Hey Anonymous, are you in the Yahoo! group?
About being sick...
One Tuesday morning (an "in" freeday), when I was supposed to work "Restitution" (more about that later), I puked on the floor next to my bed. I had also puked the night before, but in the toilet.
So, what should a well trained staff member do? My housefather promptly accused me of gagging myself, and claimed to have a high-ranker witness to gagging noises. I was forced to go work after having puked twice and probably a fever, although my temperature was never taken.
After working (as much as I could while sick) for 10-15 minutes, Mr. Redwine showed up. (I think that Mr. Redwine was probably the most understanding disciplinarian on campus. I didn't deal with him too often, but he didn't seem sadistic/insane/bipolar like Mr. Grant.) He did some talking (don't remember if it was with me, the supervisor, or both) and I was allowed to return to the house to rest. I fell asleep fully clothed and slept like a rock until the late evening. Kinda felt sorry for whatever probably low-ranker had to clean up my puke on the floor.
Over the next couple of weeks I had recurring diarrhea and abdominal pain. Though showing clear symptoms of having giardiasis (giardia infection, probably from some contact with the local water. see
http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dpd/parasites ... iardia.htm ), my housefather continued to accuse me of faking being sick. I still don't know if he was joking, but it didn't seem like it at the time.
By the way, to those of you who don't know, giardia is VERY common in the Dominican Republic. Students are warned never to drink tap water; if a student gets a giardia infection, they will probably get accused of intentionally drinking the tap water.
Eventually the school's RN took me to a doctor in town, who was also given urine and bile samples. Not surprisingly, I tested positive for giardia. I was prescribed about three different medications. My housefather still continued to give me flak about being sick, and I was treated exactly the same as though I were not.
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Since I'm on the topic of bowel movements....
While I was at EC, and to some degree to the present day, I had a problem taking a "long" time when relieving myself. Initially, I was just timed whenever I used the restroom. Eventually, though, I was put on "bucket support". I'm sure everyone who has been a student at EC, at least more recently, know what bucket support is. If you don't, I'll enlighten you:
Bucket support means that whenever you have to use the restroom, you have to go in a bucket, then get a high-ranker to verify (would hate to be the high-ranker). You then dump your waste and wash out the bucket. I don't remember where I had to dump urine, whether it was outside or in the toilet, but I never had to dump feces (reason below).
At least at first, bucket support was only at the house. To deal with this, when ever I had to go #2, I just held it until I went down to school. That way, I only had to worry about going #1 in a bucket.
Somehow, somewhere down the line, Mr. Grant (head disciplinarian) caught on to my ruse. I was informed of his change in policy (i.e. bucket support at school) though an off handed reference that didn't even really register in my mind. So, when I relieved myself that morning immediately after arriving at school, I was promptly ushered to Mr. Grant's office for the usual swats (don't remember whether I got "Authority Problem" (6) or "Insubordination" (10)).
So I just held it.
For over 24 hours.
The next day, after school, I brought to the housemother's attention, through the proper protocol, my new medical issue: constipation. She gave me some sort of laxative and the housefather allowed me to use the toilet. Not surprisingly (maybe making up for lost time?), I took too long (or more like he didn't give me enough time), so I was back on bucket support.
I don't remember how the issue eventually diffused. Maybe it was when I moved from Thomas House to Huyck House.
I think I was stuck on bucket support (at least one of the times) for an incident that wasn't even my fault.
One free day, we had "team showers". Team showers, for those who don't know, mean that instead of each person having 10 minutes to shower and get dressed, or 12 minutes if they had to shave, the entire house has 30-35 minutes for everyone to do the same. Everyone goes in by rank. Because I was on zero level (though not THE low-ranker) I was last to be sent in (by the high-ranker) to take a shower.
I had like five minutes.
Hmmm.
So I was like a minute late. So the house father stuck me on bucket support. Again. God, I hated that guy.
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Now to explain "Restitution" to anyone who doesn't know.
If you break something, you have to pay to replace it. If you don't have the money, then you have to work on your freeday to earn money.
Makes sense.
Of course, everyone on zero level didn't earn any money for their daily work. For every level, you earned progressively slightly less obscenely less than US minimum wage.
If you didn't earn a high enough score on your chores (i.e. if you had a bad day, or if you were just plain bad at cleaning), then you weren't paid for that either.
Also, everyone had to work a certain number of hours a week, regardless of whether they were paid or not. Before going to bed, you had to ask the housefather how many hours you worked. Note this is not really how many hours you worked, but really how many hours of work the housefather thinks you got done. There was little/no distinction for age, physical ability, or skill (not that any of the work needed ability or skill).
If you didn't accrue enough hours, or forgot to mark down your hours, then you were CHARGED for the amount of work you failed to do. If you didn't have the money, then you had to work restitution. I think the money went into the house slush fund (for freedays, etc.).
Working restitution had relatively very good pay: ten pesos an hour (~60 cents) instead of one peso an hour (~6 cents) for a first level student. Having been on zero level except for two weeks of first level, for the entire 16 months I was there, I rarely had the luxury of being paid. On the other hand, it was not really how many hours you worked, but really how many hours of work the supervisor thought you got done.
The day I was picked up by my father to leave the Program, my housefather at Huyck House reminded me that I owed over 1700 pesos (over $100, at the time) of outstanding restitution to Thomas House. He suggested to me that I ask my father to write a check to them for the amount. I smiled/nodded, while thinking YEAH RIGHT! There was no way he could force me or my father to do anything, anyway.
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Throughout my description of Restitution, I have made various RD peso to US dollar conversions. While at the program, students are never told the exchange rate. Students who learn the exchange rate are STRICTLY FORBIDDEN from discussing the exchange rate or telling any other students about it.
Sounds fishy, doesn't it? Why shouldn't we know how little the money we weren't being paid for our work was really worth?
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Darn, I wrote a lot.
Comments/corrections welcome.
Later,
David Hupp
[ This Message was edited by: DavidJHupp on 2005-03-23 21:34 ]