¡Feliz Navidad!

Our last day of school was Wednesday and boy does it feel good to be done for a while!

It was a crazy week-we exchanged the 3rd and final present of our Angelitos de Navidad (Secret Santas) at a party at the directors house. I had previously gotten coffee, chocolates, and cookies and for the last gift was given a nice bottle of perfume. I think I did pretty good, especially considering some of the other things people got (A trophy whose plaque reads "drama queen"? No thank you!).

On Wednesday we had a half day and the kids all brought in food for our classroom Christmas party-pastelitos, grapes, gummy candy, quipes, pizzitas, soda, cake, and cookies. After reading that list of goodies we ate at 9 in the morning, you shouldn't be surprised to know that yes, one kid did throw up. Right before he remembered he hadn't passed out his cookies yet, which got him excited alllll over again (I asked him, "Seriously?! But you just threw up!"). A bunch of my students brought in presents for me, and it was so touching to see how excited they were to give me something nice as their way of saying "I love you". And the chocolates and eggnog and jewelry and clothes were exciting in their own right. ;)

Then on Thursday the entire staff boarded 2 buses to go to Santo Domingo for the day for our school-wide Christmas party where there was a Brugal TRUCK parked outside. Free drinks, baskets of goodies placed on every table, catered lunch and dessert, live band and dancing. And the best part of all: the raffle. WHERE I WON A DVD PLAYER! The irony in that prize being that I don't actually have a TV in my apartment...So in a way it's going to end up actually being quite an expensive give-away for me.

And the most exciting part of it all: my sister comes today! And my parents come next week! With my sister we'll be going to the beaches up North (fingers crossed for no rain) to go horseback riding, shopping, swimming, boating, etc etc. We'll get our nails and hair done, go to a baseball game, see the Dominican nightlife. It's a packed itinerary, let me tell you.
And then next week we'll meet up with our parents in Santo Domingo where we will then travel to Bayahibe to spend a week at a resort. And they fly out New Years Eve.
I cannot WAIT to see them!

That makes this my last blog for 2008. See you in the new year! :D

being thankful

So, Thanksgiving!

I spent this year's lovely turkeymashedpotatoescranberrysaucepie day with the Peace Corps of the DR in Santo Domingo at a lovely little country club. I met a lot of new people (probably too many) and ate a lot of pieces of pie (definitely too many) and got only one extra day off work (way too few). But it was still nice to spend the holiday with people who understand the larger significance of it all, the counting your blessings part and being thankful for all that you have part.

I feel like the day took on special meaning for me just considering my situation down here. Things can be really hard at times, really hard. But despite all the bad stuff, I still feel so incredibly blessed. I have learned and grown so much already in my short time down here. Not only have I been learning Spanish, Dominican culture, and how to be a teacher; I've also been learning patience, flexibility, understanding, and what it means to love with a full heart.

There are a lot of people down here who have so little. There are a lot of people all over the world who have so little. I'm grateful that I don't worry about how to make ends meet. I'm grateful that I've gotten to meet some of the most amazing people and hear the most amazing stories. I'm grateful that I've found a church that warms and inspires me. I'm grateful for a beautiful second grade class full of the most wonderful students. I'm grateful for friends here and friends and family back home who I know I can count on and who will be there for me through everything.

And now Christmas is upon us! Sure there's no snow or even winter sweaters (70+ degrees...) but I'm still excited. My sister will be flying in to see me and we'll go galavanting off for 4 days, after which we'll go meet my parents and resort it up!
As my life has now become Christmas pageants and Angelitos de Navidad and tacky green and red decorations, I feel the spirit of Christmas. More so than I ever have before. I feel family and closeness and being with the ones you care about. And love. What a wonderful season-my heart overflows with the joy of it all!

