I must credit my older brother immediately for the title. It came up in a conversation on how very little changed here for the celebrations of Christmas. I’d been told practically since arriving in this country that Christmas is a huge deal here. I was thrilled because I’m a huge lover of December and all things Christmas. They said there would be parties all the time, music playing constantly, relatives from out of town, more food than I could eat including lots of pork and fresh fruit, and much more.
Well, some relatives did show up and there was pork (the kind you put on a stick and barbeque over an open pit flame.) But besides that, the days (the 24th and 25th) were pretty uneventful. I spent the majority of the 24th reading because no one was around; my Dona went off to Mexico to visit her daughter, which is all fine and well except that that left me more or less alone until she gets back in mid-January. I went to a party with some friends in the evening and ate well there. The party didn’t feel too different from other parties I’ve been to here and at their house in particular. They tend to be the party-throwers, these friends of mine. I guess one difference is that we listened to Christmas meringue instead of regular meringue. Oh another thing that was different is that my host father, who had drunk a lot of rum at the party, handed me his hand gun for safe keeping. He told me to put it in my suitcase because he didn’t want anything to happen. I found myself wondering what exactly could have happened on Christmas Eve with the gun, that wouldn’t have happened any other night?
On the 25th I spent a lot of the day reading again, I watched All The President’s Men (which might I add is an incredible Christmas movie, and I hope will be broadcast on one of the major networks for Christmas next year), and made an effort to go out at see people. The 24th is the more important day here so I didn’t want to impose on people when their families were visiting, but I didn’t mind imposing as much on the 25th. After a nice long call with my family back home, I played some dominoes, did some chit-chatting with some people here, and watched the stars at night. What is it about Christmas that always makes the stars look brighter?
Now don’t feel too bad for me having been away from home for Christmas for the first time. Although it was that, as well as sad day for some other reasons, I did get to spend the day in the Caribbean (whereas I’m pretty sure the bulk of you reading this were experiencing wind chills of negative 18 at the time) and I got 3 incredible Christmas presents. A while back I bought 2 boxes of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese (the powder kind, A.K.A. my all time favorite food.) I decided to prepare a box for my Christmas dinner, which took much explaining to many people; meals and my general lack of eating is a popular topic of conversation here, not just in my house, but all over the community. Anyways, although prepared in the dark, it was delicious. *I should caution fellow lovers of said deliciousness that the flavor of the milk and margarine that you use strongly influences the flavor of the end product, so if you’re going abroad and bringing some with you, be warned. Both Chilean and Dominican mac and cheese dinners haven’t been exactly what they are in Illinois and Washington DC.
I’d known for a few weeks that my family will be coming to visit me here in mid-January. What I also knew was that my older brother wouldn’t be able to make it. However, on Christmas I found out that he too is coming! I’m so excited for them to come. (PS-If you want to send me a letter or something, send it to them before the 16th or so and they can bring it to me here! That would be a lot faster and easier than using actual mail.)
The other Christmas present, which although I wasn’t aware it was happening at the time I immediately claimed as my own, was the Chicago Bears incredible triumph over the Green Bay Bumbling Fools. Oh I’m sorry, the Green Bay Packers. This wonderfulness (which really should have happened last year) took place just moments before the Christmas festivaling began and I had a little dance party when I saw the score on ESPN, the only English-television channel that seems to always work, rather, it seems to always work when the power is on, and the cable is functioning too.
In general the days were nice and fun, but I didn’t see what all of the hype was about. The gift exchanging, which is mostly just for the little kids anyways, is supposed to take place on Three Kings Day, the 6th of January. I have a feeling it will turn out to be not such a big deal as well. Oh and as for the hand gun, I’m nervous my host father doesn’t remember giving it to me because he was too drunk that night, so I haven’t brought it up with him. It’s sitting on the other bed in my room under some sweatpants.
Sunday, December 30, 2007
I CAUGHT THE FISH!
Though I’ve beaten particular Dominicans at dominoes more times than they’ve beaten me, they like to tell me how terrible at the game I am, and in general think I’m pretty crazy, and terrible at a lot of things. And it’s not just some selected individuals, it’s pretty much everyone. One moment they see me do something they don’t understand, perhaps I throw down a domino that they wouldn’t have, or use a seat belt in a car, and the next minute I’m kicking their butt at that hand of dominoes, or am the only person not jolting forward in the car when someone slams on the breaks. Defeating people who were rude to me, or in front of me because they think I don’t understand Spanish, was what I thought was the greatest feeling in the world.
But I found another one. It’s when you go out fishing for hours, trying different types of bait, in different areas, with a guide who seems just as surprised that nothing is biting as your know-it-all friend who took you out, having people walk you through every step of casting a line multiple times (even though all of the steps are pretty easy) because they think that you’re a bumbling fool, and no one is having any luck. And then, you’re the only person in the boat, of all locals who are experienced fishermen, who catches something! Now, I shouldn’t say they didn’t catch anything. In our group of me, my friend who spoils me, and 2 guides, one of the guides caught a very small fish, and the other 2 had crabs on their lines that they wouldn’t even let in the boat because their such a nuisance. So, it’s not that I’m the only one who caught something; it’s that I’m the only one who caught something large.
Catching the fish came after playing dominoes with the same group. My friend who thinks he’s an expert and is always telling me how to play “ better” wasn’t on my team because he thought this other guy was the best and he thought I, the worst, should play on the team with the best, and he would play with another guy. On the game for my team they bet yogurt and cheese (only in the DR) and rum for my alcoholic friend and his partner. Well I’m happy to say that my friend will be buying my former domino partner some yogurt and cheese, because we won. Not only did we win, but I won more times than my apparently “expert” partner.
I took some triumphant pictures with the dead animal, which is very scary-looking, by the way. Part of me wanted to name it, but I was supposed to eat it the next day and I didn’t feel right eating something I’d named. But more relevantly, I don’t feel right naming something that looks like this thing. It’s long and slimy and doesn’t have any fins and has a pointy face with razor-sharp-pointy-teeth. It looks like an eel. (Oh! I saw my first real-life jelly fish today! It got stuck on my line for a moment. They look a lot like they did in Finding Nemo and in SpongeBob except that the one I saw wasn’t pink, it was clear with black outlines.)
We went out to fish twice, once in the morning-afternoon, and once at dusk which turned into night very soon after we went out. I didn’t think the latter trip made a whole lot of sense because it would get awfully dark awfully fast and then what would we do? Well apparently I would catch the fish, but even more importantly is that I would be able to see an incredible amount of stars which followed a breathtaking sunset. But we really were just sitting in the boat, and waiting, in the dark.
Something else that turned out to be a downside to fishing at night was having everyone tell me that unlike the only other fish I’ve caught in my life (a poisonous fish out of the Mississippi River, wait, isn’t that redundant?) I could actually eat this one. Well it turns out that on closer inspection no one but sharks eat this sort of fish. I must say I’m a bit glad because it really was eel-like and I sort of didn’t want to eat it. Also I thought they’d make me eat it alone and even if it was “just” 2 pounds or so, I didn’t want to eat 2 pounds of scary-fish. I guess I’d be more relieved still if I hadn’t also just found out that shark-food is in the place where I spent all day floating around in a boat. Oh well.
But I found another one. It’s when you go out fishing for hours, trying different types of bait, in different areas, with a guide who seems just as surprised that nothing is biting as your know-it-all friend who took you out, having people walk you through every step of casting a line multiple times (even though all of the steps are pretty easy) because they think that you’re a bumbling fool, and no one is having any luck. And then, you’re the only person in the boat, of all locals who are experienced fishermen, who catches something! Now, I shouldn’t say they didn’t catch anything. In our group of me, my friend who spoils me, and 2 guides, one of the guides caught a very small fish, and the other 2 had crabs on their lines that they wouldn’t even let in the boat because their such a nuisance. So, it’s not that I’m the only one who caught something; it’s that I’m the only one who caught something large.
Catching the fish came after playing dominoes with the same group. My friend who thinks he’s an expert and is always telling me how to play “ better” wasn’t on my team because he thought this other guy was the best and he thought I, the worst, should play on the team with the best, and he would play with another guy. On the game for my team they bet yogurt and cheese (only in the DR) and rum for my alcoholic friend and his partner. Well I’m happy to say that my friend will be buying my former domino partner some yogurt and cheese, because we won. Not only did we win, but I won more times than my apparently “expert” partner.
I took some triumphant pictures with the dead animal, which is very scary-looking, by the way. Part of me wanted to name it, but I was supposed to eat it the next day and I didn’t feel right eating something I’d named. But more relevantly, I don’t feel right naming something that looks like this thing. It’s long and slimy and doesn’t have any fins and has a pointy face with razor-sharp-pointy-teeth. It looks like an eel. (Oh! I saw my first real-life jelly fish today! It got stuck on my line for a moment. They look a lot like they did in Finding Nemo and in SpongeBob except that the one I saw wasn’t pink, it was clear with black outlines.)
We went out to fish twice, once in the morning-afternoon, and once at dusk which turned into night very soon after we went out. I didn’t think the latter trip made a whole lot of sense because it would get awfully dark awfully fast and then what would we do? Well apparently I would catch the fish, but even more importantly is that I would be able to see an incredible amount of stars which followed a breathtaking sunset. But we really were just sitting in the boat, and waiting, in the dark.
Something else that turned out to be a downside to fishing at night was having everyone tell me that unlike the only other fish I’ve caught in my life (a poisonous fish out of the Mississippi River, wait, isn’t that redundant?) I could actually eat this one. Well it turns out that on closer inspection no one but sharks eat this sort of fish. I must say I’m a bit glad because it really was eel-like and I sort of didn’t want to eat it. Also I thought they’d make me eat it alone and even if it was “just” 2 pounds or so, I didn’t want to eat 2 pounds of scary-fish. I guess I’d be more relieved still if I hadn’t also just found out that shark-food is in the place where I spent all day floating around in a boat. Oh well.
I'm A Peace Corps Volunteer, Damn It
My host mother the other day was overjoyed. Even though it wasn’t laundry day, she’d missed it earlier in the week, we had power and she was determined to get some laundry done. I was glad too because one of the more disappointing things about Peace Corps is how little we were able to bring, chiefly in the area of clothing, and wearing dirty clothes, although I and I’m sure most of us do it often, is gross. The only problem was that she was also so supposed to be teaching classes at our town school. No matter, she decided, I’ll just send Eliza.
Excuse me? At first I couldn’t understand what she was saying, then I couldn’t understand how she would ever think of such an outrageous idea. Not only is it a terrible plan, I also was supposed to go out and do some interviewing, which is actually my reason for being here, which she knew. So, I decided I’d go tell the school director that my Dona had told me to come relay the message that she wouldn’t be coming to class because of the laundry and that if the school director (the only teacher in the building, though there were 4 classes of kids there) needed any help corralling the kids, I could for a minute before going to do interviews.
Well, within a matter of moments I found myself standing in front of a classroom of students who had just been told I would be giving them English lessons. The reasons for which I was full of many an emotion that did not include feeling comfortable should be quite clear, but let’s go through them just for fun’s sake. 1) I am not now, nor have I ever been a teacher. I have no experience with teaching in a classroom and have no training in teaching. 2) I am a 22 year old who is barely out of college. I majored in International Studies. International Studies and English are not the same thing. 3) I am a Peace Corps Volunteer. I work in health, and before I can start doing that, I am to complete a diagnostic of the community. There was a woman waiting to take me to do some interviews. 4) The school board, or local school officials, or regional leadership in education, let alone the Dominican government probably don’t have “inexperienced gringas welcome to teach classes in our rural schools whenever” postered anywhere. I don’t think the situation would fly with them. 5) The situation certainly would not fly in the US where you need a security clearance to enter a pre-school, let alone sit in on a classroom, let alone TEACH A CLASS!
Okay, so now that I’d run through all the ways that this was a terrible idea and that I in no way felt comfortable, I felt it was a good time to have a little chuckle to myself. At some point I looked up and was reintroduced to my surroundings, mainly the classroom-full of students looking at me to guide them in their English studies. Luckily, I’d been running through some possible topics for English classes because of the classes I’m going to start giving after the winter holidays. So, I stole from those. I talked about the days of the week, the months, taught them how to say when their birthday was, and taught them the “th” sound, even letting out the secret that my name isn’t actually Eliza and that because Spanish-speakers have such a hard time with “th” I’d decided to go with my full name in this country instead. I gave them all American-sounding names which were somewhat reminiscent of their names, although how are you supposed to translate “Yaniris” or “Joche”? For that matter, how are you even supposed to pronounce them?
Part way through the class it was time to switch to the older kids who found the names thing less interesting than having me do their homework for them. Luckily, as I was out of ideas for my spur of the moment English classes, and didn’t feel comfortable teaching students who aren’t mine, and doing their homework for them, class was over for the day. These kids go to school for AM or PM sessions only, have a break of about 30 minutes part way through their session, have teachers periodically not show up, nor their substitutes, and got me that day instead. I’m sure it was a real treat for them just as it was for me. (I’m sarcastically smiling right now.)
Excuse me? At first I couldn’t understand what she was saying, then I couldn’t understand how she would ever think of such an outrageous idea. Not only is it a terrible plan, I also was supposed to go out and do some interviewing, which is actually my reason for being here, which she knew. So, I decided I’d go tell the school director that my Dona had told me to come relay the message that she wouldn’t be coming to class because of the laundry and that if the school director (the only teacher in the building, though there were 4 classes of kids there) needed any help corralling the kids, I could for a minute before going to do interviews.
Well, within a matter of moments I found myself standing in front of a classroom of students who had just been told I would be giving them English lessons. The reasons for which I was full of many an emotion that did not include feeling comfortable should be quite clear, but let’s go through them just for fun’s sake. 1) I am not now, nor have I ever been a teacher. I have no experience with teaching in a classroom and have no training in teaching. 2) I am a 22 year old who is barely out of college. I majored in International Studies. International Studies and English are not the same thing. 3) I am a Peace Corps Volunteer. I work in health, and before I can start doing that, I am to complete a diagnostic of the community. There was a woman waiting to take me to do some interviews. 4) The school board, or local school officials, or regional leadership in education, let alone the Dominican government probably don’t have “inexperienced gringas welcome to teach classes in our rural schools whenever” postered anywhere. I don’t think the situation would fly with them. 5) The situation certainly would not fly in the US where you need a security clearance to enter a pre-school, let alone sit in on a classroom, let alone TEACH A CLASS!
Okay, so now that I’d run through all the ways that this was a terrible idea and that I in no way felt comfortable, I felt it was a good time to have a little chuckle to myself. At some point I looked up and was reintroduced to my surroundings, mainly the classroom-full of students looking at me to guide them in their English studies. Luckily, I’d been running through some possible topics for English classes because of the classes I’m going to start giving after the winter holidays. So, I stole from those. I talked about the days of the week, the months, taught them how to say when their birthday was, and taught them the “th” sound, even letting out the secret that my name isn’t actually Eliza and that because Spanish-speakers have such a hard time with “th” I’d decided to go with my full name in this country instead. I gave them all American-sounding names which were somewhat reminiscent of their names, although how are you supposed to translate “Yaniris” or “Joche”? For that matter, how are you even supposed to pronounce them?
Part way through the class it was time to switch to the older kids who found the names thing less interesting than having me do their homework for them. Luckily, as I was out of ideas for my spur of the moment English classes, and didn’t feel comfortable teaching students who aren’t mine, and doing their homework for them, class was over for the day. These kids go to school for AM or PM sessions only, have a break of about 30 minutes part way through their session, have teachers periodically not show up, nor their substitutes, and got me that day instead. I’m sure it was a real treat for them just as it was for me. (I’m sarcastically smiling right now.)
Some Days Just Come and Go
Some days just come and go, the highlight might be a few hours spent at a neighbor’s house playing dominoes or talking, or maybe I get some healthy fried chicken for dinner instead of fried pork. Other days have so much action packed into them that even thinking about writing it all in my journal is a daunting task that wears me out. And the most Peace-Corps-y thing about it is that you really never know what day is going to be which. Days of extreme boredom and days of extreme action cannot be planned. They are in no way premeditated. It’s about rolling with the punches.
Today was one such action-packed day. It started out slow, my first day of Christmas vacation. I completed a couple of long days of interviewing and was pleased that I had 50 (of 120) interviews completed in time for the break. The interview was really starting to get on my nerves. Really, why do I care after how many months it was that mothers started to give their children canned, powered or regular cow’s milk if it takes 20 minutes to describe to the women that I’m not interested in which kind of milk it was that they gave, rather at which time the giving took place. Perhaps you have to sit in on one such interview to truly grasp how frustrating that and some of my other questions might be. But the good news was that I was done, for now. So I spent a bulk of the morning reading. It’s called A Prayer for Owen Meany and I HIGHLY recommend it, especially during the holidays.
Pretty soon my friend who likes spoiling me almost as he likes drinking rum arrived and told me it was time to go to the beach. I was thrilled because I really wanted to meet up with my volunteer neighbor who lives there, speak English, be reminded that I’m not alone, and most importantly, compare medical issues. I wanted to show her what I believed to be a series of mosquito bites in a somewhat condensed area, resulting in a very scary, very bumpy, very vast piece of skin on the upper part of my leg where mosquitoes typically wouldn’t be able to have access. I’m pretty sure that’s what this weird protrusion was because my legs were covered in some very severe looking bites in other areas, and, I killed a mosquito in my bed net this morning when the teenagers came around chanting Christmas merengues at 4:30. I have no way of knowing how long said mosquito was in my net, and feel it’s safer to blame said (dead, haha) mosquito for the protrusion than some rash or other contaminable condition. Let me just tell you, it’s not fun to be scratching at something under your pant leg that feels just like all of your other mosquito bites only to be “quickly changing into your bathing suit” and find that it’s a new, very 3-dimentional abscess that’s bright red and painful.
We got to the beach and ate fried fish with tostones, perhaps my favorite Dominican food. It’s sliced of plantain fried in soy oil. With a little salt and a ton of catsup, it might even be more fulfilling that French fries. Now please don’t think that I’ve abandoned my love and appreciation for good American cooking by having said something even comes close to comparing with French fries… it’s just that because potatoes get such a bad rap for being a starch, and because I’m not sure if plantains count as a starch, and since I’m not sure, and because they remind me of bananas which are really good for you, I feel better about tostones as a healthy option than French fries. But believe me, if someone handed me a box of Arby’s curly fries and a plate of tostones, and told me I could only have one, the fries, even if I couldn’t have Arby’s sauce, would win. Hands down.
