A few years ago, in front of Coastal Gas Station outside of Sosua--across from Ocean Village--a young man, Bart, driving a brand new--one week old Yamaha TW 200--was making a left hand turn--heading west--into Coastal Gas station. He was stopped, waiting for on-coming traffic--heading east--to go past. He had a large truck stopped behind him--which was blocking the view of people coming up behind the truck. He made the colossal mistake of turning left and only looking forward--like any normal person would do. He had patiently waited for the on-coming lane to clear free, and so, he had the right to turn left without fear of anyone coming in the opposite direction. What he didn't realize is that, here, in this country, people will pass any stopped traffic without realizing that they might be stopped for a reason--I.E-someone is turning left!! As he turned left a brand new Audi heading west, and flying with two kids driving--came flying past the truck--taking him on the left--at the very same time that Bart was turning left into Coastal gas station. the Audi hit Bart at such a high velocity that it broke his brand new, one week old, Yamaha TW 200 in half--sending one half north, and the other half south-west. The impact was so severe that it immediately tore into the Audi's radiator and tore into the engine--bringing the Audi to a rolling stop--and unable to move. The impact totaled the Audi, totaled the Yamaha TW 200, and totaled Bart--breaking in half his left leg--breaking the Femur in half and causing lots of other damages to his hips, legs (Femur), shoulders, arms,etc.
However, Bart had one saving grace...he was wearing his brand new, $300 helmet. The helmet saved his life. But, wait, let Bart tell the story...
As the story goes we flew down to the DR on the sunny day of august 5th. On the 6th we had ella’s birthday and visitors in steve broege and john kimmel. Ella and I went to ocean world and did the dolphin encounter which is labeled as “the once in a lifetime opportunity”. It was entertaining and ella was enthralled by getting to touch the dolphin.
Steve and john stayed a week and a we did a bit of touring and enough drinking to sate me for the rest of the summer. Fortunately, I was able to go out east with them without overly burdening jenny since we had new neighbors, Michael and Doreena with kids that immediately became seamless with our ella. Almost instantly our family of 3 had grown to a family of four adults and three children. A community which we never found in the states.
After steve and john returned home on the 13th, I set to the task of acquiring the remaining life necessities including obtaining transportation, communication, employment etc.. Tasks which take just an afternoon at home can take on a life force of there own here, while others get done exceeding quick. Of course when there is money on the table the response time here is often with god-speed.
I got the car first. No small task given the paradigm here. Cars here are almost double us prices and gas is over $5. Roads are in generally poor condition and there are always things in the road that one needs to be alert for. Moreover almost every racket imaginable as to cars sellers is common here. For instance New Orleans salvage cars are common as are late model imports with rolled back odometers and the check engine light unplugged.
After considerable searching I proudly ended up with an import straight from japan, a little Nissan cube which resembles the older scion xb. An economical box with great headroom great gas mileage little tires and an overall quirky design. Moreover I proudly paid a bit over $7k us, a seemingly great price. The car even shows low mileage . . . so far only a few quirks have developed but it has exceeded overall expectations.
While spending time at the pool with ella I secured as an elementary school gym teacher and my disappeared like an airplane on the horizon. My first class was with 16 kindergartens on a rainy day where there is no actual gym to take them to. I did everything short of standing on my head in this first class and realized all of it consumed fifteen minutes. The first grade was better because and ella and daniella (mike and doreena’s daughter) were joined by only ten kids and an excellent teacher. Ms Vesna Ella’s Serbian transplanted teacher is experienced and she knows just when to brake into singsong. Next I was my fifth grade class and since I didn’t have ideas I told them they could choose. Apparently there is a longstanding pedagogical debate over dodge ball. I suppose I understand the debate know but for me it is a question of what level of competition and inclusiveness is preferred at what age. Some believe the Montessori model is the best for a child’s development, monetessori and dodge ball represent for me the opposite sides of the spectrum. If these were the only pedagogical choices out there I would be stuck.
By end of the week with the help of the internet I had the the upper classes doing soccer drills and playing games of soccer with newly acquired skills and the lower grades using all sorts of different equipment including hula hoops, balls, mats and everything else in my storage closet. Not to say it was easy but my small athletic fifth grade class brought fulfillment to me I rarely experienced in my previous work. Fourth grade turned the corner on this past Friday and even third grade with its jumble of disparate personalities seemed to have more people getting something out of it than not. The school is categorically diverse but the challenge of diversity is not by country of origin and this class probably has ten different countries represented nor by economic strata but rather diversity of personality. It is not so much that the Nunez cousins in the class who hail from da Bronx are different categorically than the Strauss triplets who are from Sosua by way of their grandfather being a holocaust resettler but that their personality types and concomitant energy levels are at the opposite end of the spectrum. When I bring out the soccer balls, Wilson and Kevin nunez start to place them under their shirts and the odile and emil strauss wait until I am not looking and go to hide underneath a tree in the shade. This type of diversity exists in every classroom and I think it plays first fiddle to the categorical diversity which those in the academic world endlessly study.