But the angel said to them. "Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord"

Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests (Luke 2: 10-11, 14)

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Warm Tidings to you all. May your heart overflow too :)

Did you know you can blow your nose without using a kleenex?
Yeah I didn't either, but I found out today that it is possible

Oh the things kids teach you


Now I'm going to toot my own horn for a minute-
The head head director of the school is impressed by the fact that I haven't had a single negative evaluation. So impressed, in fact, that she wants to start sending the occasional teacher to my class to observe me and see what I'm doing with my kids. How I run my class, how I give a lesson, how I've been (semi) successful in getting my students to succeed...
Since I'm still not 100% sure of what I'm doing, I was blown away by that. Hey! Something I'm finally a natural at! :)

It's Thanksgiving on Thursday, and I just wanted to let you know how thankful I am for YOU. I appreciate each and every one of you, and your thoughts and prayers and emails and phone calls and cards and everything else mean so incredibly much to me, you can't even know.
So thank you. I hope you too feel the weight of all your blessings, on Thursday as well as every day

coming soon to a theater near you

DR THE MOVIE!

There's laughter, there's tears, there's romance, there's life lessons, there's little kids, there's christmas (they started having this holiday in september, no joke), there's parties, there's concerts, there's traveling, there's an overload of empanadas, and there's action-flooding and robbery!

This movie has it all!

To catch you up to speed: the other day I flooded the apartment by leaving the water running (my roommates were hardly pleased, to say the least...). And then the other week my wallet with all my cards, money, and buy 10 get 1 free coupons was stolen while I was getting out of a public car.
But don't worry about the wallet. I went to the police and reported it and they said they'd be opening an investigation.
(Psh, riiiight)

And yet surprisingly I'm still in fairly high spirits!

I have a couple day beach trips planned for this weekend (oh yes, the beach in november. You can be jealous), we're working on the christmas musical at school where I'm busy teaching 7 (yes 7) verses of frosty the snowman to my 2nd graders, I am going to be spending Thanksgiving at a big Peace Corps bash I was invited to in the capital where there will be delicious turkey and pie, and my sister and parents are coming down in ONE MONTH!!

As the holidays get closer I'm remembering more and more just how much I miss you all. Especially YOU

There's still time to visit... ;)

I feel good. Real good.

Tonight we had a parent/teacher meeting at school for everyone to come and get their children's grades. The evening started out with an information session on "How to be a better parent" (I'm sure the parents were a little offended to hear that's how the night was starting off...) and then afterwards they came to my class and I just gave general suggestions for improvement and went over some logistical stuff.

Then they all ran at me.

"How's my kid doing?" "Tell me the truth, what's going on" "What about my daughter? Should I be worried?"

It was nice to see parents so involved, it's just unfortunate that the only parents that came and showed such concern were the ones that really didn't need to be there at all. All of their kids are geniuses and have no problems whatsoever in my class.

My favorite moment of the night:
One of the mothers came up to me and started talking to me about her daughter. She started to get choked up talking about how last year was so hard because it was a new school and her daughter didn't make any friends and she could hardly speak any English. All in all it was just a rough year and a hard time for her.
She then told me that before she left to come to school that night her daughter had asked her if she could go ahead and toast and butter her bread and put it on the table to be ready for her in the morning, because she wanted to wake up really early and be the first one in English class and see Teacher Lesa as soon as possible.

Talk about just being tickled to death. It's stories like that that make me so sure I'm in the right place. And the whole night was just a string of parents telling me that their kid likes English class so much better than Spanish class, and that I'm their kids favorite teacher, and that their kid always comes home talking about what they did in English class and how many stickers they now have for good behavior.
I thought my heart was going to burst with joy.

I can't wait to see my kids tomorrow. And I've really come to view them as just that-my kids. They're especially adorable when they're practicing "brushing off their shoulders" and "popping their collars" and chanting "chug chug chug!" to someone drinking a bottle of water.
Oh yeah I'm educating them ;)

You're not the only ones pumped

So were my kids. Today they came into class chanting "OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA!"

I think it might have something to do with the fact that I told them they wouldn't have any homework if he won...

This country was a little bit excited about the win too. I had a few people that I don't really know come up to me in the street and ask me who I voted for and if I was happy. My replies earned multiple fist pumps :)

I taught them so well

My kids all told me they had voted for Obama.

