On Friday night we had big plans to help a neighbor, Kenya, with her wedding invitations. The weekend before we helped her paint little memento boxes. Mid-painting, Kenya invites us (all FOUR of us) to be her bridesmaids. We hesitate and smile and de facto accept—we weren’t really asked, so how could we decline?? Her family is very close to the sisters—two of the daughters work as teachers in the school and Kenya is one of the sister’s secretaries. However, we barely know Kenya, so it’s definitely a weird situation. You should also be aware that her wedding is on Dec. 19, leaving three weeks for invitation-making and delivery. So Friday night we sit down to invitation-making, which includes mesh, green glitter, and butterflies. It was really horrible. I felt like I was doing an arts and crafts project with my kids.
Saturday morning:
After much discouragement (you can’t go without a Dominican! They’ll rip you off!), I decided to go to the Loz Alcarrizos market—they sell everything from clothes to medicine to fruits and vegetables. I took along an American volunteer visiting from a city on the coast to show her the real Los Alcarrizos. Not a really pleasant place to walk around---really congested, barely any sidewalks—but I like it. My mission was to look for jeans, as mine have gotten significantly holier since being here. After being shown several pairs of playboy bunny jeans (it’s an obsession here, people don’t even know what that bunny means), I found a nice (sans bunny) pair of $7 jeans (never buying jeans in the states again!) While in the dressing room (or behind a sheet), I hear the salesman giving my friend a gift that looks like her, and her responding by asking if she has blonde hair (she has my color hair). When I come out I see that the salesman has gifted her a fake (blonde-haired, blue-eyed) Barbie doll because it looked “exactly like her.” Upon exiting he told us in English, “I wait for you.”
Saturday night: the sequel to bad invitation making. So the first horrible thing about this wedding is that the celebration was scheduled for the night of the Beyonce concert, which Leah and I were determined to go to. Post-Saturday night, however, Leah found out that the concert date had been changed to March! Thank goodness. Two weeks to go until the wedding, and we still have two rehearsals and shopping for green and coral clothing to go. Wish me lots of luck.
Sunday morning
Every Sunday morning (since about a month ago) I have been going into the batey the liturgy and my youth group. There are about 7-8 girls (ages 10-14) who come regularly, which is a huge change from the beginning. I used to hold the group during the week, but attendance was poor. Now that it’s on Sunday I have a regular group and it’s going pretty well. They decided they wanted to put on a Christmas pageant, so we’re in the planning process. I foresee it being a little chaotic but you gotta give the people what they want, right? We are one child short for the number of characters, so I am currently slotted as a shepard. I’m hoping God sends me some other child to spare me from this role, but I’m sure that I’ll provide some entertainment.
After the group, I had promised some of the girls in my group that I would go to the river with them. The river is about a twenty-five minute walk from the batey, and the people go there to bathe and fill up on water when there is none in the batey (for example, right now). The kids love to go to swim and have fun. First, the girls cook spaghetti to bring along. I didn’t bring a THING to the batey that morning, and I hadn’t planned on eating, but they insisted on making food for me to bring along. The people here are so generous. Makes it a little difficult to refuse food you’re pretty sure will make you sick, but I haven’t gotten sick yet!
So, I’m sitting on the porch with the mother while the girls cook. I should mention that this family is doing really well compared to many families in the batey. The father is Dominican, so the girls have all of their papers. They have a four room house for 7 people which is also really incredible. But the mother, Elena, is 30 years old and has five children, the oldest being 14. Not strange for the batey standards, but so hard to grasp. While sitting on the porch a woman comes up and joins us. I quickly realize this is Elena’s mother, but I can’t believe because she looks no older than 45, and EVERYONE in the batey looks older than they are. I haven’t confirmed her age, but I’m almost positive that she’s no more than 15 years older than her daughter. While sitting on the porch I hear a commotion, and suddenly Elena grabs a stick and moves towards it. I stay with Mariano (5 years) to distract him, but I see someone with a machete and kids running away in my direction. I’m still not exactly sure what happened, but I do know that the fight involved Chichi, a woman I tutor, and someone getting their hands cut up by a machete. Just seeing those kids running from a machete was horrifying—how can they not respond with violence if this is what they see everyday?
So we finally head out to the river, and on the way we pick up about fifteen-twenty other kids and a rabid dog. Well, not rabid, but crazy--he had the week before bitten a chunk out of a little girl’s leg. So the walk to the river consisted of frequent scares in which the dog would go crazy and run after us and the children would run and hide. I, meanwhile, was fighting my temptation to put one of the kids in front of me and instead shield the kids. NOT easy, that dog was so scary.
Anyways, we arrived safely at the river. It’s wide and beautiful and lined with rocks. The water seemed to be pretty clean, definitely cleaner than the water we get at our house (how do I measure this? I swallowed some while swimming and I haven’t gotten sick, which would not happen with the water from the street). The river was shallow, knee-length in the deepest parts where we were, but the current was very strong. I was nervous a lot of the time because really young kids (5 years old) came along. The kids were so calm and good and they played so nicely with each other. The girls shared their spaghetti with every single kid there (and me). It was so nice to spend a lot of time with the kids outside of the school. We collected white shiny rocks (called americanas, “because they’re white”), skipped stones, floated down the river, and ate spaghetti. It was such a great afternoon, but it was long, and I was late for a plan to meet friends in the city.
On the way back home, I stopped quickly to pick something up at the school, and ran into Ricardo, one of the most malnourished and neglected children in the batey. He’s on plumpy-nut (peanut butter like meal substitutes, essentially), and he asked me to feed him, so of course I did. I thought it was so crazy that the thing that was “holding me up” was feeding a malnourished child. I had planned to meet a couple of the Dominican profes I teach with in the Colonial Zone for the free concert that’s held every Sunday night. They play a lot of Cuban son music, which we didn’t know how to dance to, but we gave it our best shot, ate fried chicken (they gave us extra pieces that we didn’t pay for…..and we didn’t tell….:)), and ended the night at a car wash.
Not a typical weekend here, but there isn’t really such a thing here. This weekend we’re having a Christmas decorating party in the house. And, of course, we have the first wedding rehearsal. Until next time.....
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Same photo album--new pictures :)
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2442634&id=920832&l=198d7bad31
Monday, November 16, 2009
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmgN2IoXPCE
A video of pictures made by volunteers two years ago about the batey. Some of the photos were taken from projects of that specific year (latrines, nutrition, etc.) that aren't currently going on, but the conditions and people are the same. I'll post soon! (I had trouble linking it, but copy and paste to view)
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
work and play
My apologies for being out of touch! My computer died (and is now nearly fixed) so I've been m.i.a. for the past few weeks.
WORK
One of my favorite times of my week is the time I spend with Guilena. Every session with her has been especially fruitful and memorable. During one session, I brought along Green Eggs and Ham for my next student. Milena (10) started reading it aloud as I was teaching Guilena, and all of her other children gathered around her to listen. Then her husband even came over and kept commenting: “Wow, doesn’t she read well? She is a good reader!” He then explained to me that she had only started going to school three years ago. It was so nice to see her family so proud of her, and the little ones excited about her being able to read. Unfortunately, not all of her siblings have been so quick. Samuel (12) still cannot read, and is on the same reading level as his younger brothers Juli (6) and Johan (8).
During another session, she’s breast-feeding Katrina (13 months) while Johana (3), Joelito (5), and Juli (6) color on the floor with paper and crayons I’ve been bringing lately. I really don’t have to bring anything as a distraction because her children are so CALM (not in school! But in the house I think they’ve adapted to their mother’s health situation—she’s suffered a stroke and (I think) mental illness and she’s very sensitive to loud noise). ANYWAYS, we’re reviewing vowel sounds with flashcards we’ve made. She starts to make the “i-i-i” sound and suddenly Katrina (the baby) lifts up her head and says “i-i-i” and then starts laughing. Then we move on to “a.” Guilena starts to repeat the sound “a-a-a,” and then Katrina lifts her head and starts making the sound. Then the three on the floor chime in with “a”s. Guilena and I got a kick out of it. The kids knew we liked it so they were all giggling. It was so cute and also exciting because at least they’re getting SOME kind of exposure to sounds and letters! My time with Guilena has really shown me how valuable our small and limited services can be to the people in the batey. ALSO, small addition from our session today: a neighbor brought Guilena a small bowl of food for the whole family. She insisted on offering me some, which she always does when they have food, and she actually put the spoon in my mouth. THEN, she scooped spoons into other bowls for her children, Johana (3) eats her spoonful, goes into the corner, pees in the bowl, empties it out onto the floor, and then licks the edge of the bowl. It was so painful to watch. Guilena was aware of what was happening but not looking closely, so I didn’t want to say anything and embarass her incase it was okay with her, but at the same time it was so awful! Oh man, it’s a whole ‘nother world here.
