On how human beings contribute to the well-being of our world

A Returned Peace Corps Volunteer who served in the DR from 1989-1991 wrote the following story. It was published on the official Peace Corps website in an archive of collected tales from Volunteers across the globe. I stumbled across it last week while living in a nostalgic bubble facilitated by good day of Internet. I got so wrapped up in Dianne’s story because I have had a similar experience with my women’s group and I am always amazed by how similar Volunteers experiences can be even when serving decades apart. With a quick Google search, I learned she is a professor of journalism living in New Jersey and found her email on the university website. I reached out, thanking her for such a brilliant literary contribution and asked if I could use her story for my own blog. She quickly responded saying yes! Her writing aptly sums up the beauty and nuance in this culture and I think you’ll love it!

Not Just Any Other Day

Dominican Republic

By Dianne Garyantes

I walked into the well-lit, freshly-painted office building -- late, as expected. This was the custom in the Dominican Republic; meetings always started late. As I entered, I wiped the mud from my shoes; it had been raining all day in the little village where I worked. A small knot of women in faded dresses and flip-flops was huddled in the center of a large meeting room. Maybe I had pushed the lateness thing too far, I thought, because they were waiting for me.

I had been asked by the local women's club to speak on a panel for International Women's Day 1991. When I was first approached to speak, I hesitated. This would not be a discussion about AIDS awareness or planning a community project. I would have to say something about life, about women, about who we are and what we could become. During my past year in the village, I had been humbled by the harsh conditions around me and the grace with which people managed to live. Families worked three harvests a year in the nearby rice fields, nurtured supportive relationships with their families and neighbors, and most kept three or four sources of income flowing into the household. Who was I to speak to them about life or who they were? I decided my talk would have to be a discussion in which the women themselves would rely on their innate wisdom and worth.

It was a surprise to me that the women's club was acknowledging International Women's Day. The women in the club usually came together to be social, to trade sewing tips, to escape from the everyday events of the household. They were not politically active and did not identify themselves as a subordinate or marginalized group because they were women. My guess was that I had been asked to speak that day because I was a somewhat exotic americana, not because I was a woman.

My first glance into the meeting room told me my instincts were correct. All of the other panelists for the day were men. Although I knew that in the Dominican Republic men were viewed as the ones who spoke with and for authority, it was still a shock. This was International Women's Day! The day was set aside to celebrate women and our accomplishments. I was filled with a new sense of purpose as I walked to the front of the room.

When it was the americana's turn to speak, I asked the women in the audience to list all the essentials of life, things we all need as human beings to survive. The responses came at a rapid-fire pace: good health, shelter, food, water, children and family, clothing, medicine, education. The list went on until the poster board I was writing on was full.

Next, we circled in red the items on the list for which women in the Dominican Republic were responsible. The answers this time came more slowly. The first person to respond said that women in the Dominican Republic were responsible for caring for children and families. Another hand went up to point out that women collect water every day for drinking, cleaning, bathing, and cooking. We realized that women also are responsible for keeping the family healthy and getting medicine when someone is sick. Women also make sure that homework is done and that children are in school every day. Meals, clothing, and cleaning and maintenance of the home are also under the responsibility of women. We continued to circle items on the list until every single suggestion on the poster board was surrounded by red. The air in the room became thick with stunned silence.

I felt exhilarated and a little dazed by the enormity of our conclusion. All the items on the list were the responsibility of the women sitting in the room. Women were making daily decisions and carrying out responsibilities that were nothing less than essential to life. They were essential to life! Our list, cheerful with bright red circles, affirmed this.

As in societies and cultures everywhere, men and women in the Dominican Republic share in the responsibilities for their families, communities, and country. The difference is that women are seldom acknowledged, celebrated, or rewarded for their contributions. The women in the audience felt this lack of appreciation every day as they ate last, after their husbands and children, and rarely, if ever, shared a meal at the same table as their spouses. Instead, they sat in the kitchen at the back of the house, taking quick mouthfuls of food in between serving and cleaning up after the others. Many of the women in the audience also were raising children conceived by their husbands outside their marriage. And many had been put down or ignored all their lives. Who, after all, was the boss? Who, after all, was important?

One of the women in the audience that day was Gloria, who worked two jobs as a nurse and traveled forty kilometers in the back of a pick-up truck for one of her jobs. She also swept and mopped her house each day, raised a young son, and helped cultivate bananas, plantains, and cocoa for additional income. When the community needed help raising money to build a school, Gloria organized collections in the local church and raised more than $300 for the project.

