On books and kale

¡Olé!

Last week was the most relaxing and a much needed tranquil break! Everyone had the week off for Semana Santa (Holy Week) and I stayed in Manzanillo and was cogiendolo suave (taking it easy). I slept in, cleaned, organized, ate sweet bean dish at all my favorite doñas houses, took a beach day, painted my nails, worked out, went to a merengue show with my grandma and extremely fashionable aunt and read three books.

One of the books I finished this week was Wild by Cheryl Strayed. It’s quite popular in America (so I hear) and I wanted to see what the fad was all about. Glad I did because it was a great read! Quick synopsis: Wild is a true story of one woman's journey hiking the Pacific Crest Trail from California to Oregon back in the 1990s. In documenting her travels, she simultaneously explains real-life problems like divorce, her mother dying, and a crumbling family life. Even though her life situation was/is completely different from mine, it was amazing to read how relatable her trail life is to my life here in the Peace Corps. PCT life is just like PCV life I suppose! A few quotes in particular have really hit home for me. Here’s my list of relatable quotes and a lil commentary on each one.

• “My new existence was beyond analogy, I realized on that second day on the trail. I was in entirely new terrain. What a mountain was and what a desert was were not the only things I hadn't expected. I hadn't expected the flesh on my tailbone and hips and the fronts of my shoulders to bleed. I hadn't expected to average a bit less than a mile an hour...” 

Within my first month as a volunteer, I realized that my Peace Corps life is beyond analogy. What a culture is and what a volunteer does were not the only things I had my own expectations for. I hadn't expected to be living in a food desert, living teasingly close to comforts of America, never being alone, and constantly being constipated. I hadn't expected that my community projects wouldn't always work out as planned. And trying compare it “all” (my town, my job, my emotions, my challenges, the culture, the food, etc) to anything else in the world is impossible.

• “I staggered north toward Kennedy Meadows, furious with myself for having come up with this inane idea. Elsewhere, people were having barbeques and days of ease, lounging by lakes and taking naps. They had access to ice cubes and lemonade and rooms whose temperature was 70 degrees. I knew those people. I loved those people. I hated them too, for how far away they were from me, near death on a trail few had ever heard of.”

What gets me is that not even 2,000 miles away, people are having barbeques, doing hot yoga, drinking good beer, eating kale, easily streaming Netflix, eating hot cheetos, having wifi everywhere, and experiencing climate controlled rooms. But then again, those same people don’t get coffee 24/7, rice and beans everyday, merengue/bachata music all hours of the day, to walk to work, Caribas platano chips, tostones, or the thrill of riding a motorcycle around town!

• “I stopped in my tracks when that thought came into my mind, that hiking the PCT was the hardest thing I’d ever done. Immediately I amended the thought...Hiking the PCT was hard in a different way. In a way that made the other hardest things the tiniest bit less hard. It was strange but true.”

I wish someone had told me before I started how mentally difficult this job would be. It takes serious mental strength to get from day to day sometimes. And in the process, I’ve become my own biggest advocate, critic and motivator. It’s been the best exercise in finding power within myself. It’s a different kind of hard than I’ve ever known, but I suppose it can only make things I hope to do in the future that much easier.

• “By the end of that second week, I realized that since I’d begun my hike, I hadn’t shed a single tear.”

I still haven’t cried hard and good here and it’s been over 8 months! I guess that means it’s going well?

• As I walked, I didn’t think of those snowy peaks. Instead, I thought of what I would do once I arrived at the Kennedy Meadows General Store that afternoon, imagining in fantastic details all the things I would purchase to eat and drink...I pictured the moment when I would lay hands on my first resupply box, which felt to me like a monumental milestone, the palpable proof that I’d made it at least this far.”

 This quote resonates mostly because I spend time picturing the moment when I will lay hands on my next care package, which feels to me like a beautiful godsend, especially when it contains some combination of almond butter, Orbit gum, chocolate, Samoa Girl Scout cookies, dried mangos, chapstick, Reach mint waxed floss, new shirts, granola, nuts, fresh underwear and love notes.

• “I spent hours in a half-ecstatic, half-tortured reverie, fantasizing about cake and cheeseburgers, chocolate and bananas, apples and mixed-green salads, and more than anything, about Snapple lemonade. This did not make sense. I’d had only a few Snapple lemonades in my pre-PCT life and liked them well enough, but they hadn’t stood out in any particular way. It had not been my drink. But now it haunted me. Pink or yellow, it didn’t matter. Not a day passed that I didn’t imagine in vivid detail what it would be like to hold one in my hand and bring it to my mouth. Some days I forbade myself to think about it, lest I go entirely insane.

