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.

Pico Duarte

The tallest mountain outside of the Rockies-Andes chain sits right here in the DR – Pico Duarte. At 3,087 meters, over 10,000 feet, Pico Duarte towers at the center of Hispaniola and the Cordillera Central, or central mountain range, of the DR and Haiti. Begging to be conquered, Pico Duarte has received intrepid PCV trekkers as long as we have been on the island. Climbing this mountain is requisite as one of those activities to be accomplished before close of service. Early spring is supposed to be, and usually is, a drier time of the year, and so four PCVs, a Stateside visitor and I took the bait and climbed Pico Duarte last weekend. We choose the shortest and most populous route, beginning at a small mountain valley village called La Ciénaga. There, we picked up our guides (a middle-aged man, who was recently a host father to an area PCV, and his 13-year-old son), mules (one pregnant) and provisions and set on our way.
Being not the especially outdoorsy type, I lacked the necessary tools for the hike. Luckily for me, my fellow hikers were more prepared, or at least thought that cold weather was possible here. And as it is really, really tall, Pico Duarte is cold. Really, quite cold. Such that I live in a sea level valley on a tropical island, I own here one sweatshirt and a jacket with holes that I have used only during hurricanes and a few times in December-January. So, having good and sensible friends, I was lent some sensibly warm clothing and sleeping gear.

The first day, we left in good spirits, as the trail starts off warm, wide and flat. By the time we stopped for serious calorie intake, however, the wind turned chilly, the sky gray, and my stomach rumbled. Hopped up on peanut butter, we set off again. The gray sky lowered itself over us, bringing stinging drizzle and ankle-deep mud. This was certainly the coldest I’d ever been in coutry. No matter. At 5 p.m. we arrived at the campsite, having climbed 1300 meters. Exhausted and freezing, we found that we were sharing a large camping lodge with eleven Norwegians who live in Cabarete and were studying physical education and an American couple on honeymoon who had met in the DR.

The next day, we set out early and with sun. The campsite sits only five kilometers away and 600 meters below the actual peak. We reached the summit by ten a.m. to a stunning view of the surrounding mountain range and imminent rainclouds. On the very top rose a bust of Duarte himself and a slightly tattered Dominican flag with a number of fading plaques below deeming it a place of import and proclaiming international friendship.


Sure enough, it was raining by the time we arrived back at the campsite. In the afternoon, a sort of international incident transpired between the Americans and Norwegians when one group apparently took firewood, a limited resource, from another group’s pile. Nasty glances ensued and each party went to bed on separate sides of the room.

The next morning, the Norwegians took their leave early as yours truly spent some quality time in the conveniently located bathroom (use purification tablets next time). We made it down the mountain by mid-afternoon in a soaking rain. Muddy, exhausted, and highly pleased with ourselves, our party of six finished hiking 2000 meters in altitude and 23 km in distance, each way, and with time to spare for a little celebratory Brugal.

Holidays

Before starting: I have a new place for my pictures on the Internet, on my Picasa site.
As I have written here before, holidays are very significant, and very common, in the DR. Holidays, regardless of origin, import, level of sacredness or impiousness, all tend to mean the same thing here – the kids are home from school, work of any kid grinds to a halt, and alcohol consumption increases, often exponentially. Equate them with Sundays, minus the whole church thing (usually). Since I like to put my own twist on things, last week I celebrated two holidays I enjoy that are celebrated by but a few people on this populated island: Purim and St. Patrick’s Day.
Purim, for those not in the know (or of the Tribe) is a Jewish holiday poetically simple in its founding – the Jews of Persia, in danger of being massacred by fiat of the king’s evil advisor, were saved by the recently chosen queen, herself Jewish, and her clever and sincere uncle. Jews across the world celebrate once again cheating death by the skin of their teeth (see: Hanukah, Passover) with a party that includes storytelling and general merriment. In the case of Santo Domingo, another Jewish Volunteer and I went to the new Jewish Chabad House, where we were among the small but functional international Dominican Jewish scene, speaking a confusing and yet comforting cacophony of Hebrew, Spanish and English. In addition to traditional Purim food, we were surprised to find that dinner consisted of, yes, Kosher Chinese food. Leave it to us to have Kosher Chinese for Purim in the DR. A good evening, indeed.

