Baseball

We went to a baseball game last week. They love baseball here. We went to a game in a city called San Francisco de Macoris, whose baseball team is called, get this, The Giants (Gigantes). They were playing one of the two teams from the capital called Leones de Escogido (Lions of the chosen one. I don't get it either). The other teams are the Aguilas/Eagles, of Santiago (my team), the Toros/Bulls (formerly known as the Azucareros, or Sugar farmers. Good name change) of La Romana, the other capital team called Tigres/Tigers de Licey (the city where the team used to be), and the Estrellas/Stars of San Pedro de Macoris.
Baseball here is great. The games are insane. After the Aguilas won last year, the street party in Samana, the city I was in at the time, was the biggest I have ever seen. People say that baseball is the DR's actual religion. I beg to differ, but I would say it is pretty close.

Feliz Navidad

Merry Christmas! What? It’s not Christmas today, you say? Well, it is here. Sort of. This is an unofficial tally, but I have gathered that Christmas runs from about December 1 to January 15, slightly more than the twelve days that we pretend that Christmas lasts in America (turtle doves?). These data figures come from indirect and direct observation, such as when my neighbor and the Brugal commercial tell me that “ya llegó la navidad.” Also, it has been raining here nonstop for over month, meaning that it is winter and thus Christmas. Rain, like magic, removes the average person from even remote responsibility for anything. Don’t leave your house: you might get wet. Given that the mode of transportation here is the motorcycle, this is likely. Still, a lost two months of productivity may make the economic situation here slightly more understandable. At least now it isn’t 100 degrees at noon and I only have to go to the buckets under the gutter to collect water, not to the river.

Back to Christmas. Sure, we all know that Christmas is December 25. They don’t even do that here. In the DR, the most important day is the 24th, which they call “noche buena,” or, good night. (To actually say “good night,” like to your roommate when you are going to bed, is “buenas noches.” Here, it is also used as a greeting when it is dark, like “good evening.”) The Good Night begins especially early, something around 9AM. By then, the pig is well on its way to being sufficienltly slaughtered and roasted on an open fire (something like chestnuts, but more hairy and with someone higher protein content). This means that it is time to drink, like most Dominican holidays (recall Corpus Christi day, Election Day, Patron Saint’s Day, etc.)

Why, then, does Christmas start the first of December? From the middle of November, I noticed a serious slowdown of work. By the beginning of this month, no one was showing up to meetings. Sure, some people still went to the pueblo to their jobs, but for those whose employment or other duties generally stay in the campo, its been over for awhile. It isn’t like anyone set a rule, or explicitly states that the meetings are cancelled, just no one shows. I noticed a general up tick in early and often attendance at the colmado for drinking/domino sessions.

Interestingly, most Dominicans receive “doble sueldo,” or double the salary, for December. This is akin to the holiday bonus, but is the rule rather than the exception. It has no basis in merit or accomplishments, it is just twice as much as is normally received. This means you can afford that pig to roast and the nifty bottle of white rum that fits in your pocket. Mmm. Warm.

Of course, New Years’ takes up a couple weeks, and then on January 6 falls Three Kings’ Day (look at all these fun things I learn about Catholicism being here), which is the day when presents are traditionally given, as opposed to Christmas itself. Then, at least another week or two is needed for some well-deserved recuperation after all those festivities. Soon enough, it is February, it has stopped raining, it is hot again, and Lent is upon us. The world begins to spin again.

Don't Worry, I Play a Doctor in the OR

In early November, I participated in one of the most highly coveted Peace Corps activities: the Medical Mission. Like Peace Corps gold. It works like this: a group of doctors, nurses and staff from an area (say, Kansas City) hospital or university come to perform a series of medical services here in the DR. A select group of Volunteers, then, are chosen to help the medical team in translation and other things. Since most of these services are performed on the poor, we are especially valuable since we live in those marginalized communities targeted by the missions, meaning that we better understand the rural accent and culture than someone who may have studied Spanish in say, Spain.

Why are med missions so great? We Volunteers get to travel to a nice medical center for a week (read: AC and decent food), have everything paid for, and even get taken out by the generous doctors if they are feeling kind. Plus, we are working. A win-win for sure.

The Med Mission I participated in was very specific – hernia surgeries. For a week, these doctors and nurses, with the invaluable help of the PCV, performed eight to ten hernia operations a day in each of the three operating rooms. It was fascinating. For anyone who has not been in an operating room, do it. Its cool. Scrubs are really comfortable, and all of that shiny medical equipment I’m not allowed to touch for fear I was going to contaminate them was mesmerizing.

Well, maybe I thought I was going to lose my boiled plantain breakfast the first day. After that, I got over the spurting blood (OK so that only happened once), the smell of burning skin (some sort of hot knife for cutting), and massive, and often open, testicles. Remember, hernias? These things range from kind of to fairly to very nasty, and our rural farmer friends lack basic medical care, so they go untreated for, well, a while. The center here in the DR has volunteers who go out into the rural areas to look for prospective patients, and then bring them in for operations. Needless to say, I got the opportunity to witness some things not often seen by anyone in the states.

Our everyday work here can be daunting and maddeningly slow. Seeing actual results is rare and fleeting. Sometimes it feels like I’ve been locked in a padded cell with no padding. Participating in the med mission is refreshing. We are able to see how our presence is appreciated. We are also able to fulfill one of Peace Corps 3 main goals: to bring home what it is that we do here as PCVs. The medical staff that gives up their vacation time and a week of pay gets to see the life of a PCV, and bring home stories of the crazy Volunteers that they have met. It is also an important reminder for us what it is that is going on at home – the economic crisis, the election (Republicans can be good people, too!), and the daily adventure of a suburban parent. Some of these things are as foreign to us as the rural villages in which we live to the doctors and nurses. Así es.

