Hello everyone! I’ve been back to work for two weeks now after a nice Easter break! I went traveling with fellow volunteer, Amanda. We bummed on the beach, got a lot darker, climbed up to and swam in waterfalls, and ate good Italian pizza (a lot of the beaches here have been taken over by Europeans).
We got back in time for Easter weekend. I went to what is apparently the biggest way of the cross in the country (which happens to be in my neighborhood). It was a little crazy, but interesting. There were trucks carrying the announcers, and the trucks were draped with political posters. To give you some background, EVERYTHING here is about politics. Their faces are everywhere. And, as we’re in a pretty low-income neighborhood, policies aren’t as much of an issue as results. For example, Junior Santos paved our street, so who do you think my neighbors will vote for? Also, trucks go by BLASTING reggeaton music with the words changed to support for the politician. You won’t understand how funny this is until you see and hear it, but to help give you an idea, imagine Obama campaigning with 50 cent songs BLASTING from a truck with his face on it “Obama, your next president, we’re gonna party like I’m your president.” Anyways, to my surprise, they start taking down the pictures of the politicos on the trucks, to emphasize that this is about God, not politics. Along the way (3 hours!), we hit politician stands passing out bags of water and paper fans. One fan had a picture of Jesus and a lamb, and at the bottom it said “Count on Jesus, and count on me!” (with Omar’s campaign symbol and colors).
We spent a really nice Easter Sunday. We went into the batey for the liturgy and then we went to the river with some of the kids. I hadn’t planned on going swimming, but they were too cute it was impossible not to. So I went swimming in my Easter dress haha. Very few of the kids know how to swim so we were trying to get them comfortable in the water, teaching them how to swim and hold their breath. Very cute.
Then afterwards, everyone had told us that people were coming to dance gaga. Gaga is the Dominican term for rara, a dance (supposedly voodoo) celebration that takes place leading up to Easter. To give you a better idea of the general feel of it, the word gaga refers to someone who has a less than normal mental state. It was strange because it was somewhat more organized than I thought it would be—a group of about 40 people came from a nearby community (a former batey, in much better shape than we are, but made up of mostly people of Haitian descent) with t-shirts that said gaga. At first I was a little disappointed because it didn’t seem organic, but it proved interesting. They started dancing in procession-like form, with people with flags at the front, followed by men with homemade pipe instruments/drums and some kind of leader it seems—he had a whip! They were all drinking rum at every chance they got and it was clear they were drunk. They were all chanting and dancing. At one point they reached a tree, where apparently they had buried something, and started dancing around it. At this point a woman from the crowd fell to the ground shaking and then got up and people proceeded to dance around her. I would have probably done the same thing if I had drank as much haha. No, but really, it was very interesting, but just hard to tell between the people who revered the ceremony and those who were just there for the party.
I only have seven weeks of work left. I really can’t believe it! We have lots of plans for the kids, including taking them on a paseo to the beach!!! These kids live on an island in the Caribbean, and most of them haven’t seen the water! I’m sure it’ll be chaotic but I can’t wait to see their faces once they find out (it’s a surprise!).
On the non-kid front, I've really been enjoying my time getting to know the women I teach better. This week, I had a really interesting experience with Melania. As I've mentioned before, not being a mother, and coming from such a different world, it's MUCH harder than I ever would have imagined to defend the children (from their parents' violent and abusive ways). I've been frustrated up to this point in my feeling helpless and unsure of how to do this. So, I was visiting Melania this week, and we were sitting with her daughter, Helen (6). Melania started talking about how she wishes she could just give Helen away--that she's so bad and doesn't listen to her, etc., etc. I kept trying to say that, no, Helen was good, that she is just being a normal six year-old, but during all of this Helen was silent, and then I realized that she was crying. When Melania saw this, she yelled at Helen for crying and sent her to her room with a final comment "que muera." In other words, that she dies. In that moment I prayed that I could defend Helen without ruining my relationship with Melania. And for the first time, I did! I told Melania that she was being unfair to her kids--that you can't expect young children to be perfect. I told her that the way she talks to them (let's not even talk about the way she beats them) makes them feel like she doesn't love them--so how does she expect them to listen? Melania tried to defend herself, saying that one time when she had a head ache Helen was shouting "que muera mi mama, que muera mi mama." In other words, "Helen has said that to me before." I reminded her of her age, and a child's age. Melania also said that her mom was worse. It's clear that the major factor in the way she treats her kids is the way she was brought up, and just not knowing anything else. The next day, Melania saw Katie (fellow volunteer) and told her about what I said. She said that she was embarrassed. I would be naive to think my conversation changed anything about the way she treats her kids. But I was happy that I tried to stand up for the kids, and also that she didn't just blow what I had to say off--that she did listen and process it. I do not want to make her feel embarrassed or judged by me, but if she feels embarrassed for her behavior, good, maybe she'll rethink it.
To close, I have important news. I’ll be staying here another year. The time has flown by, and I have learned so much about myself and how to do my job better, that I would love to have another year starting out with this kind of knowledge already. I love teaching these kids and I want to keep it up now that I have some skills and lots of ideas. And I love so many people in the community—I can’t part with them just yet! Thank you to all of those who made it possible for me to even come for this year. You can be sure that I’ll continue to keep you posted as best as I can.
More pictures:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2514384&id=920832&l=274bd15fdd
Saturday, April 17, 2010
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