dominican republic city

week 54/55: last stop: mexico (june 25-30)

2009-07-01T05:17:00.000-07:00

where it all started: over 50 years ago, a man named father wasson, a newly ordained, native-arizonan priest living in mexico, caught a little boy stealing from the poor box in his church. the little boy had been orphaned and when questioned said that he stole the money because he was hungry. when the little boy was given a harsh sentence by a local judge, father wasson asked the permission of the judge to take home the child so he could feed, clothe and take care of him. over the next year, the judge passed along 32 more boys to father wasson and so began nuestros pequeños hermanos. there are now 9 orphanages throughout latin american and the carribean and since 1954, over 16,000 orphaned and abandoned children have been assisted by nph. so, when i found out that the st. pats group would be taking their annual trip down to mexico just around the time i would be leaving the dr, i figured that there couldn't be a better way to end my year than to see where it all started.

i met up with st. pats at the airport on thursday afternoon on basically no sleep after a crazy last couple days in the dr. despite being pretty out of it, it was great to see some familiar faces. nph in mexico has two main parts... one is the main home in miacatlan and the other is the high school about an hour away in cuernavaca. we drove about 3 hours to the home in miacatlan, where we stayed for the next 5 days. it was great to see the home and see how different it was from where i had been the past year. first of all, they have over 3 times as many kids as we do, so that part was really overwhelming. they also have been functioning for so long that they have the benefit of having older kids, who have graduated high-school, called "year of service pequeños", helping out around the home. in fact, they basically run the place. after graduating, all the kids have to give back a year or two to their younger brothers and sisters by working as caregivers or other positions around the home. at our home our oldest kid just graduated high school, so we don't really have this whole dimension yet... but it was cool to see the potential to have that in the future. oh... and i also learned that dominican spanish and mexican spanish are super different! i got a lot of blank stares as i sputtered off what i didn't know, but quickly learned, where dominican words.

i loved the home in mexico, it was really beautiful, but at the end of the day i'm still glad that i was in the dominican. i'm sure i would have had a great experience anywhere i went, but i really loved the smaller atmosphere of the home in the dr and being with all the kids in mexico really made me miss my boys. oh, but p.s.... one difference that i definitely preferred in mexico was the food... oh my gosh i missed mexican food. the dominicans do not do spicy and at practically every meal in mexico there was salsa... it was just glorious! the food was very simple in mexico too, but the kitchen makes homemade tortillas every single day (about 6,000 each day... i think is what they told us)... oh my gosh, they were so good. i'm sure after a year, those too, like the rice, would have gotten old... but it was a nice change of pace!

el rollo: we spent most of friday and saturday hanging out with the kids at the orphanage, but on sunday we spent all day at a local water park. now when i first heard "water park in mexico" i'm not gonna lie, i was a little scared... i pictured scary, shady state fair style stuff. but it ended up being really, really nice. it was one of the coolest and nicest water parks i have ever been to. (drew you would have gone crazy!) however, there still was reason to be scared... i'm not sure that many of the rides would pass many of the safety standards of the united states (not because they were poorly constructed... just because they were really intense!) for example, these slide to the left were sooo tall. i would say take splash mountain and disneyland and double it... oh ya, and ditch the boat. they were so high and so steep. women are not allowed to ride them unless they sign a waiver form saying that they know there is a risk of injury. it's pretty crazy... tyler went (and scratched up his back and busted open his elbow...although he said it was worth it) but i didn't feel like risking my chance of ever having children to go on a water slide, so i passed. we did however have fun doing some cliff jumping and also going down the craziest "lazy river" i've ever seen. basically it's your normal lazy river that goes around in a big circle, but then there is this part that we called the "angry river"... off to the side there is an area where people stand and then there is this huge pump that pumps out massive amounts of water into basically a huge tidal wave that topples over you. so you stand there and try to hold your ground, but eventually everyone gets sucked in and pulled out into the lazy river. it was really fun... but actually really scary... you literally get pulled away by this current and and sucked under the water and are banging into people... it's really out of control. overall, it was a great day and although we couldn't take all the kids with us, for the 50 or so that could come, it was an awesome experience.

cuernavaca: one of my favorite days in mexico was monday, when we headed out to a nearby city called cuernavaca. it's about an hour away from miacatlan and is where the kids live and go to school when they get to the high school age. we took a little tour of the school which was cool because not only is it a normal school, but then they have all this vocational training for the kids. like kids learn how to do computer stuff or sewing and carpentry... they even have a sample hotel room and bar and kitchen set up so they can learn everything about the hotel/restaurant business. it was really quite impressive. we got there during a break so we got to witness a really intense soccer game between the girls and eat some amazing enchiladas from the snack bar.

next we headed out to a very poor village in cuernavaca, called la estacion. there we gathered with some people from the local community center and another group (i can't remember the name) that does a lot of work in the area. with them we broke up into groups and each went out to visit one of the houses in this community. it was very humbling to sit with these families as they welcomed us into their homes. we just sat with them for about 30 minutes and talked about their lives. after being in the dominican republic for a year, seeing how these people lived wasn't quite as shocking to me as it should have been, but it did show me once again that poverty is everywhere, that there is need everywhere and it really makes you think about all the stuff we have in our lives that we really could live without. afterward, we all talked about our experiences and then headed back to the house of the group that had showed us around, where they made us an awesome lunch.... pastel azteca - a casserole with chicken, tortillas, cheese, corn, salsa and cream cheese and nopales - a salad made with cactus... yum.

after that we headed into the city of cuernavaca, which i loved. it was just such a cute little city. my favorite part was the cathedral, which was gorgeous. on the outside it was just this big old, but still cool, looking building, but on the inside it was beautiful. it was so modern-looking... so unexpected... oh and this really cool font everywhere... i know that's a weird thing to comment on... but i love cool fonts (look at the beatitudes below). after touring the cathedral and a couple surrounding churches, we headed over to this marketplace to do some souvenir shopping. it was a cool marketplace, with some really cool things... but just so overwhelming. i'm so excited to come home and shop in a store where no one is yelling at you! after that, we ended the day with a nice relaxing dinner at a nearby restaurant.

perfect ending: i was kind of sad because i had booked my ticket home without knowing the schedule of the st. pats group and their flight actually was leaving about 4 hours later than mine and they had plans to stop off and see the site of our lady of guadalupe before heading to the airport. i was really bummed because i had always wanted to see that and i couldn't believe that i would finally be in mexico and i would miss it. so i made this whole plan to leave the group a day early and make my way up to mexico city on my own and then stay in a hostel for the night and go to the airport in the morning. but, when i got to mexico, people started telling me that my plan was a lot more complicated than i thought and actually a little dangerous to just be taking buses and subways all around mexico city when i didn't know what i was doing. so, i kinda just accepted that i'd have to visit our lady another time... but then on tuesday, the day before i was supposed to leave, i ran into an old friend from nph-dr who was in town visiting for graduation. i was telling her all about my trip and she had a taxi that was driving her and her friend around and she offered to let me use it to go up to mexico city! i can't imagine what that cost her, but she told me not to worry about it and to consider it a thank you for all my work in the dr. it was so great! so that afternoon i headed out with my new friend, paco, the taxi driver, and we made the 2 hour drive to mexico city. he was so nice and we spent the car ride working on our second languages... he would practice his english with me and me, my spanish with him. he took me up to the site of our lady of guadalupe, which was huge, btw... i thought it would just be this little mountain with like a chapel... but it's this huge massive thing. there are all these churches and chapels and shrines, dedicated to all different things. there were actually three different places where juan diego had visions and then you can climb all the way to the top of mount tepeyac, where juan diego gathered the roses that would eventually create the image on his tilma (if you don't know the story... head here http://www.franciscanfriars.com/RMH/OLGtext.htm). paco showed me all around and gave me all sorts of fun facts about the area... it was like having my own little tour guide.

at the bottom of the mountain is the basilica, where the original image of our lady of guadalupe is displayed. it's really cool, but the manner in which you can view this image is really quite interesting. there was a mass going on when we got there, so i kinda thought that i'd just be able to see it from a distance, but no... just wait... you can go down under and behind the altar where there are 4 conveyor belt/people mover thingys that go back and forth and you ride on them and can look up at and take pictures of the image. it was quite entertaining. but in all seriousness, it was really cool to see this and a great end to the trip.

well, that's it for me. it's been a crazy year, but one i'll never forget. going back home will probably be a little weird at first and take some getting used to... but there are some things that i am definitely ready to get back to... certainly all my family and friends (and mountain dew!). thanks for all your prayers and support this year and for following along. hopefully i will see you all soon... in person... yay!

God bless.

http://dominicanrepubliccitypics.shutterfly.com

week 54: saying goodbye (june 22-24)

2009-06-25T08:13:00.000-07:00

my last week… or last 3 days i guess, were jam-packed, crazy busy. i had so many things i wanted to get done as far as handing over my jobs to the next volunteers and then just trying to say goodbye to all the kids and get all my own stuff in order… i am so tired at this moment!

goodbye san pascual: there were a lot of different kids that i had to say goodbye to and am going to miss a lot, but there were 2 houses in particular that i was the closest to. the first was obviously casa san pascual, the special needs kids house. most of my days were spent with these kids and these tías. when i look back on my year with them it was really hard at times, there were some very frustrating days, some days when i thought “where am and what am i doing here?!”… but i also have some of my best memories there. those kids are really special, each one of them unique and when i think of them i will always smile. the hardest goodbye was probably with paola. she has been kind of a roller coaster over the past couple weeks with knowing that i am leaving and adjusting to having the new volunteer in her house… plus we changed locations of the house (because it was the last one in the corner, so we switched them with one more in the middle so they could be more a part of the community), we’ve had two new kids come into the house in the past 3 months and with school over everything’s kinda been crazy and she’s lost the routine we had had in our schedule. so it’s been a little rough for her… she’s had good days, days where she’s really sad and other days where she just won’t talk to me because she’s mad that i'm leaving. i am worried about her... not that someone else can't come in and probably work a lot better with her than i did... but just because it took me soo long to earn her trust and respect... and even with that we have a tough time... so i just know it's going to be a long road.

but, i did the best i could to say goodbye in a way that would be good for her. i decided to make a dinner for the house on tuesday night as a sort of little going away party. paola told me that she would not be coming, but i knew that when i walked in with the sandwiches, chips and guacamole (her favorite food) and cake, that she would change her mind… and she did (did i mention that she might possibly love food more than i do?) anyway, we had a nice dinner and afterward i gave her a card and a little present. she cried a lot and that was hard. you never want to feel like something you are doing is hurting someone else. but, i tried to explain to her that just because i'm leaving doesn't mean i'll never be a part of her life and that i will be back to visit and no matter what we will be in each other's hearts. she promised me that her going away present to me would be her good behavior... i convinced her that i have a secret camera watching her wherever she goes... so hopefully that'll keep her in line!

goodbye santa rosa: when i picked up a picture of my god-son salomón off of a table after mass three years ago, i thought, “hey this kid is really cute. i can give him $30/month”… but i never imagined that it would lead me to the year i just had with this group of 14 boys. because i was the madrina of salomón, i was able to be assigned to his house to eat in for the year… and while most of my job was with the special needs kids this group of 14 little boys really made my year. all the volunteers here have their normal “job” and then a house that they are in charge of. so for example, our physical therapist is a physical therapist during the day and then in the afternoon and at night she is with her house, playing, helping with homework, reading, etc... seeing as my job was also in a house, i technically had 2 houses, so i always felt a little bad for my boys because my attention was always shared between the 2 houses. anyway, i wanted to give them a fun last week, so here’s what we did…

one night we had a movie night. they love movie nights! we invited over another house of boys around the same age and brought over the big speakers and projector and set up a movie on the back porch. i made tons of popcorn and some juice. i bought three new movies (and yes, they are all bootlegged, and i'm not supporting that, but i honestly have no idea where you would buy a normal movie in this country. i don’t think our kids even understand that there are “real” movies. it's just so much a normal part of this culture.) anyway, one movie had all three batmans, the other was the new disney movie “up”, and the third i threw in there because i had bought it to watch with paola, “the little mermaid”. the decision was unanimous… 30-0… middle school aged boys in favor of the little mermaid. i thought it was funny but they loved it and told me how they had read the book but were so excited because they have never seen the movie. kylie, you would have been proud.

then one morning i had told them that i would make them an american breakfast… since their breakfasts always look so gross to me! i was going to do pancakes, but they are so expensive here, so i decided on french toast… so i'm not sure if that’s technically french or american, but i figured it would work. i also cut up little orange slices, soccer snack style, since they don’t get much fruit. they looked a little confused and worried as i dipped the bread in the eggs and milk, and they could see that it didn't look like anything they were used to, but when it was all said and done, i think they really enjoyed it. i think they most especially enjoyed the syrup... which to kids who have never seen that before, liquid sugar is pretty much the best thing in the whole wide world. some of their plates were just drenched in syrup... to the point that the toast was almost floating in it! yummy...

we also had one final baseball game which was so much fun. i loved playing baseball with these kids all year. it was so fun and cool because i didn't realize how much i missed playing baseball... and the kids are so good... it was so much fun. who knows... maybe i was playing with future major leaguers?? we also took a little walk to the nearby batey. we were on a mission to find some sugar cane, but sadly it had all been cut down for the year. we did have fun though chasing around stray cows and searching for fruit in the trees. when we got to the batey, i gave the boys five pesos each which was spent mostly on gum and lollipops. we also walked down to where one of my boys used to live. we saw the tiny little tin shack that he lived in with his older brother and sister before coming to nph (his dad died and his mom abandoned them). it's so interesting when you get to see into the lives of these kids beyond nph. some of the things they've gone through and the places they've come from are downright unimaginable to most of us. we also made a stop over to the elderly people's house that's in the center of town to visit with the people that live there. it was interesting to see these normally loud and hyper boys completely silenced by what they saw. we did our best to walk around and visit with the people, but for the most part i think my boys felt really uncomfortable and didn't really know what to say. although they have come from rough backgrounds, for the most part, living in nph makes most of our kids the more "privileged" kids in the country. it's good for them to see how most people live and hopefully challenge them to take advantage of the fact that they have been almost given a second chance in life and hopefully motivate them to reach out and help others in need when they are older. it was a cool experience to have with them.

