This is an old  Never Before Published! post that I wrote while I was in the Dominican Republic this past Fall and never posted … Enjoy!

(First, thank you to all of my lovely readers who have contacted me to demand more content, and in the process, complimented me on my writing. I do so enjoy entertaining you – hopefully you can look for my book in the next couple of years!)

I realized, as I directed someone to my blog today, that I have no posted in a long, long time.

I am a slacker, and I apologize.

Actually, I’m far from a slacker, I’m just not good with things that require extreme amounts of consistency.

Also, the past several weeks have been full of mini-vacations, preapring for and teaching classes, and most consumingly, finals for the other classes I oh-so-ambitiously took in addition to this internship. In other words, things have been insane. I have several stories worth writing that range from the adventures at the resort (oh, you can’t wait for those, trust me) to the last very moving and emotional class we had with the women.

In all reality, howver, I will not get to all of these in one post. So, alas, I must choose one to write about. It makes the most sense to start with the earliest, and so I will tell you about my time at La Gran Pricipe Resort.

Jill and I decided to take advantage of Thanksgiving week by visiting one of the very well-spoken of resorts on this island. Also, Jill’s boy friend, sister, and sister’s friend were flying in from the states and Switzerland, and Jill, of course, wanted to show them a good vacation time, and, for most people, good vacation time doesn’t usually involve the lack of electricity and running water 🙂 We got a ride Monday morning (the week of Thanksgiving) to the airport, where we picked up Jill’s amigos and a rental car. Since I am the only person with experience driving in this insane country, it was deemed that I was to drive the rental car two hours to the resort. We piled in (five people and luggage for all of us, plus all of my and Jill’s class supplies for the upcoming week) and barely fit, only adding to my own nerves about driving a very shiny (seemingly too small) Mitsubishi Lancer that wasn’t mine through a country where traffic laws are mere suggestions that most people choose to ignore.

On the drive to the resort (as my passengers marveled at the insanity that surrounded us), I was shocked to discover how open, beautiful, and different the country side was from the city that I had been experiencing. Things were quiet. There were farm animals everywhere. Things were … dare I say, quaint?

The drive was, thankfully, uneventful.

That’s a really good thing, considering how eventful things were about to become.

We were all excited about spending time at the resort – Jill and I especially. This was our big break during this trip – a week to do nothing but sip champagne and sit by the pool, to be interrupted only by scenic strolls on the beach.

Sounds amazing, right? It was! There were just a few more interruptions than anticipated …

We had gorgeous rooms with a gorgeous view – thanks to Jill’s travel agent connection – and the pool and beach were absolutely beautiful. I was ready to relax, but, instead of being interrupted only by walks on the beach, I was constantly interrupted by rowdy men looking to score. (yeah, I just used the word rowdy) They were pushy, insistent, and put way too much effort into trying to figure out my room number.

After too much champagne in the sun (damn, you, pool bar…) something possessed me to concede to a stroll on the beach with the activities director of the resort. He was tall, Haitian, and had a small gap in his front teeth that I actually found endearing – until he mashed them against my mouth trying to make out with me. There was a bar on the beach too, and being the classy guy he was, he “got” me a drink.  Considering that the drinks were free and he had to hide from his supervisor while guzzling the mess behind a palm tree, it may not have been as impressive as you think. Ok, let’s be real. It wasn’t. I should have turned around and marched myself back to the pool then, but like I said – Champagne. Sun. You know.

Newly invigorated by his smuggled beer, he took my hand and walked me further down the beach. It was very pretty – although he shouldn’t be given any credit for the environment. The white sand was studded with palm trees, grass umbrellas, and lounge chairs. It was one of these palm trees that he pushed me up against when he decided – out of nowhere – to kiss me. Now, don’t get me wrong. I’ll give anyone credit for making the first move – it’s not always an easy task and rejection looms heavy, but a touch of advice to all of you over-zealous move makers out there – at least make sure the other person is remotely interested in your come-on. Just a suggestion.

So he kissed me. I protested. He stopped. Went for it again. I protested more obviously. He stopped. Went for it again. I started to walk away. (You see where this is going).

As I’m walking away, he grabs my arm, spins me around and in his best bedroom (beach resort?) voice, he whispers, “Do you want to make sex?”

I nobly fought my laughter.

I not-so-nobly lost. I laughed the entire walk back to the pool as he followed, asking me if he could see me again.

The all-too-short week progressed from there. We all ate too much, got too much sun, and drank too much. Men continued to hit on us, and, I have to admit I was mildly interested in a particularly endearing guy I affectionately referred to as “the omlette boy” all week – since the only time I ever saw him was in the morning when he made the omlettes at the breakfast buffet.

Regardless – we were scheduled to leave Friday morning. The plan was for me to drive the rental car back to the airport, where Jill and I would bid farewell to our guests. We would then take a cab back to our respective houses in Santo Domingo.  (I should also mention that the day before, Jill and I were supposed to drive back to Santo Domingo to teach our weekly class and then return to the resort – none of which actually happened since our rental car wouldn’t start)

Friday morning came.

We didn’t leave.

In fact, we were completely incapable of leaving.

