Dominican Republic

Today was our last day at the batey. Our last day in the Dominican Republic.

I think the reason that this was such a new, moving experience was not just because of how we helped and what we did. It was because of the people we met. Whenever I have traveled in the past, it has been a planned schedule of buildings we will see on certain days. I’ve oohed and ahed at a lot of monuments and learned some history many times. This trip was different, though. I will remember Santiago not for its streets and its Monumento A Los Heroes, but for Lazarro, our awesome hotel manager who took the time to get to know us these past two weeks. The people already have made an imprint on my mind more than any building could, and I have never gotten to know a country this way before.

I think this is the better way to learn about a country. What is a historic building if there aren’t any people to keep the culture alive? I’ll remember Batey Libertad for all the laughter and singing I heard there, despite it all. This also makes it a lot harder on me, and the group, to leave. So many e-mail addresses have been exchanged, I don’t see how people will be able to keep up with them. In the end, it’s the people of the DR that I’m going to miss the most.

Isabel Vazquez
University Laboratory High School
Urbana, IL

Last Sunday was not only one of the best days on this trip but one of the best in my life. I felt like so much a part of the community, and there was constantly something going on. And although it was a free day, since Sundays are for resting and there was a soccer tournament, it is impossible to be bored at Batey Libertad.

At one moment I just stepped outside the moment to realize how amazing this was. I was sitting on the sidelines of the final soccer game of the tournament (that Libertad was winning of course). There were two little girls braiding my hair and chattering away and two little toddlers sitting on my lap all smiley and affectionate and I was having this fascinating conversation with Ramon Miguel about anything that had to do with the batey and I was watching an exciting soccer game and there were these beautiful mountains in the background and a clear sky. I felt so lucky to feel so comfortable there. I still feel like I don’t deserve the amount of caring and welcome we have been given.

There have been moments on this trip when I have literally broken down crying from either specific experiences or just broader realizations I’ve had. Sometimes I’ve realized the vastness of the world’s problems, especially as I notice how I have seen the exact same problems that I see here in almost every country I have been to — and that can make me feel useless. But it can also give me a greater understanding of things. I am so glad those moments happened because as much as the happy moments that inspire me, those sadder ones will also impact me forever and affect the ways I choose to try to fight poverty or whatever problem I choose to spend my life working on. Anyway, these last few days will only be more emotional.

Shara Esbenshade
University Laboratory High School
Urbana, IL

Hola,

I hope all is well. Today is my day to tell you about the great experiences we have shared with each other. It has gone by so fast, I can not believe it; its incredible. I wish I was staying for another week. I am considering on moving here to the DR when I am a little bit more mature.

Today was so awesome, because everyone got the chance to spend time with one person, and be in their shoes. Nobody didn’t know who there are spending the day with, it was all a superise. There was one rule: NOT TO SPEAK ANY ENGLISH TO ANYONE WHAT SO EVER! I was speechless, I had no idea they were going to do that. I was a little bit happy, because this can help me with the Spanish language.

Today I spent my day with a nice, and beautiful woman. She had thought me how to cook Dominican Style. It was awesome, some things she thought me how to make is bean, rice, salad, and beats. She also let me wash dishes, it was really different, because I am use to using a sink, but instead I was using two bowls; it was kind of difficut. Then I had set the table for lunch, I had so much fun.

Then all of us got back together, to go to a graduation in the Batey. I had taken so many pictures, there are incredible. After the graduation, we had a couple of snacks, talked alittle, and fooled around. A couple of minutes later, a couple of guys put a stereo on and everyone started to dance. To me it was an incredible experience.

I had danced to so many diferent types of music, such as merengue, bachata, reggaeton, etc. Everyone had a blast, everyone danced with each other, and just hung out. Then it was time to go back to the hotel, I was so disappointed, because the day went by so fast. I know that I will never forget this day.

When I make a promise I always keep it so I would like to say hi to my family, friends, and to my mom’s friends at work!!!! Hello everyone, hope you liked it, because I know I did. Take care and if you have any questions or comments, please let me know.

Nicole C. Salazar
Von Steuben Metropolian Science Center
Chicago, IL

My apologies for the delay. We were in Santo Domingo on Monday and Tuesday with no access to a computer.

On Monday we woke up at 7:30 to eat breakfast so that we could get an early start on our journey into Cibao Valley mountains. As our bus drove through the mountains, we could feel the slow cooling of the tempurature. The view became more and more breathtaking as we made our way to our ultimate destination: Alta Gracia. Alta Gracia while mostly an organic coffee farm, also has bananas, guava, and other tropical plants.

The farm itself is an experiment, there are 60 acres in all. The farm was founded by Bill Eichner and Julia Alvarez who set out to not just grow organic coffee, but to also promote other important things wether it be environmental, political, or social. One important thing that was said by our tour guide was that all of the plants at Alta Gracia have a connection with each other. The connection being that the pine trees shade the coffee and bananas which shade the guava. It was also mentioned that on mainstream coffee farms, they cut down all of the trees to plant coffee beans when in reality coffee needs shade. This causes deforestation and chemical poisoning throughout that farm-which is proven to cause birth defects, if you look at the Nemagon (used for bananas and coffee) case studies in Latin America.