I’ve been becoming closer to Elizabeth, one of the other women I teach, as well. She’s the same age as me (22). She’s definitely a lot more fortunate than other people in the batey. She has a Dominican “husband” (not legally but effectively) with a pretty steady job. For her son’s third birthday (he’s now 4), they had a party with a big cake and music. She showed me pictures—pretty much all of the kids in the batey were there (you couldn’t keep them out—they live on top of each other). She said that she wasn’t sure when they’d be able to celebrate his birthday again, but that they really wanted to do it for him. When the water was out, they didn’t have to go to the river but instead could afford to buy clean water (pretty expensive). I got a striking example a couple of weeks ago to do with the range of economic situations among the people in Batey Lecheria. Getting nails done and going to the salon is a big thing here, and everyone in my neighborhood does it—it’s not a sign of having money if you go to the salon on a regular basis. For the most part, salons do not seem to be a luxury accessible to those who live in the batey. However, Elizabeth goes pretty frequently (once every week or two), and she tells me that it only costs 30 pesos (less than 1 USD) for a pedicure. The same week that she tells me this, Katie found out that Altagracia (mother of 7) had a lump in her breast. A consultation at the dispensary PLUS a prescription would cost 40 pesos (a little over 1 USD), and so she decided she could not afford to go to the dispensary. Luckily, it turned out to be an infection within the next week. One woman has no trouble dropping a dollar once a week to get her nails done, while another was going to let a lump in her breast go unchecked because of the one dollar price barrier. Another strange thing about this range is that sometimes it’s present within a family. Elizabeth lives right next door to her three sisters, their families, her brother, and her mother. Elizabeth and Jaqueline (one of her sisters) both have husbands and one-two children each and are financially stable. Luisa (another sister), however, seems to be a little crazy (we’re not sure if it’s drugs or just a condition) and pretty violent with her kids (i.e. sticking her 4 year-old’s hands in boiling water and hitting her 5 month-old). Melania (the final sister) has three children under the age of 5 and her husband is in jail. She has been sick for more than a month, and I just found out that it’s because she tried to abort her baby (it’s illegal here but apparently she was taking something orally?) and it failed. So now she’s on her way to having her fourth child. I wouldn’t write anything about these people simply for shock value; it just seems like a very strange family dynamic. They all live next door to one another, are always sitting together in their plastic chairs, and seem to help each other out (with childcare, emotional support), but at the same time it doesn’t seem strange that they live in very different realities.
PLAY
Last month I went on a day-trip to Constanza, a beautiful valley in the mountains, with a really interesting group (an 80 year-old visiting nun, two German visitors, a fellow volunteer, and a Dominican family). Our bus driver for school wanted to take us to his hometown. We ended up seeing none of the town or tourist attraction, but we had such a nice time with his family. His entire family lives there (mother, siblings, nieces/nephews). Most of their houses are very simple (well, they’re shacks, but they look pretty good compared to the batey) but they had all of their necessities met. Their houses are right on the river bank so we spent a lot of the afternoon in the river with about 30 nieces and nephews. It was so nice that they have this to themselves! It was clean (and cold!) but beautiful. This is where most of them bathe—it was funny because we were swimming and playing with the kids and then Julio (who we work with) offered us a bar of soap. Anyways, his family was so kind to us. They showed us around—they grow flowers to sell (even to export!)—and they served us lunch. Then we realized that he didn’t even tell his family that he was bringing all of us! They were really kind. I really didn’t want to leave and told Katie that I could see myself living there! I just don’t know what I’d do….also, the mosquitoes (different breed from the ones here—I bled immediately once they bit me) were all over me—my legs were SWOLLEN for the next couple of days. But if I could get past that, I wouldn’t hesitate to live there for a while—it was really beautiful and refreshing to be away from the noise and the heat.
The next weekend we had a volunteer weekend with volunteers from Nuestros Pequenios Hermanos (aa network of orphanages in Latin America) on the beach. We most notable thing about the weekend is where we stayed. We have a rich Dominican contact who owns a beach house and opens her home to us for retreats. This house was literally ON the beach—her yard looked like a resort. Pictures on facebook—it was surreal! The beach it’s on isn’t very notable—not in my guidebook or anything—but it was absolutely pristine. This country is so beautiful—I wish so much that we were closer to the beach (we’re about two hours away—all because of traffic—and Santo Domingo is on the water but doesn’t have a beach :()
Last weekend most of our staff did the Cancer Walk together. There were supposedly 500,000 who did the walk (and I believe it!). Some interesting observations on things that never would have happened in the U.S.
1. My best estimate is that about 75% of the walkers were wearing JEANS. We’re on a tropical island, it’s HOT. I’ve even grown accustomed to wearing jeans to work in the heat, but on a 5k?
2. They ran out of water. Stupidly, we didn’t bring our own, because our friend who had done the walk in the past said that they had stations every half-k with bottles of water. Well, they ran out. People went crazy digging through the abandoned water stations for used bottles with even a little water left—it was kind of scary. Thankfully the station at the very end had water. We thought the walk was a 10k and were getting nervous about making it in the heat without water, but we were relieved when we realized we were at the finish line. Afterwards there was a crazy concert with a lot of famous Dominican singers and groups. It was fun but PACKED and people kept passing out/being dragged out because of the heat—yikes. I’m glad we went and it was a motivating environment but I became aware of some pretty big cultural differences!
I can’t think of much else. This past Sunday I woke up dead—I think I was severely dehydrated—but now I’m back. This upcoming weekend’s a long weekend so we’re heading to a beach on the north coast. After that I’ll definitely be keeping in better touch. I miss you all!
WORK
One of my favorite times of my week is the time I spend with Guilena. Every session with her has been especially fruitful and memorable. During one session, I brought along Green Eggs and Ham for my next student. Milena (10) started reading it aloud as I was teaching Guilena, and all of her other children gathered around her to listen. Then her husband even came over and kept commenting: “Wow, doesn’t she read well? She is a good reader!” He then explained to me that she had only started going to school three years ago. It was so nice to see her family so proud of her, and the little ones excited about her being able to read. Unfortunately, not all of her siblings have been so quick. Samuel (12) still cannot read, and is on the same reading level as his younger brothers Juli (6) and Johan (8).
During another session, she’s breast-feeding Katrina (13 months) while Johana (3), Joelito (5), and Juli (6) color on the floor with paper and crayons I’ve been bringing lately. I really don’t have to bring anything as a distraction because her children are so CALM (not in school! But in the house I think they’ve adapted to their mother’s health situation—she’s suffered a stroke and (I think) mental illness and she’s very sensitive to loud noise). ANYWAYS, we’re reviewing vowel sounds with flashcards we’ve made. She starts to make the “i-i-i” sound and suddenly Katrina (the baby) lifts up her head and says “i-i-i” and then starts laughing. Then we move on to “a.” Guilena starts to repeat the sound “a-a-a,” and then Katrina lifts her head and starts making the sound. Then the three on the floor chime in with “a”s. Guilena and I got a kick out of it. The kids knew we liked it so they were all giggling. It was so cute and also exciting because at least they’re getting SOME kind of exposure to sounds and letters! My time with Guilena has really shown me how valuable our small and limited services can be to the people in the batey. ALSO, small addition from our session today: a neighbor brought Guilena a small bowl of food for the whole family. She insisted on offering me some, which she always does when they have food, and she actually put the spoon in my mouth. THEN, she scooped spoons into other bowls for her children, Johana (3) eats her spoonful, goes into the corner, pees in the bowl, empties it out onto the floor, and then licks the edge of the bowl. It was so painful to watch. Guilena was aware of what was happening but not looking closely, so I didn’t want to say anything and embarass her incase it was okay with her, but at the same time it was so awful! Oh man, it’s a whole ‘nother world here.
