Pedicures and Reflections...

            So here I am…with about 9 days left in the DR and not having written in my blog in about a straight month. Oops. Not gonna lie…I think I knew that would happen J

            I guess now would be a good time to reflect a bit on the experiences I’ve had here. Since my last few blogs haven’t been very upbeat, I’m first gonna share an experience with you all that was one of the most random moments of my Dominican life: a Dominican pedicure.

            As many of you know, the only person I get pedicures with is my dearest Aunt Jenny, and we like to go to the mall to get it done. Now, although it’s a hole in my wallet, I do it because there ain’t nothing like spending personal time with my aunt. Since being down here, I haven’t had the slightest desire to get a pedicure, even though I’ve been suffering from what my mom would call “crackwhore toenails,” I always tell myself that nobody should ever be paying too much attention to my feet. Well, during Holy Week (which is really just a week for everyone to travel to the beach and go crazy), some friends and I went to Sosua, which is a nearby city with a lovely touristy beach. We stayed in what I would consider a pretty fancy hotel, for a good price, of course. My friend Yolandri had asked her host dad about renting hotel rooms in the DR. And this is what he said to her: “It’s good to stay in a hotel, Yolandri…especially that one. It’s safe. But don’t get a room on the first floor. If you hear something, you run the hell out of there and you don’t look back!”

            You can only imagine what she was thinking at that point. Well, we got to the hotel. It was beautiful and overlooking the beach, had a nice restaurant, and even one of those weird European toilets that we didn’t know what to do with, so we washed our feet in! Despite the fact that it was raining the whole time we were there, we listened to a lot of bachata and made our own fun, looking around the town, meeting Swiss and French people, and discovering that the fad of old European men wearing speedos in public is, in fact, existent everywhere.

            The second day, we decided that since we couldn’t very well go to the beach to get a tan, we might as well get a pedicure! In the DR you can get a pedicure for $5, so we definitely wanted to take advantage of that. The hotel was offering us pedicures at $20. That was a pretty quick “no.” So we started walking down the street, saw a sign that said “nails” and we were all about it! We look in, and who do we see but a big lady in a little dress saying, “HOW ARE YOU MIS AMORES???” We had to go inside. This place was a little hole-in-the-wall room complete with a coffee pot and inappropriate drawings on the wall. Just my kinda place. She has us sit down in lawn chairs as she gets her things ready. Putting our feet in large plastic salad bowls, she got water from the hose outside and filled them halfway full. She then proceeded to wash out her coffee pot and heat water in it, filling the other half of the salad bowls to make the water nice and lukewarm. By this point I was having fun. Remembering that every experience should be a story for later, which this one definitely was J

            After soaking our feet in half coffee/half hose water, she started doing our nails, using a special cream from the United States, which was in fact hair moisturizer. Yoli wasn’t with it, but I figured that both hair and nails are similar particles, so hair cream should probably have the same effect on nails, right? Who knows. She put our feet back in the water. I looked into my salad bowl, seeing coffee grounds at the bottom and a false nail from long ago rising to the top. I just smiled. Then she started to reveal her personality a bit, telling us how the world was against her “friendship” with her boss and how we all needed to be with men who were good men. She actually had some pretty good advice, and of course she mentioned Jesus at a few points. That’s pretty normal in just about every Dominican conversation.

            Then she brought out what looked like a dentist tool and worked on our nails with it. It sure felt like a dentist tool. Then came my favorite part of the whole experience. She gets out the little metal skin clipper. She says to Yolandri: “Hand me the rubbing alcohol.” She motions to me: “Hand me the cotton swab.” Homegirl takes a wets the cotton with the rubbing alcohol and lights up. The flame was half a foot high. Wasn’t no thang. She did this between each of our toes to sanitize the tools. Maybe a little more unconventional than what is done in the states, but hey. At least it was clean! Then we got our nails painted by a girl who came in later. She showed us pictures of her job at a strip club, upside down on a stripper pole. At this point none of us really knew what to say, so I say: “Que talento!” I asked her how long it took her to dance like that. “A few months,” she said, smiling humbly. I smiled, too. “Good for you,” I said.

            At the end, her boss who she had the “Amistad” with came by and invited us out to go dancing at his club that night, which we chose not to do. After a while here you learn that you can’t really trust every single person who invites you out because of your blonde hair and blue eyes. Another thing I’ve learned is to tell people that I live near Chicago when I tell them where I’m from, because no one knows where in hell Iowa is on a map. People in the States don’t even know that L

            On a serious note, I really can’t describe my time here in one single word, sentence, or paragraph. I have seen so much and learned so much about the Caribbean, the DR, and myself that I am so grateful to have had this semester to develop as an individual and a citizen of the world. Here’s a few of the things that I have learned:

1)      I am a feminist. Whereas before I always wondered whether I would consider myself to be one, now I am completely convinced that I am. The fact that women and men are not given equal positions in the world is something that I constantly find myself fighting against here. Against machismo, against men controlling women. Against men beating women and it being considered ok. Against sexual assault. Against women being told exactly how they should dress and exactly how they need to act and what their role is in life. It’s something I am conscious of every day…every time someone tells me to straighten my hair, to wear a dress, to look sexy, to smile back at men in the street, it’s all because there’s something expected of women that I truly don’t agree with. I will leave my hair curly, I won’t wear makeup, I’ll keep my jeans, thank you very much J

2)      Learning English is important. While many people consider teaching English abroad another form of imperialism, I beg to differ. While I don’t agree with the fact that English is the dominant language of the world and I think it’s sad that everyone has to adapt to it, the fact of the matter is that as we become more of a global community, we are developing a universal language, which happens to be my native tongue. For this, I am extremely lucky. English brings people opportunities and can help them understand better the world around them. In the Caribbean, a lot of English is spoken, and those who don’t know English are at a true disadvantage because it’s becoming a necessity within the DR and the world. Maybe it’s not right that everyone should have to value English more than their own language, but logically it makes sense to teach English so that we can promote equality and equal opportunity for all.

