Friday, November 30, 2007

Survivors






Will the real survivors please stand up?
With the audience appreciated Survivor series of TV programs, one might get the idea that the real survivors are the people who win the prizes to stick it out the longest in this or that hostile environment. What about the people in the above pictures?
Homesteaders in our tradition:
We Americans have the memory of homesteaders who crossed the vast plains and learned to "make do" with the raw materials close at hand. When there were no trees, they built earthen homes. Both the environment and the historical moment combined to reinforce the idea that people had to fend for themselves without chronic dependence upon the government.
Who is asking for a handout?
Many Haitian families who live in the Paraíso mountain communities sustained damage to the homes where they live. In contrast to the local population that clamors for government or Church assistance as a first response, the "morenos" (as they are called) initial response to disaster is to fix things as best they can. From experience they know that they can not count on the government since they have no legal rights nor political clout. As a result, survival skills keep pace with the changing generations.
Do they need help?
The hardship honed self-reliance of the immigrant survivors remains a potent value and free hand-outs would do little to reach everyone. Perhaps the last thing the immigrants need is to lose their self-reliance and survival skills. The valuable help that the Church can offer them is through the parish schools. In this setting their children receive a chance to learn Spanish together with reading and writing. These schools provide a much needed cultural bridge between the local Dominicans and the newcomers. For this reason we must rely upon Dominican teachers, even as we struggle to find ways to encourage them to be consistent with their work days.
The value of a thatched roof:
When compared with a zinc roof, the natural roof has a very low carbon footprint, is cooler in the hot sun and keeps more warmth in the house during cold nights. The drawbacks concern durability issues. You would be surprised to see thatched roofs that withstood the fury of Noel, while corroded zinc roofs flew off in pieces. God bless the people who know how to resolve their own needs and who remain alert to share survival skills with their children. They would have a big laugh watching our "Survivor" TV shows, knowing that the challenges depicted are pure entertainment and that the "experts" have funny looking, awkward skills, like the easterner who becomes a summer vacation cowboy.

Simple pleasures



We have a band:


One of the blessings which came from the Spanish way of colonizing is the love of music and municipal bands. So on a Sunday evening it comes as no surprise to hear the band playing classical music. The director, pictured above, plays the saxophone.

Music for culture:

Just as the mountains need trees to anchor the soil, a culture needs simple pleasures to anchor its core values and approach to life. The Dominican Republic suffers from intense storms of cultural erosion, as cable TV, video games, and a host of imported feasts, foods and beverages. You might be surprised to find children of wealthy families who know more about Disney world than they know about the rivers and mountains of their own country.

The band plays:

Listening to the band and observing who is playing, one gets a sense that the love of music transcends the barriers of age and place of birth. The youth move into music that required real artistry to create. They learn to distinguish between well crafted music and stuff that is simply thrown together for rapid consumption.

El Factor compared to Paraíso:

The two municipalities of El Factor and Paraíso share much in common: they both have municipal bands and generate local musicians. The Church in El Factor lives in a golden moment when choirs vie with each other to create Church music and play in the liturgies. Each Advent they get together to hear one an other's music and choose which new hymns they will learn for Christmas. But the Church in Paraíso has hidden musicians... Haitian immigrants who develop their skills in the mountains, serving remote communities that have few contacts with the townsfolk.

A new music:

During the 1980's the "new music" sang about injustice, oppression and the evil of government sponsored torture. The youth groups in Church also found their voices to sing for structural changes and more freedom. Today the Dominican Republic lives a transition moment, when the old protest songs are no longer sung, and a new kind of awareness has yet to develop. Father Jerry Hernandez, when he served here in Paraíso, struck a discordant note when he observed during a Sunday homily that "nobody feels pain for their town". The comment upset many churchgoers, but it struck a nerve. Can a new music awaken the sensibilities that lie dormant? Thomas Berry thinks we need to sing the song of the Universe and how it unfolds to this day. He believes we need a new cosmology to develop our capacity for awe and reverence.