Idaylia, who was also there that day, had a disabled left foot, yet still started each day by collecting water for her family. This meant at least three trips to and from the village's water hole, which was a quarter-mile from her house. She carried the water in a five-gallon can on top of her head and, even with her limp, she barely spilled a drop.

The silence in the room was beginning to soften. Someone giggled. Someone else spoke. Soon everyone in the audience was talking excitedly, telling jokes, and laughing, including the men on the panel. It was thrilling to watch the light shine in the women's eyes and to see it reflected and multiplied among them. It was as though they all had been a team running a relay and had just found out they had won first place. We loudly applauded ourselves and sailed out of the meeting room feeling giddy, buoyant, joyous.

The rush of pride and sense of awareness I shared with the women that afternoon comes back to me at different times during my life today. I think of it when I need a reminder of how human beings everywhere contribute each day to the well-being of our world. This happens whether we are recognized for it or not. This lesson is one of the many gifts given to me while I was a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Dominican Republic.

On basketballin' with the tigueres

Dominicans love sports - and no, not only baseball. They also love dominos (definitely can be a contact sport), dancing (very intense cardio) and basketball (of which I know very little). I've seen Dominicans bro out and bond on the court and it looks like an interesting breeding ground for anthropological research, and one I've always thought about exploring in this blog. So many tigueres (Dominican bros) in one place, how could there not be a good story or insight into Dominican culture there. I've always found it fascinating how much camaraderie seems to come out of those afternoon pick up games, but basketball is to young athletic Dominicans as gossiping is to porch sitting doñas and I know my place, it's with the doñas. So instead of investigating the information myself, I went to an insider, Joshua (a medical student interning in Manzanillo this summer) and asked him to write a blog. Here's what he came up with!

____________________________________________________________________________________________________

"My second day in the Dominican Republic was exhausting. Lauren and I (medical students spending the summer working with Bea in Manzanillo) spent most of the day meeting new people, inviting them into our house for Coca Cola and cookies, and trying to figure out how to take a shower in a three-room house full of strangers. By 6pm, I needed a break.

When I told my new Dominican friend/co-worker Victor that I wanted to walk around town, he suggested that we go to the “Cancha.” Not having a clue what a cancha was, I agreed nonetheless, and enjoyed a short walk from our house to what was clearly a brightly painted basketball court. Delightful.

To the readers of Bea’s blog: there are a few things you may not know about me (pretty much anything not written above). For example, I had pet newts as a child, who I named, but could never figure out which one was which. They could have been twins. Another detail of my life you may not be informed of is that I love basketball. Playing, watching, wondering what the game would be like if the players were allowed to put Super Glue on the ball.

I was thrilled to have discovered basketball in Manzanillo. Victor and I sat in the concrete bleachers along with about 50 casual fans. At first, the game seemed nearly identical to American basketball. The players had nicknames I could understand like “El Kobe,” “Jay-Z,” and “Peepee,” the last of which reminded me of gym class. The game was fast-paced, aerial, and fun to watch. Then I started to notice some differences.

American pickup basketball is less formal than a typical high school or college game. Players call their own fouls, but are more lax with some of the finer points of the game, such as carrying, travels, backcourt violations and charges. Unspoken rules of the game. In Manzanillo, this is most certainly not the case. The players call everything, including some questionable fouls.

The big difference however, is the reaction to a questionable foul call. In the United States, reactions are relatively muted and occasionally followed by passive-aggressive sniping. Typical interaction:

“Foul!”

“What? Are you kidding me?”

“Dude, when you hit someone on the way up, it's a foul.”

“Whatever. Take it. If that’s actually the way you want to call it…”

Often, the goal is to make the other person feel bad about themselves as a human, or more specifically, as a man. It is a complicated dance, fraught with read-between-the-lines moments. It keeps conflict subterranean, and the game moving.

Manzanillo basketball departs strikingly from this American tradition. The foul call is less of a verdict and more of an opening statement given to an unlicensed judge on daytime TV. Naturally, both of the players involved in the incident argue vehemently for their point of view. The remaining members of the team are quickly involved, siding with their player. Finally the bystanders are sucked into the vortex, some eagerly offering their opinions and others try to look casual like uncomfortable 13-year-olds trying to blend into the wall at a bar mitzvah. The arguments are loud and impassioned. The interesting part (to me) is how they conclude.

