The economic history of my town told in 7 houses

Before the Massacre

My mountain valley pueblo didn't used to be a Dominican town along the Haitian border. It used to be a sparsely populated part of Haiti along the border of the Dominican Republic. It's original name is Gabinzal, which I have been told translates to "dirty cane" in Haitian Creole.

When two very poor nations share a common rural border it is not uncommon for the line to be fuzzier in real life than it appears on the map. For much of it's history Haitian-Dominican border was  often in dispute, sometimes violently so. My town it didn't become a clear part of Dominican possession until after the Parsley Massacre of 1937 in which thousands of Haitians in the disputed territories were killed at the order of Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo.

Trujillo's continued to "secure" the border by building la careterra internacional (international highway) along the line on the map and building colonias ("colonies") of recently released prisoners and their families on the Dominican side. (I don't know how these men landed in prison but given Trujillo's penchant for locking up and/or murdering opponents I am willing to give them the benefit of the doubt). 

This was the beginning of the story of my town. The rest of it is told in the different types of houses you can see walking around town.

1. Trujillo House 


Old timers tell me that in those days there was a wall around the settlement. Inside the wall were 28 homes built by the government, with wooden floors and walls and zinc roofs.

This modest home may not be one of the originals but it has the same form. This is a classic "campo house" design that is seen all over the country in rural areas.

2. Choza
The original settlers were satisfied enough with where they landed: clean water, lots of unoccupied land, good timber. and others began to follow. The colony began to grow as word spread to family, friends and others. These newcomers did not receive government constructed houses and had to do with local materials.

With time the original government houses were outnumbered by small chozas ("huts") with walls of woven branches and roofs thatched with yagua - the part of a palm leaf that connects to the trunk of the tree. In those days, no one was rich but the families in the chozas were even poorer than those in the wooden houses.

These days, a few chozas exist on the outskirts of own and they are still inhabited by the poorest of the poor: Haitian immigrants.

3. Ladrillo House
For fascinating reasons far too complicated to go into here, my town came to the attention of a a group of volunteers from Northern Europe in the early and mid-1980s. Much of the infrastructure in town, from buildings to institutions, can trace its roots to this admirable group. But instead of mere charity the volunteers worked alongside Dominicans, teaching them construction techniques using natural materials. The ladrillo (bricks) are made of the native clay of the soil.

These houses are handsome and durable but few. The program was successful but short-lived. The new "president" of the DR has other plans.

4. Balaguer House, unmodified
Joaquin Balaguer was Rafael Trujillo's right-hand man. While his legacy is less universally evil than his bosses  - Balaguer's environmental policies were particularly admirable - he shared his master's obsession with fortifying the border. In the late 80s he began the construction of 150 concrete block houses with reinforced cement roofs. Whereas Trujillo built homes to establish Dominicans on the border, Balaguer built houses to incentivize Dominicans to stay.

Cat and I live in one of these houses. They are built of cinder block and have the indestructible feeling of bomb shelters. But durability does not guarantee wealth. Here the poverty of the occupants is obvious: subsistence farming has left them with little money to modify or even maintain it over the course of the last 30 years.

5. Wooden house with block base and zinc roof 
While this house is nearly identical in layout to the Trujillo house it is more valuable because of the durable concrete block foundation. 

While smaller than either the brick house or block house and more modest in appearance it is a more reliable indicator of wealth because the owners of the house built it themselves without help from neither government or foreign volunteers.

6. Non-balaguer block house: In the rural economy cinder blocks are practically a currency. As with the last house, the owners of this home had enough to build themselves a handsome, sturdy home.

The parabola (satellite dish) is also a clue to the owners wealth.

7. Modified Balaguer block house:

With his public housing program, Joaquin Balaguer didn't just build homes. He created a source of wealth in the community. These houses are prized for their solid construction and modern design (they come with indoor plumbing and electric outlets). The recipients received a title to the home and land, which means they were legally able to sell them.

When a house is sold it is usually to a person rich enough to maintain and sometimes expand upon it. This house is owned by the one of the wealthiest couples in town and has been so thoroughly modified you can scarcely recognize the original design.

July 4th Reflections

All my recent entries (including this one) have carried the "Blogging Abroad Challenge" badge. I have signed up for this challenge in attempt to write more regularly and write from different angles. The second I saw this week's theme ("Quotes & Proverbs") one phrase immediately leapt to mind:Si no tienes padrino se muere sin bautizar.

"If you don't have a godfather, you die without being baptized." To get ahead in the world you have to know someone.

Dominicans use it with the resigned air that you use when acknowledging an unpleasant but long learned truth. This is especially true in a country that struggles with corruption as much as the Dominican Republic. Political favors, employment, even healthcare can depend on who you know or how much you pay.

I don't drop the C-word lightly. I have a disclaimer on the side bar of this blog stating that the opinions on this blog doesn't reflect the opinions of the Peace Corps but this is still very much a PC project. This means that I take responsible representation of my host country very seriously.

Peace Corps service is incredibly rewarding but it can also be baffling, frustrating, and disappointing. Sometimes you just need to vent but that isn't what this is about. Because corruption in the Dominican Republic isn't a matter of my opinion or my frustration but fact: it ranked 120 of 176 countries on Transparency International's "Corruption Perception Index." This means that there are 119 countries less corrupt than the DR and only 56 more corrupt.

