Last Day

On our last day in the Dominican we had a goodbye party at a country house in Santiago. It was a house made in the 1980s that had beautiful multi-colored tiles on the floor and an outdoor pool + BBQ. We ate steak and sausages and salad and had a grand ol' time sitting under the stars and laughing about our days in the DR. At one point, we all sat in a circle and went around one by one sharing our thoughts about the experience. Everyone expressed how grateful they were for the friendships gained, the history that had been shared with us, the amazing Dominican food, the generosity of the host families, etc. etc. I talked about how amazing I thought it was that I had experienced such extremes on this trip; I had been on such amazing highs while out dancing or being surrounded by such tropical beauty or hanging with my host family etc. etc. But I had also been so humbled by things like the orphanage, by the devastation in Haiti, by  the Haitian orphans that Dean showed me, by Mudo's death, by poverty, by the street market in Santiago etc. etc. etc.

After the party, we went back to our homes and hung out a bit until the nighttime festivities kicked in. I got to chat with Boli and the new host student, Jamar. We had a great conversation and it sort of stinks that right when our relationship has reached a deeper level I have to go home!!! I am going to miss all the crazy characters in this house - the weirdo cat, crazy Juan, all of the houseguests, ahhhhhh everyone!

Later on that night we went to Puerto Del Sol to hang out before dancing. It was one of those nights during which  I could have cared less what we did. I was just so happy to be alive! ie. one of my friends and I needed pesos from an ATM so we went out in search of one, which ended up being a 40 min walk because we couldn't find a working one - she was so annoyed, but I was in heaven! =P

Later, we went out dancing at Vintage, a nearby club. Rolando came and we danced merengue/salsa. I also befriended some Haitians that one of my American friends had been hanging with all week. They were multilingual; French, Creole, Spanish, English - that is amazing!

Then we went back to my host brother's house and stayed up late and I hung out with Rolando some more. He is so funny and completely relaxed all the time. I'll miss him a lot.

Rolando drove me to the airport the next morning and taught me how to say "how do I check my bags?" in spanish.

It's funny, you would think that the thing that I would have been most frustrated by was not knowing the language, by communication issues and cultural differences between myself and the Dominicans. But thinking back, it seems as though each time I was frustrated or annoyed it was because of some encounter or interaction with the Americans on the trip. Granted that I was not in the DR long enough to really experience what it must be like to live in a culture where your own language/culture is not the dominant one or experience any significant form of culture shock, what I have come to discover is that the language barrier and cultural differences did not both me in the least- it was fun and exciting trying to communicate, getting lost in translation. I made friends with cab drivers and waiters and students and Haitians and foreigners from other programs and performers and teachers. I spoke through the language of dance and listened with ears keen on learning. I watched and acted and reflected and went in and out of being conscious of my status as a foreigner, as a host student, as a New Yorker and then as a sister, a friend, and a human. Because I often did not have the words to express what I wanted or what I was feeling, I had to rely on other things like hand gestures or body language or facial expressions or broken Spanglish. And that was a learning experience in and of itself.

I've tried to capture all that I've felt, seen, and experienced in this blog. However, like the small, yet most important, messages that are lost when you communicate cross-culturally, there is no way that I could have ever really done complete justice to my life in the DR. There are adjectives that I can use to point in the direction of how I felt and experienced the whole trip; amazing, humbling, breathtaking, relaxing, new, self-explorative. But these only just scratch the surface.

Hasta Luego Republica Dominicana!  más que palabras....



Truth is something which can't be told in a few words. Those who simplify the universe only reduce the expansion of its meaning. 

Day 13

Juan (the crazy one) told me yesterday that he loves me and wants to marry me and have 7 children. My host family and their friends seem to get a kick out of this and yesterday they made us take a wedding picture by the hot tub.. hahaha.

The host family got a new host student last night - his name is Jamar and he is fresh out of high school. He is very attractive and very young and slightly ghetto and I feel slightly frightened for him. I wonder what it would be like to live in a foreign country for 3 months fresh out of high school?

We gave a presentation in Spanish yesterday. It was about the first time we met our host families. I played the warm, welcoming, nurturing mother. We made everyone laugh. That was cool.

Anyway, I think that I've written about the deaf/half-blind/mute worker who lived in and out of my host family's house and who has been around for 17 years. Well, he died last night.

When I came home from school last week Boli, my host brother, told me that "Mudo," (this is what everyone called him), which means mute in spanish, had run away, back to his family's house. Yesterday, I was told that he was in a coma. Last night, after we got home from a night of merengue/bachata dancing, Boli got a call saying that Mudo had died.

Mudo is the "Tom" (my uncle who has down syndrome) of the Dominican. Everyone knows him and loves him and he is practically famoso (famous) here. He spoke his own language, using hand gestures and making sounds to express himself, just like my Uncle Tom has his own language. But after being around him for a while, you begin to understand him and you can speak his language too. Mudo was hilarious, just like Tom, always making funny, exaggerated gestures. He cleaned dishes and did other small household tasks and my host family (my host mom is excellent) took him in as one of their own - sort of like they do with everyone. For my host mom, everyone is her child.

Before we went out dancing last night I told Boli the story of a fish that we got in Brooklyn who died a week after we got him. My roommate and I painted a picture of him after he died and wrote "...Just passing by" as the caption. Boli and I talked about how amazing it is that people can enter into your life for such small amounts of time, yet make such deep, lasting impacts. This is how I feel about Mudo - I knew him for a mere 3 days, and then he was gone with the wind.

So at 4am last night we went to Mudo's house. There were lots of tears and lots of people sitting around and lots of spanish consoling and mourning that I didn't understand. Mudo's stepmother lit a candle for him and said that he was in heaven (I think?). He really was an angel. They had his body wrapped up and his head wrapped in a cloth so that only his face was showing. He looked so peaceful. It was such an experience.

This morning I showed my host mom a picture that I had taken of Mudo (the one on this page) and wrote in spanish on google translator: "I am so blessed that I got to meet him. This picture is special because it is one of the last ones taken of him."

This trip has had so many extremes. I have felt extremely happy when I went out dancing or while we were playing with children or at the beach or just being at home or in the warm weather or immersed in this beautiful enviroment. But I have also, at times, felt profoundly sad or, I guess, humbled by other experiences-  last night at Mudo's house, the earthquake in Haiti, the orphanage, walking with Dean and watching him interact with homeless Haitian boys, hearing about the plight of Haitian's form Lauren, seeing extremes of wealth and poverty existing side-by-side, etc. etc. etc. That, I think, is the theme of this trip - extremes - of emotions, of wealth, of lifestyles, of understanding, of...everything. There is so much beauty here accompanied by so much inhumanity - what is different about the Dominican is that here, the extremes are amplified.

For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun?

Day 12

I spent a lot of time with children today. First at a public school, observing a kindergarden and a fourth grade class, and then at an orphanage where I got to play with the residents. Children are fantastic and the characteristics that they share are cross cultural. The school was very poor, but the Principle told us that it they were better off than some schools. I have no clue how children focus in the school! It seems so difficult since the windows are constantly open and there is constant noise from all over the school. Both the kindergarden class and the 4th grade class were focused on learning as a collective group - the children got little individual attention and the school style in general in terms of maintaining any sense of order - the kids stood up in class or walked around the room and at recess when they got excited because we wanted to take their picture, they created essentially a mosh pit  and the teachers just stood by and watched. Everything about the school seemed ancient - the toys were falling apart, there was no soap in the bathrooms, the computers were so old, and the books were taped together. The students all wore uniforms complemented by pieces of their own styling - it was a pretty conservative style of dress- actually dress in the DR is a lot more conservative than I thought it would be. I learned more from the kindergarden class than I did in my class at PUCMM. They were so cute!

