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We did some weeding

Thank's for the pies, cows! Now we can make compost!

We're building a path to the "gazebo"

A Little Story about Big Decisions

There’s a radical and bound up artist waiting to come out of me. She’s waiting until her sister, Critical Mind, decides on the “right” path. Critical Mind is waiting, waiting, never choosing any path because none seem just right… Yet.

And after all this waiting Radical and Bound up Artist is raising her little head and daring to differ. “Wait!” She thinks (for, alas, waiting is all she knows how to do). “Waiting is choosing too… it’s choosing not to choose… Yet.”

All of a sudden Radical and Bound up Artist is done waiting for her sister to choose for her. “I am going to choose,” she announces with pride, “because choosing is more fun than waiting!”

Critical Mind rudely butts in, “But what if you get stuck doing something you don’t love?”

“Easy,” responds the artist, “I’ll choose again. Choosing is fun. Choosing is an art, and like any art it takes practice. How will I ever get practice in decision-making if all I ever do is wait for the right thing to come along? I don’t even think there is a “right” choice, but if there were, waiting certainly wouldn’t be it! My life path is made out of the choices I  make, and that’s why it’s fun to be on a path. Any old path.”

The End
(the previous post “I define what I do” explains the bigger picture of how this story came out of me)

I define what I do

This week I have been taking a little break from gardening and blogging to concentrate on my inner struggle to choose a career path. Since I’m virtually donating my time here in the DR, I’m feeling the need to find work in which I can make a comfortable living and serve humanity and love what I do.
By sitting with this question, one thing has become clear: that what I do does not define who I am but rather that I, Margot, the human being, define what I do.
In college I chose to major in sustainable agriculture because it is so broadly defined and interdisciplinary. At 25, I find myself still holding out, not devoting myself to a particular category of work, afraid it will box me in or define me. I am able to keep procrastinating making a choice because I tell myself I’m just waiting for the “right” career to appear, and of course it never comes because none are ever “right” enough.  I’ve been afraid to take any real steps toward a more defined career because I’ve been putting all my focus into the “what” of a career and completely losing sight of the “who” behind it all. Now that I’m clear I need to take some action, make some defining decisions, I am searching for a greater sense of anchoring in the “Me, Margot, the human being,” place.
In my experience, many people in my parent’s generation (ages 50-60) feel that they were what they did and are just now trying to find meaning beyond the material. On the other side of the spectrum the New Agers swung so far away from the material that they have isolated themselves and now have little influence in society. I know I’m not the only 20-something that’s searching for a better balance of material and spiritual, the “what” and the “who.” I love this idea John Gerber, my sustainable ag teacher at UMass, is always writing and talking about: that as young people straight out of college we need to have the courage to create work rather than to just “get a job.” (source of inspiration: http://www.earththrives.com/component/content/article/51-press/286-sustainable-agriculture-jobs-after-college.html)

Personal and social transformation cannot be disaggregated

~ Frances Moore Lappe, Hope’s Edge

"Development" works both ways

I’m reminded of a thought I had once before coming here – that the idea of “development” is too uni-directional, and that going into developing countries to “help them” but never recognizing the ways in which they are helping us too is actually counter-productive. It only works to exacerbate the erroneous idea that we in the developed world have reached the pinnacle of a functional society. In Dominican Republic, as in most of Latin America, there are a lot of screamingly obvious areas that need improvement – garbage disposal, population control, joblessness, hunger, the works. The US may not, at first glance, need as much help in those areas, but there are more subtle needs, that run much deeper. For example, where has the richness of family life gone? And, since when has trying to get rich been a good excuse for skipping out on our loved ones? I shouldn’t be shocked that people are happy here, but I am.

I know that I have a lot to teach here and also a whole lot to learn. It’s this beautiful exchange that fills me with joy these days. It’s not because of being charitable or a “do-gooder,” because I don’t see it that way. When I had to describe this project to people to explain what I was doing with my life, I had it down to a concise, repeatable phrase, “I’m going to create gardens for an orphanage the Dominican Republic.” Oh, everyone just thought that was so great and “good for you,” but it was lacking half of the story, which was, “I am going to Dominican Republic to learn about love and community and how to live with abundant joy.”

Compost and Gifts

Tonight I had a long talk with Madrina sitting outside the Gazebo on plastic chairs enjoying the refreshing relief from the heat that the dusk brought with it. We started talking about the compost – the structure for which was just finished this evening. Before we started building it, I asked Maria Elena if there were rats here and she didn’t really know, so we plunged ahead with the easiest design, which is not enclosed. As it turns out, we will not be able to put the food scraps from the kitchen into the compost like I had ingenuously dreamed of.

Yesterday Maria Elena’s friend, who had tried composting here, said she had to stop because it brought lots of disease-carrying rats and cockroaches near the house. That was sort of what I had suspected but I had been ignoring the suspision because of my idealist notion of creating a complete food system where the food “waste” returns to the earth to feed the plants, which once again become food. A romantic notion indeed, but I have to make sure I don’t get ahead of myself. I have to remember that this garden however small and however far from bringing the girls into perfect harmony with nature, is going to make a difference.

