This post is going to be a little different than the previous three, in which I recounted all the things I was doing during the month or so now that I have been in this country.  Now, however I would like to spill what’s on my mind concerning studying abroad in general.

First off, this is my first time studying abroad in another country.  Which means that coming into this, I had a well-defined set of beliefs and ideas about what this experience was going to be like before I got here, none of which were based on a past experience.  My ideas about study abroad were influenced largely by my Lewis & Clark friend’s and how they related their experiences, what my professors said the DR was going to be like, and what I had gathered from traveling in Central America for a month.

The amazingly funny and painfully truthful blog “Stuff White People Like” lists “Study Abroad” as #72 in the long list of things that characterize a young white urban liberal’s existence.  And coming from a largely white college where 60% of the undergrad students study abroad at some point in their college careers, I knew that coming into this I was not attempting anything unique in the least.  Encouragingly, half of the American students in my study abroad group label themselves as something other than white, although I will venture a guess that statistically study abroad in general is primarily a upper-middle class white experience.  Regardless, study abroad is, on the surface, a chance to experience another culture, maybe learn another language; underneath it is seen as your chance to party and go crazy.

There are two sides then to the large silver coin that is the study abroad experience.  One side is a sincere desire to experience and learn from another culture, to widen one’s own perspective and worldview.  This side might even see studying abroad as a chance to use one’s skills for the betterment of a developing nation, to do a little work fighting poverty or hunger or homelessness.  At the very least it is a sincere desire to study in a different setting with new challenges, a chance to build one’s own character and to test one’s own moral fiber.

The other side of the coin can be summed up by the title of a great Onion News article: Semester Abroad Spent Drinking with Other American Students.  Especially in a country such as the DR, where beach/resort tourism abounds and the drinking age is 18, it is hard not to be swept up in that euphoria.  Being in a foreign country, away from your regular friends, far away from family, away from your home institution, gives you the sense that you can do whatever you want: your actions seem to be without consequences, and even the consequences adhere to a convenient rule of What Happens in Vegas Stays in Vegas.

Here then, is a short list of the things I’ve learned so far during my short stay in the DR:

1. First off, it is important to step back and think, why am I doing this?  Simply questioning your own motives and talking about what it means to study abroad is a great first step.
2. Studying abroad is in and of itself a seemingly “simulated” or “fake” experience.  You are living in a foreign country, but with an assistance network behind you that no new immigrant has.  You have a family, but they are not actually your family, just for the next for months.
3. Its OK to hang out with Americans.  Its OK to speak English.  At the beginning of the trip, I found myself often not wanting to hang out with my fellow American students, wanting only to speak Spanish.   But then I realized that connecting with these people was just as much an eye-opening and learning experience as connecting with Dominicans.  Besides, wanting to only hang out with Dominicans and only speak Spanish is perpetuating the false idea that you are actually assimilating into some kind of Dominican identity for 4 months.  Just think, if you were a Polish immigrant coming to Chicago, you would want to connect with the people who you could communicate and relate to the most:  other people who spoke Polish and were culturally like you.  There’s nothing wrong in wanting to connect with people like you while you are abroad or anyplace else.
4. If you are coming to study abroad in a developing nation and looking to “help” in any sort of way, make sure you take a step back first and question your motives.  Read Ivan Illich’s speech To Hell with Good Intentions.  Remember that an under-skilled college student is not exactly the type of person to solve that nation’s problems.

Well, those are my thoughts and feelings so far; they will most likely change as February turns into March, March into April, and April into May.  Let me know what you think in the comments.  ¡Que tengan buen fin de semana!

Love,
Jonah

Well, this Monday marked the third full week that I’ve been on this island.  Again, many things have happened since my last blog post.  I’ll try to recount some of them.

Last Thursday was a Catholic holiday, and this Monday was a National holiday, so the whole country effectively had a five day weekend this weekend.  Our study abroad office closed, and everyone planned trips to different parts of the island.  Some friends and I went up to the north coast to a little tourist town called Cabarete.  It is not touristy in the normal sense, but it is a an international famous spot for Kite Surfing, a water sport of which I was not acquainted with before I arrived in Cabarete and saw nearly 300 kites flying above the beach.  Kite surfing is exactly what it sounds like: you hold onto a big kite, attach your feet to a smallish surfboard, and skid across the waves.  It was a lot of fun to watch, because people do tricks where they jump in the air like 10 feet and seem like they are about to be taken away by the wind, but I never tried it.

