So, it's been at least two weeks since I last posted, but since those weeks (and especially weekends) were more than busy I don't feel too bad about being a little late.
I guess it would help to give a little more info about my classes and the university itself. PUCMM is considered the most top-notch school in the D.R., and is even called by some "the Harvard of the Caribbean" (which will sounds both suspect and familiar to my fellow Ole Miss-ers). The school itself takes up a pretty large chunk in the western part of the city, though only a small portion of that is taken up by buildings: the rest is sort of like a larger, more tropical version of the Grove, which I for one am more than happy with.
My classes are about as Crofty as possible: Dominican studies, Spanish (I squeaked by into the advanced level), Caribbean culture and society, Dominican-Haitian relations, and Hispanic-American Literature. The first two are only with other American students from my program, and the next two have a good mix of Americans, Dominican and Haitians, but the literature class is with 25 Dominican students, all of them guys on the road to be priests because it's part of the theology department (!). This is the only class that worried/worries me a little because it proceeds at a pretty rapid pace, meets only once a week (but for three solid hours at a time), and I'm having some problems figuring out my assignments. Hopefully though, everything will work out well as I get into the swing of things, and it's bound to be one of my more rewarding classes. Oh, and I almost forgot about sculpture! Me and Stephen, one of my American friends, along with about 7-8 Dominican girls meet once a week for this class, which really should be called wood-carving since that's the material we're going to be working with exclusively (So far I'm pretty terrible at it, but we'll see).
So, school's taken up most of my time during the week, except for a brief sojourn to a karaoke bar near the University for a friend's birthday and a Jazz Night last monday at a schwanky rooftop club elsewhere in Santiango. The weekends, though, have been even more eventful. Friday before last we went to see la pelota, or a baseball game, in Santiago's stadium. The game was pretty empty because no one expected the Aguilas to win, but win they did! At this point they're playing in the Dominican version of the world series and will move on to the Caribbean World Series (which includes Puerto Rico, Colombia, and others) if they win that. Saturday morning a couple of friends and I caught an early bus to Sosua, a town on the northern coast, to check out the beach. The beach was pretty crowded, but we ate an excellent, if unhealthy, lunch (fried chicken and tostones, fried plaintain chips) and the water was clear and very blue. The only qualm I had with Sosua was that when I swam around with my goggles I found not only fish but a good bit of trash floating around the bottom. This is something to be expected in a touristy place, I guess, but it's the only aspect of life in the D.R. that has attracted my attention negatively. At first I just kept wondering "Why do people just throw out so much trash?" After a little bit of more objective thinking I've come to the conclusion that the trash that's so common on roadsides and even downtown is more a testament to the failure of effective sanitation services and government in general than to Dominicans' penchant for littering. In fact, I'd imagine we'd probably have even more trash at home than here if we didn't have so many inmates doing the picking up. Anyway, trash wasn't a problem at all at la playa Ensenada, the beach we went to as a group on Sunday. Words really can't describe (and pictures don't do justice) to how amazingly beautiful this place was. We spent the morning on the actual beach and after a huge and delicious lunch (I ate a whole parrotfish), several of us took a long boat ride that took us past many more beaches and a mangrove swamp to a tiny sandbar way out in the ocean, surrounded by coral reefs where we went snorkeling all afternoon and where I was buried up to my head in sand by my obliging fellow snorkelers.
This past weekend's activities were somewhat more sober: we traveled to a community in the mountains between Santiago and Puerto Plata and helped to build latrines (read: outhouses) for the people there. We were there from Friday to Sunday and I'm happy to say that the only bad thing about the trip was the cold at night when we tried to sleep. We got a lot done though, and I was glad to be able to do something other than just enjoy myself 24/7 (how selfless of me, I know). This week is well on its way now, and more than full of homework, so I'm already looking forward to this weekend, when I'll be going on a 4-day hike to the top of Pico Duarte, the highest peak in the Caribbean, with some of our Dominican friends' church group. Until then, ¡Adios!
Monday, January 23, 2012
Monday, January 9, 2012
Santiago: "Noh vamoh a orientar"
Santiago at last! Well actually that's a bit of a belated statement since I've now been here for almost a full week exactly, but my excitement is still running pretty high (perhaps due to the fact that I got to have a little taste of home--Pizza Hut--for lunch). Better to start from the beginning, though.
