Ta to.

Kony 2012

2012-03-07T15:18:00.000-04:00

Invisible Children has long been one of my favorite advocacy organizations. Three college guys who happened upon atrocity while on a whirlwind African adventure have bettered the lives of thousands of Ugandans and other Africans, and have completely ruined the lives (only in the best possible way) of millions of American youth.

Their latest campaign, KONY 2012, has drawn so much attention that I.C.'s servers actually crashed. I've seen Facebook posts about this campaign from people I didn't think knew Invisible Children even existed.

There has been so negative press about this as well, with some talk about how I.C. has declined to be financially audited in the past, or something of the sort. I'm drawn back to a lecture by Dr. Mech during an early-on Social Entrepreneurship class at Grove City. He expressed his frustration at people who bring attention to the "shortcomings" of organizations whose members are doing good but also making a living. "If you're not doing something equally effective in a more financially responsible way," he said "you have no room to pass judgement."

Click on this link to be taken to the KONY 2012 website, click HERE, to be taken to YouTube to watch the video, or (in the spirit of fairness) click HERE to read one blogger's negative interpretation of the campaign.

water forward

2012-03-06T15:37:00.002-04:00

I love innovative philanthropy. So when I saw a tweet today about Charity:Water and their Water Forward initiative, I had to jump right on board (I'm on page 60!).

Check out the website HERE, and take a look around. They've combined an interactive face with an addictive chain-reaction theory - and it's all for a good cause to boot: clean water for the world's poor. Amazing.

Maslow

2012-03-01T16:29:00.002-04:00

Says he: "Why do you always take the hard road?"
Says I: "Why do you assume I see two roads?"

My problem withAmerican foreign policy and the approach of Americans in general to"foreign" problems (i.e. poverty, violence, lack of health care) isthat we seem to have a problem accepting Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. Thispyramid is probably the most profound thing I learned in my tenth-grade APWorld History class and I think of it often when the U.S. tries to introducedemocratic thinking to a nation that's just trying to feed its families.

In the DominicanRepublic, I spoke to a lot of "poor" people who liked things justfine when the dictator Trujillo was in power. Even my host father would saythat, durante Trujillo, there was freemandatory schooling for every child, every person had a job and enough to eat,and there was much less violence in the neighborhoods. When the priority is tohave peace and food, he pointed out, a dictatorship can be a very good thing. Itwas the middle and upper-classes that had a problem with the leader, andindeed, those who organized themselves in opposition were primarily (though notexclusively) not from the barrios. Maslow's ideas prevailed. People whoare being offered bread and security don't give a damn about the politicalideology of their leader.

If we want to affectreal change in the world and really help people, we need to build from thebottom of the pyramid upwards, stopping to treat each person's needs as we comeacross them. We owe people more that we're giving them now.

Sacrifice

2012-02-26T17:34:00.001-04:00

"Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God'smercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God -this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the patternof this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you willbe able to test and approve what God's will is - his good, pleasing and perfectwill." --Romans 12:1-2

"So here's what I want you to do, God helping you:Take your everyday, ordinary life - your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, andwalking-around life - and place it before God as an offering. Embracing whatGod does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don't become sowell-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking.Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out.Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike theculture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, Godbrings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you."--Romans 12:12, The Message

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Sacrifice meanssurrendering something that's important to you in exchange for something more.It's different from payment in that, when you pay for something, you are givingup what you feel is just. Paying for an item may not be difficult. It may not causeyou pain or suffering or anguish. Sacrifice hurts, always.

Why is it importantfor our generation to live a life of sacrifice? It's important for everygeneration to do this, but thus far, our generation has escaped any seriouscalamity on a global scale. We've been uninvolved in world wars, have notdiscovered new pandemics of misunderstood diseases like when our parents'generation encountered AIDS, and (if you're American) you live in a countrythat takes the concept of a middle class for granted.

It's been positedthat it's easier to be close to God in dire circumstances, that this is perhapswhy poor peoples seem more joyful than rich peoples. Sacrifice of everyday lifeforces you closer to God. Our society encourages self-reliance, so we don't "need"God. Maybe this is why it's difficult for a rich man to enter the kingdom ofheaven.

Our world, ourculture has yet to demand sacrifice of us, so we have to forcibly create it inour own lives. We must created a niche of sacrifice so that we can remain closeto our God.

Dominican Republic: UN Convention Against Torture

2012-02-23T18:38:00.000-04:00

As a former resident of Santo Domingo, I am truly happy to read this article from Amnesty International, demanding accountability from the National Police following the Dominican Republic's ratifying of the UN Convention Against Torture today.

Paul Farmer

2012-02-15T00:14:00.002-04:00

Pathologies of Power made me ashamed. First, Istarted off being ashamed of being an American. Ironically, the person who lentme the book is a refugee in pursuit of American citizenship. About achapter-and-a-half in, I wanted to call him and ask why, if he knew these thingsabout my country, he wanted to be a part of it. India, I reasoned, must havebeen really bad if this is what he wants to be caught up in. Butat the end of the book I ended up being ashamed to be rich at all.

Paul Farmer shamesyou in a very academic way. After I read part of Americanand the Age of Genocide by Samantha Power, I noticed that anytimeanybody with "power" defended a defenseless party in whom the U.S.had no political or economic interest, they were discredited and dismissed asoverly emotional. Based on the goings-on in that book, you'd think it'simpossible to defend a cause with any type of fervor and maintain yourcredibility. Thank goodness for Paul Farmer, because you can tell that he'sdefinitely mad, but you don't doubt his academic credentials. Indeed, thebibliography section comprises about a quarter of the actual book.

If I take nothingelse from the book (which simply isn't the case - I took much more than this fromthe book), I am happy to know that it's possible to be angry and respectable atthe same time.

grateful

2012-01-09T22:10:00.002-04:00

Sometimes, evenafter living in a poor neighborhood in a poor country, where water andelectricity were scarce and on some days the only thing we had to eat was rice,it's still hard for me to be grateful. My experience in Santo Domingo was sofar removed from my life here in the US that I sometimes can't make theconnection that both places actually exist. Today, however was a day when itwas easy to be grateful for where I live.

My neighbor was incardiac distress this morning. She called us and we ran to her house. I sent mysister back home to get a bottle of baby aspirin. We called for help, and thefire department and an ambulance showed up.

As I watched theparamedics check her blood pressure and carry her from the house, I wasoverwhelmed. How blessed are we to live in a country where, when we dial 911,somebody answers? How amazing that an ambulance will come to your house andthat trained professionals will take you to a hospital where doctors arewell-trained and actually equipped to heal?

Thatearly-in-the-day scare opened my eyes for the rest of the afternoon. It was oneof those rare days where I was able to actually reconcile my two home citiesand see just how much we live in abundance here in America. Below is a list ofsome of the things I'm thankful for today:

-our emergencyresponse system

-hot running water

-any running water

-grocery stores withmore choices that we could ever know what to do with

-a full meal

-electricity

-a family car

-living in a culturewhere people talk about their feelings

We are hugelyblessed, living here. In a hundred thousand gigantic and tiny ways.

Idealism

2012-01-05T22:48:00.004-04:00

In my work at theInternational Institute of Erie, I've discovered a host of clashingpersonalities amongst the staff.

When you first startto do work in a place that has the potential to do such good, you seeeverything through rose-colored glasses. At first, every client is helped,every staff member has a role equallyimportant as the next, and anything you can do as a volunteer is the greatestthing ever, because you're helping resettle people who have seen real horror intheir lives.

Then reality kicksin. Some of the staff members are "too idealistic", not everyone ispersonally involved in the work, the director is accused of being lazy and notholding people accountable, and your direct volunteer supervisor seems to havea personal vendetta against everyone in the office, for reasons you don'tunderstand.

But let's get backto the idealism thing. When I first started volunteering at the Institute Iworked under the supervision of a staff member who was very idealistic. Idealistic to the point of unrealistic. It wasimpossible for us to do the things this person suggested with no budget and novolunteers. Later, my co-teacher and I were transferred to the supervision ofanother staff member, one who was the complete opposite of the first. For thissecond staffer, everything was too overwhelming, nothing could be accomplished,everyone was always asking too much. After a while (much to my dismay, inhindsight) I started nodding along with this staffer. Of course we'd never get this program off theground with nothing. Sadly, it's true that societal institutions tend to lookdown on altruism, even if society glorifies it. Last summer, I started readinga book about America's history with global genocide. Every time a person - evena government official - asserted that we had a moral obligation to interveneeven where economic and political interests were absent, they were dismissed asa "bleeding heart" and discredited. It is for the fact that I believehistory repeats itself that I hesitate to add the following paragraphs to myobservations.

People who say thatidealism is a pipe dream are right if their worldview is separate from one inwhich the God who created the universe is the one providing for you. Right nowI'm reading a book that my sister got for Christmas called Kisses From Katie, about a girl whomoved to Uganda right after high school graduation. Since then, she's adopted14 children, and runs an education/feeding program that she started because shefelt that God told her to. When she trusted, He provided. (By the way, this girlis amazing. Her faith is real and herministry is worth checking out. CLICK HERE for a link to her blog.)

I'm remindedconstantly by the words of my Dominican host dad. He once told me that it'strue that we cannot save every person. We can't treat all the sick or argue forthe rights of every single person. But, he added, the only way to live ourlives with honor is to stop for every need we find around us. We have to livelike we can heal and fight for everyone.

Defense: another perspective

2012-01-04T22:22:00.002-04:00

When I mention topeople that I may be interested in criminal defense law in an altruistic sense,they can become very angry. They say they hope I don't mean that I want todefend murderers and thieves or money-hungry businessmen.

I understand theirconcern because I too hate the evil that walks the earth. I think murderersshould be caught and chastised, though I can be persuaded that restorativejustice is better than blind imprisonment or capital punishment. But that'sanother story. The issue here is why I'm interested in defense law.

It's true that Inever wanted to be a lawyer. Even now, when people ask me what my next step inlife is, I tell them that I'm getting married next summer but not always thatI'm going to law school. When I was living in Santo Domingo, I found that manyproblems in the community stemmed from those who abused power, and while realcrime was certainly a problem and real criminals should always be dealt with,they should have the right to a system with boundaries, where the police can'tshoot you on site for being a suspect and where you have a right to a defenselawyer but don't necessarily get one.

I think Americansdislike defense lawyers because:

they feel that our justice system is rigidenough that a defendant couldn't be taken advantage of and therefore doesn'tdeserve an advocate. I believe every person, guilty or innocent, has the rightto an advocate, to make sure that even if they are eventually condemned, theywere condemned by real evidence and true testimony.
they believe them to be dishonest folk who tryto manipulate evidence to let guilty men walk free. It's clear that mostconservatives are unhappy with defense lawyers - they see them as enablers, butI have lived in a place where a lack of a lawyer means that you could beconvicted on obviously shady evidence, where the National Police is such afar-reaching power that they will enact "justice" and apologizelater.

The DominicanRepublic has given me a different parameter by which to judge the value ofdefense lawyers, and I will not be swayed. Eventually, it wouldbe amazing to learn Dominican criminal law and get back there every so often todefend the defenseless.

My more immediateinterest, however, is Immigration Law. This too, in my experience, will mostlikely be defense law. Undocumented persons, not being American citizens, haveno right to defense council if they're brought before immigration court. Ibelieve that every person deserves an advocate if they have no voice of theirown.

it's an american legacy.

2011-11-07T19:12:00.002-04:00

Unless you haveNative American blood, you are descendedfrom immigrants.

To me, the funniestthing about America is that we totally made ourselves up. There are countries(like my adoptive one, the Dominican Republic) who have rich, difficult,amazing histories that span hundreds and hundreds of years, where everyone hasa distinct sense of patria, of theirfatherland. Americans are very patriotic,but I find that it's because of our connection to each other, and not to ourcountry per se...but I digress. My point is that everybody in the United Statesis from someplace else. Our roots lie elsewhere. And because of this, America'slegacy is our shelter of the foreigner. It's a part of all of us, because everyfamily here has experienced it during some generation.

It's unfortunate forthe warehoused refugee population that many people in the United Statesassociate asylum seekers with economic immigrants. Asylum seekers becomerefugees because their current situation has become unbearable. There are lawsand guidelines defining who is and who is not a refugee, and those who finallydo come to the United States have seen harsh conditions and endured incrediblehardship.

There are millionsof asylum seekers and internally displaced people in the world. Refugees comefrom Iraq and Afghanistan and Somalia after being internally displaced by war.They come from Nepal and Palestine because of statelessness. They're looking forstability, for safety, and for a new community.

An amazing thingabout the United States is that, despite our country's reputation for assistingasylum seekers, we pay very little attention to the issue and spend a verysmall percentage of our national budget on refugee resettlement. (I'm trying totrack down the official numbers - I'd heard them before but want to be able toquote an official source). It can be argued that when our economy is sodown-and-out we shouldn't be spending our nation's collective hard-earned moneyon foreign problems. To that I just say, where are your grandparents, yourgreat-grandparents, from? Why did they come here, and why did they stay?

The American Dream

Resettled refugeescome with our aid and are assisted at every step of the way at the fieldoffices of the U.S.C.R.I. and other refugee resettlement organizations. But didyou know that refugees, at least in the field office in Erie, are loaned the money to come to the U.S.?Eventually they will repay their airfare and their living expenses and all feesassociated with the beginning of their new life.

Why the U.S.C.R.I.?

You should volunteerto give voice and hands to the hospitality that has come to be one of thedefining points of America. Give me yourpoor...

Why U.S.C.R.I.?

2011-11-04T00:10:00.002-04:00

My Dominican hostparents were at opposite ends of the spectrum when it came to approachingpoverty and humanitarian crisis. My mom would say that there was just too muchin the world to fix, that you should just focus on your little piece of lifeand land and not get overwhelmed, but my host dad would say that the only wayto live your life in a satisfying way was to take everything personally. In hisview, you have to live like you can actually fix every problem you come across.You have to try, at least. I think this way of looking at the world is noble,but it can be overwhelming when you're a twenty-something college student oryoung grad, just trying to finish studying for your midterms, feeling guiltythat you're not more connected to the "real world" and wondering whenyou get to start being a part of it.

This entry is aboutwhy you should come to work for the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants.

Forget, if you can,the obvious pros of being a great resume builder or the possibility orrecommendations to your future grad school or employer. Cast out all thoughtsof satisfying shadowing commitments, practicum requirements, or volunteerhours. Forget about the novelty of meeting people from other cultures with athousand interesting stories and let's get to the heart of it: why? Why should thisbe the cause on which you spend your time?

Over the next week,I'll be posting a series of blog posts answer that question in depth. Tune in!

Palestine

2011-10-23T23:33:00.004-04:00

I'm all about defending the underdog. And what bigger underdog to root for than Palestine? Arguably the world's most stagnant warehoused refugee population, and possibly one of the most confusing conflicts, all chalked up to ancient hatred and indecipherable religious tension? Additionally, the fact that the United States is solidly in Israel's corner doesn't help untangle the mystery at all.

So what's a person to do? Turn to www.good.is and their ultra-helpful graphic of Palestinian land loss. Seriously, take a look. It's worth your time, and will help answer some questions.

Emma Lazarus

2011-10-11T10:28:00.001-04:00

Have you heard of her? Or rather, could you place her name?

"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

She wrote that, an excerpt from "The New Colossus". It's inscribed on the Statue of Liberty.

we were born on third base

2011-09-19T17:11:00.001-04:00

"...for the most part, Americans are abysmally ignorant about the rest of the world. We have both an immense innocence and an enormous sense of entitlement. We are spoiled children in a world of hurting people, and we take far too much for granted. As my friend Pam put it, 'We were born on third base and we think we hit triples.'

I do not want to idealize refugees. All cultures have lazy, cruel, and even dangerous people. All cultures have malcontents as well as people who are wiser and kinder than others. Some people are more open to experience, more eager to learn, harder workers, and more fun to be around. Some operate on a higher moral plane...

Refugees come from a fire into a fire. Like all who live in crucibles, their experiences are defining ones for them and for all who witness their lives...

Ernest Shackleton said, 'Optimism is true moral courage.' The ways people are damaged are also the ways they are made strong. Suffering can create bitter people but it often creates people with depth of character and empathy with other people's suffering. Easy lives can produce spoiled, soft people. Hard lives can produce lovers and fighters. Refugees who make it to America manage to find meaning in their suffering."

From The Middle of Everywhere by Mary Pipher

where you live shouldn't determine whether you live.

2011-09-06T15:23:00.002-04:00

I've posted before about working at the International Institute of Erie, my city's local outpost of the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants.

Some pretty heavy things are going on in our office right now, and I can't get into it too much, but just please be praying for the advancement of justice in our society, especially in the face of minimal funding and resources.

Secondly, I'm excited to be working with the Institute's ESL/Life Skills program to be developing new tracks for education of newly-arrived refugees from places like Burma, Nepal, Eritrea, and Iraq. Get excited - it's going to be good.

we wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families.

2011-07-25T21:46:00.002-04:00

Right now I'm reading this book called A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide by Samantha Power. The text is interesting for two reasons: First, the book itself is amazing. It won a Pulitzer and for good reason - not only is it comprehensive in its overview of the "history" of genocide and the origins of the word, but it's truly revealing and damning in its discussion of the shortcomings in American foreign policy. The second reason the book is so interesting is because of its author. Samantha Power is currently a Special Assistant to the President of the United States, part of the National Security Council, and a Harvard Law graduate. Power was a freelance journalist during the Bosnian genocide, which, it seems, is from where she draws her initial professional interest in genocide and human rights on a broader scale.

After I started reading the book I googled Samantha Power and I was really surprised at what I found. Her book is written from a really conservative, honest, human-rights-first point of view and so I was initially stunned that she works for Obama. Maybe that's just my stereotyping kicking in. What surprised me next is the amount of negative press this woman has garnered for herself. She was with Obama during his time in the Senate (apparently he invited her to be a foreign policy advisor after reading the book in question), but she had to resign from his presidential campaign after she called Hillary Clinton a "monster" on national TV. I've read a bunch of editorials just slamming her for what the movie The Constant Gardener would call "bleeding heart" humanitarian policy. The biggest stumbling block for her critics seems to be her insistance that the United States actually sign on to humanitarian conventions. Critics say that this would compromise our national interests because signing a convention that outlaws, say, holding prisoners without leveling formal charges in offshore prisons and subjecting them to questionable interrogation practices might open the U.S. up to international investigation and criticism. In a reality where the United Nations looks pretty but had no actual power to enforce policy, Power advocates a global authority to which all nations are subject and to whom all nations must answer for their crimes. The United States, say her critics, answers to no one.

international institute.

2011-06-22T19:14:00.000-04:00

Take a look at this link to the International Institute of Erie, a branch of the USCRI (the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants).

This is the most worthy organization I could ever hope to work for. I mean, here are immigrants, refugees, fleeing literally from death and other types of violent opression. And they come here, and we feed them and give them shelter. We teach them English and educate their children. We give them a country and a hope. We give them themselves back. It's awesome.

leaving

2011-06-21T09:46:00.000-04:00

I read this in a book last night, Reading Lolita in Tehran. The author makes this comment when she's about to leave Iran to come back to the States for a while. It's very true.

"You get a strange feeling when you're about to leave a place, I told him, like you'll not only miss the people you love but you'll miss the person you are now at this time and this place, because you'll never be this way ever again."

samuel kofi woods

2011-06-01T11:11:00.000-04:00

"...I saw a society yearning to be convinced about the essence of conviction. I saw a society where there was a vacuum. I saw a society that required more sacrifice and understanding of my conviction. I wasn't frightened because I believe that life means nothing if the pursuit of truth cannot be achieved. We don't want to be heroes or to be foolish. We want to be normal people. And to be normal people is to pursue the truth, though it's very difficult. There is always a universal contest between good and evil. And I believe that eventually good will triumph over evil. But good cannot triumph over evil by retreating from evil - good must confront evil.

