Wow, it's hard to believe that we're almost finished with January, I feel as if this month has just flown by! What have I been doing? Well, that's a good question, because thinking back, I can’t think of what, but I have been busy! A lot of my time recently has been taken up with meetings--meetings with the “Junta de Vecinos” (Literally translated—Neighborhood Group, but basically the group that takes care of community infrastructure, sanitation, etc); meetings with my youth group, and then the small group of leaders within that group; organizing discussions for teenagers with our local doctor; meeting with our “health promoters” and an outside NGO that wants to do a nutrition program for children, etc.. etc.. etc...
But with all these meetings, I still don't have much to report, many things, such as my youth group, are just beginning, so things are going slowly—I'm just excited that we have elected a president, vice-president, secretary and treasurer!
Since there is so much, yet so little, to report right now, I'm going to instead focus on something that I haven’t talked about much: day-to-day life here. First off, electicity: I had mentioned a while ago that our electricity is not always reliable, but it is supposed to have a schedule—it's usually on from 10am to 2 pm, and then returns around 7 pm and goes out sometime in the early morning. Every night when the electricity comes on everyone in the community cheers, and every day at 10 when the electricity comes on about half of the community turns on their music full blast while other half turns on their TVs to start watching the telenovelas.
The water here is also come and go—my host family has a spout in the back of their house and when there is water we fill up lots of large buckets and during the day we use the water in those buckets to bathe, wash the dishes, wash clothes, etc... My host family has a latrine out in the back of their house as well as a private area made out of tin and wood where we bathe. The house itself is considered a normal house around here—it has a cement floor and is made of tin and wood. It is obviously not impermeable to mice, rats or big bugs, but it's comfortable enough. My host mother and I have our own rooms, while the brother and two youngest sisters share a room. The oldest sleeps in the barracks next to our house.
And now, the other part of daily living: food. We eat similar foods just about every day, so here, for example is what I ate today and yesterday:
Breakfast: Fried green plaintains (green on the outside, meaning they are not sweet) with fried salami,
Yesterday: a soup of noodles with garlic
Lunch: Chicken fried in seasoning with onions and garlic, rice with peas cooked with onions, garlic, salt, bullion and oil,
Yesterday: rice cooked with beans and onion, garlic, salt, etc, and boiled eggplant cooked with plenty of seasonings.
Dinner: Boiled yucca and fried egg,
Yesterday: a bowl of cream of corn flour (pretty similar to cream of wheat).
During the day when we're lucky we also have plenty of fruit: bananas, oranges, sometimes papaya, etc.
As you'll notice, vegetables are a bit lacking in my diet, mainly because here in the community noone sells or grows things like carrots, tomatoes or lettuce (the two vegetables that you do see here are squash and eggplant) but when I go into the bigger town nearby I usually try to buy some kind of vegetable.
Soon I will be moving out of my host family's house and will be living basically on my own, but I am going to continue eating lunch frequently with my host family because, even though I would have never believed this four months ago, I have come to like eating rice every single day and I know I cannot prepare the rice like my host family can!
Friday, January 23, 2009
Sunday, January 11, 2009
My host mother preparing the chicken for Christmas.
This is a picture of one of the baseball teams with their "Madrina" (literally translated, godmother) on the opening day of the tournament.
This is one of my favorite people in the batey-an older man who eats with us, has taught me some Kreyol and brings us yummy things from his garden like peas and bananas! It just so happened I caught him when he was wearing this funny hat one night.
Pictures!
Here's some recent pictures I've taken, three of them are of the baseball tournament that the kids in my community organized--notice the cows in the background! The picture of the three girls are three of my neighbors, and the two girls on top are my two youngest host sisters.
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
January 1st, 2009--New Year´s!
Well my Christmas might have been a little more mellow that I had expected, but my New Year's was certainly satisfying! The festivities started around 8pm when a group of neighbors made a bonfire in a tire in a field in the center of town. A small group sat around with music blasting, and I went and visited them and tried to take some pictures of the bonfire and the people there and those passing by. I then went down to the Evangelical church where they were having a service until midnight. There was plenty of singing and praying there. At 11 I went up to the Catholic Church where there was a mass being performed by a member of the community who is currently enrolled in the seminary. We prayed, sang, gave thanks, discussed what we wanted in the New Year, and at about 15 minutes till midnight everybody started to sing. The atmosphere was very upbeat and at midnight everybody sang loudly, hugged each other and danced around—even my host mother and some other older ladies were jumping up and down and dancing!