3)      I want to come back to the Dominican Republic. For a while there, I was very frustrated with this country. The constant God talk that I can’t participate in, the machismo, the dress code. But sometimes that blinds me to how beautiful the culture really is…the ethnic mix of Spanish, Taino and African, the food, the importance of family, the slow pace of life. No culture is perfect and I won’t ever fit in just perfectly anywhere I go. The question is: where can I make the biggest difference? Where can I be the most useful? Over these months I have gained a deep understanding of the social and economic issues of this country, and I’ve seen so many people and organizations doing good work here because they, too, believe in the country’s beauty and doing good things for its people. I am one of those people. Whether or not I agree with how this society works, I understand it. And that makes me resourceful and useful. So guess what. I will be coming back. But this time I’ll be coming back not simply to learn and observe and have fun, but to have a positive impact and to make a difference. I hope that I can do this soon in the future.

Well, that was a bit of laughter and an important bit of reflection for ya. These last days, I am going to have fun, spend time with my friends, and enjoy being here while I still can. And be back home to Iowa before I know it J

Un Funeral

            I wanna dedicate this blog to my friend Catalina, one of the most beautiful, deep-thinking, and open-minded people I have ever met.

            First of all, classes are going well. They’re hard at times, but going well. I know, all of my Facebook pictures are of the beach so one might think that I don’t go to class. I promise I do! J My Culture and Society of the Hispanic Caribbean class is interesting…sometimes I feel like I don’t know what’s going on. Maybe it’s because my professor is quite possibly the most philosophical person in the Hispanic Caribbean or maybe it’s because it’s at 8 in the morning. Could be either one. I gave a presentation the other day on Cuba, about its history and its government. Surprisingly I found that I already knew most of that stuff (probably from my previous Che Guevara obsession). Then we watched a film called Bitter Sugar, which if you haven’t seen it, you really should. Cuba is such a provoking topic of conversation because you really can’t talk about its current situation without also talking about the United States. In fact, you can’t talk about any Caribbean island without mentioning the United States. Sometimes it’s amazing to me how our country has had such a profound impact on all these islands, all these nations. I now understand how it feels to be from a place whose economy, whose future, somewhat has to rely on a greater power. It’s something that we in the US never really had to deal with because we have always had the upper hand in the situation. All the dictatorships that we have put in place in Latin America and the Caribbean, all the money we have gained from them. It’s very humbling to be on the other side of the story and to find the balance between feeling guilty and understanding the situation. Overall goal: recognition. Because feeling guilty about it doesn’t do any good unless that guilt motivates you to want to do something about it, like educate others J

            Apart from this, something happened last week that deeply saddened me and made me very vulnerable. In the Dominican Republic, funerals are different than in the United States. Here, they often take place in a house or near a road, and anyone can come by to visit the body and say goodbye. Well, when I went to teach my English class in Cienfuegos on Thursday, the road was somewhat blocked off. I couldn’t figure out why there were all these people gathered outside the Escuela where I worked. My first impression was that it was a strike, because in Chile there are strikes outside of schools every 5 minutes. But it wasn’t. I saw people crying. People were sad. I walked up to my students and asked them what was going on, and they told me that it was a funeral. Of course it was! I had been to a funeral here before (remember the really embarrassing bright orange shirt incident?) We went inside and I taught an hour of class and then let the kids out for recess. During recess, the kids went to go look at the body in the house, asking me to come with them. I couldn’t do it. The person who died was a 30-year-old man who had been shot in the head in the middle of the night. I simply couldn’t go look, not only because I didn’t want to see the body, but also because I felt that it wasn’t my place because I didn’t know this guy. I told the students I didn’t want to go, and so they went on their own. I felt extremely uncomfortable, sitting on the front steps of the school with my students, watching them go and look at the body. I tried to make light conversation, but it didn’t work. I couldn’t stop thinking about how casually they were going to look at a guy who had been shot in the head. Then we started to go back inside, when one of my girl students pulled on my arm, telling me that the boys in my class were laughing at the body. At this point, I completely lost it. I’m not an angry person. I don’t get really mad and I don’t yell. But man, did I. I told those boys to get back inside. When all the students were back in the classroom, chatting and playing, I yelled, “SILENCE!” Then I asked the boys if they had been laughing at the body. They made up some crap about how they were laughing at something else, no se que no se que. And I yelled at them. I told them that it was disrespectful, imagine if that had been your family member and you saw someone laughing at them. I don’t remember what else I said. But they listened to me. I made the whole class take a minute in silence. The whole time, I felt like bursting into tears. How disrespectful, how rude, how inconsiderate. I felt so disappointed in my boys, as if they were my own kids who I was responsible for. I let class out a bit early. And I trudged back to the PUCMM, feeling extremely sad and extremely defeated. How could they? His poor parents, family, and friends. Seeing a bunch of kids laughing in the face of his death.

            But then I started to think. Why was I so much more upset than the rest of the kids about it? Because I’ve never been in that situation before. Sure, I’ve been to funerals. I’ve seen some suffering in my time. But for me, this was not casual. For these kids, it was. They’ve seen this before and to them, it’s just one more death of a young person in the neighborhood. A dead body? Hey, sure, let’s go look at it and see what it’s like. I come from a middle class background in the rural Midwest in which we are lucky that things like this are such a rarity. It was quite a bit of a culture shock for me, seeing all this happening and as a sociologist always trying to see the bigger picture. And the bigger picture is that I work in one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in the city of Santiago, and things like this happen all the time. I’m just not used to it. But it does no good to turn the other cheek and pretend like this isn’t happening. Even though it was hard on me, it was good for me because I learned and came to some self-realization. Next time this happens, I won’t get angry. I won’t yell. I’ll try to put myself in their shoes and be more open-minded about the situation. Being vulnerable is good sometimes because it teaches you to think more broadly and you are forced to learn. This isn’t to say that it’s ok to laugh at someone’s dead body, but everything is contextual, isn’t it?

