Dominicans and Haitians: More than just "A Single Story"

A Single Story

Before coming to the DR I read about it's history, which meant I read about it's relationship with Haiti. I read about the 1937 "Parsley Massacre" (link). I read about the recent change in law that stripped many Haitian-Dominicans of their citizenship, rendering them effectively stateless. I read about the "colorism" of the DR that prizes light skin above dark, Spanish ancestry above African: a scale that places Haitians at the bottom. I read about the history of the importation and concentration of Haitian laborers in bateys - temporary labor camps that have become permanent fixtures.

I am writing this entry in response to a prompt from the blog challenge to reflect on "The Dangers of a Single Story." The phrase comes from this TED talk by the Nigerian author Chimananda Ngozi Adichie.



We watched it during PC training. If you haven't (you should - it's good) here's the gist: looking at other people from a single perspective is not only dehumanizing it also provides bad data. It limits your chance to participate in the world.

I came here with a pre-packaged "single story" on racism in the DR. I came here expecting a through-and-through racist society, a place of systemic oppression and universal, brutal discrimination. What I found is much more complex.

Cognitive Dissonance
During training our host mom surprised me by comparing the experience of Haitians in the Dominican Republic to the experience of Dominicans in the  United States. "They come here for a better life for themselves and their children, to make money to send back home. They work very, very hard."

This surprised me. At the time, I attributed it to her unique, individual progressiveness. She's a wonderful woman but I am happy to report she's not that unique. I have since heard this sentiment echoed by many other Dominicans.

When I received my project folder last May that it described my host community as being half split between a long standing Dominican population and recent Haitian immigrants. Since we are within walking distance of the border, the vast majority of these immigrants are undocumented.

I braced myself for ugliness but I arrived to find a community where Haitians and Dominicans live side-by-side with almost no conflict. Where their children go to school together and play in the streets. Where, yes, Haitians work for Dominicans (not the other way around) but where it is not uncommon to see them relax together afterwards. Where they pray together in the same churches.  Where, occasionally, they intermarry.

I took a Kreyol class because I expected to need it to communicate with half of my neighbors only to find they speak better Spanish than I do.

When a Haitian immigrant recently packed up their things and to head back across the border, I saw as many Dominicans bid them farewell as Haitians.

In training, we were told that volunteers of "visible African descent" (a politely bureaucratic way of saying "dark-skinned") should always carry their passport when traveling in the border region in case they were stopped by border patrol guards who might mistake them for Haitian. I have seen Haitians taken off the bus at military check points, but have been asked for my own papers as well.

Other Stories
I started comparing notes with other volunteers. One told me that a Dominican community member in their site described member Haitians as "our brother and sisters." Another volunteer described the racist language that he heard in his site, the terrible things he heard Dominicans say about Haitians. They were exactly the kind of thing I expected to hear everywhere but have never heard in my site.

"Do they treat them badly?" I asked.

"There's not really any Haitians in my site," he explained.

For the New Year, Cat and I visited a volunteer who lives in a batey. To walk around the impoverished conditions was humbling. They were far worse than in my site. The batey - a mere 35 km from the second largest city in the country - is about 90% Haitian. The Dominicans who comprise the remaining 10% live in houses while most of the Haitians live in buildings that used to be barracks for laborers.

With my experience in the border - hours closer to Haiti than the batey - I expected to find Haitians speaking Spanish, eager to integrate. Instead, I was told by our host (she speaks Kreyol; I still don't) that the residents see themselves as wholly Haitian. Even those that have their citizenship explicitly choose not to identify as Dominican or even Haitian Dominican. Even after 3 generations, they still don't teach their kids Spanish.

A Question is the Opposite of a Story
I would love to draw some kind of conclusion from all of this, to say that desptire my worst expectations I did not find the DR to be a society with systemic racism (I did) or that the border region is some kind of unique oasis free of discrimination (it's not). I would love to have explain (to myself if no one else) the surprising attitudes of the Haitian residents in the batey so deep in the heart of la República. But I can't.

This is probably for the best. If I did these things, they would just be more stories I tell myself. While many stories would surely be better than just one I think I'll opt instead to listen.

 This post is part of Blogging Abroad's 2017 New Years Blog Challenge, week two: The Danger of a Single Story.

Small world, small starts

The other day Cat and I woke early to get on the first pickup out of town to head to a community called (in Spanish) "The Cherry Trees". We went there to meet some Chris and Matt of Earth Sangha, the NGO who were the iniciating force behind the tree planting that we participated in not long after we first arrived in site.

I recognize that the phrase "iniciating force" is somewhat awkward, so allow me an explanatory note: I want to give ES the credit they deserve but not all of it. They are essential to the reforestation project of which the planting was a small part - they literally started the project and it is doubtful that this type of project would have (literally) taken root without them - but the vast majority of the work is done on the ground by Dominicans.  The planting we participated in was organized by another Peace Corps volunteer with the help of the local Asociación de Productores del Bosque ("Association of Forest Producers"). There are 3 paid staff here in the DR and the directors of ES only need to visit once or twice a year.

Before heading out to check on the seedlings we planted we sat down with Chris and Matt for a get-to-know you conversation.  Cat recorded some great audio that should be up on the podcast shortly.  Earth Sangha is an interesting organization. Sangha is a Buddhist word that means "collection of things". Originally the word referred to the community of monks who followed the Buddhas but can also be understood to include the community of all living beings. Por lo tanto, the "sangha" in ES includes not just the staff and the members of the association but also the trees themselves and the wildlife that will return to the new forest.

It turns out that Chris, the founder, and I studied under the same Buddhist teacher despite doing so at different decades in different countries and being more than 20 years apart in age. Small world! So how did Chris come to planting trees after studying Buddhism?

After many years working for an organization trying to raise awareness about the dangers of deforestation he wanted to produce more tangible results than just reports. He began with the idea in 1997 and after nearly 10 years of false starts he was able to establish a sustainable project among the Cherry Trees of la República Dominicana. To me, this is an inspiring Buddhist lesson about the importance of persistence in the face of difficulty, whether he thinks of it that way or not. A key Zen teaching is "continue under all circumstances" - never give up. No matter what happens.

