Much Needed Update

Day 28 – Kickin It Catholic Style – Santo Domingo 3/24/08

            SemanaSanta is a huge holiday here in the DR. Back in the States we only really celebrate Easter Sunday with theexception of maybe going to church on Friday.  However, it is perhaps the biggest holiday of the year inthe Dominican Republic.  It used tobe a holiday that many people would observe in a rather strict religiousmanner.  They would not work, eatmeat, or clean.  Basically it was atime to go to church and be a good Catholic.  Well those times have come and gone.  Now, Semana Santa is more of aparty.  Around noon on Thursday allthe businesses close for vacation. It is now a time when people go to the beach, or back to their campo, orjust relax over a few Presidentes (the beer of the DR).  Well for my Semana Santa, while othertrainees were headed on vacation, I was able to spend some time in SantoDomingo and got a few very interesting stories out of it.

            Ifirst want to start off my Semana Santa with the story of Mass.  I have always said of myself that I amnot a very religious person, but I do believe myself spiritual.  Going to Catholic Mass on Thursdaynight reaffirmed why I say this. Let me set the scene.  Thereis a church that is down the street from me.  It is a nice simple church made of wood that seats about 200people on a good day.  There aresimple decorations and simple pews. However, this was not to be the place of our Mass.  Oh no.  It was in the building next door, which is more like anindoor-outdoor gym.  Because about99% of Dominicans are Catholic, and of them 97% only go to church during SemanaSanta they needed a larger venue to accommodate the masses at Mass (greatpun).  The gym was set up withplastic chairs everywhere, about enough for 800 people I would guess.  There were decorations put upeverywhere, but the dominating scene was of course at the front where theservice was to be held.  The thingthat stood out a bit was the huge chair in the middle that looked more like athrone.  It stuck out like a sorethumb.  I went to Mass with Irene,one of my Dona’s daughters.  She isthe religious one out of the group, as I had gone to Mass with her a couple oftimes before.  We got out seats andthe show was about to begin. 

            Thereason that I said that I am spiritual and not religious is because exactly howthey carry out their service. There was so much hoopla going on that I felt as though I was watching aplay more than a church service. There was smoke being flung around, water being thrown on me, feet beingwashed, full band playing and singing (which I loved, they rocked the house),and all the while this Polish priest was sitting in his thrown overseeingall.  Don’t get me wrong, he didwash some feet, so I suppose that was the act of modesty, but it just seemedodd to me.  I don’t want to be adouche, because I know that this guy has done some really good things for hiscommunity, but it just came off a bit pompous for him to be sitting in a thrownabove all his subjects.  I simplydisagree with the manner in which religion is carried out at times, not theoverall themes. (We will talk about this sometime I am sure, Mom.)  Anyways, after TWO AND A HALF hours ofthe production, we lit some candles and went for a walk.  I suppose that we were showing the lightto the neighborhood.  It wasn’tquite like when we would do it a Beymer, when there were warnings about settingpeople on fire, because I was quite sure that it would happen at this Mass.  Small kids running around with fire isa scary scene.  However, luckilyeveryone made it home with all their hair still on their bodies and not burnedoff.  In that regard, the SemanaSanta Mass was a smashing success. 

            Withmy religious duties out of the way (as going to Mass is the best way to proveyourself as a Peace Corps worker to the community) I got to get down to someSemana Santa-ing myself.  We hadthe time off from Entrena, so we decided to spend some of the time down in theZona Colonial, since Santo Domingo was comparatively empty.  We explored, ate at Hard Rock Café as atreat to our one-month accomplishment, and went to a photo gallery.  I know that my parents must bedisgusted to hear that I went to Hard Rock Café, but hey, I live here now, andtherefore the strange food is American food.  After all, if I had to eat one more meal in a row thatconsisted of beans and rice I very well could have lost all my marbles.  So a burger rejuvenated me. 

On to the photo gallery.  It was fantastic.  It was a traveling gallery thathighlights the worldwide journalist photo awards.  While there were some really disturbing photos from the warsaround the world, and pictures of atrocity, there were some really positive andeven artistic photos, all of which were very powerful.  I had to remind myself that photos bothhave the power to move and the power to mislead.  It is funny how we see a photo and take that as truth.  I remember a Calvin and Hobbes cartoonwhere Calvin is taking a photo of his room, so he pushes all the clothes into acorner and takes a picture from a viewpoint that made it seem as though it wascompletely clean.  In this way,photos have the power to mislead. Some of the pictures that were at the gallery were taken in such acontext that it was hard to see what the true intention of the picture was.  When people are looking at pictures andtrying to understand them, it’s strange to think that an image can have manydifferent connotations.  However,this didn’t detract from the fact that I had a fantastic time seeing thepictures and spending some time with my American counterparts without worry ofcultural and lingual sensitivity (we all deserve a break sometimes).