We strolled back to the house where we ate this delicious meal consisting of their coffee, chicken that was killed right before we left, rice and beans, and fresh bananas. This reminded me once again that one does not need boxed processed food to have an enjoyable meal.

We played soccer on the driveway which was right by a steep cliff. It was a matter of time before the soccer ball would fling off of the driveway and plunge into the foresty abyss. We spent the latter part of the early afternoon looking for the ball, and enjoying the overwhelming view of the valley.

After giving up on the soccer ball, we packed up and drove to Santo Domingo which is the Captial of the Dominican Republic. The captial looked a lot of like Santiago only bigger. We stayed in a bed and breakfast sort of place. It was ran by a nice woman named Betty who sells artwork and other Dominican souvenirs. Betty is a cousin of Dolly Parton and distantly related to Brad Pitt. No Joke. The bedrooms were just incredible. They were uniquely designed, the bathrooms had hot water, and if you have watched any of the Harry Potter movies, it looks like something from that.

We were all very tired. Not just physically but mentally as well. We got a lot in. But we are prepared to give a lot out when we return from this amazing journey to the Dominican Republic.

Cody Bralts
Urbana High School
Urbana, IL

Dear Readers,

Sorry I didn´t post yesterday as was my duty. I was expecting reflections to end a little earlier so I could squeeze my thoughts in.

What the group did today was plant trees everywhere. Apple, avocado, lemon, and passion fruit. Then we went to a Futbol Para La Vida (FPV) meeting. The meeting talked about the way a community should support someone who suffers from HIV/AIDS. They made a game of it by having someone stand in the middle of a circle and be supported around the circle. When the people who made the circle fell out the person would fall. I have a sense that everyone in that room understood that they had a very strong community in the batey, and that AIDS was a new intruder into their ways of life.

The sense of community is utterly apparent within the batey. Most people’s doors are open almost all of the time and people go in and out of other people’s houses. The fact that people are sharing the privacy of their homes with others already speaks volumes about the fact that they feel like one big family. To many people in the group, I think that this alone gave them a bit of culture shock since we are so used to the American way of things where you lock your door 4 or 5 times just in case someone might stumble in.

Another thing that shows us the level of community in the batey is the fact that lots of the men are building the house for someone else. This sort of symbiotic relationship between the people of the batey is extremely inherent to the culture.

However, a problem is that most of the people in this community are Haitian. The Dominicans are somewhere else. This would lead us to the concept of racism and racial inequality at the Batey. However, I think I will end on this because I feel like that should be another entry.

Kareem Sayegh
University Laboratory High School
Urbana, IL

I hope you have been enjoying the blogs we have been posting. Please feel free to respond to them. Some of us are unable to access email easily, and your response to a blog is an easy way to receive a message from home.

Best,

Adele Suslick, Lead Teacher
University Laboratory High School
Urbana, IL

Today began like a normal day to the batey. Our group ate breakfast and boarded the bus for the familiar 45 minute drive. In the morning we planted several alvacado and apricot trees and just socialized with the community until it was time for lunch.

After lunch I was talking to Tate, the son of Peter who could be called the mayor of Batey Libertad. We got to talking and he began telling me about a military deportation that occurred approximately 3 months ago. Even when people of Haitian descent are born in the Dominican, are citizens or have current visas the government could round them up at any time. Tate told me that the military can wipe out a whole batey in a matter of hours, taking everyone in site and deporting them back to Hati.

As you can imagine his story took a while to process and I was thinking about it while Shara told me of her own experience. It turns out earlier Shara had told a young boy, who was about 12 or 13, that he reminded her of her cousin. The boy quickly asked her if he was white and when she replied yes he said then he could never be like him.

That’s when it hit me that most of our group has the same color skin as the military who pulls families apart. While the older kids understand that our group is only there to help, and the younger kids are too young to understand, the preteen are the ones who connect us to the people who rip apart and deport them and their families. It is really upsetting that this little boy viewed us with hatred but I totally understand where he is coming from.

The whole community has accepted us without question, trusted our group and been nothing but friendly. The idea that the community can still be all these things with the constant fear that people who look like us could come and take them away from their country simply amazes me. In many other towns I cannot even began to imagine the racism and hatred we would face. While our group is only here to help we can only be a constant reminder to the people’s fears of being taken.

Annie Machesky
University Laboratory High School
Urbana, IL

*indicates that name has been changed to protect the person’s safety.

Also I apologize for any spelling errors since I do not have spell check to correct them.

Epiphanies are rare, but these past eight days in the Dominican Republic have opened our eyes quickly and dramatically. We have many, many stories to tell you. Unfortunately, time is short and our access to computer terminals, extremely limited. Instead of composing a long narrative now, I want to pass along novelist Julia Alvarez’s words from the DREAM Project’s 2006 Newsletter that Director Sarah Ross gave me. We have already witnessed some of the things described in the “clapping song.” We have been truly moved, and I think you will be, too.

