Una vuelta a casa agridulce/A bittersweet homecoming

Greetings, dear reader, from mi querido país (my beloved country), the U S of A! I returned home late last night with, as this blog title suggests, severely mixed feelings. On the one hand, I was and am incredibly excited to be back with my immediate family, with reunions scheduled with both my extended families later this month. I am happy to be reunited with modern plumbing, fresh raspberries, adjustable temperature showers, drinkable tap water, 24/7 electricity and many other conveniences. On the other hand, I have heartstrings reaching several thousand miles to the Caribbean and my beloved adoptive country. My last few days in the country presented Kirsten-as-emotional-basketcase. I tried to memorize the curves in the highway going through my province, a highway I can be reasonably assured will still not be fully paved when I visit the DR in the future (what with those reliably unreliable politicians and their abandoned public works projects). I tried to memorize the taste of criollo food and the contours in the faces of those I have grown to know and love. And I cried a lot. On the last day of class. On my last ride to the capital (46 passengers on a bus with 33 seats). In the airport. On the plane, at takeoff and landing for each of three flights. All these tears, of course, are testament to the weight and magnificence of my year's experience in the Dominican Republic. As nice as it is to be home, I now feel the need to use air quotes, because I have established a second home and inserted myself into a second family (two, actually) in Neyba. I do not expect to glide smoothly back into my old life (whatever that means). There is such thing as reverse culture shock, and it is my goal to write reflections about this at regular intervals throughout my re-integration process. So stay tuned, dear reader, and saludos until next time!

~Kirsten

A Well-Timed Graduation Celebration

Hello dear reader:

It's been awhile since I last checked in, and a lot has happened between then and now. Most notably among the many events was the surprise last-minute graduation dinner that my students organized for Thanksgiving night. Of course the big event proceeded on "Dominican time"...meaning we started an hour-and-a-half late. Below are some pictures of my students and myself, both from the last day of class and at the dinner itself. I'm also gonna toot my own horn a little bit and add in the short speech I gave, in Spanish and English, at the ceremony. Here goes:

Me with my afternoon class on the last day. I cried like a baby.

With some handsome afternoon students.

My afternoon class in their finest dress clothes!

Yohanna and myself. According to my students, I "clean up" well!

Yuneika and myself



AND THE BIG SPEECH:
Buenas noches a todos y a todas. Para los que no me conocen, déjame introducirme. Soy Kirsten DeJarlais, y he tenido el gran privilegio enseñar a los jóvenes que se ven aquí sentados durante esos 9 meses. No cabe duda que hay que dar las gracias al nuestro diputado, el licenciado Rafael Mendez, por haber gestionado este curso de Inglés por Inmersión aquí en Neyba. Esta noche me toca también agradecer al Señor Mendez en una manera más personal: él ha sido como mi padre dominicano. Me dio la bienvenida cuando llegue a este pueblo humilde sin conocer a nadie, y también hospedó mis padres "gringos" cuando me vinieron a visitar. Así que Papí, de todo corazón, gracias. Debo también agradecer a la gente de Visión Mundial, quienes aguantaron nuestra bulla y a veces nuestro reguero a lo largo del año, y quienes también estaban dispuestos a ayudarme en cualquier momento. Muchísimas gracias. Y por último, una pequeña anécdota. El día de la selección de los estudiantes para el curso. Uds. recuerdan muy bien este día, ¿verdad? Qué tan sorprendida me sentía al estar invitado sentarme en la mesa del honor, y estar tratado como una persona famosa sin haberlo merecido todavía. Por mi parte recuerdo muy bien la alegría en las caras de los seleccionados--60 jóvenes que llegue a conocer muy bien durante el año. Para los seleccionados era como si hubieran ganado la lotería. Y yo pensando como una buena dominicana, "pero ven acá: ¿Qué vaina es esta?" ¿Saben por qué? Porque hoy, que viene siendo el Día de Acción de Gracias en los Estados Unidos, me di cuenta una cosa: no fueron Uds. que ganaron la lotería. Fui yo. Claro está que una maestra aprende tanto de sus alumnos que los alumnos de la maestra. Y he aprendido muchísimo de Uds. Hemos compartido risa y lágrimas, un chin de disparate y, sobre todo, amistad y compañerismo. Uds. me aceptaron con los brazos abiertos y hemos creado una verdadera familia. Que sigamos haciendo buenos recuerdos esta noche, y que quedemos con estos recuerdos para siempre. Por mi parte nunca les voy a olvidar. De todo corazón, gracias.

