The drive to San Francisco was nice. We went north, past the airport and out of Santiago. We spent some time traveling through little villages, past rice paddies and farms, and finally into the smaller city/town of San Francisco de Macoris. San Francisco is a much smaller town with narrower streets and busy storefronts everywhere, peppered with houses, corner groceries, and repair shops. We traveled through the small city, eventually finding the Universidad Catolica de Nordoestana in the city center, next to the central park. We walked in and met Darling Perez, the director of the camp for which we're working. After dropping our bags in Darling's Mitsubishi, we said adios to the missionary and headed inside to find out what we'd be doing. Darling does not speak any English, so he explained everything to me in Spanish while I translated the basic information to Cory in English. We were asked what age group we'd like to take, 5-12 or 13-17. I chose to work with the older group, focusing on more specific areas like sports competition and English comprehension. We found out that the camp would be an English immersion experience for the students. We will be working with the students at the Hotel las Caobas in San Francisco. We are going to guide them in various activities such as tennis, volleyball, swimming, basketball, music, all the basic camp activities. The only difference is that most of the students have little to no English experience, so we are going to teach them through these practical and entertaining activities. We will be grading the kids on their pronunciation, grammar, and comprehension throughout the day but won't actually require them to read, take tests, or do anything with a purely academic appearance. We discussed these details in Darling's office over Dominican sandwiches and drinks. We are going to be working from 8:00AM until 6:00PM every day, being paid 100 pesos an hour or 1,000 pesos a day. That goes very far here, considering I was able to buy a jug of cranberry juice, three small containers of kiwi and strawberry juice, a large bag of pretzels, some water and fruit at La Sirena in what is supposed to be a more expensive city for just over 300 pesos. We work Monday-Saturday with Sunday being a completely free day. This Sunday, we are going to try to head to the beach with Johnny, one of the guys who is in charge of marketing for the ULAE camp (and also the drummer for one of the more popular rock bands in the country). We spent some more time talking to Darling about what were actually going to be doing then headed out to the hotel to see where we'd be working.
Hotel las Caobas is just outside of town, right next to a country club. The hotel is a small compound that has a swimming pool, tennis court, a basketball court (although one hoop is short a rim, we'll probably have to fix that), volleyball courts, and fields for activities. Its certainly not the nicest hotel in the world, but it will serve the purpose of our camp very well. We then drove a minute past the camp to the adjacent baseball training camp and facility where two teams were scrimmaging one another. I guess it was one of the many Dominican camps where the stars of the MLB are born. After a quick drive around the compound, we headed to the place where we are supposed to be spending the next month.
Unfortunately, there were issues with the family that was supposed to be housing us, so we were told that we would be staying in a motel with hot water and free TV instead. Everyone kept saying, be careful when you turn on the TV, everything is free. They always made sure to emphasize everything. This definitely seemed strange, but we headed on to the motel or cabaña. When we got to our destination, we passed the guard gate and traveled inside. All of the cabañas were round, cement blocks with no windows or doors. The only entrance was through a garage door and then another locked door. When I got inside, I began to understand the meaning of the word everything and remembered Johnny saying something about the motels being a place where people go to "have a good time" in a hesitant manner. There are mirrored pictures of mermaids on the walls, a round couch, table with chairs, one large bed, and an enormous shower. The place does indeed have hot and cold water as well as a working TV with many of the channels in English and functioning air condition (a rarity in the Dominican). It also comes equipped with a switch that turns on Bachata music next to the bed and a small, blackroom like spinning door. When I asked about the door, Darling said that these places are extremely private. It is a rule that the guards are not supposed to see who goes in and out of the rooms after they've paid. If you want water, food, or other materials found in the "menu" you call 0 and they are brought to the spinning door, spun around, and a knock comes signaling that your request has arrived. After getting over the initial shock of our habitación, we started to somewhat reluctantly unpack. We put several layers of sheets on the bed and the couch. Afterwards, we headed back to the University. Here we talked to Johnny some more and went out to