Yesterday I had another meeting with the workers at my center and my “consejo” committee, or advice committee. I gave them an update on my diagnostic so far, and we made plans for the rest of the summer.
My diagnostic so far is going well… I think. My goal for June was to get the computers in my center updated and working well. Last week we had three men from our government agency (El Dispacho de La Primera Dama) come here and re-image, clone, and basically get all 21 computers in my center to have the same programs with updated virus protection, windows updates etc. I literally stalked the lady who works in the office in Santo Domingo for about five days previous, calling her twice a day to get some questions answered about our computers, until finally she picked up the phone and in English told me she was sending three “technicos,” (or technical worker guys) to come up to La Caya and revamp all the computers. The men came and worked for six hours on the computers. I asked them when the last time they had been to La Caya to work on the computers, and they couldn’t even remember. Neither could the staff at my center. This basically means no technical worker from the main office has been here to La Caya since the center opened three years ago.
So what did I learn from this experience? It pays to be persistent.
This last weekend, another volunteer, Amanda, who lives about an hour away from me, came to La Caya to visit and continue to help me with the computers. On Monday, Amanda and I uninstalled a few unnecessary programs the dispacho installed, fixed Rosetta Stone (a language learning program) that the technicos installed but couldn’t get to work and began to install a type of user protection program. All in all, the computers are coming along and I think I will be able to have them up and running well by the end of the month.
As mentioned before, the meeting with my team went well. We discussed many things about the center and what other funds need to be raised to get more equipment here in the lab. My team is really interested in starting an Environment youth group here, and I am all for it. We made plans to have trash pick-up days for a week starting July 6. I told them that I will be at the center at 8:00 a.m. everyday with a bag in hand; ready to go with whatever youth wants to, to start picking up trash in the streets and around the community. We also decided to give an incentive to the youth by putting an announcement on the radio that if the youth comes with me to pick up trash for an hour, they get an hour of internet free at the center (a great idea from my good friend and fellow volunteer Malia).
The trash situation in this country has been one of the biggest surprises to me. I’ve analyzed it over and over in my head and what I’ve decided is that people here have no concept of what trash is. That may seem abstract, but let me explain. When people buy anything with a wrapper or a coke bottle or anything that has a waste product, like a candy bar or gum or whatever- when they finish they literally just throw it on the ground. Even in their own homes. They just throw all this stuff outside or on the ground in their house. Now, don’t think that Dominicans are dirty and just walk around on trash, because that is not the case. They throw their waste on the ground and then later that day or the next day, the sweep it all up into a corner or their yard away from site. Out of site, out of mind.
Oftentimes, this ends up being a river. All the trash from the people is thrown into the town’s river and it just sits there until the rains come (oh and they come, let me tell you). Then all the trash is carried downstream to another community, where it becomes their problem. Again, out of site out of mind.
Another example of the non-distinction of trash… Dominicans really are a very clean culture- you only wear clothes once before washing, people bath twice a day at least, houses are mopped and cleaned daily, and everyone racks their yard daily as well. But it’s the dirt and the leaves and the branches that they are trying to get rid of, that they think is trash. In my adopted family, there is Angel. He is Anyi’s three-year-old son and he is a terror. Anyway, one day I asked him to help me pick up trash in the yard and so I started picking up wrappers, a coke bottle etc. About five minutes later, he ran up to me and held out his hands full of leaves and broken branches and dirt and told me it was “basura,” or trash.
In my broken Spanish, I tried to explain to him how what man makes is trash and how what nature makes is natural. Yeah, that went over real well. He just sort of looked up at me with this non-understanding look and after a few seconds just went back to playing in the yard.
So long story short, the fact that my team here at the center wants to start an environment group with the youth of La Caya is awesome. And picking up trash in the streets is a great way to start. We talked also about eventually planting more trees around the lagoon close to my house. It’s about starting small and being persistent. That is what I learned with my repetitive phone calls to the dispacho about my computers, and it is the same concept I will apply to this environment group.
In other news…slowly but surely, I am letting the Dominican culture take me over. A couple of examples: yesterday for dinner I had boiled plantains. That’s it, just boiled plantains with a little olive oil drizzled on top and it was delicious. Two weeks ago or so, I went shopping with one of the girls from my adopted family in the nearby town of Jaibon. I bought a pair of capri jeans with sparkles on the pockets and a tank-top with frilly lace on the collar. Never in my wildest dreams would I ever have guessed I would buy and actually like anything with sparkles or frilly lace.
I learn everyday that this is the point of living, working and integrating into a new culture. You eat food you wouldn’t normally eat. You dress in ways you never thought you would (I am seriously going to take a picture of myself in my Dominican outfit and upload it here, it’s pretty great to see me in girly jeans) and you learn things about yourself you never knew existed.
I have been thinking a lot about what this experience will mean to me in two years. It is sort of ridiculous to think about really, because I can’t control the future and it is silly to try. But what I am learning so much everyday, is that I have to be flexible. The minute I start to be strong-headed, narrow-minded and determined to do things only my way, is when nothing gets accomplished. So, here’s to clothes I will only wear in the DR, food I will only eat in the DR and the chance to become a better person from it (even if it does mean sparkles and frilly lace).
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