From Phoebe aKa Girasol
My birthday…Happy birthday as well to all of the fall babies, I am sending you greetings right now: Bets, Zeni, Gregory, Nathan, Margot, LB and Grandma Wright…
All day, everyday, I find myself laughing uncontrollably, chuckling, grimacing and sometimes on the verge of sobbing due to all of the culture shock. Maybe I should get into the habit of carrying a small notebook to record this incredible experience, as if I were a news reporter. There are several moments a day where I ponder and think to myself, “Gosh, I am not in the US anymore…this is definitely the Dominican Republic.” An example occurred this morning when I was greeted by my host mom, “Happy Baby!” I found myself smiling in her emotional attempt at the English language. Missing all of my family and friends and thinking about the many birthdays we have had in the past I decided to lock myself in my room for a few and blog…a blog that may take a week to have internet access to post.
Our life has transitioned quite a bit in the last three months…not only the element which you are all aware of; here we are in the Peace Corps, but also the reality of the lifestyle, environment, and cultural changes which are entrapped in this transition.
Dan and I are living with a host-family in a Batey in the East of the Dominican Republic. Our host family includes; a wee little Dona (Mrs.) that yells and curses like a sailor, appears to lie to her children, and has a different idea about the elements of child rearing, (we might call it abuse in the states) and ironically is so very sweet to both of us; a smoker (which is rare in the DR) Don (Mister) who likes to hang out in his underwear in the middle of the night, whom also works like a dog in a machine shop and mumbles to himself on regular basis; a child of confianza (similar to a foster child in the states but more along the lines of whomever can take the little guy, no background check of the parents with this one) who is 7 years old we believe; and a 23 year old daughter whom acts closer to a 13 year old socially and works as a secretary in the city, every day. Geez, most important the very nice, reserved and very respectful baseball star of the family who will be going to Arizona on contract in the spring, “Si Dios quiere (God willing).” Included in the family unit but living in proximity to our house are three host daughters/sisters, they each have three children and are married, all three of the women in the family are between the ages of 30 and 40 and they have no higher then an 8th grade graduation which makes for interesting conversation and creates mountains of superstitions and funny confusing conversations including a gossip circle which you can hardly imagine. A new undertaking everyday…
We live in a block and wood house and we have a bathroom, yahoo! There are around 250 too 300 houses in the Batey and only about 50 have a bathroom in the home. We share a bedroom no larger then my parent’s office, and the rest of the family shares two other bedrooms. We have an ample living room, dining room, and kitchen that includes a couch where most of the family spends there time watching Telenovelas (Soap-operas) on a 10” screen. The house has a cement floor, and a solid aluminum roof. The walls do not reach to the ceiling, which makes privacy interesting, second hand smoke evident, and creates a lovely array of insects outside of our mosquito net at night. No cockroaches to be seen in the house yet and only one TARANTULA, hurray!
My days are usually spent visiting house to house in the neighborhood and completing a Community Diagnostic (similar to what we might call a census but more personal) though informal conversation. I specifically ask people about the population growth, ethnicity, work habits, education, family dynamics, and problems facing the youth in the community. I also ask community members what ideas or suggestions they might have in how to resolve these problems. Sometimes I am provided with positive sustainable ideas and other times the blame is displaced on the government, school system or other elements out of my control. I have found that the people here are exceptionally hospitable, friendly and welcoming. After a visit or two most community members are more then willing to share about their experiences, and personal details about their family. Through the process of my community diagnostic visits, I have had several cups of coffee, a few strange foods I have never seen before, lots of soda and fresh juices.
The community members are always more then willing to share, and sometimes, I get a chance to share things about where I am coming from and my culture. In all of the struggle with the host family right now and all of the successes with integrating into the community, I have to remind myself that; this service is in essence, not about me providing something for the people, it is more about exchanging the knowledge of our cultures, how we are different and how we are similar. One culture is neither right or wrong, one family is neither right or wrong, we are different and come from a different set of morals and values. Somethings are truly out of my control, I need to remember this when the confused rooster who is always free to roam around the neighborhood crows during the full moon on hour intervals.
in Paz, Phoebe
Friday, November 26, 2010
Sunday, November 14, 2010
Nuestros Aventuras
Hello one and all,
WE are well here in the DR. Dan here! We have much to say at the moment but haven´t taken much opportunity to organize our thoughts. I can say that we are alive and well. I am spending a majority of my days getting to know the Casa Hogar (Orphanage), Nuestros Pequenos Hermanos, getting to know the children, the variety of activities occuring in the orphanage, tia´s (tia is the spanish word for aunt and the tias are donas (respectful spanish for woman) who live with the children at the orphanage on a rotating basis, the administration, and other volunteers. There is a lot to take in on a daily basis and I will definitely have ample opportunities for projects.