            Sorry that the blog wasn’t exactly light-hearted, but one thing I’ve learned is that although it’s good to be care-free sometimes, there are some times when we have to care. Ignorance is not bliss J Thanks for listening, loves.

Dia Internacional de la Mujer

She is a woman

Hear me out

Listen to these stories

About everyday women

And think a bit.

Be proud

Because although we face these issues

We are strong

And we’ve come a long way

And we can.

-Thank you-

Anna

She is a woman. Once a month, she is reminded that she is a woman. She becomes bloated. Her cramps are torture. When she cries at a movie, she is told that her PMS is acting up and that she needs to get over it. PMS. PMS. PMS. She is made to think that her period makes her weak. So she becomes emotional. She becomes irritable. And she blames it on her pre-menstrual syndrome. Her boyfriend tries not to say anything stupid. Her friends are wary. But all women are emotional, so it’s ok. She’s just PMSing like every other girl on the planet. God, isn’t that annoying. Aren’t girls annoying sometimes. Their hormones are acting up again. Can’t they just get over it and be tough like men? She thinks about it one day. Why is she sad? Why does she feel emotional? Because that’s what she’s supposed to feel. Her period makes her weak. But this doesn’t make sense. This means that all women are weak. But we aren’t, are we? She smiles. She takes a Midol for her cramps and she goes to the gym to work out. She watches a movie with her friends and cries, not because of PMS, but because everyone cries at the dog dying. She refrains from certain activities but otherwise lives her life like normal. She handles her week-long episode with grace. Because she does it every month. Because we all do it every month. We are tough, and what doesn’t kill us will always make us stronger. This includes her period. It’s not a weakness. She is a woman.

She is a woman. Every day she wakes up at 6:00 AM to get breakfast on the table for her kids. Before anything, she drinks a cup of coffee before even beginning to think about the day ahead of her. She reaches into the cupboard and grabs the old Washington D.C. mug that her daughter brought her from some leadership conference. She pours the black coffee into the mug and immediately begins to gulp it down. It’s 7:00 and the kids haven’t woken up yet. She groans, going to each of their rooms and waking them up one by one. They come down to eat breakfast, then rush off to school, barely catching the bus. She cleans up the breakfast dishes. She goes to the grocery store, with her long list of supplies and all of her coupons ready, because she’s here to do business. As she waits in the same long line as she waits in every week, she glances at the magazines. Looks like the university she attended has added a new international studies department, sending students all over the world. She probably could have done something like that. She buys her groceries. She returns home to an empty house and begins to clean it. Mondays are bathroom days. After eating lunch, she sits down with a good book and gets lost in it, in her own world. She snaps back to reality when the phone rings. It’s the blood bank, and they ask her to donate blood. She donates blood, and then decides to stop by Pier One to see what they have in stock. The woman at the counter has seen her before and begins a conversation, in which the question is asked: “Where do you work?” She doesn’t like this question. “I work at home,” she replies confidently. The girl now seems somewhat less interested, and gives a little smile. She leaves the store. She goes home to prepare dinner, exhausted, feet hurting, and wanting to sit down. Her kids come home, telling stories of what happened in school. She hands a letter to her daughter, a letter from a college she applied to. The daughter opens it nervously, looking to her mom for guidance. And when she opens it, the look of glee and her warm embrace remind her why she chose to stay home as a mother. Because now her daughter might not have to. She smiles and celebrates with her kids. Sure, she could have been a CEO of a company. But nothing compares to the relationship she has with her children. And she chose her family. To her kids, she is a hero. She is a woman.

She is a woman. On a Friday night, she gets dressed with her sorority sisters to go out and hit the frats. They put on their black miniskirts, high heels and their big earrings, looking good and feeling ready to have a fun night of dancing. They go. They take shots. They laugh and they dance. She catches the eye of a guy across the dance floor. He looks her up and down, liking what he sees. He approaches her, dancing with her back to him. She’s still having fun. He brings her a blue drink. She hesitates, but decides to drink it. Her friends are with her. She is safe. But things become different. The dancing becomes dirtier. She sees the other girls, looking at her and raising their eyebrows. She starts to worry. Am I being a slut? But things become dizzy. He begins to kiss her neck. And after that…she doesn’t remember a thing. She wakes up the next morning, alone in a bed in a room she doesn’t recognize. She is scared. She tries to find her phone, with no luck. Her clothes are nowhere to be found. She finds a random shirt and pair of shorts and runs out of the building as fast as she can. She was at the same fraternity. As she walks back home across campus, afraid and confused, a group of prospective students walks by, staring at her. The boys smile. She thinks she might throw up. She goes home and immediately showers. Later they tell her that showering was a mistake. She hurts. She aches. What happened that night? As the day goes on, she realizes what happened. She feels disgusted with herself. Why did I allow myself to drink that much? Why did I dress like that? Why did I dance with him? I can’t believe I did that. She feels guilty and depressed. She blames herself for what happened. She doesn’t talk to anyone. She says nothing. She sees him on campus. He winks at her. She feels like puking. She can’t talk. They will blame her. Finally she tells one of her friends. Her friend is shocked and angry. How could he do that to her? Maybe it wasn’t her fault. With some support, she tries to press charges. She tries. And tries. And tries. But to no avail. There is no physical evidence. She was intoxicated. Who knows what happened? She knows what happened. She is without luck. But this does not stop her. That night was not her fault. She did not consent. There are a million ways to say no but only one way to say yes. She gets up the courage and she tells people what happened. And they listen. And they stand by her. She no longer feels alone. She can fight this with her fellow women. One night of a man’s selfishness cannot ruin her self-esteem or her life. She holds her head up high. She’s strong. She is a woman.