At some point in your life you are confronted with the fear of death. You walk into the corridor of death and you know this moment might be your last. And everything about life leaves your body - yet you survive. It takes time but then life returns and you see how meaningless you are as a human being - how much you can gain from sacrificing for others...

You are not motivated because you are a decent person, no. Sometimes it is a calling. And when there is a calling, there is no explanation fro what motivates you. there is no explanation for your action, or what propels you. It has to be a vocation. Every one of us has been born into this world with a mission. It has to be fulfilled. Whether I like it or not God intended to use me in society in this way. I hold no malice against anyone. I believe hatred blurs the human sensibility and diminishes the spirit. Those who hate me, criticize me, and vilify me, purify my conviction and strengthen my courage."

--Samuel Kofi Woods, Political Rights, Liberia

the lids are off the boxes now.

2011-05-24T01:06:00.000-04:00

I'd love to post something great and profound on my last late night/early morning in Santo Domingo (well, the last on THIS trip, anyway), but I'm stressed out about flying tomorrow and mosquitos are attacking my laptop screen's light like you wouldn't believe. All this to say that I'll have to post anew when I get back to the States to round things off.

A few minutes ago, I was wondering if I'll be any different when I go home. Like, will I see the word differently, will I be able to handle my relative affluence, will I feel bombarded by the fact that I will understand EVERYTHING everyone says to me?

I'm ashamed to say that one of the things I've missed here is the free online TV you can watch in the States. I got hooked on Gossip Girl and America's Next Top Model in college (then switched to the SLIGHTLY more intelligent shows Lie to Me and Modern Family when I was rooming with LabJenn), but I haven't been able to watch any of them because Hulu and CWTV and Fox and all that jazz don't run outside the U.S. But in my Gossip Girl hayday I would buy the episodes on iTunes and let them download all night and watch them on Friday afternoons after class, so I have a couple episodes that I've been watching over and over again on my laptop.

While I was packing earlier this evening, I started up an episode just to have something going in the background, and I was stopped short by a conversation between two of the characters. The backstory is complicated and irrelevant, but the long and short of it is that this guy and girl are talking about if they can continue their relationship, or if their lives have grown too complicated. The boy goes:

"Well, maybe we can just keep everything in little boxes, in compartments, and things will be less confusing."
The girl responds, "Things don't just go in boxes. They go all together."
"No," insists the boy, "they go in boxes, buried deep in dark, dark holes far away in the ground."
Later, they see something that throws even more of a monkey wrench into their plans, and the boy says,
"Oh gosh. Where are the boxes with the lids?"
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Now this sounds like a stupid conversation, and it was, but it really illustrates what I feel (at this point anyway, and this opinion is probably subject to change) has been my biggest mental change while here.

When I first arrived, I understood my place here as a (relatively-speaking) rich person living in a poor neighborhood. There are rich people and poor people, there are people who are thriving and people who are starving to death. There are good cops and bad cops. There are Americans and Dominicans. There are racists and non-racists. Everything in its own little box, and my job was to try and fit the boxes together in the most well laid-out pattern possible, but while still keeping everything seperate.

Change creeps up on you, so I'm not sure the million little things that changed my thinking about this, but it occurred to me all at once the other day, the the lids are off the boxes now, and everything's just in a heap on the floor. I was coming home from a student's apartment, where I'd just eaten lunch (served by her private, live-in help...AKA servant) and been driven halfway home by her private driver. Halfway because my neighborhood is so other-side-of-the-tracks that drivers who don't actually live here refuse to drive through it. I got out of the private car and into the minibus I usually ride home. Halfway there, the police had set up a barracade in the road because the national forensic guys were there. There was a man sitting dead on the side of the road. Like, literally sitting. He was obviously emaciated, and I couldn't help but wonder if he'd been sitting there starving to death while I was being served lunch in my student's penthouse apartment. My next thought was something along the lines of "Oh gosh. Where are the boxes with the lids?"

How am I supposed to process that kind of information? How can I accept the fact that within 20 minutes I can go from a $10,000 a month apartment to seeing people dead of starvation?

I've not been surprised to learn that my private school students have never set foot in a barrio, the "ghetto" side of town where I live. I wouldn't have expected them to visit, and it's not exactly the kind of place you just go strolling into without knowing what you're doing. But what I HAVE been surprised about in the past is how my host family and their friends seem to have the same sorts of prejudices about wealthy areas. Even when I've offered to pay, they don't want to go to movie theatres or restaurants in what are the notoriously richer areas of town. I've seen poor people turn up their noses at a dinner invitation because of the neighborhood in which the restaurant is located. At first I didn't understand this, but now I get it a little more.

You see, I don't think poor Dominicans hate rich people. On the contrary, they love rich people. They all want to be rich people. I think Dominicans are wise - they know that you take a mental beating going back-and-forth between the rich/poor universe and they avoid the switch off whenever they can.

I'm not sure how to end this entry. I've said pretty much everything I wanted to to make my point. In a few hours, I'll be getting up to head to the airport to go back to the States. For the first time in I can't remember how long, I do not have a plan. No job lined up, no grad school awaiting, nothing. And it's nice that way, I guess

swimming pool.

2011-05-22T14:48:00.000-04:00

One of my last posts in the DR...for now.

Today started off rainy and terrible, but turned out beautiful. What a great day to have put up the swimming pool on the roof. After I took the following video, these little kids and I had a jolly old time for like 2 hours just chilling out in the pool. It took me back to my childhood days in the backyard with the Beckmans and Willis's, or with Lee from across the street. Only this time I was the grownup/lifeguard/authority and had to settle a number of disputes as well as make sure the 2-year-olds didn't drown.

I also taught them Marco-Polo, which they didn't know before but now love.

crazy little kid

2011-05-18T21:35:00.000-04:00

This is my neighbor, dancing. He's a riot (and really terribly behaved). Here he is with Laija, demonstrating how, everytime the power would tap out and the music would shut off, they would stop dancing and wait for it to start up again.

Believe-it-or-not, Osuar (that's his name) is SIGNIFICANTLY more coordinated than he was when we first met nearly 5 months ago. It's hard to believe considering how he dances like a drunkard.

amazing

2011-05-16T00:01:00.002-04:00

I met a whole new demographic today. It's Sunday as I write this, and today I made my third trip in two weeks to the international book fair on the campus of the National Theatre.

Deivy was really in his element, as he'd invited the kids he works with to come to a part of the day being run by the Catholic Diocese. They followed Deivy like puppies. It was actually pretty amazing to see - he was incredible with them.These kids live on the streets. They come to the youth house for school and for social services like counseling. Some are runaways. Some are orphans. Some are Haitians. The youngest was five.

So I was introduced to these kids, who turned out to be unlike anybody else I've ever met. They were...hard. Hard in a way I never expected little kids to be. When I first saw them, they paid no attention to me, which was odd because usually little kids stare at me a lot. When I introduced myself, they refused to shake my hand. They looked at me with suspicion, not interest. They wouldn't talk to me, but not in the shy way my neighbor across the hall won't talk to me when he runs to hide when I come to visit but eventually comes back out again, laying his head on my lap and holding one of my hands between both of his. These kids yelled at each other, beat up on each other, shoved around the littlest one. They were rude and they demanded things instead of asking. Most children here, even the really poor ones, are just full of light. They bounce around and ask questions and giggle and play Simon Says. There was no light in these kids, just mistrust.

I cannot image what kinds of things they must have seen in their five short years of life, to be a kindergardener with no parents, no home, nobody to look out for you, and no future except cleaning shoes (which is what they usually end up doing).

You know, when I was in high school and I was auditioning for colleges, I was working one day after school on monologues with Mr. T, our theatre teacher. I don't remember what the monologue was about. Something about a girl who was working at a restaurant because she was broke and something terrible had happened in her life, but it's not important. Either way, I was having trouble feeling out the person (I think I was nervous) and Mr. T got frustrated with me. I distinctly remember him telling me, "Marissa, not everyone in the world comes out in their white outfits and does what you do. I'm not saying that's bad, but you have to think about this." (Yes, I'd been wearing white that day.) I was so embarrassed that I've never actually told anybody about that before, (and I haven't worn a white outfit since) but I think about it a lot.

In my nearly five months here (and my month-or-so of visits on my prior trips), I have witnessed disease and starvation, funerals, homelesness, injustice, people paralyzed by fear, little kids who have to be grown-ups. I've known people who have died needlessly. I've marveled at extreme poverty and how humans are so adaptable - we can get used to pretty much anything. But in my collective half-a-year of living in Santo Domingo, I have never experienced anything like meeting those kids today.

I hope to God that some day when I have a five year old that I'm able to communicate to him, somehow, how good he has it.

Me with some of Deivy's kids this afternoon.

stillness.

2011-05-15T13:33:00.000-04:00

It is never quiet here. Ever. I'm completely serious - somebody's always playing loud music or honking or yelling. Kids are always laughing in the street. A baby is crying someplace in the building. Somebody's running around on the roof. Everything is louder here, amplified. Even the rain is louder, thanks to the tin roofs of the houses in my neighborhood.

Last night I woke with a start just before 2am. Something was panicking me, and I couldn't figure out what it was. The heat was oppressive and I could barely breathe, and as I peeled off my sweatshirt it occurred to me how dark it was - the power was out and the generator was too. Nothing seemed wrong, but i was unsettled. I laid back down to sleep and put my headphones in to block out the usual noise - wait. What noise?

I stopped, headphones in hand. I could actually hear myself breathing. I have not, in the sum of my time in the Dominican Republic, ever heard a stillness like there was last night. I got back up and went to stand at my window. Not a baby was crying, not one dog barked. I'm a person who generally appreciates noise - I like it and I can grow accustomed to it, but I can tell you with absolute certainty that those 20 minutes standing at my window looking down at a perfectly still Santo Domingo were an incredible blessing.

The night seemed bigger somehow, as if a lack of noise somehow created more space in the neighborhood. Sometimes I get the feeling that people here are loud so they'll be noticed. I don't mean that they're being egotistical. I mean that people in my neighborhood are generally overlooked by everybody else in their world, and sometimes I feel like they're making noise to try and make a space for themselves in the world. It's like their elbowing each other out. The noisier you are, the louder you're expressing that you're there. That you exist, that you're worthy of the attention you're so often denied by the government or by NGOs who are more preoccupied with Haiti. Last night's silence made the world seem bigger.

Amazing.

seeing without looking.

2011-05-14T13:18:00.002-04:00

**Written on Friday***

There was an earthquake in Costa Rica this afternoon. A 5.9. I don't know if people in the States are paying more attention to earthquakes or not, but I sure am. We had one yesterday, but it was just a little bump - a 4-something. Carol just asked me like 5 minutes ago if we get a lot of earthquakes in my city, and I told her we really don't get anything except snow. Today was also Friday-the-thirteenth, which are normally eerily lucky for me (ask Jenn M. - truly bizarre things happen on Friday-the-13th...I'm constantly finding money or other free stuff. I get amazing grades on tests. When I was in high school they always had applesauce and peanut butter cookies...I'm telling you, it's weird.). Anyway, all that to say that nothing really exciting happened to me today, but I'm more than willing to donate my luck to the fact that not a single person died in that 5.9 quake in Costa Rica. Happy Lucky Friday the 13th to them!
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Living in a city where people are constantly cat-calling and hitting on me has created what I feel to be a really strange habit. I've developed the extremely useful but really weird ability to see everything that's going on around me without really looking at it. I know that sounds a little bizarre/introverted, but I've come to discover that looking at people is literally dangerous. I once had a man stop and ask me if I wanted a ride on the back of his motorcycle because I made eye contact with him while he was driving in the other direction. Yesterday I actually caused a traffic accident. I was in the passenger seat of a guagua (van/bus) and a guy on a motocycle was passing us on the right-hand side when he caught sight of me. Apparently he was so transfixed by my beauty (sarcasm! sarcasm...)that he didn't see the parked car he ended up running into. He was fine (he was only going like 12 miles/hour), but the driver of the bus had to pull over because he was laughing so hard.

Anyhow, I only started noticing this gift/curse this past week when I was out walking around the city with Carol. When I'm with another Dominican I feel safer, like they'll take care of me and I'm not responsible for myself so I'm freer to look around at where I am. So Carol and I were walking along and I saw this new building and I said to her "Wow! That building went up quick! How long has it been there?" She gave me the weirdest look before answering "Three years."

This new ability doesn't sound so profound when I'm writing it down, but believe me, it's taken some work. I can walk down the Ovando (street from the where the car drops me to my house) and keep my eyes fixed somewhere down the road and be able to describe to you exactly what everyone around me is doing: where they are, what they look like, how long they've been there...it's quite useful. Maybe if my next life plan doesn't work out, I can be a spy.
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Another way I've changed: I'm losing some of my fears (while, admittedly, gaining some new ones...flying, anyone? And, as a side note, where the HECK did that fear of flying come from? I used to LOVE it. I truly don't understand.). Anyway, I'm getting over some fears, like the dark. Living on the "other side of the tracks" has really taught me that you should be more afraid of what's IN the dark than the dark itself. We'll see if this one carries over to when I get back to the States. But Carol and I were at this outdoor book exhibition the other night and the generator went out. One second we were talking to this guy who runs an organization to help street kids with HIV and TB and the next second I literally can't see my hand in front of my face. And I just waited. I didn't yell or get upset. My heart didn't begin to pound. I just stood there with my arms crossed while the man looked for a candle. And it didn't occur to me until hours later that I hadn't been afraid.

I think maybe it's just a matter of perspective. Pennsylvania may just be the safest place in the world: we don't get earthquakes, hurricanes, tornados, tsunamis, mudslides, forest fires (thanks to Smokey!), flooding, or avalanches. There's crime, but it's pretty isolated, and you're not going to get shot by a cop for no good reason. So when I'm in PA, it's reasonable for me to be afraid of the dark because there's nothing else to fear. But here, where I'm worried about if the bus driver is going to try and steal my purse, or if the orange I just ate had cholera in it, or if I'm trying to decide my plan of escape should there be an earthquake, being afraid of the dark is WAY down there on my to-do list.

research

2011-05-11T23:45:00.000-04:00

This is my hundredth post! (No, I didn't count. It just told me so.) And in honor of my hundredth post, here's a little taste on what I've been researching during the past couple weeks.
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So since I've had so much free time, I spent quite a bit of it in the bookstore last week. Since the libraries here are apparently a little sketchy (I've never been in one, except for at the university, and even there I've never seen an actual book) the bookstores step up to fill the void. Like your standard Barnes and Noble or Borders (RIP, by the way), you'll find students with laptops sitting in the cafe, doing homework, procrastinating on Facebook, etc. What's different, though, is how the bookstore is used. Like a library, you go and pull every book off the shelf that you need to use. You look things up, copy down passages, bookmark stuff for the next day, and put everything back when you're done. You don't have to buy a single thing. I've seen people sit in that cafe for four hours (which shows you just how much time I spend there) without even buying a coffee, sifting through a dozen microbiology textbooks and then put them all away. There's a whole shelf full of law volumes that are battered and dog-eared, with little notes in the margins. But it's a BOOKSTORE, so if you decide you want one of those dog-eared torts texts, you take it downstairs and you pay full price.

This practice is as useful as it is fascinating. In my long hours at the bookstore, I've been researching Dominican constitutional law and the history/purpose of the National Police force. The new Dominican constitution (and I mean NEW - it was just ratified in 2010) is fascinating, filled with nuanced loopholes and (what I feel are) stupid laws. For example, in that passages that describe who is and who is not a Dominican citizen, it's listed that if you are born in the country of illegal parents, you are not considered a citizen. This causes problems particularly for the children of illegal Haitians, who are not considered Dominican citizens, but neither are they considered Haitians, for lack of documentation. These kids have literally no future, as the Dominican education system only allows legally documented children to attend school.

Ok, so anyways, I've been researching the National Police. According to the Constitution, the organization has a four-fold mission:
1. to act as savior-guardians of the citizen
2. to prevent and control crimes
3. to persue and investigate infractions of the law, under the legal direction of a competant authority
4. to maintain public order in order to protect the free exercise of peoples' rights and the peaceful conformity with the Constitution and the law

However, one law professor in the country speaks cynically of the organization (I'm translating here, so bear with me):
"The National Police, aware of the principles on which it has built its identity, is mightily ignorant of all the constitutional guarantees and freedoms held by citizens. It practices its own brand of justice without taking into account the limits established by the Constitution and the laws for its actions. It has also resisted the loss of certain powers of doing that, for decades, were made the center around which revolved the selective administration of justice in the Dominican Republic." (Nassef Perdomo)

Because this is a laborous translation (remember, it comes from a law text), I should explain the last sentence. What it's saying basically is that the National Police has enjoyed, in the past, a certain level of...shall we say...being exempt from normal judicial practice. They have had powers just because they ARE, in the simple way that people with guns have authority over people who don't have guns. There has been (supposedly) extreme effort made to reduce the amount of bad practice in the National Police force. In its defense, I suppose, the United States Department of State did say in its annual human rights report that the number of killings by police in the Dominican Republic in 2010 was 268, down from 346 the year before.

The author of a constitutional law concordance that I looked through mentioned in a description of the laws governing the National Police that no country with a police force like this has any right to call itself a democracy. Harsh words.

Here comes the part where I put in my two cents:
The lowest-paid and most common police officers in the country are paid under 5,500 pesos monthly. The current exchange rate is 37 pesos per dollar, which means that Dominican cops are making slightly less then $148 American dollars per month. Now tell me, what did they THINK was going to happen when they pay guys next-to-nothing, ARM them, and send them into the poorest and most crime-ridden neighborhoods in the city? They're all but manufacturing criminals.

want a little cheese with that whine?

2011-05-08T15:50:00.001-04:00

First, many of you know by now that I'm cutting short my time here. For those of you who don't yet know...now you do. And I'd like to explain myself. I feel like I have to.

It turns out that my original idea has been much harder to implement than I anticipated. What I didn't expect was the profound effect Dominican apathy (sorry, guys) has on trying to get something of this magnitude up and running. What ended up happening over the past few months is this: We'd get a case and I would try to get everybody mobilized to help out, but what would happen was generally one of two things. Either the problem would resolve itself or it would get blown so so far out of proportion that there was no way for us to fix the issue. It was impossible to get my cohorts here on top of anything in a timely fashion. In addition, it turns out that working for a foreign government doesn't pay top dollar, which meant that I needed to spend a lot more time working than I'd like to. I NEED to work (student loans), but it really didn't leave much time for building this organization, which was my entire purpose for coming in the first place.

So if the organization's effectiveness is not top-notch, my only reason for staying would be to finish out the teaching job...which I only had as a means of supporting myself. I love my students endlessly, but I have never in my life wanted to be a teacher, and this experience has not brought about any stunning changes of opinion. In addition, there are plenty of qualified Dominicans who could do the job just as well if not better than I can.
Coincidentally, the government came to do work on the English building over Easter break and they didn't have it finished until today. This means that I haven't had to work and am super bored. And since I'm not working, I'm not exactly made of money.

I wish there was something I could be doing. I contacted the Clinton Global Initiative to see if they need any volunteers over in Haiti (might as well, right?), but they don't need anybody who doesn't speak French or Creole. I've been trying to get in touch with this lawyer from Advocates International to see if he's willing to point me in the right direction about Police stuff, but he's very busy. I could be studying for grad school exams, except I purposely left my study books at home, thinking I wouldn't have any time to study. I can't exersize because my neighborhood is too dangerous. There's nobody to go to the beach with. I haven't had this much free time in years (not an exaggeration). On top of all this, this morning I got drenched by a passing truck, thrown out of a taxi, and somebody stole my wallet. Also Skype is not working and there are people in my room using the desktop computer even though I told them I want to go to bed. I suppose I should be enjoying this time, but I'm just having a really hard time with it, with being still.