And so today the Earth Sangha has led to the reforestation of over 200 acres of hillside in the Cherry Trees. Erosion has been halted, rainwater conserved and pesos injected into the local economy. I am truly impressed by the variety of different programs that ES operates here and in the US. I won't go into all that here since their website does a far better job of that and has better pictures. Check it out and donate some money while you are at it.

So how are the trees doing?

There was some failure but enough have taken hold that a forest will soon stand where now there is only grass.

In Peace Corps we often talk about the long game of sustainable development. Unlike other groups that build buildings or donate goods PC works with the people to introduce ideas and teach techniques that will continue to have impact long after we've left. Volunteers don't get to see that impact while they are in country and may never see it at all. Some volunteers leave country after two years of hard work with the feeling that they have failed.  The metaphor often used is that PC service is like planting trees in whose shade you will never get to sit. I get that - I just never thought it would be so literal!

Coño y vaina

A toddler called me a c*nt the other day.

I was helping his mother with her English homework and he kept demanding her attention by attempting to destroy things. She and I took turns wrangling him and I think I surprised him with how fuerte I was. When it sank in that I meant business he pointed at me and said: "Coño. Tú."

I am unsure what he meant by that.

Don't get me wrong, I am 100% confident on the translation: tú means "you" and coño refers to that other thing.  Also, I am sure that he knew what he meant. What I am still unsure of is how offensive this word is in Dominican Spanish.

I know that in Mexican Spanish coño is considered pretty vulgar. Years ago, while working in a greenhouse, I asked a Mexicana coworker to pass me the following plant:



In English this is called a "Rabbit's Foot Fern" which would translate to Pata de Conejo, but with my terrible Spanish I asked for a Pata de Coño. The deep discomfort instantly visible on her face told me how much I had embarrassed her, even if it was an accident. Generally speaking, Mexico has a very conservative culture.

They say that you can tell a lot about a culture by it's curse words. Por ejemplo, curses in Castellano (that's what they call Spanish in Spain) feature a lot of Catholic imagery. Given that Spain has gone from the land of the Inquisition to one of the most atheistic countries in Europe I don't think it is a stretch to imagine that phrases "Yo cago en la hostia" ("I sh*t on the communion host") are a reflection of the ambivalent relationship Spaniards have with their Catholic history. 

Some say that the US notion of obscenity, which elevates "f*ck" to the highest level of vulgarity and considers "c*nt" to be borderline hate speech, reflects our culture's unease with sexuality. In other English speaking countries c*nt is considered only mildly vulgar. In Australia and the U.K. calling someone a c*nt is like calling them a jerk. Both those countries have had female prime ministers whereas we can barely muster a female candidate so perhaps it says something about our relationship to female power as well.

The Dominican Republic may be in the Americas but when it comes to coño Dominicans are clearly not Americans.  They use the c-word so often that I won't bother to censor it here.

It's not just that they use it a lot that fascinates me but who gets to say it and in what context. The toddler I told you about was not castigated by his mother and I don't think this is a matter of lax parenting. I have seem campesinos discipline their children for talking back but that same child is allowed to holler coño and drive cattle through the street with a bullwhip. Groups of children shout coño while they play in the street. If a group of my friends and I had been overheard shouting f*ck, c*nt or even "oh hell" someone would have told my parents and I would have been in a world of trouble.

This, of course, would have been a double standard. My parents swore all the time growing up - I learned to talk from them after all - and now that I am an adult I curse in their company without making either of us uncomfortable. I have become one of those millennials that sprinkle sentences with the word "f*ck" like salt over popcorn. I am so comfortable with the f-bomb that I feel a little silly censoring it here. But I do it because I am writing in a professional context. Casual conversation is one thing but you (almost) never say "f*ck" on the job. This double standard is part of my culture and so it makes perfect sense to me.

The rules of Dominican swearing are still unclear. I have mentioned previously the versatility with which Dominicans use coño and at that time I assumed that the word and was roughly equivalent to "f*ck" and that concho (the second most common curse) was more like "goddamn." But now I suspect that there is no easy parallel to be drawn. 

It's not that Dominican campesinos are inherently vulgar people or that the concept of obscenity doesn't exist in the DR. Most Dominicans would never curse God like a Spaniard. Coño, if not exactly obscene, is clearly considered a strong word: the muchacho called me coño because he was mad. My project partner might mutter it under his breath when he can't get the computer to work but we would never say it to a client. You never hear anyone say it on TV.

Another word that interests me is vaina. It's an informal way to refer to an object - like calling something "crap" in English. My deeply Evangelical host mother, who says concho sometimes, won't say vaina. I think that the obvious etymology of the word is what bothers her. Not clear what I'm hinting at? Insert a "g" between the first "a" and the "i."

In other Spanish speaking countries "vaina" refers to a sheath. This comes from the Roman Latin "wagina" which referred both to what you put a sword in and the female reproductive organ. My host mother learned her religion from American missionaries and perhaps along with the theology she absorbed some of our discomfort. Non-evangelical Dominicans call the thing I stick my machete in a paqueta ("packet") and call just about everything else a vaina. The word features in the title of some movies.

"¡Qué vaina!"

So what does swearing tell me about DR culture? Coño if I know!

I suppose, if anything, the little sense of what I have made of all of this only reinforces my key perception of campo culture: people are very casual here. Campesinos wear flip flops into city hall and will answer the door in only a towel. In Dominican cities where they produce TV shows and have a professional culture similar to ours people dress for success and use double standards but here in the campo people say what they mean without shame and drive bulls down the streets with whips and blunt words.

Why does the town council own a butcher shop?

The sign below says "Ayuntamiento of the Municipal District of *Town Where I live* Services Open to All."

Ayuntamiento translates exactly to "town council." People use the word to refer to the building, the elected officials therein, the services offered thereby, and the employees who provide them. I've known this word since I talked to the vice-sindico of my CBT pueblo . Despite its flexibility, I was hard pressed to make sense of it in the following context:

In case the blood-red letters in drippy font didn't clue you in carnicería means "butcher shop" and the sign therefore reads: "Town Council Butchery of M.R.L" (¨M" is for Municipalidad and R.L is the initials of the town where I live). This building is right next to the savings cooperative where I work everyday. I can see it through the window near my desk.

