Some Town Photos

All About Agua!

I have never thought about water as much as I do here. I tried to think about it, taking lots of baths and turning the water off as I brush my teeth, but we are so distant from any kind of water issue in Seattle, I didn’t understand what it meant to conserve water. Here, like many parts of the world, water is not only a problem, it is the problem. Rio Artibonito, the natural border between Haiti and Dominican Republic, is our water source in Pedro Santana. There is an aqueduct that pumps water from the river up to a tank which then distributes the water evenly between three towns. Water arrives usually every third day for three or four hours. At this time, the whole town is filling large and small buckets, washing clothes, mopping floors, and bathing.

A hose is useful for filling the large buckets but my style is carrying small buckets back and forth to fill the large ones. Some times the water arrives clear, which becomes the talk of the town, and others it is really brown (nicknamed “chocolate milk”). The dark water is the result of the erosion after it rains amplified by the complete deforestation in Haiti and in much of this side. Occasionally, the river is so muddy, water can’t go through the aqueduct and households dry up. People bathe and eat at friends houses that have these huge tanks for water storage. This past weekend, I washed my clothes at a neighbor’s house and brought some water home in buckets for the bare necessities.

My house is like most in town in that it has a bathroom with a toilet and a cement area with a drain to bathe, and a sink, as well as a sink in the kitchen. Water, however, only arrives to a faucet in the back yard. Because there is no running water in the houses, everything functions with the help of buckets. We have two large buckets that stay outside; one is for bathroom use and the other for kitchen use. We also use two five-gallon buckets, one for bathing with a bowl and the other to wash dishes, and one two gallon bucket for throwing water down the toilet (the alternative flush) and for mopping our cement floors.

Many people throw water and soap on the floor like a flood which I assume is supposed to get it good and clean and also to cool down the house. I exempt myself from this activity because my two roommates and I lack furniture and consequently practice floor piling organization. For drinking, we buy water for about 86 cents per carboy. It is better and cheaper to have a filter. A water filter project interests me as many people here drink the river water to save money making parasites one of the most common health problems in town.

Right now, we are in the midst of the rainy season, a time I know I will miss dearly. We all hope for afternoon the sky to change from 100 degrees clear blue to dark clouds with a cool wind. Everyone bustles around shutting windows, stashing things like clothes and chairs inside and strategically placing every bucket to catch the rainwater from their roofs. We empty all the buckets to take advantage of the clean rainwater. I change into shorts and a T-shirt and get ready to run. Then it pours with the intensity of a high pressure shower. I like to go out with a bunch of boys who run around in the neighborhoods, jumping in the rivers that run down the streets and hitting up the good gutter from the roof of the town government building. They think my presence is hilarious and I’m sure if I saw myself yelling in Spanish and splashing Dominican junior high boys, it would look like a joke. I’ll take a running club anywhere I can get it and I like to lie and say that I, like all American girls, never get tired.

When I get home, I strip down to my skivvies and take a wonderful shower in the rain. I hope I will never forget to appreciate water coming from above. I am well accustomed to the bucket bath but a constant flow down on my body still feels like a birthday present. After my long clean shower in the rain, I also get the gift of feeling a little cold. Then, I go with my umbrella to teach my English class and no one shows up. Nothing normal happens when it rains. The kids go home from school early, meetings are canceled (informally as no one is notified, everyone just knows), and even social lives are put on hold to sit in the house with family. I admit that it is kind of nice to sit in the house and read, either by electricity or flashlight if the power is out.

The days after hard rains are important planting times in the fields. In a community dependent on subsistence agriculture, a good rainy season means a good harvest and the possibility to make money by selling excess crops. Unlike higher technology agriculture, there is no insurance of an irrigation system. The farmers here are totally dependent on the completely undependable weather.

