On being creative and resourceful

Living here, in a culture where nothing runs on time, stores are always out of the food I need for a recipe, people don’t respond to urgent phone calls or text messages or any other stressful (by American standards) problems, has made me so much more creative and resourceful. Everyday gives me the opportunity to think on my feet, as I never know what will go wrong in a 24-hour time period. It’s inevitable that something will! But it has also made me more relaxed, taking things as they come and not stressing about things and situations that I cannot control.

At first (and sometimes even still) it was very difficult for me to adapt to a culture in which no one is stressed ever and things never run “smoothly” by my old standards.  I am a planner. This is a country without plans. Fortunately, I am also very resourceful and have become more so in the Peace Corps. As I’ve mentioned, adapting to cultural differences has been infinitely harder than getting used to bucket showers and unreliable electricity. But it helps when I can make these unreliable things slightly more reliable. If you’re ever thinking about a partner for your Amazing Race application, or if you’re friends with the producer of the show Survivor, just remember me, street smart, resourceful Bea down here in the Dominican Republic.

Here are common problems in the DR and my resourceful solutions:

1) The lights go out and the nearest colmado just ran out of candles.

Negra runs a colmado that is sparsely stocked. Fine for her but bad for her clientele. She is frequently without mosquito candles and plain white candles for when the lights go out. So? I invent my own candles. I take a few pieces of paper that were used to wrap up slabs of freshly killed cow bought at the local carnicería and dip it in old nasty cooking oil. Then I twirl up the piece of paper to look like a tiny pyramid (or wick) and light the baby. It’s the best free candle in the world and lasts for hours (must be all the fat and oil!).

2) I don’t poop.

I’m either constipated or have diarrhea in this country. I can’t remember the last time I had a great poop – until I got creative. First, I tried switching my diet to include more bananas/fiber. Didn’t help. Then I got these special prune extract pills. Nothing. Then I started taking a multi-vitamin. No luck. Finally, a friend recommended linaza, flax seed, and I made a trip to the nearest town especially to find me some flax. Now, I sprinkle a little flax on my corn flei in the morning, add it to the peanut butter my best friends sent down, put it on cookies, add it to natural juices and top off my broccoli with the stuff. And since I’ve started putting flax on whatever I can find, I’ve been doing just great with the pooping situation.  

3) I need copies for my groups but the local printer just ran out of ink.

This is a weekly problem. Each time I go to the free printing center, the printer “just ran out of ink” or “there’s no paper” or “we can’t find the cord” or my favorite, “I don’t know how to turn it on.” So I head down to the customs agency where I’ve made friends with the printer lady and what do you know – they are out of paper, too, and there's no electricity. In a final attempt, I head to the grocery store and it’s closed for an afternoon siesta. After a few last ditch efforts to print materials for my group, I get resourceful. I end up sending the materials via email (when we have electricity) to my friend Dante who lives in the closest city, Santiago, two and a half hours away. He goes his local printer man and asks for 500 copies of my worksheets. Then, when he goes to a conference, he will intercept a near-by volunteer, Julie and the transfer takes place. Julie then takes the copies and brings them to Andy, who lives in Montecristi, the nearest town to my site. From there Andy keeps them safe and sound until I can finally make it to town by the motorcycle and guagua. Phew! It takes a lot of forward-thinking but this kind of resourcefulness also works for getting medicines delivered via the volunteer chain, printing graduation certificates in a small campo with a great and cheap print shop, sending stoves parts from a workshop in the middle of the country to my town in the northwest corner, getting mail delivered, or any other seemingly small and petty task. We Peace Corps volunteers have created a genius chain of delivery by using a lot of cell phone minutes and some serious creativity.

4. I can’t communicate.

As my Spanish continues to improve, I generally feel pretty good about my communication skills. However, there are those horrible days that make me feel like I just want to hide in my room and binge on Speculous cookie butter and episodes of Scandal all because no one can understand me. They look at me like I have three heads and proceed to raise their shoulders and scrunch their nose to say “what?” or give up and just walk away. Well, in my quest for having one-hundred days with no communication errors, I have become kick-ass at charades. I don’t know how to explain a story? My hands do it for me. I can’t remember the name of that one animal? I make exact replica noises to mimic it. I get frazzled and forget how to speak Spanish during a meeting? I just stare at the women for a second, think on my feet and hand out coffee mints and wait until I gain my composure again. Works every time! So, if you’re looking for a charades partner when I return in a mere 15 months, call me up.

Of course, it was hard to adapt here with my super-planner personality, but I appreciate the patience and kindness of Dominicans who have shown me how to relax, chill out and be tranquila when things don't go my way. And I think I’ve found the perfect balance of Dominican/American stress. I still expect a lot from my project partners, youth and women, but I am not offended if they cancel a meeting for rain. When I get too overwhelmed, I like to remember a motto my friend Julie uses with her project partner, Domingo and means essentially, such is life and it will all be okay. ¡Asi es la vida y todo va a salir bien! 

Perhaps this is a solid lesson for those of you working the grind in America. Just remember my motto the next time you're worried about your m-dash and n-dashes not lining up in a conference agenda or when your boss makes you return a 27-inch Mac computer because it doesn't fit and he wants the 21-inch. Just get a little creative, take a deep breath and remember that todo va a salir bien! 

On gastronomy and gal pals

¡Uepa!