Despite this familiarity, or perhaps because of it, I haven't given much thought to what it is or what goes on there. Like I wrote in my last entry, the first six months in site have been intense. When I'm overwhelmed I tend to either shut down or open up all the way, so I ended up accepting a lot of things without much investigation. Sometimes it's best to just file things under "that's weird" and move on with your day.

Last week, I saw a handwritten sign that I lamentably neglected to take a photo of. It was posted on a street corner and declared in the formal language of Dominican government announcements that the ayuntamiento would be holding a subasta for municipal service providers and that anyone was welcome to attend.

After 8 months in country, my written Spanish is pretty good. I can read the paper (without a dictionary) and contemporary novels (with one). I can write a professional email. I can write poetry. My spoken Spanish it pretty good, too, though it varies depending on context. If you are a complete stranger with a thick country accent, talking about something I am not familiar with, I might only get 60% of what you are saying. If you are an educated, urban stranger I probably bat about 80% and my average goes up when I tune into your particular way of talking. When conversing with someone I know well about a topic where I know all the vocabulary, I can sometimes communicate with 100% fluidity. On a good day, I go to sleep feeling like I speak Spanish.

That day, I was feeling confident: I understood all the words on the sign except for subasta. I looked it up in the dictionary: it means "auction." What municipal services was the town council going to auction? I was intrigued. I also felt guilty for never before having attended a meeting of the ayuntamiento. It seemed like a basic background thing that I had neglected for too long. I decided to attend.

In a small town everyone knows everyone, so even though I've only lived here half a year I recognized half the people in the room.  Some were you usual movers-and-shakers whose presence was to be expected. The presence of some of the others might have been surprising if I knew what the heck was going on. There were some greetings and smiles of recognition.  I don't know if you can tell from the photo, but the building is the exact same vintage as my house and has an identical floor plan.  The meeting took place in the "kitchen." Imagine, if you will, 30+ people in the following space.

Cluttered kitchen table included for scale.

I took a seat and the meeting began. That 60% to 100% I just bragged about? That only happens in a one-on-one context where I am able to ask follow-up questions of polite people who are concerned about whether or not I understand what the heck was going on.

Gracias a Dios, the form of the meeting was identical to municipal meetings I have attended in the US. There was an agenda and a secretary to read it. But the main agenda item, the subasta felt like, well, an auction, and not a silent one. With everybody talking at once my comprehension dropped to about 25%. But one thing was clear: the ayuntamiento was auctioning off the rights to the carnicería that bears it's name.  Only on my walk home did I have presence of mind to wonder, why the heck does a city council own a butcher shop in the first place?

That night, I did not go to sleep feeling like I spoke Spanish.

The next day, I talked it over with Mariano, a community leader who also happens to be one of my favorite people in town. He has lived in the pueblo all his life and has watched it grow from a group of dozen a families to a small town of 2000+. He has been instrumental in that growth, having been involved in just about every community project over the years. He serves on the comite de crédito (credit commission) of my savings cooperative and had been at the subasta the previous night. He has a lifetime of experience that he is eager to share and is kind and patient with my uneven Spanish. He is concerned about whether or not I understand what the heck is going on.

He explained to me that in a small country like the DR it makes sense to organize services like roads, schools and police at a provincial, or even national level. As such, Dominican municipal governments have very few excuses to few taxes on their citizens which means they sometimes have little revenue. By owning, and auctioning the rights to, services like the butcher's shop the ayuntamiento can simultaneously guarantee a source of revenue for itself while also guaranteeing that these services exist in their town. What is more, the ayuntamiento sets a maximum price per pound at the carniceria to ensure that the meat is affordable to its citizens. In a town with serious hunger in living memory that makes a lot of sense.

It's an interesting way of doing business, and governance, that I am happy to have learned about. I'll probably attend more meetings of the ayuntamiento in the future and record my reflections on other interesting stuff here.

Buen provecho, buen tiempo

When you see someone eating in the DR it is customary to wish them "Buen provecho," which more or less translates to "Bon appetit." This is a ritualized greeting. You say it like you say "salud" (health) when someone sneezes. This is more common in the campo than in the city, which leads me to believe it is an older custom.

You are especially obliged to say "buen provecho" if someone sees you see them eating and first wishes you "A buen tiempo." Not responding to "a buen tiempo" with "buen provecho" is straight up rude, like not saying "You're welcome" when someone thanks you.

Confused? Allow me to translate.

A buen tiempo means literally "A good time."

Buen provecho means literally "good advantage" or "good benefit."

Still confused? Don't feel bad. This custom continued to mystify Cat and I long after we had adopted it ourselves. I recall clearly a visit not long after we arrived in site while we were making our initial introductions to the community. We entered a house to find an older man eating who was quick to wish us a buen tiempo. Seconds ticked by painfully and his smile turned to a frown. He stared at us impatiently as if we were holding him up. "Buen provecho," he prompted us. Only Cat stammered "buen provecho" did he return to eating, clearly annoyed at our maleducación.

Later, at home we attemped to process the incident together.

"What the hell was that about?"

"I don't know!"

We imagined the encounter in English.

"Good times over here!"

"Well, good on you for taking advantage of it!"

Guandules, pigeon peas. ¡Good times!

What kind of person, when eating, looks at a stranger who is clearly not eating and not only brags about what a good time they are having but also gets mad when the possibly hungry person doesn't congratulate them? It seemed uncouth. Especially since Dominicans in the campo are normally so polite and generous.

Maybe it was a hunger thing. The people in our pueblo are mostly well-fed but real hunger, as in not having enough food, persists within living memory. Or maybe it was sarcastic?

"Check it out! I'm eating!"

"Good for you, daddy-o!"

Whatever. The first days, weeks, months, were intense and overwhelming. We accepted this bizarre custom like we accepted the fact that people dip bread in their hot chocolate and call that dinner. Culture is just weird sometimes. It can't be helped. It's like in English how the correct answer to "How are you?" is "I'm fine," regardless of how you really feel.  What's truly weird is not to play along.

