Does anyone feel the same way??????

[Fred]

Response to Jane.J

I was there last year in May with my Dominican wife. Changed alot, I liked it better when there were less tourists.

Chistine now I think owns a hotel in El Batey, I went to see her, she seemed really sad, did not return my calls. I guess the memory of her dead son and Nazario took a big toll on her.

By the way, I know how it is to live without much, but I prefer to live here, for the simple reason that I cannot pursue my educational goals in the DR.

Futhermore, by staying only there, I am missing out on other coutries.

 

[Meredith]

HB......

Pooerer than poor barrio of Santo Domingo? Okay. Anyways, I have always had mosquito nets on previous stays! I hate the mosquitos and I know that they are needed. Just this time, I didn't and I had no way to obtain them. That's all.... I knew what I was doing and I guess payed for the effects of my love for a place. I just did my best with what I had for the time being.
My group provided me with a great orientation the first time I went down, but that time I went down on my own, through my own contacts there.
Going native is for the natives???? Can you explain this idea in more detail.... I'm kinda curious......

 

[Criss Colon]

"Going Native is for the Natives"

Meredith,Just because the people in the Barrio you visit drink water from tube ,doesn,t mean you should! They are used to the "microbes",you are not! Just because they are covered with mosquito bites,doesn,t mean you should be too!I "been" Native! I ate the food,drank the beer,danced the "Bachata",went without lights,water,cable TV,telephone! But that doesn,t mean I should have. Being a "Martyr" is not necessary to enjoy the "Dominican Experience"Criss Colon

 

[Meredith]

I wasn't saying that it has to be. AAaaahhh........ I never drank the water from the well, I drank bottled. I didn't want to get covered in mosquito bites, I wore mosquito repellent, and used mosquito nets, almost the whole time, they just like my blood. I'm no martyr and I know that it isn't necessary to enjoy the "Dominican Experience". I have friends that go to resorts and have the time of their life their. It just depends on your interests. Don't get the wrong idea of me here.

 

[Hillbilly]

Meridith: Never had the wrong impression. Just worried that your organization had set you out to do your work without proper training. Glad to see that your mistakes were yours, not theirs, but still sorry that you had to undergo the continual attacks by the DR "air force"....

As for going native, I guess that I feel that as citizens of more educated cultures-to call it something, not putting down the DR- we should be teaching hygiene, emphasizing education, and trying to spread information that is available to educated Dominicans to those that cannot understand it. In other words, trying to help the poorest of the poor get out from under the onus of being poor, because they are poor-as Oscar Lewis would say.

Just happy you survived and with no deep scars...
HB

PS. We always say that the DR mosquitos like "new meat" when we see folks all eaten up...

 

[Meredith]

Hillbilly....

Ha, ha, i like that "air force"! Cute. I totally agree with you about how the educated culture should teach about hygiene, education, etc... I worked with some very intelligent Dominicans and taught about birth control, Aids, diseases, nutrition, sanitation, popular education and ran english classes. Education is the key to change and to the elimination of unjustices. I also worked with CIAC. Do you know of this organization? It is great.
"The individuals I met and lived with may be poor in material ways, but RICH in SPIRIT".

 

[Onions&carrots]

To be born poor in the DR is better not to be born

Fred has it all right. The lower classes suffer the worst hardships. Its comparable to those scenes of poverty from Africa. If I would have been born in a batey I probably would have committed SUICIDE.

Even the basic amenities is a struggle. Imagine having to eat hard platanos every day. Yes you are one of the lucky ones if you can eat those hard green platanos daily.

The filthy sewage drainig by the side of the road. The scorching heat that drains them. Badly dressed, and badly fed with no hope.

Its no small wonder that young girls end up with viejos or as prostitutes abroad just to better their subsistence living.

Yes I am Dominican and I thank God Almighty I never had to live like that.

 

[Jane J.]

To be born poor in the DR is better not to be born...

I don't want to go all *Christian* on you, O&C, but that's a terrible thing to say! If you had been born poor you wouldn't have committed suicide because you wouldn't have known the difference, and because it goes against our human instinct. We are programmed to fight for survival, to fight against the elements that bring us down, not help them along.

If you believe in God, then you have to believe that there is some greater plan than this for those people. Personally, I can't believe that God rewards only those with money and the good fortune *not* to be born into poverty.

 

[Onions&carrots]

It easy for you to say that

cuz you are writing this from your cozy AC room.Believe me I see it all the time when poorer Dominicans tell me how lucky I am. They all dream about coming to the USA. They don't care if they die in the Mona passage.

Do you know how dangerous that trek is? Shark infested waters with 15 ft. waves from which 80 out of 100 DR folk drown. They are eaten alive as sharks tear their limbs apart in the open seas.

Poverty is a curse that I am happy to have never experienced. Yet I can empathize with them. Crazy Americans who have been comfortable all their lives think its a novelty to live in a batey. Even the homeless in America are well-off when compared to my poor countrymen.

I stand by what I say. To be born poor in the DR is like being born in Alcatraz- island prison. On the other hand if you have means the DR is an island paradise.