She is a woman. She goes to work in the morning. The parking spot which has been hers for the past five years is taken up by a shiny black BMW. She groans. She walks in the building. All the young men in their entry-level jobs look her up and down, saying their usual sneers. She goes to her office. The project she has been working on for the past few months is all ready on her desk. Today, she will show it to her boss. She will get the promotion. She goes early to prepare for the meeting. “You ready, Jackie?” says one of the board members, an older man named Bill. Her name is not Jackie. She smiles, nodding. He laughs, making her feel the need to laugh nervously too. She needs to impress these people. In come the other members, talking amongst themselves. She stands alone at the front of the room, waiting for them to stop talking. “Excuse me,” she says. No one hears her, and the sound of their voices begins to ring in her head. “Excuse me,” she says again, a little louder this time. Nothing. She begins to sweat. Her heart is pounding. “EXCUSE ME!” That’s it. Every male face looks up at her, surprised, as if they had no idea she was ever there. Her boss tells her that a lady in an office should never shout like that. She pretends to agree with him and apologizes, and begins her presentation. She has been practicing for months. She is prepared to answer any question thrown at her. She knows every part down to a tee. She projects well, she flows well, and she is effective. The whole time, she looks at the back wall instead of at the men sitting around the conference room. When she is finished, she smiles and lets out a big sigh of relief. She is going to get the promotion. Then she looks at the board members. Some are looking out the window. Some are doodling in their notebooks. Some have their eyes closed. The smile fades from her face. “Does anyone have any questions?” Not one of them looks her in the eye. “No, Jackie, that’ll be fine,” says her boss. She sits down at her seat, confused. The next turn goes to the new young man from New York, who gives a five minute speech about the same topic, telling jokes to impress the bosses. At the end of his talk, the board members cheer and laugh. She sinks in her seat. She is not getting the promotion. Later she gathers the courage to confront her boss. Before she can say a word, he asks her to get him a cup of coffee, cream and two sugars. Frustrated, she does so. She then asks why she did not get the promotion. He tells her that he prefers her to be where she is at right now in her workplace. “But Jackie…maybe if you would have tried a little harder to, you know, please the guys, smiled at them a little more, put on a little more makeup, maybe that promotion would have been yours.” At this moment, she quits her job. If her employer can’t see her worth, then he is not worth it. As a woman she has to work twice as hard to prove herself. And it’s not fair. But she doesn’t need this job. She takes her skills and expertise elsewhere, and makes herself truly useful in the world. Because she works hard. Because she is worth it. Because she matters just as much as any man in her workplace. She is a woman.

She is a woman.  She goes to the beauty salon. All she wants is to get her nails done. She walks in and sits down at one of the booths. “I’m sorry…” says one of the women. “You can’t sit there.” She doesn’t understand. Why can’t she sit there? She looks around the salon. And everyone is staring at her. But she can’t understand why. She asks where there is room for her. Another woman tells her that maybe she better go shopping for bigger clothes before trying to fix her nails. Her heart sinks. She looks at all the women. She knows immediately what they are thinking. She is pregnant. It was an accident. And he left her, only after giving her a black eye. Alone. How is she supposed to buy new clothes if she can’t even pay her rent? Here they are, these women from the outskirts of the city, dressed in brand name clothing and wearing pearl earrings. Legs covered, of course. Judging her. She looks down at her own body. Her shirt is too small, she knows. Her growing belly makes her belly button piercing show. Her high heels come from Good Will. She is wearing shorts that don’t cover her bruised legs. She looks back at the other women, who now avoid her eye contact. All she wants is to get her nails done. She walks through the wave of Chanel perfume and Coach bags and sits down in an empty seat. One of the workers is nice enough to attend to her. But she can still feel the wrath of the ladies, feel their eyes staring at her. Feel their eyebrows raise. Feel their whispers in each other’s ears. Someone utters the word “trash.” She almost begins to cry. She doesn’t belong here. She shouldn’t have come. But the woman working on her nails tells her not to worry and gives her a smile. This smile is enough to encourage her to stay. To keep going. To go to other salons. To wear whatever she wants. To show off her pregnant belly. To wear as much makeup as her heart desires. Because she has the right to wear whatever she wants. Because she can. Because she won’t be affected by the criticisms of her fellow women. Because she loves herself. Because they’re not the ones who have to deal with a big pregnant belly. Because she’s a fighter. She is a woman.

We should be treated equally

So let’s support one another

So that these stories like this don’t happen anymore J

Thank you for reading 

Feliz Dia de Amor y Amistad

Time sure passes by quickly here. I can’t believe that it’s already February 15 and that in two and a half months I’ll be back in the States. Yes, this is one of those life reflection blog posts, so if you’re not in the mood you don’t gotta read it!

So yesterday was Valentine’s Day. I can’t quite remember ever really celebrating Valentine’s Day before in the proper way (you know…going out to dinner, receiving roses and chocolates, etc). Well, if you know me well enough you know that I don’t particularly like receiving gifts such as flowers and jewelry (notice that chocolate was not included in that category…). I’d probably rather get a free hug or honestly a Corona with lime will always do the trick! In fact, this is one of my parents’ many ways of showing me that they love me. Every time I come home from school (which is only a few times a year), there is always a pack of Coronas waiting for me in the fridge. Nothing on earth is more satisfying than sitting down with my dad after a six-hour car ride by myself through the rural Midwest and drinking a Corona. Thanks guys for sharing the love!

