Week 5- Field Trip 2

La Loma and Edison

Hanes Clinic

Talking to Isabel and Ana from La Altagracia

With Isabel Genao

2/20/12

We were on the road at 8:00 this morning and were very excited that Louis was assigned as our bus driver again, we all loved him last trip. We headed to La Romana, the name of the city and the sugar processing plant we were visiting. We are taking Sociology of Labor and all last week we talked about globalization’s effects on labor conditions, especially in third world countries. After studying working conditions in sweatshops, watching documentaries such as The Price of Sugar, and looking at how many corporations take advantage of poor workers, I was expecting the worst going to the processing plant. Ben has tried to get the past groups here over the last 3 years, and this was the first time they were letting anyone in. We were there to study “Industrial Systems”- not labor conditions and Ben warned us that we could not ask any question about worker rights or salaries or Haitian immigrant workers or take any pictures of employees. The VP of the plant, Miguel, gave us a tour, and  to my surprise, he was a very hospitable and down to earth guy. He was dressed in jeans and a tshirt like all the other workers there and had a lot of friendly conversations with them as we walked through. He gave us a very, very extensive tour of the place, I know more about how sugar is made than I ever wanted to. The workers that I saw were mostly sitting doing maintenance type work- stationed by machines and testing the sugar, flipping switches or whatever needed doing. All of them had proper shoes, hard hats, and some wore goggles. I asked if any women worked here and Miguel actually laughed, saying it was far too hot for any women to work there. We also learned that the sugar industry employs 25,000 people, 12,000 of them being Haitian cane cutters. The factory runs 24/7 December-July and most of the employees leave their families for those 8 months and live in the barracks behind the factory. I can’t imagine that kind of life, but after seeing the working conditions of the cane cutters last Friday, I felt that a factory job was a much better alternative.

2/21/12

I’ve been in this country for one month today! This morning we went to a Macadamia nut plant in Santo Domingo. I was pretty pumped because I was all about getting some chocolate covered macadamia nuts. I did not get any, but the tour ended up being one of my favorite things we did all week. The plant, La Loma, is run by this hilarious guy Edison, and he is only in his late 20’s. He studied and Costa Rica and saw how well macadamia nut farms were doing there and their role in reforestation. He decided to bring the idea back to the DR. The DR has deforested thousands of acres of their mountains and small farmers are put out of business by large industrial farms. His company employs small, organic farmers to plant macadamia nut trees, which reforest the mountains and hold soil together to prevent erosion and runoff into the oceans. The nuts come to the plant to be packaged, certified fair trade and organic, and sold in local stores. He is doing so well that his company was selected to be in the UN’s Millennium Goals book for embodying a sustainable business model, and he spoke at the UN conference to heads of companies such as Coca-Cola and McDonald’s about sustainable business. I was so impressed with him, and he could not have been any nicer to us. His next project is to study how the macadamia nut shells could be used as an alternative energy source, as there is currently one plant in Australia using macadamia nut shells. He is traveling there next week to do some research. Afterwards, we headed to a Hanes factory. Ben told us to be very sensitive about the types of questions we asked and that we were not allowed to take any pictures. I think the Hanes board thought our visit was a bigger deal than it was- all the top executives were there to greet us with a huge spread and this elaborate power point presentation of their business goals and set up. Again, all of them were very gracious, kind and funny and I found myself really liking all of them. The DR Hanes plant is in Bonao, and was recently awarded for being the most environmentally friendly plant for the entire corporation due to their investment in a 50 million dollar hydroelectric power plant that reuses all of the water that comes in and out of the factory. Hanes works cooperatively with the Union, and because of this, workers work 4 days for 12 hours straight and then get 4 days off. While this is good, I think that would be incredibly difficult for mothers, and there were a lot of women working in the factory. The factory itself was very clean, again the executives had a lot of friendly conversations with workers as we toured through, and the workers were very friendly to us, something we did not experience in the sugar plant. Last, we met the President of Hanes Corporate Social Outreach, who is from Winston Salem. I loved him and would like his job. Hanes funds a medical clinic and orphanage down the street, and we took a tour of the hospital. Students from Wake Forest come down and work there to keep the clinic running. They also had a Hanes clinic truck/trailer that travels around to rural towns. They were doing amazing work and it made me feel pretty good about buying Hanes from now on.

