Complicated Traveling

A blog post by Adam. In celebration of Melissa's birthday we decided to go away for a long weekend to the Samana Peninsula. It would be our first multi-day trip on our own in the DR. We wouldn't have Mina's guiding nor driving support. It would just be us, our backpacks and a bunch of buses.

The decision to make the trip, however, wasn't so simple, and not only because we would be without Mina's direction. Our time volunteering, and particularly Melissa's experience at the grassroots organization, has changed us. At this point in our time here, we have met so many people who struggle to just get by. We haven't just seen them on the road or spent an afternoon with them. We have gotten to know them.

Melissa's coworker, for example, makes about $300/month (not an uncommon wage in the DR). She spends a third of her monthly salary on transportation costs to and from university, another large percentage on supporting family members and the rest on trying to pay monthly bills. Melissa's coworkers and most of the people at the Clinic have never been to Samana. They can't afford it. Could we justify such a trip? We debated. We struggled. We decided to go.

We caught our first bus from La Romana at 7:00 am. After another bus ride, a truck ride, a kilometer walk, and $30 in transportation fares, we arrived at Ecocampo La Sangria. It was incredible. Situated in the middle of a large pineapple farm, we had our own secluded cabin at the end of a guava tree lane. Lizards, frogs, and birds abounded and we felt a world away from La Romana. Plus, the grounds included a small swimming pool, and the price included a gourmet breakfast and dinner. All of this for just $50 a night.

As if the food and accommodations weren't enough, the Ecocampo was located just up the hill from Playa Rincon, which is apparently the second most beautiful beach in the world. We borrowed two barely functional bikes and snorkels and headed to the beach. We were not disappointed. The beach was amazing, but just as incredible as the beach itself was a fresh water river emptying into the ocean at the beach's edge. We walked up the river and then snorkeled down toward the sea. I couldn't see much because I'm blind without my glasses, but what I did see seemed impressive - tons of fish, rocks, moss, various underwater plants, and mangrove roots combined to create and underwater kaleidoscope of colors and textures. After the snorkel we ate freshly fried fish and drank a Coco Loco on the beach for about $20. We relaxed and reflected on the perfect day.

Playa Rincon

Melissa, biking to the beach.

The following day we took a tour of the surrounding farm, including a break to milk the cows.

The pineapple farm.

Adam milking.

After our morning farm tour we took a few more buses to Las Terrrenas at the other end of the peninsula. A town overrun by Europeans, we enjoyed beach time and a hike to an incredible waterfall. 

On the final night of our trip, we went out for a $5 drink at a restaurant right on the beach. We watched the moonlit waves crash onto the beach as our thoughts again returned to our lives in La Romana. Despite the fact that this very beach is only four hours (in bus) from La Romana, most of our coworkers will never see it over the courses of their lives. How strange it feels to spend our days working with people who are so committed to improving their country, and then go off for the weekend to parts of their country they will never know. We spent about $250 during our four days (bus rides alone cost $75). This is clearly beyond the budget of most people we know. 

We thoroughly enjoyed our trip at same time that we felt just as conflicted about it at the end as we had at the beginning.  We never imagined that volunteering and knowing a place and its people would make traveling so much more complicated. We have more trips planned. We wonder, how will we (and our coworkers) feel next time we pack our backpacks and hit the road?

Charlie Thompson's Paradise

A blog post by Adam. Charlie Thompson, the same Oregonian Peace Corps Volunteer (PCV) that stocked our kitchen when he left the country, also left us with the key to the end of our five day adventure with Jorge and Mina: Sereno de la Montaña.

Although it was Charlie's favorite place in the entire country we had to admit we were a little skeptical. Charlie was incredibly generous and kind, but like many PCVs he lived comfortably with seemingly few material comforts. He slept on a mattress on the floor with no bed frame. He constructed his kitchen table from an abandoned piece of plywood. He appeared happy to eat anything placed in front of him. We figured his favorite place would be beautiful (being from the Northwest he had to know beauty when he saw it) but we also wondered if this forest getaway would feel more like camping than hoteling.

Well, Charlie, we never should have doubted you. We think we too have now found our favorite place in the DR. Sereno de la Montaña was incredible. It was simple, but comfortable and clean. From our deck we had an amazing view into the forest. 

The view at sunset.