And now it’s my turn to share the love. I have heard a lot of people say that Valentine’s Day is such a commercial holiday and it’s only for people who have husbands or boyfriends. Now, let me ask you a question. What is the theme of Valentine’s Day? LOVE. Now, if you’re single and bitter about not being in a relationship, I still don’t think you can sit there and tell me you’ve got no love in your life. If you have family, if you have friends, if you have passion, you have love. Something about the Dominican Republic that is really beautiful is that Valentine’s Day is called the day of love and friendship. I really appreciate this because it doesn’t exclude people from the category for not being romantically involved. Here, Valentine’s Day is for everyone to celebrate. For example, yesterday I received two Valentines from two of my Dominican friends and my friends from our exchange group and I all went out to dinner last night to celebrate Valentine’s Day. Do I have a husband/boyfriend? Nope. But that doesn’t mean I can’t celebrate my loved ones. I hope no one reading this was sitting by themselves in front of the TV on Valentine’s Day, watching The Notebook and eating chocolates and crying like Bridget Jones. This probably just made you feel a whole lot worse, my bad!

For me, Valentine’s Day is a special day to celebrate all those people who I love. And I love a lot of people from all over the place! So this Valentine’s Day season (sorry for sounding like a commercial) don’t sit around and mope if you aren’t in a relationship. Appreciate all the other kinds of love that are in your life and take this opportunity to let people know you love them! Thanks for listening J

Cienfuegos

Hey Anna fans! It has been over a month, which means one down and three to go! As exciting and thrilling as that sounds, it’s also really scary because it won’t be too long before I’m back in the states. This past month has been terrific, full of good, bad, and sometimes humorous memories.

            Along with my “studies” at the PUCMM, another part of my study abroad experience is community service. I have to tell you, at DePauw I am not nearly as community service-oriented as I should be. I mean, there are people who go to visit the elderly, people who pick up trash, people who work with kids, people who do all sorts of good. And I ain’t one of them! But I think after this semester, I’m going to have to start. For my community service portion here in the DR, I am teaching English to 8-13 year olds in an area of Santiago called Cienfuegos. Now, the area where I live is really nice and calm (of course because it’s next to an esteemed private university…) The only part of my neighborhood that isn’t nice is the weird hole-in-the-wall patio thing where men (young and old) come to get drunk and play dominoes. I think this little area across from the colmado was built for good purposes, like a place for people in the community to gather and visit on a Sunday afternoon after going to church. Well, it has fulfilled its purpose to some extent because people definitely gather. They come from different parts of the city to sit in this area, listen to music, and drink. Sometimes they’re there, and sometimes they’re not. If I’m walking home and I hear music coming from the area, I am damn sure to cross the street to the other side because even though I can’t avoid the whistling and cat calls, I can avoid them trying to touch me! This almost always results in me walking on the side of the street of the colmado, where Angel Eyes works, thus resulting in a conversation that I can never remember because I am distracted by the dark eyes that look into my soul. I think I wrote about Angel Eyes last time in my blog. Still there…still has angel eyes…and still has a 4-year-old child, as I found out the other day. Interesting…

            Anyway, as I was saying, my neighborhood is definitely one of the nicer ones. The neighborhood I teach in is a bit of a different story. In order to get there, I take two different conchos (remember…the cars that have a fixed route that fit seven people?) and then walk a bit. I have to admit, before I started going, I was a little scared because everyone told me to be careful when I was in that area. “Oh Anna…you’re teaching there? Be careful!” “Anna you better not bring a purse…” “Anna I don’t know if that’s such a good idea!” So I was literally expecting to be like a soft and tender lamb walking into a savannah full of flesh-eating lions. Turns out, Cienfuegos is not as bad as I expected. Yes, it is much poorer than the area I live in, and yes, I have to be a lot more careful, but as long as I’m not stupid (which I would like to think that I’m not), I’m just fine. Honestly, the part that freaks me out the most is the place in which I have to switch conchos. This part is conveniently located on a corner right outside of a mechanic garage. You can imagine the kinds of comments I get when I get out of the M concho and wait on the corner for the F. “Gringaaa, ven aqui!” “Que rubia mas lindaaa” “Que Dios te bendiga, mi rubia!” Yes, you’re gonna have to use Google Translate for that. One time one of those garage dudes actually approached me and tried to touch my shoulder and talk to me. All you have to do is ignore, because if you give these guys a look in the eye or a smile, they will assume that you are interested, and let me tell you, this girl is not interested! So I go on my way to the Escuela Nuestra Senora de la Luz. The place where I teach English is a kind of community center which was founded by the Catholic Church. It is important to have places like this in communities like Cienfuegos because it gives people opportunities to advance in their own neighborhood and on their own time. They offer classes in technology, English, basic skills, and other things which are useful in applying for jobs. I, of course, teach in the English department. I have had a little experience teaching English, but not much. So here I am, in the ghetto, teaching four hours a week of English class to 8-13 year old kids. Am I up for that challenge? Hell yes I am! My students really are fantastic. I have around 15 of them, and they are all really special. I know that sounds cheesy but I don’t care. I love em! The first day of class I had them play a name game, which turned out to be a bigger challenge than I thought. Not because they didn’t understand the game or because of the language barrier, but because of their names! Dominicans have a tendency to have really strange names, as I believed I’ve mentioned before. I swear that every day is a new adventure just learning new names. Not to mention that there are two sets of twins in the class, one set of girls who are named Aida Nelly and Aida Yeli. I have no idea what kind of weird mix of celebrity names gave birth to these ones, but man do I struggle with them. Saying students’ names in class is a consistent ride on the struggle bus. I mean, there is a Ramselys, a Darleirys, and every other strange one you could think of. What’s interesting is that I’m the foreigner and yet I feel like my name is the easiest. I like my name Anna, mainly because it exists in a lot of different languages, it’s simple, and everyone can pronounce it. (Thanks, Mom and Dad).  My housemate Katie has become “Catty” here in the DR. Knowing that my name will remain the same wherever I go gives me a nice peace of mind.

