Pussycat Dolls and Juan Dolio

Friday I had a really good day at school. The kids are getting better and better as they figure out how to behave. One of my students did try to turn in the lyrics to a Pussycat Dolls song (“When I Grow Up”) for an essay about dream jobs and I had to explain to her, twice, why that wasn’t acceptable, but other than that things have been going really well at school. When I came home (we have to leave at three on Fridays because they fumigate the school) I tried to make myself a fruit smoothie with J.P’s blender (and when I say fruit smoothie I mean smashed up mango and rum) and it wouldn’t turn on. Any of you who know JP well know that his blender is his most prized possession. For those of you who do not know J.P. very well it should be obvious because he brought it with him to the Dominican Republic in his one suitcase. Anyway, there was some serious mourning to be done so we walked up to the grocery store to console him. He went to look at new blenders but he thought it was too soon. He set it outside on the balcony when we got home to see if the inside would dry out (the problem was that it got wet) and now it’s working! Mango and rum for all!

 

After we grocery shopped Sean and Sarah came over, and then Doug and Stacy and we went to the Zona Colonial for a drink. We found a different area there where I have never been and it overlooks the river and there are some restaurants and really old buildings. It was amazingly beautiful there. We went to this restaurant called “Angelo’s” and sat on the roof. We each only ordered one drink because it was ridiculously expensive but it was really nice up there. It was especially nice because all of the people I was with work at the school, but we didn’t talk about work. We sat and talked for a long time and then decided to plan on going to the beach on Saturday.

 

This morning I woke up early, had breakfast, and Stacy and Doug came over and Stacy, Doug, Bridgitte, and I went to this beach called Juan Dolio. It is about an hour outside of the city. We called a cab to take us to the bus station and he offered to take us all the way there, wait, and then bring us back for about $15 each, so we decided to do that instead of taking the bus. We got there and wandered down the beach for awhile, and then we sat down at some restaurant and tried to order food. They brought us menus and then asked for our membership numbers. We didn’t even know the name of where we were and obviously did not have a membership so we were politely told that we could stay at the table but could not be served food. Awkward. So we kept walking down the beach and then realized that there was no way out and Bridgitte was really thirsty. We walked back a little ways and then found a hotel that we could walk through to get to the road and the guy there offered to drive us to get water on the back of his motorcycle with Bridgitte and I for 50 pesos (divide by 35). We hopped on the back (sorry Mom) and went down to a place where we sat at a little bar and got waters and then beers (maybe a bit counterproductive). Stacy and Doug decided to walk instead of riding on the motorbikes, which was probably a smart idea but it took them awhile to catch up to us. We ate at this really nice restaurant and then laid in the sand and read while Doug played with some Haitian kids with boogie boards in the water. You guys should check out my photosite soon. I will put the pictures of the beach up there. If Las Terrenas was the most beautiful beach I have ever seen this was definitely in the top 4. It was so pretty, bright blue water, bright blue sky, white sand, palm trees, the whole bit. Come visit! Anyway, so far it has been a great weekend and best of all I have barely talked about work at all, which is a difficult feat when everyone you hang out with is a coworker. It’s been great. I think we’re all tired of talking about it. Love you guys!

 

 

Second Day

Today was day two at school. I am trying to lay down the law but I think that I will have to keep fighting the good fight for a few weeks until they get the idea. Today I made a class walk back into the hallway, greet me, and come back in quietly 3 times before they came in the way I wanted them to. It's all a process though and I am working on it. After school I came back, ate, and thought about going in the pool, which I think I will do immediately after I finish this blog. I forgot how crazy school is and how exhausting it is for the first few weeks. I come home wiped out, but hopefully that is only temporary. I also forgot how at the end of the day you can barely remember anything that happened because everything goes by so fast. I only have about 45 minutes with the kids each period, which seems like enough time to greet them, get them to do their warm-ups, and then say goodbye to them. Hopefully once they get into a routine it will be better. Anyway, how are you all? Please send emails and tell me what you are all up to. If any of the teachers read this, what are you guys doing this year? Miss everyone!

First Day of School

Hello All,

Today was my first day of school, and it went by so fast. I had 4 classes, 3 Language Arts classes and 1 Social Studies. I have two great classes and one great class that is a little squirrley, but we'll work on that. I think it is going to be a really good year and the sixth graders are going to be fun to work with, and more interested in learning than the high-schoolers that I worked with last year. Tomorrow I am giving a talk on how to pick a good book, which I am so much more excited about than they will be (typical). 

I ate lunch with some of the other teachers after my first three classes (I have been speaking a lot more Spanish with them lately, which could either mean I passed their test or they are tired of putting in the extra effort to talk to me in English because I am such a bore), and then I did "lunch supervision" which means that I patrol the staircase and make sure no one goes up until they are allowed, and when they are allowed that no one brings food or drink upstairs. I was fairly successful in this today, but I think in the future when the kids get bolder I will have a hard time turning them down when they have a good excuse to go upstairs. I had my social studies class in the afternoon and then I was finished for the day. I planned things out and came home. I think that my weeks here are going to be really busy, filled with eleven year olds and eleven year old problems, but it was nice to start actually teaching again. 