The orphanage was a former drug dealer's house that had been reposessed. It was gorgeous!! They had a pool and an outdoor pool house where some of the boys lived and about 5 bathrooms and gorgeous, open living rooms/dinging rooms. All old drug dealer's homes should be used for such noble purposes! When we pulled up the orphans came out to greet us and we were overwhelmed by love. They held our hands and and gave us hugs and brought us out to  a big patio where we got more love and hugs. They ranged from about 6 to some older kids who were around 13. Whenever I meet a new person, especially a child,  I say "Yu eres mi maestra" (which hopefully means you are my teacher haha). They put on a little show for us and sang us spanish songs. I felt like I was home watching my cousins Morgy and Shelly perform for the family. We brought them lollypops and milk and other small food items. We left when they went in to have dinner (white rice and meat) and it was the first time I saw a anyone say grace in this country. They said it collectively and a small girl, about 8 or 9 did a fantastic job of leading everyone in prayer. It was an incredibly humbling experience.

On the way back I had the taxi driver drop me off at Calle Del Sol (he had noooooooooo clue what he was doing and took us in circles) where I thought I was going to take a yoga class. But when I got to the Culture Center I discovered that there was no yoga class - only a 2 hour tango class. It was something that I had not anticipated doing, but, alas, those are always the best kinds of experiences. So I took a 2 hour tango class from an Argentinian teacher who was amazing - very strict and precise and passionate. What a sexy, passionate, performative, intimate, staccato-ish dance!! We learned a 3ish minute dance and the teacher asked me if I was a professional dancer. It is so awesome to communicate through body language and not words. Wow - that was an incredible. Why is it that all of the best things happen to be unplanned!

 I LOVE WORLD DANCES! So far I've experienced African, Argentinian, Spanish, Classical, Arabic, Greek, Chinese.... ahh they are all so symbolic and incredible.

Later on we went out dancing - I danced to reggaeton and merengue and salsa with Rolando who I would describe as a very gentle dancer. If I had to identify the word that I used most frequently on this trip it would definitely be "bailar" - to dance.


The truest expression of a people is in its dance and in its music. Bodies never lie.

Days 10 + 11

I've developed a profound sense of empathy for Haiti and its people. I'm so ignorant! I only just learned that Haiti and the Dominican Republic share the same piece of land.. and it it took a natural disaster to prompt me to investigate its whereabouts. How is it that a "nation" like Haiti even exists in the condition that it does? The peace corps has been pulled from there, since (according to mi amigos) they cannot guarantee that volunteers will be safe there. It is the poorest nation in the Americas, with most Haitians living on less than $2 per day. How is that even possible? There are millions of people there and it is about the size of massachusettes. One of my friends (I forget which one) told me that planes will not even fly there and that it is hard to get a bus to go there because it is so dangerous. I don't know whether or not it is true? There is not only racism against haitians here in the DR, but also what is called "colorism." Lighter skinned Dominicans are considered of higher status than darker skinned Dominicans (Haitians). It is almost sad that I seem to have internalized this a bit - I can't remember if I already blogged about it, but my Chinese friend and I bumped into a man who was from Haiti in Santo Domingo. He looked the part and when he came up to my friend speaking almost perfect Chinese and subsequently proved that he could not only speak Chinese, but also French, Spanish, English, Puertugese, German, and Creole, I found that I was absolutely astonished that *a Haitian* who was so young (our age) could make the switch between so many different languages. What made me feel this way? I must have somehow subconsciously come to believe that all Haitians were uneducated because this is how the culture treats them and really a lot of them are not.

When we see little boys begging for money or offering to shine shoes or wanting to sell us flowers on the street, they are usually Haitians. My peace corps friend works primarily with Haitian boys, who are not allowed to attend school past 6th grade without a birth certificate, which a lot of them don't have because their parents abandon them. The lady who did my braids was Haitian and claimed to have 4 children and no husband (he abandoned her).  Yesterday, i thought about taking my braids out because they are getting a little itchy and I miss swinging my big hair around, but after the earthquake I decided to keep them in in memory of her and of the plight that these people face.

How can there be such extremes of wealth in the world? Why can't some rich business man or movie star come in and give Haiti a million dollars, fix things, do something, anything! It seems like common sense that we would want to help out fellow human beings.

Lauren, a PhD student on this trip and our TA advisor is doing her dissertation on the changing linguistic landscape in Haiti. She has been to Haiti a few times and says that they are the nicest, friendliest, most grateful people she has ever met! I sensed this from the woman who did my hair. Get this:
While Lauren was staying in Haiti, 3 times she was asked by boys and mothers of little girls if she would like to have their children. One time, she was holding a little girl and the mother walked away saying "you an keep here." Lauren had to physically chase after the woman and tell her "I don't want your child!" Mothers want to give away their children to Americans so that they can go get educated and work in America and send money back home. Talk about poverty and desperation! This makes all the gender roles and family/child relationship issues that we have in America seem so trivial. And it makes me mad when I think about children not appreciating their parents or developing attitudes like "my parents owe me this or that." In Haiti, parents don't even owe it to their children to stay with them.

This is a strange sequence of events that happened before the earthquake struck:

1.  I was in the gym running, thinking about poverty and unequal dispersions of wealth and whatnot when all the sudden I started thinking about natural disasters, earthquakes in particular, and how I had forgotten about them and their potential for devastation.

2. A movie with Salma Hayek came on the TV and there was an earthquake in it that shook the earth, sent buildings toppling down, and killed a lot of people.

3. I went to the back room to do some pushups and all of the sudden the ground started shaking. I didn't know what was going on. It was so scary. It sounded like the wires to the building overhead were snapping and I thought that it might be collapsing so I ran to the nearest window in case I might need to jump. It lasted about 30 seconds. The gym lost electricity and everyone went running for the exit. When I ran out into the main part of the gym some of the employees were standing at a nearby exit shouting and laughing and talking excitedly. This put me at ease and I assumed that the earthquake was small and inconsequential. I was happy that I got to experience it.

Then I got home and watched the news and realized that it was a 7.3 on the richter scale in Haiti, which shares an island with us. I realized that it was a big deal, that it had devastated a country that had already experienced so much at the hands of poverty, flooding, economic instability, etc.

It felt almost like I had been warned that there was an earthquake coming - weird.

That was my first earthquake. It felt surreal! I rememember watching What the Bleep Do We Know and seeing a scene in which a Shaman and his people were standing by the ocean shore  looking out. There wer three ships coming in, but the people could not see them because they had no recollection of what a ship was stored in their consciousness. This is sort of how I felt about the earthquake. I had no experience with it, it was such a foreign thing to me, that it felt strange and unnerving to experience it and it was difficult to identity what it was.

My heart cries for Haiti and I feel like because I know French and have been placed here in the Dominican I should be doing something more than sitting here watching what is going on.

Anyway, that is my experience of the earthquake. Yesterday, we went to visit a museum called the House of the Three sisters. It was a  house that three sisters who had been killed by a dictator called Trahidi (spelling?) in the 1950/1960s had lived in. They were activists who went around the country creating cells of Dominicans who were opposed to his tyranny. They were all sisters and very beautiful. They were killed by him because of their activism, and there death had been staged as a "Car accident." There was one sister who was still living and she came to the house to see us- we got to talk with her and take pictures with her. She was the sweetest, kindest old lady! She had just finished writing a book about her experience and her sisters. It was written in Spanish, but I bought it anyway and am planning to use it as a way to help me learn Spanish. She signed it for me.

Social activism is so inspiring!

We came home that day and went to a jazz performance at the Teatro Nationale. It AMAZING. so chill. There was a musician there who had made his own instruments and who sang in his own language, according to how the music was moving him, totally improving the whole performance - the other members of the band had to just go with it - it was so inspiring and cool to see people lose themselves in their music and I definitely felt connected.
http://www.fellevega.com/

 Rolando and I read Corinthians in Spanish tonight. I learned that "love" is "caridad" in Spanish, which is my host mother's name. He is so, so sweet.

If I speak in the tongues of men and angels, but have not love,
I have become sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal.

And if I have prophecy and know all mysteries and
all knowledge, and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains,
but have not love, I am nothing.

And if I dole out all my goods, and
if I deliver my body that I may boast
but have not love, nothing I am profited.

Love is long suffering,
love is kind,
it is not jealous,
love does not boast,
it is not inflated.