So together, Maria Elena and I decided we would make compost without the addition of food – just from yard waste and cow manure. Still though, I wasn’t quite satisfied. I told her that the main reason I had wanted to use food (which is in no way necessary for making rich compost) was to keep it out of the trash. I suggested making a worm bin, which the rats wouldn’t be able to get into. Then Maria Elena surprised me, “we don’t throw the leftovers away. We give them to my brother, Rosso, for his pigs. He comes here twice a week to pick it up.” (Later she showed me the bucket where they put the pig food, which was hanging up high and had a fitted lid for rat-proofness.)

What? All this time the food had been going to good use and here I was trying (in vain) to “save” it from the trash? I asked Madrina why no one had told me about this, and she responded that she didn’t want to “desanimarme,” which is to take away one’s enthusiasm or “animo.” She saw I was excited about it so she told Rosso that there is no food for the pigs right now and he has stopped coming to pick it up. (As for the food separating confusion I described in an earlier post, perhaps the poster I made with the big lists of yeses and nos made composting seem complicated, whereas the pig food is just plain and simple “leftovers”.)

Wow, Maria Elena supports me so much in this project that she let her brother’s pigs go hungry! Now that’s dedication! She says I am one of the daughters of this house now and I’m delighted because I feel it’s true. Maria Elena treats me like she would her own daughter, never taking away from my forward motion, or “animo.”

To be clear, I told her that I think feeding the pigs is a perfectly good use of the leftovers. She laughed, and we started talking about everything we would put in the compost. Maria Elena listed the things: “Cow manure, leaves, grass… what else?” I responded, we can use wood if we chop it really small,” and Maria Elena got excited. “Yes! and we can have Manuel (the nighttime guardian of the hogar) chop it for us! And we can get William to bring straw, and he can help us make the compost too!”

Oh, dear, I thought, William is going to end up doing everything unless I speak up. “Madrina,” I chimed in, “Eh, let’s just have William bring the straw and we will make the compost.” And then I confessed, “I wanted him just to bring the sticks for the compost and he ended up building the whole thing!” Out of righteousness, I failed to mention how I actually thought it had turned out beautifully and how I didn’t know if I would have been able to build it as professionally as William had, seeing as he has much more experience than I do.

She told me what I had known all along – that tradition is strong here and that men don’t want women doing the dirty work. “But also,” she continued, “William really enjoys his work. Did you notice how no one that is helping us is doing it for the money? William comes and works hard and never charges a certain amount. He takes what you give him. Manuel comes here at night to guard and he helps us plant trees and he waters everything and he does it with love. People here love to give. Did you see how the neighbor came over this morning to borrow some chairs for her party, and when she returned them, she brought us some of the lunch she made? That’s just how people are here. I can’t walk to the church without stopping to say hello to five different friends. There’s a sense of unity here. There’s…”

“Community.” I finished her sentence.

“Si, community!” She continued, “When I went to New York, I was shocked because everyone was walking so fast and no one was even looking at each others faces! I said, ‘Oh my God, what is this?’ You get into an elevator with three other people and from the top floor down to the street no one says anything to each other, not even ‘buenos dias!’ You all live such accelerated lives. My friend Maria who moved to Virginia with her now ex-husband had to start taking pills because of how accelerated her life had become. She didn’t even have one neighbor to talk to, and she got tired of it pretty quickly.

“Look, this country may be disorganized, we may not have laws, there may be trash everywhere, but there is a lot of love and warmth among people. Here we love to help each other and to be there for each other and that way we can relax and we don’t have to live with so much stress.”

“Yeah,” I finally piped in, thoughts and feelings swirling. “It’s like we (Americans) want to be so independent, to do everything ourselves.” I was mainly thinking about myself in regards to this project.

“There’s nothing wrong with independence,” Maria Elena responded, “I’m independent with this hogar and I really enjoy it that way. But when there is need here, I am happy to ask for help.”

As we walked back toward the house, I let the truth of her words sink in. I told her that I was feeling a little bad.

“About what?” She asked with the patience and presence of a wise mother, ready to listen.

“Because I’m not going to live here, I’m going to go back to my country to live, where people aren’t as open.” I cringed at the thought of going back to car dependency, to long distances and tight schedules.

She looked straight at me and responded without hesitation, “But you have to accept your country.”

“You’re right,” I agreed, realizing suddenly how intensely I had been focusing on what’s wrong with my country and how Maria Elena had only mentioned it to get her point across about Dominicans. She never meant to tell me I live in a country without love, but that’s how I read it, and being the softie that I am, I took it to heart. It didn’t last long though, as I snapped out of the good old “I’m wrong, poor me” mode. “There’s a lot of good there too,” I said, uplifted now.

“Absolutely! When I was there I loved being with nature. It was so quiet and pure and clean.”

I was inspired by Maria Elena’s brilliant ability to recognize not only the gifts of each of her beloved girls, but also the gifts of different places and cultures. And then I had a brilliant idea.