I keep meaning to take some pictures of my class to show you all, would you want to see it? I can't decide if that would be nice or like your dad's friend showing you home videos of family vacations.  Speaking of which, I found a "reaction poll" that I could attach to my blog that said whether you thought it was "interesting" "fun" or "cool". That's it. Those were the only options. Even though they had such an ample word-choice bank I decided not to add it.  

After school I came home and ate my weight in mango and olives, and then Bridgitte opened a bottle of wine and we had a few glasses and talked about libraries. Overall, today was a great success. 

Last night (8/25)

So tomorrow is the first day of school, and today I had a very busy day at work, but I think that at long last I am ready for the kids to start coming in tomorrow. I have been here almost a month now, and I have spent the whole time at school without kids getting ready, so even though I am nervous for tomorrow it should at least be more interesting with them around. They read a book over the summer called “No Talking” have any of you guys ever read it? It’s kind of cute, obviously a book written by a teacher. I just finished it today but it’s about this fifth grade class who has a contest boys versus girls of who can talk less. Good for the kids to read I think, it’s also about how disruptive talking is in school. I guess we are trying to trap them over the summer into behaving better in school, hopefully it worked. Anyway, starting tomorrow I have to pretend to be an adult again and be stricter than I feel like being, but so it goes. I’ll write tomorrow all about it and let you guys know how it went. Miss you all! Love you! Let’s schedule skype dates soon!

Great Day

So I had a really good day today, and I am going to explain that briefly for keeping-tabs purposes, and then I am going to tell you about the analogy I came up with today for Latin America as a locked front door, and probably bore you, but bear with me. 

-I went to school where I was very productive, and I think, miracle of all miracles, I may actually be ready when the kids come on Wednesday

-My principal wrote me a really nice note saying that the hard work I've been doing has not gone unnoticed, which was totally unexpected and made my day

-I went to lunch with Stacy and Melissa at the same place we went yesterday, I might start going there more often, there aren't a lot of people but it's delicious

-I came back to school and went to a meeting with the owner, and then finished up some other work

-I left, came home to pick up JP, and we went out for drinks with some other teachers

-JP and I went to the store to get some bread to give to the cute Haitian kids (we like to think of ourselves as really giving but mostly it's just fun to give them food, it's very selfishly driven)

Okay, so those are the events of the day. Here's my analogy.

So when I left school today I had stayed later to work and so as I tried to get out I found that the front door was locked. I'm not talking about a key lock, I'm talking about a huge metal grate pulled down over the door like the ones they use in the city or the mall at night. Because it was locked I had to go out the back door and walk two more block around the school so that I could get to where I would have started to walk home. On the way I saw a maid walking a pug which obviously wasn't hers and we said hello to each other, I passed a twenty-something girl and her way home from work and we also said hello, and then I went by Sergio's fruit stand and we waved to each other enthusiastically. By the time I got to the front door I had 3 interactions that I would not have had if the door had not been locked. This situation, to me, describes everything I think, love and hate about Latin America, and it struck me as the perfect way to communicate it to everyone else. Now for the explanation.

Okay, so in Latin America it sometimes seems that social relationships, and not hard work, are what get people what they want. I stayed late to work and so was locked in. Had I been friends with the door guy I would have found him (even if this took longer than walking) and he would have let me out. If I had been related to the door guy I would have a secret key to the front door of my own. Because this door was locked I had to go very far out of my way to get to where I should have started, which seems to be how everything works in Latin America. There are roadblocks, and even though no one can explain why they are there no one seems willing or able to do something about them, unless you have a connection through a friend or a relative. So as a foreigner I usually have to go around the block instead of through the front gate, because I don't generally have the connections I need. The front gate represents what I don't like about Latin America. The rest represents what I love. 

As an American, I tend to get very frustrated by these roadblocks, especially those with no explanation or reason for being, because I have been raised being used to efficiency. However, on my walk around the block I had three short interactions with people who I would not have seen if I had gotten out the quick way, and here those mean a lot more than efficiency. Stronger networks exist here than in the U.S. because it is necessary to have a large number of people around you who can help you get the gate unlocked if you need them too. Sure I had to walk around some garbage in the street, and walk in the road in the places where the sidewalk is patchy, and hop over the parts that were still wet from the flash flood earlier in the afternoon, but at least I got to see some people and talk to them instead of just getting to my apartment more quickly, which sometimes I have to fight against being annoyed about.

