Pedro Was a Hillary Fan

Earlier this week I was able to spend the day with Pedro, the supervisor of all of the microfinance aspects of Esperanza here in the Dominican Republic. It was really interesting to drive from community to community with him hearing his thoughts on microfinance, sustainability, and what it means to be a Christian in this day and age. My Spanish continues to improve every day, but I’m still far from being fluent. The Dominican accent is particularly hard to understand and I usually have to make people slow down a little bit. They drop the s from the tail end of most words and will turn an “r” into a “y” sound with just about every opportunity. Instead of hearing, “Como esta usted Carlos”? You might here, “Como eh-tah oo-ted Caiylo”?

(Here is a photo of Norberto, our office manager, and Jennifer, another volunteer from Seattle that was here for five months and just left yesterday)

Haha, nonetheless, I’ve been having a blast learning to communicate in a new language. All of the work and moments of frustration that come with learning Spanish are well worth the struggle when you get to have a meaningful conversation with someone or group of women that you never would have been able to even communicate with before. Every day has it’s ups and downs too. One day (or afternoon) I feel as if I’ve got the language down and I can share how I feel or make people laugh, but then there will be other times that I still feel like I’m in Señora Himsl’s Spanish I basic grammar class in high-school, and that I will never be able to grasp hold of this foreign tongue.

All that is to say that I had a wonderful day spending time with Pedro, who used is very intelligent, an effective speaker, and a balls-to-the walls Christian who is ready to save anyone he meets (I’m going to leave that one open-ended on whether or not that’s a good characteristic). As we drove between communities we discussed a lot, but I was particularly interested in hearing the thoughts and opinions he had on our Presidential elections and his political views on war, poverty, and the United States.

It fascinates me that nearly every person I talk to down here can ask me about who I think is a better candidate for U.S President or they can tell you that they were disappointed to hear that Obama had won the democratic electoral vote the night before (most people are big fans of Hillary down here). I am 99% sure that one could say that the people of the Dominican and probably most of Central America (excluding some of the very poor that don’t have access to a tv, newspaper, or internet) are FAR more educated on topics such as history and politics in America than most people in America.

Sometimes their views are a bit slanted in one direction, as they all get their information through the same biased news channels, but still, it was shocking to me.

When they asked me, “Travis, why is it that Americans don’t know about or care about who their next President is?” after I had shared with them about our ignorance in general. I sort of paused, searching for a good answer that I have never really had. “Well, I’m not entirely sure, but basically we have become pretty apathetic in general. Because of the hard work of our last two generation who came out firing from WWII and the Cold War, busting their ass to make it to the top and provide a safe, successful future for their children, our generation has had everything they need at their fingertips without have to do a dang thing. Many people live comfortable lives without ever really having to work too hard and if they don’t have enough, they can either fall back on Mom and Dad or a very secure government that will at least provide for the needs and necessities that would be found among the upper-middle class in a country like the DR,” I tried to explain that, “many of us have put up blinders to anyone outside of the US or really anything that is not directly related to our own self-interest. We have no idea of the impact and power that our country has on the world or even how our consumer/political decisions effect those in foreign countries. A lot of people really just don’t care because they are sure that these same amenities and securities that have been passed down to us from earlier generations will just keep flowing no matter what we do, how hard we work, or who our president is. Meanwhile, the rest of the world is chomping at the bit to find out more about the US, the war in Iraq, and our newest trade policies that will drastically effect their economies.” Now I’m sure I didn’t exactly say that in Spanish, but you know, I think they got the gist of it.