This blog is already super long. I will post the rest of the story tomorrow! Tune in to find out ….

Did i REALLY just “To be Continued” my blog?

Yeah. I did.

This week will mark two months since I have returned from my escapades in the tropics. Aside from dealing with the general insanity of the entire trip (from the weather being comparable to that of hell to the surprising lack of edibility of almost all of the food I encountered), one of my biggest fears was that my life, upon returning to the United States would be unrecognizable.

As many of you know, I left my ‘normal’ life for the Dominican Republic in the midst of a lot of giant transitions, in fact, I stepped onto my international flight the very weekend I was scheduled to get married. (If you had asked me a year before this if I would have been leaving for an arts-intervention trip to the DR and newly single, I would have laughed in your face – sure i would be leaving the country, but totally on my honeymoon! …so much for that.) Now, back in the United States and standing on the other side of my 3-month experience, I can safely say that I wouldn’t trade it for the world – not even for what may or may not have been wedded bliss.

Admittedly, my life is a little unrecognizable from this end of things, but in a lot of great and exciting ways. I am still working through my Master’s degree at Eastern University (with a research trip to South Africa planned for this August!). I have ventured (cautiously) into the dating world once again and have found new levels of love and inspiration for both my art and my music. More unexpectedly, I have officially become a member of the corporate working world – this may not seem like a positive thing to all of my readers, but it sure is a good way to fund both my education and my artistic ventures, even if I have to temporarily sell my soul.

(I’m kidding, really. My new job has been great, and the stories of my adjusting to it alone should prove for some great blogs – in fact, I’m blogging on my lunch break now…)

I had a lot of really great readers when I was writing in the DR (I was even stopped by someone I don’t even know while visiting my hometown when I got back … crazy!) and I had originally considered waiting until my next trip to blog again, and then I thought, “What the heck? I’m HILARIOUS. People LOVE me. And who WOULDN’T want to read about my life everyday?!”

For those of you still reading, and for the many of you that won’t be able to help yourselves, congratulations for encouraging THAT.

As penance for my lack of consistency in blog posting, I am posting a second blog for your enjoyment.

(I know, you can hardly contain yourself!)

I had a rough night last night, as in, I got not sleep. I usually stay up pretty late as it is, and the internet has a way of sucking me in so that I am no longer able to recognize the time (damn you, stumble.) For the last couple of days, however, I have been making a slight effort to go to bed at a slightly normal hour (keep in mind that my usual hour of sleep is around three in the morning, so “slightly normal” comes sliding in around 1AM) and to get up at a slightly normal hour. (NOT the insane 6:00am that everyone else in my house gets up, but, like, still morning normal.)

Last night, I was already up later than I had planned, but I figured that if I could fall asleep fairly quickly I could still get a decent amount of sleep and be up and working by around 9AM.

Turns out, there is a bar/club not to far from my house.

Turns out, it is close enough for me to see from my roof-top room; and therefore, close enough for me to hear.

Turns out they play really loud, live music for most of the night.

Turns out, this really loud, live music switches to really loud, really drunk karaoke at about 3AM.

Turns out the bars and clubs here beat even NYC in their quest to stay open as late as possible, and as 5AM rolled around and I was still awake and still listening to some drunk, Dominican man scream and slur through another rendition of “Livin’ La Vida Loca”, I seriously contemplated calling the police (that was the plan of action anytime the drug addicts on my block made too much noise in the states)

And then I remembered that I was in a third world country where the police a) don’t speak my language, b) are probably AT the bar making most of the noise themselves, and c) would probably just show up and hit on me anyway.

Not long after these thoughts, the music finally stopped. I am a fan of both music and karaoke, but I have never been more grateful to hear silence in my life.

…

Did I mention that my neighbors in this country have a rooster?

Mere minutes after the music ended, the rooster began. For some, ridiculous, god forsaken reason, the rooster decided that despite the obvious darkness, crowing like a maniac was a good idea.

I have no idea how long this rooster crowed, but it did. Over and over again. Long enough for me to go outside onto the roof and try and figure out how to go about finding it. And killing it. Myself.

As far as I can tell, there is NO good reason to keep a rooster in a residential neighborhood. You want eggs? Keep a couple of hens. Whatever. But a rooster? Seriously?

It did eventually stop. In many ways, it saved its own life.

It turns out, that when I went outside to curse the rooster and the gods that brought it into existence, I let a very large, very stealthy mosquito into my room. So, when I finally lay back down in the sweet, sweet silence, it attacked me mercilessly. Turning the lights on and hunting it required energy I did not have, and therefore took longer than I imagine it normally would have.

I killed the mosquito somewhere near 6AM.

I don’t know when I finally fell asleep, I just know that now, at 1PM I am nursing through my second cup of coffee and still have strong desires to kill the rooster next door.

I must start out by apologizing to all of my fabulous readers. It’s been a little longer since my last post than I would have liked, but in all fairness, my days here aren’t as exciting as they once were. Not in a bad way, just in the sense that I’ve adjusted to my surroundings fairly well and have been spending many of my days working on final papers (all due December 8th) and the final reports for this project (all due December 20th).

