Stepping Out of the Boat

It has been another hot day here in the Dominican. It is that sufficating hot that you can never get away from. The kind of hot that starts at 7:00 a.m. and continues on well past sundown. It is the hot that drains your energy. Its the hot that causes you to break a sweat when you're brushing your teeth in the morning. I am not sure how many of you have experienced that last kind of hot, but here in the Dominican it happens often.

The day started off like any other hot day with me, John, breaking a sweat walking across the street to school and then getting ready in my classroom that has a little musty smell to it as the air conditioner still isn't up and running all the way. Now I need to let you know that each morning when I get to my class the air has not yet been turned on but within the first 5 or so minutes the custodian lady comes around with her little remote control and turns it on. It is a nice little system that we have here even though the custodian lady doesn't speak a lick of English and doesn't understand, even though she has repeatedly talked to me in Spanish and I repeatedly told her I don't understand, that I don't speak hardly any Spanish. These little interacations are another blog entry all on their own (as I roll my eyes). So the air is on and we headed down to our flag ceremony just like every other day.

Here is the patriotism part. Today being the 5th anniversay of 9/11 the school, along with the Dominican anthem, played the American national anthem. This is done on U.S. holidays such as Labor Day when we were in school and you were all at home in bed. However today had a little twist.
After the Star Spangled Banner a group of students, who Claire and I are guessing to be a school chior??, all dressed in white came out and sang We Are The World with the accompaniment of the CD version of the song. To make the story a little weirder they held three doves which they then released upon the conclusion of the song. Here is a picture that Claire found online and for copyright purposes I am required to inform you we did not take it ourselves, but this is what they looked like. After two of the birds flew away while the thrid one, not getting enough liftoff, flew into the building landing just behind where the students were standing and even after one of MY students then went running after it in front of the entire school we all headed back to our nice cool air conditioned classrooms.

WRONG. When I got back to my room and opened the door I might as well have been opening the door to a burning oven. What a day to have the air conditioner not working. I had heard of this type of thing happening at school so I just went with it despite the uncomfortable factor. It wasn't until I had taught in there, with the windows and door open and 2 ceiling fans on full strength, that I then went to another classroom and realized it wasn't a school wide problem but a MY classroom problem. So on my first break which was about 2 and half hours after school started I went out to find help. After walking around a little while wouldn't you guess who I eventually ran into, the custodian lady. Not wanting to waste all my prep time I had her come into the room where I tried to expain that something isn't working right and it was like a hot box in there. So she pulled up a chair to stand on and put her hand up in front of the system that at that time was blowing warm air. She then turns to me, with a smile on her face, and rambled on something in Spanish that I assumed meant something like "It is working I can feel air coming out of here." Then before I could get anything else in she collected her things and left. Knowing that I only had one more class in that room at the end of the day I decided I would let the few teaches who were to come into the room before then talk to someone and have it fixed.

WRONG. The last period fo the day, when the sun is at its finest down here, I headed back to the room to experience a hot like I had yet to experience. I was dying in there for about 30 minutes. I was racking my brain trying to think if there was a way to take the entire class somewhere cooler. But in a school that is completly outside not may of these places exsist. I was completly drenched in sweat to the point where my shirt was sticking to my body. At one point I bent over to tie my shoe and as my arm went forward my shirt, stuck to my body, stayed where it was and I ripped a hole in it right by the armpit. With about 15 mintues of school left, right as I was to that breaking point where I thought I might jump out the window the custodian lady came through the door carrying her little remote control. She walked over to the air conditioner and pushed a button on her remote and the cold air started pouring out of the machine. She then walked up to me and in Spanish rambled on about who knows what while she pointed at two different buttons on the remote. From what I could make out she pushed the wrong button in the morning and instead of turning on the cool air she just opened some sort of vent.