All My Cards are on the Table

You can get used to a lot of things in this country: cold bucket baths, toilets that don’t flush, holes in the ground that are toilets, people constantly telling you how you should be living your life (you want to buy this hose Virginia, you need to wear shoes in your house Virginia, you need to have a boyfriend in the DR Virginia…) but one thing you just can’t get used to: tapeworms.

So full disclosure: I have a tapeworm. Well, hopefully at this point I had a tapeworm. And I really just tried to deny the fact that something was wrong, and to just get used to the, well, symptoms. But, without giving all the gory details away, let’s just say I had an experience that made me realize I needed to get checked out—yesterday. And sure enough I wasn’t just dealing with a month long bout of indigestion and food poisoning. So after waiting 4 days for the lab in the hospital in the next town over to even be open, then for there to be electricity when the lab was open, and then after bring two samples to the lab since the first one was no longer bueno after 3 days, I finally had my results. Then I had a small freakout. I learned that there is a big difference between thinking maybe there is something strange inside of you and knowing that there is a long worm feasting itself in your insides. But the strange thing is that you get tapeworms from eating undercooked pork or beef. I’M VEGETARIAN. So something didn’t quite add up, but as long as the sucker is dead, I’m happy.

In other news, things are going well here on the frontera. My Dad and sister came to visit and we hit up Punta Cana which is one of the most beautiful places I have seen in my life. Also, its airport is a giant tiki-hut. Just because. I went diving and saw a barracuda and an octopus that is camped out in between the legs of this sculpture of a lady kneeling on the ocean floor. The diving instructors had a clever little name for the octopus, as you might imagine. I also saw a coral garden where they are trying to reproduce an endangered species of coral! That was really cool, but the whole time I was afraid I was gonna touch some of it and kill it. There was a bit of a current down there and I kept almost drifting into the little gardens. Also the resort we stayed at had a delicious little drink called a piña merengue. It’s basically a piña colada, but with banana in it. Holy cow it’s amazing.

As for life actually in Pedro Santana, aka real life away from the lovely beach, things have been pretty busy and fun! Father O’Hare’s brother and his friend came to visit for a week, and they were a blast! Plus I got to hear some new music I’ve missed and I learned about the new ipad mini (which we were told is not the same thing as an iphone). But basically we just hung out American style and while taking it easy Caribbean style. Cool beans.

My literacy project has been developing a lot this semester, which is both frustrating and yet good. It needs to evolve, and this was always going to be a fluctuating period, but at the same time I am looking forward to the next semester when I can both stabilize and expand my project. For now what was an accelerated reading program had become a pull-out program. We were working with about 40 kids and that has dwindled down to about 13—a much more manageable number. And I can already tell we are more effective now. What is always so rewarding for me though, is how excited my kids are when they see me come into the doorway to pull them out. I got one kid, Manuelsito, to talk for the first time yesterday and it was such a huge win! I don’t know why he was always so scared to make a noise. He is intelligent and can write all the vowels, but for the life of me I couldn’t get him to speak to me directly. So I had him and the other child have a race to see who could identify the vowels faster, and he got so into it! And he has such a cute little voice. I don’t wanna get all corny on you guys, but honestly, it was a very rewarding experience. After feeling so defeated so many times during my work, I needed that win. Plus the other child, Isidro, learned so much faster when he was working with Manuelsito. I’m looking forward to seeing them this afternoon. Although Manuelsito tends to come to school once a week at most… might not see him today. My hope is that the students I work with will start enjoying learning. But that’s a lot to ask. From any child anywhere.

My English class is going to have its first exam in a week. I’m definitely more nervous than they are. I tried to make the test easy enough without it being a joke. I’m afraid some of the students just don’t know how to study. Some are amazing and learn very quickly, and some struggle more with it. You find that in any classroom. But I don’t want to scare away the students who don’t learn as quickly. Actually what I’m considering doing is to have small quizzes every week reviewing what we learned the week before. It’s more work, but I think it will make the class much more effective.

So Inigo is growing so fast! He is too big to sit in my lap anymore but every time I sit in my rocking chair he tries to climb up into my lap. The funny thing is that now, because he is so big, he actually can get up. But he also doesn’t fit! It’s so cute. I’m really lucky to have him. I’m also really lucky to have all my neighbor kids who love Inigo. They play with him, and when he’s wandered too far off they bring him back.

I have the little 2 year old who lives across the street sitting in my lap right now. He is so adorable, and his mom likes to joke that he’s my son too. So this morning she asked me to help her clean out Elian’s eyes because he’s got conjunctivitis for the 3^rd time and last night he’s eyes were sealed shut. I was like…uhhhh ok? But then the grandma did it and wouldn’t let me help. Thank god.