(in Spanish, the “th” sound goes unpronounced. Ruth’s
name is therefore pronounced “Rue”)
On Saturday, I went to the nearby village of Habinero to
visit one of my 7th grade students, a young girl by the name of
Ruth.
Ruth is twelve years old and has two young brothers who
live with her and her mother. I teach one of her younger brothers, Ismael, in
sixth grade. Ruth would like to be an English teacher when she is older and
seems pretty determined about it. (Even on days when she doesn’t have English
class, she comes and finds me and asks for a word of the day, to add to her
ever growing English vocabulary.)
When I arrived in Habinero, having caught a ride with
another volunteer, Ruth’s cousin, a boy called Anderson, walked me to her house
on the outskirts of the village. (Amusingly, Anderson seemed to be infatuated
with a young girl in my 7th grade class called Perla.) I gave quite
a surprise to my students who saw me walking through the village, unused to
seeing me outside of my own village.
Ruth had cooked lunch and was very proud to serve me up a
full Dominican bandera – rice (by the pound), beans and fried salami in sauce.
I helped her mother to sort clothes for sale and then Ruth, her family and I
sat outside in the breeze while Ruth’s mother ate her own lunch.
Then Ruth showed me around her neighbourhood of Habinero,
introducing me to other students and their families, pointing our houses of
family and people she thought I should know. We bought sweet oranges from a
girl with a big bowl of them and visited another one of my students, Carmen
Lina, and her brothers. Ismael showed off with his slingshot and we watched 15
minutes of, bizarrely enough, a Spanish dub of Dodgeball that was playing on
Carmen Lina’s tiny tv.
Poignantly, on the way home, Ruth pointed out a small
square of concrete next to a deep, rocky trench, with a single room still
standing on the edge of the concrete. This was where Ruth’s house had stood, until the tropical storm
Isaac washed it away in August of last year. Ruth’s current house, on the edge
of the village, was built by the government while Ruth and her family stayed
with an aunt in Barahona, the nearby city. The rocky trench I had not noticed
earlier was the path the river followed when it overflowed its banks.
Back at home, we fried plaintains and salami for a snack
and ate sitting in the back doorway, watching chickens peck at the packed
earth. We talked about school and Ismael’s hobby of fighting fish. Her younger
brothers demonstrated their reading ability out of coveted textbooks and told
me about their classes at Habinero’s small primary school. At the end of the
day, Ruth’s uncle took us back to La Hoya on his motorbike and Ruth and I said
goodbye at the school gate.
I enjoyed getting to experience another village and pass
time with my students, spending my free time in the same way as the children I
teach. It was eye-opening to see how some of my most disadvantaged students
live and work but rewarding to witness the fruit of my time in the community as
I recognised friends and was recognised by students.
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