Crazy kid quotes/ stories as of late:
Micah and I were sitting in homework room after school one day with Luis (10th grade) and Michael (11th grade), and Luis was supposed to be studying WWI for world history. So, I told him he had to tell me five things about World War I before he could go. He immediately responds, "WWI, that was fought in South America, right?" And I just kind of look at Micah slightly shocked and was like, "Umm.... No...." And Luis is like, "Well, was it WWII then? I thought that was the one started by the Haitians."
Another day, we were having a work day in pre-calculus. So I was walking around answering questions. And I notice Jamie has white stuff all over his face. So, I was like, “What is all over your face? It’s all white and streaky!” And he was like, “Dang! That’s my sunscreen!!! I guess I didn’t rub it in. UGH! I have to go wash my face right now!!!!” And I was like, “Seriously, you can do that after class. Why are you even putting it on in class? You aren’t going to get sunburned in the room….” And he’s like, “I HAVE to go wash it off!!! I can't do pre-calc with a white face!!!" And I just kind of looked at him funny until German responded, "Dude, Miss Scislow ALWAYS has to do math with a white face!"
A couple of my ninth grade boys sag their pants really low on a regular basis. I usually joke about it to get them to pull them up rather than get mad. One of the most repeat offenders of this is Sebastian, and the other day his pants were ridiculously low when we were out at recess. So I was like, "Sebastian, your pants are totally falling off right now! Just thought I'd let you know." Usually he just pulls them up. Instead, he laughed and very matter-of-factly said, "Miss Scislow my pants are NOT too low, my boxers are just up really high!"
On Monday, I walked into the ninth grade room for class with them at 12:30. And I'd already had them at 8 for their algebra final, and I knew everyone was there. So, I start class and whatnot, and halfway through, I realize George isn't there. And I'm like, "Ugh!", figuring he's off somewhere at school ditching class. (Which at St. David really isn't all that exciting because there is nothing to go do instead, but whatever....) So I ask where he is. And Priscila tells me he went to the dentist. And I must have made an "I don't believe it" face because I figure he just left because he didn't want to be at school. (And generally “the dentist” is the excuse he uses, and generally he tells me what he’s really up to instead…) And Ashley, very thoughtfully, was like, "Miss Scislow, George goes to the dentist a lot…….. He really doesn't have very white teeth…….. I think he lies…...."
My ninth graders have an imaginary friend. His name is Murphy. According to Juan, he’s about one foot tall and has hair as long as the room. He’s mainly Juan, Marcel, and Alex’s creation, but the entire class knows about Murphy. So, they randomly tell me lots of Murphy stories. Apparently Murphy was in jail last week for strangling a gangster to death with his long hair. But he escaped. He’s too small to get stuck in jail. There was a picture out for his re-arrest of him holding hands with Juan and Marcel… Apparently, Murphy used to be a good boy, but they corrupted him. Anyways, they randomly talk about/ to him, go open the door for him in the middle of class, pretend to pet him, rescue him from getting “molested” by each other, and whatnot. (They goof up that word… In Spanish, ‘molestar’ means to bother or to annoy. So they are rescuing him from getting bothered by the others, not from how most English speakers would use the word molest….) Then yesterday, I was in my ninth grade room and there was no chalk. There is never any chalk. Even when I have them twice in a day but not right in a row, the chalk is always gone when I go in for my second period with them. So, I was kind of annoyed and said more to myself than to them, "Seriously! Why is there NEVER chalk in this room!" And Marcel looks at me very seriously and says, "Miss Scislow, don't you know?" And I was like, "Know what?" And he stage whispers, "Murphy eats chalk!" All I could do was laugh and ask him to go get me some more; I couldn’t even be annoyed with the lack of chalk.
The other excitement around here recently was that we learned the Dominican does not have smoke detectors, and we have no idea how to call the fire department… Two weekends ago, we were hanging out, having a quiet weekend at home for once. I made pancakes for breakfast, and then jumped in the shower. Just as I'm getting out of the shower one of my roommates starts screaming in the kitchen, "KRISTEN!!! Come here! We don't know what to do!!!" I figured it was a big cockroach or something, but was kind of confused, because we kind of ignore the cockroaches. So, I run into the kitchen, and there is a pan on the stove. And the entire pan is engulfed in flames that easily were shooting as high as our hanging cabinets (almost all the way to the ceiling!). It was easily the largest fire I’ve ever seen inside. The entire kitchen was full of smoke. (I guess in a way, it's lucky there are no smoke detectors in the DR, because otherwise our whole building would have had to be evacuated.) Apparently what happened is another one of my roommates was frying yucca and started a grease fire… a big one! Anyways, we just sat there and stared for a sec, and I realized we had to put it out ourselves and soon because if it spread we had no idea how to get a hold of the fire department. So, I grabbed one of our really big pots from under the counter and threw it over the flaming pan so the fire couldn't get any air. It went out pretty quickly after that. So, that was good. It was a little scary though! We found out after that apparently 911 works here, but it’s not actually reliable at all…
Hope all is well with everyone at home!