 

[Golo100]

The big question

I have tried to analyze poverty Dominican -style and it is still a puzzle and mystery to me why do we have poor people in DR.

This is a land that offers resources for everyone to exploit. But few do. One of our best resources is education. Why don't poor people concentrate on education. Why can't our elementary and high school students read and write their own language?

Obviously, somewhere along the line, their parents made the mistake of creating large families they could not support. They lived for survival, with no specific strategic plans for their lives. They never looked at a budget. They just procreated for its own sake, not visualizing the consequences. The whole thing turned into a vicious circle. Today we have the same thing. Youth without aspirations to become somebody.

The dream of taking a boat to Canal de La Mona, playing la Loteria Nacional, or visiting a Juancito Sport betting parlor is a depressing picture. Juancito Sport is even glorified by our leaders as a true entrepeneur and the kind of example we should all follow. He is even running for office. Poor Dominicans admire pool players, betting parlor and colmado owners. Our newspapers have glorified concho drivers and motoconcho drivers as the spirit of our entrepeneurial people who come from the bottom.

What a joke! Unless we change, and our students begin to visit libraries and awaken their curiosity for geography, world history, science, literature and the arts, we are destined to continue this poverty spiral. We continue to sponsor sugar cane and orange juice street vendors, who add to our city's ecological disaster, instead of buying juice from a formal tax-paying business that will promote formal employment, training and education.

We allow people to talk loud in the streets. We let them blow their car horns everywhere. We even allow our visitors to do it without admonishing them for their obnoxious behavior. We just never learn. How can we make progress as a nation with the poor adding to our country's malaise.

If you are poor in DR you created this yourself. I do not feel sorry for poor people here. They also continue to elect thieves to public office. They deserve what they get.

TW

 

[Fred]

Right On

One of the reasons that poor do not concentrate on education is that they want the "Cell Phone" and all the goodies that a resource full person as yourself has.

How many of these families know their fathers? People always see the end result, not how hard you worked to get there.

 

[LazyGirl]

After 5 years of putting off my visit to The DR, I bought my ticket and went down there. I just got back 2 days ago and can't wait to get back. I've never missed it this much, I never missed it at all, I guess 'cause I was young and very spoiled. Although I was only there for 2 weeks, and experienced the young hip upper class lifestyle as well as what the poor has to go through to survive, and the racism there, I want to move down there. I went to a few cafe's, bars, clubs (all upper class) and I saw how they turned people away, one of them because the guy had sneakers on -which I understand- but the others for no reason at all -they told the people that they had private parties going on, and on others they just said that the place was overcrowded, which was all a lie because they let everyone after get in. I asked my cousin why they did this and he told me that it was either because they were dark skin or because they just didn't look as if they come from that social circle.

I have to agree with what some people have said about the poor, it's hard to be poor, or to even be looked as lower class in The DR, door closed in your face, no opportunities, no chance to better oneself, it's a cycle that for a long, long time will not be broken unless everyone changes their attitude. If these people were turned away from bars and clubs because of the reasons above, I imagine how they are treated when they go for job interviews, when they go shopping, or just walking down the street in a neighborhood where they "don't belong".

 

[suarezn]

View from the bottom...

Having been born in, what I now understand to be extreme poverty, I feel I can speak with authority about this. You must understand that when you're that poor your instincts take over. Your first priority is to survive - at all cost. Meaning get food and shelter. Education andother things are not the first priority, when you live under such conditions. It becomes a cycle. The less educated you are the more kids you're bound to have, which in turn makes it harder to support and educate such large family, etc...I know tons of families, whose kids couldn't go to school because they had to work to supplement the family's income. I'm the exception. My grandpa - who's illiterate - never wanted me to work in the fields, because he wanted me to have a better life. So I concentrated in getting my education. Poverty is a state of mind, which can only be changed through education.
On the other hand poverty is not an excuse for certain things, such as throwing grabage on the streets, being loud, or not getting an education...The best example I have is my grandpa, whom, even though illiterate is a very well mannered person and very respected in the community.
Even though our schools are not the greatest, there are many ways to get an education in the DR. You can attend school in the morning, afternoon, nights, or just weekends. There are distance learning programs (i.e Radio Santamaria), so there's no excuse. I had to walk about five kilometers to go to school, and that didn't deter me from attending, but then again I'm probably the exception.
I really think the government needs to make people comply with the law, that makes it illegal to not send your kids to school until the age of fourteen. This would go a long way to make sure future generations are educated and don't make the same mistakes as their parents.
As a footnote, let me tell you that my great, great grandpa was a very rich, but uneducated man. He had 57 kids...No that's not a misprint. So when he died his fortune got divided up amongst these 57 uneducated kids, who wasted no time selling the land they got (for next to nothing) and spending the money on booze and women. Three or four generations later we are all poor. So it's up to my and future generations of my family to gain that fortune back, and make sure it doesn't get wasted.

