Bad Weekend

This weekend I was supposed to go on an amazing eye opening work retreat to a Batey and help clean a soccer field for a youth soccer tornament and talk to people and learn things and be awesome. Instead, I set my alarm for 7:10, apparently turned it off in my sleep, woke up at 9 to be devastated because the bus left at 8:00. No one could call me because my phone had limited service and when that happens no calls come through. They tried calling my house phone, but my mom had left early in the morning to see her sister who had just gone through an operation, so no one answered. I would have tried to get there myself, but I felt by the time I got all my shit together, I would have basically missed the first day and it was a short retreat in that it was only saturday and return on sunday evening.

I am really disappointed because I was very interested in taking the tour of the Batey- a batey is a community that was originally formed by workers of the sugar cane plantations. They are the poorest, most marginalized communities in the Dominican Republic. The tour was planned for 9:30 am, so I would have missed it if I had tried to come later anyways. We get to see another batey later on in the semester but it is the batey that has received the most international attention, and thus, has been radically changed (for the most part for the better) and isn't exactly a true representation of a batey now.

This coming week I will teach my first english class to university students at my school! I am really nervous. I'll give an update of how that goes, but as of now I'm feeling like I have nothing to show for myself. Let's hope that changes soon...