Some of the patients in the HIV Unit are characters. There is one guy who I don't think is part of the study but I constantly see him hanging out in the Unidad. He has a hobby of selling pirated DVDs and his favorite phrase, the only one he appears to know in English, is "OH my GAD." He calls himself "Freddy Cougar", a fact he reminds me of every single time he sees me: "It's me, Freddy Cougar!" Even though I've had a number of conversations with him, he still seems to think I don't understand very much Spanish, and also evidently thinks I have a really bad memory.
There is another guy, this one in the study, who Emily just refers to as "your friend", because I led him through the informed consent and also the questionnaire for the first visit. "My friend" is quite the confrontational one though. The informed consent, which usually takes about 10 or 15 minutes, took at least a half hour with him. He has pretty bad arthritis, and the whole time he kept complaining to me that he didn't really want to start taking antiretrovirals, that arthritis is MUCH worse than HIV. He seemed to take personal offense when I told him I didn't know anything about arthritis. I tried to explain to him that I wasn't a doctor or a nurse and that really the only qualifications for my job are speaking Spanish and knowing the basics about HIV, but that didn't appear to be an acceptable answer. For a minute there I felt like I was going to break down and cry, but then I remembered that he was the one being ridiculous, that counseling patients about their arthritis has never been and never will be part of my job description.
He's another one that I see all the time in the Unidad, mostly in the mornings. As many times as I told him that he would have to come for his visit with us in the afternoon (since the doctor that does the Medical History part of the survey doesn't arrive until 2), every single time he reacted with surprise and acted as if it was a big injustice committed towards him, making him come in slightly later in the day. When he finally did come in for his visit with the study, my friend and I had another hour of stimulating conversation. Among other topics, he asked me where else I had been in the Dominican Republic, and I said Jarabacoa. He responded, "Oh, I KNEW you were going to say that. ALL the gringas go to Jarabacoa." Again I felt personally attacked, and couldn't help responding, "ACTUALLY, I'm going to be living there for 9 months." "Oh, you'll like it, all the gringas like it," he insisted.
Part of the reason the interview took so long was that he claimed to not understand one question I asked him the first time I said it, so I had to repeat everything two or three times. The other reason was that he started telling me things about his personal history that had nothing to do with the questions I was asking. I am usually happy when a patient gets talking, but this was a little different. He admitted that in the past he had consumed drugs including cocaine, and had been quite "promiscuo". It's pretty easy to figure out what that word means even if you don't know Spanish, but my friend was not convinced I understood, and made me give him the definition just to make sure. "I admit, I also enjoyed participating in orgías," he continued. Again, another word you don't need a translator for, but another one that I was required to explain to him just to confirm that we were on the same page. Ayayay. You've got to love honesty though.
On Friday I had the opportunity to attend a support group for patients in the study who have been found to have resistance to certain drugs. It was heart-wrenching and heart-warming at the same time. There were five patients who attended the meeting, and I was afraid that they wouldn't want to talk. The room we were in wasn't exactly the most comfortable or homey, plus it had terrible acoustics and no locks on the doors. When Dr. Lina began talking at the beginning of the meeting, explaining why everyone had been invited here today, I expected an awkward silence to follow. But to my surprise, everyone was more than willing to tell their story to the group. I don't know if this has more to do with the nature of Dominicans, or simply because they were glad to have a venue to let it all out. On top of that though, they all seemed whole-heartedly appreciative of the work of the people in the HIV Unit as well as Emily and my work with Estudio SeR. These patients, in particular, have reason to be thankful for the study: the resistance test that we do as part of it is something they wouldn't normally get in standard HIV care; it's a really expensive test and the blood has to be sent to the United States to be analyzed. Normally, if a patient is on medication but their white blood cell count is dropping nevertheless, the doctors will take that as a sign that the patient is resistant to one or more of the drugs he or she is on, and change them. But the resistance test saves the patient a lot of time and illness, and in some cases can prevent the patient's developing resistance to additional drugs they are taking (the antiretroviral regimen involves three different drugs at a time, so it is possible for someone to be resistant to one or two but not all).
Anyway, it was nice to hear the stories of all of the patients, most of which had relatively happy endings because the patients are feeling better and happy with their new drug scheme. But a special case was the one patient present at the meeting who we found to have primary resistance (meaning that he contracted an already resistant form of HIV, rather than developing it after missing a few doses of his meds). Every time I see this guy in the Unidad I want to just go up and hug him because he looks so morose and kept to himself. And also, because I've heard his back story: he's in one of the high risk groups for primary resistance, men who have sex with men. And when he first came to the Unidad he had told absolutely no one about his diagnosis. He was completely miserable. But the doctor presented him with an ultimatum: he had to tell at least one person about his diagnosis before he could start antiretroviral treatment (the reason being, the treatment is a lot more likely to fail for a patient with no one to remind them to take their pills every day). Reluctantly, he told his sister, and apparently he's been much, much happier ever since then. But of course, on top of it all, he just found out from us recently that he has primary resistance.
Anyway, I was getting nervous for him when it was getting close to his turn to speak at the meeting, because he has the same nervous habit as me of shaking his legs like a fiend. He also had his hands in between his knees and was shaking them too. But when his turn arrived, to my surprise words just began to poor out of him, and you could see that saying these things out loud was a huge relief. I was on the verge of tears again when he started talking about having been suicidal, and how he is so thankful to the Unidad and Estudio SeR for basically saving his life.
