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! 

On being neither Dominican nor American

Hi!

Well, February 21^st marked my six-month anniversary in the DR!! It also happens to be Independence Month (they celebrate the whole month) with the final hurrahhhh being this Thursday the 27^th. The day will be full of parades, kids dressing up in costumes and running around like locos, people whipping each other with cow bladders in the middle of the road, and drinking (of course!). It's been a fun month here, with the flag raising ceremony in the high school every day at 8am and the lowering at 4pm. I'm also one stanza closer to memorizing the Dominican National Anthem!

Here’s a recap of my last few weeks!

After spending three months creating and conducting a community diagnostic with my Dominican project partner/sister, fast forward to IST! In-service-training. My whole health sector met up for four days in a weird, sterile Catholic convent in the middle of Santo Domingo off a random highway teasingly close to where we spent five weeks in the campo for pre-service training. For four days, the volunteers and project partners sat through informational lectures about how we should plan, develop, implement and succeed with our healthy communities projects. This training came at the perfect time in my service. It was nice to reflect on the work I have already done here and plan for the implementation of my next year and a half worth of projects. Also, I got to play some kick ass icebreakers and win a scavenger hunt (my project partner is just as/more competitive than I am, we’re a perfect match!).

Highlights from the week of training:

• Finally completing the diagnostic phase of my service and making a plan for how to continue.
• Getting the resources to start an environmentally focused youth group, constructing stoves, and starting a young girls group focused on empowerment, kachow, it’s right up my alley!
• My boss asked me to help a Dominican who lives close to me start a national NGO to promote sustainability of Peace Corps projects after we/I leave our communities (Ah! This is a big project!)
• Seeing my host family from the campo! It was so nice to be reunited with Mamí, Ani and Viji even if only for a few hours one afternoon during our training. When I arrived back to El Portón, I was greeted with all the love, hugs and cariño I’ve been desperate for these past three months.There’s no one like my campo family and I will always feel best when I am with them. Especially when they make the best espagettis and tostones and gave it to me in one huge delicious heap.
• Three early morning Insanity workouts with my man Shaun T. And after the 6am workouts, we’d run to be the first in line for breakfast and heaping platefuls of pineapple and papaya.
• Eating fruits and vegetables and only the occasional piece of fried cheese.
• Creating a vision with my community partner that I am very proud of. In Spanish: “Queremos un día en el cual nuestra juventud esté completamente capacitada en salud sexual, protección del medio ambiente y en como construir un hogar sano y armónico para tener una mejor sociedad y mundo compartido.” In English: “We wish for a day in which our youth are completely trained in sexual health, protection of our environment and in how to build a healthy and harmonious home in order to create a better society and shared world.”
• Feeling proud to be where I am in my work and knowing that I have a lot left to do, but I am on the right track and now with a schedule, monetary support, and ideas galore!

So I got back to Manzanillo on a Saturday and spent the week catching up with work, applying for a grant, teaching in the local schools, and visiting a really cool monument in a town called Capotillo with a group of 100 hormonal high schoolers (Yes, thanks for asking, I did survive!). This week, I’m continuing with my youth and women’s groups, English (and more English!) classes, going shopping at the Haitian market in Dajabon, and celebrating my big 23rd birthday! And next week, I will be helping with an Escojo Mi Vida (youth group) workshop in Montecristi then it’s off to Santiago to plan an environmental youth conference called Brigada Verde, or Green Brigade. 

But this blog wouldn't be complete without some fun commemoration of my six month anniversary, so here’s a fun list or DR/America cultural comparisons.

You know you’re Dominican when:

1. You find yourself wishing the cheese on top of your nightly dose of viveres (carbohydrate dense root vegetables) were fried.
2. You join the women’s softball team and two practices later they stop meeting.
3. The first song you put on when you get to the peace and quiet of your room is bachata or dembow.
4. You find yourself scrunching your nose and wrinkling your forehead to ask, “what?”
5. Fitting seven people in a car for five doesn’t faze you.
6. You blame Haitians for everything (eugh! comes down to a serious lack of education/compassion/understanding but that's a blog post of its own)
7. You say “saludos” or “greetings” whenever you enter a crowded building, public transportation, or arrive late to a class/meeting.
8. People tell you you’re “bien aplatanada” or “banana-ed” and mean to say that you’ve become a Dominican.
9. You’ve starting greeting people you haven’t seen in a while commenting that they are fat, skinny, pale, dark, tan, ugly, pretty or any other physical/irrelevant/offensive by American standards attribute.
10. You can have an entire conversation by using non-verbal communication with your face and hands.
11. You crave white bread.

