Texas our Texas…A Little Taste Of Home

My roommates Rachel and Jess.

   This past week has been a little bit of a blur, but one thing that stands out to me is the food from this week. I’m sure you all know that I love food whether that is making it or eating it! This week started out with Meredith, my roommate, and I making pancakes on Sunday morning for breakfast and enjoying some good Dominican coffee and Jesus time on our front porch That night we invited some of Dominican friends over and made chicken spaghetti for them. Let me just say now, that I didn’t realize how “Texas” or just “Southern” that meal is!! My roommate, Jess from Michigan, and our PE coach, Brock, from Ohio had NEVER heard or tasted chicken spaghetti!! I didn’t believe them for awhile, b/c in Texas I grew up thinking it was a staple on Sunday lunch or for every church potluck dinner. I seriously was shocked to know that Americans were not familiar with this grandiose dish. Needless to say that went over fabulously and Americans and Dominicans both enjoyed their fill that night!

My roommate Meredith cooking chicken spaghetti.

    Throughout the week, lunch consists of Dominican style rice, beans and chicken, but at night I enjoy grilled cheese sandwiches, grilled chicken over pasta, sautéed veggies with chicken, taco salad, quesadillas, etc. The final tip of the week though, ended with a teacher’s birthday party last night where we competed in a Texas chili cook off. Needless to say, we did have to explain what chili was to the Dominican staff, but they actually turned out some pretty good chili I must say. So, we show up to the party and there 12 households that had brought pots of chili and the 3rd place winners for the cook off, were the girls of my house!!! We know how to cook a pretty mean chili…everyone should be proud, we represented Texas well! The 2nd place winners were actually Dominicans and then the 1st place winners were a family from Texas. So, as you can imagine this week, food wise, was top notch.

   School wise this week was good, yet a little crazy. My students were working on a project, which I feel like always turns out to be a little chaotic in the rooms when scissors, markers, butcher paper, and rulers, are involved! I have been grading them today and they have surprised me by their creativity and quality. Their assignment was to make a poster containing facts about themselves written in mathematical expressions. For instance, they could find the average age of their family, create a pie chart of how they spend their day, bar graph of friends shoe sizes, convert their height into cm, etc. It went really well, but some things got messy in the process, but that happens and you work through it. I am ready to start into content material next week and really getting into math…is that weird that I am excited about that? Yes probably it is to you, but I have to say conversions, algebraic equations, and timed multiplication tests make me really happy!I am hoping for a week with a bit more structure and routine in the classroom.

Citizens Without A Country...Stateless.

   Imagine growing up in below poverty all your life. You constantly dream of a better life, yet are faced with the blistering reality that might never happen. You are from Haiti and all you see around you are the stark realities of a country going from bad to worse. You hear stories of a time long ago where the country actually prospered and dominated the DR, but then you realize that time is not now or anywhere in the future. You then hear from a friend there is a man coming to talk about work in the DR. With only optimism and hope that anything would be better than this, you attend this meeting. This man offers you consistent work, good and fair pay, food for you and your family, and life beyond Haiti.

    Who wouldn't go? So, he and several others pack up with the clothes on their back, a machete and ride into what they think will change their world...sugarcane. Sugarcane cutting is hard work. You are in the fields over 12 hours a day in the scorching sun, with long pants/shirt, hat, and little water or food. You don't get a break during that time. When you are done cutting, you bring your bushels of cane to be weighed which is how you get paid based on the weight of cane you cut. As an employer here is an opportunity to cheat the system and take advantage of your employee by paying them for only half of what they cut, but taking it all to the manufacturer. Already you can see that this isn't the dream you envisioned. You live where they tell you to live. You eat only from the plantation store where products are 3x as high. You try to grow your own food and they will come by and cut it down ordering you to only purchase from the store. Is this even the same dream the man, months ago, told us about?

   This above story is true and we as a staff at Doulos, decided to investigate and see for our own eyes what a true immigrants' work is like in the Dominican Republic on a sugarcane plantation...not so pretty. This man told us his life story and he has been on the plantation for 7 years. He says he would not go back to Haiti, here in the DR life is better. How can that be possible? He also says there are no good days on the plantation, only bad days and he keeps hoping it will get better, but just goes from bad to worse. There are several families and children here in this small village...no medical care, no toys for children, no shoes, no new clothes, no church, no electricity, no showers, just the nearby river.

   Our mission by visiting was not just to gawk at another's lifestyle, but to come offer some resources...water. You would think that would be a main thing right? A family from the US is stationed in Jarabacoa creating water filters from clay. Clay is a natural resource in the Dominican Republic and it filters water much better than having to consistently purchase plastic jugs of bottled water. This was our mission to help them have safer water, also a consistent source of water that doesn't rely on electricity. We brought one for every family and showed them how to use it and clean it. Their faces lit up with joy. I have to say I felt proud I was apart of that experience. Then the unthinkable...the officials drove by and wanted to know what we were doing and why we were here helping these people. They think they take good enough care of their employees that no one should need to bring them or give them anything...ironic huh? Who knows what has happened now...do they still have their water filters or were they taken away just to show who is in control?

   Life as a sugarcane cutter is hard. If you try to leave, they will threaten you. If you do escape where will you go? You can't get a job in the DR, because you aren't a Dominican citizen. You don't have papers either to prove you are a Haitian citizen either. You are a citizen without a country...stateless. What a horrible feeling! Rejected by your own country and neighboring country. Makes me think of how when we are adopted by Christ we are stamped with His approval and we can't outrun that or rub it off. It is permanent and lasting...we are NOT stateless and neither are they.

Estoy Aqui! (I am here!)

Hello all! I wanted to let you know that I am here and well. I flew in Saturday night, the school came and picked us up at the airport, came home to my new house and slept at my house for the first time. I will have to say for those of you that know me, yall know I love to sleep and there is never really a moment that I can't fall asleep, yet for some reason I have had a really hard time to fall asleep here. I think my mind continues to race at night of just all the things I want to do to feel settled in at school and home, thus the restless nights continue. Sunday I got up and went to church and then out to eat with the new staff, hung out and then came home and tried to get settled in as best I could. Today, we had new teacher orientation this morning and then I did town errands like getting a trash can and hangers for my clothes. These are the simple things in life that now make me happy:)
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This is the outside of our house. We live across the street from the local university which is like a junior college/vocational school, so notice the sign that says "Silence School Zone" haha:)