Oh the Holidays!

Sometimes I cannot even imagine being in the states. I think about myself driving around with a big cup of tea and a bran muffin listening to American music and it looks like someone else. Lately my thoughts about being home have gotten more frequent because many of my volunteer friends are going back for the holidays. They will be pulled out of this world to the Christmas madness, hot showers, carpets, and real bread that constitute the American dream. I am confident in my choice to stay here for the holidays especially because some of the family is coming to visit in February, woohoo! Thanksgiving was a breeze. There was a big Peace Corps party where we had a run, sports, dancing and food binging to the point of sickness, just like home!

I will spend Christmas in my site which may or many not give me a hint of what I am used to. From what I hear, the town fills with cars of family members who have moved away. There are very few people here with private vehicles and none that are not trucks so the presence of cars marks any big special time in town. Other than a large dinner on the night of the 24th involving goat meat, I think Christmas is just a chance to get together and drink and dance bachata and merengue. There is no custom of cutting down trees or gift giving, two traditions that I am sincerely not sorry to miss. Christmas cards, however, I am unwilling to forgo. I started chatting with people about this and realized immediately that card giving in general is a foreign concept. I decided to facilitate a Christmas card making session with poster board, old magazines, crayons and glitter.

I invited a bunch of high school kids and encouraged them to bring anything they had around the house. When they showed up empty handed, they told me that they didn’t understand what we were doing. Who were the cards for, what were they supposed to look like and why hadn’t I showed up with models for them to copy. We started with scrap paper and pencils and many sat waiting still looking over a friends shoulder. My little fifteen year old friend informed me that I needed to teach them how to draw first and we spent the entire allotted time talking about creativity, the thought that counts, and my usual babble about reusing material. No one completed a card nor wanted to work on it at home so I rescheduled for today. I am equipped with more recycled paper, and a few example cards (probably a mistake but well varied and difficult to copy) and more maybe more explanation about the thought that counts.

While I was a little worried about starting too early before Christmas or using materials that you have to buy for kids who could not buy them themselves, I think introduction of art outweighs these preoccupations. We will see how the session today fares but I am excited about being a creativity pusher. The lack of expression is also apparent with the little kids. I have eighteen pictures of houses from kids who come over to color, color a little house with two windows and a flag that apparently they learn in school, and then won’t take their pictures home. Like many things in this country, I don’t understand the fear of doing a little original art or of taking things home but I am not afraid to be that weird white girl pushing kids to color outside the lines. Plus, I could use a little glitter in my life!

But is it really helping?

If people are hungry, you want to give them food. Everyone should have the right to water so we should make an aqueduct, supply filters, make it happen. I could go on and on with sturdy houses, cement floors, seeds and latrines. But if you go to a community and throw up gifts, noble as they are, are you really helping the progression of the community? Are you contributing to development?

This is the situation in my region. I am on the border with Haiti in technically the poorest municipality of the poorest province of the Dominican Republic, a great place for organizations and government agencies (like Save the Children or USAID) to carry out projects. There are 17 large institutions with projects in my region, made obvious by stickers and signs around every gleaming latrine or bright pink wood house. I would be so presumptuous to argue that many of these projects that better the economic and health conditions of the people are detrimental to development. There is obviously something to be said for improving the quality of life of a community and I would never believe that people shouldn’t have the cement floors or clean water. These are changes that immensely decrease the parasitic infections of children and greatly improve the overall health of the inhabitants. Everyone should have a right to health.

My position is that the way the projects are carried out should be dramatically changed. The projects that I have witnessed come like a tornado of presents. They initiate the project with a meeting which lays out what they will be bringing. I have noticed that they bring juice and treats to these meetings, which results in amazing attendance and a first impression that this organization has such excess that they are willing to throw money to buy white bread and cheese. They organize who will be recipients and the details of the tasks to come. As the majority of the projects require labor such as construction of the homes, latrines or aqueduct, the project offers employment to the people of the community. This constitutes a month of high paid labor to a group of community members, a true gift. Maybe they even provide lunch food for the workers which often consists of rice, beans, oil and salami to be prepared by the wives.

