Cultural Insensitivity.

WARNING ON THE WARNING: WROTE JUST THE WARNING PART OVER A MONTH AGO…

WARNING: wrote this over 6 weeks ago. Things have gotten much better since then, and I realize how narrow-minded some parts of this sound. But sometimes you just gotta get it out. You can either read this or wait for the next update (that might just include pictures. Get excited.) Just don’t say I didn’t warn you. Oh- and it’s long, too. Warning #2.

[Insert (present day) as I was typing up this warning, I realized that I might have jumped the gun with the apology. I haven’t been feeling great lately, and have been throwing up the past few nights. Thought I would rest a bit today at my house, so as I am laying in bed making a few updates on this, I have already had 3 neighbors come by to either borrow money or ask me to take inappropriate pictures of them to show my American guy friends. Because of course if I show them a scandalous picture of my 16-year-old neighbor, the American will instantly marry her, get her a Visa, and take her back to the states. Even when I explained that I am sick, she reminded me how easy it is to take a picture. Apology revoked. Here is my venting.]

Common terminology in my vocabulary nowadays is good and bad Dominican days. Like, “Wow! Today was a good Dominican day” or “I’m so ready for this bad Dominican day to be over.” Things like that. If I was being completely honest, I would have to admit that part of the reason that it’s been so long since my last post is that there were more bad Dominican days than good ones, and it made me pretty upset for a while. I would start to try to write an update and all I felt like doing was vent about some of the people in my life; that did not seem very “Peace Corps/oh I am here to help and love everyone while doing it” kind of post, so I chose to refrain. The other part of the reason is that I have been really busy, which I will chalk up as a win at this point. I will take what I can get. Anyways, I have decided that feelings like this are exactly the reason that I have a blog. Venting is ok. I want you to know how I’m really feeling, what I’m going through, and the lessons I’m continuing to learn. It is probably good that I chose to wait until I had a few really good Dominican days before I started writing this because the last thing I want my family and friends to think is that I am miserable here- that is FAR from the truth! I am having an amazing time, making friends in my site, becoming more comfortable, all that jazz. However, there are still going to be bad times and I am learning that there are insincere people everywhere. Even in a small, tight-knit community in a poor developing country.

I won’t waste this entire post on all of my frustrations (mainly because I want to post another blog and possibly an album…also because it is almost Thanksgiving. Not a time to be ungrateful);however, know that I could talk about my frustrations for a while.

Instead, I will put it in a list-form, and then try to do another upload with pictures of happier events and more uplifting undertone. Actually the problems can be put under 2 main headings: neighbors & selfishness.

Neighbors
• My neighbors had really started to drive me crazy for a while. Remember when I posted about having a dream that I was suffocating and meanwhile my neighbors were running all over, climbing over my fence, and taking all of my stuff? Never say that dreams don’t come true.

In the beginning it was great because they always wanted to come over, but I soon realized that I was letting them walk all over me. Look through all of my stuff? Ok. Borrow anything you want, including swim suits? Um…kinda gross, but why not? Start banging on my gate at 7am wanting to come inside? Maybe that’s just the culture..? Eat me out of house and home? Sounds like fun!

If that gives you an idea.

I didn’t realize how unusual it was until I started talking with other volunteers, and even some of my Dominican friends, and they assured me that my neighbors’ actions were not normal. I tried to put an end to it (or at least slow it down a bit before they made me miserable) by locking my gate, but leaving my door and all of my windows open. I noticed that this is what all of the Dominicans do, anyways, so no problem…right?

Nope.

They were so shocked by this change that they got angry. A few volunteers came to visit, and when it got late, we shut the door to get ready for bed. My neighbors did not appreciate that, and started throwing rocks at my house. They just weren’t used to me asking for a little privacy. That was my first clue that the situation was worse than I thought.

Eventually my neighbors started realizing that I’m still the person that I was when I first moved in, but that I appreciate a little alone time- just like they do. And that’s ok. I also have started setting a time (9 or 10 on most nights) where I am either going to be in my house or heading that way. This part has gotten better, but there are definitely still incidents. One of my neighbors had always been super helpful with everything when it came to my house. She was amazing, would help me do my laundry sometimes, and even asked me to clean my house! So nice. It was an exchange, though, because I would always buy her little treats from a bakery or give her and her kids peanut butter, juice, etc.

Then I (of course) let it go too far.