I hope this makes sense to everyone. These things are why I'm here. Even when things are frustrating I just love the value of relationships that I have observed here. I know that I'm being stereotypical but it's my blog and I'll stereotype if I want to (you would stereotype too if it happened to you... BA BA BA BA BA)

Taxi prices, mosquito bites, haitianitos

So JP and I tried to go to mass this morning because we were told that there were masses at the cathedral at 9 and 10 (aren't you proud, Severins?). Naturally, that information was wrong, and mass was at 12. We made it to another church though, La Iglesia de Altagracia, which was also beautiful. We were two of abut 30 people though, which was a little weird, and we were unsure if we were allowed to take communion or not because we hadn't been to confession (the practice in Latin America) but we went up anyway because most people did. Either they were really good Catholics  or the confession thing isn't as big a deal here as it was in Ecuador. There was a really bad echo in the cathedral though so I would say I understood about 10% of the mass, and that 10% I understood because I know the words to mass in English. Not a huge success but it was nice to get out into Zona Colonial and have a non-touristy reason to be there. We had a lot of trouble getting a cab to come home because they were all trying to overcharge us. My favorite though was when we asked a guy to take us home for $150 pesos, which is the normal price, and he said it cost $200. We said, "We normally pay $150" and he said "Well sometimes the prices vary, gasoline gets more expensive". We told him that we had paid $150 that morning, and he still didn't budge, which I was pretty impressed by. Anyway we finally found a person to take us home for the real price, and then Doug and Stacy came over. Melissa, Stacy and I were going to go to this pool at a hotel called Dominican Fiesta. That's right, the name of the hotel is actually Dominican Fiesta. We got a cab against our better judgement because it looked like it was about to rain, and when we go there we found out it cost $625 pesos (remember, divide by 35, and you'll realize that is almost $20 USD) to get in. We turned right back around and got another cab towards home. One cool thing about the hotel though was that there was a little fish pond in the front filled with fish and turtles. We stopped on the way home at this place called Sonoma, which is a really good coffee and sandwich place, and got lunch. Melissa went home because she was getting eaten alive by bugs, and Stacy and I went to this cake shop and then I walked back to her apartment to see it.

Funny side note:

Melissa attracts so many mosquitos that no one else around her gets bit. This is not an exaggeration. When she was sitting there getting eaten alive we were fine, and shortly after she left we started getting bites. We don't know why this is. She doesn't like to use deet all the time, so she has been rubbing herself down with limes (apparently this is a natural remedy) before she goes to bed. I think this is hilarious. She thinks it is a burden. 

Anyway, when I came home I talked to Melissa for awhile about how we were going to get ourselves into this community for awhile, and then JP came home and we went grocery shopping. There are tons of haitian kids on the streets here begging, and it is really hard because if you give them money they just have to hand it over to their boss, plus it encourages their bosses to get more kids on the street begging, but you don't always have food to give, which makes you feel like a monster if you refuse them. Today was great though because the two times I saw them I was leaving the restaurant with leftovers, and leaving the supermarket with tons of food. I have them my leftover sandwich and JP and I broke up a baguette and distributed it. It's so nice when you have something to give them. I think I might get a bigger purse just so I can carry granola bars or something for them. They are seriously the cutest kids I have ever seen in my life too. Anyway, overall good day. Also, I guess Stacy knows one person who knows others, so we are going to meet them and this should hugely improve my small network problem. Little by little my Santo Domingo world is expanding. Thanks for all the suggestions! I love you guys, keep the emails coming, I love hearing from you. Also, did anyone get the cave bar title of my last post? To understand better youtube "Gay Bar Homemade Video". 

Early Riser

Yesterday was a really good day. Melissa, JP and I went to this swimming pool where JP swims. It is about a half an hour walk from the house and it was 88 degrees, and with the humidity it "felt like" 99 degrees. When we got there we didn't even need to swim because we were already soaked in sweat (what a lovely image).  So we walked up to the gates and following JPs lead climbed over the fence and pretended not to understand the protests of the guards (they said, "You can't do that! You can't go down that way. Don't go down that way next time... as we got further and further away from them). We started swimming but pretty soon Melissa and I got kicked out because she was wearing a two piece bathing suit and neither of us were wearing swim caps. Apparently at some places in Latin America there actually are real rules that must be followed. We left JP there to finish his swim and walked back, stopping at a grocery store to feel the air conditioning for awhile, and again at a Lebanese restaurant I like and eating some delicious food. When we got home I read my book for awhile, and fell asleep on the couch, accidentally, for over two hours. When I woke up I got in the shower and got dressed up (because you pretty much don't leave the house here unless you are wearing a dress) and JP and I went down to Zona Colonial to get dinner and walk around. We ate at this place called Papa's or something, which was really cheap and delicious, probably the best meal I've had since I got here, but my stomach has hurt a little ever since, so in order to keep eating there I am going to pretend that it's because of something else. Anyway, after that we walked around for awhile, the Zona Colonial is really beautiful even at night, and when my stomach got too bad we came home and went to bed. Anyway, now we are going back to go to mass (what a fake good catholic) at the oldest cathedral in the "New World". It's the first time in my life I have been excited about going to church.