Good evening to all. For those few who don't know me, allow me to introduce myself. I'm Kirsten DeJarlais, and I have had the immense privilege of teaching the 42 students you see seated before you during the past 9 months. There is no doubt that, first and foremost, I owe a great thanks to our congressman, Mr. Rafael Mendez, for his work in bringing the English Immersion course here to Neyba. Tonight it also falls upon me to thank Mr. Mendez in a more personal way: he has acted as my father here in the Dominican Republic, welcoming me warmly when I first arrived to this humble town without knowing anybody and hosting my "gringo" parents when they came to visit me. So Dad, from the bottom of my heart, thank you. I should also thank everyone at World Vision (the NGO that hosted the course), who put up with our noisiness and occasional messes throughout the year, and who were always available to help me out with whatever I needed, with requests both big and small. Thank you so much. And lastly, a little anecdote. Selection Day for the would-be students of the English Immersion course. You all remember that day very well, no? How surprised I was to be invited to sit at the table of honor, to be treated like a celebrity without having earned the moniker. I still remember the delight in the faces of the students selected for the course: it was as if they had won the lottery. And I thought, like a true Dominican: C'mon now, what the heck is going on?! Do you know why? Because today, which is Thanksgiving Day in the United States, I realized something profound. It wasn't you guys who won the lottery; it was me. It is a truism that a teacher learns as much from her students as the students from their teacher. And I've learned so much from you all throughout the year. We have shared laughter and tears, a bit of drama and, above all, friendship and camaraderie. You accepted me with open arms, and we have created a true family. Let's continue making memories together tonight, and let's be sure to treasure those memories for years to come. For my part, I will never forget you. From the bottom of my heart, thank you.

And to end this novelesque blog I link you, dear reader, to some precious videos courtesy of one of my students. Proof positive of the ups and downs we shared throughout the school year, as well as some of my crazy antics on display. HERE you will find the year-in-recap video and HERE you'll find the proof that I cried like a baby on the last day. Enjoy!

Saludos until next time, where I will grace you with stories of my Dominican travels.

~Kirsten

Añoranza y desesperanza

Dear reader:

This is how I normally feel by the time Friday rolls around...

My apologies, once again, for waiting so long between posts. Between my teaching responsibilities and graduate school applications (teaser alert for Kirsten's future!), I've had little time to sit and process what's new and noteworthy in my life. I guess the biggest change would be me signing on to teach a group of 12-18 youngsters English for three hours each Saturday. To be honest, I've come to regret doing this a bit because, although the kiddos are adorable and have boundless energy, my Saturdays were originally set aside as a day of relaxation and recuperation. (As a side note/reminder: I live with a Seventh-Day Adventist family, so Saturdays are treated as their Sabbath Day. No meat, no labor, no going out. I usually only fulfill two-thirds of these requirements :) Lesson learned: I cannot just blindly sign on to every opportunity that comes my way without first considering how said opportunity will impact my overall well-being. For instance, bringing hula hoops into an enclosed space (especially a holy space) ended up not being the best idea. My mistake was leaving some of the children unsupervised, with hula hoops, while I escorted one of the munchkins to the bathroom. By the time I returned, the rest of the kids had almost upturned the glass altar--I had to catch it before it fell! To make a long story short, I have a lot to learn when it comes to educating and entertaining children. These 5 weeks of experience (so far) have assured me that although I want to pursue the teaching path, I am meant to work with adults! If I can cajole the kids into sitting still for at least a bit next Saturday, I'll try and take some pictures and upload to a later post.

Exhibit A in how NOT to teach!

Now to the "añoranza y desesperanza" part of my blog. I bet you non-Spanish-speaking readers were wondering what that meant, right? Answer: homesickness and despair. These last few weeks of class have been a drag on both my students and myself. I attribute it to the psychology of disappointment: classes were supposed to end on November 14th (last Friday), but the Ministry of Education changed course at the last moment (as they have done, exasperatingly, with SO MANY things throughout the year!) and tagged two more weeks on to the end of the course. I have been struggling to spice up my lesson plans with the 2 terrible textbooks we were given--one meant to teach the language of telephoning and the other a business book that was published in the 80s. Both are hardly relevant to my students. With that in mind, I've been stretching my creativity to try and incorporate games and sneaky grammar review into each class so that nobody ends up bored out of their minds. The results have been mixed: some students respond positively to the more kinesthetic learning and competitive games. Some, which remind me of my self, were and continue to be content to sit and absorb difficult grammar day after day. I have learned that I will never be able to please everyone, all the time...and though this is hard for me to accept, it is the only thing that keeps my teaching self-esteem intact and saves me from  "desesperanza" or despair.

