Elecciones

With the director away in the US for two weeks, I’ve shifted temporarily to her house in La Hoya living here and commuting a few days a week to Bombita. It has been nice to get more time with my friends here and really feel like part of the group. We gather at one or another person’s house and cook or just chat. The director’s house also has an American sofa (read cushy and informal – Dominican sofas are the opposite) as well as a TV, DVD and a full movie library. It also has a screen room with more seating space than any Dominican house could afford. We’ve tried to take full advantage.

el coro in the screen room

Work has been slow but I have two very full vocational classes organized to begin May 31st. Reposteria (bread and pastry making) for the women and electricity for guys. I tried suggesting that I might take electricity or that men might learn to make bread but it always came out a joke – gender roles are not very flexible here.

La Hoya girls (R to L: Amy, Rosalbe, Nairobi and Francia)

The office is rocking as much as any nightclub as a campaign parade passes by on the newly paved streets of La Hoya. A fast paced merenege urges me to vote for Fabio Vargas “un hombre serio” and claims if there is an improvement I need made I should “pideselo, bum ba bum ba, pidaselo, ba ba upba” ask him for it. The music shakes my desk from an entire truckbed of speakers. It is followed by pickups and minivan guaguas with people, flags, and fliers with the candidates’ highly retouched faces hanging out.

Elections will be held at the schools on Sunday the 16th for senate seats and local diputados. During my Kreyol lesson on Tuesday night in Bombita I get the scoop from Rogelia who is never slow to share her opinion. All the politicians are thieves: only one local candidate has bothered to do any work in Bombita -repairs of peoples houses, giving cement to shape up the little park. Others have handed out ball caps and flyers but the extreme corruption here means that people only vote for what they’ve already received.

Government employment is all controlled by party politics so naming people to those positions has to be requested and granted before this weekend. Many people receiving government paychecks never show up for their job. Even the city council in Bombita has told the garbage truck shared with Canoa, the neighboring town, not to come in order to avoided having to work at garbage collection. The menagerie of animals wandering the streets take care of anything organic but plastic trash continues to pile up in the play field and garbage collection happens maybe once a month. The women who sweep the streets are paid in rice and oil while the council pockets the check.

Despite its lovely example of poverty and corruption, I miss Bombita while I am in La Hoya and will be happy to move back this weekend when the director returns.

Photos soon of both villages. I swear.