On compartir

From an essay I wrote for a on "compartir" and the most valuable skills I've gained in Peace Corps. 

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After a long day of power walking to the high school to teach sex-ed, eating a lunch of rice and beans with my host aunt, attending a prayer service for my sick neighbor, eating a second lunch of pumpkin stew, playing baseball in the primary school, and sipping coffee on my host grandmother’s porch, I was relieved, finally, at nine o’clock at night when I sat down to eat mashed plantains and fried salami with my host mother. It was an exhausting day and night of compartir, a verb that means “to share” in Spanish. To an outsider, compartir does not look like much of anything as it mostly includes drinking coffee, sitting in plastic chairs, eating fried food, playing dominoes, and simply, sharing the company of others. Technically, my assignment in the Peace Corps is to serve as a community health promoter in a rural fishing village in the Dominican Republic, but I find much of this role includes spending my time informally mentoring youth on my porch, pulling all-nighters to attend open-casket wakes for deceased community members, and inventing games of baseball with children in the street. My favorite time to compartir is just after sunset, when the mosquitoes have retreated for the night, the ocean breeze arrives with semi-regularity, and the smells of fried fish guide my route to the houses I will visit that night. I often find myself spending time with Mama Julia, an 86 year-old woman with more energy and warmth than a strong cup of doña-brewed ginger tea. I began calling Mama Julia “grandma” after our third cup of coffee, and it was around the sixth bowl of shared cow foot stew that she told me we gained confianza— a word reserved for two people who have reached a high level of mutual trust and the deepest compliment a community member could give me. On the nights I stay home, the compartir comes to me. Rosalva, my 24-year old host cousin, is a regular on my porch.

On our first few evenings porch-sitting, we lamented the tragic death of the protagonist on our favorite nighttime telenovela, but as our confianza grew, we started having deeper conversations about God, the treatment of women in a machismo culture, and her biggest goals in life, like finishing high school. Before moving to this small island of the Dominican Republic that I’ve come to call my second home, the idea of spending hours in the company of another person without an explicit purpose was foreign to me. Idaho-born and Boston-educated, I was never taught to see and feel the importance of “doing nothing.” I said “yes” to everything, always volunteering for political campaigns, human rights rallies, and local soup kitchens. I kept a tight schedule and inundated my agenda with activities, penciling in time for homework while saving half-hour slots for coffee dates with friends. I applied to the Peace Corps because the feeling of actually connecting with the human faces behind the numbers and activism was missing from my life. At first, I felt overwhelmed by the collectivist society I found in the Dominican Republic, but now, I cannot imagine going a day without adding four tablespoons of sugar to a cup of Santo Domingo brew or not sitting in a plastic chair listening to doñas gossiping and connecting deeply with friends. Reflecting on what it is that I get from these exchanges, I can list material things like the amount of coffee, chicken feet, and guava juice I’ve shared with my community, but I have also gotten something much more valuable. In compartir, I get to share in the struggles, successes, happiness, distress, celebrations, deaths, and joys with my community in a way that my structured work doesn’t have time for. I would have never practiced this way of achieving profound human connection had I continued to live my whole life in the United States. I am more patient, observant, and sensitive because of the time I have spent consoling, advising, laughing, crying, and maturing through compartir; I have an invaluable skill set to take with me wherever I go next. The foundation of my identity is rooted in the United States, but as I spend more time sharing with others under the hot Dominican sun, my identity flourishes. I see now that in the task of volunteering, providing healthcare, teaching English and mentoring, human connection is the most crucial element which makes the world go round, and drives me forward.

On mind control

¡Feliz Año Nuevo! A long overdue mensaje, I sure hope it finds you well! 

I had a really great 2014! Not everyday was a good day, but it sure was full of learning experiences. I overcame hurdles I once thought impossible, grew professionally and personally, and learned more about international development than I ever could have working in an office. A lot of the work I did was for my community, yes, but a lot of the work I did in the Peace Corps last year was for me. I’ve had what I consider to be a successful service so far, I’ve graduated my women and youth groups, constructed many improved cookstoves, begun to implement an emergency medical system, and taught a few English classes. I’ve checked off the boxes Peace Corps set for me. But I did a lot for myself too. I learned how to cook rice and beans, grew to like children (a valuable skill that was at first met with much resistance), practiced hours and hours of yoga and meditation, exercised daily, took beach days and visited friends around the country, found myself a Dominican family, read fifty books and learned all the words to Miley Cyrus’s new CD Bangerz. To me, this is an accomplishment that deserves celebrating, too (especially the last one!).

