Summer Camp has Begun!

It has been a while since I last wrote and a lot has happened. Things are definitely busy here, making it difficult to sit down for long enough to write everything I want to share with everyone.

We are just now finishing up with the second week of camp. Last week – the first week – was rather overwhelming and frustrating. My Spanish is not that great yet and my American co-counselor, Megan, does not speak much Spanish. We also have a local Dominican co-counselor, Ruth Esther, who does not speak any English. It is hard to explain everything about that first week, but I will try. The first issue was the language barrier, between Meghan, me and the kids as well as between us and Ruth Esther. The kids are pretty crazy and would be hard to control if they spoke English. But it is hard to be an effective leader and gain their respect when you are yelling at them in broken Spanish. And yes, I did say yelling. I didn’t know I had it in me to yell at little kids, but apparently I do. We felt as though we had little option but to yell seeing as we couldn’t hear ourselves think over the noise of the kids, all day, every day. There were several fights and one kid who ran away from camp because he did not want to go to the office again for fighting. (Don’t worry, it is not a very serious situation here in the DR, safety-wise, for a kid to run away. They are usually roaming around the streets on their own anyway.) On the bright side, the image of me chasing Efrain from the cancha (b-ball court) down the road toward the Callejon seemed to provide significant entertainment for my other campers and co-counselors. At the end of each day during that first week I was frustrated at my inability to communicate or control the kids. I also didn’t feel as though I had that fun counselor-camper relationship with the kids. We were not the only counselors having these problems. Even those that could speak Spanish very well were struggling.

After our group dinner on Sunday night we had a workshop that helped us with techniques to address the problems we’d been having at camp. It was very helpful and Megan and I entered our second week a little apprehensive, but armed with ideas for improvement. And it turns out that they were very helpful. The second week of camp has been much better than the first week. Instead of trying to yell over the kids, we have implemented non-verbal techniques that allow us to remain calm and therefore keep the kids relatively calm as well. We were also better prepared with activities for breaks. Break is a period of 50 minutes during which the counselors are responsible for leading a class for their campers. The first week we tried games and fun activities, but had little success. After completing the first week of camp and noticing how positively the kids responded to books, we planned a reading activity and had much more success.

It is funny and unexpected how the kids respond to different classes. They all get very excited for classes like sports – basically the fun classes that you would expect kids to enjoy the most. But we have the most problems during classes like this – ie. kids complaining, not wanting to participate, and a high level of disinterest. But when they get into their reading, writing, or math classes, most of them are very attentive and engaged. It is incredible.

In addition to working at the camp Monday-Friday, I am taking Spanish classes at the Cabarete Language Institute two days/week, helping teach ESL (English as a Second language) classes to local volunteers two days/week, and, on Monday, will begin tutoring students who need one-on-one help after camp

Unfortunately I was only able to attend camp for 3 days this week. I came down with something early Thursday morning. Although I did get up and ready for camp, it was all I could do to walk there only to turn around and come right back to my apartment. I have mostly been in bed sleeping since then. A few other volunteers just recovered from the same thing I have, and most of them were sick for about 3 days. So hopefully I will be feeling better soon. I have been temporarily moved onto a sofa bed in an air-conditioned condo with some other volunteers, and am much more comfortable here than I was in my own apartment.

My roommate has arrived since my last post. She is from Austria and her first language is German. But she also speaks English, Spanish, and French. Impressive, yeah? I am enjoying living with her and getting to know her.
Living on the third floor, we didn’t think we would have too many problems with bugs, etc. However we failed to consider the animals that do not live on the ground. Like tree frogs, for example. I woke up early one weekend morning and had to use the bathroom. I came out of my room to see Therese sitting at the kitchen table armed with a can of insecticide. Turns out she had been sleeping when, around 5:30am, something heavy landed on her leg. Not knowing what it was, she jumped out of bed to find a tree frog jumping from wall to wall around her room. So when I found her about an hour later, we unpacked my mosquito net and went in to capture the frog. But we were not successful. It wasn’t until the next day, after an encounter with Therese’s face, that the frog was caught and removed from the apartment.

I also found the biggest spider I have ever seen in person on our kitchen counter one night. Therese was already asleep, so I had to take it on alone. It was big, black, and could jump. I killed it with our broom and had trouble sleeping that night as all I could think about were giant spiders.

Last weekend, I visited Papito’s church with 3 other volunteers. It is about 2 miles down the Calle Principal (the main road that runs parallel to the beach) and we traveled there and back in a carjito for 20 pesos (35 pesos to the USD). A carjito is similar to a taxi, but instead of taking one person or party somewhere, it picks up as many people from the side of the road as can squeeze into the car. I couldn’t really follow the service very well since it was in Spanish. Turns out his church is a Pentecostal church and very different from what I am used to. The guest pastor was pretty intense and yelled most of his sermon into the microphone, all the while jumping and dancing and waving his arms around. The service was also very long. We realized after the 2 hour mark had come and gone that we probably should have eaten dinner before church.

