 |
|
|
October 2007
 October was marked by four important events. The Diocese as a whole celebrated its 110th anniversary with a huge gathering on Sunday, October 21. Our local church community, made up of the seminary (CET) and congregation (Iglesia de la Epifanía), was saddened by the departure of the García family to the US. We passed the personal milestone of finally moving into our new apartment. And on Sunday, October 28, the tropical storm Noel struck suddenly causing much suffering and damage.
The anniversary service on October 21 was a gathering to which literally every Episcopalian in the country was invited, as well as students and faculty from Episcopal schools, dignitaries from the government and diplomatic corps, and representatives of other denominations and other Episcopal dioceses. In community organizing work back in the US, they say that as a general rule only half of those who commit to attend an event will actually show up. We did considerably better than that. It was an audacious plan, given that the largest meetings to date have been diocesan conventions of no more than a few hundred, and given the challenging logistics of getting people from all parts of the country to the capital on a Sunday morning. But it seemed to work, perhaps because the sense of festivity was so contagious. See the photo to the right and the three below.
|
|
|
|
 |
| In his sermon, based on Jesus’ parable of the talents (Matt 25:14-30), Bishop Holguín (left) said that maintaining or even enlarging just the Episcopal Church would be tantamount to burying our God-given talents in the ground. In order to multiply those talents, as Christ expects, we need to join with other churches in engaging the problems of Dominican society at large—particularly eradicating the corruption that is an obstacle to development in all areas, but also improving social assistance for the poor and education for all. The Episcopal Church here has a historically strong commitment to its schools, but in order to fulfill its divinely mandated goal of fully developing everyone’s God-given talents, it will also have to advocate a more just allocation of social resources for public education. How can the Episcopal Church—given how small it is here—be politically effective without getting tangled up in the messy Dominican partisanship? A bold prophetic voice, of the sort that the Bishop is modeling, is the necessary first step. But it will obviously take more than that. What sort of strategy will we develop? Stay tuned… |
|
For over twenty years José García, his wife Mirien and their three children have been important members of the local church community. They lived in the CET/Epiphany compound, and were close friends to generations of seminarians. They seemed to us pretty well positioned, and yet soon after we got here they asked the congregation to pray for them as they tried to decide whether they should emigrate to the US. We wondered why a family like this might want to exchange a pretty good life here for much more precarious possibilities in the Bronx?
Perhaps their willingness to venture such a move is rooted in the peculiar dynamics of the Dominican diaspora in the US. Some emigration followed the two direct occupations of the DR by the US in 1916-1924 and 1963-1966, but it exploded in the 1980s. This was largely due to the reckless economic policies of President Joaquín Balaguer, an apprentice of the dictator Rafael Leonidas Trujillo. (Trujillo ruled the country directly from 1930 to 1947 and controlled it indirectly from 1947 until his assassination in 1961.) As Balaguer’s mismanagement made the value of the peso plummet and the inflation rate skyrocket, many Dominicans felt that they had no future here. So they left and naturally headed for the places where they already had connections. |
Mirien, who left a job as a teacher and school counselor, says good by with the help of a younger friend.
|
José García, majordomo of Epiphany, surrounded by well-wishers at the farewell party
|
Mirdy (left).also still in school, with a friend at the farewell pary.
|
Carlos had finished school and taken a government job
|
Christian has a couple more years of school
|
 By now about a million Dominicans live in the US, mostly in the New York area. (Nine million live in the DR itself.) Dominicans tend not to cut off their roots back home. They often leave with the goal of returning to the DR after making their fortune in the US, and some of them do. Even if they don’t, those who fare well in the US often continue to support the relatives they left behind, to such an extent that family contributions sent from the US make up a considerable portion of the Dominican economy. There is a lot of going back and forth, with both short-term and long-term stays in one country by Dominicans who primarily live in the other. As a result, many are bilingual and bicultural, feeling completely at home and moving easily in either context. We even know a couple of Dominican families who are “binational,” in the sense that although they mostly live here, they have children serving in the US military. In such a context, maybe the Garcías’ move doesn’t seem as risky to them as it looks to us. Because Mirien has a brother in the US, perhaps they see it more as an extension of existing connections than as an abrupt transition to a different world. In any case, they will be sadly missed and we wish them well. |
 At long last, we moved into our apartment around the middle of October. The move itself wasn’t much of a hassle, because we didn’t bring much with us and we were living right next door. We just toted everything over. But then we began the process of furnishing the place from scratch. Feeling like king and queen for a day, we bought a washer, refrigerator, stove, dining table with chairs, sofa bed, desk, bedroom suite, TV, toaster, and coffee maker from the same store. Even though we chose the cheapest or next-to-cheapest item in every category, the cost still seemed astronomical—all the more so since such things are all imported and thus cost more than their equivalents in the US. We didn’t realize how much is typically invested in a household. And of course this isn’t even all of it! We still had to get pots and pans, a guest bed, bookcases, and curtains, etc. And then there are the hooks, doorstops, extension cords, shower curtains, dish cloths, kitchen utensils, light bulbs, and soap dishes, etc. You don’t realize how many gadgets and doo-dads are involved in daily life until you have to provide them all at once.
 This shopping spree got us thinking about what we really need and don’t need. Some of our missionary colleagues are serving under truly primitive conditions, in which such purchases would be unthinkable. But because we have been called to serve in an urban and relatively developed context, where these things are the norm, they seem to be necessities. We rationalize, supposing that we could live without such stuff if we had to, and to some extent this is true. When we’ve previously lived abroad, we’ve never had a TV or a car, and we once cooked on nothing but a hotplate. (We bought a TV here only because watching local programs will help us with our Spanish.) But in a context that continually makes us aware of others in need, we also have to confront the extent to which our background makes us feel entitled to things that are really luxuries. We don’t see any way to go without the trappings of modern urban life, but we are glad that we are made to feel uncomfortable about it. Perhaps this will make us more motivated to take up the challenges Bishop Holguín put before us at the 110th anniversary celebration.
|
On Saturday, October 27, a slow rain began, and it continued all through the next day. Then Sunday night the wind picked up and it began to rain really hard. We realized that a major storm was in process, but by late Sunday we had become incommunicado. The weather was too bad to go out, and there was no one else here because the seminarians were stranded without transportation to bring them back from their weekend fieldwork. Our apartment leaked, and we had to keep mopping to avoid a flood. We didn’t find out until Tuesday, when the rain and wind let up a little, how suddenly the storm developed and how widespread the damage was.
The statistics keep changing, but the estimates have converged at around 100 dead and 50,000 displaced. Rain continued intermittently until the end of the week, enough to keep the rivers at flood level but not too much to impede the start of relief work. The churches went into action right away, and by Thursday the folks from Epiphany had taken loads of food and bedding to two shelters in communities near Baní. The government is promising swift recovery action, and this may indeed happen because we are currently in the midst of a presidential campaign and the parties are vying to see who can do the most for the victims. In the meantime we remain in solidarity with them, praying for their consolation and keeping up the day-to-day relief efforts until something more substantial becomes available for them. (If you are interested in contributing, follow the link to the webpage of the Dominican Development Group for more information.)
Peace,
Michael & April |
|
|
|
|
|
