I don´t think I´ve written much about poverty on this here blog yet. And that´s mainly for two reasons. One is that I just didn´t know what to say about it in the beginning because I was totally new to it. I could have described the houses or talked about the trash but that really wouldn´t have been good enough for me. The second is that about the time I began to understand it a little more and could maybe talk about a life lived in poverty, I became immune to it. Nothing was sticking far out of the norm for me and I kind of just began to get used to it all. It has been about 7 or 8 months now. But it´s been in the last few weeks that I´ve been noticing how poor things can be and really been thinking about it. So, I kind of touched on it in my journal the other day and I figured I´d share it.

May 7

...I´m getting addicted to sugar straight out of the bottle. It´s the darker big grained stuff. I really have to stop it. This morning I decided I take a bike ride. It was the fourth I´ve taken up the road towards Miches and each time I´m getting closer. Today I met the limit, at least until I am prepared to go all the way down into Miches. I began to realized I was doing a lot of breaking so I decided to turn around. That climb out of Miches is going to be tough, at least from what I saw today. I enjoy being up there on the top of all those hills and being able to look out over the Samana Bay and see the Samana pennnisula jutting out behind the bay. It seems mornings are more hazy then afternoons, at least from what I remember. I enjoyed the sound of the wind filling my head with a sort of empowering and freeing kind of noise. It added to the feeling of being on top of everything.

I was feeling so good I forgot the poverty and hardship I was riding through. Houses completly made of tin were lined up along the road and women were outside hand washing their clothes. There were no electric washing machines here to mask how poor these people are. I let slip a great big happy “Buenos Días” to a lady walking up as I was going down. She looked much more aged then she probably was. And when she gave me back a warn out sounding “buen día” for a moment I wondered why. Then I came back to my senses and saw the 5 gallon bucket of water on her head; she had one hand stabalizing the bucket and the other holding the hand of her completly naked little boy. Too poor to buy diapers and not wanting the extra work of washing soiled clothes each day, she just leaves her boy naked (this is very common here). I also realized there probably weren’t many trips to the well before this 5 gallon bucket or will there be many after and her family will be using this bucket of water for all of today’s watering needs. Most likely there isn’t 35 pesos to buy the giant blue bottle of drinking water either.

As I continue down the hill, lightly breaking so as not to fly by these people and at least giving them the curtosy of a slow acknowledging ride through I catch the eyes of some kids happily playing and waving to me. Then I notice Mom looking at me from the doorway of their one room shack. For the first few moments I am watching her as she is obviouly trying to figure out who I am. Not but an instant after she realizes I am a foreigner she puts her hand out and quickly, maybe despertly, before I am gone down the hill, rubs her thumb back and forth over her first two fingers. After 7 or 8 months here these situations still make me feel awkward and I still haven’t found the appropriate response to the request. When it’s face to face, which it is about one a week, I sort of awkwardly mumble something out about how I don’t do that. I can’t say I can’t or that I don’t have cinco pesos because I would be lying so instead I just leave them with an answer that almost always evidently puts the person off balance a bit. I see them sort of wondering, “what does he mean he doesn’t do that?” Anyway, I was on my bike and had the slope and distance between myself and this mother in my favor, if easily saying no to poverty is any type of favor, and so I just shifted my glance back to the road in front of me.

I decided to turn back for two reasons. One I didn’t feel like having to peddle the whole way back up out of Miches and two I didn’t know if I could handle entering Miches right then. I knew what was ahead as I have been to Miches in the comfort and seperate space of a private truck but this morning I was closer to it being on my bike. By it I mean that Miches is poor, and it shows. It’s also the number one take off spot for the old wooden boats known as yolas that cross the sea to Puerto Rico, with a price tag around 20,000 pesos for those desperate enough to risk their life for a chance at a different one.

As for me I peddled back a little ways until I reached the summit and let the downhill take me back to Pedro Sanchez. I’ve been realizing lately that El Cuerpo de Paz can let me see this life and even require me at times to live it, but I will never entirely know the feeling of it. And if I’m ever doubthing that, the comfy Peace Corps office and emaculte U.S. Embessy are just an easy 140 peso guagua trip away. Well at least for me, the holder of a blue passport.