I was sitting in a plastic chair in the galeria at the front of the house, working on this blog, when my don passed me carrying a slingshot. He
took a rock from the gravel driveway and shot it into the bushes. I asked what he was aiming for.
"There's a bird I want to kill."
"What kind of bird?"
"Un palmero."
I wasn't sure I understood. "The national bird of the Dominican Republic? Why do you want to kill one?"
"Because they taste good."
My don here in CBT is running for office and for the right reasons. He hopes to serve for the love of his community. He is decente y educado and here he was attempting to shoot his national bird. I couldn't help but laugh. I explained that in the US a person shooting the national bird would probably be arrested.
"¿Por qué?"
I explained that the bald eagle is "scarce," not knowing the word for endangered. He explained that there are mucho palmero in the RD and nobody worries about them. There's lots for them to eat here and so lots of them are eaten. He told me that if I brought a pair of bald eagles here in a cage, un varon y una hembra, there would be lots of them in no time.
I've never heard of anyone eating a bald eagle, except at legendary feasts where the rich and evil dine intentionally on endangered species. I don't know if this actually has ever happened. I just heard the story when I was in my early 20s and kept company with paranoid activists. Bald eagles, of course, became endangered due to environmental contamination. Toxins in the waters where they hunted accumulated in their food and thinned the shells of their eggs. They were as rare as unicorns when I was growing up. I didn't see one outside of a zoo until a few years ago when I saw one flying not far from the Golden Gate Bridge. If I'd taken a picture, I could have put it on a political flier.
DR environmental regulation and enforcement are surprisingly strong for the region - Haiti has effectively none and you can see the difference in outcome in photos taken from outer space - but it still lags behind the U.S. I am uncertain if bald eagles would thrive here but palmeros, for what they're worth, seem made of tougher stuff. I don't know if eagles taste good and am uninterested in finding out. Like most Americans, the idea raises feelings akin to sacrilege.
One of those quirky facts that stays in your mind long after high school history is that the US national bird was almost something more acceptably edible. Benjamin Franklin suggested the common turkey as an alternative. Turkeys, too, are native to the US and bald eagles were known to scavenge and occasionally steal from other birds - in addition to soaring majestically over the waters.
I imagine an alternative alternative universe like those in bad science fiction. There, some alternative American is hunting a turkey right now, his heart full of patriotism as he pulls back the slingshot.
Sunday, April 24, 2016
Monday, April 18, 2016
How to Play Dominoes
My wife and I own a set of dominoes with fruit on them instead of numbers. The set is called, both charmingly and obviously, "fruitominoes." We read that dominoes is a national pastime in the DR, so we packed our set. We have since discovered - though, it seems glaringly obvious now - that every Dominican household already has a set. If we do end up using the fruitominoes it will likely be in our own home, wherever that ends up being.
We played it once or twice before we left, but prior to that it had probably been 20 years since I last had. I hated it. It seemed stupid. Why would I want to spend time matching numbers that I drew randomly from a pile? It was something I did because I was expected to when we visited my grandparents. I would excuse myself to do something solitary as soon as I had the chance. At the time I was so busy being bored that I failed to notice two important facts about the game.
The first is that although the fichas (tiles) are dealt randomly, the outcome is far from arbitrary. As with all enduring games there is an element of chance but strategy and attention to detail matter. You can count dominoes the same way you count cards. This is not considered cheating. A skilled player will have a good idea of what is in the hands of the opposing players. In games of four, the players form teams of two sitting across the table from each other. You have to work together without communicating directly. I don't know the Spanish for "table talk" but it goes over here about as well as it does back in the US. Tile counting is all the more important with teams because you need to think about the best moves for two players. This is challenging for people who, like me, are unaccustomed to thinking in terms of limited probability and is all the more impressive considering that a good session of dominoes usually involves more than one round of cerveza.
The other important fact about dominoes is that the game doesn't really matter at all. It's nice if you know the rules - if you don't, Dominicans will gladly teach you - and better still if you are a skilled player but the most important part is the time spent together. The Spanish word for this is compartir, which means "to share." In practice, it's meaning has something common with our US notion of "quality time" but has additional subtlety. While substance is certainly appreciated, quantity matters too: confianza ("trust," the secondary product of compartir) accumulates like interest in a bank account. When you compartir, you soak up each others presence like a plant does the sun and from this a trusting relationship can blossom.