2/22/12

I got sick. Really sick. As in I’ve never been that sick in my life. We woke up and I was miserable, I didn’t bother changing out of my mens XXL tshirt they’d given us and my basketball shorts. Jenna put my hair in a do-rag to pull the entire look together, I was a mess. The pictures from that day are pretty great. We went to a cacao plant and farm, which was similar to the macadamia nut plant in that it was an organic/fair trade operation designed to benefit small farmers and the environment. It was interesting, but so hot and naturally fermented cacao is one of the worst smelling things in the world. Not the ideal setting for a sick person. I ended up staying on the bus for the second half of the tour because I felt so awful and Louis sat with me and chatted while I half slept. He is the nicest man and went out and picked guayaba from a tree outside and brought it back for me, saying that they were the best medicine for stomach sickness. I bit into one since I hadn’t eaten anything yet and forced a smile, it tasted like men’s shaving cream smells. We drove back to Santo Domingo and it was the 3 hour bus ride from hell- the first half was on non-existent roads- we drove through a river and were getting thrown around everywhere from the rocks. The second half was in ridiculous traffic and driving in the city is insane stop and go with people merging everywhere, lots of honking and slamming of brakes. Most miserable I have ever been, I started crying when we got to the hotel because I was so happy to be off the bus and so sick at the same time. It was not one of my finest moments, but a girl can only take so much. Needless to say, I stayed in the rest of the night while the group had dinner with Union leaders from around the country.

2/23/12

I woke up feeling great. We left Santo Domingo for La Altagracia, a very rural community of 12,000 people, 72% are unemployed and living under the extreme poverty line. La Altagracia, named for the town, is a living wage factory. The union works cooperatively with the company, and because of this workers receive benefits that are unheard of elsewhere. Women are paid equal to men. The minimum age to work there is 18 instead of 14 and the cut off age to work there is 100 instead of 28. They are paid 1,432 pesos a week instead of 1,100. They receive health care and financial advisors to help them with savings plans. They can use the bathroom or get water whenever they need to and have an hour-long lunch break. They work 9 hours a day Monday through Friday and get weekends off. And they were happy and friendly and thankful for their jobs and I absolutely loved it there. We could ask whatever questions we wanted and could take pictures of anything and anyone we wanted. The freedom to do that said a lot about the kind of place it was- they weren’t hiding anything because it was all good. But its only good for the 133 people who work there out of the 12,000 in the community. They bought the plant from another factory, so they have a whole extra building to fill with more employees, but they don’t have the orders to employ them. Isabel, one of the of the union leaders, said that when the factory reopened, people camped out overnight and by the morning there were miles of people lined up with their applications. Everyone we talked to asked us to tell our schools and businesses about the factory, that they needed more customers to do what they were doing and give other people the same benefits. We all want to get the VT bookstore to start selling tshirts and gear made there, they were working on an order from University of Florida during our visit. Afterwards we headed back towards Santo Domingo and met Louisa Genao, a labor lawyer. She was an incredible woman. As a female lawyer, she faces a lot of prejudice and since she represents mostly Haitian workers, she faces even more. She said the oppression she faces in the work place encourages her to represent the oppressed. She told us of her cases, from organ to child trafficking- it was horrifying to hear and realize they were true stories. Her most recent case was these two Haitian construction workers who fell off the building they were working on and were paralyzed from the neck down. Because they were illegal immigrants, the company refused to cover their medical bills or pay them that months salary. She won the case and got their medical bills paid as well as a small pension, but the final result was the two men being sent back to Haiti. She said that she did not feel like that was winning anything. The president of the construction company is the brother of a Senator, and Louisa received many threats that caused her to be laid off from the WRC labor rights firm she worked for. She now has her own firm, but her clients cannot pay her and she has to pull from her own resources to represent them. She started a yoga studio to help pay these costs, as she does not want money to get in the way of her work but she can no longer take on many cases. When it was time to go I just wanted to stay and help out!

Overall, it was another wonderful field trip. I learned about social issues that I didn’t know existed during Dale’s class and it was inspiring to meet people who are making change in this country. 

