Making a positive impact on the lives of others is like making a good sandwich in two major ways: 1) some women are great at it 2) it's really hard to do. In fact, it's difficult enough not to fuck up another person's life while we inhabit this planet. I'm not just referring to flagrant moral offenses like killing a man while driving drunk, cheating on your loved one, and breaking the hearts of your hometown fans in a one-hour ESPN special. As human beings, we constantly make poor decisions, hurt people's feelings, and fail at altruism. When flying cupids bring me before God for the final judgment, I'm sure he will have an accounting notebook with all this shit written down.
Because it's so hard to do good in this world, even on a microcosmic scale, I have become intrigued by international development and global health. People working in these fields aim to benefit entire families, communities, populations, and countries. If successful, projects can alleviate the burden of disease, poverty, and conflict on a whole lot of people. But as Beyonce will tell you, things in life can be sweet dreams or beautiful nightmares. Working with the best of intentions is never enough to guarantee that theories and plans for helping people will unfold as they should, if not horribly backfire. Still, this hasn't stopped much of the world from voicing the belief that development can, and should be, done well. I've been curious to learn how.
This is why the opportunity to travel to the Dominican Republic to work with Children of the Border this summer really appealed to me. Children of the Border is a locally run NGO directed by Harvard Ph.D candidate and resident tutor Sebastian Velez that provides a wide range of services to rural underserved communities in the border region between Dominican Republic and Haiti. It runs a clinic for pregnant women who cannot be admitted into hospitals, works with a local doctor to monitor children's nutrition and distribute supplements, and provides contraception programs. Last winter, it teamed with a group of Harvard undergraduates with experience in water chlorination to address the community's dire need for clean water. Children of the Border hires both Dominican and Haitian employees and serves both populations with its projects, part of an effort to tackle the ethnic tensions that trace their roots to colonial times.
After spending quite a bit of time this past school year doing necessary research and making detailed preparations, our team of 10 undergraduates and Sebastian set off on a two-week trip to the community of Las Mercedes hoping to accomplish two main objectives: 1) install a manual well pump to provide a stable water source to the community 2) design and implement a census of the community that identifies its needs and yields useful indicators of individuals' state of health. The importance of both is clear. Ever since the solar panels powering the electrical submersible pump in the community's lone well were stolen, villagers have been hard pressed to obtain enough water for daily living. They collect rainwater in polluted containers or walk two to three hours to a canal with water containing E. coli. A manual well pump, combined with continuation of the chlorination program, would provide easier access to cleaner water. The census would be first of its kind and crucial for understanding the people we are serving as well as communicating to them about the work of Children of the Border. There are no records of exactly how many people live in Las Mercedes, or what defines Las Mercedes. The more isolated communities deeper in the mountains are even less known.
To sum up how I feel the trip went, it was successful, rewarding, and loads of fun. I am a bit disappointed in myself because I was really scatterbrained at times and allowed the heat, mosquitoes, and sickness to hinder my full engagement with the project. But I had a fabulous time - the main highlights are outlined below:
Well Pump
This may be hard to believe, but actual installation of the manual Simplepump we had purchased in the U.S. turned out to be one of the simpler tasks of the project. Before we even had a shot at putting 300 feet of PVC pipe into the well, we had several hurdles to climb, such as designing a well cap that could accommodate both the existing submersible pump in the well and our new manual one. Like a lot of things, it could not have happened without the help of the community's extremely capable welder, Jortkey. Another challenge was using an electric probe to determine the water level of the well and see whether there are any obstacles inside the casing to prevent entry of our pump. The electric probe is essentially 500 feet of wire attached to a sounder that beeps when one end of the wire hits water. I can't count how many hours we spent tangling and untangling that thing.
To make a long story short, we installed the pump and got it working. I was actually MIA with sickness when the first water spouted from the pump head, which is a shame, but the team that stuck around until 11 p.m. to finish troubleshooting the pump had extra fun for me at the village afterparty where members of the community celebrated with killing of a pig. One of the coolest things I did see, though, was farmers from the fields coming to the well site during installation and singing for us as we worked.
You know that inexplicable tenderness that sweeps over you when you look into the eyes of a newborn baby? Well, me neither. But I imagine it's something akin to what I felt when I saw families trickling in to fill their water containers at the well after the pump had been installed. Kids in particular really enjoyed themselves.
Census
I was not directly involved with the survey team, but I did have a chance to follow them around for a day as they sought out residents living in the higher mountain regions. In these deeper rural areas, houses are spread far apart and families even more distant from proper medical care and dependable water sources. It was really awesome to see the survey team communicate with them fluently in Spanish and Creole and to see the villagers receptive to their questions. The team ended up surveying over 80 households, a ridiculous number considering the distance they had to walk throughout the day. They also dealt with harrowing challenges including giant tarantulas and infants eager to urinate.