For me, it’s not Snapple lemonade, but more a combination of the things I can’t have. Kale enters my mind a lot, as does spinach. And iced tea and iced coffee. And as she remarks, some days I forbid myself from even thinking about American pleasures, lest I go insane. It’s the worst when I’m talking on the phone to my momma and she’s munching away on something so I go ahead and ask, “what’s that you’re eating over there?” and she’ll reply “oh, sorry honey, it’s a caramel from Trader Joes” or “it’s just a kale salad dad’s making.” It’s torture! And the snapchats yall send of delicious meals...rude! 

• “As difficult and maddening as the trail could be, there was hardly a day that passed that didn’t offer up some form of what was called trail magic in the PCT vernacular – the unexpected and sweet happenings that stand out in stark relief to the challenges of the trail.”

Yes, the Peace Corps is challenging and frustrating a lot of the time, but it’s also so much fun and so beautiful that I get to experience a new culture, live here, make friends here, hang out on porches, work with youth and mothers, and just be here. Every day, month, project, and experience is a net positive even if the accumulation of its parts comes with negatives.

• “The PCT had gotten easier for me, but that was different from it getting easy.”

I’ve taken to writing in a journal and when I reflect back on entries from months ago, I can see how far I’ve come and grown and that’s been inspiring to me and truly powerful. And looking forward I see how much there is left to do, and think to myself than in one month, two months, six months, I’ll be looking back on today thinking how much more satisfying it will become. In 8 months here, certain things have gotten easier. Like the food, and the bugs, and the lack of water and electricity. But it is far from easy – a word I would never use to describe being a PCV. It’s been a combination of challenging, rewarding, satisfying, infuriating, miserable, amazing, inspiring and tough – but never easy.

• “Thank you, I thought over and over again. Thank you. Not just for the long walk, but for everything I could feel finally gathered up inside of me; for everything the trail had taught me and everything I couldn’t yet know, though I felt it somehow already contained within me.”

I suppose it’s too soon to know what this experience has taught me, but I do know that everyday, being here teaches me something. I’ve been keeping a journal (thanks to Carolyn and Roy, who sent me down here with plenty of Moleskins!) and will hopefully be able to reflect in time on the experience and the lessons learned. But I do not that there is something here invaluable that I will take away in the end. Too hard to put a finger on it just yet, or maybe I never will, but it’s here with me!

¡Nos checkeamos!

B

On politics, palaces and McDonalds

¡Buenos días!

I love politics. From knocking on doors in support of a candidate I love to reading about the laws passed in my home state of Idaho and in the capital DC, I eat up what most people scorn, mock and complain about. That part of me hasn't gone away, but I haven't had the opportunities to get my fingers wet in the pool of Dominican politics just yet. Until now! 

Last week I got a confusing phone call from the mayor of my town and some political bigwig from the capital inviting me to a meeting about promoting volunteerism in our town. I went to the meeting with my mayor and a few other youth and suddenly I had signed myself up to be the "consultant" for a trip to the capital for a national youth leadership conference with 75 youth from towns along the Haitian/Dominican border. 

he conference was organized by the Director of the Border, a politician from my town of Manzanillo and the idea was to train young leaders and unify a national organization of volunteers who will strengthen the border with talent and community service. Why? The seven provinces along the border are the poorest and least invested in area in the country. Additionally, there is a large migration of youth away from the border, and those who are left behind are largely uneducated, illiterate, and poor. Supposedly this conference will be part of the solution to keep smart and engaged youth in their hometown. 

In three days, we visited the Supreme Court, DR Congress, attended panels with Senators and other elected officials, and toured the National Palace. For some youth, these were the first three days they had ever spent in the capital, and for some the first time they had left their small campo. They were snapping pics left and right and doe-eyed with all the "important" things we saw. It was really moving to experience this "big deal" with Dominican youth who rarely (if ever) have opportunities like this. I was impressed. But for a conference run by the government, it was surprisingly unorganized. There was no agenda, things just started when they started and ended when we got through the guest presentations. There was a camera man following us around all week and the director of the conference explained it was to show "the wonderful work of our government" (aka propaganda materials). We also prayed a lot and although I understand there is no separation of church and state here like in the US, it was incredible to see how much religion infiltrates and affects government. By far the best/randomest part of the trip was the free McDonalds they gave us at the end of our tour of the National Palace that some kids exclaimed "only the government could afford to give us McDonalds!" 