Week 4- Bateys

Welcome Songs

Alexandra and the girls

Sugar cane fields- burned, cut and ready to load

Monte Coca Library 

This past week has been more uneventful mainly due to the rainy weather and the amount of homework Dale has given us. We spent all last weekend compiling our final project for Dennis, which was a movie/slideshow about our trip and what we learned. It turned out great- we each narrated a section. Dennis is the nicest, he got misty on us when it ended. We went kayaking and paddleboarding and made celebratory pancakes on his last day. He is an amazing teacher and person, even when he gave us 2 hours worth of talks about the history of kayaking- including on the water. I paddled as far away as possible, a girl can only take so much. This week our man Dale is teaching "Sociology of Labor." It is all about working in the global economy- globalization, labor conditions, implications it has for developing countries and the environment, the works. It's incredibly interesting but depressing and has opened my eyes to issues I didn't know existed- the world has way too many problems. We also watched The Price of Sugar, a documentary about the working conditions in Dominican sugar plantations, and took place 2 hours away. It is banned here because it shows so much of what goes on behind the Batey confines. Today, we saw it come alive and travelled to a Batey. Our first stop was the community of Las Pajas. Sarah, a Peace Corps volunteer met us there and gave us a tour of her community. The children were in school and sang two songs for us as a big welcome. Las Pajas was amazing, I absolutely loved everyone there. Since it is on a sugar cane plantation, it feels like a big neighborhood and everyone was so friendly and fun, laughing and chatting in Creole and Spanish. Jonathan was a guy our age and walked with us the whole time, he is one of the very few that will make it out and has a scholarship to study tourism at a university in Santo Domingo. You could tell he was such a role model there and while I was so happy for him, I also felt sad that the community was losing such a competent young man, as the community desperately needs leadership. He showed us the Barracks, which was a large building with many rooms for the workers. Each room was tiny and crammed- a bunk bed fully lined each wall, meaning that 8 people slept in one room that was half the size of mine. We stopped by the church and met the Pastor and his adorable but crazy little son who rocked a drum solo for us. Then, we went to the town clinic, which was built by a Canadian church organization. We met Jaclyn, the only doctor for the entire clinic and who is just a medical student serving there as a year long internship. She was very nice but you could tell she was in over her head. She said that her two patients right now were a little boy who severely burned himself on his stomach and a man who had accidentally cut his toe off in the fields. Everywhere we went, there were children playing baseball. Jonathan told us “kids learn to play baseball before they learn to walk.” Las Pajas is in the San Pedro province, which is the best baseball center in the world. Sammy Sosa and Alfonso Soriano and other greats grew up here and have donated multiple baseball training centers to the area. It is strange because the entire area is stricken with poverty, and then you will drive past these beautiful baseball fields with kids in the freshest uniforms using all these fancy machines and equipment. Most of the kids in Las Pajas were using sticks bats and makeshift balls, but they were still incredible, they see it as their ticket out and have dreams of making it to the big leagues. We also saw sugar cane everywhere. So many of the kids walk around with giant machetes, as many of them go to work in the fields as early as age seven. Everyone walks around chewing on a big stick of cane. It is delicious, but causes malnourishment in children and is terrible for your teeth- most of the adults had very few teeth left because the sugar rots them so badly. Sarah loves her community but has a lot of frustrations with the lack of motivation there. She said that most people expect groups to come in and build things for them and says it has been impossible to get anyone to take responsibility or initiative to work together and draw upon their own resources for village projects. She has shifted her focus from infrastructure to leadership and is working mostly with youth now to instill a new mindset so that they will be able to change the system. She is a Youth Development volunteer, and does a lot of teen pregnancy prevention, sex education, leadership training and attempts to get these Haitian children documentation. When the plantation owners bring Haitians across the border, they take their documents so that they will never be able to leave the Batey. Therefore, almost none of the adults or children “exist" and are not subject to labor laws or fair wages. Some of these children’s great grandparents came over here and their families have been here for years. Basically, they are no longer Haitians, but they aren’t Dominicans either. In order to get a birth certificate, you have to pay the Catholic church for a baptism certificate, which is absurdly expensive, and then the parents must travel out of town (more money) to pay for their child's documentation (even more money) and have proof of their own documentation (which they don't have). The impossible process can take days and at the end, there is a trial. The judge has the final say of whether or not to grant the certificate, and Sarah said that even when everything goes through, she has seen many people turned down at the last second simply because the judge said they were too dark to be Dominican or their accent was not Dominican enough. She said calling someone Haitian is a racist insult. We left for lunch in the neighboring town just down the road. A Guatemalan company runs this Batey town, known as Monte Coca. We met Tim, the Peace Corps rep there. We ate lunch with some of the townspeople, who served us chicken feet and dumplings. It was… an experience. I will try everything once, and that was the first and last time I will try a chicken foot. Tim and his three amigos Victor (my favorite), Felipe, and Roberto gave us a tour. We went to the loading and weighing field, where we saw the cut cane getting unloaded off the tractors and reloaded onto the trucks. Most of the men don’t have any gloves or shoes, and their hands get very infected because the cane is sharp and tears skin easily. They do not get paid by the hour, only by how much cane is cut, and there is a maximum of 150 pesos a day, which is about $3.00. One of our assignments was to break into teams and see how much we could buy with a day's salary at the town store. My group bought half a pound of rice, a pound of beans, and 6 eggs. For one day. For a whole family. We climbed on the tractor and it took us into the fields. They burn the entire field before going in because that makes it easier for them to cut, but it is still extremely strenuous work. Last, they took us to the Library, which is Tim’s main community project. There are five computers, a copy machine, and one bookshelf of books. They talked to us about the computer and English classes they offer there and the Young Leaders Alliance. It was clear that Monte Coca is a much more tight knit and united community than Las Pajas. The three guys take turns sleeping there because there are no paid security guards and the two older girls run the library during the day- all of it is unpaid volunteer work. We all sat around and Dale had us "interview" them to get a better idea of their day to day lives as fields workers. I asked Victor in my bad Spanish, “What motivates you to volunteer your time here?” He answered back in slow English- I think language is so cool. “I am poor. I do not have enough. I want to help others who are poor have enough. That is what this center is about. Opportunity. When you have the will to make a difference, you will make a difference.” I immediately wrote that down, I loved this guy. He asked me what the biggest difference between his community and mine back in the US. I told him that many Americans in my hometown have many things, but are very empty and sad. They do not always appreciate what matters in life. The people in Monte Coca, they may not have as many things, but they choose to be content with what they have, see the best in their lives, and love everybody. He looked so confused when I said that people act so busy that no one stops to say hello and talk on the street back at home. He said "Thats all anyone does around here!" I asked him if he ever thought about leaving Monte Coca for another town, city, or country. He said he wanted to study and get a degree, but feels “engaged” to his community. This is his home and he wants to help it become greater. He asked the others and they all nodded and smiled. It was my favorite moment of the day. I want to go back to Monte Coca, too. We dropped Tim and Felipe back at their house and headed home after dinner, we were silent for the entire 2 hours back- it was a lot to take in for one day. We leave Monday for another 5 day road trip- we will be touring factories, sweat shops, and farms around the country and interviewing the workers there.