A key part of CBT is a performing a diagnostic in which you ask community members probing, sometimes nosy questions about their families, religion, how much they earn, etc. It makes perfect sense that in order to provide meaningful assistance to a community you need to get to know it first, but how do you get people to answer such intimate questions? One answer is dominoes.
During research for my community diagnostic, I spoke to the dueña (owner) of a local colmado - think of a corner store where people also drink and dance in the evenings. The colmado is across the street from where a friend lives. I've visited him there to work on projects and have shared meals with his host family. The dueña knows the doña of that household and, more importantly, she knows that the doña knows me. She also knows me because friends and I have passed many an evening at her establishment drinking cerveza and playing dominoes once our work is done. It's mostly us gringos but when there is an opening at the table we offer the spot to any Dominican who wishes to join us. She has sat across the table from me herself. When it came time to ask diagnostic questions she spoke openly about her community, her business, and herself because I had earned some confianza.
Compartir and confianza are key concepts in Dominican culture. They have been drilled into us during core PC training in a way that seemed redundant at first but I have since come to appreciate. In a society where the official systems, be they government or business, don't function as reliability as they should personal trust is that much more important. This could be a chicken/egg thing - maybe the systems don't work well because people put relationships above impartiality? - but it's too early for me to call and nothing I think I will be in a position to change. Right now, I am just really glad I learned to play dominoes.
We played it once or twice before we left, but prior to that it had probably been 20 years since I last had. I hated it. It seemed stupid. Why would I want to spend time matching numbers that I drew randomly from a pile? It was something I did because I was expected to when we visited my grandparents. I would excuse myself to do something solitary as soon as I had the chance. At the time I was so busy being bored that I failed to notice two important facts about the game.
The first is that although the fichas (tiles) are dealt randomly, the outcome is far from arbitrary. As with all enduring games there is an element of chance but strategy and attention to detail matter. You can count dominoes the same way you count cards. This is not considered cheating. A skilled player will have a good idea of what is in the hands of the opposing players. In games of four, the players form teams of two sitting across the table from each other. You have to work together without communicating directly. I don't know the Spanish for "table talk" but it goes over here about as well as it does back in the US. Tile counting is all the more important with teams because you need to think about the best moves for two players. This is challenging for people who, like me, are unaccustomed to thinking in terms of limited probability and is all the more impressive considering that a good session of dominoes usually involves more than one round of cerveza.
The other important fact about dominoes is that the game doesn't really matter at all. It's nice if you know the rules - if you don't, Dominicans will gladly teach you - and better still if you are a skilled player but the most important part is the time spent together. The Spanish word for this is compartir, which means "to share." In practice, it's meaning has something common with our US notion of "quality time" but has additional subtlety. While substance is certainly appreciated, quantity matters too: confianza ("trust," the secondary product of compartir) accumulates like interest in a bank account. When you compartir, you soak up each others presence like a plant does the sun and from this a trusting relationship can blossom.
A key part of CBT is a performing a diagnostic in which you ask community members probing, sometimes nosy questions about their families, religion, how much they earn, etc. It makes perfect sense that in order to provide meaningful assistance to a community you need to get to know it first, but how do you get people to answer such intimate questions? One answer is dominoes.
During research for my community diagnostic, I spoke to the dueña (owner) of a local colmado - think of a corner store where people also drink and dance in the evenings. The colmado is across the street from where a friend lives. I've visited him there to work on projects and have shared meals with his host family. The dueña knows the doña of that household and, more importantly, she knows that the doña knows me. She also knows me because friends and I have passed many an evening at her establishment drinking cerveza and playing dominoes once our work is done. It's mostly us gringos but when there is an opening at the table we offer the spot to any Dominican who wishes to join us. She has sat across the table from me herself. When it came time to ask diagnostic questions she spoke openly about her community, her business, and herself because I had earned some confianza.
Compartir and confianza are key concepts in Dominican culture. They have been drilled into us during core PC training in a way that seemed redundant at first but I have since come to appreciate. In a society where the official systems, be they government or business, don't function as reliability as they should personal trust is that much more important. This could be a chicken/egg thing - maybe the systems don't work well because people put relationships above impartiality? - but it's too early for me to call and nothing I think I will be in a position to change. Right now, I am just really glad I learned to play dominoes.
