Life in Tabara

Lately I’ve been dreaming of a world that involves sweaters… tea… flannel blankets on cozy couches...

It’s hot.  Like, really hot.  The Caribbean sun doesn’t mess around.  People say that this “summer” is worse than usual.  This might be the kind of thing they say every year, but then again it might be true every year.  Apparently I can expect things to cool down around the end of October.  So yeah, I’m looking forward to that… meanwhile I’m doing my best to avoid skin cancer, and considering cutting off my hair. 

I think of the day in two parts: before lunch (6 – 12 AM) and after lunch (3 – 8 PM).  No, lunch does not last three hours, but attempting to do much during this time is generally not a great idea.   Better to sit or sleep after eating a giant bowl of rice and beans, and try not to sweat to death.  (It’s not like anyone else will be doing anything either…) There are only two escape options, and one of them doesn’t exist all that often.   Option 1: sit under a tree, move as little as possible, and catch the breeze.  Option 2 (unfortunately dependent on luz*):  lay on my bed and take a midday nap with the fan blowing on me (hot air, but at least it’s moving).   Option 2 inevitably ends with me waking up sweating from head to toe when the luz goes out and the fan turns off, making the air in the room so oppressive that it’s difficult to breathe and I have to go back outside, where I might find other family members sleeping on the cement floor of the porch, which has room for approximately 2.5 bodies.

*For a better understanding of the luz/water situation of the Dominican Republic:  Some people pay for their electricity and water.  Others don’t.  In the US, when you don’t pay your bills, you don’t get utilities.  Your neighbor, who does pay his bills, does get utilities.  In the DR, when you don’t pay your bills, both you and your neighbor (who does pay) sometimes get utilities and sometimes don’t.   Apply this logic to an entire town, in which some people pay, but many don’t…  We get electricity for several hours, then we lose it for several hours.  Generally this doesn’t bother me (I actually like when the luz goes out, as this means radios also turn off – silence is golden), except for the fan situation…

My survival plan is to get a hammock and string it up outside under the tobacco tarps.  As fun as it is to sit in a plastic chair under a tree with all the muchachos, sometimes a girl just needs a nap.  This really is how most people spend their days here – in a plastic chair, or a rocking chair, or on a curb, or on those steps over there… anywhere they can find shade and a few buddies to sit with.   Most people don’t have much better to do.   Well, correction: most men don’t have much better to do.  Kids too, though they run off, busy with their inventions, their games.  Kids are the same anywhere you go.  Women spend some time sitting around, but you’re more likely to find them cooking or cleaning something.   Men (not all, but most) move from one hangout spot to another, chatting or just staring into space, wishing something interesting would happen.

Saying this isn’t really fair to those who work their butts off all day long on the loma (mountain).  Tabara Arriba subsists off of agriculture.  Tobacco is the main source of income, though many people grow coffee, corn, yucca, plantains, potatoes, etc.   So, sure, lots of men are hard workers, leaving early in the morning on a donkey or a motorcycle, machetes strapped to their waists, prepared for a day of labor in the sun.  They don’t really have a choice – they’re working for survival.   I’m not fully clear on the tobacco process, but I know that it is only sold once a year, and requires a lot of time sitting dormant in long tube things made from large dried palm leaves.  So, between planting tobacco, harvesting it, forming it into those tubes, stringing it out under tarps to dry, putting it back in tube-form, and finally selling it, there is also a lot of waiting involved.  A lot of down time.  A lot of sitting under trees.  (Disclaimer:  I could have that all wrong.  I’m basing this on observation and conversations with campesinos who don’t exactly make themselves clear:  “Lo pones en la cosita, entonces esperas, entonces la otra cosita… y, pues si… ya tu sabes…” Yes, thank you, I understand everything now!)  The fact that it’s only sold once a year means that many families have months-long tabs at the colmados, which they only repay once they sell the tobacco.  The coffee farmers have a better deal, as they can sell their coffee to whoever, whenever.  Tobacco has its system. 

Pretty much the only other source of income here is remittances from family members in the United States and Spain.   Some people have their small businesses, some are paid by the government (the few teachers, police, people who work for “local government,” etc.), but this doesn’t account for much of the money that comes into Tabara.  You can tell who has a relative abroad.  The majority of houses here are made of wood or block, with zinc roofs and cement floors, but there are also a bunch of houses with pretty tiled floors, fancy barred porches, glass windows… Some of these houses are occupied, but the biggest ones, the handful of two-storey houses with two-car garages, appear deserted. They are built, or half built, as though their owners earned some money in the United States, thought they would build themselves a big house in their pueblo, but ran out of money halfway through.  Or just didn’t really want to live in their pueblo.  It’s weird.  Everyone dreams of going to the United States.  Many go to Spain because it’s a little easier.  They may work at low-paying jobs, they may not be rich in those countries, but money goes far here in the Dominican Republic.  Personally, I prefer the campo houses, the colorful wooden ones, the unpainted block ones.   They’re rough around the edges, but they have a charm to them, while the biggest ones somehow seem vulgar, considering the setting… 

I'm looking forward to getting my own campo house in a month or so (provided I can find one), having space and privacy again for the first time since March... and a place to hang that hammock. 

