Semana Cultural

All week long at Eric's colegio they have been celebrating the Dominican culture. This is leading up to 27 de Febrero, which is Independence Day here. On the 27th there will be Carnival, which is supposed to be a really crazy parade celebration for Independence. I'm learning that it is not kid-friendly, so we will be heading up to Jarabacoa for the long weekend. But, today there was a party at Eric's colegio for the kids and their family all morning long. It was such fun and great introduction to all things folkloric in the culture. The kids were all dressed up in costumes, most in folkloric dress. Little girls has scarves in their hair and the boys had rolled up jeans and straw hats. Eric dressed up like a "Campesino" which is the typical boy's costume depicting a country man from the past. He had on a straw hat, red scarf and carried a tambora, or drum.

The whole patio was decorated with typical Dominican things. A clothesline with clothes hanging out to dry, pots and pans and wooden bowls used to cook with, Dominican idioms decorating the walls, and lots of candies typical of the DR. I had a sugar stick that tasted like Coconut and a soft candy that is made with milk. After dancing to Merengue music and playing a few games, we were treated to a traditional Dominican dancing couple who danced on a bottle of rum. It's a very classic dance that I had seem before. Then, we ate Sancocho, arroz (rice) and aguacate (avocado), which is the most typical Dominican food you can eat. It's a thick soup or stew made with several kinds of meat and lots of veggies (sweet potato, white potato, yucca, plantains, etc.).
I was able to meet several other moms, which was great! Most I had little conversations in Spanish about mom and kids stuff. I met one woman whose son is a little younger than Eric and after we started our conversation in Spanish she told me in English we could talk in English. Well, we ended up talking the entire time about everything you can imagine. She is Dominican, but was raised in Spain and came back to the DR to live near her husband's family. It's kind of hard to explain, but she is the first Dominican woman I have met that is most like me in so many ways. We share a lot of the same philosophies about raising kids, which are a little different from how typical Dominican kids are raised. We exchanged phone numbers and decided to get together next week with our little boys.

It was fun to watch Eric at school today, as I was there from 9-12:30 for the party. He is so busy all of the time, going from one thing to the next. He would slide down the slide about 5 times and then walk over to where all of the things were for the kitchen display and open all of the pots and look inside, and then walk over to where his friends from class were gathered and then back onto something else, not spending more than a couple of minutes at each place and always moving. He was just kind of quietly going from one thing to the next. I kept thinking about how curious he is about everything and hoping he never loses that. I always kept thinking about how much he is probably like Eric when he was his age, curious about everything, not the least bit a troublemaker, and always on the move. I think it's one of the first times I have really seen his personality in comparison with other kids his age. Now I know why he basically collapses into bed at night. Well, I won't go on anymore, but here are some pictures from the day:

Eric with one of his classmates, Daniela. Behind them is his teacher Marissa, who is also in costume.

The little Campesino.

Playing with another little boy.

The kids art. Eric's doll is the bottom right one. His first piece of school art!

Comforting his cousin Paula Marie.
This was the cutest! Two kids from his class were dancing together and actually doing merengue!
The dancers who came to demonstrate traditional dancing.