The carjito is not the only mode of transportation in Cabarete. There are also motoconchos, gua-guas, and taxis. Taxis are more expensive and work like taxis in the US. Motoconchos are motorcycle taxis. In the 10 minute walk from my apartment to the main part of town, you would have to say “no, gracias” to, on average, only 15 or so motoconcho drivers. There are also spots at which motoconcho drivers hang out waiting for someone who wants a ride, one of which is the intersection of the Callejon with Calle Principal. One day I made the mistake of waving to some friends at the corner. The motoconcho drivers thought I was waving for a ride and they all immediately headed right for me on their motos in an attempt to reach me first. That is the last time I will make the mistake of waving in the direction of a moto. Gua-gua means ‘bus’ in English. But gua-guas are actually vans with the sliding door tied open on one side. They are bigger than mini-vans, but slightly smaller than a white 16-passenger van. They are pretty cheap – we paid 20 pesos each way for a trip to Playa Sosua, a beach about a 20 minute ride away from Cabarete. Like a carjito, gua-guas fit as many people as possible inside. After you flag it down from the side of the road you usually end up sitting or half-sitting on someone before the ride is over, and often there are people hanging out of the open sliding door as the gua-gua zooms down the road. The largest number of people in a gua-gua witnessed by some of our volunteers so far is 28. Safe? No, probably not.

I have gotten to play soccer a couple times since I’ve been here. There is a Cabarete Haitian soccer team for which 4 of the volunteers play. They practice every Tuesday and Friday evening, usually scrimmaging against themselves. The first time I went last Friday, I was the only girl and only one of two people who spoke English - everyone else spoke in Creole. Although everyone there is significantly better than me at soccer, I still really enjoyed getting to play. I got to play again on Tuesday, and more of our volunteers came to play then.

A few other things about Cabarete that you might find interesting include the street waterers, cock fighting, and the noises of Cabarete. If you thought a big city in the US is loud, you should come to Cabarete. It will put any of those cities to shame. First, there are motos. They are only motorcycles, yes. So how they manage to be so loud, I will never understand. Then there are the trucks that drive around with all sorts of fruits in their trunk. They have a speaker attached to the front of the truck and the guy driving just rambles very quickly and loudly in Spanish, trying to sell his fruit. Worst of all are the trucks that drive around with giant speakers tied into their trunk. Usually they are just playing music or promotions for events. But every time one passes, I have to plug my ears – even when I am in my bedroom in the back of my apartment with all the windows and doors shut.

The other day I happened to glance outside my apartment and see a man and two kids training their chickens to fight. Cock-fighting is a popular sport in the DR, but I had never seen it up-close. Of course they weren’t letting their own chickens fight each other, but they were running drills (if you will) with the chickens. Calle Principal is paved, but most other roads around here are dirt roads. And while walking around you are sure to see people watering the dirt road outside of their establishment with a hose. I suppose it does serve a practical purpose – limiting the amount of dust in the air when a vehicle drives by – but it does seem a little odd.

Okay, well I would say that is quite enough for right now. I am impressed if you made it all the way through that post. I didn’t realize I had so much to share from the past two weeks. I miss you all and hope things are well back at home.

Dios te bendiga (God bless you),

Lindsey

Bienvenidos a La Republica Dominicana

Hola from the Dominican Republic! I hope everyone is doing well back in the states. I am safely in Cabarete and so happy to be back in the DR.

For the first month that I am here, DREAM has a summer camp for at-risk kids in the area that need some help catching up in school. There are many volunteers (about 50) here now for the camp. One of the girls is also a student at UNC! After they leave in August there will be about 8 year-long volunteers including myself. The group is great – everyone is here for the same reason: the kids. So despite our diverse group we all have something in common. In addition to volunteers from the United States, there are also local volunteers and volunteers from other areas of the DR.

I am living in an apartment en el barrio Callejon de la Loma. Barrio is ‘neighborhood’ in English and refers to a general area – homes, apartments, colmadas (food stands) etc, etc. It is a 10 minute walk from the DREAM center/school and 10 minutes from the center of town/beach (in the other direction). It is a two bedroom apartment and, apparently, for the past year it functioned as a TV studio for a local Cabarete news station. My roommate, Teresa from Austria, will be arriving next week. She is also a year-long volunteer. I’m excited to have a roommate and to not be living alone for much longer. There is no air conditioning or internet access (but thankfully there are fans). However, the electricity is pretty temperamental. It turns off often – which equates to no A/C or fan at night on a couple occasions. But it is a nice apartment and I feel safe in la Callejon.

We have been busy with orientation all week and just met the students today at registration. I’m really excited for camp to start! Megan (from Idaho), Esther (from the DR), and I will be counselors for a group of about 25 students. Our group name is Los Sonadores (the Dreamers) – we had fun decorating our classroom today too. We spend the entire day with our group, moving from classes and activities. Each week the kids have math, music, art, science, swimming, sports, reading and writing classes, and some recreation time and field trips. Definitely more info and stories about camp to come once it gets started.

Since orientation starts after breakfast in the mornings, we have hit the beach or cooled off in the pool during the afternoon. There is a lot more recreation and group time now since camp hasn’t started yet – we are trying to enjoy it while we can. Today, after registration, we had a group hike to La Loma. It is the hill just beyond the school. We climbed around some in a cave and enjoyed a quick swim in its cool water.

I am hoping to find a church in Cabarete or nearby. One of the local volunteers, Papito, attends a church with his family near Puerto Plata – a short gua-gua (bus) ride away. I may go with him and his family one Sunday. I have also been told that many students and campers at the school attend churches in Cabarete and are eager to invite you to Sunday morning service.

I have been able to practice my Spanish a lot so far (with the volunteers and around town) and will even more once camp starts. It is very, very hot here. The next three months are the hottest of the year. It is actually very similar to North Carolina, except a little hotter with a lot more humidity and no A/C to escape to.
There are many things about the DR and Cabarete that I want to share, but they will have to wait until another post.

Hasta luego!

Lindsey