“Yes,” I told her, “and now I’m bringing nature here and when I go back home I’m gong to bring the love of the Dominicans with me and work to bring about more community there. I can use the gifts of each place to fill the holes where the other is lacking!”

She beamed and we hugged. “Go write it down,” she said.

compost progress

Chopping the posts

placing the posts

starting to weave

more weaving

Almost done, with Maria Elena

All done! Starting to collect leaves and grass to compost.

There are two "bins" because we are going to have two stages of compost (three is ideal, but we didn't have space). We will mix leaves, grass, cow manure and whatever else we find in the left bin for the first stage. After a month or two, when that pile is starting to degrade, we will move the whole pile to the right bin and leave it alone for another 4-6 months until the compost is done. This way we can keep adding new material to the left pile, while the right one magically transforms.

separating

Written October 6^th

After planting more seeds with the big girls, I spent the afternoon picking up trash from around the property. It must be that trash is just part of life here because there was a lot of it just lying around on the bare soil and even on the concrete sidewalk just outside the house, and nobody else seemed to mind at all. When I had my first handful of Barbie arms and plastic hair decorations and candy wrappers, one of the younger girls asked me, “Margot, is that going to be for the compost?” Slightly shocked inside and almost offended, I kept my cool. “No, I said, this is trash. This does not degrade. This does not ‘undo itself’.” I looked for a better way to explain it in my limited Spanish because at this point a crowd of girls were paying attention. “Look,” I explained “what comes from nature goes back into nature. These wrappers, these plastic things came from the store, and before that from the factory. They did not come from mother earth, so we cannot put them back in.” I wasn’t entirely telling the truth. At some point the petroleum to make the plastic to make those things came from the earth but I had to get them to see the difference somehow. Separating compost from trash and recycling has become so second nature for me that it’s actually a struggle for me to put myself in the shoes of someone who sees all of it as trash, someone who has no idea what the difference between plastic and leftover food is. And it’s not just the little girls. The other day I bought a second trash can for the kitchen so that whoever was cooking would separate the trash from the compost. The first day of it went great. I was cooking that day with the help of Mami, the 28-year-old cook, and she was diligent about separating. At one point she came to me with a handful of plastic wrappers and asked if that went in too. I said “No. All plastic goes in the trash.” Hopefully by tomorrow William will bring the rest of the sticks and finish the compost. It was started so quickly and I got my hopes up, now it seems like it’s taking forever to finish it. I think once everyone sees the process of composting and gets involved in it they’ll start to get it. I even made a sign with two columns one for “Si” and a list of what can go in and a column for “No” with a list of what cannot go in. I wrote plastic on the no side and I have no idea if it will eventually be set in their minds or not. This evening after all that cleaning up and lecturing the girls about not throwing trash in the yard there was a cookie wrapper on the path up to the back door of the house. I think it’s going to take more than a few lectures. Good thing I still have two months here. Making the garden was the easy part. Encouraging people to change their habits is a whole different thing. I certainly have my work cut out for me.

machismo and me

One morning, last week, Maria Elena and I got up early to go find this mysterious guy named William who has a farm in the country and could help us get more soil, which we need. We had just started down the pot-hole-filled dirt road, each of us on the back of a motor-bike taxi, when my taxi driver turned the bike around and I saw that Maria Elena wasn’t behind us anymore. We drove back to the house next to the hogar, where Maria Elena was standing outside, the motorcycle guy waiting. She said, “Margot, he’s here! William is at the neighbor’s house. Now we don’t have to go.” So we gave the motorcycle guys some foolishly small amount for their time and they left.

It was just that morning that I had the brilliant idea to build the compost pile out of sticks woven around posts (made of thicker sticks). I had been wanting to get Maria Elena to let me build the compost bins Earthship style – from old cans and bottles used as “bricks” with cement as mortar. She never straightforwardly told me why she didn’t like the idea, but I could tell she was less than thrilled about it. Too experimental perhaps, and that’s a reasonable objection, seeing as I’ve never built that way and it would indeed have been an experiment. I remembered, too, that compost really needs air, and building with sticks would give it plenty of air and it’s an inexpensive, renewable resource. When I brought up the idea of the sticks, Maria Elena’s face lit up. “Ay, Si! That’s the way we used to keep the pigs in when I was growing up!” Jackpot. Not only would the materials be easy and inexpensive to get, but the compost bin would also be culturally congruent in appearance (since compost bins themselves having nothing whatsoever to do with this culture). It felt so good to be on the same page as Maria Elena.

As soon as William came over, Maria Elena had me go show him what I wanted. I went over to the back corner of the property, the chosen compost site, and explained the design to him (which I had only occurred to me less than an hour earlier), and he seemed to understand perfectly. He had brought a boy with him, maybe 10 years old, and as soon as we had finished talking, William and the boy were up in the tree of the neighbors land (just outside our fence) chopping down big braches with their machetes.

