Con mas despacio por favor

Hola, hola, hola. As Jaclyn and Laurel noted while we were traveling during spring break, I tend to repeat things in sets of three for emphasis—I didn’t notice this until they told me repeatedly and now I catch myself doing it all the time, though I rarely censor accordingly. First of all, I want to apologize for the format of my first post. My friend Joey kindly pointed out that paragraphs are a good thing and I should use them…hopefully this will improve your reading experience. I’m a noob to blogging and I’m sure I’ll make many more mistakes in the future—please point them out to me in a kind and loving fashion and I’ll try to improve. Such cluelessnesses seem to mark this summer—I recently out-gringad myself with respect to my princess mosquito canopy. Rebecca was checking out how I had set up my room and started laughing when she saw my canopy. Apparently I needed to rotate it 90 degrees. The canopy is rectangular, but I figured it was square when I hung it. Now, if you know of any square beds, please send me a photo because as far as I know that was a general lapse of common sense on my part. Nonetheless, my canopy is now properly hung and I continue to enjoy my nighttime routine of journaling/reading/general princessing.


On Friday, we drove and dropped off each volunteer at his/her respective site. It was sad to say goodbye because we grew quite close over the past few days and it’s dubious whether or not we’ll all be in the same locale at one time. I’m normally the kid who attends a week or weekend camp and does not really connect with any of the other kids in a meaningful or sustainable fashion. But, over the past two years in particular, I’ve dramatically improved in my ability to make friends quickly. Now, as I learned in econometrics, many forces can be working to affect one change AND we can also have causes that affect the affecter, effectively. I’ve always been a bit of an old soul (as Mom puts it) so I think the general growing up of my generation facilitates those relationships. Also, I think I’ve grown down. That is, I’ve become generally less uptight and serious in new situations. Thirdly, this internship opportunity is narrow in scope and attracted people with similar drive, academic focus, and life passion…overlap, overlap, overlap. Right now, some of us are planning on exploring Punta Cana (awesome beach area on the eastern coast) this weekend.

Quite frankly, I believe I would have plenty to do if I remained in Los Alcarrizos this coming weekend, but I’m trying to grow my traveling confidence and experience and exploring with these friends would greatly aid the process. Also, I am aware that eleven weeks may seem like a lot of time, but it’s slipping by quite quickly and I want to fill it intentionally. Additionally, I spent this past weekend in Los Alcarrizos, so a change of scenery will be valuable.

I woke up about 8 on Saturday and enjoyed a breakfast of harina con negritos (cloves). It’s a sweet hot breakfast made from (I think) cornflower, milk, and sugar. It’s really quite good. Saturday was basically filled with hanging out at the house, meandering around the neighborhood, and meeting lots and lots of people. In the states, my family is good friends with a family with eight children. When you visit their house, it is hectic and crazy. There are children and children’s friends everywhere. Various people have lived with the family for stints of time and others pop in and out for a visit. Now, imagine an entire country like that. I am slowly beginning to piece together who belongs to whom and who lives where—and I’m fairly certain it’s a fluid mosaic.

The first couple of days living with Rebecca and her family I was a bit frustrated by lack of ability to understan. The Dominican accent can be fairly strong and there are many expressions that are solo de La Republica Dominicana. For example, to say “how are you?” People normally say “como estas?” (accents on vowels not included) but here most people say “como tu ta?” For common expressions, that is perfectly fine and I can follow. But s’s drop out all over the place and words I know I know, I no longer know any more. But, four days later, my comprehension has vastly improved. I was beginning to worry that I would never have a real conversation and that I was in way too deep, but it takes time and ears adjust quickly. On that note, another difficulty is knowing what words are new to me and what words’ pronunciations are different and when to ask for clarification and when to just move forward. We now fondly refer to my Spanish→English dictionary as “el amigo de Anne.” One of my favorite new expressions is “que chebera” (I highly encourage you to say this one aloud…very fun) and it means “cool” or “awesome.” I have adopted this expression so expect to hear it upon my return.

Patricia, the girl with whom I traveled to Los Alcarrizos from Santo Domingo, said we could hang out. First of all, she speaks Spanish with a great amount of clarity and she also has a good deal of English experience too, making communication rapid and easy. After a day (Saturday) of rapid/very Dominican Spanish in my home community, I was eager to hang out with her and her friends. Furthermore, I wanted to make sure that I developed any friend leads I had and I both liked and trusted her (still do…in Spanish I would have used the imperfect tense to indicate a continuous sentiment). I sent Patricia a text and we made plans to meet up on Sunday…I was to join her at her church.

On Sunday, I went with Rebecca and her family to their church for about a half hour before I was picked up by a montoconcho with Patricia (basically a motorbike that is very commonly used). Don’t worry, it’s not that sketchy. In general, people use the same motoconcho or taxi drivers repeatedly and mine was a friend of the family. He then drove us to Patricia’s church. While riding the montoconcho I’m filled with mixed emotions. Part of me is quite alert, watching out for traffic and speed bumps and loose gravel so as to warn as necessary, and the other part of me feels quite daring—like Steve McQueen in the Great Escape, but we all know how that one ends.

