Launching Club de Lectura Las Margaritas (Las Margaritas Reading Club)

          My apologies to Josh’s faithful readers for sneaking in this post. Well, as many of you know, the foundation has been busy organizing a reading club in Madre Vieja, the town where our summer camp takes place. This February vacation I flew down to the D.R. on my own.  The morning after my arrival, my Mom presented me with a 5 day detailed agenda of what needed to be done in order to launch the Reading Club.  We soon got to work.  I contacted Maria Victoria, the teacher (Dominican poet), who will lead the group.  The goal is for her to model and gradually release the responsibility to the students themselves so that they will eventually run their own reading club with the supervision of Carmen and my Mom. 

            Our next step was to visit schools to talk to 6-8^th grade students. We visited two schools and a church youth program.  We handed out over 100 applications expecting a 30 to 40% return.  The idea of a reading club is quite a novelty in the DR, and more so in this rural/ low income community of Madre Vieja. The optimistic part of me expected the students to be super excited about this project and eager to be part of it.  What I found was something a bit different.  At the first school (the church group), there were a group of about 30 students cramped together in a small room.  I should add here that this is the church my family belonged to and helped build from the ground up. A story for another day! The students here listened absent-mindly and only a few students took the application form home.  The teacher chimed in, commenting at the lack of interest, and told the students how lucky they were and how she wished there was something like this when she was their age and just what a great opportunity this was. After her hopeful encouragements, a few other students took applications with them. I walked outside with tears in my eyes feeling discouraged.  My Mom (the driving force of this organization!) hooked her arm in mine and said, “no te preocupes que hay mas” (don’t worry, there are more).  In the afternoon, we went back to the church program to talk to that group of students. In the DR, students go to school for half the day; there is a morning session and an afternoon session.  We got the same response as in the morning.  My mom and I walked out of there.  Once outside we looked at each other and said… you guess it!  When I faced timed with Josh that night he commented how, these students are teenagers and that’s how teenagers respond in any language. 

          That afternoon we went over to visit La Escuela Doña Chucha, a former orphanage who’s principal is a good childhood friend of mine. There is a beautiful and powerful story behind the creation of this school and my Mom played a big role in it, but again, another story for another day! We walked through the gates of the school and the students were having recess. I was overtaken with joy at what I witnessed.  Please click here for a taste of what I experienced! The principal Belquis Porte, gave me a tour of the school.  I met with many students and teachers. I talked to several students and teachers about the reading club and encouraged some of the students to attend the meeting scheduled for that coming Saturday.  My concern here was the location.  The meetings are to take place at my parent’s house, which is a bit of a distance away from this school, but I thought that maybe the 8^th graders could manage it.

          The next day, we visited Escuela Madre Vieja Sur.  This is the school we Montás kids attended as children and also the school where the Campamento Las Margaritas takes place.  My mom had mentioned that there was a new principal and she made arrangements so that we could meet with her.  The principal was very welcoming.  She was already aware of our summer program and offered us her full support.  She was also excited about the idea of the reading club.  She mentioned how this was something that the students needed, but that the school could not offer due to the lack of resources.  She directed us to the 8^th grade classrooms where we proceeded to explain the logistics of the reading club.  Soon after I started to speak, a student raised his hand and asked me if I was one of the teachers from El Campamento.  It took me a few seconds to recognize him.  It was EL Mello, one of our students from the 2010 camp!  After my little spiel, several students raised their hands to ask questions about the reading club. We handed out the 30 applications we had brought with us!

          Saturday quickly arrived. The opening event of the reading club was to take place at 5:00 P.M. We decorated the patio and prepared the sweet and savory snacks I brought down from the states.  Cailyn and Frandy worked on organizing and labeling the books. At around 3:00 P.M. a crazy heavy rain began to fall. I grew weary because Maria Victoria had called me the night before to tell me that she has been fighting a terrible head cold, but that she was still planning to be there.  Now, with all this rain, I feared that neither Maria Victoria nor the students were going to show. Well, at 4:45 Maria Victoria walks in soaking wet. And soon after that the students began to arrive. Some wearing their best Sunday clothes, other wearing mixed-match sandals, but all with an inquisitive smile and a sparkle of curiosity in their eyes.  The Margaritas Reading Club has begun…

Happy Thanksgiving...

