Adios November

Time has been going really quickly the past few weeks here, I can’t believe it’s almost December!  I leave in a little over 2 weeks, which is really strange to think about.  This week is more or less my finals week, and I’m hoping to get everything done by Thursday, although Monday is when I have to turn in my last project, the infamous Independent Study, so realistically, it will be Monday.  I haven’t exactly decided what I’m going to do with my free time post-school, because all my original plans are a little cost-prohibitive.  I have spent a lot of time along the north coast and in the capital, so I was hoping to explore more of the country, but our trip to the south got canceled because of the cholera epidemic and there are some reimbursement issues, so we’ll see what actually happens. 

Things at my host family’s house are plugging along, although not ideal.  I haven’t seen my host mom for more than 15 minutes in a few weeks and things are a little tense because she and my host dad are in the middle of a divorce.  I probably interact the most with the woman who works in our house.  She lives with us (in, oh yes, the servants’ quarters) and sometimes sits with my while I eat dinner.  However, she has a super thick accent, so I generally only understand about 35% of what comes out of her mouth. Her favorite topics of conversation include her blood pressure meds, how she doesn’t like sleeping in the heat, and the quality of the mashed plantains of the day.

This weekend I went to a jazz festival in Cabarete, which was a good time, and last weekend I went to Santo Domingo, which was a really good time.  There, I ran in a 10K race along the coast, ate at a delicious Taiwanese Vegetarian restaurant, walked around the Zona Colonial, and went to a concert in a building with no roof!  The lens cap on my camera got stuck shut (problem solved now…AKA lens cap was removed with a Swiss army knife) so I don’t have many pictures, but it was a delightful affair. I’ve kept in touch with some of the people I met at the Greenlover’s camping trip awhile ago and they showed me around Santo Domingo and let me stay in their beach condo in Cabarete.  It’s been great to finally meet some Dominican friends…but let’s be honest, it was a long time coming!    

My program also had a Thanksgiving celebration this weekend, which included a potluck meal and a guitar performance that my friend Maria and I did.  It involved some panicked YouTube tutorials 2 hours before the dinner, but we managed a rough rendition of “I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas” and a pretty solid “Feliz Navidad.” It was strange to be away from home on a major holiday though, I definitely found myself missing homemade stuffing balls, sweet potato casserole and familiar faces more than I was expecting!

I’m mainly just trying to finish up on school right now though.  My sex education project is wrapping up, thankfully.  Last week I went to 3 high-school equivalents to administer my surveys, and it was a series of humbling experiences that left me incredibly happy to no longer be in high school.  But, moral of the story is that data has been collected although with a debatable level of reliability (I was really hoping to have some privacy for the students to fill out the surveys, but that was definitely not happening) and my suspicions that I look 15 have also been confirmed.  Tons of students kept approaching me and asking me if I was a new student.

“The Monument.” After Trujillo’s assassination it was abandoned and just reopened for visitors and tourists in 2004.  I think.  If you pay to go into the museum and climb up to some of the higher levels you are rewarded with a lovely view of the valley.   

Maria, my friend and guitar partner, performing her guitar song for the "Afternoon of Culture" show.  We also played a duet for the adoring crowd.

My friend Pablo in the midst of cooking our delicious eggplant lunch.

Getting some reading in while the eggplant cooks! 

Weather update: It’s been in the low 70’s in the mornings and evenings which has caused me to whip out my flannel and become extremely worried for the transition to Minnesota winter…yikesaroo.  This reminds me, mom, can you bring my winter coat to the airport?

  Also, here’s some Dominican text slang that I thought was funny: DTT.  It’s short for “dónde estás tu?” or “where are you?”  But the way they speak here, no one inverts the verb/subject in questions and they don’t pronounce “s” so it’s like “dónde tu ‘ta?”

The end of blog neglect

This is the frame of the Jeep that was taken from the site and is now a monument in a park outside the house where the Mirabel sisters were born.

Dede Mirabel and I in her house in Salcedo, DR.  On the wall are photos of the three sisters.  I did not get the memo about which camera to look at...

Worry not Mother!  So far I have successfully avoided both cholera and hurricane danger!

Things are chugging along here in Santiago de los Caballeros. Nothing incredibly notable occurred last week, except that November is mint-chocolate month at Yogenfruz, my favorite frozen yogurt joint. I had an unprecedented amount of homework, that, for the most part, is out of the way now.  I’m feeling rather relieved because I turned in the rough draft of the literature review of my independent study project, AKA 27 pages in Spanish of research that barely scratches the surface of the issues surrounding sexuality and sexual education in the DR. I have been wondering what my family, particularly the housekeeper, must think considering the number of “How to say no” and “Consequences of teenage pregnancy” pamphlets I have casually lying around my room.

