"When I arrived and in the first years, we didn't have walls around the patio or gates. The girls came whistling and sat on the bench waiting for me to call them to enter the class. Those were other times," recalls Mother Teresa fondly now that, due to the "vocation crisis", the Dominicans lack "personnel", so they have decided, not without "much sorrow and sadness", to say goodbye to Lanzarote to focus on other places in developing countries where she says "we are more needed".
They used to be here too. "The school was important for the intellectual and professional development it meant for women and for a society that had it limited by the era, by the space marked by insularity and by the society of the moment," says one of the former students, a pharmacist by profession and recently elected number two of the socialist party of Lanzarote, Isabel Martín Tenorio.
Next school year, the Santa María de los Volcanes school will change hands and will be run by another religious order. The Congregation of Nazareth that has the "capacity to absorb this mission that is not going to be broken since they work with the common ideology that is Christian", clarifies Mother Teresa.
In its first decades, the Dominicas school managed to offer, thanks to the efforts of the teachers, a complementary education of pioneering extracurricular activities on the island. "We have always sought an integral education," says the director who cites the importance given to the development of sports such as gymnastics, knowledge of the environment with mountaineering outings or painting and ballet classes with which the first generations of students were able to enjoy among their classrooms despite being subjects that were not taught elsewhere on the island.
When it is 40 years since the Dominicans placed the first stone of the school building in Lanzarote on land ceded by the Parish of San Ginés, several generations of students have passed through its classrooms who currently occupy positions of relevance in the most varied professions in today's society both on and off the island. Prominent members of the Government of the Canary Islands such as the regional Minister of Tourism, Rita Martín, athletes with international triumphs such as the sailor Juana Negrín, university professors such as Otilia Ferrer at the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, journalists such as Techy Acosta and famous composers of internationally successful music such as Rosana, among other professionals, lived their first experiences and teachings at the hands of nuns who, in addition to emphasizing issues such as order and clothing, spelling and calligraphy, respect for others and love for Jesus, also innovated in years in which ballet, painting and excursions to discover nature were not part of the subjects included within the educational system of the time.
Among its anecdotes, within the walls of the Dominicas school, the chords of one of the first guitars of the composer Rosana still resonate. One of the most veteran teachers of the center, Paca Delgado, remembers her like this: "During recess there was always a girl who went with her guitar to the bathrooms together with a group of young people who sang with her. Mother María always said to her: -Come on, get out of here, you're not going to make a living with the guitar-", she relates with laughter. Now that young woman named Rosana, thanks to her music, has sold more than six million records worldwide and is considered one of the most important Spanish artists in the last decade.
Among the most outstanding figures of the school, the teacher Lolina Curbelo, for many years councilor in the Arrecife City Council and who enthusiastically raised the flag of gymnastics for all ages, assures that "we greatly promoted sport as a fundamental complement to education". Currently, the annual Gymnastics Festival in the capital of the island bears her name and brings together each year the exhibitions in these sports categories of students from all over the city, remotely reminiscent of the exhibition that parents saw on a hard floor in the schoolyard at the end of the school year.
Through the former students of the school, La Voz has approached the reality of Lanzarote and the school during the first decades, through the memories of those young women interested in learning and training who have drawn a different panorama of the island and who fondly remember their time at the school "for the friendships created".
Lolina Curbelo, teacher for 30 years
"The Gymnastics Festival was born from a seed planted in the schoolyard"
After more than 30 years working as a teacher at the Dominicas school, Lolina Curbelo has many memories in her backpack and many achievements that are her work.
She also still remembers the day when, holding the arm of the one who was then her boyfriend and who would later be her husband, walking through the center of the city, she witnessed the laying of the first stone of the school. The Gymnastics Festival that currently brings together the youngest of all Arrecife around sports such as artistic and sports gymnastics and that bears her name "was born from a seed planted in the schoolyard", assures Lolina Curbelo, the architect of the initiative. "At the beginning it arose so that the students could show their families what they had learned in the gymnastics subject during the course," she says, while adding that they were the first to compete in national championships and travel for basketball, handball, etc. matches.
Teresa Curbelo, president of the Arrecife Zona Centro Merchants Association
"A different atmosphere of respect for the teacher that I love"
Teresa Curbelo fondly remembers her time at the Dominicas school where she studied for the first eight years of her life. Converted into a businesswoman, she is the president of the Arrecife Zona Centro Merchants Association, she highlights that the discipline in terms of clothing was what she liked least about the school whose atmosphere she describes as "different" from that of other centers in terms of the respect that exists towards the figure of the teacher. Currently her own daughter also studies at the school. "The attention to the minor is personalized and they have an incredible follow-up with the children," she says while assuring that she finds it very interesting that "the same person who educated me now does it with my daughter".
Among the anecdotes, the one that she says always comes to mind is Mother Cecilia, who taught innovative ballet classes and who, she says, "was very perfectionist". "Being chubby, she made me half hide behind the curtains of the stage so that I wouldn't be seen much doing the duck," she says with laughter.
Rita Martín, Minister of Tourism of the Government of the Canary Islands
"They identify me as a student of the Dominicas for my calligraphy"
The Minister of Tourism of the Government of the Canary Islands, Rita Martín, who on more than one occasion was "arrested" without recess due to her mischief, fondly remembers her years as a student at the Dominicas school in Arrecife and assures that her friends today are those with whom she grew up and trained in her first years of school thanks to the "coexistence of the group with the mountaineers".
