Friday, July 17, 2009
Behind Bars
What does it say about the quality of life in a country when those that can afford to choose to carry out their lives behind bars? Literally. Those with resources fence in their front porches and windows with heavy duty re-bar, albeit decorative, to keep out things that go bump in the night. Schools always have at least a tall, locked gate, if not circular barbed wire atop 10 foot walls. We can't even dream of putting computers (which we received donated) into our library until we have bars across all the windows, and several layers of plywood nailed up to separate it from the neighboring classroom. Food for thought.
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Campo Days (written 7.12.09)
Yesterday morning, we finished construction on the 20th and final fuel efficient cook stove in my community. I took a deep breath as I rode on the back of a motorcycle to my house (yes, it was walkable, but it’s hot, ok) where I bathed, had a coffee, and then set off to a neighboring community, where a PCV friend has recently finished construction on an aqueduct and was celebrating with an inauguration. We listened to speeches, ate huge plates of food, and danced the night away, me secretly celebrating my accomplishment along with his. Well, not so secretly.
Hey Mica, how are you? OHMYGODIFINISHEDSTOVESTODAY is probably closer to what it was like. Hm.
Anyway, I hosted breakfast at my house this morning for 4 PCVs and 2 Dominicans who work with the water volunteers. It stretched out into lunchtime – pancakes’ll do that – and by the time I made it down to the other end of my community, to a party I had somewhat grudgingly promised to go to, the main event guests had gone to the river. That was fine with me – I thought the whole reason I was invited was because they were expecting rich white-ish Dominicans from the city, some of which lived in/had lived in/or at least had been to “Nueva Yol”. So when I arrived to find the man of the house, who’s birthday we were to celebrate, with his wife and a few choice kids and grandkids, I was not at all disappointed. He was a little upset that I missed the morning events, but I reassured him that I would hang out until the owners of the out of place Hummer and Lexus parked outside his palm board house reappeared to finish their festivities at the tables they had set up behind his house. Socio-economic hierarchies are incredible here. I was late in arriving, but the woman of the house and her daughter-in-law had clearly worked their butts off to make this event as luxurious as possible for the city dwellers, of whom even the women didn’t seem to lift a finger to help.
When they actually arrived from their jaunt at the river it wasn’t all that bad – they smiled politely and basically ignored me, not at all the hideous “I speaka d’English” event that I had dreaded. I was fed well, as always, visited my host parents in the neighboring house, and was sent on my merry way to take some photos of stoves I had yet to document. The last of these stops was the house of one of my favorite women in the community, whom I was glad to have as the last stove recipient – end on a good note. She is a rare unmarried woman in her 30s who doesn’t have some sort of repelling physical attribute, as sweet as she can be, who lives with her equally kind and alarmingly active father who must be at least in his 70s. She was fixing her visiting niece’s hair, and as soon as she perceived that I was gonna set a spell, sent for a soda and we settled in to chat on the front porch, the coolest place on the top of the hill she lives on. On a whim, I asked her to do my hair as well, and after almost falling asleep under her gentle hands, left her house with an interesting braid across the front/ponytail combo. It was what I asked for, but didn’t quite come out like I imagined.
Next stop, informal English lesson. I don’t mind helping this particular girl who asked for help on an assignment, because she tries really hard and is determined to learn. She asked me to read an “exposition” that she had written and was to read in front of her class, and after thoroughly marking it up with corrections, I complimented her on how much of an improvement it was from the last work of hers I had read. As we corrected her paper, I stopped several times to ask her to translate some clumsy passages into Spanish so that I could tell her how to say what she meant in English. She could never tell me what it was she had intended to say, and finally opened another notebook from which she had copied the entire piece! She said that a friend had helped her write it, but she clearly didn’t know what the majority of it meant. Oh dear. But anyway, she’s trying hard, so I guess that counts for something. I left to make a phone-call, promising to return for the dinner of super-fried cheese and fried green bananas (quite less delicious than the tomatoe version). The call was dropped irretrievably right in the middle of a conversation with someone I had been looking forward to talking to all week, so I sulked back to the house and forced down half of what felt like meal 15 of the day.
I hitched a ride in a passing car with a man who, had I known his disposition, I would have avoided if it meant walking to Santo Domingo – lecherous grinning, asking if I was married before I even got the door shut, etc. When I got out of the car, thankfully before we arrived to my house thereby disclosing it’s location to pervy mc-pervson, I walked up to a group of 3 girls and spoke with one about the strange, painful looking blemish that has recently popped up on her face. As I was speaking, another girl whose name I don’t know interrupted me to ask if I’m pregnant (I apparently need to work on my posture, or stop eating everything I’m offered. Or both.) I didn’t quite hear her, but I must have heard enough to throw me for a loop, cause I asked her to repeat herself, and she, completely straight-faced, re-asked her absurd question. I stared at her for a moment, told her no, and the other girls, sensing my shock, helped with “that’s just how she was standing!” I tried to conclude the conversation I had been having before I was rudely interrupted, but ended up just having to split with a “sleep well!” Being a single pregnant girl here has social connotations that pregnant teens in America could only imagine in their wildest nightmares, so I think that’s what shocked me even more than the insinuation of fatness.
