Ella es mi Hermana

In my opinion, what sets Esperanza’s Fellowship program apart from other internships is the cultural experience interns get by living with Dominican host families. It’s one thing to adapt to an organizational environment in a new workplace with new coworkers and another thing is actually living with another family and adjusting to their unique lifestyle. The process may seem daunting at first glance, but then day-by-day you start developing a sense of belonging. All of sudden you’re not Salvadorian or American, but in only a matter of weeks you’re partially Dominican as well. Luckily, I got placed with a really wonderful family that treats me as one of their own. My host mom and sisters made my transition in the DR a smooth one.

The first week staying with my host family, I made my first weekend trip to Guayacanes, a beach in Juan Dolio, along with some of the other interns. After riding several guaguas and getting a little lost at times, we finally got to the breath taking paradise. We all had an amazing time over there: taking the sun and walking along the coastline at sunset.

On Sunday when I got home, I was exhausted from all the traveling and all I wanted to do was lay down on my comfy bed, watch a movie, and then crash. But, my host sisters told me, “Ale we want to invite you to come to our Church”. Sleep was the only thing on my mind. But then I saw the way that they looked at me with excitement and warmth and was immediately convinced. We all got dressed and went to “El Culto” (Church) in a car (rare luxury nowadays), so I was pretty excited.

The temple was full of young people, I later learned that it was the Church’s’ youth convocation which happens every Sunday night at 8 pm. After the Pastor spoke and the ceremony ended, Sara and Gabriella introduced me to all the people they knew (which was almost all of the people in the room). But there was one thing that touched me from that simple gesture and it was they way they did it. They grab me by the hand and joyfully went around telling everyone, “Mira, esta es mi nueva hermana, Ale”.

Now, I have two new Dominican sisters and that is something that was strange at first, having only met them for so little time. But then I realized that its part of the beauty of this island and the warm, welcoming culture that resides in it. It’s magical and makes this adventure so much more fulfilling and different form anything I had ever experienced.

Tylenol

I was spending the weekend in La Romana this past weekend with the other interns and we stayed in the house of one of the host families.  I could describe them at length, but that would take to much time (find Mark 10:42-45 for more information about just how incredible they were).

When I arrived with two of the other girls, Bri and Alessandra, we met everyone and names were exchanged.  Spanish speakers in general have a lot of trouble with my name.  It comes out something like “tay–lurrhhh”.  They don’t usually try to pronounce it, although some do correctly.  I’ve begun to just have some people call me Ty.  Yet, when one girl named Jennyfer heard it she paused and said, “Te voy a llamar Tylenore porque es más facil para recordar” (I’m going to call you Tylenore because its easier to remember).  I was indifferent.  I don’t have a preference what people call me, as long as someone knows how to get my attention and if going by some strange cross between Tyler and Elenore helps I’m happy to make accommodations – although i wondered where she had pulled that one from.

The weekend came and went, all the while going by “Tylenore”, and then I received a message from Jennyfer on Facebook.  It read:

Hey… Tylenol…

I had gotten it wrong, she was calling me Tyle –NOL, not Tyler–NORE!  Instantly a wave of joy passed over me.  Never have I had a nickname like that.  It’s perfect.  My name sounds like a medicine when translated into Spanish, at least according to one Dominican girl.  That really made me laugh, especially considering what Tylenol is used for and the joyful feelings I had.

The truth is, that day at work had been hard.  My project seemed to be stopped dead in its tracks and I was in need of some sort of pick-me-up.  She provided a breath of fresh air, her witt helped calm me and move me on.  It was a small dose of Tylenol to relieve the pain of the day.

A little later, after reading the Screwtape Letters, I began to understand another aspect of how God works in our lives and this incident came rushing back into my mind.  It came after reading about what C.S. Lewis calls the Law of Undulation – our lives have highs and lows.  God allows the lows so we learn to stand on our own.  In those low moments is when we grow the most, when we find the opportunity to come to Him for help, strength, and guidance.  Lewis reaffirmed God’s Tylenol-like character.  He doesn’t cure the problem often, nor does he give us morphine to numb us to all pain.  Instead, we learn to come to Him in our brokenness and when we search for Him we find Him, we notice the little ways He is working in our lives, like the little ways Tylenol helps us with a daily pain.

