viernes, 16 de marzo de 2012

Profe in the DR 35

2-24-12
Friday night I spent in Los Patos with several other volunteers.   We had plans to swim the next morning, but rain “dampened” our plans.  Sunday marked a year and a half in country; I celebrated it by getting out on my bike for four hours.  That has been my longest ride since I started dealing with all my back problems.  
I got gripe again, my sinuses feel like they are going to explode, throat’s sore, and I have a cough.  Still teaching all my classes though.  I’m pleased with the progress I am seeing in all my classes, but especially in the reading classes.  One group that started with absolutely nothing is already reading simple sentences.  I really enjoy teaching reading, and have gotten very good at reading Spanish upside down.  (This is because it is hard to find more than one or two copies of a book so we all have to share, and I sit across from the students and have to read upside down.)
More and more kids have been actually reading books in the small library I formed.  One of the older boys read one of the Goosebumps  books and really liked it, and so now more and more boys are reading them.  It is difficult acquiring books in Spanish, they are quite expensive in this country.   Most of what I have are from Scholastic en Español and are translated from English.  The kids have very little experience with books and so they don’t know how to treat them.  They flip the page by pushing with the palm of their hand, putting a crease in the page; they toss the books back up on the shelves, etc.  I’ve been teaching how to treat a book, but I am usually teaching classes while the library is open. 
Somebody stole the miniature bible that was in the library.  The kids warned me that would happen.  I just hope that who ever stole it, takes the time to read it, to realize what they did was wrong.
Last night in the computer lab I had to break up yet another fight, this time between two young men arguing over a cell phone.  Afterwards, my arm was sore the rest of the night.  To quote Lethal Weapon: “I’m too old for this (stuff) !”

3-8-12
Haven’t had much time or electricity to write lately.  The 27th of February is independence day.  They also celebrate carnival in the DR that day or the Sunday before.  (Unlike everywhere else which celebrates carnival the week or so before Ash Wednesday.)  Like any other holiday, there is very little celebration here in the batey, however a few teenagers and kids dressed up in masks and homemade carnival outfits and walked around the batey cracking their homemade whips.  (They make the whips out of the strands from rice sacks and weave them together to make the rope.) 
I spent the 27th working and finished up a ten week program of Deportes Para la Vida (aka: Grassroots Soccer).  The program teaches about HIV/AIDS using sports based activities. 
I spent four days in the Capital in various meetings, and ended up volunteering myself to help re-write the literacy manual and workbook.  Teachers here have little training and even fewer resources, so we want the materials to be effective, easy to use, and inexpensive to reproduce.  I also decided to take on planning a two day youth soccer leadership conference for June.  I will have to write a grant for the funding, and at this point it looks like nine communities will be participating.  Also while in the Capital, I received a box of books in Spanish from the Franklin Center.  The kids are really enjoying the new titles.  I read aloud Clic, Clak, Muu, Vacas con Maquinas de Escribir (Click, Clack, Moo, Cows with typewriters) on Monday and ever since, kids have been going around saying “clic, clak, muu!, clic, clak, muu!”
We have also started planning for our bateys’ soccer league that will start up in June as well.  We are hoping to receive transportation from the Sugar Consorcio this time.  They didn’t help us with the winter league because it was during the zafra (sugar cane cutting season).  We have decided to separate the genders this time.  We are hoping that more girls will play if they have their own team. 
We have been having problems with children running around the computer center, chasing each other and throwing rocks; (They love to throw rocks here.)  including problems with them throwing rocks at the windows and doors while people are inside trying to work.  Two days ago, finally someone got hurt.  A ten year old boy was running and trying to reach down and grab rocks at the same time and ran straight into a metal post.  They had to take him to a hospital and get four stitches in his forehead.  So yesterday we had a long meeting trying to come up with a solution to the problem.  The representative from World Vision wanted to talk to the parents and threaten to take away the computers, (to which I am sure they would have said “take them”.  Very few adults here know how to use them.)  The three of us who live here managed to come up with some better ideas.  We are going to ask teenagers to work outside the center and keep the peace.  Since we don’t have money to pay them, we will pay them in free Facebook time.  We are also going to try to get more parents to come visit the computer center and see how valuable a learning tool the computers are.  To accomplish this we are thinking to offer free Facebook time to anyone who brings their parents to the center. (Facebook, the new currency!)  We are also going to have a meeting with the parents and the representative of World Vision, but not threatening them like he suggested, but rather asking their help like an equal.   Hopefully these three things will solve the problem.  Tonight we had the meeting with the teenagers, asking their help.  About a dozen showed up.  They will start working tomorrow. The meeting with the parents is scheduled for Wednesday.
3-14-12
Sunday I rode my mt. bike in the mountains for 5hours and 15 minutes, lots of steep climbs, but little traffic, and the views are incredible.  Afterward I had a 3 hour meeting with all the coaches and coordinators of the soccer league, along with 3 other volunteers.  We were planning out everything for the next league which won’t have its first games until June.  We decided to ask the sugar consorcio for transportation, and they won’t provide that during the zafra (sugar cane cutting season).  I was in charge of the meeting and because two of the coaches don’t speak Spanish, had to conduct the meeting in Spanish and Creole.  I was rather worn out from my ride, and it takes a lot of effort still to speak in Creole, so much so that when it was time to speak in Spanish again, I started speaking in English without knowing.  This of course cracked up everyone in the meeting (except me).
We had our meeting about the computer center with the parents.  Only 12 poeple showed up, only a few of them parents.  Its hard to get parents involved in anything here.  We decided to try again, asking those 12 to come to another meeting next week, and this time bring someone with them.  Try, try again.  The teenagers who are woking at keeping the peace around the computer center are doing a good job.  We have had very few problems since they started.