We stayed in a cheap hotel for all four nights, and mostly hung out on the beach, swam, and explored.  One day however, we had an adventure that merits a couple paragraphs for itself:

I had read in my travel guide that one of the fun things to do in this area was to go see waterfalls.  One waterfall in particular, Las Cascadas de Damajagua, was actually a set of 27 waterfalls, all connected, that you could hike up and then jump down.  With a rough idea of where these waterfalls were and no idea what the experience would actually be like, four of us grabbed a guaguita (a small public van) west.  Another guaguita took us to a small town and then another dropped us off in the middle of nowhere when we asked where the “cascadas” were.  The conductor pointed down a dirt road as the van pulled away.

Imagine, at this point in the story, that the scenary looks like something you might have seen in a Vietnam War movie; or, if you have ever been to Southeast Asia, like that.  Tall grasses, mountains surrounding you, heat, humidy.  We walked down the dirt road for a while until we came upon the visitor center for the waterfalls.  After paying 10 US dollars and changing into our bathing suits, we were given life vests and helmets, and told to follow a guide named Felix across a rickety bridge and into the middle of nowhere.  We waded across a river and hiked on flat ground for a while, wading through what seemed like the same two streams over and over again as they crisscrossed over our path.  Finally, we came to a beatiful pool of blue sparkling water and a small waterfall.  Until this point, I was under the impression that we were going to hike up alongside the stream and the waterfalls, like on the rocks alongside.  But then our guide asked if we were ready and dove into the pool.  As we jumped in after and started swimming, my friend Alex turned around and said “This is so cool!” which began a series of realizations on our part that eventual lead us to the conclusion that this was the most amazing experience we have had yet in this country, and one of the coolest things any of us have every done period.

So now let me explain to you what this was actually like:  You swim upstream, against the current of a small river that is cutting deep but narrow canyons in the hillside.  Sometimes, you climb right up through the water.  Sometimes there are wooden ladders.  Sometimes you hoist yourself up using ropes.  Many times the guide had to pull us up because the current is so fierce that it dares to pull you under.  One of the reasons why it was so awesome and exhilarting, on the way up especially, was that it is something that would never be allowed in the US.  First off, it’s HARD.  It’s way harder than your average high ropes course.  Second, the safety procautions if this existed in the US would be 100 times more.  This is one of those things they would make you sign multiple waivers on, letting them know your family wouldn’t sue if you DIED climbing up waterfalls.  Third, it was exhilariting partly because they DIDN’T tell us what we were getting into until they were yelling at us to grab onto this rock or step into this gushing stream of water or hoist ourselves up by this rope.

After getting to the top of 12 waterfalls (we would’ve had to pay more to do all 27), we began the jumping down process.  We didn’t actually jump down 12, because some of the waterfalls had pools below that were too shallow.  It was really scary but AMAZING, the highest jump we did was like 20 feet.  There were also two natural slides that we slid down, where they told you to sit here and fold your arms in and lean forward, the water shoots you down and plunges you under the water.

Throughout this whole thing, we were swimming through canyons that are almost like caves, little sections of it had overhangings and the whole thing was just beautiful.

After the whole thing was over, we walked out to the road, tired and soggy.  A guagua never came for us, so we ended up hitchhiking part of the way home.

Well, that’s the big exciting things that happened.  Today I started working at my internship, where I’m doing some really fascinating work with a U.N. plan for developing the D.R.’s society and govenment.  More on that later.  I start classes at two more Universities on Monday.  Now, to organize my life.