Complications to Development

Both bank meetings today were in bateys. This is my fourth or fifth time going to a bank meeting in a batey. This was different. All of my meetings in El Seibo are in el campo or in bateys. Every time we drive out most of the time we’re passing through sugarcane fields. The fields are endless. The entire half of the country is sugar cane. Today was the first time that Fernando (the chauffer) and I walked out to the fields. It was also one of the only times that I had seen people working in the field. Sugar cane isn’t harvested until November so for now the workers spray newly planted cane with fertilizer. We walked by a big metal container where they the fertilizer is kept. The smell itself was putrid. Then I noticed there were kids playing a couple of feet away from where the fertilizer was. I also noticed that all of the workers handled fertilizer with their bare hands. They take it from the big, yellow, metal container and poured into the small plastic containers they carry on their backs. Liquid falls on their hands and splashes on their clothes. After they fill the individual plastic containers and mount them on their backs, the workers begin to walk along the row of new sugar cane plants. They pump the container and pointed the spray towards the ground. They do this wearing a long sleeve shirt, a vest, long pants, black boots, and the container filled with chemicals. Under the midday sun in eastern Dominican Republic. They did not wear masks and when Fernando told one of them it was safer to wear a mask, they responded with a blank look on their face. As if to say “why does it matter”. I also learned that the firm, which owns the land and the sugar cane production, builds bateys in order to house the families of the field workers. The family can stay as long as there is someone working in the cane fields. They do not like for the family to plant anything for personal consumption. They also do not allow the families to have stores. All of the associates sell from their houses or set up their items in front of the house. This hit me. People living in bateys are instantly more disadvantaged than any of the other associates. They physically cannot grow their business because of the rules set by the firms who own the land, the cane, and the batey. The micro loans are supposed to help small businesses grow and eventually lead to development. The organization has seen this model succeed in numerous occasions and there are countless testimonies to it. But in a batey this cannot be possible beyond a certain point because the sugar cane firms do everything they can to discourage development. They do what they can to keep the families within the cycle of poverty so they can continue to have people who will willingly work with fertilizer under dangerous conditions for two dollars a day. The distance to microfinance success is not the same for everyone, and those living in bateys are at a much bigger disadvantage. There are other factors contributing to development; politics, geopolitics, social ecology, capitalism, human rights, institutional racism, discrimination. As I write this, I realize more and more that microfinance in itself cannot fully equip someone to realize a “full potential” when other factors intentionally work against development

Asking the right question

It has been four incredible days already. After our training in Santo Domingo, we left on Wednesday to our branch offices and host families. Thursday we started work…”work”. For a week and a half our only job was to be observers. We should go to as many bank meetings as we can, talk with the loan officers to learn as much as we can about the loan lending process, be familiar with how the bank meetings function and most importantly talk to associates to understand their experience with the loans. Before leaving home, I was extremely excited especially to talk to the associates. I hadn’t had any field experience with this work before so, as you can imagine, all of my perceptions were that the associates would open up to me and tell me all about their experience.
My first bank meeting was in el campo about forty-five minutes away from the branch office in El Seibo. The road is nice until we come to the outskirts of the city, but once entering the mountains it converges into unpaved dirt road that makes our truck swing every which way. I was very excited. This is what I had read about in Yunus’ books about microfinance, this is what I got to experience for a bit when we came to visit Esperanza with my class. Now this would be my own experience where I could ask the associates whatever I could and have an intimate conversation with them.
I quickly realized this was not going to be so easy. The first questions that I asked associates were about what businesses they had, where did they buy the items they needed. However, I was most interested in asking them if they had any problems with their loans. What did they think of the loan schedule? Can they pay back on time? What if they cannot pay back? I have a clear understanding that Esperanza uses the group model and I am aware that the other associates of the group have to come up with the missing amount. But how does the associate that doesn’t have the entire loan amount, pay back his or her friends? Have they ever borrowed money from somewhere (local money lenders?) else in order to complete their loan payment for Esperanza. These were the questions I was very excited to ask because I imagined they would give me deep insight into the experience of the associates. At the end of the day, Esperanza exists to serve them due to their disadvantaged situation.
The problem was that all of the associates were telling me that everything has been great with their loans. They have no problem paying back. Their businesses are all very successful. In the beginning, I thought, “Wow, this is great! They’re all doing so well”. However, that doesn’t fit because there have been several bank meetings I’ve attended in which we had a problem and couldn’t leave because there we were missing money. This means someone wasn’t able to pay his or her loan for the week. Yet every associate told me that the businesses are going great.
This very experience let me to realize that there are a lot of complexities involved with someone like myself and the other interns that are not only coming outside of the community, but are entirely foreign strangers. I also recognize the politics of racial dynamics in a community where the “poor” people are dark skinned and me, the “white person”, is more opulent. I think both of these reasons make it hard for the associates to openly speak with me about issues they might be having with the loans maybe because they are fearful that if they tell me anything other than “Everything is great”, something could happen to their loan because they’re having problems. It is very shocking to me that every one of the 50 or more associates I’ve spoken to have said there were no problems when I’ve also witnessed bank meetings that lasted two hours because the loan officer not having the exact payments.
It will be some time before my communication with the associates will reach an open level. In reality, it might not even happen. There are a couple of important things to realize in this situation. In order to get an insightful answer, we (the interns) have to ask the right questions if we want to begin scratching the surface of discovering what the associate’s experience is.
Now having an entire week to “observe” makes sense. This is how we can learn to ask the right questions. Good luck to all of my fellow interns ☺