I did some swimming, and as I hope you will see, some photograph taking. If you find yourself wondering why I’ve taken so many pictures of the same beach (yes, they are all of the same beach) I assure you I’m in no way trying to persuade you to visit. The photographs are merely for my records. I want to remember what that beach, which you will remember I have described as the most lovely, beautiful beach I’ve ever been to, looked like at every moment I was able to be there and soak it up. The fact that you are (theoretically) seeing it so often is just a by-product of my record-keeping.
You might notice some odd pictures of a man sitting on the ground at the beach. I’m quite conflicted about these photos, as I am about something that took up the bulk of my thoughts today. You guessed it: the Haitian situation. I’d love to report that I haven’t felt uncomfortable again like I did that terrible night in front of my neighbor’s house when the police rolled through my community. Unfortunately, I saw something equally disturbing this morning. As we were driving to the beach, my friend slowed the car down and stopped next to a Dominican man and a Haitian boy who was probably 10 years old. The Dominican was very upset and there was a crowd of Dominicans and Haitians watching him. He had a rope, and was tying up the hands of the boy. As it did the other night, it took a moment for me to realize what was going on. As soon as I did, I realized that the other end of the rope was attached to the saddle of a horse and I started to get really scared. From what I could hear outside the car the boy had been caught stealing from the orchard of the Dominican man. He was furious and the boy looked scared to death. This particular Dominican man has rather light-skin so the scene looked like something out of Roots.
All I could think was please don’t whip that horse to make it start running! My friend tried to explain to me that the boy had been caught stealing lemons, a sack of which apparently costs around US$60. Okay, I thought, I can pay for the lemons, just let the little guy go! He’s a kid, but he’s a thief, my friend said, like all Haitians. But don’t worry, he told me, that man is just going to take him to the police to describe what happened, and the two of them will probably resolve it on the way there; he just wants to scare the kid.
So Dominicans are allowed to tie up Haitians? Are Haitians allowed to tie up Dominicans? Let’s insert any adjective that describes human beings and see if it makes any sense. I was, again, visibly disturbed so my friend, who up until this point I didn’t realize had such a crude sense of humor, said it used to be worse, like in the Old West where someone like that, who committed a crime, would be hanged from a tree. Not so crude except that he said this with quite a forceful laugh behind it. I didn’t find the reference to lynching as funny as he did.
I also didn’t find what happened to the man at the beach very funny. When we first arrived, a drunk Haitian was being pretty friendly to my friends and the people seated near us. I went for a swim and when I came back a while later, the man had gotten much drunker. Everyone was having a good laugh at his expense, especially my friends, although they weren’t much more sober, and then something happened that was hysterically funny, or incredibly demoralizing, depending on your point of view. The man attempted to sit down and fell into his plastic chair in a way which made the chair buckle beneath him, and he, and the broken pieces of plastic, fell to the ground. I’ve seen a great many broken plastic chairs in this country fastened together with wire or staples, so I wasn’t too concerned for the chair’s owner. The chair’s owner, however, was. He came rushing with such speed I didn’t think Dominican waiters could achieve. He dove into the pockets of the inebriated Haitian, now lying on the ground, presumably looking for money to pay for the plastic that was once a chair. After turning both pockets inside-out, the waiter picked up the broken leg of the chair, and began to hit the man on the head with it. The audience for the afternoon entertainment was about 5 Dominican men, myself, and some other foreign women. The Dominican men laughed at the spectacle. The man attempted to get up but fell over. His arm was covered in paint which I can only assume got on him when he leaned into a recently painted wooden post at the restaurant. A Dominican man came over to offer some help. A hand, perhaps, to help the man to his feet. No, but he did offer some sips of a much-needed non-alcoholic beverage, a 7up. This Dominican must have been feeling extra generous because instead of just some sips, he gave the Haitian so much soda that he couldn’t drink it all and the 7up poured over his mouth and down his face. The man, at this point, did not seem to be appreciating the help the Dominican had offered, and instead looked defeated. The Dominican offered more soda, this time apparently to refresh his scalp, because he poured the rest of the contents of the bottle on the Haitian’s head.
One of the foreign women approached the Haitian, still lying on the ground, and poured what appeared to be ocean water on his head and over his face. Unlike his reaction to the soda, the man appeared to welcome this shower, even turning to look at the woman who had given it to him. The sight of a foreigner cleaning the man was more than my friends, or the other Dominican men, could take. The laughter was more than it had ever been, and so the man retreated into his lap, still in the spot where he’d initially fallen.
And so I took a picture. I didn’t mean for my friends to laugh harder, I even looked at them to try to inquire to what they thought was so funny, to shame them into stopping. At the time I believe I was thinking that I wanted something to remember the humiliation I’d seen given to Haitians at the hands of their Dominican neighbors that day. The man at the beach did not just represent himself. To me, the humiliation he suffered represented the humiliation that the 10 year old boy suffered, as well as those men who got carried off by the police a few weeks ago. And it’s one thing to be humiliated by one group of people in such dramatic ways as have been going on here for some time, but I was there too. It wasn’t just that Dominicans were humiliating Haitians, there was an American there too, and she didn’t do anything. In fact, she was taking pictures.
What if it had been me that broke the chair? An American woman goes to the beach of a developing country over winter break, has one too many, and brakes a chair. I’m sure it’s happened before, probably at that beach, perhaps at that very same restaurant, and even while that same waiter was working. Would he hit her over the head with the chair leg? He was the only Haitian at the beach that day. I was the only American at the beach that day. So what made us so different?
Today was one such action-packed day. It started out slow, my first day of Christmas vacation. I completed a couple of long days of interviewing and was pleased that I had 50 (of 120) interviews completed in time for the break. The interview was really starting to get on my nerves. Really, why do I care after how many months it was that mothers started to give their children canned, powered or regular cow’s milk if it takes 20 minutes to describe to the women that I’m not interested in which kind of milk it was that they gave, rather at which time the giving took place. Perhaps you have to sit in on one such interview to truly grasp how frustrating that and some of my other questions might be. But the good news was that I was done, for now. So I spent a bulk of the morning reading. It’s called A Prayer for Owen Meany and I HIGHLY recommend it, especially during the holidays.
Pretty soon my friend who likes spoiling me almost as he likes drinking rum arrived and told me it was time to go to the beach. I was thrilled because I really wanted to meet up with my volunteer neighbor who lives there, speak English, be reminded that I’m not alone, and most importantly, compare medical issues. I wanted to show her what I believed to be a series of mosquito bites in a somewhat condensed area, resulting in a very scary, very bumpy, very vast piece of skin on the upper part of my leg where mosquitoes typically wouldn’t be able to have access. I’m pretty sure that’s what this weird protrusion was because my legs were covered in some very severe looking bites in other areas, and, I killed a mosquito in my bed net this morning when the teenagers came around chanting Christmas merengues at 4:30. I have no way of knowing how long said mosquito was in my net, and feel it’s safer to blame said (dead, haha) mosquito for the protrusion than some rash or other contaminable condition. Let me just tell you, it’s not fun to be scratching at something under your pant leg that feels just like all of your other mosquito bites only to be “quickly changing into your bathing suit” and find that it’s a new, very 3-dimentional abscess that’s bright red and painful.
We got to the beach and ate fried fish with tostones, perhaps my favorite Dominican food. It’s sliced of plantain fried in soy oil. With a little salt and a ton of catsup, it might even be more fulfilling that French fries. Now please don’t think that I’ve abandoned my love and appreciation for good American cooking by having said something even comes close to comparing with French fries… it’s just that because potatoes get such a bad rap for being a starch, and because I’m not sure if plantains count as a starch, and since I’m not sure, and because they remind me of bananas which are really good for you, I feel better about tostones as a healthy option than French fries. But believe me, if someone handed me a box of Arby’s curly fries and a plate of tostones, and told me I could only have one, the fries, even if I couldn’t have Arby’s sauce, would win. Hands down.
I did some swimming, and as I hope you will see, some photograph taking. If you find yourself wondering why I’ve taken so many pictures of the same beach (yes, they are all of the same beach) I assure you I’m in no way trying to persuade you to visit. The photographs are merely for my records. I want to remember what that beach, which you will remember I have described as the most lovely, beautiful beach I’ve ever been to, looked like at every moment I was able to be there and soak it up. The fact that you are (theoretically) seeing it so often is just a by-product of my record-keeping.
You might notice some odd pictures of a man sitting on the ground at the beach. I’m quite conflicted about these photos, as I am about something that took up the bulk of my thoughts today. You guessed it: the Haitian situation. I’d love to report that I haven’t felt uncomfortable again like I did that terrible night in front of my neighbor’s house when the police rolled through my community. Unfortunately, I saw something equally disturbing this morning. As we were driving to the beach, my friend slowed the car down and stopped next to a Dominican man and a Haitian boy who was probably 10 years old. The Dominican was very upset and there was a crowd of Dominicans and Haitians watching him. He had a rope, and was tying up the hands of the boy. As it did the other night, it took a moment for me to realize what was going on. As soon as I did, I realized that the other end of the rope was attached to the saddle of a horse and I started to get really scared. From what I could hear outside the car the boy had been caught stealing from the orchard of the Dominican man. He was furious and the boy looked scared to death. This particular Dominican man has rather light-skin so the scene looked like something out of Roots.
All I could think was please don’t whip that horse to make it start running! My friend tried to explain to me that the boy had been caught stealing lemons, a sack of which apparently costs around US$60. Okay, I thought, I can pay for the lemons, just let the little guy go! He’s a kid, but he’s a thief, my friend said, like all Haitians. But don’t worry, he told me, that man is just going to take him to the police to describe what happened, and the two of them will probably resolve it on the way there; he just wants to scare the kid.
So Dominicans are allowed to tie up Haitians? Are Haitians allowed to tie up Dominicans? Let’s insert any adjective that describes human beings and see if it makes any sense. I was, again, visibly disturbed so my friend, who up until this point I didn’t realize had such a crude sense of humor, said it used to be worse, like in the Old West where someone like that, who committed a crime, would be hanged from a tree. Not so crude except that he said this with quite a forceful laugh behind it. I didn’t find the reference to lynching as funny as he did.
I also didn’t find what happened to the man at the beach very funny. When we first arrived, a drunk Haitian was being pretty friendly to my friends and the people seated near us. I went for a swim and when I came back a while later, the man had gotten much drunker. Everyone was having a good laugh at his expense, especially my friends, although they weren’t much more sober, and then something happened that was hysterically funny, or incredibly demoralizing, depending on your point of view. The man attempted to sit down and fell into his plastic chair in a way which made the chair buckle beneath him, and he, and the broken pieces of plastic, fell to the ground. I’ve seen a great many broken plastic chairs in this country fastened together with wire or staples, so I wasn’t too concerned for the chair’s owner. The chair’s owner, however, was. He came rushing with such speed I didn’t think Dominican waiters could achieve. He dove into the pockets of the inebriated Haitian, now lying on the ground, presumably looking for money to pay for the plastic that was once a chair. After turning both pockets inside-out, the waiter picked up the broken leg of the chair, and began to hit the man on the head with it. The audience for the afternoon entertainment was about 5 Dominican men, myself, and some other foreign women. The Dominican men laughed at the spectacle. The man attempted to get up but fell over. His arm was covered in paint which I can only assume got on him when he leaned into a recently painted wooden post at the restaurant. A Dominican man came over to offer some help. A hand, perhaps, to help the man to his feet. No, but he did offer some sips of a much-needed non-alcoholic beverage, a 7up. This Dominican must have been feeling extra generous because instead of just some sips, he gave the Haitian so much soda that he couldn’t drink it all and the 7up poured over his mouth and down his face. The man, at this point, did not seem to be appreciating the help the Dominican had offered, and instead looked defeated. The Dominican offered more soda, this time apparently to refresh his scalp, because he poured the rest of the contents of the bottle on the Haitian’s head.
One of the foreign women approached the Haitian, still lying on the ground, and poured what appeared to be ocean water on his head and over his face. Unlike his reaction to the soda, the man appeared to welcome this shower, even turning to look at the woman who had given it to him. The sight of a foreigner cleaning the man was more than my friends, or the other Dominican men, could take. The laughter was more than it had ever been, and so the man retreated into his lap, still in the spot where he’d initially fallen.
And so I took a picture. I didn’t mean for my friends to laugh harder, I even looked at them to try to inquire to what they thought was so funny, to shame them into stopping. At the time I believe I was thinking that I wanted something to remember the humiliation I’d seen given to Haitians at the hands of their Dominican neighbors that day. The man at the beach did not just represent himself. To me, the humiliation he suffered represented the humiliation that the 10 year old boy suffered, as well as those men who got carried off by the police a few weeks ago. And it’s one thing to be humiliated by one group of people in such dramatic ways as have been going on here for some time, but I was there too. It wasn’t just that Dominicans were humiliating Haitians, there was an American there too, and she didn’t do anything. In fact, she was taking pictures.
What if it had been me that broke the chair? An American woman goes to the beach of a developing country over winter break, has one too many, and brakes a chair. I’m sure it’s happened before, probably at that beach, perhaps at that very same restaurant, and even while that same waiter was working. Would he hit her over the head with the chair leg? He was the only Haitian at the beach that day. I was the only American at the beach that day. So what made us so different?
Olga Came Through
She was called Tropical Storm Olga and she was very reminiscent of Noel. Despite the fact that they don’t typically tend to come “that late in the season,” nor to the regions I was in at the times, I experienced them both. Thankfully, there was very little damage to my site both times, but even less to my new site this time. There were no deaths near my town, no homes wrecked, no rivers overflowed too much, no trees came down to do too much damage to anything under.
Also thankfully, Peace Corps was a bit more prepared to act for Olga than they (or the rest of the country) were for Noel. On Tuesday, December 11th my emergency action person called my project partner’s house (the only working phone near me) to alert me that I was to get out of my site and go to Santiago to consolidate immediately. I’d missed the bus that leaves my site once a day so I started spreading the word that I needed ride out to the highway about a 1 hour ride, to catch a bus to the city. Everyone has my back here, and they seem to really enjoy helping me. My project partner’s husband got on it and got me a ride, even though no one wanted to leave for fear of bad roads and the impending danger of the storm.
I got to the city within 5 hours of being summoned to leave. Some people had a significantly shorter trip (also much cheaper. Mine ended up costing about $14 one way. I had friends who paid as little as $3 and $5 one way. If I’d caught that bus in the morning it would have cost $6. Sheesh.) But, with the exception of 2 friends of mine who are really isolated and without cell phone signal (or I guess landline either) pretty much every volunteer in the north of the country met up in a hotel in Santiago. Some people came using car, bus, truck, horse and/or mule, and one guy even got to tread through a river, raging since the water of the storm started.
We spent 2 nights in the hotel, mostly watching TV, but if you’ve already seen the pictures you’ll have seen that we did some other stuff too… I feel I should state for the record that all of those pictures are a lot more innocent than they look. No one really got too rowdy, though I know it looks quite the opposite. We’re just goofy. Not having a warm shower (or running water of any kind for some people) for a long time and then getting one for 2 days in a row will do that to a person.
We left after being told it was safe for most of us to leave by Peace Corps. My volunteer neighbor, who uses about 90% of the same road to get back as me was not cleared to go home, so I looked into it, and it turns out that the last 10% of the road that’s just hers was a mess. So she had to stay one more night at the hotel. I made it home safely, after spending a few hours figuring out how to get home. (Cell phone difficulties, compounded with having missed the one bus home from Santiago, compounded with not having brought my motorcycle helmet with me, compounded with other things made it difficult to figure it out.) But it all worked out in the end.
The word thus far is about 20 deaths in the country, all in the north, many a direct result of someone’s decision to open a levee to prevent a damn from overflowing or busting. When it was opened people who lived below and near it were not alerted in time to avoid its path. Look for video on the water flowing over it; it looks like Niagara Falls.
Also thankfully, Peace Corps was a bit more prepared to act for Olga than they (or the rest of the country) were for Noel. On Tuesday, December 11th my emergency action person called my project partner’s house (the only working phone near me) to alert me that I was to get out of my site and go to Santiago to consolidate immediately. I’d missed the bus that leaves my site once a day so I started spreading the word that I needed ride out to the highway about a 1 hour ride, to catch a bus to the city. Everyone has my back here, and they seem to really enjoy helping me. My project partner’s husband got on it and got me a ride, even though no one wanted to leave for fear of bad roads and the impending danger of the storm.
I got to the city within 5 hours of being summoned to leave. Some people had a significantly shorter trip (also much cheaper. Mine ended up costing about $14 one way. I had friends who paid as little as $3 and $5 one way. If I’d caught that bus in the morning it would have cost $6. Sheesh.) But, with the exception of 2 friends of mine who are really isolated and without cell phone signal (or I guess landline either) pretty much every volunteer in the north of the country met up in a hotel in Santiago. Some people came using car, bus, truck, horse and/or mule, and one guy even got to tread through a river, raging since the water of the storm started.
We spent 2 nights in the hotel, mostly watching TV, but if you’ve already seen the pictures you’ll have seen that we did some other stuff too… I feel I should state for the record that all of those pictures are a lot more innocent than they look. No one really got too rowdy, though I know it looks quite the opposite. We’re just goofy. Not having a warm shower (or running water of any kind for some people) for a long time and then getting one for 2 days in a row will do that to a person.
We left after being told it was safe for most of us to leave by Peace Corps. My volunteer neighbor, who uses about 90% of the same road to get back as me was not cleared to go home, so I looked into it, and it turns out that the last 10% of the road that’s just hers was a mess. So she had to stay one more night at the hotel. I made it home safely, after spending a few hours figuring out how to get home. (Cell phone difficulties, compounded with having missed the one bus home from Santiago, compounded with not having brought my motorcycle helmet with me, compounded with other things made it difficult to figure it out.) But it all worked out in the end.
The word thus far is about 20 deaths in the country, all in the north, many a direct result of someone’s decision to open a levee to prevent a damn from overflowing or busting. When it was opened people who lived below and near it were not alerted in time to avoid its path. Look for video on the water flowing over it; it looks like Niagara Falls.
