Environment Events

(from Lunes 6/7/10)

It has been a busy last few days. I’ve been spending a lot of time at the school, and in my campo. The school year is coming to a close, so I’m finishing up all the interviews with the teachers before their vacations. There’s an end of the year party for all of the students this week, and over last weekend we had a field trip to the capital for an art show that 8 of the students were involved in. The event was in the colonial area of the city, and all of the art focused on caring for the environment. The kids received prizes, and they seemed really happy to be recognized for their work. It was fun to see them point out which drawings were theirs at the show. While we were in Santo Domingo, we also made a stop at the aquarium. It was pretty nice - a lot of outdoor and open-air exhibits as well as some indoor ones. No penguins or seals, but the Santo Domingo aquarium does have more sharks than Boston...although they sleep all the time, too.

Aquarium in Santo Domingo

Continuing with this environment theme, last Friday the school had a tree planting and environment presentation. All the kids took turns digging holes and planting trees around the school building. Afterwards, they watched a video and talked about ways to take care of the environment. There’s a lot of support here for recycling and just cleanliness in general.

With some of the teachers at the tree planting

Yesterday, I had the chance to attend an art youth group that one of my co-workers teaches. The youth all painted recycled Presidente bottles for decorations in their homes. My co-worker described the neighborhood as a poorer campo, but unlike mine, this neighborhood actually has a meeting center and place for people to congregate other than on neighbors’ porches.

I brought my host brother to this art class, and when we came back yesterday, he told the neighbors all about it, and now they are looking around for bottles to paint, too. In my neighborhood, there just isn’t that much for kids to do, and aside from some of their First Communion prep classes, most kids don’t have youth groups or organized activities.

I’ve been here now for a little over two weeks. Especially during this past week, in addition to the teacher interviews, I’ve been trying to interview with families and youth in the campo for my diagnostic, too. My host brother has been really, really helpful with this. He knows everyone here, and he understands my Spanish. So he’s been my guide around the neighborhood as well as translator when people don’t understand what I’m asking. It works out really well in that he always wants to work on these interviews, and remembers places and people we haven’t visited yet. Oh, and we’re meeting not only families in the communities, but their pets, too. :-) (I took these next few pictures with my aunt and cousins in mind). Of all the dogs in my community, these are by far my favorites:

The cutest dog in the campo

Interviewing and getting to know more people here, also means more people invite me out to visit for cultural events. For instance: the Hora Santa I attended last week. After someone passes away, its tradition here to spend time on the anniversary remembering this person and praying. Hora Santa is usually held in someone’s home, and continues on the same day each year for 7 years (I’m pretty sure) after the death. I couldn’t really participate in singing the songs since I don’t know the words, but I thought it was a nice event, a lot of neighbors showed up, and there were many candles and flowers laid out. Afterwards I felt kind of bad though, because my dona told me that most people attend for the snacks that are served afterwards.

Hora Santa

So, that’s an update on the last couple weeks. My internet access is still rare, I’ve only been able to use it once since being here. And whenever I upload this will be the second time. I can’t reply to emails very fast either - it’s become more like snail mail - I save them all to my computer, type out responses, and then reply when I can get on again. Friends: it’s been great to get emails from you, sorry that I am not more in touch, but I do miss you. Other than my inability to communicate regularly, being disconnected is really not so bad. I wouldn’t go as far as saying that I particularly miss obnoxious Facebook status updates, but it would be nice to be read the news online (and in English) more often, or at least be in touch with what’s going on in the world outside of my campo. :-) I also miss online shopping. A lot.

Anyway, since I started this post with environment photos, here are some pictures from the garden outside my host family’s house. One day I had my host dad list off the garden’s different types of plants and fruit trees, and we counted 13 or 14 different kinds...in these pictures there are plantain, banana and mango trees.

A Happy Early Birthday to my Uncle Tim!

A Happy Belated Birthday to Jess!

And a (late) congrats to Danielle for finishing year 1 of law school ~ Felicidades!

Enjoy!

xo,

Emma