You know you’re still American when:

1. You arrive 45 minutes late because you know the meeting will start on “Dominican time” but you’re still early.
2. You crave peanut butter, nutella, spicy food, and mustard on a daily basis.
3. You eat peanut butter and bananas while people stare and question your tastes.
4. You drink coffee black, no sugar.
5. You tell people they should probably not put a pound of sugar in their gallon of juice but getting a blank look in return.
6. You still get irrationally angry that your classes get interrupted by people being late and saying “saludos” when they enter.
7. You feel the need to plan a geography lesson whenever people ask you what country of New York you’re from (America does not equal New York and New York does not equal a country).
8. You’re still offended when people call you fat after they haven’t seen you in a while.
9. The lack of education and critical thinking leaves you craving a deep conversation about anything other than weather and gossip.
10. The more time you spend in the DR positively correlates to the amount of pride you feel to be an American. 
11. You crave spinach and kale.

You know you’re neither Dominican nor American when:

1. You’ve lost the ability to speak in full English sentences without throwing in a few words of Spanish.
2. You don’t really know what to do when faced with cultural problems such as men saying women “no sirve” or “can’t do anything” or when they say “those Haitians are all liars” and realizing it’s cultural but extremely uncomfortable for you to hear and do nothing about. (Suggestions?)
3. You don’t mind taking bucket baths and cold showers but you really wish the toilet would flush on it’s own.
4. You make $300/month but can still afford to do/buy more than the majority of Dominicans. 

Well, that's it for now! Until next time. 

Sending sugared-up coffee and juice, Independence Day thoughts, and cow bladders made for whipping. 

Wishing for granola, kale, dried mangoes, and quinoa. 

Love, 

Beya 

On questions from 4th graders

Today I opened my computer to an email from an elementary school teacher of mine who let me know that her 4th graders have questions for me! How cool!!!! Kids ask the best questions. Here's my answers! Thanks for the curiosity Mrs. Salmon's 4th grade class! 

Is it a one-room school-house?

The schools here (two elementary schools and one high school) actually have a bunch of different rooms. There is one room for every grade and you enter from the outside. The bathrooms and office are also outside with lots of open windows because we don't have a lot of electricity so there are not lightbulbs that turn on, just light from outside. As a teacher, it is very frustrating because the rooms are all very loud and the kids like to talk and scream, so it's hard to be a teacher when you are always yelling over the kids. The classrooms have desks and chairs and chalkboards, but nothing fancy. 

Do all kids go to school? 

Most kids go to school, yes. Unfortunately, you need to show a birth certificate to go to high school and many of the Haitian immigrants do not have these documents so they cannot go to school past 8th grade or else they will be kicked out of the country. It's pretty sad. Also, students with disabilities do not go to school. There are no resources here for special education, so kids who should e in separate classroom to help them learn just stay at home. Also, going to school is not mandatory and many teenagers drop out after their second year at high school. There is also a very high percentage of teenage mothers (girls who get pregnant before they are 18) and the majority of them drop out of high school. 

How educated are they?

The education system here is really different, most people just copy homework from their classmates and they do not have to write essays or do much research on their own. They do a lot of copying from wikipedia too when they can find internet access. I would say that a student here who completes high school probably has the education level of an American 7th grader. Some people go to the university after high school, but most do not. Most of the older people here (65 and older) are illiterate and never made it past 5th grade. 

Are there seasons there? 

The weather almost never changes here but there is a rainy season and a dry season. The rainy season is from April to November and the dry season is from December to March. There are many hurricanes during the rainy season and many of the homes are made of wood and will be crushed in big storms. It's pretty dangerous and a lot of people are unable to leave their communities because the roads are washed out with mud (most of the roads are dirt here). In December and January, there is a nice breeze in the morning and it is about 80 degrees during the day and 65 at night. For the rest of the year, it's very hot and humid - about 90 degrees all the time and 70 at night. No one leaves their house between the hours of 12pm-2pm because it's too hot to walk around.

Any mountains above 5000 feet? 

