Fiesta February

Recently we celebrated Dominican Independence Day. You might, as my brother did, presume they are celebrating independence from Spain, who ruled the DR from "discovery" in 1492, until when they ceded it to France in 1795, then again from 1809 to 1821. But no, they are celebrating independence from Haitian rule, which was a disastrous 22 year period (1822-1844) that created almost 2 centuries of animosity towards Haiti. Long story short, Haiti was prosperous and heavily populated, the DR was poor, Haiti appropriated land and drafted young men into their army, stole food, killed many and basically were jerks. A group of educated nationalists created a secret society and overthrew Haiti in 1844 and formed a government. The main players were called Duarte, Mella and Sánchez, and there are murals, statues and roads named after them in every little town. 

So, how did we celebrate Independence Day? Why, with a caminata, a kind of parade with no floats, as Dominicans do for EVERYTHING (political campaigns, church gatherings, memorials, funerals etc). Down the street we paraded with the other schools in town, while a herd of motos and pickups inched along behind us, just itching to get a moment to zip around the crowd.

Our wonderful teaching assistant Ginette getting into the spirit of things.

Seriously, how gorgeous are my kids???

The parade led us to the multiuso, a kind of aircraft hangar-style basketball court which is used for literally every purpose imaginable. 1,000 children and teachers sat on stone bleachers for hours. Yet it wasn´t quite as hellish as I expected.

First, some very important man with a very important job gave the longest and most boring speech about Dominican Independence while everyone ignored him and chatted away. I tuned right out but apparently it was very Haiti-hating. Then, each school did a different performance. There were traditional dances by a college dance group (below) and a couple of "baton ballet" performances. This particular dance style is a Latin phenomenon, and consists of young girls in cheerleader type outfits with batons. What differentiates baton ballet from your standard St. Patrick´s Day parade baton-twirlers is the dance moves, namely the twerking. These girls kept it pretty tame, with just a few pelvic thrusts, but other groups have been known to feature 7-year olds shaking their moneymaker on all fours like a Nicki Minaj robotic dog.

Not the baton ballet.

 Our school is kind of the odd one out in Las Terrenas. We operate differently, our students are a mix of Dominican, Haitian, Latin American, North American, European, well-off and poor. So, being thrown into a mix of all the other private schools was interesting. Some teenage girls were fascinated with our whiter kids, and pulled them onto their laps. They kept stroking poor William the Swede´s hair and talking about how they want a baby like that. I tried to throw out the "you don´t need a baby now, go to university first" spiel but they were too busy taking selfies with the blond Swede and cute norteamericana to listen.

Like all of Latin America, the DR celebrates Carnival, with the main party being in La Vega, in the centre of the country. Basically, it´s like St. Patrick´s Day, only instead of drunk lads strolling around hitting each other, they stroll around and hit everyone else. With inflated cow bladders. Dressed as diablos cojuelos (limping devils).

Never let this guy get a good aim at your ass.

People dress up, but not as much as they would for say, Halloween in Ireland or Carnival in Spain. Mainly, people stroll around drinking beer and trying to avoid vejigazos (wallops from the cow bladders).

Whiteface.

I went with a Colombian, a Basque, a Korean and two Dominicans and returned late that night tired and oh so sore. With a massive shiner on my arse.

Poor Minerva was not having fun...

Little but lethal.

After the madness of Carnival and Independence Day, I jumped on board straight away when I heard there was a trip to a remote beach being planned. My colleague Carmen and her boyfriend Javi are great for exploring the peninsula we live on with their scooter and a surfboard. They found a beach called La Lanza del Norte, which is about 40 minutes from where we live. So one Saturday, 5 adults (including myself) and 3 kids piled into a car, Carmen and Javi took their scooter and 5 more went on two motorbikes to check out this beach. We went past a load of film crews where Vin Diesel was filming his new movie, totally disinterested in seeing the bald bulk that is Vin, and found this little paradise. A guy who owns a villa off the beach had built 3 huts, one of which had a traditional wood-fired oven in it, and so we gathered firewood and got that going, as well as a grill. One of our group climbed a coconut tree and cut down a dozen cocos with his machete. We bought pan de coco or coconut bread, fresh off the fire on the way, and had rum with fresh passionfruit juice while Javi got cooking. He did sausages, baked potatoes and steak. Jesus, it was gorgeous.

