I met a young twenty-something boy in my community the other day who is fresh from spending several months in Milwaukee. I think he plans to go back again after coffee harvest. I, of course, asked him what he thought of life in Neuba Yol (the Dominican version of the Spanish word Nueva York for New York). Dominicans commonly use the term New York instead of the US. Apparently over fifty percent of Dominicans who live abroad live in New York. This has made New York synonymous with the US which is an endless source of merriment and also frustration for those of us who really aren’t from New York and would like to represent our own state. Anyway, back to my story.
In response to my question the boy in the yellow t-shirt smiled kind of funny and said, “ It’s great and all over there, but you just don’t have La Gran Libertad, which roughly translates as The Great Liberty. I was puzzled. Aren’t we after all the country that tries to promote freedom above all else? We seem to give freedom precedence over reason, safety and health. And what could be more free than that? Consumerist America generally doesn’t like rules against consuming anything, even when it comes to environmentally-degrading plastic bags, killer fast-food, or lumbering one-passenger SUVs that consume about as much gas as a small Cessna. For better or for worse, we have a lot of freedom.
“What do you mean by La Gran Libertad? I asked, clearly puzzled. It was really hard for him to articulate exactly why it is that los Americanos are missing out on La Gran Libertad. He seemed to think it was a lot the atmosphere of the place, that it was lacking in the spirit of the people. I tried to get him to be more specific. It turns out this boy missed having neighbors who greeted him by name every morning as he went by their houses on the way to work. Lunch wasn’t a one or two hour affair with neighbors and friends stopping by. He worked at the Milwaukee airport so lunch was probably a 30 minute ham-and-cheese event in a small cafeteria smelling of old food. Where’s the freedom if the rice and beans are missing? Also his job was work work from morning to evening, not being able to take a long break to chat with whichever friend happened to be walking by. In the evening he went back to his house and no one asked him how his day was. As he came riding down the street revving his bike engine (obviously he didn’t even have a moto which is where the lack of freedom starts) he didn’t have friends yelling ¡Wepa! ¿Cómo tu tá? or ¿Cómo te fue? while they pumped their raised fist in salute. He couldn’t just walk a few minutes down the street to the nearest colmado to meet his friends for a super fria. According to him people work all the time. No one knows each other. When you walk down the street everyone is a stranger and it’s not obvious that any one you meet really cares about you. People always seem to be rushing somewhere, anywhere but where they are.
He said he’s planning to go back to work in the airport again, but he’s not very excited about leaving his small community where everyone knows him and shares in his day.
It was a thought-provoking conversation for me. Dominicans in general place a high value on friends and spending time with them even though the Dominican culture as a whole definitely values consumerism as much as mainstream American culture does. Dominicans (at least the ones in my community), like most Americans, love acquiring material goods. I think the problem arises when a culture tends to do nothing but scurry about working to acquire things. La Gran Libertad, if I understood my friend correctly, is (among other things) knowing when to slow down and enjoy what you’ve got with those around you. Americans might have a lot of freedom, but take it from a Dominicano who knows, it’s not near as much fun as La Gran Libertad.
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
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?
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?
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Tropical DepressionTomas in the time of Cholera
First a few photos of what we've been doing. I promise more photos later.
I’m writing this from a hotel in Santo Domingo. Peace Corps, fearing the current swirling tropical depression in the Caribbean will open up a can of hurricane on the DR, has ordered all the volunteers in the south of the country to congregate in hotels in various big cities. Basically they want us all in a few key spots in case they decide to evacuate is. I’m closest to the capitol, so I’m here. The staff is painfully slow at handing out our room keys; I’ve been waiting almost two hours. It’s just another Peace Corps moment, sitting on the floor in the lobby of a hotel that charges $10 a day just for internet access (my house rent in comparison is $15 a month). We will be stuck in the hotel here until the storm goes away. At this point it looks like we will be here until the coming weekend. Although I miss my site, I’m not complaining. I’m only a 20 minute walk away from the Peace Corps office where I can find free internet. The hotel has a fabulous restaurant where we get all the food we can eat three times a day. And no, they don’t even serve boiled green bananas. They do have made-to-order omelets, lots of fresh fruit, yummy chocolate-brownie ice cream, and fresh bread with real butter (the kind that actually requires refrigeration). I’m now sitting outside under a warm hurricane-gray sky beside palm trees and a huge, blue pool. Yes, I’m in Peace Corps.
Last week we were also ordered to appear in the capitol for cholera training. Given the cholera epidemic in Haiti, it’s pretty much guaranteed that cholera will spread throughout the DR. The DR’s water supply system is almost identical to that of Haiti’s. The majority of rural people’s water supply comes from untreated (as in un-chlorinated) aqueducts or rivers. And all the country’s sewers (aside of properly built pit or composting latrines) run directly into the Atlantic, the Caribbean, or underground aquifers. We can only hope that it’s not a bad epidemic. Well hope, and then also train people how to minimize cholera transmission. It’s been decades since this country has seen cholera and the public doesn’t know what it is or how to deal with it. Many call it “the Haitian disease” and volunteers living near the border report seeing Dominicans refusing to get on buses with Haitians. So our current job is to teach our communities that it’s a bacteria that’s only spread when fecal-contaminated food, fingers, or water enter one’s mouth. Symptoms are explosive diarrhea and vomiting and can kill (from dehydration) a child in a few hours and an adult in a day. Treatment is as simple as taking lots of re-hydration solutions along with an antibiotic. With proper treatment less than one percent of infected people die, but if you don’t know what to do , you most likely die.