my last day i spent pretty much packing and running around, but i also tried to spend a lot of it with my boys. we took funny pictures with my sweet $3 aviators and just kinda goofed around most of the afternoon. i also gave them some edge shirts that st. pats donated to me when i went home in february. we had mass in the afternoon, which was a cool way to end my time with everyone because we were all gathered together in the school. afterward, i ran home and started cooking dinner for my boys. i cooked up a bunch of hot dogs and hamburgers and we all had a great dinner, with doritos and cheetos and apples (all things that they never get... so they were super excited). after dinner we headed into the therapy room in the clinic, where they had prepared a surprise for me with the help of our physical therapist. it was really sweet... they all recorded a little thank you/goodbye message on her camera and then put it together into a video which they projected on the wall. it was really, really sweet. then somehow they convinced our driver that they all need to come with me to the airport the next morning at 4:30 am... so the tías said it was straight to bed because the alarm clock would be going off at 3:30. i only got about an hour of sleep that night and half expected that it was all talk and they wouldn't all be able to get up that early, but sure enough as the bus pulled off they all came marching out of the house in their nice shoes and jeans and matching edge shirts... ready for the hour long ride to the airport. it was a really great way to end my time there... i had salomón on my left and jose and josecito on my lap and all the rest of the boys close by as we drove through the dark to the airport. once we got there we had our final goodbye hugs and one last picture and i promised that i would be back soon to visit. i'm gonna miss those little guys :(

good luck nico: i think my favorite part of the week was a walk i took with nicolas and his brother, nelio, on tuesday afternoon. i think i mentioned a few weeks back that nico and i had made a deal that if he could behave himself for one full week we would take a walk to the batey. well for about the past 6 weeks we have been unsuccessful, but i think after the whole ordeal where he thought he was being sent home and after me constantly telling him that we were running out of time... he had a really, really great week and a half, so i told him that we could finally take that walk. i also invited his older brother nelio. nelio is one of the sweetest kids at our home. he's really quiet and super shy and i honestly haven't spent that much time with him or even talked to him very much, but i really think that he could be a good influence on his brother. a volunteer that had left about a month ago had left me all of her extra change to do something with the kids, so i gave each one of them 30 single pesos (about $1) and told them they could buy whatever they wanted at the colmado in the batey we walked to. it was so fitting because nicolas took his money and bought 30 lollipops and then nelio quietly asked me if it was ok if he saved his pesos because one day he wants to buy a remote control car. i told him of course. just as we started to walk home it started to rain. i asked them if they wanted to wait it out in the little village, but they said it was no problem, so we just started the 30 minute walk home. it ended up being so much fun because it started raining so hard and we got absolutely soaked. we could barely even walk because our sandals were all getting stuck in the mud... we just all started cracking up and laughed for most of the walk home. it was good though because it stopped just before we got back and i had a little opportunity to talk with them more seriously, which was the main reason i took them in the first place. we just talked about how important it was for nico to continue behaving well like he had been for the past week or so and i told him how i really want him to be here when i come back to visit one day and even though nelio is really quiet and didn't say a whole lot, i think nico knew that he was in agreement with me. i think they had a nice brotherly bonding experience.

i think that my experiences with nicolas the past couple weeks really helped me to be at peace with my time here. first of all, i think it helped me realize that God puts us all in certain places and with certain people at certain times... and whether we see it or not, it's all for a reason. i can look at my experience here and tell myself that i accomplished some good things in the special needs house.... which is what i came here to do. from day one i have been the closest with paola and made it my goal to never give up on working with her. as difficult as it was, and as difficult as she was at times, i know that i was able to give her the love and support that she needed and i know that working with her has taught me things that i would have never learned otherwise. but then there are things that i didn't expect... up until a couple months ago i wasn't close to nicolas at all and now i can say that he's probably made one of the biggest impacts on my experience here. i never expected to go through some of the things that happened in my last couple months here... but now looking back, i'm so happy that i was where i was... and i can say for sure that my time here was not without meaning.

the other thing i learned is what i wrote about a few weeks ago in my blog and that is that we have to be ok with not always being able to see the big picture. sometimes life isn't about things that we accomplish, but more about the journey and the individual experiences along the way. i don't know what's going to happen when they re-evaluate nicolas and decide whether or not he can stay at the home. i do know that i did the best i could while i was with him to challenge him to get on the right track. i don't know if paola can keep her promise to me and really work on her behavior. but i do know that i worked as hard as i could with her and will continue to pray for her. i really don't know, nor can i control, what will happen to any of these kids when i leave. but, i also know that they have touched my life in ways that i never imagined... and i can only hope that somehow my presence in their life did a little of the same. i think sometimes in life we get these big ideas, well at least i did, and we want to change the world... and then we get in the midst of it and realize that it's a little more complicated than that. and for me, i started to get frustrated and feel defeated because i realized that i could stay in the dominican for a year or for 50 years and there would still be problems (looking back it's a little naive to think otherwise... but live and learn i guess...). but working with nicolas helped me let go of that and realize that it's not about that. our lives aren't about accomplishing these huge, awesome things... but they are about the small experiences we have each and everyday. there is no need to worry about the end outcome because only God has control over that. we just have to do our best everyday to do what God is asking us to do... to be present and loving to the people in our lives... to make the best of what we've got. and if that leads us to mission work in a foreign country for a year or two years or the rest of our lives, then that's great... but if not, then all that can be done right in our own backyards. there are nicolas's and paola's everywhere... we just have to find them and love them.

"in the torment of the insufficiency of everything attainable we eventually learn that here, in this life, all symphonies remain unfinished." - karl rahner

week 53: a very sad week (june 15-21)

2009-06-22T18:49:00.000-07:00

r.i.p. magalis: something happened this week that i hoped i would never have to write about or experience in my time here, but we lost one of our little pequeñas... magalis. magalis was a newer kid... she has only been here for about 3 months, but nonetheless was a part of our family. she was 8 years old and hiv positive. early this week, she developed the chicken pox... a very bad case... completely covering her body. on tuesday night she was placed in our clinic because she was having trouble breathing and in general just not feeling well. she slept in our clinic, but at about 5:00 am on wednesday morning the nurses decided to send her to the hospital in san pedro. the doctors were wanting to transfer her to the capital, but unfortunately she didn't make it that long. she passed away at about 9:00 am. it was extremely unexpected and a first for our nph home in its six years of existence here in the dr. it was a very hard and sad day. the word started to spread in the midst of our kindergarten graduation and for those of us who knew, it was hard to continue to sit through the show. by lunch time, the word had spread to most of the children, who didn't quite know how to react. we tried our best to talk to the kids, but honestly we were all in shock too. they were able to transfer her body back and contact some members of her family, including her father. we had a period of silent prayer and then a funeral mass. it was the hardest to see her father. he lives in a town just about 30 minutes away and had brought magalis to nph about 3 months ago. being hiv positive himself, he is also very sick and unable to work and after her mother died he brought her to us, hoping that we could provide her with a more stable life. it was his only daughter and as he stood weeping over her coffin, we all felt his pain.

after the funeral, we piled in all the buses and cars we have and took as many kids from the orphanage as possible to the cemetery. it was quite an experience. in a dominican cemetery there are above ground graves and basically it’s just a hollowed out rectangle of concrete with one open side to slide the coffin in. then on the side there are more concrete bricks and extra water and cement powder to create the mortar. so the family members slid the coffin in and then a few guys worked to mix the cement and water... then they basically closed up the grave brick by brick. there were probably over 200 of us standing around watching, crying and singing songs while they laid her to rest.

it all happened so fast. from the time we heard about her death, to the funeral and then she was in the grave… all within a span of less than 9 hours… so there wasn’t a whole lot of time to process everything. i do know that it put everything in perspective, though. with my last week approaching, i know that i was starting to get stressed wanting to get everything done. i have been having a lot of problems with paola who has been starting to get upset that i am leaving soon, i was at my wit’s end with the stupid flies that are everywhere, and then someone stole a big chunk of my money out of my office, so i was upset about that. basically i was just irritable and ready to come home, but after all this, i realized how small and petty most of the things are that we worry or stress about are. during the funeral our director told the kids that we can all learn from magalis that we never know when God will call us home and it’s why we have to make the most of everyday. you never know if that person next to you is going to be there tomorrow or when we ourselves will have our last day. life's too short to sweat the small stuff.

it doesn't seem fair or right that she had to be taken so young, but and now we know that we have a little angel up in heaven, always watching over us and our home.

rest in peace magalis.

"somebody should tell us, right at the start of our lives, that we are dying. then we might live life to the limit, every minute of every day. do it! i say, whatever you want to do, do it now! there are only so many tomorrows." - pope paul IV

week 52: plastic chairs & presidentes (june 8-14)

2009-06-15T05:07:00.000-07:00

as i enter into my last two weeks here, i have been thinking about more and more about the little "dominicanisms" that will no longer be part of my life. some of them i will be happy to never see again, while others i might miss, and some i'll probably carry with me unconsciously…

the wonderful world of transportation: i wouldn't say the public transportation system in the dominican republic is safe nor comfortable nor very enjoyable, but it certainly is convenient and affordable. there are 2 basic forms of public transportation in the dominican republic. the first is the motoconcho, basically a motorcycle taxi. they are all over san pedro and pretty much everywhere you go in the country. anywhere you walk there are herds of men sitting around with their motorcycles, waiting to take you where you need to go. there are some who actually have official "motoconcho driver" vests, but for the most part you can pay anyone with a motorcycle to take you where you need to go. and dominicans do not like to walk, so they will be seen taking them for just 2 or 3 blocks. they are certainly not safe... they drive crazy, weave in and out of traffic and there are definitely no helmets. it was a scary experience the first couple times, but now it just seems normal... which probably isn't a good thing! i try to not take them a lot, but sometimes you have to... sorry dad!

the other main way to get around is called the "guagua" or bus. there are 2 basic types of guaguas. the first is the small guagua or "guaguita"... these drive within the cities. they are mostly 12-15 passenger vans that just drive a certain route around the town all day. once you get to know the routes, you just stand on the side of the road where ever you are and hail one down. then when you want to get out you just say "déjame" (leave me) and they let you out. they cost 15 pesos (less than 50 cents) no matter how far you go. then there are big guaguas that take you from city to city. for example in san pedro there are different guagua “stations” depending on what city you are going to. however, there are no schedules, so you just go and get on the guagua, wait til it’s full, and then it leaves. even if you don’t make it to the stop, you can basically stand anywhere on the road between where you are going and where the guagua comes from and when one passes by you just hail it down and get on. and they’re only a couple dollars, even if you’re going all the way across the country.

everything about the guagua system fascinates me… especially the 2-men teams that run the guaguas. every guagua has a chofer (driver) and a cobrador (money collector). the chofer drives and controls the music, which i have learned is a very important part of the guagua experience. depending on your chofer you might get merengue or bachata or reggeaton. he also controls the volume… there are two options… loud and really loud. the cobrador has a more active and dangerous job. he stands and is basically hanging out the door the whole time. on the little guaguitas, there usually is no side door, or it’s just always left open. so he basically hangs halfway in and halfway out, always looking out for potential clients. he’s usally always yelling at people, letting them know where he’s going and trying to get them to come along. if he finds someone that wants to come onboard, he bangs the side of the bus really hard and the driver will know to stop and pull over. then when you are on the guagua, you tell him when you want to get off and he again bangs the side of the guagua a few times and the driver stops to let you out. and most of the guaguas are completely falling apart... broken windows, doors, no seatbelts, ripped up seats... but it all just adds to the adventure. when you don’t know what you are doing, it can be quite stressful and overwhelming because it’s so loud and everyone is yelling and it all happens so quickly (people driving vehicles are the only people in the dr that move with any sort of urgency)… but once you get used to it, it’s kind of fun. don’t get me wrong, nothing beats the convenience of going wherever you want, whenever you want in your own car, but as far as public transportation goes, the dominicans have got quite a system figured out.

the hiss: the hiss is the most prominent, yet my least favorite, part of dominican culture. it's basically like a whistle, but not... because they are actually hissing... like a snake. and everyone does it... and it's super annoying. my first couple weeks i noticed it as i would walk around the streets… all the men are hissing. and they hiss and hiss and hiss until you look at them, and then it’s followed by some sort of “i lobe you baby” comment. so, at first i thought it was just their version of a cat call… because for some reason white woman are very fascinating to dominican men. but, over time, i have come to learn that not only is it really annoying way to get women's attention, but everyone in the country hisses. the hiss is mostly used to get someone’s attention and although it seems really rude, i don’t think they consider it rude at all. people will do it to get someone’s attention if they want to buy something or to ask a question in stores or out on the streets. it’s even sometimes used by the teachers in the classroom to get kids to be quiet. even the kids hiss! we laugh because dominicans are known for never saying the "s" (like "buen dia" instead of "buenos dias" or "adio" instead of "adios"), so we joke that they use up all their s's hissing at us and each other that there are none left for the words!

sign language: i have learned that, as in most cultures, there are some things you can say without using any words at all. there are two things here that i can say just about every dominican does and that i have definitely started doing myself. the first is the finger wiggle. (imagine baboo from seinfeld... "you very bad man, very bad man.") this, obviously, means no… but everyone does it all the time. like the hiss, it seems rude to me, but it’s just what they do. adults do it, the kids do it to the adults and to each other and it’s a very popular form of communication out on the streets. it's funny because sometimes it’s the only thing that works. sometimes the guagua or motoconcho drivers are quite relentless and they keep persisting that you take a ride and no matter how many times i shake my head or scream “no!”… they just won’t let go… but (usually) one wiggle of the finger, and they back off. it’s really funny.

the other thing i do now is what i call the nose scrunch. basically if a dominican doesn’t understand or hear something, instead of saying “what?” or “excuse me?” they scrunch up their nose. sometimes it’s just one big scrunch or other times it’s a couple scrunches up and down really quick. either way, when i see it, i know i have not been understood. and since there are so many times that i myself don’t understand what people are saying or what they want… now i have started doing the nose scrunch. when i came home to visit in february, everyone was like, “what is wrong with your nose?” and i'm sure now after 4 more months, i’ll be doing it even more!

whatever you want, whenever you want, in whatever quantity you want: there are two good sized super markets in san pedro... one comparable to a frys and the other is more like a walmart. we do most of our shopping there, but your average dominican would do their shopping at a "colmado", which is basically a little corner store.... they're like dominican style circle k's (without the fountain soda!!) they have your basic soda, beer and snacks, but you can also do your grocery shopping there. the average dominican can’t afford to stock up costco-style, they usually only have enough for today, so at most colmados you can buy anything in whatever quantity you want. for example, if you want a ½ pound of rice, they pour some from the big bag into a smaller bag and there you go. you can do the same with sugar, laundry soap, and basically anything you need. you can buy 1 egg or 1 piece of gum or even 1 diaper. the other interesting thing is that you can buy stuff everywhere. there are always venders lining the streets, selling fruit, meat (usually the cow or pig head is hanging there too to show you where the meat came from), cell phones, popsicles, and all sorts of snacks. if venders don’t have a spot on the side of the street, they are usually walking down the middle of the street in traffic, selling their products through the windows of cars and guaguas. you could probably get everything you needed without ever leaving the car. and if you happen to need something at a colmado, just hand a few pesos to the cobrador and he’ll jump out at the next corner, grab it, and jump back in the guagua. i thought drive-thru’s were convenient!