My attitude toward the Dominican Ministry of Ed

As for homesickness? I'm torn and conflicted. On the one hand, there are so many things I miss about my home and country (regular electricity being only the simplest of these). On the other hand, I will have a really hard time saying goodbye to all of the wonderful people I have met here--my two families, my 42 students, and the countless others along the way who have welcomed me with open arms and been eager to learn "su chin de inglés" (their little bit of English). As it so happens, I may not even make my students' graduation ceremony due to yet another colossal miscommunication between the Ministry of Education and the Dominican president. One would assume that if there was a graduation ceremony involving 12,000 students from around the country, said ceremony would have a set date established well in advance...right? Wrong! Not in the DR. Two months ago the teachers in my program received a "set the date" email saying that graduation would be on November 30th, and those of us from the United States bought plane tickets based on that information. As part of our contract, the Ministry of Education is to reimburse those return flights. So I figure in some travel time and buy my ticket for December 10th. All settled! Again, WRONG. At the last minute the Ministry of Education changed the course schedule, adding two weeks and moving graduation first to December 5th (still okay with me) and then December 12th (uh-oh!) because of some "inconveniences" with the president's schedule. Although this cluster-bomb of a schedule is the Ministry's fault, the representatives I have talked to refuse to take responsibility and it is on my dime that I would have to pay to change my flight. Of course I am not going to do so out of principle. There are further exasperating details of this saga but I will not bore you, dear reader. Suffice it to say that "cogí un pique" (I've had enough of) the Ministry of Education and their blundering bureaucracy. 

By my next post I will have finished teaching, (hopefully) have solidified the details of my travel plans, and have more personal pictures instead of stock Google images (however humorous and relevant).

Until next time, dear reader, saludos.

~Kirsten

Photo-Bombed!

Hello, dear reader(s)!

While I tend to disagree with this sentiment being the linguaphile that I am, I realize that most people buy into the saying that a picture is worth a thousand words. So without further ado, and keeping the words to a minimum, here is a photo-shoot highlight of a recent trip I took with students to Barahona.

I was instructed to select the top third of my two classes and prepare them for an oral exam that may or may not determine their futures (teachers in the Dominican Republic receive lifetime appointments). The results are in: 9 of my 15 students passed the exam (a higher pass rate than in some provinces), and 4 "sobresalieron" (stood out) enough to be selected to go to Santo Domingo and take a more difficult exam to become *my* replacement in the English Immersion program next year. Suffice it to say that this teacher/mother hen is positively weepy with pride.

The elation on my face?-The one-month countdown to homecoming!

I've been notably elusive about my boyfriend. Here we are together...

Some of my crazy students enjoying a "pit stop" at the beach.

Two of my afternoon students, Yuneika and Abril

It's almost predictable, isn't it...a van breakdown in a developing country?!

Looking like congressmen and -women, ready for their first interview :)

Saludos,

~Kirsten

P.S.-next time there will be more words, I promise...

Listicle

Hello, dear reader! Seeing as my time in the Dominican Republic is drawing to a close (I've got less than 2 months to go), I thought I'd reflect a little bit on things I will and will not miss. Without further ado...

5 Things I'll Miss the Most:
1. The people. Warm, outgoing, and refreshingly sincere, the Dominicans I have met have, without exception, wiggled (or, to be more culturally appropriate), bachata-ed their way into my heart. I will forever remember and be grateful for the two families that not only housed and fed me, but offered their compassion in times of need and lent an understanding ear on days I needed to vent.
2. The comforting digestive regularity of a plateful of rice and beans. You'd think that eating the same thing every day for lunch would get tiresome, but I find myself craving the uniquely-seasoned national dish after 4 hours of teaching each morning.
3. The convenience of walking to work. Of walking everywhere, really.
4. Being conversant in Spanish. I rarely get my "language fix" in the States, so leaving this behind will be a real bummer.
5. Teaching. In spite of the many frustrations that come along with the job, the ability to impart life lessons along with the curriculum, to be invited over to dinner at my students' houses, and the fact that I have created such close bonds with students will all be things that I miss. Of course, I could make teaching into a career path, which is something I have seriously considered. Only time will tell...


5 Things I'll Miss the Least:
1. Washing my underwear in the sink. 'Nuff said.
2. Having to throw toilet paper in the garbage rather than flushing it.
3. "Pitos" and "piropos" (hisses, whistles and catcalls). I'm over it all.
4. Not having the keys to my own house. In the States, we place a premium on freedom. Here, on the other hand, the premium is placed on security or having everyone arrive home at around the same time. Because the locks are not your standard American affair (the doors are secured with padlocks) it has happened that I have been locked both IN and OUT of the house on several occasions. Usually this has to do with a miscommunication or the fact that I'm a sneaky little mouse :-)
5. Machismo in general. (See #3)

5 Things I Can't Wait to Come Home To:
1. My family (and new puppy!) Even though I have been lovingly adopted, it's not the same...
2. Fresh berries. Considering the fact that I live on a tropical island, fresh fruit is rarely served at mealtime. Instead it is blended together with condensed milk or whole milk powder to make a batido or smoothie. Tasty, but not the healthiest thing in the world.
3. My car. While my "hometown" of Neyba is small enough not to warrant having a vehicle, I do miss the simple freedom of being able to go out of town. I was too scared to invest in a motorcycle during my time here, so my travels have been quite limited.
4. Peanut butter. I read an excellent opinion piece (okay, confession: it was a picture post on Facebook) that said "If someone ever tells you you're putting too much peanut butter on your bread, stop talking to them: you don't need that kind of negativity in your life." Word.
5. Libraries and nature. I have definitely been deprived of both during my stay here. Books and the outdoors are things that I took for granted back "home" and the absence of both has really thrown into relief what kind of person I am (duh! Bookworm!) and the type of place I need to live in (one with ample green space and opportunities for peaceful outdoor recreation and reflection).

