Alyssia
Psychology Undergraduate |
Alyssia
Psychology Undergraduate |
Friday 1/20/23 Today we took a trip to Puerto Plata to see some really cool stuff. We went to the Fort/Prison that the Maribal Sisters husbands were kept at during their assassination. I enjoyed seeing this since I wasn’t able to see the sisters houses due to sickness so it was nice to see something related to the history. We took a short walk and saw the Social Services building in PP. There they help patients with HIV, reproductive health, general checkup, domestic violence victims, psychologists, and they even have a pharmacy. Everyone there was so nice, and they showed us a lot. They talked about how they go into the communities to get patients and they even help patients get to them. It was a really cool place to be and it was free too which I liked because not many people have insurance in the states let alone in the DR. We walked around for a bit and stopped at this really cute place for lunch called Kaffe. It was really good. Then it was on to the next adventure. We took a walk down the pink street and umbrella road (see below) then we gathered in Puerto Plata square and we waited for our taxi driver. Once we were all in the bus we traveled back into Sosua to visit CONANI. This is an organization that helps children who need services. This could be children that are struggling with abuse, or who need mental health services. They also help with kids who have special needs, and they help them connect with other organizations that can help them get what they need. They even do adoptions even though its only to heterosexual couples its still interesting to hear all the things they do for the children. We got back on the bus after about 30 minutes with CONANI and took the 30-minute drive back home. Once we got back Anna went shopping with me. I was really grateful for that because I was the only one who hadn’t gone shopping yet and she offered up her time to go with me. We were put for about 2 hours before coming back home to have a big dinner with all the food we had left in our house. Saturday 1/21/23 Ziplining and Monkey Jungle time! We woke up early and headed down to the coffee shop to wait for our bus like normal. At about 8:30 am we got on the road to monkey jungle. On our way there we received what our taxi driver described as “ a free Dominican massage” because we were driving on really bumpy dirt roads. I thought this was funny. We got there and I chickened out of the ziplining. I know how silly of me. But I did get a really cool tour of the facilities at the monkey jungle and got to learn some history behind the organization. Its not just a tourist attraction. It also is called HADAC. HADAC was started in 2009 when a couple decided they would move to the Dr and start a free clinic and pharmacy to help the Dominican and Haitian communities. They would take donations from the states and fly doctors down to do clinics for the communities. All while building a zipline and rescuing endangered monkeys. The husband was an engineer, and the wife was knowledgeable in primates and other animals so it worked perfectly. They continued to build their attractions and their clinics over a few years. In 2016 the couple was flying supplies out to Haiti in their small plane. They were able to land there and drop their supplies bringing another passenger back to the Dominican with them. Unfortunately they crashed on the way back and were lost at sea. The wife’s parents decided to come down to keep their dreams running. Now they still have clinics and have doctors come from all over to help the community. They still have the ziplines and the monkeys and its absolutely beautiful there. After the tour I was invited to feed peacocks which I gladly did. I learned that only the males have the pretty feathers on them and I thought that was cool because I didn’t know that before today. I feel like that was equivalent to ziplining while others might not think so. Once the other girls got back from flying through the sky it was time for the monkeys!!!! This was the most exciting part. Once we got into the enclosure the monkeys started jumping all over us! It was so fun, and I loved it. We fed them sunflower seeds and they cracked them on our heads and left the shells in our hair. Then we got to feed them some watermelon which they absolutely loved. Did I mention they were spider monkeys? These small guys get a super specialized diet, I also learned that on my private tour. They loved us! Then we went down some rock steps to see COCO. COCO was the one of the first monkeys the original founder rescued, and boy was he aggressive at times especially when it came to food! He was really cute though. He even showed us that he can slam a large rock on the ground multiple times. The guide told us a story about how one time a woman got too close to the cage and COCO took her phone and bent it! I made sure to keep mine close by. After we fed the monkeys and said goodbye we piled back into the van to drive back home. On our way home we belted songs out and showed our taxi driver Maximo some older toons like Bohemian Rapsody. He liked that one. We immediately hit the beach when we got home it was so hot!! After sitting in the sand for a bit we all moved to the pool back at our estate. We took a quick dip and decided to tan. Well, I fell asleep… so I burned. Surprisingly it doesn’t hurt though!! I never flipped to get my back so I’m not tan at all on my back only burnt on my front. We were out in the sun for about two hours and then we went and took showers. We had another big dinner with what food we had left we made garlic bread and pizza as well as two types of pasta. Our kitchen was a disaster zone, but it was so fun to cook with everyone. We danced around the kitchen cooking and listening to a 2010s playlist. We all sat down to eat and we still had soooo much food after. Then we all went back out to the beach to just soak in those last warm night walks. When we got back to the house we started to pack and then we went to sleep Sunday 1/22/23 Travel Day