the dominican bandera: ah... good old rice and beans... or the "dominican bandera" (literally, "the dominican flag") as they call the national dish here. it is basically rice, beans and any type of meat... and sometimes a little salad, which is some cabbage and maybe a cucumber or tomato. and it’s not just one of those things that the country is famous for, but people literally eat it every single day (and it’s not just in the orphanage, it’s all over). now of course there are variations, the rice can be cooked differently or the type of beans can vary, but i think a day without it would seem quite incomplete for a dominican. i don’t know why, maybe it was the speaking spanish, but i was thinking/hoping that dominican food would be a little like mexican food, but unfortunately, it’s nothing like mexican food. there are no tortillas and the dominicans are afraid of anything spicy, so jalepeños and salsa or definitely out. basically they cook with garlic, salt, oil and these little chicken bouillon cubes and that’s it. it was a little bland at first, but i've come to like it quite a bit. it's almost like a comfort food… everyday you know the beans and rice will be waiting for you at lunch.

pica pollo: when dominicans are not eating rice and beans, they are eating "pica pollo". it looks and tastes like normal fried chicken, but the dominicans assure you that it is more than just your typical fried chicken (i still can't figure out why). but they are crazy about their pica pollo. “pica” is what they say when something is spicy, but as i mentioned above, they do not like spicy food, so it means more like that it has flavor… or a different flavor than the majority of the food. i still haven’t learned the history of pica pollo, but somewhere along the way the creole and chinese food came together and created what is now called pica pollo. the main food is the pollo, or the fried chicken (basically just kfc style chicken) and then you get a side. you can get chinese stuff like lo mein noodles or fried rice, which i guess is where the chinese part comes in, but the dominicans favorites are either french fries or tostones (fried plantains). and of course, everything is smothered in ketchup. it's the strangest mix of things to me, but the dominicans love it, evident by the fact that there are more pica pollo shops lining the streets of the dr than probably starbucks and mcdonalds combined in the us. and for most people, especially in the orphange, it’s like a delicacy because they don’t get it that often, so their eyes just light up when you talk about it. i personally, wasn’t too impressed… it’s really greasy and i think they just make big batches of everything in the morning and then it sits behind the glass window under the florescent lights the rest of the day, so if you don’t get there early, it gets pretty shady. i will be sticking to the rice and beans until i get home.

baseball & dominoes: baseball is definitely the sport of this country. i think something like 15% of all major league baseball players are from this little island... so needless to say there is baseball being played everywhere. in every little town or village or batey there is at least some sort of baseball field… even if it’s just lines drawn out in the dirt with rocks for bases… there are always young boys playing. i think over 20 baseball teams also have training camps in the dr and all year long they are filled with mostly dominicans, but also other young ball players, coming to get in shape and hopefully make their way up to the big leagues. within the dr there is also a league that plays when the mlb is in the off season. there are 6 teams from 6 different cities throughout the country and most of the dominican players that play in the mlb will come home and play for their teams. here are some dominican players you might recognize...

Felipe Alou
Alex Rodriguez
Sammy Sosa
Vladamir Guerrero
Manny Ramirez
Pedro Martinez
Alfonzo Soriano
(and the list goes on and on and on...)

but for those who don't quite have the skills... dominoes is the game of choice in the dr. for every baseball field, there are probably 3-4 dominoes tables. they love their dominoes! all along the streets you see little tables with four men sitting in their plastic chairs playing and then usually a crowd standing behind watching. i have learned that you prove how good you are by how hard you slam the domino down on the table. the louder the noise it makes, the better. a couple weeks ago, a few volunteers and i were walking down the street in santo domingo and some guys asked us to play with them. we decided it would be a nice cultural experience and it ended up being really fun. i guess i still don’t really understand dominoes because it seems kinda basic... like they’re not much to it besides luck… but they all play like there’s some big strategy, so maybe i'm missing out on something. i won though… so beginners luck, i guess!

omega: when i first got here, the kids called me "mega". for some reason they couldn't quite pronounce the "n" at the end. but i didn't mind... i thought it was cute. then after a few months, everyone started putting an "o" in front of it and calling me "omega"... which was fine with me as well, but i couldn't figure out why! then everyone started telling me that it was part of a song, but i had still never heard it. finally i heard the song and found out that not only does the song say "omega" but the singer's name is omega too. he's a dominican reggeaton (latin/hip-hop) singer/rapper... everyone is all about him right now and his songs are being played everywhere... and he's pretty ghetto-fab so it's pretty awesome.

plastic chairs and presidentes: i think if they ever made a movie about the dr, it should most certainly be called "plastic chairs and presidentes" because i can not think of a better way to summarize this country. if you watch the office, possibly you remember the following conversation where michael is telling pam about his jamaican vacation:

micheal: got to see how jamaicans live. it's great, you know. they just relax, they party all the time.
pam: it's kind of an impovershed country.
micheal: yeah. it's great.

that basically sums it up for me, and i’m always thinking of that quote while i'm here... because the people are just so relaxed, hanging out and having a good time.... and sitting in plastic chairs. the dominicans love their plastic chairs. it i could buy stock in dominican plastic chairs, i would. they are everywhere... and everyone has them... and they sit in them... all day. most of the dominican adults i know would be content staying in that plastic chair all day. i don't want to be rude or judgemental... i know that i grew up much differently, in a completely different world... but i do know that dominican life would not be the safe without the wonderful plastic chair.

and of course, the only thing a dominican likes better than sitting in a plastic chair, is sitting in a plastic chair with a presidente in their hands (presidente is the beer that everyone drinks here). people love their presidente and there is no wrong time to drink a presidente. 9 am... no problem. there is also no wrong place to drink a presidente... while the plastic chair is ideal, i've seen people with them on the guaguas and even people riding a motoconcho around town, steering with one hand, sipping the presidente with the other hand. i tried one and i don't really like beer to begin with, and it tastes pretty much just like beer to me, but it is a hot item here.

another random thing, but just kinda goes along with the crazy, yet super laid back and relaxed culture here... all the car washes turn into "discotecas" or dance clubs at night. so basically once all the cars are gone and the soap and hoses are put away, the loud music and presidentes come out. people just dance and party all night at the car wash... and of course if you get tired of dancing there are plenty of plastic chairs sitting around for you to take a rest in.

all in all the dominican culture is pretty one of a kind. i've seen and experienced some things here that i don't know i would experience anywhere else in the world. it's a unique little place and probably will always be a part of me in some way or another.

update: victory

2009-06-13T18:28:00.000-07:00

2 weeks: just a little update on the situation i explained last week... i guess i wasn't the only one upset that 3 kids were being kicked out of the home... apparently a lot of different people had approached our national director expressing their concerns. so, they called a big meeting on friday with everyone involved. this was the day that the kids were supposed to go home, but instead everyone was given one last chance to speak their peace (or is it piece... i never know.) it was mainly myself, another volunteer, the school psychologist and a couple tías on the side that the kids should stay... but something really cool happened that i didn't expect. apparently 2 of our oldest kids, deborah and junior, had approached our director with their concerns about the kids being asked to leave. they were very upset about the decision and had come up with a plan to help the kids, so they were also invited to the meeting. everyone that was there got a chance to speak and voice their opinion, but it was mainly led by deborah and junior... which was so awesome to see. they're both such great kids and i was so proud of them. deborah is a strong confident girl and she stood right up in front of all these adults and explained how she believed that it was father wasson's philosophy not to ever force a kid to leave the home and how everyone here is a family and they have to stand up and help each other. junior is a great kid too, but much more quiet and soft-spoken. he read his notes from his notebook as he explained to everyone the plan he had to work closely with the boys, doing work and activities with them, to hopefully help improve their behavior. i think all the higher-ups were very impressed with the two of them, and so was i. it was so great to watch them care about something really important and try to do something to help. it was also great to see these kids act like one big family. i think that was part of fr. wasson's vision as well. it was definitely one of those situations where you see how something really great can came out of a not so great situation. in the end, a decision was made to give the boys 2 more weeks... a sort of probation period... a chance to prove that they want to change and that they want to live here in nph. so we'll see what happens. the two weeks is up the day after i leave, but until i leave i'll be working with nicolas every day and hopefully he'll figure out a way to shape up! i'm happy that at least they have been given a second chance. :)

week 51: (much needed) north coast get-away (june 1-7)

2009-06-08T11:44:00.000-07:00

ready to go: i'm not sure why i thought the last month would be easy, but it certainly hasn't been so far! i have been lucky and barely been sick my whole time here, but i developed this weird fungus on my legs... which is really gross to even have to say... but it was bound to happen sooner or later since so many of the kids come in with all these different fungi... thankfully, though, i got a special soap and cream and it is going away. and then after that i developed this weird rash all over my arms and face and i had to face my biggest fears and see a dominican doctor! i was not excited about that at all, but it ended up being ok and he told me i have this thing called "prickly heat", which happens when people are in the sun too much or sweating more than normal... which makes sense because it has been soooo hot and humid here! so now i have more soaps and creams and hopefully it will all be gone soon. but it was so itchy that i didn't sleep for like 3 days!

to top off all that, i got news early this week that 3 boys from the orphanage are going to be sent home because of bad behavior (not one event in particular, just a series of things over time). one of the boys is nicolas... the boy i wrote about a few weeks ago... from my house. this news absolutely broke my heart, especially after how close we have gotten the past couple months. not only am i sad, but i am really, really angry. i'm angry because i think the people here are giving up on him too soon and i think that there are other options that we haven't tried. i know that his behavior is bad and he is causing problems almost every other day, and i'm not condoning them, nor suggesting that he should be excused for them, but i do think there are still things that can be done to help him. i think he could be moved into a house with older kids and stricter tias. i also think he can be taken out of the school and put out in the fields to work all day until he decides that he wants to behave. i spent 2 hours one night crying and arguing with two of the staff members. i didn't, and still don't, understand why we are giving up on this child. it was a hard couple days, with sleepless nights, wondering what i could have done more to help him and wondering where we failed him. needless to say, i was ready for the break i had coming…

cabarete: a couple weeks ago i realized that i only had 2 free weekends left and still some areas of the country that i wanted to see. so, i decided to put my last 2 free weekends together into one six-day trip (which ended up coming at a perfect time!), so i could head up and see some areas in the northern part of the country. (although this country isn't that big, it actually takes about 4-5 hours to get from the south to the north coast, so it's really too hard to do in 3 days). so, one of the new volunteers, nici, and i headed out. our first stop was a town called cabarete. it is on the north coast, about in the middle of the country (east/west-wise), and is supposedly very famous for its water sports, especially wind-surfing and kite-surfing. it's a cute little town with a very beautiful beach, but its very touristy. we didn’t have to speak spanish at all and people were trying to sell us stuff every other second. it was nice but i could only handle it for a few days. but nici and i decided to go with the flow and act like tourists, so we spent friday morning taking wind-surfing lessons! it was pretty fun, although i fell a lot. we took a 2-hour lesson with 1-hour of free riding, so by the end of all that i finally got the hang of it a little... but with my weak stomach i was getting so sea sick! i was glad i did it, but i think i definitely prefer snow sports to water sports... i will be so excited to get back on my snowboard next winter!

puerta plata: next stop was a town just about an hour west of cabarete, still on the north coast, called puerta plata ("silver port"). it is a much bigger town than cabarete, and not so touristy. it was founded by christopher columbus in 1493 and has a couple interesting attractions. the first day we walked around all the coast where there is an old 16th century fort that was built to protect the island from pirates and a pretty cool lighthouse that we climbed up to get a better view of the city. we also found some good food (fajitas…yay for mexican!), which was exciting, because that doesn't happen much here. the next day was my favorite part. we headed over to this flat-topped mountain called pico isabella de tours, where there is a cable car that takes you up to the top. once you reach the top, you are greeted by a huge statue of Christ the redeemer. other than that it is very green and tropical up top... i felt like i was walking around the jungle on lost! it was really cool because it gave a great view of the city and the north coast. we went up early in the morning and there were a bunch of clouds, so it kind of restricted our view for most of the time, but by the time we took the cable car back down, some of the clouds had cleared and we got a great view.

santiago: last stop was santiago, the second largest city in the dominican republic, about an hour south of puerta plata. it was very similar to the capital without all the historical sites. we walked around for a little, climbed up a tall monument dedicated to the heroes of the country, which provided a nice view of the entire city. it was originally built by the brutal dictator trujilo, who dedicated the statue to himself, but after his death it was re-dedicated. after that we shopped around a little at the outdoor markets. but after a while all the dominican souveniors start to look the same and the pesky salesmen start to get on your nerves a little, so we headed back to the hotel for a rest. which was good because it started to absolutely pour and did so for the rest of the evening, kind of limiting any more site seeing we wanted to do in the city. the next morning we hopped on the guagua (bus) and made our way back home.

reflecting back: getting away for 6 days was a good way for me to get some space and think more about the situation that i described above with the boys that are going to be leaving. obviously spending a year anywhere will have it's good points and bad points... even a year in so called "normal life" will have it's ups and downs... and for me this year has been no different. the experience has been great, but it's trying at times. i think for the most part i write about the fun and cute stories and experiences i have had and i want to keep the blog positive, but i felt that it would be mis-representative of my experience here to not write about this story. the first couple days i was so angry that i questioned what i have been doing here and what we are doing here in general as an organization. but, as i was able to get away, i'm starting to realize more that it’s just part of life. there are always going to be disagreements and differences of opinions, no matter where you work or what you do. and while i really, really disagree with this decision, i don’t want it to taint the experience i’ve had here or the good things that have been done through nph over the years. i support his organization and believe in the philosophy and principles of fr. wasson (the founder), but i do have to say that i disagree and do not understand the decisions that have been made in this situation. it just breaks my heart to know that this kid who i have worked so hard with will have to go back to a family that obviously wasn’t taking care of him before. and i do know that i have to keep in mind that i am a year long volunteer and there are people here who have dedicated their lives to this organization and it’s not my place to tell them how to do things (however i have spent hours defending my point in this particular situation!). part of me says that i should just stay and be the one to start some sort of disciplinary house here for all the kids that have discipline problems… if no one else wants to/knows how to deal with them. i think that all these kids have already experienced so much pain and have already felt abandoned by their families that we can give up them too. but the other part of me knows that its time to come home. i don’t know, it’s been tough. but i think the other thing i realized is how much i have come to love and care about these kids, even after only one year. it's kinda surprising that such a short period of time can have such an effect on you. and when i arrived home from my mini vacation the first kid i was greeted by was nicolas... and i think i hugged him harder than i ever have! (when i left i wasn't sure if he'd still be here when i got back). right now i'm happy that i am here and i have the opportunity to defend him (not his actions, but the fact that he deserves that we keep trying to help him). i haven’t heard yet when the official date is that he is leaving, but i know that as long as he’s here, i'll keep pleading my case to the powers that be! please pray for him and the other 2 (miguel and eduardo) if you can!

