A Week in the Campo

After a week in the campo, four things have been confirmed:

1. I'm really just a small town girl.
2. I want to be a doctor.
3. If I ever can't make it as a doctor, I'm moving to the campo.
4. Culture shock is absolutely miserable.

We left Santiago at about 8:00 on Sunday, February 21^st. After treacherous roads (dirt paths?) we made it to Rio Limpio at about noon. Rio Limpio is near the mountain Nalga de Maco (translation: Frog Butt Mountain). I didn't understand the name of this mountain until I went into our bathroom Sunday night and found this:

Imagine if you were to sit down on the toilet without looking. I'm sure you can figure out where the name comes from :) Luckily, I looked first. Getting the frog out of the toilet was another issue in and of itself. We eventually got him onto the wall, after using a shoe and A LOT of girl screams.

I immediately fell in love with the town and the concept that the town has going. Rio Limpio consists of two different programs—CREAR and SEDDIEL/Ecotourism.

CREAR is a school that is a center of “education, capacitation, and investigation that focuses on sustainable agriculture and rural development”. CREAR was started by Peace Corps volunteers in 1982 and it's a really neat program. They have 43 students, all in their third year of high school (anywhere from 14 to 22 years old), some from Rio Limpio, some from Haiti, and some from other pueblos across the Dominican Republic. The students from outside of Rio Limpio are provided with housing and all students are provided with breakfast and lunch every day. They grow all of the vegetables they eat, and all (read: ALL) of their waste is recycled on the farm. They have about 23 acres that they've divided into five different areas. CREAR students have classes in the morning and then work in the fields in the afternoon.

The other part of Rio Limpio is the SEDDIEL/Ecotourism part. CREAR and SEDDIEL used to be the same program, but recently they've split off and started to focus on different areas. Rio Limpio is considered a town of extreme poverty. There's no electricity, no drinking water, and very few medical facilities. (Most houses have solar panels that have been part of the Peace Corps projects or various other organizations.) There's no mail, little means of communication, and no cell phone service (I know right?) There's little opportunity for education and almost no opportunities to leave the town. Almost everybody farms. Why you would want to be a tourist there is beyond me. However, there are cabañas (translation: motel. Kristina's translation: cabin with brick walls; glorified girl scout camp) that were built as part of the ecotourism project. The eight of us shared the four-roomed cabin.

After we ate lunch, we got a tour of the pueblo from the CREAR students. Every night we had a reflection session as a group to talk about things that had happened during the day, but also about other things that were going on in Santiago or our lives in general.

We also brought along KarmaBear. KarmaBear was a little game that we kept going. We put anonymous comments in—only good karma—and then read them every night at reflection session. Sunday night we talked about what we had seen while walking through the community, and also asked questions about the CREAR program. We had dinner and had a get-together with all of the students of CREAR and the rest of the town. I wrote in my journal every day because I couldn't blog, and instead of trying to figure out how to say things, I'm going to share my journal entries (translated to english and edited, of course. I don't want you all to know about the gushy crushes I have on the boy that sits next to me in class. I kid, I kid).

Sunday, February 21^st

“I can't believe that this week marks the halfway point. As I sit on the porch, I realize that this country has stolen my heart. I say stolen because it didn't ask my permission and it didn't tell me that it was going to happen. It simply took it. I hear a rooster crowing nearby. A man is singing in the distance. The clouds have lifted and I can see the mountains looming in all their glory. I've thought this many times before while I've been here, and I think it again: How can you possibly sit in front of this kind of beauty, surrounded by people with this much joy, and say that there is no God?

I hear a cow mooing. There are so many birds that I can't place, and everyone in my group is taking a nap. I can't sleep—I can't miss a minute of this. I want to wake them up and tell them to sleep when they're dead. Sleep later, but look now. I've become accustomed—when the lights go out, it's okay. When there's no water—I survive. I'm used to clothes that feel like cardboard and jeans that have stretched two sizes because there's no dryer. I actually like rice and beans everyday. I feel like I belong. I feel like part of the people, part of the land, part of the country. I only have two more months here—that can't possibly be enough time to travel and learn everything I want to know. I'm going to take advantage of all of the opportunities that come my way. I'm going to have a positive attitude and share my life with all the people that I meet, just as they share their lives with me. I only have two more months—what am I going to do?”