So we’ve been in our site over five months. I know I’ve posted about a lot of different things going on here but you may be wondering by now what it is that we actually work. For starters Peace Corps usually doesn’t expect that volunteers do that many projects in their first three months. This time is mostly devoted to getting to know the community, identifying their needs, and developing project plans. Our communities demonstrated a need for help with constructing latrines and improved cook stoves. The improved cook stoves use less wood than traditional stoves (which are essentially open fires) and just as importantly feature chimneys so that the women, who spend a big part of their day in the kitchen, are not constantly breathing in smoke. So we are currently waiting for grant money for both of those projects. I am also filling out another grant to help with the latrine project. This grant gets filled through private donors (like you) visiting the Peace Corps website and donating funds. Once Peace Corps gets the information online I’ll post the link here in case you are interested in monetarily supporting the project.
Between the two of us we also have three Brigade Verde (Green Brigade) youth groups. Basically we meet weekly with the groups and give environmentally themed presentations. The basic idea is to train these kids to be environmentally responsible. Two weeks ago a foundation Juventud Naturaleza (Nature Youth) brought a bunch of people out from Ocoa to participate in a tree-planting project in my community. They invited me and I invited my Brigada Verde group. My kids loved it. In the course of a Sunday morning everyone together planted about 3,000 pine trees. I hope to be able to use the foundation to organize similar projects that my Brigade Verde kids can participate in.
We have also had meetings about dealing with trash in our communities. There is no trash pickup so most people just throw their trash in the gutter or over a bank. Most of it soon winds up out of sight in the weeds giving the feeling it’s gone away. But when their great-grandchildren come along the trash will still be there. So working alongside a few more forward-thinking people in our communities we are trying to find a few strategic plots of land where we can dig a hole and place the trash. Basically it would be a micro-landfill. That’s the dream, but so far no one has been willing to put up the land. If we can find land, then we still have to convince the majority of the people that it’s worth their time putting their trash into sacks or cans and bringing it to the dump spot. It will be a patience-challenging project.
We are also currently trying to organize a reforestation project with the farmers. The DR government provides free hardwood and timber trees in various nurseries located around the country. Basically farmers request the amount of trees they want and we visit the nursery and make sure the trees are available and bug the mayor to provide the trucks to transport the trees. The last month the nurseries have been giving me the run-around. The local nursery told me that I have to go to Ocoa, the province capitol, where the director has her office. After a rather long and frustrating meeting with her she told me that I have to go back and talk to my local nursery. You would think that a government-funded nursery would be more than happy to find someone who wants to work in reforestation. While the nursery leaders say they want to work with me, it’s becoming increasingly clear that their lack of clarity and participation is going to make the project twice as hard as I had first imagined.
I also give English class once a week. It’s been progressing quite slowly because we really only have class half the time since it either rains a lot or I have to leave for the capitol to do things like attend cholera training or hole up in a posh hotel waiting out a hurricane. It doesn’t help that hardly any of the students actually study outside of class either. But it’s fun. It’s really mostly an excuse to have a good time.
So that’s a summary of our current projects. Well Peace Corps officials are here to give us hurricane updates. And then maybe I’ll spend the afternoon basking in the sun and swimming in the pool. Wish me luck.
I’m writing this from a hotel in Santo Domingo. Peace Corps, fearing the current swirling tropical depression in the Caribbean will open up a can of hurricane on the DR, has ordered all the volunteers in the south of the country to congregate in hotels in various big cities. Basically they want us all in a few key spots in case they decide to evacuate is. I’m closest to the capitol, so I’m here. The staff is painfully slow at handing out our room keys; I’ve been waiting almost two hours. It’s just another Peace Corps moment, sitting on the floor in the lobby of a hotel that charges $10 a day just for internet access (my house rent in comparison is $15 a month). We will be stuck in the hotel here until the storm goes away. At this point it looks like we will be here until the coming weekend. Although I miss my site, I’m not complaining. I’m only a 20 minute walk away from the Peace Corps office where I can find free internet. The hotel has a fabulous restaurant where we get all the food we can eat three times a day. And no, they don’t even serve boiled green bananas. They do have made-to-order omelets, lots of fresh fruit, yummy chocolate-brownie ice cream, and fresh bread with real butter (the kind that actually requires refrigeration). I’m now sitting outside under a warm hurricane-gray sky beside palm trees and a huge, blue pool. Yes, I’m in Peace Corps.