"our lives begin to end the day we become silent about the things that matter." -mlk jr.

week 50: bonding time (may 25-31)

2009-06-01T05:30:00.000-07:00

boys will be boys: aside from still being pretty busy in the special needs house trying to get a bunch of stuff in order before i go, i spent a lot of this week just hanging out with my boys in santa rosa. now, they usually do some pretty crazy things... and i give them credit, they are very creative. just about everything we find... from sticks to plastic bags or water bottle caps... can be made into a toy or game. but this week, their stunts started to get a little dangerous. the first one was probably my fault... a couple weeks ago, i showed them the movie "hot rod" (for you bubba!) and every since then, they've been really into bicycle stunts. it has been mostly about what types of things they can jump over, but this week they decided to try to and go down the slide in their backyard on the bicycle. it was actually quite funny, but probably not the best idea ever. and i'm probably not the best volunteer ever for sitting there and watching them do it... but it was pretty funny.... and no one got hurt! we had to re-attach the seat a few times afterwards, but overall it was pretty successful. then they tried to build a ramp and ride the bicycle up the slide... but this endeavor was not quite as successful. the other thing they have been into this week is creating sling shots. now i've seen several ways to create sling shots, but i've never seen this one. (perhaps if i was a boy, i would have learned these things growing up, but this was all new to me). so they have been finding little scrap pieces of pvc pipe and then attaching balloons to the end of them. then they put a rock in the balloon, pull it back and shoot it out. now they asked me to try it in the house (again, not the best idea), but i did and i had no idea what i was doing and i shot it so hard right into the window... which luckily is just this metal thing with no glass, so it just made a really loud noise. i got kinda nervous cuz i thought the tia was going to come yell at me for being a bad example, but the boys just laughed and thought it was hilarious. we then proceeded outside, where they spent the rest of the afternoon trying to shoot eachother with rocks, hiding behind bushes and walls like little soldiers. i tried to say, "you're gonna shoot your eye out" in spanish, but i don't think they understood my christmas story reference. hopefully no one ends up in the hospital!

do the dew: a couple weeks ago, my good friend matt toney, being the nice guy he is, sent me 6 mountain dews in the mail! it was such a nice surprise and i have been waiting for just the right occasion to drink them up! after thinking about it, i decided that i think it is everyone's right to be able to taste this glorious green goodness that is mountain dew at least once in their life. and since they don't sell mountain dew anywhere on this island, i decided to bring them over and share them with my boys in santa rosa. they were pretty excited because i don't think they've ever seen green soda before and it was very interesting trying to explain the word "dew" in spanish. i'm pretty sure they have no idea what i was talking about. but, regardless, i think they enjoyed it. although i don't think they appreciate the amazingness as much as i do... they all seemed more interested in who got to keep the bottles afterwards than the actual drink.... like little kids playing with the boxes on christmas! who knows what fun games we'll be able to come up with with six empty mountain dew bottles!!

"evangelization: one begger telling another begger where the food is." - mother teresa

week 49: flies & starfish (may 18-24)

2009-05-25T17:10:00.000-07:00

attack of the flies: about a year and a half ago i went down to the friends of the orphans office in mesa because i was considering volunteering at nph for a year. i went and had a meeting with jim hoyt, regional director, whom i had worked with at st. pats. i had been sponsoring a kid in the dominican through friends of the orphans for about a year, so i kinda had it in the back of my head that that was the home i would want to volunteer at. but, without saying that i sat down with jim just to get his thoughts, opinions and advice on possibly being a volunteer. he told me a lot of what being a volunteer means and that i would have to learn spanish and this and that. and i asked him if he prefers any homes over the others... he talked about mexico and how it was his favorite home because he spends the most time there and about haiti and how it might be hard with the creole. he mentioned a few other homes and their positives/negatives, but never mentioned the dominican... so i said, "what about the dr?". and his first response was... "there are a lot of flies." now it was kinda a joke and he went on to talk a little bit more about the home... but in all my time here i have noticed some flies here and there, but i've never considered them a huge problem.... until now!!! oh my gosh, i don't know what happened this month... but there are soooooo many flies! it is crazy! i finally understand what he was talking about... they are everywhere! and they are super annoying! i know it sounds petty... i mean they are only flies... we have frogs in the bathroom, ants running over the tables, counters and beds, huge cockroaches and tarantulas, mosquitos, and i've even gotten used to the mice that run across the kitchen floor while you are cooking... but i have found none of these as annoying as the flies! i don't know what it is, but there are just hundreds of them everywhere you go and they are like weird flies. they don't just buzz around your head... they like to land on your lips, or go into your ear, or your nose and they are all over all the food we try to eat. and in the special needs house we don't have screens on the windows (because the kids have broken them all) so the fly problem is like times 100 in there. we have these fly catcher things that hang from the ceiling and they seriously fill up like everyday... i don't know where they all come from! i don't know... maybe God is giving me once last test in my patience before i leave... or maybe making sure that i come home and don't decide to stay longer! i don't know, but... ahhhh!

weekend retreat: despite the irritation of the flies, i had a very nice weekend. we had the opportunity to go on a volunteer retreat, where we met up with a couple volunteers from different organizations in the dr and we all spend the weekend talking, reflecting and sharing our experiences with each other. it was very different from any retreat i've ever been on, very quiet and laid back and there were only about 12 of us, but it was very nice. friday night we traveled to this place outside of santo domingo called las alcorizos, where there is a program run by some nuns from the states called "fe y alegría" (faith and happiness) they basically run a school for poor children from the batey. (it's a really cool organization and they also look for year long volunteers from the states... check it out http://fi.feyalegria.org/) the head nun, sr. anita, was just great. she is this little old nun who has been in this country for 14 years and is just hilarious, with this awesome dry, sarcastic humor. she kept us all laughing all weekend. then on saturday morning we got up and took a bus about 2 hours west to a town called villa fundación, where we arrived at another nun's house, where there is also a small retreat center, where we stayed and had our retreat. this place was very cool... it was very different than anywhere i have been in the dr. it is like a very dry area of the dr... very different atmosphere... almost like a desert. there were even cactus! i felt like i was home! and the day was nice... we had good food and got to spend a lot of time talking and reflecting on our time here... which was especially nice considering my time is coming to a close. it was also nice to get to meet people who are volunteering in the dominican in different ways and compare experiences with them. on sunday, we woke up and had a word and communion service (we couldn't have mass because there are no priests) overlooking this beautiful valley. it was really nice. and sr. anita played the guitar for us! then we all headed to this town called las salinas, where there is a beach. it wasn't your typical beautiful, white sand dominican beach, but it was really nice. and the best part was that there were all these amazing starfish! we spent practically the whole afternoon like little kids looking for and taking pictures with starfish... it was really fun!

"be happy in the moment. that's enough. each moment is all we need, not more. be happy now and if you show through your actions that you love others, you'll give them happiness too. the world would be a much better place if everyone smiled more - so smile, be cheerful, be joyous that God loves you." - mother teresa

week 48: busy, busy, busy (may 11-17)

2009-05-17T16:56:00.000-07:00

git er done: i don't know what it is about this place... maybe it's just the different pace of life... but i've never been somewhere where i feel like i'm so busy all day and then when i stop to look back on the day, i have to wonder what exactly i've done!! i don't know, it's hard to explain, but it's like everything moves so slow and after 11 months i'm still having problems adjusting! there are tons of things that i am trying to get done before i leave (in less than 6 weeks!). first of all, i'm trying to get a lot of stuff done in the special needs house. i've worked with the kids a lot this year, but i'm trying to do some things that will last after i'm gone. i've been working with the physical therapists and we've been creating information sheets about all the kids that tell about them... their problems and specific ways to work with and help them, etc. we've also been trying to teach the tías more about special needs kids, so they can be more effective working in the house. we are also trying to make schedules for both the tías and the kids, so that there is more structure and routine and that the house can continue in a forward direction. in addition, i've been trying to get a lot of other random projects done. i have been making a brochure type thing, with information about the house and kids so that visitors can look at it while they are here and i've been trying to get the visitor program to have a little more order to it... organizing the visitor house with rules, guidelines, information, etc. but it's just like the simplest things here seem to take forever. like at home, if i want to make a copy it's done in 2 seconds in the office or i jump in my car and run over to kinkos. but here, it's like there's no ink, or there's no electricity or i have to wait for this or that or find someone who is driving into the city who can take me with them. i don't know, it's just seems like all these things shouldn't take so long... but for some reason they do! plus, i've been trying to just spend as much time with the kids as possible, because that is going to be the hardest part of leaving. all in all, this week i feel like i've been running around like a chicken with my head cut off! but anyway, i'm determined to get all these things done in my last couple weeks here... hopefully i don't go crazy in the process!

cooking classes: in addition to all the "work" i've been trying to get done, there are also other random things that i've been trying to do before i leave. one is learn how to cook at least 1 dominican thing. in general, i don't think i will miss the rice and beans too much... but after a year of eating rice and beans for lunch every single day, i will probably feel the desire to add at least a little more rice into my diet back home. plus, when we went to the beach a couple weeks ago, my tías in santa rosa made this really delicious rice and chicken that we brought with us and they told me that they would teach me how to make it. so this tuesday was cooking day. on monday i went to the store and bought all the ingredients and on tuesday morning, my tías gave me my first dominican cooking lesson. it was really fun. my tías are so sweet and they were so surprised when i told them i don't eat rice every day back home! but they made this really delicious rice with carrots and onions and corn and this very tasty chicken to go on top... yum :) in the afternoon i continued the day of cooking, by giving paola an american cooking lesson... we made ants on a log (hormigas en un tronco). apparently celery, peanut butter and raisins is a very weird concept here. paola liked it, because she'll eat just about everything, but everyone else that we tried to give one to gave us a look like, "are you kidding me? i'm supposed to eat that?".... oh well.

primera dama: wednesday was also a crazy day, because on tuesday afternoon we found out that the first lady of the dr was going to stop by the home for a visit. this kinda threw everyone into a frenzy. we all spent all tuesday afternoon and wednesday morning cleaning and getting everything ready. the kids did a bunch of yard work and everyone cleaned up their houses. some kids started preparing and practicing a song of welcome, while others organized a dance to do for her. the day was pretty crazy. we thought she was coming in the morning... then after lunch... then we found out she wasn't coming til 4. then we were all ready, we had the kids lined up at the front gate to greet her as she arrived, but as we waited, the big black clouds rolled in and it started to just pour! we all ran to the school and got re-setup in there. finally all her security guards showed up and about a half an hour later she finally came into the school. the kids and the national director welcomed her and then she spoke for about 10 minutes. it was still pouring though, so she didn't get to see or do anything other than the inside of the school. it ended up being rather anti-climactic in the end. but everyone was excited about it and i suppose its good that the president and his wife know about and show interest in the organization!

"what we are doing may seem insignificant, but it most important that we do it." -ghandi

week 47: a week of rain (may 4-10)

2009-05-12T11:57:00.000-07:00

may showers: april didn't bring too much rain, but that is about all we have seen so far this may. i'm not really sure when hurricane season officially starts, but it feels like this is it. we have just had storm after storm... with really intense rain like we did back when i first got here last summer. it's been nice too because it's been keeping the temperature down... it's still pretty humid, but we haven't seen the horribly hot days that we had last summer yet! but everything is so muddy and flooded. as you can see from the picture, it looks like we have a huge lake on our property... but all that is usally just a grassy field. it's been kinda fun, but i think the kids are starting to get a little cabin fever from having to be inside most of the time. most days we've had to cancel all the sports activities and they have had a couple afternoons of classes canceled, plus when they do have school, they can't have recess because of all the mud. i, however, am going to try and enjoy all the rain as much as i can... not too long before i'll be back in the desert!

oh and poor nicolas... he was having such a great week... all week. i thought we were actually going to be able to go to the batey to get that soda this weekend, but friday afternoon he decided to run out of his classroom and going dancing in the rain! oh what am i going to do with him?!

p.s. i finally updated my pics @ http://dominicanrepubliccitypics.shutterfly.com/

"many a man curses the rain that falls upon his head, and knows not that it brings abundance to drive away the hunger." - st. basil

week 46: my problem children (april 27 - may 3)

2009-05-05T05:54:00.000-07:00

nico: on a day to day basis, i would say that the majority of my "struggles" come from my time working with paola or the other special needs kids in san pascual. the time i spend in my other house, santa rosa, with my boys, is more of a laid back relaxing time to just goof around and have fun. but we do have a few kids in santa rosa that have their fair share of problems. there are 2 in particular that i have been working a lot with lately, who could really use some prayers. the first is nicolas, or nico for short. there are 14 boys in santa rosa and i love them all, but i do have closer relationships with some of them than others. nico is one of the boys that i haven't really been all that close with until the past couple weeks. (part of this is probably due to the fact that he is never in the house when he is supposed to be... so i haven't spend as much time with him as the other boys!) anyway, i've always known that nico has some behavior problems... he always seems to be in trouble in the house and has been suspended from the school several times. it's hard to describe nicolas because he's not a bad or mean-hearted kid, he just for some reason always finds trouble. and he knows it... he admits it... he's not one of those kids that tries to sneak around and pretend that he's not doing anything wrong. sometimes i just have to laugh at him because he'll be in the midst of doing something, like yelling or saying a bad word, and then he'll realize what he's doing and cover his mouth with his hand and then he'll get this half-smile on his face and look over in my direction because he knows... it's like he almost can't help himself. i don't know why i didn't make more of an effort earlier, but i decided last week that i would make a behavior chart for him and try to do something special with him if he could behave for a whole week. i made a chart for the week, giving him 6 opportunities to earn a sticker each day. now, making him earn all the stickers for each day would be too much to ask at this point, but i thought 75% was fair to start. when i presented the idea to him, he was cute because i could tell he wanted to do it, but he just said, "no, i can't." and i said, "what do you mean, you can't?" and he was just like, "well i just can't behave well." (like i said, he's so hard to describe... he's just really honest and straight forward... he doesn't do anything maliciously, but it's like deep down he knows that sometimes its just beyond his control) i tried my best to tell him that i believed he could and that he had 6 chances every day and even if one of them was bad, that he could try again for the next one. he didn't seem completely convinced, but agreed to try. we agreed that if he did it, we'd take a walk to the nearby batey and buy a soda and possibly a snack at the end of the week. we started out the week pretty well, he was getting about 4-5 stickers a day... but then it all went downhill on wednesday afternoon. i guess he was hungry, because he and a couple other boys decided to ditch class in the afternoon and go looking for mangoes. he ended up getting suspended for the rest of the week. i was so sad! he tried to convince me that even though he wasn't in school, if he behaved well in the house during his suspension, we should still be able to go. i didn't agree. but, we had another good talk and i think he's ready to try again next week. i'm really hoping that at some point in my last 7 weeks, we will get to go!