An appropriate title for the happenings at El Campamento I think. Tanya's family is in town for the holiday and Samuel and I chatted last night about all the progress that's been made in the last few months. We recovered nicely from having to cancel the summer camp, replacing it with the school supply drive and, continuing with the recent focus on literacy, have begun work on organizing a book club in Madre Vieja.  Tanya was able to find a bunch of copies of Tuck Everlasting in Spanish (Tuck, Para Siempre) and we've recruited Montás cousin Anin (a.k.a. renowned poet Maria Victoria Carreño) to hold a number of sessions to discuss the text with a group of local students.

And in the biggest news of all thanks to the perseverance of Nelly and Samuel we were able to get our 501-C3 non-profit status, meaning that all donations to our foundation are tax deductable.
What started out five years ago as Campamento Las Margaritas, a small summer camp for fifteen or so students,  has transformed to Fundación Las Margarits, a burgeoning non-profit organization.

Hard to believe really. When we ran El Campamento for the first time I really wanted to affect great change. I had all these big ideas like making the entire Domincan Republic a hotbed for environmental activism, like changing the lives of all of the students of Madre Vieja forever.  Tanya, ever the pragmatist (what?!?), urged caution and said that we needed to start small.  And then we did and, I wasn't ever convinced that we were making any difference in anything. Tanya said that we were, that just by seeing these Gringos (and I use that term with great self-respect) show interest in them, the students would be transformed, would begin to believe that they could do big things, that they could affect great change.  But, I wasn't convinced.  And I'm still not convinced that two weeks of work every couple of years makes such a difference.

But now, all that has changed. Yes, we'll still run the summer camp, but with increased funding we can begin to work with the students throughout the year as well. And to work with more of them. We can begin to provide some of the things that the children need, that the entire community lacks - a vague statement because we haven't yet figure out how to do that. But, as Samuel said last night, that's a good problem to have.

Back to School Supply Drive

So, like I said, thanks to the generosity of many people including Samuel and Nelly Montas, Jimmy and Yolanda Depalo, Kenneth Montas, Natalie Montas, Kelly Barrett, Steven and Marisol Williams, Curtis Larsen, Laura Dee, and Brandon Diaz, we have been able to collect almost $900 to use to support the San Cristobal community.  We decided to use the funds for the children of the community, and, continuing the ideals of the camp, we wanted to connect the funds to the school somehow.  At first we thought about buying backpacks for the students (remind me someday to tell you about my brilliant idea to use returned LL Bean backpacks).  But, then we heard that the government wasn't going to be able to help the children buy school supplies this year (http://www.noticiassin.com/2014/08/algunos-ninos-no-podran-asistir-a-clases-por-falta-de-utiles-escolares/) so we decided to focus on school supplies instead.  

We sent the money down to Carmen and Doña Yolanda and they were able to buy a bunch of school supplies – in bulk, mind you.  That way we were able to buy notebooks, pencils, pens, erasers and pencil sharpeners for over 200 students in San Cristobal.  La Doña decided to split the donations between the local school where the camp was housed and another school closer to the river where there is even greater need (If you go back a few entries, you can see us giving out books to children in that area a couple of years ago).

So, that’s where we stand.  We were all pretty sad that we couldn’t get down to run the camp this summer. But, we already have plans to go down next summer and once this “Back to School Drive” campaign wraps up we’ll begin gearing up for that.

That’s all for now. I’ll keep you posted as to our doings this winter. Or, at least that's my intent.

What's Going On?

So, for the sixteen 'Campamento Las Margaritas' followers (Margaritaheads?) I don't need to tell you that it’s been over two years since my last entry. Fear not, though, there’s been lots going on with El Campament. So, let’s get right to it.

First of all, I had hoped to do lots of blogging this summer because we had BIG plans to run Summer Camp III at the school in San Cristobal. Alas, it wasn’t meant to be.  Early in the Spring Chikungunya Fever broke out in the D.R http://www.bbc.com/news/health-28678164 .  Lots of people, including many of Tanya’s family members got quite sick (thank goodness they have all recovered).  We waited and watched the news and talked with lots of people in the DR (actually, Tanya did all of this. I just sat around watching the Red Sox – but let’s not get into that right now), hoping that the fever would run its course before August. But, it never did. In fact, it got worse over the summer.  Considering we were bringing lots of people down with us (including three Paris cousins and the granddaughter of a friend of my parents – don’t ask – whom we had met only once) we ultimately decided not to go.  Sad day for the Campamento…

But, I’m really getting ahead of myself because well before all the drama I just described, when we were all beginning to think about the camp, Tanya, Samuel, Nelly, and I decided to expand the work we were doing with the Campamento. So, we formed “La Fundación Las Margaritas”, have set up a website (lasmargaritasfoundation.org), and are now an official non-profit organization.  Wahoo!  This idea has helped us to raise funds that we originally had planned to use for the camp. But, if you recall, the camp is not running this summer so we are directing the funds to the local San Cristobal school where the camp was held.