Well, after 8 months in country and 6 months in site we have finally figured it out. We now have friends with enough confianza that we can ask delicate questions and our Spanish has advanced to the point that we can understand the nuance of their answers. So we asked. (Cat did).

It turns out that we had all the pieces of the puzzle but had just put them together in the wrong order. Yes, Dominicans are generous and polite. Yes, real hunger is a thing here. Yes, it is important to wish someone "a good advantage" when they are eating, especially if they first tell you what a good time they are having.

Because A buen tiempo is not a brag.  It's an invitation to dine.  As in, "Come share this good time with me." And when you wish them buen provecho you are saying "No, I'll be happier if you to take advantage of that." It's a mutual expression of care. Beyond polite, this is generous. And it means so much more in a society where hunger is still a thing.

So now when I greet my rounds and saludar my neighbors I always respond to their "buen tiempo" with "buen provecho." That is, if I don't beat them to it first!

Gratis para la gente que no puede leer

Una voluntaria
salió de la República
y dejó en la acera
afuera de su casa
dos sillas plásticas en una pila.

En esos lo
puso un letrero.
¿Qué dijó?
Te digo:

-Gratis para la gente que no puede leer.

Dos primos Dominicanos
quienes estaban paseando
(Sus nombres eran Randrika y Romeano)
vieron la pila y el letrero.
-¿Qué dices? preguntó el varón primo
a su prima alfabeta.

Y en voz alta Randrika lo leyó
a tu primo Romeano:

-Gratis para la gente que no puede leer.

La jóven bien educada pensó 
tan grosero el letrero, pero
a su primo no lo molestó.
-Perfecto, el tiguere dijó.

-A ti una silla doy.
Vamos a tu casa y luego me voy.

La pobrecita voluntaria de educación
despidió a su sitio con mucha decepción. 
Pero el letrero, su última lección,
enseña que todavía hay cosas que son
gratis para la gente que no puede leer.

---

"Free for People Who Can't Read."

A volunteer left the Republic
and left on the sidewalk outside her house
two plastic chairs in a pile.

On those she hung a sign.
What did it say? I'll tell you:

"Free for people who can't read."

Two Dominican cousins were walking by
(their names were Randrika and Romeano)
and saw the sign and pile.
"What's it say?" the male cousin asked
his literate female cousin.

And to her cousin Romeano
Randrika read in full voice:

"Free for people who can't read."

The well-educated young woman
thought the sign was very rude but
it didn't bother her cousin.
"Perfect," said the tiguere*.

"I'll give you a chair.
Let's take it to your house
and then I'm out of here."

The poor education volunteer
bid farewell to her site
with feelings of great disappointment.
But the sign, her last lesson,
teaches that some things still are
free for people who can't read.








*A word in Dominican Spanish with no direct translation. It comes from the word tigre ("tiger") and is used to describe a person with street smarts.

On living without power

I have electricity. Sometimes. Cat and I have it most of the time, actually, if we're careful. Which we usually are.

Our house has two sources of luz, actually. The first is the el panel. This was a gift from an NGO, I forget which, that gave panels to the majority of la gente a few years ago.

It weighs about 20 lbs. I heft it up onto the roof every morning to and take it down every evening to keep it from growing legs and sneaking off in the night.

El panel came with the house we are renting. It connects to batteries that store the electricity it collects throughout the day.

These are connected to an inversor that connects to the wiring in the house. You turn on the inversor and voila! there's luz.
 

The second source is municipal electricity. You plug a cord into the wall and there's power. It works exactly like in the US except that it doesn't work all the time. Sometimes there's just not power. Most of the time, actually. This is common throughout the country, even in the Santo Domingo (link to thoughts on the third world), though para alla and in other places that have political capital there's a schedule. Not here.

La luz arrived in the pueblo shortly before we did. In this town, lacking a paved road to connect it to the rest of the world the sight of concrete palos de luz (streetlights) along the hillside seems shockingly modern. Especially when el cable connects to a wooden house with a zinc roof.

When the la luz is off we use the panel. There's a switch that flips between the two.



These two sources more or less keep us in la luz 24/7. Just like the US, right? Wrong. La luz literally means "light," and the current in the inversor isn't good for much more than that. We can charge our phones and laptop, but forget about having a refrigerator.

The house of our host mom had a hefty inversor system gifted by a son who is a técnico de la luz. It has two car batteries and an inversor of the same size. For point of comparison, our inversor is the size of a paperback dictionary.

Even with this system her TV and fridge can't run at the same time. When using panel electricity the food only stays fresh-ish: leftovers don't keep that long but at least the lettuce doesn't wilt. And that TV? It's just a TV and quite modest at that: no DVD, no home stereo system, no Xbox, etc. All of that uses more electricity than a small home solar system can provide.

Some people still have that stuff but they can only use it when la luz is on. We can tell when it's time to switch from the inversor when our neighbor is bumping Rihanna.

This makes for a lot of small differences that add up to a significantly different lifestyle. For example, people don't have carpet here. Maybe this is because it's not a very "tropical" thing but ask yourself if you would have wall to wall rugs that couldn't be shaken out if you couldn't reliably run a vacuum cleaner. The same is true for power tools. They work when la luz is on but when you're relying on an inversor any motor with a good torque makes the lights blink.

There is a phrase I have been thinking about lately, one I have read in older texts: "all the modern conveniences." These are the things to which those words refer.

Life can still get lived, and quite well, without them. It's just less convenient. Things take longer and require more work. Which mean more labor. In the DR where power is inconsistent you see two things that used to be ubiquitous in the US but are less common these days: full time housewives and domestic help.

I think that it's no stretch to say that the edifice of modern feminism was founded on a platform of cheap energy, but that's another essay for another blog.

Another entry for this blog might be an investigation into where la luz comes from and why it is so irregular. I have done zero research but I'll dare speculate that it has something to do with the fact that DR is an island that, unlike my homeland, does not span a continent and cannot mine it's own coal.

This is one reason I am skeptical of the idea of a purely green future in which everything runs on paneles and wind farms with nary a smokestack or topless mountain to blot la vista. For this to work we would need to less energy, but instead we are using ever more. I am using electricity to write these words and you are using it to read them right now, aren't you?