As you can tell, I'm really full of self-pity right now. Everything irritates me and the days just seem to drag on forever. It's more upsetting to me than I anticipated that I miscalculated my flights so that I will miss being at graduation by a mere smattering of days.

...and I'm done. I promise, no more whining!

shame on you

2011-05-03T23:11:00.001-04:00

The following photo ran on the FRONT PAGE of the most-respected Dominican newspaper this morning, accompanied by the caption "Americans celebrate the killing of Osama bin Laden". I had to spend most of my day explaining why my countrymen were behaving like jihadists, celebrating the death of a guy on "the other side".

It's good that there's a bad guy gone, but you really ought to be ashamed of yourselves.

crawling (sort of)

2011-05-01T22:32:00.000-04:00

My now 7-month-old host brother has been trying valiently to crawl. I captured some of these great tries on camera this morning while I was babysitting. Dylan is a riot. I hope you find him as giggle-inducing as I did.

when it rains...

2011-04-30T22:45:00.000-04:00

It POURS. It rains SO HARD here. Unbelievable. And I'm told by a friend who was here during Hurricane Thomas that whe I've experienced is nothing compared to the storm season.

To give evidence of the rain here, I'm going to post a video. On top of the fact that it's raining hard enough that you can actually SEE it on the little grainy video, I'd like to point out how well you can hear it.

just wanted to say...

2011-04-27T09:39:00.002-04:00

Just taking a quick moment to say that the only thing weirder than going on vacation in my own country is returning "home" to a place that was previously so foreign.

How strange!

oh these times are hard

2011-04-25T16:34:00.000-04:00

Yeah they're making us crazy. Don't give up on me, baby.

And we don't know how

How we got into this mess, is it God's test?

Someone help us cause we're doing our best

trying to make it work

but man, these times are hard.

But we're gonna stop by

drinking our cheap bottles of wine

Sit talking up all night

Saying things we haven't for a while

We're smiling but we're close to tears

Even after all these years

We just now got the feeling

That we're meeting for the first time.

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I'm sitting in JFK airport as I write this, and this song is basically how I feel right now.

a prayer

2011-04-22T19:52:00.000-04:00

I found the following prayer on the back of a card in church this afternoon. It's not the most poetic prayer I've ever read, but it gets the job done.

A Prayer for Guidance

My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end.

Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following Your will does not mean that I am actually doing so.

I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this You will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore, I will trust You always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death.

I will not fear, for You are ever will me, and You will never leave me to face my perils alone.

-Prayer of Thomas Merton

unexpected

2011-04-17T18:19:00.002-04:00

So in a rather pleasant turn of events, I am heading home to the States for Holy Week. I ended up having the whole week off and everything just sort of came together.

Tune back in after next Monday for more of my adventures, and have a very Happy Easter!

another one

2011-04-14T23:33:00.000-04:00

I just saw on the news that a guy (admittedly a criminal, but still) died today at the hands of the National Police. The fact that he was a criminal makes the story, at first glace, seem somewhat digestible. However, it goes downhill from there.

Apparently the man's neighbors turned him in for some sort of tigueraje (delinquency). I'm not sure about the specifics. The young man apparently knew his days were numbered, so he went to one of the news networks saying that he feared for his life. He was later killed by police.

Tragically shot during a standoff? Not in this country. They beat him to death.
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It's strange to me, coming from a country where you teach young children that policemen are the good guys, to be in a place where the opposite is true. I've actually had people in my neighborhood tell me to make friends with the drug dealers because they'll protect you from the Police force. I've read public-service-type literature here for little kids (you know, the kind that says not to talk to strangers and not to get in a car with anybody you don't know) that listed a whole bunch of people small children should run to if they're lost. Police didn't even make the 10 different relationships listed.
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Something else you should take from this story is the perceived strength of the media in this country. The man knew the Police were going to kill him, so he ran to the biggest-name news agency he could think of and told them his story in hopes that some exposure would protect him. This is not uncommon. I've actually seen raw video footage of a young guy shot in some sort of robbery-bust laying in the middle of the road before the Police took him away, begging the cameraman not to leave him. He turned up dead several hours later.

This is a rough, rough place. And most people from my normal "social class" who live here don't see it. And the Dominicans accept it as a way of life, as long as it's not happening to them. It's so frustrating to watch this go on and have everyone involved be either totally apathetic or totally ignorant.

when i grow up.

2011-04-14T00:25:00.001-04:00

Since I was small, I've wanted to be, on various occasions: an actress, a skater, a scientist, a model, a waitress (not kidding), and a missionary. I'm only 22 years old and I've already gotten to be everything I wanted to be when I grew up.

In college I changed my major four times (Musical Theatre, International Business, Political Science, Spanish), and I've changed my mind about actual careers about twice as many times. At times during college, I felt like somehow what I was doing was...I don't know...less because I didn't have a career

Most of the things that have actually happened in my life were things I didn't see coming/ didn't want to happen. Take Grove City for example. The LAST place I wanted to be in the world was in some little backwoods town. I mean, look at my list of schools, located in cities like Pittsburgh, Boston, and New York City. But when I decided not to go to Point Park, I took the half-joking advice of a friend and looked into GCC. I'm glad I went, but I never would have picked it off a list. Another example: the only job I've ever said I would never want is that of a teacher...and here I am, in charge of my very own class of 20 college students. But they were all things that people suggested I do, and - to be frank - suggestions I scoffed at in the beginning.

In the very first (or second - I can't remember) post on this blog I said that I would be completely honest. I know that it's hard to take me seriously when I say I want to do a particular job or have a certain career, if only because I change my mind so often. And I just need to say this: I came to this country with the intentions of connecting poor people to the nonprofits that can help them. But what I'm realizing is that this country is the wrong place to be doing this, because it's stuck in a rut. It's poor but proud (I say proud not in a patriotic sense but in a "commeth before the fall" kind of sense). I haven't given up, and I have donated money to allocate, but I need to look ahead.

I am willing to swallow my own pride and say that what I came to offer is not what my adoptive country needs. They're already doing amongst themselves what my idea was to begin with. What I see more and more are the injustices of this place. They need a defender (and as most of you know, I am possibly the most defensive person in the world, haha) and someone to be their voice when the government refuses them pension or the Police kick them off their land or when someone shoots their son or rapes their 12-year-old and gets away with it because he's a rich man.

And not just here - most people don't know that there's a legalized child slavery system in Haiti. It's called the Restavec system. Click here to see an article that provides more information on this terrible practice.

I actually submitted a complaint about something to an organization yesterday and got a response today that they don't deal with the sort of cases I presented (they do truly great work, so it was hard to hear that they're unable to help), and I just thought to myself 'it would be a billion times easier if I could just do this myself'. But what do I have to offer? Nothing. I have no technical skills. I teach English - big whoop.

In the past semester or so, a new suggestion was made to me. The suggestion was apparently so insignificant at the time that, at the present, I can't for the life of me remember who made it. Whoever it was wanted to know if I'd ever considered being a lawyer.

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By the way, people are always berating me for calling myself an American. "We're ALL American here," they say. Today I actually had one student go so far as to say that because we don't have a translation for the word estadounidense (i.e. "United Statesian"), I am left without a nationality.
His exact words, in English, were:
"Then you are nothing."

Geez. I am learning hard things here.

I am on my way

2011-04-12T23:28:00.001-04:00

I am on my way, I am on my way

I am on my way back to where I started.

These are the places I will always go.

-Down in the Valley

It's a given that I will change over the course of a year. It's happened for the past 22-and-a-half years, so I'm just assuming it's a trend that will continue into the future. What I never know is HOW I will change, and this year will definitely be different than most.
Sometimes I wonder what I'll be like when I step off that plane in December. The only thing we can say for sure about my appearance is that I'll have longer hair. And tanner arms. I could be thinner from walking miles a day or fatter from eating so much rice.
Will I be quieter from a year of sitting and listening more than talking? Or will I be just as talkative as before out of relief of the ease of communication in the States?
Is it possible that I will adopt the worry-less attitude of my host family and neighbors, or will I just fall right back into an American state of stress?
Not-so-secretly, I want to be different. I want to have something to show for my experience here, something more than a bunch of digital photos and some new Facebook friends.
I wish I could say that I can feel myself changing or some really drastic philisophical difference or something like that, but the fact of the matter is that I feel normal. Maybe I'll see it when I go back. Or maybe not. Maybe only other people will see it.
Or maybe I'll be exactly the same. In that case, I'm probably the most adaptable person in the world. :)

i'm just saying

2011-04-11T21:15:00.000-04:00

According to National Police statistics, police killed 268 persons in 32 jurisdictions in the course of duty from January to December, a decrease from 346 police killings reported in 2009 by the Attorney General’s Office. However, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), a nongovernmental organization (NGO), reported 478 police killings, although the methodology used to arrive at this figure was unclear. Lack of training, accountability, and inadequate supervision by superiors contributed to these police killings. Human rights NGOs asserted that, as in previous years, the police continued to employ unwarranted deadly force against criminal suspects. The National Police regularly justified the use of deadly force by claiming that the deaths occurred during an "exchange of gunfire." This often did appear to be the case. According to the police, 43 officers died from January to June, although it was unclear if all died while on duty.

-From the U.S. State Department's 2010 Human Rights Report: Dominican Republic. Click here to read the rest of it.

I SUPPOSE it's encouraging that the police killed 78 fewer people this year.

bzzzzzz

2011-04-09T23:27:00.000-04:00

The mosquitoes here are very smart and they like foreign blood.
In a room full of a dozen Dominicans and me, I will be the only one bit up every single time. I've tried just about everything.

And for reasons that I don't understand, mosquitoes are always concentrating on the same part of my body. I think they all get together on Sunday nights and decide which body part they're going to feast on during this particular week. This week, for example, it's my left arm below the elbow. I have - at last count - 7 bites there alone. Entire weeks will go by where I have no bites anywhere at all on my body except for my feet, where I will have - between the two of them - nearly a dozen.

Dominicans are constantly stressing me out about their comments about my mosquito bites. They always list the diseases you could now be host to.

"Be careful," one teacher at the university said to me last week, "or you'll get dengue."
I finally had to say something.
"And what am I supposed to do, exactly? I'm using bug spray. Sometimes I even wear long sleeves, but it's too hot to do that all the time. How am I supposed to protect myself?"
"Well you know, you have to be careful because some of those things have like really nasty diseases."
"Well it's not like I can select which ones bite me."
"Ah." (Apparently he had not thought of this.) "That's true..."

4%

2011-04-07T21:36:00.000-04:00

The Dominican constitution demands that 4% of the total national budget must go towards education. It's not happening. For reasons that nobody understands, the president is just not allowing the legislation to go through. The reason nobody understands this is because normally the president is super committed to education, and has even gone out of his way to create several new, special education programs. Example A: The English Immersion Program I teach for. It's a branch of the Ministry of Education and was created by presidential mandate.

There are all kinds of rallys all the time for 4% for education. You constantly see people wearing yellow (the official color of the campaign) and there's graffiti everywhere that reads, simply, "4%!". The symbol of the campaign is a yellow umbrella.

This past Sunday (the first Sunday in the FOURTH month of the year), there was a big rally downtown en Plaza España. Plaza España is very cool. It's where Christopher Columbus' son's house is. They're always having concerts and stuff there.

Dylan, Carol, and I wear yellow to support 4% for education.

This policeman/massive creeper is demonstrating what has pretty much become the story of my life...

apathy.

2011-04-06T23:38:00.000-04:00

First off (and unrelated to apathy), today marks my third month here in Santo Domingo!
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I don't remember the last time I posted a strange Dominican habit. Normally I list things like garbage cans in the bathtub or something quirky, but today I'm writing about something a little more general.
Dominicans don't care about wrongdoings unless it's happening to them. I have a couple of examples.
First, our payments system is a little dodgy to say the least. As government employees, we are supposed to be payed on the 25th of every month. As of this afternoon, we had not yet been paid. (On Friday, it will be 2 weeks since the 25th of March.) This afternoon, during our normal 20-minute break, the teachers were all discussing going on strike. They argued that we're providing the government with a service and that if the government valued that service, they would pay us. Generally, I don't think a strike is necessarily the best way to solve things, but in this case, I can't argue with the logic. In my head, I started thinking of ways to contribute: writing an article to the newspaper, maybe calling a few people in the Ministry of Education...

The director made a comment that really rubbed me the wrong way. She said we have two choices: either stop complaining and accept that "that's how the government is" and there's nothing we can do about it, or quit. That didn't seem right to me. I feel that there is always a third option: fight back.

Flash forward 30 minutes. I'm sitting in the computer lab upstairs for my class' weekly language lab session when my phone buzzes. So do the phones of the three computer supervisors. We'd all gotten notices that we'd been paid. After the obligatory celebration, everything returned to normal for the remainder of the period. When class finished, I went back downstairs to the office to sign out for the day and found everyone (obviously) in considerably better spirits. Nobody showed even a hint of the anger from before. It kind of reminded me of when the sorority girls would go active after 2 solid weeks of torture, and instead of being even the remotest bit upset with the older actives, they immediately forgot all the issues and were one big happy family again. (I came to understand a lot about sorority life after living with those girls for 2 years, but that was just something that continues to baffle me.)

I thought to myself today, 'You know, everything's ok now, but we should still take action, because this time next month, we're going to do this all over again.' Seriously. Mark my words. I'm going to site this blog post when it happens. Nobody is into preventative work.

The same thing happens with the National Police force. Everyone here knows they're (as a whole) incredibly corrupt and are always doing terrible things. But there's a big "not my problem" mentality with them. If they're not attacking my family or my personal interests, there's no reason for me to stand up against the issue. It's very frustrating, especially growing up in the nation that gave us Human Rights Watch, Invisible Children, and the UN (although the UN arguably doesn't do anything either). I don't understand why some work and sacrifice and a little danger now isn't a good exchange for group security later.

politics!

2011-04-06T10:17:00.000-04:00

An interesting week for world politics.

Obama announced his desire to re-run (is that right?)/ run again...? for presidency.

Haiti declared a winner to their presidential elections. The man who won is a famous singer/dancer/comedian. There is a video circulating on the internet of his dancing like a lunatic. I wanted to post it hear but decided not to because part of it is actually pretty raunchy. This helps to illustrate my point. You shouldn't be electing people to presidential office if they start in dance videos that you don't want to post online. Embarrassing.

Third, the first lady of the Dominican Republic has announced her candidacy for president (they're having elections here next year too). This is VERY interesting. Not because she's a woman, because there are tons of women presidents in Latin America, but because her husband also wants to run for another term.

By law of the Dominican constitution (which is modeled very much after the American Constitution), no president can run for office more than twice. The current president is finishing up his second term and announced intent to run again. His political party holds most of the seats in congress, so he figured he could just get them to vote to change the constitution. However, an opposition group started up a campaign to get 4 million signatures AGAINST the president running again.In a nation with a population of only10 million, 4 million signatures speaks volumes.

Apparently the president has switched gears. Obviously, he's not going to run against his own wife. She he must have figured that, rather than change the entire constitution and make half the country angry, he could just have his spouse run and then keep influencing things from behind-the-scenes. When we talked about this yesterday, Carol seemed impressed by his intelligence in this matter.

A very interesting week for politics!

Psalms

2011-04-04T09:33:00.000-04:00

Over the weekend I had lunch with a friend and, in the midst of talking about a billion other things, we briefly touched on Psalms.

We were commenting on how reading Psalms here is so completely different from reading Psalms at home. Passages just mean something so different. For example:

"Confuse the wicked, O Lord, confound their speech,
for I see violence and strife in the city.
Day and night they prowl about on its walls;
malice and abuse are within it.
Destructive forces are at work in the city;
threats and lies never leave its streets."
-Psalm 55:9-11

Or:

"Blessed is he who has regard for the weak;
the Lord delivers him in times of trouble.
The Lord will protect him and preserve his life;
he will bless him in the land
and not surrender him to the desire of his foes."
-Psalm 41:1-2

Or how about:

"Vindicate me, O God,
and plead my cause against an ungodly nation;
rescue me from deceitful and wicked men."
-Psalm 43:1

The day after the earthquake in Japan, when I was at my most terrified of earthquakes, I read this:

"You have rejected us, O God, and burst forth upon us;
you have been angry - now restore us!
You have shaken the land and torn it open;
mend its fractures, for it is quaking.
You have shown your people desperate times;
you have given us wine that makes us stagger.
But for those who fear you, you have raised a banner
to be unfurled against the bow."
-Psalm 60:1-4

You see? The Psalms speak anew when you're actually in danger. At home in the States when I would read these same passages, I would think metaphorically. Here, the prayers are literal. It's very different.

God is within her, she will not fall. God will help her at break of day.
-Psalm 46:5

waka waka

2011-04-02T00:18:00.000-04:00

Click here to hear the Spanish version of the Waka Waka song that I heard live on Wednesday night when Shakira was here in Santo Domingo. So awesome!

p.s.

2011-04-01T00:27:00.001-04:00

Is it seriously APRIL already?!

devil's advocate.

2011-04-01T00:23:00.000-04:00

So it turns out that being rich is actually harder for me than being poor. I don't mean that in a philosophical-type way, like “I must be poor to relate to those around me”.

In the past couple of weeks I've made friends with some girls whose financial situations are – shall we say – a little more what I'm used to in the States. This has been actually really hard for me. It's weirder for me to go back-and-forth from hanging out with these girls to my barrio at the end of the day than it is just to stay in the barrio to begin with. It's like second culture shock.

I've been offered the opportunity to move to a slightly nicer section of town. I've been so conflicted about this this week. I know that my whole intent in coming here was to spend time with the poor and learn about their strife and their problems and the best way to go about them. But at what cost? At the cost of my safety? Shouldn't the answer there be yes? Shouldn't I be willing to sacrifice what's “mine” out of love for others? Definitely. But am I really doing it to help, or am I doing it because I'm afraid that people will think I'm copping out?

Moving – a way of self-preservation or a reaction to disappointment that my initial ideas seem not to be suited to a society this full of corruption and laziness (sorry, that last bit is harsh)? Add to this the fact that my host mom seems to have as much of a prejudice against rich people as they do to her even before knowing each other.

There's a LOT of judgment passed here based purely on what neighborhood you live in. This is something I'm not used to in the States. There are definitely times at home where you think differently of someone depending on what city they're from (example: how many times have we mentioned that someone is unfriendly or cold because they're from New York??), but I've never consciously known a person in my life that classifies the type of person immediately after hearing what street they live on. This happens here a ton, which makes me think that maybe solely my presence in this neighborhood is a good thing. I'm tearing down walls just by demonstrating confidence (though sometimes faked) in the people that I walk past on my way to work. My boss at the university is always saying that if you treat students like they're stupid troublemakers you can't be surprised when that's what they turn out to be. But if you treat them like they're worthy of your trust and respect, they will eventually mold themselves into that sort of person. Maybe the same thing applies to living in this neighborhood: I'm putting myself into danger living here and my neighbors know it. And that's what's important here. It's obvious to every single person who stares when I walk by that I'm not from here, that I have nicer clothes and a better job and still I choose to live where I do. That I do things like sip coffees in cafes and go to Shakira concerts because I can, but at the end of the day I choose to come home to this place instead of any other. And they know that I have a choice. And maybe this knowledge will give them confidence and self-respect. I can only hope. I hope it's worth it.

I had a post on there a little while back where I ranted about how organizations who want to help out are based mostly in upscale neighborhoods and not in the places where the help is actually needed. It's because of these prior statements that I feel like a failure in wanting to move at all. That by moving I'm supporting the opposite of my argument. However, I feel that now, after three months of paranoia and worrying and sleepless nights, I can maybe understand a little better why these nonprofits are based where they are instead of neighborhoods like mine.