That’s the campo. Dios Santo. Ese sol pica y la gente no son facil. I’m out.
Hey Mica, how are you? OHMYGODIFINISHEDSTOVESTODAY is probably closer to what it was like. Hm.
Anyway, I hosted breakfast at my house this morning for 4 PCVs and 2 Dominicans who work with the water volunteers. It stretched out into lunchtime – pancakes’ll do that – and by the time I made it down to the other end of my community, to a party I had somewhat grudgingly promised to go to, the main event guests had gone to the river. That was fine with me – I thought the whole reason I was invited was because they were expecting rich white-ish Dominicans from the city, some of which lived in/had lived in/or at least had been to “Nueva Yol”. So when I arrived to find the man of the house, who’s birthday we were to celebrate, with his wife and a few choice kids and grandkids, I was not at all disappointed. He was a little upset that I missed the morning events, but I reassured him that I would hang out until the owners of the out of place Hummer and Lexus parked outside his palm board house reappeared to finish their festivities at the tables they had set up behind his house. Socio-economic hierarchies are incredible here. I was late in arriving, but the woman of the house and her daughter-in-law had clearly worked their butts off to make this event as luxurious as possible for the city dwellers, of whom even the women didn’t seem to lift a finger to help.
When they actually arrived from their jaunt at the river it wasn’t all that bad – they smiled politely and basically ignored me, not at all the hideous “I speaka d’English” event that I had dreaded. I was fed well, as always, visited my host parents in the neighboring house, and was sent on my merry way to take some photos of stoves I had yet to document. The last of these stops was the house of one of my favorite women in the community, whom I was glad to have as the last stove recipient – end on a good note. She is a rare unmarried woman in her 30s who doesn’t have some sort of repelling physical attribute, as sweet as she can be, who lives with her equally kind and alarmingly active father who must be at least in his 70s. She was fixing her visiting niece’s hair, and as soon as she perceived that I was gonna set a spell, sent for a soda and we settled in to chat on the front porch, the coolest place on the top of the hill she lives on. On a whim, I asked her to do my hair as well, and after almost falling asleep under her gentle hands, left her house with an interesting braid across the front/ponytail combo. It was what I asked for, but didn’t quite come out like I imagined.
Next stop, informal English lesson. I don’t mind helping this particular girl who asked for help on an assignment, because she tries really hard and is determined to learn. She asked me to read an “exposition” that she had written and was to read in front of her class, and after thoroughly marking it up with corrections, I complimented her on how much of an improvement it was from the last work of hers I had read. As we corrected her paper, I stopped several times to ask her to translate some clumsy passages into Spanish so that I could tell her how to say what she meant in English. She could never tell me what it was she had intended to say, and finally opened another notebook from which she had copied the entire piece! She said that a friend had helped her write it, but she clearly didn’t know what the majority of it meant. Oh dear. But anyway, she’s trying hard, so I guess that counts for something. I left to make a phone-call, promising to return for the dinner of super-fried cheese and fried green bananas (quite less delicious than the tomatoe version). The call was dropped irretrievably right in the middle of a conversation with someone I had been looking forward to talking to all week, so I sulked back to the house and forced down half of what felt like meal 15 of the day.
I hitched a ride in a passing car with a man who, had I known his disposition, I would have avoided if it meant walking to Santo Domingo – lecherous grinning, asking if I was married before I even got the door shut, etc. When I got out of the car, thankfully before we arrived to my house thereby disclosing it’s location to pervy mc-pervson, I walked up to a group of 3 girls and spoke with one about the strange, painful looking blemish that has recently popped up on her face. As I was speaking, another girl whose name I don’t know interrupted me to ask if I’m pregnant (I apparently need to work on my posture, or stop eating everything I’m offered. Or both.) I didn’t quite hear her, but I must have heard enough to throw me for a loop, cause I asked her to repeat herself, and she, completely straight-faced, re-asked her absurd question. I stared at her for a moment, told her no, and the other girls, sensing my shock, helped with “that’s just how she was standing!” I tried to conclude the conversation I had been having before I was rudely interrupted, but ended up just having to split with a “sleep well!” Being a single pregnant girl here has social connotations that pregnant teens in America could only imagine in their wildest nightmares, so I think that’s what shocked me even more than the insinuation of fatness.
That’s the campo. Dios Santo. Ese sol pica y la gente no son facil. I’m out.
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Las esposas
In (Dominican) Spanish, the word for handcuffs is the same as wives. Las esposas.
There's nothing more to say about that.
There's nothing more to say about that.
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