Signing off!

I'm sorry it's taken soooo long to close out my blog!!

My last weeks and months were pretty hectic, and my transition this summer has been fairly busy as well!

I'll try to rewind a little bit and catch you up to speed.

The end of the school year was filled with many great endings. My artists had their final show, and the theme was their own community, Lecheria. All of the projects were inspired by the people, places, and things in Lecheria. There were collage representations of local landmarks, watercolors of landscapes, and drawings of people in the community. It was a nice close to the year. I had enough funding left to give them each a year-end gift of a sketch pad with drawing pencils, which they loved! Giving out their portfolios was cool too—it was amazing to see all that they had accomplished.

Even better than the show was the field trip. I took the students with the best attendance/behavior on a trip to two art museums downtown. We explored the National Museum of Modern Art and they gave them a workshop on drawing (more elementary than I imagined or wanted, but the kids enjoyed it). The cutest part was that a lot of them brought their own sketchpads and wanted to use their personal pencils because they were of better quality than what the museum had haha. Then we headed to a Picasso exhibit. They gave the kids a pretty lame workshop in movement, but the kids were good sports. The best part was when they gave the kids clipboards and pencils to sketch Picasso's works. The kids were SILENT and so focused on drawing. If all this class did was give them an activity that is calming and helps them focus, I'm happy! They also gave each kid nice exhibition booklets with photos of all of the works in color. The kids were so happy to have something to take with them, and I remember that one girl, Shakiri said, “I am going to draw ALL of these in my notebook!” The kids truly are artists, and I am glad that they feel confident in creating their own beautiful works!

Another great closer of the year was the staff party. The staff and families went to the beach. This was one of my favorite days in both my first and second years. A lot of staff and collaborators from the batey come, so it's nice that they get to go somewhere that they could never afford on their own. It was the first time to the beach for many of them! We just swam, played, ate, and had a great time. Everyone seems to forget about all of their problems for the day and just have a good time.

Saying goodbye to Lecheria was really hard. On one hand, I knew that I would be back relatively soon because it's not too far away. But knowing that I would only return as a visitor, not as a teacher, was difficult. Although I was there for the kids, my hardest goodbyes were to the friendships I had made with adults in the batey. I think partly because I came back after my first year, the kids just kept saying they'd see me soon, but the adults knew that I wasn't going to return to work there. I know I'll see them relatively soon, hopefully within the year. I do think about them often.

We closed out our time there with a trip to Haiti—Port au Prince this time. The experience was indescribable. Much of the city looks like the earthquake had just happened, so I can't imagine what it looked like immediately afterwards. Many of the landmarks that were destroyed like the National Palace and the Cathedral have remained the same. In the downtown there were NO restaurants and not even places to sit. We ended up cleaning rubble off of some steps to sit after a long day of walking. I had a guidebook from before the earthquake, and it talked about a big park/square in the middle of the city. While looking for it, we stumbled upon a tent city and realized that that WAS the park. Tents still seemed to be in any opened space available. There were filthy portapotties for the tent residents and I'm not sure where/how they got their water. The people were friendly but life seemed pretty miserable in the tents. One thing that had been restored was the big Iron Market, but it was filled with souvenirs and vendors and no tourists. Go to Haiti!! We felt safe, and their economy needs all of the help it can get. We also went to Jacmel, a quiet, coastal city and stayed at a boy's orphanage. The boys were adorable and we mostly spent time with them and went to the beach. We didn't have a room, so we slept on the roof! Back in Port au Prince our hostel didn't have any more room so we were in our own tent, pretty fitting for the location. Although sadly, our tent was big and roomy and much more comfortable than the tents I'm sure that the Haitian people were sleeping in. It wasn't your typical vacation but it was an eye-opening trip. Plus I got to practice my Kreyol a little bit. I love the country and the language and I would love to go back for a longer time some day.

Now I am getting ready to attend the Urban Teacher Education Program at the University of Chicago. I've been in Chicago for about a week now and I'm loving it. I live in a Catholic Worker house called Su Casa. It's a big, old house with a great group of people. If you're not familiar, the Catholic Worker is a movement committed to promoting and fulfilling the Gospel's call to social justice. This particular house provides transitional housing to homeless Hispanic families, mostly single mothers fleeing domestic violence or abuse. Many of the families' experiences have been violent and horrific, so this is a wonderful refuge for them. It's an eclectic group of people and has been a lot of fun so far. There's a huge garden and we even have an art room!

The neighborhood is pretty low-income and very segregated. We live very close to an invisible dividing line between the Mexican and African American sides. It's amazing the difference from one side to the other. The Mexican side is low-income as well but there are more shops and more people around. Then a block down into the predominantly black side (where we live) there's trash all over the place, a couple of liquor stores, and not a lot of people around. I feel comfortable here personal safety-wise, so don't worry!!! It is just sad to see a neighborhood with so little going on. Although my neighborhood in the D.R. was poor, it didn't have the sense of gritty-ness that this neighborhood has. I'm new, so I'm just taking guesses, but people who have been here for a while have confirmed my guesses.

