fundamentos de la vida diara dominicAnna

10 shitty things about living in Santo Domingo

1. the fact that drivers use their horns as an all purpose signal with meanings including, not limited to, ¨I´m about to turn,¨ ¨I´m going keep going straight¨ ¨that girl is hot,¨ ¨I´m a bus/taxi/public car in case you were wondering,¨ ¨you´re not going fast enough,¨ and ¨you better cross the street fast, girl, cause no way I'm slowing down.¨
2. crossing streets, period (terrifying)
3. the randomly distributed piles of garbage (sometimes neatly packed into the crevices of palm trees) and the non-existant recycling system
4. feeling like I have to change my clothes/bathe 2 or 3 times a day because I´m so sweaty (and it´s only gonna get hotter)
5. when people speak english to me just because I'm white (do I speak spanish to people just because they look latino? I don't think so)
6. the fact that at my "pasantía", or internship (I'm working at a orphanage/school for girls) I am told to "teach english" to a random conglomeration of girls with various levels of literacy and styles of learning with no preparation or qualification or materials or anyone to explain things to me and students who won't pay attention no matter how many times I yell CALLENSE
7. the ingrained, accepted racism
8. in a lot of ways, my classes are a joke, full of busywork and teachers who don't care
9. being pestered by aggressive street vendors who inspire as much pity as they do annoyance
10. the frustration that comes day after day from not speaking spanish perfect perfectly, from forgetting the word, or the verb tense, or the proper form of "you."

15  marvelous things about the same experience:

1. Doña Iris Grullón de Mondesert (Mimima) and every member of her family I've met (Iris, Victor, Gabriel, Henri, Daniela, Carina, Andre, et cetera)
2. the plants, the flowers, the trees, the colors! (the Botanical Gardens!)
3. pineapple, papaya, banana, lime, orange, zapote, mango, avocado
4. Frito-Lay "Platanitos del Caribe," like potato chips but SO MUCH BETTER
5. the boys at Bonó Institute (especially Pedro, Dominic and Carlos): friendlier than you can ever imagine and so funny you don't have to understand what they're saying to think it's hilarious
6. The wonderful girls (and a few boys) at the Hogar Escuela Doña Chucha. The fact that I walked in this morning and was greeted by a million yells of PROFE! (I'm a profe?!) and little hands and little hugs and the sweetest faces. The combination of adorable, polite, and dominican street attitude they all exude. Being the teacher, figuring it out, coming up with things to do, no matter how ramshackle (and frustrating) the process may be.
7. Sunbathing, frolicking and swimming in the ocean every weekend. In January.
8. Victor's yoga class: $15 per month for two classes each week, where Aly and I get to stretch and relax under a starry sky and warm breeze and the impeccably relaxing instructions of Victor, and try to make friends with Dominican hipsters.
9. Bachata: really! If you listen to it now you'll think I'm absurd, but the cheesy, sentimental, repetitive, insanely catchy, happy-sad love songs have worked their way from the blasting speakers of the guagua into the depths of my heart.
10. The staff at CIEE: unfailingly helpful, incredibly kind, thorougly knowledgable, 99% Dominican (considering Robin, the Californinian Lewis & Clark graduate who's lived here for three ish years).
11. The colonial zone: as old and lovely as any place in Europe, but with that extra Caribbean flava
12. The general cultural attitude of positivity and strength (PA'ADELANTE!)
13. Morir Soñando smoothie. Look it up.
14. Mamajuana: herbs and spices + rum + red wine + honey + time, mmm
15. Dominican Spanish: 

• chulo/jevi/nítido/chevere: cool
• chin/chinchin/chininin/ñinga/ñingita: a tiny bit
  
• que lo que/ dime/ dime a ver/ que tu dices: what's up
• ahorita: just before OR just after right now
• vaina: anything. literally. depending on the intonation.

(and many more)

...ya basta, pa'ahora

phytophotodermatitis

Here's a little cautionary tale for you: on wednesday the 21 we had a religious holiday, Día de la Altagracia. So of course, we went to the beach. At the beach, we thought it would be a good idea to have a little rum with lime. This, however, turned out to be one of the worst ideas in the universe, especially for me. You'd think it was the rum that was the problem, right? Oh no, the rum was my best friend compared with that cute little green citrus I thought I loved so much. Evidently, if you have citrus juice on your skin and you come in contact with strong and direct sunlight, it causes a special kind of burn called phytophotodermatitis. I woke up on thursday with a little redness and stinging around my mouth-- and by the time I went to bed my mouth and chin were a painful and disgusting mess of blisters and scabs. I think (hope) it looks a lot worse to me than it does to every one else, and it's getting better, but oy vey, I hope you never end up in this situation. I doubt I'd have been much worse off if I kissed a hot burner.

Other than that, though, I'm doing well! Half (3) of my classes have started-- one is Latin American Literature at the Bonó Institute, and the other two are just advanced Spanish and Dominican Language and Culture at FLACSO, where the CIEE program offices are. Those last two are just with other students from my program, but the Language and Culture class is exciting because about a third of the classes will be field trips around the city. The literature class is more intimidating because it's at a real Dominican institute, not to mention an all men's school (for some reason female exchange students are allowed to take classes there, though). Even more interestingly, the vast majority of the all-male student body are studying to become priests! Knowing that, I didn't expect to meet quite such an outgoing, unorthodox, silly, and incredibly friendly group (not that I didn't expect them to be friendly, I suppose). The point is, these boys have been amazingly open and so nice to the confused gringos who invaded their institute, and I don't think the class will be too hard, either. I took a similar class at Lewis & Clark last semester, which should help, as well.