Community Meetings
We held a series of community meetings at a kind of gazebo hall in Las Mercedes, informing villagers about developments in installation of the pump and discussing with them plans for maintenance and upkeep after we leave. Our goal has always been to get them involved and invested at multiple steps in our project so that they have control over its direction and make it sustainable; we are only there to facilitate and provide resources. In the second meeting, the villagers voted in a four-person well committee to look after the pump and the rest of the community water system. Our only conditions were that it would be split evenly in ethnicity and gender (two Dominicans, two Haitians, and two men, two women). Because my Spanish is absolutely horrible, I was generally clueless about what transpired at the meetings until the Spanish speakers in our team debriefed me later. Many times, for instance, I thought the villagers who spoke at the meetings were angry with us but it turns out they were showing us a lot of lovin'.
People
Interacting with members of local communities was definitely one of the major highlights of my trip. I was constantly surrounded by incredibly nice and welcoming people who had the patience to put up with my shitty Spanish. Even people I didn't know very well would offer me handshakes and hugs. What also struck me about people of Las Mercedes was their level of excitement and engagement with our projects. There were always people watching our work at the well site and offering their assistance. In one instance, a man named Manuel took his entire afternoon off to help a team member and me investigate the community's system of water pipes and tanks. We hadn't brought a fluent Spanish speaker with us so the poor guy had to repeat everything he said about five times.
Food
Lilila, the mother of one of Children of the Border's field staff, did most of the cooking for us, and it was fabulous. Rice and beans with chicken, fried plantain chips, guacamole, and eggplant were some of my favorites. Fried chicken has to taste good when the chicken was alive just 30 minutes ago. All natural fruit juices helped us beat the heat, especially the lemonade. My favorite, though, was the papaya or a cocktail of fruits including the papaya, which managed to taste like beef jerky.
Tanning
The Dominican sun pretty much charbroiled my pale Korean skin. Toward the end of the trip, my face, neck, and forearms were darker than those of some Dominicans. It was really cool because when I looked into the mirror, the whites of my eyes and my teeth shone out a bit, which was kind of sexy. Unfortunately, only two days since my arrival in Boston, my tan has already faded.
Creatures
The insects in Dominican Republic are fucking gangsters. If there were an insect prison, they would make inmates from everywhere else their bitches. Web-weaving spiders over there turn telephone poles and entire trees into giant saran wraps of death. The cockroaches are not only huge and have extra long antennaes but can also fly. That's like giving Sarah Palin supporters two votes in an election. Also, the lizards, aside from avoiding the shade because they think shade is for pussies, do push-ups in their spare time. Absolutely ridiculous. Other creatures I saw include tarantulas, land crabs, fire ants, and giant, giant moths.
Karate
What happens when a community really really loves Jet Li, Bruce Lee, and Jackie Chan movies and rarely encounters Asian people in real life? They think all Asians are karate masters. Nearly every kid I met in Dominican Republic asked if I knew karate. For God sakes, even the community's equivalent of a mayor believed it. After fruitlessly fighting the stereotype for a week and a half, I finally gave in. When kids in the community invaded our van and became a nuisance, I offered to teach them karate and we all stormed out for an impromptu lesson from Master Lee. Among the moves I imparted to the kids was the Muy Thai knees to the head. Here's hoping the kids don't practice on each other.
Beach
Admittedly, I haven't seen a lot of top-tier beaches in my lifetime but the beach I visited in the Dominican Republic was pretty damn amazing. Clear turquoise waters and white sand, just like the ones in Corona commercials, and it was virtually unoccupied too. I usually dread swimming and water volumes exceeding 500 ml in general, but the water was too inviting for me to contemplate life meanings from the shore.
My second beach outing, in which I was with a group of three girls, took an unexpected turn when two of them decided to uh, celebrate the freedom of their bodies in a bold fashion even in my presence. After allowing the gentle breeze to caress their torsos with no hindrances during their tanning episode, they thought it would be suitable to wade out and allow the cool waters uninhibited access to their legs and all adjacent areas as well. Once this escapade had finished, they entrusted me with the all-important role of retrieving the items which would signal their return to civilization. Until this last bit, I didn't bother opening my eyes as I lay stretched out on the sands even though I knew what was happening. I'm so old the prospect of seeing areolas doesn't even excite me anymore.
Spooning
One of the major advantages and delights of traveling with a group of peers to do work like this is that members come from different walks of life with different sets of skills and knowledge to contribute to the group. A significant way in which my team members enriched my experience on the trip was their knowledge of spooning. I had never heard of the term before. I generally fail when it comes to understanding gestures of human intimacy and even more so if asked to perform them so I appreciated my peers' patience on this matter. Together we delved into the unique advantages offered by this alignment of bodies and even participated in a tutorial intended just for me. I definitely like being the big spoon. It's almost as if I am shielding my lover from the dangers of life. I'm not sure if I will get a chance to try it out within the next three years of college but here's hoping I do, and do it sober.
