and the year is over.

it's been an amazing, intense year. we jumped from 24 students to 96 seemingly overnight.
it's been a learning journey - with a huge learning curve. every single one of the problems that i was absolutely sure we'd encounter didn't even touch the radar - and every single thing i had never fathomed blew the radar up.

on a daily basis.

we dealt with organizational issues and cultural lack-of-understanding and just plain teaching problems. 

it was stressful. for real.

but it was fun. and it was enriching and i think i'll do it again.

this past saturday was kindergarten graduation. and by 3:59pm, i was swearing i would never do it again. so much stress, so much chaos. so much insanity.

but these faces.
so worth it. 

a summer-time tour of sorts.

girlinthedr - that's me! - will be in the great united states of america this summer! i was just in the states in may for a whirlwind tour of the east coast (that i've been meaning to blog about, but just haven't gotten there - sorry folks. it was short, it was sweet. it was amazing.)

anyway. i will be in the US of A for about three weeks at the beginning of august and am hoping to make the mid-west tour while we're there.

we have a ton of projects happening at Futuro Lleno de Esperanza and Poderosa Mujer - like traditional school, full day care, a jewelry program, prenatal classes (with Midwives for the Dominican Republic) - and part of the objective of this trip is to find groups, churches and friends to speak to. i'll have jewelry from PM and some goodies from the DR for sale and i've been in discussion with a few NGOs who might be able to help us take donations with a non-profit receipt for tax purposes.

 

you, loyal blog readers, can help!

 

do you have connections in your church to hook up some presentation time? belong to a book club that might be interested in hearing about our ministries? a small group, prayer group, wine-tasting club? know fellow crafters who would love to support crafters in the DR to support their families? like to host a baby shower to help women welcome their babies home?

 

please!

it's a plea.

 

let me know - melanie512 @ gmail . com so we can make a schedule.

i already love you.

training them up.

samil and amely had a parent's day celebration last weekend - it was ridiculous on many levels (it started 44 minutes late, the speakers were way too loud and it was kind of disorganized) - but my biggest pet-peeve was on full-blast.

little girls in high heels.

not the little square, 1/2 inch heels that you wore as a child for church with cute little, ruffly socks. no, no, friends there are full out kitten heels or "stilettos" (albeit really low). in grown up fashions. no little mary-jane strap or ruffly socks. we have some friends whose not even two year old daughter wears heels. when i asked her mom about it - she told that she didn't start wearing heels until she was 15. that's the old tradition. but she says that even still her feet get tired and since she's expected to wear heels, and her daughters will be expected to wear heels, she might as well get them used to it now.



these are the trainers that i remember!

i won't even start on all the issues in that theory.
but.
we might as well just slap some fishnets on these girls and call it a day.

it's not just shoes either. it's clothes and underclothes. i've been amazingly surprised to see the underwear that our students wear at school. while amely is still prancing around in little cotton panties with the little mermaid stamped on the front, these girls are wearing their teenage sisters hand me downs - silky, boyshorts, kind-of thongs. i'm not sure that i've come across one pair of regular cotton panties on one little girl since i started working at school.

and. the bras! i remember movies and after-school specials of little girls who had to beg for training bras. once they got over the embarrassment of asking for one, and mom got over the embarrassment of buying one - it was usually a cotton sports bra type thing, right? well. here in the supermarket/superstore you can buy your six year old a padded bra, complete with the playboy bunny bedazzled on the boob.

obviously i'm not of the school of thought that little girls should be taught to conform to ridiculous fashion and beauty standards. in fact, at the very same parent's day activity, we won a raffle and were gifted hair relaxer and some special treatment for the hair - i looked at amalio and jewel and laughed. of all the things on the raffle table, i won the thing that was least apt for us. i can't tell you the last time i even really brushed my hair. amely is lucky that she gets hers slapped into a ponytail every morning.

i think it's even more absurd that we teach girls from such a young age that heels are necessary parts of being a girl and that we should wear these padded bras because - god forbid - you don't get any boobies, you'll have to figure out how to cope with that. whatever happened to letting kids be kids and learning those hard, mean facts of the world later? when they're grown enough to know that we're all different?

are my pants too tight?

dominican fashion is ... interesting. it's very similar to what is popular in the united states - on tv and in magazines - but, despite the latina body-shape not being very similar to white-girl body-shape, clothes are sold only in junior sizes in cuts that are only flattering to people with little to no butts or thighs. if you know j-lo, you know that forever 21 and journey styles just don't really cut it.

and. while most stores have changing rooms, i'm not sure that i've ever seen one used to try on clothes. pants are measured by wrapping the waist around your neck, if it fits your neck, then you buy them. shirts are short and tight.

tight.
very tight.
and because the pants are usually the wrong size, they tend to be very tight as well.

the other day, when jewel and i went to the supermarket/superstore, we saw the staff trying to fit a pair of jeans on a mannequin's legs. we stood and stared - i am not above being the ridiculous gawker. then i quick stole her phone to snap some pictures. the process of fitting the jeans might have taken 10 minutes and it involved at least six store employees.

i'm sure there was probably a pair of jean just one size bigger that would have fit the mannequin perfectly, but that would have been too easy.

just another day in the dominican republic.