I’ve tried to post a few pictures here. Enjoy.

This time four years ago, I was on the front lines of the presidential election. For the months leading up to the elction, I was working with various organizations on registration and GOTV efforts – phone-banking, canvassing, whatever. Election night, I was in a hotel ballroom in Orlando, watching the returns come in, with hundreds of other election volunteers. By the time we had to board our plane back to Washington, DC at 2AM, we knew it was over. Our hard work, our valiant efforts, just weren’t enough. We went back to our normal lives as students, chafing under an administration that we were unable to change.

This time around, it was a little different. Four years later, I am in a different place. No longer a student, probably less idealistic, and certainly in no position to do any campaigning, I watched from afar as well as I could. I asked for email updates from friends and I checked the news whenever I was able to use the Internet.

Watching CNN from afar is fascinating. I happened to be at the Peace Corps office (where there is cable) when Sarah Palin was introduced to the world. The other Volunteers and I were intrigued. Who was this mysterious, folksy woman from Alaska? The only thing CNN seemed to be concerned with was that she has a pregnant teenage daughter. All news, all the time. Anyway, I was back at the office a week later and they were still talking about her. By then, I had found out a little about her. Could Americans be that dim? Thankfully, it looks like they came around.

What I found most interesting is that Dominicans have taken an interest in the election, even in my isolated village. I have not met one Republican Dominican. Every single one would vote for Obama if they had the chance. Maybe its because although they won’t admit it, they all secretly know that they’re actually black, and this is their outlet in acknowledging this fact. Or perhaps they are genuinely concerned for the state of the world (I am often told that the money spent on the Iraq war could be better spent otherwise, like helping the poor. I couldn’t have said it better). Dominicans would not caught dead calling themselves black (on the national identity card, there is a space for skin color. Every single one I have seen says “indio,” which in Dominican parlance, covers many shades of brown), so here was their chance. They readily called Obama black, or even “prieto” (really black), but with a tone of respect.

For election night this year, a few of us got together at a hostel with cable in a nearby city. We watched CNN, as I did four years ago, anxious but hopeful. This time, the room didn’t fall silent but erupted in cheers, and the only tears to be found were those of joy. All of the local news programs the next morning devoted thorough coverage to the election of the new presidente Americano negro.

Just as good was when I returned home. I have received congratulations from at least ten different families. When I walked into my host family’s house, my host mom’s face erupted into a huge smile and she hugged me, telling me that she and her family were so happy and very proud, and looking for a better next four years. The interest and reaction of my neighbors made not being in the States at least a little bit better. I, too, am happy and proud once again at what my country can produce.

The picture should be of my youth winning the business plan competition I wrote about awhile back, he is the one in the middle holding the small certificate.

Un Ano

aA year in the Peace Corps. One year ago, I arrived at my site for my first visit, although I did not swear in as a Volunteer until the next week. We say that the year has passed quickly, or at least it feels like it. But the things I have seen and accomplished in the past year are many, so I argue that this year was, in fact, very long. I hope that the next year is even longer, as I have even more to see, accomplish, and then conclude before I leave here in November, 2009.

It being around Thanksgiving time, let me step back and give thanks for some of what I have here. When I was home in August, it was nice not sweating waking up or having to battle tarantulas, but there was also something missing. I couldn’t go next door, be offered fresh papaya juice and play dominos or talk about life. Children didn’t wander barefoot into my house and they didn’t scream my name when I walked past. Although my mother might tell me differently, I’m just not as special in America as I am here. My neighbors truly care for me and for my work (most, anyway). They see me as an asset, and they are happy that I live and work with them. We enjoy the most basic aspects of life together – a brilliant moon, a smiling child, freshly cut sugarcane. Sure, they complain, and often with good right, as plenty is lacking here. They, however, also know how to value what they have, which I find inspiring. I have certainly learned just as much from them, if not more, as they have from me.

Another reason I am glad I am here is not having to worry about all this financial mess going on back home. Since I have a net worth of almost nothing, it hasn’t really affected me that much. This net worth isn’t growing very quickly with the money I receive here, although I just got a raise – I now earn five figures (in pesos). Of course, inflation here has recently gone up, so this new money is disappearing fast. At home in my campo (village), I spend almost nothing – rent is $12 (yes, dollars) and I pay my former host mom $30 a month to feed me lunch. Dinner last night was a 45-cent avocado with two pieces of ten cent bread. My neighbor makes ice cream in little plastic bags for eight cents, so I had a couple of those, too. The electricity here is unreliable at best, so the end product tends to resemble half-frozen sugared juice. Nevertheless, still delicious.

So, a year to go in the Peace Corps. Wish me luck. Sending me things would be nice, too.

It's Raining.