Monday, April 11, 2016
Catholicism, here and there
Since my last entry, I've left the capitol and moved to a medium sized pueblo of about 15,000 souls. I'm here for what is called CBT: Community-Based Training. Having learned the rules and been assessed for Spanish, the time has come for Peace Corp to teach me the job Iv'e been sent to do. I won't say much about this particular pueblo because (A) I can't and (B) I won't be here much longer.
My life here is similar to the resedencial in Santo Domingo - host family, days dominated by training sessions - but one thing that has changed is that I've begun attending Catholic mass every Sunday. I bitterly split with the Church of Rome in my adolescence - not long after my confirmation, which itself was not long after I was conscripted by my parents - but since then my spiritual outlook has evolved considerably and I am now far more simpático than when I was a rabid teenage atheist. I now recognize in the Church an authentic spiritual root hidden within the drawers of it's international bureaucracy. Even if we disagree on many particulars, I feel comfortable enough to accompany my doña to la misa like a good son.
Regardless of its ambivalent place in my life, the Catholic Church is a major part of life in the DR, so it makes sense that I should know it a little better. The padres showed up shortly after Columbus and it's been a major part of the Dominican spirit ever since. Catholicism is the official state religion in the DR. Catholic holidays are government holidays. The country shuts down for Semana Santa (Holy Week). The president required be Catholic - it's literally in the Constitution - and the warm that the current prez has shown towards Evangelicals (who are in ever increasing numbers here) has lead some Dominican conservatives to whisper that he is a closet Protestant, much like how American paranoids worry that Obama is secretly Muslim.
La misa is the same. I stand and sit along with the crowd. I skip eucaristía (communion) but throw a few pesos into the collection basket and exchange peace with the crowd. It feels good. On the morning of the day I write, this my dona and I sat in separate pews and she seemed really overjoyed to see me after 40 minutes of separation.
I pay close attention to the padre. It's great Spanish practice! During the homily, he he lectures the flock on their general disloyalty to the sacraments. It's true, while faithful (literally every guagua and taxi bears a banner attesting to the drivers trust in God) your average Dominican is not very devout. Semana Santa is mostly an excuse to go on vacation. In many communities, cohabitation is more common than marriage by church or state. Today, the padre takes pains to remind the flock that Protestants can't be padrinos (godparents) no matter how good they are at dominoes.
It is the only Catholic church I can recall without an imposing crucifix looming over the nave. There is a small one adjacent to the altar but behind it, in place of the suffering Christ, is a mural. It is ably painted, though in a style more reminiscent off a comic book than the renaissance. Above a banner reading "Resucitó!" Jesús hovers among white clouds, looking as powerful and healthy as Superman. He is exactly as white as I, the whitest person in the room. The angels that surround Him are nearly as white as the clouds in His painted heaven.
This interests me because Dominicans are a deeply mulato people. I know the English equivalent of that word is no longer polite in the US but Dominicans use it as a neutral description with no shame. There are of course, white Dominicans, but I there are none in this church and I've yet to see any in the pueblo. Virtually all the parishioners have clear African ancestry, with skin tones ranging from caramel to roasted coffee. There's a lot to say on this topic, but Dominican ideas about race, and its attendant landmines, will have to wait for another entry.
The parishioners are many. Unlike lots of churches I have been to in the US this place is packed. Every pew is full. Many stand in the aisle and those who were really tarde stand outside where the motos are parked. In Michigan, where I was born, some dioceses are so desperate that churches are being consolidated or closed altogether. Many churches are so vacant that they only have one mass a week, delivered by an itinerant priest who roams the parish like a regional auditor. This is partially because of the brain drain - like many of my educated peers, I left my home state for greener pastures - but I've seen it in thriving cities too.
In San Francisco I lived on a block mostly filled by a Catholic church. The attendant school was filled with White and Asian children whose parents were terrified of the public schools. Shortly before leaving, my wife and I met a young married couple who was new to the church. They told us that of the hundreds of children in the school, the only two or three of their families actually attended church. The priest was so excited to have new young family join that he wanted to feature them in the newsletter. This is a city founded as a Catholic mission and historically home to working class and Irish and Italians.