Overlooking the whole "constitutionally impossible" thing, I was so impressed!

:)

HALLOWEEEEEN

Unfortunately in the Dominican Republic they do not really celebrate Halloween (the selection of masks in the grocery store was limited to 5) and New Horizons, the school where I teach, does not like celebrating Halloween. But my 2nd grade English class celebrates Halloween!

We had the best day ever! My kids and I went all out, and we enjoyed ourselves to the max.
Since it was Friday we had flag ceremony which is when, every Monday and Friday, the whole school stands outside in the blistering heat for 30 minutes while we sing 3 anthems-2 national and 1 school-and then we watch a project presentation that some class has prepared. Yesterday they watched my presentation. Was I given more than a 3 minute warning that I was presenting on the history of Halloween? Noooo. Did I just make up a few things on the spot? Yesssss.
The students were not allowed to dress up, but if they chose they could wear an orange or black t-shirt. We were supposed to continue on with our lessons like normal, but when no one ever comes to supervise your class you take those orders with a grain of salt.
We all gave out candy and let me tell you being such a loveable teacher I hit the JACKPOT! These kids are at the age where they (kinda) like to share. As in, they'll pass out candy generously to every and still have 1/2 the bag leftover, which then prompts them to scream in glee "And I get alllll the rest!".
The big hit was lollipops. I think I got 28. A parent came in and we made paper plate ghosts, we watched Scooby Doo, we made lollipop ghosts, we wrote in our journals about witches, we played with oobleck. And that was just the morning! In the afternoon we had a Mummy wrap contest with toilet paper and then someone had brought in a Halloween spider cake, cheetos, and marshmellows (yeah that one was kind of random).

I thought the kids were going to be even more wild but I think the sheer amount of candy they had eaten before school started at 7:45 made them ready to crash sooner than I had thought.

But the REAL festivities started at 11 that night, when a captain who had fallen overboard joined up with her friends Hugh Hefner and his playboy bunny, the coral reef, and a serial assassin to begin some nightly hijinks...

my favorite moments of this week (so far)

Yesterday we were making paper mache globes and one of my students stepped on someone else's globe, so I told him he couldn't make one. I wrote a note home in his assignment planner to is parents explaining why he was coming home empty handed. He was watching me write it and was getting really nervous, asking "What are you writing? Am I going to be in trouble?". I was writing in pencil, and after I told him what I wrote his follow up question was, "Can I erase it as soon as I get home?"
I would give him points for smartness, if he hadn't gone and asked that question
(I quickly rewrote it in pen)

In English class I was teaching about how to pluralize nouns, and in the middle of me talking I saw one girl's hand shoot up. I finished my sentence and then turned to her and said, "Yes Claudia, do you have a question about this?". Her response, "Can I play on the computer?"
I was dumbfounded. "You mean NOW?! In the middle of class?!?". She looked a little annoyed at my inability to understand and responded "Um, yes." That question was so far out of left field I didn't even know what to say! And she asked it so naturally, like "why wouldn't I want to play on the computer right now instead of listening to you talk??"
Needless to say, she got no computer time that day

the good times roll on

So at UNC I felt like I was always running around from this activity to that activity, doing this project and that project. And here I am STILL busy as ever now that I've found out how much there is so much to do here! (This despite the fact that it's a "small" city of 900,000-or so all the dominicans say)

