August: The last week I took a few days off for a personal vacation before school got started up. I tried to relax but for doing so I got a lovely cold that left me hacking up phlegm for the next few days.
September:
Volunteer Visit: From Sept 1st to 4th we got our trainee visits. Remember this time last year when I went to go visit Laura a volunteer up in Baoba? Yep, well this time I am the volunteer that a scared trainee gets to visit, only 1.5 weeks in country and there they are traveling alone to our sites. And my trainee wasn’t scared, or at least I don’t think she was, but might have been after she left with all of my crazy stories. Haha. The first night that Rosa was here, 2 tarantulas tried to get in my house, but luckily Fancis and Ruben killed them with my broom (I have no shame I jumped on my bed, because I didn’t know where they were, it was dark and there was no electricity.) Then it was soooooooo hot that night that neither of us slept, my fan didn’t help at all. The next day Angela and her visit, and Zach and his visit came over for lunch and I made a Locrio (chicken and rice), and I don’t even know how many pop bottles we went through. I gave them all a tour of the Batey before sending them on their way. Saturday, I finally had the English class graduation. The girls helped me clean the school, and put up decorations. Then when it came time to actually have the graduation, only half of them showed up and about an hour and a half late. (I also tried to make no-bake cookies again, but the chocolate that I used was bad and hardened too quickly). After the graduation we headed over to Zach’s where 9 of us stayed and we taught the kids how to dance.
Fishing: After months and months of being promised to go fishing. I was finally granted the experience of Dominican fishing – with a small harpoon. We left at 8am and were out until 3pm without any lunch. It was an interesting experience, I don’t know what would make that fishing experience more successful, maybe if they used nets, or bate…? They also caught fresh water crabs, and crayfish/crawfish/crawdads. At 3 I had to teach kids to make bracelets and then after 5 I went down to the house and they taught me how to cook fish with coco and to cook the crabs. It was delicious and I even got to take the leftovers for lunch the next day.
MOSCTHA Canadian: Marie, a worker for MOSCTHA had been coming once every week this summer to work with the Women’s Group here. But there was a month where the organization’s transportation would not allow for her to come, so she spent a week in the community. It was wonderful having her here, our only language in common was Spanish (because she is from Quebec). I helped her with some of her activities, and she helped lead the morning exercises. Then one of the nights we made French fries (out of batatas – sweet potatoes) and put cheese and amazing Canadian gravy on them.
There was also committee weekend, where all the volunteers got together. And the Monday after that I had my 1 year checkup. All is good, no cavities!
October:
Sancocho: I was invited to have lunch at one of my teacher’s houses Oct 1st. We made a Sancocho (stew with lots of stuff in it) and arepa (dense, moist cornbread). It was a lot of fun and I ate way too much. That night I shared the leftover Sancocho with my host family and the arepa with the old men who live in the barracks with me. When I went to each of them with a plate of arepa they all asked me how much it costs. Silly, I am your neighbor it is free. They were very happy and so was I. The next day one of my old men brought me a stick of sugarcane that was over 6 feet tall to say thank you for the arepa. I split it with some of my boys, because I ate too much and got a stomach ache.
Intercambio: Oct 2, Alicia brought over her girl’s group to have an interchange with my girls here. We played a ton of games, and gave them snacks and pop. Her girls loved it and mine are asking me when they get to go to Don Juan. But first they have to start meeting and form their own girl’s group…which hasn’t happened yet.
Volunteer visit: Once the trainees found out where they would be going to live for the next 2 years, the 4 going to bateys came to stay with us again (because we are the closest ones to the training site). It was only an overnight stay, but it is always great to have visitors and Nichole and I got a long very well. I had to send her to Angela’s site the next morning because I was getting a free ride to the capital to pick up some books (to find out more wait for the Library section).
My neighbors are back! Which means I won’t be so lonely anymore, but also that the puppies can no longer hangout in my house, because of the little children and puppy diseases.