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Really Creative Title
My day begins between 8 and 9 when I slowly get out of bed and go looking for my breakfast. The exceptions to this are when I go to the city, which requires waking up at 5 to catch the bus at 5:45, or when the youth get together and get their drum, scratchy metal instrument, and tambourine and go marching down the street, and up to the windows of helpless sleepers to wake them up in lots of Catholic chanting/singing. So far that’s happened twice, and I’ve been promised it only happens in December. We’ll see.
My morning routine changes quite often. It’s the time when most of the little kids are in school, and their older siblings are working, or helping their moms around the house, and the dads are mostly off working too. The jobs around here are mostly in agriculture: sugar cane, plantains, bananas, little fat bananas called rulo, and cattle. When I first arrived at my site I was surprised by the wealth that some members of my community seem to have. I have since learned that the overwhelming majority of people who seem to be doing pretty well have relatives overseas, the majority in New York, sending them remittances. A dollar will go a lot further here than there, except when it comes to gasoline. A gallon of gasoline, since I’ve arrived here, has consistently cost at least US$5. The other group who seems to have some money are those who are related to the cheese factory we have in town. Dominican cheese is not an asset to the country; in training a lot of us nicknamed it squeaky cheese, and I really can’t think of a better name. Luckily, the cheese that they make here is not said squeaky cheese. It doesn’t smell so good near the factory, but the final product is pretty good, and anything bringing money into our little community in the middle of nowhere is a grand and glorious thing.
So because everyone is off being busy, and because my host mom is usually off teaching, I have to scavenge for different things to do. Some days it is Peace Corps work in the strictest sense, (working on my community diagnostic of the entire community, working on a map of the community, planning for English classes that I’m about to start giving), and other times its work that Peace Corps really wants us to do, but there’s no expiration date on it, such as visiting different homes to build confianza with the kids, donas, and dons, playing dominoes, sitting and talking, and drinking coffee, but since I don’t like coffee, they usually give me more fruit than I can carry in my hands. So far I’ve been given apples, oranges, mangos and some super sweet, super small fruit that I can’t remember what it’s called.
In the afternoon it’s more of the same, but the donas tend to have some more free time, so perhaps, now that I’m starting the 120 interviews of my community, it will include a couple of those a day. The interview is just about 90 questions, most of which are short answer. I compiled it from one that Peace Corps health gave us, and from one that some former volunteers gave me. It’s pretty good, but instructing the women in my health committee on how to give it properly has been a bit of a challenge. Picture people you know who haven’t had a lot of formal education. They tend to have trouble with filling out forms and things such as that, don’t they? That’s sort of the way of it here too. It didn’t help that the 4 page interview got stapled in the wrong order. That adds at least 30 seconds to the process. So far I haven’t had a lot of success with people offering to help me with the interviews. My boss from PC came a few weeks ago and almost started demanding that people offer to help me, and people started volunteering others to do it. (The rationale for me not doing it alone is so that the women answering the questions are a little more comfortable and also, it’s just easier for a Dominican to understand another Dominican. Additionally, this project, like everything I do here, is not supposed to be seen as my work, but is supposed to be seen as something for the community, so community input and contribution is essential.) I can understand how it’s hard for some people to offer to help. In a home with 4 or so kids, with different school schedules, the main meal of the day (lunch) requiring a few hours of preparation every day, while also having time to potentially bring some more money into the home, can be a lot for one person. I’m hoping that as we go along, more and more people will see that it’s not too big of a commitment and will want to be involved as word of mouth passes on what the American is up to these days.
Evenings are dominoes, hanging with the teenagers, or the babies, or the adults, and my favorite is when it’s all three together. My dona likes to have me watch TV in English if there is power and if the cable isn’t out. So far that has happened twice in 2 weeks. I realized that although I’ve missed watching the news, and knowing what’s going on in the US on a national level, I haven’t missed CNN at all. Those people are just way too obnoxious.
By far, my favorite activity to do here is sit and talk with my dona. She’s a really smart lady; she’s the director of a high school near here, which is a very respectable job. Everyone knows her and lovingly calls her “teacher.” Sometimes we sit outdoors, looking at the stars at night, or under the huge (and I mean huge) tree in the front yard during the day, or sometimes in the kitchen as either of us is eating, or as she is cooking and giving me small lessons in Dominican cooking, whether she knows it or not. I’ve noticed that she is one of the few people in this community that makes a real effort, everyday to understand me, and for me to understand what is going on around me. I’m sure more people will do that as time goes on.
I feel so lucky to have her because the last two donas I lived with, although they were both great, were not as lively as the one I’ve got now. In the capital my dona had had 20 volunteers live with her before me. So she knew the scoop and was seasoned to know how little time I would in fact be there, so did not make a huge effort to really get to know me. That was probably pretty smart on her part, as I really was only there for a few weeks, though now it feels like a few days. And during our community based training my dona was very shy. It dawned on me when I left that no one in that house had ever asked me about my family or life back home. It wasn’t that they were being cold, or didn’t care, I think they were just legitimately too shy to ask such “personal” questions.
But more of why I feel lucky has to do with what I’ve heard about other donas. For example, there are donas that other volunteers have had/have that won’t let them leave the house without a chaperone (and these are all people of at least 22 years, so you can see how that could get pretty annoying pretty fast), donas who insist that the volunteer goes to church with the family, and in one extreme case that was three times a week, no matter what religion (or lack thereof) the volunteer practiced, donas who pester their volunteers about their relationship status, especially when it comes to finding them a Dominican counterpart, donas who tell their volunteers that they’re too fat or too thin, donas who just aren’t pleasant and just don’t want to talk, or who are never home, etc. This one and the last both have been very open to my ideas about what I eat, and have been very impressed with the fact that I don’t like very little of the food. In fact, my last dona used to tell people that I was a good eater! In my house in Illinois I never got to be a good eater growing up under the shadow of my brother, who I’m pretty sure was known in all the land to be the best eater in the history of food. Sure I was a better eater than my little brother, whose diet for many years consisted of nothing more than Twisslers and Slushies. Oh wait, it still does.
Well anyways, here’s what I eat every day, ranging from best to worst: 1) fried onions (thank God I told my dona day one that I adore them because there have been days where I’ve gotten them with every meal!), 2) mashed potatoes or yucca (obviously I’d prefer potatoes but beggars can’t be choosers and all that, and yucca isn’t really so bad), 3) plate of vinegar drenched veggies such as carrots, boiled slices of potatoes, and sometimes cabbage or lettuce, 4) fried salami (I know, it’s so gross to think of, but it actually tastes really good), 5) beans (much, much, much better than lentils which I also sometimes get), 6) eggs with peppers and onions (sounds good right? Well the problem is that they’re drenched, like all the friend foods I’ve been mentioning, in oil, and damp eggs have never been my thing), 7) white rice (never been much of a rice fan, and white rice just seems pointless to me) 8) mashed plantains (not so bad with stuff added to it, but alone is so boring), 9) fried cheese (picture almost rock solid cheese globs, dripping in oil. I’m going to have to speak up on this one too…) 10) boiled bananas (I don’t even need to describe this one do I?) I finally got up the nerve to say that I’d rather have yellow bananas than boiled bananas. It was getting to a ridiculous level with those boiled bananas… I can swallow them as well as the next guy, but can I really be expected to eat them 5 or 6 times a week?
And to drink, oh the juices… oh My God they are SO delicious! By now most of the people here know I don’t care for coffee, so I either drink my water bottle, which is always by my side, or if God is smiling on me that day, I’ll get a juice. They blend up papaya, mango, passion fruit, orange, or other delicious fruits in a blender and add a dash of vanilla, sugar, and sometimes some milk. It’s so delicious.
My favorite part of the day is bed time. It’s when I get to be alone-alone, read, write, think, plan, and finally dream. We are required to take anti-malarial medicine here, and one of the side effects is wacky and vivid dreams, to the point where some people can’t take that kind of medicine anymore. I’ve always had extremely bizarre and oftentimes very vivid dreams, but ever since my last dosage of the medicine my dreams have been more nuts and more vivid than ever before in my life. Seriously.
And then I go back and do much of the same again the next day. It’s a good life.
Some highlights of the past few days:
-Day One. I opened the door to go to the bathroom while the power was out. Behind the door was one of the things God put on this planet for one purpose: to scare the living s**t out of human beings. Yes my friends, it was a tarantula. I’d been lucky in never finding one in the 2 plus months before this day, and it took me a minute to realize exactly what it was. I slowly backed out of the room and went to my host brother and mother and said, “I don’t remember the word, but there’s something GIGANTIC in the bathroom!” My brother went and “took care of it.” The next day, as I was passing the bathroom window outside, I noticed a familiar site on the window ledge. Oh yes, it was my furry friend from the night before. He was dead, but I still conducted a thorough investigation. I didn’t know it at the time but my host brother was watched me investigate it and started laughing hysterically, and then he threw it into the bushes. Sheesh.
-First trip to Santiago since arriving. I BOUGHT A BIKE! The next day I found out how incredibly out of shape I am. In a 15 minute bike ride, on a slight upwards incline, I was toast. Granted I rode incredibly fast to test the bike out for its first official ride, but yah, I’m a pudgy kid who is out of shape! It’s red, and shiny and has shocks in the front AND in the back, and it cost a little over US$100 and it’s going to be my best friend. I get to ride a helmet with it as well as with motorcycles, so I might be looked at as even more ridiculous than I was before, but I’m okay with that.
-A Typical Friday Evening. My host mother asked me if I had grandparents. I said no, they have all died. I then explained how one of the reasons I’m a bit nervous about this Christmas is because my grandfather died on Christmas last year. She and her son expressed their sympathies in a nice, “Oh” followed by a silence during which we all had a chance to reflect. The silence was interrupted by my dona, who if you didn’t know is 52, saying in a very consoling tone, “my grandparents are dead too.”
This was of course followed by a roar of laughter from all three of us, as well as her son stating the obvious, “but at your old age, of course they’re dead!” I haven’t laughed like that in so long! I couldn’t stop either. Funny things that happen after someone brings the mood down like I did are always 10 times funnier than they would have been on their own. God I love this life here!
My morning routine changes quite often. It’s the time when most of the little kids are in school, and their older siblings are working, or helping their moms around the house, and the dads are mostly off working too. The jobs around here are mostly in agriculture: sugar cane, plantains, bananas, little fat bananas called rulo, and cattle. When I first arrived at my site I was surprised by the wealth that some members of my community seem to have. I have since learned that the overwhelming majority of people who seem to be doing pretty well have relatives overseas, the majority in New York, sending them remittances. A dollar will go a lot further here than there, except when it comes to gasoline. A gallon of gasoline, since I’ve arrived here, has consistently cost at least US$5. The other group who seems to have some money are those who are related to the cheese factory we have in town. Dominican cheese is not an asset to the country; in training a lot of us nicknamed it squeaky cheese, and I really can’t think of a better name. Luckily, the cheese that they make here is not said squeaky cheese. It doesn’t smell so good near the factory, but the final product is pretty good, and anything bringing money into our little community in the middle of nowhere is a grand and glorious thing.
So because everyone is off being busy, and because my host mom is usually off teaching, I have to scavenge for different things to do. Some days it is Peace Corps work in the strictest sense, (working on my community diagnostic of the entire community, working on a map of the community, planning for English classes that I’m about to start giving), and other times its work that Peace Corps really wants us to do, but there’s no expiration date on it, such as visiting different homes to build confianza with the kids, donas, and dons, playing dominoes, sitting and talking, and drinking coffee, but since I don’t like coffee, they usually give me more fruit than I can carry in my hands. So far I’ve been given apples, oranges, mangos and some super sweet, super small fruit that I can’t remember what it’s called.
In the afternoon it’s more of the same, but the donas tend to have some more free time, so perhaps, now that I’m starting the 120 interviews of my community, it will include a couple of those a day. The interview is just about 90 questions, most of which are short answer. I compiled it from one that Peace Corps health gave us, and from one that some former volunteers gave me. It’s pretty good, but instructing the women in my health committee on how to give it properly has been a bit of a challenge. Picture people you know who haven’t had a lot of formal education. They tend to have trouble with filling out forms and things such as that, don’t they? That’s sort of the way of it here too. It didn’t help that the 4 page interview got stapled in the wrong order. That adds at least 30 seconds to the process. So far I haven’t had a lot of success with people offering to help me with the interviews. My boss from PC came a few weeks ago and almost started demanding that people offer to help me, and people started volunteering others to do it. (The rationale for me not doing it alone is so that the women answering the questions are a little more comfortable and also, it’s just easier for a Dominican to understand another Dominican. Additionally, this project, like everything I do here, is not supposed to be seen as my work, but is supposed to be seen as something for the community, so community input and contribution is essential.) I can understand how it’s hard for some people to offer to help. In a home with 4 or so kids, with different school schedules, the main meal of the day (lunch) requiring a few hours of preparation every day, while also having time to potentially bring some more money into the home, can be a lot for one person. I’m hoping that as we go along, more and more people will see that it’s not too big of a commitment and will want to be involved as word of mouth passes on what the American is up to these days.
Evenings are dominoes, hanging with the teenagers, or the babies, or the adults, and my favorite is when it’s all three together. My dona likes to have me watch TV in English if there is power and if the cable isn’t out. So far that has happened twice in 2 weeks. I realized that although I’ve missed watching the news, and knowing what’s going on in the US on a national level, I haven’t missed CNN at all. Those people are just way too obnoxious.
By far, my favorite activity to do here is sit and talk with my dona. She’s a really smart lady; she’s the director of a high school near here, which is a very respectable job. Everyone knows her and lovingly calls her “teacher.” Sometimes we sit outdoors, looking at the stars at night, or under the huge (and I mean huge) tree in the front yard during the day, or sometimes in the kitchen as either of us is eating, or as she is cooking and giving me small lessons in Dominican cooking, whether she knows it or not. I’ve noticed that she is one of the few people in this community that makes a real effort, everyday to understand me, and for me to understand what is going on around me. I’m sure more people will do that as time goes on.
I feel so lucky to have her because the last two donas I lived with, although they were both great, were not as lively as the one I’ve got now. In the capital my dona had had 20 volunteers live with her before me. So she knew the scoop and was seasoned to know how little time I would in fact be there, so did not make a huge effort to really get to know me. That was probably pretty smart on her part, as I really was only there for a few weeks, though now it feels like a few days. And during our community based training my dona was very shy. It dawned on me when I left that no one in that house had ever asked me about my family or life back home. It wasn’t that they were being cold, or didn’t care, I think they were just legitimately too shy to ask such “personal” questions.
But more of why I feel lucky has to do with what I’ve heard about other donas. For example, there are donas that other volunteers have had/have that won’t let them leave the house without a chaperone (and these are all people of at least 22 years, so you can see how that could get pretty annoying pretty fast), donas who insist that the volunteer goes to church with the family, and in one extreme case that was three times a week, no matter what religion (or lack thereof) the volunteer practiced, donas who pester their volunteers about their relationship status, especially when it comes to finding them a Dominican counterpart, donas who tell their volunteers that they’re too fat or too thin, donas who just aren’t pleasant and just don’t want to talk, or who are never home, etc. This one and the last both have been very open to my ideas about what I eat, and have been very impressed with the fact that I don’t like very little of the food. In fact, my last dona used to tell people that I was a good eater! In my house in Illinois I never got to be a good eater growing up under the shadow of my brother, who I’m pretty sure was known in all the land to be the best eater in the history of food. Sure I was a better eater than my little brother, whose diet for many years consisted of nothing more than Twisslers and Slushies. Oh wait, it still does.
Well anyways, here’s what I eat every day, ranging from best to worst: 1) fried onions (thank God I told my dona day one that I adore them because there have been days where I’ve gotten them with every meal!), 2) mashed potatoes or yucca (obviously I’d prefer potatoes but beggars can’t be choosers and all that, and yucca isn’t really so bad), 3) plate of vinegar drenched veggies such as carrots, boiled slices of potatoes, and sometimes cabbage or lettuce, 4) fried salami (I know, it’s so gross to think of, but it actually tastes really good), 5) beans (much, much, much better than lentils which I also sometimes get), 6) eggs with peppers and onions (sounds good right? Well the problem is that they’re drenched, like all the friend foods I’ve been mentioning, in oil, and damp eggs have never been my thing), 7) white rice (never been much of a rice fan, and white rice just seems pointless to me) 8) mashed plantains (not so bad with stuff added to it, but alone is so boring), 9) fried cheese (picture almost rock solid cheese globs, dripping in oil. I’m going to have to speak up on this one too…) 10) boiled bananas (I don’t even need to describe this one do I?) I finally got up the nerve to say that I’d rather have yellow bananas than boiled bananas. It was getting to a ridiculous level with those boiled bananas… I can swallow them as well as the next guy, but can I really be expected to eat them 5 or 6 times a week?
And to drink, oh the juices… oh My God they are SO delicious! By now most of the people here know I don’t care for coffee, so I either drink my water bottle, which is always by my side, or if God is smiling on me that day, I’ll get a juice. They blend up papaya, mango, passion fruit, orange, or other delicious fruits in a blender and add a dash of vanilla, sugar, and sometimes some milk. It’s so delicious.
My favorite part of the day is bed time. It’s when I get to be alone-alone, read, write, think, plan, and finally dream. We are required to take anti-malarial medicine here, and one of the side effects is wacky and vivid dreams, to the point where some people can’t take that kind of medicine anymore. I’ve always had extremely bizarre and oftentimes very vivid dreams, but ever since my last dosage of the medicine my dreams have been more nuts and more vivid than ever before in my life. Seriously.
And then I go back and do much of the same again the next day. It’s a good life.
Some highlights of the past few days:
-Day One. I opened the door to go to the bathroom while the power was out. Behind the door was one of the things God put on this planet for one purpose: to scare the living s**t out of human beings. Yes my friends, it was a tarantula. I’d been lucky in never finding one in the 2 plus months before this day, and it took me a minute to realize exactly what it was. I slowly backed out of the room and went to my host brother and mother and said, “I don’t remember the word, but there’s something GIGANTIC in the bathroom!” My brother went and “took care of it.” The next day, as I was passing the bathroom window outside, I noticed a familiar site on the window ledge. Oh yes, it was my furry friend from the night before. He was dead, but I still conducted a thorough investigation. I didn’t know it at the time but my host brother was watched me investigate it and started laughing hysterically, and then he threw it into the bushes. Sheesh.
