A Lesson in Humility

Since I have stepped on the soil of the Dominican Republic I have realized that throughout this experience I will be throwing my shame and exbarrassment to the wind and learning to laugh at myself as I never have before. Even through the short duration so far of my Peace Corps experience I have learned that humility will be a virtue I will clutch close to my chest every day. From language mix-ups, cultural miscommunications, bodily malfunctions, and more my day to day life is full of probably more exbarassments than a year in the United States, all you can do is really laugh at yourself for these blunders and move forward once again. I have choosen a select 7 embarrassments to share with you. There are many, many more stories I could share and I am sure there will be a growing number of embarrassments to come in my service, but for now I hope you enjoy these select few:

• Diva Cup Runaway

I felt very comfortable with my second host family in CBT and I still call them every once in a while to keep in touch. They were very sweet, a family of a father, mother, three daughters ranging from the ages of 23-6 months and one son, 9 years old. One morning following a run I was running late to get to my courses for the day and was throwing water over me during my bucket shower, rapidly brushed my teeth, threw my hair into a messy bun, and ran out the door carrying my hot breakfast in my bag. Halfway through my lesson that day I was hit with a realization. I had forgot to put away my diva cup, it sat on the edge of the shower in my host parents house unattended! When lunch time arrived I rushed home, quickly walking to the bathroom to search for my lost femine higene product. I looked everywhere, perhaps It had fallen behind the toilet, it is slinked behind the shower curtain, I had actually remember to put it away? But no. It was no where to be found. After throughouly searching every place I could think of I tentively asked my host mother in Spanish, “Have you seen a little blue cup”. I am nearly positive they would not know what I was talking about if I explained my diva cup and anyways I had no idea how to describe it in Spanish. (Tampons themselves are a large rairity in the Dominican Republic and fairly expensive). All that day I asked my mother, my host sister, my host dad, had you seen a little blue cup in the bathroom that day? No one had seen anything, I even asked if I could search through the trash, but my host mother insisted she had not thrown it away. I sulked back to my afternoon classes of CBT distraught and racking my brain, where could my diva cup had gone? I would be in need of this lovely device probably tomorrow, had not brought a large supply of tampons with my and knew it would be a huge hassle to stake some tampons out in this country.

When I returned home that even I asked my family at least three times each, probably too many, if they had seen my “little blue cup”, I motioned with my hands the size and shape. They insisted the hadn’t. Disappointed and sinking into the realization that I might never see this prize possession again, I went off to a work session at another volunteers house. Later I returned to my house, sat down for dinner, exhausted from the day. My digesting of yucca was interrupted by my host sister’s arrival who nonchalantly said in Spanish. “Oh, Carolina, I found your blue cup.” Ahhhhhh I lept out of my dinner chair and hugged her which caught her off guard. Where is it? She relayed to me that she had found it in the bathroom that afternoon and had thrown it over the wall of the bathroom into my bedroom (I have only been in less than a handful of houses so far in the DR that have walls up to the ceiling, most are more open and there is no cement ceiling, simpling the tin roof above you). I was so excited I ran to my room and my savior of a sister helped me as we searched on our hands in knees under my bed for my thrown little blue cup. Finally clasping my fingers around my diva cup I lifted the little device up victoriously, gave my sister another hug as she laughed at my ridiculous victor dance of my recovered possession- little did my family know what that cup was really for.

• Conyo

O.K., so I am still learning Spanish and I had heard this word “conyo” (might not be how you spell it) being thrown around constantly during my day. Old men, young girls, teenagers, everyone but me seemed to know this multipurpose word often in an expression of frustration or disappointment. So, one day I asked my host sister who is 25 what this illusive word meant as we were walking to do some interviews. Initatially she stopped walking looked at me and started laughing shaking her head in a way that told me “oh man girl you have a lot to learn.”…. She politely and patiently explained to me that this word I had heard nearly hourly means vagina. She then patiently went on to explain for the rest of our 10 minute walk the plethora of other words that can be used for vagina. These kinda of words I cannot find in my dictionary, but through the patience of Dominicans hopefully soon I’ll understand all of the words thrown around during the day. My host sister then proceeded to tell my whole family this story and the next day my host mother told the story to all of my neighbors. They all got a good laugh out of my obliviousness and I laughed along too, if anything it just felt so good to let out a great loud laugh, whether it was at myself or simply at the knowledge that the number of the unknowns in the world are too vast to count.

