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