There are aqueducts serving many of the rural communities in this region built sometimes by the government but more frequently by foreign aid. Some communities don’t have an aqueduct but are able to collect water from a nearby river or stream. Still, there are many people without easy access to water and even more with no potable water. No access to potable water goes hand in hand with children’s protruding stomachs, impossible roads, and no easy access to healthcare. Here, water is everything.

In much of the developed world, it goes almost unnoticed. We drink it from the faucet, cook with it, take showers, use washing machines and complain when it rains. On the scale of global water issues, we are fortunate here. The worldwide water crisis is almost too immense to think about. I have no advice about how to take it in or an easy way to change your lifestyle. The more time I spend here as a community-based development volunteer, the more I think effective development work is not with small projects. What really facilitates development is infrastructural improvements. People need roads. When vehicles can access a community, they can build aqueducts and clinics. Without water, no one can produce anything to sell and without roads no one will come to buy the products. Infrastructural development is essential for economic progression.

I wrote a final paragraph that resembles a guilt trip so I will end here. It is my personal belief that we, as lucky ducks, have some sort of responsibility to at least acknowledge the problems of the world.

Get Ready!

These last few weeks cannot possibly be representative what my service will be like because if it is, I will never make it two years. In the end of July, I was in a fabulous place, busy finishing my community diagnostic, making some real friends and teaching a disgusting amount of English. On my morning run, I decided to take a little detour when I was viciously attacked by a guard dog in my armpit. It scared me so badly, I shrieked “Somebody help me!” in English, which quickly turned into the new town joke. Jokes aside, the incident really freaked me out. The following week I did the six hour trip to the capital twice for rabies shots, finished my diagnostic presentation, moved into my house, and said some quick goodbyes as I was off to a week-long training.

The beginning of the training was our presentations and time to plan our year with our project partners. Mine cancelled at the last minute so I was all alone presenting and planning. The rest of the training was great. On top of getting the information, it was kind of therapy to hang out with all of my wonderful friends from pre-service training, eat copious amounts of food, and use flush toilets. Upon returning to Pedro Santana, I did my rounds of visiting and was ready to start planning some projects. Apparently my body was not ready because I came down with something that knocked me to bed for two days before I was sent to the capital where I stayed in a hostel, then in the hospital for two nights, and finally back to my community.

So, here I am in Pedro Santana, hoping to free myself of medical crises. I got home last night to my comfortable new house with no furniture except beds and plastic chairs, classy. I was warmly welcomed by the neighbors and some friends who have been very worried about my health. After being constantly asked by nurses why I had no company in the hospital, my vulnerable little self esteem sopped up the affection.

My grand plan is to do some serious visiting, find an end to my English classes (involving certificates), and slowly start some projects with water and kids. My less grand plans are to return to studying Spanish and Creole, do some recycled art, and buy some earplugs (because, damn, they play that merengue loud). My fantasy plan is to go to Haiti and work with a large binational project based in my town, but as of now, I am forbidden to cross the bridge. On a more feasible note, I am psyched about cooking. I bought a bunch of stuff in a supermarket in the capital that I can’t get in Pedro Santana: whole wheat pasta, lentils, oatmeal, peanut butter, soy protein, cinnamon, thyme, pepper, and oregano. Today I bought carrots, onions, and egg plant at our weekly street market. Man, I must be hungry!
How self-involved! I hope to make this blog less about me and more about the situation of the people who live here. It’s about to get so educational, you won’t want to read it… get ready!

Oh Peace Corps.

I am just now starting to feel like I am a resident and not a visitor of this little town. I just finished visiting and interviewing one hundred houses of the pueblo for the Peace Corps community diagnostic. It has become apparent that what I have learned from the interviews, that water and lack of work are the largest problems here, I could have known after talking to a couple of friends. The real function of the surveys turned out to be introducing myself to the community as a Peace Corps volunteer living here for two years, not a missionary worker or a month long German visitor. I can tell people feel like they know me a little more because I get a lot of shout outs with my actual name (Yasmín) instead of “Blanca” and a lot of cheek kisses from old ladies on the street.

