- CS Lewis, Mere Christianity

Before the Christmas break, I started my literacy pull-out program with 18 third graders in the elementary school. I call it “Leer y Crecer,” which means “read and grow.” I asked the teachers to give me their low-performing readers, evaluated them and put them into three groups of 6, based on reading ability. Working with young kids is very different from working with adults and teenagers. You have to be very intentional about keeping their attention, keeping them well-behaved, keeping them on task. I only got to work with my groups for two weeks before the Christmas break, and I’ve picked back up with them again since school’s been back in session.

I think a few of the kids I’m working with have actual learning disabilities, but aside from that I’m finding that the hardest part is when a child just has it made up in his mind that he can’t accomplish something. If he already thinks he can’t read a word, it’s much more difficult to engage him to even try to do it. I know this is true of all human beings, but it’s disheartening to see a 7-year-old have it made up in his/her mind that he can’t. It’s just an extra barrier to have to push through with them. The good news is that in the five weeks we’ve been working together, I’m already seeing tangible results in a lot of them! I’m already taking two of the kids out of my group, because they’re reading now (and because of that, they’re bored, and borderline disruptive when the rest of the group is working). I’m going to be meeting with their parents soon, and I’m pendiente (thoughtfully aware) of how to keep all of this work going once I leave my town in May.

National Teacher Training Conference

In January, we had Escojo Enseñar, which is a teacher training conference I co-planned with two other volunteers. It was so great! We had teachers from 13 communities from all over the country participate in workshops about classroom management, student-centered learning, critical thinking, planning, working with parents and creating didactic materials with few resources.

The level to which teachers receive training on each of these subjects varies greatly in the DR. A standard for teacher preparation exists only in theory (and sometimes not even then). In some cases, teachers who are “nombrado” (given a teaching position in public education by the school district) may not even have finished their college degree. Overcrowding, low salaries, low support from parents and lack of basic resources (like desks, classrooms and books) are all problems that add to the challenges teachers in the DR face. Escojo Enseñar hopes to provide teachers with tools to respond to the challenges and provide a space for educators to discuss potential solutions among their colleagues. The conference did just that. I brought two teachers and the director from my elementary school with me to the conference. I also lead workshops on critical thinking, lesson planning and helped a group with a quantum learning station.

On my first day back to school, when I went in, my director called a meeting with me and the two teachers I brought to the conference. We set a date for our first charla (workshop) and went as far as dividing up who will cover which sections of the manual! They asked me to bring in the PowerPoints to pass on to them. They are so excited to share this information with the other teachers, and I’m so excited about that! When I started teacher training last year (which was my main project), I wondered how I would really keep it sustainable. The answer is Esojo Ensenar. I’m so excited about their momentum and their desire to want to carry out these workshops on their own, and I’m really glad we’ve given them the tools to do so! You should like our Facebook page!

At home I also went to my 10-year high school reunion. That was just so weird. Like, am I getting old, or something? I also did the state fair, which was very yummy. I think I gained about 10 pounds from eating so much back home! Coming back to the DR was really, really, really hard this time. I found myself very homesick, even for weeks after returning.

I spent Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s in the DR this year. For Thanksgiving, all the volunteers get together in the capital for a huge Thanksgiving feast. We also have a talent show, which I sang in this year, this time with a few other volunteers. It was a lot of fun. I spent Christmas in the campo with my host family and neighbors. We had a huge dinner! It was so tasty. There was chicken lasagna, scalloped potatoes, rice (of course), arepitas, potato salad, fried eggplant, pasta salad, pastelón de queso, pastele en hoja and of course pork, though I didn’t have any. People here kept asking me if Christmas in the US was very different than Christmas in the DR. There are some differences, but overall it’s the same: Christmas trees and other decorations adorning homes, family getting together and eating a lot of food, a special Christmas program at church, etc. In the DR, they eat the big dinner on the night of the 24th (Noche Buena, which means “the good night”) instead of on the 25th, and they don’t exchange gifts for Christmas. Some people give gifts for Three Kings’ Day, which is in January, but gifts are not a big deal for Christmas here. A lot of people here also paint their homes during Christmas time. My host mom told me that back in the day, the dictator Trujillo, used to make everyone paint their homes during Christmas, and so the tradition developed and just stuck. People also drink in excess during the holiday season…which I could do without.

Overall, it was cool spending Christmas in the DR, although it didn’t feel much like Christmas. Warm weather, loud bachata music, no mac and cheese and no family (blood family, that is) made it seems like it was just another day in this 27-month experience, or in my 28-year experience. It was both familiar and unfamiliar to me at the same time.

My girls and me talking about our town.

The poster we made about Brazil.

HIV/AIDS charla

All participating PCVs at the waterfall.

My little sister at her first communion.

Back in my site, my sister recently had her first communion in the Catholic church. It was interesting. All the girls dressed up in what were essentially bridal gowns, and my cousin even said to my sister, “mañana, tú te vas casar,” (tomorrow, you’re getting married), perhaps in reference to becoming the bride of Christ, that is, the church. I’m not very familiar with Catholic traditions, so every so often I’d ask someone about the significance of what they were doing in the service.

One of my home visit kids going through the alphabet cards to form syllables.

Work wise, I’m no longer doing literacy home visits. I’ve gotten lists of kids’ names that have trouble reading from teachers, and I’m conducting evaluations with them to see if I’ll put them in my pull-out program. I have to pick up my slack from days missed last week from being sick before going home to the States to visit (so excited!!). I have about seven months left in my community, so I’ve been contemplating how I can make the most impact here before I leave; I feel like it’s crunch time. Literacy work with kids will keep me pretty busy, and hopefully I can find some folks that I can train to continue with it after I leave. And, si Dios quiere (God willing), I also hope to tap into parental involvement in education. In the meantime, I’m coming home soon, so I hope to come back 20 pounds heavier from all the delicious food I’ll be eating! .