Anyways, I start classes on Mondays. It's a two-year program, and it's fairly small (there are about 30 of us) so I think it's going to be a fun group of people. I'll be balancing class, work at Su Casa, and work-study job. I'll be pretty busy, but I'm excited. There's a lot to look for, and this city is awesome. The only downside is the winter, but I bought a big fat winter coat today so I'm looking up.

I'm sorry for the delay in updates!! I think this is where the blog will end for me. I just wanted to keep you updated while I was living with limited access to internet. Now that I'm back in the states, I'd love to hear from you all more often. My email is lauren.ogara@gmail.com. Thank you for all of the love and support that you've given me for the past two years! I could NOT have done it without knowing that I had a team rooting for me.

Justin Bieber and other important things

I don't have a lot of time, but I wanted to get out the most important news!

1. I'm going to the UChicago! I'm a little nervous, but also excited! So I'll definitely be in Chicago for the next two years!

2. Please check out our Justin Bieber video--it's our kids singing (in English!) one of his songs. It's pretty funny if I do say so myself, and it's already been aired on Dominican TV. We're hoping to get his attention, so please share it with everyone you know!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGWG6vlsDFM

I'm back!

I imagine one could assume a lot of things from not having heard from me in four months. I can assure you that my absence has only meant extreme business and trying to take advantage every last bit of time I have left here. I have had so many experiences since January that, naturally, I can only think of what has happened in the past couple of weeks.

Last week, some thieves slaughtered ten cows, raised near to the batey, took all of the “good parts,” and left the rest of the cows to rot. Lucky for our community, the cows were prime for scavenging. Women and children ran with buckets to collect any meat they could get their hands on. I saw cows' heads, hearts, eyes, intestines, everything. The worst part was watching them clean the meat. I saw one woman and her grandchildren cleaning out the intestines in a still water lake—the same lake people fish from and wash clothes in. It is so difficult to be hygienic with a lack of water (let alone clean water).

By last spring, I had witnessed some extreme happenings in the batey such as rape and child death by malnutrition. This year I have seen the less dramatic side of poverty. I have seen people forced into hard choices, precisely from a lack of choice. And yet it's not dramatic, sad, or unusual for them. It is simply expected. One of my students this year, Mariana, 12, has recently left the batey. She arrived last year from Haiti with no Spanish at all. She already knew how to read in creole, but I remember struggling with her to learn Spanish vocabulary. This year she has been in my art course and I have enjoyed seeing her explore her creativity and getting to know her quirks. Two weeks ago I thought it was strange when I hadn't seen her in a while—she never missed class! Her little sister came, on Mariana's orders, to tell me that she had left the batey. Her uncle called her mother and told her he needed someone to take care of his young children. So she left fourth grade and went to the other side of the country to live with her uncle (who I'm not sure she knows) and take care of his family.

Even after my time here, it's easy to blame the mother. Why did she let her go?? But she has five other young children in her house to take care of. Knowing that one of her daughters will be provided for somewhere else is probably a relief. It is hard for me to not assume the worst of this situation. One, she is no longer in school, which is certainly a bad thing, especially for such a smart girl excited about school. Second of all, I have only heard bad things of young girls going to work for (male) relatives, especially because it seems like she will be the only “woman” in the house. This is the sort of thing that happens all of the time. The poverty in the batey is not always so evident when you see that many have cell phones and televisions. When visitors come to see the batey, they say things like, “The kids are so happy!” and “Poverty is all they know, so they are happy with it!” It is obviously more complicated than that. The poverty of choice here—watching kids forced by their circumstances to settle for less than their potential—is crushing.

On non-batey news, we had the opportunity last weekend to visit an American religious missioner on the Haitian border (Hondo Valle). It was interesting to see rural border life. We escaped the concrete and blaring noise of our neighborhood to go to a friendly, sleepy town. I experienced being on the WORST road in my life—far worse than I even saw in Haiti. Even more amazing than the fact that a car (well, truck) could pass through that road is the fact that we saw people walking on that road, who we were told walked for hours and hours between Haiti and the Dominican Republic to buy and sell wares.

Even more interesting was the chance to learn from the religious sister, Jane, who had been living and ministering there for thirty years. She had a refreshing approach of seeing what the community wanted to achieve and working to help them facilitate their own empowerment and development. Our community often seems to depend so much on our services, and it was nice to know that there are projects that help a community stand on its own two feet, without the direct dependence or direction of foreigners. I would love to be involved in a project like this some day.

Speaking of some day, I only have two and a half months left here. More and more I have felt ready to end my time here and go back to school, but I am also realizing how big of a change this will be. I will be saying goodbye to a country, a job, a community, and friends who I have seen every day (almost every hour) for the past two years. It will be sad to say goodbye, and scary to move back to the states, because I know that I would love to continue international work. But in the meantime, I will be studying education to be better-equipped for international development work in the future. In the next week, I have to choose between two urban education programs, one in Boston and the other in Chicago. Both programs are wonderful opportunities and I am excited about them both. The only con about either program is missing out on the other. You will know as soon as I know. Please pray that I can come to a decision!!