As a brief update, we had our third jewelry making class this past week – it went relatively well considering the circumstances.

You see, on Thursday, Jill and I were both at Mario’s house (he has the internet, remember), and, through a series of misunderstandings that I won’t go into here, we had not yet bought the supplies that we needed for our Thursday night class. We also had some last-minute prep work that had to be done dome Mario’s home that involved the internet and printing handouts. And, with these things in mind, we planned our time accordingly.

Planning to leave at 3:00, we called for a taxi at about twenty of.

At 3:20, i had Susy (the eldest of Mario’s daughters who is bilingual) call the taxi company back to see where the taxi was. (This would prevent a scene in which I yell into the phone “Donde esta la taxi?!”, and, sensing my slightly off accent, the dispatcher hangs up on me).

The taxi company claimed that we never called. So we asked for another taxi. They hung up.

I found a sticker on the fridge with another taxi company’s number. Susy called. It is now 3:40.

At 4:00, neither of the taxi’s we had summoned had shown up.

Jill and I looked at each other for perhaps the first time in this country and were at a sincere loss of what to do. I didn’t have a car (the stickers are expired, and until Mario gets new ones, I am unable to drive. The problem with this is that the ENTIRE country has stickers that expire ON THE SAME DAY. Think of the DMV in Jersey and then apply this little complication. You can see how it poses a problem.)

The only option was to call Loly (the pastor of the church where we are holding out classes and one of the overseers of this program. She has also deemed herself our “Dominican Republic Mom”). She tells us she will call us back. It is now 3:50.

We wait.

Mario calls. He has called a taxi for us and it should arrive in five minutes. And it does. (I blame it on the severely male-dominated culture, but then again, I would.)

Problems solved?

Hardly.

As Jill and I pile ourselves and our stuff into the back of the taxi (a small honda), I notice that he is quite a bit older than most of the taxi drivers we have encountered. He also doesn’t seem to understand our English (naturally) or our Spanish (wtf?!). That, or he was content to simply ignore us altogether. I think this was the case.

Jill managed to scrounge a business card of the place we needed to go to pick up the last of the supplies that we needed for that night’s class. Mind you, it is now well after 4:00 and we are supposed to be at the church to set up at 4:30. There is no way for a woman to tell a man from the Latin culture the she is in a rush and therefore he should hurry up. (Trust me, I tried.)

In response to our pleas, this man, without uttering a single word took three different shortcuts to get to the store.

All three of them were the worst shortcuts EVER. One of them was just plain longer, the second caused him to miss the correct street to turn on, and the third placed us in a narrow street with cars parked on either side of the street. Two operating vehicles, going the opposite direction, sat facing each other in the little driving room the remained, each insisting that the other move out of the way. Each backed by the press of rush hour traffic.

Needless to say, more than an hour and 500 pesos later, we finally arrived at the class. It was It was after 5:30.

5:30 is the time that the class is supposed to begin. People were waiting on us. And so, we rushed to set up, quickly adjusted the timing of our curriculum to fit into the new, later starting time, and began. We were frazzled, frustrated, and struggling. This was not our best class, and understandably so. However, the women made necklaces. They had a great time and were very proud of the things they were able to make. We had nine sex workers in the class (the most yet!) and nearly 18 people total. This presents a space issue, but as I tried to explain to the people of Casa Joven, this is the best type of problem to have.

We are excited about the remaining four weeks of teaching!

This week has probably been the most stressful week I have had yet.

How, you may ask, is that possible?

No, I have not had any further encounters with the police. In fact, I am writing this blog from a hotel. With air conditioning. With a pool. With a spa. Perhaps my stress of the week is a little unmerited considering the circumstances, but let me explain.

This past Thursday marked the second class that Jill and I were to teach with the women from the street. After the first class and a meeting with the church to debrief, we knew that we had to make some major adjustments to the curriculum we had written. Time was an issue – as you can expect when no one shows up until a half an hour after the class is schedules to start, and we had some other issues of timing and flow to deal with as well. We had also decided to make twenty pairs of earrings for the women who had been invited to the class the week previous and not come. Our hope was that the earrings would provide incentive for the women to come to the second class, and help them to realize that while they were not there, they were still in our thoughts.

We did finish the twenty earrings, and they were very well and gratefully received by the women we spent time with on Wednesday night in the street. We did finish the curriculum changes, and I personally figured out a killer way to teach my business section of the class. (I was teaching the importance of taking the time to figure out the feasibility of the business you want to start before you do anything and I came up with an object lesson using two tubes of toothpaste and it went over really well!) The thing that made this week particularly interesting (along with all of the graduate school work I have to do on top of everything I do here), was that our advisor and professor, Dr. Corbitt, came down to observe our work.

For some reason, this made me extremely nervous, and amped up the level of stress I was dealing with.

I respect Dr. Corbitt very much. I want to learn as much as I can from him, and he has done a lot to help me over the past few years – from talking to me about things going on in my often crazy life to helping me get back into the graduate program at Eastern. Therefore, I often put a lot of pressure on myself to ‘perform’ well, so to speak, both in gratitude, and because I actually care what he thinks about me.