big fish: yendi is my other "problem child". yendi is a very special kid. the more time i spend with him, the more i love him. in my first couple weeks, as i was still getting to know the boys, the only times that i really ever heard about yendi was when i heard about him getting in trouble... getting in fights, yelling at the tías, causing problems in the summer program. he's a tough kid. he's got this scar under his eye that i think is just so fitting to his personality. he also has an extremely sweet side and although he doesn't show it a lot, it's there. he's also got one of the best smiles i've ever seen... which is so fitting to that side of his personality (i'm determined to get a picture of it before i leave). he's a handful though... i admire the tías' patience with him. he can be extremely rude and disrespectful in the way he talks to the tías and to the other kids. he's almost never where he's supposed to be or doing what he's supposed to be doing. he is, however, great when someone gives him specific work to do. one time the consequence for his bad behavior was that he had to work in the garden and he did a great job. he showed up on time everyday and worked really hard. he is also always tagging along with our mechanic (an ex-pequeño from haiti)... he just loves working with him and would probably do it all day if he was allowed to. i've always felt that yendi just needs his energies channeled in the right direction. but it wasn't until recently that i had some more insight into his character... and developed a new nick name for him. i've been noticing that yendi is drawn to anything that isn't what everyone else is doing. he's the first to volunteer if there is a project that gets him out of the house and you can see him just always looking and searching for something better. and i realized that he's just too big for this place. he's like a big fish in a little pond... and i think he's just frustrated. not that he's any better than the other kids here, or that it excuses his behavior, but i do believe that some people are just too big for the world they're placed in. i really worry about him and pray for him, because i know he's one of those kids that could end up going either way. i just hope he continues to be challenged and use those frustrations he feels in a positive way. he's a great kid and i know God has big plans for him.

"christianity has nothing to say to the person who is completely happy with the way things are. it is a message for those who hunger and thirst - for those who desire life as it was meant to be." - john elderidge

week 45: the end is near (april 20-26)

2009-04-28T06:03:00.000-07:00

goodbye kelly: i know i still have 2 months left, but it is starting to feel like my time here is almost over. probably one of the reasons is that my roommate kelly, will be finishing up her service at the end of next week and it’s going to be very weird not having her here. she came only about 2 weeks before me, so all of our time, not only here at the orphanage, but traveling on weekends off, has been together. we come from 2 different sides of the country, with totally different personality and views and opinions, but we’ve really had a great 10½ months together. some of our best memories are the times we spent organizing activities between our two houses of boys at nph. we’ve done baseball games, soccer games, movie and popcorn nights, breakfast, and tons more. we thought it would be fun to do one last thing, so on saturday, we got permission to take both of our houses to the beach for the day. we got our towels and swim suits, packed up our rice and beans, and headed on the bus to juan dolio. it ended up being just an amazing day. the weather was great and the water was beautiful… the bluest and clearest i’ve ever seen it. we spent about six hours on the beach and in the water taking pictures, playing soccer, jumping and diving, learning to float, snorkeling, building sand castles, burying each other, trying to balance on a huge piece of styrofoam, and searching for sea creatures (fish, crabs, round prickly things, and even an octopus, were among some of the things we captured). it was just a really great day, and hopefully a good going away party for kelly!

what am i doing here? while saturday was a really amazing day, the rest of my week was actually pretty tough. i’ve had a lot of frustrations with paola, one of the girls in the special needs home that i’ve worked with very closely these past 10 months. some days she’s really great and i feel like we’ve made a lot of progress. other days, like most of this week, she is really difficult and i wonder what i have been doing with my time here. and then i worry about leaving, because when i left to go home for vacation, the tías told me how horrible paola was and even when i came back it took her a couple weeks to fully forgive me for leaving (even though she knew i was going and that i would be coming back). paola is a good kid, who has had a tough past. her mother (who is schizophrenic) was really terrible to her and always told her what a problem she was and how worthless she was. she definitely has some mental handicaps of her own and a very low self-esteem. but at the same time, she is very intelligent (making her quite manipulative when she wants to be) and she is very capable of many things (both good and bad). the problem is that over her years at nph paola has heard people talk about her "sickness" and its made her even more self-conscious, at the same time, causing her to act out more and more. she can be a very difficult person to deal with (even physical at times), so for the most part, people just let her be, because it's easier than fighting with her. i, however, have been very strict with her over the past 10 months because i believe that she is capable of more than she is showing right now. despite the fact that we have a fight about every other day, i think to some extent it is working. my concern is that when i leave, things will return to the way they were. the tías in her house are nice people, but what paola needs is discipline and it seems for the most part that people here don't want to or don't have the time to put the effort into her that she needs (whether that be a lack of understanding or simply a lack of interest). either way, it's frustrating because i want her to continue to improve. so then again, i wonder what i'm doing here... if she is just going to be the same once i leave, or even worse off, why am i here at all?

i also struggle with the thought of leaving beyond my worries of paola. there are definite excitements with the thoughts of coming home, but at the same time it’s hard. i want to look back and see exactly what i accomplished. i want to feel like i made some sort of difference. but sometimes i look around this country and wonder if there is any hope. not that our country is perfect, but there are so many problems here... and they go way beyond poverty. almost all reverence has been lost for the catholic faith that still is very much a part of the culture. people celebrate the holidays, wear the rosaries and crosses, and even go to mass, but hardly anyone goes to communion, because they themselves know that for most people here the faith doesn't go much deeper than the surface. also, the concept of a family, as we know it, is almost unheard of here. teenage pregnancies are completely normal, as is the fact that most men are involved in several relationships at one time, not to mention that i can probably count on one hand the number of people i know here who are married. on top of that, there is the alcohol, the drugs and the obvious prostitution almost everywhere you go. none of these problems have or will improve in my time here. so then the whole experience i've had here becomes selfish, because it becomes more about me, and the wonderful experience i had, feeling like i did something good for the world, when in reality, what kind of difference can actually be made in only a year?

in the midst of all this wondering and worrying, i think God sent me a sign. i received two different emails from two different people on two different sides of the world… both sending me the exact same poem/prayer. one was from my friend eric who was in germany at the time and the other from my friend katherine in chicago. both of them, for different reasons, sent me the following:

it helps, now and then, to step back and take a long view, the kingdom is not only beyond our efforts, it is even beyond our vision. we accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of the magnificent enterprise that is God's work. nothing we do is complete, which is a way of saying that the kingdom always lies beyond us. no statement says all that could be said. no prayer fully expresses our faith. no confession brings perfection. no pastoral visit brings wholeness. no program accomplishes the church's mission. no set of goals and objectives includes everything.

this is what we are about. we plant the seeds that one day will grow. we water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise. we lay foundations that will need further development. we provide yeast that produces far beyond our capabilities. we cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that. this enables us to do something, and to do it very well. it may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord's grace to enter and do the rest.

we may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker. we are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs. we are prophets of a future not our own. amen.

last week, a lady named gena (who runs the special needs home in haiti) came to try to help us out with developing the special needs home we have here. i spent a couple hours one afternoon talking with her, sharing some of my frustrations and concerns. i mentioned my concerns about paola and my worries about her being worse off when i leave. gena told me about a boy they have living in the special needs home in haiti… his body is completely tense, he can’t talk, walk or even move, but she said every single day he has one hour of therapy. will the therapy help him walk or move one day? probably not. in fact, he will probably spend his whole life in that same condition. but, she said, for that one hour he feels a little relief, a little less pain… and for that, she said, it’s worth it.

i guess that’s what i have to think about in my last 2 months. like the prayer says, we can’t accomplish everything. i may leave here feeling like what i did is incomplete, but i trust that it was a step in the right direction, or at least it was worthwhile for the time in which i was doing it. God asked me to come and be here for this year with paola, so i have to trust that while i don't know what will happen in the future, i at least know that God is in control. and as far as the rest of it... the world is a mess, that much is clear. it's not just here, but everywhere. but there is also a lot of hope. sometimes it's not that easy to see, but it is there. and it's not any of our jobs to fix every problem in the world, but it is all our jobs to seek that hope every day and do the best we can with where we are and what we have been given.

“do not abandon yourself to despair. we are an easter people and hallelujah is our song.” –john paul II

week 44: new addition (april 13-19)

2009-04-19T08:25:00.000-07:00

geraldo: we had a new boy arrive this week in the special needs house. his name is geraldo and he is 4 years old. he has been diagnosed with cerebal palsy. he can’t talk or walk or even crawl… actually he can barely hold his head up. he is constantly moving though. he spends most of the day lying on his back and his legs and arms are going nonstop, waving and flailing in the air. It’s so sad because you can tell that he just wants to be able to move. he is so sweet, though. i’ve never seen him cry and sometimes he even gets this cute little smile on his face. and he has the most beautiful eyes. he comes from a town called juan dolio not too far from here. apparently his mother left and his father was taking care of him alone. the father had to work though and the neighbor’s noticed that geraldo was left in the home alone much of the time, which is why they called us. the physical therapists are positive though and they believe that with a lot of therapy, little by little they can help him through the normal stages of development (hold his head up, using his limbs, sitting, crawling, etc). he’s going to be a lot of work, but we are so glad to have him.

alberto update: some people have asked about alberto (the little boy with cancer that has been staying with us). he was able to come back and stay with us, which is great. the doctors decided to stop his chemo for three months (just to give the poor kid a break because it’s not really helping), so God-willing he will be here with us for at least 3 more months!

"life in its true sense is not something we have exclusively in or from ourselves: it is a relationship. and life in its totality is a relationship with him who is the source of life. if we are in relation with him who does not die, who is life itself and love itself, then we are in life. then we 'live'." - pope benedict XVI

week 43: semana santa (april 6-12)

2009-04-11T14:13:00.000-07:00

let’s go fly a kite: the kids were off of school all week this week, so the volunteers were in charge of planning activities for them on monday, tuesday and wednesday. on monday, we had a sports day, where we basically just had soccer game after baseball game after more soccer and baseball games, making sure at some point all the kids of all the different ages participated in something. it was long and tiring, but a lot of fun. tuesday was scavanger hunt day. we organized one for the little kids in the day time and then one at night in the dark with flashlights for the older kids. we had them running all over our property looking for clues. the tías owe us, because i’m sure they slept well that night. wednesday was probably the best day. we organized a kite contest and the kids spent all morning making kites. i think i explained this once, but kites are like a national pastime here… the kids love making them and it’s almost an art for some of them. they are so meticulous, making sure they are just perfect. the best part is that it provides hours of fun and is practically free. all the kids use is sticks, plastic grocery bags and string. the kids were so cute working so hard all morning trying to make the best looking kite that would fly the highest. in the afternoon, we all headed out to the soccer field to let them fly. it was really, really fun and the weather here is always perfect for kite flying… there’s always a nice little breeze. overall, it was a long, but good start to holy week.

2 different worlds: on holy thursday i got to experience the mass in two totally different ways. i began the day with the chrism mass at the cathedral in san pedro. it was quite impressive. we were in the beautiful cathedral with the high ceilings and stained glass and every priest and seminarian from the diocese was there. the bishop here is very nice, but he’s rather quiet and soft spoken. there were bells and incense and chanting, plus all the traditional hymns. it was very nice… everything a traditional catholic mass should be (without the latin… but sometimes still my understanding of spanish is about as good as my understanding of latin) the only thing was that i was there with the younger kids, so after about 2 hours they started to get a bit restless… but we survived!

later that night, i went with the older kids to the mass of the Lord’s supper. it was a completely opposite experience from the one i had had in the morning. we went to this tiny little church in this poor little barrio (neighborhood) called “sante fe”. it was so tiny and everyone was just squished into every last corner. and it was so hot! i think i sweated off like 5 pounds during the mass! it was really nice though. the priest is super energetic and the people get really into the mass, clapping and singing, etc. and the music was really great… very upbeat with a little caribbean flair. both experiences were nice and it was great to see how diverse the catholic church is… you can have masses with two totally different vibes, but at the end of the day, we’re all reading the same word, sharing in the same meal, and praising the same God.

sweet friday: good friday began with a 5:30 am wake up for a 6:00 am stations of the cross. all the kids, volunteers and staff met outside the nuns house and began the procession around our property. we ended at the school and the kids were instructed to stay quiet and prayerful for the rest of the day. i finally got to experience a dominican tradition that the kids have been talking about forever… “habichuelas con dulce” (beans w/sweets). every time anyone mentions holy week, the kids get so excited and start talking about habichuelas con dulce. it’s like their favorite thing in the whole world. so, the tías spent friday morning preparing treat and then at 2:00 everyone got to eat it as an afternoon snack. basically, it is a huge pot of beans and then they throw in coconut milk, sugar, cinnamon, chocolate, vanilla, batatas (which are like sweet potatoes) and then it is all topped off with little cookies on top. it sounds pretty gross… and it is. i tried my best to eat a little of it, but i just couldn’t do it. it was soooo sweet! i didn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings, but the kids didn’t seem to bothered… plus there was one lucky kid who got to eat mine too. (it kinda seemed like a weird thing to do on a fasting day, but good friday seems to be the day they celebrate, more so than easter, so i guess that’s just how they roll here in the dr). good friday ended with a trip into san pedro to attend the veneration of the cross service at a local church. the church we went to was a new one that i’d never been to before. the priest there comes from the same order in columbia as the nuns we have working here at nph. it’s a nice church… not quite as small and cramped as the one we were at the night before, but much simpler than the cathedral. overall, it was a very nice good friday.

the longest day ever: holy saturday was a good day, but extremely long! it began early again… with a 6:00 am rosary walk around the home. afterward, everyone headed to their houses to eat and get ready for the day. the volunteers spent the rest of the morning and afternoon boiling, painting and decorating eggs with the kids. afterward, we collected them all and stored them in our house, so they’d be ready to hide in the morning. that night i headed back into san pedro with the oldest kids to attend the easter vigil mass at the church we went to the night before. it was probably one of the coolest masses i’ve ever been to. it began outside with a huge bonfire, where the priest lit and blessed the easter candle. we all then processed inside with our candles (except that we didn’t have any… we didn’t know you were supposed to bring your own… sad day!). it was so cool to see the church light up with everyone’s candles. then everyone blew out their candles and the readings were read in darkness. when the time came for the alleluia, the church lit up and music began playing and the people began dancing. it was really, really cool. i have never seen people so happy and excited at an easter mass. it went on for a good 20 minutes… people just jumping and dancing and clapping and singing at the top of their lungs. the mass continued and it was really great. the music was really, really amazing and the priest was awesome. i couldn’t always understand what he was saying, but he was just so passionate and convicted that you couldn’t help but feel moved. the mass lasted more than 4 hours (and there weren’t even any baptisms!), but it was 4 hours filled with genuine joy and happiness… people truly grateful and excited that Christ has risen from the dead.

pascua: despite getting practically no sleep the night before, easter was probably the most relaxed day of all of holy week. i woke up at 5 am to hide the eggs that the kids and i had painted the day before. we began the search at about 6. everyone found their eggs except one boy… i felt so bad and i couldn’t for the life of me remember where i put it! i felt so horrible, but a couple hours later when we were standing outside waiting for the bus to take us to mass i saw it on the top of this black box on the side of the house. it was so high up, there was no way this poor kid could find it… apparently i was too tired when i was hiding them at 5 am. then we went to mass at the cathedral in san pedro. it was a nice mass, but much quieter and more traditional than the one the night before. when we got home the volunteers organized a game called “the golden egg hunt.” we painted five hard boiled eggs gold and hid them in different places on our property. we had five different searches with the different aged kids. despite a few incidents of cheating, we all had a good time and the winners received an ice cold soda… in addition to the golden egg. the rest of the day was very relaxed. we played a little soccer in the afternoon, but mostly everyone just relaxed. we didn’t even have a special dinner or anything. some of the volunteers thought it was a little weird, being used to easter being a big holiday, but it seems like in this culture, it seems to be the whole week that they celebrate, more so than any one particular day. it was a lot of fun experiences, new traditions and a holy week that i’ll never forget.

