On a lighter note...

Ok, enough seriousness with all this education business.  

Last weekend I was at a soccer game that some of my friends organized for their youth project and we had a funny moment.  The game was in full swing – teenage/20-year old guys battling it out as intensely as you would expect (Dominicans are pretty competitive) – when suddenly both teams were on the ground.   Seriously, I’m standing on the sidelines chatting with some fellow PCVs and we look back to see everyone spread out around the field on their backs.   Huh?   Is this some kind of weird Dominican half-time tradition?   Completely baffling… until we see SWARMS of black things flying towards our heads like locusts.   We threw ourselves down, laughing at what was probably 100 people lying prone around the field under clouds of insects.  Turns out they were bees.  Good thing I got down, I think I’m allergic… Note to self:  do as the locals do.

Momento parecido:  I was swimming in a river in Brazil, and all the Americans were in the water but our Kayapo friends were not.   We finally asked them why they didn’t want to swim and they were like, “Oh, we don’t like electric eels.”   Oh, right, ok, thanks for letting us know.   Ah!!  

Speaking of rivers, on Saturday a few of us took a long walk to a river in the campo, despite the terrifying warnings that we’ve been given... Let’s just say that Peace Corps seems to think fear is the best policy when it comes to medical risks such as a relaxing swim in potentially diseased waters.  Lots of Dominicans were swimming, and the water didn’t look particularly dirty, so we decided to take our chances and enjoy it.  It may be too soon to tell, but I don’t feel any less healthy than I felt a few days ago, so hopefully I came out unscathed.   I’m not sure that I can say the same for all the jovenes who were inspired to show off for us Americanos… sometimes I find it incredible that anyone survives childhood.   We swam down river a ways to find a bunch of teenage boys goofing off in the water.   Once they saw us, they started jumping/flipping/diving into the river off of branches and a sketchy piece of rope hanging from a tree high above the (relatively shallow) water.  There’s definitely no sense of water safety here.  Despite many MANY close calls, we witnessed no crises… gracias a Dios.  

The walk through cane fields to the river.

Tranquilo...

And today I got really lucky and ended up at the beach in Miches (about an hour north of El Seibo) instead of spending the afternoon sitting in the kiddie pool my doña just set up in our front patio.  This is apparently a Semana Santa tradition.  I guess it makes sense – can’t afford to go to the beach?  Don’t have a vehicle to get you to the river(/don’t want to walk 45 minutes like those crazy Americans)?  Set up a kiddie pool in your front patio and sit there all afternoon with your closest friends and family!    Lucky me, I went to the beach with my friend Nikki's family instead.  It was beautiful.  And one of those, “I’m in the Peace Corps?  Are you sure?” kind of days.  Those are about to get fewer and farther between, because in just over a week I will know where I am going to live for the next two years!  I anticipate a steep downgrade in amenities, but am super excited to find out what my life is going to look like and to get started on some projects!

Also, if you would like to know what my life sounds like (pretty much 24/7, no matter where I am in this country), listen to some of these songs and imagine motorcycles roaring by in the background… maybe throw in some roosters too for good measure:

Prince Royce:  Stand by Me, Corazon Sin Cara, El Amor Que Perdimos

Don Omar y Lucenzo:  Danza Kuduro

Hector Acosta:  Me Duele la Cabeza

Carlos Baute: Colgando en Tus Manos

They want to put me on TV... Que?

So, I wrote some stuff about the state of education in the DR, but let me bring it into focus a little bit…

Since coming to El Seibo, all the trainees have been observing classes and doing applied projects to prepare for our service.  For literacy volunteers, this means observing adult literacy classes and giving a few charlas (más o menos “talks”/presentations), as well as developing some kind of applicable tool for literacy.  I observed one class a few times to prepare for a charla that I gave last week with two other literacy volunteers.  While the teacher, Francia, is a very nice woman, who appears to welcome constructive criticism and wants to help her students, watching her “teach” is pretty infuriating.  The class has about 25 students, a mixture of Haitians and Dominicans ranging in age from 10 to 70.  It's two hours long (kind of), and from what I’ve seen most of the students are very motivated, despite all the issues they face that impede their learning (ie. almost everything in their lives).  Other classes that I’ve tried to observe have often been cancelled or only had 2 or 3 students in attendance, but this one actually has good attendance, so that's cool.  How it goes:

5:00 – 5:20:  Students (desperate to learn, having come on public transportation from other places, some of them with their kids in tow!) wait for Francia to show up.