Coming to attention: As the band swings into the national anthem, the children in the park stop what they are doing and come to attention. Some of them hold their right hands over their hearts. They know how to respect the hymn that represents their country. Do we have a hymn for the Earth; for the rivers; for the soil and the trees? Can we live in attention?

Death and Life




River of life:


The Nizaito River begins in the mountains of Polo, above 3000 feet. From there it plummets to Platon, which lies only a few hundred feet above sea level. As it falls, it flushes out the rocks from the valley floor, vastly expanding its river bed during Noel. For those of us raised in the United States, it is hard to imagine how a river could uncover so many rocks in such a short period of time. The Nizaito still flows with the storm waters as you can see in the above image. Water from this little river flows into a canal that irrigates thousands of acres on the plains surrounding Oviedo. Thus it brings life to land that would otherwise remain locked in a perpetual cycle of dryness interrupted by the rare tropical downpour.
Emerson:
He spent the morning and afternoon drinking clerén. Towards evening he announced that he would cross the river and wander back to the batey and his belongings. People told him he was in no condition to cross the river; that he should wait until the stupor had passed. That Sunday night he went into the waters and they carried him away from human existence as we know it.
The confluence:
Two vectors met: a raging river and a mind intoxicated by cheap alcohol. Take one of those elements away, and tragedy is averted. How will it go with Emerson in the Final Judgment? Will the Creator confront him with all the lost opportunities; the talents squandered; the grand design of his life and how he was meant to share in the unfolding of creation?
Plunging into the river of our time:
Will the dynamics of our Final Judgment be any different from those that bring Emerson into the awareness of God's truth? A growing chorus of voices alert us to the dangers involved in plunging recklessly into a river of carbon dioxide and other gases which can overwhelm the precious diversity of life as we know it on our planet. Is our voracious appetite for carbon based goods and services that much different from the alcohol which reduced Emerson's mind to a foggy stupor? How do you envision the Final Judgment?

Saturday, November 24, 2007

Little Christmas



Lanza Arriba:


It takes some driving in order to get to Lanza Arriba. You have two choices from Paraíso: either you drive back to Barahona and around to Cabral so that you can take the road out of Cabral that heads up to Polo ... or else you can drive to Enriquillo and take a right turn onto the dirt and sometimes pavement road to Polo. Either way, you need to reach Polo. Once there, you take a turn to the East and travel along a rough road that has just been cleared of rocky obstructions since the Noel flood.
What happened in Lanza Arriba:


The heavy rains and winds of Noel damaged the coffee crop together with the corn, yucca, beans and other crops that the people plant for food. Coffee beans fell to the ground and there was a frenzy to recover as many as possible. The corn and beans were another story. They might provide food for animals, since the biomass is still usable.

The meaning:

Since the Haitian immigrants do most of the hard work involved in picking coffee, and since they depend upon the food crops for sustenance when there is no coffee work... the loss of both sources of income or food security spells hard times ahead.

Little Christmas:

In the pictures, the children of Lanza Arriba are presenting the gifts that arrived from Spain: springtime green scarfs together with T shirts. The scarfs will certainly be well received since we are entering the cool period. Temperatures in Lanza Arriba will drop to the 40's between now and the end of March. It is no fun to lie awake at night and not being able to sleep because of the cold. You can be sure that those green scarfs will be wrapped around the children's heads in an effort to bring comfort. "I was cold and you warmed me up," might be words which the donors hear at the Last Judgment.

Bother and blessing:

When Sister Beania (pronounced: bay a knee ah) received the message from the acaldia of a town in Spain... that a shipment of clothes was on its way from Spain... this meant a big problem for her. She had to make numerous trips to Santo Domingo and visit Customs offices in order to clear the shipment which arrived by air. Few people will give her thanks for the trouble she endured in order to free the supplies. But the comfort which the scarfs and the T shirts will bring to the children is a true blessing. The parents took it as a sign that they are not forgotten.

