Feminist, Environmentalist, Missionary?

The first thing Mark said to me was if I could guess his 3 brother's names. I guessed Matt (since it sounds like Mark?) and was right, but I couldn't guess the other two, and so when I stared blankly at him after he told me their names are Mark, Matthew, John and Luke, there was a long pause until he finally said, "You know, from the bible?"

"Oh, of course, yeah."

Uhhh??

Needless to say, Mark isn't cute, mostly because I find him extremely hard to be around as he is truly your Straight Out of the Book Ignorant American (I really don't think he will ever read this....) And yes, I am completely being a total judgmental Travel Snob when I say this, but he just doesn't get it and told me this is the first time he has "traveled to a place like this," and I just wanted to say a place like WHAT?  When I told him about the bodega I've been getting my juice and cookies fix at he was shocked that I had 'ventured off from the FilterPure site to explore the town because I heard the Dominican Republic is so dangerous' (seriously, readers, this bodega is maybe a 1/4th of a block from the house in the friendliest community there is and I get my cookies in complete daylight). He just asks so many questions. All the time. Never stops. Tranquilo.

Yesterday after a lazy day of watching Radhames and the whole family fly kites in the yard, and after a swim in hermano Ricardo's pool para las ninas (that people over the age of 5 can't really fit in), I played Old Maid and Go Fish with Disney themed cards with Melissa and Rhady. I got the Old Maid (Ursula from Little Mermaid). We were playing in my room and we invited Mark to play with us, and from my doorway he saw my bra hanging from the bamboo bed drying out from the 'swim' I had earlier and got scared off. We all saw his horrified expression seeing a girl's bra and then his immediate reaction that he had to go and didn't want to play. We were all like, c'mon, really, what's the big deal about a bra?? The joke with the girls for the rest of the night was about Mark's face when he took one look at my hanging bra and closed the door to leave my room saying he just wanted to hang out with the guys downstairs. So funny, but also, seriously? He's 23?

Today I received the compliment from the workers at the factory that I am a strong woman and a hard worker. For being the only woman working alongside 10 guys at a ceramics factory for the morning, I felt pretty accomplished. Just breaking down gender stereotypes one day at a time.

Our project this morning was clearing out the kiln that had hundreds of tiles in it for flooring, then transferring the tiles (along with cement) up to the third floor of the dormitory unit via a pulley system.

I remember my academic professor in Ghana, Yemi, said that the first step in doing research somewhere is establishing relationships with the people, and that's definitely what I did today. It was the best joking with all of the guys who work here and in between hauling tiles we would be singing Juanes and laughing and now it seems like I've built up a right to be able to interview the workers about the FilterPure because we are friends.


Today I went to Santo Domingo to accompany David on one of his trainings and FilterPure distributions with his oldest son, Izaiah and Mark. Santo Domingo is crazy and I was ready to get back to humble, quiet Huguericito Moca as soon as we were stuck in our first traffic jam about an hour into the ride.

We went to where nurses doing a community health work with Pentecostal affiliated Volunteers for Peace were stationed. David did a really great job advertising the filter and explaining to the Volunteers for Peace all about how they should explain how to use the filters to the families they distribute them to. The nurses spoke about how what they see the most is people infected with multiple parasites, and instead of just treating them with antibiotics, they want to distribute FilterPures to families in Santo Domingo to eliminate parasites at the source. It was great hearing such positive responses supporting the FilterPure from a health perspective.

Over the meal we were fed at the Volunteers for Peace site (plantains and chicken and lots of people saying grace), there was lots of talk about "following God's calling" and mission work and I mostly just kept quiet because all of this overly religious stuff was beginning to wear on me at this point.

I always wondered the types of people that actually listen to the band Train and other Christian Rock. 

Turns out David's family are those types of people. 

Of course, they only listen to this from the Family Ipod that has been screened for appropriate/censored music that do not curse. It kind of seems ironic to move your entire family of 9 to the Dominican Republic, but you screen all of their music and movies, but I'm not the parent of this family- so be it. 

I swear, if I heard another Praise Jesus from another Christian rock band I was just going to open up that car door and jump. Those were two of the longest two hours I've spent in a car. Being around David and his family I make sure to restrict myself (I really do swear too much) and that I definitely offend them when I slip the occasional "oh my God." They're the type of family that wouldn't recognize that Goldberg is a Jewish last name, so I just silently have been going along with this whole charade. 

Lessons learned:

-Hanging out with Radhames and his family and the workers at FilterPure is how I want to spend all of my time here. 

-The anthropological aspect of preserving traditional pottery in conjunction with making ceramic water filters seems feasible and is getting a good response from people Radhames and I have spoken with. 

-The FilterPure model is awesome in that it provides parasite-free, bacteria free water; but it does nothing to relieve the time burden of fetching water; and I have to remind myself that there is no one water solution and each circumstance and place in relation to water accessibility is different

-The FilterPure is not helping the poorest of the poor who really are the ones in the most need of having clean water if it is not being donated to families and they have to pay an upfront cost that most in need cannot afford.