5:20 – 6:00ish:  She arrives with her hair halfway styled because she's been at the salon.  After a quick group prayer, she spends the first 15 minutes of class writing in cursive on the board.  When she finishes, the students spend the next 20 minutes copying down what she wrote and practicing letters, struggling a lot with the cursive.  Why are they using cursive when they can barely read print?

6:00 – 7:00:  Francia calls students up to the board one by one to read the words and sentences that she wrote.  Everyone is clearly nervous and embarrassed to approach the board, but by the end they have mostly memorized the words by listening to all the other students read it over and over again.  One particularly infuriating moment: an older man (whose voice is shaking) is taking his turn at the board when Francia gets a phone call.  Instead of silencing her phone, she takes the call, and instead of leaving the room or talking quietly, she actually talks louder to drown out the sound of this poor man struggling to read off the board!  Class ends with another group prayer.

Y ya, two hours wasted.  This is a pretty common class structure, from what I’ve seen and heard.

Step one:  After starting late, the teacher spends a chunk of the class writing something on the board in cursive.

Step two:  Students spend a chunk of the class copying down what the teacher wrote.

Step three:  Something else happens that doesn’t seem to be very constructive.  (Example: everyone standing up and reading the exact same thing over and over for a full hour.)

There is nothing quite so humbling as watching an old man struggle to read a simple word from the board, in front of the whole class, while his teacher barely pays attention to him, and still go back to his seat smiling because he tried.

So anyway, that was frustrating, but we gave our charla to this class and they LOVED it.   At the end, the teacher was like “Can you guys give another charla next week and we’ll put you on TV so everyone can see how you teach?”  On TV!  What?  All we did was talk about nutrition using “popular education” methods (ie. actually using interactive activities and having discussion instead of just standing there and talking at them or making them copy things down).   They thought it was great. 

Our Spanish teachers who were observing our presentation looked concerned about the whole TV thing, and later told us that it was probably a political scam to make this literacy program (which is run through the Senator’s Office) look good.  Basically:  “Vote for us!  We have American Peace Corps volunteers teaching our literacy students cool things!” 

Another thing about education in this country:  it’s all politics. 

And about politics:  it’s all money.

And when you consider the lack of critical thinking here... ay Dios, what a mess. 

Why is the education system so deficient?

We watched this video in training the other day, and I think it does a great job of laying out the facts about education here in the DR.   Unfortunately, it is in Spanish, so here are some main points (not in the order that they are presented in the video):

1.     Lack of schools.   There are no preschools for 70% of kids less than 6 years old, and no high schools for 60% of adolescents!  

2.     Lack of time in school.  Schools in the DR operate with “tandas,” which are different sessions throughout the day.  There are morning (8AM-12PM), afternoon (2PM-5PM), and evening (6PM-9PM) tandas.  Each lasts 3-4 hours.  Most students only attend one tanda.  You do the math!   Although the law states that students should be in school for a minimum of 5 hours a day, most students are only actually learning for 2.5 hours!   That’s not enough time to learn much…

3.     Lack of teachers.   Which results in overworked and underpaid existing teachers, who end up having to teach all 3 tandas!  That’s a long workday, for hardly any money and with very little support.

4.     Lack of facilities/materials in general.  Classrooms, books, markers, chalkboards, libraries, outdoor space, bathrooms… you name it, they probably don’t have much of it, or any at all.   Knowing that you won’t be able to use a bathroom is a very real reason to just skip school some days…

5.     This video doesn’t even talk about teaching style, but the way that things are taught also does a disservice to the Dominican people!   DR education is a “banking system” – teachers tell students information, and they are expected to regurgitate it.  Critical thinking is not exactly cultivated… Can we blame teachers for this?  Not really, because they went through the same school system, often only have a high school degree, and are overworked and underpaid!   