A LETTER FROM HONORARY CHAIR, JULIA ALVAREZ

“Hope, History and Rhyming for the DREAMers and DOers. Two Poems to Inspire You”

I recall the first time I realized we needed to start a school at Alta Gracia, our sustainable farm up in the mountains of the Domincan Republic, near the village of Los Dajaos. I was upstairs in our little casita writing away in my journal when I overhead Miguelina and her friend, Anamery, both six years old, playing a clapping game downstairs and reciting this rhyme:

Mariquita, Mariquita
Mariquita, you abuser,
The man I like,
I´ll steal him from his wife.
I´ll steal him, I´ll steal him,
I´ll steal him, that´s the truth,
and then she´ll have to be
my servant and my cook.
I was born at one o´clock,
at two they baptized me,
at three I learned of love,
at four they married me,
at five I had a child,
by six that child was dead,
we buried him at seven,
I got divorced at eight,
at nine I had cancer,
the operation was at ten,
at eleven final prayers,
at twelve o´clock, the end.
When my husband gets home
I don´t know what I´ll say,
you better take your shoes off
and wash off your dirty smell.

I hurried to the window to be sure that the reciters of this shocking rhyme were indeed two little girls who had not yet reached what the Catholic Church, the predominant religion in the country, calls the age of reason, seven years old. Miguelina and Anamery chanted away merrily, but given their mothers’ and grandmothers’ lives, I was sure that these two precious little girls were unwittingly describing what lay ahead of them as females and as the poor in a third world country.

All of what they recited shocked me, the fact that the only avenue for female ambition lay in deposing another luckier woman who had a husband. The fact that the new wife would in turn abuse the former wife, making her a servant and a cook. As for the husband, what was there to say to him. Go wash yourself, you smell bad. This was obviously not a love match. But the middle verse was the real heartbreaker. The clock of these two little girls’ lives struck one grim hour after another ….

When I heard Miguelina and Anamery chanting their rhyme, I knew that in addition to taking care of the land, we had to address the problem of education and illiteracy. There had to be a better clock of opportunities for Miguelina and Anamery and all the children in the community. And so was born the idea of starting a school on the farm, named after the national Virgencita de la Alta Gracia. Alta Gracia … high grace. A fitting name for a place high up in the Cordillera Central. A place from which much grace will flow.

BACK TO ME

Others are waiting impatiently to use this terminal, so I will send more later.

Best,

Adele Suslick, Lead Teacher
University Laboratory High School
Urbana, IL

I started our day at Puerto Cabarete, the international, touristy, beach town reading an article in the bus about the 1999 anti-globalization protest in Seattle. The article talked about how one effect of globalization is that extremely different countries start to have cultures that are the similar because of the businesses and products there.

I noticed at Puerto Cabarete that it seemed so much like any touristy part of Europe or South Africa or even the United States- with the fancy hotels with their espresso machines and croissants and pools and restaurants that have nothing to do with Dominican food, and even down to the souvenirs that are sold- I have literally seen the same exact bracelets sold in South Africa and Hawaii. The same brands were here too on the people and in the shops.

Once I noticed this similarity I started thinking about how else the Dominican resembled countries I have been to- namely I thought about the extreme gap between rich and poor that was so painfully obvious at Cabarete, where very rich tourists sunbathed next to vendors who lived in the slums right outside Cabarete. I had the same feeling I did when I stayed at a hotel in Durban and learned that the people who served us breakfast were the people who had to travel four hours twice daily to get to their homes in the vast shanty towns we passed on the road (sorry if my terms are not very politically correct). But it is also the same in the United States. Even Champaign-Urbana has its ghetto. The skills and the mindset that I will start to acquire from this trip I will be able to apply to fight poverty and oppression all over the world in the future, including my own home town.

Globalization makes places so valuably different become so much the same culturally and economically. I felt guilty traveling to Cabarete at first but overall I am so glad we went not just because it was beautiful and the water was great but most of all because it has helped me put this trip in perspective for me and in the context of our larger global economic system that continues the kind of poverty we are dealing with.

Shara Esbenshade
University Laboratory High School
Urbana, IL

Today at Batey Libertad, we picked up trash along the narrow, dusty streets. Our group collected more than four bags of garbage in a span of 25 minutes. We still left a lot of litter on the ground because it was too hot to pick up for long, and the few trash cans there were full. Garbage overflows at the Batey because garbage trucks rarely come by. In fact, trash collection recently stopped all together, and residents are now burning garbage at the back of the Batey.

After lunch, we participated in an AIDS awareness class with students from the Batey. The group leader, Yanlico, demonsrated how teens should protect themselves in order to avoid the disease. He had all of his students and all of us stand in two lines facing each other. One line stood shoulder to shoulder with hands behind their back and Yanlico handed them a yellow tennis ball which they had to hide. The other line needed to guess which student held the ball. They guessed until they discovered the correct person. The ball represented HIV and the purpose of the game was to realize that one cannot simply look at a person and determine whether or not he or she has AIDS. Yanlico told us that nine percent of the Dominican population is now HIV positive.

Cody Bralts
Urbana High School
Urbana, IL