Well there you have it, folks! My very own listicle. I hope this is cause for you to reflect on your own lives and priorities as well. It is easier to do from another culture, but I believe that we all need to step back every once in a  while and take stock of our lives, appreciating the good and reconciling with the less pleasant aspects. So...happy reflecting. And I can't wait to see all of you in T-minus 57 days!

Stuck in flux

the year 2014...a ticking anomaly

Either from the height of arrogance or the depths of my own desperation I begin, dear reader, with a quote from my own journal: "I want to stop thinking of my time in the Dominican Republic as some sort of expendable commodity, a year bracketed off from the rest of my life where the normal rules don't apply." In the narrative arc we all try to make of our own lives, my year 2014 appears with a big red asterisk. (Like this --------------->)
Living as if the normal rules don't apply might sound liberating at first: take risks! Love more deeply! Embark on adventures! Carpe diem and all that. And, in part, this liberating aspect of "anything goes" has been true of my Dominican experience. I have made faster friendships here than is typical of my reserved, skeptical self. (A task made easy when casual conversation with Dominicans can include literally anything: a male student of mine unabashedly told me of his troubles at home getting his wife pregnant due to a low sperm count). In following with the general warmth and closeness of Dominican culture I am now more liable to hug a stranger...and more liable to shed tears of joy and sadness.

The many-hued palate of my emotional experience

This year has
seen me run the full gamut of emotions, from intense loneliness and feelings of isolation, when I subscribe to the belief that no one cares about me, to prolonged states of happiness, where I move and speak more confidently and see the world and my surroundings as beautiful and harmonious. While such emotional disjunction is not atypical for me (I am prone to extremes) it seems more pronounced here in the Dominican Republic because I know that my time here is temporary. There was a period where I toyed with staying on another year--if only to have a chance to improve tremendously on my efforts as a first-year teacher--but I am going to turn 26 next year and that milestone, my friends, is when the shit hits the proverbial fan and I need to think about finding a real job with health benefits. (Not that teaching isn't a "real" job: I will fight passionately against anyone who argues the contrary.) Words like "responsibility", "self-sufficiency" and "settling down" have begun to dominate my conscious. And there is a sense of the fleeting, the temporary, about my life here. To provide just one example: I still live out of a suitcase. (There is no space in my bedroom for a closet). My wardrobe consists of teaching attire, plus two casual shirts and one dress. (first world problems) Breaking with what was a decently regular exercise routine in my "prior 'American' life", I have not gone for a run in more than three weeks with the varying paltry excuses that it's too hot, I'm too worn out, I'm too busy or (the worst!) I'll make up for it next year.

In summation, my time here has ranged from the good, to the bad, to the downright ugly. I relish the wisdom in my journal that I am capable of on my best days, and marvel at the maddeningly self-destructive behavior I am capable of on my worst. Does this make me "special" or "different"? Perhaps not. Sometimes I flatter myself into thinking that I, the intrepid intellectual, am in a different category from those who choose to stay "at home" and embrace the quotidian. But deep down I know I am, and have never stopped being, a normal, fallible member of the human race. Here I am, "stuck in flux" in a foreign country. On the one hand I am constantly gaining new insights, reshaping my sense of self and the world; on the other hand, I feel stranded, trapped by my own limitations and misgivings. Maybe I will come to reconcile these two feelings into a coherent whole, and maybe not. In spite of the highs and lows, I wouldn't trade in my experience for anything as I believe the attendant joys and challenges of living abroad have instilled in me a mental fortitude and resilience that will redound to my benefit in future years.

Thank you, dear reader, for sharing with me in these trials and tribulations and for wading through the muck of my most personal and vulnerable blog entry to date. I'll check back in soon!

Saludos,

~Kirsten

Doldrums and Drudgery

Hello faithful reader~

First of all, my apologies for being an unfaithful writer! It's hard to believe that over a month has gone by since my last post, and I am sure you are all waiting with bated breath for what I have to say next. Truth be told, my self-deprecating self doesn't think there is much worth saying. But then I had another thought: maybe, just maybe my friends and family will be interested in what I've been up to in spite of the fact that it only involves teaching, teaching, and more teaching. (Oh, and did I mention the teaching?!)

English grammar: it makes "perfect" sense!

While a normal school year in the United States is punctuated by several holidays and a generous summer break, I have been teaching for seven months and have two yet to go before Graduation Day.  My students and I are together in a small classroom for 20 hours a week, and I have come to know their idiosyncrasies (both lovable and odious) quite well. For example, there is the young woman who sits in the back and never finishes her homework yet manages to have a new, elaborate hairstyle every day. There is the pair in my morning class who refuse to admit that they are crushing on each other. There is the gentleman who, instead of merely saying "here" when I take attendance, says "present continuous", "present perfect" or (and I'm sure you all knew this verb tense existed) "present perfect continuous".