After all the patients had taken their turns, Lina again stressed the importance of adhering to the drug regimen they are on now, especially for patients with resistance whose options are running out. But it seemed she hardly needed to say that, because all the patients were clearly ready to be in it for the long haul, to do whatever they could to keep themselves alive. Then Lina asked me if I wanted to say a few words, so put on the spot I just said that we in Estudio SeR are glad to have been of some help, that we hope everyone will keep taking all their meds so that they stay healthy, but that we are hear to help whenever they need it. Immediately everyone chimed in with an emphatic "Thank you", which I hadn't even been expecting.
At the end of the meeting, everyone hugged each other, and it was just one of those indescribable moments. To realize that these people I hardly know, only a couple of which I've ever had a conversation with, were so grateful to me was pretty strange and reminded me of why I'm here to begin with.
Saturday, July 26, 2008
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Fun Birthday Dominican-ness
Last Saturday was Emily's birthday. I made her a loaf of banana bread. Yeah, I know, you guys are like, "What? I must have the wrong person's blog." But like Catherine said, I am becoming domestic. The other day I also made hummus, and then the other day I made "pad thai", which I'll leave in quotations because it did not turn out too hot (correction: it was hot, but not delicious). I also put way too much lime juice in the hummus and Emily thinks I am a weirdo for eating it at work, but I guess you live, you learn.
Anyway. This entry was not supposed to be about my cooking but about Emily's birthday party, which incidentally taught me a lot about Dominican-ness. First of all, I committed the gringo error of arriving way too early. Earlier in the day Emily had told me that she was planning on having people come to her house around 5 PM, but she didn't call to give me the address of her house until around 6:30. I was envisioning there being a full house by the time I arrived there from halfway across the city, but when I got there it was just Emily's husband, mom and sisters, and Emily was still "changing." I sat down on the terrace and tried to make conversation with her family, and I started thinking about how unusual it would be in the states for the first people at your adult birthday party to be your mom and sisters. Not necessarily because they don't want to come, but more likely because they live a bzillion miles away from the city to which you moved off to when you got married. I really think that Americans have forgotten about how valuable it is to have family, and maybe even to stay in the community you grew up in. I did learn, though, that Emily also has two brothers, one of which married a Mexican woman and now lives in Guadalajara. But Emily's mom seemed to see that as new phenomenon; "Kids these days, they're always moving around!" she said, or something like that.
Also when I arrived at the party, the electricity was out, not just at Emily's house but in the whole surrounding area, and they said it had been out since 9 AM. I am lucky enough to live in an apartment building with a generator, and the electricity has only gone out once for about 5 seconds. But "apagón"s, as they call them here, are a really common phenomenon. As far as I understand, the frequent outages have to do with the high price of gas; sometimes the electric companies just can't afford to keep things running anymore, so they just temporarily shut down the electricity in certain areas. I'm gotten used to the electricity going out from time to time in the office where I work, then usually going right back on because the clinic also has a generator. Emily's husband, Gilberto, said that an apagón lasting all day was unusual, but of course it happened on the day of Emily's birthday. I joked to Emily that we were going to have to put a lot of candles on her birthday cake and not let her blow them out. Perhaps partly due to the apagón, none of Emily's friends (besides me) arrived at the party until around 9 PM. Right around that time, luckily, the electricity went back on and we were able to start up the music.
I had fun dancing a little to merengue and bachata, and attempting conversation with some of Emily's friends, which was challenging because of the music in the background and also because I still have a hard time understanding anything people say here when they're speaking fast. But it was probably the largest group of Dominicans I've ever been amongst, so it was fun. However, I did start to notice as more and more people arrived that I was significantly underdressed. Usually the rule of thumb for going out here is that Dominicans will always be better dressed than you. But I thought that maybe since the party was at Emily's house, it wouldn't be as formal. Being underdressed wouldn't have bothered me that much considering I stick out like a sore thumb anyway, but at one point in the party one guy brought it to my attention: "Are you Christian?" he asked me. At first I was confused and thought maybe it was some kind of test of my moral valor, but then I remembered that in Latin America they refer to non-Catholics as "Christians". And here, since Protestantism is a relatively new phenomenon, being Protestant usually means being more devout and more strict. Most non-Catholics are Evangelicals, Mormons or Jehovah's Witnesses, since those are the missionaries that come most often.
"No, I'm not Christian," I said finally. "Why?"
"Well then, why aren't you wearing make-up or earrings?"
I was a bit taken aback. Ironically, earrings are the only kind of jewelry I usually wear, but I guess I just hadn't thought of it before I walked out the door. As for make-up, I don't have anything against it, but I really can't be bothered to use it myself. Is there really no other reason not to be wearing make-up and earrings in this country other than being a conservative Christian? That would be a sad thought. But the comment wasn't completely surprising having observed how people dress here. Whenever people leave the house, it seems, even with friends, they tend to dress more formally than the American standard. Guys usually wear collared shirts and leather or faux leather shoes with squared toes that I'm guessing most of my male friends in the states wouldn't be caught dead in. The women like wearing trendy, spandexy clothes and almost always wear heals. I am actually pretty impressed by the way Dominican women manage to traverse the city in 3-inch heals that would probably make my arches ache and give me blisters and in 5 seconds. And when I went to visit Los Marranitos, I couldn't help notice that Miguelina, the 15-or 16-year-old girl from the village that I met, was also wearing a pair of strappy white high-heeled shoes when she walked with us up a dirt path in the mountainous terrain. I didn't even bring a pair of heals with me here, and I decided rather than spending money that I don't have on a pair, that's just going to have to be one of my little rebellions. I was hoping to find a pair of Tevas here, or something similar, that I can bring with me to the campo, but I just don't think that's going to happen. There is simply no demand from Dominican women for sports' sandals. My only hope is to find an ex-patriate selling Teva contraband.