I’ve been becoming closer to Elizabeth, one of the other women I teach, as well. She’s the same age as me (22). She’s definitely a lot more fortunate than other people in the batey. She has a Dominican “husband” (not legally but effectively) with a pretty steady job. For her son’s third birthday (he’s now 4), they had a party with a big cake and music. She showed me pictures—pretty much all of the kids in the batey were there (you couldn’t keep them out—they live on top of each other). She said that she wasn’t sure when they’d be able to celebrate his birthday again, but that they really wanted to do it for him. When the water was out, they didn’t have to go to the river but instead could afford to buy clean water (pretty expensive). I got a striking example a couple of weeks ago to do with the range of economic situations among the people in Batey Lecheria. Getting nails done and going to the salon is a big thing here, and everyone in my neighborhood does it—it’s not a sign of having money if you go to the salon on a regular basis. For the most part, salons do not seem to be a luxury accessible to those who live in the batey. However, Elizabeth goes pretty frequently (once every week or two), and she tells me that it only costs 30 pesos (less than 1 USD) for a pedicure. The same week that she tells me this, Katie found out that Altagracia (mother of 7) had a lump in her breast. A consultation at the dispensary PLUS a prescription would cost 40 pesos (a little over 1 USD), and so she decided she could not afford to go to the dispensary. Luckily, it turned out to be an infection within the next week. One woman has no trouble dropping a dollar once a week to get her nails done, while another was going to let a lump in her breast go unchecked because of the one dollar price barrier. Another strange thing about this range is that sometimes it’s present within a family. Elizabeth lives right next door to her three sisters, their families, her brother, and her mother. Elizabeth and Jaqueline (one of her sisters) both have husbands and one-two children each and are financially stable. Luisa (another sister), however, seems to be a little crazy (we’re not sure if it’s drugs or just a condition) and pretty violent with her kids (i.e. sticking her 4 year-old’s hands in boiling water and hitting her 5 month-old). Melania (the final sister) has three children under the age of 5 and her husband is in jail. She has been sick for more than a month, and I just found out that it’s because she tried to abort her baby (it’s illegal here but apparently she was taking something orally?) and it failed. So now she’s on her way to having her fourth child. I wouldn’t write anything about these people simply for shock value; it just seems like a very strange family dynamic. They all live next door to one another, are always sitting together in their plastic chairs, and seem to help each other out (with childcare, emotional support), but at the same time it doesn’t seem strange that they live in very different realities.
PLAY
Last month I went on a day-trip to Constanza, a beautiful valley in the mountains, with a really interesting group (an 80 year-old visiting nun, two German visitors, a fellow volunteer, and a Dominican family). Our bus driver for school wanted to take us to his hometown. We ended up seeing none of the town or tourist attraction, but we had such a nice time with his family. His entire family lives there (mother, siblings, nieces/nephews). Most of their houses are very simple (well, they’re shacks, but they look pretty good compared to the batey) but they had all of their necessities met. Their houses are right on the river bank so we spent a lot of the afternoon in the river with about 30 nieces and nephews. It was so nice that they have this to themselves! It was clean (and cold!) but beautiful. This is where most of them bathe—it was funny because we were swimming and playing with the kids and then Julio (who we work with) offered us a bar of soap. Anyways, his family was so kind to us. They showed us around—they grow flowers to sell (even to export!)—and they served us lunch. Then we realized that he didn’t even tell his family that he was bringing all of us! They were really kind. I really didn’t want to leave and told Katie that I could see myself living there! I just don’t know what I’d do….also, the mosquitoes (different breed from the ones here—I bled immediately once they bit me) were all over me—my legs were SWOLLEN for the next couple of days. But if I could get past that, I wouldn’t hesitate to live there for a while—it was really beautiful and refreshing to be away from the noise and the heat.
The next weekend we had a volunteer weekend with volunteers from Nuestros Pequenios Hermanos (aa network of orphanages in Latin America) on the beach. We most notable thing about the weekend is where we stayed. We have a rich Dominican contact who owns a beach house and opens her home to us for retreats. This house was literally ON the beach—her yard looked like a resort. Pictures on facebook—it was surreal! The beach it’s on isn’t very notable—not in my guidebook or anything—but it was absolutely pristine. This country is so beautiful—I wish so much that we were closer to the beach (we’re about two hours away—all because of traffic—and Santo Domingo is on the water but doesn’t have a beach :()
Last weekend most of our staff did the Cancer Walk together. There were supposedly 500,000 who did the walk (and I believe it!). Some interesting observations on things that never would have happened in the U.S.
1. My best estimate is that about 75% of the walkers were wearing JEANS. We’re on a tropical island, it’s HOT. I’ve even grown accustomed to wearing jeans to work in the heat, but on a 5k?
2. They ran out of water. Stupidly, we didn’t bring our own, because our friend who had done the walk in the past said that they had stations every half-k with bottles of water. Well, they ran out. People went crazy digging through the abandoned water stations for used bottles with even a little water left—it was kind of scary. Thankfully the station at the very end had water. We thought the walk was a 10k and were getting nervous about making it in the heat without water, but we were relieved when we realized we were at the finish line. Afterwards there was a crazy concert with a lot of famous Dominican singers and groups. It was fun but PACKED and people kept passing out/being dragged out because of the heat—yikes. I’m glad we went and it was a motivating environment but I became aware of some pretty big cultural differences!
I can’t think of much else. This past Sunday I woke up dead—I think I was severely dehydrated—but now I’m back. This upcoming weekend’s a long weekend so we’re heading to a beach on the north coast. After that I’ll definitely be keeping in better touch. I miss you all!
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Getting Started
So these past few weeks I've really started feeling like I live here (haha, sound familiar? I think I've said this before). I've traveled more, and I'm becoming more familiar (poco a poco) with the batey. For example, I found out that Banda (an older lady) is "married" (in the batey that mostly means "with" rather than an actual legal/religious bond-also, bond? My english is getting weird)--any way, Banda is married to the same man who is married to Berta. But you would never know because Berta and Banda are always together, and Banda seems to help Berta take care of her (nine) kids. I have no idea how this works, or where the "husband" lives. I don't know that I'll ever figure out the culture in the batey, but it's definitely interesting trying to put the pieces together. I'll start with the fun stuff, and then with work.
Paseos
A few weeks ago, Katie and I ventured into the Zona Colonial. The first time we went it seemed beautiful but pretty small, but upon going a second time we noticed so many side streets and beautiful buildings. I loved just relaxing there. Anyways, we stumbled upon the ruins of an old monastery earlier in the day (sans toursits), and we decided to walk past it later on our way home. On our way back, we noticed a stage and a big group of people around it. We decided to stay, and the streets filled up for three and a half hours of a concert (salsa, merengue). There was a dance floor and a lot of elegant older people going for it out there. Until then I had pretty much just been taking things as they came, but that was a moment when I realized that I live in the Caribbean. AND, even better, they hold this (FREE!) concert every Sunday! We're planning to go back this week. They kept giving shout-outs to regulars in the audience, and our goal is to become regulars. I'll keep you posted. ALSO, I put some more pictures on facebook (some from this concert) and the link from a couple of posts ago for the photo album still works if you're interested.
Another paseo that Katie and I went on (we just happened to be the only volunteers on these two particular occasions) was to a river up closer to the mountains. Some of our fellow teachers at the school are evangelical and invited us on the church paseo to this river. After finding out that this wasn't a baptism trip, we decided to go along. Minus swimming in our clothes (which actually wasn't even that bad) we had a really good time. This was not a place any tourist would go, so we were excited to have a genuine Dominican experience. We also ate crabs from the river, and I'm still here without amoebas so it was worth it. We swam and forded through the river for about an hour to get to a place that had music and dancing (that is, the non-evangelicals in the group). Also, all of the Dominicans kept asking us to teach them to swim and they kept saying Americans were good swimmers, so it took a while for me to convince them that they were asking the wrong person.