Patricia sings with her worship band and so we were about a half hour early to church so she could practice with the rest of the group. The service was about two hours long—one hour of singing and one hour of a sermon and other general testimonies. Normally I’m quite impatient when it comes to singing in church, but on Sunday I found it to be quite refreshing. The words were projected in the church and many of tunes were familiar. For that one hour, I felt like I knew (almost 100%) what was going on. It was really nice not to feel like the smiling, nodding, clueless gringa.

Every Sunday after the service, Patricia’s church serves a meal. Now, as a kid whose parents always stayed at church for what seemed like hours, a meal (or at least a snack) would have been wonderful. The meal fostered good community time and a wonderful opportunity for me to observe that and hang out with Patricia and her friends.

On the note of not knowing who belongs with whom, there are many, many babies and I have no idea who are the siblings and who are the parents. Babies are passed around like 99 bottles of beer on the wall and every baby is the most precious and the most beautiful baby. With all of these babies (both in the church and in the DR in general) I’ve seen surprisingly few pregnant women…I’m keeping an unofficial tally and I think I’ve only spotted three. My favorite word I’ve heard used to describe a baby is “gordito.” Gordo is fat and you add –ito or –ita to the end of a word to make it small. It’s a perfect because many babies really are little fat people!

When I was hanging out with Patricia and her friends eating and chatting, it was incredibly awkward for me at a first. I was just the tagalong friend and my Spanish wasn’t fairing so well. Nevertheless, I was determined to stick it out and make it work, if only to prove I could to myself. I’ve found I can connect best with people here if I first make a few self-deprecating jokes (tre Hugh Grant). And, I knew I’d been accepted by the group when all the guys insisted that I stand up and turn around like a model so they could check me out. They had to see whether or not I was pretty because they can only be friends with pretty girls. Now, as soon as they asked me to stand up, I knew the ice was broken. However, I wasn’t about to cave easily. At first, I refused to stand up on the principle that ugly girls can be good friends. Later, I refused to stand up because I liked the group and didn’t want to be forced to leave. Finally, I stood up, struck a pose, and then sheepishly and dejectedly turned around. The boys consulted and decided I could stay. The group made mention of a birthday party and other activities that I could join in the future, which is encouraging because it means they like me. However, it’s still the DR, so I’m not expecting any calls…I’ll have to keep calling Patricia to find out what the deal is.

Later in the day, I helped Patricia round up about a dozen children to bring to the afternoon church service for kids. All in all, there were about 200 kids and it was a very happy chaos. One of the things I really like is how the leaders (ages 15-25 more or less) really get involved with the children. They enthusiastically sang the songs and participated in the activities. In general, Dominicans seem to be a soulful and enthusiastic bunch and I’m very much appreciating it.

During the children’s service was also the first time that I received extended attention. A few of the little girls (ages 7-9) insisted on sitting next to me (and on my lap) and playing with my hair and they peppered me with questions. I also received three invitations to become a girlfriend (and maybe a marriage proposal)—all were under the age of ten. Children tend not to speak clearly and adding that to the mix of DR accent and Spanish meant that we didn’t really say very much, but children are quite forgiving and it wasn’t actually an issue. That is not to say that others have not been. Rather, I’ve been incredibly fortunate with how patient people have been with me. In the months preceding this trip, both I and others had noticed that I was becoming increasingly less patient. In reflection, the patience I’ve received has been quite humbling. Without the patience of others I would not only be completely clueless (a bit of an overstatement), but I would also feel awful. The latter has been avoided due to truly gracious people.

Two of my Spanish goals are to be able to carry on conversations with children and to decipher the messages that loudspeakers that are attached to the trucks that sell platanos are projecting. When I can do those two things, it will be a grand mark in my Spanish career.

After the service, we walked the dozen children home and met up with Patricia’s two best girl friends who I met earlier in the day. We made dinner, chatted, and watched tv until about 8:30 when I took a motoconcho back to Rebecca’s. I was exhausted…just listening and talking can be tiring…and so I went to bed at about 10PM.

Monday was my first day in the Los Alcarrizos office and Rebecca and I traveled to work in the style of Ralph S. Mouse. There are seven people who work in the office including a secretary, loan officers, and the boss. Every Monday, each Esperanza office conducts a devotional Bible study with singing, reading, and discussion. There were books to follow along with and again I felt comforted by a script. I’m fairly happy with my reading comprehension and part of me thinks all this would be much easier if people just had their own personal subtitles.

The rest of the day I basically spent getting to know the other people in the office, it’s a lively and fun group, which will make office time speedy and enjoyable. I also organized myself for the rest of the week so I could actually be productive. Most of what I would consider to be the real and interesting work does not take place in the office. Rather, the loan collection meetings and initial signup meetings and training meetings all occur in the local communities, typically at a local church. I’ll be going to all of these meetings, tagging along with the loan officers so I can gather my Kiva/personal research project info.