All of this crazy ranting to say that I don't know what I'm going to do. In theory, staying here is the better choice. I know that sometimes God asks us to do crazy, “dangerous” things that don't make sense to an outsider. I also know that God gave me a brain and expects me to use it, and I'm no good to anybody if I've been shot dead walking home.

I'll let you know what happens.

hiatus

2011-03-30T11:46:00.000-04:00

Good morning/almost afternoon!

Life has been a little (a lotta) busy/stressful/overwhelming between the end of this week and the current time of the current week. Therefore, I haven't had that much time to post and no stunning thoughts to write about. I've just been trying to put my head down and plow through till things calm down a bit.

HOWEVER I plan to get right back at it in the next couple of days. So - take a vacation from reading my ramblings, and hit me up again in the coming week!

la cucaracha

2011-03-28T23:57:00.001-04:00

I killed my first cockroach this morning! "Cucaracha" means cockroach, for those of you who didn't know. Please reference earlier posts for hilarious tales of how my host mother responds to these common household pests.

The first thing I saw upon getting out of bed this morning was a live cockroach belly-up on my bedroom floor. My immediate thought was to wonder if it had been chilling in my room all night. This was followed my several long moments of the creepy-crawlies. It was going nowhere fast and couldn't flip itself over to run away, and it was laying right in front of my door so I couldn't open it to get Deivy to kill it for me (my normal mode of attack) so I grabbed a sneaker and smashed the thing. Then I screamed and ran from the room. I then made Deivy check to see if it was really dead (it was) and throw it away for me. As you can see, I'm all about the baby steps.

Still, I feel somwe sort of self-congratulations are in order!

GREAT weekend

2011-03-27T23:22:00.000-04:00

Guess what! I have FRIENDS. And I made them by MYSELF. And they're DOMINICAN (and Italian).

This weekend was a blast. On Friday I just hung out by myself and watched a movie. Saturday morning I had huge, major plans to do laundry (I'm hurting for clean shirts after 2+ weeks of not doing laundry) but there wasn't any water in the morning so I couldn't.

Saturday afternoon some of my UASD students and I went to an air show that they were having on the Malecon. It was super cool. There were those planes that you think are crashing but they're really just stunt guys. And there were the ones that draw things with smoke like hearts and smiley faces. And the Dominican air force planes came put-putting around. I asked one of my students "are those your planes or ours?" He responded that we make all the planes, so technically all of them were ours (ours=USA). Then one of our F-15s showed up and little kids cried and people shouted and cheered (by the way, those things are LOUD).

That little black dot is a USAF F-15 fighter jet.

I normally don't consider myself a very patriotic person, but I felt a very tangible upwelling of pride when I saw that jet flying over the Caribbean sea.

After the show, I went to hang out with my new friend Sheila. She teaches Italian at the same private school were I teach English a few hours a week. It was awesome to have a friend to hang out with, who introduced me to new friends. We ate, we danced, we talked, we did girly things like paint our nails (geez, what a sap), we drove places in her car. She lives in a real house with a real bathroom and a bedroom with a ceiling fan and the whole nine yards. It was great to be with her - it made me feel like I was back home with my high school friends just being goofy.

Me, Danila, and Sheila

Basically, it's nice to have friends. And after three months of roughing it on my own, I'm glad to finally have a few.

being "rich".

2011-03-24T09:54:00.000-04:00

I'm not really rich, right? I mean, I live in a barrio, I take very crowded and dirty public transport, I haven't even touched hot running water in almost three months, and sometimes we go 12 straight hours without electricity. So I'm poor, right?

Wrong.

The very fact that I don't spend every last peso of my paycheck the instant I get it is a testament to my wealth. The fact that I have money on reserve in a bank account in the U.S. says that I'm nowhere near as poor as my neighbors (or even my host parents). The fact that I hang out in bookstore cafes with housewives who live in penthouse apartments demonstrates how accustomed I am to money.

But it's not just MONEY in and of itself we're talking about here. It's a lifestyle. One of my Brazilian friends and I were talking about this the other day (over a cup of coffee in my bookstore). How even if you're empathetic and even if you try to relate to really poor people, there's no skirting the fact that you have more than they do. For me, this makes it difficult to live in the neighborhood that I do. No matter how hard I try to be like the people around me, the fact of the matter is that they have a lifetime of experience living in poverty and little hope of ever rising about that "station" in life, where as I am experiencing their position as an outsider who can opt out at any time. My Brazilian friend and I were trying to decide if it's okay to continue doing "rich people things" like eating at restaurants to going to movies or drinking coffee at cafes when there are poor people around you. Though it's not a matter of being RICH per se (despite the fact that I make more money than my neighbors, I made more working at Waldameer last summer than I do currently and am therefore not exactly raking in the dough), it's a matter of...I don't know...frivolity?

I don't really have a point with all of this. I'm just trying to figure out a new and bizarre social dynamic. I'd love to hear any and all feedback/thoughts/considerations.

inverted bell curve day.

2011-03-23T00:01:00.000-04:00

This link shows kind of what my day would look like if you graphed it out.

I started off the morning feeling super great, meeting a Brazilian friend for coffee in the newly-discovered bookstore. She's a real sweetheart. Her name is Sheron and she's a clinical psychologist in Brazil but is having a hard time getting work here because you have to speak Spanish to take your boards and she speaks Portuguese and just a little bit each of Spanish and English.

We talked for a long time about how it was for her when she first moved here (she and her husband spent 2 months without any furniture in their apartment because they didn't have any money! after that they used garbage cans as chairs around the kitchen table!), how she feels about having a degree but not being allowed to practice, how she'd like to do volunteer work or something, and what it's like to live here as a person who is not poor. (This is actually something I've really been struggling with, but I'll leave that for tomorrow's topic.) After this great conversation I was feeling really good about being here, feeling like I'd actually made some progress fitting in and making friends. This was the original upswing point on the Bell Curve of My Day.

The UASD class was as good as always. Things started to tumble a bit when I was informed that after our finals this week, teachers will be rotating classes. I LOVE the students that I have now, and I cannot imagine that any class I will have after this will in any way compare. Then on break, the bell curve hit the bottom as two of my male, Dominican co-workers pulled me aside, sat me down, and started to lecture me about how "cold" and "intimidating" I am. How offensive I am. How I never pay attention to them when they're having a conversation with each other. How I need to make more of an effort to be friendly with my co-workers. I tried to defend myself, tried to say that when a person is bashing not just my religion but religion in general, attacking my culture, and dropping the f-bomb every three words, why would I want to participate in the conversation? This just added fuel to their fire. Needless to say, it was not the greatest of conversations, and I'm still not sure what they wanted me to say.

Things starting climbing again when I went to teach at the private institute after the UASD class. Normally these kids drive me crazy, but they could tell that something was wrong and asked me what we up. After I explained, the littlest one offered to go and beat up the two guys who were bugging me, and the others assured me that "that's just how Dominican guys are". My heart was warmed by these kids today.

Finally, tonight the Casandra Awards are on TV. These are the Dominican Oscars. After working at the private institute, I was riding home on the back of Julio's motorcycle when we were caught in a strange 8:15pm traffic jam. Julio was confused because of the hour till we realized that we were stopped outside of the National Theatre, where they are tonight holding the Casandra Awards! While we drove by, we could see the red carpet and all of the stars walking (some of whom I recognized!) and all the media and everything. It was really awesome.

So there you have it. Bell curve.

Robin Hood and guilty feelings

2011-03-22T00:16:00.000-04:00

I know that the original reason I came here was to start some kind of organization to help the marginalized poor here in Santo Domingo and particularly in my specific neighborhood, but it seems that I'm going nowhere fast. Every time I propose a way to move ahead, people either sidestep the idea or somebody else steps up to handle it.

At the same time, I'm really really loving my university students in the same familiar-feeling kind of way I loved the girls I RA-ed for during my two-year RAing stint at Grove City. And, coincidentally, last week I met some people from Campus Crusade. So I'm going to really pour into them (since I spend 20 hours a week with them for the next 8.5 months anyway) and to the campus in general and see where that takes me. I've still got my mind half in college anyways, so I can really relate to them. I'm just afraid of coming home and having everybody look at me and say, "And? What did you do exactly? Where's the noprofit?"

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The textbook that we use in the university includes a "chapter" of a story at the end of each unit. In this particular book, the story was Robin Hood, and was continued throughout each unit. As this is finals week, we finished up the book and all of the Robin Hood chapters and today in class we strung them together to make one giant production. Here is a clip of the finished product.

nighttime thoughts

2011-03-21T00:39:00.000-04:00

Sometimes I have what I feel to be really good thoughts in the middle of the night and then I wake up and write them down so I won't forget them and then go back to sleep. Here's one.

First: I really struggle here with the fact that Dominicans are always talking to me like I'm an idiot. If you admit that you don't know about a particular aspect of something, they treat you like you know nothing at all about any part of the subject. Prime example: The first time I tried to turn on the stove here I lit a match and started the gas with the knob and nothing happened. I asked Deivy, my host dad, if there was a trick. Apparently there's a super-secret gas valve in the laundry corner (it's not really a laundry ROOM) that they turn off at night so there's no danger of a leak or anything like that. Somehow my inability to understand why the stove wouldn't turn on was interpreted to mean that I have no idea whatesoever how to cook. Now, they're constantly telling me how to boil water and crack eggs and dumb stuff like that.

Another example: Here, people are much less gentle with babies. Moms will pick up their kids by their arms and they let their heads flop all over the place and feed them random things when they're still too little. The second week I was here, I was picking my then 3-month-old host brother up from a carseat very slowly and carefully (as any sane American would). My host mom saw me being very careful and decided this meant that I'd never held a baby before/had no idea what to do with kids/don't like children. This has developed into an annoying series of lessons on how to handle a baby Dominican-style, which I don't like because I'm generally opposed to dragging a six-month-old around by his arm.

This brings me back to my late-night thought. After a particularly frustrating day of people trying to tell me a series of things that I either completely disagreed with or already knew it struck me that common sense is not universal. You have to LEARN common sense to a certain extent. Common sense is based on cultural understanding. My culture's common sense is not the same as theirs (I'll point you to the baby example), which is why Dominicans think I'm stupid. I'm not Dominican, so I don't know "how to handle" a Dominican baby like a Dominican woman would.

I don't know. This seemed like a much more profound discovery at 2am.
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Second thought: I posted a picture early Sunday morning of me with a few of my students downtown in the Colonial Zone. It was almost like having friends. We got ice cream and we walked around and we joked and we took pictures, etc etc. But it was the strangest thing because of how they addressed me.

In class, my students never call me by my name, they simply call me Teacher. "Teacher! I have a question..." On Saturday evening when we were out getting ice cream, we were speaking Spanish instead of English, but they still wouldn't call me by my name. "Profe! Someday you have to see the inside of this museum! It's the best." Stranger yet, in Spanish there are two different ways to say "you". Tu is the informal you, what you would call your friends or close family members. Usted is what you use for people of authority and in places of high respect. And this is what my students used to talk to me.

I know that it's good that they respect me, but it was still very strange. It was nice to spend time with people more-or-less my age. And I spend a LOT of time with these kids (20 hours a week!) so I know them pretty well by now. But I was reminded by their language that we're not really "friends" just yet. What a weird sensation.
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If you're still reading by now I'm impressed. Keep an eye out in the news today - it should be an interesting one! Not only are we having a nationwide transit strike for 24 hours (but NOT canceling class - tell me how that's okay?!), but Haiti is having their presidential elections. Keep them in your thoughts today. In the presence of so much homelessness and illness (not to mention the two ex-dictators Baby Doc and Aristide), Haiti's going to have a rough time today, which inevitably means that WE are going to have a rough time today.

Happy Spring! Chin up! Warmer weather is on its way!

my students

2011-03-20T00:19:00.001-04:00

Today (well, now it's yesterday) I went to the Colonial Zone to hang out with a few of my students. Here is a picture of us and the Peso Pig!

transportation

2011-03-19T14:53:00.000-04:00

Public transportation here is normally super reliable. So reliable, in fact, that even when the public transport is going on strike they tell you in advance so you can make other arrangements. For example, we've known for about 4 days that we're going to have a strike on Monday.

In honor of our impending strike, I've decided that today's post will be all about different transportation options here and what they usually entail. So here we go:

guagua: Dominicans call buses guaguas. Big or little, nice or not, all buses are called by this name. Normally a guagua is a glorified minivan/minibus. It usually costs 20 pesos to ride (remember that there are, at this time, 37 pesos to the U.S. dollar). It's not very comfortable to ride, though, because they usually pack between 17-22 people inside and it's super bumpy. You get on and then somewhere in the middle of the ride there's some kind of an unspoken signal I haven't figured out yet that means it's time to pay. There's always a cobredor ("collector") riding in addition to the driver, and it's he who takes your money and gives you change. When you want to get off, you yell some kind of instructions to the driver, normally something like en la esquina! ("on the corner!"), or donde pueda! ("wherever you can!"), or simply déjame! ("leave me!").

carro publico: A carro publico is not the same thing as a taxi. Taxis carry only one person at a time and go where you tell them to. A carro publico is more like a bus in that it has a set route and carries more than one fare at a time. They're just regular sedans. The driver and two people sit in the front, and four people sit in the back. It's really uncomfortable (especially when you're riding with fat people) and there's an unspoken rule that in the back seat, the person third from the left has to scoot up and sit on the edge of the seat so that everybody fits. This mode of transportation normally costs between 20 and 50 pesos, depending on where you're going.

metro: By FAR my favorite way to travel. Santo Domingo's metro was just completed at the end of 2009, so it's super new and incredibly clean. Like, it's almost unbelievable how clean it is. It's fast and air-conditioned too. It costs 20 pesos a ride, and if you have a card like I do you can reload it and you don't have to carry change around with you. Because the metro is run by the federal government and not a syndicate, they never have strikes like the buses and cars sometimes do.

moto concho: Basically, these are motorcycle taxis. There are corners dispersed throughout the city and you go up and tell one of the guys waiting there where you want to go and they take you. I really don't know much about this method of transportation and I have no idea how much it costs. Like the mother that she is, Carol has forbidden me to ever travel this way. First off, the guys are normally total creepers. I hate walking by them because they're always whistling and getting in my face. Secondly, they're show-offs and dangerous with their driving. Thirdly, it's much easier to kidnap or rob a single passenger on a motorcycle than it is on a bus or in a taxi with a bunch of other people. Every night that I come home late, I get a ride part of the way on a motorcycle, but this is a friend and I don't pay him (just clarifying for my parents' peace of mind, haha).

There are of course normal yellow taxis, but I've never ridden in one here. They cost upwards of 200 pesos a ride and they refuse to drive in my neighborhood, mostly because the streets are so narrow here. Mostly tourists take them (and I am no tourist!). In addition, rich people are often driven in really nice cars like Mercedes or Jags or big black SUVs, but I don't do that either, obviously.

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This afternoon, I'm going to meet some of my students in the Colonial Zone to hang out for a while. They're very excited because it's a break from speaking English for them. In class, we have a little blue plastic piggy bank named The Peso Pig. Every time someone speaks Spanish during class, they have to pay 5 pesos to the Peso Pig. My students have informed me that they will be brining the Peso Pig with them today and that, should I try to speak English with them, I will be required to pay 5 pesos.

Sometimes I'm struck by how cool my situation is. My students were taking an exam on Friday afternoon and I was watching them with this huge, stupid grin on my face thinking, I live in the Caribbean and am a teacher at the oldest university in the Americas. How SWEET is that?!

Sunday

2011-03-18T00:16:00.000-04:00

Okay! We're back on the horse!

First off, HAPPY SAINT PATRICK'S DAY!! This is actually a weird one to explain, and it was very strange to have university students who DIDN'T know about the joys of heading out to the local bar on St. Paddy's Day for some green beer. But it was great to tell people about it all day long - very fun in a cultural-exchange-type way.

In order to finish off my theme of LAST week about what I do during the week, I will have to catch you up on my Sunday.

On Sunday morning I woke up a little later than usual, which was nice, and made some coffee like usual (which was also nice) and got dressed in my new tshirt which I'd decorated with Carol the day before. At about 9:30, we headed downstairs and Carol's dad gave us a ride to the Botanical Gardens, where they were holding the walk.

Before we headed over to the walk, we visited some friends of Carol who live across the street from the venue. They live an an enormous, beautiful house. They have 8 servants and an in-ground swimming pool in their backyard that looks like something out of a magainze. Incredible. The inside of the house was lovely, and the family that lives there also hosts the mother's parents. There were pictures of the grandmother and her two sisters hanging in the foyer. I commented to the grandmother that the photos reminded me of the Mirabal sisters - three Dominican women murdered during the Trujillo regime. (The Mirabal sisters, known affectionately as "The Butterflies" have been converted to national heroines. Their portraits can be seen on the Dominincan 200-peso bill.)

The grandmother remarked that it was funny I should say that, because she was in prison with them for a bit. Apparently the grandmother's husband was working with an undercover society during the Trujillo regime and the government found out about it, so he self-exiled to Brazil till Trujillo died. She told me about how, as punishment, two cars full of police officers came to her house to arrest her and take her to an infamous torture prison named "La 40". When they first arrived at the prison, she asked to use the bathroom before they processed her. In the bathroom, she prayed to the Virgin of Altagracia (Patroness of the country here) that if she spared her from torture, she would wear only white clothing for the rest of her life. The guards tortured many of the other women in the prison with electric batons and beatings but they never once laid a fingure on this woman. Now 88 years old, she has worn nothing but white clothing since her release late in 1960.

After visiting with this family, Carol and I went to the walk. It was great. Anybody from Grove City who came to the DR in January of 2010 will remember the Botanical Gardens, which are really very lovely and peaceful. We walked with several thousand people. There were all kinds of famous Dominicans walking with us, and I even got a picture with Carol's and my favorite actress from our favorite soap opera that we watch all the time!

Afterward, we walked part of the way home and then caught a bus. On the bus, Carol taught me a trick for getting the drivers to lower the volume of the radio, which is normally unbearable: you pretend that someone is calling you, then you say "hold on a second", then you yell to the driver "hey! I'm on the phone here!". After that all you have to do is fake a conversation for a few minutes and you're golden.

Sunday evening was pretty good. We hung out on the roof and ate oreos and took pictures (see Facebook for details).

That's about all I have. Hope everybody had a great week!

good news!

2011-03-16T23:59:00.000-04:00

My computer, while not 100% back to health, has recuperated somewhat.

I had to wipe it and reload it and this seems to have removed the virus that was slowly eating it alive. However, my computer now thinks that I'm a Dominican and keeps trying to spell check everything in Spanish and not in English, which is a problem because I don't really spell that well in English.

As it's already 11:58pm, that's all I've got for you today. Back to our regularly-scheduled program tomorrow!

what's more...

2011-03-15T20:29:00.001-04:00

To add salt to the wound of my broken computer, for some reason we now have no internet at all, so I can't even get on to try to mess with the virus protection software I have. I'm posting this from my cell phone to inform you of an event so awesome today that I had to let you all know about it even though I don't have a computer.

I made some new friends! They're American and they work for Campus Crusade for Christ and live in the city full-time. I ran into them on campus today and could not be more thrilled. This has made my whole week, even if my computer is acting crazy.

uh oh!

2011-03-15T09:15:00.000-04:00

Sorry for not following up on the rest of the weekend - my computer has contracted a virus and I was so stressed/distraught about trying to find a solution that I wasted my whole night uninstalling and re-installing various programs.

Hopefully things will be back to normal soon and I'll get right back to posting with normalcy. Have a great Tuesday!

Saturday

2011-03-13T23:58:00.001-04:00

Great weekend!