My first three months consist of a diagnostic process where I plan to use a strengths based approach to learning about the organization. By focusing on what is working well, I hope to find and inspire the workers to replicate what works and develop more of it.´There are twelve houses on the property, about 40 acres, and in each house about 15 to 20 orphaned, abandoned, abused, or otherwise labeled as at risk children live. The company prefers to use, as to I, pequenos (spanish for littles). To get to know NPH I am doing a lot of observation, informal interviewing, going on excursions, visiting and appreciative inquiries. I´ll also begin more formal activities and interviews this week...
One of my first assignments which I´ve already begun, is as an assistant coach for the baseball team, actually three teams of kids with various ages and abilities! When you think of my team, think of the bad news bears, mixed with kids who´ve been raised in a machista culture, are always looking to save face, all want to talk at once, with the added fun that they all speak spanish, a language at which I have maybe a 60 to 70% grasp. It will be an adventure that I´m very much looking forward to.
Phoebe is doing wonderful as always. She is spending her days getting to know the community, sharing and making new friends and conducting her diagnostic process in the batey. Her personality shines through to everyone she comes into contact. We spent her birthday afternoon yesterday walking in the sugarcane and sitting on our front porch with a few other Peace Corps Volunteers from the area. She has quite a bit to say for herself in a blog to be coming in the near future, so I won´t spoil it for you.
What I will say, is that the three month diagnostic process is tough. People are scoping us out, wondering why we are here, they think I get paid bank because I leave everyday for the orphanage and think phoebe is just hanging out. We´re getting integrated, as best as we can, into our new life and world here in the Dominican Republic. More to come very soon. IN love, peace and feeling in a hurry...d
WE are well here in the DR. Dan here! We have much to say at the moment but haven´t taken much opportunity to organize our thoughts. I can say that we are alive and well. I am spending a majority of my days getting to know the Casa Hogar (Orphanage), Nuestros Pequenos Hermanos, getting to know the children, the variety of activities occuring in the orphanage, tia´s (tia is the spanish word for aunt and the tias are donas (respectful spanish for woman) who live with the children at the orphanage on a rotating basis, the administration, and other volunteers. There is a lot to take in on a daily basis and I will definitely have ample opportunities for projects.
My first three months consist of a diagnostic process where I plan to use a strengths based approach to learning about the organization. By focusing on what is working well, I hope to find and inspire the workers to replicate what works and develop more of it.´There are twelve houses on the property, about 40 acres, and in each house about 15 to 20 orphaned, abandoned, abused, or otherwise labeled as at risk children live. The company prefers to use, as to I, pequenos (spanish for littles). To get to know NPH I am doing a lot of observation, informal interviewing, going on excursions, visiting and appreciative inquiries. I´ll also begin more formal activities and interviews this week...
One of my first assignments which I´ve already begun, is as an assistant coach for the baseball team, actually three teams of kids with various ages and abilities! When you think of my team, think of the bad news bears, mixed with kids who´ve been raised in a machista culture, are always looking to save face, all want to talk at once, with the added fun that they all speak spanish, a language at which I have maybe a 60 to 70% grasp. It will be an adventure that I´m very much looking forward to.
Phoebe is doing wonderful as always. She is spending her days getting to know the community, sharing and making new friends and conducting her diagnostic process in the batey. Her personality shines through to everyone she comes into contact. We spent her birthday afternoon yesterday walking in the sugarcane and sitting on our front porch with a few other Peace Corps Volunteers from the area. She has quite a bit to say for herself in a blog to be coming in the near future, so I won´t spoil it for you.
What I will say, is that the three month diagnostic process is tough. People are scoping us out, wondering why we are here, they think I get paid bank because I leave everyday for the orphanage and think phoebe is just hanging out. We´re getting integrated, as best as we can, into our new life and world here in the Dominican Republic. More to come very soon. IN love, peace and feeling in a hurry...d
Saturday, November 6, 2010
La Lucha
La Lucha – the fight...like fighting for freedom, liberty, justice, rights and five more pesos.