Reflecting upon the last couple of weeks, I am pleased to say that I’ve been well fed. Maybe it’s the summer heat that makes doñas want to whip me up some fried plantains every time I pass by, or perhaps they believe my jean shorts that haven’t been washed in weeks make me look thin because they’re don’t stick to me like lycra anymore, because good golly, my community has been taking care of me. And because I’ve been sharing so many meals with doñas, I’ve been doing quite a bit of compartir, a Spanish verb that means “to share.” The concept of compartir certainly applies to sharing food, but more so, it means to share each other’s company. Compartir can mean anything from drinking coffee with a neighbor, sitting in plastic chairs on the street for hours and sending children to buy bread and mayonnaise at the closest colmado, or making a huge vat of espagettis with sweetened-condensed milk to bring to the beach with friends on a Sunday afternoon (and damn is that spaghetti good stuffed in the middle of a white bread sandwich).

Anyhow, with my two best friends Kris and Emily visiting from America, I was determined to show them the true spirit of compartir. In preparation, coveted items were requested weeks in advance so that they would fully experience the reciprocity of compartir. They filled suitcases with Ghirardelli brownie mix, bags of nail polish, coloring books and crayons, Crystal Light juice packets, Sour Patch Kids and every kind of nut Trader Joes carries. We were fully prepared for what I fondly refer to as “The Gastronomic Compartir Tour of Manzanillo.”

Doña food: crab, fried chicken, moro and tostones

Day 1: The adventures of Sambumba

I remember the first time I ever ate sambumba as clearly as I remember learning to read an analog clock. It was a moment of beautiful clarity in which I realized my life had changed for the better. My encounter with sambumba happened one scorching hot afternoon in April and my momma Luisa came into the house with a mischievous grin. “¿Qué fue? What happened?” I asked. “Alida just gave me two pounds of chuleta (lamb chop) and it’s worth $200 pesos so we’re making sambumba” I just stared and tried to repeat the word. Was it samboobies, sambooyah, kombucha, samwhaddya, samyaya? I had no idea but I went with it. “Okay,” I said, “Get at me, sambumba!” An hour later, we were eating a delicious bowl of bean stew with plantains,auyuama (pumpkin), salami, sausage and lamb chop over steaming white rice. Mmmmmm, que rico.

Now every day with sambumba is a day when I get to share a special moment with my momma Luisa. She always saves me the biggest bowl if I’m coming home late and we always eat together and catch up on the latest telenovela drama while enjoying my favorite Dominican meal. Because sambumba has many fond memories, I knew upon planning “The Gastronomic Compartir Tour of Manzanillo” for my best friends Emily and Kris, that sambumba would be the first on the menu.

Emily, Kris and I arrived to my humble abode after a long day of traveling and Luisa embraced my BFFs in her classic bear hug and said, “Are you ready for the sambumba?” The girls looked at me skeptical but sat down as they were commanded to and we served them up a piping hot cauldron of sambumba. We proceeded to enjoy our sambumba with frequent interruptions from Luisa asking “How is it? Do you like it? Do you love it? Do you want more? Eat eat!”

Success!

Day 2: Can’t stop, wont stop!

Day Two started with mashed up pumpkin with some scrambled eggs on top, generously prepared by my host brother Dawin. I’m pretty sure he had a crush on both Emily and Kris, and was more than willing to scramble up their eggs when I asked at an ungodly early hour (for him). We had a few grecas worth of coffee and set out on our way for the biggest and toughest day of the tour. First stop was guava juice and (an offer of potatoes, rice and beans that we politely declined) with Tita. We chatted about life in America and how thankful Tita was for the wrinkle cream Emily generously brought her from the Promised Land. We then headed to Mama Julia’s where the tour really ramped up.

I spend every Saturday afternoon with Mama Julia as she is the best story teller in town. She’s always got a mango, coconut or guava to share and is never without a story and a good laugh. Mama Julia remarks that I was sent to her at the perfect time, just when her daughter moved their whole family to New York and she was missing someone to love like her own. “God works in mysterious ways mi’ja,” She’ll tell me. “God knew that I needed a new daughter to love.”  If I had to quantify the amount of food that’s helped us reach this point of love and strong connection, it would be as follows.

- 52 mangos

- 6 coconuts

- 19 nuts that taste like pork

- 192 tostones (twice fried plantains)

- 8 bowls of moro (rice and beans)

- 2 bowls of extra-salt added ramen noodles

- 43 mints from the colmado

- 36 cups of sugar-ed up coffee

Me and my Mama Julia!

So of course Mama Julia’s house was on the list. We arrived and I told her son, Jose, that we would just be stopping in for some coffee. Well, a plate of tostones and fried salami, a bowl of moro, a platter of vegetables, three cups of coffee, one coconut and three mangoes later, we finally left her porch. We head back down the hill to my house where I informed the girls that they’d need to magically make space in their stomachs because it was time for la bandera, rice, beans and chicken at Chichi’s house. Stuffed, happy and two lunches later, we rolled out to my Escojo youth group graduation where cake was served with fried yucca balls, empanadas and quipes, small chicken-stuffed and fried grain balls. The graduation was beautiful and it was a great time to compartir with the jóvenes (youth) from my town. The girls handled it well when I set them to work blowing up balloons, setting up signs, serving the cake and pouring the soda. Their afternoon treat was much deserved.

A cake weighing in at 20 pounds!

And to top of Day Two of the tour, we went to my old host mom Wendy’s house for pastelón, another one of my favorite Dominican dishes. Pastelón is a dish with mashed plantains, meat and cheese very similar in to a shephard’s pie. The whole platter later, I informed the girls that they were officially done eating for the night, unless they wanted leftover cake. A shake of the head from both of them let me know that I’d done a fine job with the agenda on Day Two.