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Thursday, May 7, 2009
The gringas go to Haiti!
Well, I’ve been keeping busy and getting around as usual! We had a three day weekend this past weekend. The kids had a four day weekend! On Friday, we had a planning day to write exams and a surprise baby shower for Micah and Kaitlin. My finals are all written now, and I’m completely planned through the end of the year, which is really nice! Then Monday was the Día del Trabajador, essentially Labor Day, so we got the day off.
Lauren and I headed off for our adventures on Friday night. We took off from school at exactly 3:00, went to the money exchange place to get some dollars to pay our tour guide and the border offices, got out some more pesos so we would have some money, and made it back to the bus station in time for the 4:15 bus to Monte Cristi. The bus was late, but we were still in Monte Cristi by 7:00 and caught a motoconcho to our hotel which was right on the water. From there we enjoyed the sunset, our wonderful view of El Morro (the huge flat topped mountain that is the highest costal elevation in the Dominican), and had a Presidente under the stars while listening to a crazy Dominican guy play “My Heart Will Go On” by Celine Dion on his cell phone. We went out and got some dinner: chivo and tostones (goat and fried plantains), which was fairly delicious, and then went to bed.
Saturday morning we got up, ate breakfast, and headed out for our adventures. From our hotel, we walked into town. On the way, we passed huge salt flats where the pump in ocean water, allow the water to evaporate, and then gather the salt. Apparently Morton Salt gets a lot of its salt from in and around Monte Cristi. The town of Monte Cristi is small, dusty, and run down. In the central park is a clock tower that was designed by Eiffel (yeah, the Eiffel Tower designer) and given to Monte Cristi as a gift from France. In town we caught a motoconcho to Playa Detras del Morro, or “beach behind the Morro”.
The Playa Detras del Morro in the Parque Nacional Monte Cristi was amazingly beautiful. For the majority of the day, Lauren and I were the only people on the beach. It was super relaxing and calm. The water was really warm, the sand super soft, and the view breathtaking! Around 3:00, the tide started to come up and more people were coming. We met some nice Dominicans who we visited with for a while, and then went hiking with them up to the top of the second peak. It was an amazing view of the Bahía (the bay) and the beach. You could see the mountains in Haiti from one side and the playa from the other. It honestly felt like we were standing on the edge of the world!
On Sunday, we got up and met up with our Dominican friends and went to the Isla Cabra, a little island off shore. We went out in a little, tiny, wooden fishing boat. The island beach wasn’t nearly as pretty as the Playa Detras del Morro, but it was still nice. We explored the whole island. On the back side the beach was rocky, and had lots of fossilized coral and shell creatures in huge rock slabs. It was really neat. Then we climbed to the top of the island where there was an old falling down monument and a cool view of the ocean. Getting there was a little rough. For some reason, we had left our flip flops on the beach when we went exploring. So, we were barefoot. The sand in some parts was sooooo hot you had to sprint between grass patches where your feet could cool off enough to do it again. Anyways, there was this patch of trees with lots of fallen leaves and shade. So, I was super pumped to get to run to that one! Anyways... I kind of missed seeing the broken branch that was sticking straight out... So, I ran straight into it full speed. It cut my cheek open pretty nicely. My kids have been laughing at me all week! Anyways, after a relaxing day on the island, we headed back to the mainland for a quiet dinner at the hotel, a beautiful sunset, and star gazing with a Cuba Libre and a cigar.