I’m writing this as I’m on my first flight home right now I’m 35,567 feet in the air and its absolutely gorgeous. This morning we got a catered breakfast from Cabarete Coffee and I made sure to pick up a few bags for my friends back home. I had peanut butter toast with bananas and a chocolate croissant for breakfast and they were so good. That is one thing Ill miss the most about the food is the homemade peanut butter. It beats storebought by a long shot. We left breakfast to go finish packing and to write blogs, which I’m doing on the plane instead. We gathered and weighed all our bags to take them downstairs. One of the women from 3MM that we worked closely with Iskania showed up to say goodbye and we gave her a big hug. Her son was there too, and he was such a cutie! I went back to my house to finish my packing and then we started loading up the van. We took a short ride to the airport and got our bags. There was a long like to check in and after that we went through security. Once we got through we had about 2 hours before our flight was supposed to leave so we all got some food and shopped a little. I got some cool candies that the states don’t have, and I’m excited to try them. Then we all got settled and waited for the plane to start boarding. Before we were allowed to board the first flight a dog had to sniff all of our carryon items to see if there was anything we couldn’t have on the plan. We all checked out with the dog and got to board. The first flight today I’m sitting with Emily and Anna, and I have a middle seat which I don’t really mind, I kind of like them. We will land in Newark New Jersey around 5 pm and then we have a three hour layover until 8:30 when we board to go home. I sure do miss the Dominican Republic and all it had to offer me these last two weeks but I’m ready to be home and in my own bed. I hope I get this kind of experience again. I am beyond grateful to have had the opportunity and all the memories that its created for me. This trip is something I will tell stories about for years. This trip has made one thing clear for me. When I come back to the DR one day I will not stay in a resort. Once you’ve been emersed into the culture there’s no better place to be than in the culture. I think a resort doesn’t give a person what Cabarete really has to offer. You must go out and seek what it has.
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Tuesday 1/17/23 Today we went to the Mariposa Foundation in the morning. At the foundation we started our day with a large circle made up of all the staff and students at the foundation. In the circle, Fernanda (a staff member who is super cool!) led. We sang happy birthday to one of the students and we introduced ourselves. We had to add a movement after we introduced who we were so I decided to do the disco dance. It was a fun way to be introduced. Then, the girls got into their assigned groups and us girls paired off to go with them. Andrea and I got paired up and we went with the 7/8-year-old group. We began our day in the Foundations library. The staff read a book about pandas to the girls, and they seemed so interested in it! They were pointing out different things about the pandas and even answering questions the staff asked them. We also got to try and learn Spanish by listening to the Spanish book. After the book was over the girls went to sit at the table and they wrote about what they had learned. The girls were practicing their uppercase and lowercase differences while doing this and the staff really helped them out and even showed them on a whiteboard. To switch subjects a staff member or student will hit a gong 2-3 times and the students know to go to the next subject. Our next subject was Softball. But it was actually kickball. I’m not sure if they call it softball there or kickball but it was still fun. It also made me realize how out of shape I truly am. This whole trip has shown me that and it made me want to get back into shape. Regardless, Kickball/ Softball was fun, and the kids were able to get some energy out. After kickball the cohort was sent to work with the sixth graders for the rest of the morning. They had cooking class today and they were learning English while doing it. We made granola together and it turned out really good! The girls were making up the rules for cooking class and what they should follow in the kitchen as well as writing down ingredients and how much they needed. Cooking truly is all subjects in one! This project took us about half an hour and then it was lunch time!! Today’s lunch we had with the girls at the foundation. It was rice and beans with avocado and cabbage salad. It was all pretty good, but I couldn’t eat it all it was so much food! After lunch we took a walk to 3MM where we did some activities with the kids. I got to finally read my bilingual book and I was so excited. Some of the kids seemed to really take to it while others didn’t really. Which I expected. It was really fun, and it felt like I was a teacher. Which has been a very weird experience for me because I’m not in school for teaching but it's so fun.!! After that we played Mr. Fox with the kids, and they absolutely loved it! It was fun to join in too! It reminded me a ton of elementary school gym. Our afternoon was short with 3MM school. That night we went home and did more activity brainstorming and had a cohort meeting. It was really fun night with everyone. Wednesday 1/18/23 Wednesday, we went back to the foundation in the morning, and we went back into the same groups we were in the day previously. We read a book about penguins and wrote about them, just like the pandas the day before. We also played