After the respective sides have shouted themselves tired, someone theoretically has to capitulate. Not being fluent in the language, I still—more than a month after that first game—don’t know exactly how this happens. But it usually does. Someone turns away their head, sucks in their teeth, and throws their hands up in the air, a gesture that indicates something along the lines of, “I will be buried and eaten by worms one day, but my spirit will still know I was right.” However, on occasion, both sides will entrench themselves so firmly in their opinion of whether or not someone stepped on the out-of-bounds-line, that they cannot recover. They have transgressed physically (depending on whom you side with) and proverbially the line of no return.

In these cases, the standstill is never broken like North and South-going Zax a la Dr. Suess, they remain at their impasse for eternity. The two players involved sit down in the bleachers, silently fuming, and the game ends. Hung jury. The festivities are over for the day, and lesser, spinoff, half-court games continue as the afternoon peters out.

Back to Day 2 in Manzanillo. I was doing my best to make myself transparent, when an argument broke out among the audience. It seemed tangentially related to the game, but the players continued without taking note. Much like the arguments I would later witness about foul calls, this one became heated quickly. People took sides, recruited allies, and staked their reputation on something I was having trouble deciphering. My disguise as a piece of bleacher failed spectacularly, when I was subpoenaed as an expert witness. Rubio! they yelled in my direction. I couldn’t understand what they were saying, but I knew that I had to respond. The spectators quieted. After a dense silence, someone stepped up to me, and asked loudly and painstakingly, as if talking to their deaf father-in-law: “Lebron Chames, o Michal Chordan?”

Jordan. Hands down.

Perhaps the argument is just another Dominican sport."

On something good coming from a bad thing

Hello, 

It’s been a busy few weeks here so thank you to my most loyal of followers for checking in and reminding me to write!

Last time, I wrote about the tragic accident in my town and my students who died. Thank you to all who reached out and sent so much love my way. Your outpouring of love was unexpected and spectacular. As I've written some of you in emails over the past weeks: the aftermath included a busy few days dealing: reporting the accident, going over it with the team, learning how we can do and be better responders next time, reviewing mistakes made, amplifying our training curriculum, recruiting new first responders to supplement the team, etc. It has been helpful to debrief the accident methodically with the group, we have all come a long long way personally, professionally and emotionally. 

Since the day of the accident, I’ve been thinking a lot about how different cultures treat death, dying and trauma. I'm learning a lot about how we grieve as Americans and especially how cautious and nervous we are around people who've had experiences like the one I had. This is not the case in the Dominican Republic where someone is bombarded with thousands of friends and family members collectively bringing someone out from their pit of despair immediately after a death and for nine days afterwards. I don't think there is a right way, but this week, it is what I would like to reflect on: the cultural differences I've found between the U.S. and DR regarding death and grieving.

In America: When someone dies, it is mostly a private event for the immediate family and the public respects their space until they announce a funeral or memorial. Then, people are invited, usually weeks or months later, to celebrate the life lived. So much of what Sheryl Sandberg has written publicly after the death of her husband, Dave, has also helped me digest what happened that night. She writes: “I have learned how ephemeral everything can feel—and maybe everything is. That whatever rug you are standing on can be pulled right out from under you with absolutely no warning. In the last thirty days, I have heard from too many women who lost a spouse and then had multiple rugs pulled out from under them. Some lack support networks and struggle alone as they face emotional distress and financial insecurity. It seems so wrong to me that we abandon these women and their families when they are in greatest need.” In America we lack a true support network for people who have lost loved ones. We have no public way of grieving and are expected to do so privately, silently and within our own family. We do not support people who have lost someone well because we don’t know how.

In the DR: A death here means a community event, a gathering of everyone in town, supporting the family for nine entire days after death. Once someone dies, they are placed in a casket and set in a room of the house with plastic chairs around them and family members weeping silently over the body. For the first day, people will come in and say a prayer for the body, greet everyone in the house, and make their way out back to spend time chatting and drinking coffee, eating and commiserating with each other. A back patio can be filled with as many as 100 people and close friends and family taking on roles to make sure coffee is flowing, food is prepared, flowers are selected and the body is kept cool (bodies are not embalmed, so someone has to buy bags of ice and put them in buckets under the body to keep it from smelling before the burial). As my friend Grayson commented after her town’s third funeral in one week: “Everyone just knows that their role is and what they need to do at a funeral. I go pick the flowers with Marieanela and we all know to leave Martiza alone while she cooks for everyone. Elcida is in charge of keeping the crowd well hydrated and Rafael always brings the truck to take the body to the cemetery. Pimpo and his brothers are the pallbearers and Olga opens the colmado. It’s a beautiful thing watching the community come together in such hard times.”