Monday was quite the adventure. We hired a guide for the day. He was a French man who has lived in Monte Cristi for over 20 years and speaks French, Spanish, Creole (what they speak in Haiti), and some English. He picked us up at our hotel at about 7:40, and we drove to Dajabon. Dajabon is the northern border crossing in the Dominican. We got some breakfast there, looked at the Haitian market where people come twice a week (Monday and Friday) from Haiti to sell stuff, and where Dominicans come to get a bargain. As soon as the border offices opened, we stamped out of the Dominican, walked across the bridge that separates the two countries, over the river which is considered “no man’s land” and then got motoconchos a short distance to the Haitian immigration offices and got stamped in to Ouanaminthe, the Haitian border crossing city. From there, we took motos to a bus stop where we boarded a huge, brightly painted school bus that was packed full of Haitian people. There were between three and five people in every seat. The man behind us has a rooster in a cloth bag that he kept letting half get out before stuffing it back in the bag after which it would crow for like five minutes before he’d do it again. Driving along the north coast of Haiti some eighty kilometers was really interesting: seeing people selling things on the side of the road, people riding donkeys, women carrying baskets on their heads, people bathing in the river, women doing their laundry in the rivers, cows crossing the road, etc.
When we got to Cap Haitien, we went to the Mercado de Hierro or Iron Market which is like a huge market more or less where people go to buy and sell things like food and coal. The name comes from the building most of the market is housed in. It’s made of iron and from French colonial times. The market spills out into the surrounding streets though. After that, we walked through the main square, saw a huge church, got some lunch, and wandered around the city some more. We went to an artisan market where we bought some cool, handmade wooden bowls and enjoyed the view looking back at the city wedged between the mountains and the ocean.
After a brief stop to get water, we got a taxi at about 3:30 Dominican time (2:30 Haitian time), and started what was supposed to be about an hour drive back to Ouanaminthe/ Dajabon to cross back into the Dominican before the border closed at 5:00. Well, the taxi driver drove like 10 miles an hour the whole way, stopped for gas, stopped again to put oil in his car, and stopped a third time to fill up his tires. Anyways, we got to Ouanaminthe at about 5:05… So, our guide took his passport along with mine and Lauren’s and stopped at the Haitian immigration offices, and sent us running across the border. We honestly, ran through a bunch of parked cars, up a hill, and across the bridge that’s the border. We ran through the Haitian set of gates without saying anything, and got to the Dominican gates slightly out of breath, very stressed, with no passports. So, I had to beg the Dominican soldiers to let us through the gate, even though the international border was closed, with no passports and to keep the border and the immigration offices (so we could get stamped back into the country) open for us. It was quite the workout for my Spanish. And I’m pretty sure I bit off all my finger nails! Anyways, they ended up letting us through and held the border and the offices open for us until our guide, who was busy bribing the Haitian officials to stamp his passport and our two passports when the white American girls who the passports belonged two were clearly NOT with him. Anyways, we made it! We got into the DR, drove back to Monte Cristi, and caught a gua gua back to Santiago. Home sweet home! It was a pretty sweet weekend all in all though!
If you want to check out more pictures, go to:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2010385&id=88400178&l=73a941977a
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2010387&id=88400178&l=5299752531
Lauren and I headed off for our adventures on Friday night. We took off from school at exactly 3:00, went to the money exchange place to get some dollars to pay our tour guide and the border offices, got out some more pesos so we would have some money, and made it back to the bus station in time for the 4:15 bus to Monte Cristi. The bus was late, but we were still in Monte Cristi by 7:00 and caught a motoconcho to our hotel which was right on the water. From there we enjoyed the sunset, our wonderful view of El Morro (the huge flat topped mountain that is the highest costal elevation in the Dominican), and had a Presidente under the stars while listening to a crazy Dominican guy play “My Heart Will Go On” by Celine Dion on his cell phone. We went out and got some dinner: chivo and tostones (goat and fried plantains), which was fairly delicious, and then went to bed.
Saturday morning we got up, ate breakfast, and headed out for our adventures. From our hotel, we walked into town. On the way, we passed huge salt flats where the pump in ocean water, allow the water to evaporate, and then gather the salt. Apparently Morton Salt gets a lot of its salt from in and around Monte Cristi. The town of Monte Cristi is small, dusty, and run down. In the central park is a clock tower that was designed by Eiffel (yeah, the Eiffel Tower designer) and given to Monte Cristi as a gift from France. In town we caught a motoconcho to Playa Detras del Morro, or “beach behind the Morro”.
The Playa Detras del Morro in the Parque Nacional Monte Cristi was amazingly beautiful. For the majority of the day, Lauren and I were the only people on the beach. It was super relaxing and calm. The water was really warm, the sand super soft, and the view breathtaking! Around 3:00, the tide started to come up and more people were coming. We met some nice Dominicans who we visited with for a while, and then went hiking with them up to the top of the second peak. It was an amazing view of the Bahía (the bay) and the beach. You could see the mountains in Haiti from one side and the playa from the other. It honestly felt like we were standing on the edge of the world!