Fights: My two boys that I took to Camp Superman this summer just got in a huge fight at the school. Rancel came out of it with a puffed up eye. He then escaped from his house with a slingshot and a rock and it Ruben above the eyebrow from about 3 feet away. Ruben started bleeding and passed out; they took him to the hospital to get stitches. Both of Ruben’s parents weren’t home at the time because they are both working in the Capital, but other family members started yelling at the family of Rnacel blaming them. Machetes came out but it was all just yelling from end of the barracks to the other. Needless to say I went back to my house (I was sitting with grandma, but didn’t want to get involved).
General activities:
Art class: August and September I started teaching my kids how to make friendship bracelets in an art class, and we have been stuck on them for months. Hopefully soon we can move on to other things, but they don’t seem to want to.
Literacy: This year my main focus is literacy in the school. I have a list of 33 students who do not know how to read from grades 2 to 5 (ages 7 to 15). I work with a book and workbooks (each kid has their own) that were made by Peace Corps Volunteers. Also in my free time I make a lot of didactic materials (the kids love the games and the hands on activities, because all they get in school is “copy this down”). I started by getting a list of the kids who didn’t know how to read or read very well from the teachers (there are still more, but I can’t handle more than what I have right now). Then I did a diagnostic of each child individually, by seeing how far they could read in the book. Then split them into groups based on gender and grade and reading level, so I have some groups of 3 and some working individually. I meet twice a week with each child, work allowing, and they all seem to enjoy it. I do to, but I get exhausted.
Teachers in the States are way underpaid.
Library: I am also trying to build a library at the school. Well there is a library there, but there are not any books, and it is located in a division of a classroom, so it is noisy and small (see photos on fb). I have sent out a few letters requesting book donations and have already received 3 small boxes of books from the Franklin Center (part of the US Embassy). To pick them up, I got a free ride with one of my teachers and her husband, because they needed to go to the capital to pick up some medical results. I got to hang out in the clinic with her, and even sit with her and the doctor as the discussed them (something completely different from the secrecy of our US culture). Then we went to the office and picked up the books and came home. I am also in the process of working on a grant to get donations for building a separate building for the library (see photos of the location on fb too).
Construye Tus Sueños: Throughout the summer I taught a business course called Construye Tus Sueños (build your dreams). I started out with 12 students and ended up with 1who completed the course and wrote the actual business plan. My student’s name is Arismendi. His idea for a business is an Internet Center because there are none in our area and it costs too much for students or anyone to go and come back to Yamasa. His plan ended up being about 29 pages long (in Spanish, with correct budgets and everything). We submitted the plan and waited to see if it got accepted to the Construye Tus Sueños conference. And it did!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We made corrections, resubmitted it and worked on a presentation.
Oct 14-16: Construye Tus Sueños Competition: On the way to the Capital we met some of Phil’s youth (a former volunteer in Yamasa) who were also going to the competition and who were friends of Arismendi. It was good to have traveling companions. The first day was filled with activities. Then Saturday morning started the competition. There were 24 plans accepted in total so they were split up into 4 rooms for round 1. I was soo nervous for Arismendi before the presententation, but he did great! I am so proud of him. Unfortunately, his plan didn’t make it into the second round in the afternoon. Eight of the plans got to compete in a final round infront of everyone (about 100 people). There were 4 winners who received all of the money that they asked for to start their businesses (from 60,000 to 13,000 pesos RD). One of the winners was one of Phil’s kids from Yamasa, who has an appliance repair shop and wants to turn it into a school too, his name is Nicolas. About 2 months ago Nicolas was a victim of delinquency in the community of Cercavillos (a part of Yamasa where he lives). He had lent his car to a friend who is a policeman doing undercover work. One day Nicolas was driving his car and some of the delinquents (drug dealers) thought that he was the police man, so they followed him and attacked him in his car with a machete. Trying to protect himself, he got both of his arms cut and a leg. It has been said that they had to take his arms to the hospital in ice…yep it was that bad. He was in casts for a while and in the national news paper. Now he is able to use his left arm/hand and his right arm he is still doing therapy, but will regain full motion soon. There are some nasty scars.
Anyway, Arismendi is very motivated from his experience at the conference and is now going to look for other opportunities to start up his internet center. Of course I will be helping him along the way of writing letters and getting in contact of other organizations. Yey motivation!
