Recently I recapped a teacher training we were able to do at a friend’s school in the Miches area, and how much I and the teachers enjoyed the experience of traveling and sharing what we’ve been working on for over a year as a school with other interested teachers. Since that trip, Marina and Isabel, the two teachers who did the training, have been planning more Montessori trainings and exchanges with neighboring schools. We organized a visit to a Special Ed. school in Esperanza, a neighboring town about fifteen minutes or so from Mao. The schools have had exchanges and visits before because our towns are so close. We prepared a similar presentation to our first training - Montessori instruction in basic language didactic activities - and brought supplies with us to leave with the Esperanza school so that they could have a base off which to incorporate these and similar materials into their classroom. The Special Ed. school in Esperanza is a little different than our own. The school is part of the elementary school, but is located in a separate building. So ideally, students could integrate between the buildings, but as of now that isn’t happening too much. The school is located in a corner of the main school’s property. The building itself looks like a little house as you’ll see in the pictures and has one large classroom inside and a covered space behind the school functioning as a separate classroom. All classrooms are traditional in the sense that they are lined with rows of desks and chairs. Looking at the school and thinking of our own reminds me just how fortunate IDENE was in receiving a sponsor. This school in Esperanza, though obviously much smaller, is also fortunate in the sense that it has its own building and doesn’t pay rent on it. Many schools in the DR often rent out land space or houses to conduct their school. Other schools are on rented land that the DR's Ministry of Education will pay for month to month in lieu of building a school...but I digress... In IDENE's case, before 2009 when Banelino built IDENE, the school had been running out of rented homes for about 10 years. My point is - it was interesting to notice the differences between the two neighboring Special Ed. schools, and realize once again the impact that school sponsorship and the banana have had on IDENE, and by extension my experience with the community I have been a part of for over 2 years.The training itself went well. Teachers and directors from both the elementary and the Special Ed. school participated in our Montessori training, and Marina and Isabel conducted the whole presentation just as they had done the last time. I was really happy after our first training because it was such a good event for all involved, so it was a blessing to be able to repeat the traveling teacher training experience with another school. Enjoy our photos!walking to the school. Elementary school is on left, and Special Ed. school is in distance on the right.front of the schooloutdoor classroomMontessori materials we made and gave to the Esperanza schoolMarina and Isa leading the trainingBandeja FoneticaLetras de LijaDistintas Formas de Letrasparticipants from EsperanzaTarjetas con PinitosAll of us post-training!Marina and Iwith Isabelpost-training lunch at Supermercado Morel - going to miss that place! and them!

XO

I went to Dajabon! Dajabon is a town located on the DR/Haiti border, and visiting the famous Market there has been a travel goal of mine for quite some time. Down to the wire time-wise, but I made it all the same. I went with my neighbor, Carla who goes weekly to purchase for her store in Mao, and three other Mao donas who purchase from the Dajabon Market to sell at the Mao Market. I had heard about the Dajabon Market from other volunteers and their recounts are usually laced with the same theme - it can be a crazy place. That said, and having now been, yes, it is overwhelming so I’m really glad that I went with Carla as she has literally been hundreds of times and knows the majority of the Haitian sellers there as she’s been buying from them for years. I got to spend the day in her shoes seeing what she does on a weekly basis which I really liked, and also helping her carry a few bedspreads and baby basinets that she purchased to sell in Mao. All in all a good time, for sure!The day began early. We woke up and left by 5am in a large white truck driven by Mamacita - another Dajabon regular and professional shopper for the Mao Market. Joined by two other Mao women, the five of us made the trip, and upon getting to Dajabon, entered the Market separately (except me, obviously I stayed with Carla to help/not get lost alone on the border). Carla knew exactly where and who to go to look for anything, and you can buy just about anything at this Market - you name it, it’s most likely there. Carla approached every seller (the majority Haitian women) with a “Madam,” and haggled the price of the item for sale. We jumped around the Market really quickly, this is not the browsing or “I’m just looking, thanks” type of place. We walked from tent to tent, looking at shoes, bedspreads, baby carriers, shirts, sheets, and all the while were confronted with people presenting socks, garlic, or underwear right up in our faces asking us to buy it. Pigs roamed around and poked through trash. People pushed constantly as our paths crossed theirs, and motorcycles carrying goods, people or both plowed through the shoppers and sellers driving to and from the Market exit. And of course it has been raining everyday lately, so there was a lot of mud and puddles to avoid as well as crowds to navigate while looking for the items. All that said - I was really glad I went with Carla because she knew exactly where she was going in this chaos. After observation and asking Carla about a little of the logistics of the market itself, I learned a few things. The market takes place twice a week, on Mondays and Fridays (we went on a Dominican holiday - Dia de los Trabajadores, and it was still packed) and according to Carla, this market happens rain or shine no matter what day it is. And it makes sense once you see how many people buy and sell. Never in my time in the DR have I seen so many pesos all in one place. I did a little reading post-trip and learned that $1.5 million USD are represented in the market on a market day. That dollar amount might surprise you if you’ve already looked at the pictures below, but though the atmosphere may not be glamorous, it does have a really competitive, fast, and stressful spirit about it. It’s hot, there’s little shade, and you don’t just browse around and relax, or at least we didn’t anyway. People have a very purposeful attitude in the Market, despite how unorganized it may seem to someone new. But those who know, already know, and navigate the crowded, tent-lined paths with ease. At a certain hour of the morning, Haitians are allowed to cross the border to sell, and then the tent space fills up (you might notice empty spaces in some of the pictures, those were all earlier in the morning before their arrivals!) I also learned from Carla that the goods that Haitians sell are bought from a market in Port-au-Prince and the goods themselves are received off embarques (remember those?) and boats in Haiti’s capital. And this market is huge, truly a business - people from all over the DR travel up to the northwest border. I saw buses from Bani (south), Puerta Plata (north) and met people who woke up a lot earlier, and traveled a lot further than me to get there that day. Many Dominicans sell what they buy in Dajabon at other Markets in different provinces. For instance, the three of the women I traveled with sell their purchases weekly at the Mao Market on Sundays. Others, like Carla, have their own stores and go to Dajabon for the low prices. Essentially, many people’s livelihoods depend on the items that they buy from one another at the Dajabon Market.And what are they buying? Well anything. But I can tell you exactly what in some cases because I actually recognized so much of the stuff from my former American life. :) There were shoes from Target, (some of which I have previously owned), shoes from Payless (again some of which I have previously owned), a lot of Crocs, college shirts (looked. did not see St. A’s though it was likely represented), shirts from Aeropostale (popular here), cooking supplies, sheets, blankets, bedspreads, larger items like bikes, strollers, cribs, playpens, and so much more. The day was a good one in that I really liked seeing what Carla does weekly to support her store and livelihood, and although it was probably more chaotic than I expected it to be, I respect the business that is the Dajabon market and the countless people that sustain themselves and their families from the market profits. Carla and I in her store in MaoObama 2008 campaign shoes? pero claro!Dajabon Market with future market building location on the far leftshoes are a hot item at her store, so we were on a hunt!don't own Toms, so don't know - but somehow I don't think this is how "buy a pair give a pair" works.so many little pigs!one of the checkpoints on the DR/Haiti border in Dajabonborder checkpoint and front of future marketlots of rain = puddles and mud everywhere.Dajabon haul of the 4 donas I traveled with. (I didn't buy anything).Mamacita securing all the purchased items!black flats from our Dajabon trip that Carla gave me to remember the day. very sweet:)Unexpectedly, the trip took away any desire I had to visit Haiti before returning home, which for the past 2 years had been something I planned on doing. I still think I’d like to go someday of course, but as long as I had a reason, a plan, and maybe a guide. Helping Carla carry and search for her store’s items (not as easy as it sounds by the way! that stuff is heavy), made the Dajabon experience a lot less overwhelming and gave me a little job to do that morning. Without that, I wouldn’t have enjoyed or understood the Market as much. So instead of hopping the border post-Peace Corps, I’ll spend my last days on the island with the same people I’ve spent them with the last two years - drinking sugary black coffee, listening to bachata, getting bitten by mosquitos (can't wait, bring it on), and (with any luck!) eating yucca with my Mao families, and of course spending time at school with the IDENE family. My days are numbered now (I guess they always were?), but it’s going to be a wonderful and tear-filled last few weeks, I’m sure. :)Take care all, and see you next month Stateside!XOPS- If you're interested in reading about the Dajabon Market, I really liked these two pages:1. The Haitian Struggle for Existence - A Market in Dajabon, Dominican Republic. A good overview with pictures of the Market.2. Haitian Women on the Border - The Inequality of Informality. A perspective on the Dajabon border, market, and women who work there.

In April the school turned 14! We had a week full of community events including an opening Mass, a parent’s meeting, a presentation from a Santiago professional, two school visits with a neighboring Mao elementary school, and a Esperanza Special Ed. school. I feel blessed to have shared in two of IDENE’s 14 years. Pictures from the Anniversary Week last month:welcoming everyone to the 14th Anniversary school massAnniversary Mass with Mao communityA and I in the garden at schoolSchool Pool

revamped trash cans!Parents' Meeting and Visit from Dr. MartinezParents' MeetingSinging the school Anthem with a visit from Esperanza Special Ed. Schooldancing with friends from EsperanzaFloppy made an appearanceVisit with neighboring escuela basica across the streetbarrio kids!XO

Here are pictures and a video from our school’s Carnaval celebration in March. Carnaval at my school was a culture celebration of the past and present in the DR. Each classroom presented something different. One classroom dressed up and did a traditional dance, another class dressed as Tainos and presented different items and foods of the indigenous culture, and another class dressed in typical campo dress and danced. Obviously this was a different type of celebration, not like the modern Dominican Carnaval in the larger cities. But rest assured, we had just as much dancing! Check out the video for proof on that last part.

Vida Practica class with the Campo displayA from 1ro y 2do class with the Customs and Traditions displayBaja Audicion class and Pre-Primaria class with the Taino displayAlena, C and IAnd yes, for those who recognize the video song, thats all the students at school dancing to El Teke Teke. :)

XO

Lisa returned for a second visit! Which must mean I’m an awesome host. Just kidding. :) I can definitely understand wanting to revisit the Dominican Republic! I’m already planning my return trip and I haven’t even left yet.Anyway, Lisa had been here before, so we went to areas that she hadn’t yet seen. We spent time in the Colonial Zone of Santo Domingo, at the Las Terrenas beaches and El Limon waterfall in Samana, my community in Mao and finally a stop in Santiago. Alena, a friend and volunteer from Germany working at our school and Banelino joined us, and we all had a great time! There were over 1300 pictures between the three of us during this trip, which must be a record of some sort, but in any case gave me a lot of choices of which ones to include in this post! Enjoy the photos from late March/beginning of April.

Fashion show that Alena and I found by surprise in the Colonial Zonea photo op with ColumbusVisiting the Peace Corps officeformer hospital site in the Colonial ZoneLas Terrenas, SamanaHorseback riding to the El Limon waterfallRelampago or Lightening looks innocent enough, but almost booted me off. Still friends!Alena and ThunderEl Limon Waterfallwe made it with the help of these guidesLisa and Solomontook this picture for Sara. The Lynnfield cats' have a primo hermano in the DR!cute hotel where we stayed in Las Terrenasawaiting the bus for a nice 5 hours back to Maoloving the bus!my favorite local transportLisa got to see her pigs - a successful vacation!Cuidense!XO

Last month I visited a part of the country that I have wanted to visit for over two years. What secluded, picturesque beach or far-away travel destination could this be you are wondering? Well, neither really. This place is not isolated nor does it take much longer than 15 minutes to get to from my house. Ironically, it still somehow took me two years though. I had the chance to visit some of Banelino’s banana plantations where I saw the whole production process, from banana trees growing in the fields, to the conveyor/pulley systems that take the bananas in to be cut, washed, sorted, and packed into boxes to be shipped to buyers in Europe. It was so awesome! Perhaps to understand why this was such a big deal for me, you’d have to know more about what the Dominican banana industry has meant to my Peace Corps service here in the northwestern part of the country. To start, most families in my community, are affected in some way by bananas. Many friends work directly in the industry either in the plantations cutting and sorting the bananas or at desk jobs in the offices of the companies that process and ship the bananas overseas. Many more people, myself included, are indirectly affected by bananas. At my school, the students, teachers, and their families are impacted by the banana industry in that Banelino, the school’s sponsor, built and sponsors IDENE itself as well as the new workshop building. And then of course, with so many plantations in the area, bananas themselves are inexpensive to buy locally (two for 5 pesos or about 12 cents), thus, there’s really no telling just how many are consumed here on a daily basis. So though it may seem a bit over the top when I say that as a school, we have literally prayed for a good banana crop season - be assured, that has actually happened, on more than one occasion, because bananas are really that important. It is something I’ve appreciated everyday at the school since arriving here in 2010 (as you’ve seen from pictures - IDENE is a beautiful place!), and understand the depth of more and more as I reflect on the number of people I know affected by the banana industry, to the point that it’s weird to think of my service separate from bananas - where would the school be located? Surely somewhere in Mao, on a smaller scale, but I don’t even know where. The school has grown so much as a result of Banelino and bananas, and without that connection, I’m sure that my projects would have been different. Of course bananas are food (and Dominicans have so many different recipes), but bananas are also a job security and livelihood for so many people in my community that it is hard to imagine a fruit capable of accomplishing more.

in the field, after machete-ing the bananas from the treeconveyor/pulley system bringing the bananas in from the fieldwashing after cutting the bananasstickers!they were so fast at labeling each onesunset as seen from my neighborhoodXO

In mid-March, Marina (school director), Isabel (school coordinator) and I traveled to the east to do a teacher training in Montessori at Elisa’s school in the Miches area. The trip took the three of us about 10-12 hours by bus away from Mao, to the capital, and then finally out east. It was a part of the country that neither teacher had been to before, and it was great to see Elisa’s community, teachers, and work she has done there. She had asked our school director to share the Montessori work and didactic teaching materials projects that we’ve been doing this year with her school in a morning training session and an afternoon material-making workshop. Plus, she wanted to film our training and workshop for her teacher training video project - so exciting! And so, the three of us traveled from Mao to Miches and did just that. Getting there took a little while, but everyone had a good time - my teachers taught some sign language to fellow travelers on one of the bus rides. During the training and workshop it was interesting to work with other Dominican teachers, and refreshing to hear new ideas and perspectives on education, be they negative or positive. Not to mention, my teachers did such a great job leading the event! Less than a year ago we were conducting the same Montessori training at our own school (Marina as a facilitator and Isa as a participant), and now both were leading the training to other teachers. (Ahem, Sustainability? Is that you?!) After the trip, both of my teachers were talking about how they want to continue exchanges and teacher-to-teacher trainings like this, specifically with two special education schools in our province - which is probably the best outcome that I didn’t expect. We were able to share Montessori with a group of interested teachers at Elisa’s school, and then (somewhat unexpectedly) I saw just how far my school has come in terms of Montessori knowledge, our curriculum and what our students do on a daily basis while at school. Over the past year alone, so much has been added to IDENE’s classes thanks to our teachers’ interests and creativities. Although it has made for a pretty busy two years, I’m glad to have been here and able to support their ideas, collaborate and work with them. Someday very soon, I know I will miss hearing “Emma, what do you think about...?” or “Emma, I need some help with...” and even large groups of people gushing “Emma is an artist!!” when I draw stick people and lopsided flowers. :)On that note - below are the photos from our Miches Montessori teacher training and workshop (presented materials are same/similar to pictures in the previous post). Just traveling cross-country, dropping knowledge and going home again - how we roll.

