first words

Motochaska es qué??? you’re asking yourself. You’re thinking of Ché, but not sure where the connection comes in, and if you don’t speak Quechua, then chaska is foreign on your tongue. It means “star,” but it’s also the name of the main character in a play I saw in Cusco, Peru (February 2008):

“Chaska is the story of a young girl from an Andean town called Kusillaqta, which for the last years has been branded with misfortune. Chaska is selected by the mayor to make an offering to the Apus (mountain gods). In her adventure she will travel across time, learn the real meaning of the divinities and will become a warrior. Chaska will understand that her journey has one mission: to save her town.”

So call Kusillaqta our World Town (credit to M.I.A. for the lingo), and yes, I’m here for the revolution, too. But I never travel alone; stars come in constellations. So I’d like to thank my supernovae for their support and undying brilliance – you know who you are.

And still you might be thinking, qué? Ok, so I graduated from the College of William & Mary in May. Now I’m headed to la República Dominicana for the next nine months, where I’ll be completing a research project courtesy of Senator J. William Fulbright. The answer to your question is, in brief, that I’m looking at gender integration strategies utilized by health-related programs and organizations funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). I’m comparing these strategies to the lived health care experiences of women and men in the target population in order to evaluate the effectiveness of USAID funding. A bit of breakdown: essentially, Part I is researching USAID’s gender policy and the ways in which it is actually implemented by USAID-funded health programs and organizations. Part II is finding out how gender impacts the health care experiences and perceptions of health among the economically disadvantaged in the country (the target population of USAID funding). Then I will compare how closely the findings of Part I line up with the findings of Part II in order to evaluate the effectiveness of USAID’s health funding for the Dominican Republic.

Besides research, I plan to (continue to) travel across time, learn the real meaning of the divinities and become a warrior. For instance,

paint [got some colors I need to put down, so I’m packing the acrylics]

write [read: breathe]

develop several dozen new Rennariginal delicious and nutritious recipes [involving mostly mangoes and breadfruit]

learn how to tear up the dance floor of a colmado [with merengue hips que no mienten]

hike Pico Duarte [the highest peak of the Antilles; they say you can see all coasts of the island from it on clear days]

read read read [read: breathe]

teach English [Dr. Ramón of Physicians for Peace has volunteered me to volunteer]

photography [got some light I need to capture, or try]

explore the rest of la tierra quisqueyana that I have yet to see [read: Punta Cana, Santiago, Salcedo, y más de Samaná, for starters]

These and other goings-on will be retold, translated, explicated, and extrapolated here, so stay tuned, bookmark it, or set it as your homepage; in short, do what you gotta do to stay on the moto. In the Dominican Republic (henceforth referred to as the DR, or possibly la RD, depending on my momentary linguistic leaning), there’s a concept known as movimiento. Literally, this means “movement,” but it’s often invoked to refer to the idea of moving ahead in life – socially, economically, personally, spiritually, proverbially, poetically, or otherwise. It’s a concept that I’ve often applied to my own life, since I am fascinated by the agency inherent in individuality. That is, I embrace the “doing” of my being over the mere “being.” As paraphrased by E.E. Cummings:

“[…] remember one thing only: that it’s you – nobody else – who determines your destiny and decides your fate. Nobody else can be alive for you; nor can you be alive for anyone else.”

Cummings, to be fair, is emphasizing the being over the doing that is the mandate of an artist’s calling, but I’m talking about doing, because it’s action that pushes us forward. [I do, you do, she/he/it does: decline it, rewind it, redefine it, recline with it, wake up, stretch, and dine with it, live life line by line with it.] Nothing’s enigmatic that wasn’t first a simple truth.

I’m excited to return to the DR, and from here Santo Domingo seems at once as familiar as my hometown and as novel as the circumstances that bear me southward to the island of Hispañola once again. Nine months?! It sounds like an eternity when I say it out loud, but I have a feeling that the time will pass with unbelievable speed, as it’s prone to do. Buen viaje, because I know you’re journeying as much as I am. Next entry will be from the Caribbean. I love you all!

Shine on.

One.