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Monday we woke up bright and early and had a session on how to make compost a special way. Domingo, our farmer, helped us with the process and fed us nuggets of wisdom every chance he could. Domingo is the Dominican version of my Papa. He is kind and soft spoken and full of all kind of good stuff. He is solemn and loving, but he can do some damage with a machete. I'm also sure that if he knew the expression “Don't take a wooden nickle”, he would tell it to me too.

First you start by cutting stakes to form your little square:

Add dry material:

Add the leftover weeds from the pigpen:

Add plantain tree. Chop it up for good measure:

Then they armed us with machetes. (I know. I couldn't believe it either).

Add plantain leaves. (NOTE: This is NOT a salad. It looks like it would taste good, but I assure you, it does NOT).

Rinse and repeat the process. Remove the stakes:

Admire your tiramisu: (NOTE: don't try and eat this either).

Cut off all the scraggly pieces. ("Because when your work looks good it means that you care about what you're doing."--Domingo)

And when it's all said and done:

I thought it was really interesting that they measure the temperature of the compost to know when it's "done". I thought that it was pretty much a guessing game. They put a stick into the compost block and leave it for a few days. If you pull it out and it's hot, then it's good to go:

All the other kids in my program are more or less city kids. I, however, was totally in my element. I even climbed into the pig pen to shovel out manure.

(The things I admit for the whole world to read, sheesh). During this compost making time, I had an um, incident, that involved me taking my pants off on the side of a Dominican road (I hope nobody saw. Jury's still out on that). The Dominican Republic is famous for it's lack of poisonous creatures. However, it has hormigueros de fuego--Fire ants. And they're rightly named. And when they crawl up your legs inside your jeans and bite you, you will feel like you're on fire. You'd take your pants off too.

We ate lunch at CREAR with the students and afterwards I learned a new card game called Casino. Dominicans are crazy about Casino. Monday afternoon I worked in Area Dos, weeding and preparing beds for plants. I never knew that I would enjoy weeding. That was punishment when I was little. I hated working in the garden. On Monday afternoon, though, I realized that I was turning in to my mom. A Dios mio. Monday night we had reflection session, ate dinner, and hung out with the town.

Monday, February 22^nd

“Tonight at our reflection session, we talked about how hard it is to go into something not knowing what will happen. When we started making compost today, we cut down a plantain tree. We had no idea what we were going to do with a plantain tree, when we clearly had enough stuff to make our compost pile. Domingo, our teacher, full of infinite wisdom and nicknamed Yoda (by us), told us to be patient. When we were finished, we would have something new. I love that. I know that when I look back on my experience in the Dominican Republic, this quote will fit perfectly. I came to this country knowing next to nothing about it. I picked my program because it seemed like a good idea. That's about the extent of it. But now, I love it.

Tonight we talked about how our lives here are like a house. We start with a figurative foundation—our past experiences, our expectations and hopes; but also a literal foundation—our other program members, Elaine, and friends and family from home. Everything we do is like adding sticks to the foundation—experiences in our communities, with our families, with our friends and other program participants. At the end, we leave here with something completely different than what we came with. I can see that already. I can tell that I have a different view of things. I know that I am creating something and when I leave and look back on this experience, I will have something concrete to show for it.

Domingo/Yoda also talked about the importance of doing what you can with what you have. If you don't have a plantain tree to chop down to make your compost, you can still make compost. I think I needed to hear this. When I think about my community and working in my community and my project there, I always think about how great it would be if I had this or that. But really, I have everything I need. I have people who want to be part of my project, I have a community to work in, I have people to rely on and to build relationships with, and I have myself. What more is there? In Rio Limpio and in my community, people do what they have to do to get by. In Rio Limpio, they don't have electricity. But they have solar panels that provide them with enough electricity to do what they need to do. Their ways of doing things are certainly different than my ways of doing things. I'm learning that everything can be done, you just have to go different routes to get there."

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Tuesday morning we woke up bright and early (Are you seeing a theme here? In the campo, they work by the sun. When the rooster crows, you get up. Because the rooster will crow a hundred more times and you won't ever really go back to sleep. Also, once the sun goes down, chances are you won't have any more light. The solar panels work well, but if the only sunny day of the week is Monday, then that power has to last you the whole week. It's always a game of chance.) and went to the Haitain school in the community. Rio Limpio is a huge squatter town, for lack of a better word. Anywhere a shack can be thrown up, you better believe a shack was thrown up there. Across from CREAR, there was a family living in a hut the size of my bathroom at home. They had at least nine kids. Most of the squatters who come are Haitian, and most of them don't speak Spanish. Their kids go to a community school run by a man who is Haitian. He's working with the kids to keep their first language, Creole, but also to learn Spanish so that they can communicate and hopefully make a life for themselves. We went to the school to play, really. We set up four different stations and had the kids rotate from each one. I helped at the clay station, and I'm not really sure where my creative juices were coming from, but they flowed a little bit.

