santiago b-ball tournament (and some b-boys, too)

who even knew there was a professional ball league in santiago?

not me.

so when amalio called a few nights ago and asked if the kids wanted to go to the santiago tournament, i quick-changed them and headed out the door. we arrived just in time to storm the door with 75 of amalio's students. excited to see what it was all about, i was pretty disappointed that the entire arena was empty.

seriously there were maybe 100 people in the place, and 75 of them were... us.

the game started out slow, but by the end it was super-exciting and the place had filled up. apparently the game we had come to see was just the first of three games that night - and between the two bottom ranking teams. no wonder the place was empty.

i wasn't impressed with the game - even these kids playing on the street corner near our house played better - at least more enthusiastically. samil was so impressed that he fell asleep in his chair, and while amely was a little whiny, she found our friend rovinson and took off with him once the music started.

and that's what impressed me (and amely). not the music, but the dancers who came out between games.

a local rapper was performing - horribly - and his back up break dancers were disorganized and uncoreographed. even still, their moves were captivating and impressive. in a country where dance classes are expensive and overrated, and gymnastics classes for boys are unheard of,  i'm always excited to see kids who have honed their skills and show dedication to their art.

we haven't come very far.

i just wrote a whole long post about racism.

and then i deleted it because in the end, no matter what i say, a young man died because of someone else's ignorance. and really, there aren't words enough to express my disappointment and sadness.

unless dialogue begins, that conversation that so desperately needs to happen - things will never change. until there is education and understanding, ignorance will prevail.

and lest it be thought that racism is uniquely an american problem, i'll tell you that it's not. and sadly, this plague will most likely always existed - manifest in so many different ways - from indifference to violence. from displacement of people groups to genocide.

if i were to be completely honest, i'd say one of my biggest fears about taking my children - my latino, bilingual, immigrant children - back to the united states some day is that someone will look at them, see them as different and cast them off as worthless because of it.

i can not even begin to imagine the burden of raising children - and especially boys - never knowing (or worse yet, knowing exactly) how society will accept them. knowing that the deck is stacked against them from day one.

my heart goes out to the families of children lost to this bitter war of ignorance. and i hope that this most recent incident opens up conversation - because unless we discuss what is happening, it will never change.

gettin' nerdy.

samil goes to school. and while i don't think that there is anything decidedly wrong about his school - and most preschools in this country - i don't think there's anything right either. i mean, he's learned 5 letter (the vowels) and can count to ten in spanish. sometimes he can tell me about things he learned in school - usually having to do with patriotism or singing songs - but mostly, he's learned what he's learned here, at home.

i would say something like "it's not that the educational system in the US is better persay..." but that would be a lie. because the dominican republic ranks last for education in the caribbean and south america (and by default, north america as well). so, while i'm hyper-aware of the budget cutting and program slashing that is going on in the states, believe me, it is nothing compared to the lack of budget that is even given to education here.

all that said. we, as a family, believe that education is what you make of it - amalio went to a rural school that until recently had two classrooms for grades 1-5, no running water for the bathroom and books so outdated, his grandparents might have used them (had they gone to school), and now is finishing his master's thesis.


we read and create and play.

this semester has been rough for me. i know i've written about being frustrated and stressed at work - and despite the best of intentions, it transferred into our home education. i have been tired and cranky and just wanting to veg out in front of the tv when i got home from work. and amalio's working on that thesis. disastrous for any kind of planning.

so, now that the semester is winding it's way down and i'm way less stressed, we've been on science overload here. we've been doing experiments every day, art projects and all the good stuff. this past week, we mixed colors.

milk , soap and food coloring mixing (milk repels dish soap - add some food coloring and you can see the reaction, it makes the colors "dance". mixing colored water and filling out a chart and, the kids' favorite, vinegar and baking soda surprise mixing - i put the food coloring on the spoons under the baking soda, so they didn't know what colors would happen until they mixed it all up - and watched it "explode".

vote for me!