Whoa, hurricanes. Americans don’t think too much about hurricanes, unless we life around the Gulf of Mexico. For the rest of us, it is a bunch of funny sounding named (Olga? Wilma?) swirling colors far out in the ocean. Last year, the DR got pounded first by Noel in October, when it rained for seven straight days, and then by Olga in December, when a dam broke, resulting in numerous deaths and extensive property damage. Recently, we have taken hits from four storms in a row: Fay, Gustav, Hannah, and Ike. We were pretty lucky here, though our neighbors Haiti, Cuba, and the Bahamas didn’t catch a break.
Anyway, back to me. Back in August, when I was in the States, Fay moved past the DR. Then, the morning I got here, Peace Corps notified us about Gustav. We were put under “standfast,” which means that we are not allowed to leave whatever our current location is. The storm moved to our south, and did some pretty significant damage down there. Since I live up in the north, all we received was a little rain.
The next weekend, I went to Celebrando el Cibao, which I wrote about earlier, and then went to the capital on Monday for a meeting. As I was about to leave on Wednesday, we were informed that Hannah was coming, and so we were put under “standfast” again. Standfast in the capital isn’t that bad – we receive per diem, and get luxuries like the internet and AC that don’t happen too often (ie ever) where we live. Hannah was a little difficult – for a few days, instead of moving west it turned south and almost hit Haiti, before moving back north and west again. During Hannah, we watched Ike form – a massive Category 4 storm churning out in the Atlantic. Peace Corps was in crisis mode. At the end of Hannah, we were allowed to leave the capital, but the next day for Ike the Volunteers in my region were “consolidated.” This means that we all get together at a central, secure location. This location turned out to be a really nice hotel with a pool, tennis and basketball courts, a casino, great food, and most importantly, really sturdy walls. We were left there for four days. Things like these pose problems for us. We all have our work at home – youth meetings, building projects, English classes – that we obviously can’t attend to while we are at the hotel. We worry about our communities, and have trouble getting in touch. Sure, consolidation is great, but we have our lives we have to take care of outside of fun hotel jaunts. Our neighbors cannot figure out why we leave. If our neighbors stay, why don’t we? This is the hardest question to answer. We have to, we say. But we also are Americans, cared for by our government, and we can afford it. That’s just not they way it is for our neighbors.

When I got back, my neighbor had made a dessert called “toto de monja.” Ten points for someone who knows what this means, and then they get some.

Hey, look, diversity in the DR

Four days after I returned to the DR, I participated in a weekend conference of volunteers from the northern valley region of the country, called the Cibao. (Thank you to those who supported this conference from the States. All of us here are very appreciative.) The conference, focusing on diversity and aptly named Celebrando Cibao, brought together two youth from each volunteer’s community (there were about 25 of us) for three days of speakers, discussions, and interactive programs. You can imagine that when I first heard about the Celebrando conference, I was pretty pumped, as I dedicated a fair amount of time at college to such activities. This is the Peace Corps’ version of YLEAD. It didn’t turn out quite the same, but it was similar in spirit, which is the important part. Sure, there were some slip-ups and last-minute cancellations, but we got the message across, more or less.
Celebrando Cibao is an exceptional Peace Corps program – it is programmed and executed entirely by Volunteers, who must also obtain all the funding. This also means we are free to discuss the topics we deem important. A conference like this is also a chance for campo youth to get out of their little towns for a weekend and meet some new friends. Remember any kind of trip you went on as a kid, and multiply that by a high number. Most of the participants have never left their small towns except to go to school or visit relatives in the capital. The students that came with me have never been to the beach, less than three hours away by public transportation.
Planning a conference always makes doubters out of the organizers, but I know that the participants had an amazing time. The Volunteers led a range of informative discussions, including Dominican-Haitian relations, sexuality, religion, ability, and domestic geographical differences. My personal highlight, perhaps unsurprisingly, was an activity we coordinated called Archie Bunker’s Neighborhood, in which participants are unwittingly thrown into a class- and privilege-based social system and only realize this halfway through the activity. My goal was for the students to realize that no, not everyone is treated the same, and this happens in real life. They were able to extrapolate their experience to daily life in the DR. The youth, living in poor, isolated communities, were able to get the message. While some other issues they chose to ignore or to give hollow lip service (sexuality, racism), they understood class. It’s the small victories. Plus, they got to run around in the grass, a rarity here, and watch some of us Volunteers perform a uniquely choreographed dance that we came up with ourselves. Overall, a big success.

The pictures are of all of the participants, and then me and the youth from my community.

Los EEUU

America!
I went home for a couple weeks last month. Yeah, America was still there. I guess I had forgotten some of the things I like about it. Sure, its fun here. But flat-screen hi-def plasma TVs are fun too. So much detail. I went back to the grocery store and stood there, mouth open. There was so much stuff. Thousands of kinds of cheese. I wonder sometimes if it is all necessary. But then I see real Heinz ketchup, not the low-quality overly sweet stuff they call “catsoo.” I think the food is what really got me. There is so much good stuff here. Mexican, Thai, Chinese, its all amazing. Also, bagels. Bagels and lox. Nothing better. The visit went by too quickly, but I was able to get in a visit to Boston for my cousin’s wedding (mazel tov!), be around to celebrate my grandmother’s 80th birthday, and run around Washington, DC for a few days to finally see my name on the wall at the Tombs.
I had heard from other volunteers that coming back to a volunteer’s life was a difficult adjustment. After being in the States, with all of life’s luxuries, and even those simple things (electricity all the time?), it is hard to get back into things. At this one-year mark, which a few of us celebrated by going the beach and then me subsequently getting a double ear infection, we have to reassess what it is exactly that we are doing here. Are we accomplishing our goals, personally or work-related? Are we really that integrated in our communities? What are we actually doing here? Let’s not get started on sustainability. Right now we are just trying to accomplish something for ourselves, let alone the progress reports we are required to send in to prove that Peace Corps still deserves to receive federal funding. It does, of course, but not because we are saving the world. The stove we build that uses less wood, thus helping the environment, and has a chimney, so women don’t have to breathe in smoke five hours a day, is just as or more useful than a business presentation that will go right over the heads of its participants.
I got back to my site, then, expecting the worst, hoping for the best, and landing somewhere in the middle. Really, I guess, the best happened. It took me about a day, but I got right back into my routine. I remembered how much I appreciate what I do and what my community means to me. It definitely helped that my neighbors were thrilled to see me again and I got some free food as a welcome back gift. They know already the way to my heart. Hopefully a good omen for the rest of my service.