Steps to Cultural Adjustment: Sweat and Uncontrolled Weeping

The sun seems hotter here. To a reader from the United States or really anywhere else on the planet that may seem like a statement to scoff at. Not true at all. Anyone can say, “oh well I come from (insert name of seemingly warm location), so It’s not hot for me.” Nope. Not the case. I used to think that coming from Alabama, where over the summer temperatures can reach over 100 degrees Fahrenheit, with added humidity, that I could say that. But sitting in a guagua (the dominican name for a bus) without air conditioner the other day proved me wrong, not that I didn’t already know by that point.

I was the first one on my guagua from the city of San Pedro to the city I live in, La Romana. Man was I proud. As I looked at the one other passenger, a middle aged woman, we shared what I took as a congratulatory smile. After a long day of traveling to bateys, or the impoverished communities hidden among the sugar cane fields around La Romana, and then traveling to another city on my own for my first time in the Dominican Republic for a meeting, I was beat. My ride to San Pedro had been stressful given that my Spanish isn’t by any means perfect, and even when I drive in my hometown I seem to have a knack for getting lost. I am a man after all. But be that as it may, I was headed home! and I had a comfortable seat in the front of the bus. Time for a light nap.

The bus seats quickly filled up. When the bus took off I even had the seat to myself. I gave myself a mental high-five and leaned back as the bus took off, thinking that I was going to ride in luxury for the trip. Then the man in front of me who collected the money opened the door, and started screaming for more people to enter the bus. I was quickly shoved into the wall by a rather large woman carrying two person-sized bags of fruit, while she shouted something at me in creole. I quickly figured out that I was supposed to hold one of the bags, when it unceremoniously toppled in my direction. The breathing room in the rickety old bus quickly dropped to zero as around twelve more people were crammed in. The window couldn’t open, everyone around me was yelling in Creole or in Spanish too rapid for me to understand, and the man whose body was hovering over me smelled very, very, strongly of beans, rice, and chicken mixed with BO.

YUM. Who’s hungry?

In the Esperanza “Steps to Cultural Adjustment” number 10 or 11 is stated as “uncontrolled anger towards dominicans,” while my favorite was the following, “fits of uncontrolled weeping.” I will admit, for the first time in my experience in the Dominican Republic, (and hopefully the last), I truly understood why those were in the book.

After a solid twenty minutes of simmering at my boiling point, (that may be taken literally, as I was dripping sweat from every part of my body), I looked to my one avenue of escape: THE WINDOW.

And I saw the most perfect Rainbow I have ever seen in my entire life.

To Christians, the Rainbow signifies Hope. It was the sign God sent Noah after the Great Flood as a promise that he would never smite humanity in such a way again. More than that though, it is a visual wonder, a natural billboard that tells us of God’s power and majesty and lets us know that no matter how hard the rain pours in our lives, God has promised us he will be there to make things better.

I started to grin like a maniac and look around the cabin to see if anyone else saw. Considering no one else did, I’m sure they thought I was crazy. But that was the best part of it: the Rainbow, at least to me, was a personal touch from God. I had no doubt he was there with me then, just as I know he is now.