Day 3: Fry everything twice

Yesenia, my women’s leader from the neighboring town of Copey, has been my saving grace. She was the first person I met here that I trusted de una vez (right away). She quickly became my “mother” in Copey and she warmly welcomed me into the family. Now Margot, her mother, is my grandmother and brindars me juice within two minutes of my arrival in her home, every time. When I mentioned that my friends would be visiting, they immediately asked what they could make us for breakfast. Joking, I told them I was putting in a formal request for tostones, fried cheese, fried salami, juice and a platter of fruit. I laughed at the end to hint that I was kidding and we only wanted their company and perhaps a cup of coffee. “Mi’ja,” Yesenia exclaimed, “That sounds perfect! We’ll have the whole thing ready by 9 o’clock.”

Twice fried plantains, cheese and salami. Mmmmm.

Sunday morning rolled around soon enough and we were ushered to their table to enjoy all aforementioned fried goods along with mabi de palo, a delicious kombucha-like juice made from sticks and dried leaves. We gorged ourselves on one too many fried plantains and Yesenia mentioned, “As your student in our women’s Healthy Homes group, I only justify this once! Bea...you should know better.” The guilt set in, but as she said it, I realized just how much confianza (trust) we have with one another. Three months ago, I never would have felt comfortable dictating what she should make for breakfast, let alone invite a clan into her house to eat it all. Upon washing all the grease off our fingers and packing our bags to head out for the beach, I reflected upon how truly amazing my community is. They have adopted me whole-heartedly and I them. We have inside jokes, favorite meals, gossip time, so much more work to accomplish and so many more fried plantains and cups of coffee to compartir.  

Delicious breakfast thanks to Yesenia & Co.

Margot, Me, Emily, Kris and Yesenia!

And so concluded “The Gastronomic Compartir Tour of Manzanillo” and the hours of my friends, doñas and I spent laughing, eating and enjoying friendship cultures apart. 

¡Buen provecho!

Bea

This delicious dinner was a special treat because it included a salad! 

My kids graduated!!! Felicidades! Let them eat cake!

On the United States of America

Happy belated birthday, America!

Holidays have been one of the hardest parts of my Peace Corps service. Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, birthdays, Mother’s Day and anniversaries are are times when I get homesick, reminisce, crave traditions, and just miss me some good ol' USA. 

I love the Fourth of July! This Fourth of July I was reminiscing on past celebrations in Idaho watching a town parade with horses, politicians, rodeo queens, etc. I thought about the times I went to the rodeo to watch baby calves get roped or attended a friend’s barbecue with ample beer and country music. Or I’d be antique show shopping with my mom and working at a pizza restaurant in my mom’s old cowboy boots in the evening. Or I’d be hiking a mountain with a friend and watching my little brother win a bike race. And as much as I was craving country music, hot dogs and cold beers, cold alpine lakes and lazy rivers, it was the one day here when I’ve felt most proud to be an American. 

Many volunteers remarked that they never knew how patriotic they were until we left America. It’s similar in a way to the saying “You never know what you have until it’s gone.” Now that we’ve been dropped into an environment so different from our own little piece of the American pie, we have had to learn to appreciate what comes from being a citizen of the US of A.

There’s the comfort things like internet and air conditioning, craft beers and customer service. But there’s also the deeper things like our education system, our diversity, our work ethic and our justice system. There are our job opportunities, our democracy, our efficiency, our accessibility, our history and our freedom – of religion, of speech, of expression. It’s not yet perfect and there are some Americans who have less access to these deeper freedoms than others, but there is progress. We have forward momentum to become a better people and a better nation. And there are so many people fighting and working hard everyday for just that. To allow those who cannot access the education, healthcare or justice systems to get there. That in and of itself makes me so proud.

It’s this and so much more that makes a person like me, on a tiny island in the middle of the Caribbean, jump up and sing “America the Beautiful” at a bar full of volunteers who have given 27 months of their lives to serve others. It is a pride that propels a group of 60 volunteers to sing “Party in the USA" on a catamaran sailing through crystal blue waters, wear American flags in our hair, pin a mint wrapper that says “Made in America” to our clothes, high five and scream “’Merica” and reminisce on the good ol’ USA.

Peace Corps has three simple goals. Goal #2 is “to help promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of the peoples served.” This means I get to tell people that American is more than Nueva Yol, explain how to make a simple grilled cheese sandwich, emphasize I don’t personally know Miley Cyrus or Justin Beiber, describe what snow looks and feels like and teach my nail lady how to paint the American flag on my toes. But more importantly, I get the chance to talk about equality, women’s rights, political leaders who are not corrupt, democracy that works, scholarships for academic achievements. I get to talk about equal opportunity, work ethic, the Supreme Court, and a president who doesn’t give empty campaign promises. And most of the time, they don’t even care if I know Kanye’s newest baby’s name or what the bathroom looks like in Obama’s house.

So yes, on the Fourth of July I missed America more than usual. But I am proud that each and every day I get the chance to represent it. I am honored that I was given the opportunity to serve the country where I was lucky enough to have been born, in the land of the free and the home of the brave. 

Peace! 

Bronwen 

On the noises I hear

This is a country full of noise! We are a country full of yelling neighbors, screaming children, loud bachata music, crazy dembow songs, vegetable trucks and appliance repairmen announcing their arrival with a megaphone from miles away, zinc roofs giving away when the rain arrives, etc etc. So much of life can be given away just by listening here. Just like an owl, I now have unbelievably sharp hearing. I am proud of myself because now, without having to see a thing, I can pick up on context sound clues and understand what is going on in the busy, crazy world around me.

The top ten mysteries I can solve purely by listening:

1) When my host dad arrives: I now know the sound of my dad’s motorcycle out of all the motorcycles in town. Enriquito’s red motorcycle has a low rumble that sounds almost like my neighbor Danilo’s but it’s not quite as deep, and then he has this screechy set of rusty brakes that gives it away when he comes to a full stop outside out house.