This is a beach relatively close to me (read: on the same island as I am)

The daily trials of a Volunteer

The Peace Corps here in the DR publishes a magazine three times a year, called the Gringo Grita ("grita" means something like scream or yell). In the last edition, which had a man-eating mango on the cover and featured pieces about relations between Haiti and the DR and among Peace Corps Volunteers and locals, I wrote a very personal piece about some medical difficulties and how I overcame them. Enjoy.

“Squish, squish,” said my stormy abdomen, churning gloriously. I winced.
“Crunch, whoosh,” it retorted. I winced again, and made a sad face.
“Squirt.” Oops.
That day’s conversation with my roiling innards was not any different than any other day for the three months following Thanksgiving. Through the smashing waves of New Years and project partner presentations of IST, I had been in constant state of disagreement with my digestive system. Perhaps, rather, it was in disagreement with me. Whatever the case, we were not on good terms. This problemita I had just would not go away. I was put on PCDR Medical cure-all, Gabbroral, twice, but to no avail. I consigned myself to twenty-seven months of internecine turmoil.
I realized it didn’t have to be like that. I could live an ordinary life, eating all the platano sancocha’o I could ever want. One quick call to Lisette gave me the key to potential normalcy. The Stool Sample. This was no small step. It had been offered to me before, but I was hesitant. Do my business in a cup? No thanks. I had heard from those who have had the pleasure that it was uncomfortable. I came to realize, however, that the ends justified the means. I would go through with the unpleasantries of The Stool Sample, as they were less of those than living with an internal Mount Vesuvius.
So, after I listened to my heart, I took the Caribe Tours – Arctic Express bus down to the capital for the poop procedure.
“Here you go,” Boriana said cheerily, handing over what looked to me like a cheap coffee cup in a wax-paper bag. “They don’t need that much, but try to get different bits in there for more complete test results. Also, the van to the clinic leaves the office at 7:30. If you miss that, you’ll have to take it there yourself.”
The luxe digs of Volunteers in Santo Domingo aren’t exactly the most comfortable for those with medical issues, which is probably why those poor kids get the one nice room, the Dengue Suite. Nevertheless, it being the capital, evening activities took their toll. I woke up well after the early morning pick-up. I would have to bring the sample to Clinica Abreu myself.
I walked out of room 14 and steeled myself. Wandering down the hall, I sipped a miniature plastic cup of water from the cooler, watched a bit of the mid-morning telenovela and the returned to the room. I was ready.
I removed the paper coffee cup from its protective bag and slipped into the bathroom, feeling at once terrified and strangely pleased. I positioned myself in a sort of half-lean over the toilet, and awkwardly placed the cup underneath me. I tried to heed the good words of Boriana, but it wasn’t that easy. It never is. The cup was situated slightly incorrectly – I missed and might have got my hand. Within seconds and way too soon, the cup overflowed. Splatter ensued. But I had done it. I was triumphant.
My euphoria fell, after thorough hand washing, when I realized I now had to traverse downtown Santo Domingo with a cup of my own poop in my hand. I needed help, and enlisted a fellow Volunteer to take this journey with me. By the time we had crossed Bolivar, she was walking ten feet behind me. I asked her why she was so far away. The smell, she told me. I guess I had not noticed it, or not wanted to. The wax-paper bag was not a terribly good protective barrier for the outside world from my malodorous offerings. Being of good heart, my travel companion stayed with me, even as I offended the general population with my wax-paper bag (Thanks, Joanna!).
We finally reached the clinic. I took a number, sat down, and put the treasure bag under my chair. According to the number display, I knew I was going to have to wait awhile. After settling in, I realized that of all the empty seats in the nearly full waiting room, the majority was right next to me. New patients seemed to strategically place themselves as far away from me as possible, putting on sour faces and suppressing giggles. My audibly gurgling intestines probably gave me away as the source of their olfactory discomfort, overcoming even my coy smile.
My number was finally called and the clerk beckoned me into the analysis room. I had heard that the sadistic nurses make patients scoop their own poop into the machines, but thankfully these nurses had eaten their viveres that morning and were fairly cheery. I did, however, get a killer look from the nurse who had the misfortune of opening my special container. I grinned. The pleasure was all mine.
I arrived back at site the next day. The call from the medical office reported that my test results had come back negative. As much as I thought I had very close special friends living with me, the tests found no amoeba, parasite or giardia. By then, however, it didn’t matter. I was feeling better already. I had pooped in a cup, and I was cured.