I couldn’t believe it! Upon waking up that morning I could never imagined that this was how my day was going to go. I kept wondering if taking someone else’s branches counted as stealing. I remembered Maria Elena saying, “There are no rules here” about the street vendors who just plop themselves wherever they want and I realized we were probably ok. I was getting really excited that this was suddenly happening. When the thicker branches for the posts were ready, William wanted me to show him exactly where they should be placed. I took the pickax and started digging a hole, and he motioned for me to hand it to him. Out of politeness I handed it over and he proceeded to dig all the holes and hammer all the posts in with a giant rock. Since all I really wanted from him were the sticks and he was obviously taking over, I told him I wanted to help. He kind of shrugged me off and it dawned on me that women don’t do this kind of work here. I explained to him that this is what I do back home, that I am a farmer! Nothing. He didn’t want my help.

Since starting the compost “bins” (which are so close to being done it hurts) William has also dug a big patch of lovely raised beds for us to plant in.

While I was happy to be giving work to someone who needed it, this was not how I imagined the project taking shape. I imagined that the girls and I would build the structures and dig the beds ourselves, so that the girls would be inspired and opened to a broader idea of what it means to be female. In my project outline, I had written that one of the main reasons making this garden would be empowering to the girls was because it challenges the male-dominant frame of reference in which they live. Though it seems obvious now, I didn’t imagine that I would also be subject to that same machismo.


I actually can’t complain about the whole not-doing-all-the-hard-work-myself thing. It may seem like I’m ceding to the male-dominant perspective, and yes, I am making an effort to be culturally acceptable here, but another big part of Dominican culture is that people help each other out all the time. So getting along in this culture, for me, means learning to accept help when it is offered, rather than always trying to be super independent by doing everything myself. Maria Elena is a beautiful example of a powerful and independent woman who often accepts offers of help. I have a lot to learn from her. I guess being a strong woman is not just about digging and building after all.

the spontaneous and evolving design

Recently my fiancée, Dan, sent me this summary (in his own words) of a reading he had done for a class that went  to design infrastucture for slums outside of Lima Peru – offered through his Landscape Architecture grad program at University of Washington in Seattle.

“community participatory design can be used as a means of gathering information for a designer to then make their "expert" design, or (the better option), it can be used as a means and an ends at once, by empowering the community by seeking their skills, not just their knowledge.  By seeking their skills, that means identifying what things people in the community are good at, what things they have a drive to accomplish, and thereby making a project that empowers the community through the very act of engaging their participation, instead of using participation as an information gathering tool for the designer.  Its also implies that the most relevant and potentially successful projects are the ones that ‘want’ to happen anyway, and the designer/ facilitator just facilitates.” 

As time passes, and I try to contemplate my design process, I’m realizing that there is very little design whatsoever involved in the way Dominicans do things. I’ve experienced dozens of examples of this, so I will try to relay just a few. On my second day here, I was invited to go to choir practice at the church in the center of town by Catarina, the 19-year-old secretary at the hogar. There was no written music, nor a music director. There was a kid (Catarina’s brother) who played guitar and seemed the most musically inclined of the group, and there were two young guys that would take turns playing simple rhythms on the drumset. All the songs were memorized and if there was a dispute among the group about how the song went, they would take turns listening to the song on someone’s cell phone. There was one song that was really dissonant, and they kept trying to fix it by singing it over and over again. It got a little better, but there was one guy who was consistently flat and I didn’t want to be the one to tell him, since I was just watching, so it never really got resolved.

Another example of the lack of design, or maybe I should call it spontaneity, is the way we were going to build the tool shed – using the existing structure and building off of it. No design plans, no permission, we were just going to throw it together on the spot from whatever material was cheapest. And that’s how a lot of stuff gets built here, including our newest projects – the compost pile and the garden beds, but more on that later.

My first day here, in the car ride from the airport, we stopped at one of the sidewalk fruit vendors, who literally stack their plantains, bananas and yams in large piles right on the sidewalk. I told Madrina, “In the US we don’t do this,” and Maria Elena commented, “Yes, they just put themselves wherever they want. Here there are no rules.”

Yet another example: It was a few days ago when I saw the first garbage truck since my arrival. They stopped outside the hogar’s gate and two guys actually came inside the gate, and asked for the garbage. Mami, the cook showed them where it was and they waited while she collected the remaining trash from inside the house. Maria Elena told me that the garbage guys just come whenever they want so you can’t count on them coming every week. I asked her why they come all the way up to the house and she said they can’t leave it on the sidewalk because the dogs will go through it and throw it everywhere. So the process of collecting trash here becomes more personal, but much less organized. One can’t depend on having their trash picked up with any regularity.

