dominican republic, 1995 part 2

Spanish Class

In 1995 I spent a semester abroad in the Dominican Republic with about 18 other college students. I was 19 years old. The first part of the semester I lived with a family in the capital city of Santo Domingo and the second half of the semester I lived with another family in the small village of Sabana Grande de Boya. While in the capital, one of our assignments included a village study. Our leaders quite literally threw darts at a map of the country and teams of us were sent out to wherever the dart landed.

We were given travel money and the name of the village. That was it. It was up to us to figure out how to get there, where to stay and how to get home. We were to report back all that we learned about the history, government and economics of the village. Here's my journal entry from that weekend:

Jill, Frank, Aaron and I met up at UNPHU (the University) and rode on to the park to meet up with Rita. We managed to pick up a luxurious travel bus to Asua. It was basically empty, but by the time we reached Asua, it had filled up. We stepped off the bus only to be hounded by different drivers. We could have gone by motorcycle, but I refused. I don't like to do anything that could in someway involve pain (Oh, If only I knew! I would end up traveling exclusively by motorcycle when I moved to the campo). They wanted to take us for 200 pesos! We said, "No, but for 60 pesos you can take us". "Ha! we aren't dumb Americans", we thought. "We showed them!", we said. Well, we showed them we'd pay twice as much as the Dominicans pay since the ride should have cost 30 pesos. We then rode for an hour and half up a crap dirt road with man sized pot holes. The truck had a front and back seat that held nine people in the cab and about fifteen people in the bed. This truck was CRAMMED. When we got to Peralta, the first thing we did was find the church. We peeped through the holes in the large wooden door. It was locked, but a very kind woman came over and showed us the church then took us to her house where we met Willy in the street. He walked us to a 'restaurant'. When we arrived, the woman was there cooking our lunch. Then we went back to her house to actually eat it. How odd. We just went in and ate in someone else's house that we absolutely did not know. 

Willy's house

After that we headed to Willy's house (guess he's not related to the woman!) and met his family and brother Julie. They decided we needed to hike to the mountain to get a good view of the river and then we walked around town. I played Parcheesi and a game similar to checkers, but it was with peas and I'm pretty sure the rules were being made as we went along. We met the 'governor' of the pueblo and made a big fo faux by eating in his living room. I felt bad, but what could we do about it after the fact? We didn't know. When the guy with the keys to the church arrived back to town we went over to the parsonage to see if we could all spend the night there. (this is a small village--there are no hotels) He thought about it for a long time and then said he only had 2 beds. So us girls slept there, in maybe the priests room? and the guys bunked at Willy's house.

Rita and Jill share one of the beds

The people were so incredibly hospitable the entire time and did everything they could to make us feel at home. Willy stayed by our side from when we arrived until we drove off in the back of the truck. After only one day I felt attached to the people and things there. In class today, the slide of the people looked sad to me but the professor kept saying "look at how happy they are". (I don't recall this particular part of the journal entry. I'm assuming we were being shown pictures of different parts/people of the Dominican Republic) I believe they looked sad because I can't believe people are happy living in those conditions. But they really don't know any other life, so they can genuinely be happy. The people in Peralta were happy for the most part, which totally blows my mind. The relationships with family, friends and God reep more benefits than aspirations to be a lawyer, 'ey? (um, I wanted to be a lawyer?! my memory is bad, but I certainly don't ever recall that aspiration!)

This experience, coupled with the adventure I told you all about last time (you can read that here) really cemented a deep fear of having to spend 6 weeks in the campo. I was given the option to stay in the capital city and do my service project at a radio station or to face my fears and head out and teach English in a remote village. I chose the radio station.