I have also decided to greet everyone I see if at all possible which means I am always shooting little waves around willy nilly, undiscriminating and a little oblivious. I am thinking that there is nothing better than being viewed as friendly and nice but it definitely results in my confusion when people come up and talk to me and then they say, “You remember me from the park on Saturday, you were running and I was with my friend!” If I have not said this before, I have been doing a lot of Peace Corps lying, “Oh yeah, I remember!”, “Yes, I love your food.”, “Peace Corps won’t let me do that.” I am pretty sure I have already lied more in this country than my whole life in the states. I have consciously let reputation and acceptance outweigh honesty for the time being, judge as you will.

I am getting accustomed to the cultural differences very little by little. One interesting one has been that it is not very popular to do anything alone. I tend to like some alone time but it is totally unacceptable to be in your bedroom if you aren’t sleeping. If you want to read or relax, you best be sitting with your people; if you are in your room, you best be sleeping. The river that separates my town with Haiti, Rio Artibonito goes through stages cleanliness and with the hundred degree heat, I have gotten really into dipping in the river (or as they say, bathing). I went the first few times with friends and then yesterday I wanted to swim but no one was going so I headed out alone. Before I could get out the door, my host mom had found someone to go with me, not for safety, just for company.

Walking alone is almost the most rare of them all. Every evening people enjoy the fresher temperature and walk around the town (literally around the whole pueblo). Sometimes I start my walking alone but I am always joined by someone who starts by saying, “Who are you walking with?”, a polite insinuation that it is not normal to be doing my round around town solo. Another walking rule that I am bound to break is that two people of opposite genders walking together are in a relationship. Because this is a flexible rule and virtually unavoidable, I figure if I walk with enough different guy friends, people will just except that I am a weird American and the rule doesn’t apply. I’ll let you know how this goes.

The difference that has been the hardest to get used to is the pace of life here and the professionalism. I am up at six running and planning my day only to later be at a meeting where no one shows up or to wait for an hour for something to open or someone to meet me. I have been teaching English classes and I have had to accept that the actual class can’t start until fifteen minutes after the starting time. My plans with the NGO I am working with are the most flexible of all. Meetings and promises of transportation are forgotten more often than they are remembered. Clearly, I need to just take some deep breaths and a chill pill and welcome myself to the Dominican Republic.

My favorite difference is also my least favorite and it is the compulsory sharing. This is by definition a give and take phenomenon that only works in your favor in one direction. I love seeing people sending food from house to house or calling a neighborhood kid on the street to come and eat the leftovers. People actually bite off pieces mints and offer the remainder to a friend. The negatives are when you really don’t want the fried salami or more frequently, when you don’t want to share. I’d like to eat my dinner sitting with you but I’m hungry and I don’t want to give you any. My survival strategy is to hang out in the front of the house but always eat in the back.

Despite my very slow understanding of the social norms of this country, I am getting more comfortable everyday. I am no longer in constant calculations of how much I’m not doing, how many mistakes I made or how many days I have left. Scratch the last one because I am totally still in the day counting business: I have less than twenty two months left, baby!

A Little Illustration

Kids are so cute.

This is a view of Rio Altibonito that supplies the water for this region and separates Haiti and the DR.

It´s mango season.

A little campo view. I will be posting some pueblo pictures soon!

My Life These Days

I have been living in the town of Pedro Santana with an astonishingly nice woman who gives me air kisses and defends my Spanish to any communication critics. My days have been rather full although not at all productive in the classical sense. My average day begins at six when I drink a tiny cup of strong coffee and eat breakfast which is usually a piece of bread with a hardboiled egg. Four days a week, I set out for the rural campos. On these days, I pack a notebook, pencil, water and sunscreen along with the awkwardly large umbrella and motorcycle helmet and head for the very long dirt road. Although I should be embarrassed about carrying the helmet, I can often catch free rides with motorcycles and watch some of the five miles wiz in either direction. I get a quite a few laughs because almost no one wears helmets here and carrying one without a bike is quite the walking joke.

