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.