2) When someone comes into my house: We have a cute red gate in the front of our house and it makes a very distinct low “grrrrrrrrrr” sound whenever someone opens it. So if I’m in the kitchen and someone enters, I will know to be ready for them with a fresh pot of coffee or some juice to welcome them with.

3) When the electricity comes on: We have a generator in my house so when I first arrived, I had no idea when we were using the generator or electricity from the street. But as my hearing has advanced, I can walk into any house now and know whether the electricity if coming from the street or the generator. Context clues give it away...whether or not there’s a low rumble from the refrigerator, if there is the energetic buzz from a nearby streetlamp, or if there’s a fan on in the house, then you know there’s street electricity.

4) When the electricity goes off: There’s a pretty obvious first sign when the lights go off because everyone on the block screams some combination of swear words, “¡coño, mierda, cónchole, diache!” But if I am not around for the lights going off, I still know upon entering a house because the ambiance is quieter, there are no frivolous appliances being used, the televisions and stereos are off, and if lights are on, they are a softer color because the generator batteries aren’t as strong as street electricity.  

5) When church starts: The evangelical church on the corner of my block starts every night of the week with a few quieter “Te quiero Jesús” songs and it builds gradually during the sermon to become a full on Jesus-praising rock concert. I always know what stage of the service they are in from the intensity of the songs they sing. It’s always such a relief when that very last “Hallelujah” plays at an eardrum-busting decibel and I know it’s only a matter of minutes until church ends for the night. 

6) When my tank of water is full: I can only fill up my water tank when the electricity is on so that I can turn on a pump that sends water from a huge storage tank below up to my small tank above. When I do, it quietly runs through the pipes until it fills my small tank and then starts spilling over the side unless I turn it off first. So I have learned to be aware of where the water is in relation to the tank’s top. When I hear a particularly deep and powerful final gurgle of water, I know its almost at the top so I run downstairs, turn off the pump and hope that none spilled down the side of the roof and into my small bathroom window.

7) When my host mom comes and goes: Much like I know the sound of my dad’s motorcycle, I also know the distinct sound of my host mom’s moped. I know when she leaves to drop my niece off at school in the morning, heads out to inject my grandma with a shot of insulin, sends my brother to buy chicken from the local butcher, and her other comings and goings. I can be upstairs in my room across the street and if I need to talk to her, I just wait until I hear the creaky “vroom vroom” of her nice red moped and I can head downstairs without even having to look out the window and check. 

8) When someone is speaking English up to ¼ mile away: I can pick English out of a very large crowd these days. It’s a sharp piercing sound that I can, get this...understand! My best friend, Gray, is currently home in North Carolina and the first thing she said to me was, “Bea, English is so overwhelming! Also, it took me a full 24 hours to stop thinking in Spanish.” I replied, “How freaking cool is that, though? We are living and functioning in another language and that, my friend, is a beautiful thing!”

9) When someone thinks I don’t speak Spanish:

When I enter a guagua (public bus) and people are unsure whether or not I, a rubia, speaks Spanish or not, they tend to speak in lower octaves and ask in whispers what a rubia is doing here or if they can charge me extra. I turn around to the cobrador and tell him, “Sí, hablo español y no, no puede hacerme trampa” or “Yes, I speak Spanish and no, you cannot cheat me.” They usually straighten up, stick out their hand asking for my fare and return me the correct amount of change.

10) When my mom wants me to come down from my lair and hang out with her: In my host family’s house, there is a separate entrance for my own solitary lair upstairs. Thankfully, my family gives me all the privacy I could ever want and they rarely venture up the stairs to my woman-cave. When my mom wants me to come eat some new invention she’s cooked, run an errand for her, fix her cellphone, translate some medicine bottle in English, or just hang out with her, she will send me a very distinct whistle. It starts from the left side of my room, where she is in the kitchen below me. If I don’t hear it there, she’ll move to the living room window and give it another go as it resonates in my room on the right side. Even though it makes me feel like a dog, it sure gets the job done!

Along with all these mysteries I’ve solved, non-verbal noise is useful for so many other things here. Distinct calls are used to sell bleach, vegetables and fridge parts from roaming trucks, announce a political candidates arrival during election cycles, rally the people for a funeral, have a birthday party, get a neighbors’ attention, wake someone up, ask for a favor without uttering a word or getting off your motorcycle. All it takes to communicate here is a good horn that beeps, a mouth that whistles, and enough time spent listening to daily life here in the good ol’ Dominican Republic.

And in the time spent writing this blog post, the lights have come on twice and gone off once, I’ve filled my tank with water, my dad has left and returned three times, my host brother made rice for lunch, my host mom bought bleach, three pounds of carrots, a pound of onions and 24 eggs...all without me leaving my makeshift desk or looking out the window. My ears told me everything I could ever need to know to keep tabs on my neighborhood. What an invaluable skill!

Sending a “beep beep” to y'all! 

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 big fancy wedding cakes

Jhanna and Macho's (my cousins) Wedding: November 24, 2013

Beauties!

Bridesmaids!

My niece, Lisset and cousin, Rosa

Perla and I

Macho and Jhanna tying the knot

Walking down the aisle

Sachel my favorite!

The beautiful cake

Too bad this photo was staged, no cake was eaten

On Toms shoes and motivation

I’ve had a great week! I’ve been meeting still more people everyday and I’ve officially lost any shyness, or vergüenza, that I had when I arrived. I have come to think of my job right now as the best practice I’ll ever get for my future political career, sticking my hand out and saying hey to everyone! Fascinating people live in this world! This week’s blog is about a few things I’ve come to realize are corrupt.

