jueves, 10 de abril de 2008

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.