Racism~Noticias Continued

Ok first of all one of the classes I am taking is Dominican Haitian Relations. Although it hasn’t turned out to be as good of a class as I had hoped, I have learned a lot about the history of this island and the two countries that share it. This is in hopes that I can try to even begin to understand to unique situation of two drastically different cultures and countries sharing such a small island. It has been explained to us that we will not understand but this is the best way to start.

A frequent topic of discussion is the idea of race and skin color in this country. Officially the country does not identify different races (and therefore cannot have problems with racism). However the do very clearly identify skin color. There has been a history of leaders, namely Trujillo, trying the “whiten” the Dominican race. There is clearly a preference to lighter skin colors. Especially with the rich white image of North Americans. Well maybe not so clear. The Dominicans deny that this is true. The students in this class (majority from the states), me included have a hard time believing this. It seems that we are more sensitive to discrimination because of looks or background, probably because it has been beaten into us in the education system because of our history.

The UN began investigating the claims of racism in the country this last weekend. I had a really good conversation with my host parents the other night after seeing this on the news. It seems so obvious to me that it exists here and there is a problem. There were several girls in my group with dark skin, that have been denied into clubs until a white or someone with lighter skin entered with they and it was clear that they were from the US. My host parents flat out do not believe that racism is a problem here. It seems so black and white but is there a way that we can both be partly right?

Maybe it is the word ‘racism’. It seems sometimes that we use it interchangeable for discrimination, sometimes based on race or culture or even a unique situation. They can’t deny that there is discrimination against Haitians here, but they think that it is racism but because of the situation. I think racism to them is the situation of African American slaves in the US after slavery was abolished. The slaves came to the New World and US by force not by choice. ‘Racism’ is what ensued after that, the assimilation of the freed slaves into the culture. I can’t explain it much more than that because I don’t really understand it. Only that the situation is different now, and here. What I don’t think they understand is that racism has evolved with the times. The US definitely still has its problems with racism but not in the same way as during the civil rights movement or before. Now the major problem is with immigrants, a trickier situation. Without really getting into illegal immigration, I consider the generalizations that are made about all Hispanics or all the Mexicans come to this country illegally and deal drugs and create violence and take our jobs, racism. They felt it living in the NY for 10 years legally. I’m not equating it as the same but a similar situation here in the island of Hispaniola, they consider is not racism. The Haitians don’t respect the Dominican culture and they take jobs and just are looking for health care. I can understand the frustration when you lemon tree gets damaged because someone doesn’t know the proper way to pick a lemon. I can understand that the DR shouldn’t have the responsibility to take care of the neighboring country in drastically worse conditions than it’s self. But what I can’t understand are the other generalizations that I hear, even from my host parents in this conversation that the Haitians are all poor, smell, are hungry, don’t have homes, or jobs. My host dad even repeatedly used the work animal to describe them (granted both his wife and I let him have it for that one). There probably are people in the US that think that is the same as the DR. There is a lot of poverty here, many people are hungry and live without homes or jobs. Well I could go on. It was an interesting and insightful conversation and I was really pleased with my ability to get my point across in Spanish. Unfortunately not a resolvable topic.

These are my thoughts. I have been confronted with so many US cultural things here that I have to take a step back and really look at why I think I am right or my way is better, because sometimes I am wrong. Maybe the language is not right or the fact that their culture is more upfront and blunt, maybe it is the tricky situation, but there is evident violence and discrimination in this country that needs to be examined.

They side note is that last Friday I went a huge market at the Haitian boarder with this class, a location of many UN peacekeeping troops; and where the UN investigation began. They open the border every Monday and Friday for this market in Dajabon, the Dominican city. Lots of Haitians cross the boarder to buy and cell goods, things from new and used clothes, shoes, bags, toiletries, tupperware and dishes. There are Dominican vendors too but the merchandise is generally different. They usually cell food, fresh fruits and vegetables, meat, flour, rice beans, and bulk packaged juices, milk, and crackers. The physical border between Dominican and Haitians.

La República Dominicana en los noticias.