Monday evening was the first night that I wasn’t completely exhausted and I was able to enjoy hanging out with the family. It’s pretty hot and humid during the day, so most people lay low and don’t have much of an appetite. That means that people stay up later and also enjoy a later dinner as well…we ate about 9PM last night. It’s a perfect temperature outside at night, so the family usually moves the TV out there and chats well into the night. Rebecca, Wendy, and I also played a few games before retiring to bed.

My friend Tess is stationed in Hato Mayor and unfortunately has very unstable water; we’ve been brainstorming techniques for bucket showers. Luckily, my water situation is more constant and I’ve always had it when I wanted to shower. However, it’s always cold. The cold is refreshing in the afternoon, but in the morning it can be downright chilly and I prefer to start the day fresh. This has spurred on my morning exercise routine of basic core activities that help me work up a sweat (or glisten rather) and enjoy the shower as a cold treat directly thereafter.

This morning (Tuesday) I saw my frog prince friend in the shower. He’s a small frog who I’ve spotted in the shower about three times now. After my shower this morning, I returned to my room to get dressed, etc. There’s an armoire against the wall across from my bed. I was doing something at the armoire when I looked down to the left and spotted a tarantula the size of my hand on the baseboard. I immediately gasped in surprise, but then quickly calmed as he wasn’t moving. My first thought was “Wow, I’ll be sure to check my shoes from here on out.” My second was “I’m not too worried about this one; rather, it’s the ones I don’t see that worry me.” I’d really rather not wake up to a tarantula crawling across my body. I then finished my morning routine and asked my host mom to help me remove the beast. According to one of the brothers who lives with us, tarantulas only like girls. Swell, just swell.

Today was my first day going to meetings and the result of over two years of anticipation. I really first learned about microfinance and Kiva second semester of my senior year of high school and since then I’ve been itching to see it up close and personal. I traveled (alone…aka sans Rebecca but con driver) via montoconcho to Ruth’s house (loan officer). We then journeyed via car to a neighboring area called Haina where we conducted two loan collection meetings (reunions bisemanales) and then met with fifteen other women individually who were about to take out their first loan (8:30 AM—3:30 PM). The first meeting, I took a back seat and really just observed what was going on. With the following meetings, I just asked questions as they came up and made conversation. Technically, we volunteers are supposed to be collecting as much information for a specific person so we can post Kiva profiles, but I needed to take today to get my feet wet. Tomorrow, and all the following days, I’ll have plenty of time to dive in deep, but today I just needed to take it as it came. For me, that meant that at some of the houses of the fifteen women I let Ruth do all the official talking with the prospective borrowers while I hung out with the kids.
My favorite experience was with a little girl named Annabelle. I promise we connected over more than just similar names. (By the by Anne is a very difficult name to pronounce here. If I don’t get “Anna” I get “Ain”) This nine-year-old girl had a sweet seriousness about her. Her older brother and friend were working on building a table and she was eagerly helping to piece it together. (I’ve been impressed with people’s ability to makeshift things together in general). She also engaged me in an informal dialogue about school and her family. Frequently the kids become really giggly or shy in these circumstances, but she connected in an earnest fashion and answered my questions honestly. When I asked Annabelle, after talking for a few minutes, if I could take her picture she said no. I was initially quite disappointed because she’d made a distinct impression on me. However, I was also impressed that she stood her ground. Often when I ask children questions, they respond in the affirmative even when that yields contradictions. We chatted and laughed some more and she shared how she wants to study to be a doctor and that she works hard in school. I told her I’m a university student and encouraged her keep up with the good studies. She then showed me her vegetable garden and later gave me a flower, which I’ve now put in my notebook and is pressing nicely. After she gave me the flower, I asked if we (Anne and Annabelle) could take a photo with the flower and she eagerly agreed this time. It’s encouraging to know that if I want to see Annabelle again, I can because Esperanza has made contact with her mother and, for at least the next six months, will foster opportunities to visit her family due to her mother’s soon-to-be loan.

While meeting the various associates (entrepreneurs/borrowers), I took in a lot about the general environment. The community of Haina is at the base of tropical hills that are a lush green, green, green. It’s interesting because one house will have a solid roof and cement floor and the next will have unintentional skylight and dirt floor. Some are kept remarkably clean and tidy and others seem disheveled. However, there did not seem to be a strong correlation between tidiness of house and person and income bracket and perspective loan amount. Having only spent one day in the field (an expression I don’t like but have yet to find a replacement for), I am not inclined to speculate upon these issues. They will, however, remain present in my mind and questions during the coming weeks and I’ll be sure to comment more.

Again, thank you for putting up with my longwinded post. I’d really appreciate comments so I can best cater my responses to the audience…that includes but is not limited to stylistic suggestions and questions!

Hasta luego,
Anne la gringa