The classic example of corruption is la botella ("bottle"): a job for which you are given a title and a paycheck but don't have to do anything. I once met a store owner who was also a prominent campaign organizer for the political party in power. As a token of appreciation for his efforts he was appointed "Assistant Ambassador to Canada" despite not speaking English or French or even having traveled to the country.

This example might be a little comical but corruption is a much bigger that that. The DR was one of 11 countries involved in the 9 billion Odebrecht bribery scandal - the largest such scandal in recorded history. . Seven people went to jail.

I feel OK talking about corruption because Dominicans talk about it. A lot. Corruption is a widely acknowledged problem that enters virtually every political conversation that doesn't involve a politician. And, rather awesomely, Dominicans not only talk but take action. The Odebrecht case appears to be the last straw for many. There is currently a nationwide protest movement (La Marcha Verde - "Green March") demanding el fin de la impunidad: "the end of impunity."

I have written admiringly about Dominican politics before and that hasn't changed. It is, in fact, quite heartening to know that they haven't given up on their young democracy despite everything. The people take to the streets to make their voices heard and voter participation is higher than in the United States.

Still, the folks in the green t-shirts and ballcaps have a long march ahead of them.

Today, here in the mountain village, far from any other Americans except Cat and any fireworks, I am grateful to have grown up in a country where where my education, employment and health didn't depend on my having a "godfather."

By CPI standards the USA is not the least corrupt country in the world but certainly far less corrupt than the DR.

We're number 18!

Happy Independence Day.

Mule meat

The sailors and conquistadors who "settled" Hispaniola 500+ years ago came from Andalucia in the south of Spain. The African slaves they imported learned their Spanish from these men. The two groups mixed their words as they did their genes and although the language has changed much in the five centuries since Dominican Spanish still bears traces of the Andalusian accent.

Andalucía: You can see why they were good sailors.

Specifically, Dominicans "comer" (eat) many of their letter "s": always at the ends of words and sometimes at the beginning or in the middle. Adios becomes adio' and estamos ("we are") becomes 'tamo', etc.

Hence the following joke:

A man from Barcelona, in northern Spain where they prominently pronounce their "s", is traveling through the Dominican countryside when he asks a campesino: 

"Excuse me, do you use the letter 's' in your Spanish at all?"

The campesino laconically replies: "Pue', má' o meno'."

The punchline is more completely pronounced "Pues, más or menos" and means "Well, more or less." 

The butcher in my pueblo doesn't work everyday. Like many campesinos he strings together a lot of small jobs to make his living. He only works in the carnicería when there is meat to sell and announces his presence by blowing a conch shell.

My office window looks out at the carnicería so I hear him every time.  One day I hear the conch and go to see what he is selling.

"Buen' día' senor, what do you have for sale today?"

"Something very 'pecial: carne de mulo (mule meat)."

"Really! People eat mule meat here? They don't do that in my pai' (pais - country)."

"Sí, it's the best meat."

I was a vegetarian for my entire adult life before coming here so I am not a meat expert. I have heard that horse meat is a delicacy in France so mule meat doesn't seem like much of a stretch. That said, it's really difficult to get around in the campo. Personal vehicles are scarce and some "roads" are so too difficult even to pass on an off-road motorcycle. Not matter how good the meat, it seems like a waste to kill a mule.

"But señor, isn't the mule a really useful animal for carrying things over the through the hills?"

"Sí, it is," he says, looking at my a little confused.

"Then why would someone kill it for the meat?"

He smiles and speaks more slowly: "I don't mean to say mulo (mule) but mulo de cerdo ("mule of the pig")." He pats his thigh emphatically.

I am by this point totally lost. He must read it on my face. Speaking even slower he says:

"Not mulo (mule) but Muslo (thigh): Mussslo de cerdo ("pig thigh").  THAT is the best meat."

One year plus off the veggie wagon I am inclined to agree.

Nice to be noticed!

My entry "A Day in the Life of Hombre Serio Cero" has been republished on the Peace Corps website! They trimmed off some of the fat but the meat remains.

I put a lot of time into this blog so it's nice to know that I'll have chance to reach a broader audience.

I Never Knew: 10 Impressive Adaptive Uses of a Machete

Dominicans in the campo carry machetes everywhere but rarely use the word. Instead they refer to it as a colín. Legend has it that this is a version of the brand name "Collins," the first brand of machete widely available here.

Dominicans now manufacture their own machetes under but still generalize the original brand name in the same way Americans speak of Kleenex and Band-Aids. My favorite Dominican brand? Bellota, whose name translates as "big beautiful thing."

Men put it on in the morning as part of their wardrobe but women and children use it too. My host mom keeps one in the kitchen cupboard. No one blinks to see a muchacho walking down the street with a razor sharp colín dangling loosely from his fingers.