I live to work
School is getting better and better in the sense of finding what works for me as a teacher, although every day is completely new and full of surprises. This week and next I have a group of seven year olds, including Pepe, a child known for his lack of focus and trouble making. Yesterday, Pepe ripped the plastic coating off of one of the desks with his TEETH, and today I had to send (read: carry) him outside kicking and screaming, with a rusty nail in one hand and a rock in the other. Mary Alice, one of the sisters, mentioned something to me that helped put things into perspective a little bit: many of these kids would not be in normal schools in the states--they're unmanageable one-on-one, they could not function in a normal classroom setting. We refuse to give up on these kids, but at the same time it's helpful to think that it's not completely my lack of experience that's bringing out this crazed behavior in the kids.
In the afternoon, I've been placed to work with the older kids (around age 10). Most of the older kids come in the morning since they go to public school in the morning, but the third grade goes to school in the morning now----well, they would in theory, although the public school is under construction, so they STILL haven't started school. Ridiculous. Anyways, so instead of working with the little ones (ages 4-6) for what functions as a public school program, I'm working with the older ones. I love it because I get to work with the same kids every week, so I have good relationships with them (well, in their own way--many of these kids have attitude, but I know they love me haha). I love the little kids downstairs (SOOO cute) but I really enjoy teaching the older ones. I've started teaching them music (quarter notes, eight notes, etc.) and we've been doing rythm games which they really like. My goal is to get them making music this year! I've also started giving them mini social studies/geography/culture lessons. Our next visitor from the states is coming next week, and my plan is to send back a Flat Stanley (traveling doll) to take pictures so that my group can "travel." These kids live on an island and have never seen the ocean. I want to get them thinking a little beyond the batey, and let them know that even if they can't travel far for now, that they can escape through books and their imagination.........we'll see if it works. P.S. I'll be in touch with some of you about possibly taking some pictures with our doll! :)
New Developments
Once I got here I decided that a good way to get to know people and the way things work in the batey was to teach some of the women to read. A lot of the women seem eager to have a relationship with us and also to be able to help their children succeed in school, so I am happy that I can serve them in this way. I'm starting out teaching four women, and the range of ability is incredible. My two most advanced in reading (Melania y Elizabeth) went to school for a couple of years, but one had a baby at fifteen and the other didn't have fare money to get to school so she stopped going. Guilena, who I met with for the first time today, is at a totally different place. She has seven children, has suffered a stroke, has brain damage, and I'm sure has endured a slew of other hardships that I haven't learned about yet. But she does live with the father of her child (who has a job!) so those are two things in her favor. Although she's lived in the D.R. for a while she speaks Spanish pretty poorly, so teaching her will bve a challenge in many, many ways. I started with some letter sounds today, and she does recognize some letters, but our lesson was so ridiculous today that I had to laugh. They only have one chair, so she sat on a bucket (which they refused to let me sit on). Her children were crowded around us, and she kept yelling at them for making fun of her (which they weren't) and she explained to me that she was embarrassed because they know how to read and she doesn't. Gathered behind us were some teenage girls who kept responding to my questions to Guilena. And to put the icing on the cake, Nana, the alcoholic mother of one of my kids, drunkenly explained that it would be helpful for her to stand by and help me. I tried to fend her off but, being difficult to reason with a drunk woman, I kept going with her commentary. By the end of our lesson all but her kids had left, and I made it clear to the crowds that next time we would be meeting alone. This gives you some insight into the amount of privacy people have living in the batey.
In addition to teaching the women, I was interested in doing some sort of catechism. Most of the people in the batey are evangelical, but we hold a liturgy every Sunday that gets about 15-20 people (about 3/4 kids). Anita, one of the sisters, expressed the need for a youth group. I originally was interested in teaching the younger kids, and youth group-y stuff never appealed to me before, but now I'm getting excited about it. I think there's (rightfully so) such an emphasis on giving this community tangible help (education, health care) that it's easy to forget about their spiritual needs, but I think it's just as important (although they are NOT mutually exclusive). There are about 10 youth who are "Catholic," so I've been talking to them and we're going to start next Tuesday. I want to feel out what they're interested in, but the goal is to give them a community of faith, a time to reflect, a safe place to share, an escape, hope for the future, and to realize their potential as leaders in the community. Haha that's a lot to hope for, but my only expectation for the first week is that kids show up. Please, please, pray for this group. I really have a feeling that it could do great things for them!
I know this is too long, but this would not be complete without mentioning the water situation in the batey. For more than three weeks, the batey has been without water. I don't understand that well how it works (well, no one really does), but the "bomba" or tank had water in it, but it wasn't getting up to the community so no one could access it. So this means that everyone had to go to the river (about a half hour walk--I've never been) to bathe, wash clothes, and get water for drinking and cooking. This has meant much lower attendance in school (because they're at the river cleaning/filling up buckets), but it actually doesn't mean much difference for health of the community, since the "street water" is filled with parasites anyways. Apparently the water came back this morning shortly, but it's gone again. This lack of water (let's not even talk about clean water) has really showed me how dehumanizing it is to be denied something so fundamental to life.
For us in Los Alcarrizos, the water comes about once a week (and on a really good day lasts for 24 hours), we fill up our buckets, take advantage of running water (although we don't have shower heads, but you'd be amazed by what an upgrade we consider water coming out of a spicket compared to bucket showers). In the batey, the water system is even more inconvenient because people don't have as many buckets as we do to keep water. Apparently (as with the electricity), this is the way it is because no one pays. No one pays because they know the government will give them light and water anyways, but because no one pays, the government only turns the water and light on sporadically and infrequently (about once a week for water and once-twice a day for electricity, although it's really hard to find a pattern here). For the record, we do pay for utilities, not that that makes a difference.
My apologies for the lengthiness. Thinking of you all :).
Paseos
A few weeks ago, Katie and I ventured into the Zona Colonial. The first time we went it seemed beautiful but pretty small, but upon going a second time we noticed so many side streets and beautiful buildings. I loved just relaxing there. Anyways, we stumbled upon the ruins of an old monastery earlier in the day (sans toursits), and we decided to walk past it later on our way home. On our way back, we noticed a stage and a big group of people around it. We decided to stay, and the streets filled up for three and a half hours of a concert (salsa, merengue). There was a dance floor and a lot of elegant older people going for it out there. Until then I had pretty much just been taking things as they came, but that was a moment when I realized that I live in the Caribbean. AND, even better, they hold this (FREE!) concert every Sunday! We're planning to go back this week. They kept giving shout-outs to regulars in the audience, and our goal is to become regulars. I'll keep you posted. ALSO, I put some more pictures on facebook (some from this concert) and the link from a couple of posts ago for the photo album still works if you're interested.
Another paseo that Katie and I went on (we just happened to be the only volunteers on these two particular occasions) was to a river up closer to the mountains. Some of our fellow teachers at the school are evangelical and invited us on the church paseo to this river. After finding out that this wasn't a baptism trip, we decided to go along. Minus swimming in our clothes (which actually wasn't even that bad) we had a really good time. This was not a place any tourist would go, so we were excited to have a genuine Dominican experience. We also ate crabs from the river, and I'm still here without amoebas so it was worth it. We swam and forded through the river for about an hour to get to a place that had music and dancing (that is, the non-evangelicals in the group). Also, all of the Dominicans kept asking us to teach them to swim and they kept saying Americans were good swimmers, so it took a while for me to convince them that they were asking the wrong person.
I live to work
School is getting better and better in the sense of finding what works for me as a teacher, although every day is completely new and full of surprises. This week and next I have a group of seven year olds, including Pepe, a child known for his lack of focus and trouble making. Yesterday, Pepe ripped the plastic coating off of one of the desks with his TEETH, and today I had to send (read: carry) him outside kicking and screaming, with a rusty nail in one hand and a rock in the other. Mary Alice, one of the sisters, mentioned something to me that helped put things into perspective a little bit: many of these kids would not be in normal schools in the states--they're unmanageable one-on-one, they could not function in a normal classroom setting. We refuse to give up on these kids, but at the same time it's helpful to think that it's not completely my lack of experience that's bringing out this crazed behavior in the kids.