The simple fact is that young American men simply don't want to be priests and increasing numbers of Americans don't want to be Catholic altogether. In the suburbs of San Francisco, my mother-in-law attends a church predominantly filled by immigrants from Southeast Asia and Latin America.
I wonder if the DR is in for a similar shift in the near future. Protestants (Evangelicals, Mormons, Testigos de Jehova, etc.) are a growing presence. And the Church's eternal prohibition of female clergy poses another problem. In this church their are five altar girls assisting the priest. This may seem surprising in such a macho culture, but girls are conditioned to responsibility by traditional roles at home and better prepared to assist the padre. Boys take to Church about as well as they do to school (la delicuencía is a huge problem in the DR; that, and gender roles, warrant a later entry). The majority of the muchachos in the pews are young enough that their mothers can still drag them by their ears.
Given these conditions, I can see a future where the DR clergy is much like in the US. The priest, if young, is from Nigeria, the Philipines, or Vietnam. If he is native born he is very old. I wonder if the pews will still be full.
My life here is similar to the resedencial in Santo Domingo - host family, days dominated by training sessions - but one thing that has changed is that I've begun attending Catholic mass every Sunday. I bitterly split with the Church of Rome in my adolescence - not long after my confirmation, which itself was not long after I was conscripted by my parents - but since then my spiritual outlook has evolved considerably and I am now far more simpático than when I was a rabid teenage atheist. I now recognize in the Church an authentic spiritual root hidden within the drawers of it's international bureaucracy. Even if we disagree on many particulars, I feel comfortable enough to accompany my doña to la misa like a good son.
Regardless of its ambivalent place in my life, the Catholic Church is a major part of life in the DR, so it makes sense that I should know it a little better. The padres showed up shortly after Columbus and it's been a major part of the Dominican spirit ever since. Catholicism is the official state religion in the DR. Catholic holidays are government holidays. The country shuts down for Semana Santa (Holy Week). The president required be Catholic - it's literally in the Constitution - and the warm that the current prez has shown towards Evangelicals (who are in ever increasing numbers here) has lead some Dominican conservatives to whisper that he is a closet Protestant, much like how American paranoids worry that Obama is secretly Muslim.
La misa is the same. I stand and sit along with the crowd. I skip eucaristía (communion) but throw a few pesos into the collection basket and exchange peace with the crowd. It feels good. On the morning of the day I write, this my dona and I sat in separate pews and she seemed really overjoyed to see me after 40 minutes of separation.
I pay close attention to the padre. It's great Spanish practice! During the homily, he he lectures the flock on their general disloyalty to the sacraments. It's true, while faithful (literally every guagua and taxi bears a banner attesting to the drivers trust in God) your average Dominican is not very devout. Semana Santa is mostly an excuse to go on vacation. In many communities, cohabitation is more common than marriage by church or state. Today, the padre takes pains to remind the flock that Protestants can't be padrinos (godparents) no matter how good they are at dominoes.
It is the only Catholic church I can recall without an imposing crucifix looming over the nave. There is a small one adjacent to the altar but behind it, in place of the suffering Christ, is a mural. It is ably painted, though in a style more reminiscent off a comic book than the renaissance. Above a banner reading "Resucitó!" Jesús hovers among white clouds, looking as powerful and healthy as Superman. He is exactly as white as I, the whitest person in the room. The angels that surround Him are nearly as white as the clouds in His painted heaven.
This interests me because Dominicans are a deeply mulato people. I know the English equivalent of that word is no longer polite in the US but Dominicans use it as a neutral description with no shame. There are of course, white Dominicans, but I there are none in this church and I've yet to see any in the pueblo. Virtually all the parishioners have clear African ancestry, with skin tones ranging from caramel to roasted coffee. There's a lot to say on this topic, but Dominican ideas about race, and its attendant landmines, will have to wait for another entry.
The parishioners are many. Unlike lots of churches I have been to in the US this place is packed. Every pew is full. Many stand in the aisle and those who were really tarde stand outside where the motos are parked. In Michigan, where I was born, some dioceses are so desperate that churches are being consolidated or closed altogether. Many churches are so vacant that they only have one mass a week, delivered by an itinerant priest who roams the parish like a regional auditor. This is partially because of the brain drain - like many of my educated peers, I left my home state for greener pastures - but I've seen it in thriving cities too.