Thank you, unidentified rich man who built this kitchen for us.

Having a crap time.

Ukrainian child + meat + plantain.

Hammock for one - good idea.

Hammock for two - bad idea.

Right now, it´s Semana Santa, Easter week, so Las Terrenas is packed with visitors from all over the country. And my wonderful cousin Cliona is here visiting, and we have been having lots of fun. So once it all dies down and Cliona goes, I´ll write about it. For today, I´ll leave you with photos.

Jesenia (a Colombian volunteer for the foundation I work for) and Samary, my friend Awdy´s mom. Samary made a sancocho, a traditional stew of root vegetables and meat, to celebrate the opening of  Awdy´s bar. She cooked it up over a gas burner on the street and fed everyone at midnight. It was amazing.

Watching the world go by in El Limón.

Hanging out by the river in El Limón.

My Slovenian student Klara in our new, beautiful playground.

He´s not wrong.

Girl, going places.

Small town life

I am becoming a small town girl. I sat at a table sharing a sandwich with my roomie/buddy/wifey Rebecca on the side of a busy road in Las Terrenas. We started counting how many people we knew, and knew by name. For close to an hour I was happily entertained watching the comings and goings of neighbours, familiar faces and strangers. This is what people do here all day long, every day, and I get it. All plugged in to this little hive of activity and inactivity, a theatre in which the actors and the audience are one and the same.

It´s been a long time since I´ve written a blog entry, and so much has happened since then. I went home, for one, for the first time in almost a year. I had never been so long away from Ireland and I was a nervous wreck of anticipation for the 2 weeks prior to my joyful Christmas trip. The trip itself started out not so joyful when I realised I had messed up my booking and had no ticket (while in the check-in line) but I eventually got on a plane and got home to my beloved home in Howth, Co. Dublin. This blog is not to talk about my time at home, so all I´ll say is it was truly wonderful.

Beach trip with my class

On the way back I had to fly through Frankfurt (thanks to my booking disaster) and got on a Thomas Cook plane going to Puerto Plata with lots of resort-goers. Much like the first time I flew to the DR, I was squeezed beside a very fat woman who was taking up a fair amount of my seat´s space. That first flight was such a positive experience, with my lovely chubby neighbour being such a dote, that I knew this time would be good too. And it was. She was called Felicia, and across the aisle was her sister Marisa. They have been living in Italy for almost 30 years, their brothers live there too, they have kids and Marisa has a grandchild. They live a very Dominican life there in Italy, eating rice, beans and meat every day and speaking Spanish at home. They used to come home every 3 or 4 years until 14 years ago when their mother died and they came home for her funeral, after that they couldn´t face returning to their motherland without their mother. Then, a couple of weeks before the flight, Marisa convinced Felicia to go and so there they were, nervously anticipating their return home.  We chatted on and off throughout the 8 ½ hour flight and when I got to Puerto Plata their family insisted on giving me a lift to my hotel and invited me to the family reunion that evening. I love fat ladies on planes.

School trip to Cayo Levantado aka Bacardi Island

Anyway, the next day I get the guagua to Las Terrenas and there are two girls on it, maybe about 18. One of them is wearing a bellytop, and you can tell she´s had a baby. The other one´s skin-tight leggings stretch over her enormous arse like clingfilm wrapped around a pumpkin. They have takeout fried chicken and it smells good. They screech and holler as they chat a fair bit but that´s normal enough, so so far I´m only paying attention because of that delicious chicken smell. I have tried to think of a way to describe these girls in Irish terms, but alas, a comparison that won´t offend anyone escapes me.

My lovely kiddos on Valentine´s Day. I got so many cards.