            What I like most about my students is that they really want to learn. I can’t imagine teaching a class full of students who are apathetic and don’t care about the material. Now I got mad teacher respect! I was surprised at how easily teaching English came to me. I formulate lesson plans, but I’m also flexible so that if there is something else the students want to learn, I work with that. Sometimes you really just have to go with the flow, because there is no consistency when it comes to the group and how they are feeling on a day-to-day basis. I teach them for two hours at a time, which is a bit lengthy for young preteen minds, so I give them a small recess in between. Sometimes we will go over certain vocabulary words and then all of a sudden we start to have really thought-provoking discussions. The students are eager to learn about me and where I come from and what I do, where I’ve been. I try to tell them about me as accurately as possible without making it seem like I am more important or that my culture is more important than theirs. It’s a hard topic because although I truly believe that learning English is an important key to success in the world we live in, I don’t believe in devaluing other cultures or their language.

Some of these discussions are pretty funny, though. For example, when we were learning about numbers, I asked each of the students how old they were in English. And then I made the mistake of asking them how old they thought I was. Now, I’ve been told plenty of times that I look seventeen years old. Trust me, my ID gets asked for in all realms of life. I hate that now, but maybe I won’t in ten years or so. “Class, how old do you think I am?” First, I got eighteen. Not too bad, sometimes I still feel like I’m eighteen years old. I smiled and said, older. Then I got 25. That ridiculous smile I had on my face began to dwindle. I could feel my eyebrows raising and my heart pounding…twenty-five? Damn…who knows what I’ll be doing when I’m twenty-five. Then, and I don’t know dunnit, but someone said, “Profe, are you thirty?” At that point, I lost all hope. Thirty? THIRTY? This was a prime coming-to-Jesus moment. I may or may not have had to sit down in my seat. I can’t quite remember what I said next, but I think it was along the lines of, “I’m 21, damnit!” and we continued our classwork. Never again…

Besides the classroom, I’ve had many interesting adventures this month. For example, Katie and I have learned that we must never go in conchos together, because every time we do, something goes terribly wrong. We either get lost, or find ourselves in extremely awkward situations, or who knows what. My favorite time was (on a Sunday afternoon…we should known better!) we decided to go to the supermarket to buy some toiletries. Ha! A likely tale… we first took a concho to the center of Santiago to the chain supermarket called La Sirena. Was it open? Nope. Was any other shop open? Nope. So we trudged back to take a concho, and it was the exact same car we had taken to get there with the exact same driver and the exact same creepy dude sitting in the back repeating: “beautiful…beautiful…beautiful…” I’m thinking, all right Casanova, you’re really winning me over with that one. So there was a bit of awkwardness going on there, and we decided to go to a place that was SURE to be open, even on a Sunday. And was it? Nope. So after reflecting on our life and its mysteries for about five minutes, I finally called one of my friends to ask him what on earth would be open, and he led us to the right spot. WINNING. Sometimes you just have to learn the hard way that in Latin America, Sunday isn’t the day to go to the store. Thought I would have learned that by now, but life is sure full of surprises.

All in all though, I am just loving my time here. I've made some beautiful friends, seen some absolutely beautiful beaches, learned some interesting things in class, and improved my Spanish little by little. I can honestly say I'm doing my best to take advantage of the opportunities and make my time here really worth it (if you know me you know I'm all about opportunity!) And I promise, not all the men are creepy! Just some of them. Katie and I have decided that we are going to make a Youtube video of all the things that Dominican guys say to gringas. Keep your eyes peeled for it on Youtube! 

Well I have midterms next week (yes…for those of you who have seen my Facebook pictures I do do things besides go to the beach!), so I had better get studying. Hope you enjoyed my post and sorry about the scatterbrained-ness. See you next time! 

