Yesterday, we were fortunate enough to travel into Santiago after my last post. Essentially, we were just getting a taste of what the city is like. Santiago is about 15 minutes or less from the ILAC campus. We visited the Capitol building, which is mammothly beautiful and I will detail our experience there later in the post.
After walking down the street out of ILAC and past Juan's Colmado, which is the nearest convenience store I mentioned earlier, I was able to experience what is known as the guagua. The guagua are the public transportation vehicles of this area. The guagua is a passenger van, or mini van, in which there are usually two men. One sits as the driver and one stands where the sliding door would be on the side. This man hangs out of the van and calls or whistles to passengers to see if they want to ride into the city. If they do, he communicates to the driver by yelling or knocking on the roof of the van. The goal of the guagua is to pack in as many people as possible and drive them to the city. The cost is about 20 pesos one way, which amounts to less than 1 US dollar. At one point, I was riding in a guagua with 19 people in a van that is meant to seat about 8. However, this is the norm here! As guaguas will be our primary transportation, it was important for us to see and begin to learn how to use them.
Wrapping my mind around pesos has been very interesting. If you know anything about me, you know math is not my forte, so you can imagine my immediate confusion when paying, not to mention the language barrier. On my second guagua, I somehow managed to pay for two people instead of just myself and couldn't help but begin laughing when I got off and realized what had happened. The man who took my money seemed very confused as to why I was handing him the pesos I did, but I am sure he was glad of my mistake later... :)
Arriving in Santiago was amazing. I will admit I have insane culture shock, as this is my first time leaving the country so everything hits me at once. It's very exciting, but I sometimes have to remind myself to stay focused and pretend like I know what I'm doing in the city to avoid theft. Think A.D.D times a thousand. We were instructed how to protect ourselves from pickpocketers, motorcycle thieves, and other robbers before we left. After that lecture, I was paranoid about getting out my camera to take pictures so I secretly tried to FLIP a few videos (posted above) as the device is smaller than my camera. I know the quality is not the greatest, but I'll work on it!
In the city, it is clear we are identified as outsiders. The Dominican men love yelling phrases at us such as, "Que linda!" Speeding by on their motorcycles, their whistles and hisses call further attention to us. This is simply a part of their culture and is common for them to do to any passing women.
However, the response to our presence was a little different when we went to the Capitol building.
After walking downtown and managing to climb all of the stairs to the entrance, we were met by only a few Dominicans who were simply walking the property just as we were. As we inquired how much it would cost to travel to the very top, slowly more and more Dominicans began arriving at the monument. After deciding to just sit on the steps and look out over the city for awhile, Karie and Mary began pointing out different places in the city, like our service site options (which we will tour this week) and the store La Sirena, which will serve as our Target this semester.
For awhile, we just enjoyed the breeze and the view. Santiago is situated in a valley, with lush mountains on all sides. In these mountains are the campos, which we will first experience in Immersion in late September. Taking in the stillness and beauty, we suddenly realized just how quiet it had become.
Quite instantly, I was reminded of the film Inception, which I recently saw. The best way I can describe what I felt like at that moment paralleled the film in that, I felt as if I were the invader in someone's dream and their subconscious was mobilizing to attack me. If you have seen the movie, you know exactly what I mean.
Turning around, I realized there were now dozens of Dominicans, quiet and staring at us. Karie quickly stood up and mentioned that we should take notice of the response and that we needed to leave. As we headed down the monument, stares on the streets continued and I was expecting to turn a corner and bump into Mal's character from Inception. It was an eerie existence.
Traveling back to ILAC on the guagua, a few people in our group met a Haitian named Wilson. He asked to practice his English with us on the guagua and we tried communicating back and forth with him. At first, I was interested in hearing his story and we were all trying to ask him questions in English. However, I became suspicious when he began asking if we could tutor him and if we could give him our phone number. He repeatedly asked one of the men of our group, Andres, if he could be tutored, how long we were staying, and why we were here. At this point I started thinking, "Hmmm. He sure knows a lot of questions to ask in English." I became skeptical and ended my role in the conversation, while a few others near him continued.
Was I wrong to think he could be trying to take advantage of us? Here was a man with great hardship trying to make a life for himself here in the DR to escape the life he knew in Haiti. He claimed to be studying medicine here and he spoke of his yearning to pursue opportunities to further his English in many ways. But I couldn't help thinking of the monument experience earlier. Could he have been trying to learn more about us for the wrong reasons? Was he really just a poor Haitian wanting to learn English? I'll never know for sure, but from the first trip to Santiago, I knew one thing: While we are here to serve others, some are more than willing to serve themselves through our naivety.
After returning to ILAC, we had a few meetings and some of us sat out and played "Go Fish" in Spanish under the dim sky as a breeze carrying the music of the discotecas started up to play until the wee hours of the morning. Drifting off to sleep, I hoped to avoid any dreams, as I felt I'd been in one all day.
Today has been an introduction to the academic and service aspects of the program. In about 30 minutes, we start Spanish immersion classes, which are meant to help us adjust to the language quickly. Buenas tardes!
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