The projects are beautiful. Huge trucks carry cement and wood on rough roads. Engineers come from the capital to monitor the project. Nice white people inevitably visit to take pictures and have cultural immersion experiences. Then, it’s over and the people have what they have gotten often with little instruction of maintenance. The lives of those people are improved in one aspect or another and they adjust to their new, more developed lifestyle and wait for the next project to come.

So why am I critical? It is because community organization is not only excluded from these projects, it is discouraged. Ideally, a women’s group or community association would discuss the problems that they face and the most effective and feasible solutions.
However, with the current manner of development institutions, it is unnecessary for a village to make an association, analyze their situations and necessities and solicit a project. In fact, everyone knows that if the community was to plan to build latrines and petition for the resources themselves, the members would have to organize the project and work without pay or free food. It is much more practical for them to go without latrines for however long it takes for someone to come and gift them. The campos around here not only don’t meet amongst themselves, they are resistant to meeting because it is just too much work for not enough compensation. The idea that they should think about progression or work to change their own situation is destroyed.

It is impossible to place the blame or maybe even to imagine a different, more effective approach to development. However, I think it is important to look at what is happening and discuss possible improvements. It could be as easy as more education involved in each project. Not only do you receive water filters but a course about water contamination and the health effects. Maybe they could assign someone in the community as the leader of the project to be of guidance for maintenance and replacement. An organization that installs cement floors could involve a committee in the whole process to show how future projects could be planned and implemented.

Thinking about the best management of development efforts is enough to make my head hurt but it is clear that blindly dropping bags of food or solar panels on people suffering true poverty cannot be the secret. If there is no structural or educational progression, decades will pass with filters and solar panels that no longer work, broken aqueducts, full latrines and people without the custom of changing their own situation. The gifts of these amazing agencies are like your pajamas at Christmas, just gifts to be replaced on another occasion. I hate the word sustainable but it’s like peace, worth a try!

Photos of Cercadillo

Cercadillo

Yesterday at about two in the afternoon, I looked at my tear streaked face and questioned my decision to commit two years doing this. The night before, I planned a day trip to one of the poorest communities in my municipality. I have been there a handful of times before and always been drawn to their situation. Unlike many of the rural communities in the area, Cercadillo is avoided by all of the development projects that arrive with gifts like home construction, cement floors, water filters, and trees or crops. This is because over half of the population is Haitian and living illegally on this side of the border. The majority of these projects, including those from the US, cannot benefit families without Dominican citizenship cards. This leaves the 150 residents with dirt houses and floors, little potable water, and little opportunity for wealth generation. Since the first time I visited, their aqueduct has been broken meaning they have to collect water in their closest river.

Because I have visited and I am white, there is one Cercadillo woman who finds me every time she comes to town to ask for help. She always tells me that they still don’t have water and she is going to get the president of their water association to talk to me. Last week, she and this president found me on my morning run and answered some of my questions. No, they have not told the municipal government. No, no one is having meetings to figure it out. No, an engineer hasn’t visited. They aren’t sure but they think three bags of cement could fix the problem. I decided to go there and see the situation but I told them they should also talk to the mayor and Red Cross (who are working on the aqueduct in town). Three bags of cement is about $18 US dollars, not exactly a fortune.

I planned the trip with a driven college student who lives here half the week with his family and studies half the week in the capital. He had asked me if I had interest in a fruit tree project in Cercadillo and I thought we could take the morning talking to the people there about their future plans of the water problem. We set off in a mode of transportation not recommended by Peace Corps on the road that gets progressively worse as it nears Cercadillo.

Our morning was filled with introductions, a hike to the source of the aqueduct, and some uncomfortable talk about the fruit tree project. It was only uncomfortable for me because my friend mentioned an extension to their aqueduct and food compensation for their labor, two expensive ideas that wouldn’t be possible in the scope of Peace Corps projects. It turns out their aqueduct needs a tube replacement to effectively pump water to the tank. The tank also needs to be cleaned out as it has been sitting with a foot of water in the bottom for a time period no one seems to know. I don’t know how much it is going to cost but I know an engineer should visit to confirm that this as the easiest and most effective solution.

