April trip to Michigan

April 20th 5am (Eastern Standard) – The alarm goes off. I think, “I have to feed the kitten…oh god, we have three newborn puppies.” Thank goodness there happened to be electricity.

7am – In the airport I paid RD$180 for a Gatorade and a quipe (whole wheat and ground meat mix deep fried). I usually pay RD$48. D’oh! I was glad I brought my own chips from the colmado (party store)!

845am - Flight number one leaves the DR.

1050am – Touchdown in Miami. I hear a woman on the plane say, “Ah, I’m so glad to be back in the States! American soil.” The statement made me cringe a little. Coming from an upper class white woman on a mission trip to the DR it sounded racist.

1055am – Walking off the plane and into the terminal I took a deep breath and thought, “Ah, I’m so glad to be back in the States! American soil.” I laughed at myself, at the same time wanting to be speaking Spanish and listening to Bachata… I live two lives.

Noon – I set myself in front of CNN in Miami International Airport to see President Obama, to the incredible dismay of Republicans, shaking hands with *gasp* Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. The world has changed since I’ve been in the campo. Never seeing television or internet images of him, I still don’t immediately recognize that handsome young man as my President. Also, the same commercials are playing as were in January and I remember why I’m thankful I don’t have so much media in my life right now.

224pm – Waking up from my two hour floor nap groggy and starving I reach into my bag for a snack. Breaking off a piece of my sesame honey bar a large chunk goes flying, nearly knocking a man next to me in the side of the head…he walks a few steps to pick it up and a few more yards to throw it away...still waiting for the second of three planes today.

645pm – I see I-94, the freeway that I used to drive to and from Kalamazoo in my sleep, and I feel a little anxious about leaving the plane into what seems like a fast-paced metropolis by comparison.

650pm (Central Time) – Touching down in Chicago I finished my book and the movie Madagascar 2. Two planes down one to go!

7pm – I realized that there are a lot of people in the United States and I am no longer the only person within 40 miles with blue eyes. I feel a little lost in the crowd.

705pm (Central) – It hails for approximately 30 seconds. Ah, back in the Midwest United States.

12pm – My brother picks me up in a giant pickup truck, loud music and flying down expressway and smooth dirt roads we arrive at my parents new house in 20 minutes. Where I live in the DR this would have been an hour long trip due to the quality of the roads.

The first week in the US I spent in Kalamazoo eating with my closest friends. When you’re trying to see people during a work and exam week meals are the only times they have free, which is fine for me because I had 4 months of not eating American food to catch up on! It’s so nice for people to always be so excited to see you. I should stay away for long periods of time more often! It was so nice to be staying with my great friend in his clean, tranquil apartment fully stocked with super nutritious foods – I can’t wait to have my own place again!

Week number two I spent with the family and friends on the east side of the state. This also included a lot of eating – my grandpa’s Italian food being #1! I did middle school presentations about the Dominican Republic, saw new babies and one magnificent day headed to Detroit with a great friend of mine...

Waterford has one of Michigan's first "green" restaurants?!?! What's with the desposable dishes for eating in?

If only these people really knew what it tastes like they wouldn't be able to call this flavor mango.

Classifying his own trash at the restaurant.

The Metroparks are a treasure!

Real beer and pizza sold here - AMAZING!

Not pictured is the phenomenal Brasilian guitar concert in the low lit Diego Rivera mural room at the Detroit Institute of Arts. Perfect.

Teaching youth to appreciate diversity (aka Send Money!)

Racism is unfortunately alive and well in the world and here in the Dominican Republic it is not different.

For the last two weeks my 'mom' has been taking care of a baby that is not hers. Born to impoverished Haitian parents without papers in the Dominican Republic, he is a citizen of no country. The Catholic church here won't even baptise him because of his presumed nationality. His mother didn't understand the doctors when they told her that she would have to remove her own stitches after her c-section and so her stomach rotted them out weeks after. The "hospital" in the town closest to us refused her service because she is Haitian and without my 'dad' taking her for free to the city an hour away she would have had no way to get there. She stayed much longer in the hospital than she needed to, as her husband worked for the money to pay the doctors to operate and stitch her back up again. The baby went from two weeks to one month old without seeing his mother. And, as his mother said upon receiving him again, he went from poor to rich. When he arrived at our house they owned a couple t-shirts for him and a thin blanket, when we sent him back he went with four large garbage bags of things, given to him by a family of 7 that has a monthly income well below what I support myself on, the family that supports me here.