Last week we were also ordered to appear in the capitol for cholera training. Given the cholera epidemic in Haiti, it’s pretty much guaranteed that cholera will spread throughout the DR. The DR’s water supply system is almost identical to that of Haiti’s. The majority of rural people’s water supply comes from untreated (as in un-chlorinated) aqueducts or rivers. And all the country’s sewers (aside of properly built pit or composting latrines) run directly into the Atlantic, the Caribbean, or underground aquifers. We can only hope that it’s not a bad epidemic. Well hope, and then also train people how to minimize cholera transmission. It’s been decades since this country has seen cholera and the public doesn’t know what it is or how to deal with it. Many call it “the Haitian disease” and volunteers living near the border report seeing Dominicans refusing to get on buses with Haitians. So our current job is to teach our communities that it’s a bacteria that’s only spread when fecal-contaminated food, fingers, or water enter one’s mouth. Symptoms are explosive diarrhea and vomiting and can kill (from dehydration) a child in a few hours and an adult in a day. Treatment is as simple as taking lots of re-hydration solutions along with an antibiotic. With proper treatment less than one percent of infected people die, but if you don’t know what to do , you most likely die.
So we’ve been in our site over five months. I know I’ve posted about a lot of different things going on here but you may be wondering by now what it is that we actually work. For starters Peace Corps usually doesn’t expect that volunteers do that many projects in their first three months. This time is mostly devoted to getting to know the community, identifying their needs, and developing project plans. Our communities demonstrated a need for help with constructing latrines and improved cook stoves. The improved cook stoves use less wood than traditional stoves (which are essentially open fires) and just as importantly feature chimneys so that the women, who spend a big part of their day in the kitchen, are not constantly breathing in smoke. So we are currently waiting for grant money for both of those projects. I am also filling out another grant to help with the latrine project. This grant gets filled through private donors (like you) visiting the Peace Corps website and donating funds. Once Peace Corps gets the information online I’ll post the link here in case you are interested in monetarily supporting the project.
Between the two of us we also have three Brigade Verde (Green Brigade) youth groups. Basically we meet weekly with the groups and give environmentally themed presentations. The basic idea is to train these kids to be environmentally responsible. Two weeks ago a foundation Juventud Naturaleza (Nature Youth) brought a bunch of people out from Ocoa to participate in a tree-planting project in my community. They invited me and I invited my Brigada Verde group. My kids loved it. In the course of a Sunday morning everyone together planted about 3,000 pine trees. I hope to be able to use the foundation to organize similar projects that my Brigade Verde kids can participate in.
We have also had meetings about dealing with trash in our communities. There is no trash pickup so most people just throw their trash in the gutter or over a bank. Most of it soon winds up out of sight in the weeds giving the feeling it’s gone away. But when their great-grandchildren come along the trash will still be there. So working alongside a few more forward-thinking people in our communities we are trying to find a few strategic plots of land where we can dig a hole and place the trash. Basically it would be a micro-landfill. That’s the dream, but so far no one has been willing to put up the land. If we can find land, then we still have to convince the majority of the people that it’s worth their time putting their trash into sacks or cans and bringing it to the dump spot. It will be a patience-challenging project.
We are also currently trying to organize a reforestation project with the farmers. The DR government provides free hardwood and timber trees in various nurseries located around the country. Basically farmers request the amount of trees they want and we visit the nursery and make sure the trees are available and bug the mayor to provide the trucks to transport the trees. The last month the nurseries have been giving me the run-around. The local nursery told me that I have to go to Ocoa, the province capitol, where the director has her office. After a rather long and frustrating meeting with her she told me that I have to go back and talk to my local nursery. You would think that a government-funded nursery would be more than happy to find someone who wants to work in reforestation. While the nursery leaders say they want to work with me, it’s becoming increasingly clear that their lack of clarity and participation is going to make the project twice as hard as I had first imagined.
I also give English class once a week. It’s been progressing quite slowly because we really only have class half the time since it either rains a lot or I have to leave for the capitol to do things like attend cholera training or hole up in a posh hotel waiting out a hurricane. It doesn’t help that hardly any of the students actually study outside of class either. But it’s fun. It’s really mostly an excuse to have a good time.
So that’s a summary of our current projects. Well Peace Corps officials are here to give us hurricane updates. And then maybe I’ll spend the afternoon basking in the sun and swimming in the pool. Wish me luck.
Sunday, October 17, 2010
A Day In My Life
The other day my mom asked me just what it is that I do here in the mountains. I answered that for starters I play with my cat.
Seriously though, here’s a description of one of my days, and it’s a pretty good description of what my life here is like. At least in the sense that a day is usually measured not by how many things I get done, but if I actually accomplish the one thing I set out to do.
Last week one day we planned to go visit a farmer who lives in my community to talk to him about planting trees on his property. My community is an hour’s very fast walk from our house which is in Anna’s community. About half of my community’s houses are clustered together just on this side of a river. The other half of the community is stretched out along the river’s far side. From the river crossing it takes another 30 minutes of very fast walking downriver to reach to the last of the houses, which is where the farmer lives that we wanted to visit.