I feel I am learning to use the spontaneity of the Dominican culture as part of a collaborative design process. I haven’t made one drawing or map of how I want the garden to look, and to be honest, I don’t even have a picture of what it will look like in my head. Seeking people’s skills here inevitably means being flexible enough to have an evolving design, and that works well for me because I’m not the kind of person that can envision everything before any work has been started. I am inspired and fed by the work we have already done, which gives me yet more ideas. I just have to be watching our worker, William, to make sure he doesn’t do anything crazy, but so far everything looks great. There is no doubt that this project “wants” to happen. Yesterday I found the girls outside collecting fallen leaves to compost and watering the beds we planted all on their own accord. 

time and heat

It’s been a week since I arrived in Santo Domingo, and I’m surprised by how much we’ve done. Time feels totally different here – more stretched out and elastic, like taffy – and I’m not sure if it’s being new to the culture again or the spontaneity with which things happen here, or both. My first two days here were spent totally stunned that I had decided to spend almost 3 whole months here. From arriving at the airport to riding through La Victoria to arriving at the hogar, everything was familiar yet new all over again. The road from the airport in Santo Domingo to La Victoria is still filled with crazy drivers, smog, fruit vendors and trash. There were notably more palm trees along the road and throughout the city. Maria Elena pointed to all the green saying, “It’s prettier now.” The town of La Victoria is most well known around here for it’s jail, which resides just outside the town, and is a lot more run down looking than I remember it. The town itself consists of many small, brightly colored shops and houses clustered tightly around a central park and a 70s-esque catholic church. There are only two types of houses here – those made with cement blocks and those made of wood slats, the latter of which always seem to be leaning slightly to one side. The streets are bustling with people, vendors, dirt bikes and people sitting in plastic chairs outside their houses just watching everyone walk by. My favorite is the occasional “chiquita banana” woman walking by with a tub full of fruit on her head. Basically everyone is black. Even riding in the back of Maria Elena’s brother’s car, people noticed me right away. Right away a couple of guys who saw me through the open window started shouting, “My visa! My visa!” So that’s why men are always hissing and kissing and catcalling at me here… I like that they were so straightforward about it.

The girls are all much bigger now (it’s been almost 6 years), and I even mistook one girl for her older sister, who was about that size the last time I saw her. The heat here is incredible. The two times I’ve been here before it was winter, when the heat finally lets up a little for a couple of months. Sweating through two entire outfits a day is a new experience for me altogether. Thankfully the new house is much more comfortable than the old one, with ceiling fans in almost every room. It’s big too. There are two separate bedrooms for the girls, which are both huge – one for the chiquitas (the little ones) and one for the grandes (the big girls). They sleep in bunk beds up against the walls, leaving a big open space in the middle and on one wall they each have their own little closet. Connected to each bedroom is a bathroom with various showers and toilets. My room is in the front of the house near Maria Elena’s room, and the two of us share a nice bathroom. I’m really impressed with the new house. It’s bigger and nicer than I imagined it. It’s all concrete and painted pale yellow. All the bedrooms, bathrooms and the office have sliding glass windows, which is really rare around here. All the floors are made of tile and they are mopped at least once a day so I have to tread carefully now because I’ve almost slipped several times, and there’s nothing soft about that landing. I found out recently that it was the Japanese embassy that gave them the house. In the kitchen there are glasses that say Japan on one side and Coca-Cola on the other.

“Madrina” means Godmother and it is the girls’ name for Maria Elena, so I’ve taken to calling her that too. (Some of the girls who came to the hogar when they were really little, as young as 6 months, call her “Mami”.) Madrina and I got to work right away planning the garden, and things were moving a little too fast at first…  I told Madrina that if we are going to buy tools we are going to need a place to store them safely. There is another little house – a gazebo really, but house-shaped – behind the big house that is a great space for the girls to play (also where I do yoga in the mornings). There is a little space behind the little house, between it and the chain link fence that surrounds the entire property. So we started looking back there as a possible space to build a tool shed. Before I knew it Maria Elena had a guy over to look at the space and give an estimate. If we made it out of cement blocks it would have been 20,000 pesos, or 575 dollars, which is way too much, and Maria Elena had her brother come over with another guy to look at the space. He said that with iron bars and sheets of wavy metal (the same stuff everyone here uses for roofing and fencing) he could build it for 13,000 pesos, around 375 dollars. So we basically said ok and said we would meet him (and his beat up truck) at the store where they sell the metal later that day.

All of this was moving faster than I wanted. My plan originally was that I was going to build it with the girls, and that we would use sustainable building techniques. After the first guy came I had tried explaining to Maria Elena that there are other ways of building that could end up being a lot cheaper – like the earthship method of using cans and bottles as “bricks” and connecting them with cement. Many houses have been built this way successfully and still Maria Elena somehow did not believe me. She kept telling me that there are strong winds here during hurricane season and that anything that is not built well will fall down. She wondered too, where we would get the cans and bottles because the glass ones people bring back to the store, and all the others, according to her, people collected early in the morning after big nights of drinking to earn a little money. On our way to meet the metal man, I looked out the car window at all the piles of trash by the side of the road. By the time we got to the supermarket, where I was going to take money out of the atm, I figured I had seen enough bottles to construct a full size house. I pointed it out to Maria Elena, feeling a little embarrassed about how persistent I was being but not letting that stop me. She said, “Si, Margot, but there are bacteria in there. Very dirty.” (All this is in Spanish by the way, which I’m doing my best to translate.) There it was. The real reason people aren’t open to using trash to build is because trash is actually really gross here and nobody wants to touch it. It’s a big problem. Maria Elena says, “este es el pais mas basurero que hay” which basically translates to “this is the biggest trash-can of a country that there is”, based purely on statistical information, obviously, but it’s basically true.

