On my new normal

Hola! Today is my three week anniversary in country!!!

Last week (Thursday through Sunday), I ventured out of the capital and into the mountains to visit a current volunteer in a small rural village called Sabaneta. It is about 45 minutes away from a town called San Juan de la Maguana (where the current President Danilo Medina is from). Surprisingly, the DR has four mountain ranges (who knew!) and a pretty temperate climate in parts so it’s technically considered a subtropical climate – not the tropical beach vacation y’all probably had in mind when I told you I was headed to the DR. I digress. 

I had an awesome visit with a kick-ass young lady named Laura from Indiana. She’s a nurse, a cat-lover, motivated, dedicated, aplatanada (Dominicanized), and a bomb cook! I am very thankful for my visit and the awesome time I had visiting another region of the DR. Seeing her life made me more confident in the life I can and will lead here over the next two years. I saw first hand the true integration that Peace Corps volunteers are able to experience and the lasting impact that volunteers have on their communities. Laura was truly a part of her community and very well-respected by the families and women of the small community.

While visiting, I was able to take part in a women’s health group and see the ways in which she has connected her interests in health to the needs of the community. This was inspiring and left me confident and excited in what I will be able to accomplish with my own women’s groups. However, when I was in Sabaneta, we were supposed to make outdoor cook stoves for two families but the mason had to work on Saturday, making our efforts null and we couldn’t even start the projects. In addition to seeing the successes Laura has had in her community, I also watched the frustration and adaptability that a volunteer needs to have. Even though we couldn’t begin the cook stove construction, Laura was flexible and used the time to work on other projects, spend time with community members, and take us to waterfalls, caves, and lakes!

My visit to Sabaneta illustrated a serious need for me to keep an open-mind throughout my service. There are so many ways to become frustrated, be it when the culture seems misogynistic/racist/uneducated/poor/machismo or when I feel sick/homesick/frustrated/angry but in these moments, it will help to remember that I can learn from another culture, and that it’s not “better” or “worse,” just different. The Peace Corps has set high goals for us volunteers, including integrating fully into another culture and community, developing a plan for community organizing, impacting national policy and curriculum development, and mitigating the effects of poverty by realizing that being poor does not mean being sick/unhealthy. It’s a lofty set of goals, but seeing Laura one year into service showed me that these goals are actually possible to achieve...thank god!

Tomorrow, I am heading into the campo (rural village) for Community Based Training (CBT). We will be in the campo for five straight weeks, living with a new host family and training in a new center. I’m stoked! We will be building stoves, teaching and presenting health and nutrition to women and youth groups, gardening (!!!), and learning other technical health skills. It’s going to be a fabulous change of pace from the city living – which has regularly included being woken up at 6am by Evangelical preaching from subwoofers attached to trucks driving through the streets, never being able to fall asleep from the blaring reggaetone and merengue that reverberates throughout the neighborhood until 1am even on Sundays, and the poop, trash and sewage that seeps into the streets as I walk to class everyday. 

To me, most these things have started to seem normal, but it took me heading to the mountains to realize that this country actually is full of clean air, beautiful mountains, green rivers, agriculture, and a slower pace of life. As more strange things start to become “normal” to me here in the DR, I’ll take time to make a list and point ‘em out!

·      I eat almost six eggs a day (two for breakfast, one-ish on top of a salad at lunch, and two for dinner). Yikes cholesterol!

·      White bread has become one of my main food groups – (along with plantains, and did I mention eggs?)

·      My doña consider “a good meal” to be one with two loaves of white bread with margarine and salami inside

·      My host sister washes her hair every two weeks

·      I wash my hair every four and it’s considered "excessive"

·      We don’t have water to use for showering/cleaning/washing clothes right now

·      Frozen yogurt here is almost as good as fro-yo at BerryLine in the US

·      I hand wash my own underwear

·      I am considered “rubia” or “blonde/yellow” in skin color

·      The walls in my house don’t go all the way up to the ceiling

·      40% of Dominicans live on less than $2/day

·      Six huge jugs of clean drinking water (5 gallon jugs) costs $1, but many people in rural communities cannot afford to buy it

·      Coffee costs $0.40/cup

·      Gasoline costs more than $6/gallon

·      The DR has stricter and harsher laws for immigrants than the US

·      People don’t often talk positively (if at all) about rights for homosexuals

·      There is systemized and deliberate racism against Haitians

·      Teenage pregnancy rates here are exponentially higher than other Latin American countries

So now I’m off to the campo for five weeks and don’t know how reliable internet access will be. I’ll try to post a few times or just save my posts/picts for when I return! As always, send me updates and news and events in your life! Would love to hear from you.