Our community has a Centro de Tecnológico that it's full of computers. They run great when la luz is on. When it's not, it runs off it's own generator which is the size of a minivan.




That black stuff on the pipe? That´s soot from exhaust.

Gracias for your servicio

I was long overdue to meet one of my neighbors. In the States, especially in the cities, it is not uncommon to live for years next to someone and not know them well (or at all) but in the DR the reverse is true, especially in the campo. In addition to being good for confianza there's a pragmatic fatalism to knowing your neighbors in a small pueblo. People will know your business whether you like it or not, so you might as well pull up a plastic chair, accept a cup of coffee, and make the most of it. I wasn't exactly avoiding the neighbor in question - I said hola when I saw him - I has just been too busy to really talk.
   
But not too busy to be conscious of the oversight. I was very appreciative when he introduced a subject of real conversation, though I was surprised by the topic.

"My son is a colonel in el ejercito," he said to me over our shared fence, apropos of nothing.

I shouldn't have been surprised. There was a new-ish 4x4 parked in front of the house. Here in the pueblo vehículos are thin on the ground and visitors that arrive in them are usually pretty well off. He added: "He just got back from Iraq."

I was confused. "¿En el ejercito Americano?" I asked. Some Dominicans become Americans and go on to serve. His son wouldn't be the first Dominican American soldier I had here.

"No," he said, "de aquí.¨ From here.

Like many of my generation I spent the early 2000s opposing the war in Iraq: it's announcement, execution and failure. And like them I quickly forgot about it after the majority of the troops came home. One of my most embarrassing gaffes during my courtship with Cat was using the war as a preterite reference point.

"Back when the war was going on. . ." I said.

"It's still going on," she corrected me.  This was 2008. It's 2016 now and it still is.

Before I knew it the son had been produced from the house. He looked exactly as one expects of an army colonel: late 20s, closely cropped hair, and imposingly fit.

I see Dominican soldiers all the time. The frontera is littered with checkpoints where las guardias stop vehicles to check for undocumented Haitian migrants. In a small country it makes sense to combine the army and the border patrol. I was mistaken in believing that this was their only occupation.

In my group of volunteers there is a man about my age who is a combat veteran.  He served four tours. I am impressed by him even if, as he says, he was "just doing what he was told." He served alongside soldiers from a much ballyhooed international coalition that supported my patria's foreign misadventure. I remember being very skeptical of the smaller constituent nations of the coalition - really, what could a small country like the Dominican Republic contribute? - but never would I have imaged that I would one day meet a member of that coalition and see the smile on his face after he returned. Nor in my wildest dreams would I have imagined that his service would be 13(!) years after the initial invasion.

I shook the colonel's hand and told him that I was glad to see him home safe. He told me that it had been hard to be there and see how the people suffered but vale la pena. It had been worth it. I told him there is a refran (saying) that Americans say to soldiers: "Gracias para su servicio." Thank you for your service.

These were the same words that an aunt of mine used when she first learned that Cat and I had joined the Peace Corps. This was a woman whose step-son had seen active duty in Afghanistan. I remember being surprised at the phrase; normally Americans speak it to warriors, not to peacemakers. I accepted the compliment but was inwardly uncomfortable. Surely my sacrifice paled next to that of my cousin, who had been shot at.

As I write this now I think of a Dominican professor who is deeply grateful for the presence of Peace Corps in her country. She was tremendously impressed by the generosity of the volunteers. "They do such good work and they give two whole years of their lives." She did not use the refran. I was less uncomfortable this time.

Another volunteer in our group is a self-described military brat. Her parents recognize her work here as a service to their country not dissimilar to their own. Another volunteer has a brother in the army. She says they are proud of each other.  I am glad for them and grateful for their example. If they can accept a little praise, so can I.

But this kind of appreciation does not make me think that I serve at the same level as a soldier. I chose to serve but I got to chose where I serve and what I would do here. Peace Corp volunteers do get hurt and die during service but the odds of something truly bad happening to me are vanishingly small. If I return home, which I am free to do at any time, there is no penalty or shame associated with the decision.

And respecting these soldiers does not make me believe any less in the cause of peace. Even if, like many comfortable Americans, I have been able to forget a war is being fought because I wasn't asked to fight it.

All of this, though, makes me take my work here very seriously, regardless of the name of this blog.

Haitians and Hanukkah

When winter comes in the US, we say "Happy Holidays." As far greetings go it's pretty accurate but not very precise; most people aren't celebrating generic "holidays" but something more specific. As far as winter holidays go Ramadan is a moving target and Kwanzaa is an asterisk: the biggies, as we all know,  are Christmas and Hanukkah. So, what do we say to our baristas when we drop our change in the tip jar? Merry Christmas or Happy Hanukkah? Neither: we equivocate with "Happy Holidays," for fear of causing offense.

It's easy to see how we got here. Really, how can you tell if someone is Jewish or Christian by appearances alone? You can't!

Sure, sometimes we can hazard a guess and not strikeout. And there are signs we might look for: someone wearing a cross or a particularly ugly sweater is probably into Christmas. A bearded gentleman with prominent forelocks' and a kippe probably will not object to Happy Hanukkah.  We might listen for a name or accent to clue us in. If we are really comfortable (and most likely Jewish ourselves) we might judge by physiognomy.

Of course this is profiling in itself. And it doesn't always work.  Even Jews get it wrong sometimes. Hence, Happy Holidays.

It's July and I'm wondering, how can we tell Dominicans from Haitians? I ask because I am currently enrolled in a Kreyol class. My wife Cat and I stationed near the Haitian border and Kreyol, being tte language of Haiti, might come in handy. The chance to learn another language (Spanish) was one of the reasons we chose Peace Corps, so we're really excited to learn another and are to determined to use it.

Since there is no equivalent of "Happy Holidays" that covers both Spanish and Kreyol, I have to guess. Even though I know I'm going to get it wrong.

So I present here, more for my own mortification as for your edification, a shortlist of the "signs" I've discovered.

Color
Both Dominicans and Haitians have a lot of Africa in their history, but Dominicans are more intermixed with other groups than Haitians. If someone looks "black" in the American sense of the word, they are likely Dominican. If they look "African" they are likely Haitian.

