Fulfilling my roles

            On the NPH-DR grounds we have a house called Casa Santa María that is known as the “Haiti House.”  In this house reside children from Haiti who have cancer and are receiving radiation therapy in the Dominican Republic’s capital, Santo Domingo.  Unfortunately, in the Haitian hospitals they do not have radiation therapy only chemotherapy.  Therefore, if radiation therapy is needed the children live in our home in the DR so that they can receive the necessary treatment.  The first picture on my blog is of me with one of the girls that lives in Casa Santa María and is receiving treatment.  She is such a wonderful person, who speaks Creole, which means that it is hard for her to communicate with us and vice versa because she does not speak Spanish.  Regardless, she always has a wonderful smile on her face and we are always super excited to see one another.  Just the other day I was dancing with her in the park and she taught me some dance moves as I taught her a few as well.  In that moment I felt that nothing else mattered, just the fact that we were dancing together and we both were happy.

            I must say that the 12 houses that we have here in the DR are like well oiled machines.  Each child has a duty/ responsibility that they must do each and every week.  Some of their chores involve mopping the floors, carrying large tubes from the communal kitchen to the house for lunch and dinner, (for the girls) taking down and re-doing each other’s hair, cleaning the house and washing and drying their clothes just to name a few.  It is amazing to me that such young kids can do so much.  I feel that they will be great contributors to their society because they are already learning such a valuable life skill at such a young age, which is taking care of one’s self.  At their age I was not even thinking about doing my hair let alone cleaning the house; I did not learn to do these things until I was much older but I feel the kids definitely have a leg up in that department.

            Additionally, one of my co-workers, who was apart of the group of summer volunteers (she is pictured in the photo above with me and the rest of my colleagues), described us volunteers as being four people in one.  I took what she said and thought on it for a while and realized that she was right.  Here, with the kids, we serve as many important people in their lives especially because we fulfill a variety of roles for them.  In a sense, we are their teachers; during the summer program we made sure that they learned the necessary materials and that we taught them something of substance.  We also serve as their mentors, ensuring that they don’t get into trouble or make bad decisions by helping to lead them down a good path.  Moreover, we serve as their parents by rewarding them when they behave well and showing them that there are consequences for their actions when they behave badly.  Finally, we are their coaches by playing games with them outside and teaching them what good sportsmanship is like and making sure that they play fairly and follow the rules.   It is incredible to know the effects that we have on the kids and it is a big responsibility to uphold because we are helping to mode their character, which can be a daunting task.  I always model the behaviors that I want them to follow because if I can’t even uphold the standards, why would I ever think that they should?

            One thing that is extremely interesting to me is the fact that I have not used a planner or alarm clock since I have arrived.  In the states I was such a big planner that it was ridiculous.  My friends always made jokes asking me if I could pencil them into my schedule since I always have a million things that I have to do.  I would laugh and brush it off, but it was a serious problem because I did always have to consult my planner before making plans with anyone.   However, for some reason, while being here, I have not had to depend on my planner or on my alarm clock.  For some strange reason I seem to be able to remember things without writing them down.  Everyday I think to myself, I know I have to do something today and throughout the day I am reminded of what those things are and don’t have to write them down.  As for my alarm clock, I don’t even have to set it anymore.  My body has some how become accustomed to waking up at certain things and giving me plenty of time to get to my next obligation.  This is very interesting to me because in the states I always set my alarm clock and some times I set more than one alarm just to ensure that I make it where I need to go.  Here I just feel more relaxed and don’t really stress about making it to certain places at certain times.  The less I think about the time and pressuring myself to get to certain places the calmer I feel and the more I feel in tuned to the Dominican way of life, which is just very relaxing and less stressful.

            The Summer School Program has finally come to an end, which means that I no longer teach Geography.  I am a little sad behind this because I felt that the kids were really learning a lot about the world around them.  At the end of the summer program each class was allotted 5-10 minutes to present something that they had learned in their classes.  Therefore, there were paintings and work around the room that was from the art class, the dance class had come up with an awesome choreography, the gymnastics class performed a lot of acrobatic moves that were really impressive, and the English class sung “Wavin’ Flag.”  As for my class I did some intense research and did a lot of searching for something cool that we could do.  I finally came up with an awesome idea.  I decided that I would teach my kids two geography songs that we would perform in front on the student body.  The first song that we performed was of the seven continents, it was extremely catchy and my kids loved it because it was easy to remember.  The second song that we sung was a little more difficult and it listed all the countries and capitals in Latin America, Central America and Europe where Spanish is spoken.  What made me the happiest was after the presentation when one of the nuns came up to me and told me that my idea was very original and she enjoyed the songs.  I also enjoyed when my roommate named eight countries and their capitals, which she had learned from the song.  The moment that put the icing on the cake was when three students, who were not even in my class, sang the entire continents song to me and said that they really liked it.  I was so happy that I was able to get kids interested and excited to learn geography!