Marina & Isa at the Miches RioBeach in Michesteachers in the sessionfilming!Our cross-country travel start and finish - 10+ hours on the bus!Everyone post-material making and training workshop!Elisa showing us the teacher training video project she's creatingschool directors and teacher from Miches and MaoGot a flat tire on the drive back through the mountains......no worries. chance for a beautiful op!XO

Good day! :)Relating back to the last post, here are some photos of the kids at work with the homemade materials. We’ve created many but in this post is a sampling of just a few of the language materials, specifically. Every project we’ve worked on together - revamping the classrooms, creating a curriculum in Montessori, training Special Ed. teachers, etc. - all of it really comes down to child literacy, and that our students may have a more hands-on, activity-focused way to learn the vowels and letters and eventually how to read!The activities and the purpose of each will hopefully be more or less clear from the photos and corresponding descriptions. For every activity included here, the teachers have had training on the Montessori process and how to work on each in lessons with the students. There’s a whole manual they have with a section devoted just to language, and a page with instructions regarding the process and purpose for every single activity you see here. It’s simple enough to understand but the work behind it is a little more extensive than the pictures can show, but these are just pictures and words trying to sum everything up, after all! (Pictures are from mid-March)Bandeja Fonetica, Grupo Amarillo - grouping upper and lower case lettersCuatro Esquinas, Grupo Amarillo - identifying images that begin with the same letterSonido Inicial, Grupo Amarillo - identifying the first letter of words with a corresponding picture3ro y 4to students at work (Montessori-style!)on the rugsLetras de Lija, Grupo Amarillo - matching sandpaper upper and lowercase lettersTarjetas con Pinitos - Sonido Inicial, Grupo Amarillo - identifying the first letter of a word, with picture, with choice of 3 lettersTarjetas con Pinitos, Grupo Amarillo - spelling words according to corresponding pictureMontessori work using the tables in Pre-Primaria classBandeja Fonetica, Grupo Rojo - grouping upper and lowercase vowelsCuatro Esquinas, Grupo Rojo - identifying images that begin with the same vowelTarjeta Larga con Imagenes, Grupo Rojo - identifying images that begin with the same vowelLetras de Lija - Minuscula, Grupo Rojo - lowercase sandpaper vowelsLetras de Lija - Mayusculo, Grupo Rojo - uppercase sandpaper vowelsDiferentes Formas de Letras, Grupo Rojo - matching different forms of vowels together:)XO

Hi there! Happy April 1st! April Fool's Day... I think? The only April Fool's I have at the moment is that I'll post a lot of blogs after this one. Which is actually not a joke at all, but is an appropriate plan as this blog hasn't been updated in a while! :)

Anyway, these pictures are from January-March. During this time at school we’ve been making a lot of handmade materials for our Montessori projects in the classroom. It's an ongoing project with the teachers that I really like because every activity we're adding to the classes here is something that can be made using local materials that are A. not too expensive and B. the teachers have access to in Mao. It's strange to think back to a year ago and remember that most of what we're currently working on wasn't happening yet in the classes (no materials existed), teachers didn't know about this methodology yet (as this was pre-treacher trainings) and was only in the planning stages (I was writing/waiting for grants). At this point we've already had the trainings, as well as the majority of material making sessions, have redone the classrooms or rearranged the classrooms in some cases and are now working on adding additional homemade materials according to the needs of students as communicated by the teachers. It has been good to see the teachers choose what activities they want to use with their students, and each class really is tailored to the needs of the students in it - but the activities are all similar and recognizable to the students - so as they improve they'll be familiar with how to use each activity. (For example - the youngest students work on identifying just the vowels A, E, I, O, U, while the older or more advanced students work on spelling entire words that incorporate all letters). In any case, cutting and pasting has been a larger part of my Peace Corps service than I initially expected - that's what you get for working in a school with young kids!

Thought I’d share a few photos of everyone at work!card activity where students have to identify the initial sound of the word according to the picture it matches another card activity - spelling out entire words according to corresponding picturecutting up plasticcrafty in the officecard activity grouping upper and lower case letters togethersome of the handmade language materials (and trays!) in Pre-Primaria class organizing a picture and word language activity in Pre-Primaria classBirthday photo for Samuel - feliz cumple!some of the handmade language materials in 3ro y 4to classorganizing the 4 corners handmade card activitynew attendance chart in 3ro y 4to classsome of the handmade language materials in the works in 1ro y 2do classTake care all!XO

Wanted to share something! It’s called Bags of Hope.Bags of Hope is a project supporting the NGO, Vision of Hope which works with at-risk girls in Lusaka, Zambia.Bags of Hope creates and sells handmade bags in the USA, and the purchases help to fund Vision of Hope’s projects in Zambia. Each bag is a unique pattern, roomy, and fully lined with beautiful designs, pockets and buttons. (hi Kathy!) The website was designed by my sister. (hi Sara!)Check it out - Bags of Hope :)on the Conde in Santo Domingo with a 'Bag of Hope'XO

Post-COS Conference, 9 friends and I went to Samana for the weekend. Wish that this place wasn’t 4+ hours away from my site - I would have gone more frequently in the last 2 years. Thankfully I have visitors coming which is all the reason I need to make a return trip. Thanks, friends :)First, a picture that isn't from Samana but I thought was nice:Feb. 23 - Sunset in Santo Domingo during post-COS Conference gathering at our Country Director's house

Now, some of the pictures from a couple beaches we visited in Samana:Playita, Las GalerasPanorama of Las GalerasArriving by boat to Playa Fronton, Las GalerasPlaya Fronton

Not bad, right? So happy to have made it out here, one of the most beautiful areas I’ve ever seen.Love and Miss you all. See you sooner than soon. (COS-ing and coming home in less than 3 months! Eeeeek & also so excited)

XO

PS - Happy Birthday, Angela!

In case you didn’t get that... KC was here!! And it was a fantastic visit. We traveled across the country, made all sorts of friends, and saw the sites. We visited Santiago, Mao, Monte Cristi, Damajagua, Cabarete, and finally, Santo Domingo - a sampling of the northwest, north and of course the capital - all in six days! But this was not all fun and games, mind you, I did put KC to work during the afternoon when she visited my school, (I’m the worst. Sorry, there’s just always a lot to do!), but we had fun. Work hard, play hard and all that jazz. :)It should be noted that KC is a champ regarding DR culture! By morning one, she was ordering mangu for breakfast, and taking local transportation. She danced bachata and merengue, jumped off waterfalls, drank Dominican super sweet cafecitos, and didn’t even question my judgement when we hopped onto a bus filled with foam cushions, barrels, sacks of rice, and at least 1 chicken during our travels. Always an adventure, and it is so much better shared with a friend! I've been really blessed to have friends share in my experience whether through staying in touch, or coming down to visit - it really is the best. Anyone who knows me even a little could tell you how obsessed I am with my site, my school, and Dominican families, so love to share it all. A few of our pictures from the visit and the places we went:celebrating KC's arrival - bienvenidos a RepDom!Santiagoview from the monumentCelebrating Student's Day in Mao at IDENEKC with MA - making friends and influencing people!view from 2nd floor of school's new talleres buildingMonte CristiPlaya del Morro27 Charcos in Damajuaga with friends - hiking/jumping off waterfalls!Cabarete in Puerta Plataliving the life! breakfast on the beach!nothing but smiles in Cab!Rinconcito! Colonial Zone in Santo Domingolas Ruinas de San Francisco, Santo DomingoStill got a couple months here, so visit again soon, KC! Cuidense! :)XO

February has been exciting. At the start of the month, Peace Corps celebrated 50 years in the Dominican Republic! Hundreds of Returned Peace Corps Volunteers (RPCV’s) from past years, some who even served in the first cohort in 1962(!), came back to the DR to celebrate at the anniversary event in Santo Domingo.

The anniversary conference featured current projects of volunteers, panel discussions, excursion trips for the RPCVs, an artisan fair, and much more! I helped out a couple of days with a volunteer initiative to document and record memorabilia, site locations and project summaries from previous volunteers who have served in the DR. It was fun to meet the RPCVs as they came through our room and see all of their old photos and documents from their days here. During the conference, I even met a volunteer from Boston who not only served in the same Dominican town, but also lived on my same street here in 1962 - how crazy is that?! PCDR is really something awesome - a fact which can be confirmed by my mom, as her visit coincided with the 50th anniversary. :)Aside from taking part in the wonderful 50th events, meeting the PCDR Worldwide Director, and being in the presence of many generations of volunteers, my mom and I were able to tour Santo Domingo a bit, meet my friends here, as well take a cacao/chocolate making tour in the east (a volunteer’s project!). It was a busy trip, but I think, a really unique time to visit, and, in my opinion, the best way for my mom to have seen Peace Corps in the Dominican Republic. Enjoy the pics!a night out to dinner with RPCV's from the 1960'sAmber's presentation, featuring IDENE and our school's teacher training initiatives in Maolarimar for sale at the artisan fair

new murals in Hacienda Hernandez - volunteer lounge name dedication to PCDR's first directorwith worldwide Peace Corps Director Aaron Williams at the US EmbassyAmbassador's Reception at the Embassy

first public transportation experience in the capital...jammed 7 to a sedan - and loving it!peace! from the overpacked carro publicoColonial Zoneartwork spotted along the way... sums up the local DR travel experienceColonial Zonefabulous 50th logo on the cake!during the chocolate tourall the steps from cacao to chocolatesampling the finished chocolate :)

Coincidentally, exactly two years ago today (March 3rd), this happened, and we all met Director Williams for the first time!

Take care, all.XO

Holas.This post is a bit unorganized, and comes to you in the form of a recap of January and early February happenings. It is all over the place, and features a medley of two months of travel and fun things in my town crammed into one post...so, sorry. :) The posts that follow will be better than this one! Quizas. Here’re early 2012 highlights:Saint Anselm hosted another NH Primary debate. And on a related note - I hosted my first (and probably only) NH Primary watch party...meaning Dominican friends and I watched the debates online live on the St. A’s website. Naturally this was in English, so I also played translator so everyone could know what was going on. One of my friends even paid attention until the very end - such a good sport. Anyway, this was a noteworthy evening as 1. now I know who the Republican candidates are, and 2. my Dominican friends know what my college’s gym and lecture hall looked like. A good time had by all.In January the DR had a bunch of earthquakes measuring between 4-6 something on the Richter Scale. One of the earthquakes even had an epicenter in my site! With so many earthquakes (think I counted more than 7 that month?), odds are I had to feel one, right? And I did - January 2012 marked my first (and as of now, only) earthquake experience! About a month and a half ago I finally moved to my new house. This switch has turned out to be an upgrade and downsize all at once as I’m paying less than half the rent of my old place, and the new house is 3x’s the size as the old one. I don’t really need the space, but its nice to save the pesos, claro.The Augilas (eagles), who are the Cibao’s baseball team, were in the prelim rounds in the Dominican series. It was exciting as the majority of my town supports the Augilas. Here’s a video of the reaction in my town immediately after one of the winning games:Also, I went to the disco in my site with Dominican friends and taught one of them how to dance bachata. Bachata is a DR dance that everyone (or so I thought) knows. This lesson doesn’t really speak to my dancing skills as much as it does beg the question... um, what do you mean you can’t bachata? Pero ven aca, muchacho!And now, photos from January and February: Minnie's older sister, Blanca! ...same smile:)the cutest!Min's valentine from Stateside sis, EllieThanks, Ellie! :)Valentine's Day snacks in Maternal classElisa visited and prepared a feast! also: my first time ever cooking meat. (yes, believe it).Natasha and I arranging chairs at Jess's literacy graduationlos graduados! America's next top (Dominican canine) model.school-wide movie viewing of "Tangled"Teacher of the Month for January - feliciades! a line dance bachata-style for Claire's birthday in her site!La Cayatouring the new UASD (university) in Maohappy birthday!More soon, thanks for reading! and Happy Leap Year Day!XO

Hello! Writing via hotel wifi of our COS (Close of Service) Conference. Vaguely reminiscent of Staging, but coupled with nearly 2 years, anything and everything you can imagine happening in the middle, and a cherry on top. Crazy to be this close to the end of Peace Corps! ...But, I won't get into all that now.

Mostly just wanted to take advantage of the internet and post something on it. Ya tu sabes.

A lot has been going on - literally every day this month is covered in writing on my calendar. I have blog and photo updates in the works, including my mom's visit, PCDR's 50th Anniversary Conference, KC's visit, some travels, and pictures from Jan/Feb. So fun! ...Will have to wait for that though, too.

For now, here are pictures from a recent morning run. Just wanted to share the pretty trees and my charming dog. That's it. You all take care now. :)XO

Oh, hey there. Still in the DR. Almost two years later.At this point there remains less than 4 months or so until COS (or Close of Service). Which of course, is a good deal of time to live somewhere and do something. But to me 4 months feels like nothing at all. It has been (a month shy) of two years since first arriving here and beginning Peace Corps. And two years, fyi friends, is a long time. Plenty of time to recognize needs, brainstorm, develop ideas, create a project, fundraise, carry it out, measure results, and do it all over again. Enough time to form friendships, develop relationships, and be unofficially adopted into many loving families. The months went quickly, but along the way I built a life (en Español!) out of a place where I initially did not know anybody. ...And, for the record - wound up loving it. Having already teared up a few times at the thought of leaving my life here and the people in it - two years is still long certainly, but almost doesn’t seem long enough. It’s hard to believe I will be leaving soon. I know I will miss this - a fact which speaks to the Mao, Peace Corps, and Dominican community, and the experience they’ve all allowed me in living and working with them. Thought I would share some pictures of a building site I’ve worked next two for the greater part of the last 23 months in the DR. The building, nonexistent when I first arrived, is now complete and will be used in the 2012-2013 school year as a work site for former IDENE students or those with special needs who are not in school or currently working. The new addition is a place for individuals with special needs to partake in workshops, develop skills and learn to run a business. It will provide job and teaching opportunities - there will be a beauty salon, a bakery, a woodshop/craft shop, and other workshop style classes. An exciting step for the school and those in the community with special needs to involve themselves in a constructive and educational environment. I’m pretty excited to return to visit and see what it becomes.This building had nothing to do with me, but it has been fun watching it grow (literally!) over the last two years:June 2010 - During my second month living in Mao.May 2011 - Construction progress at the end of the 2010-2011 school year with IDENE.December 2011 - Christmas Party for former IDENE students January 2012 - New Year '12/Back from Holiday Break Party with current IDENE studentshaving fun!touring the newly finished building with friends.view of the Cibao mountains from the top of the new building:)I’m usually not one to say something so sentimental as “oh, hey guys, this song expresses exactly what I’m thinking,” ...but this song expresses what I’m thinking, happens to coordinate well with the images/reflective theme of this post and for that reason shares the post’s title. Thought I would link to it: Buildings & Mountains - The Republic Tigers(An aside: I really hope it is still okay to post a link this way on the internet...? Haven’t had a chance or (more truthfully) an interest in familiarizing myself with any of the internet sharing changes I keep hearing about. So, SOPA-enthusiasts - hope I’m not in trouble. Thanks.)and finally,

Happy Birthday, Grandma!Lots of love,

XO

Hello! Merry Christmas! Happy Holidays!

Hope that everyone enjoyed the season. There are a lot of reasons to like this time of year; for me it’s family, friends, the hanging out, the visiting, the lights, the champagne, and that strangers are so darn cheerful and friendly. I definitely missed out on being at home with loved ones, the traditions, and the Christmas cookies. But, on the bright side, this Christmas I was not in a constant state of frozen (for the first time in my life) nor was there a single crazy holiday shopper, (or any holiday shopper for that matter). This Christmas I was in the DR, more specifically my site, and it proved to be a good time. I’m glad I stayed for a Dominican Christmas and feel blessed to have spent it sharing with my second family and Dominican friends. There were even some Christmas lights (pictured), shared champagne (not pictured), and a solid attempt at Christmas snacks (yup, I cooked something). May your days be merry and bright, and may your Christmas be campo. :)

Some of the holiday highlights this season:* * *Christmas lights and decor downtown that I thought were well done.the park all lit upfriends posing in front of one of Mao's decorated housesand Christmas tree in my neighborhood! Tree made out of lots of little plastic colmado bags.* * *Visited the host family in the capital before the holidays. They have a new addition! Isn’t she cute?toasting marshmallowsChristmas tree in the Peace Corps officelook at this unexpected mail from friends here and in the States. Gracias:)* * *Holiday party with staff and teachers from the school.Angelitos/Secret Santa exchange

* * *Making Christmas snacks with Minnie to share with family, friends, and neighbors.

pretzel, hershey kiss, m&membarrassed/proud to admit that this is the fullest my fridge has ever been.* * *Here Christmas Eve is the big holiday. My host family had extended family visiting and threw a party at their usually very tranquillo house in what will remain one of my favorite DR memories. I spent the day visiting the family and later hopping around to other friends' Christmas Eve parties.Min was my +1 at holiday events, claro. barking her little face off, as usual.DJ boothmy host mom cooking up all the food!* * *Surprise birthday party for my neighbor.* * *Happy 2012!XO

Just wanted to share a few photos from the youngest student in school working on a christmas tree craft. He was gluing paper ornaments on the tree, and loving it. Too cute not to share! :) XO

Happy Thanksgiving ...plus a few days!Haven’t updated in a while, and about to remedy that! To start, events from the past month (and then some) can be summed up by the following two photos:

Those are my fellow carro publico passengers standing next to our flat tire one afternoon. In a nonchalant moment, our car broke down, we stopped, the chofer replaced the tire, the passengers looked on, the gringa took a picture of the scene, and then we all went on our way. Pretty ordinary, nothing special. Too busy and unphased at the time to really think too much about being at a dead stop in the middle of a highway (& on the fast lane side?). Really, no big deal. So if that image/event sequence could be compiled into a sentiment - it is essentially how I feel about life in the months of October and November: busy, all over the place, crammed 7 to a sedan, delayed on the highway...still going with it, and oddly still loving it, always.Enjoy this update! Thinking of you all back home - have a great start to the holidays!* * * Several of the following events deserve a longer written reflection, but instead will be short and sweet. This is a list recap of recent moments (big and small) from the last 1.5 months. Translating at a Medical Mission. This was the same one I attended last year, so it was great to see this team again. It was refreshing to be around Americans who literally changed the lives of hundreds of Dominicans in just a week’s time. Each of the surgeries performed would cost well over $10,000 in the States, and all are free to patients, many of whom have been in need of the procedures for years, often decades. Over the course of 5 busy days, the doctors and nurses saw hundreds of patients, and took care of each with grace and patience. A truly inspirational group, and one of my most memorable weeks in country. Did not take any of my own pictures, so enjoy this one that I borrowed.