It is used it almost everything. With a little imagination a machete an stand in for almost any other tool. A few examples I have seen with my own eyes:

• Chef's knife
• Wood planer: notch cuchilla (blade) along grain of wood and strike the dull side with a hammer
• Hammer: rotate so that the dull edge faces outward and strike the nail near the hilt
• Screwdriver (flathead only)
• Ruler: drag pencil along straight edge
• Scoring stylus: I have seen this successfully used on glass, ceramic tiles, and zinc roofing panels
• Lawn Mower: squat and hack hierba with cuchilla parallel to the ground
• Hatchet: apply sharp edge vigorously to any stick thinner than your bicep
• Riding crop: apply flat of cuchilla to flank of mount
• Garden trowel

Regular use of a colin means regular maintenance with a lima (file). On days when I get up early I will see my neighbors grinding the edge as they prepare for the work day ahead. Over time this changes the shape and size of the tool. My own colín is as broad as a scimitar but I have seen well-used that are now as narrow as a soldier's rapier.

What a Dollar is Worth

As I write this the current exchange rate is about 47 Dominican pesos to one US dollar. It has been pretty stable throughout my PC service, fluctuating around the 45 peso mark. When converting in my head I round it up to 50 for simplicity's sake.

Dolla dolla bill y'all.

Here is a list of things that cost about 50 pesos or $1 USD.

• 1 botellón (5 gallons) of water safe for the foreign stomach.

A single serve (.5 liter) bottle of water? 10 RD ($.20 USD).

• 50 minutos of cell service 
• .175 liters of VERY low quality rum 

The local nickname for this stuff is chiribita - "sparks."

I can easily eat a full meals worth of calories for less than $1 USD.  50 RD buys:

• 5 sobres de avena lista (individual packets of instant oatmeal)
• 5 heads of ajo (garlic)
• 5 heads of organic butter lechuga (lettuce)
• 10 individually wrapped loaves of "bread" (think hotdog buns).  
• 10 huevos (eggs) bought wholesale by the carton of 25.
• 1 lata of tomatoes

• One used gorra, bought from a street vendor. It seems to be the standard price for a piece of previously worn clothing.

The last time I wore this, a woman called me Donald Trump

.

All of this probably seems pretty comparable to US readers, and it is, until we get to big ticket stuff.

For instance, that same $1 US will cover 2.5 months of our municipal water bill.

50 RD will also buy a 45 minute ride to the nearest town. Sure it's only 7 miles but gas is a lot more expensive here. When I left San Francisco (a 7x7 city) the going rate was $2.25 USD (112.50 RD) for any ride of any length.

A complete shave and a haircut? 100 RD, ($2 US). And by haircut, I mean "straight razor shave to the scalp", why is my preferred style. In a big city, I would pay 200 RD ($4 US) for such service.

A hotel room in Santiago, the nearest big city, is 750 RD ($15 US) a night.  Sure, the accommodations are on par with Motel 6, but it's located in the heart of downtown.

The largest single expense Cat and I pay each month is rent. For a fully furnished, 3 bedroom ranch style house with fruit trees in the back yard we pay 3750 RD - about $75 USD. I defy you to find a place in the US where you could rent a single room for so little. This $75 was after we bargained down from 4000 RD ($80 US) and locals still think we are getting ripped off. A Dominican family would expect to pay about 2000 RD ($40 US) for the same house sans furniture.  

Cat and I had an in depth conversation about money on her podcast El Cuerpo de Cuentos:

• Episode 1
• Episode 2

On the Road

I just got back from the capital. I was there for a Peace Corps Conference to mark the 1 year of service in country. The journey is about 330 km, or 200 miles.

The DR is roughly the size of Maryland

Google Maps says that the journey should about 5.5 hours. A pair of capitaleños were in town recently and they made the journey in less than that but they did it in the middle of the night and had a hot shit 4x4 vehicle to navigate the rough roads.

August 2016

In the US, I can imagine a town-to-town journey of that distance taking as little as 3 hours, depending on traffic. On public transit in the Dominican Republic it usually takes Cat and I around 7 to 9 hours. The first 1.5 are spent just getting to the nearest paved road.

Conditions of the road vary depending on the rain. We're in the middle of the rainy season now and things have been deteriorating steadily, so that 1.5 is now about 2 for a journey of 35 km. The grader truck that comes by 2 or 3 times a year won't be by until the pause in rain that comes in the fall.

I try not to think about it.

The dirt road intersects with the paved road at a military checkpoint where la guardia civil desultorily checks the papers of anyone who doesn't ¨look Dominican¨. Sometimes that includes me but normally it is limited to those of obvious Haitian descent. El chequeo is at one of the peaks in the mountain range and afterwards our route to town is a descent down a curvy mountain road.  

I do this in the back of a pick up truck - the cabina is reserved for ladies, children, and the elderly - so I literally need to hang on to my hat. Passengers share space with the cargo: crops for sale going to market, empty gas tanks or empty water bottles that need refilling, etc. Sometimes, it's standing room only.

At least 10 more will fit in comfortably.

Two or three trucks leave the every morning. They are the only reliable transport out of town. It's possible to get a later lift but far from certain. If you want to be sure to make it to your destination you leave early.

The truck drops us in town outside the small local office of a large bus company: Caribe Tours. Accommodations are comparable to a Greyhound bus but in term of cultural importance CT is American Airlines.