Well my day begins around 7 with lots of yawning and a purring kitten jumping around and attacking me. Without getting out of bed I can tell that it’s another overcast day. On sunny mornings the light beams in like weirdly flattened headlights through the cracks in the rotting palm boards, but this morning the cracks are only bored gray lines. During a breakfast of oatmeal pancakes and peanut butter we look out to the mountain across the river where clouds keep meeting and rushing away again in important little swirls. By 8, talking all the while and constantly getting up from breakfast to get a better look at the sky, we have pretty much decided to still go even though the entire sky is now gray. By 8:30 we’re not going because the clouds are even darker. By 9 I’ve spotted some blue patches and feeling very restless I decide I’m going to go anyway, by myself. By 9:30 I’ve convinced Anna that the sky is blue above the sooty clouds and we are off. We manage to catch a ride as far as the river. There is no bridge. The one narrow foot crossing consists of a 12 inch-wide log. Horses can cross farther downstream and occasionally, when it’s very dry, trucks can ford a low crossing.
We head downriver, whistling merrily as we splash though the mud (it had rained a lot the previous day). After about 15 minutes of walking a heavy downpour splashes out of the loaded clouds. It only then becomes clear that I no longer have my umbrella (I left it at a colmado, which is like a little Dominican general/convenience/grocery store). I run, with my backpack over my head, to the nearest house a few hundred yards ahead. The family members are all sprawled under a gallery of sorts in their plastic chairs watching the rain go by, but as soon as they see me they jump up. As I make the cover of the roof they politely push me into the chair and introduce themselves. I had never met them before but we pass a very pleasant 20 minutes waiting for the rain to dissipate. As soon as it does so Anna and I head on through the squishy mud, which is only deeper now.
We get to our farmer-friend’s house just in time to avoid getting drenched. This downpour lasts over 30 minutes. Meanwhile we talk trees, bees, and peppers and farmer-friend gives us a grenadillo (a fruit), some peppers, and a bottle of fresh honey to take home. We explain to him what types of trees the government’s nursery has and he orders about 500 trees to start. The Dominican government gives out free hardwood trees to whoever wants to plant them. The catch is you have to find your own transport (not many people have trucks) and you have to wade through sometimes complicated procedures and hard-to-understand nursery mangers to get the trees. We are basically trying to organize the whole shebang of helping local farmers to plant as many trees as possible.
So about as soon as the rain let up we decided we should head back up river. We had carried along cheese, tomatoes, bread, avocado, salt, and peanuts to have a small picnic lunch. We found a jutting rock right where a tumbling stream crashes down out of the mountains to join the river. I had just finished my first amazingly delectable sandwich when the threatening cloud-thunder made true on its threats and peso-sized raindrops pelted down. We quickly threw everything into our pack and Anne whipped out her umbrella. Just then a wild-looking barefoot mountain man came down the path. I really have no idea where he came from, or where he was going for that matter. I, still umbrella-less, was helping Anna (I had on sandals) step from rock to rock to cross the bubbling stream, thinking only about getting to the nearest house when this long-haired old man in banana-stained clothes came striding by. He had yellowish, tattered mid-calf-length pants on which hung his machete, and his shirt hung halfway open. His face was rather obscured by a wild bushy beard. He saluted and disappeared ghost-like into the rain while ear-deafening thunder cracked repeatedly overhead. (The thunder here really is loud enough to be legitimately scary). It was a rather surreal moment, to say the least.
The rain let up just as I reached the nearest house, which happened to be the same one where I took shelter before. So, damp to the bone, I continued walking. About 15 minutes later we took shelter from a shower at another house for a few minutes. By the time we reached the river water was already splashing across the crossing-log. This particular log is actually tied fast to a tree because high water washes it out of place so often. When the water goes down they put the log back in place. At this point it was no longer raining, but we were tired from walking so we sat around at a colmado waiting for a truck heading in the direction of our house. After over an hour of waiting it had begun raining again and it was now obvious that there would be no more trucks that afternoon. So we started out into the rain. Thankfully by now someone had loaned me an umbrella.
By the time we reach the first stream-crossing the rain has stopped for good, but the steam is swollen to a several times its normal size. I pull up my pant legs above my knees and start across. The water is so high and fast that I still get my pant legs wet and it almost knocks me over but I manage to stagger across. Then while Anna is debating on how to cross, several people on horseback appear from a small trail on my side of the stream. The lady says to me, “I’ll go help her across on my horse.” One of the men turns to her, scowling. “Don’t be an idiot, she doesn’t know how to get on a horse.” After a bit of convincing they believe me that Anna does indeed know how to mount a horse and one of the men on a mule gingerly crosses the roiling stream and gives her a lift across. When Anna jumps up on the mule, obviously an expert, the Thomas who had at first doubted her now cheers and shouts, “Oh look, she can mount a horse better than I can!”
We walk on, feet covered in mud. At the next stream I again dubiously cross it and survive. Anna is debating when along comes a motorbike and swishes her across. At the next stream she has to take of her shoes and wade it, but thankfully two cute little girls point us to the shallowest crossing. After several more steep hills we finally get back to our shack. By now it’s close to six and we still have to make supper and heat up water for a bath.
It took all day, but the farmer (on top of giving us free honey and peppers) signed up for our reforestation project . As days go here, this was a pretty successful one.
Seriously though, here’s a description of one of my days, and it’s a pretty good description of what my life here is like. At least in the sense that a day is usually measured not by how many things I get done, but if I actually accomplish the one thing I set out to do.
