On "The Grind"

This week, I was giving a presentation on chronic and respiratory illnesses including malaria, dengue, the common flu, and pneumonia. A major “treatment” of these illnesses is to rest, drink lots of fluids, eat a balanced diet, and maintain hygiene. As I am telling the women that they need to rest when they are sick, the looked at me like I was crazy. “Bea mi’ja, quien tiene tiempo pa’ descansar?” “Bea, who has time to rest?” I looked a little shocked and I continued. “I know you are all very busy caring for your families, but you can’t help your children if you prepare their food with a cough and poor hygiene. You also can’t help your children if you are too weak to get them ready for school.”

That afternoon, I realized that I had answered them rather curtly because in the back of my mind I was thinking, “I just got off the phone with my 23-year old best friend who works from 8am to 10pm many days a month and probably couldn’t tell you what “work-life balance” even means anymore. Another friend loves her job in “The City” but is always putting in extra hours on the polio or malaria account she works on regularly leaving the office at 7pm or later. And another is has been traveling all over the country for work and can’t seem to catch a much-needed break from the “grind.” But I should have withheld my judgment because here, even in a collectivist country, people are exhausted. Not to mention the added element of extreme heat they face while hand-scrubbing laundry, cooking outside on a three-stone fire, and running around after their kids. Life here is difficult, too, just in very different ways.

This is not a capitalist country, it’s a country where most people work in the informal sector, selling clothes or beauty products from magazines, painting nails for a profit on their front porch, asking neighbors for support, or finding American men to support them and their families. But even here, they perceive that they can’t catch a break. The capitalism grind we are so used to in America leaves us little time for rest, but so too, does the informal work sector that many Dominicans rely on. We all need a break and time to rest or these chronic illnesses I’m trying hard to prevent are gonna eat us all up!

On quotes that keep me going

Quotes that get me through the hardest of days:

Caminante, no hay camino, se hace camino al andar.

“When each day is the same as the next, it’s because people fail to recognize the good things that happen in their lives every day that the sun rises.”

After a while you learn

the subtle difference between

holding a hand and chaining a soul

and you learn

that love doesn’t mean leaning

and company doesn’t always mean security.

And you begin to learn

that kisses aren’t contracts

and presents aren’t promises

and you begin to accept your defeats

with your head up and eyes ahead

with the grace of a woman,

not the grief of a child.

And you learn

to build all your roads on today

because tomorrow’s ground is

too uncertain for plans

and futures have a way of falling down

in mid-flight.

After a while you learn

that even sunshine burns

if you get too much

so plan your own garden

and decorate your own soul

instead of waiting for someone

to bring you flowers.

And you learn that you really can endure

you really are strong

you really do have worth

and you learn

and you learn

with every goodbye, you learn...

-Veronica Shoffstalf

All that is gold does not glitter,

Not all those who wander are lost,

The old that is strong does not wither,

Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

-FotR

“Living with integrity means: Not settling for less than what you know you deserve in your relationships. Asking for what you want and need from others. Speaking your truth, even though it might create conflict or tension. Behaving in ways that are in harmony with your personal values. Making choices based on what you believe, and not what others believe.”

- Barbara De Angelis

People will forget what you said. Peoople will forget what you did. People will never forget what you did. 

- Maya Angelou

Communities and countries and ultimately the world are only as strong as the health of their women.
- Michelle Obama

What would I do if I weren't afraid?

The only calibration that counts is:
how much heart people invest, how much they ignore their fears of being hurt or caught or humiliated. 
And the only thing people regret is:
that they didn't live boldly enough, that they didn't invest enough heart, didn't live enough. Nothing else really counts at all.

      

To live for only some future goal is shallow. 

It is the sides of the mountain that sustain life, not the top.

On bicycles and blue blooded bugs

Last week I bought a bike and it changed my life!

A volunteer couple who lived in a town called La Vigia only 23km away from me finished their service and left for America last week. We had talked about me buying the wife’s bike a while back but I had forgotten about it until she called to ask if I was still interested in the transaction. She promised me a few other surprises too, if I made the journey to their house on the Wednesday that they were leaving. So after a nice early morning run, I made my way by bus to their small little campo. I got off the bus and walked a nice and easy 4km from the into their town and cute two bedroom shack. They were busy packing up and getting ready to leave so I scored big! Richard and Cynthia outfitted me with snorkeling gear (two sets if you wanna come down and try one out!), a beach towel, a bike pump and repair kit, and a hotdog and ramen noodle/cabbage salad lunch. It was great to see their site and of course to get myself a bike and I’m only upset that I didn’t visit them earlier in my service, they were so close!

Around 1:30pm (prime sun time), I got on the bike and made my way back home, up a few hills and through a few towns. I made it to the town I work in on Wednesdays, Copey, and stopped at my favorite doñas house there for juice and a shower. When I rolled up to her gate sweaty and with a bike in tow, she exclaimed, “Bea, where’d that come from?” and I replied, “I rode it here from La Vigia!” They couldn’t believe I had actually ridden and not just strapped it to the front of a bus. They were equally as surprised to see that I hadn’t die in the heat or on the highway. My doña/grandma couldn’t stop telling all her neighbors what I had just done and I felt like a celebrity! It was a glorious day!

Now that I have my bike, it makes traveling around my town, visiting doñas and running errands so much easier. I don’t know how I survived so long without one. It even has a basket in the front for my loose ends and a basket on the back for carrying heavy loads. Well worth the expensive ($60) investment.

So last week was great. But as I’ve learned in Peace Corps, all good things come to an end (or so sang Nelly Furtado) and here's why: 

1. My bike got a flat.

Two muchachos were riding my new bike (without permission!) and they took it down to the beach where it got a flat tire...in the back wheel. EUGH! I called my uncle in Australia and he said, “Damn that’s a bitch to fix” and patiently described the process to me. I listened fully hoping I would be able to fix my own bike, but alas, after a challenging few minutes staring at the retro bike and it’s confusing chain parts, I called upon a passing neighborhood kid and sent him to fix it at the local tire shop.

2. I had a bug infestation.

It started raining last night and I ran into my room only to find thousands upon thousands of tiny little bugs flying around my room. I spent the better part of an hour killing them while skyping my bffl Emily. I’m sure she thinks I’m nuts. Our conversation was constantly interjected with exclamations like “ewww gross they’re spurting blue blood” or “ahhhh thousands” or “my floor looks like it has bug dandruff.” It was a mess to clean up this and I still twitch thinking about the bugs that landed on me constantly throughout that sleepless night.  

3. My feet are messed up.  

I’m pretty sure my feet will never be the same after this. I have and will forever have ingrown toenails, a wart and blisters on the bottom of my feet, a fungus on my left big toe (again!), and a painful to the touch third right toe. And then there’s the fact that they’re constantly dirty, sandy, itchy and cracking that accompanies the aforementioned problems. But...at least my host mom paints them with designs every two weeks so it’s not as obvious how nasty these little buggers are. Nothing like a beautiful pink and blue flower covering up a nasty ingrown!

Upon reflection, as I told a volunteer friend, I’m not being a very good PCV if the things that bother me most are the bugs, flat tires, gross feet and variables in projects I can't control. After all, this is what I signed up for, right? So I told myself to buck up, let myself miss how easy things are in America (sometimes), get over it and remember how insignificant these problems actually are. And I’m putting back on my motivation hat and charging full speed ahead this week!