Teatro Luna

i'm not a super feminist. i'm pretty sure i've put that out there on the blog before. but, i am a woman, and i have experienced discrimination because of it. i'm sure we all have. and, living in this macho society does not make it easier.

just the other day i went to the hardware store for a little carpentry project that i have started. i walked out to the stacks of wood, picked the dimensions i needed and walked inside. i also needed some nails and some wood glue. but, while i was there, i was taking advantage and buying some steel masonry nails to drive into the walls at school.

"ma'am, if someone is doing a wood project, they probably don't need these types of nails. perhaps this one would be better?" he shows me a penny nail.
"yeah, i understand that these here big suckers aren't for wood projects - much less with the type of wood i've purchased, however. i need these for something completely different and unrelated. and i need 10. please."
"well, maybe you should call your husband and make sure."


i won't even tell you how that ended.
when i was at north park, i had an awesome professor. well, i had numerous awesome professors - and while some of them were guys, most were really spectacular women. a spanish prof who believed in me even though i barely showed up for her class; an african history teacher who blew my mind in every.single.class. and an english teacher who embraced me, dealt with my crazy and introduced us to new and great things. we went to coffee, to ethnic food restaurants, to pow-wows and to teatro luna.

i love theater. but, even with my crazy memory-skills, i don't often remember much about things i've seen on stage. it's something i enjoy in the moment and then let go. - i do after all need room for more relevant things like jeopardy factoids. but, the show of one-acts that i saw at teatro luna with professor acosta was moving. i learned some things about latina culture that i had never even thought about before. one of the one-acts was about good hair and bad hair.

and thank god.

because one of the first issues i had on this beautiful island paradise was with my hair.
i can't tell you the last time i went to a salon. oops. my beautiful, "good" hair is being wasted on that silly foreigner who just doesn't understand how valuable those locks are.

i've kept in touch with liza ann acosta. and she continues to be amazing. and, somehow in the past ten years has planted herself in the midst of these powerful latinas and bloomed. she's a little quirky, and nerdy. and has a cat (or more?).  and is super intelligent. and she said to me, "Where else would someone like me find a space on a stage? Nowhere! Teatro Luna always provided me with the confidence that my art mattered, that my writing was good and worthy of sharing, that my life stories were part of the fabric of a community that gave me strength. So, here I am. I am the "eldest" in the company and these women love me, care for what I have to give, and with their talent have given me the best gift I have ever received in the last few years: to have my very first play workshopped in front of a real live audience in a real theater. Amazing. It was an amazing experience."

and while i'm neither latina nor super-feminist, i believe in projects like this. and i wish wish wish that i could see a female cooperative like teatro luna blossom in santiago. because, man, theater and art are so powerful. it heals people. makes them whole. to tell a story, to tell YOUR story. that's power. but, i'm told that there aren't really a ton of women-theater-coops like teatro luna. maybe one in jamaica, if they're still at it. and a few, underground groups around? who knows.

teatro luna is looking to take their stories on the road. to the southwest. to do workshops and plays and change lives. they've got an indiegogo campaign with some pretty cute videos that explain what their vision is. check them out, help them out. if nothing else, click on their indiegogo page to up their "gogo factor" and help them get their name out there.

 

"You have problems with how Latinos are represented in the media? In plays? Anywhere? Have an issue with how women are viewed and how negative the term feminist is thought of in many circles? Then be the change you demand online! Give to this campaign- or at least spread the word about it-- because THIS IS WHAT TEATRO LUNA FIGHTS AGAINST DAILY with with our stories, our work, and especially this tour.