softball/kickball again and I got out many times. After those two activities, us girls in the cohort were able to sit with the Founder of the Mariposa DR foundation and do our research interviews. This was where I conducted my research about Mental Health in the Dominican. Now I’m not sure if I’m allowed to talk about raw data so Ill just say that it was an extremely interesting point of view from her, and I’m excited to write about it. That took up the rest of our time at the foundation for the day so we gathered to have lunch another rendition of rice and beans (I’ve never had so much rice! But its so good!!) and we headed to 3MM. Today at 3MM we had a schedule made out of what we would be doing for the day. The first half hour block consisted of Emily reading a book and the Wiggle and Freeze game! The kids were wiggle and freeze veterans; they knew it so well!!! It was a fun activity to do with them and it even made me feel silly. Then we had a short break before the second block. We worked with the 3–6-year-olds this day. At the second block Emily, Andrea and I taught the kids about fruits in English by singing the Wiggles fruit salad song. They liked that and so did I. It felt like I was reliving a small piece of my childhood. We ended the second block with the Hokey Pokey and the kids laughed the whole time. Thursday 1/19/23
We went to the foundation again today and we worked in the same groups we had been in. We ran the morning circle this time and it was fun. We taught them our “Lets go Buffalo” chant. They also loved it just as much as the kids at 3MM did. We got to spend our entire morning with the 6th graders and see what they are working on. First I sat in on a coding class which I give lots of props to those girls taking it because I was so confused!! They seemed to really be into it and wanted to keep learning new steps. We were in there for a few hours with the girls, id say about an hour and a half. Then we moved on to the kitchen with the girls where we got to try the granola with bananas that we had made two days prior, and just as it was the first time, it was delicious! Those girls did a great job. I think the girls had a sense of fulfillment from doing this activity because they were able to see the product turn out so well. They also learned the directions to make it and learned them in English and Spanish. Then for the remainder of the class we all played board games. I taught the girls how to play Go Fish and they taught me how to play Spot It. I had lots of fun with them, I love board games so much! We played for about an hour and it was time for lunch. Before the girls went to wash their hands for lunch Janinna and Anna had the idea of a mural of butterfly hands. We got each girl to pick a color and we put paint on their hands, then they made their hands into the shape of a butterfly and put it on the paper where their name was. It was nice, and the girls were excited to get their hands on the mural. The girls in my cohort and I also added our hands. Lunch, again another rendition of rice and beans with avocado and cabbage but it was so good. We walked over to Tres Mariposa Montessori (3MM) after lunch and began by going over our schedule for the day. In the first block of the afternoon we did three different activities with the kids. We did laughing mindfulness led by Janinna which I got a kick out of and the kids did too. They all talked about how their bodies felt after and a lot said “good” or “ relaxed”. Then we went on to play the copycat game which was fun, and the kids seemed to enjoy that too. Everyone wanted to be the leader. After that it was time to do my mindfulness activity. I had chosen progressive muscle relaxation because it forces the children to only focus on which part of their body they are tensing and letting “melt” into the ground (or relaxing). Manny the Licensed Social Worker at the school helped me run this activity because I had never done anything like this with children before. I kind of let him take over and at the end of it we got some really meaningful responses from the children. The children felt more comfortable with us and were open to sharing their emotions. Since they trusted us with those emotions I wont be going into any detail but it was really rewarding to know that my activity actually worked and the children took to it. Especially after the mixed reviews my book got from the kids. We took a break for snack and to prepare for the next block. Once the break was over, we started to prepare for a biodegradable art project. Anna and Janinna came up with this really cool idea to use biodegradable plates and yarn to create dreamcatcher like projects that the children could hand outside and watch over time. The goal was to teach the kids about the rate of degradation and what happens when something does degrade. The kids loved it and were very proud of their new projects. Some decided to hang it up in the school while others decided to take them home to show their parents. We ended our last day at the school with our Buffalo chant and took so many pictures. We gave our bilingual books to Sarah at the school and she was very grateful for them. We took a picture with Frank too (I’m testing your memory on who frank is !). It was very bittersweet, and I hope I’m able to visit the schools again one day. We left the school and some of us went shopping. I stayed back to work on blogs and prepare for our dinner later that night at the Foundation. Around 6 pm everyone pilled into our taxi and headed back to the foundation to have Empanadas (they were amazing). We talked with Sarah and Tricia about what our biggest take away from the trip was. I talked about the bond I was able to establish with the kids and the impact that I hope I left. I also talked about navigating my health in a foreign country and how it really made me be independent. I talked about the culture shock that I witnessed the whole time we were in the DR. Everything is different. Not flushing toilet paper, military out and about everywhere, babies on motorcycles and motorcyclist without helmets. Everything is so different in the Dominican. The other girls went around and talked about their takeaways and we thanked our professors and the founders of the foundation and 3MM for everything they did for us on this trip. At the end of the night, we went home with a ton of Empanadas to eat! Saturday 1/14/23