I have begun to volunteer for an organization called Fundacion Cuidado Infantil Dominicana. This organization is comprised of groups that go out into the various poverty-striken barrios around santiago and educate the locals about things such as nutrition and sexual education. I will not be doing that. The little Spanish i do know is definitely not up to snuff for giving a lecture on HIV. But before I start working in the office doing things like data entry, the boss wanted me to see one of the groups in action. They picked me up after school and we drove to the barrio cienfuego which is right beside the city dump. It's technically illegal to live there, but these people have nowhere else to go. They make their livelihoods rummaging through the trash trying to find items to sell. We set up chairs in this concrete building in the center of town and the students filed in. Since it was the first meeting we didn't do much by way of teaching. We opened with prayer, sang a few songs, and played a few games. Then we gave the children this test to fill out so that we could find out just how much (or how little) they knew about things like pregnancy, drugs, and AIDS. They do this so they can assess at the end how effective the organization in educating the children. The head honcho told me the organization struggles to see any impact. The students come straight to these meetings after school, and since the students often don't come to school (it's too far, they have to work for their family, it's not required by law, etc etc) attendance is pretty shoddy. Which is sad because the group is really trying to help these people better their lives, but they're up against so much. One woman in that group told me the previous day she had seen a pregnant 11yo, and a 10yo already smoking pot.
It was such an eye-opening experience, to finally see first hand the severe poverty that I knew to be rampant all around. Working at an elite private school, I don't tend to see that side of things. The kids were so adorable, and it was so sad to think of how most of their lives would turn out to be. I'm looking forward to seeing how I can better help those in need around me and Santiago.
One thing I found interesting was how terrible the group was telling me the public schools are. Up until 3rd grade you are required BY LAW to pass students. Which causes problems in private schools too, because I even have a few students who don't know how to read or write or recognize letters. Public school students are required to wear uniforms, which is an expense many of them cannot afford. The organization also works with families and their mentally handicap children, and in these situations they usually recommend that the children be put in public school. Because even mentally handicap children can keep up with the slow pace of these public institutions. So if you want your child to actually have a good education you have to put them in one of the costly private schools in the area. An unfortunate dilemma for those with barely enough to pay the bills.

On a different note, this weekend I went to an art festival in a nearby pueblo that was organized by a Peace Corps Volunteer in the area. I was really nervous because in order to get to the town I had to take a guagua. A guagua is a VW van looking thing with a sliding door that is always open so that one of the drivers friends can hang out screaming the bus' destination in an attempt at picking up more passengers. They let me off 20 minutes down the road on the side of the highway, I crossed it and found a motoconcho (public transportation via motorcycle) and told the man to "Take me where Cati is". And those were the directions I was given.
I hopped on the back of his bike and we drove past houses made of sheet metal and fields of goats until we came to the school. There people were making and selling all sorts of really neat crafts (and some desserts too) for amazingly low prices. The most common item by far was munecas sin rosas, these beautifully painted clay women figurines without faces. I hung out with the other Peace Corps Volunteers for a while and then did the materialistic shopping thing, but right before I was about to leave all of these young girls wearing yellow gymnastics leotards and waving batons came up the road. They were all in middle school or younger and performed a routine waving their batons (and hips) to music played by a live band.
It was so neat to see, and I'm so glad I went despite my original misgivings related to the incomplete directions and sketchy public transportation. I felt like I got to see more of how the real Dominicans live, which was what I had been wanting to see for quite some time.

I'm still involved in Young Life, still taking Spanish lessons, and still getting those cheap weekly manicures. When you look at it that way, I guess life here isn't so bad. Even with the outrageous calor. :)

I have 33 beautiful children

so now the update on kind of my whole reason for
being here: teaching!














































































i think my kids are absolutely the best. hands down no doubt about it. yes, most days there are at least 3 times where i'm thisclose to pulling out my hair. but that's an improvement! before it was frustrating. now i just find it comical that i have to give my class a stern talking to about how this is not a circus and at no point should your head be touching the floor while i'm giving directions. seriously, you sit VERTICALLY in chairs. i never before thought that was a concept you had to teach...

slowly but surely i'm getting the hang of it though. whereas before there would be at least 2 kids screaming at any given moment, now it only happens if i make fast movements. or try to sing. they don't seem to appreciate that so much :(

last week we made edible maps out of candy, which was fun. until people started getting sick. i guess i should've seen that coming by the fact that every few seconds i would hear my teacher assistant snap "stop eating it!" guess they learned their lesson the hard way, the lesson about it always being important to listen to the teacher...

the school continues to be disorganized, but hey, that's the dr for ya. I was told the other day that they are charging me daily for books that are SUPPOSED TO BE in my room for the whole year. one day they took the board erasers and markers to check them out using some new barcode system, but when i went to ask for them so i could actually have class they said "sorry we're busy. you can have it at the end of the day". ummm, but i'm trying to have class now??? So since i couldn't teach i just played Simon Says and Good Morning Mr. Judge and Thumbs Up 7 Up with my class. In the middle of all these games one kid gleefully screamed out "Wow! Why is today such a special day!?"


best esl moment of the week (as told to me by a friend):
"Come on, let's blow this Popsicle stand"
"WE'RE GOING OUT FOR POPSICLES???"

and i've only just begun...