Later I sat for awhile and chatted with Emily's father-in-law. He was really nice and an intelligent person to have a conversation with. He was glad to hear I was interested in anthropology and started telling me all about the history of merengue and bachata. Interestingly, according to him at least, merengue used to be a very lower class dance, but was popularized in the Trujillo era because Trujillo quite liked dancing merengue. He said the dance used to be a lot slower, but it has since sped up with influence from North American music ("like the music of John Travolta", he said, and I'm assuming he was referring to the kind of dancing you see in Saturday Night Fever). I pointed out that North American music is heavily influenced by African music, AND Latin music... considering that Dominicans have African roots, it's interesting how things come full circle. It got be pondering whether there is really anything that can be called "traditional" music.
Then we got to talking about politics, and after my habitual spiel about why I disapprove of Dubya--just to prove that I am not on the dark side--he asked me which candidate I supported. Assuming it was between McCain and Obama, I immediately went with Obama. Emily's father-in-law (too bad I can't remember his name) said he liked Hillary. It's always of interest to me which of the democratic candidates people support here. Of the people I've asked so far, it has seemed pretty split between Obama and Hillary. The people who support Obama always mention the fact that he is black. But this guy had an equally telling reason for liking Hillary. I guess only the big headline news stories tend to arrive here from the US, so you could probably guess what he brought up regarding Hillary: the Monica Lewinsky scandal. He said that the fact that she stayed with Bill after all that showed that she is a decided, tenacious woman who finishes what she starts. I'm not sure if I agree with that or not, but in such a machista culture I guess it's not surprising that people would support Hillary for that reason. I'm not saying that Emily's father-in-law is a die-hard machista, nor am I saying that that mode of thinking is completely unheard-of in the United States, but it's so ingrained in the way people think here that I'm sure that viewpoint is perfectly accepted. I guess they haven't received the Republican image of Hillary as a firey, venom-spitting man-hater.
Male machismo, female materialism... it is all intertwined if you think about it.
At around midnight, to everyone's dismay the electricity went out again, and there were candles on Emily's birthday cake but unfortunately she blew them all out. And so ended a fun and eventful Santo Domingo night.
Anyway. This entry was not supposed to be about my cooking but about Emily's birthday party, which incidentally taught me a lot about Dominican-ness. First of all, I committed the gringo error of arriving way too early. Earlier in the day Emily had told me that she was planning on having people come to her house around 5 PM, but she didn't call to give me the address of her house until around 6:30. I was envisioning there being a full house by the time I arrived there from halfway across the city, but when I got there it was just Emily's husband, mom and sisters, and Emily was still "changing." I sat down on the terrace and tried to make conversation with her family, and I started thinking about how unusual it would be in the states for the first people at your adult birthday party to be your mom and sisters. Not necessarily because they don't want to come, but more likely because they live a bzillion miles away from the city to which you moved off to when you got married. I really think that Americans have forgotten about how valuable it is to have family, and maybe even to stay in the community you grew up in. I did learn, though, that Emily also has two brothers, one of which married a Mexican woman and now lives in Guadalajara. But Emily's mom seemed to see that as new phenomenon; "Kids these days, they're always moving around!" she said, or something like that.
Also when I arrived at the party, the electricity was out, not just at Emily's house but in the whole surrounding area, and they said it had been out since 9 AM. I am lucky enough to live in an apartment building with a generator, and the electricity has only gone out once for about 5 seconds. But "apagón"s, as they call them here, are a really common phenomenon. As far as I understand, the frequent outages have to do with the high price of gas; sometimes the electric companies just can't afford to keep things running anymore, so they just temporarily shut down the electricity in certain areas. I'm gotten used to the electricity going out from time to time in the office where I work, then usually going right back on because the clinic also has a generator. Emily's husband, Gilberto, said that an apagón lasting all day was unusual, but of course it happened on the day of Emily's birthday. I joked to Emily that we were going to have to put a lot of candles on her birthday cake and not let her blow them out. Perhaps partly due to the apagón, none of Emily's friends (besides me) arrived at the party until around 9 PM. Right around that time, luckily, the electricity went back on and we were able to start up the music.
I had fun dancing a little to merengue and bachata, and attempting conversation with some of Emily's friends, which was challenging because of the music in the background and also because I still have a hard time understanding anything people say here when they're speaking fast. But it was probably the largest group of Dominicans I've ever been amongst, so it was fun. However, I did start to notice as more and more people arrived that I was significantly underdressed. Usually the rule of thumb for going out here is that Dominicans will always be better dressed than you. But I thought that maybe since the party was at Emily's house, it wouldn't be as formal. Being underdressed wouldn't have bothered me that much considering I stick out like a sore thumb anyway, but at one point in the party one guy brought it to my attention: "Are you Christian?" he asked me. At first I was confused and thought maybe it was some kind of test of my moral valor, but then I remembered that in Latin America they refer to non-Catholics as "Christians". And here, since Protestantism is a relatively new phenomenon, being Protestant usually means being more devout and more strict. Most non-Catholics are Evangelicals, Mormons or Jehovah's Witnesses, since those are the missionaries that come most often.
"No, I'm not Christian," I said finally. "Why?"
