16 diciembre 2011

A day in my life….

Awakening to loads of Dominicans screeching singing at 5 in the morning, I put my pillow over my head. The loud predicaring starts, and I drift in and out of sleep, mixing reality with dreams about fiery hell, Christmas caroling, laughter, family, and loud music, with Dominic’s body next to mine, also breathing in and out, trying to sleep through this loud interruption. Alarm clock rings at 6:30 to go running, which we thankfully turn off, ignore, and go back to sleep. A little after, I reluctantly get out of bed to hang my clothes to dry, which we had washed the night before.

For the first two weeks in December, the church on my street does its own version of Christmas caroling, which includes occasional screaming, occasional faints, songs with the theme of Cristo viene!, loud instruments, and pleasant chants and songs about the birth of Jesus Cristo. It is a joyous time for all Dominicans. This singing might seem mildly amusing, and at times, it is, but I should also note that this praising starts at 4 am and stops a little after 6 am. A little too early for my liking. Anyway, it is more of a cultural event than a religious event, as many people join in, including the tigueres/ gansters, who at 6 then go to their respective street corners in the barrio and start playing their music, which is where they will be and what they will be doing until it is time to turn in for the night. After hanging my laundry, I drink my morning tea (gracias a Uncle Dan), and get ready for class.

Every morning, I go to one of the two schools in my barrio and work with the kids who are a little behind the learning curve of their peers. Literacy has become one of my main projects in my barrio. One school is a preschool, and while I am not sure how much I am actually doing to benefit these kids, they are the most adorable kids in the barrio, and I love them. They keep me grounded, which in a high- stress environment, is a godsend. The other school is K-3rd grade. The second school is where I will go today.

I arrive at 8 and ask one of the teachers which kids I should pull out today. She timidly and politely asks if I would mind going with the youngest kids, as their teacher has not shown up. After peering in and all the smiling kids start chanting my name to enter, I oblige. We draw. We color. I read lots of stories about snow and other things that realistically, these children will never see.

I have to bring my own books because there are no books in the school. I also have to break all the crayons into thirds because there are not enough crayons for each student to have one. I then draw things in their notebooks that they can color in because there are no funds to make photocopies or anything of the sort (stars, Christmas tress, snowmen). The lack of resources in the schools here will never cease to amaze me. They have nothing- no type of didactic materials, no games, no visual stimuli. They do not seem to realize the difference between visual, auditory learners, etc. and the schooling system insists that every child learn in the same manner: by copying verbatim whatever the teacher writes on the chalkboard. Because this method has clearly been a proven success.

An aside: 174 years is what it would a child in the Dominican educational system to achieve the same level of average years of completed schooling for a person in the US. 174 years. Average years of schooling completed in the DR=6. The average hours per day a child spends in school=2.76 hours.

Working with literacy projects seems to be a major initiative with many volunteers from my group, and para mi, vale la pena. (Not pene, which I accidentally mixed up once, much to my chagrin and much to the comic relief of everyone else).

After the kids leave, the director inquires about funds I might be able to obtain for a holiday party. After giving her my tried and true speech, I can give you my time, my heart, and my hands while I am here, but I cannot give nor do I have money to give, I leave the school to return to my casita to lunch with Dominic. Yuca y pollo guisado. Mmmmmm. We nap my obligatory afternoon nap followed by coffee. Ya tu sabes. I visit with some neighbors, a tiguere pastor, and finally my friend, which inevitably is followed by more coffee. I leave for my Chicas Brillantes group at 6 pm, wondering where my days go.  I arrive at the preschool where I have my afternoon groups and classes, and, surprisingly I encounter two of my Chicas Brillantes waiting for me. This never happens. We still start half an hour late because no one else was there, but two are on time. Miracles do happen!!!

Tonight in our group, we talk about teenage pregnancy. One in four Dominicans between the ages of 15 and 19 has a child. Twenty-five percent. Wow wow wow. We have some lively discussions about machismo, the culture or sex, the life choices we make, and how we hold the power to our futures. While it is by candlelight that we discuss these themes, it feels almost surreal on nights like this, when I peer into the faces of 10 young, almost women, clutching candles in their hands, and inquiring about things that most children in the U.S. know by kindergarten. They are the future, and for once, I feel not frightened but hopeful.

Deep thoughts by Tina Stavros

As I wrote this title, I realized that many people might not get the SNL allusion. Being 30, I still feel young, youthful, etc. even though I am asked at least 5 times a day why I do not have children for being this old. One of my friends just had her 6th child and finally got her tubes tied (is that what it is called for women?). In any case, no more fertile eggs will be going down her fallopian tubes any time soon. Her age, you might ask. 30 years young, igual a mi. The Peace Corps is filled with college-graduates who more than likely took the 3-4 year route, which means most of my friends, both Dominican and American, are in the early 20s, unless of course they are my age with 6+ children.  I brought up Thelma and Louise with some of my volunteer friends, and my twenty-six year old friend nudged me kindly and whispered in my ear that no one I was with had ever seen it. And in all my 30 years of life thought it was a classic. In any case, this blog entry (as opposed to others) is filled with random thoughts and notes.

Round of illnesses: allergic reaction to wasp sting on right buttocks, numerous infected mosquito bites, pin worm, ring worm, scabies (4 times to date), constant heat rash, brutal ear infection, staph infection (on my face!, also twice), impetigo (from said staph infection), and an allergic reaction caused on my hands from lime enzymes coupled with sunlight (note to boozers and/or citrus lovers: careful with the limes you squeeze in your cervezas while sitting in sunlight). These are at least the things I can recall at this moment, but I am sure there are more.