When we were on our way to the metal man from the supermarket, I finally spoke up about my hesitance to move forward so quickly on constructing a slapped together tool shed for 400 bucks. Then Maria Elena and Neco, her brother, and I put our heads together and decided then and there that the tool shed really isn’t necessary at all right now. We need to focus on the garden – and yes, we will need some tools, but for now we can store them in the little house on a shelf above the bathroom where they store the hoola hoops. I had my doubts about the shed the whole time and the relief I suddenly felt was another sign that this was not a good way to start the garden project. I had originally planned to make a shed before getting tools because I wasn’t sure if there would be a place to store them safely, but now that I’m here it’s clear that the shed is the least important part of the project, and that we just need to start the garden. We drove by the place where they sell the metal and gave the metal man some pesos for his time and told him we would let him know what our plans are later. And then we went to buy tools. We bought a wheelbarrow, a shovel and a rake.

sweet sweet oxygen

written on Sept 26, 2011

Before heading down to the Dominican Republic, I took a week to join my fiancée, Dan, and his family for Dan’s Brother’s wedding near Lancaster (pronounced Lingcuster), South Carolina. It was good times all around, and I took advantage of that seeing as it was my last time to see Dan for a few months, not to mention getting to know his family better before marrying the guy. We danced so much at that wedding that I practically wore away the soles of my dancin’ shoes! (Southern accents, by the way, are very addictive – we all found ourselves at one point or another putting a little different eamphasis on our seallables, if you know what I mean.) So today was the day I was supposed to arrive in Santo Domingo. Actually, I would have been there by now…

I figured the trip to South Carolina was somewhat on the way to the DR (my shorthand for the Dominican Republic) from Massachusetts so it made sense to fly to Santo Domingo from there. Well, ironically (as I think is often the case) the cheapest flight to Santo Domingo from Charlotte, NC went back up north to a connecting flight at New York’s JFK.  It was on that flight, back nearly to where I started from, that my plans went awry.

About an hour after takeoff, I started to feel unusually light-headed and a little queasy. As soon as I was able to think to myself the words, “I don’t feel so good” there was a loud “BANG” and a hundred yellow oxygen masks bounced down out of the ceiling simultaneously. We all looked at each other like “seriously?” and for a minute, not one of us stunned passengers did anything. The flight attendant came on the loudspeaker, “Get on oxygen! Stay on oxygen!” And that was it, no explanation, no “ladies and gentlemen,” no reassurance that everything was going to be OK. Nervously, I pulled the mask down, unraveling the clear plastic tube and held the rubbery yellow cup over my nose and mouth, too frantic even to remember the strap that goes over your head and tightens just like in the safety demonstrations. I took a breath in and ahhhh, sweet sweet oxygen. The light-headed feeling disappeared immediately, but I thought my heart might jump right out of my chest it was beating so hard. My fingers went numb and I began to look around. It was like we were all frozen in time – all I could see were frightened eyes darting every which way and all I could hear was the overwhelming cacophony of Darth Vader breathing. I looked out that tiny oval window, down through the wispy clouds and to the green landscape below. “I might die today,” I said to myself. The plane was flying steadily, but I couldn’t help imagining the worst: the plane losing control and succumbing to gravity, free falling straight into the earth at a million miles an hour. I wondered what my funeral would look like. I wondered how much oxygen was actually in that plane. Would there be enough? Would we all be starved to death of air? After what seemed like eternity – in reality probably 10 minutes or less – the captain came on telling us that we had descended from 35,000 ft (!) down to 10,000 and that we should be able to breathe without the masks. He said we would make an emergency landing in Richmond, VA in 15 minutes. The landing was successful and everyone applauded. The flight attendant – a young black male – came on the loud speaker saying, “I had nothing to do with the landing but thank you for the applause. Now none of you will not pay attention to the safety instructions EVER AGAIN!” We all laughed, which eased some of the tension.

The entire contents of that plane ended up waiting in Richmond for almost 6 hours while they flew down an extra plane from Boston, and as compensation for almost dying, they bought us all pizza. By the time it was delivered and made it through security the 4 foot tall stack of dominoes boxes was lukewarm. My two slices were, needless to say, mediocre, though somehow comforting. It never was fully explained to us what happened up there. They think something was wrong with the devise that circulates the air in the plane and that’s how the cabin lost pressure. I think we flew too high. It didn’t matter really, I was just glad to have my two feet on the ground again. The airline employees at Richmond worked all day to make sure everyone’s different needs were met and that everyone’s connecting flights were rescheduled. I could only imagine what a complete nightmare this whole situation must have been for them and here were other customers complaining about the wait! I wanted to scream in their faces: “look, it is a complete miracle that we can fly at all and that we made it here safely today!” but I didn’t do it, instead I made sure to thank the employees and make my interactions with them brief so that they could get on with their work. They booked me an evening flight to Orlando, Florida and a hotel room, then a flight tomorrow at noon to Santo Domingo.

