Dominican Republic

After a late night by the pool, people slowly trickled in to breakfast (many pastries of different kinds) and then left again to change into their swimsuits. The rest of the morning was spent shopping, at the beach, or at the hotel pool by different members of the group. The ocean water was calm and the morning was very relaxed.

At 11:30, we checked out of the hotel and loaded our luggage into the bus. We ate lunch quickly at an outdoor restaurant that gave us the choice of “beef or chicken”. Relaxed and well fed, we all got onto the bus and fell asleep. Some while later, we found ourselves driving along a bumpy road surrounded by what appeared to be sugar cane. We pulled up in front of a collecton of buildings that gave off the charactaristics of a batey like tin roofs, unpaved roads, and livestock and dogs running around.

Batey Caraballo was introduced to us by Sarah Ross, who is on the Council on International Educational Echange and who we met previously at the DREAM project office. She led us to the school building, which turned out to be very nice on the inside, with a lot of toys and other preschool necessities lining the walls. We sat down inside and watched the children play quietly for a while. Two of the children helped set some small tables for lunch (which appeared to be brownish glop on a plate).

After a while, one of the teachers sat down on a blue circle that was taped onto the floor and started playing a small music box that played “Greensleeves” over and over again. At that signal, the kids all quietly rolled away their floor mats, put away their toys, and assembled on the line of the circle. The teacher then spoke to them in Creole, Spanish, French (I think), and English.

After a bit some people left the building and went to a bulidng next door to see the school and community library. The library was neat, and seemed well organized despite the lack of computers. It was one room with one wall of not-so-full shelves holding all of its books. Their collection had several new looking English and Spanish dictionaries and many National Geographic magazines.

We walked around the Batey for another 45 minutes and then left back for Santiago. I can’t say very much about the Batey, since it was such a short visit but it was different from Batey Libertad. If I have enough time later, I’ll write about them

Isabel Vazquez
University Laboratory High School
Urbana, IL