"Well then, why aren't you wearing make-up or earrings?"
I was a bit taken aback. Ironically, earrings are the only kind of jewelry I usually wear, but I guess I just hadn't thought of it before I walked out the door. As for make-up, I don't have anything against it, but I really can't be bothered to use it myself. Is there really no other reason not to be wearing make-up and earrings in this country other than being a conservative Christian? That would be a sad thought. But the comment wasn't completely surprising having observed how people dress here. Whenever people leave the house, it seems, even with friends, they tend to dress more formally than the American standard. Guys usually wear collared shirts and leather or faux leather shoes with squared toes that I'm guessing most of my male friends in the states wouldn't be caught dead in. The women like wearing trendy, spandexy clothes and almost always wear heals. I am actually pretty impressed by the way Dominican women manage to traverse the city in 3-inch heals that would probably make my arches ache and give me blisters and in 5 seconds. And when I went to visit Los Marranitos, I couldn't help notice that Miguelina, the 15-or 16-year-old girl from the village that I met, was also wearing a pair of strappy white high-heeled shoes when she walked with us up a dirt path in the mountainous terrain. I didn't even bring a pair of heals with me here, and I decided rather than spending money that I don't have on a pair, that's just going to have to be one of my little rebellions. I was hoping to find a pair of Tevas here, or something similar, that I can bring with me to the campo, but I just don't think that's going to happen. There is simply no demand from Dominican women for sports' sandals. My only hope is to find an ex-patriate selling Teva contraband.
Later I sat for awhile and chatted with Emily's father-in-law. He was really nice and an intelligent person to have a conversation with. He was glad to hear I was interested in anthropology and started telling me all about the history of merengue and bachata. Interestingly, according to him at least, merengue used to be a very lower class dance, but was popularized in the Trujillo era because Trujillo quite liked dancing merengue. He said the dance used to be a lot slower, but it has since sped up with influence from North American music ("like the music of John Travolta", he said, and I'm assuming he was referring to the kind of dancing you see in Saturday Night Fever). I pointed out that North American music is heavily influenced by African music, AND Latin music... considering that Dominicans have African roots, it's interesting how things come full circle. It got be pondering whether there is really anything that can be called "traditional" music.
Then we got to talking about politics, and after my habitual spiel about why I disapprove of Dubya--just to prove that I am not on the dark side--he asked me which candidate I supported. Assuming it was between McCain and Obama, I immediately went with Obama. Emily's father-in-law (too bad I can't remember his name) said he liked Hillary. It's always of interest to me which of the democratic candidates people support here. Of the people I've asked so far, it has seemed pretty split between Obama and Hillary. The people who support Obama always mention the fact that he is black. But this guy had an equally telling reason for liking Hillary. I guess only the big headline news stories tend to arrive here from the US, so you could probably guess what he brought up regarding Hillary: the Monica Lewinsky scandal. He said that the fact that she stayed with Bill after all that showed that she is a decided, tenacious woman who finishes what she starts. I'm not sure if I agree with that or not, but in such a machista culture I guess it's not surprising that people would support Hillary for that reason. I'm not saying that Emily's father-in-law is a die-hard machista, nor am I saying that that mode of thinking is completely unheard-of in the United States, but it's so ingrained in the way people think here that I'm sure that viewpoint is perfectly accepted. I guess they haven't received the Republican image of Hillary as a firey, venom-spitting man-hater.
Male machismo, female materialism... it is all intertwined if you think about it.
At around midnight, to everyone's dismay the electricity went out again, and there were candles on Emily's birthday cake but unfortunately she blew them all out. And so ended a fun and eventful Santo Domingo night.
Sunday, July 6, 2008
Two snapshots of Dominican nightlife
One of the things I've decided I really like about the DR is that dancing is really a huge part of the culture here. The two most popular dances are merengue and bachata, with salsa coming in third probably along with reggaeton. Whenever I'm in the car with him to and from work, Juan always makes a big deal of pointing out whenever a merengue or bachata tune comes on the radio, so I've gotten pretty good at distinguishing between the genres. It isn't actually hard at all once you know what to listen for. It's also easier if when you hear the music, you imagine what kind of dancing people would be doing to it. Merengue is always up-tempo with a steady, driving beat, while bachata is a bit slower and sadder and sounds a little like country music. If you picture people style-lessly shaking their asses and humping each other on the dance floor, that's probably reggaeton. And salsa, well, it's the one that doesn't fall into any other category. It's just salsa.
In Cuzco, if I remember correctly, most people could fake their way through a salsa or merengue or bachata, but when it came down to it they much preferred getting their groove on to reggaeton, Madonna or Justin Timberlake. And then there's the hybrid of Peruvian traditional and popular music, chicha, which as far as I can tell from music videos, involves male back-up singers doing simple and repetetive steps in a line while a woman in a woven skirt does some spinny moves in front of them. Other than that, no one is really sure how to dance to it. Here, on the other hand, while it would be an exaggeration to say that EVERYONE knows how to dance, it seems that a pretty large percentage of the population does. While reggaeton is undeniably popular, most people seem to prefer the more formal dances, and recognize them as a part of the cultural heritage.
