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I’ve decided to attach another polished story, which will help contextualize one my personal experience below.

Polished Story: Niche Market

One of the primary businesses of Esperanza International’s associates is selling clothes. This occurs in many forms—from purchasing individual items of clothing to buying $100-$200 packs (ropa de paca), from selling from a tiendacita (small store) to selling en la calle (in the street). Pacas typically come in themes ranging from undergarments and children’s clothes to men’s or women’s clothing. Many opt to sell “ropa de paca” because the profits for an individual item can be quite good. However, purchasing a paca is also a bit of a risk as it can be difficult to distinguish a good one from a bad one. A bad one can sink profits because many items cannot be sold and must simply be given away.

Another obstacle clothes venders face is that many distribute their goods before collecting payments. Later, many buyers either evade payments or simply refuse. Furthermore, clothes sales in general can be difficult to differentiate and so there’s not much room for an edge other than price competition. Nonetheless, clothes sales continue to be a popular business because the merchandise is easy to acquire both in terms of accessibility and low price barriers.

Prior to receiving her first Esperanza loan, Vinicia Vasques Orteg sold clothes. However, with the capital boost from her first loan, she was able to invest instead in home electronics. Now, she has an order-based electronics business in which she talks with family and friends, determines what they want, and purchases it on their behalf. In addition, she has a small surplus of other various electronics that she stores in her house. Since her house is small, she hopes to eventually open a store from which she can store and sell more merchandise. This will also reduce the frequency of her trips to the capital (an hour journey) where she purchases her wares. Furthermore, there are fewer competitors in this industry and each item yields a higher profit margin than a given article of clothing. With this new business, Vinicia aims to improve her home and life for herself and her family!

End of Polished Story

Start of Anne Reflection

After three weekends in Los Alcarrizos, I was feeling fairly antsy and a tad lonely. My comfort here really travels in waves of varying length and depth. Sometimes I feel incredibly attached and connected and other times I simply feel distant and a bit out of place. It’s interesting because homesickness and missing people has, quite frankly, never been a problem before in my life. However, I probably didn’t experience these sentiments in the past because I had never truly ventured from home and all of my most meaningful relationships. I do not think it’s bad to feel lonely occasionally and I think feelings of discomfort can foster real growth. As I told my friend Laurel, despite learning I’m more capable than I once thought, I have less desire to be completely independent. I am just continually reminded about how much I love my family and friends (both at home and here) and how I am so much better and enjoy life so much more as a result of those relationships.

The weekend and I met in a warm, mutual embrace. I grabbed a ride from Pedrito and headed out to Santo Domingo on Thursday night, taking Friday off from work. I’m totally on schedule for my interviews and am working as a volunteer, so I have no shame (estoy sin verguenza…it’s frustrating because, in my experience, there is only one Spanish word for both shame and embarrassment and I think of those two words are different enough to need different terms). Thursday evening the interns who were present hung out with a few Esperanza staffers who are not more than one or two years older than we are. Joining the group immediately pulled the plug on my mini-bathtub of apprehensions and weariness and turned on the faucet for liveliness and joy. We laughed, swapped stories, waxed poetic, and philosophized late into the night. It was one of our friend’s last night in the DR and so it was a sentimental and sweet time of reflection and celebration.

After grabbing breakfast and saying goodbyes in the morning, Jon and I wandered around the capital, particularly the colonial zone. More than anything else, it was really lovely to speak English for an extended period of time, people watch, and hunt for air conditioning. From the untrained perspective, Jon and I probably looked quite reverent as we spent a good portion of Friday in various churches. While we probably would have checked out these buildings anyway, I think it’s safe to assume that we would not have lingered for quite as long if they had not been equipped with AC.

When we were in Paris and London for Spring break, Laurel, Jaclyn, and I joked about feeling guilty about not caring that much about all the gilded rooms and churches we visited. I find that when every corner of a room is decorated in ornate detail, the room feels cluttered and overwhelming rather than beautiful and majestic. In contrast, I found the churches we visited in the Colonial Zone were handsome and grand due to their crisp simplicity. The ambiances were more of relaxation and authenticity…I swear this is me talking and not just the AC. It’s interesting that I felt that the buildings were sincere since much of the religion of the DR has a façade reputation.

While relaxing and catching up in one of the churches, a man approached Jon and me and asked if we were German or French. We chatted a bit and explained that we are neither. He then asked if we had any US dollars to exchange, which we didn’t. His wondering about our country of origin might have simply been a ploy to get to the money part of the conversation and if so, it certainly worked.

Prying ourselves from heavenly air conditioning, Jon and I joined up with two other interns and a girl (now old friend) who’s doing an independent research project in conjunction with Esperanza and her home university. We headed out to dinner at one of our favorite locales and then checked out a colmado that, in previous experience, had been quite the dance spot. The colmado was much tamer this night and we just ended up enjoying drinks and conversations. While we were chatting and relaxing, I looked over to the left and spotted the front sign of the university that Pedro Julio (my neighbor) attends; he’s taking night classes to obtain his degree in architecture. I gave him a call to see if he wanted to join, but, as it turns out, he was already at home. While that would have been an interesting mix of my two worlds here, it might be for the best that they remained separate.

