Small Town America

Last weekend I went to a small town in upstate New York called Cuddebackville, which is located in Orange County, near the border with Sullivan County.  This was an annual getaway with the women in my reading group.  Every summer we pick a weekend and head out of the city to the country home of one of the members of the group.  Although it’s only about an hour and a half from New York City (without traffic, of course) it feels like a totally different world.  The house sits on almost 10 acres of land, and from the porch one has a beautiful view of a stream with the woods directly behind it.   This is the kind of place where we were able to go for a 1 hour power walk/run and barely see another soul.  But of course, when you do run into people, everybody says hello whether they know you or not.  It’s definitely not New York City!

On Saturday, we went on a few excursions that let me see first hand the impact that the current economic crisis is having on small towns, along with some reasons for optimism.  First, the good news.  Our first destination was a small farm stand called The Farmer’s Daughter.  Owned by a young woman, and staffed by the owner and her mother, the stand sells fresh fruit, vegetables, baked goods, eggs, etc.  We chatted with the owner for a bit, and learned that she grows some of the produce herself and buys some from other local farmers.  We bought quite a bit there, including the most delicious corn on the cob and cherry pies.  I don’t think this woman will ever become a millionaire doing this, but the business seemed to be thriving and that was nice to see.  Next we set off to visit the Bashakill Vineyards (Check out their website:  http://bashakillvineyards.com/).  This is the first winery to open in Sullivan County and has only been operational since 2005.  We went there last year as well, and had the opportunity to talk to the owner, a young guy who just decided to learn how to be a winemaker.  It seems like he’s doing pretty well.  Last year I bought a bottle of a fabulous white wine and was really looking forward to buying another bottle or two.  However, when we visited this year, I learned that they were all sold out of the wine that I wanted to buy.  In fact, they were completely sold out of 2 out of their 3 varieties of whites.  While disappointed that they were out of the wine I was so looking forward to buying, I was happy that the business is doing so well.  There were quite a few customers enjoying wine tastings inside, and out in back of the winery was a blues musician playing harmonica and guitar while other guests were drinking wine on the patio and just hanging out.

Later that day, we drove to the town of Port Jervis, about 15 minutes away.  This is where I clearly saw the negative impact of the current economic climate.  I remember visiting Port Jervis  a few years ago and my memory of it was of a cute little town.  This time it felt like a ghost town.  Our primary destinations were some antiques stores, which were enjoyable.  What was sad was how many empty storefronts there were.  Every other store had a “For Rent” sign in the window.  Not that that doesn’t happen here in NYC too; however, in the city, it’s the phenomenon of high rents driving out small independently owned businesses, with  larger chain stores eventually arriving to fill the empty spots.  But in Port Jervis there were no chain stores, just a lot of empty spaces.  Furthermore, quite a few shops that seemed to be operational were closed on a late  Saturday afternoon.  For example, we were going to visit a used book shop, and at 4:55 PM, it was closed although the sign out front indicated that was open until 5 PM.  I imagine that business was slow, so the owner just decided to close early for the day.  I totally understand; aside from our group of 4, it didn’t seem like there were too many potential customers that afternoon.  The town just felt desolate and empty.  It was pretty depressing, to be honest.  However, there too, we had some reasons to be optimistic about the future.  We passed a cute little coffee shop that wouldn’t have been out of place in Greenwich Village (or Seattle for that matter!), restaurants that looked inviting, and a funky art gallery type space.  

It’s pretty incredible that by travelling a short  distance (geographically), we can arrive at a world so different from what we are used to.

Allison

When I travel, besides seeing beautiful and historic places, or relaxing on a beach, one of the things I enjoy the most is encountering interesting people along the way.  Sometimes they become lasting friends, such as my Spanish teachers and host family from Costa Rica, and more often they are passing acquaintances.  Regardless, they all add to my life and enrich the experience.

By volunteering for the New York International Ballet Competition, I enjoyed a close up, behind the scenes look at the world of ballet.  I also got to meet wonderful people from all over the world right here in New York.  I want to talk a bit about Allison, who was one of the dancers that was assigned to me in my role as a dance family.

Allison is 18 years old and lives in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.  She started dancing at the age of 3 and currently studies at the Ballet Clasico Alina Abreu (www.balletalinaabreu.com/). She has performed in the Dominican Republic and Colombia.  She also teaches ballet 3 days a week and attends college where she is studying industrial engineering.  Allison would like to defer her studies and concentrate on ballet but she explained to me that as long as she is in the Dominican Republic her father insists that she go to college. 

When I first met Allison, my initial impression was that she was shy.  Now I interpret was I thought was shyness as a quiet internal focus.  At moments I saw her act like a typical teenager but overall she demonstrated a maturity that I have not observed in many 18 year olds.

Unfortunately, Allison was eliminated from the competition after the first round.   However, her partner was selected to go on to the second (and eventually the third) round.  When I saw the results of the first round I immediately wanted to call Allison to see how she was, but at the same time I was nervous about doing so.  After all, she needed to continue dancing with her partner, even though she was officially out of the competition.  To me that sounds like an extraordinarily difficult task. Would she be devastated and distraught?  I didn’t know what to expect.  When I spoke to Allison, she told me that she was just happy that she could continue dancing.  What a great attitude!  In fact, throughout the competition she maintained an upbeat and positive attitude.  Every time I asked her how her classes and rehearsals were going, she responded either “bien” or “superbien.”  This is what Allison posted on her Facebook page in response to a question about whether she won the competition:  “ademas toy demasiado satisfecha d todo lo k hice alla…y d como baile cada dia…mejor k nunca…. ”  Those of you who speak Spanish should be able to figure out the slang and abbreviations (“toy” is “estoy”, “k” is “que”, etc.)  Translated into English it reads: “furthermore I am more than satisfied with everything I did there…and how I danced each day…better than ever.”  

