Thursday 27 December 2012

Photos from the DR

Remember, you can always see more photos from the DR here at my flickr!


DSCN2834

After Hurricane Isaac, a school chair left outside is found in a tree on the school grounds.

DSCN3296

Eupa and Beatriz, both in Second Grade, pose for a picture on Christmas Day.

DSCN3250
A cow joins the school during a parade through the village.

DSCN3343

From left to right: Huwilda, Yuraidi, Betania (me!) and Lorenny, celebrating Christmas Dominican style.

DSCN3286

Christmas morning, PT volunteer style. 

DSCN2855

Beatriz in her school uniform, waiting for the school day to start.

DSCN3253

Sobilenny, a fifth grader, during our parade through the village on the international day of no violence against women. 

Friday 7 December 2012

Day in the Life


A typical day in my life as a PT English teacher in La Hoya.

7.00am – woken by my phone alarm. I’m curled up in the blanket I’ve thrown around myself while sleeping. My mosquito net has partially fallen down while I was sleeping but I’m too comfortable to move. The temperature in the morning is just right, one of the few times when it’s not too hot. Becky gets up to shower, which I take as my cue to fall back asleep.

7.30am – woken by children shouting and screaming as they walk past our house on their way to school. Realise I have to be at school in15 minutes and drag myself out of bed. Throw my dirty laundry into our laundry basket, throw on something clean, pull my hair into a pony tail and slap on some bug spray. Becky and I try to take turns carrying the laundry to Mota, our laundry lady, so I take it today. Then I stuff my planning notebook, chalk, pens, keys and phone into my purse and get out of the door bare minutes before I need to be at school. (Thankfully, it is literally a ten second walk away.)

8.00am – ‘fila’ at school. Students line up by grade and gender in front of the school gates. We say a prayer, sing a song and hear any announcements before singing the national anthem (of which I now know all the words) while the flag is raised. 

9.40-10.20am - It's a Monday, so I have my first class of the week: the dreaded 7th graders. 40 moody 7th graders shoved into a classroom barely big enough to contain them. I try to by turns to subdue them or cajole them into learning some English, which they manage about two thirds of the time. I feel sorry for the few kids who are trying to learn while being entertained by the jokers in the back who seem to see me as something of a personal challenge. 

11.20-12.00 - The morning shift of 5th graders. I call them a swing class. Some days are great and some days are classesare from hell. They're smart but hyper-active and even the slightest game or activity can send them into paroxysms of excitement. 

12.00am-2.00pm - Lunch break! Known variably as siesta or almuerzo, everyone goes home, eats a large lunch, usually of rice and something else (beans or veg) and then sleep. If there's electricity (and therefore hot water) I'll shower or try and get some work done and maybe manage to cat at 20 minute catnap before going back to school.

2.10pm - I teach 4th graders English in the nearby village of Hato Viejo on Monday afternoons. The school in Hato Viejo is a parnership school with my charity COPA, meaning that while COPA is not involved in the running or administration of the school, COPA does help out with materials and certain types of tuition: namely Art and English. My collegue, a Dominican woman called Rosemery, teaches Art to all grades in Hato Viejo (pre-school through fourth) while I just teach English to fourth graders and help out with the art classes. The class is small and well-behaved (they're less used to Americans and their teaching methods) but they are seriously further behind then my fourth graders in La Hoya and take much longer to learn the same materials. We play a lot of games and repeat topics over and over again. I find them adorable.

3.20-4.00pm - Sixth grade B. While the nicest of the two sixth grade classes, they're also the slowest and come form the poorest background. They are the only class to ever have attempted to steal school materials from my classes. 

5.00-5.40pm - The afternoon shift of 5th graders! The most disadvantaged students, they feed into COPA La Hoya at fifth grade, from the partnership schools of Habinero and Hato Viejo, which both terminate at 4th grade. They're enthusiatic, desperate to learn and adorable. They struggle with complicated topics but I find their classes the most enjoyable. 

5.40pm - School finishes with the ringing out the bell, singing of the national anthem and the lowering of the flag. Becky and I rush home and I start dinner, hoping to finish cooking before the sun sets and darkness sets in at 6.30pm (tonight it's stir fry). On Tuesdays and Thursdays we go to church but on Mondays we have the option of staying in or wandering down into the village, probably being forcefed a second dinner and sitting outside a house of a friend on plastic chairs. The verb for "hanging out" in Spanish is "compartir", which translates literally as "to share". Dominicans love to talk and hang out with their friends and I have to say, I've developed a taste for it myself. (although not for the mosquitos that bite at you throughout the night!)

10.15pm - our curfew is at 10.30 so time to go home! Someone with a motor (a run down motorbike that acts as the favored mode of transport here) will usually give us a lift back home, avoiding the dogs that hang around La Hoya during the night.

11.00pm - asleep by 11! If there's no power (there usually isn't), going to bed is a confusing mess of flashlights and oil lamps that we move around the house as we brush our teeth with clean drinking water (NOT TAP WATER) and set up our mosquito nets.

Tomorrow it starts all over again!