Last year, throughout all the trials and tribulations, be it personal or professional, I did most of it alone, in my own head. It sounds strange, but I really did try to tackle every problem I faced in the Peace Corps head on and alone. Yes, I certainly had my fellow PCVs helping me along the way and answering those more than obnoxious late night teary phone calls. And of course I had the support of my wonderful friends and family back home. But through every challenge it was with only myself, in my own head, simultaneously solving Manzanillo’s toughest problems (still working on that one) and facing my own internal battles.

During my vacation back home, I had the great fortune to visit a dear adult friend in the Bay Area. Over dinner one night, as I was telling her all about my experience and work down here, she asked, “Is it hard?” I said, “Is what hard?” And she said, “Being alone all the time.” I thought about it for a second before answering, No, I have gotten really good at it, and I love it. But it is a lot of alone time and was extremely difficult at first. We discussed the idea a little more and she told me she was proud of me and impressed with what I am doing for others but also for myself. She wishes she had taken the time when she was younger to be alone, and said if she had, she probably wouldn’t have ended up married at 24 and divorced a year later. She would have made better decisions throughout her life, she said, if she had only learned to be content being alone.

Talking with someone whom I admire greatly tell me that she was proud of me this simple trait of being content alone was comforting. It reassured me that I am not crazy for spending so much time trying to become a better person. You wouldn't believe the amount of time I've spent in my own head, half the things I write down in my journal, or the crazy things I say aloud to myself in the mirror. My house is filled with crazy life plans, beautiful quotes, inspirational sayings, ideas for future projects and colorful doodles that represent hours I've spent trying to become a better person. Now, instead of being scared or dreading hours of solitude, I relish alone time. It’s taught me that I can. I am powerful, strong and motivated. I have become a better me. That much I found out last year.

Peace Corps in itself is a two-year exercise into the depths of discomfort. In 2014, I turned alone time into a coping mechanism for that discomfort. And at first it was awkward and the hardest thing I ever had to do was spend four, five or six hours alone. But, I’ve really taken control of it. I’m better at setting goals, holding myself accountable, being patient (still working on it). I have become the ruler of my own mind, which sounds maybe like a lame thing to work on for an entire year, but it wasn’t. It took 17 months of Peace Corps service to get here and yes, I’m still working on it, but my alone time is no longer uncomfortable and awkward, it’s a shiny new tool for my life toolbox.

My New Year’s resolution this year to create and develop another life tool. This year is the year of expansion, pushing myself to the limits, growing from others, and truly giving Dominicans the energy they deserve. Last year, I foraged a path alone, but this year, I’ll finish the journey foraging with others. 

Hope y'all are still sticking to your New Years resolutions! Health and happiness for 2015!

Love and resolutions, 

Bronwen

On being home for the holidays!

First this selfie happened:

Made it home to this guy after 18 months apart! ¡Que hombrecito!

And I was so happy that I did a little dance!

Then I got really excited about SNOW:

But before all that, I got to spend a precious 21 hours with:

Time with college BFFs = beer, coffee, chocolate and bagels!

Where's the selfie stick?

And I finally got to partake in the Raff's new tradition of chopping down our very own tree:

Champions of the tree hunt!

Dragging our prized tree out of the woods on a snowy day.

Tree dragging continues

Finished product, what a beaut!

And I also did a lot of this:

Cross country skiing!

And no holiday would be complete without some of this:

Did somebody say pomegranate martinis?

I also made a pit stop to my old high school to give presentations about Peace Corps:

All-school assembly, where in the world?

Spanish 5 class

Then I got to tour our new middle school at the Community School where I went to high school. If you can imagine the best learning environment ever, this is it. If you can imagine the worst, it's what I teach in.

And then the famous Perch employee Roger Mankus was doing his 1,000th ascent up 3,000 feet of Bald Mountain and so Henry and I did it with him:

Car's ready!

Shredding (too hard) in the fresh pow on the way down

Sunrise...nothing prettier. 

