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.