Last week one day we planned to go visit a farmer who lives in my community to talk to him about planting trees on his property. My community is an hour’s very fast walk from our house which is in Anna’s community. About half of my community’s houses are clustered together just on this side of a river. The other half of the community is stretched out along the river’s far side. From the river crossing it takes another 30 minutes of very fast walking downriver to reach to the last of the houses, which is where the farmer lives that we wanted to visit.
Well my day begins around 7 with lots of yawning and a purring kitten jumping around and attacking me. Without getting out of bed I can tell that it’s another overcast day. On sunny mornings the light beams in like weirdly flattened headlights through the cracks in the rotting palm boards, but this morning the cracks are only bored gray lines. During a breakfast of oatmeal pancakes and peanut butter we look out to the mountain across the river where clouds keep meeting and rushing away again in important little swirls. By 8, talking all the while and constantly getting up from breakfast to get a better look at the sky, we have pretty much decided to still go even though the entire sky is now gray. By 8:30 we’re not going because the clouds are even darker. By 9 I’ve spotted some blue patches and feeling very restless I decide I’m going to go anyway, by myself. By 9:30 I’ve convinced Anna that the sky is blue above the sooty clouds and we are off. We manage to catch a ride as far as the river. There is no bridge. The one narrow foot crossing consists of a 12 inch-wide log. Horses can cross farther downstream and occasionally, when it’s very dry, trucks can ford a low crossing.
We head downriver, whistling merrily as we splash though the mud (it had rained a lot the previous day). After about 15 minutes of walking a heavy downpour splashes out of the loaded clouds. It only then becomes clear that I no longer have my umbrella (I left it at a colmado, which is like a little Dominican general/convenience/grocery store). I run, with my backpack over my head, to the nearest house a few hundred yards ahead. The family members are all sprawled under a gallery of sorts in their plastic chairs watching the rain go by, but as soon as they see me they jump up. As I make the cover of the roof they politely push me into the chair and introduce themselves. I had never met them before but we pass a very pleasant 20 minutes waiting for the rain to dissipate. As soon as it does so Anna and I head on through the squishy mud, which is only deeper now.
We get to our farmer-friend’s house just in time to avoid getting drenched. This downpour lasts over 30 minutes. Meanwhile we talk trees, bees, and peppers and farmer-friend gives us a grenadillo (a fruit), some peppers, and a bottle of fresh honey to take home. We explain to him what types of trees the government’s nursery has and he orders about 500 trees to start. The Dominican government gives out free hardwood trees to whoever wants to plant them. The catch is you have to find your own transport (not many people have trucks) and you have to wade through sometimes complicated procedures and hard-to-understand nursery mangers to get the trees. We are basically trying to organize the whole shebang of helping local farmers to plant as many trees as possible.
So about as soon as the rain let up we decided we should head back up river. We had carried along cheese, tomatoes, bread, avocado, salt, and peanuts to have a small picnic lunch. We found a jutting rock right where a tumbling stream crashes down out of the mountains to join the river. I had just finished my first amazingly delectable sandwich when the threatening cloud-thunder made true on its threats and peso-sized raindrops pelted down. We quickly threw everything into our pack and Anne whipped out her umbrella. Just then a wild-looking barefoot mountain man came down the path. I really have no idea where he came from, or where he was going for that matter. I, still umbrella-less, was helping Anna (I had on sandals) step from rock to rock to cross the bubbling stream, thinking only about getting to the nearest house when this long-haired old man in banana-stained clothes came striding by. He had yellowish, tattered mid-calf-length pants on which hung his machete, and his shirt hung halfway open. His face was rather obscured by a wild bushy beard. He saluted and disappeared ghost-like into the rain while ear-deafening thunder cracked repeatedly overhead. (The thunder here really is loud enough to be legitimately scary). It was a rather surreal moment, to say the least.
The rain let up just as I reached the nearest house, which happened to be the same one where I took shelter before. So, damp to the bone, I continued walking. About 15 minutes later we took shelter from a shower at another house for a few minutes. By the time we reached the river water was already splashing across the crossing-log. This particular log is actually tied fast to a tree because high water washes it out of place so often. When the water goes down they put the log back in place. At this point it was no longer raining, but we were tired from walking so we sat around at a colmado waiting for a truck heading in the direction of our house. After over an hour of waiting it had begun raining again and it was now obvious that there would be no more trucks that afternoon. So we started out into the rain. Thankfully by now someone had loaned me an umbrella.
By the time we reach the first stream-crossing the rain has stopped for good, but the steam is swollen to a several times its normal size. I pull up my pant legs above my knees and start across. The water is so high and fast that I still get my pant legs wet and it almost knocks me over but I manage to stagger across. Then while Anna is debating on how to cross, several people on horseback appear from a small trail on my side of the stream. The lady says to me, “I’ll go help her across on my horse.” One of the men turns to her, scowling. “Don’t be an idiot, she doesn’t know how to get on a horse.” After a bit of convincing they believe me that Anna does indeed know how to mount a horse and one of the men on a mule gingerly crosses the roiling stream and gives her a lift across. When Anna jumps up on the mule, obviously an expert, the Thomas who had at first doubted her now cheers and shouts, “Oh look, she can mount a horse better than I can!”