And then the Raffs all got together for one family shot to wish you a very Merry Christmas:

Merry Christmas from the Raffs!

And suddenly I was saying goodbye :( it was tough leaving home sweet home, but I've got a job to finish!

Bye bye 206 Crazy Horse! Until October!

On Peace Corps by the numbers

By the numbers: 

405: Days in country

44: Hogares Saludables women health promoters graduated

36: Escojo Mi Vida youth peer educators graduated

50: Books read

6: Haircuts

12: Ant infestations dealt with

6: Collection of dead and named cockroaches

3: Cellphones I've ruined

8: People who have visited my site

24: People in my immediate Dominican family after having lived with 5 host families

32: Cookstoves built / 38: Cookstoves to go

428: Days since I've seen my mom, dad and brother

On rain and broken aqueducts

They say that everything is connected. I can attest. Before my service, if you told me that a strike in a nearby town affected kids ability to attend school in a nearby campo, I wouldn’t have understood. But ha ha, I'm learning, such is the way of life here, everything is connected.

Last week, there was massive rainstorms throughout the country. There was flooding in some parts and uncrossable rivers in others. Up here in my part, the aqueduct in the nearest town of Montecristi broke from all the flooding and was damaged, hence the town didn’t have water. This also meant that there were strikes against the water company, including people burning tires in the streets, and public shootouts and wreckage in the town. My friend who lives in town didn’t leave his house for days. Because there was no water and crazy strikes, this meant that buses couldn’t cross through the town making travel to other parts of the country basically impossible. Then there was the fact that without water, people were not able to cook.

Let’s back up. Starting this year, President Danilo Medina mandated 4% of GDP to be spent on education. This meant extending the school day from four hours to seven hours. Bravo. They have also started giving lunch to all schoolchildren, which is great, but of course the school’s kitchen was not ready by the start of school so they outsourced their cooking to the town of Montecristi. In the three months that they’ve been bringing food to my campo, I’ve heard rumors of hair, cockroaches and worms being found in the food. Gross. And daily there are teachers and students who are sick and don’t show up to school. Almost no one I know eats it. Without water, queue worsening of the food.

So, without water, the outsourcing kitchen in Montecristi was unable to cook rice for the 1,000 schoolchildren in Manzanillo and the surrounding region. So, what happened? Kids just didn’t go to school for a week. What? Yes, everything is connected. Here’s a recap: rain > flooding > broken aqueduct > no water > strikes > no rice > no food > no school > no learning. This chain of events makes me think of that catchy country song, “Rain Is a Good Thing” It goes "Rain makes corn, corn makes whiskey, whiskey makes my baby get a little frisky." However, in this instance, rain is a very very bad thing.

In other news this week:

- I just got over the nastiest case of an allergic reaction ever. Splotchy hivey rash all over my face and neck. No idea where it came from, but hell was it gross. I also had my eye swollen shut for three days. I went to the hospital and got an anti-allergy shot on top of bloody sheets from the guy who cut his foot on a pickax before me. #neveragain

- People told me to drink onion tea to cure my allergies. #nothanks

- You can’t wash clothes when you’re sick or it will make you worse.

- One of my most trusty and hardworking youth was selected as a youth ambassador to attend a three-week conference in America this January! I am so proud and excited for her chance to see America all-expenses paid. She deserves it and I am so proud of her! #proudmom

And on the agenda for next week:

- I am heading to the capital to be a trusty BAKER! Yup, that’s right. It’s Peace Corps’ Thanksgiving and I am in making some food for our annual volunteer get together. I will be staying in the house of the director of USAID in the capital to make green bean casserole and mac n’ cheese for 200 people. For four days, I’ll be living in a mini-America complete with hot water and flushing toilets. YAHOO!

- Then on Thursday it’s TURKEY DAY! At least that’s how people here see it. I say Día de Acción de Gracias and they just say, “oh yes, where you Americans eat turkey!” Nom nom nom. 

- When I get back to the ‘Zillo on Friday, I’ll finish preparing for my Escojo Youth Leadership Camp in conjunction with fellow PCV/BFF Gray. We’ve got a full two-day leadership camp invented for our brightest superstar youth.