But of course there are "African" looking Dominicans. And there is the fact that nationality is not a genetic trait. A person of 100% African Ancestry, born in Haiti, can magically transform with the right documentation. One of the most celebrated of all Dominican politicians, José Francisco Peña Gomez, a man many consider the first true leader to emerge after three decades of dictatorship was born to Haitian parents, orphaned by a massacre, adopted by Dominican parents and *poof* was magically transformed.

And there is the fact that there are light - even "white" - Haitians. So let's forget about color.

Class
Haitians are, unfortunately, almost universally impoverished. In my town of 2000, which is about half-Haitian, only 2 or 3 Haitian families own their home. The rest rent or squat. They often lack shoes and their clothes are little more than rags.

But national privilege does not guarantee subsistence and I have met Dominicans whose extremely humble house was indistinguishable for their Haitian neighbors and whose clothes were likely picked from the same paca.

So let's scratch class as well.

Occupation
Haitians, like Latin American immigrants in the US, bear the brunt of the agricultural grunt work. They often work longs hours in fincas owned by Dominicans where they are paid by the day.

But Dominicans, too, toil in fields not their own. And Haitians can do as well for themselves as any other group and I've heard a few own land, so maybe occupation isn't that helpful after all.

Language
Haitians speak Kreyol and Dominicans speak Spanish, right? But if *anything* is mutable it's language, right? So many I shouldn't get started with this one . . .

Accent
Kreyol is, well, a creole of many languages but the largely constituent in the stew is French, somany Haitians speak with a nasal acc--- You know what? Nevermind.

Happy Christmas in July!

Helpful skills for life in the campo

How to swing a machete

How to dance*

How to ride on the back of a moto without using your hands

How to cook over a fogon*

How to take a bathe, shave, and brush your teeth using only one pitcher of water

How to tell if "Yes, soon" means "Yes, soon" or "No"*

How to keep up with a conversation while only understanding 40% of what is said

How to wash clothes by hand*

How to sit on the edge of the bed of a moving pickup without falling out

How to make coffee in an empty tin can*

How to hook up a solar panel

How to politely equivocate when answering the question whether or not your are going to have
children*

How to flush a toilet using a bucket of water

How to politely steer the conversation away from religion so you don't have to tell people you're not a Christian*

How to use a toilet with no seat

How to haggle politely while still getting a fair deal*

How to address someone's illiteracy without making them feel ashamed

How to hiss at someone politely*

How to say "Hi" in Kreyol

How to peel a green banana*

*Pending

The Tropic of Beisbol

During CBT, I knew a family whose teenage son was a talented pitcher. I had trouble with his name (in my defense, there were eight kids) but I never forgot that he was (and presumably still is) actively being scouted by the Detroit Tigers. His father mentioned this to me with a particular type of pride that I recognized across the divide of language and culture. It was pride that American parents show when  their kids get into a great college. A sort of casual pride that implicitly acknowledges while this is awesome, it's something that happens to lots of people. It's something special, but not like "winning the lottery" special.

In my high school graduating class in the U.S. two students got into Harvard and another kid while another scouted by the Yankees. The kids who got into Harvard got pats on the back that showed the sort of comfortable pride I described above, while the baseball player got treated as being only slightly less important than the President of the United States.

Maybe it's a Yankees vs Tigers thing. Or maybe it's because the Dominican family I mentioned is one of achievers: the eldest daughter an abogada (lawyer) and the father is a major mover-and-shaker in the local political party.  But I think this disparity in enthusiasm is due to the fact that so many Dominicans go to the grandes ligas (Big Leagues).

Dominicans go to the Big Leagues at a greater rate than Americans go to prestigious universities; than Americans go to college at all; than Dominicans go to college at all; and, last but not least at a far greater rate than Americans go to the Big Leagues. It's not even close.

There are currently about 1000 Dominicans in the MLB system. That means in a nation of 11,000,000 people, about 0.0009% play professional ball in the U.S. With 30 clubs and about 250 players on the main team and associated farm teams that makes for about 7500 players in the Big League system. Even if the remaining 6500 are all natural born citizens of Los Estados Unidos (which they are not, but let´s pretend for simplicity's sake) in my nation of 300+ million that's only 0.00002%. That extra 0? That's literally an entire order of magnitude of difference.

All this to say that preparing Dominican youth for American ball is big business here. Would a $10 million contract blow your mind? Now imagine that feeling multiplied by an exchange rate of 45:1.

There are tons of professional trainers, many MLB veterans themselves, and there are dozens of baseball camps and academies. Like anything that involves children doing the work of adults it has it's dark side. Mother Jones called the training system  a "sweatshop" and unscrupulous trainers can pervert a mentoring relationship into something exploitative. This happens in the States with tiny gymnasts and teenage pop stars (paging Dr. Luke) but I daresay the stakes are higher here. Dominican parents are not blameless, but being broke is more forgivable than being merely fame hungry.

The business is quite a site to see, and I've only seen a little bit. And thankfully, what I've has so far, mostly been good.

In one corner of my pueblo, near the cemetery and there is a dusty play. The grass is mixed with weeds and trash blows around the bleachers, so I had assumed it was inactive. This puzzled me because I see kids playing pelota (which is what you call baseball when you play it with a stick and empty milk carton for a ball) in the street nearly everyday. It turns out I just went to the play on the wrong day. A friends brother is a trainer and one of the elementary teachers coaches a practice team.

I learned all of this when Major League Baseball came to host a clínica (clinic) in my isolated town in the mountains. Cat and I showed up to watch like everyone else in town, but unlike most of them I didn't know what clínica was. I assumed it was something vaguely medical, like a weigh-in for boxers or the type of "turn your head and cough" physical exam they put me through when I ran Cross Country in High School. It turns out a clínica is a miniature baseball training camp.

Like most Dominican events the clínica started an hour past the official time to allow everyone to show up. In that space Cat and I talked to a woman from MLB whose job is to improve the prospects of Dominican recruits to MLB. The big business I mentioned has a history of producing technically expert players with no emotional intelligence or critical thinking capabilities. They make poor decisions when in the heat of the moment and explode in the dugout afterwards. They may be professionals, but their personal development is arrested at the age they entered the system.