Anyway – the class went extremely well. Of course, there are still things that need to be reevaluated and adjusted, but Dr. Corbitt had a lot of praise for us at the end of the night. We were both happy that the class was so great and pleased to have another perspective there to give us feedback.

This was Thursday – Jill and I now will be spending the rest of the weekend staying in the hotel with Dr. Corbitt and his wife, Vicky, to have the advantage of having some conversations with Dr. Corbitt and to enjoy the amenities of the hotel – even if just for a weekend, it is a welcome break to the difficulties that we sometimes have experienced in the country. I am happy to have the time to spend having conversations with Dr. Corbitt, Jill, and Vicky. It is a good addition to this trip.

For now, I am not going to worry about how the air conditioning is spoiling me and possibly ruining the heat tolerance that I’ve built up since having arrived here. I am going to sit by the pool and enjoy every minute of it!

Last week, we broke from our now-normal routine of visiting the women of the streets on Thrursday nights and went out on Wednesday night instead.  Armed with candy, invitations (designed by yours truly), and prayers we sought out as many of the women that we could and gave them personal invitations to the jewelry/business classes that Jill and I would be teaching  on Thursday nights – beginning the very next evening. We were generally well received, and invited twenty women to the class.

Jill and I spent the next day anticipating and getting ready for the class. We designed handouts, reviewed our curriculum, made sample jewelry. bought snacks and last minute supplies. Finally, we were on our way to the church – well over an hour early – to set up for the very thing we had spent so much time and energy preparing for.

We arrived at the church in plenty of time, and, with the help of Francis, Loly, and Anilssa, spent the next hour setting up tables and chairs, laying out supplies, setting up food, and making sure that the environment was safe, welcoming, and altogether functioning. As five thirty – the designated start time for the class – approached, a few other of the help from the church arrived. We waited.

Five thirty came and went.

Having spent the extra lapsed time taking photographs of our work, Jill approached. “I don’t think I’ve prepared myself for the idea that no one may come. What if no one comes?”

There is, of course, no answer for this. I had imagined no one coming just as many times as I had imagined everyone coming, but then again. I tend to imagine as many scenarios as possible before they happen to a certain degree of obsessiveness. The truth of the matter is, we are in a country that is foreign to us working with a population that is notoriously difficult to work with.  It is difficult for the natives of the country to work with these women, and we are just two white girls from the United States. It was a very real possibility that no one would show up.

Fortunately, this was not the case. At about six o’clock three of the women with which we had been lucky enough to make some connection walked through the door, in all their loud, abrasive wonderfulness. Needless to say, they were greated enthusiastically by both Jill and myself.

By the time the class started – at nearly half past six – an hour of our two hour class time was gone. Despite having to drastically change our lesson plans to accomodate, they class was an overall success. With eleven total people, the people from the church learned and worked wonderfully with the women from the streets. Everyone was excited to learn to make earrings, and each of the women was able to leave with several pairs. They were genuinely proud of their accomplishments, and the significant shift in their demeanors from the beginning of the class to the end was an amazing transformation to watch.

Jill and I had the opportunity to learn about the lesson we had prepared, and along with the input from some of the people from the church, have made changes to this week’s lesson. We anticipate that after seeing the earrings the women who did come were able to leave with, more women will join us for this week’s class. Jill and I will spend the day tomorrow making near twenty pairs of earring from last week’s lesson, then, tomorrow night, we will hit the streets once again and offer these earrings to the women we missed – explaining that we missed them at class and wanted them to be able to still be a part of what we did, and of course, with the sincerest hopes that they will join us this Thursday.

This experience was the most rewarding that I have had in this country thus far, and I am already thinking about how the curriculum and skills I am learning here can be put to use in the United States.

I have attached a couple of pictures from our class to this blog, thanks to Jill and her wonderful photography skills 🙂

When I was young, I thought my family was insane.

Ok, to be fair, I still think my family is a little insane. When I was young, I hadn’t yet learned to appreciate it.

I have no doubt that I could point out flaws for every one of them. I have no doubt that they are all less than perfect. I have no doubt that some of their child-rearing tactics may have been questionable, not all of their viewpoints are grounded in logic, and that every time Mommom locked us out of the house for the entire day with nothing but some peanut butter and fluff sandwiches and told us to drink out of the hose if we were thirsty may have pushed us all a little closer to crazy. Yet, both time and recent events have taught me that I have one of the most amazing families ever – sure, they argue, go through crap, talk about each other constantly, and I’m pretty sure not everyone sees eye to eye on anything – but, at the end of the day, there is no doubt in my mind that everyone in my family loves each other beyond belief – for as much as they may seem to hate each other at times and for as many times as they may seem to forget it.

My family may be the only family that would take the time to video skype me in to birthday parties and dinners, and make a sincere effort to involve me even though I am thousands of miles away for an extended period of time. Tonight was one of those nights – my mom called me to ask me if I would be home this evening and if she could call me during my little brother and sister’s birthday party. She did, and I sat on the computer and watched a party I wouldn’t have missed for the world if I were in the United States. I had the opportunity to talk to many of the people in my family, whom I miss dearly, and, most interestingly, watch my family interact from a third party standpoint. I was overcome with nostalgia, and these past weeks away have made me appreciate these people in my life more than ever.

