After a much needed vacation that could hardly be called relaxing - 6 nights in 6 different beds/tents really starts to take its toll - it was back to the campo for me, where daily life includes at least an hour of picking mango from my teeth and hand-washing clothes only to have them fall off the drying line and get dirty again.
I find it takes some adjusting when I leave my campo home, as well as when I return. This particular adventure took me to the city, after nearly a month in my site, where over 60 volunteers awaited an exciting 4th of July adventure to Bahia de las Aguilas, a beautiful beach in the southern tip of the country where desert shockingly gives way to lush palms and the bluest water you an imagine. It's really very shocking to go from doing my best to fit into Dominican campo life (where daily questions include things such as "why is your face still so white?") to vacationing tourist style (more or less on a Peace Corps budget, which is really quite different than regular tourists I must say) with a large group of gringos. We saw some beautiful sites, but were all a little anxious to go back to our sites, and with good reason: everybody notices when we're gone, and makes it a point to let us know. The sinking feeling I got when people asked me straight faced "where have you been" and "when did you get back" is what we call "campo guilt". Even though many young people are on summer vacation right now, my absence draws much more attention for obvious reasons, and I can't help but feel that leaving for any amount of time, whether it be a day or a week, results in a loss of the ground that I've worked so hard to build up.
Despite my campo guilt, everyone was excited to see me and clearly glad for my return, so now it's time to get back to work. We have Brigada Verde tomorrow, which I expect to be weakly attended due to the aforementioned vacation that has stolen away my members, and a meeting about gardening in the upcoming week. On Friday I hope to go to a nearby city (loosely defined as there's no ATM or internet center) to meet with the mayor about the possibility of sending a trash truck our way. Currently, everyone burns their trash or throws it "pra 'lla", which literally means "over there", and often is uncomfortably close to a water source. It's hard to scold people for throwing trash in the road when carrying it home just means they're going to burn it, releasing toxic fumes near their place of residence, or simply throw it somewhere else. Still, I've ground it into the heads of my Brigada Verde members that if I see them throwing trash on the ground, I'm going to be "muy triste"…very sad. It's a habit that's so ingrained in their daily lives that we can be in a meeting talking about not throwing trash down, and 5 minutes later upon opening a Halls cough-drop (candy here, they come in strange flavors like strawberry cream), they simply throw the wrapper on the ground. I holler and point and make a big fuss, upon which they laughingly and guiltily pick up the discarded wrapper, but I can't help but feel a little defeated when I realize that this paper has nowhere else to go. It makes you think about just how much the ugliness of realities like trash are hidden from view in developed countries like the U.S. We generate far less inorganic waste here, and yet it clutters the roads, forests, and waterways because the government hasn't taken the initiative to clear it out of marginalized communities like mine. Waste management is one of the most menacing environmental threats in the DR, and I hope to head my community in the right direction by getting a few strategically placed trash barrels and a truck that will collect regularly. Small steps, small victories. As they say here, "Grano por grano, la gallina llena su buche." Grain by grain, the hen fills her cheeks. With the amount of rice I consume every day, I should be there in no time at all!
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