"the cross, instrument of torture and death, raised aloft as a sign of glory, continues to confound the wisdom of this world. God's work of salvation stands humans on their heads. humility is exaltation, wounds are healing, death is life."

week 42: the biggest loser (march 30 - april 5)

2009-04-05T08:27:00.000-07:00

barry’s bootcamp: nothing too terribly exciting happened this week, but the volunteers have found a new bonding experience that has been quite fun. last week, we got some new therapy materials delivered and one of them was a huge exercise ball. but, someone apparently bought the wrong thing and this exercise ball came with all these workout dvds. so since all of us haven’t been that happy with the way all the rice is affecting our bodies… we decided to give it a go. so, everyday all the volunteers have been attending “barry’s bootcamp.” it kinda started as a joke, but it’s actually a really great workout and we’ve been having a lot of fun doing it all together. we’ve even gotten some of the tías to come join us. plus it gives me a chance to wear my suns headband since it doesn’t seem like i will be using it in the playoffs this year… sad day.

passion sunday: this week was also the start of holy week, which is a huge holiday here… not just easter sunday, but the whole week. it was my weekend off and i had wanted to try and get back in time to go to mass with the kids, but it just didn’t work out… so i ended up going alone at a church in la romana (the city we were staying in for the weekend). it ended up being really nice though, the cathedral was right in the center of town, so the mass started in the center of the central park, where they passed out the palms and then processed into the cathedral across the street. the mass in the cathedral was very nice and i'm finally getting to the point where i can understand and participate in most of the mass… 10 months later… woohoo!

"we can throw stones, complain about them, stumble on them, climb over them, or build with them." -william arthur ward

week 41: down on the farm (march 23-29)

2009-03-25T21:45:00.000-07:00

beef… it’s what’s for dinner: so i took the special needs kids down to visit the other kids at recess on monday. when we got there, all the kids on the playground were so excited, telling me that they had killed a cow today. i was like, “what?” and then i looked over toward the farm area (we have like a whole garden and farm area with a couple cows, pigs and sheep) and sure enough there were like four men standing around a huge cow lying on the floor. so we spent recess watching from the jungle gym as they loaded it into the truck and drove it around to the back of the kitchen. i was a little grossed out, but also a little curious… so before lunch i headed back to check it out. the cow was laid out on this board on top of cinder blocks… it’s head and feet cut off and sitting over to the side… and there were 4 guys with machetes and knifes chopping the rest of it apart. it was quite the site. they were out there all afternoon in the in the hot, hot sun, cutting it up, so it’ll be interesting when it’s on the lunch plate next week!

state fair: there was also an agricultural/farming fair in the capital this week. the sixth and seventh grade kids from the school went on friday and then another smaller group went on saturday, so i tagged along. it was pretty fun, and it actually felt a little like the state fair (well what i can remember from the last state fair i went to like 10 years ago). there were tons of fruits and vegetables, animals (some of the biggest cows i’ve ever seen), a horse and dog show, and a couple rides. the kids had fun just walking around and looking at everything. it’s fun to be able to do things like this with them… being able to take them out of the orphanage and do “normal kid” stuff.

"it's not how much we have, but how much we enjoy, that makes happiness." - charles spurgeon

week 40: wondering why (march 16-22)

2009-03-25T11:34:00.000-07:00

alberto: since christmas, i have had the pleasure of getting to know the sweetest little boy named alberto. he has come to us from a nun who lives in santo domingo, sr. babs, who runs a sort-of ronald mcdonald house for kids that are sick. for the little time that alberto has been here, he has certainly touched the hearts of all the volunteers and pretty much everyone he has come into contact with. here is his story....

about a year and a half ago, sr. babs met a man in the pediatric unit of the cancer hospital where she spends a lot of her time. she was with another patient when this man approached her and asked if she could help him with this child he was with who had no family. the child, alberto, was from haiti, and had been diagnosed with cancer and abandoned by his family. the man asked sr. babs if she could help for a little bit. she accepted, taking alberto into her home and finding a priest in the NPH home in haiti to cover his medical expenses. despite his promises to return, sr. babs has never seen the man from the hospital again. so, alberto has been become a part of sister bab's family. however, during christmas, sr. babs wanted to take a little break and everyone that was currently living with her had somewhere to go, except alberto. so, she called over to us, seeing if he could stay at the nph home for a week. well, he came and we all instantly fell in love with him. he's 14 years old, but i would never guess he's more than 10. he's so painfully thin, and extremely quiet and soft spoken, but is one of the sweetest kids i have ever met. he had a great week with us and had a lot of fun getting to be with so many kids his own age. i think for a little while he got to forget about how sick he was and just got to be a kid. needless to say, we were all very sad to see him go.

he was originally diagnosed with throat cancer. he has been through countless sessions of both chemo and radiation therapy that have left him quite weak. he has to eat extremely slow and often has to take a break to rest a little when he's tired, but other than that, i've never heard him complain about anything. sadly, about two month ago, we got another call from sr. babs asking if alberto could come back and stay with us for a while. it was sad in the sense that the reason she was asking is because the doctors have told her that his cancer has spread to his bones and the chemo doesn't seem to be helping anymore, so they felt like he could use a little break from treatment. so, sr. babs thought it would be good for alberto to come back here, to a place that was full of kids and things to do. his time here has just been great. i don't see him a whole lot since he isn't in either the house i work in or the house i eat in, but when i do get the chance to see him for a few minutes here or there, he always manages to bring a huge smile to my face.

he could really use some prayers though. he has to leave on monday to go back to the capital to be with sr. babs. then on the 26th, he will go back into the hospital for more tests. most likely, the results will not be good. it will probably not be a matter of whether he will get better, but how much time he has left. we are also hoping that, depending on what the doctors say, if he isn't going to continue with regular treatment, that he will be able to come back and live with us for a while. he hasn't yet been through any of the "regular procedures" of becoming an nph pequeño, considering his unique circumstance, so we hope the powers that be continue to make an exception for him. it's so hard to see him and know how sick he is.... and all you want to be able to do is just fix him. but i'm sure God has a plan for him far greater than anything we can and imagine and his ginormous heart and his optimistic personality have been an inspiration to all of us. if you can, please remember him in your prayers!

relaxing in semaná: i spent my weekend off with some of the other volunteers up north on the "semaná penisula". everyone in this country always talks about semaná and how it has the most beautiful beaches in the country, and it really does. i'll be honest, sometimes i feel guilty leaving every other weekend. don't get me wrong, the break is much needed and it's great to be able to see other parts of the country and sometimes get a hot shower (depending on the hotel), but i do feel bad leaving the kids and the tías. being able to do things like this (not only taking vacation, but even just being a volunteer in another country), is something that i often take for granted. the kids here are lucky when they get to leave the home and the majority of the tías never leave san pedro, much less the country. i don't know... i guess i should just enjoy and be grateful that i do have that opportunity. and we did have a nice time. it rained most of the weekend, which provided a lot of time to read and relax... but there were a few glimpes of sunlight, so we did have a little time to enjoy the beautiful beaches!

"si comprehendis non est deus" (if you understand him, he is not God.) - st. augustine

week 39: the little things (march 9-15)

2009-03-16T05:20:00.001-07:00

robocito: nothing too terribly exciting happened this week, but most of the time being here makes me realize how it's the little things in life that are the most important. for example, this week the boys in santa rosa and i spent most of our time after lunch playing with "robocito" ("little robot"). he is a little lego man that has lost his hat, so it has been replaced with a thumb tac by jose and josecito. basically robocito just likes to sit on the table and watch us eat or sit by and watch us play outside. but apparently this week he was feeling rather photogenic, so we took a bunch of pictures with him. my favorite part about robocito is his "bling-bling" which is a little gold ring that we put around his neck. (my other favorite part is listening to my boys say "bling-bling" in their spanish accents). it's things like robocito that make the kids here so special and i think i realized that these random times we spend hanging out, laughing in the backyard after lunch or after school are going to be some of my best memories from my time here.

adios canadians: this was also the last week of more than 2 months of groups from canada being here volunteering with us. so, it was our last weekend to make a trip to the pool. (every weekend, the canadians have taken a group of kids either to the beach or to a local hotel) this week we went with the baby house and the special needs kids, so it was quite the interesting combination. we had a great time though, swimming a ton and eating as much as we could at the lunch buffet! again, these kids find so much joy from things that i take for granted...like a dirty hotel swimming pool and an overcooked hamburger! ...but to them, they were the greatest things in the world.

"enjoy the little things in life, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things." - antonio smith

week 38: another visit from home (march 2-8)

2009-03-11T12:09:00.000-07:00

tyler: thankfully i have a big family (and really good friends!) and i’ve been able to have lots of people come visit me! this week tyler had spring break… so it was his turn to come visit. we hung out at the orphanage for a few days and he got to meet all the kids and do a little yard work. then on my weekend off i took him to the capital for a night and then to see the beach. we came back on saturday in the afternoon and my boys were ready to play, so we organized a baseball game. we ended up playing for about 2 hours… i think the final score was 60-53! it was so fun. then i promised the boys that we’d watch a movie, so tyler and i made a bunch of popcorn and brought over some girl scout cookies (a very new and exciting treat for these kids) and we ended up watching lady and the tramp… not the movie you’d think typical 12 year old boys would pick, but they really liked it. it was really good that tyler was able to come and be with the boys… they loved him. and they really need men in their lives. that is one big thing that is lacking here… all the tías are women… all the volunteers (with the exception of 1) are women… i often times feel bad for these boys that they don’t have a whole lot of men to look up to, so it was cool to see them with tyler. they were so excited to play with him and tried so hard to say his name correctly, but for some reason couldn't quite get it. even the toughest boy in my house, yendi, who can be really difficult at times, really opened up and was always asking if he could do something with tyler. thanks for coming channy!

caña: about 50 years ago, san pedro de macoris, the town i live in, was a booming sugar cane town. but, due to oversights by the government (they have never paid much interest to san pedro nor put in the efforts to make improvements in the town) and hurricane georges in 1988 (which left more than 1/3 of san pedro’s residences homeless), san pedro is now just a grimy little city, known only for producing more baseball players per capita than any other city. (impressive, but still...) however, as run down as san pedro is, sugar cane is still the basis of its existence and although they don't export as much as they used to, the sugar cane fields still surround the city. in fact, our home is right in the middle of one. so, whenever the kids are allowed out of the home, they want to go cut down sugarcane (caña). i have been telling them for 8 months that we will do it, so i thought it would be something fun to do while tyler was here. so, sunday afternoon after lunch, we headed out with our machete to cut some caña. (just so you know, a machete is a completely normal thing to be walking down the street with here... even for kids). so we walked about 15 minutes until we found a good patch of sugarcane... the boys had to teach us what to do since we have no idea. basically, sugarcane looks like a really skinny, long tree branch coming out of the ground, with some leaves on top. it's kinda red-ish in color on the outside and is really hard. the kids kick them down with their feet or chop them down with the machete. i don't know how they know which ones are the good ones, but they do. so, once we collected enough (about 4 per person), we went over to sit under a shady tree and learn how to eat the caña. the kids peel off the hard exterior part, using a machete (or their teeth if they are too impatient to wait for the next available machete). that opens it up to the sweet inside, whcih is a yellowish color... it's very hard and stringy. you are supposed to bite off a piece, chew it around in your mouth, suck out all the sugar juice, and then spit it out. the other way you can eat it is to smash it with a rock and then by twisting it, you can drink the juices that come out. i guess if you like really sweet things, it's pretty good. tyler and i could only eat a few bites and we were done, but i think the kids ate the equivalent of about 12 cans of soda each. it was a very funny day and quite an educational experience.

week 37: re-adjusting (february 23 - march 1)

2009-03-04T10:59:00.000-08:00

coming back: being home was so much fun, but it flew by so quickly! it was just a whirlwind of trying to see people and trying to eat tons of good food (which my stomach wasn’t very happy about). it was definitely weird though and i know when i come home for good it’ll be a tough adjustment. these are just two different worlds and it gives you a lot to think about. but anyway, since i've been back i've been just trying to enjoy my last 4 months here because i know it's going to be over before i know it! but it was so great to see so many of you while i was home and thank you so much for all your support and prayers!!

independence day: this friday, february 27 was independence day in the dominican republic, where they celebrate their independence as a country in 1844 and honor the country's heroes (duarte, mella, and sanchez). one of the traditions in san pedro is that all the schools march in a parade around the town. this year was the first year that our kids participated with all the other schools. fifty kids were chosen from our school from 3rd-7th grade to march. the other volunteers and i went into town to support our kids from the sidelines. there were hundreds of kids that marched from dozens of different schools… some sang, some chanted, others dressed up and/or played instruments. we had two parts to our group, the first group of kids marched with their school uniforms and their faces painted like the dominican flag. they carried the 16 different dominican flags to show how the code of arms has changed over the years. in the back, was another group of our kids that dressed up in traditional soldier gear, led by three kids dressed up as the three founding fathers mentioned above. all in all it was so great to see our kids out in the community participating with all the other schools. and they did such a great job. for a group that often times struggles with discipline, they took this event incredibly seriously and did an awesome job. i think they were really proud to march for their country and to represent their school and the home. all of us volunteers felt like proud parents sitting on the sidelines cheering them on!