As a reflection of how I am feeling, I am going to take some time in this blog post and share with you some of my favorite memories of my family (if you’re reading this and you’re a part of my family, please share yours!)

• There were many times when Poppop would round up all of the grandchildren and take us to surprise outings … sometimes out to eat (where the waitress would be coerced into remembering as many names as possible for a bigger tip), sometimes to the dollar store (where we could get anything we wanted!), and sometimes just to drive around and play games. My favorite one of these outings happened one night when Poppop picked all of us older kids up in Mommom’s crazy conversion van and drove us to the woods. We all got out and walked (we had no idea where we were going!) to a field (I think it was somewhere around where Jim & Lorraine’s house is now). He had us all lay down in the grass and look up at the stars. He told us about the stars, the sky, and the animals that we heard. We ended up laying there in the dark for God knows how long listening to Poppop tell us stories. This is my favorite.
• I remember the summers that I lived with Mommom and Poppop, doing nothing but playing in the lake and running “the neighborhood” with the cousins like a pack of sun-streaked messes.  Many times, Britni and I would get up early and go fishing with Jim (then known as Jimmy, or Jimbo). On her way to or from work before we were ever up, my mom would leave us a surprise taped to the front door – often in the form of gummy lifesavers (that’s what I remember most) – sometimes with a note telling us she loved us, and sometimes not, but we always knew it was from her. We would eat gummy lifesavers and fish with Jim on the beach as the sun came up, hoping one of us would catch a bass, or at least something good.
• I remember going to Maine in the summer.  One particular trip, I rode up in a camper. Poppop was driving and while we were on the highway, a mouse came out of the vent. I remember him grabbing it with his bare hands (and to my horror!) throwing it out of the window. (Needless to say, my little animal-rights-activist self was very upset). Maine brough more days of playing with the cousins, rock hopping (our favorite pasttime!), fishing, catching giant frogs, and promises that if we brought back fish wider then our bodies they would be cooked and served to the family.  It seemed like we ran this place with very little supervision, and everything was beautiful – even sleeping in tents and walking to the showers.
• One birthday (I think I was 12 or 13) I was sitting in what used to be the dining room (you remember, the green carpet and the chandelier?) at Mommom and Poppops, and, to my surprise, the family came in – each person holding a cupcake with a candle on it, singing to me. I had to blow them out one at a time – I was both embarrassed and deliriously happy at the same time.
• Running around the hotel in Florida with the cousins – trying to sneak onto the 8th floor and eat the oranges from the trees near the pool without getting yelled at, looking for shells and digging up sand crabs, catching and hanging lizards from our ears, that one night all of the kids were told to stay in a room while the adults played some crazy game that always seemed to involve someone jumping in the pool fully clothed (that we all wanted to play when we got old enough but haven’t gotten the chance to play yet), and thinking we were so grown ordering Shirley Temples and mozzarella sticks from the waiters at the pool.
• Santa’s HUGE effort at Christmas time – that, for those of you who weren’t there – included throwing rocks on the roof to simulate reindeer, and Uncle Jim (I think .. I STILL don’t know it was all so convincing!) actually getting ON the roof to look down and wave to us from the skylight – sometimes coming in for us talk to him, and sometimes dropping a bag of “early” presents from the roof in the name of an elf-shortage or a rush to deliver all of the other presents on time.
• Spending significant amounts of time every summer playing in the sand piles that Poppop would have delivered to the beach and later to tho behind the pool house, and, in the same vein, the mulch piles that Uncle Jim and Aunt Lorraine would have delivered to their yard. There was nothing better than the sand and mulch piles!

  This blog post has the potential to go on forever, and so I will end there. To my family: I love and miss you all! I cannot wait to see you in person at Christmas! Thank you for all the amazing times, and the ones I know we’ll have in the future…

((This one goes out to Uncle Jim, who is perhaps my most loyal and therefore awesome blog reader!))

((As a general warning – if you are a) someone who would prefer not to read about any of my potentially negative or dangerous experiences in this country or b) my mom, I advise that you skip this post. It’s not that bad, but I won’t be responsible for however you may react. Mom – seriously. Just skip it.))

For those of you who know me well, the title of this blog may not surprise you. In fact, you may be thinking to yourself, “How hasn’t this happened sooner?!” For those of you who may not be entirely aware, I have a small history with the police – from my very zealous driving career as a teenager, a warrant out for my arrest in a certain U.S. state, and a close encounter with a set of handcuffs at a Philadelphia protest that almost led to me spending the night in jail.  Let’s just say that I am grateful that my wonderful step-father is a retired police sergeant, and that the level of unruliness at that protest far outweighed the, let’s say zealous gesture I gave that police officer and he was forced to un-cuff me and turn his attention elsewhere.

