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