What would Jesus buy?

He encouraged a wealthy young man to purchase blessings for the poor by sharing his wealth with them. Did he ever make tables or beds for the poor and then settle for a price well below the actual cost? For every child who will request and then receive a brand new X Box or other Digital video game for Christmas... how beautiful it would be if that very same child could have the experience of giving out to poor children simple things like green scarfs and prune T shirts... Then he or she could compare the levels of joy that flow from the two experiences.

Thursday, November 22, 2007

the strength of children



On the way up to Charco Blanco


Allen, our new Peace Corps Volunteer (from NYC and descendant of Chinese parents) and I began walking up to Charco Blanco. The road has not seen a bulldozer after Noel and we found three places where even motorcycles can not pass: the results of landslides and deep gullies opened by the heavy rains.

At Cafe de las Mujeres

Once we reached Cafe de las Mujeres we saw huge amapola de sombra trees blown over by the freak high winds that left pockets devastated while other areas remained largely untouched. To enter the wilderness of broken trees, fallen branches and little coffee bushes splintered and flattened under the weight of the wrecked canopy... we experienced the devastation. A group of youths chopped at the branches in silence, they wielded their machetes in an effort to free the coffee bushes from the wreckage. Before, the canopy offered shelter and when it fell to pieces, the very trees that offered protection became the ones that ruined the slender coffee branches.

Along come the children

At this low point in our journey, along came the children pictured above. Notice the two empty containers in the older boy's arms. He will give the smaller gallon tank to his youngest sister who stands to his left. They fill up the containers and start back to their home, each child carrying one or two gallons. The little girl weighs how much? Would you say fifty pounds? And yet she is able to carry a full gallon container over half a mile, across the broken tree trunks, along a path and then up the mountain road to her home.

No complaining

The children moved along in harmony. None of them complained about the chore of carrying the water such a long distance. They did what was expected... as simple as that. In the group, the youngest child learned what needed to be done and she followed the example. We witnessed a school of developing physical strength.

Strong people needed

With increasing rains and tropical storms on the horizon for an indefinite future, the island of Hispaniola will be in dire need of strong children, young people and adults. They will face challenges and adversity which can scarcely be imagined at this point.

Thanksgiving for the strength of children

In a world of increasing imbalances between the forces of wind, air and sea, let us give thanks to God for the strength in children. He brings them forth and creates environments where they learn to carry heavy loads and give one another the encouragement needed to reach home with a joyful spirit.

Sunday, November 11, 2007

Turning swords into plowshares








A bright idea:






A Dominican from New York comes down to Paraiso on vacation. He gets the idea of starting a new tourist business. After all: look at the stream coming out of the mountain and traveling a short distance into the sea. Why not buy the land, put in some pipes to channel the water as well as a few natural looking swimming pools and then start attracting customers? So our investor went to the campesino owner; paid him an insignificant amount... and started developing.



How easy to fool the "dumb" campesinos:



Our New York savvy entrepreneur gets off to a fast start. He puts in some walls and two eighteen inch PVC tubes to bring the water down to various pools. All the while he thinks how easy it was to buy the land when the old campesino needed an operation and had no cash. His friends all see him as a modern wonder... but then came hurricane George... and in a matter of less than twenty four hours, the fantastic, quick money project got buried under tons of rock and sand.
God likes to turn swords into plowshares:
The sharp thinking investor ends up creating a haven for the people of Ojeda. When hurricanes or tropical storms like Noel attack their island, they know that fresh water is less than a mile away. All they have to do is walk down the coastal road and turn right into the finca where beautiful pools of clean water bubble to the surface. God gets blamed for hurricanes and house wrecking storms... why not give Him the credit for taking a development project down a path that no one expected? Ojeda might be forgotten by the central government planners and be last in line for aqueduct repairs...but God has provided the people with a beautiful park to wash, bathe and find water to carry home.