"since God is unlimited, his love is unlimited. since God is everywhere, his love is everywhere." - st. john eudes

week 35 & 36: home! (february 9-22)

2009-02-04T06:12:00.000-08:00

i'm home for 2 weeks! come eat with me!

week 34: an eclectic week (february 2-8)

2009-02-04T06:11:00.000-08:00

random talents: this week's group from canada was characterized by random talents. they have been very helpful, fixing small problems in all the house, painting, building shelves and bookcases. but they have also brought a lot of people who have been able to share their talents with the kids. we have one girl who likes art, so she brought small canvases and has been having an art class every other day with 10 of the kids who really like art. then she is going to take home the paintings, with a picture of the child that created them, and sell them as a fundraiser.

then, we have another woman who loves to sew. so, she brought a bunch of fabric, thread and patterns and she has been teaching some of the girls to sew in the afternoons. (last year, she donated 15 sewing machines.) i went to the class with paola, but she is not very good with her hands, so we are doing it by hand, but i don't know how much help i am because i am a pitiful sewer (just ask kylie)... i thought you're supposed to tie the string on the needle... but i quickly learned that this is a no-no (woops... who knew). anyway, we are making a quilt with pre-cut fabric squares... it's 7 X 12
(84)... we've done 3.

we also have a woman who is an accountant, but in her spare time she volunteers as a clown at nursing homes and stuff. she has a ton of fun toys and magic tricks that the kids find fascinating. she also offered to come into the special needs home one day, which went really well. the kids laughed and laughed and we had a lot of fun. finally, to top it all off, we have a girl that plays the bagpipes... so she played amazing grace for us after mass on sunday. the kids were looking around a little nervous, like "what the heck is this noise and where is it coming from?", but it was cool.

elderly home: i like to try and take the special needs out and do something a few times a month since they don't go to school and it's good for them to get out of the house. we've done the beach several times and the park in san pedro, but this wednesday we decided to take a walk to a nearby batey. it's about a 30 minute walk down the road. when we got there apparently one of the tías knew about a home for the elderly, so we decided to go visit. it was quite the site. when you walk in, there is this long room just lined with bed after bed... with about 2 or 3 feet between each one. then in the back there is a small kitchen area with a covered area for the people to sit and eat and then a little outside "park"/sitting area for the people. i would say there were about 20-30 elderly people living there. it was so sad because it was just so dusty and dirty and so many people crammed into this small place. the people were very cute though... some were more with it than others, but they were all so grateful that we came to visit and told us that they never get any visitors. paola was so great with them too. for as difficult as she can be at times, she really is a great people person. she really senses suffering in other people and she's not afraid to talk to anyone. it was really cool to see her with these people. the weird thing about this place was that as different as it was from any places that we have like this at home, it smelled exactly the same as every alzheimer/nursing home that i've ever been in (well, mixed with a little more of a garbage smell). but it was very strange... something universal about the getting old process, i guess. it was a cool experience though and i hope we'll be able to go visit again.

day at the hotel: i think i mentioned last week that every sunday the canadian groups take 1 or 2 houses to the beach or to the hotel they stay in on the weekends, to spend the day swimming and eating. they also invite the volunteers and the tías of each house. so, this sunday it was casa santa rosa's turn, so i got to spend the day at the hotel with my boys. it was kinda sad because, very uncharacteristicly, it was rainy, cloudy, and cold all day long. but it didn't bother my boys... they jumped right into the pool and had a blast! the best part was lunch... the food wasn't that great... but the kids were hilarious. it was a buffet, and i don't know how many times the kids have been told, "eat as much as you want of whatever you want", but they were excited. i was trying to explain to them that they could come back through the line again once they were finished to get more food, but it didn't stop them from piling there plates hight with salad, rice, beans, chicken, hot dogs and 2 or 3 hamburgers. and i sat there and was kind of embarrassed because i was like, "oh these kids are going to waste all this food, this is horrible." but they didn't waste anything... they ate everything on their plates and then went back for more! i have never seen kids eat like this. they were so funny too because they were so cold from being wet in the pool. this one boy, josé (he's so tiny), he was just sitting there with blue lips, shaking uncontrollably, trying to fit the hamburger between his chattering teeth. i saw the coffee station behind me, so i asked him if he'd like a cup of coffee to warm him up (it was the only warm thing i could think of). well, after hearing this, everyone perked up and said, "i want a cup of coffee, i want a cup of coffee!". i was like, "oh no, what did i do?" so i asked the tía and she just laughed and said it was fine. so we all made our way over to the coffee table and i started pouring 14 cups of coffee. then of course we all had to add milk and about 17 sugar packets to each cup, but they were so cute all sitting around the table drinking their coffee. the poor tías... i'm sure they never went to bed that night!

"sing your praises... sing them loud as you dare..." - kalai

week 33: mucho trabajo.... eh? (january 26 - february 1)

2009-01-31T13:12:00.000-08:00

the canadians: this week began the first of almost 2 months of volunteer groups coming from canada. from now until mid-march, we will have over 100 canadians come in 4 different groups to do different projects for our kids, for the home and for the surrounding communities. the first week went really well and all the visitors were so nice and helpful. this first group included about 15 people from an irrigation company. they put an irrigation system in our garden and spent the rest of the week building a full size soccer field for our kids. they laid sod, put in sprinklers and brought two really nice, full sized goals and nets. it's going to take a few weeks to be ready, but they did an amazing job and we definitely will have some good soccer games in store for the future. some of the others from the group went over to the nearby batey (small village) and spent the week helping them build a school. they also did some other really nice stuff, like invite us over for dinner one night, had a bbq for all the kids and tías, and during their time here, they will manage to take each house to the beach or swimming pool with them one sunday afternoon. it's going to be a lot of work, but i think with their help, we are going to get a lot of really great things done for the home here.

the superbowl: in the midst of all the craziness with the visitors, i was able to escape on sunday to witness the historic event of the cardinals being in the superbowl! we found a hotel in juan dolio that had nbc (in english), so a group of 4 of us americans headed in to watch. it was a first time in a long time that i was more interested in the game than the food! (but i really did miss our amazing superbowl parties... pinneapple upside down cake!!) it was a good game, but too bad they couldn't pull it out. (sorry father eric, i sang the fight song for you in my head anyway). the hour long episode of the office made up for it all though!

"..and i knew exactly what to do, but in a much more real sense i had no idea what to do." - michael scott

week 32: baseball and family (january 19-25)

2009-01-31T13:11:00.001-08:00

baseball, baseball and some more baseball: i don't know why, but baseball was the story of the week here at nph. we have a really nice baseball field that was built for the kids by the boston red sox over the summer, but since it's on the other side of our property, i guess sometimes it's too far to walk... so the kids have been creating this new field in this open grass area we have between their houses and our volunteer house. so, every afternoon after school this week, we played ball. the kids love it and practically have to be pulled off the field every night by the tías to go home and shower and eat dinner. and on wednesday, the kids didn't have school because of the national holiday (feast day of our lady of altagracia), so we played for the whole entire morning and afternoon. it was just a good solid 4 or 5 hours... i was so sunburned and hot and thirsty and i think that if we wouldn't have lost our last ball in the bushes, we would have played until the sun went down!

family day, take 3: this sunday we also had another visitor's day, where the kid's relatives can come and visit for the day (i can't believe it's been 3 months since the last one!) it was a pretty relaxed day, mostly spent outside playing basketball or soccer and visiting with various moms, dads, grandparents, aunts/uncles and cousins that came to visit. it's always a day of mixed emotions... for both the kids that have family and those that don't. one of our newer boys luis, had a particularly hard day... i think he's only been here for about 2 months, so this would have been his first visitors day. he's a sweet kid, a quiet kid, but really, really smart. he lives in the house for new boys with his adorable younger brother. i think they are about 11 and 6 and they are just really great boys. they are always respectful, very friendly and really don't cause too much trouble at all (which is unusual, because usually the new kids have the toughest time). anyway, sunday afternoon, after all the visitors had left, i saw luis sitting all alone by the kitchen with his head drooped over on his knees. i went over and sat with him and he told me he was fine, but i could tell he was crying. so, i asked him a little about the day. he told me that his dad and grandmother came and he was just really sad that they had left. i told him that i was sure that they loved him very much and that it's really good that they came to visit and that he would get to see them again in 3 months... but i'm sure all of that really means nothing when you're 11 and living in a new place, trying to look out for your younger brother (which he's really good at) and all you really want to do is go home and be with your family. it's so sad because he's just such a sweet kid and your heart just breaks for him and you wonder why life can be so unfair sometimes. i guess the most we can do is love him and care for him and try and help him see that he can have a family here at nph too.

"the world breaks everyone and afterward many are stronger at the broken places." - ernest hemingway

week 31: today is my favorite day (january 12-18)

2009-01-21T16:53:00.001-08:00

this week was pretty relaxed. sydney hung out with me at the orphanage until thursday (and then headed off to keep traveling by herself). so, she got to see my normal weekly routine and how things work here. it was so good having her, but other than that it was a pretty normal week! so...

victor amable: i thought i'd take this time to share about one of my favorite kids here at nph. his name is victor amable... yes... that is his real name... i thought it was a joke, but it's his name. (amable means "nice" in spanish). but he really is just one of the sweetest kids here. he is 13 and lives in the house with the oldest boys. he is the smallest one, but it doesn't bother him one bit and doesn't stop him from being one of the most vocal and outgoing kids in the house. he has this great smile that goes from one ear to the other, with these perfectly straight white teeth and he is just constantly full of joy. (sometimes we call him "sonrisa" which means "smile") and he is just one of those kids with built-in charisma. he knows what to say and when to say it and who to say it to... but in a sweet way (even though he does know how to use his charm to his advantage when he can). back in october the kids used to have group bible studies in the afternoons and one afternoon everyone was being quite rambunctious and victor was trying to talk, so he just quietly and confidently stood up (i don't think he even comes up to my shoulders) and said to this group of 25 older kids, "if you could all please be quiet, i am trying to teach you something." and then he sat down and continued with what he was trying to say about that day's scripture. i keep telling him that i am going to come back and visit him one day when he is president of this country! but, my favorite story of victor comes from thanksgiving. he was walking around with kelly and i before dinner (he was one of the nine kids that was invited to our thanksgiving dinner) and kelly was telling him about how thanksgiving is her favorite holiday and how she just loves this day. so, i asked him what his favorite day of the year is (most kids answer christmas or their birthday), but victor said, "today". and kelly and i looked at him and asked why... no one in this country celebrates thanksgiving. and then he said very matter of factly, "well because i'm alive." and kelly and i kinda looked at each other and smiled and he said, "well it's true right? tomorrow we could be dead." i was speechless, and just said, "well yes victor, that is true." he's just one of those kids that puts a smile on your face and gives you hope for a world that sometimes doesn't seem to have too much. for whatever reason this kid that was orphaned and lives here with no brothers or sisters, finds a way to get up each morning with a positive outlook on life and puts a smile on his face... and somehow finds a way to share it with others.

our lady of altagracia: one interesting thing we did this sunday was drive to this basillica in a town called higuey (about 2 hours northeast of here) to go to mass. we only have one bus, so only about 2 or 3 kids got to go from each house (the rest went to mass at home). but one of the reasons we went is because next wednesday is the feast day of our lady of altagracia (the patron saint of this country). now this city that we went to, higuey, is famous for this basillica and it is pretty impressive looking. i've driven by it several times and always have wanted to go in, so i was excited for the opportunity to go to mass there. let's just say it ended up being a very interesting experience. these people in this country are catholic by tradition, but a lot of the reverence has been lost in many things. apparently this is a very big holiday and the church was absolutely packed (i can only imagine coming on wednesday, the actual feast day). only, it felt a little more like a concert than a mass. the parking lot was full of huge vans that had brought people from all different parts of the country, but also full of venders selling pizza and soda and other food and random religious paraphernalia. it was a really strange atmosphere. then inside during the mass, it was just so weird. people were every where. we had to stand in the back because there were no seats and there were people behind me giving confessions during the whole entire mass! and we were standing in front of the adoration chapel and people were walking in and out... a dog even walked in at one point!! plus the dominican people are just really loud and there were people talking and texting and moving about the whole mass... it was such a surreal experience. i seriously felt like crying, but i just tried to pray and focus. i was so disturbed by the time the mass was over and i was just trying to justify what just happened... i mean this can't be normal, right?! anyway, i had to just let it go and after mass we all went outside in these grassy fields and ate the rice and beans we had brought. then we ended up playing tag and leap frog for about 2 hours... it was a ton of fun and made me forget (sort-of) of the experience i had earlier at mass!!

"it is better to light one candle than it is to curse the darkness." - rob riner

week 30: finally a break (january 5-11)

2009-01-21T16:50:00.000-08:00

el día de los reyes: the holiday season finally came to an end this week with three king’s day (the epiphany as we know it). in many latin american countries, as well as the caribbean and spain, three kings day is celebrated even more than christmas… and while our kids received a few gifts on christmas, it is the tradition to exchange gifts on this day, reminding us of the gifts the three kings brought to Jesus. for this nph home, though, this day is even more special, because it is also the anniversary of when the house began. this year we celebrated the sixth year of nph-dr! we began the day with mass with the bishop, followed by some games and a presentation in the school. we then all shared lunch outside and afterwards the chicago group passed out the gifts they had brought for the kids. later in the day we finished up the soccer and volleyball tournaments that began back when school ended in december. none of my teams made it to the finals, but we all had fun watching. as fun as advent, christmas, new years and three kings were… they were a lot of work and it’s nice to know that we’ll get a little break now.

vacation w/syd: since i worked basically straight through the past 4 weeks without any break (since lex, kylie and leah were here), i was able to get an extra day off for my free weekend this week, which was really great because my friend sydney came to visit! i picked her up on public gua-guas at the airport in punta cana on wednesday afternoon and we began 4 days of adventures in the dominican. we headed up to this peninsula called semaná, on the northeast coast of the island. ever since i’ve been here i have been hearing how the prettiest beaches in the country were here on this peninsula… and they definitely were... just these gorgeous white sand beaches with beautiful blue water. and the best part was that there was hardly anyone there! we went to one town on the east side of the penisula called las galleras and then to another town on the west side called las terrenas. the weather was beautiful (aside from a little rain here and there), the water was perfect and for the most part, we had all the beaches to ourselves. it was amazing! it is however still the dominican republic, so we did hve our fair share of adventures… from crazy gua-guas and rickety ferry rides to seeing cows on the beach to eating breakfast with a donkey and walking for miles and miles because we are lost and no one could seem to tell us where we should go… sydney got to experience both the beautiful and crazy sides of this country. she learned to wonders of public transportation, how to sleep with the never-ending bachata music and the roosters that never seemed to learn how to crow at the right hour and how every day here can be an adventure and some days you are just happy to be alive! but all in all we had a great time and definitely have some memories to add to our list. thanks for coming sydalin!