As for St, Patrick’s Day, well, that was a different story, but with a few similar themes. First, I have always found the similarities between the DR and Ireland compelling – Catholic and populous, they share a small island with another nation that differ in language, religion, culture, and history, and have been overrun by their neighbor. Sure, the DR has taken its just desserts and more out on Haiti, and Ireland is just recently raising its Celtic Tiger head, but still. Anyway, St, Patrick’s Day is celebrated by a select few here in the DR (although there were far more people at this party than at the one for Purim). In Cabarete, a crowded tourist beach town on the North Coast, a bar, aptly and certainly creatively named José O’Shay’s and very popular with Volunteers, hosts a raging St. Patrick’s Day party right on the beach. They have green giveaways (though, disappointingly, no green beer), a parade led by the Irish flag, Irish dancing, and of course bagpipes. Sure, you might say, bagpipes are Scottish; but on this side of the Atlantic, it’s all the same. Being the good cultural Ambassadors that we are, a number of us volunteers headed up to Cabarete to participate in the best, and as far as I know, only St. Patrick’s Day celelbration on the island. We were not disappointed. The beer flowed, painfully fake Irish brogues were bandied about, and we all enjoyed the day at a decidedly non-Irish coast.

Juan Pablo Duarte

A couple of weeks ago, after a hike up to the top of the tallest peak in the eastern half of northernmost mountain range in the DR (incidentally, in the pouring rain, which turned out to be a bad idea when I got sick after), I made my way into San Francisco de Macoris, the third-largest city in the DR. Famous mostly for having a lot of drug money and former US-based mid-level dealers running around, it is actually a pretty nice city, with modern conveniences like parks with wireless in which I would never sit outside with my computer open. It also has my favorite restaurant in the country with the best passion fruit (chinola) frozen margaritas I’ve ever had.

Anyway, I happened by San Francisco de Macoris on January 25, or Día de Duarte. Duarte is like Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, FDR, MLK, and Michael Jackson all rolled into one. That big. San Francisco also happens to be the seat of Duarte Province. Duarte Day, as I have pointed out on other occasions, is like many other Dominican holidays, in which principle activities include not going to work, not going to school, and drinking or at the least, hours spent at the colmado. I managed to arrive in the city just in time to see that the President was speaking, on what a great man Duarte was. His inspirational oratory was followed by an equally inspired parade. Various parts of the Dominican armed forces marched by, followed by some bands, flag-waving children, firefighters, teachers, more bands, the local professional baseball team (Giants) that had lost the Dominican version of the World Series the previous evening, guys on stilts, and a series of tableaus of Duarte’s life in which solitary guys painted in all white stood on banner-strewn floats pushed by orange-clad part-time national guardsmen. Quite a sight.

More on Duarte. He was one of the three “founding fathers” who fought against the Spanish in the war of independence in 1844 (Note that this is 20+ years after most of Latin America achieved its independence from Spain. These guys were a little slow on the ball). The other two are named Sánchez and Mella, and are all but forgotten. Sure, they pop up every so often, but it is Duarte who takes the cake. Duarte appears everywhere – the one real highway is called Duarte, as are the main streets and central parks and plazas in most cities. Duarte generously lends his name to schools, hospitals, community groups, and many other public spaces and buildings. Like many other Dominicans, Duarte even made it to New York – there is a thirteen-foot statue in his likeness towers on Canal Street. Moral of the story: Duarte is a big deal.
One of the pictures is of the professional baseball team in town (called the Giants) who marched in the parade after losing the completely lopsided and controversy-laden Dominican version of the World Series. No matter, they were still well-received. The other is of firefighters with sledgehammers (?), whom I have never seen in action in my time in country.