That said, today marks my first prolonged, international encounter with the police. Before today, I had seen the police in this country, and one set of officers on a motorcycle even pulled up next to me in my van to talk to me the other week, but it was clearly friendly conversation, even if I didn’t understand everything they were saying. Before I get into the story, let me tell you a few things about the police officers here.  First, there are several types of officers – traffic police, regular crime police, etc. – and they wear different colored uniforms to designate themselves from one another. They are generally male, though I have seen some women, and they are generally young. I have not seen many older police officers, in fact, I would guess that they are all in there mid to late twenties to early thirties.  Third, they carry guns. Of course, you might say – even in the United States police officers carry guns.

You don’t understand. Think about the last time you saw a police officer in the states. Where was his gun? Most likely, unless you were engaging in activities that you really should have avoided, his or her gun was probably strapped to his belt. Maybe the snap was undone for easy retrieval, but most likely, it wouldn’t be necessary – and both you and the officer would know this. Here, in this country, the young, hormone-filled officers do not wear their guns strapped to their belts with the little snap undone just in case.  This is mostly because the guns they carry are far too large to be strapped to any belt.  These boys, for lack of a better term, carry giant semi-automatic shotguns and M-16’s, slung at their sides from a strap. They sometimes wave them around when the talk. To say the least, it can be a little intimidating.

As I pointed out in previous blogs, I have been driving in the Dominican Republic, and it has been an altogether pleasant experience. It sometimes makes me feel like I would be better off if I were totally wasted while I drove, but, for the most part, it’s not much worse than driving in New York or Boston. I have done well with the aggressive-defensive balance and have not run into any trouble. Until today.

This afternoon, as I was driving from the city back to my house (and looking forward to being home since I hadn’t eaten since the day before and only slept a couple of hours the night before), I was waved out of the insane traffic and onto the side of the road by a woman. She was dressed so as to designate herself as a traffic officer and, because of the traffic, I had no where else to go but to pull over. (Mind you, I had been advised to not stop for the police if possible, especially at night, because often times they just want money) I pulled onto the side of the road, turned down the radio, and steadied myself.

The officer, on the large-ish side and with dark skin, walked up to my open window and looked at me.  With a very serious look on her face, she opened her mouth and let loose a wild string of unintelligible, slang-riddled spanish that flew from her lips at far too fast a rate for me to ever hope to understand. This went on for what must have been several minutes, and she seemed generally oblivious to the fact that I was a) saying nothing, b) white, and c) staring at her with an entirely blank look on my face. I registered nothing, and I was doing my best to make it obvious.

Finally, she stopped and looked at me expectantly. I raised my eyebrow (yes, I remember doing it and then immediately wondering if it was a good idea) and let loose with my own string of English in return. In case she understood, I apologized profusely and told her that I did not speak spanish well enough to understand her and I didn’t understand why she had pulled me over and that I just wanted to get to my house that was right down the road. I could tell immediately that she did not understand anything I was saying, but I kept at it for dramatics. Perhaps if I overwhelmed her with my language as much as she had overwhelmed me with hers, she would just let me go.  As you can probably already guess, this is not what happened. Instead, she continued to speak to me in Spanish and look at me expectantly, as if I would miraculously understand if she repeated everything she said louder and faster.  At a loss, I continued to insist to her in English that I had no idea what she was saying.

This went on for some time, with her occasionally yelling to another female officer across the road and asking random passers-by if they spoke English. We were both exasperated, and at this time I had been sitting in an idling diesel van with no air conditioning with two hours of sleep and an empty stomach for far too long.

Finally, through a series of gestures, a few Spanish words that she managed to say slowly enough for me to understand, I figured out that she wanted to see my papers – my identification. Unsure what was appropriate, and glad that I even had them with me, I pulled out my Pennsylvania driver’s license, which I’m sure meant nothing to her, and my passport. She took my driver’s license and began copying my information onto a clipboard. This is when I started to worry.

Eventually, and in the midst of the small crowd that had gathered around my still idling and now fume-filled van, she handed me her clipboard, pen, and insisted that I sign. You can see how this might be a bad idea. I don’t know if it is my culture, the distrust that is so common in the United States, or something my mother said to me as a child, but my stomach turned at the thought if signing this paper I could not read, and I refused.

This, as it turns out, was a bad idea.

The woman officer became irritated, angry even. She shoved the clipboard and pen back into my face and yelled, again insisting that I sign and tapping the pen furiously against the white carbon paper.

It turns out, I am stubborn. (Thanks, Poppop.) I refused again.

She continued to yell. Other officers came over. Eventually, I was made to sign by a small troop of police officers, a lot of yelling, someone physically putting a pen in my hand, and the M-16’s swaying at the sides of the many officers around me. Disgusted, I took my copy of the paper, and read it over as well as I could. Apparently, from what I could tell, she had copied my information from my license onto a ticket for not wearing my seatbelt.

By this time, I was not feeling very well, and the mixture of the heat and the exhaust and the yelling had left me drained. The small crowd dispersed and the two female police officers strode off the road and waved me on. They were now giving me permission to re-enter traffic. I sat there and stared at them.