The happiness I felt at that moment is what we are here to give to those less fortunate than ourselves. The peace that comes with Hope. It comes with knowing someone is on your side. It took seeing the rainbow to make me remember, that although things are sometimes hard, with God’s help we get through them, and with a little esperanza we are reminded that all bad things must come to an end.

“Only in the darkness can you see the stars.”- Martin Luther King Jr.

You Know You’ve Been in the Dominican Too Long When…

You go to Burger King for wifi.

Air conditioning feels cold.

You prefer a plastic chair to a lazyboy.

You put your money for the bus in your bra.

You figure out the guagua is 25 pesos, not 30.

You realize what the men on the street are actually saying as you walk by.

Your standard for a “developed” area is it has a Picapollo.

You forget that coffee creamer exists.

You get anxious when someone leaves the water faucet on.

You find yourself cat-calling that remarkable person that just passed by.

You can understand what Pedro Castillo is saying.

You think hot showers are gross.

You are surprised when the carro you are in has a radio.

Embracing “Lo Desconocido”

Coming from a Latin American background, specifically a developing nation, I was already mentally prepared for the situations, places, and people fate had disposed for me to meet here in the Dominican Republic. Though quickly I realized that concepts are not the same when played out in real life, in this case real Dominican life.

All my life I have lived in a developing country, like the DR, without really living in it. I have watched the same beat up, half-wretched “guaguas” people take every morning to go to work, with the loud bus drivers who don’t bide by any transportation laws whatsoever and all the while I remained only a distant spectator. Safety was a given and I underestimated the meaning of it. Now, living in Santo Domingo things have changed or rather changed me.

Last Wednesday, Lucia dropped me off to my host family’s home in Alameda, a midpoint between the central office and the Santo Domingo Norte office. I was excited and nervous at the same time, to meet the people who I would be sharing a roof with for the next month.   As Lucia parked the car in front of the house, I watched a lady smiling at us and immediately sensed her welcoming, warm heart. Dona Margarita helped us with my luggage and led us to the living room. In a matter of a few minutes Lucia was gone and I was left with my new mom. We talked that whole afternoon, sharing pieces of each other’s lives. Later, I met her two daughters and son. The youngest, Sara, was a breath of fresh air. She made me feel at ease and comfortable in my new, unknown environment immediately. That night we had typical dominican food: “arroz con habichuelas” with some chicken. I slept like a baby, assured that I was with a good family that would take care of me as one of their own.

The next morning the real fun began. I woke up at 6:00 am, had my Dominican breakfast and then left the house at 7:15 am in order to arrive to the office and meet with the loan officer at 8:00 am. But the real challenge laid in the process of getting to my final destination. I had to take two “guaguas”(micro-buses). I panicked, I was already familiarized with their reckless and uncomfortable nature,  and never would have imagined I would actually be riding not one but four daily. I took a leap of faith and trusted God’s will.  Thankfully I arrived safely to and from work that day. It was during my 5 minute walk from the bus stop to Dona Margarita’s house that I realized the meaning of safety and God’s plans. The happiness that filled me when I saw that yellow house was comforting.

Now everyday I get down from that last guagua, I thank God for bringing me safe to my new home. There’s a reason why I am here in this country, in Dona Margarita’s house, serving Dominican women through Esperanza. God has a plan for me during these few months, I see that now and I am no longer afraid of the unknown (lo desconocido).

Shaving Without a Mirror

Life is made up of many things, some are memorable and others are forgettable, lost to the depths of the ocean that is habit.  Yet every once and a while something stirs at the depths and perturbs habit, upsetting those calm waters upon which we float.

Those habits are created based upon constants of our environment.  It can be the rain, which causes you to grab a rain jacket, before going outside, or work that provokes a man to wear a suit.  Whatever it is, changes in the environment affect our behavior and challenge us to react to that arousing disturbance, like the lack of a mirror when having to shave.

After a few days of not shaving it was time, the last time I had a razor in hand was a few days prior and I was in a hotel in Santo Domingo where a nice, wall-covering mirror was pasted nicely in front of the sink, an ideal set-up for maintaining my appearance and cutting off those prickly little hairs that spot my neck.  (I seem to have been blessed with the ability to grow a “neard” – neckbeard – rather than having facial hair blanket my whole face).  As I was in the bathroom to shave I realized there was no mirror, what to do.  I had my phone with me; I thought to use the front facing camera to hold in front of me as I shaved.  Unfortunately, the screen is cracked around the camera and wasn’t clear enough to make any discernable difference.  So I sat with shaving cream on my face and thought….