No matter what I do, some students understand and some don't.

There are the serial litterers, the sleepers, and the ones hopped up on caffeine. There are those who still have trouble with their a-e-i-o-us and those who can engage me in witty repartee. (For the record, I do know all of my students' real names. And ranks. And serial numbers.)

CONTRADICTIONS!

Teaching, for me, is a series of contradictions. The students' energy is both enlivening and exhausting. Adjusting my pedagogy on the fly to fit the "vibe" and address the strengths and weaknesses of each class is a source of pride, while planning lessons and grading are mundane, lonely tasks. Classes are four hours long but I still feel as if the program is sacrificing depth for breadth of knowledge. I vacillate between wanting more frequent contact (and assistance) from my supervisor and reveling in the freedom of my position. The air of authority I try to project in the classroom can be easily deflated by a well-aimed grammar question. I am poor in the pocketbook (earning less than $5 per classroom hour) but prosperous in linguistic knowledge. I am surrounded by warm and friendly people, yet stand alone.

At least this hasn't happened to me...yet.

This last point has probably been the hardest part of my Dominican journey. Since most of my students are around my age, I have found it difficult to toe the line between being friendly and being respectable. The great thinker Machiavelli once said that "it is better to be feared than to be loved." He was talking about princes and politics, but I wonder if his maxim might apply to teaching. Lately with my lassitude I have erred on the side of friendliness, which leads to disciplinary problems later as students think that "anything goes." If anyone knows the alchemy that makes it possible to be both feared AND loved as a teacher, please let me in on the secret!

I guess I'll begin and end this post with an apology. Sorry, dear reader, if I have bored you with my ramblings. Perhaps I've managed to be funny. Either way, here concludes the prolix musings of a rookie teacher.

Saludos until next time. Les suelto (I'm letting you go...)

~Kirsten

I had a visitor!

Mom and I being ridiculous, but reunited at last!

Hello, dear reader. Today's post will consider a very happy topic, that of my mother's visit last week :)   After having survived since mid-March on a "diet" of supplementary hugs and advice from my Dominican host parents, it was wonderful to have my flesh-and-blood mother spend time with me. I need to give her kudos first of all for putting up with the crazy amount of travel required to come and see me in a far-flung Dominican pueblo. Unfortunately we were unable to "play tourist" because the two vacation days my class was scheduled to have after completing the latest textbook were cancelled (see previous post on the strike in Neyba). Instead my mother was unlucky enough to have to trot off to class with me for five days and observe quietly for four hours as I bumbled my way through as a first-year teacher. I am not-so-secretly grateful for her presence in my classroom: as someone with over thirty years' experience in education, she provided me with some invaluable advice and creative ideas for how to get my students up and moving more. They (the students) even took to calling her "Teacher 2"--a term of endearment, to be sure--as she patiently helped me guide them through their workbook exercises. Mom also lent her hawk-eyes and reproachful stares to the task of keeping vigil over my students as they took their exams. I was especially grateful for this as I had suspected some of my students of cheating on a previous exam (five of them had the same wrong answer for a written question and the class average was too high to be believed). This time around the students' scores were much more commensurate with their potential...thanks in large part to my mother's presence!


But enough about classrooms and exams. The highlight of my mother's visit (and I think she would agree) was the opportunity we had to spend a day at the beach with some friends of mine. Although it is true that I am living and working on a tropical island, I have rarely had the chance to see the ocean. This was only my third time in six months! Absolutely pathetic. Good thing we were able to rectify that situation with a weekend trip to Barahona, a coastal town about an hour south of Neyba. Mom has all the pictures of that particular visit; I will post them when I get a chance.

Until next time, dear reader, saludos.

~Kirsten

SNAFUs

Hello, dear reader.

Long time, no blog. Here's a shock-and-awe photo blog for you to scratch your head over. The situation: the local utility company, in talks with representatives from Neyba, has been insisting that residents only "deserve" 16 hours of electricity per day. Indeed, "la luz" here is reliably unreliable. I can expect that every day between 3 and 7pm and 3 and 7am, there will be no electricity. How much does this affect my life?  When the lights are out in the afternoon, not terribly: after all, I am in class. But when there is no fan to cool me off in the wee hours of the morning it is difficult to sleep. Needless to say that my sympathies were with the strikers who, for 48 hours (yesterday and today), effectively shut down the city. Highway entrances in and out of Neyba were blocked, businesses shuttered, tires burned, and people wounded (although this was purportedly a "pacific" protest). I have still not heard word on how the situation has resolved itself--i.e., whether or not the protesters achieved their intended goal of securing a promise of 24/7 electricity from the utility company. My limited experience with Dominican bureaucracy (namely, the Ministry of Education) keeps me skeptical. For those of you inclined to wade your way through a little Spanish, HERE is a video one local took of the strike and a pastor's take on the situation. Below you will find pictures of the strike, taken and posted by some of my students who were kind enough to give me permission to repost them here. In case you're wondering, I stayed well away from the proceedings: I spent the day ensconced at home grading papers, reading and writing lesson plans. Without further ado, pictures of the protest in Neyba...