This morning we got to have a free day! We were supposed to go to the Monkey Jungle and Ziplining but it was supposed to rain so we moved that adventure back. There isn’t going to be much reflection in this blog because we really only went to the beach and out to dinner, To start the morning we got to sleep in! My favorite part! Then all the girls got together and went to the beach. We took a ton of pictures and tanned. Around lunch time I came back inside and ate some snacks. I wasn’t feeling the greatest so I decided to take a nap. I woke up from my nap and some of us went out to Pomodoro for dinner. I got pizza and it was not like Buffalo at all. I really miss the pizza at home. While we were there it started raining so hard! We were the crazies who decided to sit outside under the umbrella while everyone else went inside. We called a taxi home and that was the end of our night. Sunday 1/15/23 Sunday, I woke up really sick, I couldn’t go on our trip which really bummed me out. I heard all the stories from the girls when they came back, and it sounded like such a fun time. My day consisted of a long nap and cleaning up around our house. I did start to do some blog writing but I didn’t get through much. I still wasn’t feeling the greatest when the girls returned but I made the best of the situation and I went out to the beach for a few minutes to soak in what I could of the day. I also did laundry too! Oh, and the Bills won!!!!! Even though my weekend was not how I planned it, I still got a lot done. Monday 1/16/23 This morning we started our day like we always do, at Cabarete coffee. We would be staying at Tres mariposa Montessori all day today. Today we got to have a meeting with Manny which was really interesting, and he gave us lots of feedback on our mindfulness activities that we wanted to do with the children. He helped us with our age groups and what we could do to improve the activities. I had gave him my research questions for him to answer because I was interested to see his take on what mental health really looks like in the Dominican Republic. He gave a lot of really nice feedback and talked about the ways that kids with mental health problems can get help, as well as how they can detect if something is going on with a child. We also brought our donations of yoga mats and other goodies to the school that day. We observed the upper elementary as well which was interesting because it did feel like more of a traditional school setting, but they were teaching themselves. There was less playing with materials and more notebook work. This was an interesting observation because it was so different from the other ages. There was also an interview for some of the girls research and I got to sit in on that. It was really cool because the entire interview was translated into Spanish for the teacher they interviewed. Toward the end of the day we played outside with the kids and I even got to swing with them! To end our day at the school, we got together to brainstorm activities to do with the kids at 3MM. We got together in a circle and started calling out different activities to do. We all would be reading our bilingual books and doing our mindfulness activities but we needed more to fill the time. We brainstormed songs, dances, and games to play. We came up with things like the cupid shuffle and the cha slide. We also wanted to do the buffalo chant with everyone! It was a productive day! We stopped at Ponderia for a sweet treat before ending our day at the school and it was fantastic! When we arrived home I still was not feeling good, but a girl named Maddie from the Mariposa DR foundation and her mother in law were coming over to make dinner for us all. We all went to the other girls house and that’s were dinner was made. We had delicious food, I cant really remember it all but I know it was rice and salad and some kind of meat. After we ate, I went back to my house and went straight to bed hoping to shake the sickness! Thursday 1/12/23 On Thursday morning it rained so hard! There was flooding. The cohort headed to the coffee shop to grab a quick breakfast before heading to Tres Mariposa Montessori. I got soaked on the way there! When I got to the shop my socks were so wet it could have rung them out! I ordered the peanut butter banana toast and a strawberry banana smoothie. They call it the Besito at the coffee shop. After a quick breakfast, we all loaded into our taxi and went to the school. That morning we got to do one on one interviews with the lead guides at the Montessori school. Since im not doing research that’s related to schooling systems, I didn’t have any specific questions for the guides, so I just got to listen in on others interviews and I learned a lot about how Montessori is different than traditional schooling. I also learned that many of the guides we interviewed had college degrees which differed from what we were told about traditional schools and only needing eighth grade to become a teacher. Each interview took a little while because the women we were interviewing spoke English and Spanish, and there were so many questions they had to answer. All of us girls are doing different research so we each have different sets of questions we have to ask which is also time consuming. After doing meetings with all the guides, we came back as a group to get