It is not discourteous,
it is not selfish,
it is not irritable,
it does not enumerate the evil.

It does not rejoice over the wrong,
but rejoices in the truth

It covers all things, it has faith for all things,
it hopes in all things, it endures in all things.

Love never falls in ruins;
but whether prophecies, they will be abolished; or
tongues, they will cease; or
knowledge, it will be superseded.

For we know in part and we prophecy in part.

But when the perfect comes, the imperfect will be superseded.

When I was an infant,
I spoke as an infant, I reckoned as an infant;
when I became [an adult],
I abolished the things of the infant.

For now we see through a mirror in an enigma, but then face to face.
Now I know in part, but then I shall know
as also I was fully known.

But now remains faith, hope, love, these three;
but the greatest of these is love.

Day 9

Today was a day reserved for traveling. We woke up early (and barely), packed up our loot, and headed down to the breakfast buffet where I had an omelette and a yogurt with honey. Then we boarded a bus headed for Santiago.

On the way back we stopped at a place called Les 3 Ojos (the 3 eyes). It was an underground cave with different levels and stairs that you could use to walk down to them. It was one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen and I can't believe how far down it descended. On the way down we saw a massive iguana chillin' on the walkway. He was gray and appeared to be sunbathing. We walked down to another level and had to take a little wooden boat pulled by overhanging ropes by one of the workers to get across the lake. Once across,  we walked down a few more levels and on the way down we saw these massive bee hives, bats flying around, and tree roots that hung down from the trees on the above levels that were about 5 times the length of the tree itself! On the last level we got to see the body of water where a scene from Jurassic Park was filmed. Apparently the scene took 30 hours to film and was edited down to only 20 minutes in the actual movie! I'll have to watch it again and look for that part. I can't believe that such a beautiful, beautiful world exists underneath the earth!

We stopped for lunch at a nice restaurant along the side of the road. I ordered Creole soup and a chicken salad which were both massive! Dominican portion sizes are sooooooo biggggggg! And there are never ever any desserts - just amazingly fresh fruit virtually everywhere! I bought some Dominican gummy-type candy just to see what it was like - It was sweet and tasted like candy back home, but I don't think they made it with high fructose corn syrup. I wonder if there is a lot of that ingredient down here? While we were waiting for everyone else to finish up with paying and whatnot me and Alicia walked around a small village next to the restaurant. It is amazing how poverty and wealth can coexist so closely!! We saw a mansion with gates and barbed wire next to run down wooden huts that barely had doors that closed. That is the DR for ya!

We arrived back home at 4pm. I was super tired from traveling and dancing and all the stuff we did and I felt so grateful that I had a nice home to come back to. Which makes me think about people who don't have that - who embark on long journeys to find food or work or do other survival type things and then have no place to come back to.

I gave Camilla the necklace I bought her and made her a card that said "Happy Birthday! You are a beautiful girl! With Love, Leila." She was upstairs playing a princess game - she loves the Disney princesses. It was the first time I got to see her room and I noticed that a lot of her toys were American - like the Jonas Brothers bag and disney princess everything and Hannah Montana. Sleeping Beauty is called Princess Aurora here. Rolando and Bolivar (the boys) were home when I came back. We went outside and played spanish music and drank some wine followed by whiskey and club soda (haha) by the "hot" tub, which was really a cold tub since they don't turn on the electricity because it costs too much to heat. Rolando (who is a DJ and an amazing dancer) taught me how to salsa and merengue in the   hot tub and then he helped me with my spanish. It was paradise, as usual.

As the traveler who has once been from home is wiser than he who has never left his own doorstep, so a knowledge of one other culture should sharpen our ability to scrutinize more steadily, to appreciate lovingly, our own

Day 8

It is amazing how fast the days go by here. Waking up at 8am seems to early when you are out until 3am dancing and whatnot, but then 9pm arrives so quickly that you are happy you woke up to greet the sun. At 8am I woke up and went downstairs for breakfast where we were supposed to meet everyone. Everyone else except for one other girl and my professor were still sleeping so I got an omelette, toast, some fruit, and yogurt (it was a very American buffet as our hotel is geared towards foreigners from out of the country) and sat with them. They were in the midst of a conversation of a conversation about different cultures and intercultural marriage and religion etc. Shondel (professor) expressed some of her opinions. I have some thoughts about them. I shared mine. It was interesting and I like the fact that there is always someone with whom to exchange perspectives and who is willing to share on this trip. Then I went upstairs to shower and change and get ready for our tour around Santo Domingo.

The first tour was a waking tour around the streets of Santo Domingo. It is a very touristy and historical city like I imagine many capital cities to be. It's streets are so cute, made of cobblestone and very narrow. There are parks with benches where children play and people got to sit and chat like the parks at NYC back home. Our first stop was a nearby cathedral. We couldn't go in if our shorts/skirts were not at least knee-length so some of the girls had to  sit outside (later they were allowed in, but only after a man at the door gave them scarves to wrap around themselves). The cathedral was very old and very beautiful. There were little open rooms along the sides with tombs and shrines and a beautiful, beautiful nativity set made of lifesize figures was set up in the back. The icons were all extremely dark and the stained glass was painted abstractly. We had a funny tour guide who joked that he as going to give us a 2 hour mass. All of our tour guides thus far have been so funny in their own unique ways - I wonder how they developed their senses of humor. This tour guide told us that Christopher Columbus was rumored to have been buried in Santo Domingo and that there is a lot of debate about exactly where he is now and what is heritage is. Everyone seems to want to claim him for themselves! After we left the cathedral we walked to a house the Christopher Columbus's brother had lived in, but which was also used to house house prisoners. It was this MASSIVE castle made of stone and brick with a million rooms. I daydreamed about how fun it would be to play hide and seek in. Then we went to a museum dedicated to Christopher Columbus and saw some old documents and whatnot.

We got back on the bus and headed for a mall where we were going to have lunch. Some of the girls and Shondel complained that it was too American, but it was important to see that in the DR. They had American stores like Swarovski, Nine West, Pizza Hut, and Haggen Das, but also some spanishy ones that I hadn't heard of. It was a typical mall with many floors and a food court. One of mi amigas told me that she had taken a class about foreign malls and that it is a very American model that has influenced many malls abroad - so I'm happy we got to see it. I had an empanada and some tostones and, later on, an icecream =P.

We reboarded the bus and headed towards al Jardin Botanico (Botanical Gardens) where we took a bus tour, stopping once at a Japanese garden to walk around. The garden looked like something out of a dream. It was so serene, with twisted trees and tranquil beds of water and strategically placed rocks and other plants. I did some yoga poses and frolicked a bit. It was instant paradise.

Our last stop was "the house of lights," which slightly confused me. It was a United Nations type building and there were rooms or spaces dedicated to countries that had chosen to represent themselves in it. I was confused about why some countries were chosen and not other (no arabic countries) and who got to decided what went into the museum. Some of the countries had art or old documents and maps. Others, like the USA, had only pictures (of native Americans). Museums are always interesting because they are, above all else, archetypical examples of power at play and somewhat stereotypical so I enjoy seeing how, exactly, things in them get represented.

We went back to the hotel after the tour and I headed out into the streets to buy some souvenirs. The street where vendors are set up and shops are open for bargaining is conveniently located right outside our hotel! It was just like a NYC street might be and, walking down it, you can tell which products are bought in mass quantities. One thing that all of these places (like the market and now this street) have in common is that there is a lot of colorful artwork. It is so beautiful! Mostly paintings of African woman, animals, scenery, and one of a Dominican girl with a round face and pursed lips who looks lightly Chinese. While I was shopping for jewelry, me and my Chinese friend met some man from Haiti who spoke about 10 different languages. He came up to her and asked her if she was Chinese and then started speaking Chinese (very well)!! He was amazing and it was totally shocking!! Of course I spoke to him in French (he said I was good) and it was a great mental exercise trying to switch between three different languages (french with him, spanish with the men in the store, english with my friend). Languages are so amazing!!!

For dinner, we went to a restaurant called Adrian's Tropical which was located right next to the Carribean. We got to eat while waves crashed up against the restaurant. I had chicken and yucca (haha) and white wine.  It was amazing.

