Caña Quemada (Burnt Sugarcane)

I ride back into Bombita from a day of letter writing with classes in La Hoya feeling very cool as kids call out my name when I pass by on my motorbike. I soon realize they’ve burned the cane field by the school as the air is filled with strips of charred leaves and the small of burnt sugar. Every surface in my house is covered with a layer of soot. I am disappointed to have missed the spectacle since its quite a pretty sight – especially when a field is burned at night.

(The cane train)

Friday after work I walk down to the river with the volunteers. We cross the highway and follow the muddy road next to the irrigation canal passing plots of banana trees and a student with the cow he is leading back to the village before arriving at the river. The quiet that would usually accompany the lazy movement of its slightly brackish water is replaced by the grinding of the pump which sends river water through the canal and into the reservoir by the village that everyone calls “the metro”. The metro is the size of a cane field and constantly sends a cool breeze out along its raised sides making it perfect for a stroll.

(Verona and Enmanuel )

As we return from the river Ruben and Santiago, ringleaders of the cook-at-COPA contingent, drive up on a motorbike to tell me that they will be making dinner at my house tonight. They will show up a Dominican 30 minutes later they tell me. An hour or more later they join other guys who are already sitting in my kitchen, drinking juice made from a powder and arguing about what to make. Enmanuel, the self declared chef, finally gets to work on rice and corn and our conversation turns to preparations for Sunday’s trip to the beach. With no shortage of drama we sort out who will buy and cook 2 chickens and 10 pound of rice.

Sunday morning we are on the road in the truck borrowed from La Hoya. I pass up the passenger seat to ride in the back with the rest of the crew – Santiago, Ruben, Enmanuel, Yosi (pronounces Josie), Azul and the volunteers – Sinead and Layla. We pick up 3 friends of Ruben from another village at a crossroads, pass through Barahona, stop to buy ice and more sodas, then continue on to San Rafael. It is only 11am when we arrive but the first thing the guys do is start heaping their plates with food. The beach is mostly pebbles and the surf is powerful so our first dip turns into a game of dumping sand down each others backs and washing it out with a rush into the balance-defying waves.

We are taking a breather when we see that people are running away from the central area of tables and umbrellas. Two groups of guys are fighting, throwing rocks and yelling obscenities. Those not involved scatter, trying to avoid the rain of stones as the groups move, gathering bottles and machetes as they attack each other. When they have moved far enough away, we collect out stuff and grab the truck to make our escape with the rest of the people fleeing the beach. We are glad to have brought our own vehicle as we pass people arguing over space on the few guaguas available. We hear from others that the fight is over a disagreement over a table between one group of guys and the café owner who was quickly backed by other locals. I am incredulous – do people here lack a cause so much that they will fight over something that trivial?

We go to a beach a few miles away, joined by many of those who have left San Rafael. This beach has less shade but the water is shallow and warm. We eat again, laughing about who was cowardly or nervous during the debacle. We swim out to balance on rocks just a meter below the surface, lie in the sun and generally enjoy the rest of the day.

Monday is back to work, getting the water system fixed after two days of bucket baths, in and out of classrooms writing letters with the kids, and out to Batey Central, near Barahona, for a meeting at the high school. In the evening I walk the village with Orqedia in search of ice for her small cafeteria/food stand after the power has been off and on (but mostly off) all day. Tuesday night will be my Kreyol lesson and Wednesday shopping in Barahona. Thursday night I’ll go with the youth group to visit the youth in La Hoya and Friday I might find some friends making dinner at my house before I get online and hopefully catch people at home. Saturday marks the beginning of vacation for everyone but COPA staff – we don’t have off until Wednesday. Time is already flying by!

Settling In

Its raining today and it matches the mood because yesterday one of the students was killed in an accident. The school is quiet and the words of the boy’s sister calling out for him at the funeral last night are echoed by a kid headed to bathe in the irrigation canal this morning. The tragedy seems dulled by the fact that there has been at least one death a week in the village since Christmas. Many are shootings in a drug related struggle happening in the capital which send the bodies of young “tigres” back to their families in Bombita to mourn and bury but others were health related and this was an accident on the highway and the boy who died was 13. My first moto ride out of the village is to bring his picture to his grandmother in Canoa, the next town over. Although the poverty here makes me feel like I have a reason to be working in these communities, the injustice of my ability to do so makes me feel powerless to make significant change.