We walk on, feet covered in mud. At the next stream I again dubiously cross it and survive. Anna is debating when along comes a motorbike and swishes her across. At the next stream she has to take of her shoes and wade it, but thankfully two cute little girls point us to the shallowest crossing. After several more steep hills we finally get back to our shack. By now it’s close to six and we still have to make supper and heat up water for a bath.
It took all day, but the farmer (on top of giving us free honey and peppers) signed up for our reforestation project . As days go here, this was a pretty successful one.
Somos Amigos
Last week Anna and I joined up with a medical mission to translate for a bunch of American doctors and other medical volunteers. The group is called Somos Amigos (which in Spanish is “We are friends”). Anna and I got to the hotel on Saturday afternoon around 2 and I hadn’t eaten anything all day except for two bananas and some crackers. We overslept in the morning so we rushed to the bus stop without breakfast only to end up waiting for two hours for the bus (which turned out to be only a pickup truck) to show up. I went to the hotel front desk and said Somos con somos amigos (We are with we are friends). The clerk smartly replied, “Oh, I didn’t know we were friends.” I just stared at her blankly and her laughter subsided. I looked at Anna, who repeated the joke, and slowly it dawned on me. But I was far too hungry to laugh so I just repeated my request for the room key.
I like to joke with people in my campo (the Dominican word for rural areas), but mostly I am the only one laughing. I am never quite sure if they don’t understand my Spanish or if the joke doesn’t translate culturally. Nevertheless I keep trying even though Anna has often suggested that I give up trying to make jokes to my neighbors. I think the receptionist’s joke was rather clever, but of course it figures that the one time a Dominican makes a joke I love (and can understand) I’m too sluggish to laugh.
Sunday we helped the doctors set up the clinic and then they saw patients from Monday through Thursday. Anna helped out in the pharmacy and in the dental clinic.. In a little rural village Somos Amigos has set up a real dental clinic where dentists can perform root canals and other rather painful (but extremely important) dental procedures. They also make a lot of dentures on site for people who have lost their teeth. It is an understatement to say that it was amazing to watch the dentists work and have them explain to us procedures such as root canals or denture making. Another PC volunteer actually got to assist on a root canal and helped out with multiple tooth extractions.
I was the personal translator and medical assistant for a pediatrician and had a fabulous time. Not only did I learn a lot of Spanish medical terms from translating, I learned a lot medically because the doctor was kind enough to explain a lot of her thought processes. It was an exhilarating job. A large number of Haitians also visited the clinic. At least half of them didn’t know Spanish. We only had one staff person who spoke both Haitian Creole and English and she did an amazing job trying to translate for everyone but there was no way she could keep up. So several times I found myself in a room with two Haitians. The one was the patient while the other translated from Creole to Spanish while I translated Spanish into English for the doctor.
It was an exciting week, quite the change from the slow pace of campo life. I don’t know the exact number of patients Somos Amigos was able to help but I’m sure it was in the hundreds, and they do this several time a year. In case you are interested, check out the Somos Amigos website. They are a non-profit organization supported entirely by individual donations of time, expertise, and money.
Not only did I greatly enjoy translating, working with patients, soaking up medical knowledge, and hanging out with everyone, I was immensely inspired by the doctors and other professionals who took time off from their busy lives and paid their own way to the DR to donate a week of hard work in a clinic. Cheers to you all!
I like to joke with people in my campo (the Dominican word for rural areas), but mostly I am the only one laughing. I am never quite sure if they don’t understand my Spanish or if the joke doesn’t translate culturally. Nevertheless I keep trying even though Anna has often suggested that I give up trying to make jokes to my neighbors. I think the receptionist’s joke was rather clever, but of course it figures that the one time a Dominican makes a joke I love (and can understand) I’m too sluggish to laugh.
Sunday we helped the doctors set up the clinic and then they saw patients from Monday through Thursday. Anna helped out in the pharmacy and in the dental clinic.. In a little rural village Somos Amigos has set up a real dental clinic where dentists can perform root canals and other rather painful (but extremely important) dental procedures. They also make a lot of dentures on site for people who have lost their teeth. It is an understatement to say that it was amazing to watch the dentists work and have them explain to us procedures such as root canals or denture making. Another PC volunteer actually got to assist on a root canal and helped out with multiple tooth extractions.
I was the personal translator and medical assistant for a pediatrician and had a fabulous time. Not only did I learn a lot of Spanish medical terms from translating, I learned a lot medically because the doctor was kind enough to explain a lot of her thought processes. It was an exhilarating job. A large number of Haitians also visited the clinic. At least half of them didn’t know Spanish. We only had one staff person who spoke both Haitian Creole and English and she did an amazing job trying to translate for everyone but there was no way she could keep up. So several times I found myself in a room with two Haitians. The one was the patient while the other translated from Creole to Spanish while I translated Spanish into English for the doctor.
It was an exciting week, quite the change from the slow pace of campo life. I don’t know the exact number of patients Somos Amigos was able to help but I’m sure it was in the hundreds, and they do this several time a year. In case you are interested, check out the Somos Amigos website. They are a non-profit organization supported entirely by individual donations of time, expertise, and money.
