Home

 We're home.  I've sorted through the sand, rocks, pictures, maracas, flags, music, and everything else we brought back with us.  What I haven't sorted through are the experiences.  The wonderful experience of being in the place where my students come from and meeting the family of one of our students, that feeling will stay with me for a long time.  I am eager to be back at school and see my Dominican students and to greet them with a new sense of their home.  I am sorting through how I will apply my experiences to the classroom this fall.  And I also have this lingering sense, that I didn't quite understand when I was there, of what it feels like to be the outsider, to not understand the language, the culture, the norms of life, and how uncomfortable that feeling is.  When we left to come home I had this feeling that I was just beginning to scratch the surface of understanding this fascinating country and I wasn't ready to leave; yet, I was longing to be home.

Thanks to everyone who followed along with us on this journey.

Commerce

The ways that people make a living is an integral part of the culture of a place.  Commerce in the DR seems to be about individuals creating their own small "businesses" although, I think there are people behind the scenes as well, that we never see.  What we do see is many people on the streets, mostly men and boys, selling stuff.  And the selling environments range from kids wanting to wash your windows to people with a small pile of coconuts for sale to the guys on the street who come right up to your car with their cell phone chargers, bottles of water, cashews, and fruits.  I can't figure out the structure and organization of it, but the selling of products, like anywhere I suppose, is an important part of what goes on here.  The difference, I feel, is that it is part of the fabric of the street; commerce comes to you, you don't go to commerce.

deliveries made on motorbike

One of our many window washers

Goats to buy or sell

and once they have been slaughtered

cell phone chargers and phone cases for sale

Plants!

One of our goals for visiting the DR was that our students from there seem to have a lot of experience with the natural world, but very little academic knowledge.  I felt that if we could use examples of plants from the DR in science that it would be a very meaningful experience for those students.  One of the most common trees on the island is the Flamboyant (Delonix regia). 

Notice that one of the petals is a different color than the others.  The green leaves are very soft and fern like.

 The tree produces huge seed pods.

Flower buds

Five petals around the outside and a smaller set on the inside

The coconut tree was also a common sight on our travels.  We saw coconuts in all the markets and always being sold on the side of the road.

A market in the DR

We stopped at this market one day for some treats and for some items to bring back home.  Like most of the markets we have seen, they are right up against the street; you almost feel like you are parking your car in the store.  They have lots of fresh picked fruit, newly slaughtered meat, and a variety of cold drinks.

honey

a milk based product in sugary syrup

Beatriz tries the sweetened coconut

opening the fresh coconut

fresh coconut milk!

drying meat

Classroom pictures

A request came from one of the teachers at our school for pictures of classrooms in the DR.  So, here they are.  The first set is from the Sanchez school, a private school in Bani:

Class size here is about 25 students

These next ones are from the public school.  This school is about a 20 minute drive away from the center of town where the Maria Trinidad Sanchez school is:

Meeting with teachers.  A beginning teacher makes abut $180.00 a month.  Less than a factory worker here.

Classroom for 40, 50, 60, and sometimes 70 students

The supplies on the right hand side of the picture were all that we saw in this room.

The schedule.  Notice the school day ends at 12:00.

play area for the students

kindergarten play area that was recently fixed up

phonics sounds on the stepping stones in the kindergarten yard