last sunday the kids and i headed to a coworkers house to eat sancocho, a delicious dominican specialty soup. the day was lovely - we ate, drank, threw around a basketball and sang happy birthday to our coworker. then we headed home. and oh, i had no idea that the little political rally taking place in the rec center near our house was anything more than a little political rally.

we were dropped off where we could take a public car home - a quick 15 minute ride. except, that little political rally, was actually a caminata through the city showcasing the support that the ruling party has garnished in santiago.

see, politics here is... well, it's different. and i won't claim to understand it, because i don't. the country has had only 2 presidents since the death of their semi-dictator, joaquin balaguer, died in the mid-90s. from 1996-2000, leonel fernandez was in the presidential palace, but was booted out from 2000-2004 for apparently sucking at his job during his first term. but, hipolito mejia came along and just about exploded the peso and got booted out in 2004 by, you guessed it, leonel fernandez.

and leonel has been in office since then, but his time is up.
and the politics are on.

so, danilo medina (from the same party as leonel) is running against hipolito mejia (whose slogan is "here's your daddy"). and to ensure that leonel keeps his foot in the door, his wife is running as danilo's vice president.

see, different.

but this has nothing to do with this post. this has to do with why a 15 minute car ride took an hour and 40 minutes.


you see, campaigns here are up-close and personal. while there are a fair amount of television ads and the country is plastered in billboards and posters proclaiming victory for "our country", the majority of votes come from some real door-to-door vote-seeking. it's not uncommon to see groups of people, dressed in the party colors, waving flags and chanting on street corners during rush hours. pickup trucks equipped with huge speakers drive through the city playing popular songs whose lyrics have been changed to represent the candidate's platform. and because the country is so small, it's easy for the candidate's themselves to make personal appearances at rallies.

so we ran into this insanity. girls dressed in yellow tights and purple tees - the party colors - dirty dancing on a flatbed truck, flags waving relentlessly. impromptu stages set up on virtually every.single.corner of every.single.street that our driver tried to turn down to avoid the traffic jams.

by the time we made it home that little political rally near our house was completely cleared out - not a giant SUV covered in slogans and not one single school bus jam packed with supporters waiting to start the march. they had moved on to bigger and better things that day - holding up traffic all over our side of the world.

the only remnant of the craziness was this lone pickup on our street - giant over sized speakers and political propaganda covering the sides. sadly (for me), the political season is just getting started - we've got two months left until the big presidential election. - we might be staying indoors more often than not in the coming weeks -

celebrating the green in DR.

one of the aspects of my job in the university that i really love is the cultural awareness that can be built into my classes. i think that as an american, i tend to forget that most societies are fairly homogeneous (at least compared to the united states). i catch myself getting frustrated when my students don't know about others. they own their own people but forget about understanding anyone else. which is fine in most cases - but the world is shrinking, and i am a firm believer that we need to understand our neighbors - and our neighbors are no longer just dominicans.

i probably don't take advantage of the situation as much as i should - or could. but it's nice to work in themes that can impact students more than, say.... "what i like to eat for lunch" or "space tourism" (no joke, it's in our books). we can pull them through immigration debates, poverty, the effects of technology, humility, war.

but, like i said. i probably don't do as much as i could. however, i love holidays so i always try to pawn my favorites off on my students as well. on friday we celebrated saint patricks day but wearing the green and sending the students on a hunt to find a pot of gold. childish? maybe. but it was good fun, and a nice break in the day-in-day-out of the school life.

women helping women.

 santiago is a really small place  - it's not uncommon to get into a public-car and know at least one person you're riding with; or go to the supermarket and run into a handful of friends. it's even less surprising to meet someone new and find out you have six hundred mutual friends.

i met a woman seven years ago when i first moved to the country. we shared a mail service, and there it was. we never hung out or became friends, but life has brought us back together on a few occasions over the years. about three years ago, we spent a decent amount of time together, trying to figure out some alternative education for a group of students.