On lights and politics:

Supposedly, there’s a regular schedule for electricity here in Manzanillo. One day it comes on at 8am and lasts until 1pm, then is gone until 6pm and leaves again at 10pm. Then you’ve got lights from 2am to 5am (stupid time for lights) and then again at 1pm to 6pm the next day. And then the schedule starts over again. That’s confusing enough if you ask me. What’s more is that 100% of the time it doesn’t come on when it’s supposed to and you’re left without lights for twelve to eighteen hours a day. To address this problem, an organization I now belong to, COPRODEMA (Coalition for the Development of Manzanillo) has been working on putting together a petition to ask the government for twenty hours of electricity daily. I asked why and they responded, “Because asking for twenty-four would be asking too much.” If I learned one thing in my college negotiations class, it’s to shoot high in order to get what you want in the end. Starting out asking twenty hours and we’ll be left where we started. So as mildly as I could (so as not to seem like an intruder), I suggested in the weekly meeting that we ask for twenty-four and see what happens. The next day when the government representative came and the coalition asked for a full twenty-four hours, which I’m darn proud of. In the end they settled for a negotiated eighteen hours. We’ll see if anything changes, but it’s sure better than eight.

So why is the amount of lights related to politics? The realization came about last week when we had an above average amount of electricity for five days in a row and when I asked what was up, someone pointed out that the President, Danilo Medina, was up in the north for business and therefore we were getting at least twelve hours a day for five days instead of the average eight. Seems unjust? Yes, it is. And apparently, during election cycles every four years, there’s running water and electricity twenty-four hours a day in all parts of the country so that they can say, “Look! We’re doing something for you countryfolk, vote for us!” How you can just turn on and off the electricity for mass amounts of people I’ll never know, but it’s extremely frustrating, especially when it’s all wrapped up in politics. 

On clothing donations and Toms shoes:

You know how you feel good about yourself when you buy a pair of $50 Toms shoes because another pair goes to a kid in need? Yeah, well that “kid in need” happened to be me last week. I went to this border town called Dajabon, known around the country for it’s weekly market where Haitians cross the border and sell everything from ginger, Crocs and ramen noodles to oddly stained bedding, Christmas themed pillows, broken microwaves, fly swatters, Purell hand sanitizer from Korea, and knockoff Prada purses. It’s a barterer’s dream come true! I thought it was going to be my worst nightmare, but it wasn’t so bad. I’m used to markets where people are trying to sell you everything and shoving it in your face, but the Haitians selling their goods were pretty tranquil, usually just lying on top of their merchandise taking a nap or protecting it from thieves.

There was lot’s of used clothing that looked just like it had just come from the insides of the Planet Clothing bin a few blocks away from my college apartment in Boston. I asked around, and sure enough, the clothing items were all donations that Haitians bring into the DR to sell for their own profit. My first thought was that this was rather depressing, that we are sold this image of being a do-gooder if we send our old jackets and t-shirts to resource scarce people in underdeveloped countries and here they are selling that right back to me. But here’s the thing – they don’t need winter jackets or worn out swimsuits, they need to feed their family. They don’t need ramen noodles, bars of Dove soap, or Prilosec medicine. They want to eat food they know, like pollo criollo and huevos sancochado. They need prescription drugs and often hard to find diabetes medications. They need what we can’t give them by donating old t-shirts, Ritz crackers and multivitamins. 

So when I finally left the market, with Crocs I bought for $2 and a pound of ginger for 25 cents, I felt okay about the cycle of international donations…until I got home and started talking to others about it. Apparently, it’s worse than I thought. The international bundles of clothing, culturally inappropriate food and useless medicine are sent to ports where a handful of rich Haitians collect the goods and bring them to a warehouse where poor Haitians go to buy the stuff, lug it to the border and sell it finally in the DR. It’s a business (a lucrative one for an already wealthy few) and one of the best arguments I’ve found to date against international aid.

Oh, and Toms shoes. Yeah, they were selling those things like hotcakes. Maybe they keep a pair or two for themselves, but I’m pretty sure any good Tom thinks he’s doing by giving a pair of shoes to someone in need, is being undone by sending them to rich Haitians who sell them for profit to poor Haitians who sell them for profit to poor Dominicans. And I’ve got two pairs sitting here on my floor, eugh.

On motivation:

I’ve been talking to my other Peace Corps Volunteer (PCV) friends and they all echo the same sentiment, this is hard work. There is usually something really awesome and really challenging about someone’s site. For instance, my good friend Grayson lives in a highly motivated community with a bunch of women ready to kick ass and start a health group, but they lack a lot of financial resources as a community to make it happen. My friend Chaz has a million resources at his disposal because he lives an hour away from the capital, but he doesn’t know what’s the most useful way to spend his time helping the community. My friend Dante lives in Santiago and his town is huge, but he gets to work in a high school and partner closely with the school psychologist to start his groups and use space for meeting in the school.

