The language barrier

Eva Patenaude

Before arriving in the Dominican Republic I was worried about the language barrier. I’ve taken various Spanish classes throughout my time in school but nothing substantial. However, coming here I've learned that not being fluent in Spanish isn’t the big problem I expected it to be. 
Throughout my time here I’ve learned a lot of Dominican phrases in Spanish class and my fluent friends teach me words to help communicate with the kids. The kids we work with at the NGO are also incredibly creative. When they realize that some of us speak very little Spanish they incorporate hand gestures into their sentences and even correct wrong grammar. Speaking with the kids at the NGO has improved my grammar and taught me more than I ever could have learned from duolingo at home. Overall, I’ve learned that speaking the same language as someone is helpful of course, but not the most important part of a human connection. There’s various different ways to communicate with people and connections can go far beyond speaking the same language. I encourage people to try their hardest to learn the native language but also recognize the different methods of communication. 

For example, when we made colorful cats with the kids on Tuesday I was working with a little boy who said he was six years old. In order to make the cats we had to cut out colorful pieces of paper to then glue onto the template of the cat. I know the basic colors in Spanish so when picking the colors for his cat I would offer colors and he would either say yes or no. However, when talking about anything else like asking for glue or scissors he would point or motion towards the item while speaking in spanish so that I always knew what he was referring to. This is just a simple example of how communication can go beyond speaking the same language that I hadn’t thought of before I had the opportunity to come to the DR.