I am generalizing here, but in the United States this would be a regular story of kindness, something that almost anyone would do and not many of you would be surprised to hear. Or would you? Two weeks is a long time to take care of a newborn... Anyway, there are many people where we live here that can not relate to doing this. My two younger siblings here, ages 16 and 19, did not even hold the baby the two weeks he was with us, wanted nothing to with him. There aren't many people here who would have taken him, let alone buy formula and give the parents free transportation to and from the city during this time. They wouldn't because they are racist.

In a small country with a strong culture and national identity the youth are not often taught the value of diversity and the freedom that it offers those who are different from the mainstream. So many grow up racist, chauvanistic, homophobic, generally intolerant.

I work with youth A LOT and I am almost always initiating conversation about these issues. We volunteers are now taking it a step further by planning an entire diversity conference about these issues for youth in this region. We will bring together teenagers from all differernt classes and places for the weekend to interact with experts, Dominican, Americans, Haitians and each other in games, workshops and discussions. They will learn about and deal with diversity issues that they rarely, if ever in their lives, would otherwise have the opportunity to consider in a culture that too often values having everyone the same.

In the fall I planned an environmental conference for youth in the central region of the DR and was lucky enough to have a local organization realize its importance and pay the bill, almost entirely. We plan to do the conference in August but we are counting this time on American dollars to make this magic happen. Please go to the following site asap to donate whatever you can! Please pass it on and let me know if you have difficulty. Thank you!

https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.donors.
contribute.projDetail&projdesc=517-290

The Green Brigade

My environmental group of youth, though young and wild, is passionate, positive and fun. They are constantly asking me to plan field trips and since we live within hiking distance of a few gorgeous rivers I took them for a morning of swimming, eating and picking up trash. Another reminder that we live in a paradise…

What other youth group do you know that has to defeather the chicken for lunch before they leave for a field trip?
They wanted so bad to just snatch a tiny bit of the tabacco being dried by a local farmer, though not one of the 20 smokes.

Fresh water crab - catch and release of course.

The waterfall during a time of rain.

The group's four females.

We can't go anywhere without getting in a little batting practice with whatever stick is laying around.

It took me in drill sargent mode to get them back up the hill.

Many swore they would not walk the next day.

When the Flamboyan is blooming

This is a flamboyan tree. They say when it's blooming young women leave their houses, marrying their novios (boyfriends). Here in the country, when two young people move in together they are married. Whether they choose to get married in the church or by law is another special step, many do and many don't. Sometimes young women leave their homes without telling their families and so they call it getting married por la ventana - through the window because that's, figuratively, how they leave the house.

Well I'll be damned if this folklore isn't true...the flamboyan outside our house had only produced a couple flowers when my roommate, 26 years of age, took off on the motorcycle with her boyfriend. Several minutes later she sent us a text message informing us that they weren't just going for ice cream. It was our job then, to inform her mother. Although I am not a mother (of a human at least) I understand that eloping is not the ideal form of marriage of one of your daughters and neither is them moving in with a young man you don't know. But I still did not immediately understand the anger and tears that were shed by her mother or the general sadness, in place of joy, of the rest of family. I got up the next morning, feeling joyous at their young love and spontenaity, but to my dismay there were only comments about how much they missed her prescence already.

As the days have passed and she hasn't returned to the house I am beginning to understand what everyone else already knew; one of the women in our family has become the woman of a different family. We now have to take up the work she was doing and we will see her very rarely.
It's not that she lives far away, in a community only a couple kilometers from our house, but that she does not drive, has no money to buy phone cards to call, and she now has her own daily responsibilities in their house. As I have described it, it seems at first like a discovery chanel marrying off of a young villager to a man in a village miles away, but I suppose it wouldn't be so different from my own experience if I would have lived in my parents house with my mother until now and neither of us worked outside of the home.

I too, miss having her in the house now and I am looking forward to when they may have their own place where it would be customary to go and visit.