Painting the School Red (And Blue, Green, Yellow and White)

     I have difficulty painting within the lines. For example, within the last year my dad offered to pay for me to get my nails done because he thought I had done such a terrible job painting them myself. It therefore may be a surprise to many of you that I was entrusted with painting an alphabet, the Dominican Flag, the world, and values on the walls of the school where I have been working the past month. Luckily, I was not along in my endeavor, I worked with six other trainees to complete the project. Nonetheless, I still managed to make some mistakes, such as painting a letter in the alphabet the wrong color. But we were able to fix that, and I have to give a shout out to Julie and Caitlin who touched up all the letters of the alphabet I painted! I have to say, I think we did an awesome job. Especially considering before the walls had graffiti, as well as, Santa and the 3 Kings.

    On Tuesday night I was at the school for another project, a presentation on classroom management. As I mentioned in a previous blog post some of the teachers at the school lack any significant control of their classroom. So, the workshop was needed. The teacher workshop was attended by 22 teachers and focused on classroom management. My co-presenters and I did a skit of a classroom without any rules or organization and another that utilized classroom management strategies. We then had the teachers discuss what they saw and then come up with more strategies they use and explain why they are important. Then we went over other strategies such as using positive reinforcement, having a  behavior scale that holds the entire classroom accountable, and how to implement classroom rules (many classrooms have rules but they are not followed). We ended the presentation with a raffle with educational prizes, flashcards etc. Dominicans love raffles our technical trainer thought that was the cherry on top of our presentation, "The presentation was great, the teachers were involved, and when you mentioned raffle at the beginning, oh my god even I got excited!"

    This week I also had a cockroach in my room and it was FLYING! Thank goodness I was underneath my mosquito net! At one point it decided to land inside the metal barrier of my fan, which is right above my bed. I debated for some time about if I should turn my fan on, which might kill it but also left the possibility that I would be splattered with cockroach juice. Luckily it decided to fly away before I took the risk of turning on the fan. However, that night I had a dream that I was baking something and when I opened the oven door a cockroach popped out and hopped all over my body. Since it had been in the oven the cockroach was burning hot, which caused me to wake up in the middle of the night. Fortunately I had no trouble going back to sleep.

In other news:

• I am slowly learning the bachata; I'm glad I have two years to perfect my dancing skills.
• I ate all my rice at lunch for the first time this week!
• My freckles have become so numerous that I remind myself of a speckled pony when I look in the mirror; they are even covering my ears!
• For those of you who love to read manuals (a rare breed of person) the Peace Corps has great resources on their website including: how to start a library, classroom management strategies, female empowerment, environmental lesson plans, the world map project, and much more.
• In nearly a week I will know where I will be living for the next two years! 
• Tomorrow is the Dominican equivalent of labor day so I will be spending at a river, and enjoying Dominicans staple river/beach day lunch of...spaghetti. The reasoning is you can make a lot of it for cheap and eat it cold, still I think sandwiches are a more reasonable choice. I'll let you know if my mind is changed tomorrow.
• I would love to hear how all of you are doing! I am writing this blog to keep you all up-to-date with my life, so don't forget to let me know what exciting (or mundane) things are going on in your life!
• Lastly, Senator Lautenberg (D-NJ) has introduced a bill that would expand Peace Corps Volunteers health insurance to include abortions in the case of rape, incest, and when the health of the Volunteer is in danger, a policy that is covered by all other federal employee health plans. I support this bill, because Volunteers are federal employees and we deserve the same access to healthcare as those in the States. Furthermore, I hate the idea of a Volunteer, who after experiencing such a traumatic event and making the decision to have an abortion, is then put through even more stress because she cannot afford an abortion and will therefore have to terminate her Peace Corps service. (For a variety of reasons female Volunteers cannot serve if they become pregnant.) If you are interested in learning more about the proposed bill, and/or how to help it get passed, please click here. On a final note, I realize abortion rights is a very sensitive topic, and I have respect for both sides of the debate. - Sorry to end this post of such a serious topic.