where life calmly gives out its own secret

Today I am inspired. From the greatest frustrations, pain, and insecurity can come the deepest motivation, love, and faith. Some of that transformation is a personal struggle, the individual journey that bears you from one point to another, but some of it is the direct result of the amazing and beautiful people I am lucky to have in my life.

One of these people was my roommate over the summer. I spent the months after graduation taking physics and diligently studying for the MCAT. Most days I studied or was in class for more than twelve hours. Summer in Williamsburg is a boring, eerie, humid heat that can drive you crazy. One of the only reasons I made it through was my roommate, an absolutely beautiful person who is now working in Yemen. After the earthquake struck Haiti, she told me that she was organizing a food drive in Yemen to raise funds for this little Caribbean country half a world away. But she said that Yemen is a poor country, that her boss had cautioned her against hoping for too much, that Yemenis couldn’t possibly have the knowledge or resources to contribute significantly to what is happening just across the border from me. But today I learned that her food drive raised $450 to be applied toward equipping the medical relief teams I am helping to coordinate out of Santo Domingo.

I felt such a swell of hope when she told me this. I hope that we learn to replace our charity with justice, that we trade in sympathy for empathy. I hope that we learn to have more conversations like these: http://www.conversationsforabetterworld.com/. I hope that we keep learning how to value each other’s individual experiences without losing sight of the collective whole.

Last night I went to my roof and I listened to Sweet Honey in the Rock, music on which I was raised. When I listened to this story, I was shocked to find that it was telling the story of what has just happened in Haiti. But it’s the way the story ends that inspired me.

I think that one of the most beautiful things in the world is the passion of people who know what they believe in, who know what they want to do, and for whom their work permeates every fiber of their being so that it is almost the same as living. I believe that German poet Rainer Maria Rilke was such a human being. But I’ll let you decide for yourself after reading the following:

You see, I want a lot.

Perhaps I want everything:

the darkness that comes with every infinite fall

and the shivering blaze of every step up.

So many live on and want nothing

and are raised to the rank of prince

by the slippery ease of their light judgments.

But what you love to see are faces

that so work and feel thirst....

You have not grown old, and it is not too late

to dive into your increasing depths

where life calmly gives out its own secret.

~ Rainer Maria Rilke

7.3

they’re saying make donations –

            saying you can send –

– send or lend –

       – your support –

your contribution –

          your –

your money –

          band aids –

          blood –

          tears –

          fears –

          your hope –

you can send them by

clicking here –

they’re saying in Port-au-Prince

the Presidential Palace has

made a mockery of this stolen

democracy.

the cracked walls, the imploded domes –

Toussaint, did you –

           did you see this?

if you could have seen this

           would you? –

would you have made history

anyway?

It’s as though the entire world crumbled three days ago. It took 24 hours for the situation in Haiti to sink in for me, and I can point to the stages of awareness that slowly settled into my heart and mind this past Tuesday. By Thursday evening I was a nervous wreck, terrified for the families of close friends here, for complete strangers, and for strangers who may as well be family on this small, small island. When your heart stretches out to another, and that heart to another and another, then “seven point three” become words of importance, and everything becomes personal.

Within the world of public health, which of course is the world to which most of my close friends and colleagues here belong, there has been an immediate rush to the border. I am heartened by the health care providers and others I know who have dropped everything to find a way, any way, to get to Port-au-Prince. Among these is a person very near and dear to me, and I find myself terrified also for this individual’s safety. It is positively eerie that on the Spanish-speaking side of this small, small island, my little neighborhood in the Zona Colonial remains as tranquil as ever (ok, tranquil for Santo Domingo), while just a few hours down the road to the west, utter chaos reigns.

In order to stave off tears, I email. I email and call and write and pray and try to find as many ways possible to do anything, everything that I can from the Spanish-speaking side of the border. Everything is personal now, and it’s as though the entire world shifted when those plates did their underwater dance off the southern coast of this small, small island.

Some people say this is no time for thinking about politics, but everything is political, especially those things that are personal. It’s difficult not to think about politics when the same earthquake, if located in California or Japan, wouldn’t have caused nearly the destruction it has wreaked in Port-au-Prince, Jacmel, and the surrounding areas. If only the buildings had been up to standard. If only Toussaint had failed, then maybe the smarting French wouldn’t have been quite so harsh as to demand reparations FROM their former slaves. If only the entire world hadn’t placed embargoes and discriminatory economic policies at Haiti’s doorstep for the past 200 years. If only Haiti had kept the money it paid for structural adjustment and predatory international loans and used it build things up to the standard the West claims as the minimum for its citizens’ protection. If only the buildings had been up to standard.

