On life as I know it

Saududos!

Sooooooo...what a whirlwind. Life here never really slows down for me even though I keep fully expecting to settle into the tranquil Dominican pace of life. As a friend recently wrote in an email- "I hope your finding a balance between the DR way of life and the "Bronwen at Tufts" pace." Well I guess I've been more on the Bronwen at Tufts pace, but I wouldn't have it any other way. Get back to me in two years and maybe I'll have settled into your average porch sitting, sun avoiding, rain fearing, exercise hating doña but it’s doubtful!

So what have I been up to? Well, since we last spoke, I've been trying creative ways to engage more youth in my Escojo Mi Vida club. My club has around fifteen youth signed up (good start!) but only about six or seven regularly attend the (super fun) meetings. I'm not very jazzed about their absences so I'm working on creating accountability to attend. And I was feeling especially down when two of the young girls in the original crew ya se casaron (had sex for the first time) with their boyfriends and are now living with their “husbands” as they call them here. So frustrating! If only I could have gotten them a few weeks earlier. But I’ve been much too hard on myself and I must simply remind myself, I can’t help everyone and such is life. What I want to do now is make sure they stay in the group and at least have safe sex (read: condoms condoms condoms condoms).

A few ideas for motivating my community members-
1) I'm going to shamelessly start using Facebook to tag photos/add events and make my group look like the funnest thing ever so please excuse me if I begin to blow up y'all's news feed.

2) Also thinking a beach day with espaggetis, but I'm hesitant to reward kids for not even coming to my group yet.  In a "what’s in it for me" type culture, reward for simple attendance is almost required (hence Taina sending a package of trinkets, candy, lip gloss, etc for me to use as raffle prizes)
3) Rely on my project partner to help recruit and animate the kids (I’ve always been bad at delegating but this is good practice(?!))
4) Be more fun and cool (as if it's possible!)

If you have any other creative ideas- send me some options! I'm all ears.

Well all these creative ideas took a spot on the back burner because....I got food poisoning! It happened the same day a good friend, Julie, from another town was visiting as we were to run an 18k training run for her upcoming half marathon. Needless to say, I didn't put my running shoes on that morning or the next three. I stayed in bed as my host mom brought me soup and Gatorade and I sent Julie on a mission to find me meds and cancel my English classes. And when I felt better and made the rounds of town a few days later, literally ever person I passed asked if I was feeling better. Such a small town and I'm so glad they're so thoughtful.

But before all the vomming, Julie and I also held a super successful workshop for fifteen women (and one cute little chubby kid) on how to conduct home visits are freshly minted health promoters in their community of Palo Verde. My best doña friend from my town, Yessenia, was also in attendance so that she can see the work will want to accomplish by June (fingers crossed!). Her and I work together in a town called Copey just a motorcycle ride away from Manzanillo. To date she has been the first person I've worked with to "get it." She is so motivated, highly competent, enthusiastic, energetic and inspirational to me and the other women in her community. I am so glad to have found a woman to work with who is off the charts in terms of helping me out. She makes my job so easy.

But, what happened the same day I realized she will be my best friend and biggest helper? She told me she is probably moving to the city of Santiago (3 hours away) in June. When she told me, my mouth dropped and I wanted to scream NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO at the top of my lungs until she agreed not to move. Eughhhhhh!!!! But good for her, I’m proud of her ability to gain more opportunities in the city and I'm now working extra hard with her so that she can take the program we started together to women in Santiago. And maybe, just maybe, (so Dios quiere) she won't move after all (cross your fingers for me)!

And on Wednesday I picked up a bffl who went to school with me at Tufts who hope, skip and jumped on over for Spring Break. After her wild few days in Puerto Rico, I got to show her my tranquil lifestyle in the pueblito. It was so interesting (and wonderful, exciting and comforting) to have a friend from America visit because in those five days I realized how truly comfortable and Dominican I feel. She was shocked that I drink coffee out of plastic cups (talk about BPA), sometimes (rarely) litter on the street, can navigate myself through the big city, speak like a campesina (country bumpkin), live off a diet that is 90% carbs and fried food (I can't help it), not be obese (yet!), actually work here (sometimes I feel so lucky), have Dominican friends (amirite??), can joke about finding chicken feet in soup without wanting to barf, and eat a mango like a savage. It was wonderful to take her through the streets and show her my life that couldn't be more different than the one I led at Tufts. Thanks for the wonderful visit Linz!