Later on we went dancing at some spots near our hotel. I did some salsa and merengue and dance to reggaeton. If I could, I would dance forever!

The Dominican Republic is so romantic! Everything about this trip feels like a dream. I am in love!

What sets worlds in motion is the interplay of differences, their attractions and repulsions.

Life is plurality, death is uniformity.

By suppressing differences and pecularities, by eliminating different civilizations and cultures, progress weakens life and favors death.

The ideal of a single civilization for everyone, implicit in the cult of progress and technique, impoverishes and mutilates us.

Every view of the world that becomes extinct, every culture that disappears, diminishes a possibility of life

Day 7

There is a rooster who lives close by to our house. He crows everyone morning at 2 or 3ish and continues at intervals of about 5 minutes until later in the morning. Last night, I heard him crow before I went to sleep. The cute cat who lives with us is a sneak. He hid himself in my room last night and since I sleep with the door shut he had no way of getting out. He is such an abnormal cat and his purr is very loud. He jumps on everything!

I woke up to eggs and potatoes for breakfast. The potatoes were gray and Caridad's neighbor told me that they were sweet potatoes. I read the paper while I ate and Caridad (host mom) talked on the phone. Juan was there for a brief second, throwing seductive looks my way as usual (no worries - he is just crazy and funny).

I had to pack for Santo Domingo so I went downstairs to do that. When I came back up, Juan had brought me suntan lotion, a banana, and another bracelet. By now, I can safely assume that all of these gifts are from the trash. I excitedly responded ohhhhhh muchas gracias when he gave them to me as my host mother laughed in the background. Robinson drove me to PUCMM where we were meeting to leave for the trip. He taught me a little bit about driving standard along the way and blasted really loud reggaeton music in hit tiny, crappy little car. Funny that his parents didn't get him a better car - hid dad drives a BMW and his mom drives an explorer, but his car is more like something that came out of my driveway back home. I wonder what this means.

We took a bus to Santo Domingo, the capital of the Dominican Republic. It was a 2 hour ride. When we got there we ate at this amazing dominican restaurant with a dominican buffet and watched this incredible merengue dancer who danced on a bottle with one foot, and spun around super fast, among other things. Afterwards, I danced with some of the male merengue dancers. Then we checked into our hotel and drove off to a market to bargain and shop. It felt like being in NYC, except everyone spoke spanish and all the products were a lot more colorful. Dominican artwork is so awesome!!! So colorful and a lot of it seems to be about African women. There was a lot of jewelry and a lot of the same tiny knicknacks. I bought some stuff and bargained a bit and learned how to say how much. It was fun to negotiate and I got some good prices!

My camera broke!!!!!!

Then we reboarded the bus and went back to the hotel to get ready for whatever it is we wanted to do at that night. I decided to go to a Dominican Baseball game!! My first baseball game and it wasn't even in the US!! It was a pro game in a really dirty stadium and some of the players were American because apparently American players come down to play in the Dominican to learn more/keep in shape during the winter. There were salespeople walking around the whole time selling popcorn, pork rinds, fruit, pizza in a cardboard box, candy, cheese, and empandas - all out of cardboard boxes. The game proceeded much like I imagine an American game would and I spent a good amount of time learning more Spanish words from the Spanish man sitting next to me and trying to explain how, exactly, baseball worked to my Chinese friend because there is no baseball in China. We were given these orange blowup long balloons that everyone hit together to make noise when their team needed support. The home team was called the Tigers. They had a big screen in the distance showing the players who were up at bat and the stats and videos of the crowd and twice someone from the audition sang kareoke! It was a great experience.

Then we took a taxi home and I got ready to go out again. I was going to go dancing, but by the time everyone agreed on a plan I was a bit tired and didn't want to take a taxi far away from the hotel so me and my Chinese friend Alicia went and got a drink and a sandwich nearby. When we were first looking for a place, two guys started walking with us and attempted to guide us into a dangerous neighborhood, but we luckily were able to make it clear that we had no intentions of hanging out with them or of going where they wanted to take us - that was sort of scary! I had one of the greatest conversations of my life with her and I am so thankful that she is on this trip! she is a real gem. We talked about Americans and how they complain a lot, since, during our complaint session back at PUCMM we both said nothing and before going out to the club here, when the other girls started talking about the teacher, and the experience in general, and different people, which inevitably evolved into more complaining, we both sat their and smiled and laughed. We both agreed that you can always find something to complain about and that people should just be grateful. We also both agreed that being alone is important and that when there is nothing else to say or do people start complaining and that some ideas/things simply cannot be translated. She is amazing and she said that she admired me because I was different, approachable, optimistic, not superficial, and spiritual. It was interesting to hear this assessment of myself, since I  am often unconscious of the way I am coming across to people. She said that her goal, like mine, was to develop into a person who could function cross-culturally, and that she was beginning to sense that she was becoming such a person. We discussed  how important it is to be uncomfortable sometimes and culture shock and and her experience in America and in China and values/qualities that make it easy to become  a person who can navigate through different cultures. I told her about peace corps and we both agreed that we were seeing a lot of poverty on this trip, but not experiencing it, and so we were not developing empathy in this respect, which is what Peace Corps does and why I want to do it! It was such an important conversation and I am blessed that she has entered into my life!

Today, I thought more about Americans that I did about Dominicans, since a lot of us are beginning to become more comfortable here and therefor showing our true colors.

Santo Domingo is awesome! Sort of touristy (there's a hard rock cafe down the street), but nice and colorful and I still feel like I am in a dream!! Let see how long it lasts!

You are not a human being in search of a spiritual experience. You are a spiritual being immersed in a human experience.

Day 6

Today was a spectacular day! A real gem! How can life be this exciting, this good? I learned today that PUCMM (the school where I am studying) is "the Harvard of the DR." I heard this from numerous sources and find it interesting for a lot of different reasons.

There is a 3-step process to developing cultural competence, which is what we are seeking to develop/understand on this trip and is essentially what all sociological/cross-cultural endeavors seek to develop as a framework; describe, interpret, evaluate. This blog is meant to be used for the first phase, but I guess I am doing a bit of the latter two as well.

Today I woke up and did my usual routine; yoga, condition/stretch a bit, bible verse. Then I went upstairs for a breakfast of ..drum roll... YUCCA!!, eggs, and slices of thick cheddar cheese. That's another thing that there is a lot of here - cheese. One of the maids was there and she had her daughter with her. My Spanish is interesting. Most nonexperienced American students speak a strained version of Spanglish (english and spanish), but mine is more like Spench (spanish and french... I think I make that word up hahaha). It is easier to transition between Spanish and French than Spanish and English because a lot of the words are the same and when I try and do things like use the right pronoun (I recently discovered that yo = I) and verb, I picture the verb charts that I used to draw in French class. I never imagined that French would be this helpful here!!

My schedule said that I had to register for classes today, get my id, and find out how I did on my Spanish test. All that was supposed to start at 8:40. Something I've noticed about the DR is that there are NO CLOCKS! ANYWHERE! None in my house AT ALL!- none on the microwave, over the stove, on a wall, on the TV or DVD player, in my room - if I didn't have my phone I would have no idea what time it was, nor would I have an alarm! This is probably because Dominicans place an extremely low value on punctuality and developing/maintaining social relationships matters much more than being on time. Coming from New York, where time is money and life revolves around this clock, this is extremely shocking. I'm so used to being able to plan my day hour by hour and I've developed an amazing capacity to plan things in advance because I have to think of train schedules and whatnot and because NYC does not wait for anyone. Here, in order for me to be on time for school I have to get my host mother out the door about 15 minutes early. She takes her time with everythinggggg and today I had to make a conscious effort not to get frusterated that we were going to be late againnnnnnnn! I had to try really hard to be undertanding and not show physical signs of impatience. I had to remind myself that being late was part of the cultural experience and will probably not negatively effect my grade - it is merely something to experience and catalogue and my teacher is very aware that time does not matter here.