After midnight I headed down to the third evangelical church where both evangelical congregations and gathered to wish each other Happy New Year's. I went down and greeted them all and then the kids gathered in the back of one of the churches where they too had a bonfire going. That night they were doing a type of Secret Santa gift exchange (although, to give you an idea of the differences between here and the US, here the cost of the gift was supposed to be about 2 US dollars). After everyone settled down they started the exchange, and every person who was giving someone else a present had to present it—most people made a little, funny speech and then sang a song, which was fun, but some got even more creative and rapped or sang some kind of reggaeton-type song and danced around. Needless to say, it was a lot of fun to watch!
On New Year's day I headed to the nearest beach (which is about an hour away) to meet some fellow volunteers who had spent New Year's eve there. It was, of course, very relaxing and gorgeous. I came back to my community only to be invited to yet another church celebration where another gift exchange was taking place. This celebration was more like a normal church service, but the highlight was when four seven-year olds did their first “pantomima” (a kind of pantomime/interpretive dance the evangelical girls do to Christian music) and then when that same group of seven year olds got up and sang accompanied on the drums by a two year old who actually did a great job on his little toy drum!
After midnight I headed down to the third evangelical church where both evangelical congregations and gathered to wish each other Happy New Year's. I went down and greeted them all and then the kids gathered in the back of one of the churches where they too had a bonfire going. That night they were doing a type of Secret Santa gift exchange (although, to give you an idea of the differences between here and the US, here the cost of the gift was supposed to be about 2 US dollars). After everyone settled down they started the exchange, and every person who was giving someone else a present had to present it—most people made a little, funny speech and then sang a song, which was fun, but some got even more creative and rapped or sang some kind of reggaeton-type song and danced around. Needless to say, it was a lot of fun to watch!
On New Year's day I headed to the nearest beach (which is about an hour away) to meet some fellow volunteers who had spent New Year's eve there. It was, of course, very relaxing and gorgeous. I came back to my community only to be invited to yet another church celebration where another gift exchange was taking place. This celebration was more like a normal church service, but the highlight was when four seven-year olds did their first “pantomima” (a kind of pantomime/interpretive dance the evangelical girls do to Christian music) and then when that same group of seven year olds got up and sang accompanied on the drums by a two year old who actually did a great job on his little toy drum!
Sunday, December 28, 2008
December 25th, 2008—A Las Pajas Christmas
Well Merry Christmas everyone! The Christmas celebration I had here was certainly different from what most of you might have done for the holiday, but it was fun and interesting nonetheless. Here in the DR people celebrate Christmas Eve moreso than Christmas day. The day was spent preparing food and cleaning the house for the dinner that would take place that night. At five I went to the Catholic mass (surprisingly, none of the other churches were having events on Christmas Eve). There weren't a whole lot of people who attended—many people were busy catching up with family members who had come back to the community to visit for the holidays, but the mass was nice nonetheless; we prayed, sang, and sang some more.
Upon returning I stopped by the "community oven" which is located in a community leader's backyard and was the spot where everyone was baking their chickens (most people here do not have ovens, so they paid a small fee to pay for gas to use the community oven on Christmas). We picked up our chicken and went back home. The electricity hadn't come on yet so we decided to wait until it came on to eat, however by 730 it still hadn't come on so we decided to eat anyways. We had baked chicken, bread, a salad of beets, eggs, potatoes and carrots, and spaghetti. That night was pretty mellow; once the electricity came back on my host family put on a movie and I went to visit the Canadian nuns and a few family members who were visiting them. We ended up going back into the church to look at the small Christmas tree that was lit up and we sang a few Christmas Carols (in French and Spanish) to make it feel a little more like Christmas.