I hope these pictures have given you something to contemplate (and perhaps be thankful for--the reliable electricity in the States. As gridlocked as Congress may be, at least the government gets the very basics right...)

Until next time, dear reader!

Saludos,

~Kirsten

Blackouts and Burnout

Here's a post that is long overdue. Welcome, dear reader, and thank you for checking back in!

First things first: let me be clear about the title. I'm a sucker for alliteration, so when the opportunity arises I can't pass it up. But when I say "blackout" here I am decidedly NOT referring to a night of high-blood alcohol content accompanied by memory lapse. Rather, I am referring to what is known affectionately (?) in the Dominican Republic as "se fue la luz": a power outage. These are frequent in Nebya, but thankfully my family has an inverter; there have been many an evening when we sit on our lighted porch in the midst of an otherwise dark neighborhood, me contemplating how the income gap has literally been illuminated before my eyes. There are times, however, when the inverter is also not working, such as last week. Now I had become begrudgingly accustomed to grading quizzes by the light of my laptop screen and sleeping in 80-plus degree weather without the relief of a fan, but last week's "apagón" (power outage) saw me acting differently. I decided to go outside and investigate with my host brother, Jorge Miguel (age 8). Our adventure concluded with me being regaled by the inimitable dance moves of Jorge and his neighborhood friends by the light of a mosquito zapper. One thing's for sure: that hour or so of gut-busting hilarity (one of the rare moments I regret not having a smartphone to capture the moment) far beat hunching over yet another set of student compositions. Little by little I am learning the meaning of "tomarlo suave" or 'take it easy'!

The second bit of my alliterative title is also a bit misleading. While it is true that I am feeling happy to be past the halfway point in my Dominican journey, I am not ready to leave without proving to myself what good teaching entails. I know that the both the goodbyes and the homecoming will be bittersweet events. What I actually want to address here is a safety issue. Last week I burned myself pretty badly while dismounting from a motorcycle. I no more than grazed the muffler with my calf than I was greeted with the smell of singed skin and a reflexive cry of pain that couldn't possibly have come from the brave, adventurous me (!) Thankfully, again, I live with a doctor and due to his ministrations my burn is healing nicely. Note to the squeamish: stop reading NOW! My skin is on it's third "peel" and the pus-filled blisters are long since gone. And the pain of the experience has long since receded. But I am now much more leery around motorcycles!

I'll be back with more anecdotes and adventures!

Saludos,

Kirsten

Mosquito-borne maladies (and other musings)

the ever-pesky mosquito...this time with a nasty payload

In spite of the fact that I was armed to the teeth with medication from my travel doctor before arriving in the Dominican Republic, I managed to contract a sexy new, cure-less tropical disease: chikungunya (pronounced CHEE-kuhn-GOON-yah). This lovely little illness brought with it aching bones, sore joints, a high fever and a nasty red rash. Needless to say I was bedridden for a couple of days. Thankfully I did not have to cancel classes; my body always seems to "time" its bouts of sickness for when we are on vacation. Many of my students were not so lucky: I saw the attendance numbers greatly reduced this week as the chikungunya virus ran its course through the town. One small bit of good that may be coming on the heels of this epidemic is increased consciousness about Dominican habits with regard to trash. The mosquitoes that carry the virus tend to favor warm, moist locales such as the discarded heaps of rotting garbage that are all-too-common around town. Hopefully the increased public awareness of this fact means that there will be more efficient garbage pick-up in Neyba...although I'm not holding my breath. Admittedly, being sick also has its personal advantages: I was able to make a lot of headway in a lovely little (*) novel called Don Quixote. Reading has always been a great pleasure of mine, and it was nice to have the time to do so without feeling guilty that I wasn't going for a run or writing lesson plans!

In other news: I was fortunate enough to meet three other Americans this week; one is a Peace Corps volunteer in a neighboring town and the others a married couple on medical mission at an orphanage in Neyba. At times I have found being the only "gringa" in town to be a lonely pursuit, so it is nice to know that I am not alone in my humble quest to change lives in this overlooked part of the world.

In other other news: there is a man in my life who makes me happy. That is all I am going to say about that.

Until next time, dear reader, watch out for those mosquitoes!

Saludos,
Kirsten

Nattering nabobs of negativism

Dear reader:

Like my title? Here's the source I robbed (erm, borrowed) it from! In this post I would like to highlight some of the challenges I've had so far as a teacher, including but not limited to:

(1) A messy classroom. I've come to realize that trash cans aren't really a big deal here in the Dominican Republic. Sometimes they seem to be forgotten accessories rather than waste receptacles. Instead of a full wastebasket in my classroom I often leave to find pencil shavings, discarded candy wrappers and water bottles on the floor. It has surprised me the extent to which I have had to provide a social as well as traditional education to my students. I never read the term "garbage police" in my job description!