Some of our Med Mission group before a night out in Santiago!Practicing with Montessori materials. Here are a couple of photos of one of the students who has been practicing with the Flags, and Wooden Cylinders. He can match every North and South American flag with the correct country name! I took a video where my project partner showed him a flag, and he correctly named every corresponding country. These students are so impressive! The video wouldn’t upload, but here are some pics.

Communicating with someone in Spanish Sign Language on a bus. (Note: In the DR its really common to talk to strangers seated next to you on public transportation, or if you’re eating food, you share your food with these strangers, too. I ride a lot of buses, so sharing/sometimes even singing on the bus has become completely normal behavior. I tried chatting on the T back home, but no, people don’t seem that into talking to strangers on the subway where I’m from. Give it time though! :) I’m sure it’ll catch on...maybe). So it was just a random bus ride, but I was able to communicate in sign language with the person next to me. He even made jokes and I understood the jokes. In sign language! Random story, but I really enjoy spontaneous occurrences like that so I thought I’d add it to this list. Attending my first two baseball games! Dominicans are big fans of teams in the States as well as baseball in their own country, too. DR baseball is a year-round sport with professional teams in regions throughout the the country. Recently I saw two games, and each of the home teams won in their respective cities both times! Go Cibao Aguilas y Licey Tigres! They are rival teams, but whatever, rooting for both. :)

Licey game in Santo DomingoVisiting friends’ sites! From short day trips to weekend campo birthday celebrations, it has been fun to see so many great volunteer homes and communities.Being a pseudo-professional school photographer. Self-explanatory. This includes a November classroom birthday party for the older students from 3ro y 4to, and a playground construction project by students from 1ro y 2do.

Feliz Cumple!Making Art from Trash/Unwanted Things! At school we’re having a parade and fair soon to showcase all of the art projects the kids have made...all of which are made from recycled materials. Check out our prep-work for the event!a lamp from styrofoam cupsa car from cartonsa house from popsicle sticksfish from platesan octopus (in the works) from a plastic bottlemelted crayonsCelebrating Thanksgiving. So much fun that it calls for more than one celebration. I went to a nearby volunteer’s site for Pre-Thanksgiving, and I spent the holiday itself with a US embassy family that I have visited a lot over the past year. As the family is relocating to a new post soon, it was wonderful to be able to have one last visit with them and share with their American and Dominican coworkers and friends in the capital.

fruit & marshmallow salad!Thanksgiving at the Embassy house! Note: pigs in blankets!Living without running water/Living without water in general (on occasion). That’s just what happens when your neighborhood is in a state of constant construction and looks like this:Participating in Huelgas aka National Strikes. Do not expect to find the reasons behind these strikes written here. Each time I ask my friends here why we are not working, I get “because prices are high,” (specific items frequently mentioned include the price of eggs and price of gas). Granted, there have not been too many national strikes lately, but I still find the concept kind of fruitless - imagine, back home just going on strike because you did not like the price of something? My life would border close to being in a constant state of huelga. ...But no one asked my opinion about going on strike. Had they asked what I want to see happen on the National Strike day, I would have elected to put “tigures cannot hiss or say innappropriate things to me” on the list of things to occur on this day. But again, not one consulted me how to run a huelga. All that aside, national strikes are a perfect day for photo shoots with your host family. neighbor offered to give me this sweet kitten! cute, but no.wouldn't feel right without a picture of Minnie!Anticipating the arrival of my family in 2.5 weeks! ‘Tis the season! And the countdown is on! :DChristmas tree at school. The big pink bow was all me.

And finally just trying to balance this life whilst planning the next steps in the future one. Como siempre, no?Up next: going to Cabarete to get my dog fixed. Never a dull moment. Thanks for reading and take care.XO

In honor of October being awareness month for breast cancer, the students created pink ribbon pins to share with the community. After assembling the pins, we had a field trip to seven local institutions in Mao to distribute the ribbons the kids made. The students visited two health clinics, two district of education headquarters, government offices, a city hall and one rice factory. We accidentally crashed at least three important-looking meetings for photo shoots with officials, were serenaded in city hall, and pinned a pink ribbon onto just about every person in sight. All in all, a successful Thursday morning. Enjoy our photos!

Pink Ribbons during a meeting at a District of Education officeright before someone sang to us, and we had a sing-a-long with officials in Mao's government officesVisiting the Rehabilitation Clinicmural in the children's physical therapy center of the new rehabilitation clinic built by Banelino

cuidense!XO

So on a personal note...I’m moving out and heading back to the campo! A few people in the neighborhood by the school built me a little house. And I’m going to live in it. So service in my site will be a mix of the best of both worlds - a year downtown in the “big city” or pueblo and now finishing where I started with a year in the rural campo ...and all without a site change. I guess Mao is just that great. Exemplified most recently by the campo house-building friends. :)In lieu of posting a photo of the new house (because, at least for me, that’s creepy and this is still the internet), I’ll add some pictures from the first house. Looking back, I mentioned this place on here only a few times, mainly; when I first moved in, when I locked myself out, when the bees invaded, and when I lived in the dark (recurring theme). Good times. In addition to all that fun, this house has been super convenient and I have loved it. It is close to everything, with some really helpful and kind neighbors. As are most homes here, it is simple living for sure, but it is homey, or at least I have tried.

Here are a couple pictures from inside the first house:Took advantage that this is likely to be the only time in my life I can paint ridiculously on the walls without consequence. Landlords in the States probably don’t really go for this. (Do landlords here go for this? Vamos a ver) :) The script reads: “..there are three things that last forever; faith, hope, and love, but the greatest of them all is love.” 1 Corinthians 13:13Thank you to every single person who has mailed me something over the last 20 months! Getting mail is not only the best part about traveling the 4ish hours to the capital, but it has given me means to decorate an otherwise blank, super boring wall. This wall is across from my bed, so waking up to your kind words is always a nice reminder. Muchas gracias, friends.Another thought, although It shouldn’t be - it’s tough to get a decent picture of a wall. Anyway, as much as I like this house, it is comfortable and I want to switch it up. Living in my first neighborhood is something I’ve wanted since I left it, so I know I’d regret it if I didn’t move back. ...Currently though, due to details that would probably be boring to read, at least for this month I have both houses. This is now apparently Peace Corps: the monopoly edition, just renting properties left and right... (& still not breaking the PC living stipend either - feel like I should add that). Anyway, did not exactly plan it out this way, but whatever, I’m going with it. Sometimes you plan, sometimes you don’t, and when someone builds you a house - you live in it. These have been today’s thoughts, and now these are pictures of my dog. :D

Rock on, XO

Columbus Day Weekend! Fall! The one part about Winter that I appreciate. (If it’s possible to have Fall without Winter, someone let me know. I will live wherever that is). Hope that you’re reading from somewhere where you can appreciate the best season of all, and that your weekend involved something classically Autumn-related; apple picking, football games, candy corn, pumpkin carving, parades, corn mazes, cider, fairs, chai tea lattes (no? just me?) :), haunted hay rides, flea markets (yes!). Hope that you were somewhere you could take in the trees, and that the sun was warm and that it was brisk not freezing. Autumn, si Dios quiere, see you next year. (It’s weird the things you miss). Hope everyone had a nice weekend!Here this day (October 12) is known as Dia de la Raza (Day of the Race) or Encuentro de Dos Culturas (Meeting of Two Cultures) or other name variations aside from Columbus Day. And as those names suggest, the day is more of a celebration of sharing, races and cultures than it is a remembrance of one individual’s actions. On this holiday, many Dominican schools put on a play of the meeting of Columbus, the Spaniards and the Tainos. Some pictures from our celebration last year are posted here. This year’s reenactment was even better! All the students participated playing the Tainos (people indigenous to the island), Columbus, the Spaniards, Ferdinand and Isabella. The younger students presented foods the Tainos used to eat and how they were prepared. The older students performed and danced in the play, retelling the early history of their country. ...And the American designed Taino clothes out of empty rice bags and Spanish sailor hats out of tissue paper. Fashion world, are you reading this? Chekealo. :)Some photos from the day:Baja Audicion class preparing Taino houses Basica 1ro y 2do as Taino natives"Foods used by the Tainos and our country" by Maternal and Pre-Primaria classroomssome of the Pre-Primaria class with the traditional foodMaternal class poses alongside the tableThe Spaniards, King, Queen, & ColumbusSailing on the Nina, Pinta, & Santa MariaPeace.XO

Oh, blog. Get ready little one, you’re about to be flooded with photos.Just a not-so-wordy, plenty-of-pictures post about what I’ve been up to the past few weeks. Namely: keeping busy working at school. A few of my favorite recent pics of the school, students, and teachers:

arts and crafts with recycled materialsconcentrating on painting!Pre-Primaria class making recycled craftsPracticing buttons with the Montessori dressing standsPeace.Vida Practica class having an environment lesson in the garden......and having a good time, too!Basica 1ro y 2do planting seeds in the gardenBasica 3ro y 4to exploring in the eggplant and tomato gardensParent's Night at IDENE in Septemberteachers (new & returning) for the 2011-2012 year! Teachers, Staff and I in Santiago to learn about ABA and TEACCH methodologies with Fundacion Luz y Esperanza Por el Autismo. Almost everyone from school attended!

Cuidense! XO

Pretty much could start and end the post with that statement on its own. :) But do not worry this update will most likely end up being a little long and way too wordy. Per usual. Yay. Vamanos!So since I last wrote here: I’ve been keeping busy at school with the usual things: Montessori trainings, working with the teachers on handmade materials, and working with the kids. Day to day I’m usually hopping around to the different classrooms helping the teachers with things for their students - aiding them with making the didactic materials from the June Training, planning with them re. future projects they’re preparing for their classes...and then some days doing more cutting, gluing, drawing, coloring and decorating than I ever thought I’d be doing whilst volunteering in important-sounding “development work” in Peace Corps. Lately I keep wondering if I’m doing all this the right way - if I’m using my time right, doing things that are beneficial for my community and worth my energy. It’s kind of weird to be at this point in my service (less than 8 months left! what the heck, that’s hardly anything!) and questioning what I’m doing. I write a lot on here about how much I like my project and community, and I definitely do, very much so. Those I work with are super organized, driven and in general I love what we’re all working towards and believe our project to be worthwhile. But now that I’m nearing the home stretch of DR living, I find myself thinking of time, and how it has gone quickly and how I need to aprovechar/take advantage of what little of it is left. But when I am sitting alongside the kids in their classes and drawing pictures of doves, and flowers, and nature scenes on posters (for teachers to present during a lesson about peace), I think, “Is this development work? I graduated with an honors degree - granted, two years ago, and definitely not in anything international development-related at all, but still, come on - I must know a couple things! Yet I’m sitting at a child-sized table in a tiny kid chair drawing and coloring pictures with little kids. Shouldn’t I be doing something more important?”Well let’s be honest - at least in this instance - maybe. But, maybe coloring pictures with students is okay too, sometimes. We [the school an I] are all working toward the same goal, not every step is big, fancy, or terribly exciting, but that is not to say that the small steps don’t matter. It is just one example, but the point is that “development” is more than doing just one important thing, assuming the natural leadership/delegating role because of my USA education, improving something/someone, and calling it a successful day. It would be nice if it went that way, but I don’t think it can - at least not in education, and definitely not in my experience here. I think about this all the time - it would be super easy to avoid these small, “lesser-than” drawing picture-type of activities because they don't seem sustainable - I could just say, “No, I’m not going to do X thing for you, because I think you can do that yourself,” to the teachers. And probably a year ago I would have. Maybe even now I should - I really don’t know if there’s a “right” or “best” way to do this. I do know that I’m too personally invested now to draw that line - I live here, I know everyone, and I know the general frustrations regarding education in my community, because I share the exact same frustrations, too.

Most of our teachers work the afternoon session at different schools, are overworked/under-supported by the government/too busy and the school day - 3-4 hours - isn’t enough class time for kids, let alone for teachers to plan and get everything accomplished. Not to mention students go home at the end of this to parents who just are not interested, nor invested, and do not reinforce the kids' lessons at home (read: sometimes parents do their own children's homework so it won't look messy). Parents and families see education as just the teacher's job, and something that happens in those few hours a day their kids are literally in a school setting (this is a generalization of course, but its definitely the majority's attitude).

So while the teachers and I all want the same outcomes and are discouraged by the same struggles, how am I going to refuse when teachers ask me, "Emma, can you draw me a picture of a bird?" Our goals are the same, our frustrations are the same, so if this small thing gets someone one step closer for today to what we all want, I guess I'll just do it. Working towards our goals, more specifically - students who can lead productive, independent lives, and also read and write their own names - is more intrinsic than one easy fix. It takes more than one teacher training, and a new handmade set of cards with the alphabet printed on them. Maybe I don’t even know enough to know what the solution is, since we’re not there yet. But from what I do know - student progress isn’t marked in a nice neat order that you can check off in your notebook and label a success. It takes a lot of caring people, time, and getting creative with what you sometimes have in order to make it work. And then the answer of “what works” is not the same for every student - especially here. At least in this project, progress is literally all over the place. We developed this idea, and trained the teachers who are now carrying out the activities with their students. This is a team effort, and every day does not bring the big, fancy, exciting work - but still there is work to do, and little steps are nevertheless still steps toward the goal.And so, yes. Turns out sometimes that means people need me to do a lot of small things like draw pictures of doves for World Peace Day. Not always difficult, exciting "development" work but I can do that ...and make it a little fancy, too. :) Ya sabes. Pictures from our Peace festivities:

Practical Life class"What does Peace mean to you?"acrostic poem about peacethe aforementioned birdsAside from Peace Day and drawing pictures, teachers are implementing the handmade materials in their classrooms, as well as using the Montessori materials that were presented at the two summer trainings. It is really fabulous to go around and see the results of teacher training in action with the students. I am so proud of everyone and love to see them working! Just had to share a few photos from the last few weeks:Hex Bolt BoardBalance BaseTextured Dominoespracticing climbing and descending the stairsEscritura con Moneda / Writing with Coins (aka: pre-writing activity to learn the left to write motion of writing and reading). Flags of North and South America

Oh and we had a back to school dance party with clowns. It was so cute, and everyone had so much fun! High school students from a neighboring school dressed as clowns and came in to sing and dance with our students. Here are a few pics of the back to school party, and also cute pictures of the kids at work and play during this first month of classes:Welcome back party!schoolwide dance parties with clowns are always a good way to start the academic year!jumping rope at recesshow cute are they!planting plantain treesall smiles!* * *In non-school news, recently I visited the city of Puerta Plata for the first time. I went to help out at an event with other volunteers for a Dominican swimmer Marcos Diaz who did a distance swim form Sosua to Puerta Plata to raise awareness about the environment. It was really fun to be a part of this event on the beach, and there were SO many people there (you’ll see in the picture). I arrived a little early and did a little exploring.art gallery at the culture museum in Puerta Platathe park in Puerta PlataAmbar and Larimar stones at a factory/store. Larimar (the blue stone) is only found in the Dominican Republic. jewlery shop at the larimar/ambar factoryMarcos Diaz distance swim eventhe's out there..somewhere, swimming into shore!crazy beachfront mob scene post-Marcus' arrival! volunteers and I after the event* * *

In keeping with the theme, I thought I’d share a few more little stories and pics of recent good things. The first of these stories being...I have internet in my house! - well, temporarily! Yay all the same! Last week all of my three internet centers that I frequent crashed and of course I had a bunch of things to do online. After hoping for the best, and things still remaining crashed and broken, I went to a friend's house where I was able to get some things done on the family's internet. They are so sweet, and help me out all the time with Minnie, and gave me this cafe con leche and mini corn arepas while I visited with them that afternoon. Even though they are a family I spend time with often, and we have confianza, I still felt bad, so I decided to get a internet card, to you know, be responsible and avoid future situations of being stuck like that. I didn't buy a plan or anything, (way too ambitious of a commitment to technology for me), but it's a pay as you go type of card. So the part I didn't plan on was that buying the card included 30 days of internet in the price...so, surprise! I'll have regular internet for a month! It's a little much to be so connected whenever I want (for instance: currently writing this on my 5 hour bus ride to the capital). I've gotten pretty used to being in the dark about news/current events over the last year and a half, and really don't remember what I used to do with so much online access on a daily basis anymore. Some perspective: Day 1 of being connected to the rest of the world included Skype and listening to Adele songs on youtube. In all honesty, I probably won't get much further than that, but here's to hoping maybe this blog can look forward to getting updated more? Ayyy, vamos a ver - (no promises on that last bit). Here are some more recent pictures of good things/people/Minnie(!)/& places I wanted to share:pictures while running. there has been a lot of rain, and the canals are always brown post-storm.canal/road panoramasunset post-stormwalking home across the canal bridgeMinnie!...(& a mop and broom). note: the combo one ear flapped, head tilt pose - so much little street dog charm :) Little Min is ready to go.Love this picture. a couple weeks ago I taught my host dad how to make Ramen! having never made or eaten it before either, the instructions on the side of the cup turned out to be pretty helpful...yup, showing my true culinary colors - this blog is getting real! one of these days maybe i will share my "cooking" projects here in what will surely be the most embarrassing post yet. caught snipits of 3 of the Sox games from last week in one of the colmadoswatching one of the games in the colmado...big Boston fans here!i had a fuerte cold for about two weeks, and everyday everyone asked me about it and if i'd had the shot, or taken medicine and exactly which herbal teas I was preparing for myself to combat the dreaded gripe. it is nice of people to be so concerned, and sort of funny to see their faces when i say, "um, just drinking orange juice?" today though the school director gave me this. and yes, it is exactly what it the picture depicts it as - honey, fish oil and onion syrup. and i must say, while that seems like an awful choice, it is in fact delicious - after just one teaspoon of this syrup = sickness completely cured. thank you, Dominican Republic. Flu season is coming up, so friends and fam consider this product highly recommended from me to you.