ready for our host lunches. Anna and I walked to our host moms house and were greeted by her children in the yard. Even though it was a school day, because it had rained so bad, the streets were flooded and the children couldn’t get to school. In the Dominican, many children walk to and from school so lots of rain makes it hard for them. But, since the children were home we were able to talk in English with them. Our host moms oldest child Johnnyson talked to us about what school at Coral is like. We told him about the Buffalo Bills, and I asked if he had ever seen football (Futbol Americano). He said that he had seen a few clips on Instagram and that he sometimes plays flag football with his friends. Anna started to ask him about what he wanted to do when he got older. Johnnyson talked about how he really wanted to play soccer professionally, but the Dominican Republic doesn’t have any teams that he knows of. He also talked about opening his own restaurant in the states! We were super excited about that because if his restaurant was serving anything his mother made then we were in!! He was able to translate for us when we needed to talk with his mom, and he even taught us some new Spanish words. His mom wanted us to eat so much that I wanted to say “im trying” when she would say “eat eat eat” (she fed us so much, and I was sooooo full every time I left her house!) Johnnyson taught me that and I used that a lot! Haha! This day our host mom made us a Hatian dish called Ligume. It was very different, and I really liked it! It was hard to understand what ingredients were in it but it was really good. I know it did have eggplant in it and carrots too. We chatted for a bit while we ate and then we headed back to 3MM to take a taxi to Coral school. Once we were at the Coral school Andrea and I paired up to go to our classroom. We began by observing the class doing social studies, and then it was our time to do the lesson we had prepared. Andrea and I went to the front of the room and began to write down some vocabulary in English and Spanish about families and the Family Tree ( El Arbol de Familia) . That day we had the kids repeat vocabulary in English. For example we would say “Abuelo es Grandpa en ingles” and they would have to say the English word “grandpa”. We did this until we got through the basic family members and then we played a game with the students. We would ask them if they had a sister or brother etc. and if they did, they had to stand up. The kids got really engaged and excited when we played this and they seemed proud of their family! Once everyone was standing then we asked some more to get them to all sit down again. After that short game Andrea and I drew our families on the board. The kids were surprised to see how different our families looked from theirs. When I showed them my family I put 2 mothers on the board along with a father and they seemed a little confused but they didn’t seem to mind it at the same time. To end our lesson we had the kids draw out what their family looks like and label their family members in English. The children kept approaching us with proud looks on their faces when they showed us their drawings. It was really fun and I was excited to do it again the next day. We took up the second half of their day with our lesson, so by the time we had finished it was time to go home. Us Buffalo girls hopped on the bus to leave. This bus ride was particularly interesting because the door to the bus wouldn’t close! So some of my fellow cohort girls were siting right behind and open door that they could fall out of at any second! It was crazy! But we all made it back home safely. When we walked through the doors I went straight upstairs and rested in the air conditioning for about an hour before going back down to eat dinner. For dinner that night we had mac and cheese, grilled cheese and pineapple. Then some of our cohort girls came over to work on getting our lunch host gifts together. Anna and I got our host mom some really nice stuff for the kitchen ( will go into detail later). Andrea was over and we decided to get a headstart on Fridays lesson at Coral. We learned the head shoulders knees and toes song in Spanish so we could sing with the kids. The girls left our house after and then I wrote my first blog and went to bed. My takeaway from this day was talking with Johnnyson. Seeing that he has aspirations and dreams just like we do really made me happy. I loved to hear about what he wanted to accomplish in his life and I really hope he gets the opportunity to fulfill those dreams. Friday 1/13/23
Friday was an exciting day because it was the last day to our first full week of work! We started at Cabarete Coffee like we do every morning. The bus picks us up there. We loaded the bus and headed to Tres Mariposa Montessori. There we finished the rest of our observations. Anna and I observed the 3–6-year-olds and the 1–3-year-old. In Montessori they teach kids basic life skills like dish washing, cleaning up after yourself etc. When we observed the 1-3 yr. old’s, I saw one of them take a child-sized mop and mop around the classroom. Nobody asked the child to do this either, he did it on his own! After observing, Anna and I started talking and we definitely got closer with one another. It was nice to sit and talk with another girl in the cohort. We started to gather for the outside activities and Janinna and I decided to play with the kids. We played a game of tag and we each had a flag on our backs. Other players had to run and try to rip the flag off. If they did you were out! We played a few rounds with the kids. They also have a rope swing there. Grace and I decided to try it out. The first time I swung, I did alright. But as soon as our professors showed up to take pictures I fell really hard. I laughed it off but I was really embarrassed. This was the last day