...taking a bite out of the dr!

I tell you there is no end to the gorgeousness around me. The other weekend I went to Jarabacoa, a mountain town, as part of a Young Life retreat. We didn't spend but a day there, and we didn't see much because it was supposed to be a day for planning, but the tiny little bit we did explore was awesome! We climbed to a waterfall and even its small size couldn't diminish how neat it was to see something like that hidden away and untouched by civilization. We walked about 30 minutes, (most of the time during which I was busy wondering if we were actually on a path...) and then lo and behold the trees parted and aha!
A waterfall!

















The other week we had a verrry nice week because right smack dab in the middle of it was a holiday! Thank goodness for being a Catholic country! I have no idea what the occasion was, but I did not question it. Being the kind of person who thinks she can cram waaay more into a day than is technically feasible, I went up to the beach town of Cabarete for the day. The weather held off just long enough for our trip, which was great because I was told a storm was a'brewin... All of the restaurants are right on the sand, there are palm trees everywhere, quaint shops line the 1 main street they have, and the sea breeze blows everywhere. It was just the relaxing kind of day I needed right in the middle of another chaotic disorganized week at school. At least, relaxing when I managed to forget that a hotel manager had been stabbed just down the street the night before...

And on the way there I rode my first motoconcho! I just hopped on the back and I was whisked off into the setting sun. Okay not really. I couldn't quite figure out how to climb on with my bookbag, and once on I was constantly wondering if I would be considered "back heavy", and how tightly that meant I would have to squeeze the strange man in front of me to compensate for gravity. Other than that it was awesome! Until cars passed by within 2 inches of my person and I was reminded once more of how likely mortality was without a helmet and proper safety equipment. So when you come down and visit, I'll take you on one too so you can learn to appreciate your life a little more ;)
















Enough traveling for you?
Not quite. Just one more.
This past weekend I went on a day trip to a city called Rio San Juan, which is just a tiny beachside town but absolutely breathtaking. I felt like I was in a postcard. It was the pristine sand, clear blue skies, and leafy palm trees that you see on the cover of "World's Most Beautiful Places" calendars. W-o-w. We unfortunately didn't get to spend too much time going swimming or anything, so this is the first place on my list of "must come back". I traveled there with a Dominican I met and it was neat to see the inside perspective on family life there. We had lunch at her grandmother's house and afterwards watched the men make cheese outside on the back table. I would call myself lucky to have seen the whole process, except having been obliged to buy some and having seen just how many flies took a little nap on that cheese...I don't know that I would call myself lucky anymore. My stomach will let you know.


And in conclusion- come on down! The DR's great! :D

Que lo que?

My sincerest apologies for not having written sooner. Our Internet took a hiatus for a while because of all the rain from the storms, but we are back on now!

I'll be starting my 4th week of teaching tomorrow, and it's hard to believe that almost a month has gone by under the new persona of "Teacher Lesa". I am really starting to warm up to this job, and I think the kids are really starting to warm up to me. True, the discipline problems are still very much present but it's a problem that all the American teachers are facing. When the kids don't know the language that well it's really tempting to just turn to their neighbor and start yakking away...We're trying every trick in the book (and some that aren't), but nothing seems to be working! Some of the more creative and unconventional techniques involved videotaping the children and threatening to show their parents the tape of their behavior during the school day, taking away a kids desk and making him write his notes standing up since he wasn't able to sit properly, and making a kid stand with his nose in the corner until the lesson was over because he couldn't stop talking. Now none of those were tried out by me, but the desperate search for a well-behaved class has lent itself to some solutions by others that are...unique to say the least.

