First week on the job

After a week's delay in the capital, during which I was holed up in a hotel waiting out Hurricane Tomas (I'm not complaining....cable television, 3 buffet meals a day and hot showers were quite a treat) I've finally settled in at my job in Boca Chica.  I'm working with Caminante, an NGO that works to protect the rights of children and adolescents focusing specifially on child labor and commercial sexual exploitation, as I explained in an earlier post.  My first three months will be spent putting together an organizational diagnostic as well as community diagnostics of the areas in which Caminante works in order to better understand the strengths and weaknesses of my organization and to determine exactly what role I will be undertaking here.  

What exactly does a diagnostic entail?  A not exhaustive list includes- shadowing my colleagues, formal interviews with staff, informal conversations with staff and community members, and focus groups with youth and families served by Caminante.  While this doesn't sound like much work for three months I'm already scrambling and hoping to get everything done.  Firstly, because I've been told that its difficult to do much of anything during the month of December (think Christmas extended); secondly, because Caminante is involved with so many projects in so many communities; and finally, because at the end of this month the national census will be taking place and ALL of my colleagues will be working on it, ie indisposed!

Apart from the diagnostic, I've also started to work alongside two of the young educators (one of whom is my host brother) with a group of trabajadores  (boys that shine shoes or sell food on the street).  We are in the process of administering a literacy diagnostic to determine reading levels so that we can separate the boys into smaller groups.  My first small mini-project while I'm completing my diagnostic will be to "alphabetize" (some reverse translation--literacy in Spanish is alfabetazacion) those boys that are still pre-literate.  (Shout out to my Harbor Heights clan...I know you appreciate the lingo;) )  

In terms of my home life with my host family, I'm learning lots of new things and discovering new things about myself.  I'm learning how to cook, how to break down my "American" concept of personal space and alone time, and how to eat rice twice a day!  I've discovered that I like cats more than I thought (we have a kitten...Chumi, and I plan on getting one when I get my own place) because they serve a purpose here--to keep the rats away!  I'll be living with my host family until the end of January, at which point I have to find my own place.  I'm a little nervous to live on my own for the first time, especially in a neighborhood that is considered "caliente", but I know that it will be a chance for personal growth.  

Dominican phrase(s) of the week:  "A buen tiempo"  and "buen provecho"

These two interchangeable phrases stumped me in my first weeks in country.  They are used in conjunction as formalities and courtesies during mealtime.  An example:  Someone walks into a room where people are eating, and the people eating will almost always say "a buen tiempo" which means they are offering food to the person (this is a very sharing culture and everything that one has one shares).  The courteous reply by this person is "buen provecho" which literally means "enjoy your food" but also signifies that they person is negating the offer and doesn't want any food.  Sometimes these phrases are interchanged and I honestly still don't understand all of the subtleties, but these phrases are a great example of the formal aspect of Dominican culture.   

Translations

trabajadores- workers

alfabetizacion- literacy

caliente- literally this translates into "hot", but in this case it is used to refer to a lot of movement and an element of danger