we would be visiting our host families, so Anna and I brought our presents and gifts with us to the school. Once we made it to Kerlande’s home we gave her our gifts and she was extremely grateful. It felt nice to give back to someone who, without knowing us, welcomed us into her home and fed us delicious Haitian meals. Her family became our family. She made us Sopa that day (Soup). We asked her for the recipe and she had us take a photo of the dish to reference. It was such good soup!!! It had plantains in it and carrots. It also had a type of dumpling dough and that was good too! Kerlande taught us some Creole words as well. She speaks Creole because she’s from Haiti and that’s what they speak there. She taught us what thank you is- Mesi. She also taught us Bon which means Bon appetite. These Creole words are shortened versions of French. I found out that there’s a ton of French influence in Haiti because they didn’t declare their independence from France until 1804, so the roots of the language was mostly French. It neared time for us to leave Kerlande’s house for the last time. We took pictures with her and we exchanged numbers so we could always keep in touch. It was very bittersweet. We went to Coral for our last time as well. This time Andrea and I were more prepared to teach our activity for the kids. We settled on teaching them parts of the body for this lesson. The teacher helped us to prep the board with big white paper so we could draw on it. We drew a body and began labeling the Spanish parts like hair, head, mouth, stomach, feet, etc. We taught the kids what each part was in English. While we did this, I noticed how focused the kids became and they seemed so excited to participate. The usual classroom climate was not like this, it was very chaotic and challenging to observe because there wasn’t much order in the classroom. After we had the children repeat the English words to us and we tried it a few times, we decided to play a game. In this game we would tell the kids to point to a part of their body in English. For example “A Punta a head” or “point to your head”. We did this until we got through the whole body and the kids loved it! They giggled through the whole thing. That game was quick, but they seemed to enjoy it! To end our activity, we taught the kids head, shoulders, knees and toes in English. We did the song twice and it was really fun to see the kids so excited! At the end of our visit we sat with the principal while she answered some questions for other girls in the cohorts research. When we left Coral we went back to the houses to have a girls night! We sat around with drinks and talked for hours! We even got a noise complaint. OOPSIES! I feel like I really stepped out of my comfort zone to teach because while I do work in a daycare, I don’t lesson plan or lead teach. That was my biggest take away from the day. Tuesday 1/10/23 Tuesday, we got to work and woke up early in the morning to tour the schools. Tricia, the founder of the Mariposa DR Foundation, took us to these schools and told us a little bit about them. The first school we went to was Coral. This is a private school in the Dominican Republic that goes from 1st grade to 12th. In the Dominican it's considered 1-6 Primary and 1-6 secondary school. The secondary school students go to school in the morning and the primary students go in the afternoon. While it’s a private school it did seem to lack some things that a US school would have. We saw a few classrooms and met with the principal of the school. Coral was interesting because that is one of the best options for schooling in La Cienega. After leaving there, we went to 2 public schools. These schools were different. The staff didn’t seem as interested in teaching as Coral did. If there was a teacher in the classroom the students were working alone. It definitely was different than any school in America is. I am not here to bash on a school because this is the day we learned, that in order to qualify to be a teacher in the Dominican, you only had to pass eighth grade!! That’s vastly different from the United States. In the US you can't be a teacher without a master's degree at least. Knowing this information, it made me think about the way the public schools are run here in the Dominican Republic. My favorite part of the morning was getting to visit the Mariposa DR foundation. We were greeted by absolute beauty as we entered through the gate to the facilities. Tricia told us about the Mariposa Promise. This statement lets young girls know what is expected of them and what the foundation is there to help them with. It talks about women being a step behind others and how it's not fair, but it doesn’t mean they cannot flourish. The end quote of this promise stuck with me and even made me think about myself… “You are a Mariposa. Your wings were fashioned by many hands. But only you can put them on and soar for as long as you are on this earth.” This really stuck with me because, it really makes so much sense to me. A lot of people help me along my way in this life, but if I don’t take the time and put in effort to make things happen, they never will. After reading that, the girls and I sat down under a beautiful mosaic pavilion to listen to Tricia talk about why girls' education is so important and should be focused on. Tricia talked about The Foundation and how it was founded. She talked about their future for expansion. As we kept talking Tricia started to tell us why most girls don’t finish school. She talked about how many girls are subjected to sex work and are pulled out of school to do family duties instead of learning. One of the purposes of the foundation is to keep these girls in school and to provide them with a health and safe place to learn. We took a tour of the facility which actually was an old hotel that they converted to the beautiful place it is