Danno here: Phoebes and I are in Santo Domingo once again, had been staying with our first host mom, Dona Julia (pronounced with the squiggly line over the n which I don’t know how to make on the computer). We just finished a week of taking Creole classes seven hours a day at the training center, called Entrena, where we had been for our first three weeks in country and the last five days leading up to our swearing in ceremony last Wednesday. We are psyched to have been here again and learning yet another language! We’re learning Creole because the language is widely spoken in our community, so we’ll at least have a beginning knowledge of how to communicate. However we are a bit disappointed that the Creole class wasn’t able to move ahead as originally planned.
The Creole class was supposed to be held in a Batey in the southern part of the country where a large number of Haitian Creole speakers live and we would have had the opportunity to speak Creole in the evenings and engage in a variety of activities with the other volunteers and Creole speakers. (It was decided not to have the Creole class in the south b/c at the time Tropical Storm Thomas was forecasted to hit the southern part of the D.R. As of the moment, we have been consolidated to a hotel in Santo Domingo to wait out the storm and we wouldn’t want to be in the area due to the potential of heavy rains on dirt roads and flooding). We’re fortunate the class didn’t get cancelled, so we’ll take what we can from it and begin communicating as much as possible in Creole with Creole speakers in our community when we return.
I recently realized something that I had already known, but just as quickly had forgotten. I can get in my own way. I get wrapped up in the outcome of a situation and forget to enjoy the moment, observe what’s going on around me and focus on the finished product (which hasn’t even happened yet). For example, if I want to take a taxi from one place to another here in Santo Domingo, I call one up and ask how much it costs. I’m thinking that I’m being a good, thrifty, industrious middle class American and want to know how much it’s going to impact my wallet (mistake/lesson number one). I’ve just opened the door for the taxi driver to pull a random number out of the air and expect me to pay it. I now have begun to engage in a “lucha” or fight with the taxista over how much it should cost for me to get from point a to point b. He and I and sometimes the other people in the car argue over the price, negotiate, haggle and get it to a price that we are willing to pay for the ride. On a side note, there are no meters in the taxis like you would find in the states. I like the meter because it gives me a sense of what I can expect to pay per minute or per mile, my middle class self doesn’t always like the ultimate outcome of the price of the taxi ride. I’m in no way advocating for meters over here at all, I’m trying to make an observation about the cultural differences and coming from my middle class American culture, I have a set of expectations of which I may not always be completely conscious.
A few days ago, after engaging in a hefty lucha with one of the taxistas over the price of the ride based on how far we were going, he got to talking with one of the other passengers in the car. The passenger was another PCV and friend who has a more advanced capacity at using the Spanish language. My friend was able to explain our role as PCV’s in a clear manner to the taxista and they had a really nice conversation, which I probably understood about 70% of (and that’s a generous estimate). My friend was dropped off before Phoebe and I (we were his last stop). By the time we were being let out of the car, the taxista and my interaction had changed to sharing what we could about our families, Phoebe and I’s desire to have a family in the future, and learning that the taxi driver has three children at home. To boot, when we went to pay him the price for which we had fought so hard to get and ultimately mutually agreed to pay, he gave us back $$. We ended up paying the price for which we had originally asked. I was shocked and in a state of disbelief. Phoebe wanted to tip the guy, but I was psyched to have some money left over for my newfound addiction to skim ice.
Since this interaction my mentality continues to shift about the cabby and public transport experience in this country. I’ve also continued the conversation with current volunteers who have been in country and the lesson has been reinforced; if we ask the drivers ahead of time how much the ride costs, they will lucha and we will appear as though we have no idea what is going on with the public transport. However, if we get in the cab and begin to go to our destination, we can give him a price that is reasonable based on the distance and time of day. Remember my barometer that I was so worried about before? Well, it seems to be coming into focus.
Distinctly Dominican? Maybe. The beauty that I’m finding in all of my taxi and motoconcho rides is that people want to share themselves with me. If I ask about their families, people want to share and are open to it.