- Then the countdown to America begins! I leave on December 6^th so I’ll be finishing up my stoves project, closing out grants, writing up some end of the year reports and saying bye-bye to the ‘Zillo for a whole month! #idahome

Sending muchas gracias!

B

This is what happens where there's too much rain...Roachie comes out to play!

On resilience

I’m at this really awesome in-between point in my service. I’m over the hump of my first year and well into my second year. It’s particularly awesome because I’m at this crazy moment where the old volunteers (who swore in a year before me) have left and now the new volunteers (who swore in a year after me) have moved to their sites and are starting the long daunting process of integrating, starting groups, teaching women and youth, and navigating professionally in totally distinct culture.

One of the best parts of my service was being placed in a location with volunteers nearby. One in particular, my best friend Julie, a soon-to-be-nurse from Chicago, taught me most everything I know about being a good Peace Corps Volunteer. Julie lived in a campo called Palo Verde about an hour and a half away. Our nearest mutual town was Montecristi so we would often have afternoon reunions in the pueblo, eat pica pollo and tostones, and head to El Morro beach with our other BFF Andy. More than just being good friends, however, Julie’s location close by helped me professionally. She was a fellow health volunteer who arrived the year before I did. She was an excellent volunteer, winning “Volunteer of the Month” and being an overall superstar. I was able to watch what she did and try (sometimes failing) at replicating her successes as my months of service went ticking by. I have Julie to thank for the fact that I can now plan a successful youth workshop, maintain professional relationships with Dominican project partners, and motivate groups of women. She gave me advice, helpful tips, and a toolbox of games, ideas, and tactics for completing my work with women and children. Yes I learned from her, but we also bounced ideas off each other, lamented our challenges together, solved problems, and invented new recipes when we couldn't stand to plan another charla. I admired her so much and would often wonder how the hell am I ever going to get to where she was at the end of her service? But somehow it happens and here I am, just as successful as Julie was at the same point in her service that I am in now at in mine.

Now, there is a follow-up volunteer in Julie’s site and another one in a nearby site called Castañuelas. These girls, Tenni and Veronica, were invited to an Escojo youth workshop that we planned and held in Montecristi last weekend. At the workshop, I coordinated with Domingo and Josue (Dominican leaders) to help plan for the coming year with 50 Escojo leaders. I was able to talk and meet Tenni and Veronica for the first time, but more than that, I got to see how far I’ve come in my year here. A year ago, exactly, I was new in my site, a stranger in a foreign land, confused and scared, challenged in so many ways. I didn’t know who the mayor was, what neighbor I could trust, where to get the best juice in town, or who would cook for me. To be honest, I was so scared and thought, “How the HELL am I supposed to do this?” And my favorite doe-eyed new volunteers asked me the same questions I asked Julie one day long long ago.

What this all helped me realize is that humans are pretty darn resilient. It’s incredible to me how all “this” seems so easy now when 12 months ago, if you asked me to plan a youth workshop and invite 50 kids, I would have burst into tears. Maybe it doesn’t seem all that remarkable that in one year I’ve only made that much progress, but listening to their questions, fears and concerns that were the exact feelings I had a year ago, those overwhelming and yucky feelings came rushing back. And here I am, how far I’ve come, still standing (I might even add kicking ass). I no longer feel fear when I walk out my front door, I now know who will help me and who wont, I know where to buy the best chicken, eat the best tostones, etc.

If I play my cards right, I can be the resource and help that Julie was for me. I don’t want to seem presumptuous and say that my way of integrating and doing it was the right way but I want to try and pay it forward. Us PCVs are our own best resources. We watch the cycles of volunteers every day before our very eyes and seeing others at different points of service helps me think, I have come so far, I have so far to go, and yes, I will get it done. Plenty have done it before me, and I will too. I am resilient and can bounce back from anything. Literally. If this year has taught me anything, it is resilience. A word meaning flexibility, grit, hardiness, strength, power. I am resilient. Keep saying it, keep repeating it when needed, because it’s true, PCVs are the definition of resilience. Collectively, my group has undergone one burglary, seen one person get macheted to death, attending countless wakes, failed at starting groups hundreds of times, changed sites and started over, dated and broken up with host-country nationals (jokingly labeled as tigueres), had loved ones from home get engaged or married and been unable to attend, lamented losses in their American families, been beaten down, pushed around, and somehow, everytime we get back up.

