Big Day

Non-tobacco related posts...whatever topic your heart desires.
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Kip
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Re: Big Day

Post by Kip » Wed Jan 06, 2021 8:58 pm

*should *continue* being legal, I should say.

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jledou
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Re: Big Day

Post by jledou » Thu Jan 07, 2021 12:04 pm

Not that long ago that was common in the US also.

We have come a long way in the last 2000 or so years but we still have some room for improvement.

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Kip
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Re: Big Day

Post by Kip » Thu Jan 07, 2021 10:37 pm

jledou wrote:Not that long ago that was common in the US also.

We have come a long way in the last 2000 or so years but we still have some room for improvement.
Oh I'm familiar, being born and raised in East Tennessee. My grandparents were the first of my family 'off the mountain'. They married at ages 25 & 16, but it was a small community and they were thankful not to share a premarital last name. I remember visiting many family members who in my life had no electricity or running water, nor indoor plumbing. In the small cut off communities my folk came from, there weren't many options for marrying. You married someone from your valley or you didn't marry...which led to the sometimes-deserved hillbilly reputation of marrying young and marrying closer-than-comfortable relations. There pickings were slim.

That being said, my beef with the common thing here is that it's culturally accepted (tacitly or otherwise) for a 25-30 year old man to take in a 12-13 year old girl as his 'wife'. It isn't from necessity, and it is not rare. There are other options and plenty of population. Truthfully, in the past 6 years I've met far too many pregnant 11 year old girls. I can not in any way make that acceptable. One would be too many, but I've met a lot. A lot.

I frequently encounter more ramifications of this process in unhappily married people - absurdly high abuse and femicide, a *very* common phenomenon of men openly trying to maintain multiple families by latching on to the next when he gets bored with the previous girl (but swearing he loves them all). In some communities I've worked, more than half the families identify in a hierarchy based on the order in which the man bore kids with the Mom, although he often cares for or supports none of them. When you introduce high rates of alcoholism and poverty into the mix, the kids are too often fending for themselves or under the care of grandparents who simply are not up to the task after the Mom realized she can't do it and also disappears. I don't speak of it much publicly because it's a hard thing but it weighs on you knowing there's no safety net for many who fall through the cracks. The substance abuse, illicit 'tiguere' activity, and machismo at the price of destroying women is a durable cycle the creates strong bonds.

I have a deep soft spot for the limpiabotas (shoe shine kids) around town. I've known a lot over the years and learned that many of them are treated as non-persons by businesses who don't want them harassing customers - but if these kids don't make enough change for the day they sleep in the street until the do. Some are on their own outright at 8-9 years old. Others have a relative who demands they earn their keep by shining shoes, etc.

I also now pay more mind to 'panhandlers' that dot the intersections here. Sure, some are just trying to play on sympathies to make a quick buck. At the same time, I'm extra soft toward any who have a clear disability. There aren't sustainable social programs here that would support life, and not really an enforced ADA like we have in the US. Basically, if you have a handicap you're out of luck without family to help. No such thing as workplace accommodations, so most are relegated to begging just to eat for the day.

Dang it, you got me to rambling. Sorry. All this is coming from recent ponderings of my state of mind, and how I have radically softened since loving here these years. I was never especially cold hearted, but my hearts bleeds a lot more than it used to for genuine need.

I still look at some people's first world problems with a harsh eye (including my own). I frequently realize I need to step back from what seems like a big issue to me and evaluate how bad it *really* is in light of the things I see around me. I'm usually embarrassed at my oblivious attitude. Sometimes it takes a branch to the face to regain sight of the forest from the trees.

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Kip
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Re: Big Day

Post by Kip » Thu Jan 07, 2021 10:40 pm

* - also, the real beef isn't just with cultural acceptances. It's the notion that when presented with the idea of prohibiting child marriages with adults, many politicians argued against it. It seems like a no brainer. The proposal was only to require a girl to be 16 to marry. The political fight has been fierce and waging for weeks.

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Re: Big Day

Post by jledou » Fri Jan 08, 2021 1:16 pm

Good to see you all worked up Kip!

I will start with I agree with you on the original subject. Very few in this country will ever see, little alone live around or with people of true need.

Change is hard. In the US for example we are going through it right now with political parties, systemic racism, and this little pandemic we have going on.

Something as simple as a mask is causing grown people to forget who they are all over the place. I liken it a lot though to wearing a seat belt and the enforcement of seat belt laws in the 80s, doesn't seem like a big deal now but it was not even 30 years ago.

5 years post, the same people fighting to keep things the way they are might be not have a clue as to why they were arguing in the first place.

I believe ultimately things are improving and get better everyday, that's not to say that it doesn't go sideways or backwards every now and then before it gets there.

