a staring state of mind

Dominicans have a way of staring. They do it with no shame or regret. If something or someone is strange or puzzling, they have no qualms about sitting two feet away and just staring. When I first got here, over a year ago, it made me feel uneasy. How could it not? It’s that feeling you get when you think someone is watching you, but in reality someone really IS watching you.

Now, a year later, when Anna Maria, Eve and David visited, they told me I stare too much. On more than one occasion, Anna Maria hit me across the arm to wake me from my trance of staring at random strangers. Mostly, I stare at other white people. I find myself removed from them, wondering what they are doing in the DR and if any of them will leave the tourist parts of the island and see how the “real” DR functions. Anna Maria and Eve promised they would help me get my “social skills” back when I come back home. Another year left, and I will have to take them up on their offer.

Today, a nine-year-old boy sat down at the same table as me in my center and played the usual staring game. By now, I’m use to it and just carried on with my tasks as if he wasn’t there. We talked for a few minutes at first- I asked if he passed his grade and he said yes. Then he pointed to my nalgene water bottle and asked me to bring him one back from America the next time I go. I smiled and said “vamos a ver,” or we’ll see. He then asked me if he could read a book from the library.

The current state of our library is dismal, and is what so many of my generous friends and family from back home donated money to help me fix. The boy asked me if he could read a book and enthusiastically I told him he could read any book he wanted!

He picked out a large children’s picture book with some writing and set it on the table. Now it was my turn to stare at him. He scanned the first page for a few seconds, making mental notes of the images and the colors. He looked at the two or three sentences at the top of the page for less than 10 seconds and then flipped on to the next page. After repeating these actions four times or so, I asked him if he was reading the book.

“Oh, I don’t know how to read,” he said matter-of-factly.

Surprised, I asked him if he was joking. He told me no, and that he didn’t know how to read. I asked him how old he was again (nine-years-old) and how he just said he passed his grade and will be moving on to the next grade next school year.

Now he looked at me like I was the crazy one. “Well yeah, I passed, but I don’t know how to read,” he repeated.

“So what do you do in school then?” I asked.

“I write some and then read a little from one book called Nacho.”

“But you don’t know what this says?” I asked pointing to a word on the page. “Do you know what the different letters are?”

“No,” he said again.

I tried to give him a 2-minute lesson on how each letter makes up a different sound and how they combine together to form words that we then can read. He seemed interested and said that his teacher never told him that. I tried to continue, but quickly realized how over my head I was with trying to teach him how to read in one afternoon. Soon he got distracted and went to play a game on the internet. I hate to admit it, but I felt relieved.

As he politely left the table and put the book back on the shelf, he left me staring at the place where he was just sitting. A year later, and things like this still shock me. This nice, well-mannered nine-year-old boy has been pushed through school, going from one grade to the next, without ever learning how to read. Kids like him are everywhere in this country and unfortunately will probably graduate high school without ever being taught to read.

The make it through just staring. They stare at the blackboard all day at school. They stare at their teacher and copy everything he or she puts on the board into their notebooks, without ever realizing what exactly they are writing or learning. Most kids can write, because they’ve been taught to write the letters- but if you were to ask them to point out the letter “S,” or the letter “C” they’d never be able to do it.

So when something or someone different comes along, they just continue to stare. They have never been taught to question or to wonder why things are the way they are or how things can be better. Of course, this is a general statement and of course there are many smart Dominicans who have educated themselves.

But in my small town, with limited money and limited resources, most kids will never get that chance. How do I wake people up from this staring trance? As I feel myself fall into, how do I resist it? This country needs a wake-up call, and maybe teaching one nine-year-old how to read, how to resist the staring, is a way to start.