The DR has been in the news quite a bit this week. First the Caribbean was hit with a tropical rain storm. The heart of it passed over the south of the DR through the west of the island mostly in Haiti. The entire island has had rain for 5 days now. It rained nonstop from Sunday evening to Tuesday afternoon, and then only paused for a few hours before beginning again. For a country that supposedly gets a lot of rain they certainly aren’t prepared for it. I guess that comes with not having the money to invest in info structure. They have named several cities in the southwest, northwest and central of the country as disaster areas. The roads are flooded with water or destroyed. Lots of people are with out electricity. Hundreds of acers of agriculture have been ruined. More than 20 people have died due to various causes. Transportation in the city is still ok but between cities is dangerous and slow at best. So many roads aren’t paved and are going to be slow for…well a long time.

All of this is from watching the news. Besides all of the rain it really doesn’t seem that bad here. Nothing I haven’t seen before, lots of rain and a little bit of wind. It’s 75 degrees out and everyone is wearing pants and two sweaters complaining about how cold it is. I’m still in shorts and a t-shirt sitting under a slow moving fan. I have to say it has all of the rain has been a bit comforting. Although it’s still warm here, at least I’m not missing all of fall. I like clothes for this kind of weather, and being able to drink warm drinks and use a sheet or even blanket to sleep.

The thing is it doesn’t seem that rare to me. Our classes were cancelled Monday and Tuesday. I can only remember once in my life school was let out early because of a big storm. Even in Santiago, where we weren’t hit very badly, the people are worried about going out on the streets because of falling trees and electric polls. I feel fairly safe outside in a storm at home. Although I might rather sit inside and watch from a window, I wouldn’t be worried about putting on a sweatshirt and rain coat and walking to class. I had to be reminded that things are not the same here; safety is not the same. I got a lecture about not owning an umbrella. Although it is so practical, I have never owned one before. Dominicans believe that if you get wet from the rain you will get sick. Not even if you get inside soon and dry off, EVERY time you head gets wet from the rain you WILL get sick. The people here do not go out in the rain. There is a tradition when it rains like this everyone stays at home, no one goes to school or work, and eats sancocho (kind of like a stew) and drinks rum. We had sancocho…but no rum.

Another aspect of cultural differences, as well as a reminder that I am living in a developing country. I pray that no more damage will be done, as well as for the safety for those who have lost homes. It seems that those who have little to lose end up losing the most in unfortunate situations like these. I pray that help and support will end up in right places for people who need it.

Well there the DR has been in the news for another thing this week that actually relates to my trip this weekend and one of the classes that I am taking, but that will have to wait until later this week.

Work Retreat

I went on a work retreat this weekend. It felt so good to go away from the house and away from Santiago to do something. My health held up pretty well. I just got lighted headed a couple of times after standing or walking a lot with out water. This was definitely the most activity I have had since I was sick. As frustrating as it is to get tired before I should I was pretty happy with how my body handled the weekend.

We worked with a Peace Core volunteer in a batey only about an hr from Santiago. First a batey, originally constructed by sugar cane companies to house its workers during the harvest. The workers were not strictly but usually Haitian, and other foreigners. This was work that Dominicans don’t do. Considered modern day slavery, the men work 6 or 7 days a week 12 hrs a day, get paid about $2 for every ton of cane they cut. Barracks were constructed to house one man in every room. Now there are whole families living in each. Over the year the immigrant Haitians didn’t return to Haiti and so little towns grew in these bateys. Some of them still have harvest but in the last decade the sugar companies have plummeted. The world doesn’t use it the same any more. There are artificial sugars, and the US has such a big low sugar diet campaign. The DR use to produce almost all of the sugar for Europe but now they get some from other places and use other types of sweeteners. So the harvest have been less frequent or none at all. These towns were/are not constructed for the permanent residence that it has and the racism towards Haitians has lead to the government or anyone for that matter thinking these people even deserve better living conditions. This is poverty. The one we went to doesn’t have running water. Recently got electricity although only sometimes, and they pay more for it than the average Dominican. There are all kinds of health issues.

The Peace Core guy is a health volunteer. We worked with him to construct latrines. %60 of the people go to the bathroom in the cane fields which causes all kind of health concerns, namely from the back tracking that occurs because there isn’t any real designated location. We made six latrines on Saturday. Not exactly easy work in the sun but once we figured out what we were doing it picked up and in the end of the day we were successful. And some of the little kids would try to help, holding wood and nails. We had a lot of help from several of the guys who lived in the batey. We just built the latrine casitas, a group of men there dug the holes, and will continue to finish putting it all together. I was pleased with the project that we worked on. I really think this is something that the people want and will use. If they don’t understand or care about the health concerns, it is so much more convenient and closer. I have become critical of service type work like this. It is a lot harder to give valuable aid than it seems. It takes a lot of work to decide what the people really need and then to go about doing it in a way that will actually benefit them. There is so much more that needs to be done than building a latrine. If they have it but have no sense of ownership, it won’t get taken care of. If they don’t understand the value of it, it won’t get used. We only worked on a very small portion of this project, the easy part.