But now, how do we take back all the information we learned over three days? Engaging youth in Manzanillo and trying to promote "volunteerism" isn't something that's very cool or popular or even heard of. In a developing country where the majority of youth are married with children by age 20, it's hard to promote and excite them about helping their communities. What's in it for them? 

I've been reflecting a lot on where the drive to serve comes from. How did I get it? Why don't others have it? By no means have a conducted thorough research in this area, but I do know volunteering isn't entirely selfless. I started volunteering when I was 13, first for political campaigns and soup kitchens and then for youth projects and community cleanups. I don't know why I first thought to get involved (I think because my now mentor/close friend/ex-State Rep. Wendy Jaquet asked me) but part of me continued because people told me it would help me in the future. What kind of future, I didn't know, but I knew that I had some kind of future to get to. I can't lie and tell you a part of me didn't keep doing community service for the recognition it seemed to bring in the form of compliments, awards and prestige and the promise of "getting into college." But why did I keep doing it in college and to start my career which I suspect will include many more years of service? 

I still don't quite know, but I do know that if I've never finished high school, have two kids, will most likely never go to college, live with my mom, look for money from older men, and have low self-esteem, of course I would rather be drinking on a Friday night than planting a tree for some vision of a healthier planet I can barely grasp. And if I'm a high school student from a poor family without resources to send me to college and my parents are largely absent in raising me or call me stupid often, where will I find the motivation to do anything but escape my misery in socializing with my peers on Facebook? The answer is you wouldn't. But does encouraging and empowering youth make the difference, does telling them enough times that they have a future and can go to university, start a career, and go big places help? I hope so, cause inspiring and empowering seems to be 50% of my job! 

So volunteering doesn't happen much here, but where do the people who do help get their passion for service? In my town of 9000, I certainly don't know everyone, but I pretty much know everyone who attends community meetings, organizes parades for Independence Day, solicits donations to provide backpacks and toothbrushes to school children, motivates others to help plant trees or clean the beach and serves Manzanillo in various ways. Sadly, the people who participate can be counted on two hands. 

I don't have enough evidence to say if this situation in my town is unique because many other volunteers have been very successful with their projects and have communities where everyone participates. But I'm stuck. With attendance in my groups seriously dropping, youth making excuses for not participating, women unengaged to become health promoters, and my past two project partners shirking on their responsibilities, there is little I can do as a single person to motivate an entire population. So that's why I was so excited for this conference in the capital. I believe that with new tools and help from youth who attended, we will be able to work together to strengthen the network of volunteers that already exist and use them to help me motivate and organize a project or two in my own community. I just hope that somewhere and somehow I can find where the drive to serve ones community comes from and inject a healthy dose of it into Manzanillo.

Thanks to all of you who've encouraged me to keep serving others, I wouldn't be on this path, wherever it leads, without your support!

Xoxox, 

B

On a fancy capital tour

This week I was offered a spot on a Dominican youth tour of the capital. I went as an advisor and was able to experience first hand how the government works here. It was enlightening and inspiring to be here with youth who have so much potential and will be the future of this country. We had a blast!

Me at the desk of the Director of the Border with a nice pic of President Danilo Medina behind me

1 of 3 trail courts in the Supreme Court, notice there are only 5 seats

Inside the Supreme Court

Presenting a flower arrangement at the monument of the three fathers of the DR

Wouldn't be a government-sponsored conference without staying in a Catholic retreat center

Free McDonalds after a tour of the National Palace 

DR National Palace

Me with famous bachata singer, Raulin Rodriquez. Why the dark glasses at 11pm?

President Bronwen about to take a snooze in her royal chair

The Voluntariado Juvenil in the National Palace in one of the main salons

On writing a stoves grant

For those curious and interested in the Peace Corps' grant writing process, I'll upload my World Connect Project Plan here. Hopefully it will explain the language used in World Connect's grants and the project I plan to implement soon enough! 

Bronwen Raff

World Connect Improved Cookstoves in Copey

Project Plan

April 4, 2014

Goals:

1)    To provide high quality improved clay cookstoves for 40 women to use in their homes for 90% of their regular cooking needs while improving health outcomes for women and children by removing smoke from cooking areas and protecting the environment by reducing the amount of fuel consumed.

2)    Low-income women will adopt healthy behaviors and practices that contribute to improved family health outcomes. 