Week 3- Field Trip 1

Los Torrenos

Playa Rincon

Baby whale breaching

Banao

Caving in Bani

Sunday, 2/5/12

Dennis is kinda nuts. I have never been around someone that knows so much, and he shares it ALL. Pretty sure his voice will narrate my thoughts after tomorrow- anything we saw, he gave us the history of it. We went kayaking today and had an hour lesson about the history of kayaking before we even got in the water. Anyways, he gave us a last minute assignment and we were up past midnight finishing it and packing, only to wake up at 4 am to leave. We drove on dirt roads most of the time so it was pretty hard to sleep, even for me. Looking out the windows, I started thinking how much this country reminded me of Sierra Leone. A lot of the land looks similar, with the palm trees, fields, and small mountains- all things green. It’s a beautiful country. People walking in the streets, people peeing on the streets (this was new), crazy drivers on the wrong side of the road, children playing futbol or baseball in their underwear, advertisements for Ford cars in the middle of a shanty town. After five hours we arrived in Samana, which is one of the first cities Columbus claimed in Hispaniola. It was supposed to become the Santo Domingo of the DR, as the bay makes it a prime location for a port city but the trade winds made it hard for people to get there. The Dominican Republic opened Samana as a community for freed Haitian and US slaves during the 1800s, offering them land, rights and full citizenship. We went to the African Episcopal Church, which was the first constructed building and now the only one left from the original colony since Trujillo tore everything else down. The congregation was very welcoming of us and asked us in English to introduce ourselves. We went up and introduced ourselves in Spanish and they all broke into applause, they got a big kick out of that. The music reminded me of church in Sierra Leone, which I loved. At lunch in a little Pica Pollo shack, a little boy approached our table for shoe shining. Dennis paid him and at first I felt uncomfortable sitting there eating as he worked. Dennis asked him how his mother and father were and he said that his mother was sick and his dad had a broken leg- that is why he was shining shoes. I kept catching myself staring at him, he had cuts and scars all over his face and I lost my appetite. When he left, Dennis told us about growing up in Santiago shining shoes and how many people react the same way I do and don’t feel comfortable putting a child to work. He said that they all use cover stories like that, that he himself always said his father had a broken leg. In reality, these kids must go to work and are often beaten if they don’t bring home enough money, which would explain the scars on that little boy’s face.  We also passed some children selling shells they had found on the beach, it broke my heart. From there we went horseback riding in Limon. It was a very poor rural town and was up in the mountains. We got assigned to horses and I got Rambo, a 12 year old with a crooked ear. All of the horses hip bones were sticking out and you could tell they were not in good health. Rambo was the smallest, saddest looking horse I’ve ever seen. Felt really fat when he let out a big wheeze when I sat on him. He was also really slow, we fell so behind the group and the poor guy was huffing and puffing up the mountain and kept tripping on rocks and slipping in mud. We had to go through a river that came up to my knees, he was such a trooper. My guide was deaf and I think mentally handicapped- he was very sweet but kept whacking Rambo with a stick to go faster but he couldn’t. I kept telling him to stop and signaling no. After awhile I felt so bad I got off and led Rambo with one hand and held Orlando’s with the other. I thought of the movie Ice Age, we were a strange threesome. The view at the top of the mountain was well worth the trouble- it was breathtaking and you could see all the way to the ocean. We tied up the horses and hiked the rest of the way to Los Torrenos, the biggest waterfalls I have ever seen. It was used in Jurassic Park. We swam underneath into this big cave. Orlando climbed so far up the waterfall, I was in the cave so I have no idea how he managed to scale that high up a vertical rock. He was standing on his tippy toes clinging to it and just pushed himself off, diving backwards for like 60 feet. It was wild. Shannon, Richard, Ben and I all hiked to the top and the view was incredible. After that we went back to Samana to visit Martha Laticia Timor, the direct 4^th descendant of the founder of the community. It was so cool to meet a living piece of history, hear her family story, and see how African, American, and Spanish roots defined her and the town. She served us homemade Black Sugar and Mabi plant soda, which was the most delicious drink ever. We walked through the town, which is very poor. One of the images that has stuck with me was a boy in a wheelchair, I am fairly certain he had cerebral palsy. He was sitting alone up against a wall of a crumbled building and underneath a sign that said in Spanish, “Jesus lives and is the hope for you. Look for Him.” We got back to our hotel in Samana after dinner. It sits behind this tacky tourist strip mall- the buildings looked like perfect doll houses, all painted pastel colors. We were on the other side, and in the back of the buildings there are stray dogs running around everywhere, naked children roaming around and women carrying water back to their houses. Dennis looked at it from the balcony and said “That right there sums up the Dominican Republic.” We headed downtown to watch the superbowl in this little outdoor tent bar with a mini tv. I Love Samana at night. There are street dancing groups everywhere, salsa music blaring, stray animals that come sit by your feet, guys with wheelbarrows of sugar cane, kids running around, and mostly just everyone sitting around talking. Such a fun atmosphere. We got some ice cream and walked to the harbor. We turned down the block and things got much quieter compared to the loud happy buzz of the main street. There were lots of policemen and families looking out at the water and Dennis asked someone what was going on.  And then we saw the caskets. Turns out, last week an illegal boat of 85 people escaping to Puerto Rico went down. Only 15 survived and they were claiming the dead bodies. It was horrible, didn’t feel much like ice cream anymore.