Yes, in fact there are a few! The most famous mountain is called Pico Duarte and it is 10,164 feet. I plan to climb it in January. It's the tallest mountain in the Caribbean! There are 3 major mountain ranges and a lot of little towns are in the mountains with people living on the side of hills! The Dominican Republic is a very diverse country in terms of terrain!  

When is the sun going down right now?

The sun goes down here around 7:30pm. It will go down later in the summer (but not too much later), and earlier in winter months (even though it's not actually a change of season). We do not have Daylight Savings here either. 

What is your opinion of plantain? Wikipedia says its a kind of banana.

I have mixed feelings about plantains (platanos). I really like to fry them and make tostones, basically little small flat fried pieces of plantains that you put salt on and eat like you would french fries. Also, you can boil them and mash them into a food called mangu and eat it with fried salami or fried cheese on top. I eat it every night for dinner and I'm getting kind of sick of it, to be honest! You can also eat them boiled and cut into pieces but they taste like nothing. A lot of people boil them and mix them with spaghetti (yuck!).

Thanks for the questions, I'll look forward to more! 

On love and loss

Hello all,

I hope this post finds you well. January was a strange month. Unfortunately, three community members died in Manzanillo and I spent quite a lot of time deep in reflective conversations about love and loss. Back stateside, two friends from home and college tragically passed away, and a pseudo-brother underwent brain surgery. In the spirit of honoring those who have passed, I want to take a moment to thank each of you for the role you play in my life. I wouldn’t be where I am without you, so I am sending you gratitude, slobbery kisses, and bear hugs. I remind myself to savor the moments I spend with my neighbors, host mothers, siblings, kid-friends, and talking on the phone to you all because...well, life is precious. In reflecting, I also want to be more conscious of the service I am providing here and the ways in which I can do more for myself and others daily. 

Yesterday I found myself in the midst of what I’ve come to call “A Peace Corps Day.” A Peace Corps Day, as I have coined, is a day in which I wake up feeling like I can conquer the world, then around ten o’clock “the worst thing in the world” happens. Examples include: finding out I will have to live with my host family indefinitely because rent in Manzanillo ($80/mth) is too expensive for me to move out on my own, the hospital presentation I’ve been preparing for a week doesn’t happen because the lights go off and 75% of the women speak only Creole, the high schoolers talk during my entire sex ed class on self-esteem, my host mom gives me fried bananas for breakfast and I haven’t pooped in six days, I can’t find the lizard that crawled into my bed with me last night, etc.

The morning progresses and I’m still upset, angry and on the verge of tears. I eat a nice big lunch of rice and beans and things start shaping up. I look at my watch hoping I have time to pop into bed for a siesta, but then, I remember I have something scheduled (a meeting, an English class, a women’s group, a neighbor to visit, a presentation to prepare) and can’t get out of it. So I call a friend to vent before heading to the meeting where low and behold, my day starts shaping up again. I take charge of the meeting, plan something awesome in my youth group, teach two hard lessons in English class, meet a new doña who gives me candy and coffee, or generally just feel the sense of kicking ass coming back. I keep going about my day feeling great. I have a productive conversation with my project partner, take a walk around town and realize that my life is, in fact, amazing. I finally get to eat some mashed platanos for dinner and settle into a peaceful slumber around ten o’clock.

In twelve hours, I’ve managed to feel a ridiculous combination of happy, sad, angry, frustrated, fulfilled, satisfied, and motivated. Looking back on the entire day, it’s a net positive. It’s a Peace Corps Day. It’s a day where I feel thankful to be exactly where I am...living, breathing, serving. While I have minutes and hours where I feel so small, meek and beaten down, at the end of the day I’ve learned something. I’ll be a better person tomorrow because of the challenges I faced today (and in the Peace Corps, I’m finding myself struggling (for better and for worse) more than I ever have before). I can deal with not having water for bathing, reliable electricity or vegetables for weeks at a time because getting carried away with the small frustrations leaves me little time to think about what I really want to accomplish. Life is made of small steps, but taking too many small steps never gives us the chance to leap, bound or make strides. Much of this I have learned from the people here. 

This is a country of riches, not wealth. A country where money is only worth counting when it can be measured by the beans and rice one can buy and the coffee one can toast to her neighbors. I am in a country where the people are smiling, even on a bad day. When even though you can’t buy a bigger house or nicer phone, you always have your family and you always have enough oil to fry some plantains. And if you don’t have enough oil, you’ve got plenty of neighbors who will lend you some.