I am a veteran long distance bus rider: I haven't owned a car since I was 19 and I am almost twice old that now. For much of my early adulthood I was too broke for airfare. In my early 20s, when every trip outside of Michigan was worth hours of discomfort, I considered any trip under 24 hours to be short. I took the bus as far east as Rhode Island, as far south as Atlanta, and far West as the boot-heel of New Mexico. A journey of 6 hours doesn't phase me.

The bus makes stops in most of the towns along the route, including a 10 minute break in Santiago, the DRs second largest city. I usually sleep part or most of the way.

We arrive in the early afternoon. From the main parada (bus stop) in the capital it is another half hour to the retreat center. Instead of a guagua (local bus) or carro público (imagine a sedan with 7 people in it that drives a fixed route), we opt for a direct cab. As it is an official PC event we get reimbursed for the passage: otherwise the trip would cost nearly 1000 pesos each - exactly 1/14 of my monthly salary.

The conference was held in the same retreat center where we were first received upon arrival in country. It was nice to see it again. The opportunity to catch up with old friends and share our experiences of the past year made the journey worth the while.

This view didn't hurt either.

How to build a barbershop in the campo

The picture below was taken nearly a year ago during jornada (workday) that Cat and I scheduled to improve a local hiking trail. I haven't written much about it here because it was kind of a fracaso (failure). Trying and failing is a big part of Peace Corps service but it's not the kind of thing that motivates one to lift the pen.

We still haven't completed the project.
 

.

Junior earns part of his income as a guía turistica (tour guide). It was he who guided us out to the waterfall and did most of the work that got done that day. The idea was (and still is) to improve the conditions of local trails to make them more attractive (and safer) for tourists to visit local
gems.

This would clearly benefit Junior, because there isn't enough work as a guide to support him or his family. Most of the time works a barber but he occasionally works part time in construction, which is how he got a job painting the town park. Painting your house for the new year is a Dominican tradition that dates back to the dictatorship and our new síndico applied the principal to civic infrastructure.



Because he is an hombre serio Junior decided to use the windfall of cash to better his prospects by beginning construction on a peluquería. It was a good idea!

Junior is a talented peluquero (barber). Personal appearance is very important in Dominican society so the muchachos need to look sharp for school. Local parents prefer Junior over the other peluquería which is attached to the discoteque and sold rum. With a steady clientele all he needed was a work space that wasn't his living room.

But he started the project without a presupesto (budget) and his money quickly ran out. For months it looked like this.

Until my counterpart suggested to Junior that he get a loan. Lending in the DR is pretty precarious: my community-run institution charges 33% APR and we offer better rates than most banks! I was worried about Junior's prospects of paying back the loan so I suggested to him that we institute a system of contabilidad (accounting).

What we came up with was pretty simple. Junior wrote down them name of every client that came in, what service they wanted, and whether they paid en efectivo or whether he gave them fiao. We used this to estimate his average monthly income.

We also totaled up all they money he had spent on construction and used the data to estimate how many pesos it would take to complete construction.

Now Junior knew exactly how much money he needed to borrow and how long it would take him to pay it back.

So he was able to open the doors . . .

 . . . and start construction again.

 

This is what it looked like when I got my hair cut there last week.

A Day in the Life of Hombre Serio Cero

This is not the story of any one particular day.  Some days I am not nearly this productive and - and some days I have even more to do. What follows is a sketch of the "average" day.

04:00 Awake to the sound of screaming roosters.

04:30 Fall back asleep after much tossing and turning.

06:30 Alarm on cell phone. Wake up and get up.

06:30 - 07:30 Morning meditation and old man stretches.

07:30 - 08:30 Breakfast: black coffee and oatmeal. Brush teeth, shower and shave.

08:30 Holler into the street to remind neighborhood muchachos about math lesson at 9 AM.

08:45 - 09:15 Talk about the day ahead with Cat

09:20 - 10:10 Math lesson with two or three muchachos. It's a surprising amount of effort but is a good way to warm up my Spanish for the day.

10:15 Leave for the community bank, in theory a two minute walk.

10:30 Arrive at savings bank having briefly chatted with at least five neighbors and politely but firmly resisted at least one invitation to sit and have coffee.

10:30 - 10:45 Chat with the cajera (teller) catching up on important local news: deaths in the night upcoming and/or religious holidays I might not not know about.

Most important: is the Señor (my project partner) in today? He was but he left on an errand while I was teaching math. When real news gives way to chisme (gossip) I know it's time to get to work.

11:00 I finally sit at my desk. I review my email and calendar to see if I have any reports due to Peace Corps (they are surprisingly frequent). Nothing today, but I do have an appointment with a business student at 02:30.

11:15 - 1:00 I review my notes about what the Señor and I need to discuss, writing an informal agenda of questions and bullet points. To avoid about 15 minutes of increasingly frustrating back-and-forth questions, I take special pains to identify and look up any jargon that I don't know necessary jargon: e.g., "Cartera de prestamos" (loan portfolio).

12:00 - 12:45 I review notes and terminology for the afternoon's appointment and print out and examples of simple accounting ledgers for us to practice with.