-First trip to Santiago since arriving. I BOUGHT A BIKE! The next day I found out how incredibly out of shape I am. In a 15 minute bike ride, on a slight upwards incline, I was toast. Granted I rode incredibly fast to test the bike out for its first official ride, but yah, I’m a pudgy kid who is out of shape! It’s red, and shiny and has shocks in the front AND in the back, and it cost a little over US$100 and it’s going to be my best friend. I get to ride a helmet with it as well as with motorcycles, so I might be looked at as even more ridiculous than I was before, but I’m okay with that.
-A Typical Friday Evening. My host mother asked me if I had grandparents. I said no, they have all died. I then explained how one of the reasons I’m a bit nervous about this Christmas is because my grandfather died on Christmas last year. She and her son expressed their sympathies in a nice, “Oh” followed by a silence during which we all had a chance to reflect. The silence was interrupted by my dona, who if you didn’t know is 52, saying in a very consoling tone, “my grandparents are dead too.”
This was of course followed by a roar of laughter from all three of us, as well as her son stating the obvious, “but at your old age, of course they’re dead!” I haven’t laughed like that in so long! I couldn’t stop either. Funny things that happen after someone brings the mood down like I did are always 10 times funnier than they would have been on their own. God I love this life here!
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
It's Just Another Day
How do I even begin to describe the evening that has just passed? This has been one of those moments that earn Peace Corps the name of “the toughest job you’ll ever love.” Or, least the “toughest” part. The day in general was pretty good. It started with my first Catholic mass in the community. There was a disappointing turnout, or I suppose it would be disappointing for someone who cares about how many people attend church services. Regardless, there were about 25 people, including me and the priest, in a church that could easily fit 75 people. Most of these were women, and with the exception of one old man, those who weren’t women, were children. Interesting, no? We also have an Evangelical church, which was surprising to see when I first arrived in country, but after seeing a number of them in all sections of the capital and in the various communities where we did training, I’d be more surprised if there wasn’t one in my town. Anyways, my first “service” with them was last night. Just after dinner my dona told me that the evangelicals were going to come over for a prayer session. To the house? I asked. She said yes. But you aren’t evangelical? I asked, because all doubts expressed in Spanish are in fact questions. That’s true, she replied.
I am not at liberty to find things odd here. Obviously this is the case because I’m the weird one, but also because I’m pretty new to find much of anything “different”. To me nothing is typical, so how could anything be atypical? Well, my host brother came in and heard the news about the Evangelicals and responded in much the same way as me, so I guess things can still be unusual with me around. J
So they came, and prayed, very much aloud, which is interesting coming from my North Shore Catholic background. I did not partake in the orations, both because I wouldn’t, and because I don’t understand most of them, most of the time.
After the Catholic mass I attended, I went exploring with my younger friends who live across the street. The regular players are a 7 year old girl, her 5 year old sister, and their 2 year old neighbor. Today we also played with the girls’ 1 year old sister. Very adorable kids, who love to show me around, over rivers, under barbed wire fences, and through piles of manure. I usually get to carry the little ones, who never wear shoes. Today I insisted that they put on their shoes. Still, I ended up carrying my little 2 year old friend, whose name by the way, is Bimbo.
This evening I hung out with my teenage friends. They range in age from 13 to 17, and there are many more of them. They are all pretty enthusiastic, and don’t seem to mind including me in their plans, and in fact tend to seek me out. I love to feel popular with teenagers.
Anyways, we went for a walk. When the power goes out here, as I’m sure you can imagine, it gets quite dark. Passing cars, with their headlights on, are usually the most effective source of light on nights like that. Tonight was one of those nights. As we were walking down the street and laughing and singing and doing other things that cool teenagers do (well I guess I was just observing the cool kids) we came across a car with lights ablaze. When you walk toward something that is the only light, it takes a minute to adjust to whatever is going on near and around that light.
You know when something terrible is happening, and as you observe the different pieces of it, you don’t quite understand what they all mean? That was me tonight. What I saw when my eyes adjusted to the light was men dressed in the police-military uniforms I’ve seen many times before. One man had a shotgun pointed at a civilian, and the other armed man was searching the civilian. To go from singing and laughing to that, was quite a shock. Only then did I notice that my large group of friends had dissipated, but one. I asked her what was going on, if it was common. She said it was rade. She said they were looking for drugs in people’s pockets, oh, and for Haitians. But there are a lot of Haitians here, I said. Yah, and they’re rounding them up, the illegals. Oh, are there a lot of illegal Haitians here? Yah, they all are.
Just then, I looked up into the back of the truck. Another armed man was holding his gun in the second most-scary way possible, gripping it by the nose and hoisting it above his head like a baseball bat. He’s just going to intimidate the men in the back of the truck, he wouldn’t actually hit them like that, I was trying to convince myself. Well, tonight for the first time in my life, I found out what it sounds like when something hard strikes a human body. I guess I’d never heard it before because I’ve been lucky enough not have seen anything like that before, and because it’s the kind of sound that they can’t get quite right in the movies. It’s one that I won’t forget for a very long time. The police officer had struck the man on the head, all of this was an effort to get him to move over in the truck.
My instinct was to turn my back to the violence, a sort of knee-jerk reaction, a hope that if I couldn’t see it, it couldn’t be happening. Maybe I could spare these men from that pain and embarrassment by just turning around. The woman in front of whose home this was all happening was coming out to see it just as I had turned around. Hello Eliza. Hello dona. Would you like a chair?
Did she mean for me to actually sit and watch? I had no intention of staying to watch. The only thing I could possibly conceive of doing was running away. But, if I ran away I couldn’t make sure it ended quickly, and without anyone else feeling any more pain. I looked around and noticed something I hadn’t before. There were many Dominicans standing and watching, and yes, some were sitting. Was this a typical Saturday night entertainment?
Again I asked, is this common? No, my friend told me. All of the sudden I started noticing how dark everyone’s skin was. The stereotype is that Haitians are darker than Dominicans, and all of the men in the back of the truck had much darker skin than those beating them. Quite a few very dark men came to see what was happening. The Dominicans explained the situation, and told them to get lost, and as soon as those men looked to see who had been taken into the truck, they quickly got out of there.
The truck had trouble getting started. The driver wanted to leave, although not as badly as I wanted him to, but the engine was being difficult. My teenage friends and some of their older counterparts, except the women, appeared and helped to push the truck to get it started. This would be one more example of how complex Dominican-Haitian relations are. The same people who never speak, pretend not to see one another on the street, though they live in a community of less than 500 and go to the same schools, alerted the other of potential danger, and then helped the capturers get away with the same people they’d just tried to avoid getting captured.
After this there was little I could do to keep from thinking about it. I think my friend could sense it; she didn’t leave my side for the rest of the night. She wanted to go for another walk, to see someone who was ill. I wasn’t quite sure what that would mean, but if it was getting as much attention as it was, I knew it wasn’t usual. Also, being a health volunteer I thought it would be a good idea for me to see whatever it indeed was.
We arrived at a house lit by someone’s cell phone and a tiny candle. There was a lot of commotion at the door, behind which lay a teenage boy, who I later learned is 13 years old. He was lying down, panting, and was obviously uncomfortable. In a moment like this, once you take in the situation and remind yourself that you’re a health volunteer, it’s hard to know exactly what to do or say. I’ve only just arrived here, after all. Who am I to tell these people what to do? At the same time, there is not a question in my mind that the last thing that boy needed was for so many people, easily 30 or so, to be in his cramped house, making so much noise and watching him.
So, I simply asked what was wrong. Asthma. And does he have medicine? Someone went to go get it, they left almost 2 hours ago and should be back soon. While I was there another car arrived that announced that they’d be taking the boy to the city. They covered him in long sleeves and a wool hat, and carried him into a pickup truck. Some other boys hopped on the back of the truck and then they were off.
Since I first wrote this, I haven’t heard how the boy is doing, although I did learn that he has fits like that every once in a while, so I think he’s better. As for the Haitians who got carried away, I can’t be sure they were actually from community, and I would assume that I would have heard something if they were. Again, I am new here, so perhaps I’m not going to be filled in on gossip for a while, especially Haitian gossip. I do feel fairly certain that the men who got beaten that night were already in the truck from a rade in another town. Not that that makes me feel any better about it.
I am not at liberty to find things odd here. Obviously this is the case because I’m the weird one, but also because I’m pretty new to find much of anything “different”. To me nothing is typical, so how could anything be atypical? Well, my host brother came in and heard the news about the Evangelicals and responded in much the same way as me, so I guess things can still be unusual with me around. J
So they came, and prayed, very much aloud, which is interesting coming from my North Shore Catholic background. I did not partake in the orations, both because I wouldn’t, and because I don’t understand most of them, most of the time.
After the Catholic mass I attended, I went exploring with my younger friends who live across the street. The regular players are a 7 year old girl, her 5 year old sister, and their 2 year old neighbor. Today we also played with the girls’ 1 year old sister. Very adorable kids, who love to show me around, over rivers, under barbed wire fences, and through piles of manure. I usually get to carry the little ones, who never wear shoes. Today I insisted that they put on their shoes. Still, I ended up carrying my little 2 year old friend, whose name by the way, is Bimbo.
This evening I hung out with my teenage friends. They range in age from 13 to 17, and there are many more of them. They are all pretty enthusiastic, and don’t seem to mind including me in their plans, and in fact tend to seek me out. I love to feel popular with teenagers.
Anyways, we went for a walk. When the power goes out here, as I’m sure you can imagine, it gets quite dark. Passing cars, with their headlights on, are usually the most effective source of light on nights like that. Tonight was one of those nights. As we were walking down the street and laughing and singing and doing other things that cool teenagers do (well I guess I was just observing the cool kids) we came across a car with lights ablaze. When you walk toward something that is the only light, it takes a minute to adjust to whatever is going on near and around that light.
You know when something terrible is happening, and as you observe the different pieces of it, you don’t quite understand what they all mean? That was me tonight. What I saw when my eyes adjusted to the light was men dressed in the police-military uniforms I’ve seen many times before. One man had a shotgun pointed at a civilian, and the other armed man was searching the civilian. To go from singing and laughing to that, was quite a shock. Only then did I notice that my large group of friends had dissipated, but one. I asked her what was going on, if it was common. She said it was rade. She said they were looking for drugs in people’s pockets, oh, and for Haitians. But there are a lot of Haitians here, I said. Yah, and they’re rounding them up, the illegals. Oh, are there a lot of illegal Haitians here? Yah, they all are.
Just then, I looked up into the back of the truck. Another armed man was holding his gun in the second most-scary way possible, gripping it by the nose and hoisting it above his head like a baseball bat. He’s just going to intimidate the men in the back of the truck, he wouldn’t actually hit them like that, I was trying to convince myself. Well, tonight for the first time in my life, I found out what it sounds like when something hard strikes a human body. I guess I’d never heard it before because I’ve been lucky enough not have seen anything like that before, and because it’s the kind of sound that they can’t get quite right in the movies. It’s one that I won’t forget for a very long time. The police officer had struck the man on the head, all of this was an effort to get him to move over in the truck.
My instinct was to turn my back to the violence, a sort of knee-jerk reaction, a hope that if I couldn’t see it, it couldn’t be happening. Maybe I could spare these men from that pain and embarrassment by just turning around. The woman in front of whose home this was all happening was coming out to see it just as I had turned around. Hello Eliza. Hello dona. Would you like a chair?
Did she mean for me to actually sit and watch? I had no intention of staying to watch. The only thing I could possibly conceive of doing was running away. But, if I ran away I couldn’t make sure it ended quickly, and without anyone else feeling any more pain. I looked around and noticed something I hadn’t before. There were many Dominicans standing and watching, and yes, some were sitting. Was this a typical Saturday night entertainment?
Again I asked, is this common? No, my friend told me. All of the sudden I started noticing how dark everyone’s skin was. The stereotype is that Haitians are darker than Dominicans, and all of the men in the back of the truck had much darker skin than those beating them. Quite a few very dark men came to see what was happening. The Dominicans explained the situation, and told them to get lost, and as soon as those men looked to see who had been taken into the truck, they quickly got out of there.
The truck had trouble getting started. The driver wanted to leave, although not as badly as I wanted him to, but the engine was being difficult. My teenage friends and some of their older counterparts, except the women, appeared and helped to push the truck to get it started. This would be one more example of how complex Dominican-Haitian relations are. The same people who never speak, pretend not to see one another on the street, though they live in a community of less than 500 and go to the same schools, alerted the other of potential danger, and then helped the capturers get away with the same people they’d just tried to avoid getting captured.
After this there was little I could do to keep from thinking about it. I think my friend could sense it; she didn’t leave my side for the rest of the night. She wanted to go for another walk, to see someone who was ill. I wasn’t quite sure what that would mean, but if it was getting as much attention as it was, I knew it wasn’t usual. Also, being a health volunteer I thought it would be a good idea for me to see whatever it indeed was.
We arrived at a house lit by someone’s cell phone and a tiny candle. There was a lot of commotion at the door, behind which lay a teenage boy, who I later learned is 13 years old. He was lying down, panting, and was obviously uncomfortable. In a moment like this, once you take in the situation and remind yourself that you’re a health volunteer, it’s hard to know exactly what to do or say. I’ve only just arrived here, after all. Who am I to tell these people what to do? At the same time, there is not a question in my mind that the last thing that boy needed was for so many people, easily 30 or so, to be in his cramped house, making so much noise and watching him.
So, I simply asked what was wrong. Asthma. And does he have medicine? Someone went to go get it, they left almost 2 hours ago and should be back soon. While I was there another car arrived that announced that they’d be taking the boy to the city. They covered him in long sleeves and a wool hat, and carried him into a pickup truck. Some other boys hopped on the back of the truck and then they were off.
Since I first wrote this, I haven’t heard how the boy is doing, although I did learn that he has fits like that every once in a while, so I think he’s better. As for the Haitians who got carried away, I can’t be sure they were actually from community, and I would assume that I would have heard something if they were. Again, I am new here, so perhaps I’m not going to be filled in on gossip for a while, especially Haitian gossip. I do feel fairly certain that the men who got beaten that night were already in the truck from a rade in another town. Not that that makes me feel any better about it.
Sunday, November 25, 2007
Hello Friends
So, we just got back from visiting our sites, finished training, got sworn in as volunteers by the US consul, celebrated Thanksgiving, and then attended an all volunteer conference. This was definitely the busiest week we’ve had in country.
I am officially no longer a trainee and now a full-fledged Peace Corps Volunteer! WOO HOO! What that means is that I should be getting more money, that I will be at my site consistently for the next 2 years, and that after a 3 month long community diagnostic, I can begin to get to work to make my community healthier. Or at least that’s what’s supposed to happen.
Swearing in was nice. The US Consul to the DR had to fill in for the Ambassador because the new DR Ambassador hasn’t gotten to the DR yet. They rented tents and set them up at the training site. It rained, as it apparently always does but the tents kept us pretty dry. I looked fancier than usual, which was fine except that I realized, once again, that I hate to dress up. All of the girls really looked nice in all their makeup and whatnot. We were all supposed to get up and introduce ourselves and say where we were going, and I got up to do that and looked out into the faces of all of my friends and their host families all dressed up, and completely forgot the name of my site. My boss was standing up next to me and helped me out. But yes, it was embarrassing.
The next morning we said goodbye to our host families in the capital and headed down to a large, very fancy country club that PC had rented out for us for Thanksgiving. We played games, swam, jumped off the high dive, danced, sang, ate a ton of food, all of it American and all of it delicious, especially the stuffing and pumpkin pie, and had fun. That night and the following I stayed at a hostal in the colonial zone of the city which was lovely. We had hot showers, which are such a lovely treat. My family invested greatly, all of them were gathered at my house for Thanksgiving, and called me up on my new cell phone. I felt so blessed. Adjusting to being away from home for such a momentous day as Thanksgiving really wasn’t as hard as I thought it could be. There’s something about being a room with over 100 people going through exactly what you are, being away from home and all of that, that really helped me to feel fine. Still, it was wonderful to hear the voices of them all.
The next day was the All Volunteer Conference. It was at a lovely hotel which I ended up getting to spend the night in last night. The conference was long and informative, and included a slide show. Of the pictures of my trainee group, I’d say easily over 50 % of them were from my camera. Shock shock surprise surprise. I was proud. The volunteers in general are pretty friendly and meeting them all was awesome. I wish I’d had more chances to converse and learn more about them, but what we had was great.
The rest of the weekend was spent meeting other volunteers and hanging out with the group I trained with. We all had to say goodbye and good luck to each other as every has been heading off to their sites. It’s not easy for training to be over. We used to get to see each other pretty much every day, and now we might not see each other again for a very long time. We are trying to get together for New Years, but lord knows how many people will be able to get there. We had a great time during training. I’m definitely now appreciating the accuracy of a statement my friend (who is serving in St. Kitts) said, It’s a mean joke the PC plays on us, having us get together for so long and become such good friends, and then shipping us off to the ends of the earth. We aren’t quite the ends of the earth, considering we can see one another, and get back to the US in a matter of hours, but it sometimes feels really far.
So now I’m off to my site. Wish me luck!
I am officially no longer a trainee and now a full-fledged Peace Corps Volunteer! WOO HOO! What that means is that I should be getting more money, that I will be at my site consistently for the next 2 years, and that after a 3 month long community diagnostic, I can begin to get to work to make my community healthier. Or at least that’s what’s supposed to happen.
Swearing in was nice. The US Consul to the DR had to fill in for the Ambassador because the new DR Ambassador hasn’t gotten to the DR yet. They rented tents and set them up at the training site. It rained, as it apparently always does but the tents kept us pretty dry. I looked fancier than usual, which was fine except that I realized, once again, that I hate to dress up. All of the girls really looked nice in all their makeup and whatnot. We were all supposed to get up and introduce ourselves and say where we were going, and I got up to do that and looked out into the faces of all of my friends and their host families all dressed up, and completely forgot the name of my site. My boss was standing up next to me and helped me out. But yes, it was embarrassing.