• Daily houshold chores.

I do not know how to sweep, clean dishes, or wash my clothes… apparently, according to my host mother and sisters. I try to help out around the house as much as I can and my host mother has been instructed to teach me everything about living a campo livestyle because I will be living alone (hopefully some day) in the campo [the rural town]. My host family washes dishes in large metals bowls because there is no running water and no sink. The water is dirtied almost instantly by the sout of the fire “stove” that the bowls are placed on, but it gets the job done. I also apparently do not use enough force at scrubbing my clothes when hand washing them in a bucket of well water and every time I have tried to wash my clothes, my host sister has taken my sweat stained, mud splattered shirt out of my hand and scrubbed like there is no tomorrow. Sometime hopefully I will have enough force to be trusted to wash my own clothes. I do though insist on hanging my own clothes in the sun to dry as they are placed on the lengthy amount of barbed wire around the house and desperately do not want holes poked into my 6 shirts or 4 pairs of pants I will use for hopefully the next two years. Despite my 8 year-old sister being instructed to take yucca out of my hands because we don’t have time for me to practice peeling and being corrected on all my household chores, I think I am gaining the confidence of my fellow strong women that have been taught since toddlers of their prescribed roles on how to peel yucca, sweep and mop the floor, wash clothes, and all around care for a house and their future spouses. Often my 1 ½ year old sister in fact is instructed to carry coffee to her grandfather, wait for him to drink, and then carry the cup back to the kitchen when he is done, something I do not think I would be able to succeed at achieving until I was probably over 10 years old without complaining or creating dark coffee stains stretching down my shirt.

• Voy a Ganar [I’m going to win]

Everything thing in my house here is a competition. It is mostly instilled by my 2 and 8 year-old sisters, but often is commented on my by host dad and host mom. Eating is definitely a time for a competition. The first person to finishes wins and if you do not finish your whole plate you automatically loose. Not only do I eat very, very slowly compared to Dominican standards, but I almost never can finish my heaping plate of rice or yucca. As such, every day, three times a day I lose. Walking is a race. Bathing is a race. All of which I always loose. I loose at checkers, at card games I don’t understand, at dominoes, at every game I play. I often think of how my brother Mark would take this competitiveness so seriously as a child. Even though I loose at everything throughout the day, I love seeing the smiles on my young sisters’ faces as they shake their hips in their victory dance over their Carolina.

• Bathroom Invasions

I am fairly open person. I do not think of myself as too bashful of a person, but I do like my privacy when I am trying to take a dump. I use a latrine in the back of my host parents house to do my business yet the door does not fully close and from the crack in the side you can see into the kitchen and to the back of the kitchen where the children are often playing house. When I do try to hide in the depths of the latrine to try to catch a moment of privacy my 2 year-old host sister has been known to come in, open the door to the small latrine and try to talk to me. No matter what I say to tell her to leave she persists, asking me about my waste beads and asking me what I am doing in her with my pants around my ankles. This and the occasional invasion from my host mom to grab some soap while I am bathing or the accidental walk-in have tested my patience, it has definitely made me appreciate an indoor bathroom, with a closing door (not to mention the appreciation for running water or a space to bath not directly over my toilet).

• Ugly clothes

The style in the Dominican Republic for women is mostly very tight clothes and blinged out. I am not someone who often wears these types of clothes and I definitely did not bring any on this trip. I have been told many times that my pants are too loose and I have to look for the one pair of jeans that my host sister actually gifted to me my first week in country. My host mother constantly comments on how my boots are ugly and my hair up is ugly. My host mother has grabbed my pants legs and tucked in my socks, and fixed my bra straps without asking. I have accepted that I wear frumpy clothes and that I really don’t care what I look like as long as I feel like I seem clean and professional.