In those minutes, two male police officers appeared at my still-open window. One was taller, dark-skinned, and carrying no weapon. The other, shorter, and lighter skinned made very sincere attempts to speak to me in English. He seemed kind, told me that I was beautiful, and asked me about my tattoos. I was able to understand some, though not much, of his Spanish, and both he and his partner seemed to ignore my pleas for them to slow down when speaking. They continued to talk to me, all the while the women were still waving me back into traffic, more insistently as the minutes passed. I was dazed, but I understood when the larger and darker of the two asked for the blue slip of paper that the woman had given me. After glancing over it, he walked over to the women and a lot of yelling ensued, both amongst the three and from the lighter skinned officer still standing at my window.

I had no idea what was going on.

The yelling stopped, and the larger male officer walked back to my car, opened the door (at which point I thanked God that my stomach was empty), and got in. The smaller of the two did the same. The women yelled. I glanced into the rearview mirror and saw nothing but two male police officers staring back at me and the M-16 propped on the seat between them. He told me to drive.

I drove.

I managed some form of calm and did not cry. They asked me where I was going (I think) and I told them. I kept repeating the name of the place and that I didn’t understand. “Villa Claudia. No entiendo.”

We made it around the bend, closer to my house, and they motioned for me to pull over. They spoke a lot of Spanish, none of which I was clear-headed enough to understand. They got out of the van, and the larger of the two opened the passenger door, leaned across the seat, took my hand, and told me it was ok. He then proceeded to rip up the blue copy of the ticket and the white original in a very dramatic and thorough act of what I can only assume was chivalry. Taking my hand again, he filled it with the tiny scraps of blue and white paper.

As I sat there in the van, now with my seatbelt on, on the verge of tears and thanking both men profusely, they each reached back into the van, took a scrap of paper each, wrote their names and phone numbers, and replaced them into my still-open hand.

As they walked away from my idling van, the smaller of the two turned and walked back to my window. “I can teach you some spanish, amor.”

Despite cultural and language barriers, I’m pretty sure I know what he had in mind.

During my time here in the Dominican Republic, at least one night a week is spent perusing the streets of down town Santo Domingo in search of the women of the night. We tend to frequent four to five specific corners – the corners that we know the women with whom we have already established some sort of relationship also frequent.

Here, we join a small group of church members from Casa Joven to do what I would expect any small group of church members looking to minister to prostitutes to do – talk to the women and pray over them. Standing in a circle in the street we hold hands and lay hands, seeming to any passerby to be pleading with the heavens on behalf of the waifish girls that hover around us. Perhaps it is my familiarity with the workings of the institutional church, perhaps it is my cynicism when it comes to traditional forms of ministry, perhaps it is my equally as significant experience with how the rest of the world often feels about Christians, but I did not expect much from these outings except for a vague knowledge of which girls we would be eventually working.

Now, faithful reader, please don’t misunderstand.

I believe in God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit. I consider myself, for all intents and purposes, a Christian, and I believe in the work I am here to do. I even acknowledge the church with which we are working for their willingness to work with a population that has been marginalized and the deep caring that is evident in each one of them. In general, however, I tend to appreciate the quote by Gandhi – “I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”

I see so much ministry and effort from the church that has wonderful intentions, and yet is so misguided at the same time. There will be time to explain this further in another post. Back to the story at hand.

Needless to say, I was no expecting much from these outings, and I was certainly not expecting to be personally challenged   that was profound and significant. Yet, that’s exactly the experience I had this past thursday evening when one of the women looked at me with the fullest amount of sincerity and asked, “¿Cómo está tu abuela?”

How is your grandmother?

You see, the week before, the people from Casa Joven thought that it would be an interesting and challenging turn of the normal events if we asked the women to pray for us, instead of us praying with them. I appreciated this, and found the exercise rewarding and eye-opening. It became significantly more profound when this woman – this woman who is living in poverty severe enough to participate in this elicit economy in order to feed her children and family, who I’m sure is experiencing difficulties beyond anything I have ever experienced – took my hand and asked how my grandmother was. This was the thing that I had asked the women to pray about the week prior. I explained to them in less than perfect spanish that my grandmother was sick and in the hospital and that I wasn’t sure what would happen.

I was moved by the fact that she had remembered. Touched by the idea that she considered it significant enough to not only oblige to pray for me the week before, but have sincere interest in the turn of events over the week that ensued. More importantly, I was challenged. I was challenged in my white, Christian outlook. I was challenged in the near-savior mentality with which I approached this country. The one that had been encouraged and brought up inside of me as a white woman of God who wanted to save the world.

As I fumbled over the young girl’s name and realized that I could not remember what her prayer requests had been over the past few weeks, I was both ashamed and humbled. I have been blessed with a privileged life. Have I made good use of the resources that have been given to me? Being privileged, I have realized, saves you from nothing.

One of the predominant issues that I have faced since living in this foreign city has been independence.  To be more specific, how to establish the appropriate amount of independence without a) putting myself in danger, b) culturally or personally offending my hosts, or c) (on a more personal note) falling into the extreme isolation and independence that comes so easily to my (and most artists). My housing situation has been wonderful – the family is accommodating and kind, I have my own space, and a great rooftop to sit out on at night; however, my housing situation has left me far from the city center and utterly dependent on a very complicated system of public transportation and finding rides.

Today my problems were solved.

After a week of very serious conversations with Mario about the transportation in this city, I began paying attention to how, when, and where he (and others) drove. I began memorizing landmarks and directions. I took note of the nuances of driving etiquette (or lack there of) in this country. And I asked a lot of questions.