Then, Leggings decides to climb over the seats into the seat beside the driver, and starts yelling at her friend to join her. She seems to be flirting with the driver and the other men at the front of the minibus. She keeps yelling back at her friend to join her. Her friend, rolling her eyes and a little embarrassed, eventually does. After a while, Leggings falls asleep. We travel on for a couple of hours. She wakes up and starts whining about being hungry. Then she needs to pee, and says she is gonna jump out of the guagua to do so, but the driver and her friend convince her to hold on. Soon after we stop in a comedor, a small restaurant/cafe, and everyone gets off the guagua to stretch their legs, pee and get food. The driver eats and gives the rest of his meal to Leggings. When we get back on the guagua, she is still sat down in the comedor, on the side of the road. The driver tells her to get on the guagua, and she just throws a tantrum. Refuses to come. It transpires (because everyone on the bus is chatting about it) that she has no money to pay the guagua. The driver is willing to take her for for free if she´ll just get back on the bleedin´ bus, but she digs her heels in and cry-eats the rest of his lunch. Friend of Leggings doesn´t know what to do. The guagua inches away, stops, beeps, inches away again, stops, beeps, repeats the cycle until eventually, Friend gets back on the bus, leaving Leggings sat at the side of the road, stubbornly refusing to look at anyone. We leave. Everyone starts asking Friend of Leggings questions: Why are they going to Las Terrenas? (Unclear) How are they travelling with no money? (They were going to stay with friends) Is Leggings always crazy? (Friend doesn´t know, she barely knows her). What is Leggings going to do? (Friend has no idea. Leggings has no money and no phone and is in a random town hours away from home). Why are you both travelling with no bags? "What about your panties?", shouts one concerened passenger. Friend is getting visibly more upset. Everyone is sharing their opinions. Friend asks driver to stop the bus and gets off in the middle of nowhere, on the side of the highway with the intention of hitchhiking back to get Leggings. Someone gives her 50 pesos (€1). We drive off. I turn back and get a glimpse of Friend standing between a field and a busy highway, looking lost and think WHAT THE HELL JUST HAPPENED THERE? 

Work problems? Need to dominate your man? We have a potion for that!

The Botanica, where you buy potions, voodoo dolls and candles.

I love the guagua drama of this place. I love the gossipy aul´ wan observation of everything, from huge drama to everyday traffic. The longer   I´m here, the more I get pulled in.

I love the bad art, but that is a whole other blog in itself. Along with Second Hand T-shirts of Las Terrenas, and Things You Can Fit On The Back Of A Moto.

I leave here in 4 months and have no plans to come back. I know it´s going to be an emotional 4 months. In that time, 3 people from home are coming to visit - first my cousin Cliona, then my dearest Rebecca, then my Spanish-Irish hermano Pablo. The way my head is at right now, totally in the pulse and flow of this place, it´s going to be insane having a part of home here. I can´t wait to show them this place and to feel the strangeness of it again through them.

Luto

Tonight is my last night in Las Terrenas for 2 1/2 months, and it´s the quietest night yet. No music, no parties, no people drinking, nothing, and it´s a Friday night. The town is in an official state of mourning (luto) because yesterday there was a horrific bus accident in which 15 people died. The express bus from the capital, Santo Domingo, crashed head-on with a lorry and the whole bus crumpled. There are 15 dead and more than 20 seriously injured so far, with some of the injured still unidentified. The bus was packed, with people standing in the aisles.

The preliminary reports are that the 3pm guagua from Santo Domingo to Las Terrenas (the last one of the day) was about halfway to Las Terrenas when the driver went into the opposite lane going around a curve and crashed head on with a lorry. The driver died in the collision, so this account is according to the driver of the lorry, who needed surgery but survived. Almost everyone on the bus was from Las Terrenas or El Limón, the next town over. It happened at 4pm, my housemate saw a big commotion when she was out running at 5pm and heard then, and I went into work at 6pm. The whole evening more news trickled in. Nothing was on official news channels, because it´s not that fast here. Instead, people sent photos and videos from the scene by Whatsapp and Facebook. That was something that shocked me - before any emergency services had moved bodies, there were dozens of people milling around with cameraphones taking videos and photos. The photos are horrific, and shared on everyone´s Facebook wall.

By midnight last night, hundreds of people were waiting in the covered basketball court, where bodies were being brought to be returned to families. This is a small town, of 20,000 people, and many of the people who died were well known. I didn´t know any of them, because I´m a blow-in, but locals know everyone. A 10 year old boy was among the dead.The phone company, Orange, had sent 3 of its staff to a training day in Santo Domingo, and those 3 women died, one of whom was pregnant. It seems a lot of people knew them, I heard so many people talk about them.

Yakaira, one of the women who worked in the Orange shop.

Alba, one of the women who worked in the Orange shop.

