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Saturday, August 29, 2009
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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