She started coming over whenever she knew that I was home. Our houses are right next to each other, and my bedroom window is only a few feet from her living room window. As soon as I get up, I have to open my window to let in light (and consequently that means that she knows the very second that I am up). She would come over to help me “clean” aka give her a free afternoon from her 2 daughters while I literally chased them around my house and picked up all of my things that they would break. Meanwhile she would be rummaging through my things to help me “straighten up.”
Long story short, one day I was on my way to visit my doña, and this neighbor was on her way to visit me. She asked if she could help me clean, and when I told her that I was leaving and that I could clean it on my own later, she got really mad. For the next few days, I had to listen to her version of the story- the one about how I am mean and don’t like her. It drove me crazy. We eventually had a talk where I explained that I am simply not used to her actions. I told her that I am used to doing things on my own, but that I thought that it was really nice that she wanted to help. She explained that she really just enjoys helping people in the neighborhood with tasks. It seems like there is a mutual understanding now- we still help each other, give each other food, and I let her borrow things, but I think there is more respect on both sides. We shall see.

Selfishness
This part could go on for a while. Instead of going on longer than necessary (which I’m afraid has already happened…I swear I like being here), I will just give one example. Back-story: every single Dominican wants to go to the United States. They see it as a way out of their lives here and as a ticket to a lifetime of happiness filled with pizza, McDonalds, Yankees games, and Hummers. In their eyes, all Americans are rich and have zero problems.

This has been my biggest frustration in this country. How do you help someone in a country in which they don’t even want to invest? I feel like everyone in the DR would be much more thankful to Peace Corps volunteers if my only goal was to hand out plane tickets to New York. Once again, should have probably deleted that part…I realize how awful it sounds, but it’s how I felt/still am trying to sort through in my head. Anyways…

That being said, I know part of my job is to help open their eyes to the world while, at the same time, they are helping to open mine. Everyone I’ve met really has taught me a lot about myself…some things I have learned are not the most impressive findings, but I’m growing. I thought I was doing well at the learning part, at least…I’m just having a rough time right now.

One of the ways I would like to help my community is by helping raise money for a politécnico (technical school). It will serve as a free school, as well as a community center, and will help meet many needs of the town. I am trying to get things in motion to write a grant for this project, so I went to the group president’s house to discuss their plans and the budget. We talked about this for a little while, but then he said he wanted his wife to talk to me about a different important matter. His wife sat down and started to explain how they have taken over this amazing new company that is going to make them millionaires, and I too could be rich if I made a small invested a small amount now. She asked me if I could give her $300 that day, and then kept on explaining that she needs $300 from my parents, too. The more and more she talked about it, I realized that I was trying to be talked into a pyramid scam in Spanish. You are kidding me?? I have been working with you for the past 2 months on this politécnico idea to help the community, but the only thing you seem to care about is trying to scam $600 out of me? Also, she explained how important it was that I got all of my friends in the states to help out because they all will want to jump on this amazing opportunity. When I explained that it was against Peace Corps policy for me to get involved (Always blame it on Peace Corps.), she decided that it would be better to bring my family over to her house when they visited, so they could just give her the money themselves. Breathe, Heather.

It really hurt my feelings. It was the final straw for the day, and I let it get to me a little too much. I was so tired of feeling like people only wanted to use me, and didn’t even care that I am trying to love and work with them. I started to take it to heart that people only saw me as either a ticket to the States or as their personal ATM. It took me a while to finally try to start seeing the world from their point of view. It’s going to be a process, and I have been just praying that I will be able to see everyone here the way that God sees them. I feel like one of the lessons I have to learn is how to love everyone, not just those that are easy to love. It’s never been hard for me to love the poor, but that’s easy. God’s now given me a whole different type of need to understand and love. So some of my neighbors and people I’ve met are a bit difficult and ask for things that they don’t need? That’s something I’m just going to have to deal with & learn from. And love them in the process. Wish me luck.

Like I said, things have gotten much better, and it didn’t take me too long to realize that I have a lot of genuine Dominican friends in my town, and just because some people try to take advantage of me doesn’t necessarily mean that they are malicious or evil. They are just learning about me while I am learning about them. Most of them simply don’t know any better, and I can’t take everything too personally. Thanks for anyone that I talked to that helped me through some of these issues, and know that your thoughts, advice, and prayers have meant the world. I can’t promise that this will be the last venting and/or culturally insensitive post during my service, but I think it might be the last one for a while. Or I will do my darndest. :o) Up next…picture update, I believe! That should help out the sad tone of this blog. Will work on that. Hope everyone is doing well!