The school is still missing books for almost all of my kids, so I have pretty much decided to teach what I think they should learn this year! The freedom is liberating and also very daunting, since I'm pretty much building my curriculum from scratch. But we're doing some really cool things-this week is edible maps and next week we're making paper mache globes! And last week we made our own community out of shoe boxes! (Though that idea quickly descended into chaos once the paint was brought out and the kids decided a more fun activity was just to smear paint on the walls. Sorry janitors...) When things get tough and I want to throw in the towel, I just think about my kids and I can't imagine leaving them. They are already so dear to me and I'll get to know them even better as time goes on. They stretch my patience each day, but the look on their faces once they finally understand something is so incredibly rewarding. So even though I've discovered teachers couldn't be paid enough for all the work and time and effort and emotional investment they make in their jobs, there are plenty of priceless moments that make up for it all.

As far as outside the school goes, I am beginning to learn more and more about things here. I've started taking Spanish lessons and I get private tutoring 4 hours every week, so hopefully my life here will become a little less awkward before too long! (Yesterday's encounter: The woman at the cafe asked me if I wanted something to drink with the food she had just served me and I responded "Sure, tomatoes would be fine"). Everyone here goes weekly to the salon to do their hair and nails, and that's a cultural more that I've picked up on and whole-heartedly embraced!
I got to see Aventura (a great Bachata group from the DR) live in concert, and they were fantastic. I got to visit Los Montones, a "town" (if you can even call it that) in the mountains, and it was absolutely gorgeous. I've never seen so many green gently rolling hills in my life. The only thing I could say to my driver during the car ride back was "Wow do you see that?!?". I think he started getting annoyed after 1 hour of that (and he had one more to go!).
I've started going to Young Life and will be helping out as a leader with that. This upcoming weekend we'll be going to Jarabacoa, another mountain town, for a day retreat and I'm excited to get to know everyone better. This week I'm also hoping to start volunteering at a home for physically disabled children, so we'll see how that goes and if they can use me.

I'm going to stop myself before I go on for pages upon pages with details of all the cool things I'm doing and beautiful places I'm seeing. But I promise to be more regular from here on out :)

I miss you all! Please let me know how you're doing; I would love to hear from you.

Pics: Los Montones. Gorgeous, right??

verdict: the first week

Needless to say THAT didn't go quite as I imagined.

Here's the surprise though: I think I'm actually not bad as far as teachers go! Remember the worst teacher you ever had? Yeah, I'm a little bit better than that.

My students are absolutely adorable. And then at the same time kind of horrible. They listen. Sometimes. They sit down. Sometimes. They talk. All the time.

After day one I think I've begun to settle into the routine and figure things out. 2nd grade is split into two groups and while one group is learning all their lessons in Spanish the other group is hearing is all in English. And then they switch. I often dread the 2nd group because 1) I have them after recess (which of course is too short for any of them to be sufficiently worn out and ready for Round 2) and also 2) poor planning on the school's part resulted in a class full of only kids whose legs don't bend (seriously, chairs are fire to their behinds).
I have some students who only talk to me in Spanish (if that tells you anything about where their language skills are at), some students who are quiet geniuses (the kind you wish you had a classroom full of), other students who are loud geniuses (ones you're always asking "Is your name Amanda?"), and a handful of "ADD doesn't even begin to describe it" kids.
But they are so CUTE! It makes it nearly impossible to discipline!

Take this example:
All the kids have wheelie book bags. So one day we were (supposed to be) sitting quietly in class calming down and getting ready to switch. But this one boy would not be quiet and instead kept grabbing the handle on his book bag and screaming "1 2 3 4! Are you ready to rock???"
And then today, I was teaching them about urban versus rural. I brought in some fruits and vegetables for them to guess where you would most likely find them being grown (for all you slow-pokes that would be in rural areas). I gave one fidgety kid an apple to hold and next time I turn around he's eating the apple! Uh, hello?!? When in that interaction with him did I say "This is your snack. Bite in and enjoy!" Answer: never.

