Paraiso, Villa Mella, Dominican Republic, part 2

The rewards of good work are beginning to manifest:  “travelers’ disease,” suspicious rashes, sunburn, and fatigue.  Kevin Salinas (’12) and Daniela Gutierez (’10) have increased the team’s Spanish fluency and have enhanced our ability to frame interview questions and conversations in ways that get to subtle and complicated ideas and experiences.  Laura Parente (’11) is charting a course that integrates the clinical and the community building efforts seamlessly and, each day, I see evidence of new levels of deep understanding of the project’s vision and prospects.

Irene Mathieu (’09) is finishing her third year with SOMOS.  She struggles with her need to move on and her deep commitment to continue with a project that she loves.  In so many ways, she defines the boldness of the project:  unflinchingly idealistic, irrepressible, informed, and intentional.  She pulls you in, insists on seeing the best, looks always to create the greatest good.  She has “adopted” a four-year-old boy in Esfuerzo, a youngster who might easily be mistaken for Barack Obama, Jr.  In the idle times between interviews, they play together and it’s not always clear who is the adult.  The love is palpable.

Jake Milnor (’11; 2nd year) stayed in the hostel today:  feverish and suffering the malaise of mononucleosis.  We need him in the field because of his exceptional language abilities – and because he is a keen observer, alert to subtle changes in people’s behaviors and to the moods of interviews.  He catches nuances and raises issues that result in closer observation, more careful and precise information.

We are nearly finished with this round of home visits and interviews.  It’s unlikely that we’ll be able to complete 100 percent, but we’ll be close.  Our most experienced field researchers (Torabinejad and Weeks) are joined by Pothen and  Bashir in staying in the community to continue the field work into the early evening, hoping that those who were not at home during the day will be found.

The rest of us return, hoping for an earlier evening, only to find that we’re finally having dinner at 8:00.  We’ve chosen to return to one of our traditional dinner spots for a traditional Dominican meal:  pizza.  The “special” comes with all of the meats – and kernel corn.  The Dominican Presidente beer helps with re-hydration and the cane sugar flavored Coca Cola is spiced with Brugal rum.  No one seems to mind that we bring some of our own ingredients with us.  We can feel the week ending.  The bittersweet sense of accomplishment and work left undone combine to frame our evening on the plaza.  We won’t be there long tonight, but we won’t fail our tradition.  It’s an early evening and I’m back in the Hostel by midnight – only to find that my roommates (the professionals we call the “providers”) are just warming up.  We talk until 1:30 in the morning, marveling at the gifted students and their precociousness and laughing at our own shortcomings.