On Tuesday, I left the elementary school at 5 p.m. and went to one of my regular eateries to buy what I always get there—a tostada (ham, cheese, ketchup, mayo, lettuce, tomato, toasted) and a jugo natural. This proved to be an awful decision. At 10 p.m., I sat down to dinner with Matt Damon—my homemade alfredo pasta and The Bourne Ultimatum. Before taking the first bite I found myself without an appetite, but with a considerable bit of nausea. I vomited. “Hmm…that’s weird,” I thought, “But, maybe that’s just what I needed;” I decided to proceed eating my dinner. I mean, what else was I going to do with it, since I have no fridge, and the critters do walk about scavenging for food. So I was not about to let it go to waste. Though, waste it I did, over the next several hours, by coercion. I’ll spare the intimate details, but let’s just say my body pushed the eject button from multiple sides, simultaneously, and left me with not a drop of liquid.

By the next day, I was left completely dehydrated and without much energy. The Peace Corps doctors had me go to the hospital, where I spent the next two nights hooked up to IVs and getting antibiotics for…yup!…an amoeba! If you don’t know what an amoeba is, take a moment to praise God for that right now, and then look it up. I’m not at the point yet where I can spell out to you what it is and sleep well; I’ll just tell you it’s a pretty aggressive parasite. I spent most of my time at the hospital sleeping, but at one point, I noticed that the area of my hand around where they inserted the IV was swollen. I told one of the attendants, and she said she’d have a nurse come check it. Moments later, a nurse came in and started mumbling in Spanish, “There’s nothing wrong with this IV, etc., etc.” Then, not realizing that I also spoke Spanish (since they knew I was a foreigner), she tried to ask me if the IV was hurting me, by yelling to me intensely, “PAIN?!? PAIN?!? PAIN?!? PAIN?!? PAIN?!?” it took me a while to understand what the word was that she was saying, and once I did, the intensity with which she seemed to be declaring, rather than inquiring of my pain led me to first think that her intention was to bring me pain. This was quite a jarring moment. I did not want more pain, especially at the hands of someone yelling, “PAIN!” to me. So although the IV was causing me some pain, I told her what I thought it would take for her to get away from me: “NO! NO! NO! ESTÁ BIEN!! ESTÁ BIEN!!” I guess she didn’t buy it, because she then mumbled to herself in Spanish, “We have to change it.” As she left the room, I caught my breath, and prayed for the nurse that would come to change my IV to be ANYONE but her. Of course it was she who returned. Doh! I decided to change my approach, and make myself a real person; maybe she wouldn’t poke me like meat if she thought I was a human being, instead of some plastered tourist. I starting speaking Spanish to her and making small talk. I think it softened her up, and helped me avoid her torturous pain-inducing methods of IV injection, which surely would have otherwise resulted.

Another episode at the hospital also involved the IV. I got up to use the bathroom for the 473^rd time, and of course I had to drag my IV food bags behind me on that coat-rack-looking apparatus. This time, my veins must have decided that I’d been moving too much, because the next thing I knew, I saw about 3 feet of blood—my blood—inside of the IV tubes! Not having spent much time in my life hooked up to IVs (thank you, Lord) this caused me some panic. I gently rushed over to press the alert button. I pressed it again, and again and again. A different nurse finally came in, and I my brain couldn’t decide fast enough if I should go for English or Spanish with her, so I just pointed at the IV with a concerned look on my face. She looked at it and said in accented English, “Oh! No problem!” “No! Blood! Sangre!” I persisted. “No, ha ha, no problem! No problem!” I couldn’t understand why the sight of my blood now brought her laughter, and I thought maybe this conversation would go better if we both spoke Spanish instead of one-word phrases in English. She explained to me that it was because I was moving around, so I decided to just be still for moment. Sure enough, my blood went back into my body.

I’m out of the hospital now and they have me on an antibiotic, which has a side of effect of nausea, of all things…ha! (no, it’s actually not funny at all). At any rate, I have to be very grateful. Dominicans have told me that sometimes people go for a week or more in the hospital for an amoeba, and I think it really has to do with how quickly (or better said, how slowly) some folks respond to the issue. So I’m grateful for the access to a quick response to this problem, and for the meds that are killing it, even though they make me nauseous :-S. And, hey, at least it wasn’t dengue fever! I think it will be a while before I can eat another tostada again…at least with lettuce. I’ll post my other update over the weekend. As for now, I’m going to go get some rest.

battle scars from the hospital stay.

some of my alphabet cards. made out of posterboard and laminated with packaging tape. upper case on one side and lower case on the other.

PS – Thanks to my sisters and the Foresters I have a camera again! Thanks, guys!

I told them about the history of Blacks in America, played several types of Black American music (Negro Spirituals, Gospel, Blues, Jazz, R&B, NeoSoul, Hip Hop), did a Stepping demonstration and showed them a step show video, talked about this awesome natural hair wave that’s sweeping Black America and had some of the girls help me read Maya Angelou’s Phenomenal Woman in Spanish.

Preparing this presentation made me even prouder to be a Black American. We have a history of perseverance and fighting to ensure our rights, from us has been birthed music and movements that have shaped the landscape of all of America and the entire world, and those who have gone before us have left us with a legacy of education, innovation and a rich culture. We have room to grow as a community, but I’m so proud of who we are.