Monday 2/6/12

We woke up at 5 am and drove to Playa Rincon, which is probably the most beautiful place I have ever been. The water was so warm and there were actual waves for a change! The beach was completely deserted- we got to watch the sun rise over the mountains. We chilled there for a few hours and had a history lesson. Rincon is said to be the first place that Columbus went in Hispaniola and described it as “heaven on earth”. We reluctantly left, but were excited for whale watching. Humpback whales migrate here every year from Maine to mate. The mothers give birth here and don’t eat for 6 months, they lose one ton of their weight while nursing their calf. It was a perfect day and the captain let our group go sit on the bow of the ship. We got so lucky- we saw two whales and then a mother and her calf got really close to our ship. The mother was teaching the baby how to breach so the baby would jump out once almost every minute. The mom breached one time and it was incredible, made the biggest splash. We left from there to Sosua, a Holocaust refugee community. Out of 32 countries at a conference held by FDR, the Dominican Republic was the only nation to open their doors to oppressed Jewish families. Granted, Trujillo did this to get back on FDR’s good side after slaughtering 50,000 people and thought the Jews would help whiten the Dominican Republic. We went to the Jewish museum there, which gave stories of Holocaust survivors and their new lives in Sosua. Out of the 600 families that came, only 36 remain today, and Sosua is famous for being the capital of prostitution in the Dominican rather than for its Jewish roots. 

Tuesday 2/7/12

I got so sick and was up all night in Sosua. It was rough but I felt better by morning, just totally exhausted. Tuesday was a blur. We headed to Puerto Plata first thing and toured Fort San Felipe. It was built in the 1500s and has been used to defend against pirates all the way to being used as a defensive base in the War of Independence. We walked out back to see the big hole that they threw all of the pirate heads in and climbed around the whole place. On the way out, this little old lady with a donkey asked if we wanted a picture with it. I said no, knowing that she would want money and I didn’t have any. But she shook her head no and said “free, free” and next thing I knew this woman literally picked me up and swung me over the donkey. I was so surprised! She was so old, I don’t even think she was five feet tall. We went from there to the Mirabel Sister museum. It was kind of eerie; they had preserved the towel that they used to clean up the blood after their murder and the sisters’ hair. We drove further into town because the tour guide told us about the town’s personal memorial to the sisters. We were walking through the park and ran into the last living Mirabel sister! It was amazing to talk to her. She said “It is a sad history, but it is our history. There were once four sisters, and now there is only one. But I adopted all nine of their children, so our history continues and my sisters live through their children. When you die in the arms of a grateful nation, you never die. Seeing you studying our story, it is like they are here.” We all gave her hugs before saying goodbye, I still can’t believe we met her. Having three sister myself, I cannot imagine what she went through and it gave me a much deeper sense of appreciation for their sacrifice to the country. We headed to Santiago. It is a big city filled with poverty, but it is also filled with brightly painted building covered in murals, blaring salsa music, and great people. I got really sick again and stayed in with my faithful roommate while the group had dinner and went to the city monuments. Good times. Traveling and exhaustion has definitely brought our group closer together- we are such a family now. Ben gave me the nickname Kibbles and Bits since everyone here calls me KB and also because I hurled so many times. I was not a fan but he succeeded in making it stick- it is my new namesake and Ben loved introducing me to people- "This is Tricia, Christian, Richard, Erika, Shannon, Cat, Sally, Jenna, and KibblesnBits." Everyone would die when they tried to pronounce it and so now it is shortened to just Kibbles. Thanks, Ben. 