And I'm currently writing this on the bus after a three-day intensive cookstoves training. As I mentioned a few mensajes back, part of our project plan as health volunteers is to create at least 15 clay cookstoves that are culturally appropriate models for reducing the amount of firewood used to light and cook with, and removing smoke from cooking areas and subsequently the lungs of women and children. I loved the training and am very excited to start a project in my town but first, I have to write a grant and wait for funding, train a mason (my original mason ditched me 12 hours before we were supposed to leave), buy cement, sand and other complicated building materials, find the right houses to build in, train women on proper cooking and maintenance techniques, and motivate my community to support me in the process. It’s a HUGE project but one, that if I am successfully able to implement, will be extremely proud of myself for!

Now I’m back at home after a busy morning of errand-running, trying to track down the mayor who wants me to represent the town of Manzanillo in a regional meeting with the director of the Ministry of Youth later this week, and doing laundry (it’s been quite some time since I washed my sheets, ewww gross!). And I'm off again this weekend to a town called San Francisco de Macoris for a youth conference on the environment where I will be MCing the event, leading 6am workout classes and planning a little healthy competition between youth groups.

And then soon enough, the oldest group of volunteers end their service and another group is sworn in and I'm no longer a newbie. Time flies! Ah the circle of Peace Corps life.

Until next time,
BeYa

On being a (bad?) feminist

Hey there ho there!

Hope y’all are doing well in your respective corners of the world. I sure am, gee I’ve had a great week! Last week I started (well continued but “officially” started) my two women’s and youth groups, gave some presentations at a friend’s Escojo Mi Vida workshop in which I got to blow up condoms like balloons and teach kids how to use ‘em, talk about homophopia and open the door to a tough conversation youth here seldom have, and educate some youngins on STI’s and such. Then, it was my birthday and I celebrated on the beach with fellow volunteers who came from all over for the festivities and a much needed break from our sites! And on Sunday, it rained all day and I used the time like my friends in the northeast have been using their abundance of snow days (sorry dudes, hope you’re staying warm and have enough hot choco for the wild weather y’all have been having)...to catch up on work and watch Harry Potter with a BFFL who was visiting from her rural campo (love ya Gray!).

And today, one of my English classes is throwing me a surprise birthday party (I overhead them planning it but how stinkin’ nice is that?) and then more tasks to finish tomorrow before I head to Santiago to plan an environmentally focused youth conference! Oh, and many a friends have been sending me beautiful and encouraging emails/poems/quotes/thoughts and I really really appreciate them. Your words are now taped all over my room and serve as inspiration throughout my days. So thank you!

So, yes, I’m doing very well with my work. Chugging along, trying to find creative ways to teach women how to wash their hands and put bleach in their water so as not to get diarrhea. Then I must use concepts from the movie Inception to subtly plant the idea deep in youth’s heads that they should have high self-esteem and make good decisions (good news is that next week I get to draw all the reproductive man and lady bits and explain those to a bunch of 15-year-olds, yippee!) And as great as everything is going, got stuck in an intellectual rut that I’m having a hard time working through. As I said to my BFF, Emily, back stateside the other day: I think I’m a bad feminist. 

Here’s why: The other day I was sitting around with some other volunteers and I said something along the lines of “Yes, because I’m a feminist and I believe women are are not treated appropriately here and it’s just sick watching men here tell women they can’t do anything and seeing how awful the domestic violence is!” Another volunteer looked at me shocked and said, “Wait, you’re not a feminist.” I said...”WHAT?” And she looked at me and said, “And neither am I.”

I was shocked that a major part of my identity that is immediately apparent to people who know me in the US has been hidden/not adequately expressed in this culture, even in front of fellow US volunteers. After a few minutes of discussing with her what I consider a feminist to be and telling her that perhaps she would not consider herself a feminist because it has been turned into a dirty word that scares people, she agreed that indeed she is a feminist. After my outraged rant (that admittedly was probably not the most effective way of presenting a feminist platform), she timidly said, “Yes, I do believe that women and men should have equal opportunity so I guess if you wanna call me a feminist I’d be okay with that.”

