Some thoughts on development...

I should be sleeping right now because tomorrow morning I have to finish organizing my new place and pack to head into the capital for a few days to meet Nelle, a long time friend and fellow traveler (we met sharing a host family in Mexico during a summer abroad program when I was 18 and she was 20) who is coming to the DR for a week to visit and do research for her Masters project.  A few things from the day and the week have left me thinking though, and I thought it might to time for a good’ol blog posting.

Yesterday there was a nationwide news-like program (think 20/20) that ran a special on child prostitution and trafficking in Boca Chica.  Some of the kids that we work with regularly showed up in the video in a misconstrued light and, as a result, we had their families in our office today to figure out if the press was involved in misrepresenting their stories.  In the process of this meeting it was brought to our attention that there is an American down here who is sexually exploiting young Haitian girls.  This is, unfortunately, not the first case I’ve heard of in the last three months of Americans being mixed up in, or more specifically creating the demand for, commercial sexual exploitation of children in my community.  (For those of you who, like me until very recently, are wondering the difference between “commercial sexual exploitation” and prostitution, the former involves minors and coercion while the latter assumes independent adult decision-making to sell ones body for money.) 

This image of the “gringo” is quite common in Boca Chica. and, being a tourist town, is coupled with an even more rampant portrayal of the gringo as a person with deep pockets who gifts money.  Neither of these images is positive and both have created challenges for me in my work.  Unfortunately, the latter is reinforced by the well-intentioned but not always well-informed church groups that come down to play the role of benevolent benefactor from the rich soils of the good old US of A.  I’ll explain my issues with this kind of charity.  While it might make us feel good, it does very little good for those we (and I say we, because, by nature of being from the US, I am grouped in with this population) are pretending to help.  It creates a sense of entitlement, stunting community organizing (instead of “how can we come together as a community with our skills and resources to build a house for a needy neighbor”, it’s “when are the gringos coming again to build those houses like they did last year”).  It is also unsustainable, and creates dependency instead of capacity (a dollar not earned is a dollar often spent with little thought or planning).  So as to keep this sentiment focused and not sound like I’m ranting, I invite all of my friends and families to consider where they are putting their charity dollars and whether the projects they support are in fact sustainable and building capacity in the populations they reach.    I hope to provide the opportunity in the near future to donate to some of Caminante’s projects that support personal growth, creativity and income generation.  Some examples are our technical school, which is open to the community at a minimal cost to learn a variety of vocations (beauty, massage, bartending, IT, graphic design, jewelry making, and gourmet baking to name a few) or our microfinance group which includes 15 women who have opened their own businesses using valuable artisan skills with small loans from our institution.

My appreciation for my own host organization, the Peace Corps, has grown as I come to better recognize the authenticity with which they carry out development work.  Peace Corps is not an organization that gives money directly to developing countries but rather provides knowledge and skills through the intermediary of its volunteers.  Last week, as I presented my diagnostic investigation to Caminante, I worked with my colleages to define my role in the organization.  Because I am, by nature, a capacity builder, I stressed that no initiative that I carry out during my service should be independent but rather collaborative.  As a result, I will be both trainer and mentor.  I will be supervising Caminante’s five educators—helping to sistematize and evaluate their community work with youth.  I will also be helping with monitoring and evaluation on a larger scale by training staff in methodologies and best practices.  Finally, I will help Caminante to expand and at the same time focus their reach through curriculum development for the number of populations we work with.  So while there have been challenges in these past few months, I am excited to have a clear idea of what my first year of service will look like. 

Happy New Year!

The holidays came and went like the breeze.  I celebrated a Dominican Christmas and New Year, one with my host family in Boca Chica and the other with my host family in the capital.  Both involved lots of food, drinking and very little sleep.  To be honest it didn’t really feel like the holidays because I didn’t carry out any of the traditions that I normally do with my own family, but I definitely had a good time despite being far from home. 

As we always do I've made a few resolutions. In the New Year, I hope to be more generous with myself and my time while still maintaining time to myself to be reflective.  I am on the brink of moving into my very own apartment, a first for me, so alone time shouldn’t be as hard to come by as in these last five months.  I was lucky and found a little one bedroom directly across the street from my host family.  While its not as cheap as I had hoped, I’ll be the first tenant living there, and most importantly it's close to my host family and other people who know me.  It has running water (at least when the tinaco, the water storage unit on the roof, is full), tile floors, and mahogany colored doors and cabinets.  By Peace Corps standards, it’s a gem.  Today I spent 4 hours sweeping, mopping and scrubbing splattered cement and paint off the floor and kitchen counter.  In the process, I came across  another cultural difference when asking my host mom if I could borrow her mop.  In our culture we consider it common courtesy to ask someone politely to borrow something or to accompany us in doing something.  However in response to my polite request, my host mother came right out and said “Why do “you all” do that?  If you can see that I’m not mopping, which clearly I’m not, just say, I’m taking the mop!”  A similar situation surpassed with a friend, when I asked if he would come to the grocery story with me.  He responds” why would you ask me if I want to come to the grocery store with you?  That’s offensive…just say come on, we are going to the grocery store."  I suppose since hospitality is such an important part of the culture here, it is already assumed that someone would be willing to lend you their things or accompany you somewhere, so why on earth would you ask them about it?  For me, it’s not been an easy habit to break, but I’m trying to be more forward and tell instead of ask.

Yesterday was “Reyes”, a national celebration of the three kings arriving to visit the baby Jesus.  In this country, Reyes is an even  bigger deal for kids than Christmas, because most of their presents come on this holiday.  The whole country goes into to a frenzy for a few days beforehand with toys being sold by the millions, and culminates in a day of children running around like mad playing with all of their new toys.  At my organization we celebrated Reyes as our belated staff Christmas party (originally cancelled due to a death in the family of one of my co-workers) by spending the day poolside at a country club with free food and drinks.  My boss is very much a proponent of the philosophy “care for the caretakers” and periodically plans events for us to relax, which, I do believe helps tremendously given the stress of the job (especially by Dominican standards).  However, I still am reminded on these types of occasions how a-typical my experience in Peace Corps is when compared to most.  Soon I will have two cell phones, a “flota” (group account) for each of my jobs-- one for work (unlimited minutes with co-workers) and one for Peace Corps (unlimited minutes with PC staff and corps members).  Who would have though that Peace Corps would be my first time to have a “work” phone?

I am down to the wire on my organizational diagnostic, since next week is the time set aside for yearly evaluation and planning at Caminante.  It will be the perfect opportunity to present the findings of my investigation and propose my role within the organization.  I’m looking forward to the opportunity, but it sure did arrive quickly!  I’m sure most people feel that way about 2011 in general.  I know that I have much to be thankful for in the New Year, and much to look forward to.  I hope everyone at home welcomed the new year with happiness and good health.  

Final note--I got a new kitten!  I've never been a big cat person, but she's pretty cute and hopefully she'll keep the rats away.  Her name is Lola (see pic below).