Lately I've been hanging out and doing some touristy things with Landon, a friend of Tim's who just finished the Peace Corps in St. Lucia and came directly here to visit and take a Spanish class. It turns out that the Spanish class he's taking is in a place called "The Center For German Language and Culture" (unbeknownst to him before arriving here), so a bunch of the people in his class are Germans. So the other night I joined him and a handful of Germans and Americans for a night out on the town. We went to some place I forget the name of, but it was allegedly the oldest bar/ dance floor in the city. The place had a nice feel, and was mostly outdoors except for the wooden dance floor in the center, that was covered but open air. At around 10:00 a live band started playing, and that was when the party really got kicked up a notch. I think "watching people dance" would definitely make it on my Top 20 list of favorite things to do, right behind actually dancing myself. And on this particular night I was absolutely mesmerized. I felt wholly insuperior to everyone on the dance floor, sitting there in my group of rhythmless Americans and Germans.
There was one detail that kind of put a damper on the pure entertainment value of the night, though. One of the first things Landon said to me when we sat down was "Doesn't that girl look much, much younger than that guy she's dancing with?" At first I didn't see what he was referring to. It's not uncommon for relatively young woman to date much older men here, and there were one or two other couples that could have fit that description. Then, all at once, something caught my eye: a white-haired, light-skinned balding man, looking a bit slouched and creaky from arthritis, liberally shaking his bony hips as he danced a merengue number with a "morena" (dark-skinned) girl who looked about 18. My first reaction was to laugh at the awkwardness of the man's movements, but as I continued to observe the couple, I became increasingly disturbed by the fact that the girl's pelvis seemed glued to the old man's leg. They danced a solid merengue without breaking apart even for a moment, and for the remainder of the night they reappeared on the floor for every merengue tune, dancing in the same suggestive and glued-together manner. I couldn't seem to get my mind off it, even afterwards. I kept trying to think up explanations. Maybe it was a nice old grandpa taking his grand-daughter out for a night on the town? No, no, that's just wrong. Maybe she's really in love with him? That was the only other scenario I could think of that didn't involved pedophilia and/or a monetary transaction, so I decided to try to stop pondering it.
At one point in the night when Landon said, "There's that couple again," it took me a minute to realize he wasn't talking about the pedophile couple, but a salsa-dancing couple that could have been professional. They really were fantastic. Actually, they were more like a trio: two lanky, fedora-wearing young guys that kept switching off with the same girl, seamlessly in the middle of a song. That was when it occurred to me that I've been learning the wrong dance for four years. Why oh why did I ever choose swing instead of salsa? Fortunately, learning lindy hop has given me the skill of following a male lead, so that I can half-decently fake my way through most dances, but when it comes to salsa, forget it. All I could do was stare in awe as the couple did turn after turn, trick after trick, without visibly missing a step or losing the groove.
Eventually I got up the guts to dance, first with Landon (the only two gringos on the dance floor--yes!) and later with a Dominican woman, a friend of the guy who works at the German Cultural Center, who had so much bubbly energy I was actually frightened. At one point while I was dancing bachata with her I guess I wasn't living up to her expectations, so she stopped, put her hands on my shoulders/neck as if to strangle me, and shook me in frustration. My last dancing attempt was a bachata with a Dominican guy at the next table, who probably made me look mildly ridiculous since he was a billion times a better dancer than me, but was also a lot easier to follow along with being that he was so skilled. Perhaps the highlight of the night was when a middle-aged German woman got up and attempted a salsa, but apparently not knowing even the basic salsa step and completely and utterly lacking rhythm. For a moment, I felt genuinely sad about the rhythm-less state of my gringo "race".
The very next night Landon and I experienced a completely different music scene. Our friends in Justicia Global made us aware of a reggae concert in the Zona Colonial, which attracted probably every single person in the Santo Domingo rasta community (not an incredibly large one, it seems) along with some ex-pats and Dominican oddballs. The concert took place in a not-so-well-lit but fenced off park. Before the show started, a friendly Dominican couple struck up a conversation with us, telling us we had a "good vibe". Their names, if I understood correctly, were Marcel and Marciel. Marcel, the female component, spoke almost perfect English, which she claimed she had learned purely from watching TV.
We arrived at around 10:00, but the show didn't start until midnight. It was worth the wait, though. There was one Haitian band and one Dominican band, though I have to admit I never figured out which was which. The first band kept saying something about the "Fundacion Negra", and I kept wondering what kind of revolutionary "Black Foundation" he was referring to until I realized that was the name of the band. Enhancing the mood of the show was a portrait of the Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie that took center stage, and a projector that projected continuous images onto a random building behind the park.
One other thing I've noticed about this country that I have to mention is its relative lack of smoking habits. At a concert like the aforementioned, you'd expect to be practically suffocating in the smell of pot, but I surprisingly didn't even get a whiff of it until an hour or so into the show. The percentage of people smoking cigarettes was also pretty low, all things considered. The first time I went out dancing, with Emily and her friends, I was pleasantly surprised upon arriving home and realizing that my shirt miraculously did not smell like cigarette smoke, but cologne. In the DR it is illegal to smoke in public places, but I wonder if that can even begin to account for the difference I've noticed between here and Peru.
All in all, the concert was well worth the 200-peso entry fee-- and was also a reminder of the complexity of this culture that I sometimes forget, being so used to hearing people talk about how much they would love to go to the United States. Yes, American culture has saturated this place and influenced its people in some not-so-positive ways, but if you pay attention, you are reminded again and again that the culture of this country is just as much African as it is Latino or American. There are many unique and valuable elements to be held onto.