thoughts on our work

So I am going to try to write here more often. This means I’m writing now, and has no influence on how often I may or may not write in the future. This entry might be the last one ever. Likely not true, but you can never tell. Among the volunteers here in la RD, there are 6 areas of work, or sectors: Youth, Health, Education (Special Ed and IT), Environment, Water and Business. Generally, business volunteers like myself (yes, ironic that I was assigned to this sector, but where else was I supposed to go? Health?) are placed in campos, or small villages, but nothing especially isolated, since we are usually assigned an organization or institution with which to work. By nature, we can’t live in cut off villages with no resources, because they also would lack organizations. Although my campo seems pretty out there (it is one of the poorest in the province, but the province itself is fairly rich), it is only a seven-minute motorcycle ride to the nearest town, fifteen minutes to the provincial capital, and a two-hour AC bus ride to Santo Domingo. Last weekend, I visited a few Water volunteer friends. The task of the water volunteer is daunting – find a water source and then create a gravity-fed system of tubes to bring running water down to the particular village in which they live. Unsurprisingly, these are small, isolated mountain villages with tiny populations. Most lack electricity as well as water, in addition to other services such as transportation infrastructure, local schools, and cell phone service. The volunteers must raise all of the money through grants and other means (Peace Corps itself does not supply funding), and interestingly are often unable to find money from the local or national government. Perhaps most daunting of all is organizing local Dominicans as workers on the project. [Any project we do in our sites must include local participation. Our understanding of development begins with a foundation of willing local populations. To arrive at a site, implement projects without any local input and leave is not only inefficient and unproductive, but also insulting to local customs, values, and intelligence. That being said, we often spend time with local leaders in discourse about the value of said projects that we believe are of importance.] In these villages where water volunteers live, the majority of the population is unemployed, getting by on only a subsistence level. Thus organized, daily work based on time-specific goals can be somewhat foreign, and compound construction difficulties. Nevertheless, obtaining running water (often potable, because the sources are from mountaintop springs or streams) in these villages can vastly improve quality of life. Visiting this kind of site was like visiting a different country, just like it is every time I go to the capital. The disconnect between the capital and where I live is enormous, and is even more so with these places. Interestingly, it looks like I might be turning into something of a water volunteer, if only helping coordinate the digging of a few wells around here. The tap water here is dirty and unreliable, so many people get it from the polluted river, catch it from the roof when it rains, or pay for it to be delivered. I am hoping that with these wells, people, mostly women, will spend less time and money looking for water for their families. Incidentally, I have learned to shower with about 2/3 of a gallon of water. Next week, I will be heading home for a nice-sized vacation. You may find me sitting on my parents’ couch with the remote, marveling at how pretty the picture is on the television and astounded at how many channels there are. Until next time, whenever that is. Si Dios quiere.
Also including a picture, because they look nice on here. This is me at another volunteer's site hiking up a river.

July 4 and new house

July 4 in the DR. Peace Corps Volunteers. How do you envision this? I am curious to find out how things like this go in other countries. For us, we had a beach party. Fully half of the volunteers here took a bus 8 hours from the capital to the border with Haiti to a deserted beach in a national park called Bahia de las Aguilas (Eagle Bay). For the first time in known history, the park did not let volunteers spend the night at the beach. This is because it is turtle nesting season. You might say, well, don’t turtles nest at the same time every year? The answer is yes, but the park only decided to enforce its rules this year, possibly because of capacity building due to a volunteer being placed at the park. Still a good time, and absolutely beautiful.

I have finally moved into my new house. Specs: Tin roof, wooden walls, two bedrooms, living room, kitchen, no running water, latrine, two light bulbs, four windows (window means angled wooden slats), rickety gazebo, baths taken outside or at neighbor’s. I repainted the whole thing except the kitchen (which is white) bright blue, and the windows brown. I live with dozens of lizards, the occasional tarantula or cockroach, any number of spiders, and hundreds of mosquitoes. No rats. Visitors welcome.




When I was in Spain, people my age called each other “tío” and sometimes “tía.” Literally, uncle and aunt, this roughly translated as “dude.” Tío doesn’t fly here. Like “vale,” (meaning OK), it just confuses them, and I dropped the habit. But what to call my friends besides their names? This has been my quest since I got here, among others. I think that I have picked up on something, the terms “tipo” and “sujeto” and their feminine counterparts. Literally type and subject, they seem to roughly correlate to “guy/gal” and “dude/man.” “Tipo” is never used to call someone, just to refer to them. For example: “Este tipo estaba dando la muela a mi mujer, entonces le dí una galleta.” More or less meaning “This guy was hitting on my girl, so I hit him.” To call one another, people say “sujeto,” as in “Que lo que sujeto,” roughly “Whats up, dude.” All this is based on the four Dominican males my age who I hang out with; everyone else is over 40 with kids or 13. So they could have made all of this up.
Speaking of word choice, I’ve always been interested in place names. At home, they are all named after dead Indians or something nauseatingly bucolic. At least they sounded nice. Here, at least in my area, they tend to be much more literal. Many villages are nature-themed. My village and the neighboring one are both named after endemic trees, and there are other, more familiar fruit and tree names: Mahogany, The Almond Trees, The Limes, The Palm Trees, Fresh Mango, Coconut Number One and Coconut Number Two, among others. Water themes are also very popular: Coldwater, Headwater, Dry Stream, Beautiful Stream, Big Stream, Clear Canal and Little Lake. Other geographic features are often used, like Narrow Plain, Rock Heights, The Caves, Summit, Mountain Plain, and Inner Mountain. Agriculture is big here, so there are places called Ranch, Upper Ranch, Farm, St. Joseph of the Farm, Farmyard Hill, and Goat Heights. There are colors: Orange, The Blues, Upper White, Lower White, Middle White, and Little Whites. Finally, the self-explanatory and most interesting: Snake, Pleasure, and Death.

Elections, and other things

I’m not big on being sentimental. But it was nice otherwise to see my parents and my brother when they visited this month. It has been the longest I had gone without seeing my family – almost eight months. Except for seeing some cousins who went to a beach resort in January, this was the first time I saw anyone from home. I think it is essential that families of Peace Corps Volunteers visit them, if it is financially possible. Volunteers’ lives are vastly different from the ones they formerly led, and while they speak passionately about what they do on the phone and publish various pictures online, there is no substitute for understanding than through a visit. What does it actually mean that you eat this food every day, twice a day, half the time in the dark? How could anyone possibly do (fill in the blank with some foreign cultural activity)? Don’t you miss the internet? And toilets? Without a visit, we volunteers can just give you some great stories in a vacuum, without context. I can wax poetic, or complain up a storm, but it seems like fantasy. I think this is most pertinent with family, who tend to worry more than the kids with whom you drank at college, who know you are pretty tough when it comes to challenges.