a cafeteria for lunch. We ate chinese chicken and broccoli with a very pronounced Dominican influence. We hung out and talked about Johnny's band and his time in the US (in Nashville, Baltimore, New York, and Colorado of all places) and about our common interests. We discussed the Dominican beer, Presidente, some other pointedly Dominican food and cultural items. After an hour or so we headed back to the office, watched some YouTube videos about our favorite musicians, sharing our music tastes, and waited for Darling. He had told us we'd be going to the local TV station to film a commercial for the ULAE camp. After I told Darling my educational background was in politics, he was excited to tell me I can practice going on TV and saying, "Vote for Drew!" We didn't make it to the TV station, instead we ended up going over more of the requirements for the camp. We were told how we're going to be grading the students, focusing on specific aspects of the English language and grading each one on a scale of 1-5, making notes along the way. After going over this for a while and drinking the coffee of the local school coffee-making women, we left to drive back to our "motel." Darling also told us we'd be giving one of the university students a test. She is a doctor in the local hospital. We're going to go in with a hidden camera and ask her about a fake sickness that one of the two of us has, testing her English when she is unaware that she is being tested and has no way to speak Spanish with us. Darling left to go to his 17-year-old son's graduation from high school and we went back to the compound to wait until 6 when he'd come back to pick us up and go to the fiesta celebrating the graduation. We hopped outside to throw around a baseball for a while (one of the baseballs I brought for the family that didn't end up working out that I'll now use for the camp) and then came back inside to wait for Darling when a serious downpour came out of nowhere. Taking shelter in the garage, I started talking to one of the guards who thought I was a Spaniard. He was surprised to learn that I was an American and even more surprised to know that we were staying for more than a night. After coming back inside, I took a quick shower and we decided that we're going to ask Darling to see if we can move to another sort of establishment.
Darling came to pick us up around 6:00 and we headed to the high school where his son's graduation was taking place. We came in towards the end. 24 students started singing a song that they had written in a capella, ending with the customary tossing of the mortar boards. Darling, his wife, his mother, and two sons took some pictures, eventually inviting us in for a photo as well. It was if we were a part of the family. The celebration moved to Darling's house where we took some turns playing pieces of songs on his son's guitar. His nieces brought us small, hard bread with butter and soft cheese with a soda water that tasted somewhat like sprite. Afterwards, we headed to the local Sirena to grab some dinner (potatos and salchiche). Over dinner, Darling (who speaks no English despite the ironic fact that he is the director of an English instructional camp) and Cory (who speaks no Spanish) decided that they would agree to only speak to each other in their non-native languages. We continued to grab some items we would need for the apartment (peanut butter, bread, drinkable water, and of course bleach for the mattress and couch!). We drank a bit of wine and then left La Sirena for Eros, our motel. Darling went back to his house where the festivities for his son's graduation would go on late into the night. Anticipating a very early start to our training tomorrow, Cory and I decided to just stay in, finish the wine and order a few Presidentes that came promptly through the spinning cubby hole. The price ended up being a bit high, so I decided that tomorrow or the next day I will invest in a small, cheap local phone (I'm told they can be found for around US$3) to communicate with Darling and the camp as well as to be able to call taxis and move around the city at night when its not safe to walk the streets (especially for me who sticks out as un blanco). We sat outside the motel garage door, chatting with the guard who has become quite friendly and discussing our mutual admiration of jazz and music in general. The warned us of an upcoming national strike on Monday that could make our small, seedy street a whole lot more active. This excitement will only add to the pile as I continue to experience the new at an exponentially increasing level.
I very much look forward to heading to the university in the morning with my laptop (we have TV and food service here but no internet) to add this post to the blog as well as uploading my pictures from the drive. I also can't wait to get some training from Darling, Johnny, Elizabeth (though Johnny speaks quite well, she is the lone fluent English speaker) and whoever else may show up so that we can have a better idea of how to measure the progress of our students en el campamento. Hasta mañana, y buenos noches.
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