In San Francisco I lived on a block mostly filled by a Catholic church. The attendant school was filled with White and Asian children whose parents were terrified of the public schools. Shortly before leaving, my wife and I met a young married couple who was new to the church. They told us that of the hundreds of children in the school, the only two or three of their families actually attended church. The priest was so excited to have new young family join that he wanted to feature them in the newsletter. This is a city founded as a Catholic mission and historically home to working class and Irish and Italians.
The simple fact is that young American men simply don't want to be priests and increasing numbers of Americans don't want to be Catholic altogether. In the suburbs of San Francisco, my mother-in-law attends a church predominantly filled by immigrants from Southeast Asia and Latin America.
I wonder if the DR is in for a similar shift in the near future. Protestants (Evangelicals, Mormons, Testigos de Jehova, etc.) are a growing presence. And the Church's eternal prohibition of female clergy poses another problem. In this church their are five altar girls assisting the priest. This may seem surprising in such a macho culture, but girls are conditioned to responsibility by traditional roles at home and better prepared to assist the padre. Boys take to Church about as well as they do to school (la delicuencía is a huge problem in the DR; that, and gender roles, warrant a later entry). The majority of the muchachos in the pews are young enough that their mothers can still drag them by their ears.
Given these conditions, I can see a future where the DR clergy is much like in the US. The priest, if young, is from Nigeria, the Philipines, or Vietnam. If he is native born he is very old. I wonder if the pews will still be full.
Sunday, April 3, 2016
Residencial vs Barrio
Barrio is the Spanish word for neighborhood and when I first arrived in Santo Domingo, I used the word it to refer to the area where I live. My doña was quick to politely correct me that we live in a residencial, but my Spanish was so poor that I didn't ask why.
I have since learned the difference, and will share the distinctions that Dominicans value and some of my own observations.
If our residencial were in the United States, I would describe it as lower middle class. University professors (very well paid in the DR) live here but it's mostly populated by industrious people who often work more than one job and sometimes operate an informal business out of their home. The DR doesn't have much of a middle class at all so even the lower end is something that people are proud of.
The residencial is divided into irregularly shaped manzanas (literally "apples" but meaning "blocks") comprised of single family homes. These are universally one or two story structures with a cement patio fronting the street. There may be potted plants but nothing like a lawn. The entire premise - the windows, the doors, the driveway - is enclosed in hierro (iron bars), which are often so gracefully ornamented that you can almost forget their function. Virtually all are occupied, most by their owners, some by renters and some by semi-permanent housesitters paid by owners who live in the US. The road into the residencial is mediated by a portón (gate) with a wachiman (I'll let you guess about that one) who monitors incoming traffic.
Unlike gated communities in the US, several businesses and churches and schools exist within the enclosure, motoconchos (motorcycle taxis) come and go more or less freely, and chiriperos (street vendors) are permitted to enter so long as they present a cédula (national ID card). After 2 AM, the portón is locked and only vehicles with residential ID stickers are permitted to enter.
There is a junta de vecinos (neighborhood association) much like the Home Owners Association in my parents' subdivision, headed by a director (same spelling, different pronunciation) who is elected by common vote and serves a term of two years. The junta (this word means simply "group" and is used without any of the connotations of corruption that it has in the US) handles contracts with the wachiman and waste pickup, internal noise complaints, etc.
Unlike your garden variety American HOA the junta can manifest real political power. My doña tells me that our residencial used to be part of a larger billing group that included some neighboring barrios. During a drought the water company cut service because so many people weren't paying for service. The junta organized the vecinos to continue paying even though they weren't receiving any water and thus persuaded the utility to break off our residencial into a separate billing unit. Now, we enjoy regular water service two times a week during the rainy seasons, and at least once a week during the dry months.