 

[Meredith]

If you see a child in the street, say 5 years of age, do you blame them for their poverty? That they brought it upon themselves? That they could have prevented themselves from being poor?
Would you want to help this child escape from their poverty?
If you see an individual in the street who is 21 years old, do you blame them for their poverty? That they brought it upon themselves? That they could have presented themselves from being poor?
When exactly does a child no longer become a child anymore? When does the category of sympathy for one change to disgrace and disgust? This may be the same child. I don't understand, when this perception changes? Are they not the same person?

 

[MommC]

Child vs Adult

A child has no control over his/her conditions or very little control. However an adult chooses to be poor or chooses to overcome that poverty. While it may not be easy it can be done. There are hundreds of thousands of examples. However if one chooses the easy road then they will remain poor.
For example.....about 8 yrs ago I decided to employ a "housekeeper" or cleaning lady for personal reasons. When she first started working for me she had a part-time cleaning position ( some weekends only). She also had three children to support. She did have a "casa di madera" in a poor barrio of San Pedro. Today she works for three families in this complex (one is here year round the other two only for 3-6 mths/year) Her casa di madera is now all block construction. Her oldest daughter attended a private collegio for business studies after finishing public school, is now married and owns a mini-mercado in San Pedro. The next oldest is studying to be a teacher and works as a professora's assistant. The youngest(almost 11) attends a private school and goes on weekends to a private "English" school to learn English.
She didn't choose to be poor. She did choose to do something about it and to educate her children so they would not be poor but would in turn improve their lot in life.
I admire this woman greatly....perhaps because in her I see a mirror image of myself. I was not born poor - just lower middle class. I did not have to pay for my education until after high school as she papys for her children to have a good education, however I also was not satisfied with my lot in life and did something about it. As the saying goes -"Where there's a will , There's a way!"

 

[Meredith]

MommC....

Touching story.... I agree with you if there's a will, there's a way. Poverty is not an excuse for striving to be your best. Just the topic of education, those who are poor have to work at a young age for their family to survive, as well as go to school. Golo, what youth do you know that do not want an education? I am friends with much youth, as I am one, and they all are trying hard to get an education. In Consuelo, all of my friends are going to university in San Pedro or Santo Domingo, or are striving their hardest to complete high school and move on. In the batey, the individuals there are always studying and practicing their reading, math, science, english etc, studies. Access is not always available to them, they have to walk 2 hours to school. This is absurd. If they don't have shoes or a proper uniform, then they can't go? Another barrier! You have to pay a fee even at most of the lower class schools (grade 7 to 8 and on) If you can't afford it well, there's another barrier. One must work, to gain enough money to support there education. Who says they don't have aspirations? I know so many children that are trying so hard to escape and educate themselves! If they are not given the opportunites and access to these resources, how will they be able to educate themselves and escape their poverty? If nobody cares to give them a chance, then the cycle will just continue.

 

[Fred]

Being Poor

Kirk Douglas once said in an interview, when asked about his son Michael said My son had a disadvantage growing up, "He wasnt born poor"

 

[mondongo]

meredith

I don't recall how old you are (<22 ?). But for a young woman, you have a very clear and cogent thought process. If I may, I'd like to comment on your well-thought, well-written last 2 posts. Let me tell you my point of reference. Just like suarezn, i have been blessed to have experienced poverty both in the DR and in the USA. when you look back at a lot of the friends I had in middle and high school, most of them never made it. most are back where they came from. who's fault is it?

thats a great question you ask. But lets answer that with another question: if each "adult" were to ask him/herself at what age they "figured it all out", what would the average age be? most people dont really know what life is all about till their 30's or even later.

If we assume that a poor 5 year old is not responsible for his poverty...then should we expect a 13 year old to figure it all out?....go to his entire circle of friends and say "Ok, fellas. All of you are screwd up. For the next 9 years, i'm going to have no friends, be by myself, endure your ridicule, and have to work harder than my peers just to catch up".

How appealing would that sound to your average poor kid engulfed in a viscious circle of poverty and violence?

what about the same 13 year old facing his mom and her mom's boyfriend..."Mom. I dont approve of you doing drugs. Please dont spend our welfare check on liquor and lottery tickets. Where am I going to get the money to build my van de Graaf generator for my science class?"

Breaking through the psychological barriers of poverty was more difficult than any class I took in college...any job i've had in private business...any individual i've had to face.

What people dont understand is that the percentage of poor people that can make this quantum leap is small. that is why we all know of "someone" who made....but we all know 100 times more who did not.

mondongo

 

[Meredith]

Mondongo....

Your kind words are encouraging. Thank you. You raise some very good points as well, especially from a perspective of someone that seems to have experienced so much, including "poverty". I agree with you, especially about the cycle of poverty, money and violence. I just don't understand how others don't feel the same way. I guess that explains why the so-called government is not doing anything "significant" to improve the lives of their poor and investing in the small percentage of rich in the D.R, instead of with the majority of the people.
I am a little reluctant to reveal my age as I do not want to be looked down upon because of it. I am 22.

 

[kingofdice]

re: DR gravational pull

Yes, after several visits, I too have found myself attached to the DR people and culture. And without fail, each trip makes me realize how good we have it in the U.S. A.