Last week, a friend invited me to a class party at the house of one of her Dominican classmates.  It was a potluck that yielded an eclectic collection of Dominican and American food, with highlights of Sancocho, a traditional Dominican stew and everyone’s grandma’s favorite--Ambrosia salad.  I had a great time, and it was definitely the first class party I’ve been to where someone was specifically put on rum duty and the professor was cutting a rug on the dance floor. 

For most meals in my family, there is a definite status quo.  Lunch, which is the big meal of the day always involves the standard rice and beans dish, with some vegetables (pureed or boiled) and iceberg lettuce salad.  Things get a little crazy sometimes with some avocado or tostones, but for the most part, that’s what’s to be expected.  Dinner is generally yucca or mangú (with onions, cheese, and a fried egg on a good day).  This leaves breakfast as the wild card.  There are some classic options: mangú again for the true aficionado, pancakes, oatmeal, cereal (all cereal, regardless of brand or flavor is called cornflakes) or eggs. But recently, I’ve been starting my day off with the beloved breakfast sandwich.  To clarify, I say “breakfast sandwich” solely because it is eaten at breakfast time, not because it incorporates any breakfast food whatsoever. There is nothing quite like starting the day with a steaming sandwich of toasted bread, a Kraft single, ketchup and a healthy dollop of mayo.  Buen provecho.

This has been a very food-centric post, so I’m going to try to divert directions here to give the impression that I do more than continuously gorge myself. 

Yesterday, I went to Salcedo to visit the Mirabel Sister Museum and the house where they were born, which is where Doña Déde, the only surviving sister still lives.  The house and gardens were beautiful and all the plants must have been attracting butterflies (quite fitting because the nickname for the Maribel sisters was “The Butterflies”) because there were various species flying around. 

Despite being 86  years old, she received us  on the patio and talked with us for about half an hour before letting us walk around the house and take photos with her.  She was full of energy and very engaged in the conversation we were having.  She even continues to run an organic cocoa farm from her house.  Although she was very hospitable and open to conversation and questions, I think we were all a little uncertain about what topics were appropriate to ask about, so we covered everything from the night she found out Trujillo had been assassinated to how the Canadian side of Niagara Falls is much better than the American side.

The actual museum, which is located in the house where the sisters spent the last 10 months of their lives is located 3 Km down the road and was strategically built right off of a major highway so they would be less likely to be secretly murdered.  In the garden of this house is the burial site of Minerva, Patria, Maria Teresa, and Minerva’s husband who was also assassinated for his revolutionary behaviors. The museum is small, basically just the living room, the women’s bedrooms, and the kitchen, but it is full of the possessions of the sisters-clothes, wedding photos, watercolor paintings, Minerva’s law school dissertation, rosaries, Maria Teresa’s braid that Déde cut off after her death, and more.  There was one exhibit with the items found with the bodies of the sisters at the “crash site” that was a little unnerving.  It had the sister’s handbags, little notes, personal touches, and a single shoe of Maria Teresa’s. 
Well on that note, my break is officially over so back to using internet time wisely...

Extravaganza in the Campo!

 

 

First, we went out behind the rice fields to uproot some yucca!  It's a vegetable similar to a potato that grows underground with a tree as the plant. They used a machete to chop away part of the tree then pulled the trunk out of the ground, and the roots are the edible yucca.  I gave it the 'ole college try, but my efforts yielded no yucca.

Luckily, someone else was strong enough and we got a big bag full!  The yucca (looks like long potatoes) is boiled and served plain or mashed.  We ate this with the family, and it was particularly delicious.

A starfruit tree!  The family had a long pole with a basket at the end that they used to pick the fruit that was too high to reach.

Your favorite and mine....papaya...

An avocado tree, although I was disappointed to learn that despite their appearance, these will not be ready to pick for another few months, because the prime months for avocados here are January and February.

The flower from a passion fruit plant. Oh la la.

Mangoes Mangoes Mangoes!  Also, disappointingly out of season, but this was an impressive tree.


