March 19, 2013. Today I awoke to a cheese and tomato sandwich. Oh boy... I tried so hard and nearly threw up. I was able to sneak a tomato in the part of the sandwich I wasn't planning on eating and managed to tell her my stomach hurt a little so I wasn't hungry. I tried Gram, I tried. I will say that I'm officially eating onions though! Had scrambles eggs and onions and platanos for dinner and I ate all the onions :D haha No one else would care about this except for my Mom and Grandma so thank you for bearing with me.
The entire morning of training was dedicated to education. It was so wonderful again to not feel so lost. We learned many statistics about the education system in the DR and it's quite alarming. I'll admit that when I first got my invitation to the DR, I was excited but also hesitant because I really wanted to go somewhere where they needed help the most. Well, I'm in the right place. Just recently, there was a 96% fail rate on a national exam given to 4th and 8th graders. The entire educational system is ranked 130/135 and they are 133/135 in math & science education. Only 1 of every 5 children who begin first grade graduate through to eighth grade. Many teachers are not university graduates and some didn't even receive a high school diploma. School days on average (in public schools) are about 4 1/2 hours and in many places, if it rains, the teachers won't show up so there is no school. To be fair to the teachers, however, as a PCV, I will be paid about 2X as much as a full time teacher here. Oftentimes, teachers will pick up second jobs thus having no time with their families and no time to adequately prepare for their classes.
For the last ___ years, the DR has spent 1.8% of their GDP on education. There has recently been a huge movement to increase this to 4% and it just passed. This is phenomenal but there is still a problem. The first thing they did with that money is give raises to the people of the Ministry of Education, who aren't even in the schools. Now, the fight is starting on where the rest of the money will go. Some argue that it should go to the kids only. Teachers, however, are going on strike (like they're doing today and tomorrow), because they feel they deserve a raise (which based on what they make, is totally understandable...). It's a crazy mess despite one success finally reached. I cannot tell you how excited I am to get started even though the reality is,
"In your Peace Corps service you will help plant trees whose shade you will not get to sit under."
We had quite a bit of a break before lunch and I was able to talk to Nate :). I saw his face! And his sister! But he didn't see me:( The internet just wasn't strong enough to handle all this love haha. Trying to stay positive, I will hear from him soon.
Lunch was Chinese food! haha Sadly, our cook's mother passed away so she's been gone. The food was pretty good though. And I didn't find myself hungry 20 minutes later like I always did at home! I asked Jennifer (our Training Director) how we can mail letters. She said I'm the first to ask so I'm the new mail woman! I will be collecting money for stamps from the other trainees and whatnot, heading up the mail system here at the training center. haha. Woo!
Spanish followed lunch and it was just us girls since Andrew had his 1:1 class in the morning. It ended up being an emotional class with frustrations and feeling lost. Even my teacher, Marcia, started to tear up... She said it just gets hard because of how badly she wants to reach us and she feels she could be a better teacher somehow but she's not. I guess the language barriers really hit her (us) today and I felt horrible. It's no ones fault and we're all doing the best we can but I understand, it's simply too much heart and not enough strings. But luckily, that isn't going to last. I believe in us.
Then another crazy whirlwind. In preparation for our PCV visit this weekend, we were being escorted to our bus stops in Santo Domingo so we would know where to leave from. I had my directions written by my volunteer but then when we talked on the phone, she gave me another bus to take instead so that I could go with another trainee who was going to be near me. Commence total confusion. In the process of trying to compare our directions, Ivette and I got really lost and asked multiple teachers for help. Ivette's directions ended up not being completely clear and I was given two different ones so I didn't know who to go with on the trip out to the city. Finally, we figured it out, I went with a different group, Ivette and I are in fact traveling the first half together, and I'm not nervous about anything until... The truck ride. She said because I'm the "Rubia" I'll probably get to ride in the front. But if not, I have to stand on the flatbed and hold on to the rack on the roof. Oh dear. Hopefully no one talks to me too much...
She did say, however, that we will be going to visit Ivette and her volunteer on Saturday and going to the beach!! Yes please! We're then sleeping there and Ivette and I will be able to travel back to Pantoja (here) together. Wonderful! She also asked me to bring my external hardrive with any new movies or shows which I don't have :( I feel bad... Hopefully the write up will be pretty easy and the rest of the time we can just chill. Our PCVL said she slept a ton on this weekend. I wouldn't mind that lol.
So I got home around 5:30 and told my host mother that I needed to buy naranjas (oranges) for a juice that we are making in class tomorrow with naranjas, azucar (sugar), leche (milk), vainilla (gee...), and hielo (ice). Mmmmm. She had Paola accompany me to the market and I got them. Then back at the house, we played some cards, I had dinner, and they invited me to play Dominoes. The beginning was great! I wasn't doing so well but my partner was so we won the first two rounds. It wa simply nice to be included and get high-fives from Sona. Then the next two we lost and there were multiple times where if I had known how to play better, I could have won it. There's a way to keep track of the dominoes, know what others probably have, and predict which ones to play. Yea, I don't have that yet. So the group started picking on me hard. They laughed, tried to explain things to me, Jenny said if they want me to understand anything it's going to need to be in English, and Sona asked if she could switch partners tomorrow. Ouch. It's all in good fun and they do this to everyone but oo boy. I just picked on myself and said things like, "I need to understand Spanish NOW" and laughed, "I never want to play Dominoes again" and laughed, and when I couldn't play a domino and they had to ask if I could play, I simply joked, "Nunca" (never). I did count the dominoes at the end of each round though since they seemed to struggle and I knew what it was each time. Guess I'm good for something? Oh well.
We finally finished and music went on and dancing began. My host mother tried to get me to dance outside but I simply said, "Dominoes AND dancing in one night? Oh no way." haha. Eventually I said I have a little homework (which may or may not have been a lie) and here I am, typing this.
AH! Nate just called!!! He literally said, "Hello?" and I was speechless for a second. Then of course, the tears came. haha. Goodness did that feel wonderful :D I think I can sleep soundly tonight now :) Thank you baby. I love you.
And I love you all who take the time to read these! Buenas noches.
(Oh and Mom and Dad? I'm STILL finding notes!! Haha Thank you :D)
No comments:
Post a Comment