Everything with the school is...annoying. The schedule changes and disorganization and lack of materials and penny-pinching ways (despite the $7000 payments the kids make every year) make it all incredibly frustrating. You're never told anything-it's all just shock and surprise. Supervisor observations. After school meetings. Procedures you should have been following since day 1. Some surprises are pleasant ("You mean free coffee is provided for the teachers? Even though I've been paying for it every day this week!?"). Others not so (It's quitting time on Friday and you want to have a 2 hr conference now?!)

But all in all, I'm pleased. And I already discovered the perks of being a 2nd grade teacher: Hannah Montana birthday parties
;)

this is it

after changing the date x many times, it is officially official. i start tomorrow.

i am nervous. i am excited. i am full of anticipation.

the kids spend half of the day speaking english in my class, and half of the day speaking spanish in a class taught across the hall. the other second grade teacher told me i look fragile. i don't know if that's a compliment or a warning...

something to get used to: being called teacher lesa. one person at the school even introduced herself to me as teacher nellie. it just sounds so...so...not cool

on a side note, i found a church today! it's called the hub, and even after one time i'm already hooked. it's a bunch of americans either teaching down here or doing peace corps. it also doubles as a hostel! and they've got a library where you can check out english books. which is great considering i've almost used up the supply i brought down here with me!

now i have something important to share.
i have fallen in love. with the dominican republic.
yesterday we took a bus to sosua, the most BEAUTIFUL beach i have ever seen! the crystalest clearest bluest water you have ever seen, sea side manicure/pedicure stands, the smell of frying seafood filling the air, dogs and cats roaming freely (that says something for hygiene), souvenir shops upon souvenir shops (i found a "wall's mart" and "bob barker's price is right" stand), and a sense of "this is where it's at" lingering over everything. on the bus ride to and from my eyes couldn't soak up enough of the gorgeous landscape whizzing by. rolling green mountains, lush fields of palm trees.
i certainly have my moments (hours, days??) of frustration with the country, but at the same time it's all so forgivable.
i do not like the fact that paper plates don't exist here. i do not like the fact that the country doesn't recycle. i do not like that they turn off the water to my building and i can't take showers at night (which is G-Rossss considering how much the human body can sweat in a day!)

but then going up on the roof and looking at the sun setting behind the mountains surrounding santiago with the wind cooly blowing in that "it's about to rain" way, it feels amazing.

i can't wait for what the year has in store. bring it on

whoops...

i think today during my $3 manicure i might've accidentally got recruited to be a Jehovah's Witness. and i think i might've agreed to go to a Jehovah's Witness church service. and i think i might've agreed to meet a nice Christian husband there...

stupid language barrier!
don't worry, they don't have my number

the moment of truth will soon arrive...

Next Thursday is my first day of teaching. The make or break day. Am I ready?
That would be a big fat NO.
Partly because a large part of my training was in Spanish, so all those procedures and rules are (and most likely will remain) a mystery to me. What attendance policy? What discipline system? What code of conduct towards minors?
And I still don't know who my supervisor really is. Nor do I have all the books I'm supposed to teach from. And my schedule hasn't been given to me yet.
Disorganization down to the wire!

On the plus side I now have a bank account and debit card. So the (very very) important stuff is settled. One thing down!

I have begun to explore Santiago a bit more, so I am on my way to becoming a veritable Santiagian. I've sung karaoke (a big bar sport here), gone to the opening of a bar ("Rojjo", where everyone was told to wear green??), seen el monumento, eaten delicious Mexican and sushi (but not at the same sitting), and done a little bit of shopping (well I have to fit in!).
Plus, I AM GOING TO SEE AVENTURA PERFORM LIVE IN SANTIAGO! 2 WEEKS!

On a side note, the 80's seem to be in full swing down here. Ladies, get out your scrunchies! ;)

mas de mi nueva vida aqui

So I had training in the capital this past week and I found out that this upcoming year I will be a 2nd grade teacher! I will have a teaching assistant and grades will be subjective (good for them because I bet I could come up with some mean tests...). I am very very excited! I was given the curriculum and apparently I will be teaching things like gravity, the Pilgrims, China's ancient civilization, antonyms and synonyms, telling time, Venn diagrams, matter, compound words, and fractions. It was a little bit daunting reading everything we'll be doing this year, because I wasn't sure how well I remembered those topics myself! But it will be fun, I just know it.