We ate lunch at CREAR and played more endless games of Casino. I left my mark by teaching some of the students how to play BS (We called it Mentiroso, liar, in order to avoid explaining what BS stood for). Tuesday afternoon was rough. We learned how to make beds in order to plant stuff with a very intricate technique:

All of us were tired. We all had bug bites. It was really a job for two people and we were trying to do it with eight of us and three of the CREAR students. We all hate standing around. Somehow, we made it through and fell into our usual routine of reflection, dinner, and hanging out with the town.

Tuesday, February 23rd

Nobody comes here at point A in their lives. Nobody decides to study abroad while they're at point A. No one has it all together, no one has all the answers, and no one is finished. Everyone in my program is coming from different situations and different backgrounds. We are coming with different expectations. While we're here, we're sharing different experiences and are fighting different battles. But at the end of the day, we're all in the same boat. It's been hard for me to realize that. It's hard to think about the fact that we're all in the same situation, because up until now I've insisted that I'm having an experience that is nearly impossible for anyone else to relate to. As we talk during our reflection session, I realize that we are all having the same struggles and the same disorienting experiences. After living together for three days, we are a group; we are tight-knit, and we are truly in this together.

I've never been a patient person. My parents will tell you this, my friends will tell you this, a stranger on the street would probably tell you this. Domingo told us today that if you have the patience to wait for what you want, your benefits will be that much longer. He intended it in the context of a farmer, but I think I needed to hear this today. I'm trying so hard to figure my project in Las Colinas out. I want to know exactly what I'm doing and on what day I'm going to do it and how it's going to be done. But really, I need to wait it out. Things will play out on their own. I will eventually come up with a project, and when I do, I will have something so much better than what I could come up with right now."

On Wednesday morning, we went our separate ways and worked in the community in places that mirrored our work in our communities in Santiago. I worked at Freddie's house. I was completely thrown for a loop when I was told I was going to be working with Freddie—who the heck was Freddie and what did he do at his house?

Freddie actually turned out to be a she, and she hosted a doctors office of sorts at her house. There's a pediatrician from Belgium that lives in a town nearby (36 km on roads that frequently wash out—it's as close as nearby gets for Rio Limpio). She brings a army trunk full of common medicines with her to Rio Limpio every Wednesday and hosts a doctors office at Freddie's house. The whole town knows she's coming, and so they show up at the house, waiting and ready. The doctor, Lein, (pronounced Lynn) provides medical services absolutely free to the community. The majority of the people had common problems: flu, malnutrition, funguses, parasites. It was really interesting to hear her story and how she got involved with working in the Dominican Republic. She had some friends from Belgium come and help her out for the next five months, and they were staying at one of the cabañas next to us. I talked with them (in English!--one of her friends spoke about as much Spanish as my dad. If you know my dad, ask him about his Spanish skills. He might be able to bust out 10 words on a good day.) awhile about their project here and the differences between Santiago and Rio Limpio.

Wednesday afternoon we had another session with Domingo about how to transplant plants. Wednesday afternoon/evening, three of us laid down our pride and played baseball with some of the kids from the town. You're know you're from the Dominican campo when you spend your afternoons playing baseball. You know you're American when a four year old can hit a baseball better than you can. Don't worry everybody, I got his autograph. He'll be playing MLB one day, I feel sure. Wednesday night we had our similar reflection, dinner, hang out with the town routine. I didn't write a single thing in my journal on Wednesday. By that point, I had reached “Estoy Cansada”, and knew that I just needed to sleep.