In America: People don’t know what to say to someone who’s relative or friend has died, which comes back to the support network part. As Sheryl Sandberg commented upon returning to work: “For me, starting the transition back to work has been a savior, a chance to feel useful and connected. But I quickly discovered that even those connections had changed. Many of my co-workers had a look of fear in their eyes as I approached. I knew why—they wanted to help but weren’t sure how. Should I mention it? Should I not mention it? If I mention it, what the hell do I say?” I have found that so many people shirk away from confronting this pain straight up. And although the death is probably the only thing on a person’s mind, we tend to ignore it, talk around it and shirk away from the awkwardness.

In the DR: In Spanish, there is no good translation for the word “awkward,” which is telling of so many interactions I’ve had at funerals here. Instead of avoiding a family with a death in the family, you support them head on, overwhelming and showering the family with love and comfort, speaking bluntly about the tragedy. With so many relatives, connections and close ties to the community, funerals are a very normal and regular part of life. People have learned to cope with death because they see it so very often. Before serving, I had been to maybe a handful of funerals. In the past two years, I’ve been to over thirty. At a certain point, death is desensitized. I don’t mean that there isn't a gaping hole in my heart or feeling of true loss every time someone close to me dies, but we know how to get through it. Dominicans understand the idea of permanence very well. They know the pain won’t last forever. And they are pervasive. Death does not have to affect every area of their lives - their ability to compartmentalize is remarkable.

I admire Dominicans and their processes of grieving. They have taught me that life and it’s wonderful, tragic, crazy emotions are temporary - no matter how deep the heartbreak, how tragic the loss, how horrible the accident and how reoccurring the images are - it becomes more manageable each day, until it is more than bearable, it’s teachable. We can teach others something from our loss, support a community of people who’ve experienced trauma, productively manage our energy, and keep growing. So that’s what I’ll continue to do, join me!

And now for some short updates:

1) We threw Gissaury’s birthday party on the 24^th of June and it was a smashing success. Between all the soda, cake, popcorn, suckers, candies, cheese and crackers, swimming, dancing, photo-taking, goofing around and dressing up – we threw a birthday bash fit for a queen! Check out the pictures on my Facebook album here (and I’ll attach a few to the email, too!). 

2) And, our paramedic group has been gaining publicity, our latest event included a live 30-minute interview on the provincial television channel’s news and health segment. To check out the highlight (in Spanish), click here. 

3) And of course, fun was had by all 100+ volunteers who journeyed to the beautiful Samana peninsula for 4^th of July celebrations. We stayed in a beautiful house with a pool; ate lobster on the beach; had our fill of beer, BBQ and country tunes; celebrated the commitment we made to serve our country; and the showed the pride we have for our homeland. I never feel more proud to be an American than I do when surrounded by wonderfully eccentric Peace Corps Volunteers who’ve dedicated two years of their lives to promote an understanding of our culture while simultaneously working to better their host communities in a foreign land. #proud

Until next time,

Bea

Pictures of the week:

INDEPENDENT WOMAN HEAR ME ROAR

Patriotic crew of hooligans

4th of July with Grayson, Liv and Andy at our pool in Las Terrenas, Samana, we did well with out enthusiasm and outfits if I don't say so myself! 

Little Mermaid, Gissaury! Thanks for sending the wig, Momma, it was a huge hit!

Bea with her baby girl Gissaury! Notice the shirt I'm wearing, matches the theme.

Bea with so many children, who would have thought? 

Damn, the cake was good! 

Outfit change 

That precious wig!

Behind the scenes!

Famous! 

The crew after our interview! From left: Josué (intern), Juan (news anchos), Victor (team leader), Anny (first responder), me (jefa), Ronand (team leader), and Lauren (intern).  

On my life being strangely similar to Orange is the New Black

My life here is a combination of the TV show drama, Orange is the New Black, and Wild, a book about hiking the Pacific Crest Trail. It sounds awful to say, but hear me out. I just read the book version of OITNB and there are some quotes that serve to explain what I mean. Peace Corps is not jail, I can always leave. I wasn't forced to be here and I am not trapped in prison with thousands of convict women. But many of the sentiments expressed in Piper Kerman's novel have struck a chord with me. And for a synopsis on why Wild rings true with me, check here.

"I had only the most tenuous idea of what might happen next, but I knew that I would have to be brave. Not foolhardy, not in love with risk and danger, not making ridiculous exhibitions of myself to prove that I wasn't terrified - really genuinely brave, constantly reminding myself that yes I can."

From taking that first step and joining Peace Corps despite all the what ifs, to boarding that plane in DC, to pushing through the hardest days of training, to making my site and projects work for me, to coping with all the hardships, bullshit, loss, drama, etc, I've been brave.