The Orlando airport is just as extravagantly theme-parkish as all its other “world class attractions” (as they announced just before exiting the plane). I have a room in the Regency Hyatt hotel, which shares the same palm tree filled and water spewing indoor courtyard as the airport’s security checkpoints. From the balcony of my extra fancy hotel room I can see people lugging their luggage and being interrogated for weapons and liquids. I have just returned from dinner at the fancier of the two restaurants that are within the hotel that is within the airport (I wouldn’t have been surprised if there had been a waterslide within the restaurant). Hungry and tired, I decided to take my $12 dinner voucher from the airline and put it toward a nice salad (veggies at last!) and a glass of wine. It’s one of those restaurants where you have to dress up and they only call you by your last name, “Miss Wise, would you like some fresh ground pepper on that?” Despite the stiff atmosphere of the place, I quickly made friends with the Puerto Rican waiter named Ruben. I think he could tell right away that he didn’t have to be fancy with me (maybe it was my blue jeans?). The place was nearly empty and whenever he came over he would end up standing there, sharing stories and thoughts and asking me all about myself. Before I knew it we were talking about marriage and God and our business ideas. He’s thinking of starting a little food truck. Every time he goes out to eat he thinks, “I could make this better at home.” So he wants to share his quality cooking with others and make a modest living while he’s at it. He knows the secret to business, which is to start small, doing what you love and not worrying about money. “The money will follow,” he said. “The most important is what one gives,” he went on. “I know that God is watching me all the time, and that if I see my friend in his car broken down by the side of the road, I cannot just drive by and pretend I don’t see him. I have to stop and help.” Ruben reminds me of the aspects of Latino culture that have always drawn me back to it; the way people just open up and tell you their whole life story and their deepest core beliefs; the way their (often strict) catholicism doesn’t get in the way of a broader, more universal feeling of spirituality and morality. After talking to Ruben for a while I felt confident about what I am heading into and prepared to get to work right away.

  

In the moments that I was left alone to eat at that very classy restaurant I had another revelation – about the responsibility of feeding oneself. I was eating very slowly (which normally is difficult for me, being the serious food enthusiast that I am) because flying in airplanes makes my stomach more sensitive (especially after today’s first flight!). I was careful to check in with my gut after almost every bite, to make sure I wanted more and to ask what it was that my body needed to eat. After eating only bread and pizza the entire day the vegetables were soothing. I was treating myself so unusually well that I had this thought: when a mother is in charge of feeding a child, she is responsible for making sure that child’s diet is balanced, and that he/she eats enough but not too much. How often do we humans give ourselves the same consideration? Once it is no longer our mothers who are feeding us, we are in fact responsible for feeding ourselves. It’s a big responsibility – reading one’s own needs and properly fulfilling them - and one that’s often forgotten and overlooked. How can we expect to read into exactly what our kids need and make sure they get it if we ourselves are depleted? It’s like they always tell you in the safety demos – secure your own mask before assisting others.

Flying to Santo Domingo!

I think some people were confused about my last post because of the photograph. To clarify, I am not in the DR yet; the hogar had emailed me some pictures of the land at my request, and I was so thrilled with the papayas that I had to post that photo. But I will be there in a few hours! I am sitting outside my gate at the Orlando international airport waiting to board my flight to Santo Domingo. I am sitting beside a number of Dominicans speaking their fast and bubbly caribbean Spanish. I don't understand every word the way I used to, and I'm realizing that my first few days there will be spent feeling lost and then regaining confidence in my Spanish. The reason I am in Orlando right now is ridiculous and funny and scary. More on this to come... 

Papayas!

Since moving in, the hogar has  already planted a few things, like this papaya tree, which is doing tremendously! Clearly the soil is quite fertile, and there is enough moisture. And, as you can see the ground around it is pretty bare and ready for planting! Hooray for things that grow!

