Friday, December 17, 2010

Flowers in December

I realized the other day that I spend an inordinate amount of my time here focusing on the negative things about the DR. It is after all my job. I work for the remedy of certain problems. But I realized that so much time spent thinking about how to improve aspects of my community, while helpful workwise, was making me just a bit too pessimistic. Peace Corps Dominican Republic may be difficult and frustrating at times, but as I’m sure any volunteer from Tibet or Kazakhstan, especially when in the middle of winter, would say, “You’re in the Caribbean. How hard can it be you pansy?”And they would be right.

Here are some of the things that I love about the Dominican Republic. I was going to add more things but I ran out of time.

1: Brindar-ing: Dominicans love to share, especially when it comes to food. None of the farmers in our community let us buy tomatoes and peppers from them. When they are harvesting I just walk by the field and they fill up my backpack. If I show up at someone’s house around lunchtime I will promptly be pushed into a chair and they will shove a heaping plate of rice and beans at me.

2: Flowers in December: We had a really chilly week in November. The rain had us locked in the house shivering all day. I was rather worried that this was going to be the extant of the mountain winter. It sure didn’t seem like we were anywhere close to that famous Caribbean sun. But the sun is back. It’s less than two weeks till Christmas and we are eating fresh lettuce, peppers, basil, and kale from our garden. The unnamed red-flowering shrubbery around our house keeps bursting out in brand-new blooms. And our tomato plants are flowering. When I need a lime I just climb the tree outside my house. Our neighbors brindar us fresh oranges regularly. Occasionally we have a chilly day, especially when it’s rainy as it often is here, and the evenings always require a sweater or two. I know in Santo Domingo and the other coastal areas of the country most people probably pass the siesta hour sweating, but here it’s just perfect weather. If you have ever been in central Pennsylvania about mid-autumn, you know about perfect weather. Except here it’s even better because everything is still as green as June. The sun is warm, the eddying breezes always tug along cool air, and after lunch you just want to tilt back your chair against an inviting wall and doze.

3: Palma real: These palm trees are absolutely beautiful. They are definitely the most royal and stately-looking of all the DR’s many palm varieties. It may be that since in the States palm trees are presented as synonymous with cold mojitos, salted margaritas, and warm languid beaches that my subconscious taps into that image whenever I see these trees, giving me a feeling of deep satisfaction as if I were on a luxurious vacation even though I am over three hours from the beach and am forced to drink my mojitos warm. Also my house is constructed of palm boards. Whatever the reason, I find the palma real to be a stunning tree.

4:Public transportation: Since this is about the things I DO like, this one needs a few disclaimers. No I don’t like cobradores (fare-collectors) that are always trying to rip me off. I have yet to ride in a public transport vehicle (Santo Domingo’s metro excluded) in the DR that would pass inspection in even the most lenient state in the US. But all those unpleasantries aside, I love that you can literally get anywhere in this country on public transport. There are little rusted bumper-less green-roofed cars called carro públicos (public cars) that run fixed routes throughout the cities. But if you are in a hurry and they are empty they will usually convert into a private taxi if you pay them taxi prices. Once in Santiago we were the last people on a small bus. After getting off the bus I would have had to take two separate carro público routes, so after negotiating with the driver he agreed, for the same price as two carros públicos, to take us directly to our stop. I know I value the public transport here even more highly since I never lived anywhere in the US that had any decent form of public transport. But the fact that I can take various forms of public transport, without walking more than a few minutes, directly from my front door to the front door of most of the 190 volunteers in this country is a demonstration of how useful the DR’s public transport can be. Useful yes, but in the spirit of positivity I won’t elaborate on just how confusing and time-consuming a trip on Dominican public transport can be.

5: New Year’s Eve on the beach: Sure you can spend New Year’s Eve on a beach in Florida or some other warm state with a lovely coastline, but it’s not the Caribbean and it’s not the Dominican Republic. There is a difference. Enough said.

6: Geographic diversity: The DR is somewhere around the size of New Hampshire or some other tiny state of similar size. It’s much smaller than Pennsylvania. In all that smallness of space it goes from sea-level shoreline in the south to just over 10,000 feet high in the middle of the country and then back to sea-level in the north again. This helps to explain why it takes so many hours to get from the extreme southwest corner of the country to the northeast peninsula of Samaná. It takes so long to get around here that if I were to go by feeling I would say that the DR is at least as big as Texas. It’s always shocking to remind myself just how relatively tiny the DR is. People sometimes ask me if Nueva York (the US to them) is bigger than the Dr. It’s hard to get them to believe that we have 50 states and they are pretty much all (at least by average) bigger than this county. It’s a lot of fun to have beaches and mountains and still more beaches in such a small area. If there were a contest in the Western Hemisphere on who could have the most fun in the least amount of space the Dominicans would win, hands down.

7: Presidente Super Fria bien barata: You can buy, and rest assured that I do on those occasions that I make it to the city, a jumbo bottle of cold beer. This frosty jumbo, which is the equivalent of almost three regular state-side bottles, normally costs about $2.75. We spend-thrifty volunteers have discovered a place that sells them for about $2.30. What’s not to love about sharing a triple-sized economy-priced Presidente or two with friends while sitting on a concrete bench facing out across the restless waves of a Caribbean twilight while the madness that is the traffic of Santo Domingo seethes across the background?

8: I would be remiss if I didn’t mention my kitty Schnickelfritz.