Wednesday 2/11/12

We woke up Wednesday morning and enjoyed a delicious breakfast of pancakes and pineapple, I was so happy to be eating again. Afterwards, we headed to the Cultural Center of Santiago, which is a center that offers low cost art, dance and music lessons, and a library for inner city youth. It is also a major performing arts building, and productions from all over the world visit the center.  Our tour guide was such a friendly guy and introduced us to a bunch of the head instructors, my personal favorite being this little old violin teacher. He was adorable. We got to observe some painting, ballet, and piano lessons. I swear, Dennis has some sort of luck charm, we happened into his childhood piano teacher. I loved the sense of the community there, I wanted to stay and paint or play violin with the kids. We departed the Cultural Center for Fernando Valerio’s memorial park. It was a nice respite from the loud noises, craziness, and poverty that makes up the city. We were leaving Santiago and passing through a town on the outskirts of the city when Dennis casually said, “Oh look, that is my uncle and cousin on that motorcycle.” He was dead serious, didn’t think that was unusual at all after we tried explaining that these coincidences don’t happen to anyone else, ever. Our next destination, Banao, was the exact opposite of the city. Banano is a very rural town, tucked away in the mountains. The drive was so scenic and it was interesting to the differences in lifestyles from people who lived in the cities to people who lived off the land. It is interesting, many of the houses are in terrible condition but most are painted pastel colors, making the clusters of shacks look strangely pretty, especially in the midst of the mountains. We pulled into Ranchoooo Wendyyyy, my favorite place in the world. It was similar to a bed and breakfast and the place had such character, allowing us to get a small taste of the setting in which many Dominican families live- we were on a small farm and did not have electricity the majority of the time we were there. After lunch we went hiking. It was beautiful, it felt like we were hiking through the jungle. We crossed this hand made bridge, everyone got really nervous when a motorcycle passed us. We made it to the waterfalls, there were five of varying sizes that cascaded into each other. After dinner we had a bonfire and smores- a concept that our Dominican friends found very bizarre- they thought it was hilarious when the marshmallows would catch on fire and refused to taste such a strange thing. Two people who made a mark on me were Joanna and Ariel, both orphans who were adopted by the family who owns Rancho Wendy. Joanna is currently paying her on way to nursing school and has dreams of becoming a doctor. Her work ethic was so admirable and put things in perspective for me.

Thursday 2/9/12

I was sad to leave Banao and Rancho Wendy for Santo Domingo. It is the capital city, and even crazier than Santiago. We started playing a game of the most ridiculous motorcycles we saw. The craziest one was a man on a bike pulling a horse. The scariest was a mother who had a five year old holding a two year old in her lap. We went to the Faro de Colon. It is a huge monument to Christopher Columbus. It is in the shape of a cross and has thousands of purple lights that shoot a giant cross up into the sky on holidays. It costs millions every time they do it- you can see it from outer space. The idea was that the monument would shoot the cross up to heaven the same way Christopher Columbus brought Christianity to the New World. The entire thing cost 70 million dollars. What a waste of what little government money the country has. It was so backwards- Columbus wiped out both native populations of the Dominican Republic completely and killed millions in the name of Christianity. The paintings made me sick- there was one mural of an Indian getting baptized, with a big halo on Columbus’s head. We toured the Latin American museum inside the monument- Haiti and Jamaica were the only 2 countries to not contribute anything out of protest to what Columbus really stood for. We then went to Bani, a town that was out in the middle of nowhere. We were on dirt roads for 30 minutes. The directions were like “you will eventually see a school bus, turn right there. Sure enough, we saw an old turned over school bus, covered in rust and with no wheels. Then, “When you see the white cow, turn left.” Sure enough, there was a white cow chillin on a corner and we turned. We finally saw the little pink shack! We pulled in and the family had made our delicious lunch over a fire and had a beautiful display out. It is amazing how people who have so little are also the most generous and hospitable. We tried the homemade cassava bread and peanut butter and pepper- it was amazing. We talked to the mother- turns out she has attempted to escape to Puerto Rico three times and every single time she went to jail. Her stories were awesome. Louis took us to the caves. Two of their Chihuahuas followed us throughout the caves, it was hilarious. Hidalgo’s friend, Lynn, discovered these caves and has been doing research on the Taino carvings she has found. Caves were a sacred connection to the underworld and it was crazy to think that people used to live underground. It was awesome and we saw some torch stains and carvings of faces. I loved everything about it except the bats. We returned home around 8:00. We had dinner at La Tortuguita and Daniel gave me a big hug, it made me feel happier to be back- I was not looking forward to returning to the resort after all we had seen. The guards said how much they missed us and I realized how much I love this whole country- I have not been to a place or met someone I don’t like yet! This was a week I will never forget.