• You Got So Fat

For the first part of my host stay in the campo, I struggled a lot with dealig with the immense amount of pressure to eat a lot of food or people would get genuinely very offended and slightly angry. To overcome this I tried different techniques, sneaking spoonfuls of food to the dog, trying to share with my host sisters, hoarding food in my room, and finally I fell on something that worked. I just gush about how full I am and how I am getting fatter. My host family and my neighbors ate it up [no pun intended]. She is getting fat. They would tell everyone that would listen, laughing and turning me around so that they could admire my expanding thighs and stomach. Once I began ending my meals, only having to eat exactly what I wanted until I was pleasantly full, grasping my stomach and moaning, “Oh, my, I am so full! There is no room in my stomach.”, they did not question at all how much I was actually eating. If I later mentioned that I was getting fatter that was the cherry on top and I would get approving pats on my back and a laugh of satisfaction from my family. On the days that I actually do feel like I am getting too fat sometimes my brothers pokes, oh you are getting fat! Get under my skin, but for the most part I can pleasantly eat as much and how much I want while giving the cook one of the greatest compliments I could. I am getting fat. Everyone wins.

I am going to end this post on a high note. So even though daily I go through these struggles with self-doubts, my younger host sister who just turned 8 was singing this song to me as we were bringing water buckets up to her house and these are the moments when I feel like I am on the top of the world.

Carolina, Carolina oh mi amor

Nunca voy a dajarla

Carolina, Carolina, mi corozon

Le quiero Carolina

Mi amor, mi amor (X approximately 10 times with slight variation)

Translation

[Caroline, Caroline, oh my love

Never will I leave her

Caroline, Caroline, my heart

I love her, Caroline

My love, my love]

Even though times are sometimes hard and I know this experience will definitely push me way outside of my comfort zone times like this song make me feel so loved. I really am starting to feel like I have Dominican family here and feel so extremely lucky to have this opportunity to do what I always wanted when I was traveling, become more and more immersed in the culture and learn about the people living every day in and out in a way entirely different than I usually live.

Below are pictures of the latrine that I have at my host family’s house.

Holiday Celebrations From the DR and Abroad

At the close of November, I was able to celebrate Thanksgiving and my 23rd birthday (which happened to fall on the same day) with other volunteers in the capital, Santo Domingo. I felt so lucky that I was able to celebrate both days and with my friends here in country. I was able to eat a real Thanksgiving meal, filled with turnkey, stuffing, green beans, mashed potatoes, salad, and three types of pies. My stomach was bursting by the end and I had to shift in my seat to make room to laugh and talk with my friends.

The night before the 27th, when the clock struck midnight, a group of my friends and I climbed the copper spiral staircase of our hotel up to the rooftop where the entire city of Santo Domingo could be seen at the wee hours of the morning- tranquil and twinkling with the night’s lights. It was my birthday- my first in the Dominican Republic. We jumped around, jamming to beyonce, taylor swift, and classy, cheesey, girly songs, reaching for the stars that at that moment seemed almost close enough to touch. Eventually we were so exhausted from dancing that we just lay on the blacktop of the roof and stared up at the stars. I thought of what this year of 23 would hold for me. I know it will not be like any other year I will have in my life, full of so many new and exciting experiences and well as some hardships I’m sure, but laying there with my friends, trying to calm my heart rate and not able to wipe a huge smile from my face, I felt I like I could take it on. Whatever this year will bring, I’m ready and I’m so excited. When we finally retreated back to my rooms, a group of other volunteers not staying at our hotel gave me a call and all sang me happy birthday in the most jubulient tones. I felt so loved and so special. Not only did I feel like these other volunteers were here for me if I needed anything, but since I was in the capital, I had internet and was able to talk to my much missed family and friends in the United States and abroad. As always, it was confirmed that these rock-solid friends and family are more than I could ever ask for. Still, showing so much interest in what I am doing and how I am doing I felt so loved and it was so refreshing to hear about their lives and their Thanksgiving plans.