And in Manzanillo, the good: a women’s group that already functions, a high school with a great director and 200 energetic students, a middle school without a sex-ed curriculum, and two health clinics. The challenge: no one seems very motivated. I went to health clinic and met with the two health promoters who are supposed to visit homes in Manzanillo and check for proper sanitation and hygiene. When I asked how often they work, they replied, when the government sends us toothbrushes. What? I asked. They replied, “When we get toothbrushes sent from the capital, we go to the elementary school and hand them out. That’s our work for now because we’re too tired to do more than that and it takes a lot of time.” Yes, I thought to myself, that’s why it’s called work, it should take eight hours a day (is that my capitalism side coming out too strong?). And in the women’s group, there is supposedly a group of fifty but I’ve been to three weekly meetings and have yet to count more than seven. And at the high school, well, they’re adolescents, nuff said. And in COPRODEMA, there’s no organization because they’re in debt. Basically what I’m hearing from people is “Ain’t nobody got time for that” and what I’m seeing is people sitting in chairs. So why the lack of motivation? I have yet to figure it out but it’s my job to find it and put it back in the capable hands of Manzanielleros. And all this finding motivation in others takes a lot of motivation on my part. So far I’m going strong, hope to keep it up until I can get my group’s started, rolling, and excited by early February.

That’s enough food for thought for this week! This weekend should be a good one. Tomorrow, a huge town-wide baseball tournament (with series of games everyday until January 16th) begins with with a parade down main street and I'll be taking part. And on Sunday, my host cousin and friends Jhanna and Macho are getting married, so that'll be fun! Then on Wednesday, I'm off to the capital for Thanksgiving with other PCVs, yummmm! 

As always send updates from your lives!

Sending peloteras, warmth from the Caribbean sun, and dembow mixes.

Missing toilets that flush, drinking water from the sink, and being cold.

Mil besos,

Bea 

On culture and granny panties

¡Hola! 

I’ve been here now for 85 days and counting. It’s almost the three month mark! I think it’s time for a bit of reflection on Dominican culture, and of course some story telling.

Last Friday, I was feeling awesome. I felt as if I finally had a grasp on the layout of this town, that I was meeting people left and right, that all was going well and I hadn’t had a mishap, communication error, or problem in almost a week. But like all things I think I know, I usually don’t. After a long day of power walking all around up and down town from meeting Guatemalan missionaries in the primary school, eating lobster salad with my host aunt, rice and beans with another doña and locrio de ayuama with my own doña, to visiting the primary school and playing with kids, attending a social security beneficiary meeting of townsfolk, sitting in a meeting of leaders from critical groups in Manzanillo, to running to the Evangelical church to watch my friend Elenne in a danza, I was so relieved when I plopped down at home at ten o’clock to eat my mashed plantains and fried salami. And remember that I was feeling great about myself and all the people I met and all the places I saw and the things I did to integrate. It was such a relieving feeling, knowing I can do this.

And then out of nowhere pops my host mom Chichi to ask me a “sensitive question.” She asked me why I left three pieces of meat on my plate Thursday night. Just when I was starting to feel comfortable at home, kicking it with my doña, and here she is thinking I am starving myself. But I can’t tell her, “Well doña Chichi, I just ate a bowl of rice and beans at doña Julia’s house then doña Alex invited me in for lobster salad, so I’m kinda full and as much as I love you, I don’t want your boiled pig intestines mixing with all that in my barriga.” Or maybe I just should have. But it got worse. She followed up with, “Do you like my cooking?” Now I can’t quite tell her that I don’t really eat mystery meat/chewy pig intestines because they really gross me out and that a salad every once in a while really won’t kill me, so I said, “Lo siento mucho, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to leave it, I promise I am enjoying eating your food. I love it!” But after that I felt guilty. It’s a cultural thing. And like all cultural things, I feel like I’ll never get them all right.

For instance, church. I have been going to the Evangelical one because my three precious host cousins (with basically the same name: Elenne, Iliany, Eliana) invited me and I’m on a mission never to say “no” to anything here, so I go. It’s pretty intense. There are people who speak with God and lift their hands up in and scream “Amen, Dios nos bendiga, God bless us, hallelujah.” I actually really love it. I don’t associate very strongly with the connection to God and rarely feel the Spirit in the room, but I appreciate their enthusiasm and willingness to show me what’s up and welcome me warmly into their congregation. Its fun in that there’s lots of applause, stomping feet, sitting down, standing up, singing, and watching people communicate their love for God in various other interesting ways, like crying, yelling, walking around in circles murmuring under their breath. Like this one time when four high school girls performed an emotional dance with their eyes closed the whole time. They finished and left out a side door and mere minutes later I hear the sounds of human sobbing outside. Someone opened the door and there the four of them are sitting in a circle on their knees rocking, crying, holding hands and looking more or less possessed. I was pretty curious though, because I simply didn’t understand what was going on and I didn’t know if it was appropriate to ask them what was up when they came back in – so being me, I did! Turns out they felt an overwhelming love for God and the only way to let out their sentiments was through tears and song. Power to ‘em.

Another example, schools. I don’t understand how schools get anything done during a school year. I went to visit the small elementary school and just wanted to present myself to the director and let her know I am in town for a while. Well, we got to chatting when the kids were in recess, and an hour later, they still had recess and the director and I were still talking. I thought I might have missed something, maybe they got a free day to play, maybe they had been dismissed already. Nope, the teacher just interrupted her class and let them play for an hour so she could talk to me about my role in the community. When I walked out of the room she said, take five more minutes and then we’ll learn about math for ten minutes before class is over. Much appreciated, Martina, but them poor kids got ripped off on their math time.

Other cultural differences that shock me:

1) White pants and neon colored granny panties.

I suspect the concept of thong underwear has yet to be introduced down here. That or women don’t like wearing underwear up their butts because we wash our undies in big buckets that are also used for mopping floors and cleaning toilets. Okay, to be fair, maybe it’s a hygiene thing. But it’s bad. You’ll see women in snakeskin/floral lycra wearing bunched-up-two-sizes-too-big-granny panties popping out of the top of their skintight lycra, often reading “PINK” or “SEXY” or “MARTES (TUESDAY).” You’ll also see women going out in tight white dresses looking hot as hell and then they turn around and boom!...red granny panties in your face showing through that sexy see-through slip that doubles as a party dress just like that. By no means am I a fashionista but even I know better than that.