After waking up pretty early last Morning, stopping at Meme and Papa's house to say goodbye and Walmart to pick up the last necessities (sunscreen, a cover for my kindle, and an alarm clock radio--battery powered), I drove with the folks and Anna Laurie to catch my flight in Birmingham. My Uncle Ken and [cousin] Alex met us at the airport to say goodbye as well, and with plenty of time to spare I said my despedidas (love you guys!) and boarded my connecting flight to Miami.
That flight was pretty uneventful, except for the amazing views of the city as we landed, but once there I was able to meet several of the other students going to Santiago, all of whom are more than nice and fun to be around. After a short delay for the second half of my flight we were greeted in the airport by the director of our exchange program, Lynne, and the coordinator, Ryan, who escorted us to the university where our host mothers were ready to pick us up.
My host mom, Genarina Fernández, is older and lives alone, but always has friends and relatives over, and is super amable. I also have a temporary host sister, Alex, who's here for a few weeks from NYU with a graduate program.
Genarina's house is in a very nice neighborhood called la Zurza, a short walk away from the university, PUCMM (an acronym pronounced "Poo-ka-my-ma") and an even shorter walk from Santiago's most famous landmark, the former monument to the dictator Trujillo and now Monument to the Heroes of the Restoration (a war fought to free the country of Spain's dastardly clutches in the 19th century--here's a link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monumento_de_Santiago). Neither my room (nor, I think, does the rest of the house) have air conditioning, even though it's quite a nice place, but this is pretty common. Luckily it isn't really too big a deal because most rooms have really powerful fans to keep out the heat. The other most notable thing about living with Genarina is that she has two outside dogs and three cats that come in and out. Usually I'm deathly allergic to cats, but they haven't really affected me so far, I think because all the open windows and doors keep any allergens from building up. Oh and did I mention that two of the cats were pregnant when I got here, and that they both gave birth today? Yep, the cat population of my house more than tripled in one day.
I'll save the descriptions of the university and the city for another post, to keep this one from getting over-large, but here's a recap on the actual activities up to this point: various tours of the university and the city (including a scavenger hunt), a couple of trips to discotecas at night with the estudiantes de apoyo, Dominican students who volunteer to help with us clueless foreigners, a dance class with said students, and a whole lot more. Sunday we even took a day trip to the capital, Santo Domingo, and toured both the old colonial zone (including cathedrals, the old fort, and the ruins of sugar mills) which is really the first permanent European settlement in the New World. Today gave us a little downtime with a low-key discussion at Lynne's house and then a moving dinner, where all of the foreign students in our area went to each other's host homes for different courses (all muy rico of course). Tomorrow classes start, though, for which I should probably get some sleep! Expect a (perhaps sobering) description of life at PUCMM in the next post. ¡Hasta luego!
After waking up pretty early last Morning, stopping at Meme and Papa's house to say goodbye and Walmart to pick up the last necessities (sunscreen, a cover for my kindle, and an alarm clock radio--battery powered), I drove with the folks and Anna Laurie to catch my flight in Birmingham. My Uncle Ken and [cousin] Alex met us at the airport to say goodbye as well, and with plenty of time to spare I said my despedidas (love you guys!) and boarded my connecting flight to Miami.
That flight was pretty uneventful, except for the amazing views of the city as we landed, but once there I was able to meet several of the other students going to Santiago, all of whom are more than nice and fun to be around. After a short delay for the second half of my flight we were greeted in the airport by the director of our exchange program, Lynne, and the coordinator, Ryan, who escorted us to the university where our host mothers were ready to pick us up.
My host mom, Genarina Fernández, is older and lives alone, but always has friends and relatives over, and is super amable. I also have a temporary host sister, Alex, who's here for a few weeks from NYU with a graduate program.
