You know you're in America Latina when...

I think now would be a good time for me to say a few things about my actual internship. There are four DSTA projects in the Jarabacoa region where I am working: One art gallery/artisan store/art school, one waterfall excursion and two cabin projects. The waterfall project is one of my favorites. You would never guess that tucked into one of the ridges right above Jarabacoa, with a 20 minute hike straight down into a hidden canyon, you would find this beautiful waterfall surrounded by colorful boulders and swimming holes. I’ve made the trip down there four times already and every time I fall more in love with the place. The only issue is the hike back up, which qualifies as a Hike with a capital H because it is NOT easy.

The trail there is in a bit of disrepair and is going to need a lot of help if it’s going to be marketed to a wider audience (particularly Dominicans, who are notorious for their distaste of walking). It’s funny to think about the first time I visited the project. I spent the entire hike making suggestions and giving advice (“see, all you need to do is put some steps here, a handrail here, clean out the rocks there”). In my non-expert opinion the solutions seemed so obvious. In the past few weeks I have become familiar with the endless supply of hoops to jump through and walls to ram against before getting the OK to move a single branch off the trial (in case you actually want to know, there are two main obstacles: (1) the area is a national forest and even thought the community is registered as its conservation partner, the ministry of environment requires an absurd amount of paperwork only to keep everyone waiting around until they are willing to send a representative to supervise changes, (2) on top of that USAID regulations require that all materials be purchased either in the US or the DR – very limiting). So now, when I hear other foreigners making all those same suggestions as we hike down the trail, I just nod and smile and feel bad for whoever had to deal with me my first time around.

Getting some rainbow time in

Even though for the most part the Jimenoa leadership is an adult crowd, the project really depends on youth participation, as without the youth there wouldn’t be any guides for the trail. It is impressive to me that these kids are willing to invest so much in this project when the community really has very little to offer them. Besides some construction work and even less agricultural work, there is little to no employment or educational opportunities for youth in the community of El Salto. Most end up moving to the big cities and the community is left with what is called a “brain drain.” But the waterfall project has these kids coming out on their days off from work in the city to spend the entire day at the waterfall, even when some days there are no visitors. That is very impressive to me and part of why I enjoy working with this group.

Another part of the charm of this project is the way it exudes Dominican-ness. I have been working with the waterfall project the most because they have very little help with the administrative and organization component and there is a lot to work on. On one of the nights when we had planned to outline job descriptions I made the trip up to the community to find that the person with the keys to the school where we were going to meet had gone out of town without telling anyone, so we can’t get in. We postpone the workshop a few days. I come back. This time we have the key, but the power has gone out and there’s no electricity. Being americana I was determined to get some work done this time, so we scrounge up some candles and had everyone crowd around my notebook while someone held the candle over us. An hour later I get up to leave which causes everyone to protest, “but the baseball game is about to start!” It turns out the guides at the project have a baseball team called “the waterfall”, so we all walk out to the field to cheer. You’ve gotta love community-based eco-tourism when a project doesn’t even have a brochure, but they sponsor a baseball team. Now that’s promotion. I don’t know if this series of events is as amusing to other people as it was to me, but having grown up in Venezuela it just felt SO typical. So I sat in the stands (stands? pile of cement bricks?) with my coworkers cheering around me and laughed to myself thinking, “you know you’re in Latin America when…”

A pair of guides taking a break

The Salto de Jimenoa project brings to light several questions about development that have been running through my head lately. At the moment the DSTA/USAID is directing most of it’s funds for this project towards construction of a restaurant with the idea that it will diversify the products the community has to offer tourists, and create another source of income. Great idea USAID, that sounds awesome. However, I can’t get over the fact that what is being invested in is a business, and the organization doesn’t have a business plan. They don’t even have an operational manual. They’ve been getting a little support from other local organizations, but for the most part this community is expected to fill out USAID forms and have administrative capacities that are just not realistic in a community with a one-room schoolhouse that only teaches up to fourth grade. There is almost no investment in bringing capacity training to the project members and the community. What’s up with that? It seems like an enormous flaw from my point of view. I’ve had to sit down with the president a few times in her kitchen to try to figure out why their association registration papers aren’t being approved, when neither of us knows the first thing about law. I just don’t understand how these projects are expected to succeed without administrative training.