FACEBOOK PAGE

rollers.

sometimes, when i was

little my mom would put my hair in rollers for special events. it was annoying and if it was anything like having my hair brushed, i'm sure it wasn't pleasant, but i had nice, compliant hair that did whatever it was told.

sometimes we used a hot roller, or a curling iron, but i remember the big rollers best. my grandmom used them on her hair, too.

i now have avoided rollers - even when the women in the salon insist that my hair will not withhold the heat of a blow-dryer and that i must, must, must sit under the dryer-cap with rollers in. (think about that one. a dryer-chair. in the dominican republic. in june. no air conditioning. i don't think so).

luckily my mama only subjected me to rollers for special days - dance recitals, first communion and such - but here the culture is to straighten hair from a very young age, and on a fairly regular basis. putting the culture of good hair/ bad hair aside (because that's a story for a different day), it's easier to maintain a straight pony-tail on those hectic mornings on the way out for school. i don't really know how it works - a lot of little girls get blown out, but most get rollers. sometimes it's because the electricity went out while they were getting their hair washed, sometimes it's because mom (and more likely, dad) doesn't want the baby growing up too fast (and a blow out is definitely mature, right?)

it still surprises me to see women walking in the street with their rollers in, covered by a hair net or a scarf. it seems so counter-cultural in this place where image is everything and you would never consider leaving your house less than perfect. (unless you're me... and then people stare at the hot-mess that just walked in the store. oops)

jewel was at a medical operative the other day and snapped this picture - three little girls with their rollers in. the littlest girl still being carried by mom cannot be more than three!

ex-pat life.

i've been on the island for eight years now. EIGHT years. it's not always easy, it's not always fun - but i always live in a place so physically beautiful it hurts. and mostly, i love this little piece of planet earth.

it's been an up and down journey - and just when i think i've finally settled into something, i get smacked in the face with something new. sometimes that something new is great - a new job, a new friend, a visit to somewhere amazing. but mostly, it's not. 

and though i genuinely love our dominican community, i need to be connected somehow to my own culture, my own community - to be with people who speak our same heart language. (don't get me wrong, it's great to chatter away in english, but it's different to think in english with someone - if you're bilingual you'll get it). 

i've reached out numerous times to the ex-pat community and have made a few very lasting friendships. there is a dear friend i met on an online forum and now work with, another who has two precious girls around samil and amely's ages and we share motherhood trials,  another incredible woman who i met at the uni and just had lunch with today. 

but it doesn't always work out.

if you're looking to become an ex-pat, to pick up life and move somewhere new, people will advise you to "meet all the (insert your nationality here), they are the ones to keep you sane." and there is even the idea that you can't live without compatriots, because the locals just don't hack it. you can't, obviously, choose the country-mates who live in your newfound home, so you'll have to accept them for who and what they are. like it or not - they're who you've got.

all of that was part of my training when i first moved down here. and i blatantly ignored it and lived for seven months without real contact with other americans. i learned spanish, i learned to dance, and i learned to love the people around me. no, i didn't need other yankees to get me through. but at times it was lonely. 

i reached out, found people, made a huge social effort - and if you know me, i'm no social butterfly - to be with other americans. it was disastrous. first, i met up with a bunch of super rich factory manager wives who drove super-sized suvs and ate in posh cafes where a sandwich costs more than my rent. obviously that one wasn't going to work out. i chalked it up to experience and let it roll. 

then i met a group of missionaries who wanted a moms group. it was weird that children weren't really welcome at the moms group, but we made it work for awhile until amely did a little biting and i was chewed out in an email about how i just didn't react "correctly." how dare i let my child bite and not cry about it? 

and when i met some short-term teachers, i realized i am just too old and too family to fit in with 23 year olds anymore. 

 you know what? i stressed about it for a long time, and i beat myself up over "losing" those potential compatriots that most ex-pat philosophy insisted i need. who would my kids speak english with? where would i go to complain about my dominican community? who else could i hate everything and everyone with?

when i stopped searching for a "group" to belong to i realized i didn't need one. i'm not rich and maintained - and i don't want to pretend that i am. i don't want my kids around the superior mindset, that us north americans are right and these damn natives are wrong. and i don't really need to relive my all-night drinking binges. 

once i stopped searching for those "heart language" friends - i realized that i have plenty. yesterday, we played with a baby and while amely didn't bite her, the baby's brother hit amely every chance he got - because that's what kids do. and we corrected him and talked to him and at the end we gave everyone kisses and hugs. no snarky comments or threats to no longer remain friends. and this weekend, we'll have visitors who will probably sit around drinking coffee and doing crafts and enjoying each other.

i've recently gotten a lot of emails asking for advice about moving to the dr. i don't have a lot. but there it is: make friends with quality people, who you like to be around - not because you share the same homeland, but because you share the same values, interests. make friends with your dominican community. you'll be surprised.