I have no idea if I will stay in touch with Allison.  We are friends on Facebook, which means that it is easy enough to keep up with what she is doing.  I would love to see her dance again, and since the DR is one of my favorite destinations, maybe I could arrange a vacation there (to the beach, of course!) to coincide with one of her performances.  We’ll see!

More With the Dancers

This past Sunday I spent another day with some of the dancers from the New York International Ballet Competition.  This was a more ambitious expedition; 15 of us set off for Coney Island and Chinatown.  Leading the group was Paula, who is in charge of all of the dance family volunteers.  She was accompanied by her husband, Paul.  Paula has boundless energy, and her husband is a very interesting man.  I learned that he speaks 9 languages and they have been married for 55 years!  Truly amazing.  Also part of the “adult” contingent were 2 other dance family volunteers, Katherine and Kathryn,  as well as my boyfriend, Ricardo, always a good sport.  We escorted 8 dancers:  Allison from the Dominican Republic, Diana and Andres from Colombia, Simona and Marco from Italy, Adrian from Argentina, and Juliana and Ricardo from Brazil.   Accompanying the group was Juliana’s mother Tania, who had just arrived from Brazil the night before to spend some time with her daughter.

Although we volunteers worried about what the dancers wanted to do and tried very hard to plan activities that they would enjoy, the truth is they are very easy to please.  They were thrilled to just stop in front of a poster advertising the ballet competition and take pictures.  Buying metrocards from the machines was an adventure and when they received $1 coins as change, they were so excited because they hadn’t seen those before.  Once we arrived at Coney Island, we ate hot dogs at Nathan’s, a few went up on the ferris wheel, and some actually stuck their toes in the water.  We walked along the boardwalk to Brighton Beach where we took the subway back to Chinatown.  We were very lucky that the rain held off until this point, but it started coming down as we were walking to the restaurant.  So the dancers got to participate in another New York tradition: buying umbrellas for $3 on the street.  We finally made it to the restaurant that Paula had selected, Congee Village.  This was an excellent choice, as it was very well equipped to accomodate a group of 15 and the food was delicious.  Somehow the task of ordering for the entire group fell to me.  What pressure!  I had no idea what dancers eat.  (The truth is, some eat like the rest of us, some eat very little, some only seem to eat vegetables, and one didn’t like Chinese food at all and just wanted to go to McDonald’s.)   I tried to pick a variety of dishes and it seemed that everyone was happy with my choices.  Whew!

All in all, it was a fun, if somewhat tiring day.  I am so happy to be part of this competition  and to get to know so many of the dancers, as well as the other volunteers.  It’s really quite a special group of people.

New York International Ballet Competition

One of the things that I love about living in New York is that it presents so many opportunities to meet people from all over the world and experience so many different cultures.  Since I won’t be traveling again for about another month, these next few posts will be about some of the ways to travel without leaving home.

Every 2 years, New York is host to the New York International Ballet Competition (http://www.nyibc.org/).  This competition hosts 48 ballet dancers ages 17 to 24 years old, who come from all over the United States and many different countries, including the Dominican Republic, Mexico, Colombia, Argentina, Brazil, Estonia, Korea, England, Italy, the Phillipines and more.  They stay in New York for 3 weeks, learning choreographies and taking classes and then they have the opportunity to perform and compete before an audience and  panel of judges for gold, silver and bronze medals.  It is also a chance for them to be seen by directors of professional ballet companies and many get offered jobs as a result of their involvement in the competition.

This year, for the first time, I volunteered to be a “dance family.”  I am assigned a pair of dancers and am basically just here to answer any questions they might have, provide support if needed, and be a friendly face in New York.   My dancers are Allison, from the Dominican Republic, and Doug, from New Jersey.  They are somewhat unusual in that they are not regular partners.  Both of them entered the competition by themselves and were paired with each other.  I first met them, along with many of the other dancers, last Sunday at a welcome brunch for all of the dancers and dance families.  Today was the first day that they had some free time, so we made plans to have a picnic in Central Park.  I had no idea how the day would go;  after all, I would be spending a few hours with two 18 year olds, one who mostly speaks English, and one who mostly speaks Spanish.  Would it be awkward?  Would we have anything to talk about?  I didn’t need to worry.  We talked about ballet, about baseball, about music.   After spending some time in Central Park, we headed to the Boat Basin Cafe in Riverside Park, where we met up with another dance family, Katherine and Tom, and their dancers, Juliana and Ricardo from Brazil.  Communication became a bit more of a challenge, since Ricardo really doesn’t speak much English and the rest of us don’t speak any Portuguese.  But Juilana’s English is quite good, and  the  Brazilians understand Spanish,  so somehow we all managed to understand each other.  And the enthusiasm and the energy of the dancers was so infectious that it was impossible not to have a great time.

As a volunteer with the NYIBC, I have the opportunity to visit the dancers’ classes and rehearsals, which I will do tomorrow, as well as attend the performances.  I also hope to spend more time with Allison and Doug and get to know some more of the dancers in the coming weeks.  Check out the website, and those of you in New York, maybe try to come to a performance or two!