2) Babies. Everywhere.

Grandparents are usually the ones taking care of babies. It’s like the raising of the kids skips a generation, because 16, 17, and 18 year olds are having kids and when you’re 18, it’s not cool to change diapers, it’s cool to drink shitty beer and flirt. Which is the lesser of the two evils in my opinion. They shouldn't be popping out babies and giving them to grandma (who is usually like 34 years old). While it kills me to see so many teenage mothers, and a lack of concern over the alarmingly high hates, I then have to remind myself, culture runs deep. Socialization can’t be undone and what’s normal where I come from can’t be normal everywhere. Most children are so loved, even if raised by grandparents, extended relatives, single parents. Most days it still shocks me, but it's a beautiful thing to watch the metaphorical village raise these children.

3) 23 year olds who don’t graduate from high school.

I would say (as my research findings have thus far adequately represented) that 50% of teenagers who start high school don’t finish. In first year, there are around 120 students who enter the local high school and this year, only 51 graduated. Some take more than four years to complete high school, but the majority either drop out to find work, have babies, or just chill. They call these people “vagas” which doesn’t really directly translate in English but is aptly described as a mix between “lazy and leeching off one’s parents.”  Some young mothers go back to school, but most don’t. Think about it, it’s embarrassing to go back to school if you’re 23, mingling with lame 15 year olds who take selfies in History class. So most just quit, and sit around on the porches of their parents. My host sisters and host brother never graduated from high school and when I ask them what they do all day they say, “Nothing, just trying to get rid of boredom.” I want to shake them and tell them to get their asses to high school, especially because it’s only from 8am-12pm everyday, but then again I have to realize that culturally, they aren’t raised with an expectation to go finish high school (much less to go to college), but rather the expectation to find someone they like alright and then pop out babies, help around the house, and maybe get a job. 

But while these things are hard to overcome, wrap my head around, and deal with, there are plenty of cultural aspects I am so happy to have found here.

1) The friendliness.

If I don’t stop by Tita, Alejandrina, Lourdes, Wendy, Billerca, Addis, and Chichi’s house everyday, I’m in big trouble. I’m always being offered juice, coffee, rice and beans, dulces, and soda. And even those these people are poor and live peso to peso, sharing with your neighbors is just what you do. A lot of this is based in their deeply rooted Christian beliefs in giving those less fortunate and a lot of it has to do with this culture of compartir (sharing). Even the poorest people have company to share, they say.

2) The yelling.

The most productive way to get ahold of someone is to just show up at their house. And if they’re not sitting on their porch out front in plastic chairs, odds are they’re cooking or cleaning. So you yell. “CHICHI! CHICHI! VEN ACA!” That usually does the trick. And if not, you walk right on in, maintaining a loud yelling voice the entire time. Then you’re greeted by kisses on the cheek, a plastic chair to sit in (no one likes to talk to someone standing up), and a nice cup of juice or coffee.

3) The pace of life.

I love my days here. If I feel rushed to get to a 4pm meeting, I just have to remind myself that the meeting isn’t actually going to start until 5pm, and I can get away with arriving even at 5:30pm if I want. Although it makes my life so much less productive because I am usually a pretty punctual person, I just have to let go of the stress and remind myself that here, people forgive you for being late, interrupting a meeting to say hello or buenos dias, answering your cell phone in the middle of a meeting, and leaving early. Everything is chill. Tranquillo, tranquillo.

And there you have it! As a student of Dominican culture, I keep reminding myself that culture is about perspective and attitude. Keeping perspective and realizing that this culture is not better, or worse than the one I come from, just different. And maintaining the right attitude in that I shouldn’t judge an entire country for the beliefs and values they’ve deemed important. It's permeated too deeply and who am I to judge? We do weird things in America, too!

Off to observe a sex ed class in the high school. Sending love, dulce de maní, and abrazos del pueblo.

Missing my family, a great IPA, and the third season of Scandal with Kerry Washington.

Xoxox,

Bea

On being una voluntaria

What a week! 

I arrived back to the capital last Sunday, the 26^th and low and behold it was my host mom’s birthday. So we sat in a colmado (corner store) and listened to really loud music and drank Presidente. I hadn’t realized it was her birthday, so in a hurry I rushed to the nearest store and bought her a nice bottle of wine (surprisingly expensive here!). She was very thankful and suggested we make tacos and drink wine the following day in celebration of my near completion of training. I was so excited. Well the next day came, and when I got home, my host sister was vomiting all over the floor and we were fairly convinced she had dengue (she doesn’t) so tacos were off. It happened to be my last day at my original host family’s house and the mood was like a horrible terror movie – it was raining, I was using candlelight to pack a suitcase, the sounds of vomiting were in the background, and I could hear cockroaches crawling up and down the walls. It was depressing way to leave my first family, but what can you do, ya know?

Meanwhile, back at work, I had to give a presentation called “Readiness to Serve” to my bosses. Turns out, I was ready to serve, so Wednesday, the second-in-command at the US Embassy swore in forty-four (we lost five people before swear-in) volunteers and we took the Peace Corps oath to serve in Spanish and English. I teared up because I’m not gonna lie, it felt like a pretty big deal to finally become a real live Peace Corps Volunteer! To celebrate, straight after the swearing in ceremony, my newly minted volunteer friends and I went to a professional baseball game - tickets were $1. And of course, no celebration here would be complete without topping the night off with a trip to a discoteca for some merengue and bachata dancing, so that's just what we did. 