I concluded I had two options: wash it off and go into work looking gruff or shaving without a mirror.  Naturally, I wanted to try the latter.  Just for effects I closed my eyes just to say I have shaved without looking, literally.  I scraped away at the hair on the right side of my face and took a good deal off in a nice clean swipe.  I waited for blood.  There was none.  I continued, feeling around where I had already shaved and using the few years of intuition I have to carve into the mat of fur on my face and neck.  After a few more strokes I realized I was halfway done and didn’t stop.  I kept going; it was a wonder things went well.

After a few minutes I had cleaned the hair off my face and felt around for patches.  I couldn’t feel any so I cleaned up and went about the rest of my morning.  Mission success.

Although seemingly unrelated to most things in life, this quickly reminded me of the work the Spirit does in our life.  Here in the Dominican Republic we are stripped or many things that we are used to, in my case a mirror whose absence was noticeable when the time came to use it.  Yet, as the DR is teaching me, life is not always perfect and requires trusting in the Lord and looking for His provision.  I love the verse 2 Timothy 1:7 “For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives up power, love and self-discipline.”  Learning to walk in the Spirit and trust God means giving up the mirror in our lives and letting him guide our strokes.  Yet, knowing that He is God does not mean we are passive either.  Instead it gives us “power, love and self-discipline.”  Through faith I can be assured that He will show me how to shave without a mirror, and that my strokes will be sure and my face clean.

Aprovechar la Vida, Dominican Style

I have only been in the Dominican Republic for less than a week and I feel like it has impacted my life in tremendous ways. I will admit at first I was nervous. About everything. I have done things like this in the past and the first few days of knowing people can be extremely difficult. But to be totally honest I am still waiting for those awkward days to come, although I don’t think at this point that they will.

My first two group meals in the Dominican Republic were followed by merengue, salsa and bachata dances, one a concert on the street, and one totally improvised, with a guest performance by the restaurant server. My first day with my host family I was taken to a local basketball game in La Romana, where after one quarter of being alarmed every time the dominicans in front of me jumped up out of their seats chanting and seemingly about to rush the court after a bad call, I too was screaming “¡¡matalo!!” and jumping up and down with my host brother.

My first day of work was an hour long trip to a “batey” community in the sugar cane fields of La Romana, which then lasted another three sweat-drenched hours in a small one-room house at a bank meeting where one of the associates was cut from the group for not coming to the meetings or paying her portion of the loan. Although this was a difficult part of my experience, (weather aside) the meeting taught me one of the greatest lessons about Dominican culture and the people we serve doing the Lord’s work. Throughout the tense three hour meeting, the women, who were forced to scrape together an extra piece of their own earnings to make up for the losses of their partner, would constantly crack jokes, break into laughter, and smile at the kids who would innocently wander into the middle of the meeting. Although everyone was hot and hungry and frustrated by the end of the meeting, everyone from the associates, to the bank manager, to the slightly confused and out of place intern felt a little bit closer at the end of the meeting. I can at least speak for one of them.

The lesson I learned from this day and will continue to see examples of every day from now on, is something my host brother taught me the first night. He said: “You are going to see many many strange things here in the Dominican Republic.” Some of these things I have already seen: crazy drivers that follow no laws but magically are always safe, lots of dogs in the streets, and some very obvious poverty. What is strangest though is what my host brother emphasized more than anything: “Here in the Dominican, people always smile. If you are poor, you smile. If you have no food, you smile. You don’t like your….what’s the word for vecinos? You still smile. People here are always happy.”

Too often I think that the rest of the world, especially we that come from the United States, forget that God’s power in our lives is love, and that we must love each moment we are given and enjoy it to the fullest. Singing and joking and filling a room with pure joy are considered the normal state of existence in the Dominican Republic. I believe this life of exuberance, of taking advantage of every moment to enjoy God’s creation in a communal and fraternal way is what we all should strive to achieve. I hope more than anything that by the end of this summer I can say that I have become a true dominican in this respect.