Teaching in Santo Domingo, a Day in the Park, and Bird Walks

Mostly what I've been doing this month is teaching English and learning Spanish. It's been a busy month. Above I'm seen with my friends Mary Ann on the left and Julie in the middle. Julie treated us to iced lemonade and a sweet at a French pastry shop after our weekly English class at Mercedes Amiama, a school for high school girls. There are five girls in my class and they are second year English students. They are learning the present progressive and together we are building vocabulary. Also they help me out with my Spanish, which I really appreciate.

As one of our early assignments I asked each girl to tear off some toilet paper. Then I asked the girls to write one thing about themselves in English on each segment of toilet tissue. This is a photo which shows the results of one girl's work. You can see that the priorities of young Dominican women include God and family, which is very sweet. Below are two photos of the girls taken in the spring. I'll include more photos from the class as we progress over the winter.

I continue to teach Orange Executives and their families English. One of my clients is the wife of an Orange Executive. She is an advanced intermediate speaker. One week I tutored her 12 year old son, who speaks fluent Spanish and French. I also taught the 9 year old some English. What a delightful (and different!) experience it was to be with these two French children. This family lives in a rather prosperous area in Santo Domingo known as Naco. Below is a photo of their apartment building. I've included some buildings in the surrounding area so you can see what a "good" area in Santo Domingo looks like. You'll notice many people drive new cars in Santo Domingo! This is a city of contrasts.

Below are photos of a Baha'i gathering in Santo Domingo's Mirador Sur Park. We spent Saturday October 20 celebrating the observance of the anniversary of the birth in 1819 of Siyyid, “the Báb,” the prophet-herald of the Bahá’í Faith, in Shíráz, Persia. Viewing these photos I am still surprised that there is such a large Baha'i community in the Dominican Republic. Sometimes I feel as though I were back in Berkeley, California, (I first learned to meditate as a college student in Berkeley!) celebrating a religion having an Eastern origin.

 

Several presentations were given, including one very fine dramatization of the events we were commemorating together. Another group presented a drawing which depicted the birth of the Bab. 

 The audience gave all of their attention to the presentations.

There were sports, of course. 

 And an ice cream vendor came by. All enjoyed a great day in the park!

The month included a great deal of activity out of doors, including bird walks I enjoyed.

Large Caterpillars can be seen shredding the last leaves of this tree. After the bird walk October 13, we went to Alexandra Panehal's house for brunch, which was a real treat:

Yesterday I went on a second bird walk. We had a smaller group this time, as it had been raining heavily throughout the night. Also there was an eclipse of the sun in the morning and many had gone to the Malecon to try and view it, though the clouds prohibited a real look. A German Botanist joined us on yesterday's tour, so our guide, Kate Wallace, focused on the park's plant life as well as the birds.

The tree shown above is a magnet for hummingbirds, and we viewed many of the mango hummingbirds hovering in its blossoms. It was a great joy to view so many young whistling ducks at the Botanical Garden. Kate explained that years ago some of the park employees were known to shoot the ducks as they made a tasty dinner. Currently, however, there is a park administrator who is a botanist and strict about preserving the wild life in the Garden.

 The caterpillars are not as much in evidence yesterday as they were last month. There is just one last small caterpillar remaining on the tree pictured earlier.

 The gourd like fruit of the tree shown above are frequently made into musical instruments or ornaments in the Domincan Republic.

This is the llang llang tree, source of the blossom from which Chanel 5 is made. As mentioned previously,we focused more on the plants in the Botanical Garden yesterday.

The Santo Domingo Botanical Garden, one of the country's finest institutions (and well respected throughout the world), was developed by a botanist named Dr. Rafael Ma. Moscoso.

Now for a completely different subject, the visit of Peace Corps Volunteer Susan Stasney, who came from her site on the Frontera for a visit this month. Below are photos of our reunion:

The last photos of this blog update were taken the evening of November 3, at a birthday party for one of the teachers at the neighborhood school where I volunteer.

 I was captivated by the grace of the young woman in the photo below:

And the last photo shows the teachers together, with Clari, the one celebrating her birthday, all dressed up in black ruffles and jeans. Dominican women love to dress up in feathers and glitter and this birthday event was no exception!

Thank you for taking the time to read the words and view the photos of this blog update. I didn't go away this month so was able to save some money. My idea is that I will keep putting money aside in preparation for a trip of several months throughout South America next year. In the meantime I will keep posting about life in the Dominican Republic. Have a great November!