I got to school about 15 minutes late, but, luckily, "registration," which didn't actually happen, was running slow. Instead of registering and showing the secretary the transcript, photos, and ID that i had been instructed to bring, all we did was get to see our grade on the Spanish test. I got a 14 out of 100...about what I expected! It's funny that this college is considered so prestigious, yet has such horrible communication/organizational practices. So far we have been misinformed about registration and our Spanish class. This just goes to show how different the culture is and how underdeveloped their education system is in relation to certain components of our own.

We got beginner Spanish books in class. I don't think they are very good ones though, since important verbs and pronouns are not even mentioned until halfway through. We listened to seem merengue and salsa music that my teacher had brought in and then she instructed the beginner students (there are 4 of us, three of whom speak absolutely no Spanish and 1 who had about a year of Spanish) to go into another room with our books and practice useful, elementary phrases like Hola como estas? Bien y tu? Quanots anos! Te llamo Leila! and what not. The teacher stayed in the other room to teach the more advanced students more advanced things. Since we were basically on our own! The 1-year Spanish speaking student taught us pronouns and verbs. Again, French was extremely useful here and I discovered that remembering HOW learning took place in the French classroom inspired me to learn in the Spanish one.

Linguistics is so fascinating! In French and Spanish speaking cultures they say "I have ____ (adjective)" instead of "I am _______ (adjective)."  I have seems so much more temporary and so much less egocentric than I am. In America, we embody what we think we are. We ARE hungry and we ARE tired and we ARE frusterated. But in the Dominican Republic, hunger and fatigue and frusteration are temporary things that we "have" for short amounts of time. I wonder how this translates into the way we think about ourselves and others? In French and Spanish, everything is also either masculine or feminine, unlike in the USA where nouns are not gendered. I wonder what effect this has on how people view the world and the inanimate objects in their lives? When I speak French, I am constantly thinking about whether an object is masculine or feminine and I wonder how this translates into the way I think about or project things onto such objects? In Spanish, the phonetic alphabet is also used. One of the students told me that she had to study this alphabet in her linguistics class. I never thought twice about the way we pronounce letters like U or I or E or C! Actually, I have, since I think that my mother used this alphabet in the Montessori classroom. Is this alphabet more functional for some reason or another? I don't know.

One of the Chinese students in class with us told us that "mama" means three different things in Mandarin depending on the inflections you place on the word. I can't remember the last one, but two of them are Mother and Horse.   ma ma qí mâ mâ màn ma ma mà mâ = your mother is riding a horse! This is why Mandarin seems way more foreign than Spanish or English - because we don't really use inflections to differentiate between words. I've noticed that I use a lot of hand gestures and facial expressions here when I am trying to communicate. I seem more animated when I speak, but really these are necessary ways of trying to communicate when words fail. I'm amazed how how quickly I am picking up Spanish! It is much easier to speak than French, although rolling the R is still pretty difficult.


After class, I commented that I thought it was silly for the book to teach us the past tense BEFORE the present tense. One of the other students commented that we usually speak in the past tense - retelling stories, describing things we did. This makes a lot of sense. I still think the book is a bit outdated though. I wonder how advanced education is in other areas? When I talked to one of the neighborhood girls a few days ago I asked her what she was studying and she told me dentistry. I commented that it takes a long time to become a dentist, but she told me that she could become one in only 5 years! I described all of the diplomas and certifications that were on the wall at my dentists office back at home.


After Spanish class we had our NYU class. We shared our experiences in and around Santiago and discussed nonverbal communication. We divided nonverbal communication up into 6 categories: silence, touch, proxemity, gestures, eye contact, and posture. This made me very conscious of the degree to which I was noticing these things in my own personal experience of this culture. There are so many things that I have failed to be on the look out for, that I've taken for granted! Things like how one sits and gender differences in each of these categories. There is so much to be conscious of!! I've noticed that silence here seems not to exist. It always needs to be filled with something. But it seems like a different kind of nonsilence than back in NYC. In NYC, we seem to need to fill the silences in our lives because we are anxious about something. Here, everyone is so laid back, so go-with-the-flow, yet active at the same time, and the lack of silence feels..different. This class made me feel so inspired and excited to go out and have as many interactions with as many different people/things/experiences as I possibly could!! I felt like I wanted to sprint and jump and take in everything about everything! I can't believe we are only here for two weeks!!!


At the end of the class our teacher left and an NYU Global Programs administrator came in to inquire about any complaints that we had about the program. We were there for an extra hour complaining about everything that was wrong with the program! I said nothing, but, in general, Americans seem to like to complain!


After class, I took some of my NYU friends to see the gym (BioFit) where I work out. We stood there trying to decipher the "rules" board and laughing about how funny some of them were for about 20 minutes. I'm sure that the Dominicans working out must have been thinking "Why are these crazy Americans so obsessed with the gym rules?" We even took pictures of the board! Here are some of them: Don't block the mirror or look at yourself for too long. Don't invade another's personal space. Beware of strong odors. Don't look at another person when they are working out because this might be embarassing for that person. Don't socialize with other people.


I got an empanada from the gas station next door before I went to work out. While I was eating it I checked out the juice/water cooler and the snacks and noticed that only the big-name companies like coca-cola and nestle translated their wrappers from English to Spanish.


I walked home after the gym and bumped into one of the maids along the way. I felt like a real Dominican bumping into someone and stopping to chat for a bit! When I got home all the lights were out - they had lost electricity. Apparently this happens frequently in the Dominican Republic where electricity is not reliable and the loss lasts about 3 hours at a time. Can you imagine electricity coming and going like that? Crazy! 

Juan (the crazy one) was in the kitchen along with one of the neighbors and Caridad, my host mom. He gave me a bracelet made out of wire that I think he found in the trash. I wore and it thanked him and told him that he could be "mi maestra" (my teacher). He also brought me some postcards from a museum or something (also probably from the trash) as a gift and showed them to me one by one. I talked to him for a while at the table while I ate my yellow rice/corn and chicken. From what I could decipher, he went to college for four years to become a carpenter and his parents had split up (later on I learned that he was actually a worker at the college, not a student). He kept making this gesture that seemed to suggest swimming. I thought that he was asking me if I liked to swim so I kept saying si! si! si!, but Carolina told me later that he wants to marry me and was asking if he could take me to the river. Here's another funny miscommunication: when another one of the workers, Victor, walked by I asked him "te amo" which means I love you, but what I meant to say is "Como te llamo" what is your name. He just stared at me for a few seconds before I said son nombre and he understood haha! I had a nice conversation with Robinson about beers because he was wearing a Presidente shirt (the national beer). He told me about a dance club that me and my friends should go to on Sunday when we came back from our trip to Santo Domingo. There were people who stopped by here and there and I chatted briefly with all of them. I showed my host parents a picture of my brother on the rings and parallel bars - they seemed impressed. While I was talking to Juan, Camilla (the 6 year old) came over and pointed to him and said "loco." She came back and said it a few more times and then she threw something at him!! He didn't really reacted, but I said "Camilla, noooo!" Who taught her that?


I have so much homework to do that I often miss out on these social gatherings! I felt rude sitting in my room writing and doing school work while everyone else was chatting upstairs so I went up and said "Pardon, mi no hablo with tu, porque mi mucho mucho mucho trabajos for escuela" (I'm sorry I don't talk with you but i have a lot of work to do for school in broken spanglish).


Later on my host mom drove me to an outdoor bar/restaurant where I met up with some NYU friends. Everyone who was over came along for the drive - this is typically Dominican - to do things together like this. The restaurant was the highlight of my night - we had some wine and a tropical drink and chatted lauged about this and that. The waiters gave us a free bottle of wine.


