Shall we dance?

One of the most enjoyable things I've been doing here on St Vincent has been teaching dance classes for a few children between the ages of 6 and 10.

The class meets every Friday from 4-5pm at my house. The patio serves as class space and a few chairs and steps serve as ballet bars. There isn't any mirror and the girls don't wear leotards and tights but they all come eager to learn and excited to see what I'll teach them.

I know that there have been several of you who have voiced your incredulity that I'm here in the Caribbean teaching kids to dance, and if I were teaching them to club dance everyone's skepticism of my effectiveness in teaching would be warranted. Fortunately I am NOT teaching them to "whine" (Thank heavens. Look it up on youtube if you don't know what I'm talking about) and teaching children ballet here is remarkably like teaching children at home in Massachusetts.

As Christmas rapidly approaches, all the area churches are preparing for their Christmas programs. These always include singing, skits, and dancing. It's a time for church members to highlight their skills and I was asked to choreograph a dance for the kids to perform at their church.

I started teaching the kids the dance on Friday and I wanted to share it with you all! I know that it certainly isn't clean yet and it certainly isn't challenging, but these are kids who have never done ballet before, only have limited dance experience, and virtually no formal training. I've only been working with them all for about a month and I was amazed that all the kids were able to pick up as much of the choreography as they did. For two of the girls, this was actually their first class.

The best part of the video isn't the actual dance but rather the very end once the dancing stops. The joy they all exhibit isn't a show for the camera. Every time they did the dance and got to the end of the section I had taught they reacted this way. I wish I hadn't stopped the video as quickly as I did so I could have captured more of the reaction.





After dance class, Saneze, my landlady's daughter, and I wait for Sandra (her mother/my landlady) and her brother Tye to get home. She wanted me to film her dancing to Beyonce who is rather well loved by all little girls here. I have to give her credit, she did a pretty good job improvising for a 10 year old!





I'm also helping with choreography for a group at the church I've been going to here. I don't have a video of that yet, but as soon as I do I'll make sure to share it with everyone!

A Beautiful Day

After being hit by Hurricane Tomas on October 30th and the subsequent canceled week of school, today marked the start of my first full work week as a Peace Corps volunteer.

After a marriage proposal, a request for a date, and having met two new friends, I finally made it to the school and was told all about the death of a litter of puppies by a little girl in grade 2 named Makenna:

Me: What's your dogs name?
Makenna: Rosie
Me: What a good name! So she's a girl?
Makenna: Yes, and she's made puppies before, but they all died.
Me: How did they die?
Makenna: Well there were four. One died of starvation, two died because of other dogs, and my brother sat on one and it exploded.
Me: It explosed!?!?!?
Makenna: Yes. He's very fat.

She tells great stories.

I spent the morning cleaning the library. It isn't secure from the elements and the hurricane caused about 15 pounds of the outdoors to blow in and coat everything with a thick layer of muck. A few grade 5 students came in to help me so the work went quickly.

After lunch I started pulling kids in grades 2 and 3 one at a time to assess where they are in relation to reading. I held up flashcards to see if they knew their letter names and sounds (many don't) and then used a diagnostic test consisting of 10 grade appropriate words that they should be able to read. I also had chosen age appropriate stories for each group and after testing the students I gave them the choice to either read the book to me or have the book read to them.

Every child chose to have the book read to them except one: Marco.

"I'd like to try to read it," he said to me.

Marco's in grade 3 and knew all of his alphabet but could only read about half of the age appropriate words. I had to help him through the whole book, but he finished it and seemed pretty happy with himself.

At the end of the day I went to talk to his teacher about how well he had done and that he had been the only child who had wanted to make the effort to read the book to me.

She smiled and said, "I know! He came back here and told me, 'I had a great time with Miss!' He told me that he read through an entire book with you and he recited the entire story to me, so I told him that he could retell it to the whole class first thing in the morning!"

She then thanked me for helping with all the kids and we all headed home.

As Peace Corps Volunteers, we're warned that we won't see results for up to a year after we begin our service and that we're almost never going to hear "thank you." It seems to me that there's no greater result than being able to see a child actually feel proud enough about having read a whole book that they can't wait to share it with their teacher and classmates.

Today definitely made me feel like being here has been, and will continue to be, worth everything that I have and will put into it.

I can't wait for tomorrow!