The food was incredible, from Dominican standbys like yucca and beans and rice to more inventive fare including fried eggplant sandwiches. And then there were the excursions...a two hour inner tubing adventure down the river and a hike to a waterfall with an incredible swimming hole below.

Jumping into the swimming hole.

On top of all that we even got a mini dancing lesson from our guide, Angelica. And to everyone's surprise Jorge rose to the occasion, out-dancing all of us.

Jorge teaching Mina a few dance moves.

We had an amazing time and it was, without a doubt, the highlight of our trip. But that wasn't the only reason I was so impressed with Sereno de la Montaña. It was also impressive because its owners, managers, and employees were from the very small community where it was located. While we there, in fact, the community members held a meeting to determine the process of buying shares in the project. Too often we have seen just the opposite - foreign owned hotels with a few local service staff. This was something completely different. It was how we would hope tourism might be, good for the community and good for the tourist. Thank you, Charlie, for leading us to this paradise.

An Unexpected Rosh Hashanah

A blog post by Adam. If you've ever found yourself at a High Holiday service, or perhaps any religious service, flipping through the prayer book trying to determine how much longer the service will drag on for, then this is the blog entry for you. It kind of goes on and on, unfortunately with no page numbers, but fortunately with a few pictures. You might just want to skip ahead to the pictures...I will not be offended.

The day after our 27 Waterfalls mishap, Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year, began. We found ourselves in Caberete on the Dominican Republic's north coast. Only a few miles down the road lies Sosua, where we hoped to spend Rosh Hashanah. Now well known as a sex tourism destination, it isn't exactly where you might expect to find one of the DR's two synagogues (the other synagogue is located in Santo Domingo).

Although a long time village, the town as it is known today was actually founded in the early 40s by Jewish refugees fleeing the Holocaust.  At the Evian Conference in 1938, where the world discussed the fate of the Jews, the DR was the only country to officially accept Jewish refugees. While the Nazis wanted to get rid of the Jews because they weren't quite white enough, Trujillo hoped the Jews might help whiten up the DR. It wasn't exactly where Europe's Jews expected to settle but sometimes you gotta take what you can get. Trujillo had big plans to make the DR far less brown and he offered 100,000 visas to Jews. Incredibly, whereas Jews were stripped of citizenship in Europe, they became Dominican citizens as soon as they arrived in the DR. In the end, only about 350 Jewish families settled in Sosua, and Trujillo's dream of a white DR never quite materialized. Many of the Jews who did come moved on after the war, and of those who stayed, many have now died. Nevertheless, the synagogue still stands.

About a week and a half before Rosh Hashanah, I began calling Sosua's Jewish community to find out about their Rosh Hashanah service schedule. The woman I talked to said that they were still trying to decide what they might do. I called back a few more times and she said it was still unclear what might happen. With no word about services, and the holiday set to start in ten hours, we decided to show up at the museum and synagogue. The woman I had spoken to graciously greeted us, but still didn't know what was going to happen. She promised to call. We knew things are pretty laid back in the DR, but this seemed a bit excessive, even by Dominican standards.

As we anxiously awaited a call about services, we were getting many calls from an unexpected source - the staff at 27 Waterfalls. They called after we left the visitor's center, where Melissa had fallen, to make sure we made it to the hospital. As we were on our way to visit Sosua's Jewish Musuem, they called to see how she was doing, and to inform us that we could submit her hospital bills to their insurance. Later when they called to check-in once more they said they had arranged for free admission to the Cabarete caves to make up for the fact that we never experienced the waterfalls. It may have been the best customer service I have ever experienced. We arranged to visit the caves on Rosh Hashanah afternoon.

And then, just when I had given up on services we got the other call. It was 4:30 pm. Services would start at 6:30 pm that night. We made it to services about 45 minutes late, but as expected, they weren't close to starting. Services were quick, but far more interesting were the post service conversations with some of the founding members of the community and their descendants. One man who was a small child when his family fled Europe noted that it had been a difficult transition for his parents, but for him and other kids growing up on the undeveloped beaches of the DR's north coast was a tropical wonderland.

And a tropical wonderland it was. We had our Rosh Hashanah lunch outside next to the hotel pool. We then visited the caves, two of which had small pools where we could swim. 

Mina, floating in a cave.