"I nodded, not understanding a thing."

This was every single day for the first six months.

"By now conflicting things were churning around in my brain and my guts. Had I ever been so completely out of my element as I was here in Danbury? In a situation where I simply didn't know what to say or what the real consequences of a wrong move might be?"

Cultural competence takes time!

"There are a dizzying number of official and unofficial rules, schedules and rituals. Learn them quickly or suffer the consequences, such as: being thought an idiot, being called an idiot, getting on another prisoner's bad side, getting on a guard's bad side, being forced to clean the bathrooms, eating last in line when everything edible is gone...Everything else - the unofficial rules - you learn by observation, inference, or very cautious questioning of people you hope you can trust."

Peace Corps rules, cultural rules, DR guidelines, rules for friendships, rules for enjoying yourself, rules for work, rules of engagement. So so much riding on a simple understanding of the way society works...complex!

"It was easy to tell the difference between women who were lonely and wanted comfort, attention and romance and a real, live lesbian: there were a few of them. There were other big barriers for long-term lovers, like having sentences of dramatically different lengths, living in different dorms, or becoming infatuated with someone who wasn't actually a lesbian."

Except in this quote, change lesbian for Dominican, or HCN, host-country national. Life is boring in the campo.

"I settled into rituals, which improved the quality of my existence immeasurably. The ritual of coffee-making and drinking was one of the first."

Exactly.

"Larry came to see me every week, and I lived for those visits - they were the highlight of my life in Danbury, a chest-filling affirmation of how much I loved him. Some women never got visits because they had effectively said goodbye to the outside world. No children, no parents, no friends, nobody. Some of them were halfway around the world from home, and some of them didn't have a home."

I cannot express how much texts, emails, phone calls, Skype dates and best of all, visits, mean to me. These are the things that keep me going, push me forward, make me sane. Thank you!

"Any story you heard from another prisoner had to be taken with about a pound of salt. Think about it: put this many women in a confined space, give them little to do and a lot of time - what else can you expect? Still, true or not, gossip helped to pass the time. I had no way of verifying whether it was gospel truth or not, like most things I heard in prison, but I understood that these stories held their own accuracy. They described our world as it was and as we experienced it. Their lessons always proved invaluable and inviolable." 

Gossip runs this town, currency of sorts. There are always those "in the know" and those telling you what not to do to not get talked about. It's exhausting!

"I had learned a lot since arriving in prison five months ago: how to clean house using maxipads, how to write a light fixture, how to discern whether a duo were best friends or girlfriends, when to curse someone in Spanish, knowing the difference between "feelin' it" (good) and "feelin' some kind of way" (bad), the fastest way to calculate someone's good time, how to spot a commissary ho a mile away, and how to tell which guards were players and which guards were nothin' nice. I even mastered a recipe from the prison's culinary canon: cheesecake."

These are mostly all true to my case, but I have instead learned how to bake a mean banana bread!

"I was too engrossed in prison life, that the "real world" was fading too much into the background, and I probably needed to read the paper more religiously and write more letters. Focusing on the positive was hard, but I knew that I had found the right women at Danbury to help me do it. A little voice in my head reminded me that I might never see anything quite like this again, and that immersing myself in my current situation, experiencing it, and learning everything there was to know might be the way to live life, now and always."

How will I re-integrate? How weird will I be when I get home? What will I not know? Will there bye reserve culture shock? Will I remember how to work, use a computer, drive a car?

"Certain things brought my absence from the outside world into sharp relief, like once-in-a-lifetime events that would happen without me. The world kept going despite the fact that I had been moved to an alternate universe."

Weddings, birthdays, deaths, events, graduations...PCVs miss many of these.

"The more friends I had, the more people wanted to feed me; it was like having a half-dozen Jewish mothers. I was not one to turn down a second dinner, as you could never be quite sure when the next good one would be served. But despite my high-calorie diet, I was getting pretty competent at yoga, I was lifting eighty-pound bags of cement at work, and running at least thirty miles a week, so I wasn't getting fat."   

Amen sister.

On the nights that change you forever

Disclaimer: This is a very hard mensaje to write. It documents the toughest night of my life, including a motor vehicle accident and the subsequent death of three young men. Don’t feel obliged to read if you’re of the weak stomach, don’t like sad tales or don’t want to read about blood. While this may not be the perfect medium to express my grief and sorrow, I want to let you, dear readers, in to a melancholy corner of my life: the dark hole I’ve found myself in this week. I hope that if I can just get it all down in words this one time, it’ll help me move forward and prevent me from having to rehash details over and over again, so thank you in advance for your support. However, if you read no further, at the very least, I remind each of you of the fleeting and precious moments that make up this one truly special life. Today, make someone happy, give someone a hug, tell someone you love them, eat cookies, and remember how much you are loved right back.