“Why doesn’t anyone stop at red lights at night?” as barely slowed through an intersection in the middle of the night.

“What should I do if the police try and flag me down from the side of the road like that?” as we flew by the officer in the reflective vest on the side of the road.

“What do you do when someone hits your car?” as I watched one car slam into another during rush hour downtown.

The answers I received were a little shocking, but, I assure you, not as bad as it sounds…

“It’s not safe to stop at lights or stop signs after a certain time at night. There’s too much of a chance someone will try and rob you if you stop.”

“I would never stop for the police at night! They probably just want money, and how do you know they’re really cops?”

“Just keep driving. Sometimes, people hit other cars, and when they get out to look at the damage they shoot them or rob them. It’s better to just fix whatever is wrong with your car than to take the chance of getting hurt.”

[pause] “…and don’t talk on your cell phone while you’re driving.”

After many serious observations and intricate lessons on driving in a third world country, I was ready.

Today, Mario called to me from the front patio. I walked out of the house and followed him toward the street. “I need to show you a few things about the van.” He was referring to the large diesel van that I would hopefully be able to drive. It is grey, significantly dinged and dented, and has racks on the front and back bumper that put the deer racks of New Jersey to shame. “Not how to drive it. How to fix it.”

I am suddenly grateful for the eclectic array of older (and yes, a ghetto) cars that I have owned in the states. And that I paid attention when my last beau tried to teach me how to be more mechanically aware of the cars I drove.

“This is the only key we have to this van. You have to be gentle with it.” he points to a slight crack in the shiny metal of the key, “I have already broken one of them.”

I smile nervously.

“When you get out of the car, make sure you lock the door. Like this.” He pushes down on the knob on the inside of the door, then shuts to door while holding the outside handle up. “It’s diesel, so you need to let it warm up before it will start. Turn on the battery and wait for the noise.”

I strain to hear “the noise” and hear nothing. He turns the ignition, and before I can ask what noise it was that I was supposed to be listening for, my thoughts and anything I may have asked, are drowned out by the rumble of the diesel engine.

“There is no air, but the windows work. Sometimes you’ll have to start the car more than once before it will work. I don’t know why, but that’s how it is.”

I nod as he points to the control panel on the dash. “There is gas in it, but the gauge doesn’t really work. When it is full, it will say “full”, but once it reaches about half way down, it stops moving.” He glances up at me as if to emphasize. “You’ll never know how much gas you have after that, so it’s best to just keep it full.”

He shuts off the engine and reaches under the steering column and pops the hood of the van. It opens with a loud pop and he moves around to the front of the van. “It over-heats sometimes. We had it fixed, so it does it less, but now it doesn’t take water from this,” he indicates the radiator, “so you have to make sure this thing is filled with water every morning.” He indicates another small vessel under the hood. “Yolanda keeps a jug of water in the car that you can use. It doesn’t take much.” He proceeds to fill the tiny reservoir with the water he took from the van. Water splashes everywhere except for the small, round opening, but he manages to fill it to over flowing. After replacing the cap on both the jug and the reservoir, he slams the hood closed and returns the jug of water to its normal home behind the driver’s seat. Moving around to the back, he opens the hatch.

“There’s extra water back here if you need it.” He then points to a milk jug filled with a dark greenish liquid. “Also, there’s some extra diesel in case of emergency, but only in case of emergency.”

My mind wanders to the highway where car after car rammed into the back of another, and I cannot help but wonder if a milk jug of diesel in the back of the van I will be driving is a good idea. The slamming of the hatch brings me back and I smile as he drops the keys into my waiting hand.

Tonight, Mario and his family went out for dinner, leaving Jill and I in the house alone. For dinner, we decided to take advantage of my new-found freedom and drive somewhere to eat. After a few false starts and figuring out the trick to the very loose shift, we were on our way. Between the two of us, we managed to remember how to get out of the gated community and onto the highway. I maneuvered in traffic very well, if I do say so myself, and was only momentarily frightened that the van might blow on the up-hills. (That sound, I quickly learned, is “normal”)

Thanks to my endless experience with less-than-practical, decades old mustangs and other such cars, I felt very comfortable figuring out the personality of this car. I learned in the first few minutes how to manage the hills, that the transmission shifts late and to let up on the gas when I can feel the car getting to the place the transmission needs some extra time to shift, and that the car runs better if shifted in to neutral when coming to a stop.

The traffic was awful, a truck of latin men flagged us down the entire time we drove on the high way (to hit on the white girls, of course), and we didn’t go but ten minutes away, but I was both pleased with myself and satisfied at the level of independence this granted me. I am grateful to Mario for trusting me with his family’s van (as indestructible as it may seem!) and am excited to experience the city with this new freedom. Santo Domingo, I can drive.

(While talking to my mom on Skype tonight, she was not thrilled that I would be driving around this country. I have assured her I will be fine and that it is much safer than my previous blogs may have made it out to be. And, in all honesty, it is. I am an adaptable person, and this experience will further my skills as an asset in this type of work. No worries, mom!)