Then I met Dean! Ah, fate! He is a Peace Corps volunteer here in Santiago!!!!!! He is also a Buddhist who does yoga and is from Darien, Connecticut!!! I was put instantly at ease in his presence and since I am in love with the Peace Corps I was more than excited to hear about his experience so, since it was too loud to hear anything at the restaurant, we took a walk around the Monument Los Heros nearby. We talked about spirituality and meditation and routines and relationships and the DR and life in general. He told me that he works with Haitian children who are not allowed to attend school past 6th grade without birth certificates. He teaches them and plays with them and we saw some of them in the street and he went over to talk to them in a fatherly like manner, trying to persuade one of them to come to school. His presence is peaceful yet firm and I imagine that he is a wonderful asset to the program! He said that he only gets electricty and water three hours a day!! So he has to collect the water and save it to both and drink with. He lives in an apartment not far away and gets paid a small stipend. his life is relatively easy compared to other volunteers and he is located in one of the greatest cities ever. He told me that his office (the school) was not far away, so of course I made him walk me to see it (down Calle de Sol, which is apparently dangerous, but I felt safe with him and danger is good to experience in small doses!) The school was located next to a dance club. That is so typical of the DR - poverty and wealth exist side by side, often in extremes. It was pretty dark so I couldn't see much of the school but there were desks and games and it looked like a great place for Haitain boys (10 -16) to come and get educated. There were 3 stray dogs outside and one of them had just had puppies. The other was pretty mean. We sat and watched them for a while. My interaction with him made me think about silence, since we are both big fans of it. It was nice to be with someone with whom I didn't have to be constantly talking, where they silent spaces were OK and not awkward, but peaceful. I took his number down and will go back to the peace corps office on wednesday for a yoga class (which he said was bad and unstructured, but what the hell!) Hopefully, I will be able to see the PEace Corps office in the daylight! 


It felt like a dream. I still can't believe that interaction happened.


I took a taxi home and tried to chat with the driver a bit. We laughed and I got home safely for 200 pesos. At home, Bolivar was awake so we chatted about the day and life and the DR a bit. He's the coolest boy ever and I am gradually beginning to realize that he is more American than Dominican. Soon I will teach him how to do a handstand. 


Today was a truly perfect day! 


No people are uninteresting. 
Their fate is like the chronicles of planets. 
Nothing in them is not particular, 
and planet is dissimilar from planet.

Day 5

If I didn't enjoy yucca I would be totally screwed! It is served at virtually every meal. I had it for breakfast this morning again - no complaints - I love it! I am not used to a starchy diet which is what they have here, so I think that my body is reacting nicely to it instead of reacting negatively because I am not throwing myself out of balance. I looked up its nutritional content online, its history, and other random facts about it. When I come home, I will be a yucca expert! I like the cups that my coffee comes in - they are tiny, just the right amount to feel refreshed, but not anxious.

My host mother takes forever to do anything! That is just an observation, not a judgement, but of course "forever" is culturally subjective. However, I am constantly late for things because she is so social and when we get in the car she talks to me and fixes the radio and her phone and takes her time before we start to drive.

I had mi classe de espanol (I'm probably saying that wrong!) today. The placement test that they had us take evidently does not matter because PUCMM cannot afford to divide us up into small groups and teach us seperately so we are all in the same class. We went around the room and said mi nombre est ___ (Leila) et mi especialidad et _____ (communications). Then we listened to the teacher speak about food and culture and the school  in Spanish that I did not understand. Next we were divided into small groups where we read an article about La gastronomie domenicana (domenican diet). I found that I understood a lot of what I was reading because French and Spanish have much more in common than French and English so I was able to use my knowledge of French to decipher Spanish.. pretty cool. The other beginner students complain that they don't like the class because they can't understand what is going on, but I am using it as a way to gain new vocab...even small words here and there help and to notice things like the teacher's teaching style or the way the other fluent spanish speaking students communicate. Tomorrow we are getting the Spanish books that we requested so that should help a lot! Our homework is to read an article about dancing and to interview our host family about la musicana, la comida, y carnaval.

After the Spanish class, I walked across the street and bought a 1 day membership to a gym called "BioFit." It is nice, like a gym back home, although the equipment is ancient. It took me a while to actually purchase the membership as I don't know how to say "how much" and for some reason getting across the idea that I only wanted a one day membership instead of a week-long one was difficult. The ladies working there were all well-groomed. Dominican woman seem to value cleanliness and style. There weren't a lot of people working out at the gym - me and a few others. There were no towels to wipe the equipment and I didn't drink out of the water fountain because I wasn't sure if it was filtered water. There were mirrors lining the walls and 2 TVs playing Spanish programs on the ceiling. The bathroom was really nice, too. Did I mention that we aren't allowed to throw toilet paper in the toilets here? They all flush really, really slow and I guess the septic system in this entire country cannot handle toilet paper.

Anyway, being in a gym always feels like home, no matter what language/culture its people identify with. I remember reading a feminist article in which the author said that we all go in and out of consciousness - sometimes we identify with our gendered identity, with our family identity, with our cultural identity, or with any other person that we have created ourselves to be. I thought about this while I was running today - about how I had approached this mundane activity of working out in a lot of different ways. I was using it as a way to situate myself into some type of routine that would allow me to take the greatest possible advantage of everything this trip has to offer (I've discovered that it is easier to feel blessed, appreciative, and spontaneous when you are healthy) I was also using it as a way to compare the gym experience in the DR to the gym experience back home. I was also using it as a way to feel united to people with whom I do not share a language or a culture - here we all shared a pursuit of the same activity. Sometimes I would be conscious of the fact that I should be actively observing the culture and surroundings in order to pinpoint differences or remember specific feelings/emotions/incidents/encounters. At other moments I would focus on myself, my brother, my physical conditions, how my body felt when I was working out, my own internal/personal experience. And then other times I would focus on my relationship with the others and their relationship with their surroundings. I think that this is not just my experience in the gym - it characterizes a lot of how this trip is going. Sometimes I am an outsider. Other times, an insider. Sometimes I feel connected, other times I feel disconnected.  Remembering that these fluctuations are inevitable has helped me remain peaceful and eager to develop more cultural competence.

The ladies at the gym were nice and professional. When I first got there and the lady at the front desk realized that I didn't speak english, she directed me to another man who spoke a little. He didn't smile at all - I'm very conscious of smiles or lack of them here. Dominicans in general aren't an especially smily culture. Which does not mean that they have attitudes or that they are mad or judgemental. They are simply accepting of each other, treat everyone like family, and don't put on aires.

I had my host mom pick me up from the gym and went home to a lunch that consisted of rice and more yucca!!!!! and a yellow sauce. One of the maids also put out sliced up avacados. I still can't believe that I don't have to do any dishes! Another incongruity is that there is no garbage in the kitchen - we just throw everything in the sink - napkins, fruit skins, our dirty dishes, glasses, utensils etc. The workers wash them.

At lunch, I sat with Boliver and we chatted in english. He is on vacation this week so he parties every night and gets up late (around 2:00). It is an interesting time to be in the Dominican Republic because all of the kids who are my age are on a break from school and because of the holiday that recently passed. It is not how life usually(what is usual?) functions and I am trying to be extra conscious of this in developing a general idea of Dominican life. I'm also trying to remember the different agendas that people who. Ie. my host family knows that they are a host family - they have been involved in hosting for quite a while and they are probably conscious of the fact that I am (some of the time) studying them, watching how they act, journaling about them, talking about them, and above all else coming back to the United States using their family life as the most intimate example of family life in the Dominican Republic. I wonder how being conscious of the role that they play effects how they act? I wonder if the hired help is only here because I am here? I wonder if all the visitors are here to see me? I wonder what all the visitors think of me? At the same time, my host family is extremely social and there are always people here, always host students here, so they are probably not living much differently than they would normally.