How do you make an eco-friendly and efficient oven: concrete walls and a tin topping. What is my house made of: concrete walls and a tin topping.

The value of education: The other day I saw a woman walking down the street with her 10-year old son, and he was naked. Completely. He appeared to be somewhat embarrassed by his lack of clothing. She was walking behind him with a stick. I heard her tell a neighbor that people called her an abusadora. I asked her what happened to her son’s clothing. She replied that he was supposed to be at school (it is summer so I am not sure what type of school), and she found him playing in the street. So the woman straight up cut the clothes off her child and made him walk home naked. She apparently forgot that this will hurt her in the long run too when she realizes that she just ruined her son’s one and only school outfit. On the strengths-based side, she seems to realize the value of education, which makes me someone optimistic about the future of this boy, se llama Pollo.

Sometime in June….Round one of English classes: Almost complete.

I am sitting under my mosquitero, listening to some women argue, which might legitimately turn into a machete fight, vamos a ver. I am feeling the nice breeze of my fan, which is a welcomed relief because we now have luz for nearly 20 hours a day. Gracias a Dios. Also, I keep hearing riffs of an MGMT song. I think it must be on a commercial because I am not sure why else I would be hearing it multiple times throughout the day. Maybe it is being played for a political campaign, in which case I will be blessed with hearing it for the next year, similar to llegó papá. My first group of English students graduated Tuesday, and I had a mini fiesta filled with refrescos, crackers, mentas (which are actually Halls cough drops that they sell like candy here), certificados, and dinámicas. Mi fiesta fue bien. I took a lot of photos, and they are eager to start the next class. I had 22 jóvenes graduate. We will start again in a few weeks, si Dios quiere

My life here, similar to winterless (and seemingly seasonless) Phoenix, is not measured in terms of weather or seasons, but rather the activities of the children and the fruit bore on the trees. Also, as the time of mangos continues to grow, the time of chichiguas has ended, presumably because the stifling heat allows for no wind, which takes the fun out of much kite flying.  Por ejemplo, the time of chichiguas was followed by the time of by  the time of tops, followed by marbles ahora. These toys or pastimes seem to ripple through our lives rapidly, but in the short shelf lives of these entertainments, bring enjoyment to all in their vicinity. The new rage is marbles, which remind me of the fishtanks I had as a child (RIP countless goldfish that I never could keep alive). Summer has arrived. Along with the stifling heat, my energy has dwindled. My projects have all but disappeared, and people seem lethargically content doing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING all summer long. One mother asked me if I could restart my English class in the fall because her son really preferred to have his vacations without doing anything. My guttural reaction of f*$% no! was replaced with an understanding nod, and gently said, no, my love, if he cannot come for two hours out of one hundred sixty-eight, I cannot help him this summer. I withheld the urge to throw in an “oiste?” One project that is doing well is my group of Chicas Brillantes. After having about 3 months of just hanging out, the direction of our group changed overnight. One meeting, we were all chatting. The girls were chatting about our summer plans, and the discussion went into the direction of helping the barrio. While I live in an extremely poor barrio, and the girls in my barrio are themselves extremely poor, they still realized that there are others less fortunate and they decided they wanted to help. So now, we are still Chicas Brillantes, but we are organizing a cleanup of the barrio, and are going to start going to the houses of people who cannot afford to “do their hair.” And we are going to wash and braid their hair  (apparently this is something fairly common here). It definitely still has a glittery, sparkly, “chicas” ring to it. They also want to help a particular family in my barrio that has a lot of problems. None of the kids are documented, and none are in school. The 13-year cannot write her name and the 5 younger kids do not go to school. Their mother is not documented and as of right now, their future seems rather dim. They want to start helping this family and others in the community. The discussion was so selfless and amazing. I get so frustrated with the “gimme, gimme, regalome” culture, that this was a breath of fresh air. I am constantly reminded that the children truly are our future, and their potential and limitless limitations is beautiful. To see the kids with nothing try to pool together their limited resources to help others is pretty rad. They promptly decided to make our club more official. They elected a secretary who started writing down our ideas, and also the president. We have made a couple of trips to the ayuntamiento (city hall) to see if there are any funds or anyway they can help us. We have also been bringing letters to the local stores to see if they.  

There was a fire in our community. It sounded like a parade at first. I heard sirens for a short while as they approached our barrio and then our street. As soon as the first siren passed, it was as if the president had approached. Tons of motors scurried behind the truck, with people running behind it cheering. From what I saw, it seemed as though there were more people chasing the trucks than there are people who actually live in our barrio. It was like lifting up a rock and seeing a million bugs scuttle away from the rock. That is what it looked like. This same day, I had an intercambio with my Chicas Brillantes group. Seven of us met up with 2 other volunteers and some of their girls. We had a lot of fun! I forget the little things I take for granted having grown up in a non 3rd-world country (I know this is not p.c. terminology, but you get the point). We went on a cultural/ educational excursion to some neat caves not too far from our site. Before entering the caves, we made a final pitstop in the bathrooms, which turned out to be an event in itself. I was leaving my stall, a couple of girls were waiting outside the stall door peering in, which I thought was odd. I asked them if everything was alright, and they asked me how I flushed the toilet. O Dios Mio. These chicas had never used a toilet (outside of a latrine/ outhouse). I showed them how to flush the toilets. I also had to demonstrate how to lock and more importantly, unlock the doors, as I watched a girl shimmy under her locked stall to exit. They were excited by the soap dispensers, and loved the rolls of paper towels. After the bathrooms, the rest of the event went smoothly, and my girls had an amazing time. Everything is going well with the group, thankfully, as everything else is going really slow this summer. Really slow.