Next-Door Neighbors

(Miercoles 6/16/10...Lunes 6/21/10)

I need to start off this post by saying how nice people in my town are, especially in my campo.

Everyone helps me constantly. Anytime I am walking anywhere, someone will stop to offer me a ride, even people who don’t know me will go out of their way. They’ll stop and say “There’s so much sun today!” and then offer to take me wherever it is I am going. And then some people give me things for free for no apparent reason at all. For instance, even though I keep insisting to pay, the guy at the internet cafe has stopped charging me and won’t accept my pesos anymore. And in my first week at my site, my neighbor stopped by my house just to give me an ice cream. And then when I’m lost, somewhere new or just need directions, (case in point: Santiago this past weekend), complete strangers will walk me off the bus to wherever I need to be just so I don’t have to be lost by myself. Then, people in my town who I’ve never met seem to know me already - just today when I was walking home from the town to the campo, someone offered me a ride and drove me back to the house. I didn’t even have to butcher my way through giving him directions in Spanish because he knew where I was going. If I were at home in the US, it would be really, really unsettling for complete strangers to offer rides, to give me things for free and especially for them to know exactly where I live, yet here I am everyday saying, “Oh thank you, you are so sweet!” Weird. But really nice, too. I would consider these instances “random acts of kindness,” but it happens so often here that its just the Dominican way - in general, people take care of eachother, and as a foreigner, I feel pretty lucky for that.

In Peace Corps news, the diagnostic of my school and lab are both finished and now I’m focusing again on interviewing youth and families in the community. I’ve been trying to visit a lot of houses, and meet as many people as I can. Doing the interviews in the community isn’t exactly difficult, but putting all the results together could prove interesting. The first reason is simple: in general, the families in my neighborhood don’t use computers, so usually 1/3 of my questions don’t apply directly at all. Bueno. Most people in my neighborhood struggle with employment, those who work regularly do so in the banana field, and I can’t help but thinking during some interviews that while IT education is a great thing, it’s probably not what people (at least in my neighborhood) need most. Anyway, when I ask my neighbors what they do for work, they say “chigipera(?)” which basically translates as someone who does many different jobs. “Chigipera” can include someone who makes sweets to sell in a colmado, or someone who irons other peoples’ clothes, or someone who sells shoes from the US out of her house, or someone who delivers things/runs errands for other people on his moto. Basically, not the most consistent work, and one’s livelihood relies entirely on the schedules of other people. You can’t depend on a steady paycheck, and if someone doesn’t need your service that day, then what happens? I’m spoiled, since I’ve never worked like that in my life. And even though most people live according to very different schedules than I’ve known, people still seem to get by more or less. Maybe it’s just another reason why taking care of eachother is really valued here.

So I’m getting to know the families next-door, and I’m getting to know the youth, too. Thanks to lots of dominoes games, Uno matches, choreographed dance lessons (yes, they are good at dragging me out to dance), and even a running group. I’ll say a little about the running group since they’re so cute. Each day when I go running, I go through the campo and out onto the paved roads. On my way out of the campo, a group of kids will see me running and join me every time without fail. The group’s size varies, but there’s about 4 loyal runners who participate everyday. In general, I like running in groups because others push me on when I get tired. My little “running” team ranges in ages from 7-10 - so that means we go fishing in the river, pick flowers, sing Michael Jackson songs, pet stray dogs... oh and then sometimes run, too.

A few neighbors

Cecilia, sporting my moto helmet

I’m also meeting the animal neighbors. And there are a lot of them. For starters, a little over a week ago, a neighbor’s pig had piglets. (Lisa, if you’re reading - I took this photo of the pigs for you!). So, I spent one afternoon hanging out in a pig pen with a few neighbors and baby pigs. Just another day in the campo. :-) There are a lot of cows, goats, horses, chickens, and sheep that wander around here, too. Also, I recently discovered that another neighbor has a dog with puppies. I can’t believe it took me nearly 4 weeks to figure that one out. Usually I scope out the cute animals right away, but somehow I overlooked the sweetest little dogs ever. Anyway, after about 5 minutes of falling in love with every single one of the 5 puppies, my neighbor tells me that once they’re older, he’s going to give one to me. Perfecto. How to communicate, “You Sir, are making my dream come true!” in Spanish without sounding like a creep. The dogs are cute though, so everyday when I walk back from school, I go the long way just to visit them. It doesn’t even matter that a few of them have fleas. So in love. Unfortunately I don't have photos of them, but you can trust me on this - they're adorable.

Pig Pen and Yucca Field

In the pig pen

Outside of my neighborhood, I’m continuing to help out at the kids’ art classes on the weekends, and the instructor (a teacher from my school) said that he wants to teach me to paint. He has painted over a hundred paintings (I even saw one of his hanging in Mao’s city hall!), so I’m pretty happy to be getting free lessons. A couple afternoons a week I go to his neighborhood and paint in his studio. I have never painted anything in my life except for my bedroom walls, and I always wanted to paint during college, so it’s really fun to get the chance.

Speaking of free classes, there’s an IT center (a project of Mao’s city hall) that offers free informatica and computer classes to the community. The center has many students interested in learning English, and wants to start a program, but they need a volunteer English teacher... which looks like it will be me. So, after the diagnostic is finished, I’ll start teaching English classes, si Dios quiere!

And for a bit of pathetic news: last week I woke up and couldn’t eat rice, beans, or viveres anymore. Yes, it is a little inconvenient, as basically all DR meals are composed of variations of these three foods. And I feel really bad about it too, because the family here has been great. (As volunteers living with host families for the past 4ish months, we eat what and when the families eat. And up until now, that’s really been just fine with me). What it really comes down to is: I have never ever gone this long without PB&J. Anyway, we’ll see how long one can last in the Dominican Republic without viveres.

I also wanted to note that sometimes people here don’t realize I’m from America. I didn’t think about it too much before I moved here, and just assumed it would be pretty obvious that I’m from the United States, but apparently not. I guess I can understand when someone thinks if I’m from France or England, since I am a little French and British, but I’ve also been asked if I’m Chinese, German, Puerto Rican, or Mexican. Then yesterday a group of girls tried to explain to me that I look “just like Pocahontas.” Apparently, I look like a lot of different nationalities/ethnicities which is really cool. It’s just funny because at home, no one really asks such direct questions regarding nationality or ethnicity. But here, its one of the first things people want to know about you. Recently on a guagua ride to Santiago, some guy asked me if I planned on marrying someone “white like me” (whether or not you’re married/how many kids you have is also a popular question here). I told him that I don’t really think about things that way. After explaining to him that I’m not racist, he said that he isn’t racist either...and then proceeded to ramble on about how “there are too many Haitians in the DR.” I don’t really know what my point is in writing this paragraph. I guess I’m just surprised at how important nationality is here to some people, and how if you aren’t the “right” race, some might look at you differently or in some cases may not even look at you at all. I haven’t written too much about the inappropriate things some Dominicans say about Haitians, because I don’t want anyone who reads this to get the wrong idea. Like I said, everyone I’ve met here has been great, and I like to keep my writing positive, but at the same time, I really don’t understand how on an island smaller than most US states, so much racism and negativity can still persist for years and years between two countries that exist right next-door to eachother.

Anyway, this post is long and will probably take forever to upload with the pictures so I’ll stop here for now. If you’ve read all the way through this - thank you, and I hope all’s well wherever you are.

My host brother, Simon

My host family's house

Take care & enjoy the start of summer!

xo,

Emma