(2) Chatty Cathys. The number one rule in the English Immersion program is ENGLISH ONLY. As expected with students who arrived with zilch of an English background, it has been difficult for me to tamp down the use of Spanish in the classroom. Who wouldn't revert to their native language when confused? I can hardly blame the students for their slip-ups, but the program dictates that I must. The "punishment" that I have instituted for students who speak Spanish is to write 50 sentences of "I will only speak English in class." This has seemed to deter most but not all of my students. It is amazing to hear the difference in speaking rhythm when the students are speaking English during class (bumbling, tentative and mouse-quiet) versus when they are speaking Spanish outside the classroom (rapid-fire, animated, and loud). I can only hope that by the end of the year they will speak with as much confidence and animation in English as their native Spanish...

(3) Procrastination Station. Before moving on, I need to fess up as a master procrastinator myself. Rare is the case that I plan my classes more than one day in advance, which is to my disadvantage because worksheets and anything else that needs to be printed must be done a day ahead of time in order to be sent to the copier. But enough about me! My students have not yet gotten a grasp of the concept of homework, with emphasis on the first syllable. On days after I have assigned homework, I arrive as customary 15 minutes before class only to find students frantically finishing their exercises and, more often than I'd like to admit, copying from each other. This is another lesson I've tried (and, it seems, failed) to impart: that homework is only as useful as you make it. In other words, copying doesn't do anyone any good! (Hello, Captain Obvious) As my esteemed algebra teacher once said, "It all comes out in the wash." That is to say that students who have spent their days copying, an all-too-common learning "strategy" among Dominicans, will nonetheless fare poorly on their exams. Those who do not put in the time and effort will only get the grade they deserve.

(4) A narrowing field of vision. In one of my classes I have a student who is congenitally near-blind. It has been a challenge for me to be fair to him in terms of assigning homework and taking exams, taking into account his disability while not oversimplifying the work. There is a standing agreement with my afternoon class that they will go without a break in order to leave half an hour early (at 5:30 instead of 6pm). I use this time to work with Antonio using his voice recorder to go over the concepts we learned in class that day. But I have run into several pitfalls. How to teach colors or prepositions, for example, to someone with no spatial perception? I find myself having to gloss over some themes, and continue to wonder if I am doing right by this particular student. However, I am a firm believer that "disabled" is a malapropism and that we should instead use "differently abled." This particular student proves that maxim to me every day with his impressive pronunciation and word recall.

Stumbling blocks!

In spite of these stumbling blocks and challenges, I continue to enjoy the day-to-day reality of my job. Teaching a foreign language to young adults who in many other ways are deprived of opportunity has been both a humbling and rewarding experience. It is true, as they say, that the teacher learns as much or more from her students as the students do from the teacher. Time and again my students have opened my eyes to the challenges of life in a developing country, the joys and vagaries of parenting, the nuances of language, and the joie de vivre that is particularly Dominican. I look eagerly forward to all I have yet to learn.

Milestones

Dear reader:

It's been a while. My apologies. When I think about the advances in technology that make this blog possible I also tend to think about the tension that technology makes us wrestle with: the tension between documenting one's life and living it. I tend to favor the latter, which means that I'm guilty of not snapping enough pictures. These past few weeks have seen me playing "catch-up" with my camera, and today I treat you to a blog in pictures (with captions, of course!)...

My morning class at Las Marias, a natural spring pool. On the agenda for class that day were not irregular verbs but rather sunshine, camaraderie, chicken and beer!

An attempt at an underwater picture...

Me with one of my students, Scarling.

The streets in Santo Domingo are very narrow.

Two spoons and I didn't share with anybody!!

A friend, Cornelio, and I in Santo Domingo

My afternoon class surprised me with an American-flag birthday cake, speeches and song. They also painted my face with frosting!!

Well there you have it. A blog in pictures, so I can say that I posted something without too much of the time and thought that goes into my other posts.

Saludos until next time, dear reader.

~Kirsten

On Again, Off Again

Dear reader:

As I sit here drinking a papaya batido (fruit juice smoothie) and pondering what to write, the Great Easter Fiasco comes to mind. Let me explain:

Epic fail!!