By law, funerals have to happen within 24 hours, because there are no facilities here for preserving bodies, no embalming or anything. So today, at 10am, 18 hours after the accident, the funeral processions of Yakaira, Alba and Emilia, three friends, started up the main street. There were three pickup trucks, holding a coffin each, with family sitting inside the cab and around the coffin in the back. Each truck had its own procession, with people all around holding on to the sides and walking beside it and behind it. There were three other trucks too dispersed along the length of the procession that only had speakers on them, all blaring the same song on repeat - Adios mi familia. The whole town walked with them, some people wailing and crying and sobbing. There were some news cameras there, and lots of people filming it with their phones. At one point, a women broke out of a crowd wailing hysterically, and the news cameras all swung to film her. She was walking up the street wailing, with someone holding onto her, and a young guy in front of her, not a metre away from her, with his phone up, filming her. Here they don´t seem to think that is disrespectful. I don´t know if it´s to do with the fact that nobody here was able to make videos or take photos until very recently, or another cultural difference I don´t understand yet. All the photos I show here I took off the internet. I wanted to be able to show people what this kind of mass bereaving looked like, but I did not want to take photos.

I left the procession before the burial, but these photos were shared online.

The police shot dead an innocent young man, sparking a riot earlier this week, and now this awful accident has happened. Las Terrenas needs some good luck, you can feel the sadness everywhere. I am ready to leave, I need a break. This is a wonderful place that I want to come back to, my time here is not finished. But it´s not easy some of the time. Some things that we take for granted just aren´t true for here. Those people who were lucky enough to survive the crash are now in a dirty, understaffed, underequipped hospital. If they make it out of there alive, they won´t have rehabilitation, or prosthetics, or follow-up care, or a disability allowance. I haven´t heard of anyone getting treatments like chemotherapy for cancer, and I´m starting to think that maybe they don´t get it. 

So while this is a glum post, I am fine, and my friends are fine, and the kids in my school and all their parents are fine and that is something to be very grateful for. As I was writing this post, my housemate Mackenzie dropped in a goodbye card to my room that she made. She painted me juggling teaching (Las Terrenas International School 4th grade math) and waitering in Lazy Dog, and it was so darn sweet it cheered me up no end! So I´ll leave you with Mackenzie´s picture, and post again from my new, temporary life in Cape Cod.

Reflections

It's been almost a month since I posted, making me an atrocious blogger. I think it's because everything seems so normal now. I guess after 3 1/2 months in a place the remarkable becomes normal. In a week's time I'm going to fly to Boston and head up Cape Cod to Provincetown where I'll be for the summer. I've got a job in a restaurant and a place to stay, so the plan is to work and earn a load of tips there so I can come back here in September with lots of dollaz to rent a nice apartment. So with this big change coming up, I've been reflecting on my time here so far, and trying to figure out what I've learned. Here is what I have managed to put into words thus far:

1 - Sometimes lack of organisation makes things more efficient. I am working in a bar/restaurant at the moment as well as the school for some extra cash. The other night, we ran out of tequila. I called the liquor store and 10 minutes later they delivered it. We run out of anything, we can call a motoconcho guy and get him to go to the supermarket for us. In restaurants at home, everything would be done in a big stock order, delivered regularly and charged to an account - you can't just call a dude at 11pm and have him drop over a bottle of tequila.

2 - You can plan things if you want, but you can't get pissy when they don't work out as planned.

3 - Dominican people never say no to you, even if the question is "Are you a doctor?" This is why you need recommendations of where to go.

4 - You can be very pleasantly surprised at the service you get. I broke my phone's screen, went to get it fixed. The guy charged me e25, which is good for an iPhone screen and fixed the screen but then I couldn't make calls. He swore it would fix itself overnight. I got annoyed and wasn't going to pay him, so he said he would put the broke screen back on. I paid him resentfully and took my phone home. Sure enough, the next morning it worked perfectly. I think I need to go back and apologise,

5 - If you are white you can just stroll into fancy hotels and enjoy their pools and showers and sun loungers.

6 - People here live with very very little, and though I think I am living with little here, in reality I am a privileged spoilt little brat.

7 - Sometimes you can be smart and get great prices on touristy things because you speak Spanish and can bargain. Sometimes that bites you in the ass. Illustrated below.