In the afternoon, I've been placed to work with the older kids (around age 10). Most of the older kids come in the morning since they go to public school in the morning, but the third grade goes to school in the morning now----well, they would in theory, although the public school is under construction, so they STILL haven't started school. Ridiculous. Anyways, so instead of working with the little ones (ages 4-6) for what functions as a public school program, I'm working with the older ones. I love it because I get to work with the same kids every week, so I have good relationships with them (well, in their own way--many of these kids have attitude, but I know they love me haha). I love the little kids downstairs (SOOO cute) but I really enjoy teaching the older ones. I've started teaching them music (quarter notes, eight notes, etc.) and we've been doing rythm games which they really like. My goal is to get them making music this year! I've also started giving them mini social studies/geography/culture lessons. Our next visitor from the states is coming next week, and my plan is to send back a Flat Stanley (traveling doll) to take pictures so that my group can "travel." These kids live on an island and have never seen the ocean. I want to get them thinking a little beyond the batey, and let them know that even if they can't travel far for now, that they can escape through books and their imagination.........we'll see if it works. P.S. I'll be in touch with some of you about possibly taking some pictures with our doll! :)
New Developments
Once I got here I decided that a good way to get to know people and the way things work in the batey was to teach some of the women to read. A lot of the women seem eager to have a relationship with us and also to be able to help their children succeed in school, so I am happy that I can serve them in this way. I'm starting out teaching four women, and the range of ability is incredible. My two most advanced in reading (Melania y Elizabeth) went to school for a couple of years, but one had a baby at fifteen and the other didn't have fare money to get to school so she stopped going. Guilena, who I met with for the first time today, is at a totally different place. She has seven children, has suffered a stroke, has brain damage, and I'm sure has endured a slew of other hardships that I haven't learned about yet. But she does live with the father of her child (who has a job!) so those are two things in her favor. Although she's lived in the D.R. for a while she speaks Spanish pretty poorly, so teaching her will bve a challenge in many, many ways. I started with some letter sounds today, and she does recognize some letters, but our lesson was so ridiculous today that I had to laugh. They only have one chair, so she sat on a bucket (which they refused to let me sit on). Her children were crowded around us, and she kept yelling at them for making fun of her (which they weren't) and she explained to me that she was embarrassed because they know how to read and she doesn't. Gathered behind us were some teenage girls who kept responding to my questions to Guilena. And to put the icing on the cake, Nana, the alcoholic mother of one of my kids, drunkenly explained that it would be helpful for her to stand by and help me. I tried to fend her off but, being difficult to reason with a drunk woman, I kept going with her commentary. By the end of our lesson all but her kids had left, and I made it clear to the crowds that next time we would be meeting alone. This gives you some insight into the amount of privacy people have living in the batey.
In addition to teaching the women, I was interested in doing some sort of catechism. Most of the people in the batey are evangelical, but we hold a liturgy every Sunday that gets about 15-20 people (about 3/4 kids). Anita, one of the sisters, expressed the need for a youth group. I originally was interested in teaching the younger kids, and youth group-y stuff never appealed to me before, but now I'm getting excited about it. I think there's (rightfully so) such an emphasis on giving this community tangible help (education, health care) that it's easy to forget about their spiritual needs, but I think it's just as important (although they are NOT mutually exclusive). There are about 10 youth who are "Catholic," so I've been talking to them and we're going to start next Tuesday. I want to feel out what they're interested in, but the goal is to give them a community of faith, a time to reflect, a safe place to share, an escape, hope for the future, and to realize their potential as leaders in the community. Haha that's a lot to hope for, but my only expectation for the first week is that kids show up. Please, please, pray for this group. I really have a feeling that it could do great things for them!
I know this is too long, but this would not be complete without mentioning the water situation in the batey. For more than three weeks, the batey has been without water. I don't understand that well how it works (well, no one really does), but the "bomba" or tank had water in it, but it wasn't getting up to the community so no one could access it. So this means that everyone had to go to the river (about a half hour walk--I've never been) to bathe, wash clothes, and get water for drinking and cooking. This has meant much lower attendance in school (because they're at the river cleaning/filling up buckets), but it actually doesn't mean much difference for health of the community, since the "street water" is filled with parasites anyways. Apparently the water came back this morning shortly, but it's gone again. This lack of water (let's not even talk about clean water) has really showed me how dehumanizing it is to be denied something so fundamental to life.
For us in Los Alcarrizos, the water comes about once a week (and on a really good day lasts for 24 hours), we fill up our buckets, take advantage of running water (although we don't have shower heads, but you'd be amazed by what an upgrade we consider water coming out of a spicket compared to bucket showers). In the batey, the water system is even more inconvenient because people don't have as many buckets as we do to keep water. Apparently (as with the electricity), this is the way it is because no one pays. No one pays because they know the government will give them light and water anyways, but because no one pays, the government only turns the water and light on sporadically and infrequently (about once a week for water and once-twice a day for electricity, although it's really hard to find a pattern here). For the record, we do pay for utilities, not that that makes a difference.
My apologies for the lengthiness. Thinking of you all :).
Monday, September 14, 2009
Pictures: I read Where the Wild Things Are with my kids, and I had the kids make crowns (Max was the King of the Monsters in the book, and had a crown). They thought of all sorts of creative ways to decorate them--without my help! I was so proud of them! (note: a lot of the kids here have trouble with arts and crafts/creative activities because they have very little self-confidence)
So I’ve obviously been busy and haven’t had as much time to post recently. We work hard here but I’ve been thoroughly enjoying it. A lot of little things have happened since I’ve written but below are some memories.
During Montessori time, when kids get to choose any activities to work on, they go straight for the language/reading activities, which is wonderful and our strength (literacy-focused). BUT we want to get the kids just as excited about science, math, and social studies as well. I decided to get Cristina to work on a map today (we have big map puzzles), and I had her spin the globe and pick a continent. I told her she could travel anywhere in the world, and she told me that was a lie. I explained that I would not lie to her and that we were about to go on a trip. She chose the Asia map (the worst aka hardest!) and I told her about different countries and she really enjoyed doing it. Afterwards I asked her if she liked to travel and she told me that she did, and that tomorrow she was going to travel again. It’s nice to see that the kids find escape in their time at school, and that some of the kids still have hope about their futures.
Although our mornings are run like school, they only supplement the public school that the children receive, so the kids are not required or forced to be there (although they come willingly and are excited to be there). SO if they behave badly, we send them home (this happens with at LEAST 5 (out of 80) kids per day). This sounds harsh, but the kids have no concept of discipline (besides getting beaten) and are pretty free to roam wild outside of school, so it is really important for them to understand that the school has different rules. Near the end of the day last Thursday, one of my girls, Delana (age 11), was giving me attitude and not listening. Up until then (we had been together for two weeks) she had worked hard and I could tell that she really liked me, but I had been warned that she had an attitude so I wasn’t surprised when it surfaced. To make it clear that I would not put up with it, I told her that she had to leave (after having given her a warning). She burst into tears (keep in mind by 11 years old these kids are pretty tough) immediately and said that if she went home early her mom would beat her (for having behaved badly). The sad thing is that this is considered more responsible parenting in the batey (versus the neglect that many of the kids “receive”). I calmed her down and explained that I didn’t want that to happen to her and for that reason I would let her stay (but without giving her game time that the kids have at the end). But I explained to her that that was why it was so important to behave well, so that she wouldn’t get sent home early. This is one of the many wake-up calls I’ve had to how sensitive we have to be to these kids’ situations. It’s actually been helpful to keep in mind, because there are so many potentially frustrating situations that happen every other minute, but when I think about what the kids’ lives are like outside of their 3 hours with us, it’s hard to get mad or exasperated at them.