The other two projects I’ve been working with lately are both very impressive in their goals and vision for the community, even if they also lack the capacity training needed for a successful business. One of the cabin projects, Sonido del Yaque, is an eco-paradise - an environmentally sustainable hippie dream hidden in the mountains of the Dominican Republic. The project has six cabins, a restaurant and a conference room, all created under the leadership of a local women’s cooperative. Where before the community had no electricity and lived in poor health conditions, they have managed to bring electricity to everyone in the area by way of a hydroelectric system using power from the river. They also have a bio-digestor for wastewater treatment, greenhouses to grow food for the restaurant and they are working on a fishery next the river. But even though US funds have left the restaurant and cabins almost completed, there is still a big need to capacitate the community to be able to run the business. And the truth of the matter is that people are still struggling to have enough food to eat and very few kids are able to go to school past fourth grade. The other project is the art school – so much vision! The front portion of the building serves as a commerce center for local artists. The art gallery buys art from local artists and then sells it, providing a more steady income for said artists. Out of the back they run an art school. Many of the artists there remember having to shine shoes in the park when they were young, and they have made it their goal to give these kids scholarships so that they can take the art classes and develop a different source of income for their family and to support themselves to go to actual school. Talk about a creative business approach to a social issue. And yet the revenue aspect is missing and can use a lot of help.

A blossoming artist at work

The women's coop during a weekly meeting

In working with Jimenoa and the other projects I have become very aware of my role as an intern in the grand scheme of people and organizations that have come through and made promises to these communities. Especially in light of the recent AED suspension where for four months the projects received nothing, many of these projects are suffering morally and financially from the promises they were given that were not followed up on (AED is the organization that disperses USAID funding in development projects around the world and one of the main components of the DSTA. They recently had their USAID funds suspended while corruption was investigated in the projects in the afpak region). On one occasion in the past few weeks I was feeling frustrated that one of the projects was not being very responsive in answering my questions, and I was talking to someone associated with the DSTA about it, at which point they sat me down and said, “you have to understand, there is an ongoing pattern in these communities where they have been promised something by a foreign aid organization or entity, asked to put their energy and time behind it, and then left behind. You have to be sensitive that there are people that may not feel very excited to be promised more help.” Ever since I have been very careful to think twice before making any suggestions or offering any extra help – is what I’m saying or offering realistic? Or am I just adding another burden?

I leave you with this: Last night the power went out as it often does around here (se fue la luz!). But this time it happened in the middle of cooking dinner. I was still a little disoriented by the dark, so it was a surprise to me when my host mom came riding into the kitchen on the family motorcycle, shined the headlights toward the stove, and kept cooking dinner. I think that pretty much sums up the kind of creativity and flexibility you have to live in this part of the world.

Good morning Jarabacoa!

Jarabacoa! The view from the porch rocking chair.

It is said in the Dominican Republic that “God lives everywhere, but sleeps in Jarabacoa” (Dios vive en todas partes, pero duerme en Jarabacoa). This is where I’ll be for the next six weeks. Scenes from Jurassic Park where filmed at one of the projects I’m working with. Another project takes place in this completely sustainable village right outside of Jarabacoa, run by a women’s cooperative. There’s so much to say about the projects I’m working on, but I’m still in the figuring-it-out stage so I’ll leave that for another post.

Welcome to Jarabacoa!

More interesting: Daily life

Jarabacoa is one of the more developed towns in the central mountain region. It sits in a wide mountain basin surrounded by pine and fruit trees. Many travelers come this way for rafting and canyoning, but I wouldn’t call it touristy.

My host family:

The household dynamic is really interesting and took me a while to figure out. Antonia is the 30year-old matron of the house. She has a son (Omar, 14) and the cutest, sassiest 3 year-old I’ve ever met (Osmairy). Osmairy has a hard time pronouncing her ‘r’s, so Sarah became Sala, which turned into Salami. I call her jamón (ham), so now we’re Salami and Ham. In the house is also Antonia’s niece Eliana (22), but the two are so close in age that they’re really like best friends living together and raising Antonia’s kids. Then there’s Doña Ana, the grandmother. She’s a funny and sarcastic woman. Loves hugging. They are all incredibly beautiful.

My host sister Osmairy (right) and her friend being silly

Eliana’s husband lives in Nueba Yol (New York). He’s been there ever since Osmairy was born, and you can tell it really wears on the family. Osmairy gets really sad when the topic comes up. Dad calls every night and the phone gets passed around for everyone to chat. I talked to him once. He told me about the snow in Manhattan. It sounded like he was calling from a payphone. Antonia says she never wanted him to go, but a dollar in remittances can stretch far here, and it’s very difficult to find work in the DR. This definitely seems to be true. Antonia cleans vacation homes in the area, but not very often. Eliana doesn’t work and is waiting for her visa to come through so she can join her brothers in New York as well. It seems like this town is full of young people, and yet there is almost no work available to them within Jarabacoa.

