tag:www.uni.uiuc.edu,2007:/gargoyle/dominican republic/13 2007-08-12T19:38:57Z The blog for Uni's 2007 Summer trip to the Dominican Republic! Movable Type 3.33 tag:www.uni.uiuc.edu,2007:/gargoyle/dominican republic//13.1824 2007-06-28T22:24:30Z 2007-08-12T19:38:57Z

Today was our last day at the batey. Our last day in the Dominican Republic. I think the reason that this was such a new, moving experience was not just because of how we helped and what we did. It...

Dominican Republic Isabel Vazquez
University Laboratory High School
Urbana, IL
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Last Sunday was not only one of the best days on this trip but one of the best in my life. I felt like so much a part of the community, and there was constantly something going on. And although...

Dominican Republic Shara Esbenshade
University Laboratory High School
Urbana, IL
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Hola, I hope all is well. Today is my day to tell you about the great experiences we have shared with each other. It has gone by so fast, I can not believe it; its incredible. I wish I was...

Dominican Republic Nicole C. Salazar
Von Steuben Metropolian Science Center
Chicago, IL
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My apologies for the delay. We were in Santo Domingo on Monday and Tuesday with no access to a computer. On Monday we woke up at 7:30 to eat breakfast so that we could get an early start on our...

Dominican Republic Cody Bralts
Urbana High School
Urbana, IL
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Dear Readers, Sorry I didn´t post yesterday as was my duty. I was expecting reflections to end a little earlier so I could squeeze my thoughts in. What the group did today was plant trees everywhere. Apple, avocado, lemon, and...

Dominican Republic Kareem Sayegh
University Laboratory High School
Urbana, IL
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I hope you have been enjoying the blogs we have been posting. Please feel free to respond to them. Some of us are unable to access email easily, and your response to a blog is an easy way to receive...

Dominican Republic Adele Suslick, Lead Teacher
University Laboratory High School
Urbana, IL
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Today began like a normal day to the batey. Our group ate breakfast and boarded the bus for the familiar 45 minute drive. In the morning we planted several alvacado and apricot trees and just socialized with the community until...

Dominican Republic Annie Machesky
University Laboratory High School
Urbana, IL
*indicates that name has been changed to protect the person's safety. Also I apologize for any spelling errors since I do not have spell check to correct them. ]]> tag:www.uni.uiuc.edu,2007:/gargoyle/dominican republic//13.1812 2007-06-23T20:47:24Z 2007-06-26T19:49:47Z

Epiphanies are rare, but these past eight days in the Dominican Republic have opened our eyes quickly and dramatically. We have many, many stories to tell you. Unfortunately, time is short and our access to computer terminals, extremely limited. Instead...

Dominican Republic
___________________________________________________________________________________
A LETTER FROM HONORARY CHAIR, JULIA ALVAREZ "Hope, History and Rhyming for the DREAMers and DOers. Two Poems to Inspire You" I recall the first time I realized we needed to start a school at Alta Gracia, our sustainable farm up in the mountains of the Domincan Republic, near the village of Los Dajaos. I was upstairs in our little casita writing away in my journal when I overhead Miguelina and her friend, Anamery, both six years old, playing a clapping game downstairs and reciting this rhyme: Mariquita, Mariquita
Mariquita, you abuser,
The man I like,
I´ll steal him from his wife.
I´ll steal him, I´ll steal him,
I´ll steal him, that´s the truth,
and then she´ll have to be
my servant and my cook.
I was born at one o´clock,
at two they baptized me,
at three I learned of love,
at four they married me,
at five I had a child,
by six that child was dead,
we buried him at seven,
I got divorced at eight,
at nine I had cancer,
the operation was at ten,
at eleven final prayers,
at twelve o´clock, the end.
When my husband gets home
I don´t know what I´ll say,
you better take your shoes off
and wash off your dirty smell.
I hurried to the window to be sure that the reciters of this shocking rhyme were indeed two little girls who had not yet reached what the Catholic Church, the predominant religion in the country, calls the age of reason, seven years old. Miguelina and Anamery chanted away merrily, but given their mothers' and grandmothers' lives, I was sure that these two precious little girls were unwittingly describing what lay ahead of them as females and as the poor in a third world country. All of what they recited shocked me, the fact that the only avenue for female ambition lay in deposing another luckier woman who had a husband. The fact that the new wife would in turn abuse the former wife, making her a servant and a cook. As for the husband, what was there to say to him. Go wash yourself, you smell bad. This was obviously not a love match. But the middle verse was the real heartbreaker. The clock of these two little girls' lives struck one grim hour after another .... When I heard Miguelina and Anamery chanting their rhyme, I knew that in addition to taking care of the land, we had to address the problem of education and illiteracy. There had to be a better clock of opportunities for Miguelina and Anamery and all the children in the community. And so was born the idea of starting a school on the farm, named after the national Virgencita de la Alta Gracia. Alta Gracia ... high grace. A fitting name for a place high up in the Cordillera Central. A place from which much grace will flow.