During sharing time, Eliana shared that her six year-old brother got drunk from drinking beer……
An older woman (Gloria Aleluya) who lives in the batey does some cleaning for the school. She only speaks Creole, and a few words in spanish. Our interactions go something like this: Me: “Gloria Aleluya!” Gloria Aleluya: “Aleluya! Aleluya!” I’m now not sure if that is her actual name, or if they just call her that because she says it all the time. Either way, she’s very cute. I really want to learn Creole, and a lot of the women have been happy to teach me a few words, so I’m hoping to pick some of the basics up by the end of this year!
Dominican men. This is a gross generalization, and I want to make it clear that we have met several very nice Dominican men, BUT many of those same nice guys do not take marriage or children seriously. Most of the unmarried men we know have kids, and many of the married men we know have been unfaithful (i.e. neighbor had an affair with another neighbor the same age as his daughter, a married friend has a son half a year older than his son with his wife, our very religious friend and her husband both have children from before they were married). This happens around the world, but it seems to be EVERYWHERE here. Anyhow, the point is that we were at the 50th birthday party for our friend’s dad, and our friend gave a toast. She said, “I want to thank everyone for coming on behalf of (she names her siblings), and any other brothers or sisters that might be out here tonight.” Everyone burst into laughter and APPLAUSE. Oh, Lord. It’s just accepted here.
Last weekend we finally got out of Santo Domingo for a break. We were invited by family friends of Leah to stay in their house in Santiago (in the North, second biggest city in the country). It was nice just to get away, and we also went to the beach for the day (the water was WARM; it was perfect!). What’s even more exciting was that the family sent their driver to pick us up and drop us off again (it’s a 2 ½ hour trip). I’m amazed at the generosity that people continue to show to us. The driver even had us over to his house for lunch. I really will never forget the generosity (time, food, patience) that the Dominicans have shown us.
On that note I cannot forget (thankfully!) how privileged I am to be here. I of course realized off the bat how privileged I have been my whole life as an American, a college graduate, etc. etc., in comparison to the people here, but I have been even more amazed by how privileged I am to be able to work where I work, for a number of reasons. One, these people really are the poorest of the poor. They are Haitians, from the poorest county in the western hemisphere, who come with hope to this country only to find they are heavily discriminated against and therefore only marginally have better opportunities to find work (I still don’t know too much about this, some may argue that they don’t have an advantage being here). So in that sense I feel privileged to get to share my time with people who really are God’s people. But what’s really crazy is that I have the privilege just to walk into their community, and that there is already a foundation laid for them to trust me and love me back. This is only possible because of one of the sisters who came here on her own fourteen years ago. When she first tried to break into the community, she dealt with plenty of mistrust and discomfort, but now when the people in the batey see us, they know that we are truly there to serve them and their children—to try to give them a better education, and give them a few hours a day filled with love, hope, and (almost equally important) a snack.
That’s all for now. I am thinking of and praying for all of you back home. Please keep our community and our kids in your prayers.
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Pictures
Follow this link to see photos. You don't need to have a facebook account!
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2442634&id=920832&l=198d7bad31
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2442634&id=920832&l=198d7bad31
Monday, August 24, 2009
First Day of School
Today was the first day of school--full of surprises as expected. But before I can even get to that I feel like so many little things have happened since I last write.
First, all of the volunteers have been sick except for me (I hope I'm not jinxing myself!). Katie has had a pretty bad cold/cough, and both Amanda and Leah have already had amoebas (I know! You really can have amoebas). It's inevitable that I will get sick, but I'm hoping I hold on for the beginning of school!
Secondly, this weekend I met up with Lynn (a friend from BU from Santo Domingo) and she showed us around (in her convertible! that adds about 100 points to the experience!) the Zona Colonial. It's beautiful and peaceful (shockingly quieter than our barrio!) and it was a nice break (shout out to Lynn--thank you for showing us around your city!!!). Our bus ride home was a whole nother experience. The bus was packed, and I wasn't fully able to decipher what happened until afterwards, but I heard people repeatedly shouting something about Haitianos, and before I knew it a Haitian woman and her two young children got off the bus. Leah, a fellow volunteer who was sitting near them, later told me that the passengers were harassing the little boy about how dark his skin was---disgusting. I was already disgusted, but on top of that, the Dominican men kept bothering us (which we're used to) but then one of them grabbed me. I just kept moving but I was so frustrated with that whole ride. Thankfully there was a lot less traffic than usual so it only lasted half an hour.
Now to the first day! I’ve been walking to the batey in the mornings, which is about a forty-five minute walk. You only have to walk a couple of minutes through our neighborhood before you get on a long stretch of dirt road to the batey. It has pot holes galore, so it doesn’t take much longer to drive than to walk (also, when we drive, we drive in a busted up van with the door open). Then, we take a turn and walk down a long hill into the batey. The gnarled mango tree (with a Cristo viene—Christ comes—sign nailed to the tree) marks the beginning of the batey. This morning, there was a little boy—about 1 ½ - 2—in crawling position in the dirt. His faced looked so pained and anxious, so Katie and I moved toward him to check on him. His mother (I’m assuming) then appeared and yelled at him to stand up and then walked away. As soon as she walked away I picked him up and hugged him. He then grabbed my arms and started rubbing his hands all over them (which got mud all over me—haha, it doesn’t take long in the batey to get dirty). He looked as though he had never been held before. I had to leave to go to school, but it hurt so badly to look into that little boy’s eyes. The morning session of school is for children (ages 7-until they can read, usually 12) who go to public school in the afternoon (school is only a half day here). We use the Montessori method, because in the beginning they tried to use conventional teaching methods and the kids went nuts. When the kids enter, they have 15 minutes of juego de silencio (the silence game), during which they meditate while listening to classical music. It was amazing to see kids that last week were climbing up the school fence (most kids have free reign in the batey—NO supervision) concentrating so hard. A little more on Montessori—it encourages children to be independent and focus on their strengths. Children are allowed to choose which materials they want to work with. Also, the materials—Montessori is all about manipulatives—the young children start off first with “practical life” and “sensory” activities, including pouring sand from one bucket to another, building blocks in the form of a staircase, etc. Once they have focus and coordination, we move them on to language (which includes matching toys with the sounds they start with—manzana (apple) with ma, for example) and math (where they can work with wooden blocks or beads). You get the picture. Anyways, nearly all of the materials at our center were made by the teachers—pretty impressive. I have never seen children so focused while working. It’s a little early to form an opinion about Montessori, but I have a great impression so far.
We rotate groups of children for story time and meeting time (a time to share and socialize), and my group this week is apparently the trouble group. Some of the kids refused to listen or respond, choosing instead to (fill in the blank—think: vulgar dancing, rude comments, non-stop talking), and therefore distracted the other kids in my group. At first I was frustrated, but upon hearing that they were the trouble group, I felt much better knowing that it wasn’t me!
The afternoon session functions as public school for young children (ages 4-6). I can already tell that this is much more my thing than the older kids. This session was a relief to me after my morning experience. Although I did have a couple little monsters try things on me—one girl tried to bite my hand, another little boy tried to bend my fingers back. Anyways, that was pretty much my school day, but just to give you a taste of the craziness and unpredictability of my experience here, my ride home included:
1. witnessing a giant tractor (wheels taller than me) go speeding down the hill to the batey and off the road (drunk or joy-riding are our estimates—we remember hearing laughter come from the truck). This crash was bigger than life—imagine a huge piece of machinery speeding downhill on a pot-hole filled dirt road. It almost ran over a few pedestrians (who fell into and busted a barbed-wire fence) in the process.
2. getting our car pushed nearly a whole block to start it (which it never did, we switched cars)
3. seeing wild boar mating on the side of the road.
And it's only the beginning.
First, all of the volunteers have been sick except for me (I hope I'm not jinxing myself!). Katie has had a pretty bad cold/cough, and both Amanda and Leah have already had amoebas (I know! You really can have amoebas). It's inevitable that I will get sick, but I'm hoping I hold on for the beginning of school!