Not only did I greatly enjoy translating, working with patients, soaking up medical knowledge, and hanging out with everyone, I was immensely inspired by the doctors and other professionals who took time off from their busy lives and paid their own way to the DR to donate a week of hard work in a clinic. Cheers to you all!
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
High Technology
This Dominican mixture of extremely rural living mixed with what the Mennonites would call High Technology just gets weirder. Yesterday I wanted to make a kitty hole in our house wall for Schnickelfritz. I finished the hole (using only a flat screwdriver and a hammer) in under 10 minutes. And it's cute and perfect for when kitty gets the wanderlust. That piece of rotted wall seems so incongruous with the lovely solar panel perched above it.
Now today I am sitting at the local school, a 15 minute walk from my shack/house, connected to high-speed internet when we don't even have electric lines. Apparently the ministry of education gave all school directors a laptop and a wireless internet card (it runs off the cell phone network and is faster than some internet centers here). What the government didn't do is teach the teachers how to use this High Technology. So in exchange for computer and internet lessons the director here lets me use his wireless card. So hopefully I will have internet access at least once a week and hopefully sometimes oftener.
In other good news the mayor finally came through and today the township began grading our road for the first time since we've been here. Everyone is so excited that most men in the community are just out following the grader around and watching. There is a sort of jubilant ecstasy in the air that the grader has finally arrived. They can get more crops out faster. And they don't have to steer their motorcycles around foot-deep ruts. My question is what the community will talk about now. The road was so rutted and eroded that it was (and rightly so) a constant topic of conversation these past months.
We just (some weeks ago) discovered that a local family makes something akin to ricotta cheese. It's called boruga and the Dominicans eat it with lots of brown sugar. They let fresh cow milk turn into buttermilk and then dump off the buttermilk water into another container. Then they slowly add more milk to this buttermilk water and the boruga forms on top. I've never bought food with live cultures so cheaply before. I tried it the Dominican way with sugar and it's utterly repelling. We eat it salted with Anna's fabulous flat-bread and fresh peppers. I can't really describe how wonderful it is to have a fresh milk-product to eat regularly after so many months of cheese deprivation.
Now today I am sitting at the local school, a 15 minute walk from my shack/house, connected to high-speed internet when we don't even have electric lines. Apparently the ministry of education gave all school directors a laptop and a wireless internet card (it runs off the cell phone network and is faster than some internet centers here). What the government didn't do is teach the teachers how to use this High Technology. So in exchange for computer and internet lessons the director here lets me use his wireless card. So hopefully I will have internet access at least once a week and hopefully sometimes oftener.
In other good news the mayor finally came through and today the township began grading our road for the first time since we've been here. Everyone is so excited that most men in the community are just out following the grader around and watching. There is a sort of jubilant ecstasy in the air that the grader has finally arrived. They can get more crops out faster. And they don't have to steer their motorcycles around foot-deep ruts. My question is what the community will talk about now. The road was so rutted and eroded that it was (and rightly so) a constant topic of conversation these past months.
We just (some weeks ago) discovered that a local family makes something akin to ricotta cheese. It's called boruga and the Dominicans eat it with lots of brown sugar. They let fresh cow milk turn into buttermilk and then dump off the buttermilk water into another container. Then they slowly add more milk to this buttermilk water and the boruga forms on top. I've never bought food with live cultures so cheaply before. I tried it the Dominican way with sugar and it's utterly repelling. We eat it salted with Anna's fabulous flat-bread and fresh peppers. I can't really describe how wonderful it is to have a fresh milk-product to eat regularly after so many months of cheese deprivation.
Monday, September 13, 2010
Esa vaina amarilla
The following is written September 12.
I went to help my neighbor pick his first crop of peppers this past Saturday morning. As we were picking the other workers informed me that the ones that were already red couldn’t be sold since these peppers are for export. Of course I immediately said that I wanted them. No, no, they replied, the red ones are spicy. Well of course then I really wanted them as it’s always so difficult to find enough seasonings for our food here. Dominicans, at least the farmers, really prefer the blandness of plain white rice and boiled green bananas. And so it was that I had a bag full of spicy peppers to skip home with at lunch time.
Anna also succeeded in pickling some cucumbers, onions, and garlic. We of course just devoured them. But in a noble attempt to honor Peace Corps’ second goal we also sacrificially offered some to two schoolboys. They barely managed to swallow their bite of the pickle and we had to bribe them with some fresh banana bread (thanks Suzie Q. for the fabulous recipe) to get them to smile again.
This past week I gave the first English class for adults. Almost 20 people, the majority with no experience in English beyond random movie lines, showed up. How do you successfully teach any English to adults with no textbooks—we have no textbooks partly because I know practically no one will bother to study outside of class—for only one hour each week? Well they might not learn much by the end of two years, but they should at least be able to have more patience with my occasionally mangled Spanish. And I get to laugh at them instead of them always laughing at me. I also started helping out once a week in the 6th and 7th grade English class at school.