The next morning we said goodbye to our host families in the capital and headed down to a large, very fancy country club that PC had rented out for us for Thanksgiving. We played games, swam, jumped off the high dive, danced, sang, ate a ton of food, all of it American and all of it delicious, especially the stuffing and pumpkin pie, and had fun. That night and the following I stayed at a hostal in the colonial zone of the city which was lovely. We had hot showers, which are such a lovely treat. My family invested greatly, all of them were gathered at my house for Thanksgiving, and called me up on my new cell phone. I felt so blessed. Adjusting to being away from home for such a momentous day as Thanksgiving really wasn’t as hard as I thought it could be. There’s something about being a room with over 100 people going through exactly what you are, being away from home and all of that, that really helped me to feel fine. Still, it was wonderful to hear the voices of them all.
The next day was the All Volunteer Conference. It was at a lovely hotel which I ended up getting to spend the night in last night. The conference was long and informative, and included a slide show. Of the pictures of my trainee group, I’d say easily over 50 % of them were from my camera. Shock shock surprise surprise. I was proud. The volunteers in general are pretty friendly and meeting them all was awesome. I wish I’d had more chances to converse and learn more about them, but what we had was great.
The rest of the weekend was spent meeting other volunteers and hanging out with the group I trained with. We all had to say goodbye and good luck to each other as every has been heading off to their sites. It’s not easy for training to be over. We used to get to see each other pretty much every day, and now we might not see each other again for a very long time. We are trying to get together for New Years, but lord knows how many people will be able to get there. We had a great time during training. I’m definitely now appreciating the accuracy of a statement my friend (who is serving in St. Kitts) said, It’s a mean joke the PC plays on us, having us get together for so long and become such good friends, and then shipping us off to the ends of the earth. We aren’t quite the ends of the earth, considering we can see one another, and get back to the US in a matter of hours, but it sometimes feels really far.
So now I’m off to my site. Wish me luck!
Saturday, November 17, 2007
La Travesia
After a long journey including 2.5 weeks of training in the capital, .5 weeks of a volunteer visit, and 5.5 weeks of community based training I am finally in my site! Now, don’t get too excited, I’m only here for a 4 day visit, but at least I’m here!
Tuesday November 13th, exactly 2 months after we arrived in country was our project partner day. What that means is that the people we all, now 50 of us, are working with, came into the capital to meet us and take us home. I was told that it would be one of the scariest days of my experience in this country, and as you can probably imagine it was a day full of many emotions for many people. Those emotions ranged from stressful excitement, to emotionally nerve-wracking for just about everyone. I wouldn’t say it was super scary, and felt nervous for about 1 minute. Lately I’ve just been doing pretty darn well at talking myself out of feeling anything but happy. My project partners arrived on time, though they had one of the furthest journeys of anyone; they were wise and came in a day early. We met when I looked over and saw a familiar name on the name tag of a well-dressed, friendly-looking woman. She soon introduced me to another woman from our town and we fell into conversation very soon after.
After some Peace Corps-organized activities we were able to take off for our sites. We took a taxi to the bus station, then took a bus to Santiago. From there we took a taxi to another bus station. After that bus ride we got into the car belonging to my new host brother. This all took about 5 hours. After about a 45 minute drive in his car we arrived at my new host family’s house. It was after dark, but I could tell it was a very lovely home and I was extremely well-greeted by everyone. As I was eating dinner and conversing with my host mother I started to hear the sound of singing voices and turned around to see a group of neighbors who had gathered with my project partners to welcome me to the town in song. Although I was very tired, I was of course, very touched. My project partners were the most enthusiastic during all of the Peace Corps activities and seem very enthusiastic to have me here now. I feel quite blessed and think I have every reason to hope that this continues. I feel certain that it will.
From what I can tell of the north so far, it is as beautiful as everyone describes. As we were driving towards the site I saw the greatest sunset over white clouds and a flat mountain range, which were framed by fields of palm trees. My house is situated near the town school. Up the road from my house is a road that is situated just below a beautiful set of rolling hills covered in trees and tall grass. The town consists of approximately 100 houses, with an estimated 400 inhabitants. They are mostly Dominicans, but there is a Haitian population as well, including one family that lives right next door. When I asked my host mother about them, she told me they speak Spanish, work in agriculture around here, and pretty much keep to themselves.
The town in general seems pretty well off economically. From what I’ve seen, I live in one of the fanciest homes here, and it’s nicer than either of the homes I’ve lived in so far in this country. Of course we have neighbors that live in not much more than glorified shacks as well, just as exist all over the country. But this might be the first time I’ve seen such a nice house that belongs to someone who isn’t a foreigner, a politician, or rumored to be a drug dealer. The only reason I can see so far for the wealth is a cheese factory (yes I know, you’re totally jealous of me right now). I’ve been a few times to visit it and it’s pretty nifty. They make 3 kinds of cheese that they seal in red wax and cover in red paper with a black and yellow sticker. I’ll be sure to find out if any of it makes its way to the US so you can all try some. My host father owns some land where he and his son graze cattle for milk (and probably cheese as well) and my host mother is a school teacher at the school in our town and in the nearby larger town.
When I say nearby, I don’t actually mean it. We are a good 45 minute bumpy ride from the nearest highway to the big city near here (Santiago), and a good 25 minute bumpy ride from the nearest town. That town, truth be told, is a beach town. Poor me, I know. I got to go and visit it the other day with another volunteer who is stationed there. Poor her, I know. She is an environment volunteer and was very adventurous and hopped on a moto to come find me in my town even though she’d never been up this way before and didn’t know where I lived or where I’d be. So of course I had to reciprocate with joining her for an exersion to the beach. It was beautiful. She said the water was colder than usual but let me tell you it couldn’t have been lower than 85 degrees. It was my first time in the Caribbean Sea since arriving here and it was gorgeous! The only downside was that I stepped on a very large sea creature of some sort which I am praying was a large fish, but which the volunteer told me was likely a baby shark. Yikes.
But back to my village… we are pretty isolated being so far from other towns and we don’t have a cell phone signal. We do have electricity about half of the time and running water most of the time (and my family even has a faucet above my head in the shower! I haven’t had that before in this country.) There is plenty of room to move around in the house as well, we even have a hallway. I have a room with 2 beds (although one is a crib, I use it for storage and could probably have a visitor spend the night there) and we have 2 bathrooms in the house. There are a few places to sit and gather indoors but it is much more pleasant to sit outside especially because my host family has a yard with grass and bushes and trees and flowers and everything. There is one tree in particular that is huge and old and provides a ton of shade that I know I’m going to love.
What all of this means for me is that in addition to feeling pretty comfortable for the time being, I can only move down from here, which might help me to change my mind about living in my own home at the end of the 3 required months of a homestay. It might also prove difficult to find a home. The volunteer I visited lived in a much larger community and she had only 2 homes to pick from to live in. The volunteer who I just recently visited who lives on the beach lives in a community about the size of mine, or perhaps a bit larger and there were no homes for her to live in so she decided to stay with her host mother. There are positives and negatives to both living with a host family for the whole 2 years and living alone , but it is certainly not something I need to decide anytime soon.
After living with 2 incredible host families I was beginning to get nervous that my luck would run up. Well I am so pleased to say that it hasn’t. This host family is different from the others in that they seem to be a lot more enthusiastic and are a lot less shy, for lack of a better word. I have my dona, my don, and a host brother who is 23, and who used to play for the Washington Nationals summer league here in the DR. We also have a cooking and cleaning helper who is pretty friendly as well. My dona hurt her back a while ago and hired this woman to help out around the house. Sadly, who don’t have any pets, but my dona did tell me that there’s a horse somewhere and that they’d like to get another pet sometime soon. I have seen quite a few cute animals here, so perhaps I can talk them into letting me get one. Having a pet here, as I’ve mentioned, is not only a huge responsibility in terms of money and time, and in finding someone to look after the pet when you leave the site (which is usually at least once a month,) but also in terms of the risk involved. Dogs fight almost constantly, and the ones that are able to survive the fights and the lack of ever being fed are doing all they can to survive and are likely ruthless. Cats are seen as mouse, rat, cockroach, and tarantula killers and dogs aren’t seen as much besides food-stealers. (Cats are seen as food-stealers too.) For that, it isn’t uncommon for someone to poison an animal if they repeatedly, or even just one time, get into human food. It seems terrible I know, and perhaps it is, but consider that a lot of people exist day to day here and if some dog keeps coming around and snatching your chicken, and if that was the lunch for the day, and you have 6 hungry children to feed… For that, it isn’t uncommon for Peace Corps volunteers to tell their communities that if anything should happen to their pets, they will leave the community. Being in a position like that, where I might have to threaten the community I am trying to build good relationships with, or face the potential of losing an animal so tragically seems terrible, so you can see why it is such a large investment.
A health community has been formed as a prerequisite for my being here. There is also an active neighborhood group and 2 churches, one Catholic, where my host family goes, and one Evangelical. On my visit the health community met, but I wasn’t able to attend any of the other functions. For the first 3 months I am required to interview the community in its entirety in what is called a Community Diagnostic. I will ask questions about general health, and health practices, test them on things like if they know the difference between HIV and AIDS, and use the experience to get to know everyone. Ordinarily I would have to go to 150 houses, but because my community is so small, I only have to go to the 104 houses here. After the Community Diagnostic I can begin working with the health promoters, giving classes from which they will graduate so that they can give classes. I will also work with a group of youth and train them in much of the same ways with a focus on sexual health and healthy decision making. I am very excited to get to work because the youth and health group seem very enthusiastic and I’m ready to get to know everyone and become friends.
In addition to touring the community on my visit, I also played a lot of dominoes and sat and talked to some community members. Unfortunately for me the people I’ve been playing with here are much more talented at dominoes than anyone I’ve played with before, but I’ve been holding my own ground somewhat, struggling mercilessly to do so, but doing so. I look forward to many more lazy afternoons and evenings of playing dominoes in this community.
Tuesday November 13th, exactly 2 months after we arrived in country was our project partner day. What that means is that the people we all, now 50 of us, are working with, came into the capital to meet us and take us home. I was told that it would be one of the scariest days of my experience in this country, and as you can probably imagine it was a day full of many emotions for many people. Those emotions ranged from stressful excitement, to emotionally nerve-wracking for just about everyone. I wouldn’t say it was super scary, and felt nervous for about 1 minute. Lately I’ve just been doing pretty darn well at talking myself out of feeling anything but happy. My project partners arrived on time, though they had one of the furthest journeys of anyone; they were wise and came in a day early. We met when I looked over and saw a familiar name on the name tag of a well-dressed, friendly-looking woman. She soon introduced me to another woman from our town and we fell into conversation very soon after.
After some Peace Corps-organized activities we were able to take off for our sites. We took a taxi to the bus station, then took a bus to Santiago. From there we took a taxi to another bus station. After that bus ride we got into the car belonging to my new host brother. This all took about 5 hours. After about a 45 minute drive in his car we arrived at my new host family’s house. It was after dark, but I could tell it was a very lovely home and I was extremely well-greeted by everyone. As I was eating dinner and conversing with my host mother I started to hear the sound of singing voices and turned around to see a group of neighbors who had gathered with my project partners to welcome me to the town in song. Although I was very tired, I was of course, very touched. My project partners were the most enthusiastic during all of the Peace Corps activities and seem very enthusiastic to have me here now. I feel quite blessed and think I have every reason to hope that this continues. I feel certain that it will.
From what I can tell of the north so far, it is as beautiful as everyone describes. As we were driving towards the site I saw the greatest sunset over white clouds and a flat mountain range, which were framed by fields of palm trees. My house is situated near the town school. Up the road from my house is a road that is situated just below a beautiful set of rolling hills covered in trees and tall grass. The town consists of approximately 100 houses, with an estimated 400 inhabitants. They are mostly Dominicans, but there is a Haitian population as well, including one family that lives right next door. When I asked my host mother about them, she told me they speak Spanish, work in agriculture around here, and pretty much keep to themselves.
The town in general seems pretty well off economically. From what I’ve seen, I live in one of the fanciest homes here, and it’s nicer than either of the homes I’ve lived in so far in this country. Of course we have neighbors that live in not much more than glorified shacks as well, just as exist all over the country. But this might be the first time I’ve seen such a nice house that belongs to someone who isn’t a foreigner, a politician, or rumored to be a drug dealer. The only reason I can see so far for the wealth is a cheese factory (yes I know, you’re totally jealous of me right now). I’ve been a few times to visit it and it’s pretty nifty. They make 3 kinds of cheese that they seal in red wax and cover in red paper with a black and yellow sticker. I’ll be sure to find out if any of it makes its way to the US so you can all try some. My host father owns some land where he and his son graze cattle for milk (and probably cheese as well) and my host mother is a school teacher at the school in our town and in the nearby larger town.
When I say nearby, I don’t actually mean it. We are a good 45 minute bumpy ride from the nearest highway to the big city near here (Santiago), and a good 25 minute bumpy ride from the nearest town. That town, truth be told, is a beach town. Poor me, I know. I got to go and visit it the other day with another volunteer who is stationed there. Poor her, I know. She is an environment volunteer and was very adventurous and hopped on a moto to come find me in my town even though she’d never been up this way before and didn’t know where I lived or where I’d be. So of course I had to reciprocate with joining her for an exersion to the beach. It was beautiful. She said the water was colder than usual but let me tell you it couldn’t have been lower than 85 degrees. It was my first time in the Caribbean Sea since arriving here and it was gorgeous! The only downside was that I stepped on a very large sea creature of some sort which I am praying was a large fish, but which the volunteer told me was likely a baby shark. Yikes.
But back to my village… we are pretty isolated being so far from other towns and we don’t have a cell phone signal. We do have electricity about half of the time and running water most of the time (and my family even has a faucet above my head in the shower! I haven’t had that before in this country.) There is plenty of room to move around in the house as well, we even have a hallway. I have a room with 2 beds (although one is a crib, I use it for storage and could probably have a visitor spend the night there) and we have 2 bathrooms in the house. There are a few places to sit and gather indoors but it is much more pleasant to sit outside especially because my host family has a yard with grass and bushes and trees and flowers and everything. There is one tree in particular that is huge and old and provides a ton of shade that I know I’m going to love.
What all of this means for me is that in addition to feeling pretty comfortable for the time being, I can only move down from here, which might help me to change my mind about living in my own home at the end of the 3 required months of a homestay. It might also prove difficult to find a home. The volunteer I visited lived in a much larger community and she had only 2 homes to pick from to live in. The volunteer who I just recently visited who lives on the beach lives in a community about the size of mine, or perhaps a bit larger and there were no homes for her to live in so she decided to stay with her host mother. There are positives and negatives to both living with a host family for the whole 2 years and living alone , but it is certainly not something I need to decide anytime soon.
After living with 2 incredible host families I was beginning to get nervous that my luck would run up. Well I am so pleased to say that it hasn’t. This host family is different from the others in that they seem to be a lot more enthusiastic and are a lot less shy, for lack of a better word. I have my dona, my don, and a host brother who is 23, and who used to play for the Washington Nationals summer league here in the DR. We also have a cooking and cleaning helper who is pretty friendly as well. My dona hurt her back a while ago and hired this woman to help out around the house. Sadly, who don’t have any pets, but my dona did tell me that there’s a horse somewhere and that they’d like to get another pet sometime soon. I have seen quite a few cute animals here, so perhaps I can talk them into letting me get one. Having a pet here, as I’ve mentioned, is not only a huge responsibility in terms of money and time, and in finding someone to look after the pet when you leave the site (which is usually at least once a month,) but also in terms of the risk involved. Dogs fight almost constantly, and the ones that are able to survive the fights and the lack of ever being fed are doing all they can to survive and are likely ruthless. Cats are seen as mouse, rat, cockroach, and tarantula killers and dogs aren’t seen as much besides food-stealers. (Cats are seen as food-stealers too.) For that, it isn’t uncommon for someone to poison an animal if they repeatedly, or even just one time, get into human food. It seems terrible I know, and perhaps it is, but consider that a lot of people exist day to day here and if some dog keeps coming around and snatching your chicken, and if that was the lunch for the day, and you have 6 hungry children to feed… For that, it isn’t uncommon for Peace Corps volunteers to tell their communities that if anything should happen to their pets, they will leave the community. Being in a position like that, where I might have to threaten the community I am trying to build good relationships with, or face the potential of losing an animal so tragically seems terrible, so you can see why it is such a large investment.
A health community has been formed as a prerequisite for my being here. There is also an active neighborhood group and 2 churches, one Catholic, where my host family goes, and one Evangelical. On my visit the health community met, but I wasn’t able to attend any of the other functions. For the first 3 months I am required to interview the community in its entirety in what is called a Community Diagnostic. I will ask questions about general health, and health practices, test them on things like if they know the difference between HIV and AIDS, and use the experience to get to know everyone. Ordinarily I would have to go to 150 houses, but because my community is so small, I only have to go to the 104 houses here. After the Community Diagnostic I can begin working with the health promoters, giving classes from which they will graduate so that they can give classes. I will also work with a group of youth and train them in much of the same ways with a focus on sexual health and healthy decision making. I am very excited to get to work because the youth and health group seem very enthusiastic and I’m ready to get to know everyone and become friends.
In addition to touring the community on my visit, I also played a lot of dominoes and sat and talked to some community members. Unfortunately for me the people I’ve been playing with here are much more talented at dominoes than anyone I’ve played with before, but I’ve been holding my own ground somewhat, struggling mercilessly to do so, but doing so. I look forward to many more lazy afternoons and evenings of playing dominoes in this community.
Monday, November 12, 2007
The Great Inscape
The last night in our Community Based Training was also the night that the local group of community leaders threw a party for us. It was lovely, just lovely. We played games and said “thank-yous” and goodbyes and then ate a lot of really good food and cake.
The party went pretty late, and after the walk home we were pretty tired. Well, when we got there, my host sister realized that her brother wasn’t here and he had the keys to the house. His cell is broken and I’m pretty sure we couldn’t have called him from here anyways. So, we were stuck. My host mother went off to look for help, while my host sister and I sat down and waited in defeat.
Suddenly, something occurred to me. I’d cleaned out my backpack in an effort to pack efficiently and had removed the set of keys they gave me to the house and left them on the dresser. I also realized that my window was open and remembered that I’d seen a large, long, thin stick outside of the house. (How all of these things worked together so well I’ll never know.) I retrieved the stick and sure enough, it was long enough to reach the keys. Now the only problem was configuring a way to get the keys on the end of the stick. Luckily, my host sister was right there with the solution. We’d built a chicken coop at my house as a group the weekend before and some of the supplies were outside. She found a rock and hit a nail into the end of the stick. Then I got to be Ms. McGyver once again and finagle a way to get the key ring over the nail and onto the stick. Well, I was successful, and we were in the house in less than 5 minutes after having arrived.