And that got me thinking, am I being a bad feminist when I don’t say anything in response to the fact that Dominican youth (my age) say, “Las mujeres no sirven” or “Women can’t do anything”? Am I being a bad feminist because I don’t have good enough internet to read all the articles/watch all the videos/follow all the debates I would like to in order to satisfy my craving for feminist things? Am I being a bad feminist if I put makeup on and shave my legs more than I did in America (my real mother begged me to keep shaving my legs and washing my undies even if I was joining the Peace Corps but I didn’t actually think to be taken seriously I’d actually have to)? Am I being a bad feminist if I don’t encourage every single girl here to set goals for her future and pursue an education?

On the flip side of all this beating myself up, it’s hard work to continuously be shut down by Dominicans on the merit of me being female-identifying and self-respectin’. So, is it good enough that I’m trying really hard to be conscious of the way I speak to young girls, and the ways in which I try to encourage them to be leaders in their community and work hard to pursue a career and not just a family by the age of 20? Is it enough that I say, “Hey, women are responsible for the health of our communities because they are the heads of our families and therefore we need to focus on educating them” even when my doña says, “Well, according to God, women are not the heads of households, God has said, because men are stronger and more confident than women, says God and He also says that men should work and women should raise families”?

When people tell me it’s strange that a beautiful girl like me isn’t married with kids yet, I take a deep breath, pull out a plastic chair, and begin to explain that in my culture (or at least the culture I grew up within in the US) people wait until they have their professional degrees and then look to start families. And then I add the anecdote people find unbelievable...that my very own mother gave birth at age 40. “That can’t be true!” they reply, “So, is your brother retrasado (disabled)? It’s exhausting, but it’s something that people cannot even begin to imagine another way of life, much like I couldn’t before I arrived. At least now, I have the patience and vocabulary to tackle this topic head on.

And when I have friends visiting and my local barrio boys ask me to “consigámela” or “obtain her for me” I tell them, “Look, she’s more than an American, more than a visa, more than someone for you to hook up with. She’s an intelligent, wonderful, creative human being and let’s please treat her and all other women with respect.” When people I know hiss at me on the sidewalk, I’ve started to yell back, “You know my name, use it.” It’s subtle and little, but it’s the best I’ve got.

In this culture, I feel so judged if I walk outside in a tshirt and jeans not giving a peso about my look or appearance. My grandma here tells me on a daily basis to redo my hair, put on makeup, throw away my ugly clothes, and wear high heels (and even gave me sexy red lingerie for my birthday, WHAT?). And when I go out looking pretty, my host sister makes a play on my name and says, “Wow, the Bella Bea (Beautiful Bronwen) has arrived, goodbye to the Fea Bea (Ugly Bronwen).” I remind myself, it’s cultural. I don’t have to wear t-shirts four sizes too small and red undies under white lycra to be beautiful. But, it is the most frustrating thing that if I do give into DR standards of beauty, ironically, I am taken more seriously when I teach in my local high school and youth and women’s group. It’s a catch 22 and I’m trying to find the balance.

But ya know what? I’m learning and I’m trying to be my own kind of feminist in another culture and it’s damn hard. In the US, we have the luxury to be able to fight the great fight for pay equity and opportunities to “lean in.” But here, where the culture is, oh I don’t know, more than thirty years delayed, sometimes just reminding men to be human is as far as I can get. So I’m gonna stop beating myself up and just keep making a concerted effort to be me, a creative, intelligent feminist who has to learn to use new tools to fix the same problem.

And at least all of my pre-Peace Corps identitfy hasn’t been lost. At the end of the conversation I had with my fellow volunteers that inspired this blog post, I said, “Oh my god, what else have I been hiding/covering up/not telling you? Do you even know that I’m a Democrat?” The chorus from all was “Oh my god, yes, Bronwen, we know you’re a Democrat, don’t worry, that’s more than obvious.”

Off to fight the good fight. May the force of feminism be with you.

Xo,

Bella Bea no matter what I’m wearing

Just a few of Manzanillo's future feminist leaders!

My favorite niñas enjoy the breeze!

Best feminist crew around!