On a different note, May 16 was election day. The incumbent, Leonel Fernandez, of the PLD (Dominican Liberation Party) was looking for a second consecutive term, and a third overall. He was in office 1996—2000, when he lost the election to the opposition Hipólito Mejía of the PRD (Dominican Revolutionary Party). Mejía presided over a miserable economic decline and rampant corruption. Some say the decline was caused by policies of Leonel, as he is affectionately called, but Leonel expertly pinned the blame on Mejía, and defeated him in 2004. Ironically, Mejía changed the constitution to allow for reelection, only to be defeated; now his opponent is using it to his own advantage.

Anyway, this recent election was fascinating. I arrived here in September, and even by then the campaigning was in full swing. posters were everywhere, and political commercials strangled the airwaves. Through baseball’s Winter League season, all of the commercials were baseball-themed. Candidates hit home runs while their opponents struck out. The crowd cheers wildly. I suppose they are not big on deep metaphors. This is supported by the commercial in which Leonel is a massive mountain, and his oppoenet, Miguel Vargas, is a punt egg that rolls across the screen, hits the Leonel Mountain, and breaks into a million insignificant little pieces. We all got that one. Inconspicuously, every conceivable government agency produced an overwhelming number of advertisements on all the incredible things that happen to have been accomplished in the past four years

The third party candidate, aptly named Amable (“friendly), shaped his campaign like so: arriving in a helicopter, blowing over someone’s trees, giving a firebrand speech (he claimed he was “Presidente de los Pobres”), and handing out chicken, sausage, and cash. Early polls indicated he was headed for 20% of the vote, but thankfully he ended up with just about 5%.

May 16 rolled around. The mood here was pretty tense, especially since staple prices have risen sharply of late. Dominicans celebrated the day like most other holidays: most people voted early, then return home to drink. Apparently it is a custom for women to vote very early to make sure they come home in time to cook lunch. Election monitoring is great here – members of each party descend on the polling places, claiming to be non-partisan but end up bullying voters and buying votes. My neighbor sold his for 600 pesos, or $18.

Leonel ended up winning 54% to 40 %. The opposition candidate conceded the same evening, even with scattered reports of irregularities. It is said that Leonel, whose party has a majority in the Legislature, is looking to amend the constitution to allow for a third consecutive term. Judges are all political appointments. Oh well. At least there wasn’t too much violence.

I really wanted to put up some ridiculous post on the first of April, but as you know sometimes things get in the way. Something like ethic conflict here resulted in our evacuation to Panama, or I got some exotic disease and am now in an isolation chamber, or I went to a party with the President and now he is building a hospital, school, installing running water, constructing a power plant and laying paved roads in my village instead of giving out salami and cash to voters. All of these are obviously false. But it would have been funny anyway.
Otherwise, life here is going as normal as possible here. Aside from a slight electrical fire (a power surge exploded my surge protector, which I do find slightly ironic) and some other assorted fun activities, its life as usual on the plantain farm. I am still living with my host family, but I am expecting to move out by the end of the month. This means much less awkward encounters when visitors come by for the evening.
I thought I should mention an interesting encounter I had the other weekend. On occasion, volunteers get together in Santiago, the second-largest city in the country, and my personal favorite city. Santo Domingo is dirty, hot, overcrowded and somewhat depressing. There is a house in the city with cheap beds where we are able to get together, a kind of haven from our sites when we get discouraged, tired or need a break. Anyway, there are a few Americans who also live in the city. One comes by on occasion to this house to hang out. He invited out another volunteer and I for the evening in his car. As volunteers whose evening excitement comes in terms of a game of dominos, a conversation with a neighbor, or perhaps even a beer, a night out in the city sounded great. Of course, we were dressed as all good volunteers are, in T-shirts and jeans in various states of disintegration, and Haviana flip-flops.
First, we went to a sleek sports bar. Sure, this doesn’t sound that thrilling, but a real bar, let alone a sports bar, is pretty much unheard of here. The bar stocked a wide variety of liquors, the vast majority I hadn’t seen since leaving the States. It even had a Jager machine, which I honestly didn’t know existed. I marveled at the bathroom, with marble tiles and an elegant free-standing sink. We left the bar to pick up two Dominican friends of the guy who took us out to go to a salsa concert. We drove north out of the city, up a hill to a fascinating neighborhood. Two-and three story houses, mansions really, stood back from the road. High, thick walls studded with iron bars surrounded each home, blocking their view from the road. BMWs and Mercedes drove past us in our modest Nissan. Out of the house walked two girls, looking like they just came from Paris or New York. Off we went to the concert. We drove a number of kilometers outside of the city, enough for the club to be accessible only to those with cars. A sparkling glass bridge spanned a fountain at its entrance. The cover charge was a third of the monthly income of my neighbors. We arrived at the club after midnight, but it was blinding inside – everyone was white. The clothes people were wearing inside were a far cry from my fading Gap shirt. Everything seemed to be taken out of a Brooks Brothers catalogue. Waiters carried boxes of Chivas Regal on shiny platters. I felt uncomfortable.
This is not to say there aren’t wealth disparities in any other developing country, or to deny its existence at home in the US. I think because I came from privilege, seeing wealth in the US was not especially shocking. Having called home a relatively poor and isolated community for several months now has transformed my perspective. Santiago has always been a city of money, as the seat of a productive agricultural valley. I do not deny those with money to live a life of comfort. The disparity, however, was disconcerting; and especially so when considered with the other, obvious and more upsetting factor: race. This is not a segregated society – there are poor people in my village who range widely in color, and there were a number of people of color in the club that night. But the overwhelming majority of the people there were white. Again, in a macro perspective, this is not surprising or novel; Dominicans, and many others, are preoccupied with race and therefore the attendant consequence on socioeconomic status is not a shock. A recent UN study declared that this country was racist relative to its treatment of Haitian immigrants. Volunteers here often speak on race and class here, as we (at least the white ones) are often told how lucky we are to be light-skinned and have “good” hair. But we are outsiders, and viewing this dichotomy within Dominican society itself was a poignant reminder of just one of the difficulties faced within this country in its struggle to progress in the 21st century.