And so brings us to my favoritestory from Semana Santa. The day after we went to Zona Colonial, we wanted tospend some time that night playing guitar and just hanging out.  When I told my family about it earlierthat day, they were fine with it. So finally the magic hour of 8pm came around, I grabbed my guitar, andwas off to play.  On the way outthe door, Irene came with me, and we saw some flashing police lights down theroad at the Colmadon (a big corner store/bar).  For those Dominicans that weren’t fortunate enough to go onvacation, the Colmadon had decided to plan a little party.  Well a little party here in the DRturns into a daylong drinkfest. The problem with this is that this year the police decided to try adifferent tactic to deal with the problem of thieves in the area during SemanaSanta.  Evidently, with everyoneout of town for vacation, it was prime pickings for the thieves.  For this, the police decided to enact acurfew at 6pm for people to be off the streets, and if they were on thestreets, to only stay right in front of their houses.  When the police would come down the street, they would tellthe people to go into their houses in order to prove that they livedthere.  That way, anyone walkingdown the street had better have a very good excuse to be out, or the policewould simply arrest them and take them to the station, no matter if they weredoing bad things or not.  So backto the Colmadon.  At 8pm there wasstill a very large crowd dancing and drinking into the night.  The police decided it finally time tobreak up the party.  Well sincepeople had been drinking all day, they weren’t too excited to be told to gohome, especially at 8pm.  A coupleof guys got a little confrontational with the police, and few punches werethrown by both sides, but the whole thing ended up with a police officer firingshots into the air with his gun. People started to run everywhere. As Irene and I were standing in front of the house, we were spectatorsto the entire thing.  At first, wedidn’t see that it was a cop shooting into the air, so we thought there wassome really crazy stuff going on. Thankfully, it was just a cop doing what I believe is a ratherirresponsible act.  12 people werearrested, basically randomly, and taken away.  The thing that really sucks about that is that the jail isonly open to drop people off, and not to process them.  So no matter what happened, the peoplehad to stay there for 3 days while they waited to work to resume so they couldget out.  One of the unfortunate 12was one of our neighbors.  He wasjust walking by and became the perfect example of “wrong place, wrongtime.”  His very pregnant wife camewalking by crying and needless to say wasn’t too happy with the situation.  I never did find out what happened withhim before I was to leave Santo Domingo. 

What an interesting religiousholiday I had here.  From crazy,extravagant Mass to drunken parties with gunfire, it was a successful Easterseason here in the DR.  Now I’mheaded out to the Campo for the next month to see how life is in the ruralsetting, as well as get all of my technical training.  I am a bit nervous about it, but excited too.  I am more than ready to leave the citybehind, but the question is if I’m ready to be living in the sticks!  Guess the next entry will be a littlebit interesting!

Day 33 – El Campo – Arenoso, DR 3/29/08

            Thetrip here to the Campo was more than interesting.  First came the bus ride from Santo Domingo to Santiago.  It was supposed to only be about atwo-hour ride, but due to some unanticipated problems it was a bit longer.  First off, before we even started tohead out, something quite humorous happened that should have tipped me off thatthis was going to be a strange ride. We took our seats on the bus, and I was sitting with Mica.  She saw the scar on my arm and asked mewhat happened.  I explained thatwhile I wish I had a cool story about it, I simply ran into a tree.  Then out of the corner of my eye Inoticed something.  There was aDominican boy, probably of 17 or 18 years, that was pointing to my arm and thenpulling up his sleeve to flex his muscle. I had no idea what the hell he was doing.  After pondering what the deuce, I realized that he wastrying to compare our biceps.  Micawas a bit weirded out, and I thought it was hilarious.  Here I couldn’t even really have aconversation with this guy, and hadn’t said a single word before, and he wastrying to have a muscle contest with me. Now truth be told, this kid had bigger muscles than myself, so I supposehis point was made.  So thatexperience was an indicator, but the true weirdness was still to come.