In love, Dan
Danno here: Phoebes and I are in Santo Domingo once again, had been staying with our first host mom, Dona Julia (pronounced with the squiggly line over the n which I don’t know how to make on the computer). We just finished a week of taking Creole classes seven hours a day at the training center, called Entrena, where we had been for our first three weeks in country and the last five days leading up to our swearing in ceremony last Wednesday. We are psyched to have been here again and learning yet another language! We’re learning Creole because the language is widely spoken in our community, so we’ll at least have a beginning knowledge of how to communicate. However we are a bit disappointed that the Creole class wasn’t able to move ahead as originally planned.
The Creole class was supposed to be held in a Batey in the southern part of the country where a large number of Haitian Creole speakers live and we would have had the opportunity to speak Creole in the evenings and engage in a variety of activities with the other volunteers and Creole speakers. (It was decided not to have the Creole class in the south b/c at the time Tropical Storm Thomas was forecasted to hit the southern part of the D.R. As of the moment, we have been consolidated to a hotel in Santo Domingo to wait out the storm and we wouldn’t want to be in the area due to the potential of heavy rains on dirt roads and flooding). We’re fortunate the class didn’t get cancelled, so we’ll take what we can from it and begin communicating as much as possible in Creole with Creole speakers in our community when we return.
I recently realized something that I had already known, but just as quickly had forgotten. I can get in my own way. I get wrapped up in the outcome of a situation and forget to enjoy the moment, observe what’s going on around me and focus on the finished product (which hasn’t even happened yet). For example, if I want to take a taxi from one place to another here in Santo Domingo, I call one up and ask how much it costs. I’m thinking that I’m being a good, thrifty, industrious middle class American and want to know how much it’s going to impact my wallet (mistake/lesson number one). I’ve just opened the door for the taxi driver to pull a random number out of the air and expect me to pay it. I now have begun to engage in a “lucha” or fight with the taxista over how much it should cost for me to get from point a to point b. He and I and sometimes the other people in the car argue over the price, negotiate, haggle and get it to a price that we are willing to pay for the ride. On a side note, there are no meters in the taxis like you would find in the states. I like the meter because it gives me a sense of what I can expect to pay per minute or per mile, my middle class self doesn’t always like the ultimate outcome of the price of the taxi ride. I’m in no way advocating for meters over here at all, I’m trying to make an observation about the cultural differences and coming from my middle class American culture, I have a set of expectations of which I may not always be completely conscious.
A few days ago, after engaging in a hefty lucha with one of the taxistas over the price of the ride based on how far we were going, he got to talking with one of the other passengers in the car. The passenger was another PCV and friend who has a more advanced capacity at using the Spanish language. My friend was able to explain our role as PCV’s in a clear manner to the taxista and they had a really nice conversation, which I probably understood about 70% of (and that’s a generous estimate). My friend was dropped off before Phoebe and I (we were his last stop). By the time we were being let out of the car, the taxista and my interaction had changed to sharing what we could about our families, Phoebe and I’s desire to have a family in the future, and learning that the taxi driver has three children at home. To boot, when we went to pay him the price for which we had fought so hard to get and ultimately mutually agreed to pay, he gave us back $$. We ended up paying the price for which we had originally asked. I was shocked and in a state of disbelief. Phoebe wanted to tip the guy, but I was psyched to have some money left over for my newfound addiction to skim ice.
Since this interaction my mentality continues to shift about the cabby and public transport experience in this country. I’ve also continued the conversation with current volunteers who have been in country and the lesson has been reinforced; if we ask the drivers ahead of time how much the ride costs, they will lucha and we will appear as though we have no idea what is going on with the public transport. However, if we get in the cab and begin to go to our destination, we can give him a price that is reasonable based on the distance and time of day. Remember my barometer that I was so worried about before? Well, it seems to be coming into focus.
Distinctly Dominican? Maybe. The beauty that I’m finding in all of my taxi and motoconcho rides is that people want to share themselves with me. If I ask about their families, people want to share and are open to it.
In love, Dan
Thursday, November 4, 2010
We are okay!!!
Hurricane Tomas has now transformed into a tropical storm...we are safe and sound. Most of the volunteers have been consolidated in the capitol. We are staying with our host Dona Julia, delicious food and good company and we are still attending creole classes. We are getting hammered with rain, very, very wet...but no trecherous wind. Hugs to everyone we will keep you updated! D & P
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