12:45 - 12:50 I repeat the same hello/goodbye gauntlet on the way "home" (host mother's house across the street from where we actually live) for lunch. It takes less time because less people are outside in the the mid-day heat. The president of the bank's credit committee is on his front porch, in the shade. I stop to remind him of the meeting we have scheduled one week from today.

12:50 - 13:50 Lunch, la bandera in all it's glory: beans, rice, a little bit of pollo criollo (backyard chicken) still on the bone, and a mayonnaise-based salad featuring boiled, cubed tayota squash.

During the meal, I help Host-Mom badger Host Brother into getting ready for school.

Cat shows up at 13:30, done up for the afternoon class session and whisks off Host Brother with her.

I let the food settle as I watch the last half of a telenovela with Host-Mom. We chat about the silly plot and how her grown kids in the big city are doing. I let her know that Host Brother behaved himself during the morning math lessons and is really starting to get the hang of it.

13:50 -14:00 Sit at home with the doors and windows shut so I can enjoy an afternoon cup of coffee in peace and quiet.

14:05 I arrive back at the office, having said adios to anyone who said saludo to me - which is culturally appropriate and I greatly appreciate it. While I wait for the 14:30 appointment I write idle fragments of poetry. 

14:45 My 2:30 appointment arrivals.

2:50 - 15:30 After small talk we get to work. Instead of reviewing the practice ledgers, she wants to talk about getting a loan for her small business. We talk about the pros and cons of loans and how they aren't always necessary even if you qualify for one. We brainstorm likely expenses to put together a budget for her project. Around 3 PM el Señor pokes his head in to let me know he's here.

15:30 -16:30 Finally sit down with the Señor. We discuss his oficios (errands) outside of the pueblo: business or personal? As always, both.

On the agenda: the accountant says we should increase the size of the loan portfolio if we want to offset our troubling spending deficit. He also recommends initiating a promotion campaign to promote other financial products. Is that realistic with a staff of one and a half people?

The door is open so we notice when the President of the Board of Directors comes in for a routine transaction. The Señor and I form a friendly tag team and force him into an impromptu meeting. We review all of the above. The afternoon rain kicks in, keeping us inside a little longer than planned.

16:45 - 17:45  Home sweet home. I sit in the shelter of my front porch and scribble notes for this blog entry while I watch muchachos play in the street.  The mom of one collects laundry that she has hung on the barbwire outside my house and lets me know she has an English exam at the university next Monday. Could we study tonight?

18:00 - 18:00 We practice English in her out-kitchen as screaming children run in and out. In 30 minutes we have maybe 15 of actual concentration but she is steadily coming along. I leave because the sun is setting and the light will come late tonight.

18:30 - 19:30 Romantic dinner by candlelight with Cat: lentil soup (she made it) supplemented with individually wrapped single-serving pieces of bread from the colmado ("corner store"). Cat tells me we are running low on key provisions (e.g. lentils) that we can't get in the pueblo. We talk schedule and logistics about heading into the nearest big city - an entire days errand. We realize we can't go tomorrow but the day after works. It's been a while and it will be nice to take a break from our campo.

19:30 - 19:45 Romantic dish washing by candlelight.

19:50 We hear the scrape of the front gate against the sidewalk and the tell-tale call of  "¡Vecinos!" (neighbors). It is, of course, Fulano. We are tired but he is a good friend so we invite him to sit on the front porch. While we chat, the evangelical church three houses over commences and it's raucous service. We botar Fulano at 20:30 because we are tired.

20:30 - 21:30 Meditate, brush teeth and collapse into bed with a good book by light of electric, solar-powered lantern. The church service has wrapped up.

22:00 Pitch black tranquility gives way to an impromptu celebration as the light arrives. Every family on the street turns on their televisions all at once and the corner store turns on loud music just for the hell of it. So much for reading! Cat and I load an episode of /Narcos/ on the laptop.

23:15 All at once everyone remembers that they have to go farming tomorrow morning. The TV and music go silent. Cat and I close our eyes. Somewhere, for some reason, dogs begin to bark in the darkness startling a lone rooster who begins to crow.

Why

I have wanted to join the Peace Corps ever since I was 23 years old. I remember clear as day checking out a tome titled "So You Want to Join the Peace Corps" from the university library. In addition to promising the experience of a lifetime, it described a two-year long application process. That alone told me I wasn't ready.

I spent another six years of growing up. I turned 29. I got married. Three days after the ceremony Cat and I closed up our apartments and moved to Hawaii. Instead of a permanent address we moved to a new location every eight weeks as part of an extended WWOOFing tour. Instead of steady jobs we worked for free.

It was a bold move, but carefully considered. No, we didn't have any definite plans upon return but we had plenty of ideas. Chief among those? Peace Corps.

I turned 30. We applied. We got in. We were told that since we had only been married six months that we would have to wait another six months, at least.

But then my beautiful and talented wife got a job good enough to pay off our nagging student debt so we put PC on hold. But we never stopped talking about it. Years went by as we talked until finally, debt done paid, we applied again. We got in. We are here. I'm now 36.

So, why?

They ask you on the application. I told the truth but you know how those things are. The boundaries of acceptable explanation are so narrow that it forces your story into another shape. But here in this little read space I am free to say as I like so long as I don't make PC look bad, which I can't imagine doing since I love almost everything about this experience.