On Sunday, we got up and met up with our Dominican friends and went to the Isla Cabra, a little island off shore. We went out in a little, tiny, wooden fishing boat. The island beach wasn’t nearly as pretty as the Playa Detras del Morro, but it was still nice. We explored the whole island. On the back side the beach was rocky, and had lots of fossilized coral and shell creatures in huge rock slabs. It was really neat. Then we climbed to the top of the island where there was an old falling down monument and a cool view of the ocean. Getting there was a little rough. For some reason, we had left our flip flops on the beach when we went exploring. So, we were barefoot. The sand in some parts was sooooo hot you had to sprint between grass patches where your feet could cool off enough to do it again. Anyways, there was this patch of trees with lots of fallen leaves and shade. So, I was super pumped to get to run to that one! Anyways... I kind of missed seeing the broken branch that was sticking straight out... So, I ran straight into it full speed. It cut my cheek open pretty nicely. My kids have been laughing at me all week! Anyways, after a relaxing day on the island, we headed back to the mainland for a quiet dinner at the hotel, a beautiful sunset, and star gazing with a Cuba Libre and a cigar.
Monday was quite the adventure. We hired a guide for the day. He was a French man who has lived in Monte Cristi for over 20 years and speaks French, Spanish, Creole (what they speak in Haiti), and some English. He picked us up at our hotel at about 7:40, and we drove to Dajabon. Dajabon is the northern border crossing in the Dominican. We got some breakfast there, looked at the Haitian market where people come twice a week (Monday and Friday) from Haiti to sell stuff, and where Dominicans come to get a bargain. As soon as the border offices opened, we stamped out of the Dominican, walked across the bridge that separates the two countries, over the river which is considered “no man’s land” and then got motoconchos a short distance to the Haitian immigration offices and got stamped in to Ouanaminthe, the Haitian border crossing city. From there, we took motos to a bus stop where we boarded a huge, brightly painted school bus that was packed full of Haitian people. There were between three and five people in every seat. The man behind us has a rooster in a cloth bag that he kept letting half get out before stuffing it back in the bag after which it would crow for like five minutes before he’d do it again. Driving along the north coast of Haiti some eighty kilometers was really interesting: seeing people selling things on the side of the road, people riding donkeys, women carrying baskets on their heads, people bathing in the river, women doing their laundry in the rivers, cows crossing the road, etc.
When we got to Cap Haitien, we went to the Mercado de Hierro or Iron Market which is like a huge market more or less where people go to buy and sell things like food and coal. The name comes from the building most of the market is housed in. It’s made of iron and from French colonial times. The market spills out into the surrounding streets though. After that, we walked through the main square, saw a huge church, got some lunch, and wandered around the city some more. We went to an artisan market where we bought some cool, handmade wooden bowls and enjoyed the view looking back at the city wedged between the mountains and the ocean.
After a brief stop to get water, we got a taxi at about 3:30 Dominican time (2:30 Haitian time), and started what was supposed to be about an hour drive back to Ouanaminthe/ Dajabon to cross back into the Dominican before the border closed at 5:00. Well, the taxi driver drove like 10 miles an hour the whole way, stopped for gas, stopped again to put oil in his car, and stopped a third time to fill up his tires. Anyways, we got to Ouanaminthe at about 5:05… So, our guide took his passport along with mine and Lauren’s and stopped at the Haitian immigration offices, and sent us running across the border. We honestly, ran through a bunch of parked cars, up a hill, and across the bridge that’s the border. We ran through the Haitian set of gates without saying anything, and got to the Dominican gates slightly out of breath, very stressed, with no passports. So, I had to beg the Dominican soldiers to let us through the gate, even though the international border was closed, with no passports and to keep the border and the immigration offices (so we could get stamped back into the country) open for us. It was quite the workout for my Spanish. And I’m pretty sure I bit off all my finger nails! Anyways, they ended up letting us through and held the border and the offices open for us until our guide, who was busy bribing the Haitian officials to stamp his passport and our two passports when the white American girls who the passports belonged two were clearly NOT with him. Anyways, we made it! We got into the DR, drove back to Monte Cristi, and caught a gua gua back to Santiago. Home sweet home! It was a pretty sweet weekend all in all though!
If you want to check out more pictures, go to:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2010385&id=88400178&l=73a941977a
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2010387&id=88400178&l=5299752531
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