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BACK TO ME Others are waiting impatiently to use this terminal, so I will send more later. Best, Adele Suslick, Lead Teacher
University Laboratory High School
Urbana, IL
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I started our day at Puerto Cabarete, the international, touristy, beach town reading an article in the bus about the 1999 anti-globalization protest in Seattle. The article talked about how one effect of globalization is that extremely different countries start...

Dominican Republic Shara Esbenshade
University Laboratory High School
Urbana, IL]]> tag:www.uni.uiuc.edu,2007:/gargoyle/dominican republic//13.1810 2007-06-22T22:24:47Z 2007-06-26T19:40:29Z

Today at Batey Libertad, we picked up trash along the narrow, dusty streets. Our group collected more than four bags of garbage in a span of 25 minutes. We still left a lot of litter on the ground because it...

Dominican Republic Cody Bralts
Urbana High School
Urbana, IL ]]> tag:www.uni.uiuc.edu,2007:/gargoyle/dominican republic//13.1809 2007-06-22T22:20:58Z 2007-06-26T19:41:13Z

Today we arrived a bit late to the batey. We spent what was left of the morning picking up trash in the central parts of the community. Although it was extremely hot today and several of us had to take...

Dominican Republic Shara Esbenshade
University Laboratory High School
Urbana, IL ]]> tag:www.uni.uiuc.edu,2007:/gargoyle/dominican republic//13.1808 2007-06-22T00:13:44Z 2007-06-26T19:41:55Z

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...

Dominican Republic Isabel Vazquez
University Laboratory High School
Urbana, IL]]> tag:www.uni.uiuc.edu,2007:/gargoyle/dominican republic//13.1807 2007-06-21T23:50:04Z 2007-06-26T19:43:24Z

After a couple of days working at Batey Libertad, our group travelled to Puerto Caberete, a premier coastal tourist hotspot in the Dominican Republic. The ride from Santiago to Caberete took about 2 hours, which was slept through by many...

Dominican Republic Nish Nookala
University Laboratory High School
Urbana, IL]]> tag:www.uni.uiuc.edu,2007:/gargoyle/dominican republic//13.1800 2007-06-19T13:12:14Z 2007-06-26T19:44:32Z

Today will be our third day at Batey Libertad, but I already feel like we have been here for weeks. I´ve gotten to know many people, and after yesterday I finally feel like I am being useful. The first day...

Dominican Republic Shara Esbenshade
University Laboratory High School
Urbana, IL]]> tag:www.uni.uiuc.edu,2007:/gargoyle/dominican republic//13.1799 2007-06-19T02:44:41Z 2007-06-23T01:37:09Z

Sunday began very well. After a 45 min bus ride from Santiago to Batey Libertad, our group stepped off the bus into a society that was completely taboo to what some of us had ever seen. We saw extreme poverty,...

Dominican Republic Sunday began very well. After a 45 min bus ride from Santiago to Batey Libertad, our group stepped off the bus into a society that was completely taboo to what some of us had ever seen. We saw extreme poverty, but yet still a strong since of community, something we dont normally see in such a large society. As the children began to open up to us and vise versa, our group was able to relax and begin to absorb the culture on a higher level than before. We were introduced to our host families, allowing us to further intergrate within the batey. The host families children are past the shock of us being new to their community and allow us to observe their normal, daily interactions. We see fights between siblings and fathers feeding their childen piña (pinneapple). We are no longer guests, and are like trees that watch and interact when invited and neccesary and through this embodyment, we were able to fully migrate into this unique society that the dominicans and haitians in the batey call home.