In Cuzco, if I remember correctly, most people could fake their way through a salsa or merengue or bachata, but when it came down to it they much preferred getting their groove on to reggaeton, Madonna or Justin Timberlake. And then there's the hybrid of Peruvian traditional and popular music, chicha, which as far as I can tell from music videos, involves male back-up singers doing simple and repetetive steps in a line while a woman in a woven skirt does some spinny moves in front of them. Other than that, no one is really sure how to dance to it. Here, on the other hand, while it would be an exaggeration to say that EVERYONE knows how to dance, it seems that a pretty large percentage of the population does. While reggaeton is undeniably popular, most people seem to prefer the more formal dances, and recognize them as a part of the cultural heritage.
Lately I've been hanging out and doing some touristy things with Landon, a friend of Tim's who just finished the Peace Corps in St. Lucia and came directly here to visit and take a Spanish class. It turns out that the Spanish class he's taking is in a place called "The Center For German Language and Culture" (unbeknownst to him before arriving here), so a bunch of the people in his class are Germans. So the other night I joined him and a handful of Germans and Americans for a night out on the town. We went to some place I forget the name of, but it was allegedly the oldest bar/ dance floor in the city. The place had a nice feel, and was mostly outdoors except for the wooden dance floor in the center, that was covered but open air. At around 10:00 a live band started playing, and that was when the party really got kicked up a notch. I think "watching people dance" would definitely make it on my Top 20 list of favorite things to do, right behind actually dancing myself. And on this particular night I was absolutely mesmerized. I felt wholly insuperior to everyone on the dance floor, sitting there in my group of rhythmless Americans and Germans.
There was one detail that kind of put a damper on the pure entertainment value of the night, though. One of the first things Landon said to me when we sat down was "Doesn't that girl look much, much younger than that guy she's dancing with?" At first I didn't see what he was referring to. It's not uncommon for relatively young woman to date much older men here, and there were one or two other couples that could have fit that description. Then, all at once, something caught my eye: a white-haired, light-skinned balding man, looking a bit slouched and creaky from arthritis, liberally shaking his bony hips as he danced a merengue number with a "morena" (dark-skinned) girl who looked about 18. My first reaction was to laugh at the awkwardness of the man's movements, but as I continued to observe the couple, I became increasingly disturbed by the fact that the girl's pelvis seemed glued to the old man's leg. They danced a solid merengue without breaking apart even for a moment, and for the remainder of the night they reappeared on the floor for every merengue tune, dancing in the same suggestive and glued-together manner. I couldn't seem to get my mind off it, even afterwards. I kept trying to think up explanations. Maybe it was a nice old grandpa taking his grand-daughter out for a night on the town? No, no, that's just wrong. Maybe she's really in love with him? That was the only other scenario I could think of that didn't involved pedophilia and/or a monetary transaction, so I decided to try to stop pondering it.
At one point in the night when Landon said, "There's that couple again," it took me a minute to realize he wasn't talking about the pedophile couple, but a salsa-dancing couple that could have been professional. They really were fantastic. Actually, they were more like a trio: two lanky, fedora-wearing young guys that kept switching off with the same girl, seamlessly in the middle of a song. That was when it occurred to me that I've been learning the wrong dance for four years. Why oh why did I ever choose swing instead of salsa? Fortunately, learning lindy hop has given me the skill of following a male lead, so that I can half-decently fake my way through most dances, but when it comes to salsa, forget it. All I could do was stare in awe as the couple did turn after turn, trick after trick, without visibly missing a step or losing the groove.
Eventually I got up the guts to dance, first with Landon (the only two gringos on the dance floor--yes!) and later with a Dominican woman, a friend of the guy who works at the German Cultural Center, who had so much bubbly energy I was actually frightened. At one point while I was dancing bachata with her I guess I wasn't living up to her expectations, so she stopped, put her hands on my shoulders/neck as if to strangle me, and shook me in frustration. My last dancing attempt was a bachata with a Dominican guy at the next table, who probably made me look mildly ridiculous since he was a billion times a better dancer than me, but was also a lot easier to follow along with being that he was so skilled. Perhaps the highlight of the night was when a middle-aged German woman got up and attempted a salsa, but apparently not knowing even the basic salsa step and completely and utterly lacking rhythm. For a moment, I felt genuinely sad about the rhythm-less state of my gringo "race".
The very next night Landon and I experienced a completely different music scene. Our friends in Justicia Global made us aware of a reggae concert in the Zona Colonial, which attracted probably every single person in the Santo Domingo rasta community (not an incredibly large one, it seems) along with some ex-pats and Dominican oddballs. The concert took place in a not-so-well-lit but fenced off park. Before the show started, a friendly Dominican couple struck up a conversation with us, telling us we had a "good vibe". Their names, if I understood correctly, were Marcel and Marciel. Marcel, the female component, spoke almost perfect English, which she claimed she had learned purely from watching TV.
We arrived at around 10:00, but the show didn't start until midnight. It was worth the wait, though. There was one Haitian band and one Dominican band, though I have to admit I never figured out which was which. The first band kept saying something about the "Fundacion Negra", and I kept wondering what kind of revolutionary "Black Foundation" he was referring to until I realized that was the name of the band. Enhancing the mood of the show was a portrait of the Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie that took center stage, and a projector that projected continuous images onto a random building behind the park.
One other thing I've noticed about this country that I have to mention is its relative lack of smoking habits. At a concert like the aforementioned, you'd expect to be practically suffocating in the smell of pot, but I surprisingly didn't even get a whiff of it until an hour or so into the show. The percentage of people smoking cigarettes was also pretty low, all things considered. The first time I went out dancing, with Emily and her friends, I was pleasantly surprised upon arriving home and realizing that my shirt miraculously did not smell like cigarette smoke, but cologne. In the DR it is illegal to smoke in public places, but I wonder if that can even begin to account for the difference I've noticed between here and Peru.