Players "released" from their contracts be retained by the Grandes Ligas as técnicos (technical trainers), managers, etc. and some will bounce around in the international leagues - not a horrible fate- but many, being booted from MLB is the end. With have no job experience and no other skills they have no future. Improving their prospects means improving education.

In addition to equipment, MLB donates books and scholarships to schools. They are also raising their internal standards. You can't play if haven't graduated high school, and you need to learn English - one of the most valuable job skills in the DR. And your parents need to be involved, from the beginning, and until you are an adult.

She says she watches the game now differently. She knows the players and their stories. When a Dominican player fouls a play and the camera zooms in for the reaction shot of his pained face she knows what he has to to through to get there and the problems that pain him back home.
Learning all this from her I looked again at the tecnicos as they put the boys through their paces. Some were retirement age and some were still young. I  wondered about their stories.

After the clínica I learned that last year a local boy had been released from his contract before he even made it to the States. He had been using his pending fame to chat up women, something prohibited during training. Clearly, he still had some growing up to do.

Nombres, Apodos and Newspapers

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Shakespeare wrote under many names. Not pen names, mind you, but different variations of his given name. There are documents written by him, literarlly in his hand, where "Shakespeare" is spelled his differently than we are used to: Shagspur, Shakspar. And why not, so long as people could understand what was being conveyed? There is no "right" way to spell Shakespeare, any more than there is a "right" way to spell Kristen. Or Krystyn. Or Christen. You get the point.

The same goes for my name. (Kevin? Why not Kevan? Or Kevon? Pretty much any vowel works.) And the same goes for your name. This is because our names are made up. Even if you have a Roman numeral after your name, even if you are the 15th Franklin in your family line, even if your name has been appears in the Bible, it was made up by someone at some point, even if you believe that person was God. This is to because your name is a product of the literary tradition - that is to say the tradition of literacy, the tradition of reading and/or writing things down. The "right" way to spell your name was established because there was a popularity contest in the written record and Thomas won out over Thomus.

When I learned that I would be moving to a Spanish speaking country I assumed that I would be meeting people with names similar to the Latin American immigrants I am familiar with in California: Jose, Esperanza, etc. And while I have met more than one Juan and Maria here in the DR I have met far more people with names like Tirofio and Yirandy.

More than many names in other American countries - more than Ezekiel, or Enrique, or Steven - Dominican names are more obviously "made up" because they were more recently made up. Some of these recent coinages are poetic (Pijíro, Fredesvinda) but some are less so (Noelvis).

It's hard to talk about this without sounding judgmental, but I think this is a direct result of the literacy problem in the DR. If you've never read a book or written your own name, calling your child "Fraciey" might not seem as strange as it would to an educated person. Right now, Dominicans are doing their damndest to improve their educational system. The current government is building new classrooms all across the country. Most of the university students I meet want to be teachers. This is a beautiful thing, but they still have a long way to go. It is not uncommon to meet Dominicans of any generation who cannot read or write. The job title of Catherine (why not Katheryn?), my wife, is "Primary Literacy Promoter." Approximately 20 others in our cohort have the same position and they are needed.

Beyond the illiterate there are the alliterate - those Dominicans who can read and right but just choose not to. This is part of larger cultural phenomenon that I won't attempt to explain because I know I don't understand it, but I can describe. When Dominicans do do words they do them differently. Libraries don't exist in most towns here and those that do don't let you take the books home. Book stores are only found in the major cities. When I lived in a pueblo of nearly 20,000 I was surprised to learn that I would have to go to the provincial capital, an hour away, to buy a newspaper.

Beyond names, there are the apodos - nicknames. This has nothing to do with illiteracy or alliteracy. It's just a Dominican tradition to go by a name other than what you were assigned at birth. These I understand.

Some, like English apodos are derived from the given name: the "Felo" I know was born Rafael. Juan Carlos is often shortened to "Janqui" (a play on "Yankee"), and I meta Luis Fernando who is more commonly known as "Juife." Some are descriptive ("Blanca," White) and some are crude Cabo Prieto("Black Handle"). Some apodos are as common as given names. In my small town along the frontera, when you talk about Chicho ("Chubby"), you need to be clear whether you are talking about the former mayor or the guy who runs the lodge. My Don Pedro back in the capital is also known as Chicho.

I have met people of whose real name I have no idea and when I ask other Dominicans sometimes they're not that certain either. They can tell me where El Pirata lives and who his parents are is but aren't 100% about what's on his birth certificate.

Apodos are so common that they are included on political campaign signs. My CBT Don is named Victoriano but is better known as Nelson, so when he ran for regidor (Town Council - he won!) he made sure to include his apodo in parentheticals.

But even if I understand how these names and apodos came to be, it doesn't mean I understand them when they are given to me in conversation. I'm bad with names in my country. I'm no better in a culture that's not own when I am using a language I still haven't learned to think in. Ilario, I apologize. It's my problem I forgot your name, not yours.

That said, I still feel bad for the kid who told me his name was "Gravy."

Things that I saw in San Francisco that I don't see in my DR pueblo

Neutered dogs.

Human waste in the streets.

People walking dogs on leashes.

Declawed cats.

Collars on pets.

People cleaning up after their dogs.

Children wearing bicycle helmets.

Stop signs at intersections.

Recycling bins.

People you have lived next to for years but still don't know their names.

Police cars everywhere.

Adults jumping in terror at the sight of a cockroach.

Children going to school without uniforms.

Students sleeping in class.

People carrying hand sanitizer with them everywhere.

Newspapers.

People with visible displays of non-Christian religious identity.

People of non-European or non-African descent.

Openly gay people.

Rats the rize of chihuahuas.

Things that I see in my DR pueblo that I didn't see in San Francisco

Dog testicles.

Animal waste (dogs, chickens, horses) in the streets.

People walking horses and mules.

7 year olds riding horses bareback.

10 year olds driving motorcycles.

People walking safely in the middle of the street.

Children wandering safely and freely without adult guardians.

Speedbumps everywhere.

People burning trash.

All of my neighbors, every day.

Police sleeping in plastic chairs on the lawn of the station.

