Why bother leaving home?

By: Kim Sanchez

InteRDom Correspondent, Kim, has completed three years of her Bachelor's degree in Film and Video at the Visual Arts College at the University of Toledo in Ohio. She is participating in the 2013 10-week Caribbean Summer Program. You can read more about Kim and her participation in the Correspondent Program here.


"The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page." St. Augustine
 
Everyone around me seems to have a fear of traveling. They believe that other countries are foreign and dangerous. However, I believe the world is simply too big to stay in one place. I have this unsettling feeling that I’m living in a cage with the door wide open and that's why I have to leave.

I'm a filmmaker. I make short films about myself and the world around me. I'm so interested in how a filmmaker can manipulate images and sounds to tell a story and be understood. Just in the past year I've travelled across the US, to Portugal, and to the Azores for filmmaking. I just can't stop leaving! I'm realizing now that my art is making me mobile, but what I really want to do is mobilize others. I want others to watch my films and then be inspired to take action in some way. This is why I'm leaving for the Dominican Republic.

For 10 weeks this summer I'll be working with La Fundación de Democracia y Desarrollo (FUNGLODE), a nonprofit organization that promotes human development and globalization in the Dominican Republic. I couldn't have dreamed of a more fitting opportunity! 

As an audiovisual intern, I will be involved in shooting, mixing, and editing video productions for the organization. In addition, I will live in student housing and take classes at La Universidad Iberoamericana (UNIBE). I'm so excited to become a part of this organization and use my skills to help educate and reach others.
 
I leave tomorrow. I am very excited to be part of this organization and to use my skills to educate and reach others. I'm really stressed out juggling work, moving into a new apartment, and preparing to travel abroad. I've been practicing my Spanish, but I'm still very nervous about speaking. I'm an adaptable person, but my deepest fear is that people will speak too quickly for me to understand. But this is exactly what I want! It's not supposed to be easy and pleasant all the time, if it were, why bother leaving home? I want to be challenged. I want to learn. I want to grow. This is why I have to leave, and it's why you should too.

Hello bold, brave world!

By: Lindsay Tatum
Lindsay has completed her first year of study at the University of Georgia School of Law and is one of three students participating in the 2012 pilot of the InteRDom Correspondent Program. She is participating in the 2012 10-week Graduate and Gap Year Program. You can read more about her, her interest in the Correspondent Program and her career ambitions here.

As usual, I am here to update you on my time and travels in the Dominican Republic. And further, per the usual, those time and travels have been fruitful and enjoyable. I have spent these last few weeks traveling and as you can probably guess from the title of this post... working HARD! La Universal Seguros has set me up with another fantastic working opportunity with yet another prestigious law firm in this country. For the past two weeks, and for the rest of my time here, I will be working at this law firm. And when I say working.... I really mean working! I was recently given the monumental task of translating one of the firm's attorney's billable hours from Spanish to English!

Now some of you may think to yourselves... Translating? I mean, how bad can that be? WELL LET ME TELL YOU.... It takes forever!!! Not only am I translating from a different language into my own, but I have translating the professional, legal usage of this language (And if you don't already know...NO! This is not the Spanish they teach you in school!), and FURTHER, I'm trying to translate the attorney's Dominican slang into regular Spanish AND THEN into English!!!

ARE YOU GETTING THE JIST NOW?! M-O-N-U-M-E-N-T-A-L!

While this is taking me a while to complete, I am learning quite a lot! For example... The word hipoteca means, "mortgage". And the phrase en ocasión does not mean on occasion. In fact it means, "regarding". I am so proud of my newfound knowledge and I look forward to continuing to work through the EIGHT PAGES of translation I have to complete.

The other good news about this task is that the deadline for its completion is after I will be gone. Therefore, I do not feel ridiculous pressure to finish this task in two days. I can take my time and make sure it’s correct. Not only that, I can learn in the process! I mean... isn't that what they are "paying" me to do?! "Paying" me in experience!