Time here is not measured or kept in minutes, but in how many chairs one can add to add to a growing group on the street and how many stories you share with friends in a long, lazy afternoon. This is a country where yelling from across the house is the only way to call someone’s attention and whispering should never be done. One can scold a friend’s child herself, or take said child for a walk, motorcycle ride, or ice cream at any time of day without warning. I can show up at a neighbors, friends, grandma’s or the mayor’s house unannounced, and if I don’t stop by at least once a day, I’m in trouble. The sum of these small parts creates a beautiful reality - one I am thankful to be living. 

As my pseudo-brother and three time brain surgery survivor wrote in a recent blog post: "May we always see this world for what it is and truly appreciate whatever we may be so fortunate to find within it."

I hope to hear from you soon, if only to know you're well. Know that I've been thinking about you all in the wake of one of the more challenging months I've been through. 

Sending all kinds of love! 

On number crunching and election rigging

First things first...HAPPPPPPPPPY NEWWWWWWWWW YEAR!!!!!!!!

Hope you all spent it just like I did...on a crystal clear beach, soaking up luscious and much needed sun rays, unleashing your wavy beach locks just in time to dance by the sea at night, and eating American hamburgers. Oh, you didn’t? Hate to rub it in. It’s cool though, because since being back in site, my life consists of playing Candy Crush, preparing an English class, researching breast milk, drawing a map, snapchatting, and sticking my fungus infected toe in a bucket of boric acid.

Oddly, things have started to become normal here. My daily routine of waking up, drinking coffee on the porch, heading to my grandma’s house to inject her with insulin (well my mom does the needle part), interviewing my community members, planning English classes, applying for grant money, wandering around town, chatting...it’s all become so regular. And given that it’s January of 2014, I’ve been faced with the sobering reality, I have 22 months left. Wow. Time flies and then again it doesn’t. By the numbers in five months:

·      144 - Days in country
72 - Days in Manzanillo
5 - Host families
12 – Number of siblings I consider myself to have here
4 – Mothers I consider myself to have here 
1 – Haircut
1 – Fungus contracted by use of non-sterilized nail clippers
1 - Bout of not-so-horrible diarrhea
11 - Books read
58 – Community interviews conducted
Over 450 - Community members met
2 - English classes started
4 – Community groups joined
8 - Charlas (lectures) given on HIV/AIDS, breastfeeding, pregnancy, nutrition
3 - Jars of peanut butter devoured
7 - Cans of bugspray used
87 - Consecutive days eaten rice and beans for lunch
5 – Beaches visited 
$14,417 – My salary in pesos (equivalent to about $300)
6 – Care packages received (thank you!)
24 – Post cards received
8 – Average hours of electricity in Manzanillo
48 – Days until I move into my own house 

Last week, I wandered into the main office of the high school (like I do every morning) but this time with a purpose, to get a classroom and teach an English classes! In my opinion, teaching English isn’t the best approach to development and I’m not a huge fan, but when the mayor of the town asked me to start a course a month ago, I felt I couldn’t say no. Personally, I think these people need to learn their own language well before they learn English, but alas, I’m here to help in whatever ways are needed and if they perceive this to be a need, why wouldn’t the native English speaker do it?

Anyhow, as I entered the office, the high school director, one of my favorite doñas here (her grilled eggplant is to die for!) was having a chat with four young girls about a club they are trying to start. I sat in on the meeting not understanding what club they were trying to start and it wasn’t until the end when the director said, “Now make sure you invite them all to church this Saturday, you are now officially the youth pastors.” What? I literally couldn’t believe that they were having a meeting about how to garner more youth attendance at the Catholic church! I took a step back and reminded myself, separation of church and state doesn’t really exist here.

Then I started thinking about all the other things I've witnessed that seem extremely inappropriate from my cultural point of view. These other Bronwen-deemed inappropriate things include:

1) Parents allowing their children swear rampantly.

It is not uncommon to hear little children (2 years old) to be screaming coño (literally translates to cunt (eugh its awful)) at their fellow playmates, at their siblings, at me and even their parents. Another common thing to hear is “Mamá, él está jodiendo conmigo” or “Mom, he’s fucking around with me.” It’s painful to my ears!

2) Parents beating their children.