All in all, the concert was well worth the 200-peso entry fee-- and was also a reminder of the complexity of this culture that I sometimes forget, being so used to hearing people talk about how much they would love to go to the United States. Yes, American culture has saturated this place and influenced its people in some not-so-positive ways, but if you pay attention, you are reminded again and again that the culture of this country is just as much African as it is Latino or American. There are many unique and valuable elements to be held onto.
Thursday, July 3, 2008
Getting to know you...
In the last couple weeks I have been gradually learning how to do more and more things at my job. For better or for worse, I now know how to enter the data we collect from the survey into the database. A lot of that is just mindless and repetitive work, but parts of it are actually pretty interesting. The questions that Emily and I ask patients are only part of the survey-- each time a patient comes for a visit to us, they also spend some time talking with the doctor, whose name is Rita. Rita fills out a few more pages of forms having to do with more intimate social issues, illnesses and symptoms. At the end of the visit, Rita and Emily (and sometimes me) collaborate to write down a few general observations about the patient, their adherence to the antiretroviral regimen if they're already on meds, and other social and medical issues. So by entering this along with the medical-related data into the computer, I develop a bit more of a profile of the person and feel like I get to know them a little better (albeit a strange way of getting to know a person).
One thing that appears to be no different here than in the U.S. is the universally bad handwriting of doctors. One of the hardest things about the data entry is interpreting Rita's handwriting, and this is obviously more difficult for someone with little knowledge of HIV-related afflictions in English let alone in Spanish. But I'm learning bit by bit. What is most striking is not so much the symptoms people have in and of themselves (and I will spare the details), but the sheer quantity of things these people have to deal with all at once. In the United States, HIV patients generally start antiretroviral treatment when their CD4 count (# of a certain kind of white blood cells) hits 350. Here, because of lack of resources, they don't start the patients on the meds until their CD4 is 250, and usually even lower. Needless to say, the fewer white blood cells you have, generally the sicker you are. It's horrifying to me to think about what that would be like-- knowing that your body's defenses are growing steadily weaker, observing the onset of more and more symptoms, including illnesses virtually no one gets who doesn't have AIDS, and knowing that if you don't start receiving treatment at some point, you will most certainly die. I think it is mainly for that reason that so many people are so willing to participate in the study. Even though we are not providing people with additional treatment, the patients are happy to have people paying attention to them, people to talk to, people working to improve the lives of HIV patients in general. Not to mention how relieved these patients are when they finally start their treatment. It is like being on the verge of drowning, and having someone throw you a life preserver. To continue with that analogy, I guess Estudio SeR might be like getting a big hug from a stranger after you've just been saved from drowning. It may not seem like we're doing much for the patients individually, but they do appreciate it, and most understand that our ultimate goal is to improve treatment for patients with HIV in general.
Yesterday I went through a whole questionnaire with a patient by myself for the first time. Emily was downstairs attending to a different patient, so I was left in the office, one-on-one with another guy. It was a little scary, but a welcome challenge. Fortunately, I could understand the majority of what he was saying, which is more than I could say about some Dominicans. And fortunately, he was much more talkative and open than many of the other patients. Speaking of which, it's also fascinating to see how different patients cope with their situation. Of all the patients who have set foot in the office in the last few weeks, I honestly don't think I could group any two in a certain "type" category. They are male and female, older and younger, straight or gay, outspoken or shy, dejected or animated. Some (more often men) have had countless sexual partners in their lives, while others report to having just one, and sadly, some people even contract HIV from blood transfusions. With some people it's hard to get a word out of them other than just blunt and/or reluctant answers to the survey questions, and with others, even a simple question like "What is your birth date?" will set them off on a long tangent.
So anyway, this guy was not one of those that we'd call a "talker", but for whatever reason, he did open up to me a little. He expressed a significant amount of regret about his carelessness in having contracted HIV, and kept saying that if only he had been more aware of the risks of unprotected sex when he was younger, he would never have behaved the way he did. He was married (many of the patients are) and also expressed a lot of guilt about having spread the infection to his wife. His wife is also the only person who knows he has HIV, besides us, and he seemed worried about how other people would treat him if they knew. At one point he said that he couldn't complain about his suffering because of the disease, but he only hoped that God would forgive him for it.
At this point I was a little at a loss for the right thing to say. In the first place, what exactly did he hope to be forgiven for? Promiscuity? Ignorance? Passing the disease to another person? Or just merely the fact of being contaminated with HIV? And in the second place, being a non-religious person, I simply have no idea how to talk about religion. I could and maybe should have said, "I'm sure God will forgive you," but on the other hand, how would I know? And should I pretend to agree that he even needs God's forgiveness? My utter secular-ness makes it hard for me to even imagine how a religious person thinks, and I'm always afraid that anything I say implying any degree of religious devotion would give me away as a fraud. So instead of saying anything I just sat there nodding sympathetically.
When I came to the question about whether or not the patient had traveled, he replied that no, he regrettably had never been out of the country, but that he hoped to travel someday. He hoped that his illness wouldn't prevent him from getting a visa, to go to the United States for example. His dream, he said, was to see at least one of the seven wonders of the world, like the statue of liberty for example. I was surprised and asked incredulously, "Is the statue of liberty one of the wonders of the world?" The patient seemed pretty sure that it was, so I didn't argue. Later I asked Juan, the taxi driver, if he thought that the statue of liberty was one of the 7 wonders of the world. He agreed that it was. "And another one of the 7 wonders of the world is the Dominican Republic," he said. (Note: Upon performing a Wikipedia fact check, I have found that neither the statue of liberty or the Dominican Republic is listed as one of the 7 wonders of the world, either ancient or modern.)