            Afterabout an hour on the bus, which by the way was a beautiful trip through themountains, I started to hear some commotion coming from just a few rows behindme.  A Dominican woman started toyell about something or other I couldn’t understand.  Evidently she had lost her wallet, which turned into thefact that someone stole it.  Nowthis woman was not going to let this go. She stood up in the middle of the isle and starting yelling.  Now about half of the bus was PeaceCorps people, and pretty much none of us knew what the hell was going on.  She started accusing various peoplethat were sitting around her, and then ended up calling the police from hercell phone.  The people that shewas accusing weren’t exactly happy with the situation, all of us Americans werecompletely confused, and the other Dominicans thought it was the funniest thingthey had ever seen.  Personally, Iwas just scared shitless that a blue wallet was going to turn up under my seator in my bag or something.  I didnot want to incur the wrath of this very pissed off Dominican woman.  So after about 20 minutes of drivingwith this raving woman, we pulled over where there was a police officer.  The officer got on the bus, and pulled offthe woman that was sitting next to the loony toon and searched her stuff.  Needless to say, she wasn’t happy aboutit.  The other Dominicans continuedto laugh their asses off about the situation.  While the woman was outside being searched, the loony toonmade the comment that “I’m going to kill me an American if I don’t get mywallet”.  Sweet.  Fortunately for us, Americans arepretty well loved here so half the bus took offense on our behalf and beratedher for the comment.  And even moreluckily, no Americans on that bus were to die that day. 

            Afterabout 30 minutes on the side of the road, we were underway again.  The woman who lost her wallet sat infront, as the accused woman sat back in her seat.  I suppose that would have been an awkward ride if they satnext to each other.  Well when thelady that was accused got off the bus, she walked by the looney toon and said,“Remember my face, because I will remember yours”.  Wow.  Did Ireally just see a threat like that? I mean, I suppose she had right to be pissed, but that was prettyintense to say that in front of a bus full of people.  Anyways, after all the fun, we arrived in Santiago.

            FromSantiago we got into vans to go into the mountains to our campos.  Like the guaguas, they fit as manypeople as possible, and then fit in a few more.  We were practically sitting on top of each other, and ourluggage was tied to the top of the van. If my stuff actually made it to our destination I was to be verysurprised.  It did!  Fantastic!  I got to Arenoso, and now up the mountain a couple minutewalk to my family.  Arenoso is avery small town.  There are no morethan 30 homes and 150-200 people living here.  On top of that, there are pretty much only 4 or 5 familiesthat make up the entire town.  Myhost family here just so happens to be the Dona and Don of the largest familyin town.  Think of them as the headof the family from the Godfather movies. They are the nicest people. As soon as I met them, they kept telling me that this was not theirhouse but mine.  Dona Romona is 65years old and her husband Don Octavio is 76.  They have a very typical quaint house that has the mostbeautiful surroundings I have seen. I am in a mountain village that has such lush foliage and beautifulscenery.  I feel so lucky to behere. 

            However,after just a few minutes of being here and thinking how lucky I was, disasterstrikes.  They say that everyvolunteer in the Peace Corps has a time, and my time was now.  After lunch, I got the worst case ofthe poops that I have ever had.  Itwas unbelievable.  I didn’t evenknow that it was humanly possible to do what I was doing.  The second I thought it was completelyempty, the stomach would make some odd sounds and reload.  I know this is gross, but a part of theexperience, so deal with it!  Twodays I would make my living from the toilet seat, but at least now I have hadmy time.  It is time for me to passthat torch, and I must say I am not sad to pass it along. 

            Thefood here is actually pretty good. I was told before we came here that the campo has pretty bad diets andlacks variety.  Well as I was eatingthe same mean twice a day every day in Santo Domingo, it actually comes as animprovement here in the campo. Breakfast is normally a cheese or salami sandwich with fruit, coffee,and cocoa made from their very own cacao plants.  Yes, that is correct, I get the freshest possible chocolateimaginable.  It literally comes offthe tree, is dried, mashed, and made into my delicious hot chocolate I getevery morning.  Be jealous.  Lunch is the big meal of the day.  I eat rice, beans, fruit, and normallyeggplant, with the exception of occasional meat.  Dinner is what really rocks though.  I get scrambled eggs, salami, fruit,and bread.  Did I mention that theygrow their own coffee here as well? Take that Brant!  I get thefreshest possible coffee as well. Now that is Something Delicious. However, while the food is a bit different from Santo Domingo, the factthat they try to feed me enough food for 3 people holds true here as well.