In a barrio, it's different. There may be a junta and even a portón but, my doña warns me, it makes little difference. Todo el mundo (literally "the whole world") can come and go freely. Crímen, she says, is much worse, and if the neighbors play their music too loudly or too late there is no one to handle it (Dominicans don't bother the policía with such trivialities and don't trust them much in any case). Water and luz are less dependable. Already, some of my fellow Peace Corps Trainees who have been placed in the barrios have suffered water shortages, even though it is not yet summer. A house may lack a proper tinaco (water tank) and store water instead in barrels and plastic buckets.
I've visited PCTs in the barrios and it does feel different. Instead of only single family homes there are multi-story apartment buildings. There is more trash in the street (people in the residencial keep the fronts of their homes and businesses clean but no one takes responsibility for the common areas). Graffiti accumulates and one bothers to paint over it. There are less bars, but that may be because they cost so much.
It also feels more alive. The street life is more active and festive. PCTs from the barrios come to my residencial to enjoy a meditative morning jog and we go to the barrio when there is a party. The parties are modest and mostly temperate because PC does not permit us to walk the streets after 7 PM - we would have to take a taxi door-to-door, even if it's a short walk - and in any case we wouldn't want to scare our doña to death.
I have since learned the difference, and will share the distinctions that Dominicans value and some of my own observations.
If our residencial were in the United States, I would describe it as lower middle class. University professors (very well paid in the DR) live here but it's mostly populated by industrious people who often work more than one job and sometimes operate an informal business out of their home. The DR doesn't have much of a middle class at all so even the lower end is something that people are proud of.
The residencial is divided into irregularly shaped manzanas (literally "apples" but meaning "blocks") comprised of single family homes. These are universally one or two story structures with a cement patio fronting the street. There may be potted plants but nothing like a lawn. The entire premise - the windows, the doors, the driveway - is enclosed in hierro (iron bars), which are often so gracefully ornamented that you can almost forget their function. Virtually all are occupied, most by their owners, some by renters and some by semi-permanent housesitters paid by owners who live in the US. The road into the residencial is mediated by a portón (gate) with a wachiman (I'll let you guess about that one) who monitors incoming traffic.
Unlike gated communities in the US, several businesses and churches and schools exist within the enclosure, motoconchos (motorcycle taxis) come and go more or less freely, and chiriperos (street vendors) are permitted to enter so long as they present a cédula (national ID card). After 2 AM, the portón is locked and only vehicles with residential ID stickers are permitted to enter.
There is a junta de vecinos (neighborhood association) much like the Home Owners Association in my parents' subdivision, headed by a director (same spelling, different pronunciation) who is elected by common vote and serves a term of two years. The junta (this word means simply "group" and is used without any of the connotations of corruption that it has in the US) handles contracts with the wachiman and waste pickup, internal noise complaints, etc.
Unlike your garden variety American HOA the junta can manifest real political power. My doña tells me that our residencial used to be part of a larger billing group that included some neighboring barrios. During a drought the water company cut service because so many people weren't paying for service. The junta organized the vecinos to continue paying even though they weren't receiving any water and thus persuaded the utility to break off our residencial into a separate billing unit. Now, we enjoy regular water service two times a week during the rainy seasons, and at least once a week during the dry months.
In a barrio, it's different. There may be a junta and even a portón but, my doña warns me, it makes little difference. Todo el mundo (literally "the whole world") can come and go freely. Crímen, she says, is much worse, and if the neighbors play their music too loudly or too late there is no one to handle it (Dominicans don't bother the policía with such trivialities and don't trust them much in any case). Water and luz are less dependable. Already, some of my fellow Peace Corps Trainees who have been placed in the barrios have suffered water shortages, even though it is not yet summer. A house may lack a proper tinaco (water tank) and store water instead in barrels and plastic buckets.
I've visited PCTs in the barrios and it does feel different. Instead of only single family homes there are multi-story apartment buildings. There is more trash in the street (people in the residencial keep the fronts of their homes and businesses clean but no one takes responsibility for the common areas). Graffiti accumulates and one bothers to paint over it. There are less bars, but that may be because they cost so much.
It also feels more alive. The street life is more active and festive. PCTs from the barrios come to my residencial to enjoy a meditative morning jog and we go to the barrio when there is a party. The parties are modest and mostly temperate because PC does not permit us to walk the streets after 7 PM - we would have to take a taxi door-to-door, even if it's a short walk - and in any case we wouldn't want to scare our doña to death.
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