I'm sending all my best - especially today on the anniversary of 9/11. 

On fitting people in guaguas

The title of this blog pertains to two types of ridiculously complicated public transportation here in the Dominican Republic. It’s been more than two weeks, and I’m nowhere closer to figuring it out.

First, you have your carro públicos (public cars) which are serious beater cars (think pre-airbag/no air conditioning/roll-up window/older than me type cars) that hold up to seven passengers and the driver. There are two in front and at least four in back, if not five or six (depending on size of the passengers). These carros run up and down popular roads and cost 75 cents no matter the distance you want to go. You’ve got to be careful with these, because there are plenty of pirate carros, which are places to scam and rob people. They’ve told us the way to ensure a legit carro is to check for the licensing sticker and make sure the top is painted green or yellow. Well, most of these dilapidated cars have let their official stickers fall or rust off, so it gets very confusing. My best bet is to see which ones look full and go with them. I’ve been told not to trust any type of public transportation that doesn’t have people piling out of its windows. Ahh...yes, sound advice.

Then you’ve got your guagua, or bus. Now don’t go thinking “school bus” or “charter bus” type buses...think “barely bigger than a mini-van” or maybe “15-seater” bus. And these buses fit more people than you can count on your (and 3 other peoples) hands. There are always five in the back and they call it the “cocina” or “kitchen” because it’s essentially an oven/roasting pit. Then each of the following four rows have at least 5-6 people across. Then there’s the 10 people that can stand basically on top of all the others sitting down and we haven’t even made it to the front where 4 people sit next to the driver and at least 10 more can pile in the entryway.

The best/worst part about these types of transportation is that you get to tell the driver where you want to get off, there are no official or recognized stops. Makes it hard to catch public transportation because you never really know if you’re on an actual car or bus route, it’s mostly just hope for the best and flag ‘em down. And when you happen to be in the very back of the bus and need to get out in the middle of the highway route and off a full bus, you scream up the bus “Dejáme donde pueda, conductor” or “Let me off wherever you can, driver.” Then you’ve got to crawl over 40 other people who are not getting off and it takes about 5 minutes. It’s a mess! But it works...somehow.

To fit all these people in said guagua and to charge them for the ride, there is a cobrador (person charging money) that accompanies the guagua and hangs out the door screaming the route on the highway and trying to get people to hop aboard. You’ll even hear the cobrador scream “Peguénse como anoche,” a crude phrase loosely translated to “Get together like you did last night” when trying to get more to fit into his lucrative little bus. Y por eso (And that’s why) the title of this post is aptly named for a saying here that goes, “you can always fit at least one more in a guagua.”

On my life in Pantoja, Santo Domingo

They say a pictures worth a thousand words. Well this one's for Ma and Pa who sometimes have a difficult time imagining what my life here actually looks like. Below are pictures of my life in during Pre-Service Training (PST) in a barrio of the capital called Pantoja, Santo Domingo: 

My goofy sister, Kiara, on the porch where we "do yoga" together

The bathroom and bucket using for bathing and flushing the toilet! We're in a drought and the water only comes once a week so I only get one small bucket full for washing hair, body and flushing the toilet. Ah!

The kitchen - check out them dishes! ¿Pero quién va a fregar?

My host sister Kiara putting on a mustache while we make friendship bracelets on the porch!

The back porch doubles as a living room and laundry area

Hello from the porch - doubles as my workout area!

Laundry room and kitchen table

The view of the street. 

Another view of the street! It's a pretty sketchy neighborhood but I've come to enjoy the noise, occasional gun shots and tigueres.

Our neighbors backyard. Looks like the campo!

And just in case you thought I might not make friends, here's proof that I did!

On my job

So all this talk about the DR and it’s people and my very vague idea of a project. What the heck have I been and will I be doing for the next two years? Well, so far, I have been living in Pantoja (a poor neighborhood north of the center of Santo Domingo) for what is known as Pre-Service Training. I wake up every morning around 6am and am out the door (fed and full of coffee) by 7:30. I go to “school,” where 46 of us learn Spanish, technical health skills, and core skills like water purification, cross-cultural competencies, approaches to international development, the Peace Corps’ approach to development, and leadership training. Around 5pm, I walk home and wait for Kiara to come home from school as well so we can do yoga on the porch or chat in Spanish. Sometimes I take an evening walk around the neighborhood (dependent on whether or not I want catcalls and people staring at me) and then I’m usually in bed reading, watching a movie, doing homework, or writing a blog by 8:15. Lights off by 9:30...repeat.