Secondly, this weekend I met up with Lynn (a friend from BU from Santo Domingo) and she showed us around (in her convertible! that adds about 100 points to the experience!) the Zona Colonial. It's beautiful and peaceful (shockingly quieter than our barrio!) and it was a nice break (shout out to Lynn--thank you for showing us around your city!!!). Our bus ride home was a whole nother experience. The bus was packed, and I wasn't fully able to decipher what happened until afterwards, but I heard people repeatedly shouting something about Haitianos, and before I knew it a Haitian woman and her two young children got off the bus. Leah, a fellow volunteer who was sitting near them, later told me that the passengers were harassing the little boy about how dark his skin was---disgusting. I was already disgusted, but on top of that, the Dominican men kept bothering us (which we're used to) but then one of them grabbed me. I just kept moving but I was so frustrated with that whole ride. Thankfully there was a lot less traffic than usual so it only lasted half an hour.
Now to the first day! I’ve been walking to the batey in the mornings, which is about a forty-five minute walk. You only have to walk a couple of minutes through our neighborhood before you get on a long stretch of dirt road to the batey. It has pot holes galore, so it doesn’t take much longer to drive than to walk (also, when we drive, we drive in a busted up van with the door open). Then, we take a turn and walk down a long hill into the batey. The gnarled mango tree (with a Cristo viene—Christ comes—sign nailed to the tree) marks the beginning of the batey. This morning, there was a little boy—about 1 ½ - 2—in crawling position in the dirt. His faced looked so pained and anxious, so Katie and I moved toward him to check on him. His mother (I’m assuming) then appeared and yelled at him to stand up and then walked away. As soon as she walked away I picked him up and hugged him. He then grabbed my arms and started rubbing his hands all over them (which got mud all over me—haha, it doesn’t take long in the batey to get dirty). He looked as though he had never been held before. I had to leave to go to school, but it hurt so badly to look into that little boy’s eyes. The morning session of school is for children (ages 7-until they can read, usually 12) who go to public school in the afternoon (school is only a half day here). We use the Montessori method, because in the beginning they tried to use conventional teaching methods and the kids went nuts. When the kids enter, they have 15 minutes of juego de silencio (the silence game), during which they meditate while listening to classical music. It was amazing to see kids that last week were climbing up the school fence (most kids have free reign in the batey—NO supervision) concentrating so hard. A little more on Montessori—it encourages children to be independent and focus on their strengths. Children are allowed to choose which materials they want to work with. Also, the materials—Montessori is all about manipulatives—the young children start off first with “practical life” and “sensory” activities, including pouring sand from one bucket to another, building blocks in the form of a staircase, etc. Once they have focus and coordination, we move them on to language (which includes matching toys with the sounds they start with—manzana (apple) with ma, for example) and math (where they can work with wooden blocks or beads). You get the picture. Anyways, nearly all of the materials at our center were made by the teachers—pretty impressive. I have never seen children so focused while working. It’s a little early to form an opinion about Montessori, but I have a great impression so far.
We rotate groups of children for story time and meeting time (a time to share and socialize), and my group this week is apparently the trouble group. Some of the kids refused to listen or respond, choosing instead to (fill in the blank—think: vulgar dancing, rude comments, non-stop talking), and therefore distracted the other kids in my group. At first I was frustrated, but upon hearing that they were the trouble group, I felt much better knowing that it wasn’t me!
The afternoon session functions as public school for young children (ages 4-6). I can already tell that this is much more my thing than the older kids. This session was a relief to me after my morning experience. Although I did have a couple little monsters try things on me—one girl tried to bite my hand, another little boy tried to bend my fingers back. Anyways, that was pretty much my school day, but just to give you a taste of the craziness and unpredictability of my experience here, my ride home included:
1. witnessing a giant tractor (wheels taller than me) go speeding down the hill to the batey and off the road (drunk or joy-riding are our estimates—we remember hearing laughter come from the truck). This crash was bigger than life—imagine a huge piece of machinery speeding downhill on a pot-hole filled dirt road. It almost ran over a few pedestrians (who fell into and busted a barbed-wire fence) in the process.
2. getting our car pushed nearly a whole block to start it (which it never did, we switched cars)
3. seeing wild boar mating on the side of the road.
And it's only the beginning.
Monday, August 17, 2009
Settling In
Since I've only been here a little over a week I don't know that I can say that I'm completely settled, but I have my bearings a little more in the city, and I’m slowly getting into my community (in my neighborhood and at the batey). On Friday we walked around the batey with some fellow teachers to pass out information about uniforms. First—what is a batey? Bateys in this country were once migrant worker camps for Haitians coming in to work on sugar plantations. Needless to say, Haitians were fooled into thinking that they would have a better life and receive better wages on the other side of the island. Instead, they became slaves, living in cramped quarters without essential utilities. The sugar business has pretty much gone bust, one of the reasons being that our main buyer (the U.S.) switched over from sugar to high fructose corn syrup. Now most (but not all) of the bateys are defunct, but former workers continue to live there. Most of the men now work in construction or drive motoconchos (motorcycle taxis)—and other low-paying work—while some of the women work cleaning houses. There are about four generations living in the batey now, so most of the adults and all of the children speak Spanish, while some of the older people who only speak Creole. They call it “Haitian” and (I’m told, although I haven’t been here long enough to experience this) most of the children don’t learn it or are ashamed to speak it. I could go on and on about how Haitians and Haitian-Dominicans are heavily discriminated against in this country, but there’s a great article related to this in the New York Times (Dominican Crackdown Leaves Children of Haitian Immigrants in Legal Limbo, May 25, 2008--it won't let me post the link for some reason). I haven’t been here long enough to experience much of this, although I’m sure I will—I’ll give you examples as I witness them.
SO we walked around the batey. Most people live in one-room shacks, although there is a variety of housing. Some (very few) people live in little concrete houses almost comparable to those in our neighborhood. Their electricity/water situation is similar to ours, except that they can’t afford to buy big bottles of purified water to drink (like we do), so they drink the street water. The kids constantly have parasites and amoebas. We saw a pretty dirty young girl (about 18 months) and I saw what I thought were pieces of rice on her belly, but my co-worker tells me they were worms. One of the children was carrying a small, colorful, dead bird in his hands. I asked one of his friends why he killed it, and he said, matter-of-factly “to eat.” Mary Alice, one of the sisters, says people in the batey eat dogs and (more commonly) cats as well. That’s if they eat. Mary Alice says you never know the last time a child has eaten when they come to the school. The sisters also run a clinic (side note: they also have an AIDS clinic that the Clinton Foundation helped set up—pretty neat) and they are keeping track of the most malnutritioned children or children with HIV. In addition to giving them vitamins, they give the children “plumpynut.” It’s a popular combatant of famine and malnutrition in Africa—it’s a mix of milk, peanuts, sugar, and vitamins that comes in a little plastic bag. Apparently it’s pretty tasty, so it’s easy to get the kids to eat them. BUT many times they don’t get to the kids. Por ejemplo, Ricardo, the most mal-nutritioned child in the batey (and soooo sweet), receives one plumpynut a day at the clinic, but is given two more to take home, and they found out that he was being forced to sell them. These families are so desperate. So far I’ve mostly seen happy, although dirty, children excited to meet us. But I’m sure as I get to know their families and home situation, their stories will prove much more complex.
On Saturday we accompanied Mary Alice on a grocery store run, and we visited some malls in the city. First of all, let’s talk about the ride there. Mary Alice pointed out all of the street wires (rampant) and how people hot wire the street electricity to bring it into their homes. I saw how dangerous this was when directly in front of our bus a live wire started going CRAZY. At first I just heard loud noises and saw people running—I thought it was a shooting! Either way, very dangerous. We ended up visiting a couple malls and it was such a shock. We saw tons of white people (it felt strange not standing out) and lots of American stores. It was weird being only an hour away from the batey (and much closer if it weren’t for the horrendous traffic) and yet WORLDS removed. It was nice to get out (and I got frozen yogurt for 50 pesos!), but I am so grateful for where I am living and the side of the Dominican Republic that I am experiencing.
Sorry this was so long--we had a free day today and I'm trying to communicate as much as possible before school starts, because when it does (Monday, Aug. 24) I'm going to be a lot busier! Much love...
