Green Gem

La virgen de la Altagracia

On Monday, January 21^st, the Dominican Republic celebrated el día de la Virgen de la Altagracia, a Catholic holiday in honor of the country’s own saint/virgin (in my experience, this is a common phenomenon in Latin American countries). It was also the ninth and final day of the funeral of my host mother’s mom, my host grandma, if you will.

This day didn't go quite as planned for me, due to my previously mentioned past experiences, so naturally, it was as perfect and wonderful as a Catholic holiday and funeral could be. Explanation:

Growing up, I was a type A personality, or a green gem, as I have recently learned by a stroke of luck. Everything had an order and a plan, and I felt content only once those were made and followed. Ew…

A picture I actually took, jeez.

When I was in Perú, I was sixteen years old. I was confined to the houses of my host families unless I was with them. I was also naïve and young, so it was probably the best policy. However, I was lonely and sad with the first family, as they would often leave me at the house. When we did leave the house, and whenever I did anything with the second host family, it was always planned ahead of time. I felt pretty secure, as you can imagine.

I slowly began drifting from my type A ways in college, and during the summer of 2012, I traveled to Bolivia with my professor, his wife, and a couple other Anthropology students. Over the 12 week experience, plans were infrequently made and never followed. I had to ask each night, each breakfast, each lunch if we were to be doing something later that day. I need to emphasize: ALL PLANS WERE BROKEN. 

Musicians playing at an unexpected lunch in
el campo of the Copacabana peninsula, Boliva.

At breakfast, I might discover that we’d be leaving in an hour to go to a rural comunidad to talk about the town’s future archaeological prospects for an hour or two. Upon arrival, we would receive a lunch, and dance, and drink. Then we might talk about the said purpose of the trip for an hour, maybe. Then we’d do a surface survey, and eat a dinner, and dance, and drink until 10pm. This was a regular occurrence. As a mentee receiving 6 credits for this trip, I needed to follow my professor’s every whim. 

A site survey which included a lot of discussion
on future full excavations and tourism potential.

This lead to the deconstruction of my need for plans and for following plans over the course of the summer. I started out as aggravated, which progressed to being pretty enojada. But over time, I began to pack extra warm clothes for those cold Bolivian evenings, and toilet paper (formal bathrooms were kind of absent in el campo). I learned to talk to la gente, for hours, to get to know them and to let them get to know me, and it may seem odd, but this was hard to do when I couldn’t see the purpose in putting my energies there, in wasting their time, brainspace, in wasting mine. I created bonds. Later, after not seeing the people of this small rural village for weeks, I would stop in the streets of Copacabana to talk to them when they were in town running errands, because during those six extra, unplanned hours in their pueblo, we began to matter to each other. It was truly beautiful. I loved that. I still love that. I’m so proud of that. It makes my heart swell.

So, now I'm here. And when after the mass on Monday my neighbor asked me if I’d like to return to the apartment with her and my friend or stay at the house of the family for an unknown period of time and return with my host family in the late evening, I chose to stay. My first fleeting thought, feeling really, could be described as this could be treacherous. But then I remembered my desire to know the Dominican people, to create bonds with them that create more heaven color moments in the world. How could I do that, see that color, from my bedroom in an empty apartment, alone?

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An Orphanage

Yesterday, something happened:

I stood in a way I'm not sure I have ever stood before.
I was holding my folder against my chest, and I had to relax my muscles completely, move it to my side, when I realized I was clutching it, inappropriate for the situation.
My head was tilted down and to the side, lost in thought. It was like that for a while, unknowingly.
My lips were parted a little, and I'm sure my bottom lip was relaxed to the point of looking ridiculous, which usually happens when my mind is too occupied to be self conscious, when I'm experiencing.
My shoulders and chest were caved in. It wasn't lazy like a slouch, it was insecure, uncomfortable, and terrified, like a cowering. I usually stand tall, with my shoulders back, posture. What am I doing? crossed my mind.
My eyes were up, glancing from face to face in the room, slowly assessing the happiness of each person. 
And that smell came again, I almost gagged. It was the food from the kitchen. I can't bare to be in here another moment.


I was in an orphanage. It had 12 kids, ranging in age from one to seventeen maybe, and three Catholic nuns. The kids were there, because, as our teacher explained, their parents had either died or left them, or they had been violated. That last word made my stomach twist. I felt sick as we walked up to the door, where there was a dog with one eye.
That was the first time I've ever been there, in an orphanage, surrounded by people whose pasts are so entirely gross, so mortifying. I had a very physical reaction to the situation, obviously. I was clutching my folder and almost gagging at the smell of food.

But as my eyes shifted through their faces, I realized they looked happy. My ears tuned in to the nun's talk for the first time, "Aquí tenemos nuestra familia, es una familia." Religion. Catholicism. What I have rejected. It's providing life and love for these kids, it is so good for them. They look humble, like they might not have desires, and if they do, they are meager, few, and far between. The look happy, loved, comfortable. Religion is saving them. They believe. Do I? Do I need it?

I think of my parents. My heart swells, my chest feels like it's growing to twice it's size. I need to talk to them, now, to hear them, to tell them how entirely grateful I am that they didn't leave me, didn't violate me. It hurts to think that word. That they didn't die... The urgency of my need to talk to them intensifies momentarily.


And then I feel the overwhelming need to be here, in this room. To help, sure, but more to just be here. I would change. I might need to be here for four hours a week this semester. 
                                                                                                                                                                      
 

Serious attempt number one, a question and a name.

If I were to write,

to write enough to write a blog,

would I be righting a wrong?

This is serious attempt number one, in opposition to a few mind experiments, of writing a blog post. I want this, if I am to write, to be creative, eloquent, interesting, and relevant. That requires a lot of thought, which requires a lot of time, of which I’m not sure I’ll have in the subsequent months. But this is serious attempt one, on a Monday, an irrelevant repeating categorization of a period of time during which I have a free afternoon, evening, and night, for now, at least.

My primary identity for the next four months is an American exchange student in la República Dominicana, stationed in Santiago, attending PUCMM (poo-ka-my-mah). My on-the-side identity that also happens to be my long-term self-image is that of an anthropologist, a learner, a teacher, and a human. I envision, hope these two identities will be shifting in and out of the forefront of this lucha for right, through write, for meaning; that one be the other’s challenge in un intercambio that takes place in the soul, one soul, that of Caitlin, me, o Catalina, si prefieres. 

I'm on my way to being human, from being human, and figuring out what that means, for me and for my co-inhabitants of the world. I think humans are beautiful, as with life. Which leads to the name of this blog: The heaven color. The heaven color is so entirely difficult to describe, as I've tried for years. I first saw it on a school bus when I was 17, a good year. I looked at the window, rather than out of it, which really means through it, and I saw the color. It was a winter day in Michigan, so that means the background was a dim faint yellow-ish sun ray cloud piece of sky that had light blue, which may have been deep blue, behind that, but you couldn't really see it. And the window was dirty with dried dirt slush-y water that had melted from snow on the side of the road. So you couldn't really see out of it, or through it, just it, the heaven color. 

I next saw in on some of that melting slushy snow with dirt in it that was reflecting some of the sky.

So The heaven color is the name of this blog, because I don't know if heaven exists, but if it does it's there in that heaven color, and it's creating the beauty in this world. And this is all an integral part of being a human.


The heaven color can be seen almost every day in the sky from la isla of Hispaniola, and that's where this blog, The heaven color, is being started.