In other news, last weekend nine girls from my program and I went to the beach town of Las Terrenas on the Samaná peninsula for two nights. It was quite an adventure-- from the two men who shoved us all in the back of their pickup truck to drive us into town trying to suck all of our wallets dry (it's hard to seem really savvy and local here when you're in a largely white group of 10 girls, but with our spanish skills, we do our best) to the monsoon of rain that bombarded us during the pickup truck ride, to riding (underfed-looking) horses and mules up a muddy, rocky mountainside past breathtaking views of tropical wilderness to the enormous Limón waterfalls, where we swam in the pool and under the falls and into the caves behind the falls. Hispaniola is totally like Never Never Land-- there's lagoons and lost boys and pirates (sort of) and indians (you could say) and probably mermaids, too. Unfortunately our trip corresponded with the worst weather we've had since we've been here, but we found ways to make it fun... we played baseball with a stick on the beach and went swimming in the middle of the night and played games in the hotel room and went out dancing. Vale la pena.

I'm also really glad because Doña Iris's 19-year-old granddaughter Daniela has been staying with us these last couple of days and she's super fun to hang out with. She spent last year in Germany (she now speaks spanish, english, french and german... so jealous), so it was fun to talk about that, but like I told her it's pretty much impossible for me to form a sentence in german right now because I spend so much time trying to think and speak in spanish. But hey, THAT's getting better! I keep getting comments like, ¨what, you're American? But you can speak Spanish so well!¨I don't know if that means I'm good at Spanish or that Americans are supposed to be really ignorant). Daniela and my friend Aly and I have also started going to the yoga class that Doña Iris's son-in-law Victor teaches, which is another really lucky thing. When the weather is nice it's held on the roof of a nearby high school, under the stars and in perfect breezy warm weather. It's amazingly relaxing and wonderful.


This weekend is a long weekend since there's ANOTHER holiday on monday in honor of Juan Pablo Duarte (look it up if you're interested, I have to do it eventually). Tomorrow some friends and I are going to a Dominican music festival in Cabarete, which is a northern beach town famous for kite-surfing, which I will unfortunately (sort of) not be participating in. Aly, Hali and I are luckily traveling and staying with another grandchild of Doña Iris, Gabriel (Victor's 25-year-old son). I'm hoping it will be really fun and that I can manage to be creatively frugal with my pesos. Whoever's reading this, I really miss you, and I wish you could visit. Soon I'll tell you more about classes and whatever internship I end up with. Until then, all my love,

Anna Joy

QUE LO QUE HAY no. 1

HELLO from 12:42 pm on monday, January 12. I just finished lunch with Doña Iris Grullón de Montessert, the (vivacious and youthful) 82-year-old woman who I'm living with for the next four months. She made spaghetti and meatballs (not Dominican), fried plantains (VERY Dominican) and a salad with a homemade viniagrette (for which her daughter told me she is famous). After lunch we drank "Dominican coffee," meaning it was really strong and served in tiny porcelain cups with lots of brown

sugar. 

So I've been here now about 8 days and they've all been great. There are about 28 other students on my program (only 4 of them are boys!), all American, mostly juniors in college, and they are all really nice, friendly people who are fun to get to know. We had a really full week of orientation and exploration centered around the offices of the program (CIEE) at FLACSO- the Latin American Facility of Social Sciences, where I'm going to take three classes. The staff there are constantly friendly and unfailingly helpful: there is one middle-aged woman in charge of everything (she's also a professor at the huge university in Santo Domingo where I'm going to take two classes) and then five or six staff in their twenties and thirties who have various jobs at the office. All but one is Dominican,

and the one American (I just learned) went to Lewis & Clark and studied here with the same program I'm doing! Crazy world. 

Speaking of crazy, this is the TROPICS. I wish I knew the temperature but the point is I haven't had to wear a jacket outside even once while I've been here, not even at 1:30 in the morning. Every morning I have fresh fruit for breakfast (bananas, papayas, pineapple, etc. etc.). Santo Domingo is right next to the big, beautiful Caribbean sea, and yesterday we took a bus to a beach called Palenque where we played in the waves and sunbathed and rode a giant inflatable banana pulled by a motor boat (in JANUARY! there's pictures below... sadly not of the banana boat, wish I had a waterproof camera).

I was a little nervous when I heard that I would be staying with an 82-year-old woman who lives alone-- I had visions of a family, with little kids and relatives running around all over-- but Doña Iris is one of the most wonderful people I've ever met. You wouldn't expect me to have much in common with a catholic

 Dominican mother of 5 and grandmother of 14, 62 years older than me, but I agree with and admire her beliefs and philosophies almost always when we talk, about religion, relationships, marriage, all sorts of things. She regularly reminds me of the importance of having a Positive Attitude, Moderation in all things, and keeping an Open Mind. If I can feel half as good about about life when I'm her age I'll be ecstatic. She inspires me. 

I don't know what else to say, ask me questions! Oh and YES I'm speaking Spanish and I think it's getting better. It's fun. Here are some photos for you. Til next time...

I miss you,

Anna Joy