So I will remain at my little desk... working hard, but not for the money... but for the EXPERIENCE!!!

VIVA LA REPÚBLICA!

Supporting the Community

By: Anna Groesser
Graduate and Gap Year 32-week Program, 2012
You can read about Anna's internship with Grupo PUNTACANA on the InteRDom website here.

Well, here I am writing another blog for InteRDom! First off, the basics about my employer: I am here as an InteRDom intern within the Social Community Projects department of Grupo PUNTACANA, a huge resort corporation (which includes two hotels, golf courses, water/power/security infrastructure, lots of restaurants, an ecological preserve, an outdoor shopping area and more). While being the very first resort in Punta Cana and spearheading the whole tourist industry in this region, Grupo PUNTACANA has taken it upon itself to contribute and improve the local communities through development projects in health, education, culture, sports and environmental protection.

The Veron Polytechnic School, created by Grupo PUNTACANA, is an example of a successful educational project. Within this tidy and well-run school, along with basic education classes for the youth of Veron, adult classes are also offered which give training in a variety of resort jobs. In other words, while Grupo PUNTACANA is contributing to the overall education of the local community, they are also contributing to their own workforce of resort employees. This is a melding of social corporate responsibility to the community and a responsibility for the fiscal growth of the company..

Taking a quick look at some other areas of community development/protection within Grupo PUNTACANA, we have the Ecological Foundation. This is extensively focused on and devoted to protecting the natural beauty of the environment. Their efforts toward protection of the flora and fauna and the marine and animal life is astounding, as is the vast amount of talented scientists and students who come here to study and contribute. Another aspect of Grupo PUNTACANA’s contributions is the local free health care clinic in Veron, which was completely renovated from a decrepit building to a clean and working clinic by Grupo PUNTACANA and now run in cooperation with the Virginia College of Osteopathic Medicine (VITCOM). VITCOM organizes “medical missions” in the community and supplies the medical staff within the clinic- again we see a huge amount of educated and valuable professionals coming to this region through the efforts of Grupo PUNTACANA. Everyone benefits: the local community gets better health care access, the VITCOM medical students gain experience and Grupo PUNTACANA receives a relatively healthier region for its tourists, as well as a stronger and healthier workforce.

As for my specific role within Grupo PUNTACANA as an intern, I deal with supporting the educational projects. Right now, we are building a new primary school and then improving the computer lab in an existing school. Because I am basically here as educated brainpower, I have a lot of freedom in my position to brainstorm ideas, suggestions and activities to supplement our projects. Besides the contributions I come up with as the days go by, my set responsibilities include creating a formal paper on the state of public education in this region through an extensive interview series (with local stakeholders) to understand the impact the new school will have on the community. Secondly, I am responsible for sitting in on the computer classes in the lab we will improve, and observe the teaching methods, computer programs used, and interviewing the teacher and students to find things we can make more efficient. I will also be collaborating with the local Peace Corps members here on an educational project, I will be giving a presentation to a local school on the importance of community development, and then contributing to a new statistical analysis of graduated students from a public school. I could go on and on describing the small tasks and activities I have, but there’s limited space here, so let me just say: my plate is quite full with a variety of engaging and fulfilling things!

My living situation here is quite nice. I live within the hotel grounds, in a clean and well-maintained little guest house about 3 minutes’ walk from the beach. It is breathtakingly beautiful in the “white sand beaches/turquoise sea/and warm, humid breezes” way that tourists all over the world seek. It really is paradise. Since I have arrived, my Spanish has improved a lot, but it is still difficult. One of my main preoccupations is figuring out how to still be a valuable intern without being perfectly fluent in Spanish, while energetically studying the language in my free time. So far, I have found many ways to contribute adequately, even without perfect Spanish, and it will only get easier as my Spanish improves.

Adjusting to Life in Santo Domingo

By: Anna Groesser
Graduate and Gap Year 32-week Program, 2012
You can read about Anna's internship with Grupo PUNTACANA on the InteRDom website here.