SO we walked around the batey. Most people live in one-room shacks, although there is a variety of housing. Some (very few) people live in little concrete houses almost comparable to those in our neighborhood. Their electricity/water situation is similar to ours, except that they can’t afford to buy big bottles of purified water to drink (like we do), so they drink the street water. The kids constantly have parasites and amoebas. We saw a pretty dirty young girl (about 18 months) and I saw what I thought were pieces of rice on her belly, but my co-worker tells me they were worms. One of the children was carrying a small, colorful, dead bird in his hands. I asked one of his friends why he killed it, and he said, matter-of-factly “to eat.” Mary Alice, one of the sisters, says people in the batey eat dogs and (more commonly) cats as well. That’s if they eat. Mary Alice says you never know the last time a child has eaten when they come to the school. The sisters also run a clinic (side note: they also have an AIDS clinic that the Clinton Foundation helped set up—pretty neat) and they are keeping track of the most malnutritioned children or children with HIV. In addition to giving them vitamins, they give the children “plumpynut.” It’s a popular combatant of famine and malnutrition in Africa—it’s a mix of milk, peanuts, sugar, and vitamins that comes in a little plastic bag. Apparently it’s pretty tasty, so it’s easy to get the kids to eat them. BUT many times they don’t get to the kids. Por ejemplo, Ricardo, the most mal-nutritioned child in the batey (and soooo sweet), receives one plumpynut a day at the clinic, but is given two more to take home, and they found out that he was being forced to sell them. These families are so desperate. So far I’ve mostly seen happy, although dirty, children excited to meet us. But I’m sure as I get to know their families and home situation, their stories will prove much more complex.
On Saturday we accompanied Mary Alice on a grocery store run, and we visited some malls in the city. First of all, let’s talk about the ride there. Mary Alice pointed out all of the street wires (rampant) and how people hot wire the street electricity to bring it into their homes. I saw how dangerous this was when directly in front of our bus a live wire started going CRAZY. At first I just heard loud noises and saw people running—I thought it was a shooting! Either way, very dangerous. We ended up visiting a couple malls and it was such a shock. We saw tons of white people (it felt strange not standing out) and lots of American stores. It was weird being only an hour away from the batey (and much closer if it weren’t for the horrendous traffic) and yet WORLDS removed. It was nice to get out (and I got frozen yogurt for 50 pesos!), but I am so grateful for where I am living and the side of the Dominican Republic that I am experiencing.
Sorry this was so long--we had a free day today and I'm trying to communicate as much as possible before school starts, because when it does (Monday, Aug. 24) I'm going to be a lot busier! Much love...
Sunday, August 9, 2009
La Llegada/The Arrival
I'm in Los Alcarrizos, por fin! For most of my time here so far we've been getting acostumbrada to the way of life, house, and community. And there's definitely plenty to get used to. It's definitely hot here with no escape, but as long as you don't mind being sweaty it's not oppressive. We don't have running water, but I don't mind the bucket showers--the cool water is definitely refreshing. Whenever they turn the water on, which may just be once a week, we rush to fill our big tubs of water. The electricity here is constantly in and out without any sort of pattern--so sometimes it'll be on all night (my favorite because that way we have fans while we sleep) and not on at all during the day, or sometimes it goes back and forth. It's kind of fun at times--I've brushed my teeth and showered by candlelight. When I saw that they had put a head lamp on our list I laughed, but now I see how useful it is! The biggest adjustment has probably been housemates (and not the sisters or the volunteers who are awesome, by the way). I'm talking BUGS. I've become an experta with the cucarachas--two of my roommates are pretty afraid of them so I've been killing them left and right. Mosquitoes are everywhere but we sleep with nets so it's not too bad. Our worst--and funniest--episode has been with a giant rat. One of the volunteers felt something brush past her legs, she screamed and fell backwards in her chair. Then we found a dead rat on the other side of the table. How this happened I have no idea--we're thinking either she crushed him with her chair and flung him across the room or he died of susto after trying to run away. I'm sure I'll be able to write a book about this stuff after the year is through.
Our barrio is considered (according to the person next to me on the plane) to be a horrible neighborhood--definitely one of the poorest--but I'm enjoying life here. Our neighbors are so friendly--tons of kids--and we buy our groceries at the little corner stores--we have to go into the city (about a 45 minute ride) to go to a real grocery store. It's VERY loud here--you can always hear music, kids, roosters--but it's not obnoxious. Although in many ways we're living like the people here, we still are so privileged in comparison. We live in three houses side by side that are connected--the houses are small, so put all together it's as if we lived in one regular-large house (and there are 7 of us), but the Dominicans live one extended family PER little house. We also have wireless internet (which feel really strange to me), but it's important for the sister's work that they keep in touch with their home base, so I think that's pretty fair. Anyhow, we're doing our best to live in solidarity with the community.
Yesterday was our first day at the batey and the school we'll be working in. The next two weeks, before school starts on Aug. 24, we'll just be learning the ropes. Our staff is almost twenty people--so our principal is a sister we live with, we're four volunteers, and the rest are Dominican teachers, most of whom are mas o menos our age. The school is pretty well-equipped and nice, a noticeable difference from the community it's in. We haven't had the chance to get out into the community (aside from the school) yet, but from what I've seen so far the people are very friendly. They live in tiny shacks and kids are running around dirty and naked everywhere. They are so beautiful--they run straight up to you and hold your hand and hug you. I can't wait to teach them. Today I blew a kiss at one of the little toddlers who was smiling at me and a man nearby was asking if I blew it to him haha. Today we also had a man kneel down and start proclaiming his love to us. Oh, brother haha.
I'll keep you posted on the rest of my training/school soon. The internet only works when we have elecricity, but I'll try to keep this up regularly. I miss you all very much! Rest assured that I'm very happy here!
Con mucho carinio,
Laura (oh yeah, they've changed my name b/c mine's hard to pronounce)
Our barrio is considered (according to the person next to me on the plane) to be a horrible neighborhood--definitely one of the poorest--but I'm enjoying life here. Our neighbors are so friendly--tons of kids--and we buy our groceries at the little corner stores--we have to go into the city (about a 45 minute ride) to go to a real grocery store. It's VERY loud here--you can always hear music, kids, roosters--but it's not obnoxious. Although in many ways we're living like the people here, we still are so privileged in comparison. We live in three houses side by side that are connected--the houses are small, so put all together it's as if we lived in one regular-large house (and there are 7 of us), but the Dominicans live one extended family PER little house. We also have wireless internet (which feel really strange to me), but it's important for the sister's work that they keep in touch with their home base, so I think that's pretty fair. Anyhow, we're doing our best to live in solidarity with the community.
Yesterday was our first day at the batey and the school we'll be working in. The next two weeks, before school starts on Aug. 24, we'll just be learning the ropes. Our staff is almost twenty people--so our principal is a sister we live with, we're four volunteers, and the rest are Dominican teachers, most of whom are mas o menos our age. The school is pretty well-equipped and nice, a noticeable difference from the community it's in. We haven't had the chance to get out into the community (aside from the school) yet, but from what I've seen so far the people are very friendly. They live in tiny shacks and kids are running around dirty and naked everywhere. They are so beautiful--they run straight up to you and hold your hand and hug you. I can't wait to teach them. Today I blew a kiss at one of the little toddlers who was smiling at me and a man nearby was asking if I blew it to him haha. Today we also had a man kneel down and start proclaiming his love to us. Oh, brother haha.
I'll keep you posted on the rest of my training/school soon. The internet only works when we have elecricity, but I'll try to keep this up regularly. I miss you all very much! Rest assured that I'm very happy here!
Con mucho carinio,
Laura (oh yeah, they've changed my name b/c mine's hard to pronounce)
Monday, August 3, 2009
The countdown begins!
Only 5 days until I fly! My goal is to update this every few weeks with pictures of/stories about my life in the Dominican Republic. I'll be living in Los Alcarrizos, a barrio on the outskirts of Santo Domingo, in community with 3 fellow volunteers and 3 sisters. I'll be teaching young children in a Montessori school in a Haitian migrant worker camp, Batey Lecheria. AND I'll miss you all terribly! :)
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