School Days

OK - we haven't been very good at updating this blog so far, so we are going to take a different approach.  We've figured out that it's a lot easier to post several pictures to Facebook for everyone to see, adding a caption here and there, rather than trying to write a blog post centered around one or two pictures.  So, if you want lots of pictures, check out Emily's or Erik's profile page on Facebook.  We're going to try to update this more regularly with descriptions of what is going on with our day-to-day lives.

Anyway, things are good here. We're about two months into school, and are definitely settled in to a normal school-year routine. School starts at 8:45 every day and ends at 3:30.  We all leave for school around 7:45 or 8:00. The boys just started walking to school this week (about 1/2 mile).  Emily gets there by 8:00 to get ready for the school day, and Erik's playground duty starts once the kids get there around 8:15.  The morning 4-square games on the playground can get pretty intense.  Emily's classroom is the last door on the left in the photo.

8:45 - 9:00 is morning assembly.  Responsibility for the morning assembly rotates among the teachers weekly - usually a good bit of singing or other activities to work on the kids' language skills, followed by the Dominican version of the pledge to the flag.  Our kids are starting to pick up a few lines here and there (it's a lot longer than the U.S. pledge) - they like the end where they can yell "¡Libertad, Libertad, Libertad!"

From 9-10:30 is intensive English class with the students grouped by ability. Emily has the highest level non-native speakers (mostly 5th-7th graders), some of whom are approaching fluency. Our friend Cameran has the other end of the spectrum - kids who have had no exposure to English and are learning their ABCs! Emily's class just got done working on contractions and prepositions, and is now moving on to adjectives and adverbs.  Our kids are in a class with all native English speakers (there are 7 of them) - the others have been raised bilingual, so our kids are the only ones in the school that can't speak Spanish fluently.  Each week, all of the students get 3 hours of Spanish and 3 hours of Sociales (Social Studies) taught in Spanish by Dominican teachers.  Between the classes in Spanish and the playground and the fact that none of the kids in our neighborhood speak English, the kids are really starting to pick up a lot of Spanish.

After the intensive English in the morning, the rest of the days are spent with a mix of math, Spanish, Sociales, science, PE, homeroom, and lunch and recess.  Most of the time, lunch is meat, rice and beans with a spaghetti day and a ham and cheese sandwich day once a week or so.

Vandy Gras 2009

Last weekend, Erik flew to New Orleans for his annual get together with his friends from law school.  He had a rough start when his passport was lost (stolen?) in the Santo Domingo airport.  After a couple hours of fruitless searching at the airport (including a fun look through an overflowing restaurant trash can), he caught a cab to the U.S. consulate and was able to get an emergency passport the same day. After dinner and a night on Bourbon Street Friday night, they all drove up to Baton Rouge for some tailgating and the LSU-Vandy football game Saturday night. Unfortunately, Vanderbilt lost the game in a steady rainstorm, but they still had a great time (Tiger Bait!). The best part was Erik spent several hours at Target, Wal-Mart, etc. on Sunday getting many of the things that we can't get here.  He left with one small carry-on of clothes and two big empty bags and came back with them full.  We don't have any plans to return to the U.S. again before the end of the school year, so this was our last chance to get some of our favorite things from the U.S. until we get some visitors.  Shelf liner, hand sanitizer, Oxi Clean powder and Shout spray, Starburst,  etc. Oh, the simple things:)

Links to More Pictures

If you are interested, here are links to two albums of pictures Emily posted to her Facebook page this week.  You don't need to be a Facebook member to view these pictures:


http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2034221&id=1437787501&l=768b461c79


http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2034225&id=1437787501&l=09963c8bcf

Where the Streets Have No Names

Here's the view from the balcony of our house. As you can see, the ocean is quite close, but we're situated on a 50-foot cliff, so you can't just walk out to the water.  Like many of the streets here, ours isn't paved, or even named . . . must be why we can't seem to find a Domino's that will deliver to us. The little hut in the foreground is Manny's Bar - great place to go for a cerveza under the stars after a hot day (which they all are).

My Class

Bottom left to right:
Cadiz Ernesto, Analisa, Ysmerlin
Top left to right:
Luis David, Nelson Paul, Natalie, and Tara
I got a new student today named Adriana.
This is my 5th grade homeroom.  In the morning the students split up into proficiency groups for intensive English lessons. I have 4 of these same kids and Luis Rafael, Shaylin, and Omar.  Just to give you an idea, we are working on capitalization, punctuation, complete sentences, and pronouns.  They definitely need the most help with writing.  School-wide there is a huge range of language ability: some kids came at the beginning of the year not knowing a word of English. For that matter, some of them aren't even literate in their own language yet!
The maximum enrollment per class is 12.  Our building is actually an old disco and the room sizes are pretty small.  The school desperately needs a new building, which they had hoped to be in already.  The A/C hasn't been working properly, so you can imagine how hot it is (especially when the dress code mandates long pants for the kids)!
So far I have really enjoyed being back in the classroom and working with these kids.  They are really fun to be around ; plus, for some reason they think I'm only 26 years old.   'Ta bien!:)

New Addition

The Elsea family has grown!  There are an abundance of street dogs  here, so being the soft-hearted suckers that we are, of course we just had to get one.  Meet Fresca.  She was abandoned down at the dock with 2 littermates, both of whom died.  But Fresca is totally feisty, which is probably why she survived.  The fishermen fed her every couple of days until Emma (a friend we met who is here to help with the animal problems) brought her to us. In this culture, Fresca is the equivalent of "rascal" .  Fresca has adjusted well to our house and loves to play, especially with Clifford the chihuahua.  She tries to play with Mimi and Lola, but they aren't too interested.

All I Want for Christmas . . .

Here are pictures of our boys with their missing teeth! Liam lost his first top tooth as we landed in Santo Domingo, then Ryan lost his first tooth ever, and Liam lost another. Luckily, we discovered that the Tooth Fairy comes to the DR and gives pesos.