now. Each room was named after an influential woman. The amount of Women Power I felt as I walked through that place was intense. A place for girls made by girls. It was my kind of place. We ate lunch prepared by the staff at Mariposa. That was another meal where I was nervous to try things because I am picky at home. It was good though. There were some things like cabbage salad that I didn’t like, but I was proud of myself for trying it. However, I did like the rice and pigeon peas (lentils). I even tried avocado! It's very fresh here and I thought it was just ok. Little by little I'm expanding my pallet. Once we left the foundation all of us girls decided we needed another shopping trip. We went to Janet’s grocery store and bought the essentials for the next week. My housemates and I had made a list and we took the store by storm! Us girls were in every corner of that store! I even got to use some Spanish to ask where ice cream was. Even in the Dominican I need my ice cream! After consulting with my Spanish speaking housemates (they know more Spanish than I do) I went up to a worker and asked “Donde esta el helado?” (Where is the ice cream?) The worker understood me and pointed me in the right direction. I was proud of myself! We left the store and went home to unload our groceries. After that we all decided that we were going out to dinner! The eight of us girls walked down the beach to LAX Ojo Club. It was about a ten-minute walk from our beach houses to the Club. We sat outside on the sand and all ordered drinks. I got a strawberry daiquiri. Then it was time to look at the giant online menu. I ordered the Pasta Pomodoro, and it was fresh tomato basil oil sauce and pasta. It was so good!! We sat around and laughed for hours. It was a good bonding experience. We walked back down the beach in the dark which was interesting to say the least. I was nervous about it, but I did it anyway and again was pretty proud of myself. Wednesday 1/11/23 Wednesday was the first day in the schools for us. We started our day at Tres Mariposas Montessori school. That day we talked with the founder Sarah and learned about the Montessori way and why she chose to run this kind of program. She talked about the benefits of Montessori and about the schools' future plans to build a student run restaurant and more. We met a parent at the school named Manny. He is a Clinical licensed therapist with a master's in social work. We got to listen to him talk about his ideas for the mental health clinic he wants to start with the school. He talked about the different types of therapy and that therapy isn’t just about sitting in a chair and talking about your feelings. He knows that it's important to build trust and rapport with the kids. He talked about his education path and what made him go into psychology. I took a ton away from him and I'm extremely excited to do an interview with him this coming week. I think his knowledge would really add to my research. After talking with him, we went to observe the first Montessori classroom. Anna and I learned a lot from observing the classroom. After a morning at the Montessori school Anna and I paired up and went to meet our lunch host family. Our host moms name was Kerlande. For lunch that day she prepared us chicken, rice and beans, and salad. We were at her house for about an hour, and we talked with her in Spanish (I relied on Anna a ton for help with my Spanish). It was cool to see how a Dominican family cooks and lives on a regular basis. She was so welcoming and made amazing food! We walked back to 3MM and took a taxi to Coral. At Coral, I was pared with Andrea, and we went to observe 3rd grade. This was extremely different from the Montessori. The kids were very interested in us and why we were there which was different from the Montessori where the children didn’t care about us being there. Toward the end of our first day, Andrea and I decided to start working on our lesson for the following day. The observations were very simple. Coral classrooms were chaotic. The kids get up from their seats and the teacher would just leave the room at times which isn’t normal for a US school. At 5pm we loaded onto a bus and went back home. At night we had a cohort meeting to talk about our first day at the schools. We talked about our lessons we would be teaching the next day at Coral. My partner and I decided that we would teach the kids about families in English. We got together during the meeting to start working on our lesson. We got all set up for the next day and we all went back to our homes. Before bed I had some ice cream and worked on my blog. These two days were eventful, and I learned a lot! 1/8/2023 Sunday, touch down in Cabarete! The fights were smooth. I arrived at the airport at four a.m.! It was really early, and I only got three hours of sleep the night prior, so I was super tired, but my excitement and adrenaline kept me wide awake (for the first flight anyway). As a group we went up to the check in desk at the airport and all had to unexpectedly pay 90 dollars or more to get an entrance health ticket to the Dominican. That was nerve wracking because no one was expecting to pay for something right away. After getting that small hiccup out of the way, we were off to TSA security check! Things went smoothly there as well. Then we went to our gate and boarded the first plane. That plane ride was only an hour and a half, and I had to sit next to a stranger! That was a new experience for me because I’ve never had to sit in an assigned seat on a plane. We landed in Newark and immediately started rushing to our next gate. This plane ride was four hours long, but our pilot got us there in three and a half! I started reading an enjoyable book in the beginning of the flight. Then halfway through I decided it was time to take a nap. I closed my eyes and next thing I knew we were a