So, why?

Cat and I talked about it on the podcast but I don't remember much of what I said except for one phrase: "It's the best thing that one does."

Sometimes, when I submit my resume I wonder if the recipient will have an easy time understanding what it's all been about. To me, the guy who lived it, there are two common threads that connect all my various employments, including volunteer farming:
1. Work at understaffed, under organized, underfunded, o sea, "underdeveloped" organizations.
2. Work that involves trying to help people in some capacity.

These are the two things that I seem to be good at: making do with dysfunction and trying to do good in the midst of the mess. I cannot think of a better description of Peace Corps work.

So, I appear to be cut out for it. But why did I decide to do it?

I can only explain that I had a nagging sense that I wouldn't be "done" if I didn't join PC. During the lengthy application process I asked a mentor of mine to serve as a reference. He didn't hesitate, even though my departure would leave him in a lurch. He said: "I've always regretted not joining Peace Corps." He's 70.

So, I wanted to avoid regrets later in life. But what did I want to get from the experience?

That I can answer easily without (further) long-winded introspection. At 34, when I applied again, I distinctly remember wanting the following:

• To learn to speak Spanish √
• To get the hell out of the city √
• A break from the Rat Race √
• "Adventure," in all its ambiguity √
• Experience another culture long-term, from the inside √
• Make new friends √
• Find more depth in my marriage √
• More time to write √
• Get away from the internet and constantly being "plugged in"
• Learn to dance
• Live more low tech, more lightly on the land √
• Discover new depths to my spiritual practice  √
• Help people who need it √
• Have more time to stretch, exercise and do the things necessary to care for my weekend warrior injuries √
• Broaden my professional horizons √
• Do things that scare me √
• Make some kind of sustainable difference
• Have a garden

The check marks mean what you think they do. As for the unchecked items, well, it's been been over a year since I arrived in country and nearly a year since we arrived to our permanent community. Which is to say I have just over one year left.

There's still time.

Community banking in the land of fiao

Each country that invites Peace Corps to send volunteers has it's own priorities. Some countries could benefit from assistance with environmental education, others want their citizenry to learn English, etc. In the Dominican Republic, volunteers serve in one of three sectors: Youth Development, Education, and Community Economic Development.

Cat's an education volunteer. I'm in CED, or, as I often explain in Spanish, negocios ("business").

There's a joke among CED volunteers that the least useful thing you bring to country is the business casual clothes that Peace Corps insists you pack. While presenting oneself as serio is definitely important in la capital, it's not so necessary in the campo where people are way more casual. What good are khakis when you are working with campesinos in baseball caps and gomas (rubber boots)?

Me, I wear my business casual clothes everyday. This is because my project is una cooperativa de ahorro y crédito – a community bank.

The cooperativa has about 500 members and, aside from some seed money kindly donated by an international NGO a few years back, the funding is composed entirely of the contributions of los socios (members). When the campesinos in my pueblito take out a préstamo (loan) to finance next seasons crop they are using the money of their friends and neighbors.

It's a beautiful thing - and a necessary one given that most of the socios are considered too high a lending risk by other financial institutions. Those big banks are too far away, anyhow. Our nearest "big city" (24,000 people!) is two hours drive and the the trip is expensive. If you make 800 pesos profit on a sack of habichuelas (beans) and it costs you 300 pesos roundtrip to deposit it and another 300 pesos to withdraw it next month, how much money are you really saving?

In the campo, the "bank" part of community bank it not always clearly understood. A friend of a friend, upon discovering that I worked with el banquito whispered to me about some cosas muy malas (very bad things) that were going on. "If you lend me 5000 pesos," he demanded, "How can you can charge me more than those same 5000 pesos? ¡Muy mal!"

To be fair, let's try to see it from his perspective. Say you're a campesino with no real education. Big banks won't give you the time of day and the financial institution set up in your town is only a few years old. It's financed in part by your money and staffed by people you have known your whole life. On top off that you're a Dominicano used to the interest-free credit system known as fiao. 

Fiao is a Dominican version of the Spanish word fiado ("credit"). When you buy something on fiao the store owner trusts you to pay them back later. Bigger stores don't do fiao, but virtually every smaller business does. In the campo, where people often only have cash after each seasons harvest and sometimes not even then, fiao is a necessity. It's how friends and neighbors support each other through the hard times.

The other credit option available to poor Dominicans are prestamistas - loan sharks. Your average Dominican prestamista isn't a dangerous criminal like your average American loan shark, but they still mean business. A "good" prestamista will only charge 20% interest, but  100% is not unheard of.

In this context, the standard banking practice of charging interest might seem fishy. Why would a financial cooperative composed of friends and neighbors do something like that?

I also wonder if religion plays a role. Usury (Bible-speak for charging interest) is denounced in multiple books of the Old Testament. It's literally a sin. “If your brother becomes poor and cannot maintain himself . . . you shall not lend him your money at interest, nor give him your food for profit.” So if our socios know their Leviticus, what are they supposed to think?

But charge interest we must. I work for free but the other staff doesn't. And the lending fund must grow if we are to keep making loans. Interest, implemented at non-sinful rates, helps the “community” part of our community bank grow. A neighbor down the street is using one of our loans to build a new house. A peluquero friend of mine wants to use one to buy an inversor so he can continue cutting hair when there's no luz.