This weekend, my family invited me to go with them to what apparently is the family farm, about an hour outside of Santiago.  One of my dad's brothers still oversees it from the city, but for the most part, they hire out workers.  It was a really pretty part of the country, surrounded by mountains and rice fields.  I got to meet a lot of the family and also see some pretty nifty plants. There is a huge portion of the land filled with fruit trees of all types (i.e. bananas, plantains, starfruit, avocados, oranges, mandarins, papaya, passion fruit, breadfruit, cherries, some mystery fruit I'd never heard of...). It was really nice of my family to invite me, because (as I learned after we were already in transit...) the family was all gathering to remember the life of a cousin who had died 2 months ago.  Because he was living in New York, none of the Dominican family had had the opportunity to have a memorial service or anything.  So in the evening, we went to a baseball field where the cousin had played for years and years and they had some readings and a video projector with moments from his life.  The family was very welcoming, even though I barely knew what I was doing there, and offered me food, drinks, and a place to sit even though I had never met them before and they clearly had bigger things to worry about.  Okay this has turned into a formatting disaster and I'm not sure why... but i'm stopping now--here are some pictures.

Yaro-whaaa?

Yaroa: New late night food of choice.  It's a delicious base of fried plantains with grilled veggies (substitute for unidentifiable meat) topped with melted cheese.  

Playing some volleyball in the pool.  That's an ace, by the way.

At the beach AND the mountains!  You CAN have it all, friends.

Americans, lounging it up

Things are cruisin' along here in Santiago de los Caballeros.  I don't have classes on Friday, and it's kind of incredible the impact that has on the structure of the week.  IT GOES BY SO FAST!  I don't have many plans for this weekend, but last weekend I went to Puerto Plata to celebrate the birthday of a friend from the program.  It was a really fun time, save for the massive sunburn I've acquired on some very tender stomach skin.  Puerto Plata is a pretty tourist-oriented area of the DR and we definitely didn't fight the system based on the all-inclusive resort we stayed in...I have rather mixed feelings about this, especially after taking "Caribbean Literature and Culture" my first semester at Macalester.  Memories of Consuming the Caribbean a book we read that details North-American--Caribbean relations are still pretty fresh in my mind: 
"In the author's view, the verb that governs relations between the powerful countries of the North Atlantic and the Caribbean is not "to develop," or "to buy," or "to enjoy," or "to exploit," but "to consume." European and North American publics, she claims, have devoured and continue to consume not only such obvious commodities as sugar cane, bananas, tropical fruits, coffee, rum, and cannabis but also the natural environment in the form of landscapes and "tropical paradises," human bodies in the form of slaves, indentured laborers, and sex workers, cultural products such as texts, images, and music, and knowledge collections such as studies of botany, ethnology, and linguistics. An important interpretative strand that runs through the book shows the persistent continuities as well as the resistance to, and the unintended consequences of, this pattern of "consumption" over the past five centuries."   -History Cooperative
Ouch.
But, however shamefully, I enjoyed myself and it was a fun group of people, so I will focus on that to make myself feel better.
I haven't been up to a ton of other things this week, had a test, turned in a rough draft of my independent study plan, did a little running, and made a friend from another program!  Making friends, particularly with Dominican students has been way harder than anticipated.  It's tough for a few reasons, one of which being that because the campus closes at 9 PM, no one lives on campus, and there are virtually no on-campus activities, it's hard to casually ask someone to hang out.  It's on my list though!
Classes are fine, I'm really enjoying the medical classes where we go out in the field to rural clinics and hospitals in the cities.  It's kind of incredible the stuff we have been given clearance to do.  This past week we went to the childrens' hospital of the region, and we only took a tour there, but the week before we just popped into two surgeries to observe.  In the first one, the woman was getting an incontinence problem fixed and there were about 15 medical students in the room, the iodine dispenser was formerly a Snapple bottle, and the anesthesiologist answered her cell phone mid-procedure.  Yikes.  It's really interesting getting the experiential learning side of things and see theories in practice. 

Some classmates and I (they are all legit prospective doctors, unlike yours truly) getting ready to watch some prostate cauterization. Holla!

Well, it's getting a little steamy where I'm sitting, so I'm going to head out.

Running on Empty

I have been running more at the track at PUCMM and earlier this week met some other runners who told me about a race in Santiago this morning.  I was SUPER excited to hear this because there does not appear to be a huge interest in running, at least within the gates of PUMM, so I was all over this. This morning I arrived at the start line embarrassingly early to sign myself up.  The race was supposed to start at 9:00 but it became clear this would be running on Dominican time when I asked the man who signed me up he told me, “Si, 9, más o menos…tu sabes.” So, at 9:45, sun blazing (that was my real complaint with the time delay--it was hot today), we left the starting line.  The race itself was well organized; I don’t think there are too many races that occur so the ones that do are bigger deals.  That’s also a complete guess.  Anyway, this race took us 7.5 miles through the busiest streets of downtown Santiago (I’m pretty sure we were running on the side of a 4 lane highway for a bit) and it was 88 degrees on the forecast, so  at street level and with 50% humidity it  easily felt above 95.  Luckily they had volunteers driving motorcycles who sprayed water on the runners and other volunteers who passed out plastic bags (VERY eco-friendly...) of water that you could bite open and pour on yourself or drink. By the end I felt like I was just getting wetter but not cooler because the water was tepid.  

