arrival

the airport shines with the movement of feet.

I am driven out by the cold coming,

by Virginia’s crisp autumn toward Caribbean heat.

it’s the business of sisters that sends me

across oceans and borders. it’s the voices

of women like me, brown-skinned and setting free

their songs to spread like syrup thick and sweet.

you cannot ignore us now that we have learned harmony,

have learned to recognize injustice,

have arrived with flashing eyes and paintbrushes,

laptops and degrees, pens and mirrors that we now respect

because we have learned to handle the truth of ourselves.

That’s the beginning of a poem I wrote on the plane from DC to Miami. A few days ago I was listening to the Dave Matthews Band, and a song from one of their earlier albums filled my car. It sums up the reason I am here, the reason I have chosen to undertake this research, a career/life in medicine, health and human rights advocacy, social justice, art, scholarship, public health, global policy, and love:

how can I turn away? 

brother, sister, go dancing 

through my head, 

human as to human. 

the future is no place 

to place your better days... 

hands and feet are all alike 

but gold between divide 

hands and feet are all alike 

but fear between divide us 

all slip away...

I can’t say or sing it better than Dave.

Anyway, the past few weeks have been a whirlwind of visits, phone calls, emails, texts, and packing packing packing. It all felt mad epic, like I’m Aeneas in Book 1 of The Aeneid (anyone else who had to pore over that in high school Latin can relate). While graduation was somewhat of a rainy blur and felt less epic because it was immediately followed by weeks of studying and more classes, this departure has made up for graduation’s anticlimactic nature. Now I really feel as though I’m headed somewhere new, as though I’ve moved on to a different phase.

...And I am here, in Santo Domingo, la República Dominicana! So upon stepping off the plane, I went to buy the necessary $10 tourist card that non-citizens need to enter the DR. The first interaction I had with a Dominican went something like this:

The airport guy: “Hi...how are you? You look Dominican.”
Me: “Yes, I know.”

Definitely not the first (or twentieth) time I’ve been told this and have had to explain that North America also has Creoles, people who comprise that post-colonial mezclado of African, Native American and European (in my case, mostly French and Spanish, plus Dutch and rumors of a Corsican, etc.). When I left the airport, I got a taxi and headed straight to the apartment where I’m staying (for at least the first few months) with a fellow Fulbrighter from NYC. The taxi driver and I had a nice little chat about families and Obama and public health – and it was so exciting to find out that he is from a small town near Barahona, near el Río de los Patos (literally, Duck River), because that’s exactly where we went after the SOMOS clinic in January 2007! So we both laughed and reminisced about that gorgeous land where the mountains meet the palms, which meet the beach, which meets the ocean, which meets the sky, and the lovely freshwater river that cuts through it all. It wouldn’t be the Dominican Republic, however, if I had gotten to my apartment without some logistical mishap. I knew there would be trouble when the driver was forced to turn off the a/c in order to make it up a hill (which had an incline of maybe 5 degrees). I’m just happy that when the car finally died we were at the corner of the street where I needed to be. My roommate came down to help me carry my two 86-pound bags (plus my 2 carry-ons) up from the street, while the frustrated driver tweaked wires under the hood and the car smoked and hissed angrily.

Anyway, I am here. And thanks to some generous neighbors from Spain, I have free wireless (and also got a free drink upon arriving). :) The apartment complex is *absolutely* gorgeous. Picture a courtyard of yellow painted walls surrounded by winding spiral staircases and columns entwined with flowers and vines. The apartment itself (which belongs to a Dominican professor who teaches in NYC) is also incredible. I’m happy to report that my room has a fan and that we have a washing machine! – both excellent luxuries. As I write this, I’m sitting on a hammock on our balcony, to which the cacophony of the Santo Domingo streets below drifts, including, a few minutes ago, the song “Somos de Calle,” by Daddy Yankee and some other people. Obviously this made me think of SOMOS (the song is pretty much our anthem), which made me smile. I also smiled when passing by the familiar landmarks along the highway that leads from the airport to the center of the city, when we drove by the small taco shop where many a memorable evening has been spent (and sometimes far past closing hours for 2am discussions about love and other important things), and my favorite panadería (bakery). But this trip already feels very different from the other SOMOS-related voyages that have brought me to the DR. I’m so excited to really get going with my research and also with the other goals I mentioned in my previous post. The next few days will be full of unpacking, settling in, and reacquainting myself to life in Santo Domingo. Hasta luego!