On Saturday, I got up at 7:00am and did my laundry. It only took me an hour-and-a-half this time, which is a huge step up from the three hours it normally takes me. Our washing machine needs to be filled by hose, and like all other water-related chores, we always wash our clothes in cold water since there isn't any hot. I hung it all up to dry on the roof and took a picture since I was so proud.

At 9:00am, Carol and I took off for downtown. We had to go buy our t-shirts and tickets for the cancer walk we were doing on Sunday. The first place we were going to look was this upscale grocery store near to the café I discovered last week. The grocery store was all out of t-shirts, but it was interesting to see the inside of a NICE grocery store. The grocery store I normally go to isn't bad or especially dirty, but it's in a part of town right smack between Chinatown and Little Haiti, so you get all kinds of wacky people in there. The grocery store we were in yesterday was like Wegmans on steroids, no joke. I was commenting to Carol about how clean/expensive everything is when she informed me that there was also a bookstore on the premises. My heart skipped a beat, I swear to you.

People here don't read. That's not to say that they CAN'T, they just don't like to. They only read when they absolutely have to. The other day at work when I asked my fellow teachers if there were any good bookstores around, they actually asked me why I wanted to know. When I told them it was because I love to read and wanted to buy a couple books, they (and I'm not kidding about this) were totally shocked. So when Carol happened to mention that there was a bookstore, it was like letting a dog off a chain.

Carol said we could take a look at the bookstore because we had some extra time and we started walking down the block. The whole time, I was trying not to get my hopes up. Usually people here really build things up and then they're kind of not as nice/clean/big as they described them to be. But we rounded the corner to the bookstore and I literally almost cried. It was huge. It was new. There was that kind of jazzy bookstore-type music playing. Inside there were two floors with new, glossy volumes of every genre. There were big, comfy chairs to sit in and a café with tables and chairs. It was like Barnes and Noble, but way way better. Carol thought it was hilarious that I was this worked up about a bookstore.

Sometimes I feel guilty for seeking out "American" places like bookstores or cafes. I feel like I'm a traitor to my experience, that if I'm going to be here I should "be" here and not take refuge in my home culture. But seeing as there are no other Americans here that I know and speak to on a regular basis, I need SOMETHING or SOMEWHERE that I can go to where I can sit and read and think and drink some coffee and listen to bookstore-type jazz music and not get stared or whistled at. I feel like I have to defend my love of this bookstore. I'm planning to go back on Wednesday before class at the university.

After my bookstore epiphany we walked to the kiosk to buy our t-shirts and tickets to the cancer walk. Then we walked for a while and Carol showed me things in this part of town. Metro stations, good restaurants, bad restaurants, other bookstores (less impressive ones), funeral parlors, universities…

I cannot say enough about the amazing experience it is to live with Carol. She knows everybody (President and First Lady of the country? Check!) and she knows every place in the city. She lives in the poor section but is always brushing elbows with rich people, so she can find her way around everyplace and she's been to like every restaurant/store/neighborhood in Santo Domingo. After only 2.5 months of living here, I feel confident in saying that I know more about the city of Santo Domingo than I did about Grove City after 4 years of living there. I know street names and buildings. I know people and restaurants. I know what's cheap, what's good, and where to steer clear from. If somebody names a neighborhood, I can tell you where it is, what kind of people live there, and if it's the kind of place I would feel comfortable walking alone. All of this is a source of great pride for me.

We tried to take a cab to make a hotel reservation for my parents but the taxi driver was overzealous in trying to get this other blonde girl to take a ride and he hit a curb and blew out the tire before we even went anywhere. Then he refused to return our money and Carol gave him and earful. So we took a different cab to the hotel my parents want to stay at and went in to make a reservation, which was WAY less complicated than I'd anticipated. I went in, said "I want to make a reservation from this day to this day", and gave the lady my name and phone number. And that's that, no credit card or passport needed. What's more, when my parents come, if they don't have the right kind of credit card, they can pay in cash. How weird is that?

We walked from the hotel to the Conde (big touristy place) and got some ice cream before heading home. Then Carol went to the salon while I watched Inception on my computer.

Last night, we had ham and fritos for dinner and then Deivy and I watched part of Iron Man until the power went out and then everybody went to bed.

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Sunday news will be posted tomorrow, as I'm wiped from the cancer walk today. See Facebook for photos if you just can't wait!

Regetón

2011-03-12T19:27:00.000-04:00

Regetón is Dominican music. It's basically all they play and all I hear. I've included here two YouTube links so you can hear what this music sounds like. It really gets into your skin after a while. If you hear something else, it sounds wrong, haha

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxe3pbm2y8w

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNAZbrXwx2A

Friday

2011-03-11T22:40:00.002-04:00

TGIF! Today was fairly normal, with the exception of all the earthquake/tsunami news.

This morning I got up at 7, like normal, drank my coffee and ate my corn flakes while watching the morning news, and grabbed my bag to head out the door. I DID however get a text on my phone telling me what was going on in Japan. (I have a Blackberry. They're wicked cheap here so I got one because the power outages are severely limiting my ability to get work done. Also I think they're awesome. Anyway, my friend Jenn says that Blackberries basically tell the future before it happens which is just about true. Therefore, I knew about the earthquake at 7:15 this morning - that's 6:15am for most of you).

I took the bus to the park and then took a car from there to the institute. I taught my beginners class from 10-12am, walked down the hill and picked up a piece of pizza and some juice, and taught at the university from 1-5pm. My uasd kids were a RIOT today. We were playing games for the last hour of class and they were all yelling and laughing...it was a great time. I have a couple videos from class, but I have to get permission from the director to put them up, so I'll get back to you on that. Let's just say the class ended with one student indignantly asserting that the "these police is paid here to make cows." Unfortunately, I was the only person who understood his mispronunciation of the word "chaos" (which, in Spanish, is spelled almost exactly the same but actually does sound a lot like the word "cows"), so I looked like a total meanie when I cracked up at him and nobody else did.

After class I went to the grocery store and got, amongst other things, Peter Pan peanut butter, oreos, graham crackers, grape jelly, and Cap 'n Crunch Crunch Berries cereal. I came home, (do you know how difficult it is to shop and then get onto public transportation to take it all home? It's hard. I have a system for keeping my purchases to a minimum: the handy dandy shopping basket. If it doesn't fit in the basket, I don't buy it.) had a snack, cleaned the house with my friend Mile for a little bit, and waited for my family to get home. Then we ate fried rice for dinner, I jumped in the cold shower, and here I am, hoping maybe to watch a couple episodes of Big Bang Theory online before I actually go to sleep (if the power holds out - it's been a little sketchy as of late).

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Today I was thinking about Blood Diamond again. (Basically you should all watch it in order to understand 90% of what I talk about in these posts.) There's this part where the rebels are due to invade at pretty much any time and Archer (not a local) says to his friend (who is a local) "Isn't it about time to get your family out?" The local guy just shakes his head. "What, like fire up the chopper like you people? This my country."

I thought about this today because of the threat of earthquakes. I don't know if the Dominican Republic is more threatened than any other place or if the people who live here just like to be dramatic, but there's been a lot of earthquake talk lately (even before Japan happened today). There was a 5.6 in Havana, Cuba last Saturday and a 3.something in the north of the country here last night. But I thought to myself: this could happen at any time. People should not be here if that's true. I thought, 'I could go home. I could remove myself from this unpredictable situation.' Then I thought of this part of the movie. I have the option of leaving should something happen but my friends and family here do not have that choice. They will always be here.

In other news, I've got another project cooking. I'll keep you posted with more details as they roll in.

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P.S. - sorry for the disturbing video footage yesterday. I posted it for a friend because the file was too big to email.

Thursday

2011-03-10T23:27:00.001-04:00

This morning started off on a pessimistic note, as Carol, Deivy, and I were all late leaving the house due to a downer-type news report that was happening on El Despertador (a morning news show here, like Good Morning America). It was all about a police man who worked for internal affairs who was fired because he discovered that some of his superiors had stolen a kilo of cocaine and substituted the white powder with flour. He was going to turn them in, but they threatened and then fired him instead. This happens a lot. The police system here is UNBELIEVABLY corrupt.

I took the bus to the colonial zone and went back to buy shoes from the cranky guy. He sold me the shoes with nary a complaint but then got mad again when I didn't take advantage of his amazing 2-for-1 deal. The taxi ride to the institute was especially eventful because there was a 2-year-old throwing a fit next to me and wiping his muddy shoes all over everything. Since I was wearing light gray pants today I may have been less than tolerant.

Class at the institute was great. My Brazilian women were nice as always, and today they brought orange cake to class for everyone to try. After they left and after I ate a plate of pasta alone in the kitchen of the institute, I walked down the hill to the university, arriving just in time to start.

The university class was hilarious today. They were learning food/restaurant vocabulary and I had them make skits in groups incorporating this vocabulary. They really went to town and seemed to have a great time. A lot of them were making fun of tourists that they see in restaurants, asking for things like a "burger with no bread and no vegetables". One student just spent the entire time shouting, "Do you serve the food from the sea? If no, I am going to McDonalds!"

After the University, I stopped at the place where I usually buy lasagna and picked up a piece of pizza and a little jug of pear juice and dashed back up the hill to the institute where I taught my class of high schoolers for an hour-and-a-half. These kids drive me CRAZY and seem to show no signs of NOT driving me crazy any time in the near future.

I rode halfway home on the motorcycle and took a bus the rest of the way. The bus ride was unusually entertaining because we drive past a normally-dead construction site where they are digging for the new Metro line. Tonight they were actually working, and they were using one of those big giant drill things. Some little old men on the bus were just absolutely enthralled with this machine and they laughed like little kids when we drove past and then talked about it loudly for the rest of the ride. It's the simple things in life, no?

When I got home, I had dinner (scrambled eggs and boiled plantains) and watched a movie with Deivy (The Ring...not nearly as scary as I thought it would be considering how much people freaked out about it in high school). Then I jumped in the shower and am now writing this and hopefully getting to some lesson plans before I just fall over asleep this evening. Tomorrow's Friday! Thank goodness!

video for KV

2011-03-10T22:20:00.000-04:00

Wednesday

2011-03-10T00:09:00.000-04:00

This morning I was up at 7 and after making coffee for the rest of my family and spraying myself down with mosquito spray I was out the door and on the bus a little later than usual - about 8:20am. (Note on the mosquitoes: I think they all get together once a week or so and decide what part of my body they're going to attack, because I never get them in different places. Two weeks ago they totally attacked my feet. Then it was my legs below the knee. This week they've moved onto my hands of all places. I also think I have one on my forehead now, although I'm hoping I just have an itchy forehead.)

I jumped off the bus in the colonial zone to look for a new pair of shoes since I got paid finally and I really do need a new pair of shoes to wear to work. (Working at JCrew has left me with a closet full of gorgeous clothes, but I HATE shoe shopping.) I walked into a shoe store just as it was opening and found a pair I liked but I didn't have enough money so I told the guy behind the counter I was sorry but that I'd come back tomorrow with more cash. He totally freaked out and got super angry that I'd tried something on and wasn't buying it. I repeated that I'd be back tomorrow and explained that I don't normally like to carry more cash than I think I'll need for the day, etc. He told me I should charge it instead. I told him that I don't carry a credit card with me. We went back and forth like this for several minutes and I finally left when he started throwing stuff around a little bit. I really liked the shoes, so I'll probably be going back despite his attitude.

After that, I grabbed a taxi to the language institute to pick up some books I'd left there last night. (I usually do that so I don't have to hang on to them while I'm riding the motorcycle.) I printed out some menus from American restaurants to show to my university class (we're talking about food and restaurants this week) and left to walk down the hill to the university. I stopped for a piece of lasagna and a box of pear juice at this little cafe near campus. The quality of the lasagna has been steadily decreasing as time goes on, so I think I'm done with that place for a while.

On my way out the door I was stopped by two college-aged guys trying to sell me stickers or something "for charity". This happens a lot, but these guys were especially pushy and wouldn't let me past them on the sidewalk. My normal mode of attack is just to do/say nothing at all, but today one of the guys reached out to grab my arm to keep me from walking away and that was too far for me. "Don't touch me!" I said in Spanish "Leave me alone, I don't want your stuff." They let me passed but I heard one of them yell after me "Mira a la espanola tan guapa." It's difficult for me to translate this. Something like "Look at this little tough girl from Spain."

I got to the University a little early and took advantage of the time to call the hotel my parents are interested in staying at to ask about prices and stuff. I also asked if they speak English at all there, and the guy seemed super confused. He told me that yes they do but that I didn't seem like I needed help. After explaining that it was for my American parents he proceeded to hit on me over the phone. That's a new one.

After that, work was as eventful as ever. The first two hours, we had normal class. Then the second two hours, without any warning whatsoever, they had us all rotate classes just so that the students would have a taste of somebody new. I can only handle so much change in one day, but I absolutely love the kids we teach so I was totally okay with it this time.

Class finished at 5pm and I walked the 4-or-so blocks to the sea and took my taxi to the park, and then got on a bus. The bus passes right by our normal grocery store (which is located in Chinatown, just a couple blocks from Little Haiti and quite close to the Colonial Zone) and Carol got on. This kind of thing happens all the time, seeing people you know in public places. There are "only" 10 million-ish people in this country so even in a big city like Santo Domingo, you get the feeling that everybody knows each other somehow and that you're totally likely to run into someone you're friends with.

When we got home we sat around and ate corn flakes for a snack and then went to Ash Wednesday mass at 7pm. The priest finally showed up at about 8:10pm and after mass we came home and ate dinner and watched our favorite soap opera on TV at 10pm. (Dinner here is anytime between 8 and 10pm.)

I also decided today that I have officially made the transition to "I live here" status: I could not believe how blasted COLD it felt and decided to check the weather channel to see just how chilly it was outside. A frigid 72 degrees...:)

Tuesday

2011-03-08T23:02:00.000-04:00

Alright, today was a long one.

This morning I was up and gone by 7am. My Brazilian students decided that I don't get out enough so they moved to have class at a cafe this morning instead of at the institute. Seeing as I'm pretty much a coffee fanatic and have been looking for a good place to chill out and read once in a while, I was game. I made it to the institute (where we were meeting) with nary a hitch and was greeted by one of the Brazilians. She was waiting for me in her Audi SUV (side note: in case you haven't noticed, hanging out with these women is a HUGE departure from my normal life here) and then we drove to pick up another of the ladies from her penthouse apartment not far away. We arrived at the cafe, which, when translated, is called The Wooden Spoon.

I think I found my place to go to be American. I just about died. Normal-sized coffee (here, they're big into teenie tiny cups), super clean and classy, Michael Buble playing in the background, the most impressive array of pastries and desserts I've ever seen in any country...Wow. After an incredible amount of contemplation and about 20 minutes of all my Brazilian ladies trying to explain to me what some of the things are, I settled on something and we had class. I really love those ladies and I think it's good for me to know them. They range in age from 29-50 years old, so the youngest is not THAT much older than me, and they show me what other people here live like. Also they're teaching me Portuguese.

After class at the cafe I walked from Naco (the ritzy, upscale neighborhood where the cafe is located) to the university. This was a seriously long haul and I haven't actually walked this route before, but I was armed with a napkin map from one of my students and I had my sunglasses on, which always makes me look way more confident than I actually feel, so it was all good.

Forty-five minutes and 20-odd blocks later, I was gratefully standing in the air-conditioning of the bank located on campus, trying for the third time to access my paycheck. In order to get to my money I have to present my actual passport (as opposed to a copy), which makes me nervous because I could handle people stealing just about anything else from me but that. I thought I was doing a good job about being discreet about it till I got to the front of the line at the bank and the teller got confused. Instead of walking to the manager and asking like a civilized person she waved my passport in the air and yelled something like "Hey there's an American over here and I don't know what to do with her passport." Oy vey. At least things went smoothly from that point on.

After the bank, I walked to the building where the English program is housed. After sitting on a bench in the office for 10 minutes I realized the wall I was leaning against had been freshly painted yellow. I was wearing a white shirt. I then spent the next 40 minutes washing my shirt in the bathroom sink and waving it around in the hot afternoon sunshine to try to get it to dry before class started.

Class at the university was from 1-5pm and it was pretty uneventful. During break I bought two empanadas from the empanada lady who sets up shop in the lobby during break and immediately following class (smart lady...students are always hungry). After class I walked back up the hill (are you beginning to see a pattern here?) to the institute where I then gave class to 4 high-schoolers from 5:30-7:00. They're my least-favorite students. They're fidgity and their parents are making them come to the class so they have no personal interest and are always waiting for class to end and asking me when break is, etc.

Coming home on Tuesdays is both the best and worst part of the day. The best because I come halfway by motorcycle. Normally I hate motorcycles. I think they're dangerous, and most people here are idiots when they ride them. But this motorcycle only goes about 20 miles an hour and I trust the guy so it's okay. Let me tell you, though, that there's basically no better way to see a capital city by night than on a motorcycle that only goes 20 miles and hour. It's awesome. And there's this one part of town where all these apartment buildings are under construction and they're all empty and dark and hollow and it reminds me of that part in Inception where they go to Dom's make-believe world with all the falling-down buildings. Plus you can see a TON of stars here at night when you're down by the sea. Not so much from my house because of light pollution, but about 30 blocks south. Coming home is the worst part of my night on Tuesdays because I have to wait for the bus and I feel like a paranoid freak. I'm not fond of the corner I have to wait on and I'm always looking over my shoulder which makes me look insecure and out-of-place, but you can't NOT look over your shoulder...it's fine, it just makes me uncomfortable.

On the bus I saw the police arresting two guys on a motorcycle. They pulled them over and frisked them and there was a lot of yelling but I couldn't hear anything they said. I'm wondering if there wasn't something going on today. I forgot to mention that on three separate occasions today I walked past police men who were going through someone's car/trunk and/or frisking the person. I'll have to ask Carol...

At home, I had pork and fritos (smashed flat and then fried) plantains for dinner, along with some Kola Real (Dominican Coke, basically) and then took a cold shower while waiting for the Evangelical church across the street to finish their service. They're normally very loud but they were especially out-of-hand today, and since there's no glass in any of the windows in the house it's impossible to keep the noise out long enough to talk on the phone or skype with anyone. Tonight the Miss Dominican Republic pageant was on TV. Dominicans have a history of placing well in the Miss Universe competition. I think they've won it three times, so they take this very seriously.

After the Evangelicals either finished their service or lost their voices from screaming, I skyped with Stephen for a little bit and that's it. And NOW I'm headed to bed. Long day. Whew!

Monday

2011-03-07T19:48:00.000-04:00

Hello all! As promised, the beginning of a week of diary-type entries to give a look at what I actually do.

Today was actually relatively uneventful as days go here. I got up at 7:00am, had a cup of coffee for breakfast, changed, made my bed, and helped my host parents get all the baby's stuff together to we could take him to the neighbors before we all headed off to work.

As my host family was running late, I left without them this morning and took the bus by myself. Traffic was light and nobody said boo to me on the bus, which was also unusual. I transferred to a taxi at Independence Park, where the three founders of the country are buried. Again, smooth sailing, no traffic. I did make the taxi driver drop me early. He was doing something I didn't like, but I can't remember what it is now...I think he was just talking to me more than I was comfortable with.

Arriving an hour early at the Institute is one of my favorite things to do. It's located in a really upscale area of town, so people don't harass me quite as much when I'm walking around. On Monday and Friday mornings I teach a class of women who are learning from zero. It's nice to have a clean slate to work with which is actually nice and different from the university. There is one woman who won't take what I say at face value. She's always questioning the rules of English grammar as though they have meanings and I'm purposely trying to confuse them.