It didn't take long for me to really feel the shame and guilt of my choice. I was scared about everything in the campo, but at the same time I wanted so badly those experiences. I didn't want to live without running water. I didn't want to teach and I was over the food. Chicken and rice. Chicken and Rice. Chicken and rice. After a few days, I changed my mind and began readying myself to leave the Capital. I was going to have the 'right kind of experience' even if everything in me screamed "Don't Go!". I arrived in Sabana Grande de Boya with my classmates Brad and Chad. We all lived in separate homes, but we all were to teach at Juan Calvino, the village school. I lived with a family of 9. Sonita and Ramon and their children Yanelis, Sandi, Edwin, Romeris, Aralisis, Odalis and Ido. I think of them all the time and wonder what became of them. Did the girls go to college like they dreamed about? Romeris was 5 when I was there--does she remember being awe struck at my long, silky blonde hair?

Ramon, Sonita, Romeris, Edwin, Ido,
Aralisis, Yanelis, Odalis, Sandi

Life in the campo was simple yet overwhelming. Stealing time away just for myself was next to impossible. This environment was all about community living. I discovered a few days before leaving that the sisters were using my tooth brush! I was steaming mad. I never even realized not everyone had their own tooth brush. The other young adults that we worked with at the school hung out together nearly everyday. "Cans" happened weekly. Cans were really just late night dumpling parties. The women would start cooking the dumplings about nine o'clock at night and it took hours. We wouldn't eat until midnight. So to pass the time until the food was ready, they would play Spin the Bottle. I NEVER dreamed I'd have to travel to a third world country to play this game. They also loved to play a truth or dare game with matches. If the match went out while I was holding it, they always wanted me to choose truth. Because they wanted to all know if I "liked" anyone in the town. It was so juvenile. But I loved it. I loved spending so much time building relationships. But it was exhausting for this introvert.

Chad, Carlos, Julio, Me, Ido, Norma, Brad

I use the word teach very loosely when I talk about my service project. They didn't really want me doing anything. After all, I was American. I was to just sit and be waited on; not expected to lift a finger. One day a classroom had flooded from all the rain. Everyone was arguing about who should bail it out. So I just started doing it. Boy! Did that create massive panic. I was scolded for daring to do such a thing. Not actually doing much of anything made the days go so slow and was frustrating and infuriating. On the days I did attempt to teach English things weren't much better. I had no training and no text books. My only qualification was that English was my native tongue.

A few times I would travel to the Bateys with the man who was in charge of the school. At the time I believed Julio to be so much older than me. Years later I discovered he in fact was only about 4 years older than me. The Batey's were very small villages located in the sugar cane fields. They were comprised mostly of Haitians who had fled Haiti looking for a better life. He was trying to help organize some formal education for the Bateys. Here is my journal entry from one of those excursions:

I went to another batey yesterday with Julio. It was really interesting and the 45 minute motorcycle ride was pretty cool too. As we passed through many different bateys, Julio pointed out that much of the land that the Haitians are farming right now is being given to the Dominicans. There are many Dominicans living in the National Park and the government is forcing them to leave and then the farm land is being given to them. Right now, the government owns the land, so Haitians can live and farm it, but if the government turns it over to Dominicans, the Haitians need to leave and find a new place to live and work. But where? They can't go back to Haiti and if they don't have relatives in places like Sabana they have have no where to go. The children in the batters don't have their papers either. They don't know if they are Dominican or Haitian. A lot of times they don't even know their names. Sometimes they just have a nickname. Which makes it much more difficult to get out of their circumstance. How can they get jobs or buy a house if they don't have proper identification? How can anyone advance in a society like this? Everything seems so helpless. How can people still have hope and where does it come from? Julio asked me what the difference between poor people here and in the states is. The difference is here they work hard and are still poor.

These questions I began asking set a course for my twenties. I had so much to learn about poverty. And the culture of poverty. I'm still learning today. At the US Embassy in Guatemala City, the US Ambassador to Guatemala told me "There will always be poor people. The Bible says so.", and shrugged his shoulders. As if that was okay. As if there was no reason to help. As if there was no place for advocacy and empathy. That memory still rubs me the wrong way. A lot.

The families I lived with taught me empathy. They taught me about love. They taught me about courage. They taught me about resilience. They showed me who I am. And I've spent the last 23 years continuing to discover who I am.