Currently she occupies a position of relevance in the regional administration in an area, tourism, that has changed the course of the island in recent decades. Rita Martín assures that even today, in the development of her functions as minister, "they identify me as a student of the Dominicas for my calligraphy. It catches my attention because they have told me on more than one occasion". One of the points in which other students agree and to which Martín adds the responsibility and the planning and organization of the works that the Dominicas marked. Values that would make her, in the case of having them, enroll her children in the center.
"The Dominicas have trained a large group of women on the island"
In the field of politics, Isabel Martín, a pharmacist by profession, has been one of the latest appointments of relevance within the Socialist Party of Lanzarote and also studied at the Dominicas school until she was 16 years old.
Although she considered politics as "something eventual", "my profession will always be a pharmacist", after the celebration of the Island Congress her name came out as number two of the party. "The merit of the school lies in the fact that it trained a large group of women on the island," explains Isabel who has very good memories of her time at the center and highlights that unlike other religious centers, flexibility prevailed there: "The Dominicas were not like the Teresianas who forced you to go to mass every week. It was a religious school but with an important secular component," she assures.
Her love for science was contagious to her by one of the teachers, not religious, that she remembers most fondly: Hilda Betancort. And she highlights her first contact with rhythmic gymnastics at the hands of Lolina Curbelo that "was not taught anywhere else," she says. "We had great motivation thanks to Lolina and we did gymnastics on an asphalt floor," she assures. "You can't imagine how my knees were left," she recalls.
Mountaineering, like most of her companions, "made me love the countryside very much and it is one of the hobbies that I have to thank the nuns for," she assures.
Techy Acosta Hernández, Journalist
"I acquired my first skills in the theatrical and musical performances of the school"
Techy Acosta, journalist, acquired the first skills for her profession in her first years at the Dominicas school.
"On some occasion I presented the end-of-year exhibition gala in which the different courses performed musical and theatrical performances," she recalls while proudly describing the quality of those shows in which "we put a lot of effort and did a lot of things," and assures that this was one of the extracurricular activities that has left the greatest mark on her. She also says that the coexistence with her classmates from that time was very good since "a magnificent atmosphere was created in the classrooms".
For Techy, Mother Teresa, the current director of the center, was a "complete revolution" due to the group she created of mountaineers. "We went with sleeping bags to the countryside and in boy scout mode we learned a lot of values and had a lot of fun," she says.
Otilia Ferrer, Professor at the University of Las Palmas de GC
"During recess we escaped through the window to buy sweets"
Otilia Ferrer, who is now a Veterinary professor at the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, cites among the mischief of her first years of school in the Dominicas that "during recess we escaped through the window to go buy sweets because the nuns didn't let us out," she explains with laughter, now that she is the one who occupies the place of teacher in the classroom.
The costumes and performances of the end-of-year exhibition are also something that has been engraved in her memory with great affection and she assures that although the nuns "tried to be very strict, the truth is that compared to other religious centers they were not so much". Now her children also study in a religious school and she assures that this was also her case. "My mother was a teacher at the current public school La Destila but she chose to enroll us in the Dominicas because she wanted the same type of education that she had received".
Yolanda Perdomo, manager of Promotur
"There is a great emotional bond with my schoolmates"
For Yolanda Perdomo, manager of Promotur and a prominent member of the insular Popular Party, her time at the Dominicas school marked her greatly and she assures that "there is a great emotional bond" with her desk mates from those years and the teachers "that will never be broken".
"We recognize each other and it has to do with the sense of group, something that has not happened to me again afterwards". In addition, she assures that for the development of her profession it has been very useful the "great emphasis that was placed from the school on the structure, organization and presentation of works".
Juana Negrín, professional sailing racer
"The tenacity acquired in the Dominicas has made me get where I am"
The Lanzarote sailor Juana Negrín, participant in national and international championships in the world of sailing, has some "fantastic memories" of the classes and classmates of the Dominicas school where she studied.
And, although she believes that the school did not influence what would later become her source of work, sailing, Negrín assures that she has achieved her goals thanks to tenacity and effort, something she learned from a young age.
"Sometimes I am surprised at where I have come in my profession," she says while affirming that she has achieved it by participating in all the sailing championships.
In the school, where she came to receive timple classes from Florián Corujo, "there was a dining room", she cites among one of the novelties that the center introduced on the island.
Memory brings curious moments to memory. "When I was six years old that I started sailing with Optimist (light sailing) the nuns asked us to deliver a paper every Monday about the plot of the television chapter of Heide that was broadcast on Saturdays. But I could never deliver it because on weekends I sailed in the casino club".
Remedios Ortega, Marketing and Advertising entrepreneur
"If I lived on the island I would not hesitate to enroll my daughters in the same school"
"Since I started in kindergarten, I keep the same friends," summarizes Remedios Ortega her best memories of her years of study at the Dominicas school. And, although she moved to Madrid when she was 16 years old, Remedios, who currently runs a Marketing and Advertising company, remembers with special affection "Miss" Paquita Delgado, and Mother Celia, the ballet teacher. Something that coincides with the other former students of that fifth.
"When we arrived at the institute, the teachers recognized us, the girls who came from the nuns, for our calligraphy and our order in the presentation of the works," says the Lanzarote native, who assures that if she lived on the island she would not hesitate to enroll her daughters in the same school that trained her and from which she highlights "the total respect we had for the teacher".
Among the anecdotes, Remedios remembers that there was a music contest: "We went to Las Palmas, together with Rosana, and we won. I also remember that when we went to the exercises in Las Palmas, we had a great time with Mother Teresa, whom I have a lot of affection for. She was very demanding".