You know, I think another entry is warranted to describe what happened next, so read on McDuff… But, before you do, here's a teaser:

Post Camp Processing

So, we've been away for a week or so travelling around the country. I've had a lot of down time to process and reflect upon what went down this year at camp. I didn't actually use a lot of the time thinking about the camp as I preferred to use my down time reading or running, but I'm 3/4 of the way through the last book that I brought with me on this trip and with a couple of hot nights and a long day of travel ahead I'd like to make the book last. As well, my joints could use a break from running. So I've mentally returned to the camp for a bit.  Here goes.

I think this year was much improved over our first effort two summers ago. We had almost twice as many campers and, although, that presented some management issues, especially with some of the campers who were more interested in boys than in cacao, overall the brain energy was much greater, enabling us to have more interesting conversations. I think also that the diversity of activities we did this year (cacao, botanical gardens, engomado, etc.) made for a more enriching experience for the campers. So, there´s that.

Before the camp began this summer, remember I wrote that post wondering about the benefits of this camp? I'm sure you're wondering what my thoughts are on that front now that camp is wrapped up for the summer, right? Well, as much as I would like to report that my thoughts on this matters have sorted themselves out in my head, I don't really think that would be accurate. As people responded earlier, the effect we teachers have on our students can't really be measured right away. We have to wait and see how our students develop and hope that someday they will realize how they benefitted from us. I think that's where I stand with our campers. I hope that deep down inside of them we ignited a spark of creativity, of social conscience, or responsibility, of environment concern that will someday grow into a fogon (bonfire). Maybe someday they will find themselves with the opportunity to be creative in school (or out of school, I suppose) and will recall all the art activities we did this summer. Or maybe some day they will look at their streets filled with garbage and actually see the garbage and will then be able to do something about it.

Or maybe they will simply fondly recall some nice, well-intentioned Gringos who, for a couple of weeks, took a few hours out of their hectic lives to spend with them. And if these Gringos cared enough about them to do so, maybe they will care enough about themselves to make themselves great, or something like that.(I think Elon replied to my earlier misgivings with that thought and I think he's right.)

To close, I would take you back to the beginning of this adventure. Two years ago, Tanya and I looked for a camp to send our kids for a couple of weeks while we were here visiting her parents. The idea was for them to maybe make some Dominican friends, get immersed in the culture, and learn some more Spanish along the way. When we couldn't find such a camp, we decided to create one of our own. That was the origin of Campamento Las Margaritas. I don't really think we've been all that successful with our own kids as they haven't integrated with the other campers nearly as much as we would've liked. However, the learning atmosphere we created I think ended up being of benefit to the local community. The message I take out of this is that often when you set out to do one thing, you often end up doing something completely different, but, perhaps much more valuable. That's the real meaning behind "best laid plans of mice and men" as I take it even if Mr. Steinbeck had something completely different in mind.

Out of juice, so I better post now. Plus I don´t have anything left to say.

It´s All Over

Well, Season II is now in the can, as they (who?) say. And I´m happy to report that after six days with a head cold, I´m finally feeling better today. Last night, I gave in and accepted and ingested any and all medicines that were thrust in my direction. I´m not sure what they all were, and I´m still feeling a little woozy, as if my head had spent a few minutes inside of a wachine machine. But, I think   whatever was clogging up my head has been excorsised.

Williams and Joriel planting a manzanilla tree

In any event, today was a marvelous finish to the camp. Over the weekend, Dona Yolanda was able to procure about 20 saplings of fruit trees that are very rare on the island these days: manzana de oro, mamon,granadillo, guanabana, mandarina. And today we planted them. After the mysterious disappearance of the plants that we planted two years ago, we decided that this year we would plant the trees at people´s houses. So, a couple of days ago Yasira led a group of campers going door to door around the neighborhood looking for nice and caring homes for the treees. And today, we followed Don Tilo and his pickaxe around, retracing Yasira´s footsteps, and planted about 20 trees in gardens around the school. Not to get too worked up about it all, but there´s something about planting trees that really hits me deep inside. I don´t know what it is exactly, but putting something into the Earth that will provide nourishment for both people and the Earth itself satisfies some primal need. When Don Montilla came to speak to us last week, he said something that struck a chord in me; that to live a fully realized life one should do three things: have a child, plant a tree, and write a book. So, now I´ve got two out of the three. And if you count this blog as a book, then I´m all set.