The whole situation was a little odd at times and I still don’t really know what to think about it. We get there the first day and pile out of this guagua nicely dressed with cameras. Jonathan, the Peace Core guy, gives us a poverty tour of the batey. I am interested in learning how they live, but I feel like I am exploiting their living situation for my own learning. As much as I can benefit from the experience it doesn’t seem right. Why do I deserve to be on this side of the glass in the situation that I am in? It doesn’t make it any better that I am horrible at small talk, in any language. The whole weekend was more for our benefit of the experience than the actual good or help we were giving. Those guys could have made the latrines in probably a quarter of the time, but they were suppose to let us to some of the work. Mostly the service we provided was donating the materials for these latrines. So much of volunteering is just this. The people volunteering are looking to benefit from the work, and this gets in the way of what they can actually give. Would it have been better for use to just donate the materials? At what point do people have the right to benefit from the life experience? I don’t know the answer to that, ‘cause I think that something like this can be very eye opening and there are a lot of people in the US, in the world that should probably have an experience with poverty. I want to spend my life serving, and I am more and more interested in working in developing countries, but it’s awkward, and hard. It’s a lot to think about, much from just living here, but new things from this weekend. I am inspired, skeptical, curious, confused.

Two adventures, one a lot more pleasent than the other.

There are two Dominican experiences to report. It has been a while since I’ve written an update.

Primero Samana!

An all inclusive group trip to an incredible 5 star resort! Includes two privet beaches three pools, all you can eat buffet and drink menu, its own dance club and work out center. It may not be exactly Dominican life, but a dream luxury vacation, complete with picture perfect palm trees and beaches.

Two highlights- A boat tour to el Parque Nacional de Haitices. We went into some isolated caves and man groves on accessible to by boat. I loved learning about the formation of the islands and the intricately carved caves. There were so many amazing views and images that couldn’t be captured on camera.

The second highlight for me was Sunday morning I walked into town with a couple of other girls from the group. The contrast of the town verses up on the hill is crazy. I just hope that even half of the people at that resort make it into the town to spend a little money and really see part of the Dominican Republic. We went to a little market area. A photographer’s paradise. There was this open market where everyone would bring whatever goods they had to sell, whether it be fish or chicken or rice or vegetables. There were so many people there selling and buying. After that we walked around in a little neighborhood. People started coming up to us asking if we would take their picture. It felt so good to just be with the people. It felt so much more like home than in that resort.

Segundo Dengue Fever!

First featuring, head aches, fevers, body pain, exhaustion. At this point there is little anyone can really do for you. Unfortunately this is the most painful and when the frustration of being in another country with another language and not at home in your mom’s arms (no I’m not ashamed that at 21 years old and this is all I wanted) sets in, all you want to do is break down and cry. Don’t worry there is an overbearing caring family to make sure that you feel really stupid because they think you are crying not cause you want your mommy but because you think you are going to die here. Don’t cry, everyone gets sick, don’t cry it’s not that bad you won’t die. NO YOU DON’T GET IT. I just hurt all over and want my mom to hold me…

Next is an all inclusive stay at a Dominican hospital. 4 nights with an IV lots of drugs and visitors. You will barely move except to go to the bathroom. All of your muscle and the body you worked so hard for will sadly get left at this hospital.

Ok so it wasn’t that bad. Yeah I got Dengue Fever. It wouldn’t be like me to miss out on the opportunity to learn first hand about Dominican healthcare. I survived and am now trying to cope with the idea that my body won’t let me do what I want. I’m sick of being stuck at home because I can’t walk 200 steps without getting light headed and tired. But everyone has been really great. My host family defiantly went out of their way to take care of me and still is. As frustrated as I was that they weren’t my real family they did the best job they could taking care of me. I have to say they have a lot of faith in magical juices. There always is a type of juice that my host mom can make that will fix anything wrong with me. I believe that eating nutritious foods can help your health but they talk it up like it has super powers.