Frankly, I can’t think of a better time to think about politics than right now, especially because thinking and action go hand in hand, and if Haiti needs anything right now, it needs swift action. So when the dust settles and the dead are buried and the numbers and names go filing out onto the Internet and all our newspapers’ front pages, the question that has been burning in the back of all our brains will come spilling out – and what now???

How about bringing back a democratically-elected President whose promises of what Dr. Paul Farmer calls pragmatic solidarity were too intimidating for the “developed” world to swallow? How about treating Haitians as equal citizens of the “international community” instead of as hapless victims with a silent history? How about pursuing justice instead of economic development (and thereby avoiding what Naomi Klein has called the Shock Doctrine)? How about encouraging the spiritual and social growth of a people oppressed since the very birth of their nation? How about seeing this as one of the biggest wake-up calls in modern history? How about acting and acting and never stopping until we get to Justice?

When your heart stretches out to another, and that heart to another and another, then “seven point three” become words of importance, and everything becomes personal. Everything personal is political, and so could you please lend, in addition to your money, band aids, blood, tears, fears, and hope, your solidarity? Your love? Could you? Could you be loved, and be loved?

the story of Caraballo

I just got back from several days in Caraballo (in the northwest of the country near Sosúa and Puerto Plata), where I was visiting a friend of mine. It’s a small but complex community in spite of (or perhaps because of) its isolation in the midst of rolling sugarcane fields. My friend lives in the section of Caraballo occupied by Dominicans who are employed by the local sugarcane industry as guards or other personnel above braceros, the cane-cutters. Many of the homes there were built by the sugar company. Just adjacent is Batey Caraballo, the community devoted to the (predominately Haitian) braceros. Although Caraballo itself, with dirt roads and frequent apagones (blackouts), is certainly not the picture of luxury, Batey Caraballo makes it look like Beverly Hills. Most “homes” in the batey are one-room sections in long, wooden buildings. An entire family lives in each of the rooms, and there are no bathrooms.

 

Those two yellow doors are to some of the rooms that comprise families' "houses" in the batey.

About seven years ago, the sugar cane processing company here shut down due to finances. The vast majority of residents in both Caraballo and Batey Caraballo were thus left unemployed. Although many have sought alternative forms of work, the unemployment rate is still much higher than the already high national average. The situation has attracted the attention of various charitable groups, in particular a religious group from the U.S. The “help” proffered by this group is in the form of missionaries and volunteers who make short-term journeys to Caraballo and the batey. The presence and power of vodou priests in the batey makes for an interesting relationship between the community and foreign religious groups, most of whom fail to understand the complexities of vodou, such as that the religion is closely linked to Catholicism – a perfect example of syncretism. One of the religious group’s largest projects was the creation of Villa Asención, an adjoining community established to meet the need for adequate housing among the braceros. As such, residence in Villa Asención was restricted to Haitian field workers, with very few exceptions, who were perceived as the “poorest of the poor” and thus the most in need of assistance.

The dilapidated sugar processing factory in Montellano, a small town just down the road from Caraballo.

 The newer homes in Villa Asención.

In December 2008 three men attacked a motoconchista (motorcycle driver) from the area in a robbery. He later died in the hospital. One of the offenders was from Villa Asención and of Haitian descent. This sparked a reaction against Villa Asención by residents of Caraballo, who had long resented the exclusivity of the housing aid. Although Caraballo is better off than those who live and formerly lived in the batey, many Dominican residents of Caraballo suffer the same poverty in similar living conditions. An angry mob from Caraballo entered Villa Asención and began to destroy the community. Terrified Haitian families, perhaps eerily reminded of the events of 1937, fled to the sugarcane fields, hiding while the people of Caraballo overtook and began to sell their homes. While many did not return, a few ventured back to Villa Asención once local authorities became involved in the situation. Some of those who returned were able to negotiate a fair price for their stolen homes; almost all ultimately moved on to live in other communities.

While walking through the various sections of Caraballo I couldn’t help but notice the ubiquitous evidence of charity groups – from the halfway completed concrete bridge with “Welcome” splashed across it to the handful of blond gringos who stood around teaching English out loud in disorganized groups despite the persistent rain: over the sound of fat drops in the mud, “Hello, my name is…” I’d been having some trouble putting my finger on what it was, exactly, that bothered me about it, but after spending a few days in Caraballo I suddenly found that I was able to explain it.

The halfway bridge.