Carnaval

“Carnaval.” What does this mean to you? Probably depraved debauchery in Rio. I’ve heard stories. Craziness, purely. Supposedly, the other Carnaval that big this side of the Mississippi is right here in the DR. “Really?” You say. “Indeed,” I reply. In Spanish. So they say anyway. Sometimes Dominicans are taken with exaggeration, like when they told me the day I got here that the highway is physically impossible to walk to from my house. It is, in fact, a fifteen minute walk; difficult in the sun, but certainly not out of the realm of the possible.
Anyway, every city and town has its own little Carnaval here in this country. Usually it’s a tame little parade, kind of like Memorial Day back at home, but the marching bands have guiros instead of flutes (or any woodwinds, for that matter) and the costumes are made of paper mache and they have crazy masks instead of tall, geeky hats. Well, one city doesn’t do just a parade. This city is La Vega. Similar to Las Vegas, only in the singular. La Vega apparently means plain. Alluvial plain, even. If there are any alluvials in Las Vegas, let me know, because last time I was there I don’t remember much, but I don’t think I saw any of those, unless they were on that cool roller coaster on the fake Empire State Building. La Vega is a large-ish agricultural town, not far from where I live, actually, with a shockingly ugly church lording over a nondescript city center park. Since we are mandated to culturally enlighten ourselves, (one of Peace Corp’s three main goals) we went down to La Vega for Carnaval a few weeks ago. (This was during Lent. Isn’t it supposed to be before? See how much I know of pagan ritual.) We managed to get ourselves a few drinks before entering the Carnaval area, where a surprisingly sophisticated rule of No Glass Allowed was in place. Inside was a pretty nice party. In La Vega, too, is a sort of parade, but they do away with all the niceties and small children. Every few minutes a band of similarly dressed guys (I assume – hard to tell through costume) walk down the street, costumes ablaze in an array of color, with masks of horns, six-inch teeth and huge eyes. All the costumes were kind of the same, just differing in color scheme and theme. My favorite theme, obviously, was the pirates.
The best part of Carnaval was not the costumes, however, nor the terrified-looking and completely out of place evangelical Christian teenagers from Ohio, nor the roving bands of cross-dressers. The best part was that each guy in costume wielded a kind of whip device, a rope tied to a nylon football-shaped sac filled with air or sand. Apparently, there used to be pig bladders at the end. Welcome to 21st century Carnaval, however. When the costume guys hit you with these things, they hurt. You get within five feet of any of them, and they hit you on the ass. Hard. One would be hard-pressed to find a battered-women’s shelter with more bruises than found at this place. I guess Carnaval is a location for us to (relatively) safely get out our sadomasochist tendencies. My neighbors told me after I got back that people use the costume get-up to get back at enemies, and kill people while in costume (and mask) so they can do so unseen by their victim. A bit hyperbolic to be sure, but I wouldn’t be terribly surprised if it has happened. So it came to be that Peace Corps Volunteers, innocently happening upon cultural activities, returned home unable to walk straight.
When I got back, my host family asked if it was worth it after I showed the bruises running across my butt and legs. I answered that I would most definitely be going back next year.

If I uploaded the picture right, it is me getting hit by one of those things at the time the picture is being taken.

tomorrow is february 29th

You know the saying, “like moths to a flame.”? Well, have you ever seen moths to a flame? I suppose its possible. But normally we just see moths to a light bulb, hopefully an energy-efficient one in these days of high gas prices. Here in the countryside, we use candles a lot. I’d say that we don’t have electricity after dark about 3 days a week. I’m pretty lucky though, since it will always come on by 10PM, and some of the other volunteers almost never have it at night. Anyway, when my host family and I sit around the table for dinner, or after dinner to talk, there is one light on in the house, which is the solitary candle in the middle of the table. Besides the gossip floating around the room and off the lips of my host mom, the house has its fair share of bugs floating around, too. Perhaps directed by our need for entertainment, they flock to the candle flame. The bugs zoom excitedly up to the flame, barely escape being burned, circle around again, and fly right into the candle. Usually it takes two or three time for the bugs to completely burn themselves to death. Sometimes the fall into the melted wax below, on fire, and get caught in the hot wax. The most fun comes when one wing has burned off, and the bug falls on the table. My host sister will stab the bug with a pencil, pick it up and hold it in the flame, until the thing is completely burned up. Such is campo entertainment.
Campo entertainment, unfortunately, also includes drinking. A fair amount of it as well. On any given day, especially as the day wears on, men of all ages gather in the street outside of the colmados (general store type things) and drink beer, rum and whiskey (the latter two straight from the bottle and warm… not especially pleasant). Pretty much the only jobs here are in agriculture. The entire place is essentially one big plantain farm. My host dad own the parcel behind his house, but he actually works it every day. I guess some of the other men in town give less importance to that and more to the more direct pleasure of the midafternoon buzz. I get offered alcohol pretty much every time I leave my house in the evening. It is hard to resist, especially a cold beer after another hot day under the Caribbean sun. So I usually take the beer. Warm whiskey, however, isn’t especially my thing, especially when half the population’s mouth has been on the bottle already. Así es la vida (such is life), they say here. I’m not a huge fan of this, either, since its pretty defeatist. I think that is why I haven’t been able to get too much done so far. Motivating people necessitates a cultural shift, which I didn’t get in training. Maybe I was sick that day.
Lets talk about me for a second. I haven’t written here in way too long. The first three months of being at my site is supposed to be taken up by a community diagnostic. Two weeks ago, I presented my findings in front of my colleagues and various bosses/trainers in a retreat center in the mountains that was an old home of Joaquin Balaguer, the dictator/”president” who came after Trujillo. I have both the powerpoint and word document if anyone is interested, just email me. Some pertinent findings: My little farming village (“campo”) has 110 houses and about 450 people. Almost half of the population is under 20. The majority of people have not made it out of primary school, though 30 percent of 20 year olds are in or have finished college. Most houses here are made of wood and have tin roofs, and the most popular occupation is farmer. I did interviews with 93 families. They told me the most important thing to them in the community was the church. Next was the school, and then electricity. They want me to develop the community so their children have a better future.
Now that I have finished my diagnostic, I now begin the phase of project implementation, which lasts until three months before I leave. I have some ideas of what I will do. I hope even just a couple of them succeed. This also signals the end of my class being the “newbies.” A new class just arrived, just as lost as we were six months ago. Welcome to the toughest job you’ll ever love.

