So
here I am…with about 9 days left in the DR and not having written in my blog in
about a straight month. Oops. Not gonna lie…I think I knew that would happen J
I
guess now would be a good time to reflect a bit on the experiences I’ve had
here. Since my last few blogs haven’t been very upbeat, I’m first gonna share
an experience with you all that was one of the most random moments of my
Dominican life: a Dominican pedicure.
As
many of you know, the only person I get pedicures with is my dearest Aunt
Jenny, and we like to go to the mall to get it done. Now, although it’s a hole
in my wallet, I do it because there ain’t nothing like spending personal time
with my aunt. Since being down here, I haven’t had the slightest desire to get
a pedicure, even though I’ve been suffering from what my mom would call
“crackwhore toenails,” I always tell myself that nobody should ever be paying
too much attention to my feet. Well, during Holy Week (which is really just a
week for everyone to travel to the beach and go crazy), some friends and I went
to Sosua, which is a nearby city with a lovely touristy beach. We stayed in
what I would consider a pretty fancy hotel, for a good price, of course. My
friend Yolandri had asked her host dad about renting hotel rooms in the DR. And
this is what he said to her: “It’s good to stay in a hotel, Yolandri…especially
that one. It’s safe. But don’t get a room on the first floor. If you hear something,
you run the hell out of there and you don’t look back!”
You
can only imagine what she was thinking at that point. Well, we got to the
hotel. It was beautiful and overlooking the beach, had a nice restaurant, and
even one of those weird European toilets that we didn’t know what to do with,
so we washed our feet in! Despite the fact that it was raining the whole time
we were there, we listened to a lot of bachata and made our own fun, looking
around the town, meeting Swiss and French people, and discovering that the fad
of old European men wearing speedos in public is, in fact, existent everywhere.
The
second day, we decided that since we couldn’t very well go to the beach to get
a tan, we might as well get a pedicure! In the DR you can get a pedicure for
$5, so we definitely wanted to take advantage of that. The hotel was offering
us pedicures at $20. That was a pretty quick “no.” So we started walking down
the street, saw a sign that said “nails” and we were all about it! We look in,
and who do we see but a big lady in a little dress saying, “HOW ARE YOU MIS
AMORES???” We had to go inside. This place was a little hole-in-the-wall room
complete with a coffee pot and inappropriate drawings on the wall. Just my
kinda place. She has us sit down in lawn chairs as she gets her things ready.
Putting our feet in large plastic salad bowls, she got water from the hose
outside and filled them halfway full. She then proceeded to wash out her coffee
pot and heat water in it, filling the other half of the salad bowls to make the
water nice and lukewarm. By this point I was having fun. Remembering that every
experience should be a story for later, which this one definitely was J
After
soaking our feet in half coffee/half hose water, she started doing our nails,
using a special cream from the United States, which was in fact hair
moisturizer. Yoli wasn’t with it, but I figured that both hair and nails are
similar particles, so hair cream should probably have the same effect on nails,
right? Who knows. She put our feet back in the water. I looked into my salad
bowl, seeing coffee grounds at the bottom and a false nail from long ago rising
to the top. I just smiled. Then she started to reveal her personality a bit,
telling us how the world was against her “friendship” with her boss and how we
all needed to be with men who were good men. She actually had some pretty good
advice, and of course she mentioned Jesus at a few points. That’s pretty normal
in just about every Dominican conversation.
Then
she brought out what looked like a dentist tool and worked on our nails with
it. It sure felt like a dentist tool. Then came my favorite part of the whole
experience. She gets out the little metal skin clipper. She says to Yolandri:
“Hand me the rubbing alcohol.” She motions to me: “Hand me the cotton swab.”
Homegirl takes a wets the cotton with the rubbing alcohol and lights up. The
flame was half a foot high. Wasn’t no thang. She did this between each of our
toes to sanitize the tools. Maybe a little more unconventional than what is
done in the states, but hey. At least it was clean! Then we got our nails
painted by a girl who came in later. She showed us pictures of her job at a
strip club, upside down on a stripper pole. At this point none of us really
knew what to say, so I say: “Que talento!” I asked her how long it took her to
dance like that. “A few months,” she said, smiling humbly. I smiled, too. “Good
for you,” I said.
At
the end, her boss who she had the “Amistad” with came by and invited us out to
go dancing at his club that night, which we chose not to do. After a while here
you learn that you can’t really trust every single person who invites you out
because of your blonde hair and blue eyes. Another thing I’ve learned is to
tell people that I live near Chicago when I tell them where I’m from, because
no one knows where in hell Iowa is on a map. People in the States don’t even
know that L
On
a serious note, I really can’t describe my time here in one single word,
sentence, or paragraph. I have seen so much and learned so much about the
Caribbean, the DR, and myself that I am so grateful to have had this semester
to develop as an individual and a citizen of the world. Here’s a few of the things
that I have learned:
1) I am a feminist.
Whereas before I always wondered whether I would consider myself to be one, now
I am completely convinced that I am. The fact that women and men are not given
equal positions in the world is something that I constantly find myself
fighting against here. Against machismo, against men controlling women. Against
men beating women and it being considered ok. Against sexual assault. Against
women being told exactly how they should dress and exactly how they need to act
and what their role is in life. It’s something I am conscious of every day…every
time someone tells me to straighten my hair, to wear a dress, to look sexy, to
smile back at men in the street, it’s all because there’s something expected of
women that I truly don’t agree with. I will leave my hair curly, I won’t wear
makeup, I’ll keep my jeans, thank you very much J
2) Learning English is important. While
many people consider teaching English abroad another form of imperialism, I beg
to differ. While I don’t agree with the fact that English is the dominant
language of the world and I think it’s sad that everyone has to adapt to it,
the fact of the matter is that as we become more of a global community, we are
developing a universal language, which happens to be my native tongue. For
this, I am extremely lucky. English brings people opportunities and can help
them understand better the world around them. In the Caribbean, a lot of
English is spoken, and those who don’t know English are at a true disadvantage
because it’s becoming a necessity within the DR and the world. Maybe it’s not
right that everyone should have to value English more than their own language,
but logically it makes sense to teach English so that we can promote equality
and equal opportunity for all.
3) I want to come back to the
Dominican Republic. For a while there, I was very
frustrated with this country. The constant God talk that I can’t participate
in, the machismo, the dress code. But sometimes that blinds me to how beautiful
the culture really is…the ethnic mix of Spanish, Taino and African, the food,
the importance of family, the slow pace of life. No culture is perfect and I
won’t ever fit in just perfectly anywhere I go. The question is: where can I
make the biggest difference? Where can I be the most useful? Over these months
I have gained a deep understanding of the social and economic issues of this
country, and I’ve seen so many people and organizations doing good work here
because they, too, believe in the country’s beauty and doing good things for
its people. I am one of those people. Whether or not I agree with how this
society works, I understand it. And that
makes me resourceful and useful. So guess what. I will be coming back. But this
time I’ll be coming back not simply to learn and observe and have fun, but to
have a positive impact and to make a difference. I hope that I can do this soon
in the future.
Well, that was a bit of laughter and an important
bit of reflection for ya. These last days, I am going to have fun, spend time
with my friends, and enjoy being here while I still can. And be back home to
Iowa before I know it J
