Yesterday heralded the end of hectic orientation and the beginning of classes at PUCMM; on Thursday afternoon I'll begin my internship at Acción Callejera, an organization based in the center of Santiago that works with street boys, giving them a place to go during the day, to play baseball or do homework, etc. (because 10-year-old kids shouldn't be working the streets shining shoes at best). They also run outposts in various barrios around the city, and coordinate legal aid and social work for all age groups in deprived communities, including an educative effort in Barrio La Cañada (very close to where I live) whereby they advise community elders and such about the benefits of documentation and birth certificates, in order to compile data for the upcoming census. I'll be helping Acción Callejera with legal aid, and while I don't know exactly what I'll be doing, I imagine there will be some going door-to-door and meeting with community representatives, and getting the opportunity to conduct field research, all in all looking like a profoundly challenging, but fantastic experience.
I have class Monday through Thursday, from 8 a.m. to noon. This conflicts with my primordially lazy 20-year-old body and mind, as well as typical Dominican customs such as eating dinner much later than in the States and staying out much later. That said, siestas are effectively written into law here. Classes at PUCMM (and other universities, I'm sure, as well as in the workplace in general) break at noon and do not resume until 3 p.m., giving students and workers the chance to go home, eat lunch and take a power nap, in order to recharge for a busy night ahead.
Going backwards, on Sunday I and five of my group-mates took a Caribe Tours bus to Sosúa, a small town on the north coast historically renowned as the prostitution capital of the Dominican Republic, but has since diversified into a jack-of-all-trades beach town. Thankfully absent are the maddening crowds of Eurotrash who flood neighboring seaside towns such as Cabarete and Puerto Plata. The beach experience I had was authentically Dominican (i.e. the six of us were the only gring@s), and did not break with the immersion experience (except for the burger and fries I ate at the American-owned restaurant in town). The Atlantic was otherworldly warm and calming, if a little polluted (only cans and such, nothing detrimental to our health), and just made me even more excited to swim in the Caribbean, which will be something like a three- or four-hour bus ride away, on the southern coasts.
I've been getting gradually acquainted with nightlife here, a satisfying experience in that I can walk in and buy a drink, no questions asked. Friday night a couple friends and I ended up at a bar called Froguitos, owned by New York Dominicans, and one of the very few that plays music other than top-40 hiphop or techno (i.e., Radiohead when we walked in). Nightlife here caters to the topmost portion of the socioeconomic ladder, and it's proving difficult at first, trying to reconcile my ridiculous position of privilege here with the close look at marginalization I'm about to witness on a semi-daily basis.
Speaking of which, this past Thursday, our last site visit took place in Cienfuegos, the largest and one of the poorest barrios in Santiago. Some 100,000 people live there, some in run-down government subsidized, one-room accomodations, while most live in actual shanties, precariously clinging to hillsides, hanging on for dear life so that they don't get washed away into the vertedero (dump). Niños con una Esperanza (Children with Hope), the organization based there, is an Evangelical missionary effort that has built a school in the heart of Cienfuegos, their main aim keeping kids in school and passing them on the national exam that all third-graders take here so that they don't drop out and either become busos (dump workers), gang members or dealers. Their life expectancy is low (not only owing to the fact that their community is surrounded on two sides by a garbage dump), and a handful of kids die every year getting pummeled by trash trucks and such. Altogether a thoroughly affecting experience, it reminded me of the opening scenes of City of God, and once again made it clear to me that no matter how well you can intellectually prepare yourself for extreme poverty, you can't predict how it will affect you until it affects you.
What I've gathered so far is: 1) it's good to have a guttural, visceral reaction upon viewing such situations first hand for the first time; 2) I'm not a patronizing Western tourist who fetishizes poverty by going on a slum tour; 3) I am using my privilege in (I hope) constructive and sustainable ways. Reminding myself of that sometimes multiple times a day makes things a whole lot easier on my soul.
Hasta luego,
Dan
P.S. To get a look of what Cienfuegos evokes, click here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLBWdcDdnSg&feature=related. Start at 4:10.
Before the earthquake, I assume.
ReplyDeleteI didn't realise that you had signed up for the Deluxe Experience the Third World deal. Or did you sign up for the Super Deluxe (including pestilence and military coup as well as natural disaster)?
Be well and keep on writing.