Two relevant statistics from my pre-arrival homework: *1 in 5 Dominican families depends on money sent from family members in the US for 1/4^th of their total income, *30% of the population is under 15 years of age, and only 4% is over 65.

My street

The daily routine: Basically just lost of sitting on the porch talking to all the family members that stop by. This is essentially what the weekend is. On weekdays I spend most of the morning and early afternoon out at the projects around town. Then I come home and play legos with Osmairy until 6pm, when Eliana and I go to the gym.

Aside: Oh man, the gym. The women work out on the 2^nd floor and the men on the first. Although some women like to venture down to the bottom floor to “exercise their eyes.” The gym is a total ladies hang-out. The women exercise in gangs, all doing the same activities and chatting it up. Their kids run around underfoot and build forts with the aerobics step things, so you have to be careful not to step on any stray barbie dolls on your way to the stationary bike. But none of the machines have any power anyway so an aerobic workout is not really available. Except under the direction of Jonathan, the flamboyantly gay instructor. This my favorite part. Jonathan leads the women in a workout that involves a lot of him yelling and the women sassing back and then everyone breaking out in merengue moves when they don't feel like doing it anymore. It reminds me of the I Love Lucy episode where tries to learn ballet but just starts doing the Charleston Jonathan likes to look up Shakira videos during breaks and can imitate her to the tee. Even though from my perspective his shouting promotes a negative body image, the women love him because he makes them feel accomplished.

Anyway, I really enjoy going to the gym with Eliana because she gives me the scoop on the neighborhood as well as her views on life (real cool, grounded girl). After that I sit on the porch doing alphabet soup puzzles with Doña Ana while Antonia and Eliana chat with people walking by. This lasts until 10pm when the telenovela comes on. Not to be missed. Five sexy adopted cowboy brothers engage in complicated love triangles that seem to involve lots of getting in car accidents out of vengeance. I’m totally hooked. All in all it’s the good life.

The house is very nice and in the middle of town, but it’s still pretty basic. Running water comes out of the kitchen sink and toilet, and only at certain times of the day (although in the tropics bucket showers are actually really great). There are just 3 bedrooms for all six of us, so I feel really bad that they’ve given me the master bedroom all to myself. But it seems very important to them to feel like they’re treating me special. Which brings me to food, and The Breakthrough. This is the classic study-abroad-host-family story. For the first few days Antonia would call me in to the kitchen and I would just gawk. So much food! Why hasn’t the rest of the family joined me at the table? Why is there a full plate of mashed plantains, and an enormous mound of rice, probably half a chicken, plus soup all for just me? I felt terrible because I couldn’t understand how on earth they thought I could eat four times more than they did. I also felt guilty not finishing my plate because I knew they didn’t have much for me to be wasting it. For two days I would sit down for a meal and almost start to cry – trying to stuff an entire yucca root in your mouth is rib splitting. The starch sticks to your stomach and can keep you full all day. After every meal I would praise the food to Antonia and try to bring across the quantity issue. But it wasn’t until the third day that I finally caught on. “I’m sorry to leave so much food, Antonia. I just get full so quickly.” “Oh no, I know. I just don’t know what you like to eat so I bring you lots of options.” Aha moment! So THAT’S why they always gave me an extra plate to dish myself with. It also helped when I realized that the reason the fridge is so empty is because they store most of their food in the oven (still figuring that part out). That aside, Antonia is an incredible cook.

A final note on CARNIVAL. This region of the country is well known for carnival culture. Every Sunday of February there is a parade in Jarabacoa with incredible masks and costumes, followed by a party in the park. People around town form carnival crews and dress up together to terrorize the streets in costume. When you go to the park in the evening you can hear each crew’s personalized reggaeton anthem, and maybe meet their mascots (the Las Culebras carnival crew has giant snakes that they let slither around). This goes again to show, Jarabacoa has SO MANY young people. More on carnival to come.

El Gran Salto Jimenoa I - one of the project sites

The view from the valley right above another project site

Afro-Caribbean! Como tu ‘ta’!

(Warning: This post is very long. Sorry).

