Las Hermanas Mirabal y Carnaval

Last Friday we went to visit the Mirabal Sisters Museum in Salcedo. The Mirabal sisters are 4 sisters who were revolutionaries who opposed the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo who served (officially and unofficially) as president for about 30 years from 1930 until his assassination in 1961. Three of the sisters, Minerva, Patria, and María Teresa, were murdered in 1960 as a result of their political dissidence. They were strangled and beaten to death with their driver and then placed in their car and pushed of a mountain between Santiago and Puerto Plata to simulate a car crash. Dedé Mirabal is the only remaining sister alive today and lives in Salcedo in the house they grew up in, near the museum. Sadly she was not around when we went to visit, otherwise we could've had the chance to talk to her. But we toured the museum, which is basically the house they lived in for the 10 years before their death and an insight into a little bit of their lives. The tour guide gave us some of the history and we also saw the skeleton of the car that they were found in. It was a very powerful image to see and the whole museum itself with all of their pictures, belongings, and clothes still intact (and the long braid of one of the sisters) because it made everything very real. These were real young women who opposed to killings and corruption of Trujillo and they were taking action against his regime. Their death was the inspiration for the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women on November 25th (the day of their murder). I also bought a famous book called "In the Time of the Butterflies" ("butterflies" was their code name) in spanish, which tells the story of their lives and how they became involved in the anti-Trujillo movement, and their deaths. It's an amazing book and I pick it up every time I have free time, it's hard to put down. I had a talk with my host mom about it and about the Trujillo regime. It was really interesting because in the book, the sisters, just like the rest of the country, originally had no idea that Trujillo was committing atrocities. People used to hang a picture of Trujillo up right next to their picture of Jesus Christ. My host mom said it used to be that God was upstairs, and Trujillo was the God on Earth. It's so crazy. But his atrocities were eventually revealed and the people ended up assassinating him in 1961. Man, the DR has a crazyyy history. The 3 Mirabal Sisters' faces are now on the 500 peso bill.

On a lighter note, that Sunday we went to Carnaval in La Vega. Carnaval is a celebration that happens every Sunday in February (we have one in Santiago too, but the one in La Vega is supposed to be bigger). It's a day where people dress up in weird, elaborate, and kinda scary costumes and they carry around whips that are cow bladders filled with cow poop. They whip everyone in the butt with them (and it hurts the HELL!!!) and walk around in a parade being all scary. Lots of us left with big bruises on our butts, many of my friends still have their bruises. But it's like an agreement that by going to Carnaval you are accepting the fact that you are going to be whipped. The streets are closed off and it is PACKED and super loud, music blasting everywhere, people drinking and dancing. Very typical Dominican setting. The day is supposed to represent releasing all the devil in yourself before Easter and is associated mainly with Catholicism. It was an experience...haha...I like it for about the first hour, but we were there for like 6 hours and that was tooo much for me. I didn't think was that impressive that I needed to be there for 6 hours. But now I can say I saw it and I got whipped and everything! Oh and some guy put a bunch of snakes on me at one point, that was cool haha.There were people (mainly kids) waling around with this dried up mud all over them and these masks and they were asking for money. I'm not quite sure what the significance exactly was but I'm guessing it was just a creative way of showing their poverty at Carnaval.
One of the costumes, each group had different costumes. These costumes cost thousands of dollars.
Snakesssssss!!!


So that was last weekend. I also finally went shopping and got a few things to make me fit in more with the Dominicans haha. This week has been classes and finalizing things for my research project. Now I have to go write up a questionnaire to hand out next week. I'm evaluating how much the community members learn from the program by doing a before and after test. It's more complicated than just that, but I don't want to explain it all now bc my comp is going to die. But I feel better about that whole thing now. Next week we are headed to a campo called Río Limpio from Sunday to Friday and we'll be learning about organic farming. More to come when I get back!

Love y'all and miss you!

Paz y amor,
~Aysha~