The patient, despite his regrets, also had a great sense of humor. When I asked him if he had a nickname, he told me it-- something simple, the equivalent of "Joe" or "Rob". He followed that up with, "That's what they call me by day."
I smiled. "And what do they call you by night, then?"
"That I can't tell you." And he laughed, as if he'd been waiting all day to tell me that joke.
One thing that appears to be no different here than in the U.S. is the universally bad handwriting of doctors. One of the hardest things about the data entry is interpreting Rita's handwriting, and this is obviously more difficult for someone with little knowledge of HIV-related afflictions in English let alone in Spanish. But I'm learning bit by bit. What is most striking is not so much the symptoms people have in and of themselves (and I will spare the details), but the sheer quantity of things these people have to deal with all at once. In the United States, HIV patients generally start antiretroviral treatment when their CD4 count (# of a certain kind of white blood cells) hits 350. Here, because of lack of resources, they don't start the patients on the meds until their CD4 is 250, and usually even lower. Needless to say, the fewer white blood cells you have, generally the sicker you are. It's horrifying to me to think about what that would be like-- knowing that your body's defenses are growing steadily weaker, observing the onset of more and more symptoms, including illnesses virtually no one gets who doesn't have AIDS, and knowing that if you don't start receiving treatment at some point, you will most certainly die. I think it is mainly for that reason that so many people are so willing to participate in the study. Even though we are not providing people with additional treatment, the patients are happy to have people paying attention to them, people to talk to, people working to improve the lives of HIV patients in general. Not to mention how relieved these patients are when they finally start their treatment. It is like being on the verge of drowning, and having someone throw you a life preserver. To continue with that analogy, I guess Estudio SeR might be like getting a big hug from a stranger after you've just been saved from drowning. It may not seem like we're doing much for the patients individually, but they do appreciate it, and most understand that our ultimate goal is to improve treatment for patients with HIV in general.
Yesterday I went through a whole questionnaire with a patient by myself for the first time. Emily was downstairs attending to a different patient, so I was left in the office, one-on-one with another guy. It was a little scary, but a welcome challenge. Fortunately, I could understand the majority of what he was saying, which is more than I could say about some Dominicans. And fortunately, he was much more talkative and open than many of the other patients. Speaking of which, it's also fascinating to see how different patients cope with their situation. Of all the patients who have set foot in the office in the last few weeks, I honestly don't think I could group any two in a certain "type" category. They are male and female, older and younger, straight or gay, outspoken or shy, dejected or animated. Some (more often men) have had countless sexual partners in their lives, while others report to having just one, and sadly, some people even contract HIV from blood transfusions. With some people it's hard to get a word out of them other than just blunt and/or reluctant answers to the survey questions, and with others, even a simple question like "What is your birth date?" will set them off on a long tangent.
So anyway, this guy was not one of those that we'd call a "talker", but for whatever reason, he did open up to me a little. He expressed a significant amount of regret about his carelessness in having contracted HIV, and kept saying that if only he had been more aware of the risks of unprotected sex when he was younger, he would never have behaved the way he did. He was married (many of the patients are) and also expressed a lot of guilt about having spread the infection to his wife. His wife is also the only person who knows he has HIV, besides us, and he seemed worried about how other people would treat him if they knew. At one point he said that he couldn't complain about his suffering because of the disease, but he only hoped that God would forgive him for it.
At this point I was a little at a loss for the right thing to say. In the first place, what exactly did he hope to be forgiven for? Promiscuity? Ignorance? Passing the disease to another person? Or just merely the fact of being contaminated with HIV? And in the second place, being a non-religious person, I simply have no idea how to talk about religion. I could and maybe should have said, "I'm sure God will forgive you," but on the other hand, how would I know? And should I pretend to agree that he even needs God's forgiveness? My utter secular-ness makes it hard for me to even imagine how a religious person thinks, and I'm always afraid that anything I say implying any degree of religious devotion would give me away as a fraud. So instead of saying anything I just sat there nodding sympathetically.
When I came to the question about whether or not the patient had traveled, he replied that no, he regrettably had never been out of the country, but that he hoped to travel someday. He hoped that his illness wouldn't prevent him from getting a visa, to go to the United States for example. His dream, he said, was to see at least one of the seven wonders of the world, like the statue of liberty for example. I was surprised and asked incredulously, "Is the statue of liberty one of the wonders of the world?" The patient seemed pretty sure that it was, so I didn't argue. Later I asked Juan, the taxi driver, if he thought that the statue of liberty was one of the 7 wonders of the world. He agreed that it was. "And another one of the 7 wonders of the world is the Dominican Republic," he said. (Note: Upon performing a Wikipedia fact check, I have found that neither the statue of liberty or the Dominican Republic is listed as one of the 7 wonders of the world, either ancient or modern.)
The patient, despite his regrets, also had a great sense of humor. When I asked him if he had a nickname, he told me it-- something simple, the equivalent of "Joe" or "Rob". He followed that up with, "That's what they call me by day."
I smiled. "And what do they call you by night, then?"
"That I can't tell you." And he laughed, as if he'd been waiting all day to tell me that joke.
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