Llegó el fin

It’s seems like a dream when I realize that my time with Peace Corps Dominican Republic is over. I’ll be back in Pennsylvania for the summer on May 24. And who knew that leaving was going to be the hardest part?

We spent our last few months finishing up our latrine project. Here are a few photos. The school kids helped me paint a mural of Hispaniola. We played with our cats. We harvested a lot of lettuce and radishes from our garden. We hiked Pico Duarte, the highest peak in the Caribbean. I spent a few days hiking through the national park Valle Nuevo that connects our province, San José de Ocoa, with Constanza, the high mountain valley to our north that produces such wonderful, but un-Caribbean produce like apples, strawberries, cabbage, and broccoli. And of course we spent a lot of time just trying to savor the last few weeks in our peaceful shack surrounded by wonderful neighbors, clever kitties, and verdant lush mountains. And now it’s over.

We also traveled to visit several other volunteers’ communities. The DR continues to astound me with its biodiversity. We visited a batey in the southwest. Batey’s are small communities where agricultural workers live in close proximity. They spring up around sugar-cane, coffee and cacao plantations. Some bateys only have inhabitants during harvest time, while others have become permanent communities. Traditionally bateys were filled with migrant Haitian workers. But in many cases a lot of those migrant Haitians just stayed so that several generations later these bateys have become small communities of mostly Spanish-speaking people of Haitian descent. This was the case for the batey that we visited. The people in the bateys still subsist off of working on large agricultural plantations, and in the south this consists mostly of working in the sugar-cane fields. The culture and cuisine of the bateys have distinct Haitian influences. The most important food influences, to me at least, are the Haitian bread called biskwi, and the (often spicy) peanut butter called mamba. While in the southwest we also visited the town of Los Rios beside Lago Enriquillo, a salt lake approximately the size of Manhattan. Unfortunately for the farmers surrounding the lake, the lake’s water level keeps rising at a substantial rate engulfing dozens of acres of farmland each year. Deforestation in the Sierra de Neyba plays a large part in the rising water level. Fewer trees mean that the soil cannot absorb as much rainwater thus much more runoff ends up in the rivers that feed Lago Enriquillo. We also visited Los Guineos in the northeast where a fellow volunteer is working on a kayak tourism project on Laguna Limon, a large freshwater lake that occasionally overflows into the Atlantic Ocean just outside of Samaná Bay. From there we took a boat north across Samaná Bay to Samaná Peninsula and visited a few of the most beautiful beaches that I’ve ever seen.

After completing my service I also spent a few days in Haiti. It was very interesting to see the other side of the island. Here are some photos. The DR and Haiti have much shared history and geography, and yet they’ve turned out, so far, very differently. About 27 percent of the DR remains forested while Haiti has only about 1 percent forest cover. This has huge ramifications on things as far-ranging as soil erosion, amount of rainfall, soil quality, and hydroelectricity potential. In terms of development, even when accounting for all the damage caused by the 2010 earthquake, Haiti is a long way behind the Dominican Republic. This is even harder to understand when you realize that at the end of the eighteenth century Haiti was the richest colony in the Americas. Today it’s one of the poorest countries in the entire Western Hemisphere. I have been fascinated with the question of why the two countries, they share the same island after all, have turned out so differently. My visit was partly a continuation of my quest to understand how two countries on one island can have such distinct outcomes.

I didn’t really know what to expect when I signed up for Peace Corps. I knew that I’d be living in a foreign country for two years, and that was enough. But Peace Corps for me has been so much more than just 27 months on an exotic, unimaginably beautiful subtropical island. Like all unique experiences, it’s very difficult to put into words. If I had to pick one single most important thing that I’m taking away from Peace Corps, I would probably choose the perspective on life that it’s given me. Being part of a close-knit community for two years not only taught me about cross-cultural relations, but it also taught me a lot about how communities in general function. The world is big and very complex, much more so than most people believe. What makes perfect sense to you might make no sense at all to someone from a different culture, and like it or not, that’s just the way it is. Open-mindedness, patience, and adaptability are some of the most crucial skills in surviving and working in a foreign culture. Some cultural differences are fun, some are quaint and amusing, and some are just plain infuriating. But, for the most part, they are almost impossible to change. But it's amazing how much more sense all of the differences make when,through living their lifestyle, you try to see the world through the eyes of people from a foreign culture.

Peace Corps has taught me to value friendship more. It has taught me that individuals, as opposed to their environment, can often be the limiting factor in trying to achieve their dreams. I deal better with failure. I can relax more when things are out of my control.

