Are we helping?

Just some angst going on inside my head these days. I read about projects in the DR that are truly helping the people there. Projects like the fundación Alta Gracia that Julia Alvarez helped to set up that promotes agricultural sustainability while providing work for farmers in the central highlands.(http://www.cafealtagracia.com/links.html) and the Institute for Integrative Medicine (http://integrativedev.interactivemedialab.com/Home.aspx) whose projects include one in which recycled grocery bags are crocheted into handbags and whose profits help to feed and educated dominican children (wow, that was a long and perhaps not even run-on sentence). And I wonder if our little camp is doing any good. I mean for two weeks we provide 20 or so children with an education that they wouldn't otherwise get. We talk to them about their community and environment in an attempt to instill in them a (what's the word?) sensibility about the way they co-exist. But can we actually accomplish this goal in two weeks? Do our actions result in any change whatsoever?

Tanya, forever the optimist, will say that of course we are doing good. That we are providing these children with a positive learning experience; one which, even if it doesn't lead to permanent, visible  change, will nonetheless affect these children. How, I ask? But I guess I know that the answer is the same as how I impact my math students here in Brookline, right?

Still... I think we should think bigger. Or maybe attach ourselves to one of the organizations that is already doing great work in the D.R. I don't know, I guess I always feel some angst as we pass the midpoint of the summer, regardless of what I'm doing.

Season Two About To Begin

Hi all,
Well, it's been a couple of years since my last entry. My intentions were to continue the blog once the camp ended 2 years ago, but, well you know. But, now we're back and getting ready for Campamento Las Margaritas Season Two.  Some of the characters will be the same -- basically the gringo ones, but we will be welcoming a whole new group of campers. Hopefully, we'll get about 25 to 30 youts (to quote Joe Pesci in My Cousin Vinny) to participate this year, thus doubling our enrollment from two years ago (you know I can't help throwing in math whenever I can right?).

Anyways, preparations for this summer's version are well under way. Yasi and Oscar helped to send down many boxes filled with the supplies we need. Doña Yolanda and Carmen have made arrangements with the principal of the school so that we can use the same space (though I hear the school has undergone many renovations and I can't wait to see how the plants look that we planted two years ago, but I digress). And they are also busily recruiting campers.

From our end, we have received the support of many people and organizations. The Brookline Public Schools donated about 200 bilingual books that we'll be able to use and then donate to the school and the campers. Samuel and Nellie have been working with graphic designers who have created a logo for the school and will be donating t-shirts for all the campers - I'll forward along their information soon. And Mr. and Mrs. Stephen J. Paris have made a generous cash donation that we'll use for supplies and food and then a big project that we'll undertake to help out the school and the community. If that sounds vague, it's because we haven't decided on a project yet and won't until we get down there in a couple of weeks to check out the scene.

That's all for now I guess. This will hopefully be much more interesting once we get the camp up and running.

Day 8: La Gran Siembra

Un Dia Superemociante!!!
Well, once again we started the day with a loose idea of what we would do. This time though it was because we were waiting on a lot of things that we were hoping to come together but weren't all together sure that they would, in fact, come together. Here's what I mean: Originally, we had planned to have Tio Tomas lead a lesson on bees today. So on Sunday he had brought his beehive to the house so they could acclimate so that they wouldn't sting anybody (this seemed like a good idea at the time). Alas, yesterday the bees were attacked by an army of ants and they fled the hive to look for a new, more peaceful, home. The best laid plans of mice and men (and bees), right?
So, yesterday afternoon we moved on to Plan B: Remember those plants that we picked out over the weekend with Tio Tomas? Well, we tried to figure out a way to get the plants to the school. First, Tanya and Carmen wrote a letter from the "junta de vecinos" (a group of neighborhood leaders) to the department of agriculture officially requesting the plants for the school (they could do this because their mother, dona yolanda, is the unoffical head of the junto). Carmen then delivered the letter to the department's office in San Cristobal. Miraculously, they approved the donation on the spot and we were off and running. We tried to arrange a pickup of the plants but we couldn't get in touch with anyone at the department of agriculture's nursery all afternoon. Tio Tomas told us he would try again in the morning...