The most common tool for hitting a child is a flipflop simply slipped off and used to wack a child when she/he does something “bad.” “Bad” things include interrupting, taking too long to get ready, or other things kids are likely to do. “Really bad” things include hitting a fellow kid, spitting on an adult, swearing or just being a brat. And for those, they get a belt smack, stick pegged on the behind or slap across the face.

3) People thinking it’s okay to ask me for 200 pesos every time I see them.

No, it is not my job to give you 200 pesos. Just because I look white and appear to be foreign doesn’t mean I have money.

4) People throwing me endless piropos (catcalls).

Even after two months being here in my site, I am still the “gringa,” “rubia,” “Americana,” “preciosa,” “buenamosa” or “princessa.” I am never Bea. And the worst is the people who know me - know my name and know I will be here for two years living and working among them. If I could make just one wish from my fairy godmother, it would be to have then please stop calling me “blondie the beautiful princess.”

5) Showing up to a meeting an hour late.

Town meetings, high school classes, my English class, reunions, you name it – they’ll all start a minimum of thirty minutes late, maximum of an hour and a half. It’s the worst. I’m definitely going to come back to America and never be on time for anything!

6) Accepting bribery during elections.

This Sunday, we had a national election to form what is known as the “Comite Central” or a central committee of politicians who give advice to the president. The advisors come exclusively from the president’s own party (ironic). My host brother came home and I heard incessant arguing in the kitchen. I went to see what was up, and as it turns out, my brother (who supports this guy Tito) voted for a candidate (Anyelo) because a woman was standing outside of the voting location bribing people with 300 pesos (less than $8) to vote for Anyelo. Turns out the majority of people I talked to who are around my age took the bribe. Needless to say, our street corner was full of beer last night, what a great way to spend bribe money...not! As someone who believes strongly in democracy, it’s depressing to see how easily youth in this country can be manipulated and how easily the foundation of democracy can be rocked.  

I’ve been talking to many a Peace Corps Volunteer lately and they’ve all echoed the same sentiment - this is very tough and there are seriously aggravating parts of this culture that make us want to shove our faces into a pillow and scream (if the odds of finding a cockroach in said pillow weren’t about 70%). I knew that the Peace Corps was going to be difficult, but I was expecting it to be challenging in a different way. I worried about adjusting to the bugs, the heat and the lack of electricity. What I have found is that it is more of a challenge to get used to dealing with perplexing bureaucracy, the lack of motivation in host country counterparts, and managing cultural barriers.

And as I find myself here on the brink of starting the projects I’ve been training and preparing for the past five months, I remind myself that in this sort of self-imposed exile, attempting to “change the world,” it is not the culture, but rather the behaviors of individuals that frustrate me. It’s easy to use “Dominican culture” as a scapegoat, or a way to distance culture from the reality I live everyday. But many of the frustrations I have experienced are inherently human. In a poverty stricken town in the middle of the DR, it’s no wonder a young 20-year-old who never finished high school and has a four-year-old kid would take a bribe for 300 pesos. She doesn’t care much for politics anyway. My mistake has been in thinking of culture in the abstract – almost like an intellectual exercise, but culture is a day-to-day, moment-to-moment, psychological and emotional reality. I’m making it my goal this week to “accept” behaviors that I’ve deemed inappropriate in my old cultural context. Accepting, not in liking or approving, but in trusting (however irritating it is) that these behaviors are appropriate here. I will “accept” the behaviors because I understand that they make sense in the local culture, however strange and rude they would appear in ours.

This weeks agenda includes: giving a presentation to all the pregnant women in Manzanillo, heading to Montecristi to serve as a translator for a medical mission from the US, and perhaps running in 3k race in a town called Loma de Cabrera. And on Monday, I’m off to the capital to get my green card!

Until next time!

Bronwen

On New Years shenanigans

Sometimes being a volunteer is exhausting, but sometimes you get to take a vacation and play with friends. We headed to the northern beach town of Cabarete to celebrate and bring in the New Year! 

Much needed time away from site and some R&R

Digging a hole and making sand castles

Ramen noodles night 2 - check out them crazy portals we used for eating

Dante, Bronwen, Grayson, Sofia - looking great

Family Photo Take 1 

Family Photo Take 2 

Looking pensive 

Family Photo Take 3 

Family Photo Take 4

Family Photo Take 5 

Family Photo Take 6 

Dante and Bronwen - the Idaho volunteers