The system works! Kind of.

Because the same lack of education that makes common financial practices seem suspect also makes for poor financial literacy. My neighbors started building the house without a budget, so they ran out of money and had to apply for another loan. And many loans just don't get paid back. To be fair, living off the land is tough – if it rains too much, or too little, your crops just die – but far too many of the cooperative's loans are in default.

My peluquero friend, at least, is willing to listen to me about the importance of keeping books. Maybe it's confianza but I like to think it's part of a general shift in awareness. The board of directors recognizes the need to improve our lending controls. Our general manager, my project partner, is excited about expanding services to neighboring communities.

I think for campesinos, money is like smart phones and computers. It's all so new! And when you've never had access to something before it usually takes a while to figure out how to use it right.

A letter to a friend

Hey Kenny,

About a year ago you were here on the island for a wedding. You offered to come out and see me but I couldn't make the time because I was still in training. Training is mostly powerpoint marathons and icebreaker games but your visit overlapped with something important - my first trip into the field to visit an actual volunteer. This is like job shadowing but compressed and abbreviated: since PC service is a 24/7 job you spend three solid days hanging out to get an idea of what it's like.

One year on, it`s on me to return the favor. This past weekend I played host to a new volunteer, still in training, so he could get an idea of what life is like. My site is super tranquilo: clean, safe, and isolated, near the Haitian border. There's not a lot to do for fun and what gets done for work gets done more slowly. During the visit I showed the newbie around and introduced him to some of old timers I work with. It's SOP for getting anything done: no one takes you seriously if you haven't the decency to spend a few hours on the front porch with them shooting the shit and drinking coffee. At one such gathering newbie tells us a story.

In training they stick you in a barrio outside the capital. It's safe-ish, as long as you don't walk around at night, not that different than the neighborhoods where you and I worked in San Francisco except your street smarts don't always translate. One night newbie wakes up to all the dogs on his street barking. He gets up to see what the fuss is and sees two guys running from roof-to-roof being chased by what can only be described as an angry mob. The two were trying to steal motorcycles - way more common than cars here - but instead of getting away they get caught. The police show up but stand back while the mob works the thieves over a bit: this, too, is SOP. When the crowd is done the thieves are bloodied but not seriously hurt. The cops take them away and the neighbors use the occasion as an excuse to party.

Newbie has been in the country less than three weeks and is telling this story to practice his Spanish and make conversation but also to process the event. The old timer responds with a story of his own: a few weeks back, two guys were caught trying to steal motorcycles in a town just on the other side of the border. They, too, were caught by a mob. But instead of turning them over to the cops, the mob doused them with gasoline and set them on fire. I am reminded of the Old West: they didn't have gasoline back then, so when mobs caught horse thieves they hung them from trees.

When I first got to the DR I was still processing the experience of our work in SF. I made constant comparisons not just between the US and Dominican and Haitian culture, but between the Americans I had left behind and the Americans I found myself working with. The average PC volunteer is a decade or more younger than I am, which makes them the exact age as the "at risk" folks we used to work with. That was the biggest difference of all: not the Spanish or the threat of violence (plenty of both of those in Bayview, right?) but going from working with 23 year old gang members who couldn't write a complete sentence to working with 23 year olds with masters degrees. Because PC has been on a big diversity push in recent years the demographics even overlap: plenty of African Americans and Latinos, though not any Pacific Islanders - at least not in my group.

A year on, this education gap remains the biggest difference that I am aware of. Not just between the kind of Americans who get accepted into PC and the kind of Americans who end up in programs like the one we used to run in SF, but the difference between Dominicans and Americans and Dominicans and Haitians and even the difference between Americans now and Americans in the Old West. I think this one key difference eventually manifests in the other types of differences that bring PC here to the DR: a struggling economy, too many teen moms, violent crime, etc.

When we were in the thick of it in SF, we were usually too busy putting out fires to reflect on what we were doing. At least I was. Now, here, in between the cups of coffee and parlays in Spanish, I have had a little time to process it all. I know we weren't always able to make the difference that we wanted to, to prevent the violence from reaching the kids or reaching out of them, but I want to you to know I am proud of what we did, as small as it might seem in retrospect. I am proud of you and thank you for being there with me through all of it.

I hope you and Amy are well,
Kevin

When men sing for women

One year and counting
Cat and I recently celebrated one year in country. As fast as it has passed I am old enough to know that the next year will go even quicker. I could use this entry to reflect on all that's happened, things I've seen and done, the people I've met, etc. But instead I am thinking about machismo and bachata, two things that are a daily part of my experience here.

Bachata is, by far, the most popular genre of Dominican music. Machismo, is, welllll . . .

The male animal
Machismo is the cultural pattern that defines gender relations in the DR and, indeed, much of Latin America. The word machismo derives from the Spanish macho, which means "male animal." Basically this means different behavior standards for men and women with the difference favoring men. This manifests itself in many ways but generally means that men are free to do as they like while women are expected to be responsible and "respectable" - which usually means staying at home to cook and clean and take care of children.