Out of all the kids who enter into the school system (so that’s not even counting the ones who never go to school) only 63% reach 8^th grade.  Only 48% finish high school.  Less than HALF of the population finishes high school!  And if you are lucky/motivated enough to make it that far, the chance of going to university is still pretty slim.  The higher in the education system you go, the farther you have to travel for school, and the more money it costs.   This causes lots of kids to drop out – they have to work for their families, they can’t pay the bus fare every day, or they simply don’t see the point of going to school.  And can you blame them, when they aren’t supported and they aren’t learning much anyway?

The biggest thing missing from the education system:  money, of course. While the U.S. spends about $6000 per student per year, the DR spends less than $500!  We have our problems too, obviously, but the DR is just ridiculous.   The 1997 Law of Education states that at least 4% of their GDP is supposed to go into education, but in reality only 1.8% (or less?) actually does.   The only country in Latin America that puts less into their education system is Ecuador.   Most other countries invest around 5% or more of their GDP into education (according to the video).

Conclusion:  the DR education system is failing miserably.   And adult illiteracy isn’t even really measured, because the “measurement” of literacy is based on writing your name.  So… you can write your name?  You’re literate!   With that test, I think somewhere around 80-90% of the country is “literate.”  I don’t know where the real percentage falls, but I would guess more like 50%.  Or less.  Reading isn’t something that people do for fun around here. 

This country is pretty chaotic.  People don’t do much critical thinking.  And while I definitely can't change the system, maybe I can change the teaching styles of a few educators, and help a few more people become literate... a little bit could go a very long way. 

Food and a Quinceañera

So, a few weeks ago I said that there isn’t much Dominican food I don’t like.  Oh, how naïve I was…

I meant to say:  I love fruit and I love the rice, beans, carne, ensalada combo.   So at least I’ve got that going for me.  But there are many other staples of the Dominican diet that are less than appetizing:

1.    Viveres, ie. things that grow in the ground.  You might think that sounds great and healthy.   Actually, it means starch.   Potatoes, yams, sweet potatoes (different from ours), and green plantains.  General practice is to boil these items into huge flavorless mounds of starchy filler, then put things like salami or eggs on top.  Dinner!   (Sometimes good, depending on how they’re made, but generally… not.)

2.    Harina:  sweet oatmealy soupy thing.   Mostly just sugar.  Dinner!

3.    Cereal full of ants, ie. don’t leave food open in the Dominican Republic (or maybe anywhere?) and then expect people to eat it like tons of ants swimming in the milk are no biggy.  Breakfast!  Or Dinner! 

4.     Milk in a box that doesn’t need to be refrigerated until opened.  ‘Nough said.

5.     Fried fried friedness. 

6.     Sugar applied to EVERYTHING in great heaping spoonfuls.  Oh, you only put two huge spoonfuls of sugar in your shot-sized glass of coffee?  Here, let me give you some more sugar. 

7.     Papaya (unless it is made into a papaya milkshake or other papaya product that is not straight-up papaya).  If you’ve never tasted papaya… you’re not missing anything.

8.     Bacalao (depending on its form).  Fish.  I like it one way my host family makes it, basically fried in long strips.  But they also make some extremely salty and fishy mixture with the same fish, which seems to activate my gag reflex.

So lunch is generally good, because it is the rice, beans, carne, ensalada combo.   Breakfast and dinner are more of a surprise.  I say gracias a Dios when I see pan y queso waiting for me for breakfast.  (The alternatives range from ant cereal to ridiculous things like creamy pasta/French fries.)  I would kill for some mozzarella.  Humus.  Arugula.  Yum.