            Sowe have a pretty basic schedule here in the campo.  Every day Monday – Friday we have Spanish class from 8-12,and then lunch with the families, followed by technical training at La Mansion,a training center for coffee growers, each afternoon.  It’s not bad at all. It sure beats the city. What is really fun though is what we get to do in our free time.

            Atnight, we basically get to do whatever we want to do.  It is fantastic. A couple of nights ago, we all went to a local colmado for a few drinksand to play Dominos.  All I can sayabout my Dominos skills is that I completely suck.  Dominos is like a national game here, and they are frickinprofessionals.  I put down a finchaand they tell me, “You shouldn’t have put down the 6/4 but instead the4/2.”  What the hell!?  How do they know what I have?  They can mathematically figure out allsorts of things.  They know howmany points they have won before the game is over.  So while I can hold my own against the other Americans, whenthe Dominicans sat down, the score was 218-0.  Shutout.  Howmiserable.  Oh well, I suppose I can’texpect to win against professionals when I just learned.  Also, a word of advice, don’t play onthe same team with a Dominican. They get pretty aggravated that the dumb American isn’t playingwell.  The woman I played withpretty much hates me.  Oh well, youcan’t win ‘em all, and in my case, you can’t win at all.

            Lastnight pretty much all of the Peace Corps people here went to a party in anearby campo.  Now there are only19 of us here since we all divided up into our specialty groups for CBT (communitybased training).  There arestudents from Brown University in a campo near Arenoso that are helping with aclinic that a couple of American doctors started a few years back.  It was their last night, so the localsdecided to throw them a party to say goodbye, and all of the Peace Corps peoplewere invited as well.  It wasgreat.  Loud music, lots ofPresidentes, and hilarious dancing. I shook my booty a bit. Again, the Dominican men moved in on all the American women.  The funniest part was the brother ofone of the volunteers.  He is arather shy 17 year old that has a crush on this girl in my group, Jenna.  He was too shy to ask her to dance, soTim and I took him under our wings to build up his confidence to ask her.  It didn’t hurt that we took care of theanswer beforehand.  After about anhour of convincing, we asked her, she said yes, and they danced.  It was great, it was like making aDominican dream come true. Anyways, the party was a lot of fun.  The way home was interesting.  We had walked there, and of course therefore would bewalking home.  It was about a45-minute walk from the party to our houses, and about 30 minutes down theroad, one of the girls I was walking had her family pull up in a van and saidthey would take us home.  Sweet.  However, they decided they wanted to goback up the mountain to the party to see what was going on.  So after sitting in a van watching theparty for about 15 minutes we went home. On the way, there was a frickin huge snake in the middle of theroad.  Well the driver, the fatherof the volunteer’s family, didn’t care much for snakes just like me.  He ran it over, stopped, backed overthe snake again, and repeated about 6 times.  It was hilarious. One time just isn’t enough. Nothing that even resembled a snake remained, which must have meant histires were pretty gross, but I decided not to think on it too much.

            Andthus it brings us to today. Saturday, my first completely free day in the campo.  I got up and was welcomed with a hugebreakfast.  After, Junior, one ofthe sons in my family, offered to take me up the mountain, which I had beendying to do.  We prepared and goton our way.  I didn’t know what Iwas getting myself into.  I thoughtit was just going to be a hike, but we ended up doing some hardcoreclimbing.  He should be aguide.  This guy is a Man’sMan.  We were following a stream upthe mountain, and he all the sudden stops, rips up a huge rock, and plunges hisarm down into the mud.  A fewminutes later he lifts up a huge crab! I couldn’t believe the size of this sucker.  It was amazing. Not to mention that it took a nice chunk out of his finger during theirbattle.  He got 2 more after thatone, so I suppose that it’s crab night in my casa.  Well the trek up the mountain took about 2 hours, and it wasamazing.  The best views,completely surrounded by untainted nature.  Hopefully I will be able to post my pictures soon, because Ihave some great ones. 

            Soafter being here in the campo for a few days, I love it.  The only thing that sucks is that mycell phone gets no reception in my town, so communication is hard, but I guessthat was a bit expected.  I justhope that Haley is ok with it! Sorry baby!  I know itsucks.  If the last week is anyindication, I should have some very interesting times here.  In fact, tomorrow I am going to my veryfirst cockfight.  Should be anexperience.  Tell you about it later!