Finally - best for last! Two especially good things. I mentioned two new projects at the end of last post, so here’s a little more detail: Kids to Kids - Back in July when I was home in the States, I found out my community and I won a Kids to Kids grant for an art club! Woohoo. We just received funding and I’m looking forward to starting up. Originally I wanted to do a big collaborative, integrated group with kids from my school and kids from the escuela basica across the street. But because of school schedules, and the fact that students at my school live all over Mao, that plan isn’t going to pan out. So instead its going to be two groups, an after school art group at the escuela basica, and art classes during school hours at my school.The International Alliance for Child Literacy - Make sure to click that link and read more because this organization is just wonderful. They started at the beginning of this year, and have completed many literacy projects in Caribbean countries. Andrea, the president of IACL, contacted me (via this blog, yay internet!) and asked if I’d be interested in collaborating. Yay! And this will be the first project her group does with the DR, so its pretty awesome and such a blessing that people committed to improving literacy in the Caribbean want to reach out to students and teachers at my school and help us toward those goals.kids at the elementary school on their welcome back dayLife’s good, and I am feeling lucky. More to come soon.Lots of love and a happy World PEACE Day to you all. ☮XO

...alliteration and addition - all in one.Even though the title pretty much sums it up, (ay! - can’t stop, won’t stop), here’s a little more detail of recent happenings.1. August Montessori Teacher Training.Despite a few unexpected interruptions - two last minute notice conferences from the Ministry of Education and then the arrival of Hurricane Irene - we got the August Montessori Training accomplished! Following the same format from our June Training, we presented the Montessori materials that were purchased Stateside. Thanks to those who donated back in the spring - this training is a direct result of you! Here are a few pictures of the materials and presentation held primarily in the Pre-Basica classroom. (Pre-Basica was one of the spaces remodeled with USAID funds - check out the new shelves and rugs in the photos).

rug stand Dressing Stand (how to use buttons, zippers, snaps, lacing, etc.) Teeth Model Knobbless Cylinders Pink Tower Pressure Cylinders Moveable Spanish Alphabet Twist & Sort (for the younger students!) Metal Insets with Stands

2. Llego!The embarque sent while in the States arrived last weekend with everything in tact! It was a little late because of the storm - still, it is here all the same, nothing is broken or missing, and we had fun unpacking and getting everything set up with the rest of the supplies.

3. Building more things.Due to budgeting and striking unanticipated good deals in late spring/early summer, we had a little extra USAID grant money! Woohoo. After some planning and design drawing, I went back to the carpenter and negotiated the construction of a staircase for the kids. Yes, sounds weird, right - why build a freestanding set of stairs? Many students have trouble climbing, but especially descending stairs - (an issue I’ve seen firsthand because I sometimes bola to and from school on the bus and some kids have difficulty climbing on and off). So that’s why we decided to build a mini staircase, so that kids can practice during recess, or a physical therapy session and hopefully improve and gain confidence in doing something challenging that most of us easily accomplish daily without even thinking about. Also, this year the school hired a teacher to work on physical therapy issues with some of the kids, so si Dios quiere the stairs will get a lot of use!

Minnie tests out the stairs. only the cutest little face in town

4. Resource Room Construction.This is among my favorite things lately. Simply adding a partition in one of the offices at school created a whole new hallway/room just for the teachers! The idea here is to have a space to openly store all the training materials (handmade ones from the June Training and the purchased ones for the August Training), and that the resource room is available to the teachers to use whenever they want. Teachers can continue making their own Montessori materials based on the designs on file, and borrow from the collection in the room and return the supplies later. Eventually more of the purchased materials will be transferred to the appropriate classrooms as they are presented over the next few weeks and teachers gain experience in using their new resources. The shelves shown in the following pictures are the ones we replaced by adding the new units (from the first construction project). With these leftover units I put together a space for all the training materials. Yay, organizing! building the partition

Shelves 1 & 2 - the handmade materials from the June Training are in the folders Shelf 3 Alberto posing with some of the materials

Victoria in the new resource room Alberto with the Montessori materials from the embarque

5. Classroom Prep - School Starts!Unlike many DR schools, our school’s teachers return a month early (at the start of August) to prep classrooms, visit students at home and meet their families, and plan for the upcoming school year. In between the conferences, teacher training and class cancellations from the hurricane, we got the classrooms decorated, too. All of the fun wall decor we added to the classroom walls was handmade. ...Many clown drawings, flower borders, and permanent markers later - here are some of the results! Welcome sign for 1st & 2nd

Marina and Isabel planning the school schedule Orieta hard at work in the secretary office Welcome for 3rd & 4th practicing with the rugs in 3rd & 4th Working on materials in the Maternal/Kinder classroom Welcome sign for classroom with students with hearing difficulties - (learning a little Sign Language here!) Welcome sign for Pre-Premaria Charts for Attendance, Month, Calendar, Weather and Birthdays! "Where are you going?" poster Welcome for Practical Life classroom Murals in Practical Life classroom

Good luck to all my teacher friends back home starting the new school year, as well as students, too! Especially my “little” cousins beginning high school and 7th grade. Miss you. Have fun, all! Coming up: two VERY exciting new projects that I haven't mentioned on here yet! Check back soon. :DXO

Hurricane Irene Update: At most yesterday there were maybe a couple downpours and a few drizzling light rain showers here in site. And yet, the majority of town has shut down today, school’s closed nationwide again and we’re another day behind. Bueno. I know I’m not a meteorologist/weather person, and of course time spent planning ahead/being cautious/putting safety first is time very well spent. ...But subjectively speaking for a second - come on, really? Closing all the schools in the country again? Day off due to light rain and a gray sky? Imagine that, New England! ...Well you might not have to, since all this internet time has led me to weather websites and that Irene is shipping up to Boston soon. That and just now apparently there was an earthquake, too? Ugh, being connected to current events is draining. If being this news-informed were my normal day-to-day, I would be constantly scared out of my mind. Praying for you, family and friends. Hopefully the hurricane just blows away somewhere in the ocean and the environment calms down a little.* * *On a non-Storm Chaser’s note - taking advantage of the time and internet again to get this blog updated a little since I know you’re all super anxious to know what’s going on my Grandma will be checking in. :)So I came across some photos from mini travel day trips that I never shared on here and if internet cooperates, I think I will now. Over the past few months, I’ve been making an effort to see more of my region - the northwest. The northwest is great! I’ve been to Monte Cristi a couple of times (pictures here and here), but there are many sights and much history to see elsewhere in this region, too. The problem is that off the main highways, the roads are pretty undeveloped in this region (read: bad - made of dirt, rocks, and sometimes completely non-existent - you’ll see what I mean in the pictures!) So it can be tough to get out there and see all there is to see. Nonetheless, it is an adventure, as always. One afternoon in May I went to Punta Rusia & Playa Ensenada, and just the other day I visited La Isabela. Enjoy the pictures! * * *Punta Rusia & Playa EnsenadaGoing to start this off by saying maps are deceiving. After studying a map, I determined that these two beach sites were not that far away at all from my town - probably an hour tops. What a great Friday afternoon post-work day trip! I was looking to go see a new place, and this seemed perfect because I could be there and back so quickly. So on a whim after work, I decided to check out both places and brought my little dog along (she’s very well-traveled, pa que lo sepa) and off we went. Cute day. Until I see just how far off the beaten path these places are. Taking the bus out there was easy enough, but after being told to get to the beach itself I’d need to take a moto on a dirt road for 300-something pesos? (roughly 9 dollars, but that’s a lot to me here. Yes I know. Ha-ha) Thanks, but that's too much. After dismissing the moto option and having all the moto drivers warn me that my destination was bien lejos (very far) and dangerous, I set out to just walk it. Going off the fact that Dominicans have also deemed it bien lejos to walk a couple blocks, I figured I could handle whatever the distance ended up being. Well to make this short - turns out they were all correct this time. A long, really bad, mostly very deserted dirt road, and hours later, we arrived. Although it was fun in the end, and of course I met a lot of interesting and wonderfully nice, helpful people along the way - decided I may not need to do this trip again for a while. Bien lejos, indeed.

after walking for a long time, finally found a sign! Punta Rusia is to the left, to the left. made it to Punta Rusia! Playa Ensenada sea food on the beach - perfecto

La IsabelaWanted to see this place for a long time now. Considered one of the first European settlements in the Americas, Columbus lived here in the 1490’s and named the settlement “Isabela” for the Queen of Spain. It was founded in 1493 during his second voyage to the Americas after the Tainos (indigenous people native to the island) destroyed La Navidad (first European settlement, only lasted a year, located in northern Haiti). La Isabela only lasted for three years, then Columbus abandoned it for a new settlement - Santo Domingo (the DR's capital). In La Isabela there are lot of Taino artifacts, as well as the excavated ruins from the little settlement including the house where Columbus himself lived. Not that I’m a huge Columbus fan or the direct/indirect repercussions he brought upon the island, but La Isabela was a place I had to check out, for history’s sake.For being the among the first established settlements in the Americas, La Isabela was kind of deserted. The location was set up really nice, with an entrance fee and museums, but we were the only people there! We had to cross two rivers (literally, Oregon Trail style) to arrive - fording the first river, then floating across on a raft for the second. The experience made me wonder of how La Isabela might be were it Stateside...think Plymouth Plantaion, Sturbridge Village, and all the re-enactment history stuff in Pennsylvania. Kind of funny. But it was a beautiful place just as it was - deserted, quiet, and a bit of an adventure to get to - it was really neat to see. I’d definitely bring future visitors. But I think next time we’d travel on a real road from the east - and not wade across rivers, (unless you’re into that sort of thing, too, then by all means it's on). :)

exactly what it looks like - road ends and we cross the river on a raft. Bridge we would have used if it were finished. Locals told me that after Trujillo (former dictator) died, bridge construction stopped...over 50 years ago now the rock outlines designate building locations from the 1490's looking out from the La Isabela settlement into the bay shots around La Isabela cemetery with Tainos and European settlers

sign designating Columbus's house inside Columbus's house - original didn't include this thatched roof part of Columbus's house looking out over La Isabela Bay he decided we couldn't leave before getting mangos mangos! exiting the settlement Minnie is such a champ! She rides buses, public cars and motorcycles on these trips - a baby rockstar. Sidenote: at least 4 people on the recent La Isabela adventure asked if I would regalar (give away) Minnie to them...um - heck no, amigo! Cutest Min there is!

Next up on the northwestern tour: visiting Dajabon (located on the border) with my neighbors. They’re weekly regulars at Dajabon’s Haitian/Dominican market, and said that I can travel with them whenever. Except I’m always working/at school. Bueno. One of these days! Can’t wait!Be well, all! XO

To track the storm, click here. So there’s a storm on its way here. Due to Irene, all schools in the DR (both public and colegios) were closed by the Ministry of Education, and all volunteers are on Standfast. What this means: can’t work today, and also can’t leave site. Basically condemned to do not much of anything all day. Frustrating, since we’re in the middle of teacher training. Plus, the rain didn’t start until 12pm here, and currently it is not raining too hard. Kind of feel like we could have had school, at least in the morning. But that aside, hopefully these precautions keep people out of harm's way and that by tonight when the hurricane is scheduled to be here, everyone will be prepared, safe, and dry. Say a prayer for my fellow volunteers, Dominican friends, and neighbors! :) Hopefully everyone will be just fine. Anyway, after aprovecharing this day off - visiting neighbors, running errands, and spending time with my host family, I found some internet and here I am using it. Fascinating, no? The lights have flickered a lot, but gracias a Dios neither the internet or the electricity has gone out here yet. Vamos a ver. Here are some photos from earlier today with my host fam, getting ready for Hurricane Irene.

flower patch at my host family's Dona Dominga in the garden Chiquita does not enjoy storms that much...get ready, little one! Don Jose adds more nails to hold the roof down rooftop view of the yucca field and lomas in the distance Rodolfo and Chiquita shadow shot HOLA from the roof Pre-Irene! :) Panorama. Right before the first downpour. Got a bola from the car on the left just in time, gracias a Dios.

Be well and Stay safe! XO

flying into Santiago - hola, beautiful Cibao!

Hello! & Cuanto tiempo.After a fabulous visit to the States, I’m back in the DR and back to work. The past couple weeks have been spent getting the school ready, and doing the teacher training workshop (more on that at a later date). Home was great - a chance to refresh and reconnect. I loved it. Thanks to everyone for making time to meet up with me. To those I visited and those I missed - come here soon! ..Can only really say that for the next 9 months so seriously - visit! Aside from seeing many lovely people, home even featured a little Dominican adventure. Namely how to get all 160ish pounds of these education materials:

back with me to the DR (without breaking anything - important!) for our teacher training workshop in Montessori. So, after realizing (pretty instantly) that only about two thirds would fit in suitcases as planned:

we had to think of another option. Sending the remaining materials via embarque. For those unfamiliar, an embarque is a shipping company or shipment from a shipping company. Many Dominicans receive things this way from their Stateside families. I’ve seen all kinds of things come into the country by way of embarque - food, clothes, shoes, electronics (both out-dated and brand-new), 80’s Coach bags, baby strollers, bikes, car parts, medications (in English), toiletries (also in English)...I could continue, but you get it. So many things. And what do people do with all this stuff? Use it, sell it, ask the gringa to translate it (note: tiny bottles of shampoo, face lotion, and foot cream all look exactly the same if you can’t understand the label), or give it away. People love to share. :) So mid-vacation I found myself in a mini-dilemma - shipping these remaining materials to my site. (Yes - essentially mailing mail to myself. Cute). And to be honest, I didn’t really know how to do this/where to go. So I called a few Dominican friends for help, turned to Google, and discovered something pretty crazy along the way. Turns out there are 10-15 or so embarque companies that ship exclusively to the DR in Boston/Greater Boston. I was shocked about how many companies are in the area, and how frequently each brings shipments to the DR (even learned that some companies bring 4 large shipping containers into the country on a weekly basis - ayy, cuantas cosas!). Bueno, that’s a lot of stuff, but crisis averted. We had a way.My mom, grandmother and I traveled about ten minutes from our hometown to one of the embarque companies. Passing bodegas with signs in the windows advertising jugo natural and La Bandera, it was pretty plain we were in a Dominican neighborhood. After breaking out Spanish with the Dominican-Americans at the company, I got a little tour of how everything works there. And there is just so much stuff - bikes, furniture, boxes and boxes with who knows what inside, bins of shoes and barrels everywhere. And this is only one company of many just in Massachusetts. Imagine how many other cities all over the country are shipping to the DR on a regular basis? For sure places in NY, NJ, and Philly, por lo menos. Crazy. very small sampling of the shipments shipping container...filled with anything you can think of. And I know its all just a lot of mail, but in part, it speaks to how one community can impact another. Or how you can never be sure what someone will do with what you send their way. Or how just a little from everyone can equal a lot (literally). That’s also how I feel about teacher training. And that’s how I feel about all of you donating to the project to buy the materials, to train the teachers, to develop students’ individual abilities, so that more can learn to read and write. ...We’ll see about all that - but just as these Dominican embarque companies are a community effort, so too was fundraising and getting the Montessori materials to my school in the DR. Thank you, because it wouldn’t have worked without you.So even though I’ve seen people receive a lot of things via embarques, I was still in awe of just how much stuff is sent to the Dominican Republic from my home state. And how often its all sent. And how this is a business that I didn’t even realize was so expansive. In the end though, I sent our embarque to a Dominican friend’s house (I technically don’t have a real address here, as “across from the little pink colmado” probably does not suffice), saving 10 dollars (yay, haggling), and am now left hoping the materials arrive soon. Si Dios lo permite! ...But seriously all, cross your fingers.To close - a bit of good embarque news: turns out sending oil and rice is completely free of charge! Which actually is good news, since just about every single family here cooks rice on a daily basis. (note: Mom - not an invitation to mail me bags of rice). :D

gracias! cuidense!XOHappy early Birthday, Aunt Julie!