We ended Rosh Hashanah at an empty beach where we did Tashlich, a symbolic casting away of our sins. 

Mina, Melissa, and I at the beach, enjoying a granola bar after Tashlich.

The DR's north coast had become an unexpected refuge for Jews fleeing the Nazis. And for us, who have been lucky to live in an era of relative Jewish safety, the north coast provided an unexpectedly rich Rosh Hashanah - from meeting Holocaust survivors, to benefiting from extreme Dominican customer service, to spending time reflecting on the year past with family.

One Fall

A blog post by Adam. The plan was to jump down 27 waterfalls. Instead we had one fall, and then a rapid ride to a Puerto Plata emergency room.

This story, however, starts hundreds of kilometers away at Iberia, Melissa and my supermarket of choice in La Romana. It's big and it's cheap, perhaps only surpassed in value by the reputedly super inexpensive Cristo Viene, which we have not entered for obvious reasons ("Cristo Viene" means "Christ is coming" and I personally don't want to get caught in the produce aisle when Jesus shows up). Iberia sells groceries, clothes, electronics, medications, hardware supplies, and more. It has a good selection of imported and local products. It's only rival in town in terms of selection is Jumbo, La Romana's premier supermarket. 

Jumbo and Iberia differ in four significant ways. First, Iberia crams the same amount of merchandise as Jumbo in half the space.  Second, Iberia's prices, particularly for fruits and vegetables, are often half those of Jumbo's. Third, unlike at Jumbo, it sometimes feels like half the produce at Iberia is partially decomposed. Fourth, possibly due to either the space differences or the price differences, Iberia always seems about 54 times more crowded than Jumbo. Hopefully Iberia's unique place in the world is now clear. It's like Fred Meyer. Kind of.

Understanding Iberia's advantage (rock-bottom prices) and disadvantages (narrow overstuffed aisles, questionable quality, and crowds) we decided to check out their selection of water shoes, required equipment for conquering the 27 waterfalls (www.27charcos.com). And as expected, they did indeed have water shoes for the reasonable price of $5 per pair. I grabbed a blue pair, Melissa went with red. We felt good about the price.

A week and five hour drive later we found ourselves at the 27 waterfalls visitor center. We were with Mina and her husband Jorge, who was visiting the DR for a week. After eating our egg salad sandwiches and waiting out a torrential downpour we went to put on our swim suits and water shoes. Seconds after Melissa went off to change, Mina came running out yelling at me to come to the visitor center lobby. Melissa had put on her water shoes, taken one step in the bathroom, and fallen hard on the back of her head and elbows. The extremely cheap water shoes were lik eice skates on the slick bathroom floor. Melissa was in tremendous pain and everyone was concerned about her.

We decided Melissa had to see a doctor to make sure everything was OK beneath her throbbing skull. We hopped in the car and drove 30 minutes to a Puerto Plata hospital, where Melissa had a CT scan and everything luckily checked out OK. It was scary and Melissa continues to have lingering soreness. My fascination with good deals had not paid off. For probably the millionth time in my life, it had not paid to go cheap. I continue to feel bad. And I also continue to shop at Iberia. How difficult it is to change my ways.

It's good to be around family

A blog post by Adam. Yesterday was my maternal grandfather's 15th yahrzeit, or 15th anniversary of his death. Since my sister Mina and I live in the same building we decided to gather to remember our Grandpa. Both of our partners joined us as we lit a yahrzeit candle and shared stories.

Grandpa was an amazing person. An engineer, a fisherman, a woodworker, a classical music aficionado, a man totally committed to the Jewish community and our family. He was always so patient with us, whether we were working together in his wood shop, or trolling for trout on Lake Washington. He would spend hours just listening and talking to us. And whatever we did, he believed in us. If there ever was the perfect grandfather, it was him.

And though fifteen years has passed, he came back to life in our sharing. He was with us. As we recalled Grandpa's final computer publication - a sign welcoming Ari home from Israel - our eyes welled up with tears. Melissa and Jorge comforted both us, but looking across the table at Mina I felt so lucky. So lucky to have been able to remember one of my heroes with family, with someone else who truly understood where I was coming from.