Then, will wonders never cease, this morning around 8:00, Tomas called the house and told us he had contacted the nursery and everything was all set. He picked up
Don Tilo, Samuel and Elias and they were off to pick up the plants. Tanya was busy herself. Realizing that we had no way to dig the holes for the plants, she paid a motoconchista a few pesos to go to La Sirena to buy a pickaxe. In the mean time, the rest of us headed off to the school to get the day started. Everyone converged at the school at about the same time and we were ready to go. Here's a pic of Tomas arriving with the plants, though if you've been following this blog, you probably could've figured that out by yourself:


Have I mentioned how stunned I was that all of this actually came together? No? In any event, when the plants arrived, Tanya worked with the gardener of the school to figure out where we should plant them and then Elias, Samuel, Don Tilo and myself dug all the holes for the plants (with the newly purchased pickaxe). I should mention that I, personally, dug all of three holes. Then we brought all the kids over and planted away. We divided the class into groups of three and four and had them work together to peel the plastic bags off the bottom of the plants, place them in the holes, fill the holes with dirt and then circle the new plants with large stones to protect them from wandering feet. The kids were beside themselves, running around looking for plants to plant, actually fighting over who got to do the honors at times, but most of the time really working well together, helping each other out.
All in all, we planted about 90 plants today! Some of them are just flowers but others are fruit trees (cherry, guanabana, mango) that will produce fruit, theoretically, in a couple of years. The final 10 plants we saved to donate to the families of the students at tomorrow's "super giant end of camp celebration" that we have planned. So, we actually did it. We set out to leave something permanent for the school and I believe we actually did just that. Perhaps this dominican go with the flow style actually works...

-josh

For more photos go to: http://www.flickr.com/photos/52916986@N03/show/

Day 7

Well, today turned out to be a pretty good day after all - considering that last night at about 11 as we were getting ready for bed Tanya turns to me and says, "So, what are we going to do tomorrow?" Here's what happened... Yesterday, we were going to go on a field trip to the Botanical Gardens in Santo Domingo. But, there was a huelga in the capital so we couldn't go. What's a "huelga" you ask? Well, whenever a group of people here is unhappy about the state of affairs they organize a strike, for lack of a better word. They get together and block all the streets to protest the injustice, with the hope that the government will fix whatever it is they're upset about. Often, the strike starts off well-intentioned but then the teenagers get into it and just start making lots of noise and quemando gomas(make a huge bonfire with old tires) to create a big mess. Yesterday's strike was because gas prices here are skyrocketing and the people want the government to do something about it. If it works maybe we should burn some tires up in Brookline. So, the long and short of it was that we couldn't get into the capital. Istead, yesterday, we did what he had planned for today leaving us with nothing to do today. So, here's what we came up with at 11:00 last night (remember, that's how this whole diatribe started right?) We talked about the big themes that we had covered in the camp -- respecto, responsabilidad, comunidad, cooperacion, generosidad -- and about how all of them had to do with improving our environment. Then we gave each camper a cutout of a speech bubble and asked them to write down one thing - one simple thing -- that they would promise to do to help their community. After recess and a self-defense lesson by Samuel, el director de deportes, the kids drew self-portraits. Tomorrow we will attach the speech bubbles to the self-portraits. I love it when a basically unplanned lesson actually works out pretty well. Makes me wonder why I spend so much time planning my own lessons, but I'll save that discussion for another place, time and blog.

-josh

Oh, by the way, here's a video of Geudy practicing his poem for the "super giant end of camp celebration" that we have planned for thursday:


For more photos, goto: http://www.flickr.com/photos/52916986@N03/?saved=1

Day 6

Week 2 of camp got off to a great start as today was indeed a good day. I like the days in which everything seems to be in sync and today was one of those days. Today's theme was: Respect. First, Evan introduced an art activity that he learned in school. The night before, he had used a rectangle of 12 pieces of paper to draw the outline of a giant picture of The Lorax. Then each camper got one of the pieces of paper and filled it in with designs using colored pencils. When they finished their designs (or after 20 minutes, whichever came first) the campers put the "puzzle" together to see the picture. None of them had heard of the Lorax before so they thought the picture was of a walrus living in some sort of strange tree. No one could explain why the walrus would be in the tree though so they were a bit confused. Then I explained that the "walrus" was actually a character in a story that we were going to read. So, after a rousing game of dodgeball at recess, Tanya read the story of The Lorax out loud and we talked about how we need to protect our environment--the central theme of the story. Then we gave each camper a small cardboard pot and had them plant a sunflower seed in it before they left for the day. I told the campers that they were actually planting the seed from one of the trees in The Lorax, but I don't think they believed me (Of course, Tanya winking at the campers while I was telling them this didn't help matters. Otherwise I think they would've believed me don't you think?)
On our walk home from school, Tanya asked me if she thought the campers had "got" the story. I told her I wasn't sure. The grand theme of the camp is to show the campers that they have to take care of their community, of their environment, else it become a place that they don't want to live (as in The Lorax), but this idea is somewhat new here in the d.r. and I'm not sure the campers are at a place where they can hear this theme and understand what it means for them. My hope is that we are planting a seed (metaphor intended) in the minds of the campers that will grow as they do.