As sad as I am to leave I will not miss LOUD music (I’m pretty sure that I’ve experienced hearing loss), the it-will-eventually-happen attitude which makes everything take 10 times as long as it should, blatant animal and child abuse, the culture of procrastination, and lack of waste management.

I will however miss neighbor kids who pop in to visit at any hour, the view from our kitchen window, the freedom to take siestas almost whenever I want, colmados, free lunch at any doña’s house when I visit over noontime, the culture of sharing, Peace Corps friends, public transport that can take you anywhere in the country, and just generally La Gran Libertad of this crazy island where pretty much everything goes.

It has truly been an incredible life-changing adventure. Thanks for sharing it with us.


-Leon

A Caribbean Winter

I uploaded a few more photos of our place and what we've been doing these days.

Winter has come to my part of the Caribbean. Peace Corps didn’t tell me (who knew then that I’d live in the mountains?) to bring a coat. I have a couple of sweaters that I put on all at one time, but it’s still kind of chilly. I don’t know what the temperature is, but my hands get numb when I’m sitting around reading or writing. The last two days it’s been raining so our only recourse has been to crawl under the covers. Earlier in the week, as you can see from the pictures, the weather was just gorgeous for hiking. The sun was slightly warm but the air stayed nippy. If I procrastinate bathing until after the sun goes down, as I usually do, it brings back memories of Pennsylvania winter-baths as a kid in our farmhouse’s unheated bathroom. Only there you had hot running water and you could run to the stove afterward.

Granted it’s not cold enough to see my breath, but I have one bucket of warm water to dump over myself while a breeze wafts through the latrine threatening to blow out the candle. It’s a chilly and uninviting bath. Sometimes I just skip the bath all together. It’s easier that way.

A week ago we took four kids from our communities to a national Brigada Verde conference. I think the conference was a big hit for all the jovenes (youth) that attended. Recall that Brigade Verde is a Dominican youth club focused on environmental issues. It felt strange towing four teenagers five hours across the country for a weekend conference. But I feel strange doing a lot of things here, meaning that if there’s one thing that Peace Corps (and living in a foreign culture does well, it’s stretching your comfort level. In college I was pretty uncomfortable just talking in front of a group, let alone talking in front of a group in a foreign language. Here that seems laughable. Last month when we participated in the tree planting project the local news station interviewed us about what we are doing in the area. I don’t have TV so I don’t know if it actually made the final cut for the air or not. But it was just another day in Peace Corps. Some days later Anna and I were laughing about the fact that if that had happened in the States we would probably have been like, “Woot, woot! We’re on TV!” But here so many new and strange (at least strange to us) things seem to happen almost every day that you just don’t really have time to process them all. Strange becomes normal. Which means that returning to life in the Stated in two years will seem rather mundane. Unless of course I’ll be used to this strangeness which will make American habits seem strange and so I’ll be in for another stimulating ride.

Some fun experiences:
Anna is sitting on a bus chatting with the cobrador (the fare-man) about where to get off and a man sitting directly behind her says to the cobrador, “Oh, so you speak English?” The cobrador says that no isn’t it obvious that they are speaking in Spanish and the passenger just looks confused, even though he could clearly overhear the entire conversation. Various volunteers have remarked on a tendency in some Dominicans to find it so incredulous that an Americano/a should be speaking Spanish that they literally don’t understand what you’re saying because they are so sure that what’s coming out of your mouth is English (or some other foreign language).

I know two Haitian Creole words. Bonswa is good afternoon and Bonjou is good morning. One day several weeks ago I am walking along the road and here comes a neighbor of mine on his motor bike with a Haitian worker on the back. He stops his bike and yells Leo! Leo! These guys speak the same language as you! I tried to explain that we actually don’t, but he was not to be discouraged and kept repeating, “Talk to him! Talk to him!” So I did. I said, “Bonswa," and shook the Haitian coffee picker’s hand. Of course the Haitian loved this because so few Dominicans (if any) bother to learn Creole. His face lit up in a big smile and he vigorously returned the handshake. My neighbor was ecstatic. He jumped up and down and shouted, “See, I told you!” Then he excitedly points to a group of Haitian workers coming down the road and tells me to talk to them as well. I shook hands all around with a hearty Bonswa for all as my Dominican neighbor cheered loudly. I never did correct him. Last week when I showed up at the school for an English class the professor said, “Ai Leo! I hear you’re speaking some Haitian Creole.” What could I do but shrug and smile?