Corn Rows and Mops

Dominicans love their mops (ie. Swapé). After every time someone enters and leaves a space they mop the floors. I am quite surprised by the cleanliness of the grounds here. Makes me want to pick up a swapé and get to it. I am really becoming quite the Dominican now after two weeks. I did the most touristy thing you could possible do in all over Caribbean travel and paid way too much for really small corn rows braids on top of my head. I can’t tell if I feel more like a third grader in Baja or a ghetto baller from the “Love and Basketball” movie. I even have the beads in them, like a nice permanent crown on my head. One bead is even sparkly. Besides the downside that I gasp in fear a little ever time I see my reflection, my head hurt really badly the first day. I felt like someone was pulling my scalp back really hard and I couldn’t sleep on my side because the beads just jammed into my head. I also fear I will get a sunburn in the lines in between the braids. I addition to the braids, I am feeling quite Dominican now because after a weekend of being away from our community I really craved the five Dominican stable foods we eat at our homestay. Avocado, Green Plaintains, Eggplant, Rice and Beans. What more could you need in life. While traveling this weekend, we were treated to fancy meals in restaurants of sushi and hamburgers (all in one meal…weird combo for a restaurant to have), chicken with shrimp on it, delicious banana peanut butter smoothies, yogurt and muesli, and home made quesadillas. One lunch/dinner we ate pizza, nachos, creamy pasta, fried fish balls, fries, and way too many strawberry daiquiris. Makes me feel like vomiting thinking of that meal (in fact, Jordan did vomit). After all of that intense food, all I really want is rice and beans and mushed up green plantains. Keep it simple, keep it safe. The whole braid idea was really in response to this enlightening moment we shared on the beach. In the north shore tourist destination of Cabarete we experienced a postcard perfect moment. As we were walking down the beach we witnessed a storm off in the distance on the water and a rainbow appeared. As we held hands and spoke some beautiful words we were convinced no one but us saw the rainbow. As if hashem, god, spirit above, adonai, dios, jesus, all powerful and knowing was telling us that we were in the right moment and doing the right thing in life. Hurts to smile cause it pulls the braids back. This weekend we really got a sense of what this country has to offer. We traveled from the mountains of Jarabacoa to a baseball game in Santiago to the beach all in 3 days. By coincidence Rose’s aunt and uncle were down here for a week visiting their friends who moved to the D.R. to start up a Christian private school. The couple, Krista and Chad, are super nice and wonderful people. They let us stay in their beautiful house up in the mountains and treated us to a delicious meal in a restaurant with a spinning floor, our own individual beds with the sweet sound of silence and no bar jamming into my back (like our bed out home), hammocks to read on, fresh fruit, and easy English conversations to give our minds a rest from the Spanish. More than anything I was very attuned to the contrast of the wealthier life of this American family in Jarabacoa to the poorer campo where we are living. There is much more wealth in the Dominican Republic than I had originally thought, especially in the beach resort communities where many people come to relax and get their all inclusives in. Additionally, the community work that Krista and Chad are doing versus Rita and Diego are doing is quite different. Kirsta and Chad have much more funding from the Church and seem much more engaged in the community than Rita and Diego (they have a coffee farm shipping fair trade to a café in the states, have two daughters integrated into the community, a construction company run by Chad, and a new bird ecotourism project). On the flip side, Rita and Deigo’s Mothers Wish Foundation is fighting against limited funds and is in a much poorer place in the country. Although I did not have many expectations for coming here, I am really coming to terms that this experience is more of a selfish endeavor than anything else. I am more into the cultural exchange, the people, our host family, the food, and traveling and seeing the county than the actual volunteer work. There is less medical opportunities than I expected and I really only get to observe the nurses working with pregnant or new moms a few times a week. Although today I got to walk around to different houses on the nurses rotations today and see what kind of health outreach they do. I am picking up great ideas and ways to go about setting up a sustainable clinic, reach out to the community in ways that they can relate to, and really be a public health advocate. There are ways in which Rita and Diego interact with the community that I like and ways that I do not. Either way, I am learning a lot about community outreach in a rural Spanish speaking population. Good lessons for the Clinica I want to have some day. We went to a baseball game in Santiago the other day. Aguilas versus Escogidos. Eagles of Santiago versus The Chosen from Santa Domingo. It was such a show. Dominicans really love their baseball. Every pitch and throw and base stolen was like it was the 9th inning in a playoff game in the states. The crowd was so loud, cheering, blowing into horns, drinking Presidente cerveza, and throwing back handles Brugal rum. The transportation system here is crazy. The main cheap form of transport are called guaguas. They are 15 passenger vans with around 25 people, babies, chickens, bags, surf boards smooshed into them. One of the most uncomfortable and absolutely ridiculous situations you could imagine. In times of need on a guagua I am reminded that life is okay by rubbing my corn rows and just laughing at the craziness of life.