In other news, I went to my first quinceañera yesterday.  To sum up:  

It involved a lot of sitting around and waiting for the birthday girl to show up (she apparently spent most of the day in the salon, getting ready), then watching her be paraded around in a dress, a cowgirl outfit, and another dress (yes, THREE costume changes) while everyone she knows took pictures.  Kind of hilarious.  She looked mildly uncomfortable about the whole thing.   There were also two or three choreographed dances thrown in there for good measure… picture a dozen 14/15 year old Dominicanas dressed as cowgirls and dancing in unison in front of a large crowd of family, friends and acquaintances.  So great. 

It was definitely more elaborate than the wedding I went to last weekend.  This could partly be due to the fact that everyone actually watched the “ceremony,” which consisted of a priest saying many words, Esmerelda’s mother putting make-up on her face, her father changing her shoes from the flat sandals she was wearing to huge, silver, sparkly heels, and then her mother putting a tiara on her head.  All meant to symbolize her shift from childhood to adolescence.  Then she spent a long time sitting on her throne while people (including us) took five million pictures…

Esmerelda in her princess dress with her posse of cowgirls.

Keeton, Dave, me, Carlitos, Melani y Guillermina con la quinceañera. 

That was really funny actually.  Also, apparently all the jovenes thought that Melani was MY baby.  When they found out she’s Guillermina’s granddaughter, one girl was like, “Pero parece como esa gringa!” (But she looks like that gringa!) People keep thinking that this child is mine.  Probably because her actual mother looks like she’s 14 years old.  (She’s 21.)  Awkward.  Not actually, because nothing here is that awkward.  There is no word for “awkward” in Spanish, which I think reflects the culture in general.   Everything just…is. 

My first Dominican Wedding

Current host family:  My Doña, Guillermina, her 21 year old daughter Melania, Melania’s husband Ruben and adorable baby Melani.   For a while I also had a tia named Melania who was visiting from the states, and a fun prima, Andrea, visiting from Barcelona, where she lives with her family.   Andrea is now in Santo Domingo for a while, and tia Melania’s sadly gone back to Connecticut.   I also have two brothers, 21 (Melania’s twin) and 22, who live in Santo Domingo but come visit sometimes.    Full house.  There are also 5 neighborhood muchachas who hang out at the house all day.  They help with cleaning, love holding the baby, and randomly hug me a lot... cute.  It took a few days to get all that straight.

Guillermina with baby Melani, tia Melania dancing with Carlitos

With one of the neighbors who hangs out at the house

So that’s my home life right now.   Yesterday I went to a wedding with Guillermina, baby Melani and my friend Carlitos.  It was strange, to say the least.   We dressed up (as best as we could) and walked down the street to a neighbor’s house where the wedding was happening.  The moment we walked up I could tell that it would be weird… though, after a month in this country, I really should have expected it. 

The scene:  There are 6 round tables with white plastic chairs set up in front of the house.   We are among the first guests, there are only like 4 other people sitting around outside.   Then in walks Guillermina with a baby and her gringos… people stare at us, but it’s not too awkward.   Some are super dressy, others are wearing jeans and t-shirts… typical.   We sit down directly in front of the giant speakers blasting some radio station.  Someone brings over a bottle of Brahma Light and some plastic cups… we enjoy our beer in silence because we can’t hear each other and nothing interesting is happening yet.  The baby is so used to noise that she sleeps while the music breaks my eardrums. 

Meanwhile, more people are showing up, drinking beer, waiting around.  After maybe 45 minutes, they are ready to start.   Merengue is replaced with the wedding march, but it sounds eerie and tinny coming out of the speakers so loudly.  I am reminded of funhouse music.   The bride comes out of the house, takes a loop around the crowd, and then goes back into the house where the ceremony is apparently happening.  We stay in our seats.  

So… we didn’t watch the ceremony, and neither did lots of other people who were still sitting outside.   Someone brought over little baskets of finger foods (empanadas and other fried things), which were crawling with ants.  No one batted an eye… just grabbed their empanadas, dusted off a few bugs, and talked about how delicious they were.   And after they got hitched, the bride and groom started passing out gifts to the guests.  Even Carlitos and I got little boxes of candy! 

We were tired and left before the dancing really got started, but it was worth going… beer, food, gifts, what more could we ask?