Celebrando el Cibao 2009

If you remember from last year, I helped organize a diversity and leadership conference for youth in my region of the DR. This year, I was a co-coordinator, and the conference was a big success. Thank you for all who helped make it so by donating online at the Peace Corps website.

This year, we held the conference at a center in a mountain valley by the River Yaque, where we were able to take the participants one afternoon. We were lucky enough to have representatives from the synagogue and mosque in the capital, as well as a Haitian immigration activist, speak to the youth. Fellow international volunteers from Korea visited our conference, and we held an “around-the-world” fair with music and displays from over 20 countries designed by Volunteers and their youth. We also created an activity for the youth to understand a little more about America through the lens of the Volunteers – since after all, we are representatives of America, we are something of a microcosm of American society.

Although the conference lasted just three days, we managed to pack in as much as possible. The conference is an opportunity for us to talk to our youth about topics rarely discussed in school, at home, or in society – the existence of minority religious and cultural communities, the treatment of those with disability and disease, and the entrenched web of money and privilege which these youth can see, but are implicitly left out of.

Cooking and Improving Lives

Just because I’m not an environment or health Volunteer doesn’t mean I can’t do evironment or health-related work. Which is why I am now in the middle of the biggest project of my Peace Corps service.
About a year ago, I floated the idea of a wood-burning stove-building project, one of the central themes of the environment sector. What most people in the campo cook on is called a fogón – three large stones or cinderblocks as three sides to a square, set upon a table. The fourth side is left open in which to put firewood. Above the stones/bricks usually sits a length of rebar to complete the square on which to sit a large pot. These fogones are usually situated in poorly ventilated outdoor kitchens, which can fill with smoke during cooking. The stoves that are built as part of the project have an interior area to insert the firewood so as to increase efficiency (meaning that the heat produced by the burning firewood does not escape into the air but is directed into the cooking pots); these stoves also use considerably less firewood. The stoves also include a key addition: a chimney. The smoke is pulled up through the chimney and let out into the air above the kitchen. Those cooking (almost always women) therefore do not have to worry about various smoke-related problems, such as lung and eye irritations. Of course, the more the family uses this stove, the less they use the stovetop, which many families have, and thus don’t have to purchase the cooking gas.
The stoves intrigued my community partners and neighbors. We wrote a grant proposal and six long months later I received a check for $124,875 Dominican pesos, or about $3658 through SPA, or Small Project Assistance, grant available to Peace Corps Volunteers. I received the check in May, and immediately began working on the project. I opened a bank account, spent time at the hardware store, and talked to families interested in participating. One of the points I stressed in this project was that the stove was not a handout – I required each family to pay RD$800 towards the project, which mostly went to the labor. The family also had to provide breakfast and lunch, as well as someone to help the stove-builders, as well as attend a stove use and maintenance meeting. Before beginning construction, I hired a woman who builds these stoves professionally to come to my community to teach my abañil (mason) how to make the stove. He now is an expert himself.

By my modest measures, the project is a success. Through today, I have built 18, and have eight more to go. There were many more families who wanted to participate than there were stoves I could build under my budget. People from surrounding campos, and even the pueblo, hear of the project and have come to see these fascinating stoves for themselves. It is always nice to hear people tell me that I will be remembered for bringing such a wonderful project to Las Aromas. Although this is nice, I never really wanted to be a construction volunteer – the stereotypical American or foreign aid worker dropping in, building something, and leaving. I won’t be remembered for courses I taught to the youth, or attitudes I might have changed, but because 26 homes will have three-feet-cubed cinderblock boxes in their homes on which the families boil dinner. Such is the nature of the Volunteer experience. Even if in ten years I am only remembered as the American who lived in a tiny village for two years and built some stoves, at least I know I helped a few women live healthier lives, which they could then better use to improve the lives of their children and families.

Working within the System

As I have mentioned in the past, one of the projects I have been working on is a water system, or aqueduct, for my village. There was once running water here for some houses, but as the numbers of users increase, us at the end of the line have suffered immensely. Also, when the local government came to “repave” (read: put a few more rocks in the dirt) the road a few years back, they tore up many a pipe. Needless to say, there is not running water anymore. So, last February, I began to work with a local NGO backed by an important public figure who, in my opinion, holds a strong desire to hold office in the future. As of now, he keeps busy by being a powerful force on the provincial level and in his Cabinet office. He also promised to back my project, especially relevant since he has taken an interest in Peace Corps Volunteers and it generally falls under his purview.

