boiled bananas and apagones

21 Octubre del 2009

For those of you who were wondering what "Mangu" actually is, here goes:

Boiled platains, mashed with a bit of salt. Who knows what else goes in there, but imagine a pile of sickly-yellow mush and you get the idea. But I must say, it is delicious.

I was happy to inform my Mexican friends following my adventure that I have actually found a company that both makes and distributes Tortillas to fancy grocery stores, most likely feeding the rich Mexican Ex-pat community here. The company is called Maria, and I think the tortillas are better than La Milagrosa, which is a delightful tortilla distributor in Chicago. So Cathy, there you have it, Maria wins the contest. :)

I am developing a network of Haitian friends here in the city. Most have come for work, others to follow their families. The general opinion is that Haiti's government is hoarding all of the relief and development money, much like we see in land-locked central Africa. This creates crisis on so many levels, but the Haitians I have talked with have complained most about the extensive unemployment.

The Dominican Republic is very, very poor. This manifests itself in realities such as these:

A decent salary for a one-degree professional is roughly $500 per month. A minimum-wage job lands most people in the working class at about $200 per month, and that is a stretch.

Whole neighborhoods lose electricity for hours and hours at a time, on a daily basis. These are government-controlled "apagones" or "black-outs" that affect people of all classes. Many middle-class people have generators to keep lights on. The apagones affect government buildings and institutions as well: the Contraversial monument built to celebrate the 500th birthday of Christopher Colombus is actually an enormous light-house. The light-house casts a laser-beamed cross into the sky that can be seen from miles around. That is, when it is lit, which is never, because it costs so much.

Stop-lights in the city only work on occasion. There are few cross-walks for pedestrians, so most people jay-walk, whenever they feel like trying to get killed. I have not seen an accident involving a pedestrian yet, but several days ago, the car in back of me was severely rear-ended as we were stopped by surprise at a grid-locked intersection. Luckily, no-one was hurt.

When it rains, the city turns into Venice, because there is exactly ONE official drainage system for a congested city of 4.5 million people. That is on the north-south artery of Luperon, on the west side of the D.N. (Distrito Nacional). Last night, I was driving with Sharon, and we were lucky water did not get into our engine. Much to our surprise, the front page of the paper today featured our SUV forging across an overly-flooded intersection. The headline reads, "Venice in Santo Domingo" and describes the "repentino aguacero" that produced massive flooding along major routes in the capital.

We were one of two vehicles in the photo that had headlights on, another indication that the city is poor. Most people cannot afford to have lights and blinkers repaired, because they will probably get blown out the next day by another fender-bender while backing out of a grid-lock. So most cars, unless they are owned by the rich, are totally dented and pock-marked. This is also due to the vehicle embargo which has kept US cars out of the island. The embargo is being lifted at the end of the year, though, which means traffic will become even worse.

I am still working on my housing situation, which will hopefully be resolved in the next couple of days. In the meantime, I continue to make contacts and build relationships with young people in the city who are eager to work in community transformation. Pray for me as I seek out a Dominican or Haitian partner to work with. I am praying that one of my new friends, a girl named Estefani, would be willing to work closely with me.

Pray for Francisco, my Haitian friend in Las Americas, that he would come to know the Lord in a personal way.

Until next time,

allison