Next week, I am heading to a town in the province of San Juan (north of Santo Domingo) to stay with a current Peace Corps Volunteer (I’m a lowly Trainee still). The idea of this visit is to see where a volunteer project site might be and to grill them about various health projects I can take on, and different aspects of Peace Corps life. Oh, and I get to take a “motoconcho,” or motorcycle taxi, to get there! The Peace Corps Dominican Republic is one of the only (or maybe the only) countries that allow volunteers to ride motorcycles because they are mission critical and imperative in getting from site to site.

On September 12, I pack my bags and head to the campo (countryside) to live with another host family for five weeks. Here, we are doing what is known as “technical training,” basically all the health skills I’ll ever need to know to complete my projects for the next two years. Training includes assembling and teaching health concepts to groups of doñas (women) in the countryside, learning how to present about HIV/AIDS to youth groups, organic gardening techniques, and much more! This also called Community Based Training (CBT) and is set in the rural parts of the DR so as to mimic what our project placement sites will likely be...small, and rural. I’m beyond stoked for this part, but a few of my companions are extremely nervous to head to the campo. Growing up in Idaho gives me street cred(it) here, thanks ma and pa!

At the end of my five weeks in the campo, I head back to the capital (Santo Domingo) where I will be given my site placement. This is where I will live in the DR for the next two years!(!!!!!!). And I could get a million sites. Options range from bateyes (very very small farming towns of about 300 people usually with migrant workers from Haiti), to campos (small towns of about 900 people in more rural locations like the mountains, or on the border of Haiti), to pueblos (villages ranging from 5,000-12,000 people usually with unreliable amenities), to barrios (suburbs of larger cities with upwards of 60,000 people in a one kilometer radius). My preferences are to be in a campo setting in the mountains to the north of Santo Domingo, but from what I hear, placements are a total crapshoot. I have no control or say over my placement, and will be given a location by the Associate Peace Corps Director for Health (or the head honcho of my sector). I cannot wait to get a placement and know where my project will actually be, but I’m really getting too far ahead of myself! 

On October 30, 2013, I will officially be sworn in as a Volunteer. Then, I pack my bags, say goodbye to Santo Domingo, and head to my site. I will live with a host family for the first 4 months I am in my site. The first 3 months on site consist of performing a diagnostic, and from what I can tell, this includes a lot of chatting with doñas on their front porches, drinking coffee with señores, and playing dominos with kids. And finally, after three months of pre-service training and another three months conducting a site diagnostic (to see the needs of my community and their basic health concerns), I begin my projects.

All Health Volunteers have two primary projects: 1) Escojo Mi Vida (My Life, My Choice) - a youth group specifically designed to teach sex education and HIV/AIDS prevention and empower high school students and 2) Hogares Saludables (Healthy Homes) - a women’s group designed to teach mothers about nutrition in order to improve healthy outcomes for kids and families. Apart from these two projects, I can do whatever else I want! I am thinking about starting my own version of a Lean In circle (a women’s empowerment and entrepreneurial group), perhaps a yoga clinic, and definitely a community garden. All things to think about over the next six months – any ideas, tips and helpful info would be much appreciated!

So that’s where I’ll be over the next few months and beyond - it's my job, can you believe it?! More specific updates to come!

My job includes teaching these fabulous young ladies all about the reproductive parts and safe sex. 

And how to use condoms!

And when we plan a huge regional youth conference for World AIDS day, we feel proud!

I also get to teach senior citizens to read.

And on special days, I get to draw and paint!

I also get to make floor cleaner as an income generation project for unemployed women.

And I always take my conference calls on the beach because why wouldn't you?

On statistics and setting the scene

I want to take some time to set the scene. It feels like an injustice to have started this blog without giving background information, history and statistics about the Dominican Republic, so here I go, with fun anecdotes, too!