It is nice to talk to Boliver in English. He's cool and practical and his head is not in the clouds. This is a pretty good assessment of many Dominicans. He told me that people here do not study the arts - only law and architecture and medicine and things of this sort. The social sciences aren't even that big, nor are sports, besides baseball. I must have written about this in another blog because I got a comment (from MikieV101) that said:
I assume that the Dominican's desire to become a lawyer or dentist, rather than pursue "the arts" is due in part to the lifelong living conditions they are experiencing in this poverty stricken country. You are lucky to have food, clothes, a home, and people around you always willing to help....I don't think pursuing a dancing career, pianist or poetry writer in college is going to get them out of poverty, which I assume is one of their goals/reasons for attending college in the first place.


which I think is pretty spot on. College here is for getting a job that will get you both status and money, that will allow you to provide for your family and live a comfortable life. In the United States, college seems to be more focused on "following your dreams" or "doing what your heart tells you to do" or using the experience to create an identity or yourself, to distinguish yourself from others, even if it is at the expense of status or money. This is totally acceptable in the US and being crative/artsy is often valued just as highly as being business oriented I think. It is nice to be able to put my own experience and the luxuries that my own culture affords me into perspective, to appreciate them in context. And it makes me wonder about comparisons that we make between artists/musicians/creative writers etc. from different cultures. There are writers from the Carribbean, but the majority of them comes to the States to pursue their craft. As horrible as poverty is, it is important to see. 


After lunch I had to go back to PUCMM for a visitas al Centro Cultural Eduardo Leon Jimenes. 
http://www.centroleon.org.do/


My host mom dropped me off and one of the NYU coordinators who came with us commented that she looked like a soccer mom dropping her daughter off. Totally accurate! My host mom honks her horn ever 3 minutes because she knows everybodddddy, even the garden workers at the school! Apparently this is not exclusive to her, however. Everybody knows everybody in Santiago. 


Centro de Leon is a museum-type place where you can go to learn about Dominican culture. 
Un lugar donde todo el mundo se encuentra was the slogan written across a pair of intertwined scissors (it's on the front page of that website) and it translates as "a place where everyone is." One of the girls on my trip told me that it symbolizes that coming together of cultures. We had a museum guide give us a tour. He gave the tour en espanol so I was pretty lost the entire time, except when I had other students translate for me. But again, it was more practice in developing cultural sensitivity/empathy for people who might be experience similar types of disorientation. Museums are always interesting, as the things that they display are supposed to embody the culture that they are portaying. I often wonder who gets to decide what goes into a museum? And if all the artifacts are truly representative of the culture. We got to see Dominican animals, foods, a video that showed different cultures and their contributions, musical instruments, artwork, tools, and a simulation of a Dominican market that had lifesize cardboardish people who would say things like "bananas! bananas! bananas!" and other calls for the products they were selling when you turned them one way or another. It was an interesting display. We saw a Spanish king who, upon dying, had one of his many wives buried alive with him. We could see by her skeleton that she had died of asphyxiation. People and their rituals are so interesting.


At the end of the tour we got to go into a Dominican cigar shop and watch where cigars were made. Apparently they are really good here! Then we sat down for a beer (Presidente Light) and I got to chat some more with the other NYU students about their life/plans/thoughts. Everyone here is so interesting! A lot of them are in the TESOL program or the linguistics program and I loooooove hearing their stories. Everyone has a story!


After the museum I headed home to find Boliver there with his cousin Rolando and 2 other cool Dominican friends and a host of ladies helping Caridad writ birthday cards for her daughter Camilla who is having a fiesta for her 7th birthday on friday! There never seem to be any men who come to the house - all women. One of them -a neighbor - was really animated and came with a little boy (Mario) who tried to steal one of my (really awesome) empanadas! I said "it's ok" but Caridad scolded him anyway. I did my interview with Papa y the neighbor at the table. I wrote down questions and they gave me short answers. I could have probably picked a better time, but they seemed willing/eager to help me and I discovered that I learned a lot from them.


It is sort of difficult to get a sense of when the guys are sharing "guy time" and when it is appropriate for me to sit in on their conversations because they speak in spanish, but I am good at navigating my way through these social spaces. I like all of Boliver's friends! They are awesome and fun and nice and good looking and they provide me with a good representative sample of what college kids are like here! Rolando, who is a DJ, used my computer to download some pictures. I was glad that I could help them out with something, as the aid always seems to be directed the other way.


Boliver had told me about a club called "Dubai." Apparently Wednesdays are Ladies Night so I took all the girls from the program and some of their friends out with me to go dancing. Our Professor came to. I have an interesting relationship with her - more of a friendship than a teacher/student relationship. I can't believe she went to a club with us! We hailed 2 cabs from the Monument Los Heros - our meeting spot) - each cost 150 pesos. Cabs are can be a bit sketchy and are usually small, run-down, and driven by Haitians.


We were the first ones at the club. Apparently people go out around 11:30/12, so we were super early at 10:30. It felt like being back in NYC. It was up-scale and there were bottles of Vodka and something else on the tables. At first we were seated in the VIP section, but our new American friend Stephanie who was really good at negotiating got us out of there (we would have had to pay extra) and we ordered (free) cosmopolitans and margaritas from the regular section. People gradually started coming and we took to dancing. Later on, we had jello shots out of syringes (apparently this is no uncommmon). All the drinks were pretty weak except for the first one and I didn't have much (I like dancing way more than drinking and only did it so that I could experience that aspect of the DR club experience). The music was a mix of Raeggeton and meregnueish/salsaish music.. although we didn't merengue or salsa. They even played a Miley Cyrus song haha!! The girls were mostly lighter skinned Dominicans -apparently there is colorism here in addition to racism and Dominicans with lighter skin are considered classier/higher status.


I danced with my NYU friends and some Dominican who asked me dance and then started pulling out some weird moves while his friends laughed nearby. I didn't really know what to make of it so I just laughed and did my own thing haha.


One of the bartender would NOT serve any of us Americans! It was the strangest thing and we didn't really know what to make of it. For some reason we came across as rude - or maybe he just didn't like Americans. At any rate, it was interesting to see that the club experience here is basically the same as in NYC - except I didn't feel like everyone was jealous of everyone else which was nice.


My host brother invited us to another club where "more people where dancing." I was tempted to go, but I've done a good job of balancing going out with remembering that there is still a tomorrow and I wanted to be fresh i the morning for spanish class. (Another example of going in and out of consciousness- I was an observer as well as a participant at the club, but more of a participant). So I took a taxi home with my Professor and another student after a few hours of dancing. He charged us a bit more, but we went with it. The taxi experience here is always fun, different and interesting and unlike in NYC they are willing to pack as many people as possible into those tiny cars.


When I got home I couldn't get any of the keys to work in any of the locks, so I tried to open the door to my own personal room with the keys that I had. Apparently I turned it too hard and the KEY BROKE IN THE LOCK! After it happened I stared at it for a while in disbelief before having a moment of "oh my gosh what am I going to tell my host family!!" Then I went inside and looked up "I apologize a million times! I will give you my pesos just tell me how much!" on google translator.

Oh I forgot to mention that I had a nice, deep, thoughtful moment in the bathroom halfway through the night - one of those really reflective, peaceful, existential moments. I think I love track of time while I was in there- i could have been in there for an hour hahaha Those moments always seem to occur in the bathroom hahaha!! Why is that?


I still love the Dominican and tonight I anticipate my dreams being filled with yuccas! 


Imagine no possesions, I wonder if you can, No need for greed or hunger, A brotherhood of man. Imagine all the people Sharing all the world. 

Day 4

Hola! Hoy was day numero uno of my classes at PUCMM!

http://www.pucmm.edu.do/STI/Paginas/PortadaRsti.aspx

 I woke up and had a some whole wheat coco balls and a yogurt for breakfast followed by a mandarin... all the fruit here is muyyyy bueno! My goal is to try one exotic fruit per day, and although mandarins are not that exotic, they are still way different here than  back at home. After breakfast my host mother drove me to the University where I had to take a Spanish placement test. Before the test, the teacher gave us a small lecture about the University and some logistical stuff which was completely en espanol. I tried to follow - I can understand bits and pieces here and there as most languages have similar components to them. After her speech we took a test which consisted of a listening comprehension section, multiple choice questions, fill in the blanks, an essay, and a verbal comprehension section. I'm pretty confident that I got close to nothing right hahaha. Although I did use to test to learn some new vocab words like "poco intelligente" and muy intelligente" and as a way to learn how to be more empathetic towards kids who may find themselves in similar situations where they can't comprehend anything. When I got to the essay I drew a "CooL elephant" and wrote "NO HABLO ESPANOL! =)" and when I went in for the speaking section I didn't realize that I had to fill in the blank after the moderator spoke so we just stared at each other for a while hahaha. It was a great experience and I discovered that I could actually understand a lot of what I read in the Spanish stories on the test.