Christmas day was a day of rest—all night people had been playing loud music and partying, and at 430 am the Catholic church had a service that mainly consisted of singing. Since I couldn't sleep with all the music anyway, a few of my host family members and I went up there to sing. We sang, drank ginger tea and had some Christmas candies. I returned home to sleep some more and spend the day visiting with people. The rest of the day was pretty mellow—Christmas day isn't really a day when people get presents (the kids got presents for the “Dia del nino”--day of the child, that were donated by a Canadian organization) but they do get new clothes—all the children that are enrolled in what I call the “church school” and have foreign sponsors get a check to go to a certain store and buy a new set of clothes. In the afternoon everyone dressed up in their new clothes and paraded around, and when the kids got tired and went back home, the adults went out to celebrate in the discos.
Christmas night I went and sat with some of the “jovenes” (teens) that were not out in their new clothes because many of them could not afford them, or they did not want to go to the bars with the other jovenes. Instead, they were sitting in a circle with a drum, an empty paint can and a couple other makeshift instruments and they were singing, rapping and joking around. They sang their Evangelical songs, but also made up raps about the “Americana”(that would be me), and invited me to sing (I sang “Jingle Bells” for them). At times half the circle was laughing hysterically because of some rap one of the kids was singing or the way they were dancing. That might have been the best part of my day; seeing that these kids, though they have very little, can be incredibly creative and enjoy themselves as much, if not more, than anyone else.
Upon returning I stopped by the "community oven" which is located in a community leader's backyard and was the spot where everyone was baking their chickens (most people here do not have ovens, so they paid a small fee to pay for gas to use the community oven on Christmas). We picked up our chicken and went back home. The electricity hadn't come on yet so we decided to wait until it came on to eat, however by 730 it still hadn't come on so we decided to eat anyways. We had baked chicken, bread, a salad of beets, eggs, potatoes and carrots, and spaghetti. That night was pretty mellow; once the electricity came back on my host family put on a movie and I went to visit the Canadian nuns and a few family members who were visiting them. We ended up going back into the church to look at the small Christmas tree that was lit up and we sang a few Christmas Carols (in French and Spanish) to make it feel a little more like Christmas.
Christmas day was a day of rest—all night people had been playing loud music and partying, and at 430 am the Catholic church had a service that mainly consisted of singing. Since I couldn't sleep with all the music anyway, a few of my host family members and I went up there to sing. We sang, drank ginger tea and had some Christmas candies. I returned home to sleep some more and spend the day visiting with people. The rest of the day was pretty mellow—Christmas day isn't really a day when people get presents (the kids got presents for the “Dia del nino”--day of the child, that were donated by a Canadian organization) but they do get new clothes—all the children that are enrolled in what I call the “church school” and have foreign sponsors get a check to go to a certain store and buy a new set of clothes. In the afternoon everyone dressed up in their new clothes and paraded around, and when the kids got tired and went back home, the adults went out to celebrate in the discos.
Christmas night I went and sat with some of the “jovenes” (teens) that were not out in their new clothes because many of them could not afford them, or they did not want to go to the bars with the other jovenes. Instead, they were sitting in a circle with a drum, an empty paint can and a couple other makeshift instruments and they were singing, rapping and joking around. They sang their Evangelical songs, but also made up raps about the “Americana”(that would be me), and invited me to sing (I sang “Jingle Bells” for them). At times half the circle was laughing hysterically because of some rap one of the kids was singing or the way they were dancing. That might have been the best part of my day; seeing that these kids, though they have very little, can be incredibly creative and enjoy themselves as much, if not more, than anyone else.
Saturday, December 13, 2008
December 12th, 2008--Just workin
My life lately has been a mixture of formal work in the school and after school programs as well as lots of informal work, such as getting to know people and identifying areas in the community that need to be strengthened. I continue teaching PE classes which exhausts me every time (these kids have a lot of energy and little discipline) and I have also taught some English classes to 7th and 6th graders. The government says that starting in 6th grade the kids must learn English, however the teachers at the school right now were trained to teach a specific subject in the high school and so they never learned English and cannot teach it very well. I am trying my best to teach the kids the basics, but there is very little time in the day to teach them.