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Re: Big Day

Post by Stewmuse » Tue Jan 12, 2021 7:24 pm

Just remembering...
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Kip
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Re: Big Day

Post by Kip » Tue Jan 12, 2021 7:32 pm

Stewmuse wrote:Just remembering...
I was doing the exact same thing this morning, reminiscing over some of your past trips. Of course with everything still shut down and noon/5pm curfews most of those would not be possible at the moment. I miss those days



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Re: Big Day

Post by Stewmuse » Fri Jan 15, 2021 9:05 am

Kip wrote:
Tue Jan 12, 2021 7:32 pm
Stewmuse wrote:Just remembering...
I was doing the exact same thing this morning, reminiscing over some of your past trips. Of course with everything still shut down and noon/5pm curfews most of those would not be possible at the moment. I miss those days

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Easy. Uber up the mountain in the AM, hang with Gracesqui and Ramona for awhile, hit the school near the church, and then hide out overnight at the retreat with cigars. Uber back the next AM. Heck, it’s all downhill. Walk back down then Uber into the city. Boom!
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jledou
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Re: Big Day

Post by jledou » Fri Jan 15, 2021 4:12 pm

Stewmuse wrote:
Fri Jan 15, 2021 9:05 am
Kip wrote:
Tue Jan 12, 2021 7:32 pm
Stewmuse wrote:Just remembering...
I was doing the exact same thing this morning, reminiscing over some of your past trips. Of course with everything still shut down and noon/5pm curfews most of those would not be possible at the moment. I miss those days

Sent via Caribbean smoke signal
Easy. Uber up the mountain in the AM, hang with Gracesqui and Ramona for awhile, hit the school near the church, and then hide out overnight at the retreat with cigars. Uber back the next AM. Heck, it’s all downhill. Walk back down then Uber into the city. Boom!
Easy he said ... never heard from again Kip was

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Kip
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Re: Big Day

Post by Kip » Thu Mar 18, 2021 10:45 am

I think the few of you fellers who make it through these parts these days already know, but for any who don't, my time is winding down in the DR. Well, at least my time living here. I'm sure we'll visit from time to time, as we plan on remaining connected and supporting some of the other folks we've come to know the past 6 years.

Outside of the whole worldwide pandemic hubbub, things are still good down this way, but our kids are getting to the age where they're graduating high school and want to do things like go to college (go figure). So, thanks to a bit of forethought in planning our work to go on in our absence we're in a good place to hand off things that can continue. It always seemed logical that we plan everything we've done so that should we be hit by a bus it would continue. In hindsight, that seems even more sound. Our English classes won't continue, but we'd mostly put those aside with the other youth work last year anyway.

Our reasons for moving back are manifold. First, the kids have essentially grown up here. They've not had the opportunity to do many of the things that come with that in preparation for adulthood (they can't get a driver license, have a job, etc. here, due to our residency restrictions). Secondly, we need to be in a better position to support them financially going into the college years. So, we need to have American salaries to do that. It would be ridiculous and probably unscrupulous to try and raise missionary support to cover things like this, of course.

The third major contributor is my evolving ideas about foreign mission work. I still fully believe it is valuable and needed in many places. But after being involved for many years, I believe more than ever that it should not be a permanent thing. The goal that we've had, even with never knowing an end-game plan for our time here, is to do things that make a positive difference while teaching others to do the same going forward. The whole "teach a man to fish" notion. With some things established, we can better serve in the future by supporting locals who honestly and reliably do good work. With American salaries, it makes more sense to contribute to locals here than doing it ourselves. Raising support for a family to live as foreigners just simply costs more in time, money, cultural differences. Local folks don't have to overcome the same hurdles as a foreigner. A dollar contributed to locals doing the same work just goes further in its efficacy. They can do it without cultural obstacles, without navigating a 2nd language, and without many of the costs we'd incur (they don't pay the gringo tax on day-to-day living, nor all the extra costs that come with being here as a non-citizen).

So as of today, we're at T-minus 90 days. We'll be flying out June 16, first visiting TN, then a few friends in FL, and finally settling on the central East coast of Florida. That's the plan anyway, depending on how the search for jobs and a place to rent with a weird 6 year non-sequitur résumé space, and not having a verifiable rental history (things are different here with informal leasing agreements, and we owned our house 15 years before moving down). Hopefully, we'll find someone to write us a lease or we'll be "living mobile"......assuming we find a decent vehicle :). As has often been the case in recent years, we're flying by the seat of our pants with a lot of moving parts for this move. It's weird to be OK with that. My whole life before any of this was the most disciplined, planned-out, plain-white-vanilla thing imaginable. My young self would have been completely knotted up with anxiety over most of these past years, so I guess I've progressed a bit in that respect. We'll see come Summer...
White shores, and beyond, a far green country under a swift sunrise....

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