Love,
Jonah

So it seems like I’ve been here for months already, so much has happened in these first few weeks!  Some highlights:

•  Our group went to a baseball game on Friday, called play de beisból, which was very fun.  People are into baseball here like nothing else: this morning I was taking a bus to school and the driver, conductor, and many of the passengers were having a heated argument about last night’s game.
• The Dominican empanada is my new favorite food.  Its very very deep fried, and filled with your choice of chicken, cheese, and vegetables.
• I bought a guitar!  My host dad came with me so that they wouldn’t rip me off.  Its a classical acoustic guitar, and I have spent many an hour out on my balcony, playing and watching the traffic go by below.  Also, I met this guy in my apartment complex who also plays.  He’s 35 and lives with his parents and loves classic rock, so we are working on renditions of Sweet Child of Mine and Santana songs, among others.  It’s really interesting to hear him sing in English, because he knows the lyrics perfectly and has the inflection of the words perfect, he just couldn’t tell you what he’s saying.
•  As you’ve heard, the Earthquake in Haiti has definitely had a huge effect here.  The night of the earthquake everyone in Santo Domingo stayed indoors watching TV: we were on a tsunami warning, and I live two blocks from the ocean, so I’m glad that didn’t happen.  On Saturday I went to one of my universities (Bonó, the Jesuit seminary), and helped load truck fulls of food and medical supplies off to Haiti.  I have met a couple Haitians in my classes, and its been very humbling to talk with them and get to know them.
• On Sunday I hung out with my family, and we visited my mom’s extended family in the suburbs of Santo Domingo.  We basically ate all day and sat around and talked about the earthquake:  It is a huge topic of debate here, as the DR has a very tough relationship with Haiti.  There are many Dominicans that think we should help our Haitian neighbors, but there are also many Dominicans who do not believe we should help them.  The main argument that Dominicans make against Haitians is the same one many Americans make about Mexican immigrants: that Haitians are taking all the jobs and lowering the average wage of Dominicans.
• I am going to be doing an internship here with a consulting organization called ALEPH.  I will be working on a revision to plan between the United Nations and the Dominican government, using my computer and web skills along the way.  I’m really excited to learn a lot of new web and computer vocab in Spanish.

Hi everyone,

As you may know, a level 7.0 earthquake hit Haiti, and it is estimated that one in three Haitians have been affected. Although the Dominican Republic did not experience any structural damage, I have met many people here who have close friends and family that were in Haiti during the earthquake. For example, I am taking a class with some Haitian students, none of whom have heard from their families as all communication with Haiti is down. Besides that, one class I was thinking about taking has been cancelled indefinitely, as the professor´s wife is currently in the hospital, after a building collapsed on her in Haiti during the earthquake.

Fortunately, the building I was in felt little more than a bump, and most of the students in our program were not effected aside from some dizziness.

The 31 students in my study abroad program are currently brainstorming on ways that we can get to Haiti and help the relief effort with our human power. In the meantime, we are using our monetary power to help in the relief effort. We have decided to reach out to family and friends and each raise $200, which would raise $6,200 if everyone met that goal. I just donated $25 to the Clinton Foundation Relief Fund, where 96% of the donated funds go to direct relief. Here are some links for relief. I apperciate all of your help.

Partners in Health (Starting with donations of $10)
https://pih.org

Clinton Foundation (Starting with donations of $25)https://re.clintonfoundation.org/SSLPage.aspx?pid=3869

Love,
Jonah

So I arrived in Santo Domingo one week from today.  This past week was an orientation week, where I went to the host institution everyday to learn about Dominican culture, customs, transportation, and to figure out what classes I will be taking while I´m here.

First, let me give you some background.  The Dominican Republic is in the Caribbean, on an island called Hispaniola that is southeast of Cuba.  The DR is the second largest country in the Caribbean in land area.  The weather right now is like Chicago in the summer – hot and humid.  January is their coldest month, but it wouldn´t be considered cold by any stretch of the Northern American imagination.  The city has around 1 million inhabitants, lots of palm trees, tourist hotels near the waterfront, and crazy traffic.  The majority of people are of mixed Spanish and African descent, and the country´s language is, of course, spanish.