The campus is super beautiful, but not well-kept at all. All the statues and artwork is rusting and a lot of the lawns are unmowed. However, anything that is warm and green is beautiful to me so these things did not bother me at all.

After class my host mom picked me up with Juan and I went home for lunch. Juan gets crazier every day. I wonder what is going through his head. There were 2 new maids at home when we came back. It's interesting to watch how the family treats the help - as if they were family. The maids and workers seem to feel incredibly at home in the house. They eat the same food that we do and they converse with us as if they were sons and daughters. It is refreshing to see hired help treated in such a humane, loving manner and I don't think of these people as help - more like brothers and sisters. For lunch we had french fries, white rice, beans, chicken, fried calimari, and salad. One thing that I didn't expect there to be a lot of in the DR were potatoes, but they seem to appear at every meal!

Meals are pretty informal in this family. No one waits for anyone else, although we all seem to someone manage to eat at the same time. And you can take as much as you want, although I only fill my plate once just to be polite. My Dominican manners are getting better. At lunch I told Caridad and Boliver to teach me more words because I am trying to learn how to be polite! They are so patient, yet not soft and fake like people are trying to be polite often come across in America. There are no fake smiles here - people say what they mean and are not overly polite - that is so refreshing, so real!

After lunch Robinson drove me back to the campus for my NYU class. It was nice being in the car with him as I have spent less quality time with him than I have with Boliver Jr or anyone else, even though he is my age. I laughed with him and when he played a reggae song on the radio that had the lyrics "aii papi" I poked him and said this out loud. It's funny how much I've learned about Dominicans from the media. On the radio, I learned some colloquial Dominican sayings. Later on, Juan gave me a Spanish magazine and I read it out loud to he and my host Mom in the car (I got a high five out of that). And Boliver Jr and Camilla are always watching Spanish TV so I've picked up some Dominicanisms from that as well. Back home, In the Heights on Broadway is the source that I find myself using when I try to reminisce about preconceived notions that I had about Dominicans.

Anyway, back on campus. I somehow did not have the location of my class written down, so I managed to get lost. At first, it was OK. I was on a beautiful campus and I had a phone and laptop in case I needed to communicate. But I was lost for a long time - about an hour - and it was frightening! There were very few people on campus because it is closed to regular students until next week and all I could say was "mi classe?" and "no hablo espanol!" I felt physically ill - like I couldn't walk - and I developed an instant headache. My chest hurt and it was hard to breath. I should have cried, but I held it in instead. Crying is always better, healthier! I don't know why I reacted this way? Probably because I had expectations - I was expecting to get to attend my NYU class and sit through the entire lecture and when the possibility that I might miss it arose I freaked out! Anyway, I am so thankful that I got to experience this sense of disorientation. I know it will be an important lesson to take with me into the future and I already feel that I have a better capacity to be empathetic towards others who feel a sense of disorientation in unfamiliar settings (these don't necessarily have to be cross-cultural). I've been doing a great job of saying things to myself like "hey, look at you now!" in moments such as this and stepping outside of myself in order to experience myself instead of saying things like "omg I am so ____ right now!" Exchanging "you" for "I" seems to be a great way of better understanding ourselves and our relationship to others.

I read today that culture shock is divided into 4 phases: 1. the honeymoon phase (everything about the foreign country is beautiful, blissful, positive),  2. the estrangement phase (everything about the foreign place begins to look grim and negative - you feel uncomfortable and long for familiarity) 3. the acceptance phase (you begin to accept that this is way the culture is - you begin to see the reality of things) 4. The assimiliation phase ( you begin to become assimilated into the culture and it becomes familiar). I'm sad that I won't be here long enough to experience these phases!

Class was cool. We watched a scene out of Lost in Translation (hilarious), discussed our readings, and talked about culture shock. I brought up the question of what moral/ethical preperation one should do when coming to a foreign country. How far should we be willing to immerses ourselves in a different culture, step outside of our own shows, let go of our beliefs and values in the name of cultural competence/empathy/understanding? I had a discussion about spirituality with our grad TA, as we are both Christian. We both agreed that Christianity  = less culture shock because it gives you, among other things, stability; an unchanging way of life to fall back upon when times get crazy and uncertain. I wonder if this hypothesis is true? I wonder how culture shock is experienced by religious vs nonreligious  cultural ambassadors? Might be something cool to look in to.

Class was also very informal (everything here is like that.. i love that about the DR... no one appears to be acting at all - Boliver told me that there isn't even any theater and when I asked him about youth and drugs he told me that there is virtually no drug usage - that all anyone ever does is drink, and since they've grown up drinking, they know how to do it. So everyone is here, in the same reality, and there is an odd sense of unity that I don't feel back home where you never know where someone else's head is.

After class we took a tour around campus guided by some PUCMM students. I got to chat some more with some of the kids in our NYU program - I like inquiring about people's lives and the plans that they have for their futures and I gathered some interesting ideas from them. As for the guides, they were 2 girls and a guy - all very laid back. So far almost every young guy I'd met has looked at me with that "hey baby" look. I just laugh and I am happy that I can hold my own. It's a Dominican thing I guess.

at 430 we all boarded a bus bound for the streets of Santiago guided by the nicest tour guide. I saw some true poverty today. One street in particular stuck out. It was an outdoor farmer's market, except there was trash everywhere, people in the streets, stray dogs, deteriorating houses, and scattered food everywhere. There were no windows on our bus, but our guide told us that cars literally drive down the street and pay the vendors while they drive by, like a fast food farmarket. I saw a lady on her hands and knees, barefoot, collecting carbon. There were men selling all sorts of fruits and it felt a bit like New York City peddling, except way, way, dirtier and poorer. It was pretty sad. The weird thing about the DR is that there are extremes of life living virtually right next to each other. I, for instance, am staying in what would be the equivalent of a mansion back home. I can't believe that there are servants here! a hot tub! a BBQ! A big screen TV! I feel so comfortable! And at the end of this tour I felt a bit guilty that I had such a grandoise house to return to, while the street vendors probably had virtually nothing. All the poor people leave their doors open here. That makes me happy - the openness, but I know it is a sign of poverty.

I bought an orange on the street. It was 10 pesos and so delicious! We also saw some beautiful architecture - it was situated right down the road from all the trash and dirt and stray dogs. There were children playing shirtless in the street. Our guide told us that the authorities had no interest in making any sort of laws or establishing any sense of order in places like the farmers market. Maybe someday.

When I got hoe there were people over as usual. My host mom made me a grill cheese and I painted a bracelet with Camilla. She made me one that says "LEILA." She is so cute! Sassy, but cute! One of the ladies who came over has a fashion talk show on TV. She told me this after I told her that she looked fashionable and asked her if she had any tips for me. She had on tight jeans, a flashy blouse, and high heels that were about 7 inches high. She was cool. There were also two girls my age who came over. We sat outside and chatted about life in the DR -among other things, I learned that the beach is part of every Dominican's life and countless weekends are spent on drinking and hanging out there. One of the girls was studying to be a lawyer and one was studying to be a dentist. Interestingly, no one I've met so far has any desire to do anything with the arts. Everything about the Dominicans is practical. I did find so Spanish theater while we were on our Santiago tour so I'll hopefully get to experience that! I also get to talk to Boliver Sr. (papa). We talked about working out and dancing and he told me that he was a good dancer. I asked if he married Caridad because she was a good cook ad if he liked to dance with her. He also taught me more about the exotic fruits that they always have on their table. I feel like I've seen many of them in my Brooklyn supermarket back home -I'll have to try them now!! Speaking of Brooklyn, I already feel like I have a new appreciation for it - like it is not just some poor, cheap neighborhood and that I don't merely live amongst people with whom I have nothing in common! I'm almost excited to go back!! But I'll save that for the end of the trip =)

It's raining outside and it sounds beautiful. I feel blessed and humbled. And I'm happy that I got my hair braided because I don't feel like doing it.

Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.