The educational system in this country is sometimes dismaying. The English teacher teaches from three pages of notes he took when he was in college. That notebook and a cheap 50-page English-conversation booklet form his English-teaching arsenal. He writes things on the board and the students copy it down. He also teaches French. I haven’t seen his books, but I’m hoping the fact that French is also a Romance languages helps at least a tiny bit. I’m not belittling the teacher for the textbooks or language knowledge he doesn’t have; I’m questioning the sanity of a ministry of education who prescribes two foreign language courses (without educating the teachers) to middle school students who are only in school four hours each day. What’s more important by the age of 16, being able to (barely) introduce yourself in French and English even though you can barely read in your native language not to mention doing the multiplication table, or being able to read and recite the multiplication table as if it were second nature although you don’t know a word of English or French. (Although if you are a true Dominican tiguere you will have learned “I love you baby!” without the help of any formal English classes.) Yes it looks good on nationwide curriculum requirements, but in the real world of the classroom (at least in my rural community) it just makes me sad.
Novels must be very lonely here. I can count on three fingers the number of Dominicans I have seen reading for what appeared to be pleasure. And one of those was a teenager reading a middle-school reading booklet. When the people in my community see me reading they say, “Oh you’re studying again.” And sometimes they’ll add, “My, but you work a lot.” I have given up trying to explain that I’m reading for fun. No, it’s not hard work to read. It’s relaxing. At least they think they have one hard-working volunteer. I’m assuming this dearth-of-reading, this death-of-the-novel type lifestyle is not so common in bigger towns and cities. For the sake of the Dominican cultural I can only hope so.
Schnickelfritz, our spoiled little kitty for which Anna sometimes makes a tiny salami-and-egg omelet, is growing like a fat yellow vegetable in a Dominican garden. For any of you that know Dominican slang, you will laugh to know that when our 7-year-old neighbor boy comes looking to pet Fritz he always asks, “Y dónde está esa vaina amarilla?”
Until next time.
I went to help my neighbor pick his first crop of peppers this past Saturday morning. As we were picking the other workers informed me that the ones that were already red couldn’t be sold since these peppers are for export. Of course I immediately said that I wanted them. No, no, they replied, the red ones are spicy. Well of course then I really wanted them as it’s always so difficult to find enough seasonings for our food here. Dominicans, at least the farmers, really prefer the blandness of plain white rice and boiled green bananas. And so it was that I had a bag full of spicy peppers to skip home with at lunch time.
Anna also succeeded in pickling some cucumbers, onions, and garlic. We of course just devoured them. But in a noble attempt to honor Peace Corps’ second goal we also sacrificially offered some to two schoolboys. They barely managed to swallow their bite of the pickle and we had to bribe them with some fresh banana bread (thanks Suzie Q. for the fabulous recipe) to get them to smile again.
This past week I gave the first English class for adults. Almost 20 people, the majority with no experience in English beyond random movie lines, showed up. How do you successfully teach any English to adults with no textbooks—we have no textbooks partly because I know practically no one will bother to study outside of class—for only one hour each week? Well they might not learn much by the end of two years, but they should at least be able to have more patience with my occasionally mangled Spanish. And I get to laugh at them instead of them always laughing at me. I also started helping out once a week in the 6th and 7th grade English class at school.
The educational system in this country is sometimes dismaying. The English teacher teaches from three pages of notes he took when he was in college. That notebook and a cheap 50-page English-conversation booklet form his English-teaching arsenal. He writes things on the board and the students copy it down. He also teaches French. I haven’t seen his books, but I’m hoping the fact that French is also a Romance languages helps at least a tiny bit. I’m not belittling the teacher for the textbooks or language knowledge he doesn’t have; I’m questioning the sanity of a ministry of education who prescribes two foreign language courses (without educating the teachers) to middle school students who are only in school four hours each day. What’s more important by the age of 16, being able to (barely) introduce yourself in French and English even though you can barely read in your native language not to mention doing the multiplication table, or being able to read and recite the multiplication table as if it were second nature although you don’t know a word of English or French. (Although if you are a true Dominican tiguere you will have learned “I love you baby!” without the help of any formal English classes.) Yes it looks good on nationwide curriculum requirements, but in the real world of the classroom (at least in my rural community) it just makes me sad.
Novels must be very lonely here. I can count on three fingers the number of Dominicans I have seen reading for what appeared to be pleasure. And one of those was a teenager reading a middle-school reading booklet. When the people in my community see me reading they say, “Oh you’re studying again.” And sometimes they’ll add, “My, but you work a lot.” I have given up trying to explain that I’m reading for fun. No, it’s not hard work to read. It’s relaxing. At least they think they have one hard-working volunteer. I’m assuming this dearth-of-reading, this death-of-the-novel type lifestyle is not so common in bigger towns and cities. For the sake of the Dominican cultural I can only hope so.
Schnickelfritz, our spoiled little kitty for which Anna sometimes makes a tiny salami-and-egg omelet, is growing like a fat yellow vegetable in a Dominican garden. For any of you that know Dominican slang, you will laugh to know that when our 7-year-old neighbor boy comes looking to pet Fritz he always asks, “Y dónde está esa vaina amarilla?”
Until next time.
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