I’ve been to the DR before, for spring break, during my sophomore year of college. We (eight college friends and I) landed at a tiny airport (probably Punta Cana regional airport, but I don’t even remember) and were whisked away by a tour bus and dropped off at an all-inclusive resort in the hot-spot beach destination known as Punta Cana. Even then, I remember thinking how odd it was that we were being taken from the airport and passing by migrant workers, poor families selling mangos on the highway, metal roofed dwellings, and naked children playing without shoes on only to arrive at a fancy, beautiful, and clean all-inclusive resort with running (hot and cold) water and electricity. I remember thinking how strange it was that I was passing kilometers of impoverished people only to head to the land of luxury and white sandy beaches. In the moment, I didn’t have much that I could do about it, so I’m not gonna lie, I went ahead enjoyed my all-inclusive spring break beach vacation just like the next vitamin-D deprived American college student. Two years later, I suppose the time has come for me to redeem myself. I’m here again, only this time I’m here to experience the country for all it truly has to offer - the colorful personalities of the people, their festive traditions and wonderful dancing, and the insecurities and instabilities of a developing country without proper and reliable sanitation, education, and health services.  

The Dominican Republic is a small country in the Caribbean, with a population of only about ten million. The entire landmass of the DR itself is about the size of New Hampshire and Vermont and occupies 2/3 of the island of Hispaniola, with Haiti to its left occupying the remaining 1/3. It’s a vibrant country known for it’s rum, meringue and bachata dancing styles, bananas, and beaches. In terms of development areas, I’ll focus on a few – education, health, and women.

Education - 
UNESCO ranked the DR 129^th out of 133 countries for education (that’s not good). Here, children go to school in shifts, because there are not enough teachers or physical classroom space to serve the children here. That means that 1/3 of children are in school from 8am-12pm, another third attend from 1-5pm and the final third go from 6-9pm. Usually, children receive about 2.5 hours of education a day, but if it’s raining, or a kid has to help around the house, he/she will not attend school. Some kids go once a week, some not at all. And only about 86% of children make it past 5^th grade, and only 60% finish high school. My host sister, Kiara, for instance, is in fourth grade. She started school this week, and walks on a busy highway to get to school. There is no bus and as she puts it, “Nadie le importa si llegamos a la escuela” or “No one cares if we make it to school or not.” She started the school week with 15 students in her class, but by the end of the week, she said there were about 25 kids who had at least shown up one day or more that week. I asked her how many attend daily and she said about 12.

Women’s health - 
In addition to the primary education problems, in the past few months, the government here has become preoccupied with the alarming and increasingly large number of teenage pregnancies. According to the United Nations Population Fund (UNPF), 105 in every 1,000 teenage women become pregnant in the DR, much higher than the world average of 49. The other day, I read about a southern migrant community of about 20,000 people, where there were 1,811 teenage pregnancies between April and June of this year. And when these young mothers need maternal health services, there are few clinics for them to attend. In terms of maternal health, the DR ranks behind every Latin American country in terms of access, sanitation, and services.

Health - 
With a GDP of almost $9,000 per capita, the Dominican Republic falls well behind the regional (Latin American) average of more than $25,000 per capita. Poverty is concentrated (for the majority) along the entire border of Haiti. Some unmet basic needs are related to housing, overcrowding, wastewater and solid waste disposal, and access to potable water. The prevalence of HIV/AIDS here is also much higher than the regional average, with 440 cases per 100,000 people compared to 319 in the region. Per person, $529 is spent on healthcare in the Dominican Republic, compared to the United States which per capita reaches almost $4,000.

The needs here are abundant, and I’m starting to see them first hand. I’ve been given all of this knowledge and what I do with it next is the important part. In a training session on the volunteer’s role in development, we talked a lot about how our attitudes are going to make or break our service. We are here to learn, adapt, integrate and facilitate, but if we do that with the wrong mindset, the mindset of “us” helping “them,” we’re here for the wrong reasons. I am here to work with Dominicans in a spirit of cooperation and to empower them to motivate change within their own communities. I am not the answer, I am a part of a long-term effort to create sustainable change in a country with scarce resources. And as I’m told, sometimes that can be extremely frustrating because I may not see immediate (or any) results. I’m a part of something much larger than myself, and when the going gets tough, remember this will help. 

An amazing quote stuck with me from the training last week. It went, “If you’re here to help me, you’ve come to the wrong place. If you’re here because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let’s get started working together.” (Very fitting that a feminist Australian Aboriginal woman wrote it). For now, that’s a little background about the DR and my role in development here with the Peace Corps. More information and statistics to come for sure!

The DR occupies 2/3 of the island of Hispaniola and shares the other 1/3 with Haiti. The island is about the size of New Hampshire and Vermont.

The shape and flag of the DR.