The day of Thanksgiving revolved around the lovely meal, as Thanksgiving should, but I was also able to swim in a rooftop pool that was rented out by a group of Peace Corps volunteers. It was a little overwhelming at first, but so much fun, and such a drastic change from my campo lifestyle. Following the Thanksgiving meal we were able to explore the “colonial zone” of Santo Domingo, the more touristy area, which was a lot of fun. All around Thanksgiving was an amazing day, but almost nothing like my past Thanksgivings. Instead of filled with my close family members, it was filled with new faces and new friends (I feel like friends that are soon becoming like family). Instead of participating in classic Turkey Day traditions like writing what I am thankful for on little paper turkeys, eating my dad’s coveted corn pudding, or attempting not to burn down the house by frying a turkey, my day was filled with a pool in 90 degree weather, dancing on rooftops, and devouring non-Dominican food.

I have been lucky enough to celebrate Christmas with my two younger brothers, my mom and my dad, and often extended family. We have so many traditions for Christmas, especially because my brother Mark really likes to stick with tradition and Christmas is always so much fun, why change it, right? This will be my first year that I will not be home for Christmas and with my family. I will be celebrating Christmas with my new family in the Dominican Republic, my host family in Tierra Prieta. The 24th is a big deal in the Dominican Republic filled with a large meal I am told including special dishes never eaten otherwise throughout the year. This could include lasangna or certain Christmas sweet candies. For this Christmas Eve my family is also killing a cow just for this special meal, a very big deal. I have not had any beef from a Dominican household yet and I am excited to see how they prepare the meat. For the pork that I have eaten, they transport parts of the pig in thin plastic bags to the house. This pig is usually killed by one of the neighbors and they then purchase parts of the meat from them. They then cut up this meat, cover it in orange juice and oregano and then put the meet on the tin roof to dry in the sun for a day. The next day they then fry it up in some oil and often add other spices, this results in a slightly tough, yet delicious pork side to rice and beans.

Christmas day I have heard from other volunteers is nothing like Christmas back in the United States (I have not met anyone in the Dominican Republic yet that has openly declared they follow a religious tradition that is not Christian of some form). Not much is different from every other day except, people do not work. Therefore, Christmas consists mostly of drinking and playing dominoes, curiously for the most part it is not socially acceptable for women to play dominoes and I do not drink in my site, so I am not sure if I will be doing anything different than every other day. Still, I am excited to experience my first Christmas in a culture I am not used to, but also nervous about missing my family and my normal Christmas traditions. I will have cell phone service on Christmas day and hope that I will be able to talk to family, but honestly, despite the Christmas lights that have appeared outside of houses in October, it does not even feel like Christmas is two weeks away.

I honestly feel like it is still August. It is in the 80s every day, there are no leaves on the ground, there is no snow sprinkling the earth, I am still wearing the same clothes I wore since I arrived in the Dominican Republic, I am not eating any fall or winter food -I have eaten 2 apples since I arrived in country and absolutely no pumpkin spice lattes- (one of my guilty, totally unnecessary cravings), and school has not started (which I haven’t been lacking in 20 years, before starting preschool).

One exciting celebration in the month before Christmas is guinardo (I probably spelled that wrong). This is a celebration where everyone in the community in the wee hours of the morning before the sun rises, go out into the street and sing and walk around the neighborhood collecting people. They then collect at one persons house and have chocolate and other sweets or treats and sing and play drums. I am very excited to participate in this celebration, which I feel like is such a unique experience I could not see anywhere else, even if I was a tourist in the Dominican Republic. It is experiences like this that make me realize how incredibly lucky I am to be a Peace Corps volunteer. My community has welcomed me with open arms. Nearly everyone I meet tells me “a su orden” basically whatever you want I can do. I have many older Donas that more frequently refer to me as “mi hija”- my daughter than Carolina. People go out of their way to get me some type of food or coffee whenever I see them and often stop whatever they are doing to walk me home, or just sit with me on their front stoop. Even though it has been difficult at times to be away from my home in the United States, away from my family and friends, for the holidays, I feel like little by little I am burroughing into a home in Tierra Preita and I am gaining another family including the mishmash array of loving Dominicans to other American volunteers.

Feliz Navidad and Happy Holidays to everyone reading! Holidays with those you love, either new or old, is something that should never be taken for granted. I hope you all have an amazing holiday season!