Teaching on the Beach

I thankfully returned from an amazing week at the beach with my sixth grade class before the current tropical storm hit the island. I teamed up with Reef Check for a week of studying coral reefs in their natural environment. I was reminded why I wanted to work at this school in the first place; to teach students in the most hands-on, experiential, Christ focused manner. It was a blessed and highly enjoyable week filled with snorkeling, searching for critters in the sand, rock climbing, and adventure. I don’t think that learning can become more hands-on than this! My students learned more about coral reefs and the global problems occurring with them in one week on the beach than they would have in sixth months of classroom work. Living with my students was an awesome opportunity to bond with them as individuals and learn to appreciate the differences in our backgrounds. Before I knew it, my 12-year old boys were shimming up the palm trees, kicking down fresh coconuts and hacking them open with their machetes. We spent our days snorkeling and having class on the beach with one of the few marine biologists on the island and our evenings around the campfire or collecting plankton from the ocean. It was a bit crazy to write sub plans for the other 6 classes I teach, and come back to the two weeks of madness before x-mas break, but school was canceled today due to the rains. I live on the same street the school is on, which is fortunately on a hill, so I will be high and dry. Please pray for the families near the rivers in town that are struggling to keep their houses from flooding and energy and patience for the teachers as we finish out the semester.
I have uploaded more pictures from my week at the beach with 6th grade on my webalbum.
http://picasaweb.google.com/ewissema/PlayaFronton

Staff Appreciation

Several of the board members for the school came to visit this week and took all of the staff out for a relaxing dinner at a restaurant in the mountains. It was encouraging to have an evening where the staff were thanked for all of their hard work. It was also wonderful to see all of the staff outside of school, enjoying themselves, and connecting on a new level. We have staff from the US, Haiti, Columbia, and the DR. I am constantly amazed by how loving and supportive the staff is here across all cultural and racial boundaries. I really do feel like the staff is part of my family here. The local staff even let me practice my Spanish with them!

Cultural Weekend

One hour after our return from living on a mountain with our students, the new teachers headed off to the capital in public transportation to spend the weekend learning about the culture of the Dominican Republic. The conference was held in a Catholic retreat center on a cliff overlooking the seascape. I learned a lot about the various family structures of my students and my own reactions to cultural differences. The weekend was exhausting, but I was thankful for the opportunity to learn more about the culture I am living in. There are so many miscommunications that occur due to differences in culture and I hope to be able to avoid more of them now. Living in a different culture is humbling and a great opportunity for personal growth. I highly recommend it to all of you. This picture is of all of the new Doulos staff. I thoroughly enjoy all of these teachers and we always have a lot of fun together. For more pictures, visit my web album: http://picasaweb.google.com/ewissema/

Living in the Mountains......

Every year the school takes the students up on top of a mountain in the midst of a coffee plantation for a week of outdoor education. Many of the students look forward to this week all year and talk about it for the rest of the year. Classes are held in the woods and students learn to appreciate the amazingly beautiful natural world around them. Living in the mountains with 55 12-16 year old students is slightly less relaxing than the usual camping experience, but it certainly was an adventure. The mountains were breathtakingly beautiful even through all of the rain. I had the opportunity to talk to many of my students on a more personal level and build better relationships. This picture is of the girls in my cooking/sleeping group in our outdoor kitchen. It poured for more than half of the 4 days that we were on top of the mountain and many of the sleeping bags were soaked, but thankfully no one was hurt in the slippery mud and everyone saw the rain as more of an adventure. I was exhausted after this trip, but delighted with the experience.