Clases y Dia de la Virgen de la Altagracia

Well hola a todos! Greetings from my third week in the DR!
Today's post I'm gonna dedicate to my experience in school. I am currently attending the Pontificia Universidad Catolica Madre y Maestra (that's a mouthful ain't it?). It's the first private, Catholic, and coeducational university in the DR. All that sounds really important doesn't and official, doesn't it? It's private, which means the tuition is expensive, which here in the Rep. Dom. means around $3000/year. Ha!  A likely tale...thought a bit about sticking around for the next year, but then I realized that Romance Languages probably doesn't exist here. Damn shame! Wouldn't mind not having more student loans to worry about...
I'm taking five classes, one of which is Caribbean dance. Yes, I am actually taking a dance class and learning how to dance if you can believe it. Right now we are learning bachata, and my profe is this short 50-year-old man who's got MAD SKILLS. My favorite class was probably last week when I had to be in front of the class in a group of four to dance the whole routine, with the security guards leaning in the windows, watching and pointing. Just kidding...that wasn't my favorite class. But I'm learning something either way :) There are three guys in my class and probably twelve or thirteen girls...lucky dudes! We have to take turns dancing with them, and now I'm a firm believer in the saying that white people can't dance. For real, though. But the good news is I've been able to use my skills in class to actually go out and dance with real people in real dancing clubs! I've got merengue down pretty well, still workin on the bachata. Dominicans are all about merengue and bachata, so I gotta learn. I've seen a little salsa too, but let's be real...I'm not on that level yet.
Apart from my dance class, I also take Culture and Society of the Hispanic Caribbean, Dominican Reality, Dominican Literature, and English as a Second Language (which is a teacher training course). So basically I'm learning all about the DR and randomly taking an English class. I've really enjoyed my Culture and Society class. We talk a lot about what it means to be Caribbean, and since I'm the only American and I'm from the cornfields of the Midwest where islands and oceans don't exist, I don't have a whole lot to add to the conversation. Today the profe happened to ask what was going on in the world in 1916, and I said, "LA PRIMERA GUERRA MUNDIAL!!!" (WWI). I was so happy to know an answer to a question that I nearly fell out of my chair answering it. I think I may have gotten some strange looks, but that's ok. Got my participation point! The teacher almost patted me on the back, saying "very good, Anna...". Felt like a happy third grader who just dominated her solo on the recorder in music class. Since there are only 5 people in the class (myself included), we are each placed in a group of...one. Shocking, I know. We each had to answer a question in the form of a presentation, and mine was "What does the Caribbean mean for foreigners?" Well, I thought about people's reactions back home when I said I would be living in the DR for four months. "Wow...a four month vacation!" "Life is gonna be so hard on the beach, isn't it?" "Is there internet down there?" "They speak French, right?" Needless to say, I feel like many Americans don't really know a lot about the Dominican Republic, despite the fact that there are over a million Dominicans living in the US and it's only a two hour flight from Miami. Not that it frustrates me or surprises me in the slightest. So for my presentation I presented two foreign viewpoints of what the Caribbean means. I first talked about the vacation aspect, the white sand beaches, the ocean, the beautiful weather and palm trees. When we think about the Caribbean, of course this is the first image that comes to mind. Cruises, vacations, resorts. But the reality of the situation is that this is not the reality that I'm living, nor is it the reality of the majority of Dominican people. Dominicans work, Dominicans study, Dominicans go out just like we do. Most have a life that has nothing to do with the beach or tourists. And this is the reality that I've been trying to capture while being here. The other lado I presented in my presentation was that of mission work and poverty. I know many Americans who have come to the DR to do mission work and work with poor kids and in clinics and orphanages. While I think this is good work and I certainly think it's useful and thoughtful, I feel as though it also provides an image of the DR and the Caribbean that isn't entirely accurate. Of course there is poverty, of course there is starvation. But not everyone in the Caribbean lives like that. I think that's another image that Americans have of the Caribbean, that the citizens are all dirt poor and have nothing but the tourists and mission workers to come help them and boost their economy. I told this to my class, and they agreed with me in that the reality of most Dominican people is something somewhere in between the beaches and the slums. I think my classmates appreciated my honesty in what Americans truly think about this country and region, and what I once thought as well. Well, needless to say my mind has changed a lot over the course of only three weeks. I think it has to do with the fact that my stay, while temporary, requires me to get out of my comfort zone and to try to blend into society (I say try because it's hard to do with my blond hair and blue eyes ;)), which is something that I think tourists and mission workers don't have to necessarily do, per say. Not to say that my experience is any better or more meaningful, but I think it presents a side of the story that most people don't get from being here for other purposes.
Well, ignoring my little rant back there, I do have a funny story to tell that has nothing to do with class or my university! So the other day my host mom asks me to go out and buy her some ripe plantains at the corner store. So I say sure and she gives me the money to go buy them. I go and ask the store lady whose name I still have trouble pronouncing for some ripe plantains. Dominican names are weird, by the way. Sometimes I really wonder where they came from, because a lot of them sure aren't Spanish. There are some funny Youtube videos about the origin of Dominican names. Anyway, so then she shows me where the bananas are, and they looked quite small to me. And of course, the delivery boy named Santos with the angel eyes starts picking them out for me, smiling the whole time. Literally, I could have walked away with ripe anything and not been paying attention. So I pay for them and go home to a laughing host mami. "Anna, you brought me guineos, not platanos!" Apparently, I had brought home bananas instead of plantains. I'm from Iowa, it's not like I know the difference! So then she had to call and ask Angel Eyes to deliver her the right kind because the gringa doesn't know the difference between the two. Embarrassing much? Nah...
I have to say, Monday was probably the most interesting and weird day of my stay in the DR. It was a holiday to celebrate el Dia de la Virgen de la Altagracia, one of the many Catholic Dominican holidays. My host mom told us that we were going to go to the campo, so I was pretty excited because I love to go to the campo. We first went to the house of my abuelos paternos, who had come from Spain and started a coffee plantation. They had huge tracks of land and a beautiful house, and when my papi was a kid they had over 300 workers working on the harvest of the beans. I got to see where they roasted and did all of the manufacturing, which now is an old barn but I there is still machinery from the old times. The old plantation is no longer in use because the damn Taiwanese people took over the market. Not sure how that happened exactly but I guess it did. Then we went to a funeral of a brother of my host mom's sister-in-law (I think.) It was quite sad, and it wasn't exactly the time or place to meet people and make friends. Katie and I felt like it wasn't exactly our place to be there, since we didn't know this man or anyone else at the funeral for that matter. I wasn't aware that we were going to the funeral, so of course that day I decided to wear my one bright orange shirt. Classic Anna. Stood out like a sore thumb. After sleeping in the car for a bit, we went to the house of my host mom's aunt. And this is where it got...interesting. Katie and I were sitting outside, awkward as ever, when from inside all the women of the family began to chant this song, in voices that I didn't know were possible or could sound so...undesirable. It sounded kind of like a chorus of roosters, and they started repeating the same song over and over. My host brother smiled at me because he saw that I was trying to refrain from laughing. I asked him if we should go inside, and he gave me the look of death and said, "NOOOO!" I think that was the moment when I burst out laughing. Then our tio came over to us and said, let's get out of here. I have never been more grateful in my entire life. He took us to the river where the young people were, and we had some fried fish. He was very impressed by the fact that I knew how to milk a cow, as he had cows in the campo. It was a nice opportunity to bond with new family members. He proceeded to make fun of the singing women, and I immediately felt more comfortable. On our way back, he started listening to rap music on the radio and dancing. Funny guy...was so grateful to him for saving us from the Altagracia. It was an experience, though.
Gotta go to my ESL class but next time I'll write more! Enjoy!
Anna

Excursiones

Today I seem to have most of the afternoon free, and since the weather’s not looking too great (I know…that’s shocking) I figured that I would take some time to write in my Blog.