I arrive sweaty to the campo at eight thirty in the morning (it takes me about an hour and a half to walk the five miles meaning I walk pretty damn slow). I always first visit a handful of my regular houses where I am expected to frequent. I find a spot in the shade and utilize my usual conversation starters: “How are things?”, “How are your kids (most people have grown children in the capital)?”, one question about the weather, either a recent strong rain or “It was really hot yesterday, huh?”. If these don’t get the ball rolling, I move on to their crops and animals which always seems to work.

Our conversations usually veer toward problems with health, money and always water. Unfortunately, I lack the social graces to be able to respond to comments about hardship. I would blame this on my language barrier but I am just as challenged with this in English. I try to ask relevant questions and always throw in my “How difficult.” with a sigh. These reactions become even more necessary when I do my interviews. I try to do four or five each day I do the walk and because I added to my interview questions, I interviewed fourteen houses twice, poor them! I introduce myself and explain that I am doing a diagnostic before asking a variety of mundane and invasive questions in imperfect Spanish. I thank them profusely and they tell me to come back and visit soon. I then head slowly back to town for lunch even more sweaty and disheveled after all the hot walking.

On days that I don’t go to the campos, I run to the next town over after breakfast, enjoy a cold bucket bath and use the fabulous generator in a communal office space where I type up my interview responses and, let’s face it, pretend like I am working. I am also always on the hunt for someone who is passionate about the inadequacy of the projects that come to this municipality. We talk about broken water filters and organizations that don’t implement their projects and I ask an excessive amount of questions.

Everyday, I eat a big lunch of rice and beans around noon and drink about two nalgenes of water. It is more difficult to fill the afternoon because everyone is sitting still inside or in the shade to avoid the raging heat. I have lucked into a few weekly meetings and was tricked into starting a small adult English class with people who work in the office. These have been good for filling my planner (feeling like I am doing something) and making friends, a work in progress. At six o’clock, I eat a small dinner before I go for a walk around town becuase it is cooler and there are always people in the streets. I am shouted at with “Americana!” or “Rubia!” usually accompanied by a laugh like it is just too hilarious that I live here. Although I appreciate the excitement to an extent, I prefer talking to yelling. I visit an old colmado (corner store) owner with nice eyes who has lived here his whole life. I sometimes go to the “park” where there is usually a little social crowd. The first time I went there, I was sitting on a bench trying to look busy and someone was repeatedly shouting something like “Virginia” but with Spanish pronunciation. I finally turned around to a group of people staring at me and I realized that I knew some of them from a youth club meeting. I joined them and asked them what they were saying. They answered, “Your name” and gave me my favorite “you stupid American” look. I have miscommunications like it’s my job and I am proud to say my embarrassment threshold has been drastically altered.

When I come home from my walk, I sit with my hostmom outside to watch passersbys before I set up my mosquito net and fall asleep to merengue. All day, everyday, I think (or rather, worry) about how I am going to be able to actually contribute to this community. I am daunted by the complexity of the needs here. The largest problems in the region seem to revolve around water. There are campos that don’t receive any from the aqueduct, don’t have functioning filters, and can’t save their crops or animals if it doesn’t rain. The communities could also benefit from more efficient cook stoves that use less wood and have chimneys to direct the smoke out of the kitchen huts. This list of potential projects could continue with cement floors, latrines, literacy, sex ed and nutrition classes. Right now, I am trying to take it one day at a time and prioritizing making friends and learning Spanish, two essentials to my two year stint here. I hope you are all doing well!

Swearing In: Who Says We Can´t Be Fancy?

The girls becoming real Peace Corps Volunteers. Take a good look, this may be the only time we have a chance to wear a dress in these two years.

The boys in ties.

Bekah, Jared, Malia and I, sweating.