Adults jumping in terror at the sight of a frog.

Parents spanking their children.

Adults disciplining strangers' children.

People sharing food with strangers.

Everyone's laundry.

Doors left unlocked and open when no one is home.

People walking with parasols.

Ditches laterally bisecting the streets

Flying cockroaches the size of business cards.

Things that I do in the DR that I don't do in the US

 Greet 90% of the people I pass on the street.

Take baths out of a plastic bucket.

Walk 1 km+ to find a decent cell signal.

Carefully fold the TP after wiping to make sure only white is visible before throwing it in the zafacon.

Take a nice long nap after lunch.

Take transit 2+ hrs to the nearest ATM.

Eat fresh fruit from my backyard.

Eat fresh eggs from my backyard.

Drink milk.

Eat meat.

Buy TP by the roll.

Ride in the back of a pick up truck.

Ride on the back of a motorcycle.

Drink hot chocolate 4+ times a week.

Shave every day.

Play with strangers' children.

Things that I do in the US that I don't do in the DR

Sit next to strangers without introducing myself.

Take hot showers.

Spend hours on the internet doing nothing.

Flush TP down the drain.

Sleep outside of a mosquito net.

Commute 1 hr+ to work.

Buy fresh fruit at the grocery store.

Eat fresh veggies without first dunking them in bleach water.

Drink water from the tap.

Eat at restaurants.

Buy anything in bulk.

Ride a bicycle in the street with traffic.

Get a ride out of town a moments notice.

Drink more than 1 kind of beer.

Receive mail.

How the Salchicha is Made

Now that elections in the DR have passed, I think it is safe to talk some about politics here. Not that I can say that much about them: Peace Corps volunteers are deliberately apolitical. I certainly have political opinions but it is inappropriate for me to share them here or anywhere else during my service. They would only get in the way. But I think there is no harm in describing how the democratic process works here - to the extent that I understand it.

On 15 de Mayo 2016 Danilo Medina, the sitting president of the Dominican Republic, was re-elected with 60% of the popular vote. This gave him a margin of 25 points over his nearest challenger, Luis Abinader, in the most crushing defeat in the history of Dominican democracy.

Danilo is a member of the PLD and Abinader the PRM. The remaining 5% of the vote was split between 6 other minority partidos. The biggest winner of these was the Alianza Pais with 2.5% of the presidential vote. In the American two party system we would call these "third parties" but this would be a total misnomer here. The minority partidos are more than three. They are more than 6 actually. All told, there are 32 registered partidos in the Dominican Republic and 26 of them matter enough to be included on the ballot.

Why, you ask, if there are 26 partidos were there only 8 presidential candidates? Well, there were more candidates initially but they dropped out when their partidos formed alianzas with either the PLD or PRM. On the surface the Dominican process looks a lot like the US: direct democracy, bicameral legislature, etc. The key difference is alianzas and the difference they make is huge.

Using an example from US politics, let's turn back time to the 1992 presidential election. Many believe that Bill Clinton was elected because Ross Perot, a "third party" candidate, cost George HW Bush crucial votes. This was exactly what the Republicans worried would happen. But imagine: what if, instead of saying "well, it's a two-party system and there's nothing we can do," the Republicans had signed a preemptive powersharing agreement with Perot's Reform Party? In exchange for dropping their presidential spoiler the Reform Party would receive guaranteed appointments for non-elected positions and support in some local elections. This would help the Republicans retain power by guaranteeing them the presidency and would help build the Reform Party from an upstart operation into a real party with office holders spread throughout the country. The parties could even campaign together!

In the DR this happens all the time. It is the bread and butter (or, better put, the beans and rice) of Dominican politics. This is why there were only 8 presidential candidates on the ballot. All of the remaining 18 "major minority" partidos formed alianzas with either the PLD or PRM. This is why Danilo, the most popular presidential candidate in the history of his country, appeared side-by-side on posters for candidates of the BIS, a minority Socialist party that took in less than 100,000 votes nationwide.

Sure, the BIS won't win the presidency without a candidate, but it's not like they really had a chance at that office anyhow. Significant local wins can help BIS establish a stronghold in certain parts of the country. This can be expanded upon over time and suddenly your minority partido isn't so minor anymore. That's exactly what happened with the PLD. PLD is currently the majority partido in Dominican politics. One of the 18 parties they allied with was the PRD, which used to be the majority partido. In fact, the PLD began life as an offshoot of the PRD!

So that's how the sausage is made at the levels of the partidos. But what does it mean for citizens? Like Americans, Dominicans grumble about how their politicians are all crooks, but to judge by voter turnout they are far less jaded than we are. This years election had over 70% voter turnout. I imagine it's because Dominicans can vote their conscience with the party of their choice without feeling they are "throwing their vote away" on a candidate who will never win.

The Dominican enthusiam for democracy is apparent not only in the polling place. Unlike the US where campaigns are mostly media affairs, Dominicans campaign vigously in the streets. Each of the 26 partidos has their colores and groups of suppoters regularly parade the streets in matching outfits, shaking hands and going door to door. This do this for months on end. I have been in here less than 3 months and not a week has gone by that I haven't encountered a parade or manifestacion of some kind, even when I was in a small town of less than a thousand people. It is exactly the kind of rowdy, participatory democracy that I have read that the US used to have.

Of course, there is a dark side. This year's election was notable not only for it's surprisingly decisive presidential victory but also for it's orderliness. At the church I attended during CBT the priest implored from the pulpit against violence on election day. Like Americans at sporting events, sometimes the excitement gets out of hand. Cheers for your team turn to jeers for the other. Rough words and blows are exchanged. Sometimes people die. In previous years, Peace Corps issued security alerts for volunteers to stay in their homes on election day.

But not this year. I was able to walk the streets of the small town where I now live and feel safe as I shared in the exictement. It was truly something to see.

Final note: Since my last entry my wife and I have been quite busy! We have received our site assignment, visited it for a few days, returned to the capital to complete training, and have moved permanently to our new site in the northern reach of the province Elias Piña where we live with a new host family.

I have a lot to write about! But I need time to process things. I'll post here when I have understood enough to have something intelligent to say.