As always, things are going well. I’m healthy, eating like a sow, studying a little, and tanning a lot! So far, our ISA group has had two excursions. The first excursion was to Santo Domingo, which is the capital city of the DR, and the second was to Puerto Plata, a big tourist destination on the coast with some pretty beautiful beaches. That was pretty painful to endure, obviously. J Santo Domingo was pretty amazing…I have some photos on Facebook but they don’t really do justice to how cool everything was. The Dominican Republic was the first European colony in the Americas, so we’re thinking over 500 years ago. Which is quite a while, and there are buildings in the city that were built that long ago and are still standing. I’ve probably never seen buildings that are more than 300 years old, so this was pretty exciting for me. Especially the church! Every time I visit a different city, I’m always sure to go to the Catholic cathedral because they are always beautiful. This one was pretty amazing. To think, the first Catholic cathedral in the Americas! Well, I know that probably doesn’t fascinate some of you as much as it does me, but if you think about the strong presence that Catholicism has in Latin America, this is where it all started. There were a lot of gringos there takin pictures of the painted ceiling, and I saw a lot of women wearing pink and red cloth skirts and shirts, and I was wondering what that was all about. Then I realized that it was because outside of the church, there is a security person checking everyone to make sure they are properly clothed so as to be respectful to the church. Well, a lot of women who come here don’t realize that it’s a long pants culture and women don’t wear shorts unless they want to get looked at. So they had a little stand to give cloth to the women to cover up their bare legs and shoulders. For us Americans this is really bizarre but hey. If you’re here you gotta comply with the rules!

This weekend was pretty great. On Friday we had an excursion to Puerto Plata (AKA Gringolandia). We took a teleferico (a cable car) to the top of the mountain, which is the only cable car in the whole country. At first, I have to admit that I was skeptical. I don’t like heights, and I certainly don’t like going in a little box held by a cord with 20 other people up the side of a mountain. But I was brave and it really wasn’t that bad. I was sure to take a lot of selfies to prove that I actually had the guts to go on it. There were about fifteen of us students, a couple Dominican guys and a poor woman in that little car together. The poor senora did not like the cable car at all…I think she shared my fear of heights. I’m not sure why she went, because she was sitting down with her head cupped in her hands and was all by herself. The fact that we were all there shouting and laughing and taking pictures probably didn’t help ease her pain. But once we got to the top, we could all see that it was worth it. It was the most beautiful sight I have ever laid eyes on (apart from the baseball field). Once again, if you have me on FB, you’ll see pictures of it. After the teleferico, we went to the rum factory, which made me want to buy bottles of rum for all my male friends and family members. Brugal rum company is the world’s third largest producer of rum, after Bacardi in Puerto Rico and Captain Morgan in Jamaica. We got to see a really old distiller brought over from Spain on the first ships to reach the Caribbean. I didn’t know that rum was made from sugar cane, but seeing that it’s produced mostly in the Caribbean, that sure makes a lot of sense. When we went inside the factory, we weren’t allowed to take pictures. I don’t know what I was really expecting to see but it was quite funny what was inside. We go in and of course there was large metal machinery operated by a bunch of Dominican men. I think they must have been on break or something, because as we were touring they just sat there, in a row, staring and smiling at us girls as the bottles of rum flowed from one end of the factory to the other. “Pleass…yo numbah?” I think not, strange man. Nothing like a stolen bottle of rum fresh from the assembly line to lure gringas.

            On Saturday, my friends and I had quite the experience. It was the birthday of one of our friends, so we decided to go out to a club. I have never been to a club in my life, and probably would have gone the rest of my life without having gone to one. At DePauw, we have fraternities for that sort of thing. My roommate and I got all dressed up to go out and you won’t believe it but…I painted my nails. Green! The things this country is doing to me! But I was kinda proud because they matched my dress. That wasn’t an accident. So off we went in a taxi to the mall where the club was. We were told that it was on the fourth floor, so up we went on the elevator. And the fourth floor was a parking garage. We went back in the elevator and were about to go back down when one of us saw a door with lights in the parking garage. Upon checking it out, we discovered that it was in fact the club. Sketchy? Nah J So in we went. It was unlike any other place I had ever been. It was fancy, cold, and there were strobe lights and mist. There was mist. And all sorts of American techno that really wasn’t my style, but we went with it. The other girls got fancy drinks like pina coladas and sex on the beaches. Well, my last name is Butz so beer is always going to be my drink of choice. And it was that night as well. We had a good time, danced some, met some people, that sort of thing. Got home at 3 and went to church the next morning. Such little saints we are! Yesterday after church Katie and I went with our host brother to go play some basketball (because that’s his favorite sport). I may not be good at basketball but I’m always down to play a game of horse or lo que sea. We went to the cancha to play and Katie asked me how to say the game “horse” in Spanish. I didn’t know how to say it, so we started saying “caballo” (which is the Spanish word for horse). Poor Moises had no idea what we were talking about, and at first it was a struggle. Katie started to explain to him how the game worked, and he said, “Oh! Horse!” Guess we could have said that before. So we started playing and we all did really terribly. A pitiful game of horse that my family would be ashamed of! But once we started playing one on one (or rather two on one) Moises started beating us to a pulp. Man, can that kid play! I suddenly felt like an old woman trying to compete in the Olympics. Once my hip started to hurt, I started to give up. Didn’t do too badly, but I’m glad no one else was around to see the beating.

More to come! Next one’s gonna be about school. Oh joy J