Weepa (A dominican whats up)

This blog is coming to you via my notebook. I´m sitting on a cement block in the shade listening to reggaeton and trying to stay out of the way of all of the ladies doing their daily cleaning. This is a mysterious ritual that starts off normal enough, with sweeping and mopping and laundry, that culminates in the throwing of buckets of water into the dirt street, and in doing so making a muddy mess. This is not simply the dumping of mop buckets, but the deliberate hauling of water to thoroughly soak the street. Like many things here that I don´t understand at first, I´m sure that it has a significant and useful purpose. For example, when eating tomates the people seemed to be using a piece of class to cut into the tomatoe before each bite. I thought to myself, that´s silly and unecessary as I chomped on my tomatoe wishing I had a salt shaker to top it off. It took me about two days to realize that the piece of glass is actually a hunk of salt being rubbed on the tomatoe before each delicious bite. Lesson learned.

This place is beautiful in so many ways. We are surrounded by mountains, and the sky is always pretty. Most days it is too hot, but oftentimes there is a wonderful breeze that rustles the palms and coconut trees scattered about, and temporarily removes the sweat beads from my forehead.

There are children everywhere. The little boys rolling tires and making motorcycle sounds and the little girls with braids in hunting parties of 3 to 5 warriors looking for victims like me to mob. (I´m being stared at and studied as I write this by no less than 4 dominicans.)

Then there are the animals. Roosters riding on the bus, chickens walking through the house, baby goats climbing on the porch, strange birds making strange noises, horses ridden by old men refusing to take a motor to their land, lizards and or geckos climging walls, dogs running about looking for food or chained by outhouses, and pigs grunting with pleasure in a shady mud bath, or screaming bloody murder as they are being bloodily murdered.

I tried to explain how great our puppy Hattie is, and how I cuddle with her, but they just laughed. I can´t blame them. I wouldn´t want to cuddle with their concept of dogs either. They aren´t treated well, probably because they can´t afford to, but I have seen men kicking dogs walking by. It´s sad, but I realize that priorities and values are subject to how you´re living.

In a similar way, dominicans do not recycle, because they do not trash. It is more than acceptable to drink a bottle of water and throw it in the yard, or eat a freezy pop and throw it out the window. I don´t know how to feel about it. I understand that environmental concerns are not at the top of the list in a place where they´ve never heard of studying the environment or global warming or carbon or anything I´m used to talking about. Some people here worry about eating every days, but for the most part, this village is safely above malnutrition. I need to investigate further, but I do know that the people take great pride in their appearance and the appearance of the land. In fact I am probably the worst dressed inhabitant of the household. THe idea of throwing trash and refuse everywhere is inconsistent with a policy of maximum beauty. Again, I´d like to stress my priorities and ideas about what should be done with trash are bound to be different, and my country is one of the worst polluters, but also the most discreet. I´m not condeming, I´m just trying to understand. In the meantime, I´ve been trying to find garbage cans, which are few and far inbetween.

As to education, I am appalled. Some people don´t know what language is spoken in Haiti, the country next door, even though their are more than 500 Haitians living in this community. I´m teaching english and french at a private school in Azua, which is 30 minutes by bus and has 80,000 inhabitants. It is schocking. The students don´t have textbooks, or bathrooms, and the teachers don´t seem to have educations. THat is how I got the job, because I met the guy teaching english and french there and he invited me to come with him one day. It turned out he can hardly speak anything in either language (he trys to learn things the night before and teach them to the class, but it doesn´t work) and in fact struggles to spell in spanish. So I found a french textbook to brush up and have been teaching his class by day and tutoring him by night. I was not surprised to leanr he earns only 150 US per month. You get what you pay for. If this is a private school, I am scared to see a public school. Probably the hardest part about teaching (surprisingly not translating into spanish) has been rejecting the advances of the girls. It is ridiculous how attractive the see me as because of my skin color and nationality. One girl gave me a dictionary so I could learn more spanish in order to to be her boyfriend. Another girl told me I look like tom cruise and brad pitt. All white people look the same!

I finally understand what it´s like to be different. In new zealand I was different by nationality only. Lifestyle and culture and color for the most part were the same. Here, I am an oddity and a magnet for eyeballs. I can do nothing without being watched, talked about, or laughed at. I´m constantly having to prove I can do things. For example I was made to go swimming with 2 boys in the canal, because they didn´t believe I could swim and were worried about me drowning. Afterwards it was the talk of the neighborhood that ¨el puede nadar!¨ In the fields if there are new guys out there I have to prove my worth as a worker all over again, being assigned the lightest tasks and constantly being asked if I need a break or some water. It is annoying, even if they are just looking out for me.

But after a few outings, I am known enough among the Haitian workers to feel satisfied. They know I´m always willing to help them in their incredibly hard and sweaty jobs and try to speak french and creole and spanish and laugh back at them when I apply sunscreen for the 5th time in an hour. They love it when my face turns red, but I think they really appreciate that I don´t call them Moreno, like the dominicans do. THe haitians are the poorest people here and do the hardest jobs for the least amount of money. In return, they are not called by name and are referred to as moreno. (I was mad when, after teaching english class to the neighborhood kids, which I do every weeknight, a student used his newly acquired knowledge of the word ugly, to describe Haitians. ) Haitians are ugly! WHy... Because they are negro. This coming from, by my standards, a black person. In my mind there is hardly a racial distinction, but somehow there is racism. I hope to understand this, like much else here, more.

Lastly, on a lighter note, I am beginning to figure out time of arrival here. If someone says, I´ll be there at 6 am, do not be ready at 6, be ready at no earlier than 730. I´ve been keeping track of these occurances, in the hopes that I can derive a formula or a line of best fit that allows me a minimum amount of time of waiting. There is a crazy man in the neighborhood who does nothing but speak and writie numbers. I often wonder if he is deep in a struggle to find the same formula I am searching for.

I apologize for the lengthiness, but internet is scarce. I hope to offer more insight and adventure later on. A lot of fun stories and mistakes on my part fall through the cracks because they are so frequent. Instead of trying to put them here, you can just think of a stupid thing I´ve done in your presence, then picture it in spanish and a warm climate, and resulting in me being emberassed or gawked at.

Until next time! Vayan bien.