We made plans to head back to the hotel and freshen up a bit before heading out for some dancing. Tess was definitely leading the pack in the let’s-go-have-fun venture. After we girls had tidied up, we went to fetch the boys. They were watching a movie and we decided to join them for a bit before officially hitting the dance floor. Ironically enough, Tess (our fearless leader) drifted off quickly followed by an apparently tired Anne (another strong supporter of dance adventure) and so we decided to postpone dancing until the next day.

Every time we stay in Santo Domingo and don’t crash with some of the Esperanza staff, we interns stay at a little hotel called La Residencia. It’s really nice because we know the staff there now and they know us. There’s also a high school boy who’s from the states but spends every summer in the DR visiting his family who owns La Res. He eventually wants to go to Stanford and so we’ve had a bunch of chats about how to be a good student and apply your passions. We’re facebook friends now, so I figure we’ll continue to share these discussions. I love networking for people and sharing the bank of knowledge I have been blessed to acquire!

The next morning, we checked out of La Res and, while walking to the bus stop, grabbed some fresh fruit for breakfast--I had piña y papaya! At the bus stop, we met up with another intern (David), his friend, and his sister to travel up to Jarabacoa where David attended high school. Staying in the guesthouse of the boarding school, we had access to warm water, bunk beds, and a full kitchen. Wanting to fully utilize the opportunity of the latter amenity, we went grocery shopping to make dinner for that evening. More and more I’m coming to realize how wonderful shared activities are in terms of strengthening friendships and just having fun. It’s possible that we could have eaten out for approximately the same price; however, we would not have taken part in the joy and collaboration of jointly preparing and enjoying a meal. Besides, David is one heck of a cook and it takes a LOT to beat his creations.

After going out for ice cream (here the most common ice cream shop is called Bon), we hit the dance floor. Previous to this excursion, I had not danced enough merengue to make a preference judgment as we only covered merengue for one day in my fall social dance class at Stanford and very few dances at Stanford play merengue music. Interestingly enough, we learned merengue one day after I learned I would be going to the Dominican Republic for the summer, which made me super excited then…clearly it was meant to be! Then, in the spring, a girl in my oral Spanish class gave a presentation on Latin dances and spoke for awhile about merengue’s Dominican origins and ties to social and political history. Needless to say, I’ve been quite anxious to get my groove on and join the merengue fiesta. Well, as it turns out, I really don’t like merengue. OK. I’ll break down the dance. Imagine you’re standing at a bus stop waiting for the guagua to show up. You’ve got most of your weight on one leg and your hip out. Then, because you’ve been waiting an ungodly amount of time, you switch hips. Now speed that up and you’ve got the basic step. While some people choose to add in a few dance moves, I danced with several people who felt content to just do the hip things for the full three minutes…boooring. On one level, I’m a tad disappointed with merengue…I had expected more from it. On another, I’m glad that it’s fallen from its tower of dance perfection because now I’m not frustrated with not having danced as much as I expected I would.

On Monday, we made the several hour trek to the twenty-seven waterfalls of Rio Damajagua. As a group, we made our way down the waterfalls by jumping and climbing…some were a tad too high for my liking and so I readily embraced the nickname “pica pollo” as I navigated an alternative route.

During one of our many guagua stops and changes to reach the waterfalls, I spotted something new, yet oddly familiar from the corner of my eye. It was a huge truck unloading some large rectangular packs that people were purchasing. I instantly knew it was ropa de paca! I first heard about this concept my senior year of high school in my econ class. We watched a video that tracked, through Africa, the clothes people in the US donate to goodwill. Basically, used clothes stores cannot house all the merchandise that is donated each year and so they bundle it up and ship it off to less developed nations where people, including many of Esperanza’s clients, can sell it, which has undercut and driven out many nation’s production of clothing. While I have talked and learned a good deal more about ropa de paca since being here, I had yet to actually see a pack and there were a bunch of little logistics that I didn’t know. Each pack is about the size of a bale of hay and each pack is numbered 1-3 depending on quality. 1 is the best and 3 is the worst, costing approximately $100 and $280 respectively. Furthermore, each pack is labeled with a theme. I was able to ask the vender when and where the clothes were packaged and labeled and he told me it all took place stateside before the goods were shipped. Unfortunately, I did not have my camera because I was about to journey down a river and 27 waterfalls…this was one of the few times I’ve been disappointed about not being able to capture an image.

See, I promised I would tie everything back together. If you stuck with my four-page tangent, thank you thank you thank you, and you deserve a gold star for patience and endurance.

I miss you all and am growing excited to return home and continue to process out the things I’ve seen, the stories I’ve heard, and the discussions I’ve shared.

beso,
Anne