Semana Santa, or Holy Week, is one of the year's biggest  celebrations here in the Dominican Republic. Ironically given the religious nature of the holiday the majority of people, at least from what I observed, choose to get rip-roaring drunk and dance in the middle of the street (passing cars be damned). While I did not take place in these particular activities, I did enjoy a short yet extended weekend. Why short, you ask? I told my students on the Friday before that there would be no classes on Holy Week under the assumption that the NGO where my class takes place would be closed, and because everyone and their mother had the week off, and also because no one communicated to me otherwise. On the Monday of Holy Week I very enthusiastically participated as an interpreter at a day-long clinic hosted by a group of chiropractors on mission from Canada. It was wonderful to go back to my roots (I was a volunteer medical interpreter and nurse's aide at a free clinic for Hispanic immigrants during college) and to feel that I was lending a helping hand--or voice, to be more accurate. As I was mid-sentence in translating for a particularly thorny case of rheumatoid arthritis, lo and behold I get a call from my Ministry of Education supervisor asking how class was going. I told her my present location was not, indeed, the classroom and ella

cogió cuerdas (literal translation: seized the rope, colloquial translation: got angry) with me. I apologized profusely for the miscommunication and promised to call my students (all 60 of them) to say that class was in session for the next day. Surprise, surprise: out of the few students that responded to my phone calls, only three showed up for "class" the next day. I did my due diligence in planning a lesson, donning my teacher clothes, and marching off to class the next day (Tuesday) as well only to be greeted by, you guessed it: no one! As disheartening as it was to sit twiddling my thumbs in an empty classroom, I did get some good quality reading done, something I have not had time to do in the past few weeks. Chalk it all up to inexperience and severely plugged channels of communication--my Easter week did not go as expected. Unfortunately there are no other long breaks on the horizon; I am going to have to put my nose to the grindstone (to borrow a colloquialism from my native English) in order to survive the rest of the school year!

Moral of the story: NEVER. ASSUME. ANYTHING.

Until next time, dear reader.

Saludos,

Kirsten

On the corner of Stinky and Sick

Dear reader,

After a few weeks of going incommunicado I feel I owe you a blog entry, so here’s a brief rundown of what has happened in my life lately…

Cultural differences can be messy and awkward, as I have experienced in all my travels. I would like to specifically discuss Dominicans’ relationship to something truly messy: their trash. It is not an uncommon sight to witness someone do a drive-by “dumping off” of garbage in an abandoned lot or fling an empty beer bottle into the river.  In the United States I didn’t think too much about my trash; sure, I tried to recycle whenever possible and knew in the back of my mind that all of our twenty-first century detritus goes to a landfill to rot, but the waste removal system in the U.S. is efficient enough that the average person is not confronted with the stark, putrid reality of their own garbage. In the Dominican Republic my experience has been different.  Many people wait until there is enough garbage accumulated to start a fire; others do the aforementioned dumping. I pass an abandoned lot every morning on my way to class and without fail each day there are emaciated dogs and hungry chickens poking through a new bag of trash in search of anything edible. I write this not to fault Dominicans completely for their actions; when there is no public waste removal system in place and little to no education on the subject it is easy to see why people do what they do. But I have come to conclude that respect for one’s homeland includes respecting the environment and that it is not ethnocentric, or culturally arrogant, to question the actions of a friend, in my case, who was about to toss a plastic cup on the side of the road. (By the way, my friend later thanked me for the conversation we had, saying “eso no se hace”, Spanish for “[we] shouldn’t do that”).

Last week I gave my students a national standardized exam. Based on student feedback and correcting the exams themselves I learned what happens when pedagogies collide. The methodology used by the Dominican Ministry of Higher Education in their test is a lot different than what I use in my day-to-day teaching. Because we had two days to review for the exam my students did fairly well, but on the day of the exam I saw lots of befuddled faces and wrinkled eyebrows; they told me “Profe, eso fue una finca de maíz tostado” (“teacher, that test was a field’s worth of roasted corn,” meaning it was very difficult). The comments gave me pause and caused me to reflect on my teaching style. Is it correct or even preferable to “teach to the exam,” as many teachers in the United States might feel compelled to do with high-stakes testing? If my students do not do well on their exams they will leave the course without a diploma, regardless of their attendance, participation, homework grades, or scores on my quizzes and tests. That is the definition of high stakes. I’m still not sure what to do about this dilemma, so any advice from those in education would be much appreciated!

Last week I found myself particularly homesick and run down. I went to bed earlier and earlier each night out of sheer exhaustion and didn’t adequately plan for my classes. My symptoms came to a head on Thursday and Friday with nausea, vomiting, fever and a rash. I stupidly decided to give class on Friday anyways (it was the day designated by my supervisor for the standardized test) even though I had to leave the room several times to throw up. Like I said, stubborn and stupid! Thankfully my host father is a doctor, so he took me to a nearby hospital for treatment. In my fevered state I don’t remember all that happened, only that I was injected with something, that something else was squirted in my mouth, and that they took my temperature where the sun doesn’t shine. I was diagnosed with an allergic reaction to nobody-knows-what. All in all it was an unpleasant experience. My souvenir from this week is a blooming bruise at the sight where they drew my blood. It looks like my left arm, and only my left arm, has been in a fight club. The bruises don’t hurt and I was told by my doctor/father that they will fade away on their own. For now I am suffering through the weather in long sleeves. There’s no sense in getting questioned by people about my purple arm!

That’s enough story and adventure for one blog entry. I’ll be back after Easter Break to tell you more! Until then, dear reader, saludos.

~Kirsten