Dominico-haitian education




The struggle:


These children live in La Canoa. They have progressed beyond the limits of the local Catholic school and so each day they climb down the mountain in order to attend classes in Los Patos. They leave their homes at around 7 AM and begin the climb back to the paraje at 12 noon. Johnny La Fleu has a different schedule. He descends at noon and begins the long trip back up at 6 PM. With tropical storm Noel, the country road has more rocks and crevasses which need to be avoided. Think of the dedication in these young people, together with the strong motivation not to end up like their parents: totally dependent upon the graces of Dominican land owners and limited to a life of precarious subsistence.
A disaster fueled by ignorance:
In the first picture, study the slope which a person in desperation decided to burn and then attempt to plant: the ground falls away at an angle close to 80 %. People do not ruin the side of a mountain nor waste the precious top soil because they are evil. The pattern of soil abuse arises from a vacuum of knowledge. As long as the children keep studying, their chances of repeating the same mistake grow smaller and smaller.
A leadership crisis:
We need these children to become the future leaders in the mountains. They will develop skills in writing and reading which the vast majority of immigrants lack. They will acquire a much better grasp of what erosion is and how it destroys the long term carrying capacity of the land. But the lack of employment will push these children towards Santo Domingo or other cities that offer a better chance to make a living... thus, the gap in rural talent.
What can be done now?
Small businesses have room to grow in the Paraiso area. For example, the production of bread and spaghetti, juice and spirits can respond to local market needs. Imagine a world in which large corporations like Hershey, Pepsi, Heinz, and others take little steps to share "backward" food production technology with remote areas.
These children inspire.
Watching these young people struggle simply to find a space for education...one can not help but be impressed. Whereas other children in our world have every convenience, these kids push on with very little. When families bring forth such dedicated children, will real solutions to serious problems by beyond our reach?

Saturday, November 10, 2007

Manuelito










Maricela:




The young woman could not sleep in the unrelenting rain and harsh winds. Her second pregnancy had only days to go and memories of the first one provoked a deep fear. Maricela's first effort to bring life into the world ended with a still born child. What would happen with this child in her womb? Manuel, her partner, could sense the fear and he had worries of his own: as a Haitian immigrant, dependent upon the good will of the coffee landowner, a new baby might become an unwelcome guest... and what if they get sick?




El Platón:




As he worried, the community of El Platón suffered the ravages of tropical storm Noel. Little did Manuel know that the main country road into Paraíso would be completely destroyed by the time he really needed transportation. El Platón has the unfortunate geographical position of being at the confluence of the Nizaito river's dual channels. Water rushes almost 4,000 feet down steep mountain sides and the river's power moves thousands of rocks.




Four in the morning:




Maricela's labor pains begin in the darkness, after four days of deluge. Manuel doesn't know what to do. His mind is a blank and he experiences a dreadful helplessness. But thanks be to God the neighbors step in. They reach a decision: at first light they will help Maricela to get out of the mountains. But at 6 AM she has no energy to move. The pain in her young body locks her up and she is afraid to walk. The people decide to make a stretcher with a long branch and a bed sheet. They will carry her for six hours until they reach Villa Nizao.




News:




At One PM two young people pound on our rectory door. They demand that the parish help we drop whatever we are doing and help rescue a young woman who is going to give birth at any minute. Soon the three of us are driving the double cabin Toyota truck out of town. We reach the muddy part of the road to Villa Nizao and barely get through. On the way back it will be extremely difficult to climb in the thick mud. Before reaching the village, here come the people carrying Maricela. For the first time I see that the lady's partner is Manuel, our catechist in El Platón. The villagers helping the young woman onto the back seat include four or five Dominican residents, which brings great comfort, since they show support for someone who is not their nationality but is a Child of God.
Mud pushers:
Five men climb on to the back of the truck and when we hit the bad part of the road and get stuck, they jump over the sides and push the truck so we can get out of the mud. It's a miracle that we reach the main road. We drive into Paraíso looking for a doctor but can find none. The group decides that the best choice is to head for Barahona. As we move along, the Dominican lady keeps trying to maintain a conversation with Maricela. She believes that a woman in labor should never sleep because as she says "it turns the pains cold". We finally arrive at the hospital at 5 PM.
Blessed birth:
Doctor Delgado and others assist Maricela and within twenty minutes after arriving at the regional hospital, she gives birth to her little son. We give the doctor a lift back to Paraíso. He tells us that he has four children; that his family lives in Oviedo; that he has taught all of his children how to inject patients. People routinely come to his home and even his nine year old daughter can inject them. He identifies himself as an Evangelical Christian and we admire his deep faith. He assures us that Maricela and the baby are fine.
The next day:
Manuel comes by the next morning, asking if he can call the hospital to find out how his partner and the baby spent the night. A Haitian woman, neighbor of theirs stayed with them in the hospital. We can not get through to the hospital and he leaves the rectory. At ten AM he returns with the totally unexpected: Maricela and the baby. Can you believe it? She gave birth less than twenty hours ago and now she is walking around with her son! They needed a ride out to the end of the road... where the heavy mud begins ... and so off we go. By eleven AM they begin the long walk back to El Platón. With few resources, they believe that the best choice before them was to return to their community as quickly as possible. Thanks be to God the sun shone brightly. Can you place yourself by the truck, watching the couple; another injured Haitian and the woman friends starting out on that long walk? Can you imagine wondering how Maricela could be so strong, and what kind of a mission lies before Manuelito who in less than twenty hours after coming into the world is being carried off, into the wilderness.

Impact Noel





Cancer:


When we reflect upon a natural disaster such as Noel, we tend to focus upon the TV scenes. Here in Paraíso we had no electricity and could not follow the effects of the storm in the usual way. Instead, people of the town went over to the river and contemplated the rushing waters. Rio Nizaito usually has less than one thousandth of the flow you see. The children and youth watched in fascination as the powerful waters surged towards the ocean. Few people realized that we witnessed the destruction of Hispaniola's future...her topsoil. In effect, we contemplated a growing cancer: erosion.


Soil runoff:


This week a UN sponsored gathering of the world's climate scientists will put the finishing touches on a document which attempts to predict the impact of global warming. They will state that places subject to flooding will experience more flooding. This spells a long term forecast of agricultural decline on the island of Hispaniola.


What can be done:


Presently the Church devotes precious little human resources to the question of soil conservation. You can find the occasional priest or sister who speaks out concerning the danger of deforestation. Bishop Jose Grullion of San Juan de la Maguana has sent his seminarians into the mountains to reforest a large tract of land which the diocese owns. Miguel Angel of the local foundation has begun to monitor the soil loss with the participation of community organizations. But in spite of these efforts, the erosion cancer grows.


A creative response urgently needed:


A common element which limits all the strategies to reforest the mountains on Hispaniola is the culture of professional urban comfort. When people study beyond high school, they expect to develop a lifestyle in the towns and cities. This leaves the countryside with an acute shortage of highly trained people who live with the immigrants and local farming families. In our area, only Father John lived in the mountains, and now that he suffered an accident, his clinic lies abandoned.


Instead of roads...


In the aftermath of Noel, the local governments will spend vital resources trying to reopen roads and bridges. This helps the movement of people and resources, but has no positive impact upon the erosion cancer. Instead, it creates the environment where erosion of the topsoil can continue. If resources were instead dedicated to establish "monasteries" of modern life in the mountains, they could serve as magnets to attract professional people as well as anchors of long term education towards soil conservation practices.


From the "Dark Ages":


During the so-called Dark Ages of European history, the peoples experienced cultural erosion in the clashes with barbarian armies. However the monasteries served to keep the spirit of curiosity and learning alive. They developed water systems and schools of writing. They kept libraries functioning to benefit humanity. Could something similar be created in response to the long term threat of devastating erosion?