On Wednesday of my first week of school I purchased an on/off road motorcycle as a secondary means of transport and a way to explore the countryside of goat paths and sugarcane fields. I bought the bike new and had it shipped in from santo domingo arriving late on Wednesday. I drove it to school on Thursday and Friday and on Saturday
We had decided to have our first get together Saturday and have people over before an Anthony Santos concert. For those who do not follow bachata Anthony santos is the most popular bachata musician in the world; A man who sold out Madison square garden in three hours. Here he was playing in a small town ten minutes away in a disco filled with a couple of hundred plastic chairs. Anthony santos of course is from the Dr and spends most of time touring here while he only irregularly plays in Ny with its large Dominican population. The humorous way they make money is a general admission policy without any real starting time and then people for drinks until they are almost ready to leave when finally after midnight the band comes on with a crowd of people who have been there since dusk.
Around mid-day when jenny and ella went to a birthday party for one of ellas classmates I went out on my new moto and joined a gym on the way home while pulling into the gas station I was struck by a brand new audi going around 85 miles per hour, the car did not brake at all the occupants were young wealthy Americans not paying attention..
From this moment my life has been forever changed.
I had looked before I began turning and then a second or so later I saw a red blur drive into my leg and then I was on the ground and in an instant was clutching the pant leg of juan the cabinet maker from ny who had just the day before delivered my new desk. One of the concerns in the DR at an accident scene is that people will throw you in a pickup truck and drive you to the hospital to be helpful, ambulances are generally not plentiful. Juan called an ambulance. I quickly realized that I had my cell phone still in my pocket (gotta love the Velcro on the northface shorts) and I called my friend David, and then tried to call our neighbors mike and doreena. David arrived quickly blocked off traffic with his car and took over the scene from Juan.
Once I was stopped being scared about not having the right people around I began to become concerned about myself, I remember asking david whether the bone was protruding and once I learned it wasn’t I wiggled my toes to ease my fear that I was paralyzed. From here I remember someone putting one of my shoes under my head to comfort me and just the incredible heat in my legs. I asked someone to protect my legs from the sun but don’t remember responses from anyone.
When the ambulance arrived david’s son jon Antonio pushed through the crowd said “es me tio” “that’s my uncle” and pushed into the ambulance. I was on a guerney traveling fast to the hospital in Puerto plata with people in tow. One hitch was the gurney didn’t lock properly so every bump would cause it to move and cause me a shot of blinding pain and the ambulance guys in the DR do not give painkillers or have any medical training necessarily they can get people to the hospital. I think I arrived at the hospital around 5 pm on Saturday night. Straight to x-ray. After the pictures with some painful moving around from pushcart to pushcart they showed a picture of my femur separated from itself by what looked like 3/8”. Moments afterwords some people strapped me down and the doctors just starting yanking on my leg to align it somewhat. Without painkiller I think the noises which came out of me at this time were strictly primordial. The veneer of civilization had been ripped away.
continue...
However, Bart had one saving grace...he was wearing his brand new, $300 helmet. The helmet saved his life. But, wait, let Bart tell the story...
As the story goes we flew down to the DR on the sunny day of august 5th. On the 6th we had ella’s birthday and visitors in steve broege and john kimmel. Ella and I went to ocean world and did the dolphin encounter which is labeled as “the once in a lifetime opportunity”. It was entertaining and ella was enthralled by getting to touch the dolphin.
Steve and john stayed a week and a we did a bit of touring and enough drinking to sate me for the rest of the summer. Fortunately, I was able to go out east with them without overly burdening jenny since we had new neighbors, Michael and Doreena with kids that immediately became seamless with our ella. Almost instantly our family of 3 had grown to a family of four adults and three children. A community which we never found in the states.
After steve and john returned home on the 13th, I set to the task of acquiring the remaining life necessities including obtaining transportation, communication, employment etc.. Tasks which take just an afternoon at home can take on a life force of there own here, while others get done exceeding quick. Of course when there is money on the table the response time here is often with god-speed.
I got the car first. No small task given the paradigm here. Cars here are almost double us prices and gas is over $5. Roads are in generally poor condition and there are always things in the road that one needs to be alert for. Moreover almost every racket imaginable as to cars sellers is common here. For instance New Orleans salvage cars are common as are late model imports with rolled back odometers and the check engine light unplugged.
After considerable searching I proudly ended up with an import straight from japan, a little Nissan cube which resembles the older scion xb. An economical box with great headroom great gas mileage little tires and an overall quirky design. Moreover I proudly paid a bit over $7k us, a seemingly great price. The car even shows low mileage . . . so far only a few quirks have developed but it has exceeded overall expectations.