Well, 15 months later, we have a hard-earned well and not much else. If you remember, last August while I was in the States, some people from a governmental water agency came to drill the well but as they were to begin drilling the drill fell on a worker’s foot, severing it. They left pretty quickly and I never heard from them again.


In January, I finally got in touch with someone at another governmental water agency. I suppose the other one didn’t want to take up the job (although oddly, the foreman of the team that later showed up was the same man as the one last year). So in March, they showed up almost without warning (they called the night before to suggest that they would come the following day) with an absurdly rusted machine mounted on the back of a truck. Of course, the truck got stuck in a ditch the first night, and we had to call the mayor’s office to bring us another truck to tow it out. It took the team two weeks and two tries to build the 60-foot well. On the first try, the well exploded and caught fire, because of “gas” in the ground. I was suspicious, but I rarely suspend disbelief these days.

Through today, we have had no other progress in receiving a pump to actually use the water, let alone build a holding tank, or put in pipes. I must also stress that I am simplifying the story. Nearly every day for a year, I have made phone calls to these water agencies and the local NGO to get an update on progress or to ask various questions. On the rare occasions I get through to someone, the evasive answers I receive would be comical if not for their inanity. All I can do now is laugh at the situation. Building a well-based water system like this seems like it is done with relative frequency here and without much difficulty - or so I thought. Yet the lack of action (at least in my view) of the key contacts is frustrating. The water agency wanted to charge an outrageous fee to do surveying for the pipes that could only conceivably have been paid by political figure, and my community is caught in the middle. The politicization of the aqueduct has also posed difficulties. I do not want to and cannot be associated with any party or politician, but as I am using government resources and have the backing of the most visible local politician, this has proved almost impossible. Needless to say, it has been an exercise in patience and fortitude, and I have found myself out of shape.

Still, as they did end up building the well itself, I have hope. My neighbors like to say that hope is the last thing that you lose, and though my suspicions run deep, hope remains.

May it stay that way.

I have four months left and continue to be cautiously optimistic about the ability to begin construction on the system by the time I leave. Vamo’ a vei, as they say (“we’ll see” - in a rural Dominican accent).

I am different

I am Different

First, OK, sorry I don’t update this thing more often. I’ve been busy, or lazy, or both. I’ll try to write more – no guarantees.
Warning: I am going to extract a bit of hyperbole from this story, but bear with me. I think it is at least very telling.
The other I was walking around the nearby town (“town” meaning paved streets, market, ice cream shop) with two other volunteers, both female, in the late afternoon. We passed a gleaming new bar/liquor store. As I have written, the normal drinking establishments are of a low-key environment – big, open-air space, cheap beer, huge speakers. This place was none of that. It was small, sleek, fully enclosed, and highly air-conditioned (a rarity in any commercial establishment). It had a selection of alcohol seen only in big supermarkets in the major cities. It was clear that the location catered to a certain, specific clientele.
As we passed by the bar we noticed video cameras and some smartly dressed people milling about inside. A man wearing a brilliant red shirt opened the door and invited us inside. We were intrigued, so we accepted the invitation. We recognized a group of four guys who were clearly being fawned over as a merengue band (Sin Fronteras) whose posters were plastered up all over the town advertising an upcoming concert. A number of people came up to us, introduced themselves, and proffered free drinks (Ron Barceló – better than Brugal). We had apparently stumbled into a TV and radio interview of the band while also clearly being a promotion for the new bar. The only people inside the bar were with the media, the band, or the bar. Other people continued to pass by and were not invited inside. Sure, the three of us were dressed nicely for a meeting we had attended that day, so maybe that was part of is. But why where we let in and not others?
In the end we decided, only half-jokingly, that half the reason we were invited in was because we were clearly American (i.e., white), and most of the rest was because we were good-looking, but half of the attractiveness factor came from the fact that we were American and had a good female-male ratio. I know that if I had been walking around with friends from the campo, we would never have been invited inside. If I had been in the States in similar circumstances, I wouldn’t have been invited inside.
So why does it matter? It is a fun little story, a nice bit of adventure and excitement for us who struggle against apathy and disillusionment in our work. But we received acknowledgement there not because of what we do or even who we were, but what we looked like and what those appearances represented.
This is one of the two-faced coins aspects of the Peace Corps experience. Being American, we are inherently different, are treated as such (i.e., better), and become accustomed to such privileged treatment. But we also live nearly completely integrated into Dominican society. It is a difficult balancing act that we must always confront in our work and lifestyle as Volunteers.