Sometimes you hear sad being locked out stories. Other times you get to hear good ones. This is one of those good ones because it is very rare that I get to be the hero, and even more rare that I get to be in a country where I don’t speak the language well and end up looking a fool more often than I’d like. I was such a hero that night.
That wonderful song from The Great Escape was totally playing as this all happened, by the way.
Another by the way, the more you tell me you like my photos and blogs, the more photos I will take and blogs I will write. I respond quite strongly to this sort of reinforcement. So for those of you who have been telling me you read or enjoy those 2 websites, you have only yourselves to thank for the updates because without you having told me you do that, I wouldn’t do my part nearly as often.
The party went pretty late, and after the walk home we were pretty tired. Well, when we got there, my host sister realized that her brother wasn’t here and he had the keys to the house. His cell is broken and I’m pretty sure we couldn’t have called him from here anyways. So, we were stuck. My host mother went off to look for help, while my host sister and I sat down and waited in defeat.
Suddenly, something occurred to me. I’d cleaned out my backpack in an effort to pack efficiently and had removed the set of keys they gave me to the house and left them on the dresser. I also realized that my window was open and remembered that I’d seen a large, long, thin stick outside of the house. (How all of these things worked together so well I’ll never know.) I retrieved the stick and sure enough, it was long enough to reach the keys. Now the only problem was configuring a way to get the keys on the end of the stick. Luckily, my host sister was right there with the solution. We’d built a chicken coop at my house as a group the weekend before and some of the supplies were outside. She found a rock and hit a nail into the end of the stick. Then I got to be Ms. McGyver once again and finagle a way to get the key ring over the nail and onto the stick. Well, I was successful, and we were in the house in less than 5 minutes after having arrived.
Sometimes you hear sad being locked out stories. Other times you get to hear good ones. This is one of those good ones because it is very rare that I get to be the hero, and even more rare that I get to be in a country where I don’t speak the language well and end up looking a fool more often than I’d like. I was such a hero that night.
That wonderful song from The Great Escape was totally playing as this all happened, by the way.
Another by the way, the more you tell me you like my photos and blogs, the more photos I will take and blogs I will write. I respond quite strongly to this sort of reinforcement. So for those of you who have been telling me you read or enjoy those 2 websites, you have only yourselves to thank for the updates because without you having told me you do that, I wouldn’t do my part nearly as often.
Wednesday, November 7, 2007
It's Alive!
First it was the gripe. I survived.
Then, despite the odds, with the storm, I got better from the gripe and survived the storm.
Then I got another kind of sick that you don't want me to describe. I might be better now, but it's too soon to say.
The thing that might have provoked the new sickness was a day out walking to see the damage near my area. It was bad. A whole long line of homes and bridges was taken out. My friends took pictures so when I get them I'll pass them along.
I will be back in the capital this weekend for a few days and then off to visit my new site next week. I'll be there for a few days, then back to the capital to swear in and attend an all-volunteer conference over Thanksgiving. After that it's off to my site for good!
Then, despite the odds, with the storm, I got better from the gripe and survived the storm.
Then I got another kind of sick that you don't want me to describe. I might be better now, but it's too soon to say.
The thing that might have provoked the new sickness was a day out walking to see the damage near my area. It was bad. A whole long line of homes and bridges was taken out. My friends took pictures so when I get them I'll pass them along.
I will be back in the capital this weekend for a few days and then off to visit my new site next week. I'll be there for a few days, then back to the capital to swear in and attend an all-volunteer conference over Thanksgiving. After that it's off to my site for good!
Thursday, November 1, 2007
All I Hear is the Sound of Rain Falling...
on the roof.
It’s been raining for over 5 days. Ordinarily such a thing wouldn’t be something I’d care too much about. But because I live under a tin roof, and the walls aren’t connected to the floor or roof, and the rain and winds are fierce, and there’s no sewer system to catch the rain water on the unpaved roads, and I live a good 25-35 minute walk from any of the other volunteers, and the rivers are overflowing, and because I am sick and wouldn’t want to leave anyway, it is hard to notice anything else.
The first night was exciting. It was like I was on a little adventure. The sound of the wind on the walls, and rain on the roof, while I huddled under my bed net and sheet, with my flashlight ready in case the power went out, and sweatshirt close beside me, hoping that it might become cold enough so that I would need to put it on. I’m sure you can just see it now.
But after more than 5 days of the sound of the rain on the roof, and leaks in the roof facilitating a wet bed for me to sleep in, it’s beginning to feel less like an exciting adventure and more like the Peace Corps, even if the sound helped to drown out the roosters so I got to sleep in a bit. There was even a 4 day period where I didn’t leave the block around my house except to go to the corner store because of the weather and being sick. I used the experience as a very good, dramatic lesson in why it would suck to be in a submarine.
As I mentioned, I have the gripe. I’ve had it for some time now and it’s no fun. I’m not sure from whom I caught it; a few volunteers and their host family members had it for a few days, or something like it. The gripe, for those of you who are unfamiliar with Spanish, is anything reminiscent of the flu, a cough, or a cold. Gripe is the perfect name for what it feels like I have, because it feels like the grip of something scary. It’s as strong as the flu, with cold and flu symptoms. It might last for 1-2 weeks.
I’m beginning to get a feeling for what they mean when they describe Peace Corps as the toughest job you’ll ever love. Even in these moments though, I am amazingly inspired to just be here, and keep going with a smile. I learned the other day where I will likely be placed for the 2 years. It’s in the north, near a fellow health volunteer that I have come to know very well. I’m very excited to explore a new part of the country, and am pleased to report to all of you, who may have doubted whether or not you could swing a visit down to see me, and especially pleased to report to those of you who were already planning on coming to see me, that my site is near the coast. What that means as far as swimming opportunities and beaches remains to be seen. But I think we have every reason to hope that I’ll be within 30 minutes of some beautiful sand.
It’s been raining for over 5 days. Ordinarily such a thing wouldn’t be something I’d care too much about. But because I live under a tin roof, and the walls aren’t connected to the floor or roof, and the rain and winds are fierce, and there’s no sewer system to catch the rain water on the unpaved roads, and I live a good 25-35 minute walk from any of the other volunteers, and the rivers are overflowing, and because I am sick and wouldn’t want to leave anyway, it is hard to notice anything else.
The first night was exciting. It was like I was on a little adventure. The sound of the wind on the walls, and rain on the roof, while I huddled under my bed net and sheet, with my flashlight ready in case the power went out, and sweatshirt close beside me, hoping that it might become cold enough so that I would need to put it on. I’m sure you can just see it now.
But after more than 5 days of the sound of the rain on the roof, and leaks in the roof facilitating a wet bed for me to sleep in, it’s beginning to feel less like an exciting adventure and more like the Peace Corps, even if the sound helped to drown out the roosters so I got to sleep in a bit. There was even a 4 day period where I didn’t leave the block around my house except to go to the corner store because of the weather and being sick. I used the experience as a very good, dramatic lesson in why it would suck to be in a submarine.
As I mentioned, I have the gripe. I’ve had it for some time now and it’s no fun. I’m not sure from whom I caught it; a few volunteers and their host family members had it for a few days, or something like it. The gripe, for those of you who are unfamiliar with Spanish, is anything reminiscent of the flu, a cough, or a cold. Gripe is the perfect name for what it feels like I have, because it feels like the grip of something scary. It’s as strong as the flu, with cold and flu symptoms. It might last for 1-2 weeks.
I’m beginning to get a feeling for what they mean when they describe Peace Corps as the toughest job you’ll ever love. Even in these moments though, I am amazingly inspired to just be here, and keep going with a smile. I learned the other day where I will likely be placed for the 2 years. It’s in the north, near a fellow health volunteer that I have come to know very well. I’m very excited to explore a new part of the country, and am pleased to report to all of you, who may have doubted whether or not you could swing a visit down to see me, and especially pleased to report to those of you who were already planning on coming to see me, that my site is near the coast. What that means as far as swimming opportunities and beaches remains to be seen. But I think we have every reason to hope that I’ll be within 30 minutes of some beautiful sand.
Them That's Got Shall Get
*This one is a bit darker than most of my entries, it’s longer, perhaps a little drier as well, and definitely preachy. I tried my best to de-preach but it was just too hard. So read on, only if you’ve got a strong stomach.
I got the gripe (which I will describe later) a few days ago. The first day it really manifested itself was also the day of a tour of the hospital for the region where we are currently training. We met with 2 former Peace Corps volunteers who now work for an NGO down here called Infante Sano. It’s partnered with some Bostonian business men and the Harvard Children’s Medical Center. They were inspiring, and really motivated me to get working in the Dominican health system. But what really struck me that day, and is something I will likely remember for the rest of my life, was the tour of the facility.
Earlier in this portion of training we asked women about their pregnancies: if they saw a doctor pre or post delivery, where they gave birth, etc. At the time I was pleased that all women that I interviewed reported going to the hospital we toured, or to hospitals in the capital, as opposed to delivering at home or in a rural clinic. After seeing the hospital though, I’m less sure that they were better off there. We didn’t actually get a look inside the delivery room, but I was told there are just a few beds, with no sheets, and at the time we were there, 5 women were giving birth on one bed (perhaps they had found some sheets for that one bed) with no doctor in sight. It is not possible to have your husband or boyfriend or family member in the delivery room with you, so those women were pretty much all alone. I found this out from an American, who I was told was a Harvard grad studying medicine at the hospital, who looked panicked as she was running down the hall looking for help. She explained briefly to our guides what was happening.
I’d heard that in this part of the world nurses are scarce, so family members attend to the sick when they go to the hospital. That was the case. Most rooms had old beds with thin mattresses, only some had bed nets, and no rooms had AC. We saw people of all ages, all sharing one thing in common; they looked like they were in agony. The children’s ward was especially challenging to see, as I’m sure you can guess. One nice thing was that the women from Infante Sano had some local artists come in and paint some murals a while back, so at least the walls looked happy.
We got to see the ER. It was like nothing I’d ever seen before. It was a room not much bigger than a walk in closet with a closed, locked door that needs to be banged on to be opened. Two patients were being attended to when we walked in. One was an old man who looked tired, but like he was being taken care of. The other was a young boy who I believe was being stitched up on his face. I saw the string, and the needle, but could not see exactly where they were going. I didn’t think the doctors or nurses were using any painkillers because he was trashing around on the bed quite a bit.
If any of this has stricken a chord within you, I hope it doesn’t make you want to write a check. The problems that this country is facing are so deep, and so difficult, and unfortunately the answers won’t be as easy as writing a check. A check will only last so long, and then the people who used it will wonder how they’re going to get the next one.
One very fundamental issue to try to understand is the way the political system works. The Dominican presidential election is coming up. There’s the incumbent, Leonel Fernandez, who was also president a few years ago, and his main opponent Miguel Vargas; both of these men have wonderful smiles, which are plastered all over the country. And then there’s Amable Aristy, who doesn’t seem to stand much of a chance. My understanding is that he is conservative, but our definitions of what is conservative and what is liberal don’t quite translate here, as I’m sure you can imagine. (Fernandez is said to be the more liberal of the two main contenders.) Aristy’s campaign is active, and I see more commercials for him than the others; he claims to be the president for the poor. Here’s where the problem comes in, his commercials, legitimately, consist of poor Dominicans attesting to his character because he gave them free stuff, like money to start a workshop, a house, a job, medications, etc. Then they say” I know he is the man for the job because of the favor he did for me.” The gifts seem to have been given out quite arbitrarily, as in someone wrote him a letter asking for a bicycle so that they could get to work, and he decided to help them out. While that is all fine and good, it’s no basis for being the head of state. And this example is not the exception. The other political parties do it too.
There’s some sort of understanding that a good political official is someone that gives handouts, including jobs. The problem then becomes what is going to happen when that elected official’s term is up. For example, President X believes that the healthcare system is in need of help, and decides to go for a national healthcare plan and appoint all of his friends to high ranking positions within the ministry of health, including the heads of hospitals, and before the plan is fully implemented, President Y comes in. Even if President Y wants the plan to move forward, he is going to remove all of President X’s men and women from their positions and put in his new people. You can see where this is going. (This is, in fact, something that President Fernandez has been working on, but of course it is slow going.)
Here are some real life examples on a local level. I’m living with our technical trainer and 3 other volunteers in a little community which has a very active community group. One of the members is the mayor. The other night at a meeting, the leadership of the community group was discussing how much they could benefit from having a group truck or bus. Everyone turned to the mayor and he agreed to buy one, with political or government funds, for the group. The following day, they took us on a smashing tour, during which we all had a lovely time. I wasn’t so much surprised that school children and working parents were able to come with us on a Friday morning (there was a teacher strike, again, so school was out, again, and people don’t tend to work in the same way we Americans imagine, ie: the money just arrives though no one really goes anywhere), rather I was surprised that the group was able to borrow the bus, pay a driver, and then take us all out to lunch. But I should have known better, they mayor paid for that too.
I’m not trying to say that handouts aren’t good, they are probably very much necessary in many places in this country. What I am saying is that they aren’t sustainable, which is crucial, as us Peace Corps trainees have been talking about since we got here, and that it might be better if the government realized it too. I shouldn’t pretend to be some expert on this subject, and very willingly acknowledge that I am just visiting and don’t know much about development, much less the Dominican Republic. It just seems as though instead of the government, or more specifically the president, doing personal favors in select areas of the country for select communities, it might be more productive in the long run for things with more lasting results (such as national scholarship programs, teaching colleges, nursing schools, free accessible, universities, perks for engineers, doctors, and other well trained professionals to stay in the country, and others) to be initiated and not only dealt to friends of the political party. It makes no sense to me why there would be free, accessible water, a public clinic, and paved roads in some small rural communities and not in others. People, Americans and Dominicans alike, who have been here a while, or all their lives, have told me that the communities with the nice stuff are the communities that have been selected by the president to receive it, likely because of their political support. But no national plans to bring all rural clinics up to some standard, or pave all roads, for example, are on the table.
So we don’t want you to write a check to fix the public health system in the DR. We would rather encourage getting involved in something sustainable, like contributing to small business loans, or coming down to visit me, or someone else, or even stepping out from the warmth of a security blanket and going to train people in what it is that you know, even if it’s just a group slightly less well off than you and it’s a cooking class, or yoga. Unfortunately my time here isn’t even sustainable, which is why I have to work tirelessly over the 2 years to ensure that someone within the community will take over the various roles I will fill when I leave. It’s going to be difficult, but I’m excited to try.
Perhaps some of you with more regular access to internet could look up what the experts are saying about this issue generally, and then also with regard to the DR. I’d love to read some insights from people much smarter than me. Try posting them here if you find anything of note.
I got the gripe (which I will describe later) a few days ago. The first day it really manifested itself was also the day of a tour of the hospital for the region where we are currently training. We met with 2 former Peace Corps volunteers who now work for an NGO down here called Infante Sano. It’s partnered with some Bostonian business men and the Harvard Children’s Medical Center. They were inspiring, and really motivated me to get working in the Dominican health system. But what really struck me that day, and is something I will likely remember for the rest of my life, was the tour of the facility.
Earlier in this portion of training we asked women about their pregnancies: if they saw a doctor pre or post delivery, where they gave birth, etc. At the time I was pleased that all women that I interviewed reported going to the hospital we toured, or to hospitals in the capital, as opposed to delivering at home or in a rural clinic. After seeing the hospital though, I’m less sure that they were better off there. We didn’t actually get a look inside the delivery room, but I was told there are just a few beds, with no sheets, and at the time we were there, 5 women were giving birth on one bed (perhaps they had found some sheets for that one bed) with no doctor in sight. It is not possible to have your husband or boyfriend or family member in the delivery room with you, so those women were pretty much all alone. I found this out from an American, who I was told was a Harvard grad studying medicine at the hospital, who looked panicked as she was running down the hall looking for help. She explained briefly to our guides what was happening.
I’d heard that in this part of the world nurses are scarce, so family members attend to the sick when they go to the hospital. That was the case. Most rooms had old beds with thin mattresses, only some had bed nets, and no rooms had AC. We saw people of all ages, all sharing one thing in common; they looked like they were in agony. The children’s ward was especially challenging to see, as I’m sure you can guess. One nice thing was that the women from Infante Sano had some local artists come in and paint some murals a while back, so at least the walls looked happy.
We got to see the ER. It was like nothing I’d ever seen before. It was a room not much bigger than a walk in closet with a closed, locked door that needs to be banged on to be opened. Two patients were being attended to when we walked in. One was an old man who looked tired, but like he was being taken care of. The other was a young boy who I believe was being stitched up on his face. I saw the string, and the needle, but could not see exactly where they were going. I didn’t think the doctors or nurses were using any painkillers because he was trashing around on the bed quite a bit.
If any of this has stricken a chord within you, I hope it doesn’t make you want to write a check. The problems that this country is facing are so deep, and so difficult, and unfortunately the answers won’t be as easy as writing a check. A check will only last so long, and then the people who used it will wonder how they’re going to get the next one.
One very fundamental issue to try to understand is the way the political system works. The Dominican presidential election is coming up. There’s the incumbent, Leonel Fernandez, who was also president a few years ago, and his main opponent Miguel Vargas; both of these men have wonderful smiles, which are plastered all over the country. And then there’s Amable Aristy, who doesn’t seem to stand much of a chance. My understanding is that he is conservative, but our definitions of what is conservative and what is liberal don’t quite translate here, as I’m sure you can imagine. (Fernandez is said to be the more liberal of the two main contenders.) Aristy’s campaign is active, and I see more commercials for him than the others; he claims to be the president for the poor. Here’s where the problem comes in, his commercials, legitimately, consist of poor Dominicans attesting to his character because he gave them free stuff, like money to start a workshop, a house, a job, medications, etc. Then they say” I know he is the man for the job because of the favor he did for me.” The gifts seem to have been given out quite arbitrarily, as in someone wrote him a letter asking for a bicycle so that they could get to work, and he decided to help them out. While that is all fine and good, it’s no basis for being the head of state. And this example is not the exception. The other political parties do it too.
