Dominican Republic -- Dajabón Market

On our last day, we went to Dajabón Market and crossed the border into Haiti. It made a big impact on me having worked for the past week with Haitian immigrants and seeing their living conditions and tremendous poverty. Dajabón market is right along the Haitian border, which is marked by Massacre River. (In 1937, Trujillo ordered all Haitians removed the Dominican side of Hispaniola, and then had them murdered in the river crossing back over; about 20,000 Haitians died). When the market opens on Fridays, Haitians run across the bridge with wheelbarrows and horsecarts that they fill with supplies and run back into Haiti. It's an amazing and extremely stressful thing to see. I didn't take many pictures because I was worried about my camera. However, it was amazing just to see all of the activity and take everything in.

Río Masacre. Haiti is on the left, and the Dominican Republic is on the right.


On the bridge over Massacre River.
Dajabón Market from the bridge.



Closer view of Dajabón market. Three men push a horse cart full of onions back to Haiti. A girl sells soda. A man carries a wheelbarrow because there isnt enough room to push it. A boy carries four plastic containers of cheap electronics on his head.

Dominican Republic - PN El Morro

On our last day of the community service trip, we took a break and went sight-seeing around El Cibao. These photos are from a hike at El Morro National Park. The beach at the bottom is where we went swimming afterwards to cool off!

Dominican Republic - Orphanage Outreach

These are some photos from the program we were working with, Orphanage Outreach. You can also see where we stayed -- pretty, but definitely rustic.




My students with the kids at the local orphanage, where we were staying.

Dominican Republic - Summer Program Batey Libertad

The Older Girls group at the English station. They were incredibly smart and eager to learn.



Relay races.





Little Kids group at the Literacy station.


Practicing drawing and writing at the Art Station.


Older guys playing dominoes.

Dominican Republic -- Batey Libertad

We worked in a community called Batey Libertad. A batey is a settlement of agricultural workers, mainly sugar cane pickers. Haitians often cross the border in search of a better life and do the work that Dominicans don't want. At Batey Libertad, they live without running water or electricity in small tin shacks. It's estimated that 1 million Haitians live illegally in the DR (out of a Dominican population of 9 million).

10 of my students and 10 students from Bryn Mawr ran a summer camp at Baté Libertad. About 50 local kids came. The goal was to increase the kids' exposure to literacy, Spanish, English, team activities, and art. I was amazed that many of the school age kids did not yet know how to hold a crayon. It made me think about how hard it would be for them to learn to write later on.

Dominican Republic June 2011

We were in the North-Western part of the country, about an hour from the Haitian border, for a community service project.

Pittsburgh - Day 3

On our last morning in Pittsburgh, we didn't really try to do anything in particular, since we had seen a lot over the past couple of days and since it was a holiday and most things were closed anyways. We did walk through downtown and take the bus out to a neighborhood called ShadySide, which was supposed to be pretty to walk around.







A couple blocks from our hotel, the United Steel Workers Building.



Liberty Ave!

Pittsburgh - Day 2

On our second day in Pittsburgh, we got up early to beat the 95* heat. We tried taking the bus to a neighborhood called Oakland. We were a little worried because taking the bus can be complicated and we didn't have a map. Everything was really easy, though. This is the chapel at the University of Pittsburgh.






Next we went to the Cathedral of Learning, which is the University of Pittsburgh's humanities building. We were looking for the famous "Nationality Rooms" that are designed to reflect a certain architectural and cultural style. After a terrifying elevator ride to the 45 floor, where we could definitely feel the tower swaying, we found the visitor's center and got a map of the rooms. We went to all of the free rooms on the 3rd floor, which included the Austrian, Welsh, Ukrainian, Japanese, and Israeli rooms.


The Ukrainian room. I thought it was cool how they fitted the lumber together without using nails. Many of the rooms looked quite simple on first glance, but had a lot of interesting background information that made you understand them better.



We also went to the Phipps botanical gardens, where we saw ferns, orchids, bonsai, cacti, water gardens, and butterflies. This is the fern room.