Activities:

This project has two main components. The first component is the educational and organizational part while the second component is the actual building of the improved cookstoves. In the beginning stages of the project, I will work with my key community partner to create a cookstoves committee with women heads of households who are current members of the women’s center in Copey. These will be women whose homes I have visited to confirm that they are in need of an improved cookstove as they are currently using coal burning and environmentally harmful stoves for the majority of their cooking. They are also women who serve as community health promoters and have a vested interest in bettering their community and the environment. This committee will meet every two weeks and we will discuss details of the cookstoves project, including: requirements for obtaining a cookstove, expectations during construction process, responsibilities of beneficiary families, lectures on the importance, usage and maintenance of cookstoves, as well as possible fundraising initiatives.

            The second component of the project will include the actual construction of the cookstoves. I will be responsible for making sure all of the details are prepared for the process, including: soliciting transportation to pick up ceramic stove pieces, purchasing cement and other materials from the hardware store, coordinating a schedule with the mason and project partner, confirming the schedule with the beneficiary families and general troubleshooting that may come along in the construction process. Once all these details have been finalized, we will begin construction, ideally 3-5 stoves a week. In this process, the beneficiary families will be responsible for providing one helper during construction, a bag of sand, a bag of ash, and food for the workers. After construction is complete, there will be a final portion of the project in which I will teach the women how to cook on their improved cookstoves. After the women have been using their stoves for a few weeks, I will make sure to follow up with them by conducting a home visit and a water boiling test on the stove itself.

            This project will positively impact the community by bringing 40 improved cookstoves to the town of Copey. Most women are currently cooking on stoves that do not have chimneys, harm the lungs of children and women, and burn coal. Additionally, 40 women and their families will be educated on proper usage of these improved cookstoves, as well as the importance of clearing smoke from cooking areas, using less resources for cooking, and how to prevent chronic illnesses.

Time Frame:

1)    Create stove committee: April-May, 2014

2)    Begin preparation of materials, solicit transport, coordinate schedules with mason: May-June, 2014

3)    Begin and complete lectures with 40 beneficiary women on benefits, usage and maintenance of improved cookstoves: May-July, 2014

4)    Pick up materials from workshop in Moca, Dominican Republic: July, 2014

5)    Begin construction of 40 improved cookstoves: August, 2014

6)    Finish construction of 40 improved cookstoves: October, 2014

7)    Test cookstoves and ensure proper maintenance and upkeep: October-December, 2014.

Total Expected Beneficiaries:

The total number of beneficiaries reached will be 40 women 24 and older who use will these stoves daily. Additionally, the families of these women will benefit from the improved cookstove project. This includes approximately 20 women 24 and younger, 20 men 24 and older, 20 men 24 and younger, 20 girls between ages 0 and 5, 20 boys between ages 0 and 5, 20 girls between 5 and 18, and 20 boys between 5 and 18.

Indicators:

1)    To provide high quality improved clay cookstoves for 40 women to use in their homes for 90% of their regular cooking needs while improving health outcomes for women and children by removing smoke from cooking areas and protecting the environment by reducing the amount of fuel consumed.

a.     Increase in exclusive cooking on firewood burning improved cookstoves among 40 low-income families.

b.     Increase in access to safer cooking practices for 40 low-income women.

2)    Low-income women will adopt healthy behaviors and practices that contribute to improved family health outcomes. 

a.     Increase in knowledge related to environmental benefits of improved cookstoves among 40 low-income women and their families.

b.     Increase of knowledge and awareness of health consequences of smoke inhalation for 40 low-income women and their families.

Data Collection Method & Person Responsible:

Data will be collected through a series of water-boiling tests conducted on the old cookstoves and then again on the new cookstove model to ensure that the cookstoves are highly efficient and beneficial for the environment. Additionally, to test education and knowledge of the benefits of the cookstoves, the PCV will conduct a pre and post test for the 40 beneficiary women. Finally, the PCV and project partner will be responsible for conducting home visits three months after construction is completed to ensure the beneficiary families are using the cookstoves properly. The PCV will be responsible for data collection and the community organization’s members will provide help.

On how to build an improved cookstove

This week, I attended a training in Moca, Santiago and we made an improved cookstove! Along with my mason, Lin, we kicked butt plastering walls together, helping a doña learn to care for her new stove and test it out. I will be writing a grant and receive funding to build 40 of my own in the neighboring town of Copey. I can't wait to take on this huge construction project! 

Group shot with the finished product!

Phase 1: The cement walls

Phase 2: Putting the puzzle pieces together with clay

Phase 3: Completing the puzzle and sticking it in good!

Phase 4: Coming soon!

Final product: Beya and the stove

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!