After finishing the planting we returned to the school and prepared for the end of camp celebration that we had planned. The campers´parents came and we had a little picadera. Then we presented the campers with a diploma and a gift of school supplies and seeds. Get it? The school supplies so that they can continue growing as learners and thinkers and the seeds so that they can grow trees. Then the campers read the poems they had written last week and it was over. I´ve got a lot going through my head right now about this experience. But I´m also hungry. So it´ll have to wait until I can process everything.  Buen provecho.

Day VII

Making Birdhouses

Lots of art today at Campamento Las Margaritas as we continue on the path to creativity.  The kids began the day with wikisticks and then they made and decorated birdhouses. At AC Moore, Tanya had found birdhouse kits on sale at some point this past winter and snatched up a whole bunch. She also packed some birdseed in one of the boxes that was sent down earlier this summer. But that particular box got 'misplaced' somehow and never made it.  I like to think that somewhere in the world, tropical birds are enjoying the birdseed and grateful for the unexpected gift.

Dr. Ismael Reyes

In any event, after the art projects and sports, we had a very distinguished guest come speak to the campers. Dr. Ismael Reyes, the father of Nelly, is a business and political leader of the DR. He spoke to the campers about the importance of studying hard and conveyed the message that poverty is a state of mind and the way to get out of poverty is through education. The campers were very respectful, attentive and well-behaved as he was quite inspiring. TTFN.

Dia VI: El Cacao

Cacao Vendor

Today was a lovely day at Campamento Margaritas. Though I am feeling quite run down with a cold that has stubbornly lodged itself in my head and sinuses for the past three days, everybody else was in fine spirits. And why not? For today, we made chocolate. But I should back track as the story really started last Thursday. On that morning, Evan, Camila, Anthony, Tanya and myself went off on a  great adventure to find cacao beans in the market in town. It was hot, superhot really, and muddy and the market was filled with people, which was great, and motorcycles, which was not so great. And vendors selling everything from passionf ruit, to avocados, to bluejeans to toothbrushes. We asked vendor after vendor if they knew of a man who was selling cacao beans. They all pointed vaguely in a certain direction and we went off until we found another person to ask. At one point, a vendor asked us to watch his stall while he went looking for the illusive cacao vendor. Alas, he came back in ten minutes with only the news that somewhere deep in the bowels of the market, was a stall that sold all sorts of medicinal herbs, one of which was cacao beans. So, we headed inside and followed a maze of very dark passages that led from one vendor to another. I felt like I was in an Indiana Jones movie, searching for the illusive cacao vendor who held the secrets to everything. Finally, we found him. He did, in fact, have the answers to everything, at least in terms of medicinal herbs, of which he sold many. He gave Camila a bag of some mysterious herb and told her that when she had a sore throat she should boil the herbs and then gargle with the solution. And he had cacao beans, of which we bought 200 pesos worth.

Peeling Cacao Beans

And that brings us to today. Dona Yolanda toasted the cacao beans yesterday and today we had all the students help complete the process. Before we began, Dona Yolanda explained that cacao beans, along with sugar cane and coffee have been historically the major crops of the DR. She added that eating cacao is good for people with anemia and for women who have just given birth, as it helps to bring the mother's milk in.
Then, the students peeled all the cacao beans and Don Tilo placed them in a giant pestle and used a mortar to grind the beans into a paste. By the way, any day that you get to use a giant mortar and pestle is a good one in my book. All of the students got a turn helping out (I didn't help and feel like I should have. It seems like grinding cacao beans into chocolate is something that one should do in one's life and I can't imagine when I'll have another opportunity to do so.) and Dona Yolanda added some cinnamon and sugar to sweeten the beans. It was a magical process as the beans first broke down into small pieces and then, slowly reconstituted into an oily paste that, once the bitterness was cut with sugar, was delicious. Each students was given a small ball of the chocolate paste to take home to eat as is or to make into hot chocolate; a staple of children's breakfast here.

Making the Cacao Paste

Before today, many of the students had no idea even that chocolate came from cacao beans. When Tanya asked them how to make chocolate, they all responded: "Well, first you boil water, then you add the piece of chocolate, some cinnamon, a pinch of salt, some sugar and finally some milk."  They are completely correct of course, if the question were how to make hot chocolate but underlies an observation that Tanya has made; that children in the DR really don't have a great sense of where their food comes from. Perhaps in connecting the food they eat to the land from which they come, children will better value the need to protect their land.

Wow, that sounds wicked altruistic and self-serving. Perhaps it was just a great day making chocolate, as how could it be otherwise?