Peace Corps is a game of messing up, learning from those mistakes, teaching others, and chugging along; it is probably the most accurate test of resilience you could ever give a person. You never get to do it over again. To any new volunteer just starting in site, fly free my friend! Take the leap of faith and know that somehow, someday, you’re gonna be alright. You’ll be the one kicking ass, teaching others, organizing workshops, etc. It seems so impossible from this vantage point, but it’s not...it really is possible my friends! And you will do it with flying colors. We are the little tank engines that can! 

Here's some good quotes to help us remember:

“The greatest glory in living

lies not in never falling,

but in rising every time we fall.” 

― Nelson Mandela

“There’s no such thing as ruining your

life. Life’s a pretty resilient thing, it turns out.” 

― Sophie Kinsella, The Undomestic Goddess

“The oak fought the wind and was broken, the willow bent when it must and survived.” 

― Robert Jordan, The Fires of Heaven

“My scars remind me that I did indeed survive my deepest wounds. That in itself is an accomplishment. And they bring to mind something else, too. They remind me that the damage life has inflicted on me has, in many places, left me stronger and more resilient. What hurt me in the past has actually made me better equipped to face the present.” 

― Steve Goodier

“This has been my vocation to make music of what remains.” 

― Itzhak Perlman

On the adventures of Bea and Aria

!Ojo!

About a month ago, my bestest friend Arlen came for a quick visit. On our way to the airport at the end of her whirlwind DR adventure, we started talking about all the things that have become so “normal” to me. I asked her if she would like to write a little something and she happily obliged. Sit back and take a ride from a new vantage point!

So I know that Bronwen has touched on a lot of these themes over her year+ in the Dominican Republic, but I want to talk about some of the unique and interesting things I observed on my very short trip.

On trust and community:

When I first arrived in Santiago, I learned that I needed $10 for a tourist card to get through customs. Of course, being the millennial that I am, I only had a credit card. And, given that I was in a tiny airport in Santiago, they only accepted cash. At first, the man at immigration said he would let me go outside, take out cash from the ATM, and return for the tourist card. Then he changed his mind and said, “Just go through, you’ll pay double when you come back.”  

This was my first confrontation with the high level of trust Dominicans have with strangers. The man just trusted that I would come back and pay it at some point. Never would that ever happen at immigration in the U.S. (then again, they would accept credit cards).

Upon reuniting with Bronwen, she immediately whisked me away into a group car (with two bodies squished in the front passenger seat and four smushed in the back) that picks people up and drops them off along the road wherever they want on a previously designated route. It was like a cross between Uber and hitchhiking: less high-tech than Uber and probably just about as accountable to accidents or issues as hitchhiking. But never once did the “worst-case scenario” play in my head like it would have had I done something similar in the U.S. This is just how people get around.

View of Santiago at sunset

I am woman hear me roar!

Santiago monument.

Throughout the weekend, I trusted my suitcase to strangers on buses - I didn’t see where it was being stored for the two hour ride, how many times it had been moved and removed by people entering and exiting, or know who had access to it. But not once did I ever think that my suitcase would be stolen or misplaced on these long rides. When I mentioned to Bronwen that I hate putting my suitcase under buses in the U.S. because I’m always worried it’ll be gone when I get off, she told me that there’s an unwritten rule in the DR: people just don’t touch your shit on buses. 

As we were walking about "compartir-ing" in Manzanillo, a man in a truck (who Bronwen did not know) pulled up and started talking to us as we walked down the street. In the U.S., I would have mumbled something inaudible and walked away. But in the DR, we obviously stopped to talk. Turns out he was the son of a Manzanillo legend, Lulu, and was visiting from Nashville. After a few minutes of chatting, Franco told us to stop by his house later. At home, we would smile, say “yea, that sounds great,” with no intention of ever actually going to this person’s home. In Manzanillo, we said “yea, that sounds great,” and then on our walk home later, walked into his house unannounced and chatted on the couch for two hours. 

Now, I don’t want to sound like that naïve traveler who thinks everything is hunky dory in the place she is visiting and that all the people in this foreign country have good intentions. Definitely not the case, and I made sure to keep my myself and my valuables safe. That said, the atmosphere seemed to lack the fear that I experience almost everyday living in the U.S. People just had more faith in one another. 