As I write this I am sitting in a pile of muddy clothes in the apartment where I’m staying in Santo Domingo. I have spent the last week in a tiny mountain town on the outskirts of Constanza, DR, participating in a sendero (hiking trail) workshop. I mean, I can split rocks and chart maps and whatnot now – I'm really excited about it! Thus, undone laundry and my first plunge into the blogosphere.

Quick explanation of why I’m here:

I am currently doing a three-month internship with DSTA (Dominican Sustainable Tourism Alliance), a USAID funded project in the Dominican Republic. The goal of the organization is to create community development through ecoturism microenterprises, providing an environmentally sustainable alternative to the all-inclusive resort model. I will be working with a few of these projects in a town called Jarabacoa, located in the central mountain region.

As I was saying, hiking trails. And by hiking trails I mean trails as an instrument of community development and social wellbeing. My assignment here has changed from just writing success stories and collecting data to helping with providing capacity training for the projects where I’ll be working. In my first week in the capital I’ve been getting trained in product development, making market assessments, calculating costs, conducting community marketing workshops – definitely not the subject matter of my liberal arts education.

So, that’s how I ended up splitting rocks with big hammers up in the mountains of Constanza, La Suiza del Caribe (the Swiss Alps of the Caribbean). This is seriously one of the top ten most beautiful places I’ve ever seen. Picture deep valleys with colorful ranchitos (tin shacks) tucked into the base of the hills and quilt-work farming all along the ridges. They probably grow every vegetable I’ve ever heard of here. I joined a group of fifteen Dominicans working on DSTA projects around the island. The course was structured around helping the local ecoturism project create a trail to this enormous waterfall in their town. As a college student and foreigner I have been wary of the idea of coming in to a community with something to “teach” a group of people who know a lot more about what they are dealing with than I do. But receiving actual training with a bunch of Dominicans (and taught by Salvadorans) made me feel like a comfortable part of the process – an extra hand in an endeavor that needs a lot of support.

Course material: Mapping with rudimentary instruments like compasses and inclinometers (no GPSs in the campo), environmental protocols, trail-building theory, etc. The group was a mix of youth and adults, all very passionate about the topic. Here I am standing with 20-year-olds who weren’t able to attend high school all the way through, but can tell me the name of all the different types of ferns in the area: impressive. On one of my favorite days we hiked to the top of the waterfall to chart a path for the trail. Hiking is a generous term, the footing options were pretty slim. But when we got the top the view was incredible. One of the guides from Puerto Plata (northern beach town) shouted, “este es mi país!!” (THIS is my country!). Another person sighed, “coño como amo a mi pueblo.” That was amazing. Because that is the point of these ecoturism projects. More and more I am starting to believe in the philosophy of ecoturism, especially in the DR. On average an ecoturist will leave $200 in the country in comparison to the mere $10 that actually stays in the country with the all-inclusive resort model. Plus, most of the DSTA programs are directed towards the Dominican tourist, at least in the early stages (reaching an international audience is of course a long-term goal). Dominicans seem to LOVE to take vacations. On weekends sleepy mountain towns like Constanza fill up with families on motorcycles (the main mode of transportation basically everywhere). So to be helping small community projects that make Dominicans say, “wow, my country is beautiful” is a great thing. Because seriously, this place is gorgeous.

The tallest waterfall in the Caribbean - Cascada Aguas Blancas

Hanging out at the top of the waterfall

The town where the workshop took place was called El Convento, and is home to the stunning waterfall Aguas Blancas. The town has about 300 people and is much poorer than Constanza and, of course, the capital. For the site assessment (run-down of the environmental, social and logistical elements of the project) I teamed up with a few youth from the community and learned a lot about the issues with agricultural production in the area. Agriculture is the sustenance of the community, but it is certainly not a sustainable practice. They explained to me that the patches of fields I had been admiring earlier are actually the result of very aggressive agriculture practices – farming on inclines that are too steep leads to excessive deforestation, and a lack of concern for irrigation drainage that has lead to erosion on the only road that leads to the town. This making for a bumpy ride that was fun for me but certainly tedious if you depend on it, and blocks kids from getting to school in Constanza when it floods. In addition, the farmers use a lot of pesticides that get in to the waterfall and river that the community depends on for cooking/washing/etc. Despite the fact that the town has little to offer its youth, these were very enthusiastic and motivated kids.