During training I got to learn a lot more about the school and how it's set up. One thing that I thought was SUPER neat was that one of the daughters of the President of the Dominican Republic (Leonel Fernandez) is a student at the school in Santo Domingo. As a general rule these students are all very well off and most have their own chauffeurs; some even have their own bodyguards! When there's so much poverty around me sometimes it's hard to reconcile the fact that I'm working at this well-off school and not doing more to help out those less fortunate. But I'm going to give it my all regardless

And sorry to disappoint but so far I am not fluent. I did learn the word for prune, due to an unfortunate incident involving prune yogurt. From far away prunes may look like yummy cookies, but don't let that fool you; they taste very very different.

From here on out my days will be filled with even more training and then non-stop lesson planning. I start at the end of August, so let's hope I'm ready by then! And let's hope the kids are ready for me!

las communicaciones

i have finally figured out the deal with my phone and snail mail address. for fear of creepos i'm not going to post them, but feel free to get at me and i will gladly give them to you!

the eagle has landed

I'm here I'm here I'm here! And with all my luggage too-thank you American Airlines for coming through on at least one thing...

Things have not been as whirlwind-ish as I expected so far, just because the school is trying to get us and everything settled so that we have money and Internet and a working stove like they promised.

The apartment is cute and spacious, with easy access to the roof for drying clothes and watching sunsets. There is no AC but there's a constant hurricane-size gust of wind blowing through so it stays relatively cool. We're on the 3rd floor (no elevator) and they cut the water off completely at 10pm. We have ants, a gas stove, and a buzzer to let people into the apartment (my favorite thing). I have hot pink mosquito netting draped over my bed to keep away the little critters that (so far) have been pretty nice to me and not eaten me up.

Sunday morning we head via bus to the capital, Santo Domingo, for a week of training. We'll be staying in a hotel and meeting all the other new teachers. I'm especially interested in meeting the other American teachers who will be working in the capital.

What I've learned so far:

It is considered a sign of respect to applaud the pilot when the plane lands (contrary to the way I interpreted it-applauding meaning "we're glad this time we actually did land")
You can buy anything at a stoplight.
The police are the only ones without cars. Their orders are to be ignored
They have drive-thru fast food restaurants, but also drive-thru ABC stores. (Order up a beer to go!)
Dominican women go to the salon twice a week. Twice a week!
Time is all relative. Be prepared to wait.
People are loud. And they like to wake you up at 5:30 am yelling "AGUACATES!" ("AVACADOS!") outside your window.
The Coke tastes different (they use real cane sugar)

We're heading out soon with Elaine, the HR Rep at the school, for a tour of the city. Pictures of my beautiful new home will be posted later :)

hello to all! (or should i say hola...)

the first post! what pressure!

i have decided to start a blog to satisfy the curiosity of all you nosy people out there (don't feel bad; i'm one of them too). now that i've gone and graduated from college, my life is a lot less planned out than it once used to be. scary, but true. i thought this would be a good place for everyone to see what i'm up to and where i'm headed next!

so the scoop for now:
On July 30th I will be leaving for Santiago, Dominican Republic to teach middle schoolers the intricacies of English and the namesdatesplaces of Social Studies. I will be living down there for 11 months, sharing an apartment with a recent Duke graduate (boo, I know) who's going to be doing the same thing as me. I'm teaching at a private bilingual school called New Horizons, a job opportunity I found out about through Career Services at UNC. And to answer your question no I don't speak Spanish, but I'm hoping to learn!
I unfortunately don't have many more details other than the ones I just gave you, but I will hopefully find out more when I get down there! ;)

in the meantime, it's just packing packing saying goodbye and packing until I leave! and that means the next post will be from my new home in the dominican!

muchos besos!