After class I skipped out on lunch (cilantro rice. not my fave) and walked down the hill 4 blocks to the university. Being the true city dweller that I am, I stopped at a doughnut place to grab a sugar doughnut and some pear juice (I'm becoming a creature of habit). The ladies who work at the doughnut store are starting to get to know me a little bit and they actually gave me a doughnut for free today. Then I tried to go to the bank but the line would have taken me half an hour to wait in so I gave up.

Class at the university was from 1-5. Another cherry on my day was the my class unexpectedly had computer lab for two hours, so I got paid to sit in the air-conditioned computer room and write lesson plans for the rest of the week. Class ended at 5 and I walked south to where the road meets the sea, caught a cab to the colonial zone, and there grabbed a bus for home.

Back my my neighborhood, I grabbed a cup of ice cream from the corner store on my way home (25 pesos - less than a dollar!) and came home to find my host mom unpacking groceries (yeeess). Now I'm just sitting on my bed getting things ready for tomorrow and hoping to talk to my friend on Skype tonight.

And that's Monday!

Higuey

2011-03-06T23:43:00.000-04:00

I had about 6 photos selected to upload to kick-start the week in a colorful way, but they take about 5 minutes each to load and it's already 11:30, so bedtime is looking really good. Here's a sneak-peak at my trip to Higuey, a city in the easternmost province of Altagracia.

Below: Out the bus window on the way there. I KNEW there was some greenery somewhere in this country!

Below: The parish priest holding my baby host brother, Dylan. Please note the Rodriguez onesie. (Note to all anti-Yankees fans: I have begged. I have pleaded. I've bribed, but they still love the Yankees and they keep having Dylan wear this outfit. My next line of attack is to hide the darn thing.)

Below: Standing on the front steps of the church of Our Lady of Altagracia, this is what you see. Collegiate kids will remember that I am in love with palm trees.

Please know that the novelty of my situation is still not lost on me. While I'm feeling more at home, I am still in awe of 500-year-old churches. I still stop to stand and stare at the sea when I walk past a stretch of it on my way to catch a taxi home. An 86-degree day during the first week of March is NOT something to take for granted. The honeymoon phase may be wearing off, but I'm still appreciative of my situation. Worry not!

can we pretend that airplanes in the night sky are like shooting stars?

2011-03-05T22:29:00.001-04:00

Oddly, one of the most comforting things to me is seeing those little red lights on top of radio towers and tall buildings. Apparently these lights are universal, because when I look out my window every night before I go to bed, I can see these lights blinking off in the distance, and I remember that there's an airport nearby that takes people to places I'm familiar with near to people I know. It makes me a little less lonely.

Every morning when I get up I look out the same window and I can see the mountains in the distance. I've tried taking pictures of them from the roof, but really the photos don't do them justice. They're much more imposing in person (insert not-so-subtle hint that everyone should come to visit). You can stand on my roof and see the barrio with a hundred homemade kites bouncing in the sky, but when you see the mountains you remember that all of this: the tin roofs, the kites, the dogs barking, the airplane lights, it's all just kid stuff in comparison.

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This coming week, I'm going to attempt to keep a journal-style blog. What I've been doing is just writing whatever I happen to be thinking about most that day, but for the next week I want to write about what I do every day. As no two days are the same, I'm sure this could be interesting.

Each entry that I post will be pertaining to the day before, since I'm not that on top of things (teaching 8 hours of class at 3 different levels 5 days a week is a little draining to my brain's language filter haha). That being said, Sunday will be a day off. I'm going to Higuey (see Google maps for help locating this one).
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P.S. - Tomorrow I will have been here for two months.

micropost

2011-03-04T07:02:00.002-04:00

Good morning! Today I've got a micropost (teeny tiny post) for you.

Quick micropost background info: the word seguro in Spanish can mean 2 things:

Safe
Surely/for sure

Other thing you need to know:

The National Police instituted a "Safe Neighborhood" program, kind of like a neighborhood watch. In every neighborhood (and they all have names) there is a sign that says "[insert name of neighborhood] barrio seguro" ("safe neighborhood")

I do not live in the most dangerous neighborhood in Santo Domingo, but I ride through it every day when I come home from work. It's called Capotillo and it's infamous. The driver always makes a stop in Capotillo and it happens to be just near one of those signs the police put up. The driver always first reads the sign "Capotillo: Barrio Seguro". He then always adds: "...seguro que van a matarte." (For sure they're going to kill you.) The bus always erupts in laughter.

It's funnier if you speak Spanish. Have a good weekend!

riot police and leftovers.

2011-03-03T07:08:00.000-04:00

So yesterday I experienced my first UASD (the UASD is the university I work at. In Spanish, it's called La universidad autonima de Santo Domingo, thus the abbreviation) strike. In English when we say "strike" we normally mean the absence of action. If teachers go on "strike" it means that they just don't show up to work. Maybe they'll demonstrate but it's usually pretty G-rated. Here, the word strike goes hand-in-hand with another phrase: hacer política. It's translated, literally, to do politics. What it means is something a little stronger and more violent.

I was walking down the street from my stop to the university when I noticed the road was closed. No biggie, it happens all the time. Then a bus pulls up and 15 riot police pile out. I was scared silly. Let me be clear: if you're not doing anything wrong, the riot police will not hurt you. They're better paid and better trained than the normal police, and the police generally tend to steer clear of attacking college students. (Aside: In the past, there was a dictator here that would send the police to campus and have all dissident students shot. From the end of his administration, the police are not allowed to set foot on campus except for extreme situations.) Therefore, the riot police (as opposed to the general neighborhood cops) are not to be feared for their behavior, but they are damn scary to look at. I don't know if you've ever stood next to a foreign cop in riot gear - black uniform, full mask, automatic weapon - but I imagine it would make anybody a little nervous. And they weren't just patrolling and chatting, they were ready.

Now that I look back on it, it doesn't seem like that big of a deal. Apparently it wasn't even students who were protesting today. Sometimes politicians hire people by the hour to head to campus and throw a fit, cause a scene, and disrupt classes. I guess that's what happened this morning.

------------------------------------------------------------

In other news, I stopped someplace for lunch today and sat down with a piece of lasagna, a little doughnut, and a juice box in this place near campus. Not too long after, people from the street (that is to say, street people) started coming in asking for money. This happens a lot. While you're eating, people come in, ask you for money, and then berate you when you don't give them any because you can obviously afford to eat out so you must be either cheap or a bad person to not help them out. They usually lay into me particularly badly because I'm white and must therefore be a millionaire. Sometimes if they look official (like they're asking for money for a cause) I'll give them something, but normally I say no.

Today the usual people came in and asked. As usual, I said no. And as usual, they yelled at me in front of the other customers. (I'm getting used to it. I actually eat here quite a lot. It's very cheap and the lasagna is really good haha.) Then this boy came in. He was, I'm thinking, maybe in his mid-teens. He came over and started to ask me something and I started waving him away till he interrupted me. "No no," he said, "I don't want any money. I just want to know if you're going to finish that." He nodded towards my lasagna.

"Sorry," I said. "I'm hungry too today."

"Okay, thanks." He said. "Sorry to interrupt you."

Soon afterward the worst happened: I got full. And I sat there staring at my leftover lasagna thinking how I cannot throw this away because here was this hungry kid who wasn't asking me for money, he just wanted my food. So I sat and waited. Sometimes these people come back after a while when they think there might be new people inside. It turns out this boy does the same.

When he came back to the door I waved him over.

"Listen," I said, "are you looking for money or food?"

"No money, I'm just hungry."

I pointed towards my lasagna.

"If you want, you can have this," I said. "I'm sorry that it's the leftovers."

I invited him to sit down while he ate my leftover food and we chatted for a few minutes. His name is Victor. He's 15 years old. Not quite homeless but lives in North Santo Domingo (an extremely poor section of town). He goes to school at night and shines shoes during the day. He wanted to know if I live here and what I do. It was time for me to go but I was afraid that if I left him to sit by himself the management would throw him out (they were eyeing him suspiciously from behind the counter). So I waited and we talked. And when he was finished he threw out my tray for me and we walked out the door together and said bye.

And then while I was walking to class the only think I thought of was how ashamed I was. That here's this kid and what do I offer him? My LEFTOVERS. Aaagh. The whole time he was eating, I just wanted to apologize. I should have bought him his OWN lasagna. I should have brought him a napkin and a cup of cold water. I was giving out of my excess, not out of what hurt.

At the youth conference a while back, there was a speaker who suggested that justice is the minimum requirement of love. That true love is giving what's "mine" for someone else, whatever that happens to be for you. I come here like the idealist that I am, thinking I can make a difference on a grand scale and refusing to see, paradoxically, the trees for the forest.

It's individuals I should be concerned about. It shouldn't be "how many people can I help today?" but "how can I help THIS person today?" I should be the least important person in the room. And the least important person does not serve their leftovers to another human. It's like Carol says: If it's not good enough for you it shouldn't be good enough for a poor person either.

Bah, I'm so frustrated by this encounter.

kids say the darndest things.

2011-03-02T21:25:00.000-04:00

Some funny things my students have said in recent days:

"I don't have a barbecue machine." (she didn't know the word 'grill').

Yesterday in class, we were discussing how to say if you like or dislike something. I had each student go around and say something they loved, something they didn't mind, something they couldn't stand, etc. Everything was going smoothly (i.e. "I love ice cream", "I don't mind class", etc), till we got to one kid who said, quite calmly: "I can't stand Chinese people", then turned to the next person like it was the most normal thing in the world.

I stopped the class.
"Hang on, hang on...Why do you dislike Chinese people?"
The kid was unphased.
"Their food is terrible."

Then today I had them talking about extending and accepting/declining invitations. Everyone had to get up and go to every other person in the class and invite them to do something and the other person had to accept or decline the invite. I was walking around listening to everyone when I hear...
"Excuse me?!"
I turn to see a student re-mumbling his question to one of the girls.
"What? No! No, I will not go to the bathroom with you!"
-----------------------------
Oh my gosh, they slay me. Honestly.

27th February

2011-03-01T00:21:00.002-04:00

Hello all! I'm here starting off the week with a photo-filled post. We all know a picture is worth a thousand words, right? Unfortunately the reality is that pictures are often worth 1000 words plus whatever words it takes to describe the picture itself. All of the photos below go with the caption in italics ABOVE it, not below. Also, you can click on these pictures to make them bigger.

Here I've posted some pics from our Independence Day weekend. The strangest thing I've ever seen occurred las night (Sunday). For reasons that nobody can explain to me, Independence Day (which falls on February 27th of every year) is also the day on which Dominican kids dress up like for Halloween. They don't ask for candy or anything, they just get dressed up in costumes and run around the neighborhood like that. My neighbors dressed up like a karate guy and a doctor (complete with blood pressure cuff!). I played the panicked mother.

This photo is of some of the planes from the air force flying in formation over our apartment building. There are some serious perks to living downtown in the capital city. This was one of the cooler ones.

Me, Jonier (the karate guy), Ernesto, and Carol posing on our roof where we were watching the planes and choppers fly by.

I feel that I should explain that we don't normally wear these sparkley cowboy hats, but that they were festive and patriotic.

From RIGHT to LEFT, my host mom Carol, my baby host brother Dylan, and Carol's twin sister Karolina.

odds and ends

2011-02-27T08:37:00.002-04:00

First: Happy Independence Day! Today is 27th February which means that it's Dominican 4th-of-July. Oddly enough (and this is truly odd) we celebrate this like Halloween. People use Independence Day to throw a costume party.

Second: Check out this blog post at our organization's website. We've been making some pretty solid strides, and I'm pleased to present them to you here.

losing yourself

2011-02-27T00:47:00.000-04:00

Living in another country without any other people from your country of origin is the strangest sensation. It's like...like you're losing yourself. You lose little pieces of your identity. Kind of forces you to figure out what your identity is based on and how you're going to base it on things that you can actually take with you from place to place.

People you know are near by way of technology (I will sing the praises of Skype until the end of time), but it creates a strange echo when I end the call. Like a mirage or something.

There comes a point when you don't want to talk to anybody anymore. You don't want to talk in any language because everything is confusing to you no matter what tongue you say it in. After a particularly rough day this week, the only people I wanted to talk to were the other young Americans I know who are living abroad, because even though they're all in different places (New Zealand, the Philippines, Sierra Leone, Mexico...) and even though I don't know all of them very well, I knew they would get it.

Recently I got to Skype with a dear friend who is studying abroad this semester. We spoke for about an hour about bits of news and how she's adjusting (she's only been in the country a couple of weeks) and about some of the struggles we've both been having. At the end of our conversation, I felt like my soul was healed a little bit. For the first time in a while, I didn't want to just dissolve into everything around me. I know that sounds super melodramatic, but it's pretty true.

At first, talking with people from home on a consistent basis is a huge blessing. It's like when people go ice skating for the first time and they hold on to the wall like there's no tomorrow. That's kind of what communication was like for me the first few weeks here: a way of easing in. But after a while, it becomes a struggle to talk to people from home. Every conversation feels superficial even when it's not, because you know that nobody completely understands your situation. There's background information that would give the conversation more meaning, but it's the kind of information that just can't be relayed. No matter how many times you explain it, there are some things that have to be lived.

Race is the most obvious example, so it's the one I'm going to use. Never having lived here, you might be able to picture what it's like to sit down on a bus and have everyone turn around and stare at you like you've got something on your face. Now imagine it happens to you every day. When you're on the bus. When you walk down the street. When you stand in line at the store. When you enter a public restroom. You can picture how weird that would be, right? Now can you picture being used to it to the point that you stare back? Can you picture being able to challenge the gaze of someone who not only turned around to look at you but continues to stare through the entire taxi ride? Can you imagine being able to raise that challenge while still gritting your teeth the whole time because you hate that feeling?

When you don’t look like anybody else, being in a crowd is a strange sensation. It's actually quite lonely.

I mentioned in an earlier post, I think, that sometimes I feel like I'm dreaming. The strangest place for me in the entire city is inside my classroom. Because in the same instant it is the both the most real and most contrived place I know. My students are frank and refreshing. But we're creating a fake little English world in a sea of Spanish speakers and it almost always disorients me when I leave.

a day in the life

2011-02-26T09:12:00.000-04:00

I spend a lot of time on this blog writing about news, or cute babies, or abstract concepts. Today, however, I'm going to tell you what a day in my life is like. This is actually a little difficult because no two days are the same, but here's trying. This is an example day from this past week.

6:30am - alarm goes off. I hit the snooze button (worst invention in history).

6:40am - I actually get up because I remember that it's my turn to make the coffee

7:00am - In the kitchen making coffee and watching the sun come up through the window. Breakfast today is 2 cups of coffee and a cup of applesauce.

8:00am - Unlocking the three locks that stand between me and leaving our 4th-floor apartment , I take off for the day.

8:30am - I'm trying to transfer from a bus to a taxi, but my normal switch-off spot has been overrun by the army because of Independence Day this weekend. I opt for another bus instead, praying that the driver did not lie to me (as they're known to do) when he told me it's going the same direction I'd like to go.

9:05am - I arrive (thankfully) at the language school where I teach in the mornings. Today's commute had a large milestone: the police who guard the hospital parking lot I must walk by on my way through the neighborhood did not whistle at me today. They're finally learning.

10:05am - I've accepted another cup of coffee out of politeness and now I feel super fidgety. Also my 10am class of ritzy Brazilian housewives is late...again.

10:12am - Brazilians are finally here.

12:00noon - Brazilians leave. Time for lunch at the school: looks like pasta again. With...peas?

12:30pm - Leaving the language school, I walk down the hill to the university.

1:00pm - Class starts. Today I'm subbing for a Costa Rican who's sick. They always pick me to sub. I utter an inward groan.

5:00pm - Freedom! I walk 3 blocks south and catch a taxi on the road that runs next to the sea. I'm careful to pick a car that has a syndicate sticker in the window: there have been reports of drivers robbing their clients lately.

5:30pm - After half an hour of the driver simultaneously yelling at everyone he thinks is too slow, but coming to a complete stop for every person who looks like they're even thinking about going for a ride, I make it to Independence Park. I get on the bus.

6:15pm - I finally make it to my stop, but not before the driver and three separate passengers ask me if I'm okay/know where I'm going. After climbing the stairs to our apartment, I spend some quality time playing with my baby host brother.

9:00pm - Dinnertime. Tonight we're having soup - thank goodness it DOESN'T have cilantro this time!

10:00pm - Carol's and my favorite telenovela is on! But I'm not watching tonight because I'm Skyping.

11:00pm - Arranging my things for tomorrow.

12:00am - Goodnight!

Bloomability

2011-02-25T07:37:00.001-04:00

Growing up, my favorite book was Bloomability by Sharon Creech. It's about this 12-year-old girl named Domenica (affectionately called Dinnie) who attends an international boarding school in Switzerland quite close to the Italian border. Her uncle is the headmaster and she lives with him and her aunt in their house. Dinnie, who was not asked if she wanted to attend boarding school in Switzerland, was sent there by her mother, who feared for her future after her older sister had a baby and her older brother ends up in prison.

The book is amazing for a number of reasons, and I wholeheartedly recommend it to people of all ages, but I've been thinking about it a lot lately, because of something that Dinnie says in the midst of one adventure. She and her new friends (an American named Guthrie and a Japanese kid named Keisuke) are headed home from a field trip they took to a castle and she's looking out the window at all the scenery as it passes by.

Dinnie says that everything she sees - the vineyards, the people, the buildings, the streets - is overlaid by this picture she has in her head of things that are almost-but-not-quite the same as her home in the States. This happens to me almost daily, maybe not in reference to places specifically in Erie, but definitely the States in general.

Every time I ride on the street we call the Malecón that runs directly parallel to the sea, I see the Bayfront Parkway, especially because if you hang a right about halfway along the road, you head up a street called Maximo Gomez, which for all intents and purposes is like State Street. Every time I get out of the car to board the bus at el Parque de Independencia I think of waiting for the transfer bus with Ben Willis at Perry Square back in the tenth grade. Tonight I went to the mall for the first time to grab pizza with my friend Mile. Sitting there in the food court eating pizza with corn on top (a Dominican specialty) took me back to Panda Express with Katie, Ashley, and Torrie. While pitching a Book Club idea to the director of the university's English department, I was back standing in front of SGA with LabJenn requesting a thousand-dollar grant for Hatua.

It's amazing how this happens more and more as time goes on. I think when you first come to a new place you're so caught up in the differences that you forget how every place you go is really just a different version of every place you've been before. Because with every passing day, tasks that might seem weird at first glance: hanging laundry out to dry on the roof, taking a frigid shower, trying to figure out how to make a meal out of two slices of bread and one yellow plantain, riding the subway...these things really aren't so new or weird after a while.

There comes a day when you make an important linguistic transition. When "they" becomes "we", when "their problems" become "our problems". When "home" becomes this city and not that one. One day you look around at the 500-year-old buildings and the sea and the palms. You look at the trash and the dirt. You look at the crime and at the missionaries. You look at the Dominicans and the Haitians. You look at the students looking at you. And you realize that you're a part of this place. That you live here. That it's not just fun or vacation, but that now you have a responsibility to this place as you do to the place you're originally from, and that when you leave you're going to take little pieces of this place with you wherever you go for the rest of your life.

American and Dominican things

2011-02-24T07:18:00.000-04:00

In honor of my having been here for almost 2 months, I have compiled the following list of American habits I keep that my host family thinks are funny, and Dominican habits I've acquired that I think are funny.

American things I do:

Eat things like oreos with peanut butter on them, Cup Noodles, and Kellogg's corn flakes
Listen to my ipod every night before bed while snuggling underneath my RA blanket
Use All Small and Mighty detergent because I don't trust the blue powder my host mom uses
Wear my hair pulled back so people will stop shouting "Hey ! Blonde girl!" at me
Speak English to my host brother
Sympathize with the homeless people

Dominican things I do:

Greet everyone with a kiss
Fight with the taxi drivers over how much they should charge me
Say "God willing" after every sentence about the future
Wear long pants even when it's 85 degrees out
Eat plantains like they're going out of style
Stare at other white people like I've never seen them before
Ignore the homeless people whose stories I know, because they can most likely help themselves

call child services! (just kidding)

2011-02-23T08:14:00.000-04:00

I'm totally kidding. But my host mom Carol is always saying that after she sings with my baby host brother Dylan. An example of this not-quite-psychologically-damaging behavior is displayed below.