Identity

I am the Blanca, the Americana, the Rubia, and of course, to those in the know (a rapidly growing group), Lauwra/Lauwrita.   Those other names used to bother me, but at this point I’ve realized that everyone identifies by color here (prieta, morena, negra, what have you – there’s a big range).   Sometimes they think I’m Española or Puertoriqueña, which I take as a big compliment regarding my abilities to speak Spanish and not be quite so obviously American.   

“Y dondé esta la blanca?”  Papo says when he walks up to the house and doesn’t immediately see me.  “Dondé esta mi rubia?”  Clearly my host dad knows my name, and doesn’t really categorize me as “that white girl” (note the possessive use of “mi”) – it’s actually just normal to scream out to people in terms of their skin color.   Endearing really…  and indicative of the serious preoccupation that pervades this country, where, as in much of the world, lighter is generally considered better.  The darkest skin marks one as Haitian.  No importa how long you’ve been here – as any country with a border knows – if you look like an immigrant, you’re generally treated like one.  For dark-skinned Dominicans (and Peace Corps volunteers!) that means you’d better have some kind of identification when traveling anywhere near the border if you don’t want to be deported to Haiti (or at least have a really infuriating day dealing with bigot officials).  Seriously, it’s happened.

The division between Dominican and Haitian is a big problem in this country, but it is nothing new or unfamiliar (read: United States and Mexico, Spain and Morocco, German and Turk).  Haitians come to the DR to escape the more abject poverty of their own country, willing to work long, hard days for impossible pay.  (I’ve heard of people receiving less than US$3 for every TON of sugarcane they break their backs cutting, for example.)  Dominicans say Haitians are stealing the jobs that they don’t want anyway, though the realistic ones admit that they are hard workers and quick learners.   When I hear someone being particularly bigoted towards Haitians, I like to let them know how lots of Americans view Dominicans (/immigrants in general) in the U.S.  I’ve had some productive conversations after bringing up that comparison. 

But I am white and American, which gives me completely unfair privileges –education, mobility, the general feeling of being welcome wherever I go… at least in this country.    The absolute strangest thing about my life here is feeling like some kind of celebrity when I walk down the street, especially when I admit to myself that I am getting used to it…

I sit on the front porch, reading a book in the rocking chair, and everyone who passes stops to grab my hand in greeting.   I walk from point A to point B, and people yell out, “hello, hola, como estas, how are you, rubia, blanca, Americana, Lauwra!”  They get excited if I actually stop to talk with them.   Often when walking in the blazing sun, someone pulls up in front of me on their moto and offers me a bola (free ride) to my destination.  Sometimes I’m offered bolas when I’m just sitting on the porch too, but I generally don’t accept the joy ride offers…  And if I sit anywhere long enough (or not long at all), I usually end up with something delicious in my hands, be it a cup of coffee, a bag of mangos, a bowl of tostones, or fresh juice (which I need to be careful of, because they most likely made it with “bad” water from the tap, instead of “good” purified water that they have to buy).  Today I was gifted my first avocados of the season from the colmado man down the street!   If I were a man, I’d probably be receiving propositions from parents to marry their underage daughters and make them Americans.   As it is, I’ve received several marriage proposals and more than one mother/grandmother has asked me to take her child back to the U.S. with me in my suitcase… resulting in several scared children who think I’m going to steal them away in a bag.  Creepy.

There’s actually a song by a Dominican group that says, “Quiero una Americana… pa’ mangar mi visa.”  Translation:  “I want an American… to get my visa.”  I don’t know what all the muchachos screamed at Americanas in the street before this song came on the radio, but now this is it.   When I walk past a group of teenagers (or younger kids) that I don’t know, it’s almost guaranteed that at least one will say under his breath, “Quiero una Americana…” And another might finish it for him, “pa’ mangar, pa’ mangar, pa’ mangar mi visaaaaa.”  This makes them super cool.  Ignoring it isn’t really effective, since I walk past the same people all the time.  Best response that I’ve discovered:  yelling back at them that I’m not going to mangar any visas, while giving them the finger-wag with a good-natured smile (which says:  “I know exactly what you’re saying and I don’t like it, but hey, we can probably still be friends”).  There might be some tigueres in my town, but I’m working on making them MY tigueres.   Then they can just direct their tiguere, too-cool-for-school behavior towards someone else, and yell “Hola Laura” instead of song lyrics when I pass by.

Tabara is a relatively small place.  It’s big enough that I probably won’t know every single person during my time here, but small enough that I do run into the same people all the time and all over the place, only to find out that this one is the cousin of that one, and this one was raised by that one (even though she’s not his real mom because his real mom lives in Spain), and this one is the great-grandmother, even though she looks like she should just be the regular grandmother (but everyone had their babies around age 15), and this one is the brother of that one, and this one is married to that one’s sister…etc, etc, you get the idea.   So, in this place where no one locks their doors and they don’t eat nutritious food (oil, salt, sugar, oh my!), where more people are illiterate than are literate and opportunities are extremely limited, and where it may be normal for girls to get pregnant before the age of 16, and for men to get more than one girl pregnant (/have four girlfriends at a time and start more than one entire family), they also are unbelievably generous, welcoming, and somehow possess motorcycles and cell phones with lots of music stored up.   I don’t really have an explanation for this, but considering all the problems they face, this community is not a bad place to be.