Here goes:

This is the kind of night that changes a person forever. It started out like any other Saturday night in Manzanillo, but soon became more raucous than most because we had patron saint celebrations in town and some no-name dembow artist with Barbie-like proportions took the stage while a crowd of drunk onlookers grinded with each other in groups around bottles of rum. Milka left the stage around midnight and the masses made their way to the local bar to dance.  I was dancing to a nice Romeo song when the music turned down suddenly. The crowd erupted – “TURN UP THE MUSIC” and for a brief second it did and my partner and I went back to dancing. Then suddenly, the music shut off and the DJ announced over the microphone that he was closing for the night, and told the men to "take their ladies home". The whole place was confused and in uproar, it was 2am. My friend Anny grabbed me by the hand and yelled to me to follow her. With the rest of the crowd and optics of a flowing river, went hundreds of people running in unison toward the street. I asked what was going on and someone mentioned “accident, dead, kids, motorcycle” but I couldn’t piece it all together, I just followed the crowd. I arrived to the hospital with over 500 Dominicans crowding the emergency room door. As in all confusing situations, people we crying, speculating, screaming, rushing the door and trying to get in. It was utter chaos - terrifying, terrible and heartbreaking. Two days later, we’re still trying to piece it all together, but from my best guess, this is what happened:

Two boys were at the Patronales festival and left in their motorcycle heading the 9km home when they crashed into an unlit semi-truck stopped on the side of the road. The first to the scene were trained paramedics in the town ambulance. They loaded the boys into the back and jetted off the hospital. Upon arrival, someone yelled to them to go back, that an accident happened. “We know, we know, we’re bringing the patients here,” said Alexis. “No,” said the onlooker, “Another two just crashed, hurry!” Apparently, the culprit semi-truck backed up to make room for the ambulance and that’s when another motorcycle with two boys from Montecristi also crashed into the same unlit semi-truck.Two identical accidents within a span of 45 minutes. Of the four, two were dead on impact. One of the boys died in the ambulance in the hands of our trained paramedic Alexis (in his words, “I felt when the soul was taken out of him, he was just gone.”) The final victim is still in critical condition in the city of Santiago. Alexis said when he got to the hospital with the second two, he could barely work because so many people were crowding the ambulance and tapping the window to see in. “Savages,” he kept saying over and over.

In the chaos of the crowd and frenzy at the hospital, I ran right away back to the house and put my “leader” shirt on and ran back to the hospital to do crowd control. I knew trained first responders were in the emergency room with the critical patients and would need a space to get the stretcher into the ambulance parked outside, but there were at least 100 people standing in the ten feet between the door and the ambulance. As best I could, with the help of another paramedic, Anny, we got the crowd back and the stretcher into the hospital and the jet off. Then it was up to us to deal with the screaming, crying, yelling, fainting and crazed onlookers. I was trying so hard to keep it all together, to prevent people from blocking the hospital door, prevent footage from being recorded, help screaming friends of the victims, control the rumors already spreading like wildfire. I’m not sure I did a very effective job, but I was doing what I could.  

And then a moment changed all that. A friend from Copey approached me to say, “Bea, you know it was Enmanuel and Yunior who died, right?” I couldn’t breathe, it couldn’t be. My students? The boys who just helped me build a chimney for the stove in his mother’s house? No! No! No! And then, a tear slipped out, but before I could completely break down, another friend came up to me and yelled, “YOU CANNOT ACT NERVOUS, GET IT TOGETHER,” and I had to regain my composure and put it all back together inside and out with the burden of knowing the victims well. I had hours to go before I could walk home, crash in bed, break down and cry.

Eventually, I decided it was time to go inside the emergency room and piece together what information I could from the doctors. Never before have I seen such ugliness. The two boys...my students...laying face up in hospital stretchers with sheets over their faces...they’re really dead? No! No! No! I watched as the fathers of the boys came to confirm their sons’ identities. “Si,” they wailed, “es mi’jo, mi’jo...mi’jo.” I approached the hospital director who just said with a blank face, “Oh Bea, oh Bea, you’re here, thank you.” I felt paralyzed. 