Hola. Though not in the States at the moment, surprisingly I’ve still managed to have a classic American summer so far. ...With Dominican twists and turns along the way. :) After all the planning and busyness of June’s Montessori Teacher Training, and now currently gearing up for Round 2 of Training at the beginning of August, July has been a catch-up/prepare/take-advantage-and-relax-when-you-can kind of month. Phew. And, gracias a Dios. Here’s a breakdown of July thus far. And, I guarantee that at least a couple items from the following list are part of your plans, too. You don’t need for me to tell you how to have a fun summer ...but hey, if I did, this is what I’d say: 1. Attend a graduation.The cultural center finally had the graduation! Here’s a shot of some of the certificates awarded to my English students.2. Build something.Gracias to USAID funds, our classrooms are going to look really sharp for the next school year. With a local carpenter, we’re building shelves, stands for the Montessori rugs (more on that below), backpack hooks, and a big staircase for students with trouble walking to practice climbing and descending stairs. I drew up blueprints for everything, and well to say the least, this carpenter has been busy. The workshop is right next to my house so I’m able to go often to hang out, check in, and on occasion build things. Woohoo!

panorama of all the construction projects and the workshop3. Do a little decorating.With the same fund mentioned previously, we bought 24 Montessori rugs for the school. We got them in Santo Domingo right next to the bus station (you know, just in case you’re ever in the DR and need to buy carpets), so it was really easy to pay and then send them here on Mao’s route. If you check out pictures from last month’s Training, you can see we used rugs in just about every single activity. So each of the classrooms will receive four rugs for the students to use with the new Montessori activities that we’ve made, and thanks to all of you who supported my project, the materials I’m bringing back from the States (more on that at the end).4. Play with puppies.Rosa, owner of my favorite colmado, has a dog and that dog has these adorable puppies! Naturally, I’m a little obsessed with them. Check out the eye contact in the first picture. And then that unison, tongues-hanging-out in the second. So darn cute.and hanging out with my favorite puppy5. Watch a sports game.Another edition of Barrio BaseballDominoes.

(dominoes is competitive enough here to be put in the sports category!)6. See the sunset every night.Sunset over Buenos Aires7. Barbecue.One of the teachers invited me to a church barbecue. Here is her husband, and he recycled this gas tank, painted it, and now its a mint green grill! 8. Hang out with kids.Little host sister insisted on a photo shoot one afternoon, so here are just a few of my favorites.The youth are planning another one of their fundraisers to raise money for the Father’s Day Party they are planning for early August.9. Travel.For the Fourth, a couple friends and I visited San Pedro de Marcoris and Juan Dolio. San Pedrowoke up to this view in Juan Dolio. not bad!10. Beach it. Bring friends.Last weekend I took a trip with all the teachers and their families. The school has a beach tradition together every July, and this year they planned it around my trip to the States so I could go with them too. I loved it. It was a great time - so much fun hanging out with everyone and all their kids. I’m lucky enough to have an amazing Peace Corps placement with people who are both really hardworking and fun to be around. Hopefully there are thousands of volunteers worldwide who love their sites just as much and would disagree, but I’m positive that my community is among the best. ...Which is probably why I hardly ever leave town. I’ll stop gushing, but to sum up: if you haven’t seen my site, you should. The weekend’s adventure started and ended with this scene from the guagua:difficult to tell, but there are over 40 of us on this bus!

11. Visit family and friends.Yes, exactly this. Hey there, America, I’ll be seeing you in a few short hours! (Currently using the airport’s wifi). Cannot wait! :D And hey there, my Dominicanos I’m bringing you back a little surprise (actually not a surprise at all, after months of planning, they know this is coming! But still, for writing’s sake..). Namely, 142 pounds of Montessori materials. Get excited, because I’m already pumped. A little photo preview courtesy of my mom:Most of the Montessori materials have already arrived to Massachusetts. Cannot say thank you enough to everyone who made this part of the project possible!And with that, see you all real soon!XO

Hello! Hope everyone had a *Happy 4th!*

This update is a couple weeks in the works - a recap of our Summer Montessori Teacher Training from Friday, June 17 to Wednesday, June 29. Woohoo! At the moment, I’m getting things ready for Round 2 of the training at the beginning of August, and after concluding this session in June, the teachers are looking forward to it ...and so am I!The following are reflections from a log that I wrote each evening of the June training. Also, there are 80-something pictures here; we took over 500, so this small percentage seems fair to share. Hope you get a sense of the project, what we did, and how motivated and enthusiastic my teachers are! :DDay 1 - Friday 6/17Friday kicked off the Capacitacion y Elaboracion de Materiales Didacticos - Teacher Training for IDENE. For the first day of Montessori Training, we talked about the origins of the methodology and learned about Maria Montessori, an Italian doctor and educator responsible for developing the pedagogy. We showed a movie about her life and life’s work, to give a sense of who she was, what she did, why she did it, etc. Afterward we had a long discussion about the film and didactic materials she made and used. It was a pretty simple day - a movie and discussion - but I was really impressed by our group of teachers in the discussion part. Every single one of them had something positive to share, and the movie about Montessori really seemed to leave an impact. At one point my project partner said, “The Montessori method can help any child, but I think especially our students.” In our group, we drew similarities between Maria Montessori’s situation in Italy and our students here in the Dominican Republic and we went on to talk about how anywhere, an education will always last longer than politics and government, and why teaching even just one student matters. And I shouldn’t get ahead of myself, because it was only the first day after all, but I was just really happy - finding myself de acuerdo with everything the teachers were sharing, and feeling lucky for it. I’m positive that every volunteer here could cite reasons why DR education is such a lucha sometimes. And when you invest time, energy, money, and especially that of others into something, regardless of what it is, you want that something to be good. And who knows how the remainder of these two weeks will go, but the fact that school’s out, it’s summer, and yet every teacher showed up today, compartir-ed something encouraging, and seems interested in the training, I don’t know - I just think that bodes well for...something. Day 2 - Monday 6/20This was the first day of the hands-on learning part of the training. And so far so good. We gave an introduction for the first part of the morning, and afterwards began presenting the materials. Montessori apparently has many materials, and right now we’re primarily working with the ones that I’ve spent the past few months making. Marina, Wendy (the facilitators) and I work together to choose what we’ll present on which days - so today we presented language materials to be used in “Inicial” and “Pre-Basica” our two youngest classrooms. Obviously M and W have much more experience in this whole Montessori thing than me, but the method involves a lot of order and organization in its presentation, with the goals of instilling these traits in the students who will work in this manner. For instance, every material, to be used either on the floor or desk begins with laying out a rug to mark the work space, and every material used rests on its own shelf on its own tray. So in the presentation, we read and talk about each material, what its used for, and then demonstrate how its used. The materials are designed for students to work on individually or one-on-one with a teacher. Today Wendy played the role of teacher, and selected a different teacher for each activity to act as the student. I think the teachers benefited from this.Everyone was here today, and we had teachers from other schools for a total of 17 participants! Exciting.language materials presented on Day 2

Day 3 - Tuesday 6/21We continued with a similar schedule as yesterday and presented more language materials. Many of the materials are meant to develop and classify vocabulary for students as well as identify things that they are probably already familiar with. My project partner says that its all about developing students’ abilities - so it makes sense to do that starting with vocabulary they're already familiar with. We presented the language materials in the same form as yesterday - with a description of the material, what it’s meant for, and then two teachers act out the activity - as profe and student. It’s been fun to see the teachers get into it. Montessori emphasizes order, and steps and doing the work a certain way so students can develop these traits outside the classroom too, I imagine. So the activities seem really straightforward and they are, but a certain manner must be followed to carry it out right. It’s funny to see the teachers correct each other from their seats - “No you have to put the tray on the left corner of the rug!” or “The student needs to sit on your left!” “Everything from left to right!” The teachers will call each other out if a step isn’t being followed which means they’re paying attention and wanting to practice the method correctly. Super bien. Today we finished about a half hour early. After announcing we had finished for the day, my project partner told the group they were free to go or stay, practice, or plan if they’d like. The teacher next to me said “Vamos a aprovechar esto tiempo,” (or “Let’s take advantage of this time.”) and everyone stayed. Since our training is a “Capacitacion y Elaboracion,” after teaching our group about the materials, we left time for them to plan or make some for their own classrooms. And oh my gosh, this was a cool moment. They were all just really enthusiastic, going to their classrooms organizing things they already had and wanting to make the missing pieces to have a Montessori set. language materials presented on Day 3one of our students participating in the Montessori training with usDay 4 - Wednesday 6/22On Wednesday we presented more language materials - specifically ones that aim to help students with the vowels. This went well, and is a session that will be applicable to all the teachers. Since the school has students ranging in age from 4-22, the classrooms and abilities of each student are pretty diverse. However, in each classroom, no matter what age, there are students working on identifying A, E, I, O, U. The majority of the students at the school struggle with literacy in some way - whether it be reading, writing, and the youngest are just learning to recognize the letters. So that’s why our training has placed so much emphasis on the language materials. Mainly what we focused on today was presenting and explaining as many language materials as possible. All materials exclusively focused on the vowels. We followed the same presentation method that we’ve been doing - explanations with the teachers acting out the roles of student and teacher and using the materials together as they would in the classroom. Two people participate at a time, and the observe what’s going on. We all sit at desks in a circle, so everyone can see what’s going on, and at any time the teachers can as questions during the demonstration. We didn’t really plan on this circle-style arrangement, its just sort of the only way we could fit everyone in the classroom, but it has worked out. For resources we have the texts that my project partner, Marina has used from her Montessori courses in the capital, and I’ve been making copies for each of the 6 classrooms so each will have it year-round as reference. The text calls for specific materials to be used in making the materials, and one of the most basic is sandpaper letters mounted on strong card paper. I don’t really know the word in English for the type of material we buy, in Spanish its "paspartu/papatu" but its basically very heavy poster board. So for today, I made 6 sets of the sandpaper vowels. We gave two of these sets away as prizes for participation, and I wish I had video recorded the excitement when I handed them to two teachers who have participated in the most demonstrations. Four days ago, I don’t think sandpaper vowels would have generated as much excitement as they did this afternoon! That counts for something, right?language materials presented on Day 4panorama of training

Day 5 - Friday 6/24Thursday was Corpus Christi, a holiday, so we didn’t have our training and furthermore everything in town was closed. Everything. Which made preparing/getting funds/setting up for Friday’s session sort of a challenge. A “challenge” as in, nearly impossible. And to top it off, I still can’t even figure out what exactly we were celebrating on Thursday because no one in town could tell me. There was a parade, everyone dressed in white and went to mass, and a man sang on the back of a truck in the streets, but the most I got out of anyone was that it was a “church holiday.” (Claro, casi all holidays are church holidays here). One guy told me that this day means it is the end of Semana Santa, but he was wrong since Semana Santa, or Holy Week, only lasts a week...as the name implies. Bueno, I’m pretty sure Corpus Christi is an international day, and I could just Google it instead of rambling on about how I don’t know what it is, but I feel like if the whole town is going to shut down, at least one person here should be able to tell me the reason why. But no such luck. That’s okay, my Dominicanos, I’ve moved on to Friday.And Friday was great for our Teacher Training. Today was our last day of language preparation. The way Montessori works regarding language materials is that the alphabet is presented in different groups, first the vowels (the red group) then M, P, L, D, T, N (or the yellow group) and so on. So students are introduced to the letters and master them before moving on to the next set. As you can imagine, the language materials start off very basic, forming simple two-syllable words with the same 11 letters, and then become more complicated forming longer words as more letters are introduced. Each day the facilitators and I have been staying late preparing for the next day. I get there in the mornings to prepare at 7am, our workshop lasts 8am-12pm, and then most days we stay until 6pm. I know, I know this is basically just the length of any old American work day, but we’re working constantly the entire time so it is kind of busy! Most of the materials themselves I’ve been making since March, so those are all set, its just a matter now of organizing and doing more last minute prep. Anyway, today is Friday so we didn’t stay late obviously, but in general the schedule has had pretty full days. Day 6 - Monday 6/27Today we switched from the language presentation and demonstrated sensory and math materials for the teachers to use. Like the language materials, the math presentation starts simpler with number recognition and identification, then moves to more advanced activities. And just as in the language presentation, all of the math materials were made by hand. Many of the Montessori activities in this area call for using wooden bars. In accordance with the methodology, these are meant to be hands-on ways for students to learn. I mentioned this a while ago, and will say more about it in another post, but we’ve been working for a few months with a local carpentry shop to purchase and make a lot of shelves, rug stands, backpack hooks, and even a full-size staircase for students with trouble walking to practice climbing and descending stairs at our school. All of these new carpentry projects are meant to improve our classrooms for next year. So, since we’re giving this carpenter a ton of business and sometimes even free labor (what? oh, meaning me helping build things/partly fulfilling a very real, but unspoken dream of working in construction), I negotiated in Spanish to get two sets of these wooden bars built for free. Which was really nice of the carpenter to do, because even though the bars only required cutting, it still is free material nonetheless. As a side note, I strongly recommend always asking for discounts/free things when carrying out community projects like this. You may possibly come off as annoying and/or cheap, but you will get things done, and (at least for me) that’s what it is all about. With companies whom you indirectly involve in the project (aka stores where you buy materials. In my case, hardware stores, bookstores, making copies at the pharmacy, working with this fun, new carpenter friend, and so on) simply explaining who you are (volunteer) and what you’re working on (attempting to improve special education), and maybe even smiling a lot helped too, who knows - I found that every single business gave me some kind of a discount. And even though asking for discuentas and free things feels like not the classiest thing to be doing, it is a good way to really stretch the pesos. Plus to be honest, I didn’t really care if I seemed cheap, because at the end of the day this project is not for me, its for the kids and for the teachers - so might as well just ask the local businesses to help me out a little, right? Added plus: it sort of makes the project even more of a community effort than it already is. I was thrifty before Peace Corps, but never quite at the level of asking, “Y la discuenta?” (or “And the discount?”) before every project-related purchase. At this point - absolutely sin verguenza. No shame whatsoever.