Days IV, V and V.V

Camila and Cailyn Sweeping Water

Pickin' up Trash and Mud

Rey and Company

Lots to report as the tropical storm that blew through the Caribbean this weekend knocked out electricity and  internet for awhile. Which is really just an excuse for me being lazy. Because I have so much to report, I think I'll work backwards from today. Tanya's friend Rey, one of the community and youth organizing leaders, led us in a neighborhood cleaning project. Rey bought some bleach, and arranged for water and trash trucks to come by. Jacoby, Tanya's nephew, bought some brooms and trash bags and we set out to clean the streets around the school. We being a whole bunch of people from the neighborhood and about 15 of our campers. Here's how it worked: The water truck came by and sprayed a bunch of water in the gutters of the streets. Then we all swept the water down the gutters along with all the trash and mud that was in them. This resulted in piles of trash that we scooped into trash bags with some shovels. Then the trash truck came by and picked up all the bags. We were at this for about two hours. Here's the thing. If you walked around the school right now, you would have a hard time seeing that a major cleaning project had just taken place. We did our best, but there was a lot of trash and mud and we couldn't get all of it. Camila was pretty frustrated as we walked back to the house, asking me what had we actually accomplished. I share her frustration as the act of cleaning the streets in the DR is quite sysiphisian (I just love when I get to use that word even if I can't spell it). But, somehow, I think it's the act of cleaning that's important and, not necessarily the results. I send that message to my kids all the time; that it's the road that we choose to take that's of value, not really what's at the end of the road. Even though we didn't make a huge dent in the cleanliness (or lack thereof) of the streets, the fact that so many people worked together on the cleaning project is meaningful. There is an expression in Spanish, "mano a la obra", which basically means, "it's time to get to work." It's the work that's of value as well as the fact that more and more Dominicans are beginning to care about what their streets are looking like.

Working backwards, this brings us to Friday, Day V. This was our big, field trip day as Samuel and Nelly made all of the arrangements for us to visit The National Botanical Gardens in Santo Doming. They rented a bus for us and made a reservation with a private guide. So, we met at 9:00 in front of the school (It's of note that everyone with the exception of Nicol had arrived at the school before we did. I guess they were just a tad excited.), loaded into the bus and thirty minutes later arrived at the gardens. We had a guide take us through a museum of sorts, had some lunch and then got on a train/car that would take us through the park. It really was quite beautiful as the diversity of flora on this island is quite stunning. Many of the campers had never been there before, even though it's only about 1/2 an hour away and were taken aback by what they saw (at least, I hope, deep inside, they were).

One thing I would add about the train/car ride: There was a driver and a guide that spoke to us via a microphone. She spoke extremely slowly, whereas the driver drove very quickly, the result being that by the time the guide finished telling us what we were looking at we were looking at something else. This is another example of  the vagaries of the tourist industry here. The government has been able to construct a beautiful park showcasing, as I mentioned, the incredible diversity of the flora on the island. And they even set up a car/train ride to give you access to it. Then they fly you through as quickly as possible, as far as I can tell, solely because that's how they drive here. I mean at one point we must've been going 40 miles per hour down a hill and around a corner. I think I spotted some bamboo at one point, but I was never quite sure.

Anin y Su Posia

Which, in this time travelling backwards post, brings us to Thursday. I think in the last post, I spoke of the lack of creativity of the campers; the result of their not having many opportunities to be creative. We took this issue head on on Thursday. We started off by giving each student a small tub of playdough (pictures to follow for that product placement idea I was talking about) and asked them to create anything they liked. Then we gave them a good 20 minutes to do so. Many of the campers started slowly, not really knowing what to make, but, slowly but surely they got going, eventually creating objects such as dumbells, fashion show walkways, a garden, etc.. Next up was Maria Victoria, Tanya's cousin known more affectionately as Anin. Anin is a published poet and she spoke to the campers about poetry and then had them create, and then recite, their own poems. What she did was write down a short poem that she had written and then asked the students to create their own poem by replacing some of the key words with images of their own creation. Again, the campers had a diffucult time at first, but, eventually, they did pretty well. Here's a student reading her poem:

Not that I'm used to doing such things, but I have to confess. We really just set out on Thursday to expose the students to poetry and to show them that they can all be poets. We hadn't really planned on a full day of creativity, it just kinda worked out that way. However, I do think the campers now have a different impression of poetry than they had before Anin's lesson. As Irene, one of our more "vocal" and controversial campers said after Anin's lesson: "This is poetry? I thought poetry was always about love."