feliz 2008

Feliz dos mil ocho, so they say here. Its been quite a ride these past few weeks, with many a fun event to share.

One of these things was go to a concert, to which they all referred as a fiesta. I now understand why. The artist, Zacarias Ferreira, a bachatero, has his music played pretty much all the time. The “Top 40” if you will, of this country is really like a “Top 5” and my amigo Zach is in the top three. So lets say late-90s Britney Spears, Jay-Z and Aerosmith, in one. This concert took place in a car wash. Here, car washes serve in the traditional sense during the day, and magically at night turn into raging discos, with crowds spilling out into the sud-filled parking lot, bumping and grinding against pickups and beaten-up four-doors. Zach decided to show up at 12:15 while the ticket said 10PM; this was no big surprise. The surprise was that the place was not full at all. I attribute this to the high ticket price – 500 pesos ($15 ish), which here is an exorbitant sum as an average monthly salary is, educated guess, around 4000 pesos. What I found fascinating is that the people there danced for those two hours on the dance floor to the DJ before Zach showed, then continued to dance while he played, and continued to the DJ when he left. There was no opener, curtain call, rows of seats. Just a dance floor, rum and speakers. I thought he was great, I think he should get more credit as a live performer.

Anyway, there were a couple more exciting things since I last wrote; namely, Christmas and New Years. Christmas here is something else. Pretty much the whole day I got trashed on rum with my host family’s massive extended family, and watched my host dad impale a 300 lb. pig with a 15 foot long, 4-in diameter branch, right from the anus through the mouth. Mmm. Lets start at the beginning. At around 8AM, I awoke to one of the worst noises known to man – the piercing, soul-shattering death squeals of a pig being slaughtered, preferably by hand. In this way, I knew Christmas had begun. Christmas here, by the way, means Dec 24, not the 25. The 25th is pretty unimportant. Being a Member of the Tribe, I know little about such things, but this I did find a bit odd. Thus awake, I went to the pig-killing site. When I arrived, my host dad, the death master, was pouring boiling water over the pig to more easily scrape off the pig’s mottled hair, which he did with the back of a machete. My host brother got the stuff host dad missed with a razor. This went on for quite awhile, until the pig was ready to be mounted on the spit above the fire pit, made in the backyard next to the coconut tree on which the goats are tethered. Host dad (named Aladino, but sadly lacking a magic carpet) then sliced open the gut, emptying the pig of its entrails. These were given to the women, who then dutifully washed and prepared this good stuff for later consumption. As I mentioned above, host dad, along with his brother, took this massive branch and shoved it clear through the pig, now consisting of just meat. This took a good deal of shoving, cursing (“carajo!” “Coño!” etc) and giggling from the visiting city cousins. My host dad has 10 siblings, so there were a lot of cousins. Two of the ones of my generation, 17 and 18, brought their infants, giving grandma great-grandkids.

Anyway, the pig was on the spit by 11, which signaled the commencement of the drinking. This meant purchasing a ridiculous amount of rum, to be drunk through the day. The pig sat on the spit, rotated by hand, for the rest of the day. In the afternoon, the skin getting nice and crispy, family members would walk by and tear off a piece of pig, chomping and grinning. I found this hysterical and disturbing, realized I was a bit tipsy, and decided to take a nice little rum nap before dinner. The rest of the day proved less eventful, save for a fight between a couple drunken uncles, which included such thrown projectiles as hard-boiled eggs, soggy vegetables from soup and boiled plantains. This, too, was hysterical and disturbing.

New Years was no less eventful, but certainly less culturally shocking. I went to Cabarete, a tourist town on the north coast, with about 60 other Peace Corps Volunteers. We spent the four days there pretending we were sophomores on spring break. I need not spell this out for anyone. Perhaps the highlight was the New Years’ midnight group skinny dip in the ocean, which apparently is illegal (who knew?). The police decided the best course of action was to take our clothes. Luckily, some more sober souls talked them out of permanently denuding the drunk Americans. The clothes got all mixed up in the process, however, and people ended up with all sorts of things that weren’t theirs. After about a half hour, I managed to find everything I wore to the beach, except for my boxers. These were apparently picked up and worn by a fellow volunteer’s boyfriend visiting from the states, who was so embarrassed that he avoided me the rest of the night once we figured it out. I swear, dude, we don’t do this all the time, and thanks for giving them back.

Until next time, si Dios quiere.