Some interesting tidbits of information:

• Because so many Dominicans emigrate to the US and because of the country´s relative proximity to the US, there are many words they use here that are actually hispanized english words.  For instance, the word for security guard is ‘guachmén’ (watchman), the word for breakfast cereal is ‘cornflé’ (corn flakes), and the word for tape is ‘téipe’. 
• Although our host mom´s wash our clothes in the washing machinefor us, everyone, especially women, have to wash their own underwear.  Usually this is done in the shower with a special bar of soap.
• They have more kinds of fruit and vegetables here than I ever thought imaginable.  Every meal I learn about a new food that does not exist in the US.
• Because of the Trujillo dictaturship which brought on a general dislike of Haitians and people of Haitian ancestry, many people in the DR claim that Dominicans are a mix of Spanish and Indigenous ancestry and deny any influence of African ancestry, even though the native Tainos were wiped out within 50 years of Columbus´s arrival.

So, what have I been up to this past week?  Well, on Tuesday I met my host family:  I have two parents, I believe they are in their early thirties, and a 4 year old brother.  My mom´s name is Carolina and she works in a stationary store. My dad´s name is Jorge and he used to work for some company but was recently laid off.  My brother´s name is Jorge Davíd, he goes to preschool and is a whole lot of fun.  I think I´m going to learn a lot of Spanish hanging out with him.  We live in an apartment complex that is about two blocks from the ocean and four blocks from my host institution, which is called FLACSO (Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales, or Latin American Fellowship of Social Sciences).  I´m going to be taking 2 or 3 classes there at FLACSO, one of which includes an internship with a social development organization.  I´m taking 1 or 2 classes at a college called Bonó, which is a Jesuit institution, its all male and they are all studying to become priests.  I´m also taking 1-2 classes at ‘La UASD’ (pronounced La Woss), which is the big public university.  It has 160,000 undergrad students, and is also the oldest university in the New World.

There are 31 students on our program, all of which attend American universities.  Most are originally from the US, two were born here in the DR, and 3 are from Jamaica.  We have spent the last few days together learning how to take public transportation, selecting classes to take, and hanging out.  The public transportation is a little crazy here, but its fun.  The basic buses are called Guaguas, and have semispecific routes and semispecific stops.  Conductors hang out the door and yell where they´re going, and try to get people on.  There are also Carros Públicos which are like taxis but have specific routes and pick up passengers along the way.  There are also normal taxis that will take you anywhere.  Finally, there are a few newer buses that are like the ones we have in the States, and there is a very new underground metro train which has one line running north to south through the city – I have yet to see or ride it.

What else?  On Saturday we went to the ruins of a colonial sugar plantation, saw where Trujillo was shot, and went to a women´s house who practices a syncratic Dominican religión that is basically the combination of Catholicism with African gods, beliefs and customs.  We then spent the rest of the afternoon at a beach, and I swam in the caribbean ocean for the first time.

This next week classes at Bonó begin, and Im going to a few of the social development orgs to see which one I want to intern for.  Classes at FLACSO start on the 18th and Las Uasd doesnt start till the 25th.

Well, that was a big blob of things I´ve done and thought about since I got here.  More later of course, and feel free to ask about or discuss anything by leaving a comment below.

Love,

Jonah

Hey everybody,

I tried to make Polenta.  Did not work.  Your help is required, watch the video and comment on this post.

The Jonah Show, Episode 2

Love,
Jonah

Hey All,

Wow, so it’s been a long time since I’ve posted on this blog.  I know you’ve all been on the edge of your seats waiting for me to post something new, so sorry about that.

I’ve been writing.  Here’s a new song called “Stormy Weather.”  Click here to hear the song. Enjoy.

Here’s the Lyrics:

Every day I go out walking
by myself
down the block
My phone is out, but I’m calling no one
talking to myself
as I walk

If I was lighter than a feather
I would tuck me in the wings that make you fly
Give me all your stormy weather
As long as you’re here babe,
I’ll make it out alive.

There are times when I am wandering
where Im gonna live and what Im gonna do
But I find the ants in my mind are marching
bringing  bread crumbs of my life back home to you.

If I was lighter than a feather
I would tuck me in the wings that make you fly
Give me all your stormy weather
As long as you’re here babe,
I’ll make it out alive.

I see all that I was given
When I see the ones who haven’t got
Its hard to miss you and stay triumphant
At least the universe is giving us a shot

I could live that way forever
when I’m with you, all I feel is love
Give me all your stormy weather
I am ready now
I’m stronger than I was