Surviving the Storm

Dear All,
I just wanted you all to know that we are surviving the storm. It has rained for six days straight and the rivers have been dangerously high, but no one at the school has been hurt. The entire town has been shut down for the past three days since the rivers have been dangerous to pass. The school and my apartment are both built with solid roofs and located on one of the bigger hills in town. My clothes and shoes are perpetually wet and the wet weather is not helping my ear infection heal, but I am in good spirits and taking the opportunity to rest. No teachers or students have been hurt to my knowledge. There are numerous houses that are poorly constructed and built within feet of the river that have been destroyed and several people have been killed in the process. For the most part, living in the mountains has protected us from the high winds. The main problem is the massive amounts of water. I think I am getting a taste of what Noah must have felt like when he was building his ark. Please continue to pray for protection for the school and its students as well as the families that live too close to the river and are still in danger.

Medicine in a Third World Country

I always wanted to know what it was like to live in a third world country--not just as a tourist or visitor. My recent adventures with the flu and ear infections have exposed me to more of the local life than I would have otherwise seen. Jarabacoa-the town which I am living in has some local doctors, but the regulations are somewhat lax and there are no specialists. After struggling with an ear infection for a week I asked the local staff who I should have look at my ear. They all told me that I needed to travel to the bigger town (La Vega) an hour away if I wanted an accurate diagnosis. Having no car or other means of transport I crammed into the local bus (GwaGwa) with our Computer guy who has classes in La Vega every night. I left school early to try and make it to the clinic before it closed at 5PM. There is no time schedule for the buses--they leave when they are full and not before that. The bus driver kindly dropped my friend off at his house and dropped me near the clinic. There are no such things as appointments. You put your name on the list and wait. The first time I visited the doctor I waited for 5 hours before I was admitted to have my ear examined. The lights periodically shut down, but the generator at the hospital was decent and the lights usually came back on within a minute. The doctor was trained in Spain and seemed to know what he was doing. Trying to explain and understand a medical problem in Spanish certainly put my vocabulary to the test. The pharmacy was out of some of the medicines that I needed to buy so I waited another hour for someone to go pick up a new supply. The real adventure was trying to get home. The computer guy kindly returned to help me travel to the bus station. The last bus returning to my town leaves some time between 6 and 7PM. If I had really been stranded I could have called another teacher that had a car or waited for our Computer guy to finish his classes at 10PM. Fortunately, I managed to catch the last bus home, but it was dark by the time we arrived in Jarabacoa. I sat next to a very kind lady who found a friend of hers to take me home on the back of his motorcycle since I didn't want to walk in the dark by myself. This woman had also been to La Vega to visit a doctor; unfortunately she could not afford to buy the medicine she needed. Medicine is extremely expensive here considering the average salary. My consultation with the doctor was only $15, but the medicine has totaled to over $100. I had the local experience of having to take 8 hours out of my day to visit the doctor, but at least I could afford the necessary medicine. Despite my tired and grouchy state, I was reminded of how thankful I should be for what I do have and how gracious it was for a sick woman to be taking care of a foreigner.

Two worlds meet

This Thursday I had the surreal experience of visiting the brand new Hard Rock Cafe in the Capital (Santo Domingo). The director invited me to come with her to a fund raising event for the first underwater conservation park on the Dominican Republic. This park will be a huge step towards protecting the remaining coral reefs. I have been put in charge of the annual sixth grade coral reef trip. I will be traveling to a beach the first week in December to work with Reef Check to teach the students about the importance of coral reef conservation and the damage that has already occurred. Working with Reef Check is an exciting opportunity to use my recent Master's on coral reef microbes in my current teaching job. Traveling to the Capital was a surreal experience. I went from the muddy streets next to my apartment with fresh pig legs hanging next door to hearing famous artists perform live in the Hard Rock Cafe and looking at guitars from Maroon 5, and real jackets from the Beatles in the space of a 3 hour drive. Visiting the nicest part of the Capital and being admitted into the VIP room (only because I'm a teacher) was a strong reminder of the huge disparity between rich and poor in this country. I am so excited that the school is able to fund raise and provide my students with the opportunity to work with an international organization on real corals. Many of my students have never been to the beach even though it is just 2 hours away.