This past week I shared a wonderfully fun cultural exchange with some of my Dominican students and 3 classes from New Jersey. We laughed, asked questions, danced, learned, applauded, while accomplishing Peace Corps goals 2 and 3 of increasing cultural understanding home and abroad.

I and the Eatontown Memorial High School of Eatontown, New Jersey signed up to participate in the Paul Coverdell (yeah, Georgia!) World Wise program. Rutgers University teamed up to add a new video chat facet to the program.

Both the New Jersey and Dominican students thought of questions they had about each other's lives and drew pictures of what they thought their worlds look like. And so we shared.

Here was some of the differences based on the kids responses to their questions.

                       Dominicans                            New Jersians

Transport

to school            on foot                            parent’s car/ school bus

dinner          plantains, eggs                              spaghetti

school

uniforms              yes                                            no

favorite

music          Reaggeton, Bachata                 Hip-Hop, Pop, Rock    

I have four favorite parts.

First when the New Jersey kids asked their favorite kind of music and the Dominican kids responded by dancing bachata. Ok well actually it was one Dominican girl and me because none of the boys would dance. I put on this great bachata by Aventura that starts with a phone call conversation- solid!

Then the New Jersey group asked what the Dominican parents do for a living. They each went around. We had a candy maker, a farmer, an accountant, a teacher, an ice cream store owner, and a rum warehouse worker.

At one point the New Jersey teacher asked his class if they knew the president of the DR, and they didn’t so my students filled them in. A few of them offering up the answer. Then I asked the group if they knew who the president of the US was and the whole lab shouted in unison, Barrack Obama!

And finally, in one class we ended with the New Jersey class coming up with all the dominican baseball players they could think of. You could just see the pride in the dominican student’s smiles, that their people were not just known, but celebrated.

Next Monday we will video chat again and talk about Earth Day an taking care of the environment.