Thursday morning I woke up and took a chance. And it presented me with one of the best opportunities I have ever had. There were some miscommunications about what time we had to start our activities for the day, and we ended up having two hours to twiddle our thumbs. Martha had gone to the town clinic the day before and told me that she got to “glove up” and help clean someone's wound. I decided to see what kind of trouble I could get myself into at the clinic. Clinics, especially in the campo, don't have the kind of rules and regulations that clinics at home have. HIPPA doesn't exist, and as long as the doctor is watching you do something, you can do it. That being said...I walked into the clinic, introduced myself, and the doctor asked me if I knew how to give a shot. In English, he said, “Well, there's no time like now to learn”. THAT'S RIGHT FOLKS. I gave a shot. Three, actually. And I started an IV. Dominican Republic, you have been so good to me.

Thursday afternoon we went to another organic farm near CREAR. It was about a 45 minute walk from CREAR. Honestly, I don't really know what made it different from CREAR, and I was too tired to try and figure it out.

Being attentive students:

Please note my face. Clearly I was not paying attention:

On our way back to CREAR, we had a splashfest in the river, led by our loving program leader, Marcos:
Somehow at the farm, I got ants in my pants, AGAIN. So I stripped, again, this time in the woods. It was quite a spectacle.

Thursday night, we had a Despedida--a farewell party/talent show. We were required to participate, and none of us are very talented people. We wrote a song to the tune of "Don't Stop Believing" by Journey. I was impressed with our talent...the town, however, couldn't understand us and had no idea what we were saying. Awesome. When we asked the CREAR students what they liked to do for fun, they told us the normal things..hang out and play cards and stuff like that. They lied. They're almost all ridiculously good at acrobatic type stuff.

Friday morning was kind of a fluke. It rained really hard Thursday night. Funny thing about rain in the campo..the roads disappear. We had intended on going to Dajabon, a market on the Haitian border. The border that opens up twice awake to allow free trade between the DR and Haiti. But Friday morning, our gua-gua couldn't come get us. Marcos had started a project the day before at Pedro's house, and we decided to finish that Friday morning because we clearly weren't going anywhere.

Pedro, who is possibly one of the nicest people I have ever met, was cooking with this stove at his house:

It doesn't look that bad. The problem was that it was inside this little hut and there was no way for smoke to escape. It also uses A LOT of wood and is somewhat inefficient. We built a new oven, that uses 20% less wood and has a chimney so the smoke goes out of the hut (and not into Pedro's lungs!) If it looks like Chris, Ashley, Marcos and I are the ones doing all the work, don't be fooled. Stephanie was taking pictures and everyone else was shoveling dirt/chasing chickens (which, you know, is almost like work).

Marcos, ready to work:

The process is pretty simple. There's a concrete base:

Clay pieces that fit inside:
And a grate where the heat comes up:

The clay pieces are built into the oven. Anywhere heat can get out has to be covered with mud, but it's a fairly easy process.

Pedro's in the green:

And when all (almost) said and done:

After we were done with our stove, we found a man in the town who had a pick-up truck and could take us to our gua-gua. We decided that instead of going to Dajabon, we all just wanted to go home.

I really loved Rio Limpio. The views were absolutely gorgeous. Every morning I would walk out of our cabaña and the sight would take my breath away. One night we watched the fog literally roll in.

Being in Rio Limpio proved to me that I'm really just a small town girl. I like being in Santiago, in the city and in the middle of everything. But I loved the campo. It's so nice to be in a place where everyone knows everyone. I love the sense of community in the campo.

When I first came to the Dominican Republic, I got hooked on this song called "Yo No Sé Mañana". It's about a guy telling his girlfriend that he doesn't know if they'll be together tomorrow, but they have each other right now. It really describes my first month in the DR. I wasn't ever 100% sure that I would be able to make it through the next day. Wednesday night in the KarmaBear, I found a note that said "Kristina, I know you had the Yo No Sé Mañana sentiment the first weeks you were here, but for what its worth, I'm glad you're still with us. Your laughter and energy are contagious". I've gotten to the point where I know I'll be here tomorrow. Yo sé. I got so attached to the people in Rio Limpio and the CREAR students.

Coming back to Santiago was really hard. I spent the vast majority of Friday night and Saturday morning moping. Coming back to Santiago was like reverse-culture shock. I was missing the campo and the people there, but at the same time, I was happy to be back in the city. It was basically a mess of emotions. And that was only after being in the campo for a week. I don't want to even think about what it's going to be like when I have to go back to the states.

This country tiptoed in and took my heart. I had no idea it was coming. It didn't ask my permission. It didn't even bother to warn me. I have fallen in love with the people and with the land. It just snuck right in and stole it.

Darn thing.