Week 2

Birthday

We remember to throw our trash in the trash can!

Take Care of Life: Don't Throw Trash!

Kite Surfer

 I feel like I have been here much longer than two weeks- so much has happened! The week began with a kite surfing competition. We all bused up to La Playa Blancha and hung out at the beach watching the surfers. They were incredible- they’d fly up 20-30 feet, do some crazy flip and land effortlessly. The girls decided we may have to consider taking some lessons. Red Bull hosted the whole thing so there was a big party and people handing out free stuff everywhere. I got some Men’s Dove Deodorant. Score. Monday was our first ocean dive! My group went first and we plopped backward into the ocean. Salt water makes you much more buoyant so we deflated our jackets and sank down. I was immediately overwhelmed by how beautiful everything was and the pressure in my ears. After we stabilized, we swam around and got to explore. We saw a huge school of these long metallic fish, a giant conch shell, two flounder, and a big stingray. The coral, fish, and water was amazing, really felt like a different world. We also swam over to the nursery to see the cages and coral gardens that we’ll be working with. We have three more ocean dives to go before we are certified. We were hoping to get them all done this week but its been really windy, making the current too strong for diving. We also started our fishing project this week. The Ecological Foundation was finally granted oversight of the entire Punta Cana coastline just this past month. It has been extremely overfished and polluted for years, and the scientists here asked us to assist them in taking samples each day, measuring the fish and tallying how much of each kind they are bringing in to get an idea of the populations they are working with. The fishermen are not very fond of us as they never had to do this before, but I liked meeting people outside of the resort. We weighed and measured the fish, from barracudas to grouper to red snapper. The big, expensive fish is put into Group A, which is sold to the resorts and restaurants for tourists. Everything else goes to Dominican markets, which made me sad. It was fun but we smelled terrible afterwards. Wednesday was my 20^th birthday. We all stayed up late Tuesday night working on projects so the girls were wonderful and brought in my birthday at midnight with oreo icecream and cupcakes. I ate 5 of them… Don’t judge me it was my birthday and I haven’t had dessert since coming here.  It was a chill bday, spent it with everyone reading for class on the beach and writing papers at the pool. So much work but its impossible to feel stressed when you’re doing it under a palm tree. Our professor wasn’t able to come this week so we had a skype lecture in the mornings and he gives us our readings and assignments for the day. Hidalgo calls himself the slave driver and has definitely kept us busy, but I am loving the material. We are learning about Caribbean history and current events, looking especially at globalization’s (mostly negative) effects on these developing countries. I have especially loved learning the history of Haiti, it is incredible. On my birthday one of our assignments was to write a song about the history of pirates in the Caribbean. We recorded a rap to the tune of Fresh Prince and Hidalgo loved it so much he asked us to video tape us performing it. When we all said absolutely not he made it a graded assignment that he is going to post to the program website. Ben heard about it and promptly bought us pirate costumes to wear for the occasion. We all want to die and keep putting it off in hopes he’ll forget about it. He hasn’t. I got to go into Veron this week. I volunteered in Nate’s Sex Ed classroom and will become his teaching assistant once he returns from the capital on February 27^th. We played AIDS dodgeball with the kids. You have a white ball and a red ball to represent the different blood cells and slowly AIDS takes over. It was strange that it was so fun. We also went to VCOMM, Virginia Tech’s free medical clinic in Veron. Medical students from Tech work there for a month at a time and I am helping out in the pharmacy, organizing medications and medical paperwork. They need all the help they can get- it is a tiny clinic, probably the size of my basement and it provides care to over 80,000 people in Veron when it should really only be used as a first care center. Women who give birth there are forced to leave within a few hours, sent on a bus back home with their new babies because there simply is not enough room for them to stay. I was pretty shaken up but the perspective it gave me only makes me want to go back. I know I can’t handle blood and many of the things that come through the clinic, but am happy that I can still assist in some way. It has been difficult going back and forth between these two worlds. When I arrived in Sierra Leone, I was overwhelmed by the amount of poverty. Coming home was an even bigger culture shock, as I realized the extent of the disparity between the US and Sierra Leone. It scared me that the world was set up like this and that those two worlds were only separated