It was a tough going there are the end and my time was nothing to write home about (although that’s what I’m doing now…) but I had a good  time and ran the last 3 miles with a really encouraging Dominican woman who helped me navigate traffic. One of the runners I met at PUCMM got second place today (40:48) and I found out he runs for the national team.  Apparently he is caca caliente around here! 

I am pretty wiped out now though--my face is a delightful red and my water consumption-to-pee ratio is pathetic.  Part of the problem was that last night was the birthday party of a friend from my program and I was up later than I meant to be.  We went to some discotecas, which is something I have mixed feelings about here because there’s a lot of racism on the part of the club owners/bouncers.  *I just caught and killed a mosquito with my right hand while typing with my left, just saying.*  As a white American, I have never had a problem getting in anywhere, but Dominicans with darker skin and Haitians routinely get turned away because “they’re not dressed appropriately,” when in reality, they’re wearing the same clothes as everyone else.  One of my friends was out one night with a few other people and they went to a discoteca that was virtually deserted when they got there.  The staff wouldn’t let one of the darker-skinned members of the group in even though there were only 6 people in the club and 4 of them were with the guy who wasn’t allowed in and were going to leave because of it. I have never witnessed racism to this degree, and it definitely transcends the “discoteca” scene.  I’ve seen people brush their arms off when they’re walking down the street and bump into a Haitian. My little sisters have told me about their old dog who used to only bark when he saw “bad Haitians” and one of my neighbors blames the city’s rat problem on the “dirty Haitians” who leave their trash around.  Dominican-Haitian relations have a pretty interesting past and there are still a lot of political issues, especially now that the Dominican Republic has changed documentation laws, which has left many Haitians nationless. http://www.coha.org/stateless-in-the-dominican-republic/

The drama surrounding my independent study continues because my trip to Santo Domingo to use the library of the biggest reproductive health NGO closed down over a year ago, a fact they apparently only make known once you go to the building itself.  At first I was annoyed at the inconvenience, but now I’m more annoyed that the government doesn’t prioritize issues of women’s physical and emotional health, and non-profits can’t do it all.

In other news, I’m feeling pretty good because I finally made the connection between my inability to sleep and my nightly vitamin, which apparently contains “about as much caffeine as a cup of coffee.” Woot woot!

Word of the Day:

Mangú=boiled plantains mashed up and served plain or with a variety of toppings.  It’s a traditional Domincan food and might just be the ultimate pre-race food.

Greenlover's Unite!

Ray of sunlight in the lagoon!

Ariel and Cat in front of our rockin' digs for the weekend. 

At Expo Cibao with my mom, grandma, and sisters.  It is basically the equivalent of a state fair, Dominican Republic style. 

I was looking at some pictures of Mac XC this week and I can’t believe it’s already spandex and underarmour weather in the great state of MN! However, I can report some not-nearly-so-drastic temperature changes here as well. I say this mainly because I am no longer constantly aware of how much I’m sweating and because Antonia, the woman who works in our house, made me some fffffiiiinnnneee hot chocolate the other morning. Granted, it was still probably 75 degrees while I was drinking it, but this did not detract from how delicious it was.
School is going pretty well, although I'm struggling with my independent study project. I was hoping to investigate the quality of sexual education for adolescent girls in rural and urban areas, but from the research I’ve done, it doesn’t seem like there’s much of a sexual education program anywhere. The government doesn’t seem to have implemented a standard program in schools, parents avoid talking about it, and when I went to the most well-known non-profit health organization in the country, they told me that they cut their youth sexual education program last year because of a lack of funding. So I’m going to go to Santo Domingo on Friday and hopefully get some leads about where to start looking. It’s definitely a reality check in a lot of ways and is indicative, in my opinion of the ever-present forces of the Catholic church and machismo. It also helps explain why 36% of all pregnancies here are women under the age of 18.
This past weekend I actually did not end up going to Dajabon and Montecristy (PSYCH!) and instead went to an environmental-themed music festival on the Northern coast. Although it was called “Greenlover’s festival” (I don’t know why it was in English) I didn’t really notice any environmentally-conscious behavior, unless you count the paper saved by not providing toilet paper and water conserved by turning off the flushing toilets. I wasn't expecting bathrooms, it was after all,a camping trip, but it was by far the trendiest camping trip I’ve ever seen. Our tent-mate for example, brought only mini-skirts and D&G sunglasses, but nevertheless was a really good sport, especially considering it rained literally the entire time we were there. The campsite was gorgeous and had a Fern Gully feel to it—I wish I would have taken more pictures, but they wouldn’t have turned out with the rain. There was a cave you could walk around in and a cave to swim in. We got to swim in the lagoons as well and the water was incredibly clear. And cold. Clear and cold. There was a great rope swing that we used to jump into the water and there were also some rocks to jump off of. I also got to see my first Dominican hippies this weekend, which was exciting.
When it got dark we had cena, or dinner, and listened to some bands play music, but couldn’t stay awake until they all finished (around 4 AM) so we headed back to our very wet tent. The next morning we did some yoga, read, swam in the other lagoon, snorkeled a little, (it was harder than I remembered--just against all intuition to breathe open-mouth underwater) and talked with people. It was interesting and kind of refreshing to meet a different crowd of people, although I still have trouble participating in stimulating conversations in Spanish.
One last thing—internet in my house is apparently out again, so I’m going to be a little slow in responding to e-mails, but please continue to keep me updated on everything!

