Forgetting I'm Different

After being here for 8 months, I sometimes forget how much I stand out.

The people I see every day are used to me.  My neighbors, friends, students, the people who own shops and restaurants around me, and the people I work with know me as a person.  To them, I'm Tina who teaches English and makes good American food.  I'm probably a lot of other things to them too including a customer, friend, neighbor, co-worker, teacher etc.  They call me by my name and say hi and ask me about things in my life and I ask them about things in their lives.  We are all just people who cross paths in our daily lives.

Serving food at San Esteban after Mass

Because I am used to people who know me and are used to me, its always jarring when I am reminded that I am so different.  In new places, kids will shout, "Americana!" and guys will whistle at me and call me "Rubia" (blond) or "Blanca" (white girl).  Little kids sometimes stare at me as if they have never seen anything like me before (which could actually be possible if they live in an area where foreigners don't usually visit).  Every once in a while in a store a worker will talk to me in English, assuming that I don't know enough Spanish to get by, and sometimes people mime instead of talking, again, assuming that I won't be able to understand them if they try Spanish.  There are many days at this point that I don't speak a word of English all day and I conduct every aspect of my life in Spanish, even watching Spanish TV and using Spanish internet sites.  Its just easier sometimes, and now with my level of fluency, I don't struggle, but people who don't know me don't know that, and I am quickly reminded that I am foreign in those situations.

Some of the students in my adult class

With my 4th graders

In open air markets, both the food market and the used clothing and shoe markets, I know that the price will be a little higher when they see my color, but since I go a lot, its getting better.  I can bargain, I can walk away, and I can argue that I know the price is lower somewhere else.  The more people see me, the less strange I am, and I start to get treated almost like at Dominican.

People who are used to me still can't get over some things though.  People stare at my eyes all the time.  Sometimes when I've been wearing sunglasses for awhile and I take them off, I am startled by the intensity with which people "study" my eyes.  They are usually blue, but can change to green or grey with my clothes and with the weather, something that is very rare here.  Just about everyone has brown eyes, even people with lighter skin.  The little girls I know still want to play with my hair whenever possible and I get a lot of questions about if the color is natural or not.  They also always laugh at me when they catch me enjoying the sun on my skin because here, they hide from the sun and tanning is a bad thing.  I'm now used to crossing the road to walk in the shade, but I still like the sun on my face from time to time.

A friend of mine who lives in New York but has a house here and has been coming here for many, many years, told me that you can always tell the difference between American-Dominicans (people who are American but live here) and American tourists because of their clothes.  If you are used to life here, you wear long pants or capris because woman are almost never seen in shorts in public, you wear plastic flip flops only around the house or to run quickly to the store, and if you're out to a restaurant or any other social place, you have jewelry, make-up, shoes, and clothes that all match and go together perfectly.  I can spot an American tourist from a mile away with their tank tops and shorts, flip-flops, sneakers, tans, and especially if they have braids in their blond hair.  I join my friends in saying, "look at the Americans" and sometimes forget that I am one of them too.

I'm obviously still American, but I like to think that some Dominican has rubbed off on me and I'm not quite as out of place as people who see me for the first time think.

Showing my Dominican spirit!

Dios les bendiga,

Tina

Lent

My home church in Boxford is participating in an Ecumenical Lenten Carbon Fast this year, and I have decided to participate here in San Pedro.  Every day, I receive an e-mail giving me tips and ideas about how to waste less and help preserve the environment.  (If you are interested in receiving these e-mails, click here to sign up) 


Environmental awareness is very different here in Dominican Republic.  In some ways, there is a lot less waste, and in others, there is a lot more.  One of the days of the Carbon Fast asked us to be aware of what food we throw away.  I don't throw food away here.  There are always people I can share food with.  My neighbors, students, and friends often struggle to have food on their tables every day.  They are very happy to help me with any extra food I cook.  I actually have the opposite problem.  Sometimes I feel like I can't prepare enough food.  They know how to use every part of food here.  A whole chicken is prepared differently here to use as many parts as possible.  Chicken feet are cooked along with other parts of the chicken and bones are often crunched up to get to the nutritious marrow inside.  Organs and other parts I would throw away at home are used in soup, stews, and sauces and add delicious flavor along with nutrients.  Leftovers are re-purposed into new dishes and nothing is thrown out unless it really, really has gone bad.  Expiration dates are completely ignored, and people use food until there is danger of getting sick.