Genarina's house is in a very nice neighborhood called la Zurza, a short walk away from the university, PUCMM (an acronym pronounced "Poo-ka-my-ma") and an even shorter walk from Santiago's most famous landmark, the former monument to the dictator Trujillo and now Monument to the Heroes of the Restoration (a war fought to free the country of Spain's dastardly clutches in the 19th century--here's a link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monumento_de_Santiago). Neither my room (nor, I think, does the rest of the house) have air conditioning, even though it's quite a nice place, but this is pretty common. Luckily it isn't really too big a deal because most rooms have really powerful fans to keep out the heat. The other most notable thing about living with Genarina is that she has two outside dogs and three cats that come in and out. Usually I'm deathly allergic to cats, but they haven't really affected me so far, I think because all the open windows and doors keep any allergens from building up. Oh and did I mention that two of the cats were pregnant when I got here, and that they both gave birth today? Yep, the cat population of my house more than tripled in one day.
I'll save the descriptions of the university and the city for another post, to keep this one from getting over-large, but here's a recap on the actual activities up to this point: various tours of the university and the city (including a scavenger hunt), a couple of trips to discotecas at night with the estudiantes de apoyo, Dominican students who volunteer to help with us clueless foreigners, a dance class with said students, and a whole lot more. Sunday we even took a day trip to the capital, Santo Domingo, and toured both the old colonial zone (including cathedrals, the old fort, and the ruins of sugar mills) which is really the first permanent European settlement in the New World. Today gave us a little downtime with a low-key discussion at Lynne's house and then a moving dinner, where all of the foreign students in our area went to each other's host homes for different courses (all muy rico of course). Tomorrow classes start, though, for which I should probably get some sleep! Expect a (perhaps sobering) description of life at PUCMM in the next post. ¡Hasta luego!
Sunday, January 1, 2012
La vida dominicana: la preparación
Though my last blog post ended a long time ago on a bit of a cliffhanger (stuck in Quito with Rachel and Anna), allow me to remind everyone that I did, in fact, make it back to America, after a satisfying detour to Costa Rica. Everything since I got back in August sort of ran together; with school, work, and helping with the Honors College occupying my time, the semester turned into one long string of alternating fun and stress.
Not that I'm complaining. I've seen myself at both my laziest and most productive, my happiest and (almost) my most depressed. But the help of my family at home and friends--old and new--at school has helped to make it a time I won't forget.
Right now most of it feels like just one long lead-up to my newest path, though: my spring abroad in the Dominican Republic. My hopes? Becoming as fluent as possible in Spanish, becoming close to my Dominican family and making new friends, learning the value of a different kind of life. Expectations? About the same, minus the optimism of fluency. At any rate, though, I can take solace that I'm bound to get at least a little better with the language, especially if I go the harder route and actually try to immerse myself in the culture (and don't cloister myself with other exchange students).
I'm guessing I'll probably end up somewhere in between what I want and what my realism/skepticism/pessimism thinks. What I'm sure of, though, is that this is going to be a time that will stick with me, probably change me in ways I won't be able to predict, and if I'm being honest, I could do with a few changes. Ready for a brand new start, and here's hoping I'm ready to take it!
Cualquier destino, por largo y complicado que sea, consta en realidad de un solo momento: el momento en que el hombre sabe para siempre quién es. -Jorge Luis Borges
Not that I'm complaining. I've seen myself at both my laziest and most productive, my happiest and (almost) my most depressed. But the help of my family at home and friends--old and new--at school has helped to make it a time I won't forget.
Right now most of it feels like just one long lead-up to my newest path, though: my spring abroad in the Dominican Republic. My hopes? Becoming as fluent as possible in Spanish, becoming close to my Dominican family and making new friends, learning the value of a different kind of life. Expectations? About the same, minus the optimism of fluency. At any rate, though, I can take solace that I'm bound to get at least a little better with the language, especially if I go the harder route and actually try to immerse myself in the culture (and don't cloister myself with other exchange students).
I'm guessing I'll probably end up somewhere in between what I want and what my realism/skepticism/pessimism thinks. What I'm sure of, though, is that this is going to be a time that will stick with me, probably change me in ways I won't be able to predict, and if I'm being honest, I could do with a few changes. Ready for a brand new start, and here's hoping I'm ready to take it!
Cualquier destino, por largo y complicado que sea, consta en realidad de un solo momento: el momento en que el hombre sabe para siempre quién es. -Jorge Luis Borges
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