Anyway, here some photos from the start of the math Montessori training, as well as some prep work:

there they are! for free!watching Minnie do all the painting work. Day 7 - Tuesday 6/28Tuesday we presented the remainder of the math activities. Since this training is meant to be a chance for the teachers to both learn about Montessori and make their own materials for their classrooms, we left more time at the end for them to continue making the materials. Throughout the training, we set up a display of all the language, math, and sensory Montessori materials in one of the classrooms on three big tables. As the days passed, teachers could go in and get a sense of what activities they wanted to incorporate for their own students. Since all our students are each at their own level with different strengths, teachers can choose what would be best suited for them. Tomorrow will also be a day for making materials, so today I took an inventory with each teacher to get an idea of what activities they were interested in using so I could go out and get the appropriate materials. Taking inventory was probably one of my favorite moments of the workshop, because I got to see how into the training the teachers have become. All the teachers had ideas, and knew exactly what they wanted to make for their classrooms. It was just really great. After learning about Montessori, I see that although it is a child-centered learning style, the teacher is still so crucial to the student’s success. So, it was wonderful to see the teachers so enthusiastic about making the appropriate activities for their students. Learning through this methodology is a team effort and its with motivated teachers that kids at our school are going to improve their math and language skills. Teachers were asking me left and right to come help them make different materials - one teacher stayed an extra 4 hours making activities for her classroom, and two teachers invited me over to help make materials with them later in July - aka during their only full summer month of vacation. I’ve been so happy all week at how accepting and open the teachers all have been to Montessori and these new teaching ideas, but today I was just simply floored by all the extra effort and enthusiasm. My site really is something special. display of all language materials we presented

Day 8 - Wednesday 6/29On the final day of the Training, we had another day of making materials. This went well. I distributed all the resources we had purchased with the remainder of the funds, and they all got to work. Not too long after, most were asking for more materials to make the activities, but every single peso had been spent. So that’s something I’ll plan better for August’s session - who knew so many would want to go above and beyond? Awesome.Also today we had a little graduation for the teachers - with certificates, of course! Lots of photos, clapping, and thank yous. My project partner, and several teachers spoke about how much they enjoyed the training, citing specific things they liked and learned. In addition to presenting activities everyday, we also explained the philosophy of the Montessori methodology each day, including why and how this technique could improve learning for our students. And after listening to some of the teachers’ closing thoughts on our training, it was clear that the philosophy of the method had stuck with them. Since our school is small, its really like its own family especially in that the teachers know the strengths and needs of their students well. So, having them really be interested in the workshop and then say that they saw this Montessori methodology as a way for their students to improve and learn more effectively? That was an amazing ending to the training. To put it simply, this training shouldn’t have gone as smoothly as it did (an American who knows little/nothing about the Montessori method, planning and organizing a training about said Italian teaching methodology, oh and in Spanish? Yup. Good luck, gringa). But later this afternoon at a family lunch with my project partner, she told me she thought the training went better than she could have expected. And I had to agree with her...and also wonder how that happened. But the answer is easy and it’s obvious - we have amazing, hard-working teachers, and a director who really knows a lot about Montessori. My project partner had a good idea, together we made a plan, did a lot of prep work, and then held a training for the teachers, all for the simple (well, simple in theory) purpose of helping kids learn to read and learn their numbers. And lucky for everyone, the teachers are completely on board with this plan. It’s cheesy, I say it often, but I’m really just lucky to be here working with them. So before the teachers and facilitators left the graduation today, I spoke up and told them exactly that. I thanked each of them for being open to learning something new, working hard and being so motivated. I told them that every volunteer wants to be in a site just like this where they can work with people who are enthusiastic, on time, want to be there, and want to learn and work with them, too. And I told them that I felt really lucky that I could be here doing this project with them and the students. Sounds corny, but it is so true. And on that note, cue the last pictures and end of this post. making materialsFacilitators Wendy and Marina at our graduation

This was a long read, so thank you for staying interested or at least reading until the end. I appreciate it. Round 2 of the training is coming within the next month! cuidense!XO

Dominican Rules of the Road. Still don’t know that there are any “rules” per se, but there are generally accepted norms when it comes to driving. Never ever a dull moment when traveling. I wrote about strange moto experiences a couple months back, but here are a few lessons learned from the passenger seat:1. There’s always room for one more.Be it packing people onto a tiny guagua, or transporting goods, there is no such thing as having too many or being too full. It may not be comfortable, you may not even have a seat, but there’s usually always a space (of some sort) for you, and you always get where you’re going. This same philosophy apparently applies to platanos too. If this truck looks like it is leaning too much to the right - it probably is.Tons of plantains. This sight even surprised the Dominicans on the guagua with me.2. Age is just a number (and not a driving requirement). Which is why you can be 11 years old and drive a moto, and no one except the Peace Corps Volunteer seems to mind. host brother drives now3. Others will always get you where you’re going.We already know this applies to pedestrians via bolas (free rides or hitch-hiking), which are very culturally-acceptable. But turns out, drivers also have a responsibility to other drivers - think roadside assistance, a kind of neighbor to neighbor AAA-style. For instance, say your moto runs out of gas, it is then the responsibility of another moto driver to (literally) push you along and get you where you need to be. Yes, and I do mean push. Here’s how it works: moto 1 runs out of gas, driver of moto 2 puts right foot on the back left foot rest of moto 1 and the two drive (well one drives, the other just kind of steers) alongside eachother as if all is normal. Until this happened to a moto I was on, I never really noticed that people did this. But now that I’m aware, I see the running-out-of-gas-moto-pushing scene just about everyday. ...Which I guess says a lot about a. gas prices & b. how much faith people place in their fellow drivers.Why, yes. We are all moving in this picture. Scary at the time, but in retrospect - where else are you going to find people this nice?4. Just because you’re a volunteer doesn’t mean you can’t ride in style sometimes.Truth. Check out the new taxis in my town:

Kind of Disney-esque/European-ish, right? No? Well fine, at least in my eyes then. There’re only 10 of these here, but they are awesome! They will take you anywhere for a flat 50 pesos, no haggling, 50 no matter what. They are half moto/half tiny car buggy-style, perfect for times when you have to travel with a billion things (aka: Teacher Training), with too much to carry on a moto, but aren't willing to smush into a carro publico. Each tiny taxi has a radio and speakers, and passengers can even request American music to be blasted during the trip free of charge! ..& by passengers I mean me. Anyway I’m a big fan of the mini-taxi, but I’ve made that much clear.5. ... And I don’t have a photo for this, or even a take-away lesson - but this one wins the crazy moto prize, hands-down. One evening watching the Mao news with my neighbor, the reporters showed a video clip of a guy doing all sorts of crazy stunts on a moto. But really not even a moto - a pasola (scooter/moped - meant for one rider, and smaller than a moto). These moto tricks may have been super impressive if I wasn’t scared to death the guy was going to fall off and die the whole time. The driver did a lot of crazy things, but to name a few, he full on stood up on the moto seat, held on with two hands while dragging his feet behind, rode backwards, did some kind of breakdancing move - all while the thing was in motion. And he wasn't even filmed at some fancy motocross or stunt show - all this while just driving around town. Bueno. If we ever meet - never ever accepting a bola from that loco. Drive safely!XOPS - To conclude, here’s a picture of a tarantula found on the wall at school. Hope you enjoy it more than I did.It was suggested I take the tarantula home. I declined.

Saludos!Hope your summer is off to a great start. (Not sure if the official day has arrived, but as far as I’m concerned - summer is here! Disfrutalo!) Where to start, where to start...How about with a GRACIAS! During the week of May 22, we reached the fundraising goal! (All in less than 2 months! A-mazing). To everyone who donated to, read about, shared, and supported the Special Education Resources project, thank you for your time, interest and kind messages. Because of you, my school will make steps toward a long-term goal of school-wide Montessori education, helping 15 teachers help 52+ students meet their individual needs in the classroom. You’ll be able to find photos and updates about the process here, and I can’t wait to share what happens next! I’m excited for the kids, the teachers, my project partner, and all you caring individuals willing to support the education of students that you have never even met (...yet!). Thank you so much.Since I last updated this, fellow volunteers and I had our 1 Year IST (In-Service Training). We shared successes, struggles, past, current and future projects - and I found it so worthwhile - the best Peace Corps mandated training yet, in my opinion. Love our group.And it may be summer, but there’s still a lot going on in June. So far in these first two weeks, my youth threw a Mother’s Day party for the moms in the barrio, IDENE wrapped up the school year for the students, and we held a week-long summer camp for the kids. This Friday we’ll start the first round of Teacher Training, which will be held daily through the end of June. Really looking forward to it, so hopefully it goes well. Vamos a ver! Here's June (so far) in pictures:Youth Group’s Mother’s Day PartyThe kids' celebrated Mother's Day at the beginning of June with a party for all the moms. They invited every mother in the neighborhood and SO many people showed up. The kids put on plays, sang songs, recited poems, and performed a dance. They also gave all the mothers a number, and raffled off prizes. It was great, and the kids are already at work planning something similar for Father's Day in July. Basically - the best jovenes ever. Enjoy the pics & Feliz Dia de la Madre!

Welcoming the moms!hangin' out.The kids made me make this welcome sign for the event and gave me a can of spray paint. I tried, and wound up successfully creating the ugliest poster ever. But they still said it was "bien linda." :)Dona DomingaSimon & Dona Domingawelcoming everyone to the eventRaffling off gifts for the mothersover 100 mothers from the barrio came out! place was packed.the youth in one of the 5 mini-plays they performedIDENE Summer WeekPictures from our Semana de Verano! Lots of fun, games and activities for the kids such as: cooking, art, manualidades...and baton ballet aka baton twirling (pero, claro). so much twirling talent!these kids were naturals! Last Day of School/Entrega de NotasDuring the end of last week the teachers were busy getting all of the students' evaluations ready. Each student and their family received a personalized, typed evaluation with pictures of activities from throughout the year. Check out the folders that the teachers decorated for every single kid. So artistic!

Evaluations folders for the youngest students - so darn cute! almost all the teachersteachers presenting the Summer Camp participation certificatesfeliciades! ...& finally - So. Much. RAIN.

A little weather update: hurricane season has arrived reminding us daily of its presence with downpours every afternoon. As a side effect, everything is even greener and growing faster than normal here in the lovely Cibao.

storm's a-comin'!

rain. como siempre.Thanks for reading! Take care all.XOHappy (very) belated (12th! omg!) Birthday to Camie!Happy belated Birthday to Angie!& Happy Birthday, Uncle Tim!

Spent a few days in the South earlier this month. Enjoy the pictures!

driving through a Bani market:Jessica's art class: Many Banilejos have ties to Boston. Hence this "Green Monster Colmado" !Playa Bayahibe:cave swimming at Cueva de Chico:Playa Dominicus:Thanks! Take care of yourselves!XO

Just going to take a moment for my dog right now. A lot is happening for Little Min, and sorry but the internet just needs to know. Updates on Minnie in list form:She can climb stairs! More specifically, the stairs outside my house, which have been dubbed “dangerous,” “awful,” and “kind of treacherous” by friends. This means that she has actually grown tall enough to be bigger than the height of one stair! So far her stair climbing record is at climbing two stairs. Yay, MIn!Minnie has learned to sit and to (almost) shake hands/paws on command. Thanks to the peanut butter dog treats that Sara and my mom sent down for her, she’s learning quicker than ever before. She has made a few animal friends. Even though Minnie acts as if everyone she sees is her friend, sometimes other dogs aren’t into playing with her. Sad. And rude. But a friend in town has a cat that she loves to play with, and another animal pal is Muneca, my neighbor’s clothes-wearing, tiny, toy-size chihuahua. BFFs.And everyone I see regularly here asks after this dog. Co-workers, my favorite colmado workers, students, teachers, the kids and youth, my host family, neighbors. If they haven’t seen her with me for a few days they’ll say, “Y la perrita?” or “Y Minnie?” Cute. But what just may be even cuter is that two of the people who love her most are under the age of four. Here are Miguelito and Ceci hanging out with Minnie:The other day I looked at pictures from just 2.5 months ago, and what a difference. Baby Minnie is so grown up now! Here she is back when I first got her: little baby (& sleepy) Minnie monster <3Not to outshine my puppy, but I’m going to redirect the spotlight onto even more amazing accomplishments - namely my sister. Sara is officially a college grad! & She graduated with honors! So proud, and Dona Dominga and Don Jose say “Felicidades!” Congratulations, Sara! :DXO

Probably will never get tired of taking pictures of my site. Just love it - especially the relationships I’ve formed here in the last year. Looking forward to the people I have yet to meet in this second year (my town is big, claro I haven’t met all 50,000!).Scenes from my day-to-day in 20 pictures or less:

banana field

tomato and eggplant garden at school:

where the neighborhood plays baseball: Minnie - tired at school panorama! kids from the youth groups:Ana, Miguelito, & Simon corn field at my host fam's: Don Chiquito la bandera - (rice, beans, meat) with my host familyLots of love!

XO

Nearly a month since the last post... Sorry. Hopefully this next series of posts remedies that. If not - well Sorry x 2. And too bad, so sad. So, to make up for being kind of busy, then away, and then somewhat lazy toward this blog for the past month, I will have one post a day for at least the next 5 days (si Dios quiere, of course!) to get back on track. I guess it’s actually only been 3 weeks since I updated this, which isn’t too long, but so much has happened (both positive and negative) and after a lot of thought and back and forth about it, I’m actually going to share the bad news as well as the good. Oh and I broke down and bought a camera, so if nothing else, at least there’ll be some pictures sprinkled around here soon, too. 40 or so pics, to put a number on it. (I know, right? Kind of a lot. Pretty excited to have a camera again!) For today, a Short and Sweet Update:I’m good. Minnie’s good. (Whole update on her coming up!).English Classes = Done. We’re having a televised graduation for the cultural center’s computer and language classes at the town’s ayuntamiento (city hall). I’ll graduate this second group of English students (about 35-40 kids and adults) as well as my Escojo Mi Vida (health HIV/AIDS awareness club) kids (about 15 neighborhood youth). Lots of brindis (snacks), certificates and Dominican formalities are to be expected. Should be an awesome ceremony! Now if city hall would only pick a graduation date for the center so I can tell my kids and students when this awesome ceremony will be...Started using the USAID funds (explained a little about that here) that we’re putting towards the classroom remodeling. Working with a banisteria (carpenter) in town to construct 22 custom pieces (shelving, storage units, organization cabinets) to fit the two youngest classrooms. About half the USAID money will go to that. One of my project partners and I did the measuring, I drew up some designs with the dimensions, we gave all this to the carpenter and then talked/haggled price. Good news is that the fund’s money is hopefully going to go a long way since he offered a discount! A couple hours, and one deposit later and we’re on our way to the longterm goal of improved classrooms. At school I’ve been hand-making a lot of educational materials to be used in the next school year. Next month we’ll have phase one of Teacher Training on the Montessori approach, and the use of these handmade materials. Excited!The school’s Kids’ Summer Camp & Teacher Training Round 1 - Coming Soon in June! And lastly, I’m continuously floored each time I check the fund-raising process for the special education resources. We’re two thirds of the way! Thank you so much for being a part of this project at my school. I wouldn’t have asked for your help in this if I didn’t consider it worthwhile and something that my school really wants and is collectively willing and capable of working towards. There is a lot of enthusiasm. Each time I update my project partner on how far along we are, she is really happy. One morning she even had the idea of writing her own letter to add to the fundraising website to explain even more and personally thank everyone who has helped us. Felt bad about it, but I had to kind of crush that nice idea, as a letter written in Spanish might not be the easiest thing to read. But it’s the thought that counts - so I’ll say it for her, she’s really happy and says “Thank you!” to everyone!More soon. Thank you for reading and stay safe!XO

*Note: All of these photos are stolen from friends. (Camera is still broken). Enjoy!Finally made it up to Samana! ...after only a year of wanting to check it out. Baby steps, mi gente. I hadn’t been because it is so far away, it’s an expensive trip, and okay to be honest, I didn’t really know how to get there. But then the Dominican Republic proved me wrong (time and time again). Eleven bolas and 5-6 hours later, I learn that hitch-hiking from Santiago can get you to Samana for free. :) Sweet deal, maybe I’ll hitch-hike long distance here more often (Kidding, kind of). The Bola Race ended with a great weekend in the beautiful Las Terrenas, and a visit to Playa Bonita. Playa Bonita, Samana:About a week later was Semana Santa or Holy Week, which is probably the most important religious holiday here. With a week off from work and classes, I took advantage of this time to do a little relaxing and traveling in the northwest area. For me, Semana Santa started in Santiago with an Autism awareness conference. I went with teachers, one of my project partners, and a mother from the school. It was a good conference, learned a bit and I think the teachers did too. So once school starts again, we’ll be able to bring this info. back to the teachers who weren’t able to attend. I also spent a couple days at an orphanage close to my site. About eleven volunteers and I painted two dormitories at a boys’ orphanage. The rooms got a makeover Peace Corps-style, and are now bright and fun, and I was lucky enough to spend time with the outgoing COS volunteers. This group is about to complete their 2 years in the DR, and with only just 2.5 weeks left of service in-country, they’re still hard at work and planned this trip to paint during the holiday. They are such an amazing and organized group, and really talented artists too. Check out some of the murals and other painting pics from the Jaibon orphanage:

Semana Santa was great - visited with volunteers, relaxed in my site, did a little traveling - even up to Monte Crisit. Towards the end of the week, I went up to Playa del Morro, the northwesternmost point on the DR’s coast. It’s really different from any other Dominican beach I’ve been to. To quote my little guidebook, it’s the #1 Quiet Beach and “a deserted white-sand beach... walled in by sheet cliffs... with calm water protected by spectacular coves.” Nice. And after seeing it, that description’s pretty on point. Definitely will have to make it back sometime. Oh and Minnie made the trip with us too, but turns out she’s not really a fan of water or waves. What a weirdo little puppy. Pics from around my site as well as the Monte Cristi trip:my site! Monte Cristi:Playa del Morro, Monte Cristi:

And so concludes the week. Now for a fun little list -Strangely Not-So-Strange-Anymore Recent Moments Witnessed on the Back of a Motorcycle:Realizing your moto driver is in fact not an adult but an 8 year old boy. (Scene: child sat in front, his dad who helped him drive and steer the moto in the middle, and me on the back. To date, scariest bola of my life. Oh que chulo...Senor, is your son driving this moto?!)Seeing two moto drivers carry either end of a long ladder between them riding down the street (Ladder moving length-wise, not width-wise, down the street. Think that makes it safer).Having a 10-year-old on a bicycle hold onto the back of a moto and trailer behind.Witnessing a group of people on motos riding alongside eachother and having a conversation back and forth while driving (occasionally watching the road, too).Seeing two pigs tied and strapped down on a moto.Piling onto a moto with 4 other people (3 adults, 2 children).At this point, I hardly regard these and similar sights as out of the ordinary. But every now and then I have an American moment; Oh, that’s kinda dangerous, or Hm, this really wouldn’t fly in the States. I can already tell that going home will be the real culture shock for me. After spending a couple days with the COS group hearing about their exciting plans and thoughts about leaving the Dominican Republic, I found myself seriously thinking about the Stateside life that awaits and how different that’s going to be. Though still a bit of a question mark, that picture’s becoming a lot clearer. Another long post for another day, but part of my future reunion-with-the-USA is completely and 100% certain. What I can say for sure is that my American life will require a place that fulfills my newfound daily need to hear songs such as this, this, this, this or this blasted at full volume through my ears, and I will expect a full-on dance party to break out at any given moment of the day, or (at the very least) a sing-a-long fest. :) thanks for reading & lots of love,XO

