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.
Leila,
ReplyDeleteJust remember, not everything, or everyone is what they seem. Don't go off by yourself with a stranger in a 3rd world country. I have been to the DR twice..trust me...it's not the safest place...I know you have all this positive energy right now, but don't be completely oblivious to the dangers where you are.....reality check.......be smart..