The recent history of Caraballo is illustrative of some problems at large with charitable foreign aid. External groups too frequently seek to give, give, give to the poorest of the poor, with little consideration of the potential negative impact of their good intentions. While it certainly sounds good to those who are serious about making a difference to aid only “the poorest of the poor,” to ignore the economic class just above those is to ignore the complexities of poverty. To give without consideration of the unsustainability of charity is to keep the poor cast as victims and the donors as the only party with agency. What happens when a financial downturn dries up sources of funding? The poor find that they are still at the mercy of the actions of others. Real assistance consists of mutual respect and mutual empowerment.

The religious group in Caraballo also failed to understand multifaceted local politics; hence the raging mob that entered Villa Asención to drive out their neighbors and steal their homes in December 2008. Finally, I am frustrated with seeing poorly conceived charity projects that offer no real solutions to poverty and sometimes actually make things worse. I wondered if any of the happy church gringos had bothered to find out what sugar company had taken advantage of the labor of Haitian and Dominican braceros in Caraballo and the surrounding communities. I wondered if any of them were aware of U.S.’s economic policies towards the Dominican Republic and the multinational corporations (MNCs) that flourish here. I wondered if any of them had utilized their power as consumers and voters and attempted to hold their government or U.S.-based MNCs accountable for their treatment of sisters and brothers in the South.

I suppose my point is that you don’t have to have a fancy travel grant to make a difference, and if you do have one, you’re not necessarily any more likely to make a difference than someone who doesn’t. Making a difference starts with each one of us. I won’t apologize for the cliché because it’s true; once we understand how our own choices affect the people near and far from us we can begin to reevaluate the systems that cause global poverty and disease and find ways to combat them. This is the challenge I propose for those who still lack a New Year’s resolution. :)

once in a blue moon

After Christmas I had the spur of the moment idea to join some of my friends in Las Terrenas, a small town on the northern peninsula of Samaná, for New Year’s. So I stuffed my faithful backpack and jumped on a bus headed north.

Las Terrenas is a small, touristy town filled with (mostly French) expats and visitors. As such, the vibe freaked me out a bit at the beginning; on the upside, it’s easy to find excellent international food, such as the pizza we had on New Year’s Eve (most of the pizza you get in this country is mediocre at best and often covered with corn). Although the first day I was there was overcast and slightly rainy, I still ventured onto the beach. For New Year’s Eve we had champagne on the beach and a midnight swim under the full moon. The next day was gorgeous and sunny, so fortunately I was able to enjoy some beautiful weather before heading back to Santo Domingo in the afternoon. Highlights of my trip include absolutely breathtaking views from the top of the mountain over which you have to drive to reach Las Terrenas, some interesting experiences with transportation, and lots of singing, with or without accompaniment, and mostly while jumping around giddily in the ocean.
_____

2009 was good to me. In the past twelve months, I have felt proud, alone, depressed, peaceful, frightened, stressed, motivated, loved, inspired, under-appreciated, well appreciated, hurt, hopeful, angry, forgiving, complicated, simple, funny, liked, misunderstood, foreign, comfortable, uncomfortable, joyful, surprised, powerful, inevitable, creative, innocent, magical, adventurous, capable, disappointed, knowledgeable, experienced, inexperienced, accomplished, full, beautiful, frustrated, satisfied, exhausted, confused, insane, illimitable, blessed, awestruck, spiritual, happy, hyper, humbled, overwhelmed, and alive. A year ago I never could have imagined how much I would go through this year, and how much I would learn and grow as a result. Nor could I have imagined what lay in store for me beyond college. I have been blessed with amazing experiences this year, and owe much of that to others in my life who, knowingly or unknowingly, were the inspiration for so much of what I wrote, felt, thought, and learned in 2009 (Thank you). Thus another decade falls away.

So it’s 2010. This year I want to work on my relationship with the environment. I want to challenge myself to think even more critically about the everyday choices I make in order to minimize the space I take up in the universe. I want to reduce the resources I utilize and the energy I require, in all senses. And I want to start listening again to the Earth, listening in the way I did when I was small and closer to the ground. We have so much to learn from nature, and so many answers to the things for which we struggle are written in the wind and water and land that surround us, if only we paid attention. We take so much from our environment; everything we need to survive, in fact, and yet we give back so little. I think that nature has a lot to teach us about our relationships with each other, too. We would do well to give more without thinking so much about what we might (or might not) get in return, just as the Earth constantly gives to us. And the only way to apply these lessons is to really root ourselves in our environments, to respect and listen to the world around us, and to maintain our relationship with the Earth just as we work to maintain our relationships with ourselves and with other people.

Did you know that New Year’s Eve was a blue moon? That means that two full moons occurred in the same month. Not to mention that I saw a shooting star just before we headed back from the beach in the first few hours of 2010.

I’m really excited about this year!