The double standard extends to sexual relationships as well. Dominican culture is pretty sexual: multiple partners are common, even expected. I say this with no judgement having come from San Francisco, a city in which the average person has 21(!) different sexual partners over their lifetime. (No, not me, mom). But under machismo, men can brag about their conquests while women have to keep quiet lest their reputation be irrevocably damaged. The double standard of machismo also dictates that "quiet" infidelity by men is to be tolerated, even it breaks the heart of every woman involved with the unfaithful man.

Machismo puts suffering women in another bind by restricting artistic expression. In the US woman can sing of their broken hearts and get rich doing it but Dominican popular music there is little space for female artists.

A few words about bachata
Bachata began as the music of brothels. Then it was the music of the campo, a period in which it endured a disdain similar to that urban intellectuals in the US have heaped upon country music, before eventually becoming the king of Dominican genres. It is lovely, melancholic music with a rhythm you can dance to.

A favorite old song of mine:


As the genre steadily marched toward universal acceptance it slowly changed. The rhythm stayed the same but the tempo sped up. Artists from the Dominican diaspora started incorporating pop influences from their time in Nueva Yol. Romeo Santo, the reigning king of contemporary bachata, is fluently bilingual and has cut songs with Drake.

What does it sound like now? Click, close your eyes, and listen:




If you are like me, you may have thought Romeo was a woman upon first listen. It's not just him. For the being most popular genre in a machista society, a surprising number of male bachata artists sing in a feminine style. This androgyny is present in the lyrical content as well.

To women or for them?
Some say that machismo is embedded in Spanish because the majority of nouns have gender. When speaking about a women, or to her, you use  the feminine version of a word. When speaking about, or to, a man use the masculine form.  When saying something as simple as "You are bad" you betray the gender of the object by saying either "bueno" (masculine) or "buena" (feminine). It is really hard to avoid using gender, even by accident.

Yet bachata does this all the time. Virtually all bachata is about love between men and women but it many of biggest songs refer not to men and women but just "you" and "I" in an ingeniously genderless fashion. This is not universal - the Romeo song above brims with rather grotesque, gendered expressions - but it is extremely common.

With high pitched vocals and androgynous lyrics, many contemporary bachatas written and performed by men could be sung by a woman without changing a single thing about the song. This brings me to the belatedly stated thesis of this piece: contemporary bachata, by accident or design, has evolved in such a way that the songs that best to permit the expression of female longing in a machisto society are the most popular.

Instead of singing merely to the women, male bachata artists sing in their place as well.

10 Seconds
When it comes to bachata, I prefer the old school of Leonardo Paniagua and Luis Seguro but I still appreciate the new style. My contemporary favorite  is "10 Segundos by Zacarias Ferreria." I have probably heard this song - no joke - at least 300 times in the last 365 days and still I am not sick of the melody.

Hear:


Dominicans love to sing along, out loud, in public. About 200 of the 300 times I have heard this song, there was a woman singing along, reaching for the high notes in the chorus. It goes like this:

Yo te amo pero tú
buscas sexo y nada más
yo te amo pero tú
de amar bien no eres capaz.

"I love you, but you
look for sex and nothing more.
I love you, but you
are not capable of real love."

A few words about voudou

The most recent episode of Cat's podcast is about our visit to a batey, which is is a type of company town structured around a sugar plantation. Most of the plantations went bust in the 80s but the communities persist. Due to historical and economic factors bateys tend to be poor, congested and populated primarily by Dominicans of Haitian descent or recent Haitian immigrants.

The podcast gives the subject a fantastic treatment but does not mention a fascinating aspect of the community: the important role that voudou ("voodoo") plays an important role in local cultural life. (A quick note about italics: in this entry the italicized words will be from Kreyol, the language of Haiti, instead of Spanish.) Both Haiti and the DR are religiously plural societies with many faiths and there are enough voudou believers in the batey to support a hounfour (temple) in the center of the crowded community.

We were unable to speak with the priest and I am far from an expert on this subject so I'll stick to facts from wikipedia.

Essentially, Haitian voudou is a mixture of Roman Catholic rituals and traditional African beliefs. The slaves that were brought to the island were forbidden to practice their native religion so they gave it a Catholic makeover. It's a much better fit than you might expect!

In both belief systems there is a Bondye ("Good God") who is not directly knowable without the intervention of a priest. This Supreme Being is supported by lesser spiritual powers who are also the objects of devotion.

In voudou the African lwa ("spirits") are associated with the Catholic Saints. For example Papa Legba, who guards the entry into the spirit world is represented by "San Pedro" (St. Peter) the guard of the Pearly Gates.

Saint Peter

St. Jean D'Arc (Joan of Arc - Haiti was originally a French colony) is associated with Ersulie Freda.

I have no idea what she does.

Other familiar faces are:

John the Baptist . . .

John is to the right of Jack

. . . .and Saint Anthony.

The images of the saints adorns the walls but the center of the action is the altar.

Offerings from the devout

But instead of the call of the faithful reaching up into Heaven, in voudou the saints descend to the earth and enter the body of the priest - and sometimes the faithful. And what do they do there? Like Catholic Saints, they intervene in the worldly affairs of the devout: they bestow blessings and bring good luck.

They answer prayers.