Teaching

5/12/2008

As you know, my official job here is to develop community ecotourism projects. To put it into as few words as possible, it has been challenging, fun, and rewarding so far. I dig it, but it definitely leaves time for me to do other things. In my free time, I mostly find myself hanging out with kids teaching them stuff they have never seen before that back in the States is so normal. For example, twice a week I go to the elementary school and give English class for a half hour. At the end of each class, I put a song on the radio with the lyrics on the chalk board. So far, they enjoyed the song by this strange group called the Beatles the most.

My other teaching endeavor has been baseball. It started when I met a man passing through my town who is from the Dominican Republic. When he told me where he was from, I immediately took that as a chance to talk baseball. I also took advantage of that when I met a doctor from Cuba. Anyway, after about a half hour of talking about the pros, he started telling me how all kids in the Dominican grow up playing the game even though most don´t have baseballs, bats, gloves, bases, or even fields.

“Pero la única cosa que se necesita es amor para el juego. Así se encuentra maneras para jugar” he told me. “But the only thing you need is love for the game. That´s how you find ways to play.”

Well, of course after he said that, I was convinced I was going to teach the kids of this town. We started with the basics of how to hit. I took the handle off my broom while the 3 youngest boys of my host family rounded up all the bad oranges that fell from the trees in our backyard. I showed them how to stand and hold the bat, and they got a feel for their swing until all the oranges ended up squashed.

I wasn´t totally sure they liked it, but the next day changed my mind. Without me even mentioning baseball, the youngest kid (Hector) approached me and told me he thought our bat was too heavy and that we were all going to get new ones. I didn´t really get it at first, but then he told me he knows the perfect wood in the jungle that is light, strong and straight. So, we ventured into the rainforest and the four of us picked up sticks that were going to be our new bats. After we carved them down with a machete, we were ready for batting practice. I have a video of what that looks like, but I will put that up when I find a faster connection.

They did that for quite a while and got to where they weren´t spinning in circles every time they took a swing. When they got bored of tossing stuff onto the roof, the kids told me they wanted to play this game for real. So, we headed to the soccer field where I drew out a diamond and taught them the basics of the rules. We had enough to fill one team, so we played sandlot style for a couple hours. It was a success!

Apparently word got out about this game that did not involve a whole lot of running because the next day, our numbers doubled. We played a full 9 inning baseball game. We lost 28-22, but I was smiling the whole time.