While spending time at the pool with ella I secured as an elementary school gym teacher and my disappeared like an airplane on the horizon. My first class was with 16 kindergartens on a rainy day where there is no actual gym to take them to. I did everything short of standing on my head in this first class and realized all of it consumed fifteen minutes. The first grade was better because and ella and daniella (mike and doreena’s daughter) were joined by only ten kids and an excellent teacher. Ms Vesna Ella’s Serbian transplanted teacher is experienced and she knows just when to brake into singsong. Next I was my fifth grade class and since I didn’t have ideas I told them they could choose. Apparently there is a longstanding pedagogical debate over dodge ball. I suppose I understand the debate know but for me it is a question of what level of competition and inclusiveness is preferred at what age. Some believe the Montessori model is the best for a child’s development, monetessori and dodge ball represent for me the opposite sides of the spectrum. If these were the only pedagogical choices out there I would be stuck.
By end of the week with the help of the internet I had the the upper classes doing soccer drills and playing games of soccer with newly acquired skills and the lower grades using all sorts of different equipment including hula hoops, balls, mats and everything else in my storage closet. Not to say it was easy but my small athletic fifth grade class brought fulfillment to me I rarely experienced in my previous work. Fourth grade turned the corner on this past Friday and even third grade with its jumble of disparate personalities seemed to have more people getting something out of it than not. The school is categorically diverse but the challenge of diversity is not by country of origin and this class probably has ten different countries represented nor by economic strata but rather diversity of personality. It is not so much that the Nunez cousins in the class who hail from da Bronx are different categorically than the Strauss triplets who are from Sosua by way of their grandfather being a holocaust resettler but that their personality types and concomitant energy levels are at the opposite end of the spectrum. When I bring out the soccer balls, Wilson and Kevin nunez start to place them under their shirts and the odile and emil strauss wait until I am not looking and go to hide underneath a tree in the shade. This type of diversity exists in every classroom and I think it plays first fiddle to the categorical diversity which those in the academic world endlessly study.
On Wednesday of my first week of school I purchased an on/off road motorcycle as a secondary means of transport and a way to explore the countryside of goat paths and sugarcane fields. I bought the bike new and had it shipped in from santo domingo arriving late on Wednesday. I drove it to school on Thursday and Friday and on Saturday
We had decided to have our first get together Saturday and have people over before an Anthony Santos concert. For those who do not follow bachata Anthony santos is the most popular bachata musician in the world; A man who sold out Madison square garden in three hours. Here he was playing in a small town ten minutes away in a disco filled with a couple of hundred plastic chairs. Anthony santos of course is from the Dr and spends most of time touring here while he only irregularly plays in Ny with its large Dominican population. The humorous way they make money is a general admission policy without any real starting time and then people for drinks until they are almost ready to leave when finally after midnight the band comes on with a crowd of people who have been there since dusk.
Around mid-day when jenny and ella went to a birthday party for one of ellas classmates I went out on my new moto and joined a gym on the way home while pulling into the gas station I was struck by a brand new audi going around 85 miles per hour, the car did not brake at all the occupants were young wealthy Americans not paying attention..
From this moment my life has been forever changed.
I had looked before I began turning and then a second or so later I saw a red blur drive into my leg and then I was on the ground and in an instant was clutching the pant leg of juan the cabinet maker from ny who had just the day before delivered my new desk. One of the concerns in the DR at an accident scene is that people will throw you in a pickup truck and drive you to the hospital to be helpful, ambulances are generally not plentiful. Juan called an ambulance. I quickly realized that I had my cell phone still in my pocket (gotta love the Velcro on the northface shorts) and I called my friend David, and then tried to call our neighbors mike and doreena. David arrived quickly blocked off traffic with his car and took over the scene from Juan.
Once I was stopped being scared about not having the right people around I began to become concerned about myself, I remember asking david whether the bone was protruding and once I learned it wasn’t I wiggled my toes to ease my fear that I was paralyzed. From here I remember someone putting one of my shoes under my head to comfort me and just the incredible heat in my legs. I asked someone to protect my legs from the sun but don’t remember responses from anyone.
When the ambulance arrived david’s son jon Antonio pushed through the crowd said “es me tio” “that’s my uncle” and pushed into the ambulance. I was on a guerney traveling fast to the hospital in Puerto plata with people in tow. One hitch was the gurney didn’t lock properly so every bump would cause it to move and cause me a shot of blinding pain and the ambulance guys in the DR do not give painkillers or have any medical training necessarily they can get people to the hospital. I think I arrived at the hospital around 5 pm on Saturday night. Straight to x-ray. After the pictures with some painful moving around from pushcart to pushcart they showed a picture of my femur separated from itself by what looked like 3/8”. Moments afterwords some people strapped me down and the doctors just starting yanking on my leg to align it somewhat. Without painkiller I think the noises which came out of me at this time were strictly primordial. The veneer of civilization had been ripped away.
continue...
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