Electricity is a luxury here.  I am lucky and have electricity almost all the time.  I only lose it for a few short hours every week, and usually during the day when it doesn't matter that much.  Other neighborhoods lose power all the time and sometimes don't have power for days.  Everyone has lots of candles and oil lamps to use when the power goes out and stoves and ovens are propane because electric appliances aren't reliable.  My monthly electric bill is about $15.  I have 4 light bulbs (one in my bedroom, one in my bathroom, and 2 in my kitchen/living room) that are all energy efficient.  Old fashioned light bulbs are hard to find here, and they have done a great job converting to the more efficient kind.  I charge my computer, Ipod, and cell phone and I have a TV and 2 fans.  That is about it. Sometimes I use my toaster, my coffee pot, and my blender, but I don't leave them plugged in.  All of this is way beyond what most people have here.  My students often bring their cell phone chargers to class when they don't have power so that they can use the school's power or generator.

I am also lucky that I always have running water in my building.  I can always flush my toilet, take a shower, and wash my dishes.  Many houses have limited water access and don't always have water to do those basic things.  I don't have a water heater though, and even though the weather is hot enough most of the time that I don't shiver in the shower, I really miss warm showers.  I haven't had a warm (let alone hot) shower since I was home in December.  I bring my clothes to a friend's mother to wash, and she uses a small use washing machine and then hangs the clothes to dry in her backyard.  There are no driers here, and if it rains for a few days, everyone has to go without clean laundry.

There is waste though.  Trash here is thrown on the ground without thought.  Everyone litters.  There are crews that come through in the mornings and clean up the trash out of the gutters, but empty lots and yards remain littered with trash.  There is no recycling service and styrofoam packaging is still widely used.  It took me a long time to teach my students to use the trash can in my classroom instead of throwing trash out the window.  There are also millions of plastic bags wasted here.  Every time I go to the grocery store, they double or triple bag the goods I buy, often putting 2 or 3 items in each bag.  I have a huge "bag of bags" in my house that is basically like a beanbag chair.  Some of my neighbors have asked me for the oversized bags that one grocery store gives out so they can use them to store things in their homes, but really, I don't know what to do with all the bags I have saved up.  I also don't think that they are low in plastic like the ones in the US now are.

They do re-use a lot more than we do though.  Things I would recycle at home are washed and saved here.  I have spaghetti jars to hold nails, wire, and other household goods.  I have butter tubs and cottage cheese tubs to hold leftovers and to use as containers to bring food to neighbors.  My necklaces and other jewelry are held in an old nut container, and I have soda bottles to keep water and juice in my fridge.  One of my friends asked me yesterday to please go back to buying jar spaghetti sauce instead of canned because she really needs some jars for her kitchen.

It is interesting to participate in this fast.  One day the e-mail suggested getting an energy use audit.  I don't have that option.  The electric company here doesn't do that, and I can't see them starting to any time soon.  Its not an issue on people's minds here.  However, there is a lot of awareness of resources and how they are used.  People conserve and reuse out of necessity, not to help the environment.  There is less excess because there is less to begin with.  You can't waste when you don't have enough.

I know my cooking and eating has changed, I know I save more plastic and glass containers to re-use, and I know that I am much more aware of electricity and water usage.  I have learned a lot by being here about how to re-use and save, and I will carry these lessons with me.  I may not be able to participate in all of the suggested tasks in the Carbon Fast, but by living in Dominican Republic, I am fasting from my American indulgences and over-consumption every day.  Also, I am proud to report I took out one of my 4 light bulbs for lent, and though my kitchen sink area is pretty dark at times, I can deal for 40 days, and I've cut out 25% of my light bulb usage.  Pretty impressive!

~ Tina