by an ocean. But here, those two worlds exist only a 15 minute bus ride away. I watched the slums of Veron disappear out the window, passing trucks full of migrant workers returning from their day of work on the resort. We enter the security gates of the resort community, passing the golf course, vacation homes, and palm trees planted nicely in a row along the median of road, which is no longer gravel, but paved. It feels so surreal, but I am so thankful for the my time spent there this week. Another highlight has been this Australian research duo that is staying here. They are studying this endangered species of nocturnal rats and go out every night at 3 am to locate their nests and plant food for them. We were all eating breakfast yesterday morning and they burst in saying “WE FOUND THEIR SHIT! WE FINALLY GOT SOME SHIT!” and showing off their little box of rat prized terds, their faces expressions of pure joy. I guess everyone has their calling in life- someones gotta save the rats and test their poop. I was walking to lunch with one yesterday and we walked out the door and he pointed out a gecko, told me all about the particular species until we got downstairs and he spotted a dead bird on the awning. To my horror, he went to go pick it up and tell me about that species of bird. I was suppressing laughter as we continued to walk when he picks up a tarantula and is shoving it in my face, pointing out the 8 eyeballs and these blue dots while I then fought the urge to cry and sprint in the opposite direction.  He released it and we continued when he bends over to pick up a fourth time. I couldn’t make this up. He picked up a giant beetle, saying “Oh would you look at that frontal prong! Enormous! Just beautiful isn’t it?” That one did me in, I started laughing so hard, the guy is absolutely nuts. The Australian accent only makes it that much better. Hidalgo got in last night and he is awesome. He is one of those people who is so passionate about what he is teaching and insanely intelligent. Makes me excited to learn. He knows the history of everything. We were eating French fries at dinner and he suddenly asked me “Berlin, imagine a world without potatos. What would it be like? How would that effect the world?” and went into the history of potatoes and their role in the Columbian Exchange. When that conversation was over he suddenly asks, “Berlin, what does culture mean to you?” I don’t know Hidalgo, I’m just trying to enjoy my fries. This morning Jenna and I got to go back into Veron for a mural painting project with Sabine. We were there by 8:00 to get started. Sabine looked so relieved to see us, they had made recycled art for a contest and it was windy so the projects were blowing everywhere. After moving the tables inside, we let the kids in through the gate and chaos began. I was wearing a shirt that said “Reebok” on the back, and the kids changed my name from “Catarina”, to “Reebok”. At first, we were pretty good at having the kids wait in line for their paint, sharing brushes, cleaning them, etc. But after about 45 minutes, we were all covered head to toe in paint, the kids were painting each others faces, and four mural spaces were painted white instead of just two. The 120 kids and gallons of paint were victorious over Sabine, Nate, Jenna and I, and there was nothing we could do about it but laugh. The murals took all afternoon and turned out awesome. The kids are incredible. I made a special friend in Elia, a little boy who followed me around and was quick to help with whatever needed doing. The older girls are only around 13-15 but are so mature, most of them take care of many younger children at home and the kids do not mess around with them. I would be speaking in Spanish, desperately asking the kids to line up and stay in order, don’t stick their hands in the paint buckets, please stop painting mustaches on each other, etc., and Maria, Ava or Diana would shoot them a single look and they’d all scramble in line. I couldn’t understand one of the older girls names, but we joked that she was Chica Cuchilla- Knife Girl. We didn’t have a screw driver to open the paint and found this butchers knife. The girl told me she cooks at home and volunteered to do it. I felt like a nervous mom I was getting so paranoid but she opened them all like it was nothing. I worked with Maria and Ava most of the day painting the more detailed parts of the murals while Sabine directed the little kids with the handprints. I kept telling them how thankful I was for their help, it was such a chaotic morning and I may have gone insane without them to help me. They were so sweet and encouraging of my Spanish, cracking jokes with me and teaching me slang. The older girls are all in Sabine’s “Brigada Verde”, which is her girls environmental awareness club. They invited Jenna and I to come to the beach with them tomorrow, and I was so bummed to decline because of our trip. However, I am SO excited to spend this upcoming week traveling around the country. I have been dying to see the real Dominican Republic- beyond the confines of the resort and am looking forward to gaining a broader understanding of this country and its beautiful people!