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. :)