Yesterday suddenly made me see my time in the DR differently. I still don't know if Dominican culture is a perfect match for my personality.  I don't know if I'll ever really become fluent in Spanish. I don't know if any of my projects at the clinic will have much impact on the DR, or the clinic for that matter. And I certainly don't know if my endless attempts to make Dominican beans will ever result in anything that is more than just slightly edible. But what I do know is that living downstairs from my sister for 7 months may be one of the greatest experiences of my life.

Fleeting Friends

A blog post by Adam. I've been volunteering at the clinic for eight weeks and in that time I've already seen twenty international volunteers come and go.

Most of the other volunteers are students from Columbia University, either from the medical or nursing schools. They've generally come to the clinic for about a month and work on various projects, from helping with various research studies to helping with promotional and educational materials. They also spend a good amount of time shadowing doctors and other clinic staff.  I've enjoyed meeting the students and they have generally impressed me with their strong work ethic and interest in the clinic.

This constant stream of students is somewhat overwhelming. I was just getting to know the first group of students when they left. And then there were the international camp volunteers who came and went. Now, just as I learned the names of a group of eight nursing students they too left. How strange this must be for the clinic staff, as so many groups have filtered through the clinic over the years. It seems like it might make the staff's work more difficult and the patient experience less comfortable but perhaps at this point the constant ebb and flow of students has just become another part of the clinic environment, like the clinic's intermittent Internet.

For me it's been a great opportunity to meet a wide range of interesting intelligent young adults (most of the students are in their mid twenties). Unfortunately, in such short time frames, it has been impossible to to really becoming friends with any of them.  For example, Charlie's exit, which was the first departure I experienced, feels like a missed opportunity. A Peace Corps Volunteer from the Northwest, he was funny, smart, and generous. He liked the outdoors and yucca, and actually recommended a rustic eco-lodge where we'll be staying during our upcoming trip with Jorge and Mina. Charlie also gave us a ton of things as he cleaned out his apartment, which we have thoroughly enjoyed (Thanks Charlie!):

A sampling of the loot from Charlie

I think Charlie and I could have become friends, but alas he left 10 days into my volunteer assignment. I was left with hopes for what might have been along with many of his belongings. It makes it hard to invest a lot in relationships with other students knowing that they too will soon leave (although my understanding is that several of the incoming students will be here for much longer stints). With our temporary stay in the DR quickly passing I can't help but wonder if Dominicans look at us like I now look at the other volunteers. And how will this impact our ability to make real friendships, with foreigners and Dominicans alike?

4X4 to Laguna Limón

A blog post by Melissa. A couple of weekends ago, Mina, Adam and I took a road trip in the clinic's 4WD truck to the north of The DR to kayak on Laguna Límón and stay at a rustic ranch. It was a three day weekend because Friday was Restoration Day, which celebrates the DR's second independence from Spain (I know, it's complicated, but if you're really confused, consult Wikipedia). The landscape was beautiful with lush rolling hills. 

The view on the way to Miches

Before we arrived at the ranch, we stopped in the coastal town of Miches and had a picnic lunch in the city's park. We then visited an artisan sanctuary and workshop. The founder, Cayuco, wasn't home, but his wife, April, welcomed us with open arms and showed us around. In the ceilings, walls and floors their was art. The kitchen was open to the air and had a deck that overlooked the river. April said that sometimes she kayaks out to the ocean from the river to watch the sunset. She probably needs the R and R because her three year old was a bit out of control. His name was Mayo and in the short time we were there, he urinated off the balcony onto the first floor patio and then spilled an entire plate of sliced avocados on the living room floor. 

The front of the main house at the entrance of the school.

Mina and Adam with Isidro, one of Cayuco's apprentices. They are standing in front of Cayuco's many carvings.

Saturday morning we went on a five hour kayak trip with Kayak Limón. It's a small eco-tourism guide company started by a Peace Corps volunteer. Actually, we were the first group of tourists they had that were not other Peace Corps volunteers. I think the main challenge for this organization is that no one really knows about it. But it's also really far off the beaten path. It was great for us. We paddled from Laguna Limón right out to the beach.

Our guide found coconuts for us on a nearby tree and chopped them open with a machete. First we drank the coconut water and then ate the meat inside. Delicious!

Here is Mina and our guide in the "Mangrove Cathedral."

