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.