I feel like I’m much more settled here than I was even a week ago, it’s quite the luxury to sometimes know what’s going on! I’m getting into a rhythm with classes and it’s nice to have the outlines of a routine, although I’m still nailing things out for sure. The general attitude towards school here is still something I’m trying to understand. The class that I have with Dominican students operates way differently than any class I have ever experienced: students show up late, answer their phones during class, text non-stop, and interrupt the professors. The university itself is just quite a bit different than universities in U.S. that I’ve had contact with. There is no on-campus housing for students and the entire campus closes (gates=locked) at 9 PM every weekday. I feel like the entire university itself doesn’t facilitate a particularly studious environment. The library for example, is an inherently illogical place considering it’s supposed to be a center of academia: It closes at 9 on weekdays, 8 on Saturdays, and noon (?!) on Sunday. The stacks are not open to browse—you have to find the book on the computer, fill out a slip of paper, take it to the desk, and turn in your student ID to look get a book. Apparently (this hasn’t been confirmed) you can only check books out after 8 unless there is a duplicate copy. You cannot wear shorts or tank tops in the library. You cannot have any food or drink (yes, that includes water) in the library at any time. Your bag is searched when you leave, but the books in the bag are never looked at to confirm whether or not they have been checked out. There is also a very poor internet signal. Basically, all these factors have severely deterred my desire to study there. Okay, enough ragging on the library.
In my spare time I’ve started to volunteer at a nearby school helping teach English. I went for the first time on Monday and it was pretty chaotic, but I hope things will settle down in the future, at least to the point where I can be of help. I also met with a Haitian guy I met in the library (I was there, don’t ask me why) who asked me to speak in English with him. These experiences have made me rethink my perception of being a native English-speaker. I never considered it to be a particularly important skill, and always just wished I could speak more than one language. I was always jealous of people who could speak more than one language, but interacting with people who really want to learn English because they see it as a means to opportunity has really changed my perspective. I am surprised that studying abroad to learn Spanish has made me appreciate English more. In general though, I feel like being here has made me really grateful to have American citizenship, which is something I didn’t necessarily expect.
In other news, I will not ever be having children. This morning I witnessed a Cesarean section from about 5 feet away, and the only thing more uncomfortable I can imagine doing is giving birth naturally. Jane, I don’t know how you did it. Everyone’s always talking about how small and fragile babies are when they’re first born, but this kid was big to be coming out of another person’s body! The doctor’s also all carried it (him) by it’s feet, like a dead chicken or something. Oh man, it was wild. The surgery in general was surprisingly fast and definitely opened my eyes to the realities of surgery. I had always imagined doctors to be very suave, with all the incisions very smooth and precise, but this was not the case! It seemed like they were hacking sometimes and after the first cut, the doctor literally threw a 4-5 inch long chunk of her skin and fat on the floor. I also had no idea the skin itself was so thin in comparison to the rest of the body. Weird really, considering how much weight and importance is given to skin color. Man, it was just a really nuts experience and I had definitely never seen so much blood before.
Tomorrow I’m going with the group to Montecristi and Dajabon, two small cities near the Haitian border. It is also a holiday called Día de Mercedes, so everyone will have the day off school and work. I’m hoping to get to see some cool cultural events or something and I’m excited to get out of Santiago for a bit. Although it’s the second largest city in the D.R. it actually doesn’t have that much to offer in terms of organizations, classes, community centers, and cultural opportunities as you would expect. I also really like being away from the noise, pollution, traffic etc. of the city, so I always enjoy a trip to the campo!