Dog Thieves, Street Fights, & School Wreckers: Tales of an Expat Do Gooder In the Dominican Republic

By Caitlin McHale Floreal

A collection of stories from the no longer existent La Vida Idealist blog. Author Caitlin McHale Floreal lives in Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic where she runs a non-profit organization called Project Esperanza. Topics covered include inconsistent electricity, cultural differences in waiting in line and customer service, gender inequality, and more!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Apr 11, 2014
• ISBN: 9781312095281

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Dog Thieves, Street Fights, & School Wreckers: Tales of an Expat Do Gooder In the Dominican Republic

Dog Thieves, Street Fights, & School Wreckers

Tales of an Expat-Do Gooder in the Dominican Republic

supesta july 2010 (1).jpg

By Caitlin McHale Floreal

This book is a collection of stories originally written for the La Vida Idealist blog on Idealist.org. The blog was shut down and stories are no longer accessible there.

Project Esperanza, Inc.

www.EsperanzaMeansHope.org

Copyright © 2014 by Caitlin McHale Floreal

LuLu.com

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations in articles and reviews.

IBSN: 978-1-234-56789-1

This book is dedicated to my father, Matt McHale, who taught me about service and loving others.

Esperanza Means Hope

June 13, 2010

Before college, my life focused largely on high school sports and my social life with side interests of raising animals, art, and writing. I had a fun and comfortable life with my family in Winchester, Virginia. However, underneath my external comfort there was an internal discomfort due to the knowledge of injustices and suffering that existed for many. I longed for something although I wasn’t quite sure what at the time. When I entered Virginia Tech as a freshman in the fall of 2003, my eyes opened in so many ways. My convictions grew as well as a sense of freedom to explore. I felt a growing need to visit a developing country.

I first came to the Dominican Republic on a volunteer trip in January 2005. We spent our days planning and executing educational activities with the abandoned and orphaned boys at an orphanage in a town called Esperanza. This trip, along with another I took with friends that June, turned into the creation of a Virginia Tech student organization called Project Esperanza. Project Esperanza then grew into a nonprofit organization registered in both the United States and the Dominican Republic.

During the summer of 2006, we followed our team leaders that had guided us in Esperanza and set up activities in Puerto Plata, a larger city on the northern coast that draws a good bit of tourism and has a larger Haitian refugee population. We began our work by conducting a street census on the boardwalk and on other main streets in the city, focusing on gaining an understanding of the situation of the hundreds of boys that walk the streets daily shining shoes or street vending. This census then led us to develop programs to meet the intense need that was revealed to us.

I began spending most of my vacation time in Puerto Plata while finishing up my degree at Virginia Tech and assuring that the nonprofit was functioning well. In January 2008, I moved down to Puerto Plata where I live full time. I am now married to a Haitian man that got involved with Project Esperanza early on and we have a nine- month-old son. We literally live on faith, esperanza, and love. My time and involvement here have left me fluent in both Spanish and Haitian Creole. I have a wealth of stories to share and more happening everyday!

A Lesson in History: Race on the Island of Hispaniola

June 20, 2010

Growing up in the U.S., I got used to talking about race or describing someone by their skin color in a careful manner, afraid to offend someone or say something wrong.

This inhibition has been eradicated after spending over two years in the Dominican Republic where a person’s skin color is used as a descriptive adjective as freely, if not more freely, than their shirt color. In both Spanish and Haitian Creole people are constantly referred to as black, brown, red, or white with, in Spanish, several words for varying shades of brown. This entry gives a quick look at the history of the island and as a result of the history, its current racial and cultural composition.

The Dominican Republic shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti in the Caribbean. It occupies the eastern two thirds of the country where Haiti occupies the western third. Christopher Columbus landed on the island during his first voyage in 1492 as all students here know. The land was inhabited by native Taino Indians who were quickly killed off as the Spanish settled. Later the French took over the western third which became Haiti. Both sides took part in the slave trade enslaving West Africans to work on sugar plantations, etc. Haiti’s slavery ended in a revolution and genocide of white people in the country, making it the first black republic and the first country overthrown and led by former slaves. On the Dominican side, slavery never was quite as dominant and brutal and eventually phased out.

Therefore, Haitians often appear to be straight from West Africa whereas Dominicans seem to have an array of varying percentages of Spanish and African influence. Race and social class are definitely linked as the whiter citizens are normally members of the higher social class. However, times are changing and although racism still lingers, it seems to be less of an issue as it was earlier in history. Well before the recent earthquake that brought significant damage to Haiti’s capital Port-au-Prince, Haitians were crossing the border in search of life in the Dominican Republic. Both countries are considered developing nations but the economy in the Dominican Republic is quite a bit more active than the slow economy in Haiti.

That’s Sexual Harassment…and I Do Have to Take it

July 3, 2010

"That’s sexual harassment and I don’t have to take it!"

I remember watching those commercials growing up and learning about sexual harassment. The legal definition of sexual harassment is unwelcome verbal, visual, or physical conduct of a sexual nature that is severe or pervasive and affects working conditions or creates a hostile work environment. I don’t think that those educational commercials and the campaign in general ever made it to the Dominican Republic…or at least not to the average man on the streets.

My work here has caused me to walk around the city a lot. As other female volunteers can testify, walking along the streets of Puerto Plata is similar to a cat walking through a pack of dogs. Men constantly utter a whistle-like Ppsstt through their teeth, which is common. Like the townspeople in the story of the