When school is back in session on Monday I am cajoling the teachers into helping me with sponsor letters. Each student has two sponsors – one in the US and one in the UK – so they write to each about what they have been learning lately in the spring and then again at Christmas they send cards. Being in charge of sponsorship allows me to get into the classrooms and get to know the kids a bit. I start with the youngest and the high school students but will work my way through all the grades in both schools before the end of the month if all goes well. Meanwhile I’m also trying to get up to speed on financial stuff and toss around ideas for the vocational program.

I’ve made some friends who keep me busy outside of work hours. Yusenia, the kindergarten teacher, literally invites me to be her friend and follows through, coming to find me at my house with her cousin Orquidea and take me on walks around the village. Rogelia who is studying at university comes to my house on Tuesday evenings for a Kreyol/English exchanges and leaves me with homework. Enmanuel and Vladimir come to my house with plantains and whip up Dominican style spaghetti and tostones. Wednesday evenings and Saturday mornings the COPA staff goes into Barahona to buy groceries as there are supermarkets as well as a market with fresh fruits and vegetables. In the batey people sell flat bread, eggs, and small amounts of anything else out of a room in their house in the Dominican version of a corner store/hang out called a Colmado. It looks like I should be able to get the internet every Friday night so that will add skype calls to my weekly routine.

(In Barhaona. Pica Pollo = Fast Food)

This weekend I’m headed to a baby shower for Orquidea’s sister on Saturday night and Sunday to batey 4 where many people in Bombita have relatives. More letter writing with both Bombita and La Hoya classes in the coming week - I have a feeling I will really need the vacation during Semana Santa which starts on the 29th.

I know I should be taking pictures for you all but I havent the heart to take them until people know me better...soon.

El Batey

My first day Verona takes me to visit the school where pre-kinder through grade 8 stand to chorus “buenas tardes” each time we enter a classroom to introduce me to the teachers. Some classes applaud when they hear I’ll work with them on letters to their sponsors and the little ones crowd me with hugs. Later we stroll through the dirt paths of the village lined with brightly painted leaning wooden houses and a few equally bright concrete ones. People are equally warm here, inviting me to come anytime into their small front rooms cramped with sets of plastic covered formal furniture. Spanish is mixed with kreyol as nearly everyone here is of Haitian decent though many have been in the Dominican for generations. Because we are not officially hooked up to the power lines, electricity comes in 6 hour bursts which are sometimes (but not always) predictable I am told. Cows, chickens, goats, dogs and a horse are joined in the street by kids who have school in the morning shift playing in oversized t-shirts and men in plastic chairs playing dominos.

(My yard/barnyard)

Saturday is independence day as well as carnival but the festivities are tempered as there have been 3 tragic deaths in the last week. There are however, assemblies at school on Friday, so I attend the one in Bombita in the morning and then visit La Hoya, where COPA has its other school in the afternoon. La Hoya look more like other Dominican towns with mostly concrete houses set back from the road. Here too the mood is sedated because there has been an accident while paving the roads that injured a man.

(My little house)

Saturday is the COPA staff day to shop in Barahona but before picking up vegetables in the market we stop by a refugee center where Haitians too ill to return to Haiti yet stay as they recover from treatment in Dominican hospitals. Many have casts of some kind on one or more limbs but seem in good enough spirits, especially as we help a girl who has been paralyzed from the waist down into a wheelchair for the first time. She has told me that she lost her immediate family and about how she practices English and how many hundreds of friends from around the world she has on Hi5 (a social networking website).

After an intense hour we drive into Barahona for our groceries then on to a small hotel on the beach where we eat lunch and then relax in the sun for the afternoon. Connie, the director who lives in La Hoya, and Verona nap while I take some time to get to know Amy, the health advisor who manages the clinics in both Bombita and La Hoya. At the end of the day Verona and I drop her and Connie in La Hoya and return to Bombita. We wander in the village a bit before turning in and I meet dozens more people whose names I will not remember. They all invite me to church on Sunday as that is the principal entertainment in the batey. There are 3 small churches, each with services nearly every night full of music and dancing.

On Sunday I do laundry and cook before joining Verona in a stroll into the village. We visit 2 girls who have had their tonsils out by a visiting medical team last week, watch silly video clips with the group of young guys who make up the church bands, then walk with them past people of all ages bathing in the canal and into the fields to cut some sugar cane. Walking back with our snack, I am made fun of for how slowly I chew through the long, sweet stick. Later we go to the joint church service where the children from all 3 churches perform dances to upbeat hymns.

Monday is my first day of work officially but it starts off with a scooter lesson. Guillermo, the maintenance guy who will be my right hand man sits behind me at first then lets me ride on my own as a bump up and down the length of the village avoiding roosters and naked children running across the road and practice shifting. A few more rounds and then I’ll be ready to ride on the highway!