Hola. Can’t believe we’re almost in the middle of April. I’ve been in-country over a year, a volunteer for nearly a full year, and am feeling good about all things at this point. Project-wise, there’s a little more going on here since I last updated. All the things from before, plus a couple new projects, and mini-success stories re. other projects. First of all, the school was able to get lots of books, and shelves donated from the DR’s Ministry of Education. We added these to our existing collection, and now we are starting a school-wide mini-library. I say mini because currently this library is in my office which is not that roomy. So, starting small, but that’s okay - its a library for goodness’ sake! Libraries, and books in general are hard to come by here. Some perspective: My town has 50,000 people, I’ve lived here about a year, and still haven’t found the library (although I’ve heard it does exist somewhere!) This library-in-my-office location indirectly put me in charge of organizing and categorizing all the books. As a kid who spent money on desk organizers and more time than necessary browsing the aisles of Staples, you can imagine how much I am enjoying getting this growing library all neat and orderly.Also...I got funding for the school! I wrote proposals for two grants for this - the first is the one all of you have been helping me with (only 3 weeks, and we are halfway to the goal thanks to you all!), and the second was a SPA (Small Project Assistance) grant through Peace Corps funds. With this SPA money from the second grant, we’ll be able to do all the preliminary classroom prep work (building shelves, bookcases, storage cabinets) to make way for the Montessori materials and new Special Edu. resources funded with your help. In short, VERY excited about all this, and so is my project partner. We’re on our way! And then in new project news, I’m going to start helping Gina with her literacy classes. She’s teaching people in the neighborhood how to read and write twice a week. It’s great because she started the classes for the neighbors on her own - saw a need with a few people and just went for it. Which means, for these students at least, the class is already sustainable, with a Dominican teacher (Gina) who has been trained in how to teach literacy. Um, Emma seems like you really don’t need to be helping with this. I know. I just want to be supportive, especially since a couple of my neighbors and barrio friends are in these classes including the doorman who works at our school. Living without knowing how to read or write must be so draining, and disheartening having to rely on others around you all the time. Maybe people get used to it, and they don’t feel the way I’m imagining they do. Still I’ve found that many people who rely on others to read and write for them are often the same people who go out of their way to help without ever being asked. For example, whenever I bring my dog to school, I tie her to a banana tree and leave her outside in the shade while I’m working inside. One day after school got out, I went outside and saw that the school’s doorman, Alejandro had built a little cardboard house for the puppy to sleep in. Just really kind. And there’s been a lot of times like that - someone from the literacy class making my day a little easier or more pleasant for no other reason than to be nice. So in short, I just want to bring whatever resources I can to Gina and the literacy group to help her get the students reading, writing, and living better.lots of love!XOPS - One of my project partners found someone in town to fix my camera. (For free!) Pictures are back in this blog’s future. Love this day so much.

(April 5, 2011)Why, hello.A list of big and important events around here (sans pictures so make use of your imaginations, amigos!):New Election of Junta de Vecinos - The Junta is the neighborhood group that works together in the barrio. My host dad had been leader of this group for the past four years. But it was time for a new election, so 4 candidates stepped forward and then the election itself was held this past Sunday. A lot of people in the barrio showed up to vote - between about 150-200 people altogether, including people whom I had never seen before (even my dona said she had never seen some of these people before). Anyway, though I obviously can’t (and wouldn’t even if I could) vote in the neighborhood election, I went to support the neighbors and see what this was all about. Aside from starting forty-five minutes late (always. without fail.), it was pretty darn organized. All of the ballots had the candidates’ names and pictures (photos to be clear, and to help those who can’t read know who they’re voting for). Residents cast their votes behind a big tablecloth curtain held up by clothespins and hung in the corner, making a voting booth in the open garage. After they voted and deposited their vote in the ballot box, their hands were marked by stamp and ink. The whole process took about three hours, and at the end of it all, the ballots were counted one-by-one, tallied on a chalkboard, and a winner was announced. Of course, the event started and concluded with a prayer, asking God to help pick the best candidate then after thanking God for the elections.The 12th Anniversary - The school turned twelve! And they had a big mass that lots of other Maenos (people who live in Mao) attended. The ceremony lasted nearly 2.5 hours, and it was filled with people singing and playing live music.Shakira Concert! - Recently I saw Shakira & Pitbull in the capital. Aside from seeing local bands and musicians, this marked my first big DR concert. Yay. If pictures did exist for this one, they would show a far away and small Shakira. So, I guess no real loss photo-wise - still a fun time, of course!* * *And since this post has no visuals to keep it on track, I’m going to write about whatever I want. Get ready.Yesterday I had a conversation with a Dominican friend about tigres. We were talking about what “tigre” means in English, and I was having trouble deciding what it meant. (Well literally, it’s kind of simple - it means “tiger,” but I’m talking about the slang meaning, they way I hear it used everyday. Besides, there are no tigers on this island anyway! Who around here uses “tigres” to talk about actual tigers?). It’s a word that is so wrapped up in the culture and it can have a positive connotation, negative connotation or both (depending on who you talk to about said topic). So long explanation short - I couldn’t really define it in one English word for him. For me - I’d translate it to “punk/someone who hisses at me/someone who catcalls and I pretend I can’t hear him.” ...Or something along those lines. But not everyone shares that experience (how nice for them). The friend then told me that “tigres” are people who are “full of life and energy and live without shame.” Hmm, okay. A little different, but yes I’d say he’s correct, too. I was mostly just interested in this because even though I use the word “tigres” all the time, I couldn’t translate it using just one English word.This is the same friend who gave me Minnie. And I just realized I never really wrote about that one, which is a shame because it is a swell story filled with surprise/and self-questioning...questions which fall mostly along the lines of “Why is this happening to me?/Is this my life?/How do I say ‘no’ to a cute puppy?/I should have seen this coming./etc.” Okay, now for the story itself. Once upon an afternoon at the cultural center, some English students and friends were hanging out with me waiting for class to start. This is one of the only places I can access internet, so I Google-imaged a picture of a Yorkshire Terrier and asked the group, “Hey! Does the Dominican Republic have dogs that look like this?” I was curious/tired of seeing the same type of scrawny street dog/just wanted to know/had internet and was able to Googlear things. They told me that yes, furry smaller-type dogs exist here - then that was sort of the end of that conversation, and everyone moved on. Fast forward a few weeks later, and I have a puppy. Huh? Is my pronunciation so bad that I accidentally spoke the words, “Oh! Yes please, give me a dog!” ..? Looking back, my asking about dogs, was taken as an indirect way of asking for a dog. Big difference. Lesson learned: careful what you say in a culture of indirect communication. Or actually, who cares, don’t be careful, say whatever you like, take it all in stride, and randomly get a free puppy one afternoon - that works alright too. So that’s where Minnie came from. Pa’ que lo sepan. Just another day in the DR.* * *What else, what else...just little things I think are sweet/funny/odd/cute (in that order) that normally I wouldn’t bother writing about. Guess I will share some more stories though and just title this post “Rambles,” because that’s what’s going on right now. So today my dona mandar-ed me, (aka: sent me on an errand). I’ve done errands for her before, but today it was definitely a muchchacho task. What do I mean by muchacho task? Sending muchachos (kids) to buy random things for you (like cooking oil/bread/laundry soap/beans/etc.) from colmados is to “mandar un muchacho” to run your errrands. And kids love it! It gives them an important mini-mission to accomplish. I do errands for my dona too, but I like to think they’re a little more adult, like - “Emma here’s some money, and next time your in Santiago can you shop for X thing for me?” But that’s not what happened today. Today my dona gave me money, and sent me out to buy a 60 peso phone card and two packets of 5 peso bleach. Without a doubt, this is a muchacho job, and I had been mandar’d like the best of them. As I took her money and walked off up the dirt path to the colmado I laughed in my head, thinking “My dear Dona, do I look like a muchacho to you?” After a couple minutes, I returned and programmed the new phone card into her phone. I checked to make sure she had my number, just in case, and scrolled down to the E’s. Except, “Emma” wasn’t listed. This made me a little sad; after all this time with the family, my number wasn’t even saved. Once I reached the H’s though, I laughed aloud as I read “HemmaMiHija” (aka in English: my daughter Emma) from the contact list, and remembered that when I first came here the family pronounced my name with an H - “Hemma.” Aw so sweet, Dona! :) *Sunday I spent the day at the youth group meetings and election, but between these things, I visited at different houses in the neighborhood. At one house, the mom was busy doing her daughters hair. Naturally there was a group of people just sitting and watching, so they called me over and I happily joined the audience. For many Dominicans, Sunday is salon day - a day for hair and nails. This rings true nationwide - rich, poor, rural, urban, city, or campo - Sunday is for the salon. Right now, you’re about to get a campo-salon version. So, back to the scene - the daughter sat down, balancing herself on a empty red crate, as her mother stood behind her, taking a pair of lime green, kids safety scissors with a plastic coated handle to trim the ends of the hair. Once the mom was satisfied with the trimming, she had her daughter go inside and get the rollers. In the meantime, the husband came home. He backed his red truck into the side yard, manuvering through the wooden stick fence laced with barbed wiring then into the bed sheets hanging on the clothesline and drying in the sun. He came out of the truck without saludar-ing (greeting or saying “hi” to) anyone. Meanwhile the daughter came back outside, rollers in hand. She settled on the ground as her mother sat on a bench, and she passed the rollers and pins back as her mother put roller after roller in her hair. The husband entered and exited the house, and didn’t seem very happy. He asked if there was any lunch left for him. The wife said she didn’t save anything, and since he didn’t call and say he was coming, she assumed he wasn’t. At this point the husband got angrier, and kept saying over and over how hungry he was. The wife, with her attention still on the rollers, pointed out the hour - 4:00 in the afternoon - and reiterated that the husband said he would call, and since he didn’t call, how was she to know he’d come by four hours later looking for lunch. It continued like this for a while, with me and the other neighbors just sitting there, watching the daughter’s hair get pinned into the rollers one by one, and listening to the wife and husband argue back and forth about the missing lunch. It reached a dramatic moment as the husband yelled loudly that hair care must be more important than his hunger. During all this, I’m laughing in my head, thinking, “Alright dude, stop whining and make yourself a sandwich.” (But that’s not very culturally sensitive, so I left it unsaid). It ended, with the husband finding something to eat in the house and bringing it back outside so he could continue to let us know how hungry and unhappy he was. He sat down, joining us in the audience of the campo salon, and together we all watched the hair rollers line up in neat little rows in the daughter’s hair. To conclude - Sundays are for the salon - consider yourselves warned lest you go hungry.*For those who might care to know, I have electricity again! And I also know a great way to spend 5.5 hours, as 5.5 hours is exactly how long it took to wait, work out the problems and pay the electrical bill. Quite the process. So I signed up (for real this time) back in February, got the house connected with the meter, and started receiving bills. That’s when I noticed that on the forms they list every electrical appliance in your house, and that on my form things were listed that I clearly do not own: a large refrigerator, six lightbulbs, a stove, a television, two fans... I laughed, because I obviously can’t afford a television or a large refrigerator. Still I didn’t think too much of it, because I have a meter on the house, so obviously the meter counts and keeps track of exactly how much energy a house uses, right? About a month later, i went back to pay, and this list of electrical appliances came up in conversation. The dialogue that ensued will give you a sense of the electricity system and my ongoing adventures with it:Me: This list isn’t correct. I don’t have a large refrigerator or a television, but its okay because the meter says the correct amount, and the price is from the meter, right?Girl working: That’s right, the meter counts exactly how much electricity you use, and that’s the number that you pay each month. The price is from the meter. But if you have someone from the company come check all the electrical appliances in your house the cost will go down.M: Oh...but I thought you said the cost is only from the meter?GW: Yes, of course it is. Exactly.M: So actually, the monthly price will be the same no matter what appliances the paper says I have.GW: No. If someone comes to see what you have like the stove, refrigerator, television, and if they see that you don’t have many of these things, they’ll write it down, then the cost will go down.M: Oh. But the cost on the bill is only from the meter...?GW: Exactly.Okay, does that system make any sense? Your house has a meter/electricity counter. This counter keeps track of the electricity. The price on the bill each month is from what the numbers say on the meter. Oh! But, wait. If we come to your house to check all your electrical things, we’ll lower your price. ? ...No wonder there are so many problems here with electricity. Even those who actually pay aren’t being charged correctly. Add to that those who rob electricity, those who live without it, and you’ve got the current system - planned black-outs to save energy, people who avoid the system completely and dangerously tie into pre-existing electrical wires, and for those who do pay, the company assigns its prices as it sees fit. Se fue la luz, indeed.*At the elections last Sunday, two muchachos built a play videocamera out of cardboard boxes and wood. They used a big empty tomato paste cardboard box for the camera, attached a cylinder-shaped piece for the lens, and added a piece of wood to the side for the viewing screen. Then, they tied on half of an old jumprope to the “video camera” to be the cord and microphone. Kids here are always making toys and games from random stuff they find on the ground. (I don’t know if this is a trend amongst kids in other towns, but this is the second time I’ve seen kids around here build cardboard videocameras). Anyway, here comes the cutest part. Then these kids, both probably about 10 years old, took the camera and microphone around to people who had voted and asked questions like “What did you think of the voting this afternoon?” or ”Who do you think will win today?” They had everyone standing in line waiting to cast their ballots laughing and talking into the jumprope microphone to the muchacho reporters and their cardboard camera. Pretty creative and funny kids.* * *Wow, this post feels so unorganized! If you made it this far, thanks for reading. A lot of words, no pictures - hopefully no one got too bored. ;)Enjoy this day - it is the only one like it! Take care, all.XO

Happy Friday all!Just a short post to say a big thank you, thank you, THANK YOU to those who have donated to my project. It really means a lot to me to have family and friends involved and am so happy that some of you want to help out. Even though I am unable to see exactly who has donated (maybe once the fund-raising is finished that changes, but am not sure), please know that your support is very appreciated.If you are interested in learning more or being a part of the fund-raising, more information about my project can be found here on this blog or on the Peace Corps donation page.I’ll admit that my last post was a little visually boring. But good news - this post comes with a new (and exciting?) picture update. You’re welcome, Sara Swift. Here are some photos I was able to salvage from my camera after it died. An assortment of mid-March and end-of-March events: Water Week at school, the Volunteer Visit, and the Youth Group Fund-Raiser Party.

Oh wow, and what’s this? Why, it’s Little Min. (Do not worry, having a puppy photo shoot on your webcam is a healthy use of time. I googled it).

Okay enjoy the weekend & be safe!XO

Just a few project-unrelated updates while there's internet within reach:

*1. Most importantly, (well, importance-level may vary depending on who is reading) my dog has a name! Por fin. For the past month, she's been living with multiple names (thank you to Dominican neighbors, family and PC friends for helping!) and name changes (thanks to my hesitancy to commit). Basically, she's been called a lot of names and responds to all of them, poor thing. I've tested out just about every name from: dog websites, friends' suggestions, family's suggestions... and even went as far as trying tiguere-inspired catcalling names just for fun (more specifically: Rubia, Bonita, Linda, Bella, Mami, Princessa) - but all that felt a little too strange. A month later - her name is Minnie. (pictures of Minnie on in the posts below this one).

*2. My camera has mysteriously stopped working. For no particular reason it has quit taking awesome pictures or just regular pictures altogether. Until I fix it find someone in town to fix it, there won't be any recent pictures on here - just a lot of boring words. :)

*3. Tomorrow I'll be on our province's regional news! I was told that you can see it from the States on this website: www.universalcable.com.do at 7:30AM tomorrow. So if by chance you wish to add live Spanish news from northwestern Dominican Republic to your early morning, now you know where to go.

*okay, cuidense!

XO

FYI: The following does not reference basketball brackets in any way, shape, or form. (Claro. Writing a post predicting sports championship playoffs would really make me a changed person).At this point, we are well into March, and it has been a frightening, and busy month so far. There’s a lot going on, and there’s much to come in the next couple weeks. So welcome to my March Madness post - a recap about the start of this crazy month, a preview of what’s up next, and my last update until the next one.