Compass and inclinometer training

The Haitian population in the DR. A very difficult topic to take in. This came up with the community members during the site assessment, and one of the Salvadoran instructors and I had a conversation about it as we were both struggling to grasp it. My Salvadoran friend put it well when he said, “It hurts my soul. I see how the Haitian is treated in the community and I think, that is my brother! Somos de la misma piel (we are of the same skin).” Certainly the presence of a Haitian population is necessary for the agricultural production of the region/country, working the fields at very low wages. But the segregation is strong. Because the Haitians work the fields and do not necessarily feel welcome in the community, they often live higher in the mountains near the farms and the river. They are accused of being violent and unsanitary, putting their bathroom waste and trash in the river (even though the community lower in the valley does this as well - trash collection only happens every 15 days). I’m pretty sure the main reason for the tension is that Dominicans feel local jobs are undercut by Haitian workers, who are willing to work for less that a living wage. In general, the community seemed to think that just the image of a Haitian population would give the visitor a negative impression of the area. I asked them about integrating the Haitian into the community, that maybe their isolation perpetuates both their poverty and the concerns of the community. The response was something along the lines of, “they don’t live like us.”

(Truthfully this is not an issue that is new since the earthquake last year. I’m told that the tension with Haiti goes all the way back to when the Haitian empire ruled over the DR – Dominicans have historically been resentful of their subjugation to a country they feel is less civilized. This sentiment is best captured in the nation-wide genocide of the Haitian population in 1937 under the dictatorship of Trujillo.)

As a foreigner it’s hard to bring up the topic without giving off the appearance of being more-moral-than-thou, especially coming from the US where we have our own harmful perceptions and policies towards immigrants. But it’s clear that the reality of Haiti is very complicated and there is very little education about it. My heart goes out to Haiti. Even here, where they come to escape suffering at home, there is little reprieve.

And yet El Convento is a beautiful community to come in to, even for just one week. At the end of the workshop we had a bonfire in the main road of the community and everyone came out of their houses to join. The guys played bachata and merengue on the guitar into the night, while the rest of the family danced and sang and drank homemade ginger/lemongrass tea. At one point I got dragged into the community make-shift salon, and I now have the most flashy nail-job on earth (ghetto pink with shooting stars – didn’t bring any nail polish remover with me so it’s staying on for a while).

Bonfire and music for the whole community

Part of what made the group so fun was the different nationalities in the mix. Once as we were driving I mentioned to the instructors that I had been in El Salvador for the celebration of the anniversary of the Jesuit martyrs. We started talking about the Jesuits and the UCA as well as the war and some of their experiences. Everyone went quiet for a few minutes and then Lucia (the consultant from Guatemala) turned to the Salvadorans and said, “that was a very rough war for your people, no? At least for us the war didn’t come into the city.” When I realized what was happening my mind was blown a little. Here are two people from countries stricken by terrible wars that they are old enough to remember, sharing notes. And the Dominicans in the car with their own history. All this as we drove through the mountains where the rebellion against the Trujillo dictatorship started. Maybe I’ve taken in too much liberation theology but, Ay Dios santo.

I will hopefully be going out to my site this week. I will be working in a town called Jarabacoa, also in the central mountain region. There are four projects there – two communities with cabins for people to stay in, one art gallery for local artists and a group that is trying to promote a local waterfall as a hiking excursion. There’s so much to work on and I’m excited to get started! For right now I am back in Santo Domingo, where I spent my first week or so at the DSTA office. I really enjoy the people at work – youthful, competent and energetic, even if the dynamics of the organization are complicated (ask me about that later). The capital is compact, colorful, and full of noise – blaring bachata music, motoconchos (like a taxi but on a motorcycle), guys selling avocados on the street. Just take navigating the transportation scene itself: I probably wouldn’t get to work on time ever if it weren’t for benevolent old ladies that help me shove my way in to the over-packed carros publicos (basically a public taxi, 7 people minimum). On my first weekend here I caught one of the last baseball games of the season. It was an intensely Dominican scene! Reminded me of the games we would got to in Venezuela, with the noise parades around the stadium before it started. It’s an exciting place to be, but I’m looking forward to a slower pace of life in the mountains.

One last thing: BEACHES. This weekend Maura and I went out to the peninsula of Pedernales near the border of Haiti, and explored the coast just south of Barahona. All I can say is, GO THERE. Most beautiful blues I have ever seen in my life.

OK, I’m done now. Thanks for hanging in there! Besos y abrazos to all of you.

The crew!