Teaching Experiences

1.      Fourth grade spend a whole class colouring in rocks with crayons so that we can play counting games with the finished products. I am seen collecting rocks from all over the school during the day and children are seem looking for rocks all throughout class. I am beginning to develop a slight reputation as unhinged.

2.      Making flashcards with Fifth graders of items you can find in the classroom, ending up with several hundred flashcards of tables with six legs and “teachers” that look like bizarre humanoid monsters with suspiciously pale skin.

3.      “Describe a person in the classroom” with 7^th grade. Rosa, upset after being punished by the classroom teacher, writes a description that describes her teacher Senor Thomas as “fat, ugly, stupid and mean”, all in faultless English.

4.      Learning numbers with Dominoes in Sixth grade. Guillermo answers “Who knows how to play Dominoes in English?” with “but profe! You don’t need to speak to play Dominoes!”

5.      While learning about countries and continents in 8^th grade, I am pulled into a minor disagreement with Isaac, who insists that the country of Denmark is part of China.

6.      Asked to substitute for the 5^th grade teacher in the afternoon, we have an impromptu visit to the library when it’s discovered that the textbooks I’m supposed to be teaching out of are missing. We go and read books for the last hour of school.

7. In the space of less than two hours of teaching, I confiscate a bouncy ball, three notebooks of non-English nature, a pencil, two sticks and two mangoes.

Cleaning House: Dominican Republic Style

Step One: flood the building. The entire floor must be covered in water, ideally to the point that you need to take your shoes off and roll your trousers up. Ankle depth is perfect.

Step Two: enthusiastically throws buckets of water on all surfaces you think need cleaning. The windows, the walls, doorways and especially in the corners. Splash intensity is more important than accuracy.

Step Three: wade through the water with a broom and begin to sweep the water out the front door or other entryways.

Step Four: mop the whole floor. Don’t be stingy with the bleach and cleaning fluids. Wring the mop by hand but don’t forget to spin it right at the end, flicking nearby individuals with bleachy water.

Step Five: sweep the soapy water out of the house, usually through the front door. Make sure people see you cleaning!

Step Six: let dry. Reward yourself with some well-earned chicken and fritos (fried plantains).

(Repeat these steps daily)

This was written (humorously) with experience after helping clean out the building where we attend the weekly youth group. I was given Step Three as a job that I was unlikely to mess up. However, most Dominicans do clean their houses upwards of once a day, sweeping three or four times a day. This can be accounted for a number of reasons. La Hoya itself has only had paved roads for a handful of years, meaning that most people are still accustomed to dirt roads and a higher level of dust and dirt. Houses here are, on average, smaller. Most houses consist of about three or four rooms on a single floor, contained in a square footage that would settle comfortably into the average British person’s living room. Furthermore, most Dominicans don’t use garbage cans and there is no garbage collection in the village. When cooking or getting rid of trash, most people will just toss the offending item onto the floor (usually in the same sort of general area) and then later sweep it all out at once, usually onto the street or into an outdoor garbage pile that will later be burned.