a bucket and later using it as fertilizer for the compost pile. I'll post an entry on tropical gardening as soon as I have something to take pictures of.
Our Dominican mom said ¨No, not since they installed the acueducto." Most of the houses have running water now, though some poorer families still take plastic buckets to the river. Later, after a couple of days of steady rain, the water stopped coming out of the tap and we put out buckets to collect the rainfall.
Yes, you read that right. When it rains a lot we are less likely to have water. The acueducto draws from the river in las rodillas of the mountain nearby. Due to erosion free flowing sediment sometimes clogs the pipes. When this happens you abre el llave and the pipe coughs like an asthmatic.
The longest we've gone without water is five days. When we moved house one of the first things we bought was a 50 gallon tanque and a mangera (hose) to fill it with. I just passed 3 days by myself (Cat's in the capital for a conference) with no water from the llave and was able to get along fine thanks to the tanque. Instead of taking a shower, I washed myself from a bucket. Instead of flushing the toilet, I dumped a bucket in the bowl. Instead of filling the sink to wash dishes, I- you get the idea.
 |
| This machine has changed my life. |
The water from the llave is safe use to brush your teeth but not safe to swallow. You have to boil it if you are going to cook with it. For straight drinking we use a botellón, which you might recognize from your office water cooler. This purified water costs $50 RD (a little more than a dollar) a jug and lasts the two of us about a week.
When we walked to Naranjito the guías drank straight from the river near the acueducto. I have heard that the water is generally cleaner and safer straight from the source but I declined to follow their example. They probably wouldn't have let me either, being concerned for my safety as they were.
I have tried the agua filtrada, though, and I did not die. The filters are a previous PC project. All of the houses I have visited have them in their out kitchen. The local water is heavy with calcium and prior to filters the incidence of kidney stones was alarmingly high. There are three filters in the acueducto system but I believe they only filter particulate matter.
And that water? It´s cold. I have yet to encounter a hot water heater in this country, even in the capital. I imagine they exist in the all inclusive resorts where the high energy cost can be bundled into the price of the package. But out here Cat heats up her bath the shower "traditional" way by putting a plastic jug, ideally painted black, in the sun to heat up over the course of the day.
 |
| "Solar Power" |
Not being able to rely on either water or power makes doing laundry an extra chore. Poorer families still use the river while wealthy (relatively speaking) people have washing machines. This still takes time more time than back home, though. The type of machine than can run on a solar inversor has only one chamber, which means you have to rinse off excess soap in a bucket. There are no gas lines to power machines so the wash needs to hang on a line or the roof to dry. This is yet another example of how much extra time and works it takes to be poor.
All this thinking about water hasn't facilitated the sort of change in consciousness that living without reliable luz has. California, the state where we lived for five years before coming here, is entering its 6th consecutive year of drought. Cat and I were a "if it's yellow, let it mellow" household there and we continue to be here, though I have taken to peeing in (you guessed it!) a bucket and later using it as fertilizer for the compost pile. I'll post an entry on tropical gardening as soon as I have something to take pictures of.
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