I have been living in Santo Domingo for about one month now, and luckily arrived during their “dead of winter” season. To them, this means comfortable breezes and temperatures in the mid-80s. To me, coming from Northern Michigan, this is the height of summer! That being said, you can be sure I have enjoyed the temperatures while my friends and family in Michigan freeze. Honestly, my past month has been pretty relaxed. I’ve focused on getting adjusted to daily activities- for example, weekly shopping and visiting the local colmado for avocados and bananas (or catching the seller who passes through the street every day at 10am, and buying them from his cart). I’ve also toured some of the areas of Santo Domingo and have been slowly practicing my Spanish with strangers and friends (especially those helpful sentences such as “Can you say it with simple words?” and “A little slower, please.”)

Something interesting: after having been in Santo Domingo for only one week, I had experienced more culture shock than in my entire year studying in Tokyo. I attribute it to the fact that the Dominican Republic is not simply a foreign country to me, but also a developing country and a far cry from what I am familiar with back in the U.S. It’s a developing country, yes, but it’s also a busy, thriving and lively place. People are everywhere, things are going on everywhere, trash is everywhere. The streets are narrow and sidewalks are often non-existent. There is so much to look at and compare here. The driving is treacherous and sellers swarm cars at stop lights selling knickknacks, fruits and flowers, or trying to clean windshields. But on the other hand, the pace of “getting things done” in offices and banks and cellphone branches is often frustratingly slow. This is a city of extremes.

The FUNGLODE building is directly across from my apartment building. Their facility is high-tech and impressive, with Dominican security guards in evidence at all times of the night and day. FUNGLODE often hosts political and academic activities and during those evenings, the street below is full of cars looking to park (and lots of honking, to hurry each other along!) A few times a week, the president of the Dominican Republic visits FUNGLODE, and that’s always exciting to me.

My Spanish teacher was a confident and interesting Dominican Spanish language professor. We focused on speaking and listening mostly, as my reading and writing far exceed the former, and she gave me a birthday present on our last lesson day (a wind chime, perfect for my breezy and spacious 5^th floor apartment). I hope in a few months to reconnect with her, due to her strong interest in community development within Santo Domingo.

The next phase of my time here entails me moving to Punta Cana in a few days to begin my development internship with Grupo PUNTACANA. I will be interning within two projects- one the creation of a local elementary school and the other in the improvement of a local high school’s computer lab. This is exactly what I went to graduate school for and I can finally experience these things in real life, and not as solely theoretical 20-page paper projects!

Achieving DELE Language Certification in the Dominican Republic

By: Caitlin Lowery
Graduate and Gap Year Program
Fall 2010

When I applied to the InteRDom program, I mentioned that one of my goals was to take the DELE (Diploma de Espanol como Lengua Extranjera) exam and the InteRDom team worked hard to help me accomplish that aim. The DELE is a test of proficiency in the Spanish language for non-native speakers, comparable to the TOEFL exam required for foreign applicants by many universities in the U.S. to demonstrate linguistic competence in English.

The DELE is only offered a few times a year and has three levels: Inicial, Intermedio, and Superior. InteRDom set up private Spanish language tutoring sessions for me, twice a week, for my entire stay in the Dominican Republic, with Martha Campusano, a very kind and capable teacher. I elected to take the "Superior" test, because I felt that it would be most beneficial in light of my future plans. The test includes reading comprehension, writing, listening, vocabulary and grammar, and an oral section. I decided to take the DELE in part because I wanted a concrete measure of my degree of proficiency in Spanish and also because I would like to work in the field of international development and I believe it will be useful when I apply for jobs that require fluency in Spanish. After weeks of studying with Martha and living and working in Santo Domingo, I passed the exam and should receive my diploma in a few weeks, an accomplishment I could not have achieved without the help of Martha and the InteRDom staff.