On a Paris family note... My kids had a great day. Evan designed the whole Lorax art activity and even explained how to do it to the campers(In English with me translating, but nonetheless...) and Camila, for the first time wrote her reflections on the day in Spanish. In fact, she even went back and translated to Spanish the reflections that she wrote last week. I'm extremely proud of them both.

-josh


For more photos goto: http://www.flickr.com/photos/52880198@N04/

First Week Reflections

Well, the first week is over. Here are some thoughts:

- Tio Tomas, Samuel, Tanya and I went to a national plant nursery last thursday to pick out plants. Tomas works for the government's agricultural department and can get them to donate some plants to us. So, Tanya and Tomas picked out a bunch of varieties of plants and we will ask for a total of 100 to be donated to the program. We don't really know what to do with the plants yet but... One step at a time. Maybe I'm finally beginning to think Dominican style. That's Tio Tomas hanging out in a giant carambola(starfruit) tree.


-One curious incident that happened on Thursday that has to do with trash. The "trash" issue is a huge albatross (is that right?) here in the d.r.. Many people throw their trash on ground, trash pickup is irregular at best and the government doesn't know what to do about it. It's really sad when you see beautiful landscapes marred by huge trash heaps. But, I don't mean to be accusatory because the reasons that things have developed this way are way to complex for me to understand... In any event, when we went back inside from recess today I noticed that one of the campers had left his/her empty bag of water on the ground. So, I went inside and said, "someone left their bag of water outside." Everyone denied doing it, so Tanya told all the kids to go outside and find one piece of trash to pick up. They all did so but after a few minutes I noticed that Eduardo Luis and Jeudy hadn't returned yet. So, I went outside to look for them and found them staring at the ground looking for a piece of trash to pick up. I looked down in the exact spot where they were looking and saw candy wrappers, some pieces of torn paper and a plastic bag. They were staring right at these objects yet didn't see them as trash, I think, but rather just as part of their environs. This incident brought home to me how complex the "trash" issue really is. Maybe they should try a "crying Taino" campaign.

- Behind the school there is a cistern filled with water. This water is used in the school bathroom and is usually locked. But the school lost the key to the lock and so they cistern remains open. The neighborhood kids then have been climbing over the school's walls and bathing in the cistern. This is an extremely dangerous undertaking as the cistern is completely filled to the brim. So, Tanya and I bought a new lock for the cistern so that it could be locked again. The principal of the school would have already done this (I think?) but there's no money to be spent on locks. Also, the pump that is used to pump the water from the cistern is broken, so the bathroom is not working. Not such an easy problem to fix. Here's a picture of the cistern:



- There is a flourescent light in our classroom that is constantly flickering on and off. The electrical box has no light switch, just a bunch of wires, so the light can't be turned off. Meanwhile... the town of Madre Vieja gets electricity about 50% of the time, the rest of the time there are no lights (unless people have their own generator). Why doesn't anyone see a connection? Perhaps, after all, there isn't one. The reason why there isn't constant electricity after all has as much to do with the country's political system as it does with energy sources. The whole thing is too complex for me to understand, much like the garbage situation. And, again, I don't mean to be critical nor judgemental, just explanatory.

That's all for now.
-j

Day 5

For more photos goto: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tanyaparis/?saved=1

Dona Yolanda, Tanya's mother, came today to talk about the day's theme: La Generosidad. Seems like the energy level of the camp was down. Maybe everyone was just tired after a long, emotional week. Me too. No energy for blogging.

-josh

Day 4: Plantas y Poesia

Hoy si estuvo un buen día! The morning broke sunny and hot. Well, every day dawns sunny and hot in the d.r. in August. Our numbers were almost back to normal as Alaila and Carlos returned. Carlos said that his grandmother wouldn't let them go on yesterday's field trip. Melanie and Mariele were still missing but a new camper, Gorge Luis arrived.
María Victoria Carreño, published poet and unpublished cousin of Tanya came to the camp today to discuss poetry with the campers. First she wrote the following poem on the blackboard:
"...Ayer las estrellas se acostaron sin cenar
y el sol tenia un nudo en la garganta."
She explained that she wrote this poem when she first heard about the earthquake in Haiti. "Las estrellas", she explained were the children of Haiti that didn't get anything to eat that night and "el sol" was the rest of the world that had a lump in its throat. Maria V.'s lesson was about personification: how different objects from nature can be used to represent people. So she asked each student to replace "las estrellas" and "el sol" with their own imagery. The kids loved this and did a great job using such imagery as "planetas" and "la luna", "flores" and "el jardin", "hojas" and "el arbol" and even "Red Sox" and "Yankees" (That was Carlos, our baseball fanatic. But based on the imagery I'm not sure if he's a Yankees fan or a Red Sox fan.) Here's a video of Eduardo Luis reading part of his poem:


Even I, not much of a poetry aficionado was insipired. Here's what I wrote:
"Ayer los pajaritos se acostaron sin cenar y el aguila tenia un nudo en la garganta." Hmmm... Don't think I'll ever be a published poet.

So, that took up the first part of the day. We finished the day planting the seedlings that we bought yesterday al vivero. The campers were really into it. There's already a small garden area at the school and we decided to add to the garden rather than create a new one. We let Carlos decide where we should plant our seedlings and then all the campers got to help. The principal came over at the end of the day and we got a nice photo of her with the whole camp. She seemed pleased with our efforts, but somewhat indifferent. I wonder what that's all about. Once again, I'll choose not to share my intuitions at the current time...


-josh

For more photos go to:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tanyaparis/sets/72157624536195627/show/

Day 3: Al Vivero

Today we were off to el vivero -- plant nursery -- to buy some plants for the school. We hired Fonso -- a cousin of Tanya's who happens to own a gua gua (a small bus)-- to pick us up at the camp at 9:30. So, at 10:15 Fonso came to pick us up. Four of our students didn't show up and we don't know why. Perhaps their parents didn't want their children to go on this "field trip". Carlos, our super "energetic" 10 year old camper, told us that he got lost on two school field trips and his teacher couldn't find him. Apparently the school takes huge groups of kids on field trips and not all the kids are necessarily accounted for when they get back. Don't get me wrong, all the kids end up getting home eventually. I'm not really sure how though.

In any event, our intimate group of 10 headed off to learn about plants. When we arrived at the nursery, the owner showed us around and explained how they used seedlings of one plant to create many plants -- a splicing technique that I didn't hear because I was busy taking pictures. We saw lots of fruit tree saplings -- avocado, carambola(star fruit), lemon, sweet orange and regular orange. I later learned that sweet oranges are for eating and regular oranges are used to make juice. (And they're not really called "regular" oranges. Those ones just don't have a descriptor like "sweet" so I call them regular. At first I was going to call them "non-sweet" but that didn't seem to make sense as they are still quite sweet.)

But I digress. We also looked at lots of different flowers and bought four to bring back to the school (Tio Tomas, Tanya's uncle who works for the department of agriculuture, is hopefully going to bring us some more to plant next week.) And tomorrow we're going to plant them. If we can find a shovel, that is...

-josh


For more photos goto:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tanyaparis/?saved=1

Day 2

We arrived at the school promptly at 9:00 and to my surprise four of our campers were waiting for us. Wahoo! In fact, Candy told me that they had been waiting for "un million de anos". Turns out that meant since 8:30, but still. By 9:20 all our campers had arrived and so we began...

Today's theme was "cooperation", so we talked for a bit about what that means and then Tanya read outloud the book, "Un Jardin en la Ciudad" (City Green) in which a group of people in a neighborhood in New York plants a garden in a vacant lot that had been filled with trash. Then we let the kids play outside for awhile, recess style, and finished the day with an art activtiy in which the campers used craypaws and watercolors to create a painting of a garden. And that was the day. These 3 hour camp days pass awfully quickly.

What I've noticed in the first two days is that the students really take their time with any art project. I thought they were just being perfectionistic but Tanya told me that they rarely get to use the materials (colored pencils, watercolors) that we brought and, as a result, they want to spend as much time as they can with these.

So, our big idea in starting this camp was to leave something permanent for the school and our thought was to clean up an area on the school's grounds and plant a garden (much like the story we read today). We're not making much progress in getting the details of this plan worked out. I'm not really sure why though I have my suspicions. But I'll keep those to myself for now. After having visited the D.R. about 7 times in the 12 years since I met my wife Tanya I've learned that the adage "life is what happens while you're making other plans" dominates the dominican way of doing things (though I think Tanya would disagree that I actually understand and accept this.) We shall see how this plays out.

-josh

For more pics goto: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tanyaparis/sets/72157624646023134/