Things here are interesting as ever. News items as of late include a man murdering his seven-month-pregnant wife and (in an unrelated incident) someone finding an aborted fetus in the street.

I have a couple things to say about this, of course. First, about the murdered woman: the news report says that in her husband's trial, people gave testimony saying that she consistently came to work crying because he was beating her. In a country where everybody knows everything about everybody else and in which it's perfectly acceptable to discipline somebody else's children or yell at somebody else's husband, why didn't anybody do anything about this? Wife-beating is a semi-acceptable practice here. The other day in class, during the same discussion about if it's okay-or-not to lie sometimes, a student said that everybody in her neighborhood knows that her next door neighbor beats his wife every night, but that it's "none of their business" so they turn a blind eye. Till when? Till he kills her?

Secondly, about the fetus. Abortion is illegal here. Like, completely illegal. (So is the death penalty, by the way. The argument in this Catholic nation is that if you can't kill babies you shouldn't be allowed to kill grown-ups either.) So what you get is a lot of illegal abortion clinics or women performing self-abortions, like what probably happened with this person. In the news flash about it, the young lady who found the fetus was shown saying (and I quote) "the person who did this has no soul." What a change from the United States, where the rights of women who want to terminate their pregnancy are defended and pro-lifers are argued down at every turn. The collective mindset here (which is quite different from the U.S.) is revealed in the fact that the national news will show a clip of a person saying that a woman who aborts her fetus is "without a soul".

Wow. Sorry this post took such a dark turn. If you're feeling a little depressed, please re-watch the video of the singing baby. And have a great day!

ha ha very funny.

2011-02-21T23:03:00.000-04:00

My host mom thinks she's a riot.

Tonight, in a moment of stupidity, I walked out of the kitchen and kicked the edge of an old fish tank that we're trying to get rid of (don't ask. It's never housed any fish and I'm not sure why we ever had it to begin with.) and nearly took my little toe off. While I was sitting on the floor with a paper towel wrapped around my foot trying to get it to stop bleeding, Carol comes over.

"Let me see."
I unwrap the paper towel.
"Oh wow! That's incredible!"
I'm confused.
"Really? I didn't think it seemed that ba-"
"Deivy!" Carol waves over my host dad. "Deivy look at her foot! Isn't that amazing? Wow! I never knew!"
Deivy looks about as puzzled as I feel.
"It's just blood, Carol."
"Yeah," Carol's grinning now, "but it's red."

Then she stared at me till I got it. Leave it to Carol to make a joke out of my American blood...which everyone here says is blue.

Like I said. She thinks she's a riot.

the kite runner.

2011-02-20T11:02:00.000-04:00

I took these pictures this morning. They're of my neighbor across the hall. He took advantage of our cool and breezy conditions to fly his kite (in Spanish chichiua, pronounced chee-CHEE-wah) on the roof.

Kite fighting is a big deal here. On any mildly breezy day you can go up to our roof and, looking only in one direction, count about 25 kites bouncing in the sky. For any of you who have read The Kite Runner or seen the movie, the basic rules of kite fighting are pretty simple. You fly your kite and try to use it to cut the string of another person's kite. If their kite falls, you have to send someone to get it (the runner) and if they reach it before anybody else, the fallen kite becomes yours.

Kids here make their kites out of scraps of wood, string, and plastic grocery bags. The best fliers are the ones who have access to the rooftops and practice a lot to learn how to control the direction of their kite in the wind, like my neighbors.

getting happy in the ever after.

2011-02-19T09:39:00.000-04:00

**disclaimer: this was written on Friday night**

I was informed this afternoon by one of my students that she found my blog, so now I have to be careful what I write about them.

I have to say that I really love my students. Really and truly, they're a great bunch. They're always yelling and talking over each other, cracking jokes, and complaining about things like homework and how I charge them 5 pesos every time they use Spanish in class.

They don't know I speak Spanish, so they're constantly "teaching" me new words and then laughing at me when I say them.

They fight when I introduce a discussion topic. On Thursday, the question was "is there ever a time when it's okay to lie?" What started out as a very civilized discussion ended up with everyone shouting at the same time and one kid asking me why Hitler wanted to kill Jews in the first place. My general rule of thumb is: it's okay to argue, as long as you do it in English.

When for homework one night I asked them to write a paragraph about what they think is the biggest problem in their community, I had 17 different responses. There are 20 students in my class and 3 of them said electricity, but every other person had a separate answer.

They have bizarre stereotypes of Americans. One day when we were talking about food, one girl expressed surprise that I wasn't obese because she understood that all Americans were fat. Another day, someone asked me if I was a Mormon because a lot of American Mormons apparently go to Santo Domingo to do their required year of service. They watch Saturday morning cartoons and MTV, so they think the U.S. is all SpongeBob fanatics who live in houses like on Cribs, have children at the age of 16 and eat incredible amounts of fast food.

They're so willing to share about their lives and their country. Sometimes they'll ask me if I've yet been to a certain place or tried a certain kind of food. If I haven't, they will then write me notes to give to my host mom explaining the places she should take me/ food she should feed me.

They hilariously almost-but-not-quite get English expressions. Last week, I had them each write a skit incorporating some of the topics we keep discussing in class over and over. I had quite the range of responses: everything from a radio show in my name (Priestap Radio) to a re-do of Little Red Riding Hood, at the end of which the student reading insisted that everyone in the story "gets happy in the ever after."

My mom sent me a package for Valentine's Day which included a copy of the Sunday comics from the Erie Times. I took it in to class today and made photocopies of the funnier ones. I watched my students huddle in groups and crack up over B.C. and Luann.

This is not to say that they're all great all the time. I have one who flat-out refuses to talk in class. Like, literally will not speak even when I call on him and plead with him and threaten him with participation credit and bribe him with candy. Another student whines about everything. They all grumble about doing homework. Some of the more advanced students complain constantly about having to talk about the same material over and over again, which I always fear will be bad for the psyche of the less-advanced students.

We'll see how I feel about them in a few months, but I seriously could not ask for a cooler group of kids.

the coolest thing.

2011-02-16T22:44:00.000-04:00

My students had their first test last week. All levels in the school had the same exam as they go through the same books at the same time, just at different paces and with different depths. Since I teach the students who scored the highest on the placement exam they did really well overall on this first test.

I did have one student, however, who scored a 44% on the exam. Afterward, I spoke with him about it (in two languages, to be sure he understood) about how he must have an understanding of the language if he was placed in the class, and how I knew he could do it if he really tried, etc. He told me that it's hard for him to commit to learning English when he leaves the classroom and the rest of his world is in Spanish, but that he was really willing to try. He then went to where he normally sits in the back of the classroom, gathered up all his stuff, and arranged everything in an empty seat front-and-center in the classroom. He listened. He asked questions. He tried.

Later in the afternoon, the director of the program called him up to her office. He later told me that she had just wanted to talk to him about his test and to warn him that, on the next one, if he got less than 60% he would lose his scholarship. I asked him if there was anything else. He shook his head.
"No, Teacher."

While signing out at the end of the day, I dropped by the director's office to tell her that I knew she'd spoken with my student and that it seemed like he was really and truly willing to try. Zomnia (that's the director) called me into her office.
"I offered him the opportunity to move down to a lower level. I thought it might be easier for him."
I was surprised. My student had not mentioned this.
"Oh," I said, "Well...that might be good for him..."
Zomnia shook her head.
"He told me that he'd rather stay in a harder level with you for a teacher than move to an easier level with someone else."
...
There are days here when I feel like I'm in a dream. When I just move through the day hoping that nothing bad will happen or when I find myself sitting on a bus or on the subway thinking 'Do I really live here? Is this real?' There are days when I feel like the only person in the world because nobody speaks my language or understands my cultural point of view or is the same color as me. There are days when I just am gritting my teeth and telling myself that it's ok, that I'll be home soon and everything will be fine. Most of the time, I'm trying NOT to be noticed.

But then, every so often, there's a glimmer, a flash in the pan, that makes me want to say to somebody - anybody - "Hey look at this! Look at me!" This was one of those situations. In that moment, this English program stopped feeling like simply the way I'm going to make money while I'm here.

soapbox rant

2011-02-14T20:27:00.001-04:00

Today I'm going to get up on my soapbox.

Think about one of your siblings for a second. Any one of them. (If you don't have siblings, think of your spouse or best friend.) Imagine that your brother or sister suffered a terrible calamity (i.e. their house burned down, they lost their job and can't pay for normal groceries, they are suffering from a terrible illness). Would you not be doing backflips to help out your sibling?

So tell me then, why is it that you are not doing those same backflips to save your brothers and sisters in Christ? Why are we not working to free child sex slaves in Cambodia or 12-year-old soldiers in Uganda? Is it possible that we thought Jesus was kidding when He told us to serve the poor and defend the widow? Is it because we think we don't have enough money to help? (And how many cars do you have in your garage?) Is it because we don't feel that we have personally received the call to serve?

We're each called to lay down our lives for Christ. And this doesn't necessarily have to mean that you must literally die, but that you have to lay down your life. Your way of living.

Justice is the minimum requirement of love. Justice says that everything's fair, that everyone has been given their appropriate portion. But love gives not out of excess, not out of what is "just" or "fair", but out of what belongs to you. Love is sacrificing what is "mine". Your money, your clothes, your personal space, your pride, your life. If Christ told us to "love our neighbor", then we MUST, at the barest minimum be fighting for the just treatment of our brothers and sisters. Love demands that we be wounded somehow for those around us (and we pretty much have to be wounded if we're loving someone, because giving up what you thought was "yours" is always painful).

It's comfortable to have your routine and to be concerned with society's norms or with "what people would think" if you suddenly starting loving others as you love yourself. But imagine how hard you would be fighting for your own life if it were you who was starving to death or had cholera. What if it was your wife? Or your daughter? You might get some strange reactions at first, but if you start living radically for Christ, you won't feel weird for very long. To Christians, living this way should not be weird. It's required.

I would encourage you to read the book of James. It's short - only 5 chapters - but I guarantee that you will be humbled. Also, try Crazy Love by Francis Chan.

Fight for your family. Fight for Christ.

favorite person

2011-02-13T23:07:00.000-04:00

I'm not a big believer in "busy work"-type homework. (Somehow I think that being fresh off of 17 straight years of schooling has created this philosophy.) Because of this, I assign my students a lot of research and writing-type homework. Last week, their assignment was to write about their favorite person in their life. Here is a sampling of the responses I got:

"my favorite person is my dad because from open the eyes he help me to create attitude strong for against my live."

"My favorite person in my life is my father. His name is Andres de las mercedes. He is a humble person. When he was a child, he took care of cows and horses. He had the ability to climb trees and take fruits from it. The more important thing is that he wasn't rich. He had to work really hard to be the man that he actually is. He help the people where he grew up, with their problems. I choose him because of his hard and work confidence in what he do."

"My favorite person is my mom, because she is a fighter. Never complains if you hurt, always doing something, doesn't seem to get tired. To me is my role model because she is always willing to help me, although have a thousand things to do. Faced with problem is strong and knows how to bring the calamity very quiet, is really admirable."

"My mom lives in Spain. She is a good mom because from the beginning, I meant from our born, she know how take care us. She lives in Spain because she go to spain searching a better life for me and my sibling. Actually she work in a restaurant cooking. She is my favorite person and I love her."

Happy Valentine's Day tomorrow!

The Patria Project.

2011-02-12T10:29:00.001-04:00

Instead of posting here today, I invite you to read on the blog for the organization that we're getting started here.

Please follow this link to read there.

Happy Saturday!

an oldie

2011-02-11T20:01:00.000-04:00

It's Friday!!! Thank goodness. So much to do this weekend, but it should be a good one. I'm tired and don't feel much like writing this evening, so this post is an old one. I wrote it while I was still at Grove City, back in December, before graduating.
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They say college is the best four years of your life.

Now, I don’t know how true that is, but I kind of hope it’s wrong, because while college was cool and all, I’m really pulling for better times ahead. But what I will concede is the fact that, while in college, I’ve met the best people I’ll ever meet.

When you think about it, aside from my family of origin and my future spouse, I’ll never spend more time together with people than I have here at school. I’ve spent more time with Jenn Moore than I have probably any other human being apart from my sister. People at school have seen things in me that my blood family has never seen. We’re here all the time – good and bad, ups and downs, stress time and smooth sailing. We celebrate triumphs, commiserate about injustices, work together on projects, hang out on weekends. We cry, we laugh, we comfort each other. We share things like bathrooms and clothes and computers and food and couches and movies. We share conversations at 2am, car rides for Sheetz runs, prayers, and that kind-of-sick feeling you get walking into a final exam.

While you’re at school, the people around you become your family. Really and truly. Really, the college experience, when done right, is a good example of how Christians should live. Everything’s communal, nothing’s “yours”, everyone’s a little uncomfortable , and everybody acknowledges that this isn’t the final destination, but just part of what they want to do with their lives. I’ve been so blessed to have this surrogate family here at school, and they’re so amazing I really should be down on my knees thanking God for them every day I have left here.

I know it’s not possible to keep in touch with everyone who’s important to me, for whatever reason that may be, and while this makes me a little sad, I know I’ll never lose those closest to me.

The strangest thing about being done with school is not that I never “have” to go to class again. It’s not that I’ve lived here for four years and my parents’ house isn’t really “home” anymore. It’s not even losing the carefree college lifestyle. It’s that, while here, Stephen, Jenn Moore, LabJenn, Doengie, Jordan…they’ve been my family – the people here I love the most – and that after this year, none of us has any obligation to each other anymore. Unlike blood relatives, we’re under no obligation to get together for big holidays or kids’ birthdays. After next week, some of the most important people in my life could choose to never speak to me again, and I have no grounds to chastise them for it.

We’re together by choice, not by blood. And this may be romanticizing things a bit, but that makes it even cooler to me.

protests

2011-02-10T22:24:00.000-04:00

People here are big into protesting. Usually they have good reason, but sometimes the university students shut down the university (not kidding) because they're mad at the teachers or the president of the school did something they don't like. Sometimes the protests in my neighborhood are well-organized and thoughtful, and sometimes they're just stupid.

Take Monday night for example. The electricity had been out for more than 20 hours, and everybody's generators were dead, so my neighbors were throwing a violent protest which actually turned out to be quite comical.

They were burning tires, albeit one at a time, in the street. As in, they would take out one tire, set fire to it, wait for it to burn down, and then light up another one. As if this weren't dumb enough, they STARTED the whole operation at 11:30 at night. There was, as I mentioned before, no electricity to see their protest, and obviously the press did not show up to take note. The only thing that was accomplished was that our apartment was filled with smoke.

Next week, we expect to have one day off of class because the university is holding elections for Rector of the school. Normally when these things happen, the students throw a fit and the police show up with tear gas, so they cancel classes to cut down on the number of people on campus. These days are built into our schedule like snow days in the States. We also have hurricane days (again, not kidding).

strange things americans do

2011-02-09T22:34:00.000-04:00

According to Dominicans, it's weird that we will:

Drink room-temperature drinks

Eat cold food
Walk too fast
Want to live abroad
Eat copious amounts of peanut butter (maybe that's just me)
Like to stand
Give poor people stuff we don't want anymore

I want to talk to you a little bit about the last one. Carol used to have this friend from Spain who would send her these boxes of ratty old clothes "to give to the poor". Carol would throw the clothes away and tell her friend to either send nice stuff, or not to send stuff at all. Her friend stopped sending stuff.

Carol says, if it's not good enough for you to use, it's probably not good enough for poor people to use. And what does that tell them? That they're second-class citizens not worthy of items that they can actually use.

As a side note, she is NOT saying that you shouldn't give stuff to poor people. She's saying that the stuff should be usable. Don't give them trash. Dr. Mech used to say in class, "Poor people are not pets." You can't just keep them at an arm's length in some foreign country and throw stuff to them once in a while. They're our brothers and sisters in Christ.

a doozy

2011-02-08T23:54:00.000-04:00

Due to my lack of posts for the past few days (due to a lack of electricity and internet) I have meshed a few days' worth of ramblings to create a monster jumbo-bonus post for you to read. (I know you're excited.)

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Life is basically an adventure here. You're never quite sure how the day will end up, even if you think you know when you start out in the morning. For example, yesterday morning I showed up at the institute but none of my students did.

Then I went to the university and ended up teaching a different class than I normally do - but only for half the period. Then I took a taxi part of the way home, but the traffic was so bad that the driver took a detour through a section of the city I've never seen before. When I finally got home, I found my host mom frantically jumping around her bedroom holding one of my sneakers (she was hunting cockroaches...did you know they can FLY? I sure didn't.).

Today I taught at 10am, 1pm, and 6pm. I walked to McDonalds for dinner. I took a motorcycle half of the way home and a little bus/van the other half. Three blocks from my house, they made everybody get off the bus and get on to another bus. I'm still not sure why they did this. Upon arriving home, I discovered an apologetic host mom: they finally got a dresser for my room (which means that, for the first time in over a month, my clothes are NOT sitting in my suitcase) and was apologizing because before thinking about how I might feel about her going through my stuff (I couldn't care less) she unpacked all of my things...before realizing that the paint inside the drawers was still wet. She told me all this while I was holding my four-month-old baby host brother, who promptly threw up all over my work clothes. He had just been drinking red juice.

[A NOTE about the detour the taxi driver took: So we're on this detour and it's through a very very nice section of town. We're passing this incredibly beautiful office building when I notice the sign out front: World Vision. Huh? World Vision? In the middle of a ritzy neighborhood? Can't be! This is my thinking until we pass an even NICER office building on the next block: Doctors Without Boarders. You're kidding me, right? You're putting NGOs that help the poorest of the poor in the nicest neighborhoods in the city? I MUST be missing something.]

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While I really like my students, my fellow teachers are a little harder to live with. As of now, at the university, there are two Americans, one Nigerian, and about two dozen Dominicans teaching. Most of the Dominican teachers are - surprisingly - men. They all have an excellent handle on the language and can carry out even the most complicated, slang-filled conversations with the greatest of ease. The problem is that every one of these guys feels the need to fill these otherwise great conversations with an uncomfortable amount of profanity and sexual innuendo. And when I withdraw from the conversation it's not because they're being offensive, but because I'm "being such an American".

In addition, today (It's still Friday as I'm writing this) they talked at length about how love doesn't exist, how marriage as an institution is a joke, and how they don't believe in Jesus. I'm really struggling with what to do for a number of reasons:

First, the university is a public institution, and while Catholicism is the official religion of the government, I'm not sure how it would go over if I went all "preachy" on them.

Secondly, I have to work with these guys through till the last week of November. If I make enemies now, I'm stuck with them for the next 10 months. On the other hand, if I say nothing right now, then they can steamroller me for the better part of a year.

Third, Americans are often stereotyped here as cold and unfriendly, something that my coworkers are quick to point out about their travels to the U.S. When I don't laugh at their jokes or a say that I'm not interested in their conversation, it's just adding fuel to the fire.

Lastly, Dominican culture is very assertive. If I tell these guys my opinion, it means I'm looking for at most a fight, at the very least a long but civil discussion about why I disagree. Now my normal temper situation basically means that I wanted to tear them to pieces about their subject matter today, but I was stopped short by uncertainty of how to handle the social dynamic of the moment.