This night was hard for me to varying degrees and on multiple levels. First, I have never seen dead bodies, let alone those of my students, and two of them, faces up, bodies destroyed and faces indistinguishable. Beyond that, I was in the emergency room with them for more than an hour, so to see the two corpses for so many hours of the night, and then more vile images from friends who sent me photos afterward was more blood and guts then I bargained for. 

Secondly, I had to search deep and summon all my courage and motivation to lead in a situation like this. I don’t have a medical background, Spanish is my second language, and a part of me kept nagging my subconscious, wtf am I doing here? The only answer I can come up with is that someone had to do it. And in emergencies, it’s not those in charge that tend to lead, it’s those who are there. But let me tell you, when I finally dragged my ass into bed at 4am, I let loose and cried harder than I’ve cried in recent memory. Life is unfair.

Finally, I was very affected on an emotional level (better word might be crushed) because it was Enmanuel and Yunior up on those stretchers. Two boys who I’ve taught and learned from, cared about and motivated. Sending condolences, my best friend and fellow teacher, Emily, texted me to say, “I believe (in all my 24 years of wisdom) that the closest approximation to the loss of your own child is the loss of your student. Maybe I’m naïve, but all I know is that for a period of time, they are your children. I am so sorry.” It hit me so hard when she texted, it made perfect sense, of course that’s why I feel like I just got crushed with a cinderblock, because they were my loving, living, learning students.

Reeling from aftermath of this accident, I have seen a strange combination of reactions from townsfolk. Some people are sad and although they didn’t know the families, they grieve as if they did. Tragedy struck, let’s all shed tears together. But then there are some that just want to get pictures of the accident and have been going around town in a perverted hunt for images of the night. Then they WhatsApp then en masse to others. The fact that a someone from New York, a cousin of a Manzanillo friend knew about the accident before she did, is proof (sometimes social media is too effective). And then there are those who act like I’m losing it for being upset two days later. But Bea, it wasn’t your fault, get over it already. Well of course it wasn’t my fault, but it is still an awful burden to bear. “Let me feel what I need to feel,” I want to yell, “Let me be alone when I need to, or with you when I don’t. Let me eat ice cream and dance in your kitchen to take my mind off it. Let me clean my house from top to bottom just to not have to think about it all. Let me nap at 4pm. Let me cry. But please, just hug me when I tell you to.”  

Yes, today was better, every day it's getting better, it’s been three days. I don’t know what tomorrow brings, but I’ll be okay, humans are resilient, especially in the face of tragedy, we all just need our time, there's no one right way to grieve. We were a community before, but we’ve come together now, and will emerge stronger. We have to, for Enmanuel and Yunior, we will. I hope the visions and nightmares of that night go away, but there are some sights that cannot be unseen. Instead I’ll try to remember their smiling faces, tiguere spirits and raucous laughter because that’s what they deserve. May they rest in peace.

On Dominicanisms

For those of you who haven’t spent any or much time in the DR, my friend Lauren and I have compiled a list of things that are just straight up Dominican. You'll notice most of these upon touchdown!  

1. People name their babies with couple names (aka a mom named Gisel and a dad named Dawry name their child Gisaury).

2. You can send any child to do any favor for you at any hour of the day.

3. Twelve year olds can buy their parents cigarettes and beer.

4. The fact that Jeffery is spelled Yefri.

5. Putting your hair in rollers and going out in public.

6. Styrofoam....for everything.

7. Putting hot coffee in plastic cups (BPA warnings!?)

8. Responding “ok” to someone saying “thank you.”

9. Wearing white lyrca with red underwear.

10. WhatsApping Jesus quotes and prayers to everyone in your contact list.

11. Littering.

12. Having two cellphones from different carriers to get the best rates...but never actually making phonecalls.

13. Having a wife and a girlfriend.

14. Spaghetti as an acceptable side to rice and beans for lunch. Or fried eggs, fried cheese and fried salami with mushed up plantains for breakfast. 

15. Saying hello and “God Bless” to a bus full of strangers every time you get on one.

16. Blessing someone’s straight hair. Que Dios lo bendiga. 

17. Telling a party full of people you have diarrhea.

18. Sharing cups with strangers.

19. Scrunching your nose up and down to say "WHAT?"

20. Hissting to get someone's attention, call someone's name, order at a restaurant, cat call and more...

21. Offering whatever you’re eating to anyone and everyone in the vicinity no matter where or what it is.

22. Selfie compilations for social media. 

23. This flow. 

24. Styling kids hair in the cutest little twists and braids. 

25. Beaches like this that real Dominicans won't go to because they don't like the sun.

Cayo Tuna, Montecristi

26. Pick-up trucks with more people than should be legal. 

27. Fitting 5 people on a motorcycle. 

28. Clapping raucously when landing in Santo Domingo! (It must be that everyone's so excited to be in this beautiful country!)