7a - Some friends and I wanted to go to Parque Nacional Los Haitises, which is a a collection of islands and mangrove forests where the Taino, the indigenous people of this region lived and where Carribean pirates stashed treasure. It's about USD $70 for a day trip there, so we figured we could find something cheaper. Usually if you ask a Dominican they'll have a "cousin" who can sort these things out. Sure enough, we got quoted the price of e25 each for a trip out of Sanchez, a nearby town. Some chancer who called himself Chocolate (yes, really) met us at the guagua stop in Las Terrenas and we got the guagua to Sanchez. We got off in Sanchez and Chocolate hopped out, leaving us to pay his fare (red flag number one). He brings us down some alleys to a little beach with falling apart houses to our boat, a blue fibreglass fishing boat, as basic as they get. 3 little benches, max 7 people. Chocolate passed us on to a fisherman who assured us he knew all there was to know about the National Park (see point no. 7 above) They took the motor out of their house and attached it and off we went. Despite lots of comments from all the locals about how calm the water was and how lucky we were, it was a rocky rocky ride. The boat slammed down on the waves and made the top half of my jaw hit the bottom half like a movie clapperboard. About every two seconds. There were some lifejackets sitting on the floor of the boat, and I was the only one wearing one. It was my Mom´s birthday, and it´d be forever ruined if I died that day.

Happy Birthday Mom!

Wet n´ Wild

Irati with the fresh sea spray in her face

After 25 minutes of bumpy, fearful discomfort, we made it to the islands, where we quickly realised our guide/fisherman/some dude who happened to be standing near the boat when we turned up knew nothing beyong that these were in fact islands where Taino used to live. He took us to an island that had a load of soldiers on it from where they were trying to control forest fires. They were bemused at all these white people in a fishing boat. We sailed into a cave and around some islands where we oohed and aahed at the seabirds, then he took us to a big cave where we could get out of the boat and walk around. This cave had Taino cave art in it. We were quickly confronted by a tourism board woman who asked us to pay 200 pesos (€4). We had been told, when the price of our trip went up by 200 pesos, that it was to cover the cost of the park, which is what we told the tourism lady. She looked pissed off. We looked through the cave, saw the cave art - a kind of a fish face scratched onto a rock - and went on. Then our fisherman guide said that was it, and we were heading back. We felt sure there was more to this trip, more to see, but he assured us we had seen it all. This is a fine example of point number 3 above - a fisherman, despite what he might tell you, is not a tour guide. If you want a tour guide, you gotta pay for one.

"When did the Tainos live here?"

"Oh, a long time ago."

"Yes, but how long?"

"Really long ago."

So began our homeward journey, which was considerably worse than the outbound one. We had to sit on the floor of the boat because it was bouncing so much. We were soaked through and blinded by high powered jets of salt water pummelling us. It was funny, for about 5 minutes, then we just kept laughing because we didn´t know what else to do. Another Dominican experience, survived and learnt from!

Camp of the soldier men

It´s a cave

Cobweb-like tree stuff

Mangroves

More mangroves

Cave dwellers

Check out my tan.

The annoyance at getting such a crappy tour was totally overcome by giddiness at surviving it, so we celebrated the way most Dominicans do on a Sunday - we drank beer and rum at a watering hole to blaring salsa and bachata music. We were in total countryside, outside of a small town called Sánchez, at a natural pool packed to the brim. We were the only white people (no tourists in Sánchez) and they looked bemused when we got up and danced bachata, badly.

Mother and child, twerking.

Of dubious cleanliness, but refreshingly cold.

I´ve got more to tell before I leave this crazy land for the USA, but it´s late and I have to sleep. I was meant to post this last night, Sunday 7th, but there was a power cut. The power stayed out all night and nobody in my house slept, because we need fans on us to sleep in this heat. It was gross and sweaty and suffocating. Then this morning when I was going to work, there were fires in the street being cleared up, burnt out washing machines and mattresses, and it turns out there were riots last night because the police shot dead a local 18 year old who didn´t stop at a checkpoint when told to. The rioters tore/knocked down the power lines. It was quieter than usual on my street, because nobody had any electricity to blare music. So more about riots and police tomorrow, because now I´m going to point my fan at my bed and climb under my mosquito net. Goodnight.