On Sunday, we stopped by Playa Esmeralda. The road to get there was filled with puddles the size of lakes and hundreds of potholes. Mina put the four-wheel drive on and got us there and back in one piece. In fact she was four-wheel driving it nearly the entire trip. It was one big, bumpy and muddy ride.

Playa Esmeralda is one of the longest stretches of undeveloped beach in The Dominican Republic. We were the only ones there and the water was bathwater warm and calm. Our kayak guide told us that there are already plans underway to develop this beach as soon as a highway connecting it to the nearest city are complete. But until it is developed, it is a quiet little treasure that we were lucky enough to enjoy.

Way off the beaten path, Playa Esmeralda has a crescent shaped beach with a large pool of shallow water and mellow waves. 

The challenge of living (and washing)

A blog post by Adam. We've been back in the DR about a month and a half since our trip to the US. And of the many things that have struck me since returning to our temporary tropical home, nothing has been more ever present than the difficulty of life here. Unless you are among the super wealthy elite, most daily tasks are just more challenging than in the US.

Sometimes there isn't electricity and on rare occasions there is no water. When there is water it is always cold, including in the shower. And sometimes we get unsolicited water (and bugs) entering our glassless windows during torential downpours. Baking isn't possible because like many (perhaps most) Dominicans we do not have an oven. 

But nothing epitomizes the challenge of daily life like washing clothes...and we have a washing machine (sort of). Washing here is a several step process....

First we put our washing machine out on the sidewalk in front of our house. Next we fill manually fill the washing machine with water, soap, and clothes.

After the machine "washes" the clothes, we take out the clothes for the rinse cycle (i.e. put the clothes in a bucket of clean water and rinse them by hand).

Once the clothes are more or lense rinsed we dump the sudsy water into the drain in front of our apartment so that it can drain into the street.

From here the clothes goes into the washer's second chamber - the spinner.

After spinning for 5 minutes, we put it in a bucket and hang it up on the roof to dry. Usually within a couple hours it is dry and ready to go.

Given our space challenges and our economical ways we further complicated an already complicated situation by buying the smallest and cheapest washing machine we could find. For this reason we are only able to wash one sheet at a time, or maybe a couple towels at once. It leads to a lot of loads and a lot of time. Following camp, Melissa cleaned our entire home and made two meals while I spent at least four hours straight on 15 loads of laundry (not including the time waiting for the clothes to dry). Just another long Sunday morning in the sunny DR. 

Back from camp

A blog post by Adam. We've been away from the blog because we've been away from everything...from our phones, from television, from the Internet, from daily salads, from contact with family and friends. For fifteen days we were away...at summer camp.

Campamento Esperanza y Alegría (http://camphopeandjoy.wordpress.com/), or Camp Hope and Joy, is a summer camp for kids with HIV sponsored by the clinic where I'm volunteering. In its ninth year, the camp hosts 80 kids over a two week period, with younger kids coming the first week, and adolescents arriving the second week.  Melissa and I were among ten international camp counselors, which included five Peace Corps Volunteers, and five additional Americans. The rest of the staff were Dominican.

The camp was like the major leagues of Dominican culture. In other words it was like the DR on steroids. The joy. The dancing. The singing. The starchy carbohydrates. The power and water outages. The yelling. All of it was bigger, more colorful, and a whole lot louder.

The bus ride from La Romana set the stage for fifteen days of souped-up Dominican life. The music blared full blast while one person played the drum, and another played a güira (a metal Dominican percussion instrument). Everyone spilled out into the aisle and the dance fest commenced. It was, well, like nothing I had ever experienced.

By the time the campers arrived after three days of preparations we were starting to get our Dominican  groove on.  The kids, however, really pushed us over the edge. Their enthusiastic energy coupled with their incredible dance moves took the camp to a whole new level. They were so much fun and they were so exhausting. 

Still, what stuck me most was how loving they were to each other and to the counselors, regardless of how well we understood them. There were a few campers with disabilities...deafness, developmental delays, and physical disabilities. And rather than facing ridicule and abuse, the typically developing campers treated them with respect and love, particularly when they performed in the talent show - the loudest cheers were always for the kids with disabilities. It was a wonderful display of the very loving Dominican culture.

