Today I got another warm shower!!! In the words of Bill Engvall “It was awesome!” Then Dana and I had breakfast together. We had grilled cheese sandwiches, pineapple, and cantaloupe. Then we were off to the school. Today was Dana’s trip with the 5th and 6th graders to Santo Domingo. I wish her the best of luck. It is now 7pm and it looks like their day was probably very similar to ours.
In my class at the Hostos school today I met with the students to discuss their journal writing. They were asked to write a short story about whatever they wanted to. One girl wrote about how her cousin came over and they played games and then her cousin wouldn’t quit talking and how it got on her nerves. It was quite humorous for a third grader. Then they had recess which is chaos as usual. After recess we had reading time and they read the story of Naomi and Ruth from the Bible. I thought it was really weird that they were reading a Bible story, because you don’t see that in public schools in America. And although this school is a private school it does not have any religious affiliation. But after talking with Dr. Button I found out that my host teacher is a Jehovah’s Witness and since they are a private school she can have them read Bible stories. Talk about culture shock…who would have thought that there were Jehovah’s Witness’ in the Dominican Republic! After reading they had gym and then lunch so I was done for the day.
For lunch I went home by myself because Dana was in Santo Domingo. I hung out with Monchi some and then we ate lunch. For lunch we had a ton of food. There was chicken, rice with corn, salad, steamed yucca root, corn on the cob, fried plantains, and their version of mashed potatoes. Monchi’s daughter Ingrid came over for lunch too, but she ate cooked pumpkin with onions. When I asked her what it was she told me in English because she speaks English, but then she proceed to say “you know like at Halloween…pumpkin!” I was like yeah I know what a pumpkin is, but I have never seen somebody eat one. After lunch I walked with Jordan and her host mom to the mall. It is pretty much the same as our mall. They don’t have department stores, but they do have a food court and little shops. They sale a lot of the same things that we do so I did not buy anything cause I would rather have something more authentic. I really hope we still have the opportunity to go look at amber jewelry because that is what I really want to get. After the mall it was time to head back up to the university for our meetings with the professors. I met with both Dr. Button and Dr. Johnson. For my language arts credit I am focusing on the conference portion of the writing workshop and for social studies I am going to interview some of the students about a past project they did. I am finding that it is really hard to get any of our research done at the school because my kids schedule is so crazy. If they have computer, gym, Spanish, or art I don’t work with them because they go to other teachers. And then when we are in class they do not have a consistent schedule of what they are going to be working on. I feel that consistency is important to working with elementary age kids. It is just very stressful to me to have a schedule that is all over the place and so I think it would be really stressful to the students to not know what is going on.
After our meetings with the professors we had our Spanish lesson with Senor Bueno. It went well and we had fun and learned a lot of important words and phrases. Then we had our university class and talked about Christopher Columbus and more poetry. Apparently what I learned in elementary school about Columbus was all wrong. I remember hearing that Columbus discovered America which I took to mean that he discovered the United States of America. In all actuality Columbus discovered The Americas and actually landed in the Dominican Republic. I am going to blame my entire misconception of Columbus on my social studies teachers. My favorite part of class at night is our break, because they serve us snacks and drinks and the hot chocolate is awesome!!!
After class we thought we were going home to eat dinner and then go on the carriage ride around the monument. So Dana and I went home and had hotdogs for dinner and cookies for dessert. Dana and I did not change because we thought we were just doing the carriage ride and then we got in the van and were about to leave and found out we were going to Tribeca which is a nightclub here. I was little upset that we weren’t doing the carriage ride because, 1) I was still dressed in my “school clothes”, and 2) I was looking forward to the carriage ride. But I had fun at Tribeca anyways! We had to pay 100 pesos to get in, but then it was open bar. In America open bar never happens except on cruise ships and at weddings. The open bar was so not worth it though. The drinks were way too strong and I only had one rum and Pepsi. Kanki (our driver) talked to the manager of the club when we got there and she helped us order our drinks and checked on us throughout the night. We all danced together for a little bit and then most of us left the club at about 11:30. Dana and I went straight to bed when we got home!!!
Much love,
Robyn
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