What brought me to my tear-fest when I got home was not the situation of their aqueduct. I watched a seven-year-old girl carry a five gallon bucket on her head up a steep hike and then over a fence that was hard for me to climb with nothing in my hands. Getting water at the river is hard but not as hard as the other factors of poverty that challenge the people of Cercadillo. It was the naked kids with protruding stomachs due to parasites, the people who look so hungry and thank us for visiting while apologizing relentlessly for not having even a little coffee to give us. It was all the kids who are not going to school because their school is undergoing what looks like a dreadfully slow process of reconstruction and the thought of not being able to pay people with food. It was the feeling that I am never going to be in their situation nor will I be able to change it.

When I got home, I drank the two bottles of water I had in my backpack that I could never have taken out in Cercadillo. I then broke down in tears and consequently started gagging a little (don’t drink two bottles of water really fast and then have a fit). It is moments like these that make me realize I just may be too much of a baby to be doing this. Then I realized, like almost everything, it is so not about me. There are billions of people who live in conditions like this and those far worse. There are others who live in a porcelain world that never allows the thought of poverty to enter. In my opinion, the global distribution of wealth is ugly to the point of being grotesque. I have some unjustified hope that if enough people care, it will improve. If there are a few Greg Mortenson and Paul Farmer types to do the dirty work and enough rich people and governments to donate their dimes, maybe the world could have water, healthcare and education. Maybe people won’t be driven to cut down their forest causing a nearly irreversible feedback loop of erosion and soil degradation and further poverty. I know this hope is out there, but it’s what I choose to believe.

I shouldn’t look at my ridiculous crying face and question my decision to be here. That’s just silly because I already made the decision. Now, I just have to keep it together a little and take it one day at a time. I’m sure that’s what they do in Cercadillo.

Sin Vergüenza

In Spanish, to say "I'm embarrassed", you say "Tengo vergüenza" which translates literally to "I have embarrassment or shame". I like the use of the noun because you can do things with or without embarrassment, you can leave your embarrassment, claim that something gives you embarrassment or say "There’s no embarrassment here" as if it is something you can tangibly eliminate from the environment. It is obvious that there really is less of it here. You are bound to see people singing loudly or dancing in public, picking their nose in the open, or shouting obscenities at a family member sin vergüenza or without shame. I’d like to dedicate this entry to embarrassing things that I do in my Peace Corps service. Maybe this is more like a list of things I should be embarrassed about but in true Dominican spirit, I do sin vergüenza.

Eggs are a cheap and easy source of protein so I eat them almost every day. Instead of converting pesos into dollars to figure out if something is a good deal, I think in terms of eggs. For example, I like powdered milk but a tiny baggy is worth eight eggs so I can rarely bring myself to buy it. A cold drink is three or four eggs… robbery.

There is no solid chocolate here so I bought hot chocolate powder at the out-of-town supermarket and I eat it dry with a spoon.

The only entertainment I have on my computer is season 5 of The Office. With a true display of discipline, I waited four months in site to watch it. The first day I started it, I watched ten episodes and didn’t leave the house. It’s been about a month and I’ve seen the whole season twice.

I lie and say that I have stomach problems when I don’t to get out of eating gifted food.

When we run out of water, I wake up really early to pee in my yard when the neighbors can’t see me. I also visit the church to use their latrine and only eat things that don’t dirty any dishes like hard-boiled eggs.

I go on runs with my ipod shuffle and sometimes I stop to sing and dance to my American music. One time, I had a mutually fearful moment with a small herd of cows rounding a corner.

I think about the electricity so much that I try to plan my day and water consumption around the state of our refrigerator. I have a bunch of plastic bottles that I drink and refill like it’s my job when we have power. Lately, there hasn’t been power at night so to avoid using my headlamp too much I do a lot of walking and visiting friends who have generators.

Even when I am talking in a group of Dominicans, I blurt out words in English like “Really!?” or “Now way!” when something surprises me. I used to laugh at myself and explain what I said in English but this just perpetuates the situation. Now I just pretend it didn’t happen.

Sometimes after a long day and a look in the mirror, I realize that my sunscreen and sweat has made prominent white streaks on my face.

I have vivid dreams about food I can’t get here like ice cream and burritos. I used to be a pseudo-vegan but the things I crave from the states are not the things I used to eat. I think way more about chocolate chip muffins and cheesecake more than dried fruit and soymilk (although it all sounds wonderful).