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Before you read this part, please Google a picture of the flag of the Dominican Republic. (This is the fun, interactive portion of the blog.) What's most interesting about it is the fact that it displays a white cross, representing the cross of Christ (something that's a source of great pride for many Dominicans). Additionally, the book lying open in the middle is the Bible. According to the speaker I recently heard lecturing on the history and symbolism of the Dominican flag, the Bible is open to John 8:32, which reads:

"Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."

Apparently this particular flag is the only one in the world that contains such an explicit reference to Christianity.

The slogan on the flag reads, from left to right, "Dios Patria Libertad" which means "God, Country, Freedom". Dominicans are quick to explain that all three of these are intertwined, but that God must always be part of the equation.

Patria is a particularly complicated concept which means not just "country" in the sense of "geographical nation" but also contains the idea of "fatherland". One day during the youth conference, we split into small groups to discuss the slogan on the Dominican flag (which was interesting for me, because I'm not Dominican).

[Interesting side note: What are you supposed to do when a different country's national anthem is playing? When they played the Dominican anthem, I stood. But I didn't put my hand over my heart and I obviously didn't know any of the words. Also, there's a rule here (whether it's just unspoken or it's a literal rule I have yet to figure out) that you NEVER applaud after the national anthem finishes. Very strange coming from a culture where the first thing you usually hear following this words "home of the brave" is a loud cheer (normally followed by the words "play ball" haha).]

Anyway, when we got to the concept of Patria, the group leader asked me what the word Patria meant to me, as a concept in my own country. I was stumped. I'm not kidding. My answer to this leader was that, in my particular experience of American culture, Patria is not a concept we own. The first Europeans in America were fleeing persecution. The first Africans in America were brought there forcibly. The first Asians went looking for better work. And the Native Americans lost their sense of fatherland because we jacked it from them and allotted them reservations. Our forefathers basically sat down and said: "Ok, we're going to be a new country. This is what we're going to be like." There are no true "American" traditions. Or food (McDonalds, maybe?). Jazz music might be considered "American" music.

Even the fact that we call ourselves a 'melting pot' illustrates the fact that we take pride in NOT having an identity. We like to be the same, and we're really careful not to point out differences in religion, race, etc. We do not have patria.

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There were a lot of things we talked about at the youth conference that I didn't get to really think through yet, so I'm going to be posting a series of blog entries about these things in order to get them all out of my system.

During one lecture, Deivy gave a very nice talk about how we are always postponing happiness.

"After I graduate."

"Once I'm married."

"As soon as I get promoted."

As Christians, he argues, we are obligated to realize that every moment we live is a moment created for serving God, and that it's offensive to Him if we keep putting it off until WE think we're worthy or prepared.

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During a break in the conference, Carol took me across campus to meet the woman who's in charge of running programs at the school (for you GCC people, she's the UASD equivalent to Patty Priester), and her office is housed in the School of Social Work. It was neat to see inside another place on campus (the campus is huge, and I don't just go wandering through all the buildings). We were talking to this woman at length about a number of different things. She knows basically everybody and everything on campus, and if you want to get something to happen, she's your lady. I think she could be a great asset to the Patria Project when we get further down the road, so here's to networking!

But we were talking and she made a comment to Carol that I'm very guapa. Guapa literally translates as "pretty" or "good looking", but here it has a double meaning. When a girl is guapa it means that they can handle themselves, that they don't take anyone's crap, that they are quick to defend themselves and everyone around them. Carol didn't say if this word is usually used as a compliment or not (I couldn't tell by the way the lady said it), but she seemed to like me anyways, so I was fairly pleased.

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It occurred to me during one lecture when I was sitting in a sea of Dominicans and they were reading curiously over my shoulders (I was taking notes in English), that all growing up and in high school I was always jealous of the foreigners and the exchange students. They knew something I didn't. And I had this really proud moment where I realized that it's me now who's that person. And then I had this really panicky moment where I remembered how much I used to watch those kids to see what they did and how they acted.

The hardest thing for me here is that I can never ever relax. I do not mean that I don't have down time (I love the beach in February and I'm not ashamed of it!). What I mean is that, literally, someone is always watching me. I like living in the city because I like being surrounded by people. I liked living in a dorm for the same reason. Although they can be noisy and although not all of them are super friendly, there are always people you can count on. To me, it's just comforting to know that people are around. At Grove City College, it's easy to disappear. To fold yourself up into the sea of faces and just...float. Here, I stick out like a sore thumb. I MUST behave myself at all times in a manner that I would want reflected on my religion, my family, my university, and my country. For some of my students, I am the only American they have ever met. That's a huge responsibility!

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I like to walk at night. (don't worry Mom, not alone…) I like walking at night because I am less noticeable. At least not right away. When I'm walking with Deivy to La Plaza del Pollo to pick up dinner and it's past 7pm and it's pitch dark because the power is out, this is my favorite time to walk. There are times when I like to be different because it allows me to get things done. But sometimes I like to watch people without them watching me back, and this I can do at night.

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During another lecture at the conference, the speaker told the story of the Good Samaritan. It was an unusual telling because the person who had been robbed was a Dominican. The first person who passed by was the Cardinal of the Archdiocese. The second passerby was President Fernandez. And the Good Samaritan was a Haitian. This tells you something about how Dominicans feel about Haitians.

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Ok, that's all I've got for you (I can hear you all breathing a sigh of relief). Have a lovely evening and a great Wednesday tomorrow. Love to all!

kaitlin's words

2011-02-05T23:42:00.000-04:00

A dear friend of mine is currently serving with the Peace Corps in the Philippines. She also keeps a blog, and while she doesn't post to it as often as I do, her entries are a lot more thought-filled and poignant than mine are. After chatting with her on Facebook this evening about the similarities and differences in our experiences, I checked up on her blog, and sure enough there was a lovely post.

While I have different feelings about her religious points, her words in this post resonate with me deeply. I feel the same way about a lot of my time here. I would encourage you to read her post.

strange habits (Vol V)

2011-02-04T23:56:00.000-04:00

Complicated Rules About Water Usage

There are a lot of rules around here regarding water usage. I've already elaborated on the bizarre linkage between electricity and water in this neighborhood, but there are other rules that exist and don't really make sense.

According to my host parents, you can wash dishes, bathe, cook, and brush your teeth with the water from the sink, but you should never under any circumstances drink a glass of it. You should drink water from the carboys of water that you can buy at a corner store that specializes in purified water (see photo). A slightly less sanitary way to get this purified water is to wait for the water truck to come around. Picture a big gas tanker, only filled with purified water. People will take their empty carboys down to the street and fill them up from a giant hose that runs out of the truck.

Sounds simple enough, right? Don't drink the tap water, DO drink the carboy water. Only there's an exception: never under any circumstances should a baby or small child drink the water from the carboy. You have to boil it first. I wasn't sure how I feel about this contradiction, and I'm still uneasy. Luckily I have my sweet UV water purifier that I've been using to clean my drinking water. And I definitely don't brush my teeth from the tap.

Oh, and to change the subject, here's a copy of the certificate I received for completing the youth conference. Somewhere in East Asia, Chanisa is breathing a sigh of relief. :)

video post

2011-02-03T22:55:00.000-04:00

Here I am trying something new: a video post!

What a LONG day today. But a good one. I worked at the institute, at the university, and again at the institute. I finally buckled under the pressure of hunger and succumbed to the call of American fast food when I stopped at McDonalds for dinner tonight (and yes, the food is the same: cheeseburger, fries, Coke, etc). AND I had an interesting commute home, on the back of a friend's motorcycle. Carol has warned me against riding on the back of peoples' motorcycles, but this was a friend and the motorcycle only went like 15 miles an hour (it was very old), and it was either that or walk home in the dark.

It was so beautiful to ride downtown at night on the motorcycle, going past the President's residence and that national theater. So cool.

carnaval

2011-02-02T20:42:00.000-04:00

While Carnaval is celebrated like Mardi Gras in the rest of the sane world, here in the Dominican Republic we do it up big time. For basically the entire month of February, the beer company Presidente sponsors parades, dancing, and just general debauchery. My host parents are generally pretty well set against it, as it always culminates in the last week of February and this is normally during Lent (although this year it's different). They have said, however, that despite their dislike of the festivities, it's something that must be experienced while living here.

From what I can gather, it's like a giant circus on wheels. The parades run through the Malechon (Santo Domingo's equivalent to the Bayfront Parkway, for those of you Erie readers) and feature traditional dancers from every province. It's hosted separately in each city. Here is a YouTube video for a Carnaval advertisement last year that shows a couple of celebrations.

So far, my favorite thing about Carnaval is the hilarious TV commercials that have been running here. Click HERE to see an example. It's more hilarious if you understand what the people are saying, but suffice it to say that they're just talking about normal everyday things while dancing like crazy Carnaval people. Here is another.

Oh, and Happy Groundhog Day! I heard Phil did NOT see his shadow, something I don't EVER remember happening.

house tour: living room

2011-02-01T20:05:00.000-04:00

As it's February, I've decided to change things up a bit on the blog layout. Pink swirls are SO last month. :) Here are some interesting newsy updates:

Tomorrow is Groundhog Day, and I cannot wait to try and explain this most bizarre of holidays to my class.

Today in my ritzy upscale Brazilian class, one of my students informed the class that her husband works in Haiti, with a large microfinancing institution. I told her that I'm very interested in Haiti and we spoke at length about how she used to live there, how her children went to high school there, etc. After class, she mentioned to me that she and a few other of the Brazilian wives were planning to go to Haiti for one weekend next month and invited me to go along. Now, I'm not sure that I'll do this, but I do know that she was serious and that it would probably be the safest way to go: with someone who has lived there in the past. I'd really like to visit Haiti while I'm here (I almost HAVE to, living just 3 hours away) so I'm going to look into this opportunity.

I'm trying this new thing here where I do not stay up till all hours writing lesson plans and reading Dominican newspapers, so this post is short and sweet. We're continuing our house tour (apartment tour, as it were) with my living room and dining room. It's easy to fit this into a 30-second video because they're the same room.

Finally, Carol wasn't kidding when she told me that I would have no shortage of job offers when I got here. As of this evening, I've been offered work totaling about 12 hours a day. Payment offers have varied from $6.00 and hour (what I make at the university) to the barter system (i.e. "I'll cook you lunch for free if you teach me English.") to much more lucrative things. I'm working only 6 hours a day (from 10am to 5pm with an hour for lunch) but with transit I'm usually gone from the house from 8:30am till 6:30pm. Anyway, it's interesting that so many people want English lessons - you could actually do pretty well for yourself here if you wanted.

like high school musical.

2011-01-31T23:36:00.000-04:00

Leave it to my Dominican brothers and sisters in Christ to break into choreographed song-and-dance in the middle of a youth conference. Living here is a little like living in the midst of High School Musical. You're never sure what's going to happen, but it's probably going to involve loud noise of some kind and will DEFINITELY involve music and/or dancing. This video is of some of the young people during one of the conference lectures. I was amazed.

In other news, teaching is going well. I have two different teaching jobs - one at the university and one at a private institute. What a difference in students! My students at the institute are a half-dozen Brazilian wives whose husbands work in the country and who make enough money to not work at all. They tell me that the reason they want to learn English is because they're bored sitting at home all the time. They're taking class two times a week for two hours each time.

My university students are all on scholarship and all want to learn English because it will help them get better jobs/ be more marketable. They have class for four hours daily, five days a week, from January through Thanksgiving week. They are not allowed to miss more than 8 class hours in a month or they are automatically eliminated from the program. If they're more than 15 minutes late to class, it counts as an hour lost. The dedication level here is amazing.

lios and lifehouse

2011-01-30T16:48:00.000-04:00

Rubbernecking.

My host mom and I are watching our favorite telenovela (that is, Argentinian soap opera) on TV when she suddenly mutes it. I'm not good enough at Spanish yet that I can watch TV in the language and listen to what people are yelling about outside, so I didn't hear what was going on. Carol jumps up from the couch and runs for her flip flops.

"Where are you going?" I ask, bewildered.

"Up!" She says. "There's a lío!"

Two things need explaining here. First, we live on the top floor of the apartment building which means that, by unspoken rule, the roof belongs to us. Secondly, lío is my second-favorite Spanish word (for your information ya is my first-favorite, but that's another story). Lío can mean a bunch of things, but it normally describes a mess of some kind. If you spent all day cooking and your kitchen is a mess, it applies. If you have a million things on your to-do list, it applies. If there's a big mix-up in the street, or a fight, or the police are coming, it applies. Carol was referring to the last thing on the list. Thirdly (sorry, make that three things that need explaining), Dominicans have to be the world's worst rubber-neckers.

So we run up to the roof and look all around below and wait. Nothing. The shouting dies down. Nobody's around. And Carol's response to this?

"No lío! And we came all the way up here for nothing! They're not even fighting! What a waste of time!"

Typically Dominican: if I'm going to go out of my way to watch a fight, it had better actually happen.

Lifehouse video.

They played another great video at the conference today. I've seen this before (compliments of Jenn Moore), but it's a very powerful skit. I recommend everyone see it. Here's the link to the YouTube video.

youth conference.

2011-01-29T22:02:00.000-04:00

Interesting things, in order of how interesting they actually are:

Cholera.

While the rest of the world is on high alert, the Dominican Republic, which happens to actually share an isolated piece of land with the country that started it all, doesn't appear to care at all about the disease. According to an article posted on BBC's website on January 23rd (so not too long ago), there have been over 200,000 Haitians infected with cholera and about 4,000 cholera deaths in Haiti. At last count, there have been about 300 people infected in the Dominican Republic and the first death was recorded this month (although there is some dispute about prior deaths). Personally, I feel that this difference in infection rate speaks volumes about the sanitation systems of the two countries. Namely, we actually HAVE one.

The big news this week was that close to 40 people contracted cholera here at a ritzy party and took it home to their prospective countries: Venezuela and (I think) Boston, USA. This is a big joke here now, because it was rich people who got the disease, and they got it from eating undercooked lobster. It's a joke because basically the poor can't afford the foods that are making people sick. And we have plumbing in our house and buy bottled water. So unless there's some huge huge mix-up with the water system here, poor people are not the ones who are going to get the disease. We can't afford fresh seafood. And we never buy/eat pre-sliced fruit or fruit that doesn't have a skin. And the rule of thumb is that you never ever buy food from street vendors. You can buy sliced pineapple from the supermarket, but not from a guy with a pineapple cart.

Interesting ad.

All this weekend, I've been at a youth conference for the Archdiocese of Santo Domingo. (Please keep in mind that we're talking about the European concept of "youth" here, not the American concept. Here, "youth" means 15-30 years old.) Today, they showed this commercial as part of a lecture. I thought it was very powerful, so here's a link to the YouTube video of it.

Thoughts from the youth conference.

Today at the conference, one of the speakers was a representative of the DNCD (La dirección nacional de control de drogas) the drug-control agency here. Amongst other interesting things, she informed us that roughly 35% of Dominican youth are involved in drug trafficking. Over ONE-THIRD of Dominican young people are part of the drug trade economy. Unbelievable, until you consider that the fast money you can make dealing drugs is pretty alluring to people who grew up in poverty.

Another speaker talked about how there's a lack of joy and spirituality in Europe and the U.S. and how Europeans and Americans, when they come to visit here, go home with a profound sense of Christ. What's interesting to me about this is that I've observed this while I've been here, and the groups from Grove City that have visited here can attest to this fact as well. It's interesting because not only do Dominicans KNOW this, but it's a point of great pride for them as a people: that rich people come here seeking something they don't have in their own countries.

Also, I have to say that I've now been here long enough where I've begun to miss things. Not in a painful kind of way, so it's difficult to explain. Example: I really like the music here. It's upbeat and fun. Pretty much all merengue or something similar. But today in the conference they played an American worship song and I thought, 'Wow. I miss worship before chapel at Grove City.' It was a very relaxing moment for me - for the first time in 22 days I wasn't tensed up, waiting for something weird or new to happen. It's comforting to know that even if everything else changes, God is the same in the whole world, and He ALWAYS understands me when I talk to Him.

Danger! Peligro!

2011-01-27T20:45:00.000-04:00

It's difficult to live in this society without feeling like a paranoid crazy person. You have to assume some level of risk/danger every time you leave the house, basically.

Someone may or may not steal your purse.

You may or may not get hit by one of the maniacs driving around the city.

It's possible that you will get cholera from eating/drinking something somebody gives you.

There may or may not be some kind of an incident that sends you to the hospital, where you might not be able to pay for the care you receive.

Recently, one of my prayer requests on this blog was that I would be able to walk the line between caution and paranoia. It's possible that every single person on the street could be out to do you harm, but it's really not likely. It's possible that if you draw too much attention to yourself someone will try to rob you, but really, that could happen anywhere. What's important is to keep your fear in check.

In other news:

Class is going well. I have a newfound respect for education majors, as writing lesson plans for 4 hours of class time is no easy feat, and my students actually know quite a bit of English already. Tomorrow will be the last day of mixed-level classes as they'll be divided by level starting on Monday and we'll FINALLY be allowed to use the text books in class.

feelings.

2011-01-25T21:42:00.000-04:00

If you're reading this, you may or may not know that my favorite movie is Blood Diamond. It's a story about the civil war in Sierra Leone in the 90s and this South African diamond smuggler/mercenary named Archer. Throughout the course of the movie he's joined on his quest by an American journalist named Maddie who tries to figure out what makes Archer tick. During a particularly emotional moment, Maddie starts telling Archer about her father, who was also a soldier. Archer starts smirking.

"What?" says Maddie.

Archer shrugs and wipes his mouth on his sleeve.

"You Americans love to talk about your feelings."

Now, I've seen this movie umpteen times, and I always wondered at this part. Archer is a pretty offensive character, and you basically have to accept that about him if you're going to enjoy the movie at all, but I always get a little miffed when he says this.

Until recently. Recently means about three days ago. I was feeling frustrated and sorry for myself because I'm not able to express myself very easily in Spanish. At this point, I can read Spanish at the level of an educated native speaker, and I can write it nearly as well, but as pretty much all high school and college Spanish classes are reading-and-writing based, I actually have a ton of trouble forming coherent sentences with any kind of fluency.

So I was feeling frustrated and homesick and sorry for myself, and I was upset that I didn't have enough vocabulary to tell somebody here that I was feeling that way, when, for some reason, Archer's words came to mind.

"You Americans love to talk about your feelings."

One of the most bizarre cultural differences about this place is that it's a culture of action. Now, as Americans, we think that WE'RE the culture of action and people in countries like the Dominican Republic have cultures of laziness and procrastination. I can't argue that this is totally untrue, and that's what makes it so bizarre. It's difficult to put into words, but if you think about the number of times in a day you tell somebody you're tired or have so much work to do or some other kind of common complaint or how a situation made you feel sad or upset or embarrassed versus the number of times you tell somebody some kind of action you took or how you fixed the problem, you'll start to see my point.

Here, you don't tell everybody how tired you are. You just go ahead and take a nap. You don't complain that you're being treated unfairly. You go to a higher-up and tell them the problem. People don't whine here (which is impressive considering how many things they could legitimately whine about). So while it seems that they're a bunch of procrastinators, they're actually just super efficient because they spend a lot less time talking about how they feel about something and just buckling down and fixing it instead.

It's a culture of action, and on top of that, people get embarrassed when you ask them how they feel about something. This morning, for example, my host mom had a job interview with this really important news agency. While we were getting ready to go I asked her if she was excited or nervous. After looking at me like I was a crazy person she responded that she hadn't really thought about it, then quickly changed the subject.

I suppose that in spite of all the BAD habits I could pick up here (putting things off, insisting that everything will work out all the time, letting other people pay for everything out of the unbelievable sense of hospitality displayed here), one thing that could be really useful is a lot less talking and a lot more doing. And seeing as I literally have no way of expressing my feelings to people around me, it's looking like I'm on the right track.