And I know that the reason for this is not that the DR is safer than the U.S. or that people in the DR are nicer. There just seemed to be an inherent trust in the air, which I think stems from a strong sense of community that seems to be lacking at home. Instead of people walking down the street, eyes glued to the sidewalk, there were conversations between strangers and shouts across the street just to say hi. In the U.S. people do background checks on their nannies. In the DR, people hand their babies to near-strangers while they head across the street to run an errand. At home, people have expensive hi-tech security systems on their homes. In the DR, people leave their doors open all day as people come and go. 

I tried to tie this difference to culture. I tried to tie it to poverty versus wealth. Big town versus small town. el Diablo. Who knows? I began to think: is all the fear we have in the U.S. simply due to fear mongering and ultra-sensitization in the news and on TV? Have we become totally detached from reality because we are convinced that we will be that one case in a million? Who knows? But what I do know is that it was a refreshing change of pace to be in the DR where people trust each other. 

On finding joy in the small things: 

The third day of my trip, Bronwen and I joined her women’s group in Manzanillo to go on a river trip in Dajabon. So, we woke up at 7am after a night of drinking and dancing, and got on a bus full of 30 shrieking women. Cue worsening of our hangovers. 

Delicious breakfast that we should have eaten to get us going for the river trip.

But the day just continued to get better (not because of the coffee I spilled all over myself that Bronwen made the bus stop to get on the side of the road; or because of the not-quite-a-river-but-more-mud-pit that we arrived at first and then had to turn around). All of that - as well as the spaghetti sandwiches (literally spaghetti stuffed into a hotdog bun) and getting stuck in the rapids - were wonderful and charming experiences. But the real fun began when we played an icebreaker in which each person was assigned an ingredient in a stew, be it potatoes, meat, carrots, onions, or salt. One person would yell to the group that an ingredient was missing from the stew. The person who was that ingredient (say, the carrot) would say, “Oh no no no, the carrot isn’t missing!” The group would ask, “Then what’s missing?!” and the carrot would have to choose someone/something else to be lacking from this imaginary stew. The first person to falter (or not be paying attention when their assigned ingredient was called out) would lose. They would then be shamed with splashes of water. Oh, let me add that this game was obviously in Spanish – a language in which my proficiency is elementary school level at best. So that added an extra level of hilarity, but surprisingly, I rarely lost. 

Icebreakers in the icy river!

What I loved the best about this game was the pure joy the women got out of it. I honestly haven’t seen that kind of excitement over something so seemingly inane since I was a junior counselor at summer camp. I don’t even think my 4th graders at Hebrew school would have been as excited as these women were about this game. 

We found the chocolate river!

Trip to the river

Nothing tastes better than a spaghetti sandwich.

But that was another thing I noticed throughout my trip: people got enjoyment and entertainment out of things that we would find boring in our world of complicated video games, 24-hour Netflix, and gallivants in big cities with endless things to do. It was refreshing that on a Sunday evening, families would sit together on their porches, listening to music and occasionally getting up to dance. It was energizing to play icebreaker games I haven’t enjoyed since I was a kid. It was enjoyment in the small stuff that I think makes Manzanillo the welcoming and vibrant community it is. Well, that and eating coconuts and fried everything with Mama Julia. 

Arlen with Mama Julia

My trip was primarily to play around with my best bud Bronwen. But I learned a lot from my short stint in the DR, and I have to say that I would definitely go back. If not for the reasons mentioned above, maybe solely because this loud-mouthed, share-every-intimidate-detail-of-your-life-with-anyone-who-will-listen New Yorker may have been a Dominican in a past life.

Sometimes it's really nice to get a new perspective on the place I'm no longer struggling to live in and where things like watching weird videos with my host mom, being hissed at on the street, going "out" and just sitting as a plastic table without saying a word, and not having reliable Internet or electricity aren't really that weird anymore. Arlen's visit helped me to re-see how great and friendly everyone is and why it is that I subject myself to living in the middle of nowhere DR. Her visit helped me re-motivate so thanks for your fresh perspective, Arlen! Come back soon!

¡Uepa!

Bea