Money Talk

Good new! Last week I went to the church I grew up attending, the First Congregational Church in Stockbridge, MA, to present my Dominican Republic project and ask for a donation of $1000. I just found out that the proposal was approved, and they are granting the full $1000 to this project! I created a separate bank account for donations that I will be able to access while I’m in the DR, so if anyone reading this feels compelled to make a contribution, email me: margwise@gmail.com for further instructions. Below I’ve posted the budget and timeline I presented to the church. As you can well imagine, there is need for more than just the $1000 I’ve outlined here. Typically the hogar (as I will call it for short) has around 20 girls at any given time. Now there are 16 because there is not enough money to pay for additional women (besides Marielena) to help. There are about 5 girls Marielena is wants to take in, and if she can find steady funding (monthly donations for each girl) however small, she will be able to give them a good home. The hogar has a chainlink fence surrounding it, so they feel relatively safe, but Marielena wants to have a concrete wall built around the property for increased security and privacy. She told me it’s very expensive to build the wall. I think they should build it earthship style out of old bottles and cans held together with cement (or some binder) because it would be significantly cheaper and there is a big trash problem there. In addition, I was informed by the mother of a girl who was doing peacecorp at the hogar that they are missing simple kitchen tools, like a can-opener, and they are using knives to open cans and breaking all their knives. (hopefully in the future they won’t have to eat food from cans because they will be able to pick fresh veggies from the garden!). And, of course, the garden project itself will be more prolific the more startup we have to work with. I do not mean to induce pity by all this. Marielena is very clear that she doesn’t want people to give money because they are taking pity on the girls. She has them bathe and dress nicely for every occasion. (The girls are all ages, ranging from 3-18). I have a deep respect for Marielena and the incredible vision she has dedicated her life to.  I want only to support her in her existing methodology for running the hogar. So, while I’m not trying to get readers to take pity on the girls, the reality is that they still have needs and they could use additional funding in a multitude of productive and heart-warming ways. The benefit to giving now, while I’m doing this garden project, is that you will be able to follow the blog and see exactly how your money is being put to good use. So, below is the budget I created for the church. Read it with the understanding that more money than the allotted amount would not only be welcomed by the hogar and this project but will also contribute to the vitality of  the inspiring and influential young women the girls have every potential to be.

Budget: USD$1000

• Compost Construction - $100 ($50 for materials, $50 for possibly renting drill and saw, but we will try to borrow first)
• Tool Shed Construction - $200 (We will look into “low impact” building options – cob, earthship style construction, bamboo, etc, and decide what’s best for the site. Materials should be cheap, so part of the money will go to paying a local professional for advice and/or building help).
• Garden Tools - $500 total, breakdown of estimated costs below (based on Home Depot prices)

Ø    Wheelbarrow - $100

Ø    Shovels (2) - $60

Ø    Rakes (2) - $20

Ø    Hoes (2) - $50

Ø    Pitch Fork - $25

Ø    Trowels (3) - $30

Ø    Hand Cultivator - $20

Ø    Loppers - $25

Ø    Clippers (2) - $50

Ø    Machete - $25

Ø    Pruning Saw - $30

Ø    Gloves (10 pairs) - $50

Ø    Tomato stakes, twine etc. - $15 

•   Seeds and Seedlings - $200 (~$150 for fruit trees and perennials, ~$50 for annual vegetable seeds)

Timeline:

Week 1 Sept 26	Get settled, discuss plans with community, choose site for compost	Week 7 Nov 7	Buy plants and seeds
Week 2 Oct 3	Build compost bin and start making compost!	Week 8 Nov 14	Prepare the earth, begin planting and sowing
Week 3 Oct 10	Make plans for building tool shed	Week 9 Nov 21	Keep things watered
Week 4 Oct 17	Build tool shed	Week 10 Nov 28	Watch things grow
Week 5 Oct 24	Finish tool shed and buy tools!	Week 11 Dec 5	Weed, turn compost
Week 6 Oct 31	Create a map of the site and start planning a garden design	Week 12 Dec 12	Harvest? Teach harvesting Celebrate!

Dominican Republic Girls' Garden Project

Dominican Republic Girls' Garden Project

Marielena Sentola Beltran started the Hogar de Niñas MADELAES (Mary of Hope Girl’s Home) in a small village outside of Santo Domingo 15 years ago. Having come from a family of 14 siblings, she was responding to the overwhelming pattern of poverty and child abandonment she observed in her community. In starting the Hogar, Marielena hoped to change that pattern for each of the girls raised in her home by giving them education, discipline, food, shelter, clothing and plenty of love. When I first visited the Hogar in 2006, it became immediately obvious that her work had paid off when all 20 girls came running up to hug me in celebration of my arrival.

Since my first and second visits, Marielena and the girls were gifted their own house (they had previously been renting) by Japanese philanthropists. The house has the capacity for up to 30 girls and has about an acre of arable land. Despite this incredible gift, the home currently houses only 16 girls because of funding deficit and remains dependent on donations (governmental and private) for food.

Every time I call, Marielena says, “When are you coming back?” and I was proud and excited this spring to finally tell her that I had found the time and money to make a longer, more meaningful visit. After studying sustainable agriculture at UMass and working on several organic vegetable farms, I feel confident in my ability to lead a garden project, but I envision the scope of the project going beyond food security. The disempowerment of women by the masculine-dominated latino culture is one of the root causes of the pattern of child abandonment. In order to fully support Marielena’s vision for the Hogar, I want to contribute to the empowerment of the girls by engaging them in the process of creating and maintaining the gardens. I will be there September 26 - December 15, 2011.

Methodology

    * Create garden infrastructure before planting – systems that are easy to maintain (compost pile, tool shed etc.).

    * Cultivate enthusiasm, effort and a sense of ownership from the community itself so that the garden will sustain itself without dependence on outside help.

    * Encourage the girls’ literal self-nurturing created by growing the food they eat to translate into inner feelings of self-nurturance and self-empowerment.

    * Encourage self-awareness that reaches beyond cultural ideas of a woman’s place in society.  Support the discovery of a more internal concept of one’s own femininity through work in the garden.