she probably doesn't even remember this, but with my elephant-like memory, i do - in a routine conversation, her work in the city of la vega came up, and very recently she had spilled her heart to the women she worked with about her desire to start a program for girls. it was just a seed in her heart three years ago - something she hadn't even wanted to share with the women she worked with for fear that it wouldn't come to fruition.

and then, just last may, the posts started on facebook about a new project. and then, a blog. and god put this thing in motion so fast that i couldn't believe it. i was skeptical. how in the world would they support this? was it really going to work?

on friday, i went with two new friends and joy to visit this amazing project - new hope girls academy - in la vega. and i knew they were doing something incredible before, but now, wow. i'm in awe of what god has done in this place in just one short year.

and while it's amazing and crazy what is happening for the girls, what is more incredible to me is the empowerment of women happening in the community. it's nice to expect americans to support these "poor kid" programs, but it's harder to sustain and doesn't necessarily help to break the poverty cycle. generational poverty causes a deep-rooted insecurity in those affected and takes much more than "an income" to fix. education is only part of the problem - there is so much more involved when there has never been a sense of financial security, a sense of self-value nor the education or skills necessary to support onseself.

new hope started an artisan program for local women! they've trained women to make these beautiful flipflops, paying them a fare-wage for their work - now, they are creating purses and bags on a donated sewing machine. 

 the "workshop" is just someone's house, and the tools might seem a little primitive - a candle to singe the edges of the fishing line used to sew the decorations on the strap.

it's pretty organized for the small space they work in, and the women seem to work harmoniously.

as the project grows, these women - and hopefully more - will learn how to think about the future, and not just worry where the next meal is coming from, they'll be able to educate their children and feed their families a more stable and healthy diet.

in conjunction with the school and safe-house for girls at risk (at risk for any number of things - incestuous abuse, prostitution, slave-labor), new hope girls academy has the potential to re-shape the future of women in their community. of course, they've encountered opposition from men... who wants to marry an educated woman, afterall? and who will take care of the men once these women are liberated? but. overall, it's a place that people are supporting.

you can check them out at: new hope girls academy, or on their facebook page (like them, do it!) and you can read my previous post about them (before i even saw the place in person).

empowerment.

this morning, after class, i visited the hospital again - things are starting to come together for the organization i've been working with, and together we've been clarifying what it is exactly that we can do to help.

what it all boils down to is sharing our gifts (well, their gifts, i'm just facilitating) so that the doctors and nurses that are already here can offer something different to the women.

it's not about coming in and taking over, or throwing money at a problem and hoping it goes away. it's about empowering people to do it themselves.

i've never been so focused on something for lent. i've always kind of given something up and given in halfway through, or "sacrificed" something that wasn't really a sacrifice. but instead of "giving up" this season, i've taken on and oh, it's changed my life.

i struggle so much with how to help - i am surrounded by poverty and distress. children with not enough food to eat. men and women ravaged by disease that can ostracize and humiliate. families with no electricity or running water.

and like many people, i want to do everything possible to take that baby, the one with a bloated belly and no clothes, and make life better.

but when i reflect on it, i know that taking babies from their homes is not the solution. it's just a way for me to soothe my own pain - not theirs. and giving a family food for one week will not feed them the next. shoes and clothes don't last forever, and what happens when they're outgrown?

so, it's about making me feel better about what is happening around me - but instead, finding ways to educate and empower a way out of poverty. about giving skills that will lead to nourishment - however that might look.

today, after i left the hospital, we headed to la vega to see an empowerment project in action and i am amazed. and inspired. and thankful. that people are taking the iniciative to form local based programs, empowering dominicans to take charge of the future.

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this lenten season, i'm reflecting on how to give without creating dependency; how to give with a faithful and servant's heart and how to let go once i give material things away. i come in contact daily with people who have way less than me, who are hungry and tired and un-bathed. join me as i begin to work through it. check out all of the posts under the label "lenten reflection"