On my "daughter" Gisaury

I don't like children. When my brother had friends over when we were younger, I looked for any excuse to leave the house. Babies make me cringe and I don't have patience to teach the alphabet. All that changed with Gisaury.

The first child I have ever truly loved beside my much younger biological brother, is Gisaury, my five-year-old neighbor. I don’t remember the first time we met or what event was the glue that sealed our fate, but six months after arriving, if she wasn't right beside me, running errands with me, on the back of my bike pedaling through town, helping me do laundry or coloring in my house, everyone asked me where my shadow was. One year and ten months later, they ask me where my daughter is.*

Gisaury lives with her paternal grandma, Nena. Nena is a wonderful woman, but has health problems and can’t keep up with the needs of her grandkids. Gisaury's 30-year-old father sleeps in the house but that's about the only time she sees him, for fifteen minutes at night. Gisaury's aunt Ada also lives in the house, but she's mostly concerned with the well-being of her own daughter, 4-year-old Haydee. Haydee is much cuter than Gisaury and has a bright, loud, sassy and magnetic personality. Haydee dances on queue, dresses in bright colors and never stops talking - all things generally respected and sought-after in Dominican culture. Gisaury on the other hand is quieter, struggles in school, bossy (err, I mean, has executive leadership skills?), and is tragically starved for love and attention. Gisaury’s 19-year-old mother (14 when she gave birth) recently eloped to the capital with some businessman she met on the internet. Gisel rarely sees her daughters (the other daughter lives with her maternal grandma in another part of town) and is very much absent from the lives of her daughters - both her daughters are being raised by their grandmothers. I guess I understand this because she is essentially a child herself. Gisaury’s life resembles the plot line of Cinderella or another similarly tragic tale. 

It would be wrong of me to say that I’ve adopted her, but I have taken an active interest in her life, reading to her, teaching her the colors, to count and to do well in school. When Nena let her stay home from school for a week because she had a rash and didn’t want her walking in the sun, I convinced Nena to buy an umbrella and send her to school. I brush her hair, paint her nails and let her sit in my lap even though its 95 degrees. I introduce her as mi'ja (my daughter) to the confused looks of townsfolk who aren't sure if I'm telling the truth. "She might as well be," I say to them, "I take her everywhere I go."  

I’m not the perfect substitute, nor do I actually know anything about being a mother, but if the love I feel for her is even a fraction of what a mother feels for a daughter, I have only now come to realize what a very powerful and beautiful bond it is. Gisaury truly does feel like a part of me. I sometimes do mental exercises and entertain the thought of how even just by reading to her, hugging her or calling her my daughter, I do a better job of parenting than her own mother does (not to mention I'm four years older than her own mother). It crushes me, the weight of the knowledge that she will never be loved as I was by my own mother, that her mom isn’t there to teach her to read, dress up in dresses, or throw her birthday parties. She didn't get a birthday party last year because she was sick, but also because no one had planned anything. And they have already been planning Haydee's birthday in July while nothing has been said about Gisuary’s on June 24th. 

So what would any mother looking to outdo any other mother in the birthday party department do? Plan a blowout! I am currently planning her sixth birthday party, Little Mermaid themed, to be held on the beach. With the wonderful execution skills of my scheming American mother, we're going to throw Gisaury a birthday bash. Taina expedited the party supplies from an American dollar store to friends heading down next week, and with a little help from Amazon prime, I’ll have Ariel invitations and wall decorations here by next week. Apart from that, I’ll order a cake, pop some popcorn, throw some candies in a bag and blow up balloons for 20 neighborhood children. It’s simple, but she deserves it. She's the one that has changed my entire outlook on children, shown me a love more powerful than I’ve ever known, and assured me that I am meant to be exactly where I am. June 24th is her day and I will make sure she knows it!

_____

* In Dominican culture, most people have 3-4 madrinas/padrinos (godparents) and every time they see them (aka first thing in the morning, after a long trip, when getting back from the grocery store), or an aunt, mother or father, it is custom to say “Cion madrina” which is a request for a blessing. The mother/father, godparent, uncle/aunt will say “God bless you.” It’s the sign of a truly special and deep bond reserved for close relationships. The other day, when I got home, Gisaury ran to me and for the first time she said “Cion mami.” It was one my proudest, most heartbreaking (in that she calls me mother because hers is so largely absent), and precious (that I can make an impact on someone so tiny and young) moments here.