I have also filled in every once in a while at the after school program and continue meeting with youth twice a week to plan events and organize “charlas” or “talks”. I had discussed with the boys organizing a baseball tournament, because in past years the older boys always played a tournament that lasted several weekends in December and January, but in the past couple years no one has taken the leadership of it and last year the tournament didn't happen at all. With a little guidance from me, the boys planned what they needed to do in order to begin the tournament (the most work was cutting all the grass that had grown on the baseball field—the boys probably put in 15 hours cutting the grass with machetes) and by the time I had returned from Thanksgiving the tournament had been planned and they played that Saturday for the first time. I was so happy to see them organizing it almost completely by themselves, all they needed was a little help from me to begin with, but then they took off! They have three teams that play two games every weekend, and they are keeping some stats and at the end the winning team with receive a trophy and the most valuable player will receive a medal.
The after school program funded by foreign donors also organized a volleyball team for the girls in the community, and I am serving as referee when the girls play. The games, though there are no lines and a very low net, get very heated, yesterday I had 4 girls screaming at the top of their lungs at me and each other about a call I made. Luckily they forget about it quickly and move on to the next point where they are cheering because they won.
Informally I have spent time getting to know more people and learning a little bit of Kreyol. Also, because it is the end of the semester a lot of the high schoolers are studying for exams or filling out take home exams that I have been helping with. I am beginning to understand why people put their kids in private schools if they can here, because there is very little support and instruction in the public schools. For example, the kids are supposed to learn English in school, but the professor gives them very little instruction and then a difficult take home exam. A lot of these kids have come to me to have me fill out the take home exam because they have absolutely no idea how to do it. Another thing; the kids have to pay for the take home exam (30 pesos each, about a dollar) which they can basically have anybody (such as a native English speaker) fill out, while the kids who do not pay have to take a monitored exam during the school day. This kind of system makes me very greatful for how demanding and dedicated my teachers were in the US!
The next couple weeks involve a trip to the beach to relax a little, and then lots and lots of Christmas activities (the public school, after school program and the church school are all making food and giving gifts to the kids)!
I have also filled in every once in a while at the after school program and continue meeting with youth twice a week to plan events and organize “charlas” or “talks”. I had discussed with the boys organizing a baseball tournament, because in past years the older boys always played a tournament that lasted several weekends in December and January, but in the past couple years no one has taken the leadership of it and last year the tournament didn't happen at all. With a little guidance from me, the boys planned what they needed to do in order to begin the tournament (the most work was cutting all the grass that had grown on the baseball field—the boys probably put in 15 hours cutting the grass with machetes) and by the time I had returned from Thanksgiving the tournament had been planned and they played that Saturday for the first time. I was so happy to see them organizing it almost completely by themselves, all they needed was a little help from me to begin with, but then they took off! They have three teams that play two games every weekend, and they are keeping some stats and at the end the winning team with receive a trophy and the most valuable player will receive a medal.
The after school program funded by foreign donors also organized a volleyball team for the girls in the community, and I am serving as referee when the girls play. The games, though there are no lines and a very low net, get very heated, yesterday I had 4 girls screaming at the top of their lungs at me and each other about a call I made. Luckily they forget about it quickly and move on to the next point where they are cheering because they won.
Informally I have spent time getting to know more people and learning a little bit of Kreyol. Also, because it is the end of the semester a lot of the high schoolers are studying for exams or filling out take home exams that I have been helping with. I am beginning to understand why people put their kids in private schools if they can here, because there is very little support and instruction in the public schools. For example, the kids are supposed to learn English in school, but the professor gives them very little instruction and then a difficult take home exam. A lot of these kids have come to me to have me fill out the take home exam because they have absolutely no idea how to do it. Another thing; the kids have to pay for the take home exam (30 pesos each, about a dollar) which they can basically have anybody (such as a native English speaker) fill out, while the kids who do not pay have to take a monitored exam during the school day. This kind of system makes me very greatful for how demanding and dedicated my teachers were in the US!
The next couple weeks involve a trip to the beach to relax a little, and then lots and lots of Christmas activities (the public school, after school program and the church school are all making food and giving gifts to the kids)!
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