There’s some sort of understanding that a good political official is someone that gives handouts, including jobs. The problem then becomes what is going to happen when that elected official’s term is up. For example, President X believes that the healthcare system is in need of help, and decides to go for a national healthcare plan and appoint all of his friends to high ranking positions within the ministry of health, including the heads of hospitals, and before the plan is fully implemented, President Y comes in. Even if President Y wants the plan to move forward, he is going to remove all of President X’s men and women from their positions and put in his new people. You can see where this is going. (This is, in fact, something that President Fernandez has been working on, but of course it is slow going.)
Here are some real life examples on a local level. I’m living with our technical trainer and 3 other volunteers in a little community which has a very active community group. One of the members is the mayor. The other night at a meeting, the leadership of the community group was discussing how much they could benefit from having a group truck or bus. Everyone turned to the mayor and he agreed to buy one, with political or government funds, for the group. The following day, they took us on a smashing tour, during which we all had a lovely time. I wasn’t so much surprised that school children and working parents were able to come with us on a Friday morning (there was a teacher strike, again, so school was out, again, and people don’t tend to work in the same way we Americans imagine, ie: the money just arrives though no one really goes anywhere), rather I was surprised that the group was able to borrow the bus, pay a driver, and then take us all out to lunch. But I should have known better, they mayor paid for that too.
I’m not trying to say that handouts aren’t good, they are probably very much necessary in many places in this country. What I am saying is that they aren’t sustainable, which is crucial, as us Peace Corps trainees have been talking about since we got here, and that it might be better if the government realized it too. I shouldn’t pretend to be some expert on this subject, and very willingly acknowledge that I am just visiting and don’t know much about development, much less the Dominican Republic. It just seems as though instead of the government, or more specifically the president, doing personal favors in select areas of the country for select communities, it might be more productive in the long run for things with more lasting results (such as national scholarship programs, teaching colleges, nursing schools, free accessible, universities, perks for engineers, doctors, and other well trained professionals to stay in the country, and others) to be initiated and not only dealt to friends of the political party. It makes no sense to me why there would be free, accessible water, a public clinic, and paved roads in some small rural communities and not in others. People, Americans and Dominicans alike, who have been here a while, or all their lives, have told me that the communities with the nice stuff are the communities that have been selected by the president to receive it, likely because of their political support. But no national plans to bring all rural clinics up to some standard, or pave all roads, for example, are on the table.
So we don’t want you to write a check to fix the public health system in the DR. We would rather encourage getting involved in something sustainable, like contributing to small business loans, or coming down to visit me, or someone else, or even stepping out from the warmth of a security blanket and going to train people in what it is that you know, even if it’s just a group slightly less well off than you and it’s a cooking class, or yoga. Unfortunately my time here isn’t even sustainable, which is why I have to work tirelessly over the 2 years to ensure that someone within the community will take over the various roles I will fill when I leave. It’s going to be difficult, but I’m excited to try.
Perhaps some of you with more regular access to internet could look up what the experts are saying about this issue generally, and then also with regard to the DR. I’d love to read some insights from people much smarter than me. Try posting them here if you find anything of note.
The Basics
I read a few blogs of some fellow volunteers and realized that although I’ve written tons more for you to read, and I really do means tons, there are a few key topics I’ve left off in my little summaries.
1) Public Transportation
The public transportation situation in this country is probably worthy of a novel-worth of description. We’ve got gua-guas, which are more or less mini-buses that sit 4 or 5 to a row. They have a driver and a cobrador, who lists the places the bus is going to potential riders. He also tells you where to sit and collects the bus fares. Then there are the carro publicos, or conchos, which sit 4 or 5 in a back seat and 2 in the passenger seat. They, like the gua-guas, would be the sort of vehicles that those of us in the US might describe as something that shouldn’t be on the road. But after watching what some elastic bands and duct tape can do for a car, to mend broken windshields and keep doors attached, I am convinced we could be getting a lot more use out of our vehicles in the US before putting them down. I’ve already described for you a little about the motoconchos. They are everywhere on this island and are the way to get around where we are now, in the campo. Peace Corps Dominican Republic is one of only 2 Peace Corps sites where volunteers are still allowed to ride motos at all because it would just be impossible to get around here without being able to ride them. (I guess Peace Corps thinks they’re dangerous or something.) Lately, all I want to do is ride on them. There’s something cool about feeling the breeze on your skin while strutting over Caribbean roads, even if you’re the only person in the history of that road to wear a helmet while riding on a moto, and get stared at mercilessly.
2) Bugs
This one, unlike the above which was more relevant back when we were still in the capital, is actually a pretty well timed entry. The bugs and I aren’t getting along as well as we used to. Frankly, I’m a little worried about the future of our relationship. In the capital, they bit, and it itched, but they respected that sometimes I just needed my alone time, and that that time began when I entered my bed net before bed. Here, I’m getting a lot less respect for my needs.
The mosquitoes tend to leave me alone when I 1)wash with local soap, 2) wear long pants, 3) take B-Complex with breakfast and lunch (to help make my sweat stink), and 4) wear my deet. It’s not just that they are more frequent and bite at all hours of the day in the country, but also that they carry dengue, especially in the area where I am doing my training. But the biting ants are more needy. They require more one on one attention and have taken to following me everywhere I go. Thankfully they haven’t started hanging out in my food too often, as they have been with some of the other volunteers, but they do follow me pretty much everywhere else. They especially like to get into bed with me. I can’t say that I blame them, but I also don’t need to take that kind of mistreatment.
Then there are the cockroaches. Us who have lived in DC know that cockroaches are terrible and scary. Well, they are pretty common here too, but with one fundamental difference. They can fly! Seriously. They are also much larger than any I’ve seen in the states. I couldn’t believe it when I first saw one fly into my room the first time. You would have been proud of me. I grabbed a tough-heeled shoe and smacked the crap out of it. It tried to scurry away, and snuck under the door when I had it cornered, but I definitely triumphed over nature that night. I later got to observe my host mom kill one swiftly and fiercely. I feel as though that means I was born with a little Dominican in me.
Although they are not bugs, I feel it is necessary to mention the tarantulas at this point. We were told they couldn’t kill us, but we were not told whether or not they could bite and poison us. I’m thinking that means that they can. Still, I’m not too worried. So far I’ve only seen a handful lying dead at the side of the road (they’re so big, they’re road kill here) and have just heard stories. I haven’t yet seen a living one with my own eyes. I have seen caterpillars the size of a finger, and mice and rats on the rafters of my house. Would you believe me if I said I’d prefer all of that to these stupid, tiny, biting ants?
3) Baseball, Dominoes and Chisme
I’m sure some of you have heard that baseball is big in the DR. Well they weren’t lying to you. It’s huge. The 2 teams in the US are the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Socks. Both teams are from New York, which takes up the entire country. Don’t try to talk to your average-baseball-loving-Dominican about the Chicago White Blah or the Cub-blahs, much less the Colorado Rock-blahs or the Cleveland Indiblahs. Believe me, they just don’t exist. That was a little surprising to me at first. I wanted to talk to my host father in the capital about the Cubbies, and Sammy Sosa or Alfonso Soriano, to give him and his family some perspective on where I’m from. He didn’t really acknowledge that there were teams besides the Red Socks or the Yankees, although he did hear about the Mets once or twice. I thought that was strange at the time, but now I understand that it’s just the way it is. All the Dominicans that go to the US go to New York and some go to Boston. So, those are the games that get broadcasted, and those are the teams that have a Dominican fan base.
I met some boys, one was 14 and the other 16, back in the capital who wanted to play baseball with us one day. We didn’t end up getting to use a baseball field, but we did get to talking. They were both involved in recruitment to US MLB teams. Apparently, and I’m sure I’ll learn more about this with time, the MLB teams have summer baseball camps to train kids and ideally get to recruit them later in life. One of the two was involved with a Phillies camp and the other with another that I can’t remember right now.
Dominoes. It’s not just a crappy pizza company. It’s also a crappy game. No, I’m just kidding. The only reason I say that is because I used to be SO terrible at it. The version of dominoes that is played here is much less difficult to learn than that in the US, and that’s coming from someone who isn’t a quick learner and very recently was taught both versions, and had slightly more success with the Dominican version. The men play it pretty much all the time when they’re not watching baseball or watching white girls walk by. I don’t actually get to play it that often and am probably known to some as the worst white girl at it because of my lack of practice (neither host family ever plays.) But now, I am happy to say, I'm much better at it.
And that just leaves us with chisme. It means gossip and it’s definitely the most appealing of the three pass times. It’s probably more popular with Dominican women of the three, though it shows no gender boundaries. I suppose we are the subject of a fair amount of chisme here, and we probably were in the capital too. But I think where it will really be felt is once we are stationed to our project sites.
1) Public Transportation
The public transportation situation in this country is probably worthy of a novel-worth of description. We’ve got gua-guas, which are more or less mini-buses that sit 4 or 5 to a row. They have a driver and a cobrador, who lists the places the bus is going to potential riders. He also tells you where to sit and collects the bus fares. Then there are the carro publicos, or conchos, which sit 4 or 5 in a back seat and 2 in the passenger seat. They, like the gua-guas, would be the sort of vehicles that those of us in the US might describe as something that shouldn’t be on the road. But after watching what some elastic bands and duct tape can do for a car, to mend broken windshields and keep doors attached, I am convinced we could be getting a lot more use out of our vehicles in the US before putting them down. I’ve already described for you a little about the motoconchos. They are everywhere on this island and are the way to get around where we are now, in the campo. Peace Corps Dominican Republic is one of only 2 Peace Corps sites where volunteers are still allowed to ride motos at all because it would just be impossible to get around here without being able to ride them. (I guess Peace Corps thinks they’re dangerous or something.) Lately, all I want to do is ride on them. There’s something cool about feeling the breeze on your skin while strutting over Caribbean roads, even if you’re the only person in the history of that road to wear a helmet while riding on a moto, and get stared at mercilessly.
2) Bugs
This one, unlike the above which was more relevant back when we were still in the capital, is actually a pretty well timed entry. The bugs and I aren’t getting along as well as we used to. Frankly, I’m a little worried about the future of our relationship. In the capital, they bit, and it itched, but they respected that sometimes I just needed my alone time, and that that time began when I entered my bed net before bed. Here, I’m getting a lot less respect for my needs.
The mosquitoes tend to leave me alone when I 1)wash with local soap, 2) wear long pants, 3) take B-Complex with breakfast and lunch (to help make my sweat stink), and 4) wear my deet. It’s not just that they are more frequent and bite at all hours of the day in the country, but also that they carry dengue, especially in the area where I am doing my training. But the biting ants are more needy. They require more one on one attention and have taken to following me everywhere I go. Thankfully they haven’t started hanging out in my food too often, as they have been with some of the other volunteers, but they do follow me pretty much everywhere else. They especially like to get into bed with me. I can’t say that I blame them, but I also don’t need to take that kind of mistreatment.
Then there are the cockroaches. Us who have lived in DC know that cockroaches are terrible and scary. Well, they are pretty common here too, but with one fundamental difference. They can fly! Seriously. They are also much larger than any I’ve seen in the states. I couldn’t believe it when I first saw one fly into my room the first time. You would have been proud of me. I grabbed a tough-heeled shoe and smacked the crap out of it. It tried to scurry away, and snuck under the door when I had it cornered, but I definitely triumphed over nature that night. I later got to observe my host mom kill one swiftly and fiercely. I feel as though that means I was born with a little Dominican in me.
Although they are not bugs, I feel it is necessary to mention the tarantulas at this point. We were told they couldn’t kill us, but we were not told whether or not they could bite and poison us. I’m thinking that means that they can. Still, I’m not too worried. So far I’ve only seen a handful lying dead at the side of the road (they’re so big, they’re road kill here) and have just heard stories. I haven’t yet seen a living one with my own eyes. I have seen caterpillars the size of a finger, and mice and rats on the rafters of my house. Would you believe me if I said I’d prefer all of that to these stupid, tiny, biting ants?
3) Baseball, Dominoes and Chisme
I’m sure some of you have heard that baseball is big in the DR. Well they weren’t lying to you. It’s huge. The 2 teams in the US are the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Socks. Both teams are from New York, which takes up the entire country. Don’t try to talk to your average-baseball-loving-Dominican about the Chicago White Blah or the Cub-blahs, much less the Colorado Rock-blahs or the Cleveland Indiblahs. Believe me, they just don’t exist. That was a little surprising to me at first. I wanted to talk to my host father in the capital about the Cubbies, and Sammy Sosa or Alfonso Soriano, to give him and his family some perspective on where I’m from. He didn’t really acknowledge that there were teams besides the Red Socks or the Yankees, although he did hear about the Mets once or twice. I thought that was strange at the time, but now I understand that it’s just the way it is. All the Dominicans that go to the US go to New York and some go to Boston. So, those are the games that get broadcasted, and those are the teams that have a Dominican fan base.
I met some boys, one was 14 and the other 16, back in the capital who wanted to play baseball with us one day. We didn’t end up getting to use a baseball field, but we did get to talking. They were both involved in recruitment to US MLB teams. Apparently, and I’m sure I’ll learn more about this with time, the MLB teams have summer baseball camps to train kids and ideally get to recruit them later in life. One of the two was involved with a Phillies camp and the other with another that I can’t remember right now.
Dominoes. It’s not just a crappy pizza company. It’s also a crappy game. No, I’m just kidding. The only reason I say that is because I used to be SO terrible at it. The version of dominoes that is played here is much less difficult to learn than that in the US, and that’s coming from someone who isn’t a quick learner and very recently was taught both versions, and had slightly more success with the Dominican version. The men play it pretty much all the time when they’re not watching baseball or watching white girls walk by. I don’t actually get to play it that often and am probably known to some as the worst white girl at it because of my lack of practice (neither host family ever plays.) But now, I am happy to say, I'm much better at it.
And that just leaves us with chisme. It means gossip and it’s definitely the most appealing of the three pass times. It’s probably more popular with Dominican women of the three, though it shows no gender boundaries. I suppose we are the subject of a fair amount of chisme here, and we probably were in the capital too. But I think where it will really be felt is once we are stationed to our project sites.
You Know You're In the Peace Corps When...
Before you get excited that I’m going to tell you things that would fit that list, let me acknowledge that I haven’t yet lived a complete Peace Corps life and would be extremely unable to create such a list after only a month or so.
Having said that, the other day seemed to be a pretty good “Peace Corps-y” day. Our Technical Trainer, who I think is just incredible, loaded all 12 of us into a Peace Corps issued pickup truck and we headed into the mountains in search of a waterfall at the top of a river. The trip was pretty crazy. We rode on paved roads for about 1/10 of the trip. The rest ranged from flat dirt roads to rocky mountainous dirt roads. I’d never done a trip like that before in the back of a pickup. There were moments when it felt like we were falling down the hills because of the way our technical trainer switched gears. But since we could not see or hear what she was doing inside the truck, we were pretty freaked out a few times. I tried to calm everyone down by asking them, when was the last time 12 Peace Corps volunteers died in a truck accident? They didn’t seem to respond to that sort of encouragement the way I’d planned.
When we reached the river we could not have been more relieved. The water was somewhat clean and very cold and it felt great. The current was pretty strong but we found little pools to sit in and talk. Climbing on the boulders was also quite fun. A fellow volunteer and I walked up the river to spot the waterfall we’d kept hearing about. It was just beautiful, perhaps 1 ½ stories tall, plunging deep into the water below. He went for a swim under and around it and described the current as being super strong. My camera battery had died only moments before but he had his camera so when I get those pictures I’ll be sure to pass them along.
The day was such a wonderful, what I hope will turn out to be very “Peace Corps-y” set of experiences. We were able to explore the river at multiple spots and the rocks and paths along the side of it. The area was almost completely untouched by humans. It was so much fun to go exploring. On the way back from a mini-excursion me and 3 other volunteers sang “The Ants Go Marching,” as it felt like the right type of song for our adventure.
The day ended when a group of non-campo-looking Dominican men, with a gigantic bottle of rum with dead sea creatures and dried wood inside of it, showed up and wanted to have their picture taken with all of us and share the rum. As we walked away from them we heard some gunshots coming from that area and were glad we had left when we did.
A few days later we experienced another very Peace Corps-y experience. We went to one of the 3 communities we’re living in for a Patronales festival. (Patronales is a name for a festival that lasts 9-14 days generally that each town in the country has during some point in the year. They include concerts, free events, dancing, beauty competitions, and other things for the whole community.) Within a matter of seconds after having arrived we were hurried on stage, under the lights, and before a crowd of perhaps 300 people. We simply stood there for a long while, being looked at, and trying our best to smile, until the music stopped and we were introduced. We had no idea we’d be getting up on stage and were pretty scared. What didn’t help to calm our nerves was that there was some guy at the edge of the stage, perhaps a security guard, or perhaps a Patronales enthusiast, with a gun, which he was using as a pointer. At one point he took the ammo out of it and I felt calm. That only lasted a moment. Obviously no one got shot, but it was still a little nerve-wracking.
It dawned on me the other day that I am so blessed to have gone into this with the traveling experiences that I’ve had, or my adjustment might not have been nearly as smooth as it’s been. What I’m now trying to describe can best be done with an example. The example I’ve chosen is the showering situations. In high school, I went to Spain, a pretty developed Spanish speaking country for 1 month. I was told that I could shower every day, but that I should turn the water off when I didn’t need it in the shower to help conserve. I found that odd and struggled with it. In college I went to Chile, a slightly less well-off Spanish-speaking country, for 4 months. I was told I could shower every day, but that I likely wouldn’t have hot water and should still turn the water off to conserve. I found that annoying and struggled with it. And now I’m in the DR, which is much less well-off than the others, for over 2 years. I was told I could still shower every day, but that I shouldn’t expect to have clean, running water. And for some reason, now, I don’t find it annoying or odd, and I’m not struggling with it. And I’m so glad.
Having said that, the other day seemed to be a pretty good “Peace Corps-y” day. Our Technical Trainer, who I think is just incredible, loaded all 12 of us into a Peace Corps issued pickup truck and we headed into the mountains in search of a waterfall at the top of a river. The trip was pretty crazy. We rode on paved roads for about 1/10 of the trip. The rest ranged from flat dirt roads to rocky mountainous dirt roads. I’d never done a trip like that before in the back of a pickup. There were moments when it felt like we were falling down the hills because of the way our technical trainer switched gears. But since we could not see or hear what she was doing inside the truck, we were pretty freaked out a few times. I tried to calm everyone down by asking them, when was the last time 12 Peace Corps volunteers died in a truck accident? They didn’t seem to respond to that sort of encouragement the way I’d planned.