Things here have been moving quickly. I have English classes four times a week, two youth groups and a community meeting on the weekends. At my primary site, the school, I have been working more with the students and helping the teachers with daily projects while waiting for grants. Most recently these daily projects have been environment and water awareness activities. A couple weeks ago I gave a charla about water for a teacher training event, the goal of which was to provide the teachers with concrete, hands-on activities, then brainstorm ways to teach in their classrooms about the importance of water. It went alright (someday my Spanish will be perfect...si Dios quiere). Overall though, the event served its purpose - after my talk, the teachers were sharing ideas, and selecting activities to teach their students about clean water. In general during this month and the last, there have been many fun school-wide activities. Naturally, there's a ton of pictures on this post (even 2 videos if this slow internet cooperates!)Aside from school, last weekend was the town's Carnaval, and two volunteers visited. Carnaval here had similar elements to last year’s in the Capital, but on a smaller scale. Still fun though! At the end of this week, a new trainee will be here for a Volunteer Visit (remember last year's visit?), which is exciting. Oh yes, and I have been living in the Dominican Republic for over a year! And from day one to a year later, everyone from our original group is still here. Pretty darn awesome. :D

Valentine's DayThe Firefighters' Visit:Nuestra Identidad event trekking through townpark!neighborhood meetingbirthday wishes from one of my English classesAnd lastly, an update on my puppy. She’s really sweet, follows me everywhere, and is excited to meet everyone and everything that moves. She has recently learned to bark, and due to my indecision, she also now responds to a variety of names. Surprisingly, this tiny puppy helps with my street cred, too. No longer am I just “that girl from Nueba Yol who lives alone, wears a helmet on a moto, doesn’t cook rice, and isn’t married.” Well, still a weirdo Americana, of course - now with a puppy in tow.

thank you for reading & stay well,

XOHappy (belated) Birthday, Angela!Happy Birthday to Danielle!& Happy (early) Birthday, KC!miss you all <3

Thanks for the birthday wishes - the messages really made it an exciting day. :)

I didn’t tell anyone here in town in an attempt to avoid publicly acknowledging getting older. So I just planned to have a normal class/school day. Apparently, the DR thought differently. The school surprised me with a cake and a lot of singing. (they are so nice!) Groups of students ran up for hugs and to yell “Happy Birthday!” (aw.) Later, between school and classes, I discovered a random little store in town that sells clothes with TJMaxx/Marshalls tags. (sweet. even better than the real thing.) Then later a guy in town gave me a puppy. (um, what??!)All in all, a pleasant day. morning run: cake from IDENEthank you for the birthday cards <3it's the wakefield lake!The pup needs a name/your prayers. Just joking about the prayers; she’s alright. I sort of know what I’m doing. It really should have a name though. Names are difficult, and (per usual) I can't make up my mind, so if anyone has an idea, tell me! Here's Little Miss No-Name. March marks 50 years of Peace Corps! Congrats staff, RPCVs and PCVs worldwide!& a big WELCOME to the new DR volunteers!XO

Hello! Just sharing a list of Sunday (& Saturday) fun from the past month. Here is a mini-review of recent weekend events, boiled down to a few words and a lot of photos. This is what happens here sometimes:

1. Mark Twain literature comes to life.My host dad was painting one day and it was so fun that everyone wanted in. (Tom Sawyer reference here). Even a neighbor from down the road joined. Don’t believe that it was fun? Well, this impromptu painting party happened at midday, in the 12 noon sun - in general, hardly anyone works at this hour, let alone wants to work outside in the sun. Pretty strange! And thus - the power of the Tom Sawyer effect, captured in pictures:neighbor came by, told us we were doing it wrong, and took over. haha

2. Weekend getaway to the States! Lucky that the DR is close enough for this sort of thing. I took a trip home one weekend! (& cue Kanye here: “Welcome to the Good Liii-iife!”). Some pictures from the visit:

Actually, no. Not at all. That is the Santo Domingo IKEA, friends. (hint: price tags everywhere). Still a good time, though!

3. Quality barrio time.Weekends with Dominican family and friends. serving up habichuelas con dulce

4. Neighbor celebrates his 80-something-th birthday. Yay!Don’t know exactly how old, but I do remember that he’s in his 80’s. Although, at the party he kept telling me he was 28. So bueno, one of the two. 5. A lot of walking. Claro....& taking pictures along the way. Only here in-country for about another 15 months (yikes, time's flying!), and you can never have enough pictures. The following are from a road next to my house.

XO

The last few posts I wrote were all about recent events from my barrio. My bad. I should probably share a little of what I’m actually working on. So here’s what’s happening here as of late, in no particular order, just as I remember it:

1. Started English classes recently. Continuing with the same students I had for the fall/winter session with a few newbies, too. Since getting back from my Christmas visit at home, I’ve bumped into students around town who ask “When are English classes starting? Next week, right?” Ahorita, no te preocupes. Te aviso. So several weeks of fielding that and similar conversations everyday. Then teachers from my school sent me a few new recruits for students, too. Despite all these students wanting to have class, I held off on starting for a little while because I kept thinking back to the last session of English (80 students total for 8 classes a week. English class for everyone and their mom, quite literally. Remember this story?). Not that it was bad - not at all, it was English, easy, enjoyable - I just felt like there were too many students, too many classes and I didn’t have time for much else in terms of projects. I didn’t want to go into it that way again. So I’m continuing now with fewer students than before, namely - the English class die-hards, who always came to every class (even on the rainy days). So far so good.

2. At school, we’re working on getting more materials and resources for each of the classrooms. It’s a big project, and we’re going classroom by classroom, first getting the materials and then training the teachers in how to use them with the students. The materials are mostly handmade so far (been busy with that in recent weeks; arts and crafts - yes!). And a big focus for this project is the Montessori approach, (my project partner is very knowledgable about this method and really into it!). Montessori is a teaching style that focuses primarily on the individual learning and progress of the student, with an emphasis in hands-on, experience-based learning. *(Still learning, so if anyone wants to share some Montessori insight with me, please do!)* In the States I know the Montessori Method is used often in Pre-schools as well as in Special Education, but there are also entire schools for students of all ages dedicated to this type of learning in the US. In the DR, there are schools in the capital with this teaching approach, but not many elsewhere in the country. For this, many Montessori materials are expensive to get, and are for the most part all purchased from the States. That’s also why a lot of our materials are made by hand so far. I’m in the process of writing a funding proposal for the materials my project partner wants, and in the mean time have been hand-making the ones I can. I’m excited because I really feel this project is a feasible way I can help out the teachers and students in a long-term way. Once the school has the materials, we’ll train the teachers how to incorporate them with the students. I think this hands-on, more individualized learning approach is perfect for the students at my school, and feel lucky to be working with them and with a project partner that really values educating the students according to different learning styles.

3. A fellow PC volunteer, Charlie, and I are doing an Escojo youth group in the barrio. Escojo Mi Vida (“I choose my life”) is a health group focusing on HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention as well as building self-esteem, avoiding early pregnancies, etc. It’s also a good chance for kids to get together, learn and use time constructively. Once they graduate the course, the goal is for them to form their own groups to teach other kids about the same things they learned. I’m excited to be working with youth in the neighborhood on more defined groups/projects because they’re really good kids! We’ve had about 3 meetings, and all has been pretty smooth so far.

4. Just after we went to organize the youth and get them pumped for our Escojo youth group, they started a second youth group in the barrio with weekly meetings. Coincidence? Or maybe the idea of a neighborhood youth group was exciting enough to spark enthusiasm for another? Either way, now there’re two groups, mostly made up of the same kids, haha. Their leader, Yina, a mom of one of the youth, as well as one of the donas in the barrio that I’m close to, asked me to help organize and come to the meetings for this group. So I’ve been doing that. The kids had a fundraiser pool party a couple weeks ago - they all made different dishes to sell, and charged money for the kids to enter and use the neighborhood pool. It was for their family and friends in our small barrio, and they made nearly 3,500 pesos in a matter of a few hours!

5. Also, I’ve been keeping up with weekly meetings and staying informed with the junto de vecinos (host dad’s neighborhood group). I think I know pretty well what people here in my neighborhood want (well, usually) and what the main issues/general needs are that I’ve heard about since day one (old posts re: electricity, roads, community center), and I try to be present and supportive with these discussions. But am frustrated because even though I’m there for all of it, I haven’t settled on something specific I can give them/help with/make happen in terms of what they want. I see the lack of roads, meeting center, and safe electricity and agree, “Yes, you should all have these things.” I just haven’t figured out which I should be working towards - which is an annoying thought to be writing out. Vamos a ver.

More or less. Now some pictures:

From the youth group's Pool Party Fundraiser:My neighbor and baby lambs!Pictures from School:XOFeliz Dia de San Valentin! <3 Happy Valentine’s Day.

This post will hopefully be brief. I only like sharing positive stories, and simply put - complaining is neither upbeat nor constructive. Furthermore, exactly who among my snow-battered-Massachussets/New England family and friends clicked on my page today truly wanting to read about my frustrations with basic education in the Caribbean? Anyone? As I thought. And so: this is a post that I barely want to share, and one that no one really wants to be reading. Wow, haha - solid intro! Now, let’s get this going. I’m not going to talk about how kids attend public school for less than 4 hours a day, nor how even in class, lecturing/copying/repetition are most often the teaching methodologies of choice. I’m also not going to mention the fact that most classes are dismissed early, nor how if it is raining, few students attend at all. Bueno. But I am going to talk about the 4% for Education teacher strikes. The elementary and high school teachers have been having on-again, off-again strikes in town since the end of November/beginning of December. (Strikes or huelgas, happen often here, and are especially common in education and transportation professions). These most recent strikes conducted by teachers have been in an effort to attain the full 4% of the DR’s national budget to support public education as the General Education Law states. In more detail, this means that Dominican teachers and supporters are requesting improvements to health care insurance for teachers as well as the school breakfast program for students. Signs outside my host siblings’ closed elementary school in early December:

"Without health, there's no education.""Health insurance for the teachers.""We want breakfast."All public school teachers deserve government support, and the Dominican education system deserves (at the very least) the full 4% of the GDP that the law specifies. But to be plain - I’m completely, 100% over it. The 4% strikes have been going on for a few months, and even though educators are publicly demonstrating for important causes, I feel like nothing is really happening. Students are going to school inconsistently, which is only slightly better than not going to school at all. My host siblings and the kids in the barrio haven’t had school once in the past two weeks, and have yet to have a full week of class since the start of 2011. This is the general pattern of 4% strikes (as seen on my level):Teachers in government-funded schools* go on strike nationwide. All the public schools are closed for however many days. Everyone in the barrio wears the color yellow to support this movement and the teachers. Students can’t have class for however long the teachers are on strike. Eventually, school resumes for a few days. Repeat.* for the most part, strikes are limited to public schools and do not include private colegios.

Now, more importantly, here’s what Dominicans have said about it:“This is how it is in poor neighborhoods. The teachers don’t like to work.” - my dona

“How are we going to pass if we haven’t learned anything?” - 14 year old from my youth group, in reference to to moving on to the next grade and passing the national exams at the end of the school year.The 4% strikes haven’t applied to my school, since it is a semi-private school, so teachers and students have been present each day. Usually after school ends, I go over my host family’s house to visit, ask the kids if they’ve gone/are going to school today, and then they tell me no they haven't gone/aren't going because there's another strike. The kids that I know who are affected by the strikes actually want to be going to school. I feel bad, because they’re missing out on so much class time, so in the afternoons I bring games for my host siblings and try to make it educational. Fun, but not the same as structured classroom learning, which is what every single student affected by the 4% strikes is missing out on more and more each day. Host sister practices writing numbers while her brother plays Garage Band:

Wrote her own name!

And then I leave the room for 10 minutes and wind up with pictures like this:Haha!cuidense amores. siguen la lucha. ...aka, BYE ALL - take care! <3XO

Literally. As it’s kind of dark without electricity. (File this one under Ongoing Domestic Adventures with Emma).So I’ve been cut off from electricity for the past week (going on 2 weeks, now). (Yes, woe is me. Many badass, more hardcore volunteers of the past lived without electricity for their whole service. I’m going to to write this one anyway, though - hope that’s alright). Se fue la luz - and so begins this tale.* * *Back to early September. At this time, I started living on my own. Paid rent, with water, and electricity. I had luz nearly all the time, day and night. About a month into this charmed lifestlye, my neighbor told me to sign up at Edenorte (electrical company), or else they would cut me off and leave me in the dark. I thought this was a smart idea. Then school started. Time went by. In short - I didn’t sign up, but still had luz all the time. After the second month like this, since I hadn’t been cut off, I realized electricity must be covered through my rent. All was bright for five months. Flash forward to the present and I’m sitting in the dark. Pero, como? Wasn’t I paying for electricity? Nope, guess not as I can’t see anything right now. It is definitely my own fault for never signing up. Apparently that was a necessary step, after all. At the same time though, how can a company give their service away for free for over 5 months? Because that’s essentially what just happened, too. I’ll count myself as lucky, and yes, even a little malcriada, for this mistake. Anyway, in general, going without luz has not been difficult - lighting candles looks prettier, and let’s face it, for me life without a stove is just about the same as life with a stove. Meanwhile, clothes are piling up, and the one electrical convenience I do miss is my little washing machine. So, no mas. I anticipate the forthcoming days that Edenorte charges too much/makes me wait forever in their lines. Bring it on guys, I need to do laundry. :)* * *In other luz news, my barrio has started petitioning Edenorte for improved electrical systems. Which is important, apparently had been promised to them long ago by the electric company, and from a safety point of view - is pretty necessary. Reporters came to the neighborhood to document the entangled wires and listen to my neighbors’ concerns about electrical safety. A group met the reporters on our main road, and then we all marched through the barrio to film different lightpoles - the main points of concern.

my neighbors talking to the cameras:

most local news reporting is conducted this way. main power line in the barrio:one of the lightpoles that connect wires to houses:I hadn’t really noticed before, but most of the “lightposts” in the neighborhood are just tall sticks or branches stuck into the ground (note that last picture there). And all the wires that power my neighbors’ houses are tied and twisted onto other wires (well, that part I noticed, claro) and supported by these sticks. After a while, certain would-be “hazards” (for lack of a better word) like these stick lightpoles just become normal; life functions around these things, and so the hazardous conditions don’t seem as dangerous as they really are. More of what I mean: The sidewalk suddenly drops and there’s a big, four foot deep hole in the ground. (You can either fall in, or you walk around it).Or six people pay 15 pesos each to crowd into a tiny Toyota sedan from the 80’s. (It’s inexpensive transportation, and preferable to walking at noon in the sun).Or all of these electrical wires are crossed/tied onto each other and supported by a stick. (...but at least you all have light at night, right? Come on, guys!).In this way, the Dominican Republic is pretty recognizable in terms of infrastructure - sidewalks, roads and cars, electricity - all these things exist here; (not exactly living in that remote “mud hut” in the Peace Corps). And I know some of my visitors have taken a look around at the more urban areas of town and thought, “We’re in America right now!” and at times, I think the same, too. Then that moment of familiarity subsides, and something small and everyday like the gaping holes in the road, or the sweat of strangers pressed up next to you in a tiny overpacked car, or the haphazard electrical wires, visually reminds you of what “developing” can mean, and that even though recognizable comforts exist, it doesn’t mean these actually work as expected.

Well, that’s about enough electricity writing for one post. Illuminating, yes. Thank you for reading and God bless, all! XO

PS - Cuidado there in that snow, Bostonians. :P (but seriously, yikes. Be careful, fam & friends!)

There were two Dominican holidays last week:Dia de Nuestra Senora de la Altagracia (More info. here)Dia de Duarte (Another Wikipedia link, here) These events also translated into a 4-day weekend. The first holiday, Dia de Nuestra Sra. de la Altagracia was Simon’s first communion. I went with the family to church to watch the ceremony. Simon and his grandmother (my host mom) have been pretty excited about this day for a while. My dona got him a brand-new dress shirt for the day and Simon (who is only 10 but has said on occasion that he wants to be a priest! aw, cute) has been memorizing prayers and studying about confession. So their enthusiasm was enough to have me really looking forward to attending . In short, the communion featured; a lot of kids, their families, and a long mass - pretty comparable in content to most US first communions. The church was so packed. It was completely filled, and some people stood outside, watching the mass from the doorways and windows. The communion began in the afternoon with a parade around town of everyone in attendance followed by a mass that lasted into the night.The second recent holiday celebrated one of the founding fathers, and democratic leaders of the Dominican Republic - Juan Pablo Duarte. In town there was a long mass for this occasion as well as patriotic speeches in the park, all followed by another parade. Schools, town officials, bands (two) and town groups participated. So if anyone’s counting, I paraded twice in 4 days. (Seem familiar? De ja vu of baton, a little) I didn’t twirl in these parades, just walked, so I didn’t really know what to do except to take pictures of people on the side of the road as we went past them. Enjoy!

From the First Communion:

From the Duarte parade: Our school marched, too!

More soon - take care all. Lots of love!XO

Happy early birthday(s) to my Grandparents who read (& print, haha) every single post! <3