Nevertheless, as each week of camp came to a close, the underbelly of Dominican life emerged, just as much on steroids as the rest of camp. This was the harsh reality facing so many of the campers back at home. Many had lost one or both parents to HIV. One evening a camper asked which counselors would return, knowing that many us would not be back next year. Sadly, for some, camp's ever changing counselors mirrored the lack of consistent adults they experience in their lives outside camp. For others, returning home meant limited access to food - one camper told me he often didn't take his morning HIV medications because he did not have the breakfast that was supposed to accompany the pills.

It was a bittersweet ending to what had been a great week for the campers. Tears filled the eyes of the younger campers as their bus pulled away from camp. And in their own way, the older campers seemed sad that the camp had passed by so quickly. For me, it been had a great learning experience and yet another reminder of the tremendous joy and sadness that seem to be so ever present in the DR.

Race

A blog post by Adam. I woke up a week ago Sunday to the unfortunate verdict in the Trayvon Martin murder case. Given all I had read over the previous three weeks, I wasn't surprised. In fact I would have been shocked if the jury had found George Zimmerman guilty. Still, I was disappointed. Reflecting on racism in the US made me think about race in the Dominican Republic.

Much like in the US, race isn't a very popular discussion topic here. It has come up on a few rare occasions. For example, one of Melissa's teachers in Santo Domingo denied that racism existed in the DR. And then there was the time our socialist host brother talked about the racist policies of Trujillo, claiming that Trujillo would have killed our host father had he been in the wrong place at the wrong time simply because our host father is too Black. Our host father politely disagreed with his son's assertions. Sometime later, at the Museum of the Dominican Man, our tour guide and Melissa's professor talked about how they both had really "bad" kinky hair. We tried to disagree but they said we couldn't understand because we had "good" hair. Since this last interaction more than a month ago, I've had very discussions about race with Dominicans.

So, strange as it may seem, I've learned most of what I know about race in the DR from a book written by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. of Harvard. The book is interesting although it seems to be based on a trip to the DR that was at most one week long (how much can you really learn about such a complex topic in such a sort time?) Among the book's most fascinating claims is that the majority of Dominicans define their race as Indio (Indian), despite the fact that within 100 years of Columbus' arrival to Hispaniola, there were no Indigenous people alive on the island. By American standards most people here today would be Black, but according to book, nobody wants to define themselves as Black (that's a term reserved for Haitians), so instead people identify as Indio.

I asked someone at the clinic about this, and he said he himself identified as white. He acknowledged that in the US he would clearly be African American, but because he had pale skin he was white in the DR. When asked about the term "Indio," he said it didn't actually mean "Indian" but was just a descriptive word for brown skin. He followed this up by saying that racism didn't exist in the DR, and that what might first seem to be racism was really just classism. Dominicans don't like Haitians not because they're Black, but because they're poor and from Haiti.  I wasn't convinced....

On my first day at the clinic where I'm volunteering, a man stopped me in the waiting room and asked if I would talk to him about his illness. I informed him that I wasn't a doctor and couldn't help him. I tried to convince him that the clinic's doctors were experts in their field and could provide excellent care. He said he didn't trust Dominican doctors, but realizing he was getting nowhere with me, decided to go ahead and wait for a Dominican doctor. Did he stop to talk to me because my clothes screamed successful physician or because I was white? If you've seen my wardrobe, you should be able to answer this question without thinking.

Then a few days ago, Melissa and I went to a see the local basketball team play - the Cañeros del Este. Last year they were Dominican champions. This year they are in last place. Still, we wanted to show our support, and so we bought the cheapest tickets they had - $2.50 per ticket. The arena was pretty empty, and we arrived early, so we wandered a bit and inquired about buying some Cañeros T-shirts. We were directed upstairs where we found nothing for sale. A few minutes later the man we first asked about the T-shirts told us to return downstairs. When we arrived downstairs we were handed two free shirts and directed to the VIP section of the stands, one row up from the court. It may have been the best $2.50 value of my entire life.

Adam poses with VIP swag from a recent Cañeros game.

With a nearly empty stadium, the upgrade to courtside seats made sense, but why give us free T-shirts? What made us VIPs? Could it be that we're white? 

I know the person I had spoken to at the clinic would say I received special treatment because I was American, but would I have received the same treatment if I was African-American? Would the patient in the clinic have approached me if I was Black? To both of these questions I think the answer is no - sadly both in the DR and the US.