When we reached the river we could not have been more relieved. The water was somewhat clean and very cold and it felt great. The current was pretty strong but we found little pools to sit in and talk. Climbing on the boulders was also quite fun. A fellow volunteer and I walked up the river to spot the waterfall we’d kept hearing about. It was just beautiful, perhaps 1 ½ stories tall, plunging deep into the water below. He went for a swim under and around it and described the current as being super strong. My camera battery had died only moments before but he had his camera so when I get those pictures I’ll be sure to pass them along.
The day was such a wonderful, what I hope will turn out to be very “Peace Corps-y” set of experiences. We were able to explore the river at multiple spots and the rocks and paths along the side of it. The area was almost completely untouched by humans. It was so much fun to go exploring. On the way back from a mini-excursion me and 3 other volunteers sang “The Ants Go Marching,” as it felt like the right type of song for our adventure.
The day ended when a group of non-campo-looking Dominican men, with a gigantic bottle of rum with dead sea creatures and dried wood inside of it, showed up and wanted to have their picture taken with all of us and share the rum. As we walked away from them we heard some gunshots coming from that area and were glad we had left when we did.
A few days later we experienced another very Peace Corps-y experience. We went to one of the 3 communities we’re living in for a Patronales festival. (Patronales is a name for a festival that lasts 9-14 days generally that each town in the country has during some point in the year. They include concerts, free events, dancing, beauty competitions, and other things for the whole community.) Within a matter of seconds after having arrived we were hurried on stage, under the lights, and before a crowd of perhaps 300 people. We simply stood there for a long while, being looked at, and trying our best to smile, until the music stopped and we were introduced. We had no idea we’d be getting up on stage and were pretty scared. What didn’t help to calm our nerves was that there was some guy at the edge of the stage, perhaps a security guard, or perhaps a Patronales enthusiast, with a gun, which he was using as a pointer. At one point he took the ammo out of it and I felt calm. That only lasted a moment. Obviously no one got shot, but it was still a little nerve-wracking.
It dawned on me the other day that I am so blessed to have gone into this with the traveling experiences that I’ve had, or my adjustment might not have been nearly as smooth as it’s been. What I’m now trying to describe can best be done with an example. The example I’ve chosen is the showering situations. In high school, I went to Spain, a pretty developed Spanish speaking country for 1 month. I was told that I could shower every day, but that I should turn the water off when I didn’t need it in the shower to help conserve. I found that odd and struggled with it. In college I went to Chile, a slightly less well-off Spanish-speaking country, for 4 months. I was told I could shower every day, but that I likely wouldn’t have hot water and should still turn the water off to conserve. I found that annoying and struggled with it. And now I’m in the DR, which is much less well-off than the others, for over 2 years. I was told I could still shower every day, but that I shouldn’t expect to have clean, running water. And for some reason, now, I don’t find it annoying or odd, and I’m not struggling with it. And I’m so glad.
Saturday, October 20, 2007
The Kids Are Alright
They might be drunk, studious, pregnant, engaged in combat or in love, but they’re alright.
How do you know if you’re accepted in a new group? Look at who you’re friendly with, right? Yes. Look at who’s friendly with you? Yes. But what really lets us know is if we’ve made it with the kids.
Well I have pleasant news to report. I have finally formally been accepted by the kids in my neighborhood. Therefore, I am finally accepted into the community, or at least I like to think so. It started with some teenage boys sitting in on our Spanish lesson and deciding which of the Americans they had a crush on. Then they reported that to me once the other girls left. A 15 year old neighbor of mine has a crush on a 25 year old volunteer. Then my host brother and sister started some innocent wrestling and the other boys got involved; they started to pummel each other. Perhaps I would have been completely integrated if someone had pummeled me a little, but I feel okay about the way that worked out anyway.
Did I mention I am now the “hot, white, girlfriend” of a 5 year old? Yah, it’s one of my prouder moments. He wears underwear all the time, but doesn’t care much for any other types of clothes. That’s pretty common here actually. He’s one of the ones who insists on having his picture taken everyday.
I had the very interesting opportunity to watch a 2 year old get served and consume some beer the other night. His mother and grandmother gave it to him. He proceeded to throw up in front of us, and after I went home he allegedly went to the bathroom (both numbers 1 and 2) on the street. That’s the problem with 2 year olds; they just can’t hold their beer.
We had a tour of the Polytechnic School in my town. My host mother works there and her daughter attends classes there. They welcomed us to give a talk about teen pregnancy and STI prevention for next week. The faculty is concerned because there are about 75 students who live on the campus and every year more students get pregnant. We wondered if those pregnant women were allowed to attend classes when their bellies start to show. On the tour we got the answer to that; one very pregnant student wore a loose white shirt under her school uniform blouse, which she had buttoned up top but not on the bottom.
The school was impressive, perhaps one of the most well kept facilities I’ve seen since having arrived here. I did not anticipate that a public school would look as beautiful as this school did. The landscaping was just beautiful, with a gorgeous mountain view, and there was a computer lab with air conditioning! We later learned that the facility was a gift of Fidel Castro in memory of a Cuban revolutionary who was born in this area of the DR. His name was Maximo Gomez. Both the Dominican and Cuban flags were waving out front. Apparently all tuitions are paid for by the Dominican government. The only prerequisite is that the students get and 80% or higher on an entrance exam. I wasn’t too clear about the curriculum although we did get a tour of where they produce ham, cheese, and milk. A few days ago I’d gotten to try some ham that was produced there. It was pretty good. Then I went on the tour of the room where they prepare the ham, and even got to stand in the pig shower, without knowing exactly what it was at first. The good news is that I don’t think the experience has made me want to eat ham any less.
How do you know if you’re accepted in a new group? Look at who you’re friendly with, right? Yes. Look at who’s friendly with you? Yes. But what really lets us know is if we’ve made it with the kids.
Well I have pleasant news to report. I have finally formally been accepted by the kids in my neighborhood. Therefore, I am finally accepted into the community, or at least I like to think so. It started with some teenage boys sitting in on our Spanish lesson and deciding which of the Americans they had a crush on. Then they reported that to me once the other girls left. A 15 year old neighbor of mine has a crush on a 25 year old volunteer. Then my host brother and sister started some innocent wrestling and the other boys got involved; they started to pummel each other. Perhaps I would have been completely integrated if someone had pummeled me a little, but I feel okay about the way that worked out anyway.
Did I mention I am now the “hot, white, girlfriend” of a 5 year old? Yah, it’s one of my prouder moments. He wears underwear all the time, but doesn’t care much for any other types of clothes. That’s pretty common here actually. He’s one of the ones who insists on having his picture taken everyday.
I had the very interesting opportunity to watch a 2 year old get served and consume some beer the other night. His mother and grandmother gave it to him. He proceeded to throw up in front of us, and after I went home he allegedly went to the bathroom (both numbers 1 and 2) on the street. That’s the problem with 2 year olds; they just can’t hold their beer.
We had a tour of the Polytechnic School in my town. My host mother works there and her daughter attends classes there. They welcomed us to give a talk about teen pregnancy and STI prevention for next week. The faculty is concerned because there are about 75 students who live on the campus and every year more students get pregnant. We wondered if those pregnant women were allowed to attend classes when their bellies start to show. On the tour we got the answer to that; one very pregnant student wore a loose white shirt under her school uniform blouse, which she had buttoned up top but not on the bottom.
The school was impressive, perhaps one of the most well kept facilities I’ve seen since having arrived here. I did not anticipate that a public school would look as beautiful as this school did. The landscaping was just beautiful, with a gorgeous mountain view, and there was a computer lab with air conditioning! We later learned that the facility was a gift of Fidel Castro in memory of a Cuban revolutionary who was born in this area of the DR. His name was Maximo Gomez. Both the Dominican and Cuban flags were waving out front. Apparently all tuitions are paid for by the Dominican government. The only prerequisite is that the students get and 80% or higher on an entrance exam. I wasn’t too clear about the curriculum although we did get a tour of where they produce ham, cheese, and milk. A few days ago I’d gotten to try some ham that was produced there. It was pretty good. Then I went on the tour of the room where they prepare the ham, and even got to stand in the pig shower, without knowing exactly what it was at first. The good news is that I don’t think the experience has made me want to eat ham any less.
Saturday, October 13, 2007
And Now for a bit of the Techincal Health Stuff
We were asked to conduct some interviews with friends of our host mothers. The topic was health, the interview was 5 pages of questions long, which took about 20 minutes each. The results were fascinating.
It’s interesting the way wealth can be described here. Imagine, in you will, what separates a rich bathroom from a less impressive looking bathroom in the US. Here, as you might expect, the difference is quite different. A nice bathroom here will have a least a trickle of water coming out of a faucet, preferably in a sink, it will have toilet paper, a flush for the toilet, and my favorite, a toilet seat. A door is not required. (A really nice bathroom would also have soap and something to dry ones hand with.) A not so nice bathroom will have a toilet that can be flushed with a bucket of water, no sink, and no soap or anything to dry your hands with, no toilet paper or seat. And a typical bathroom in the places where we will be placed is actually a latrine, with a large, deep (hopefully) hole, hopefully with a cement block a little bit off of the ground to sit on. For hand washing we’re going to turn gallon jugs upside down in a net, then unscrew the lid to release a small trickle of water. It’s an ingenious thing that someone in Peace Corps developed for us to teach our communities, and without it, most people in the fields probably wouldn’t wash their hands after using the latrine or before coming in the house. I look forward to sharing that little idea with my community.
Of the 5 women I interviewed they all had working toilets, cement floors, cement walls and a tin roof. Those things make for a very nice home here. (The home I’m living in also has a toilet, cement floors and a tin roof. The walls are a mixture of tin and wood.) I would expect that with these fine furnishings (which are rare) they’d be among the more educated and perhaps have more of the correct answers to my questions. When compared to my fellow trainees, however, some of whom live in a community much worse off than the one I’m in, the level of education on these health topics is pretty much the same. For the most part, people don’t know the difference between HIV and AIDS and all of the women I interviewed believed that it can be shared by using the same razor. They can’t really name any STIs or too many forms of birth control. They don’t really know what a nutritious meal consists of. They believe baby formula is better for a baby than breast milk. And of the women I interviewed, all had had their tubes tied during their last births which were all C-sections. Many did not know why they’d had the C-section. Also, of the 5 women I questioned, 3 had lost a fetus or baby during the pregnancy or birth and didn’t know the reason why. Of 18 pregnancies among them, only 12 children are living today.
I have got my work cut out for me. Chances are the project site I will end up in will have less of the answers to these questions, but to be sure, Peace Corps asks that we interview about 100 women in our community. That is my job for the first 3 months of service. When I am done, in February, I will present my findings to the fellow health volunteers, and our leaders and trainers. I will define what I would like to work on, then get to it. After a year I will rejoin the group, revaluate my project, and make changes to help foster more growth for the second year.
It’s interesting the way wealth can be described here. Imagine, in you will, what separates a rich bathroom from a less impressive looking bathroom in the US. Here, as you might expect, the difference is quite different. A nice bathroom here will have a least a trickle of water coming out of a faucet, preferably in a sink, it will have toilet paper, a flush for the toilet, and my favorite, a toilet seat. A door is not required. (A really nice bathroom would also have soap and something to dry ones hand with.) A not so nice bathroom will have a toilet that can be flushed with a bucket of water, no sink, and no soap or anything to dry your hands with, no toilet paper or seat. And a typical bathroom in the places where we will be placed is actually a latrine, with a large, deep (hopefully) hole, hopefully with a cement block a little bit off of the ground to sit on. For hand washing we’re going to turn gallon jugs upside down in a net, then unscrew the lid to release a small trickle of water. It’s an ingenious thing that someone in Peace Corps developed for us to teach our communities, and without it, most people in the fields probably wouldn’t wash their hands after using the latrine or before coming in the house. I look forward to sharing that little idea with my community.
Of the 5 women I interviewed they all had working toilets, cement floors, cement walls and a tin roof. Those things make for a very nice home here. (The home I’m living in also has a toilet, cement floors and a tin roof. The walls are a mixture of tin and wood.) I would expect that with these fine furnishings (which are rare) they’d be among the more educated and perhaps have more of the correct answers to my questions. When compared to my fellow trainees, however, some of whom live in a community much worse off than the one I’m in, the level of education on these health topics is pretty much the same. For the most part, people don’t know the difference between HIV and AIDS and all of the women I interviewed believed that it can be shared by using the same razor. They can’t really name any STIs or too many forms of birth control. They don’t really know what a nutritious meal consists of. They believe baby formula is better for a baby than breast milk. And of the women I interviewed, all had had their tubes tied during their last births which were all C-sections. Many did not know why they’d had the C-section. Also, of the 5 women I questioned, 3 had lost a fetus or baby during the pregnancy or birth and didn’t know the reason why. Of 18 pregnancies among them, only 12 children are living today.
I have got my work cut out for me. Chances are the project site I will end up in will have less of the answers to these questions, but to be sure, Peace Corps asks that we interview about 100 women in our community. That is my job for the first 3 months of service. When I am done, in February, I will present my findings to the fellow health volunteers, and our leaders and trainers. I will define what I would like to work on, then get to it. After a year I will rejoin the group, revaluate my project, and make changes to help foster more growth for the second year.
Roosters on the Roof
It sounds like the name of some new computer-animated kids movie. And with a name like that, I would probably bomb at the box office.
I wish that were all that it was. We have roosters here, and although I haven’t asked, because I really don’t want to know, I’m pretty sure they are being raised for cock fighting. (Cock fighting is a very popular event here, and I’ve been encouraged to see it. However, I’m hoping the fact that the women stay in their homes most of the time will work to my advantage for once and I won’t be pressured to go see it.) When I first got here I would say there were about 4 or 5 roosters, perhaps 10 hens (although they are harder to keep track of because they sort of wander the streets at will), double the amount of chicks, perhaps 10 pigeons, and a huge chicken coop full of doves. I sleep next to the rooster coops, and the roosters and pigeons, and hens and chicks, like to fly up to the tin roof and make a lot of noise. And, as some of you probably already know, roosters don’t just crow at dawn. They crow 24 hours a day, sporadically and for no reason. Sometimes one will start to crow and the others will want to prove that they can crow louder, and then you’ve got a situation on your hands. They especially like to get at it between 4 and 8 am.
It has taken a lot of getting used to. And just when I was starting to get used to it, about 4 more roosters appeared. These new 4 are bigger and scarier looking than the ones that already live here, thus convincing me that they will be entered into cock fights.
I wouldn’t say that we eat a particularly large amount of eggs, so that perk of having the crowing doesn’t really exist. And if I was asked to describe the sound of the crowing, I’d think I’d say it sounds like defenseless animals are getting stepped on, but louder and bolder, and with a beat.
Speaking of defenseless animals, there are lots of stray dogs here. Some seem well cared for, well fed, etc. They are the minority and probably the meanest because like that old expression, it’s a dog eats dog world, and hardly anyone feeds the dogs or treats them well. It was the same in Chile. For a country that is focusing on feeding, educating, and taking care of the people, it is unrealistic to expect that they also focus on spaying and neutering their pets. I try not to let it bother me, and so far it’s working. I have been lucky in that I’ve only seen a hand full of dogs that look pretty bad. I would like to have a dog at my project site as a companion and to demonstrate another way to treat animals. I worry though that the dog would not be able to adjust from the world that it would live in here to one back home, and if I left it here that it would not be well cared for in my absence.
I will figure it out when I get to my project site I suppose. That, by the way, will be happening for a few days in mid November and then permanently after Thanksgiving. I should be aware of where I’m going sometime in the next few weeks and then definitely know a few days before I go on that visit. As I’m sure you can imagine I am very much looking forward to finding out more about my project site.
I wish that were all that it was. We have roosters here, and although I haven’t asked, because I really don’t want to know, I’m pretty sure they are being raised for cock fighting. (Cock fighting is a very popular event here, and I’ve been encouraged to see it. However, I’m hoping the fact that the women stay in their homes most of the time will work to my advantage for once and I won’t be pressured to go see it.) When I first got here I would say there were about 4 or 5 roosters, perhaps 10 hens (although they are harder to keep track of because they sort of wander the streets at will), double the amount of chicks, perhaps 10 pigeons, and a huge chicken coop full of doves. I sleep next to the rooster coops, and the roosters and pigeons, and hens and chicks, like to fly up to the tin roof and make a lot of noise. And, as some of you probably already know, roosters don’t just crow at dawn. They crow 24 hours a day, sporadically and for no reason. Sometimes one will start to crow and the others will want to prove that they can crow louder, and then you’ve got a situation on your hands. They especially like to get at it between 4 and 8 am.
It has taken a lot of getting used to. And just when I was starting to get used to it, about 4 more roosters appeared. These new 4 are bigger and scarier looking than the ones that already live here, thus convincing me that they will be entered into cock fights.
I wouldn’t say that we eat a particularly large amount of eggs, so that perk of having the crowing doesn’t really exist. And if I was asked to describe the sound of the crowing, I’d think I’d say it sounds like defenseless animals are getting stepped on, but louder and bolder, and with a beat.
Speaking of defenseless animals, there are lots of stray dogs here. Some seem well cared for, well fed, etc. They are the minority and probably the meanest because like that old expression, it’s a dog eats dog world, and hardly anyone feeds the dogs or treats them well. It was the same in Chile. For a country that is focusing on feeding, educating, and taking care of the people, it is unrealistic to expect that they also focus on spaying and neutering their pets. I try not to let it bother me, and so far it’s working. I have been lucky in that I’ve only seen a hand full of dogs that look pretty bad. I would like to have a dog at my project site as a companion and to demonstrate another way to treat animals. I worry though that the dog would not be able to adjust from the world that it would live in here to one back home, and if I left it here that it would not be well cared for in my absence.
I will figure it out when I get to my project site I suppose. That, by the way, will be happening for a few days in mid November and then permanently after Thanksgiving. I should be aware of where I’m going sometime in the next few weeks and then definitely know a few days before I go on that visit. As I’m sure you can imagine I am very much looking forward to finding out more about my project site.
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