Dominican Republic: I am not dead!

Buenas noches a tod@s,

Remember me? I used to have a blog. Wait, no--that's not quite right. I still have a blog. What I used to have was time to write in it.

What do I have now, instead of time? A family, four classes, and an internship where I work 20 hours a week. A free hour is harder to come by lately.

A lot has happened since I last wrote, 79 days ago. Here are some quick updates:

 •  School My semester will end on April 30, two and a half weeks from now. I'm taking the following classes: Social History of Latin America, Social History of the Dominican Republic, Migratory Processes of the Contemporary Caribbean, and Social and Cultural Identity of the Contemporary Caribbean. None of them are particularily stimulating. In fact, I would say they are downright boring. The material is interesting enough, but the teaching style is archaic. You won't know what I'm talking about until you've sat in an overly air-conditioned classroom and listened to a long-winded professor talk about colonial administrative institutions for four hours while half the other students are asleep, if they even showed up. The homework is dreadful and usually amounts to spending too much time reading and writing a summary or book report that involves no critical thinking whatsoever. Some people love it, but I don't. It's hard to stay motivated. My grades on this overseas program count towards my Lewis & Clark GPA, something I don't understand but of which I intend to take complete advantage. Most of the other students on this program come from schools that don't count their overseas grades toward their GPAs. If I had transfer credits from Harvard, the grades wouldn't count towards my Lewis & Clark GPA, but my grades here do. Odd.

 •  My internship I no longer work at MODEMU, the United Women's Movement. They do important work--they were just not so interested in letting me help them with it. After spending fifteen hours sitting in the lobby of the organization chatting with the receptionist because there was nothing to do, I switched to an organization called Aprendices con Don Bosco (ADB). ADB is a Catholic organization in Villa Juana, one of Santo Domingo's many poor neighborhoods. Before and after school, students (mostly boys) from the neighborhood can come to ADB to do their homework and socialize with others in a positive environment. One of the main goals of the organization is to reduce child labor in the neighborhood. About 25% of the boys in the program have jobs, mostly because their families can't afford to feed and clothe them. ADB's mission is to enable and encourage the kids from the neighborhood to stay in school. In addition to offering homework help, the organization also offers workshops for adults in the neighborhood, many of whom have children in the kids' program. Adults from the neighborhood can attend mechanic, beauty, commercial cooking, geriatric care, housekeeping, computer, and other workshops. The idea is that if they have the skills to get jobs that earn higher incomes, their children won't have to work and can attend school. I am having a wonderful time at ADB so far! The boys are great--they are smart, funny, and have been very welcoming to me. The staff has been amazing, too, and has offered to help me with my final project for my internship--a paper about the relationship between poverty and child labor in the Dominican Republic

 •  My family My host family has been the best part of this trip. I couldn't ask for more welcoming, helpful, or kinder people. I don't think I have ever been hungry while in this household--Marisol won't let me. Marisel, Arlene, and Nicole are some of the sweetest girls I have ever met and we have become fast friends. Fausto seems to be getting more comfortable with having a 21 year-old woman who is not related to him living in his house. I have managed to (secretly) fatten up Poppy (the chihuahua) a little bit since I arrived. Don't tell Marisol.

 •  My other family Over the last three weeks, both of my Seattle families have visited me in Santo Domingo. My dad, Eric, and Adair came the week after Easter and my mom, Doug, and Allison left yesterday morning. Both groups got to briefly meet my host family and see a little more of the country. I traveled with my dad et al. to the eastern beaches of Bavaro (only my fourth time at the beach in the Dominican Republic!) and with my mom et al. to La Romana, which is about two hours east on the southern coast. We had a great time!

That's the quick, mostly superficial version of what's been going on around here for the last three months. There is so much more to write--I just don't have a clue where to begin. I have spent a lot of time thinking since I arrived here. I don't go out much at night, and truth be told I don't have many Domincan friends except for my host family. I've been thinking a lot about the differences between the DR and Cuba, about being a woman here, about national identity, about development, etc.--all of which deserve their own blog entry (which I promise I will write eventually).

More soon. I have a lot of work to do in the next two weeks, but I will try to write. I had forgotten what a wonderful procrastination tool blogging is!

---

---