I get my feelings hurt because people in the rest of the Dominican Republic think my town is the most horrible place in the country. In the capital, I get a lot of yikes facial expressions when I say where I live and instead of Pedro Santana, they call it Pedo Santana (pedo means fart). I have even cried about it, ha!

My mom sent me an Us Weekly magazine and I savored it, restricting myself to one article every morning with my tea until I had read every word. I will probably read it again.

When people shout, "Americana!" in the street, I respond with "Dominicano!" but depending on my mood, when they yell other more annoying names or phrases, I sometimes yell "Please, I have a name!" or "No, I’m not your love!". Occasionally I find myself shouting at really old men or children, whoops.

I gossip… a lot. So I hear, my town is getting a new bus to the capital complete with air conditioning and curtains, what now?!

I have such a guilty conscience that I am always thinking about how unfair it is that I will likely always have more than the people here. Other volunteers seem to do a lot more traveling, socializing and spending but I almost never leave my site. For example, because I have friends here who have never seen the beach, I don’t want to go to the beach for vacation and have to come back and tell people. Of all these embarrassing things, this is perhaps the most shameful with the greatest repercussions. I don’t want to live on this island for two years and not leave my hot dry border town because I want to live like the poor. Oh dear!

Now that you have surely judged me, I feel a little liberated. Peace Corps is certainly not restricted to perfect people living pure and noble lives. Living in a different country produces a lot of embarrassing experiences and habits but so does life in general, right? You can hide what you do without anyone knowing but it is so much better tell people about it, get a laugh, air it out! If you feel like sharing, I’m all ears!

Potties and Trash

Garbage Lady

There has been a staggering change from lying in my hammock studying Spanish and pondering development work to running around asking for money from the mayor with sawdust and paint all over me. This change was the result of someone asking me if I would paint garbage cans with a youth club. There is a huge religious festival in caves of a protected area in my town. Tens of thousands of people come to make a promise to God and meanwhile buy a bunch of crap and get plastered. The area inevitably gets trashed and, because neither volunteer work nor environmental appreciation is popular, there are hills of garbage that grow every year.

I was told that there were twenty garbage tanks donated from the capital and all of the paint will also be donated. I could use environmental themes to paint environmental images and messages on the tanks with kids. Easy enough. With about a month before the festival, I started working on the designs and messages. I went to meetings to listen to many creative ideas like putting religious figures within every image (advice I was not about to take). The tanks finally arrived and with two weeks to go and I started off with a drawing event with high schoolers (because we had no paint). I then went every day to work on the drawings and lettering hoping to eventually get the donated paint. About a week and a half before the parties it became clear that the paint wasn’t coming and a resident of the protected area yelled in my face about the fact that there are no latrines and everyone is going to do there business wherever.

I spent two days riding on the back of a motorcycle going to the town government buildings with a letter asking for money and supplies, visiting construction sites for extra materials and back and forth to the caves to tell the community they could start digging the hole (they are latrines after all). Although we, the protector of this area and I, were feeling pretty proud, I had no idea what I was doing. My partner for this project left for the capital and I was then the construction supervisor for the latrines with the trash can painting project still absolutely unfinished. I held a painting event that was a disaster with little kids painting wretchedly and the bottoms of the paint cup melting out.

It also became apparent that the latrine workers had no idea what they were doing as they needed more and more materials leaving me to beg the mayors and even the priest. I did some commanding, really yelling, in Spanish and mentioned loudly that I was a volunteer and it did not seem like anyone here was willing to organize nor work voluntarily. In the end, the latrines are up with one door made of trash and the trash cans are out with horrid paintings and environmental facts. I didn’t go to the festival because I didn’t want to work nor see thousands of people throwing trash on the ground next to the garbage cans. I will be organizing a trash clean-up soon but all I really want to do is sleep. Although I would hope that I have gained respect in the community, I am pretty sure everyone is just mad that I finished my English classes.

It has become scarily clear that no one wants to have any extra work to do. I get really excited thinking about literacy and garden projects until I realize that nobody is with me. In general, the people here don’t like to read or eat vegetables and there is no way I am going to change their minds. I am going to spend two years struggling to feel like I am doing something of value when all anyone wants is money. I am pretty sure I should just lie in my hammock, study Spanish and hang out with friends!