half hour away from touch down in Puerto Plata! Once arriving, we were greeted by sounds of music playing from three Dominican musicians. We walked through the halls of the airport taking in the hot weather. We all grabbed our bags and went through customs. Well, not all of us found all our luggage. Tamara (our professor) had a missing bag with all our school donations in it. So, while she was figuring out how to get it to our housing in the DR. Us girls were in our taxi jamming out to Spanish music with our new friend Maximo (the taxi driver). We drove about twenty minutes from the airport to the grocery store to do a quick shopping for the first two days, then to our new home for the next two weeks. Nanny Estates. It was raining when we arrived, which was a pleasant feeling after the humid taxi ride. We gathered our groceries and luggage and went inside our new house! Janinna and I were beginning to get tired, so we decided to go into the house first to look around. We chose the bedroom with the view. It's gorgeous in the morning. That night we met one of our partners from the DR foundation for dinner to talk about our next two weeks. That night we came back inside after the meeting and hung out; we had a couple drinks too. That night was the best night of sleep I’ve had on this trip so far! Overall, the travel day was a good as any travel day can be. I didn’t have to use too much Spanish on Sunday because it was a rest day so we were not out anywhere where I would have to talk to any Spanish speakers. 1/9/2023 Monday was a day of adventure! In the Dominican Republic they celebrate a holiday called Epiphany or Three Kings Day. Our beach was filled with kite surfers because Monday was the bank holiday celebration. That day we went for a kayaking trip along the Rio Yasika. We were in two person kayaks and my partner, and I were not the best at kayaking. I never realized how hard it could be to do something that from the outside looked so simple to do! We kayaked through the river to a restaurant called Wilsons which was partially flooded due to the abnormal amount of rain Cabarete is experiencing. There were a few stray dogs in the outdoor restaurant, and I wanted nothing more than to scoop them up and bring them all home to the states with me. I love them all. We had our first Dominican meal of chicken, cabbage salad and rice and beans. It was really good! On this trip I’ve decided to force myself to try almost everything at least once. I’m trying to expand my pallet as much as I can. After lunch we kayaked back to our starting point, and like I said previously my partner and I were muy mal (very bad) at kayaking. She only kayaked alone, and I have never kayaked before. On the way back we got so behind that we made good friends with one of the guides. His name is Frank. Frank did not really speak English and we didn’t speak Spanish so the language barrier made for some interesting conversation. He laughed when we would pronounce things incorrectly and then teach us the correct way to say it. We ran into the plants along the river a lot due to the lack of control we had over the kayak. Frank found this funny because we started saying “no las plantas” (No plants) and “no me gusta las plantas” (I don’t like the plants). He mocked us in a silly way, and we all laughed. He would ask us things like “is this how you drive at home?’ Which really made me laugh because I had totaled a car before, so I knew I’m not a great driver. I wish I could have told him that story, I'm sure he would have laughed about it. We continued these kinds of conversations throughout the trip which was about an hour and a half round trip. Toward the end of the trip there is this bridge that we have to pass under. Because of the rain, the river level was so high that we had to practically lay down in our kayak to go under the bridge! That was the scariest part!!! While we were ashore the girls and I got to meet our first domesticated flamingo which was cool. I’ve never seen one that close before. There were other animals as well such as a turtle which I befriended (see picture below). After leaving kayaking, the girls and I decided it would be fun to go to the beach. I got on my bathing suit, and we headed down the steps to the beach. While we were there watching the kite surfers and taking in the beautiful views from the rocks, we were sitting on. One of our friends, Anna, began to take pictures of our other friend, Grace. After a few quick photos were taken, Anna tried to step back to take some more but she lost her footing and fell! Her wrist looked crazy! She asked us to get our professors because we all knew that Anna was going to need to get that checked out. As we were waiting, a man riding a large horse approached us and in Spanish asked if we wanted to ride it. He even offered to bring four more. (This is a tourist trap and a way to make quick money on tourists). It was crazy timing, and we obviously didn’t take it!! After we got Anna up to our house, she went to the hospital to get her wrist reset. While she was gone the group decided to stay together to wait for updates. My house mates and I decided to make dinner for the cohort. I made spaghetti and meat sauce for everyone. We all had drinks and played games while we ate and waited for Anna to come back home. She made it home around 10:30 Dominican time and we all went to sleep. PS the DR is an hour ahead of the states because they don’t participate in daylight savings time! |
AuthorHi! I am currently studying psychology at Buffalo State College! I hope to be a clinical child psychologist in the future. I love to spend time with my friends and family and I love taking naps! You’ll catch Me on the couch every Sunday for the Buffalo Bills game! Im always busy learning or trying new things! :) Archives
February 2023
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