I spent the next two days downtown in the capital running errands, swimming at the US embassy pool (not nearly as elegant as it sounds), eating American food (Pizza Hut), celebrating Halloween (I dressed up as Earth in a threesome costume of Earth, Wind and Fire), fixing my computer (!!!), chatting with my bosses to confirm how I would start the health projects at my site, and dancing!

Friday, I hopped on a bus up to the beach town of Monte Cristi, only about 30 minutes from my lesser known site in Manzanillo. There, I met two other Peace Corps volunteers who live there and they’ll be my crew from here on out, so it’s a good thing they rocked. Saturday, I ventured to yet another Peace Corps Volunteers’ site in a town called Palo Verde (Green Stick). We went to a Dominican wedding, in which the church service was dominated by little kids getting baptized. Finally, on Sunday I jetted back to Manzanillo where in a random twist of events, I changed host families and now live in the center of town (instead of up on a hill) in my own mini-apartment above the house of an awesome family (mom - Luisa, dad - Enriquito, brother - Dawen, aunt - Chichi, and five little nugget kids) who are super social, chevere, helpful, bacana and fantastic. 

Monday was a holiday in celebration of the Dominican constitution, and as such, was naturally full of music, coffee, and porch sitting. But I’ve got a job to do, so I went out and made the rounds of town meeting anyone and everyone I could. I also made myself a schedule, and have hit the ground running with full days of meeting school/hospital/government directors and administrators, finding myself a small group of youth to help me conduct interviews, creating interview questions, starting the first of eighty-five interviews/home visits, going to English School to help facilitate classes for kids, attending literacy for adult courses, introducing myself to every classroom in the two elementary schools and one high school, walking up to random groups of people porch sitting to introduce myself, singing at Evangelical church services, being attentive at Catholic mass, and eating my fair share of fried food.

But, enough of that! Let me to create yet another list of the interesting things I’ve noticed this week!

1) You can interrupt anyone or anything whenever you want.

When I went to visit the high school, my project partner and I just stepped right on into a classroom, interrupted the teacher to say, “Hi, we’re here.” The teacher would stop what s/he was doing, and say “Oh hey, Licelot, good to see you, why don’t you introduce yourself and your friend.” Then I would introduce myself, tell everyone that I am a volunteer with Cuerpo de Paz and I will be here for two years working on health things blah blah blah, ask them to be my friends, and repeat my name three times (I'm Bea here because lord knows how hard Bronwen is to pronounce even in English). Then there’d be a few awkward seconds of pause before the teacher would say “Cool, anyways back to geometry.” And you never need to make an appointment for anything. Saying, “around ten o'clock” or “later” or “when God wants” seems to as effective (if not more) than penciling someone in.

2) You can send muchachos (little kids) to do anything for you.

If you have a little kid, are tight with a little kid, or see a little kid, you can make her/him do any number of errands for you. For example, I can send a kid to get me five pesos worth of sugar, flour, or rice from the nearest colmado. I can send a kid to pay my electricity bill, relay a message to a friend down the road, paint my nails, bring back a beer (wow, right?), or recarga my cell phone. It’s nuts the utility little kids have here. And unlike my own little brother in America who almost always refuses to do my errands, these kids here always say yes. It’s awesome.

3) I am still not sick of rice and beans.

I love la bandera (rice, beans and meat) and I eat it every day, without fail. Even when I was in the capital and had the choice of any food my heart could desire, I chose la bandera. It’s just SO good! They call it doña food because it’s the only thing a doña will give you for lunch so she can ensure you’re well fed. Without rice and beans, no meal is complete, she’ll say.

4) Christmas is all around!

You wouldn’t believe the Christmas cheer that’s all around! Since they don’t celebrate Thanksgiving here, the Christmas decorations are dusted off and set up at the end of October/early November. It’s weird (because it’s still 85 degrees everyday) and nice (because Christmas is my favorite holiday) to see all the trees, lights, wreaths, ornaments, sparkles, angels, and nativity scenes in the middle of the DR. Christmas truly is a beautiful thing, and it’s awesome to be able to feel the cheer for more than two months!

5) I’m going to start walking with doñas on the beach at 6am.

Hopefully I can work them up to jogging/running/lifting weights, but we’ll see. For now, I hope they’ll just become my good buddies and that I can develop confianza (trust) with. Maybe I’ll even get some good chisme (gossip) by walking early with them! And I don’t have pictures yet, but my morning jog/walk/run is absolutely gorgeous...I get to watch the sunrise on a beautiful beach.   

6) My job is so cool.

I am an anthropologist. I get to experience a completely different way of life, learn from friendly, warm and caring people, and go to weddings, drink coffee, and chat with people in order to understand their culture. My job rocks! I am so lucky. This is such a unique and vibrant experience to be having and even though it sounds like I’m just sitting on porches and eating (which I do my fair share of), I am learning so much from the stimuli around me. Even the most relaxing day on a porch teaches me something new. The busiest day running around from meeting to meeting allows me to grow in a different way. I talk to people, ask questions, listen, learn and think. I haven’t been bored for even five minutes in this country because there’s always something to be digesting, debriefing, and analyzing about my experience. It’s cliché, but everyone here has something to teach and show me. It’s my job to keep the right attitude about it, remembering to reflect at the end of every day, demonstrate compassion, and practice patience as true integration is neither immediate nor easy.

Sending you all love, fried plantains, and bachata rhythm!

Missing you all, the top music hits in America, NPR radio, white wine, and the streets of Boston after our sports teams win things!

Xoxo,

Bea (often mistaken for Vea (to see) or Bella (beautiful))