"either we see the divine image in all created things, or we don't see it at all." - richard rohr

week 29: bringing in '09 (december 29 - january 4)

2009-01-05T08:02:00.000-08:00

a rough start to the week: being here is usually pretty emotionally and spiritually challenging, but i had my physical challenges at the beginning of this week. on sunday of last week i played basketball for a couple hours with some of the older boys. we've gotten some pretty intense games going lately and it's been really, really fun. however in the midst of our game on sunday night, i went up for a rebound and lost my footing and came down flat on my hip, followed by my head banging on the ground. i thought i might have a concussion, but i ended up being fine, just really sore for a few days. then, on monday night, we (me, kelly and marijo, one of the staff members) drove into town to do grocery shopping and on the way home our car overheated. so we died on this long dark road in the middle of the sugar cane fields, heading back to nph. i'm not gonna lie it was a little scary. it's not really the place 3 white woman want to be when it's dark out, plus our car was smoking and i thought the care was going to burst into flames at any minute. we ended up resting a little and then making it about 1/2 kilometer from nph before we died again. so at that point, we decided the best thing to do was just push it back home, so that is what we did. after that i was pretty tired and i really needed to take a shower (which i usually do at 4 in the afternoon because it's the hottest time of the day and the water doesn't feel so cold). anyway, it was about 9 pm and i don't konw why but for some reason the water was extra cold and i threw my head back quickly to get out of the way and immediately i felt something tear all down my neck and into my back. it was pretty sore for the night, but when i woke up the next morning i could barely move. i tried my best to get out of bed and get ready for the day, but i couldn't lift my head off my shoulder. so after about a half an hour of trying to forget about it, i just had to lay down because it was the only thing that didn't hurt. i ended up just having to lay flat on the floor for the whole entire day! luckily we have a volunteer that is a physical therapist so she was able to work on my at points during the day, but she said it was best that i just didn't move. it was so embarrassing too because everyone was asking me how i hurt myself and i had to say "taking a shower"!

new year's eve: i felt pretty blessed thinking about the past couple new years... i brought in '06 in hawaii, '07 in new jersey, '08 in england and here i am bringing in '09 in the dr. very crazy. it was another good new years here... simple and laid back. the volunteers were in charge of putting together a little show again like we did for christmas, except this time it was the tías that did the talent show. the volunteers also had to do a performance... we did a "dance" to one of the bachata songs they have here. (it was more a way to make fun of ourselves because the kids just don't understand how anyone in the world could not know how to dance... apparently they come out of the womb ready to dance!) then the whole home had dinner together on the basketball court and then afterwards we had some music and dancing while we waited for midnight. then we made a big bonfire that we all gathered around and said some prayers to bring in the new year. it was a very fun night.

a good end to the week: even though '08 had a rough end, i had a great start to '09. we had a group from chicago come on new year's eve for a week to help out with various projects, so most of the rest of my week was spent with them. they brought gifts for three king's day (epiphany) so we worked on organizing those. there was also a group that worked hard laying cement so we could have more sidewalks and another group of dentists that came to give check-ups and fill cavities. it was a busy end to the week, but they were a great group of people and really fun to work with.

also, on saturday i got to go to the beach with my boys from casa santa rosa because of a deal they made with the director of the house (a reward for their hard work). we had a blast learning how to float, taking underwater pictures, jumping over waves and trying to catch fish is plastic bottles. (more pics here... http://dominicanrepubliccitypics.shutterfly.com/)

then on sunday i got to go out on a home visit (whenever kids are referred to nph, the social worker goes out to visit the family, take notes and eventually there is a meeting with other people at the home to determine whether or not nph is a good fit.) anyway, this family we visited was a 35 year old mother with 10 kids... the oldest was 16 and the youngest were 4 month old twins. it was a very interesting experience. it was myself, a staff member from nph and a nun from the area where this family lived (she had referred them to us). they lived in this tiny, tiny little tin hut. we all sat outside and talked with the mother about their life, about the fathers (there are 3) and about how she would feel if her kids came to live with us. they then asked the kids how they felt about coming to live at the orphanage and they all said that they wanted to... but we could tell by the way they looked at their mother that they had been coached before we came. i can't image what it must feel like to have your mom ask you to lie and say you want to leave her and at the same time i can't imagine trying to raise, feed and clothe ten kids alone in a house the smaller than most of our kitchens. it may seem selfish of her, but she could just be trying to do what she thinks is best for her kids. i don't know... the kids were so cute too and it's hard because i just sat there and wanted to take them home with us and at the same time i thought about how many other cases there are out there like this one and just how hard life can be for some people. even though it was kind of a hard experience and made me a little depressed about the world, it was something that i was very glad that i had the opportunity to do and we’ll see if the kids end up becoming part of our family one day.

finally, in addition to our home visit, we brought along one of our pequeños, sebastián. he was one of the original six kids that was here when the home started. now he is ten years old and his grandfather lives close to where we were going, so we brought him along so we could stop by and see his grandfather. we had to drive out for about another hour in what seemed like the middle of nowhere to a place with all these plantain tree fields, but we finally arrived at his house and luckily he was just getting home from working in the fields. he didn’t have a phone so it was really hit or miss if we’d catch him. sebastián was raised by his grandfather after his mother was sent to jail for killing his father (really sad story)… but sebastián is the sweetest kid and he has a ginormous heart, and after meeting his grandfather, you can see why. he was just so sweet and you could tell how much he loved sebastián and how glad he was to see him. he then took us over to meet sebastián’s great-grandparents (age 95 and 100!). they were so cute and so nice and even though his great-grandfather could barely see or hear, he was so happy to have sebastián there. it was a really good end to the week.

"as gratitude flows from our lips, the glory of God is magnified."

week 28: it's the most busiest time of the year (december 22-28)

2008-12-29T07:35:00.000-08:00

i'm so tired: i learned a whole different way that you can be "stressed" during the christmas season this year. our time wasn't spent in check-out lines or baking or going to christmas parties... but we definitely kept ourselves busy. las mañanitas continued this week... on the 23rd the volunteer house and staff was in charge of dressing up, so i got to be one of the three kings, but it meant we had to get up at 4:00 to prepare. then on the 24th we woke up early as well because we did las mañanitas in the nearby batey (small village). the volunteers also organized a talent show to do on christmas eve, so each house prepared a presentation (song, skit, dance, etc). we were all in charge of helping three houses prepare, so much of the week was spent practicing and making costumes, etc. we also had gift donations and various other activities. looking back on the past week, it was a lot of work with little sleep, but i think all the kids had a good time, so it was worth it.

noche buena: noche buena, or christmas eve, was probably the longest day we had. like i said it started at about 4:00 am when we got up to prepare for walking to the batey to do las mañanitas. the afternoon was spent setting up the school and preparing the kids for the talent show. we had mass at 5:00, where 8 kids received their first communion. it was a really nice mass and they actually sang some traditional sounding christmas carols, so i felt a little more like it was christmas. after mass we all had dinner in the school. (we were supposed to have dinner and the talent show out on the basketball court, but it rained all day so everything got moved inside). after dinner, we began the talent show. before the houses presented, there was a play by some of the older kids. it was a cute story, written by one of our high school girls, about jesus when he was about 12, getting ready for his birthday party. mary and joseph were at home preparing for the party, but jesus was sad because people weren't coming... so he went out and encountered all these different people who weren't getting into the christmas spirit and invited them to his birthday party... it was really cute. then, each house presented what they had prepared. i prepared a really short thing with casa san pascual where paola was dressed up as santa claus; kaki, genesis and jackelin as reindeer; and rosali as an elf and then they "danced" around to "here comes santa claus". then casa santa rosa prepared a skit and the other house i was in charge of prepared a dance to "feliz navidad". we had a group of people judging the performances because the top 6 out of 12 were going to perform again the following night, in a final round to pick the top 3 winners. none of my houses made it to the second round, but no one was too upset about it. the night ended (after cleaning and setting up for mass in the morning) around 11:30, so we were all pretty tired and ready for bed.

christmas: christmas began with mass at 9:00 am and then all the volunteers came back to the house to make popcorn and stuff piñatas with candy. then a local group came to pass out gifts to the kids so we helped with that. later, we passed out more gifts for the kids from the house (clothes and other stuff that had been donated at various times throughout the year). we then prepared for round 2 of the talent show in the school. (there were a couple hours break in the middle of the day and i got to listen to the second half of the suns/spurs game online... and as al mccoy would say... heartbreak hotel!! so sad!) then it was time to head to the school for the final round of the talent show. we began this show with a bilingual singing of "white christmas", first by the high school kids in english and then some of the other kids in spanish. it was really cute and they showered us with "snow" (crushed up styrofoam) when the song ended. we then continued with the show. the night was a lot of fun and the houses that won were really excited... they recieved a trip to the beach, a trip to the movie theaters and a trip to the ice cream store.

piñatas: piñatas are a tradition that has been brought over from mexico. during the week, each house was responsible for making a piñata out of paper mache. they then brought them to the house of the volunteers, so we could stuff them with candy and confetti. we were supposed to do the piñatas in the afternoon on christmas, but it rained pretty much all day, so it got postponed until friday. the tradition is that each house comes forward one at a time and gathers in a circle around the piñata. then they move around in the cirlce, singing the piñata song (which i have no idea what the words are), while taking turns hitting the piñata. it started raining again while we were doing the piñatas, but we just continued anyway. from what everyone says, the rainy season ends in november and it hasn't rained on christmas in years, so it was really unusual weather. but we carried on and the kids loved it... although i'm really surprised no one got hurt... they were swinging this stick around as hard as they could and not doing a very good job of staying in the circle, and then when the candy fell it was big dives into the concrete, leaving huge dogpiles of kids struggling to get a lollypop... it was quite a sight!

"and it is in the life of Jesus that God puts skin on to show us what love looks like." - shaine claiborne

week 27: it's beginning to look a lot like christmas... (december 15-21)

2008-12-29T07:32:00.000-08:00

las mañanitas: actually, it doesn’t really look or feel like christmas at all here, but that’s ok, i'm trying my best. i think maybe because it's still so hot and dominican christmas music doesn't sound like the christmas music i'm used to... but i am learning some new christmas traditions. for example, this week began what is called "las mañanitas". basically, it is christmas caroling... but at 5:00 am! it's like a novena, so nine days before christmas we began. then every morning at 5:00 all of the kids get up, put on their sweatshirts (because when it's 70 degrees everyone is freezing here), collect their tamborines and pots and pans (or anything they could use for drums) and begin christmas caroling house to house. every day a new house is in charge of starting... so they start with the house next store and continue in order and every time they sing in front of someone's house, the people of that house come out and join them, so by the end everyone is together. the kids have so much energy at such an early hour... it's incredible! once everyone is together, we all travel to the basketball court to gather in front of the manger scene that is set up. every day there is also a house in charge of dressing up as the different people from the christmas story (mary, joseph, the 3 kings, etc)... then on the basketball court they act out a different part of the story. that is then followed with a prayer and the reading of the day's gospel. then the tradition is to head back to the houses where we drink ginger tea and eat crackers. it has been a cool way to prepare for christmas... it's less of a temptation here to forget the real reason for christmas, because we aren't so focused on gifts and shopping and all that, but it's always good to stay focused. and each morning before the prayer ends, sister fanny reminds the kids, "si no hay encuentro con dios..." (if there isn't an encounter with God...), and they shout in reply, "no hay navidad!!!!" (there is no christmas).

good-bye family: we had to say goodbye to leah on monday because she is a good third grade teacher and went back to be with her kids. but lexy and kylie still had two more days of dominican life, so they got to have a little taste of what life is like for me here on a daily basis. they got to spend time in casa san pascual with me where they learned how crazy life can be with kaki, paola and gang in the special needs house, we played after school with my boys from santa rosa (reading, drawing, soccer and just having fun in the backyard) and they spent some time helping out in the school in english classes. monday night is usually the night i do grocery shopping, so i got permission to bring salomon (my godchild) and carlos (kylie's godchild) with us. we did our grocery shopping and then took the kids to the dominos that is in the grocery store and got some soft-serve icecream afterwards. it was cute... salomon and carlos are really sweet kids and they got dressed up in their nicest clothes and were very well behaved... they even led us in the prayer before we ate our pizza. we then taught them our famous "aaaaaaamen" with the hand roll at the end of our prayer. they looked at us like we were really weird... but we had a really good time. it was sad the girls had to leave so soon, but we had a lot of fun and made a lot of memories... plus being with family helped it feel a little more like christmas!

p.s. lexy took about 1,600 pictures (well kylie and i took about 100, and lexy about 1,500)... i'm going to work on posting some of them at http://dominicanrepubliccitypics.shutterfly.com/ soon. lexy's are credited with "lp"... check out her photography at http://lexypopaphoto.shutterfly.com/

"if the thing we like doing is, in fact, the thing God wants us to do, yet that is not the reason for us doing it, it remains a mere happy coincidence." - c.s. lewis

week 26: let the chaos begin (december 8-14)

2008-12-29T07:28:00.000-08:00

immaculate conception: this week began with a celebration of the immaculate conception on monday. eight days before, we began a novena and each of the houses prayed the rosary at 5:00 every evening. then this monday, the last day, we did one big rosary with everyone that was really cool. we set up five different stations, each one having a small shrine in commemoration of mary. then as a big group, we traveled to each station, saying one decade of the rosary at each one. afterwards, we all gathered together in the school to have mass. it was a good way to start the week and i enjoyed celebrating this holy day as a big community.

lexy, kylie & leah: another great part of this week is that lexy, kylie and leah came to visit! i picked them up at the airport on wednesday night after work and we headed to the capital. i got permission to take thursday off instead of sunday, so we stayed 2 nights in the capital and 1 night in a little beach town called juan dolio. the four of us wandering around this crazy country was quite an adventure... especially trying to get around with public transportation and all of our luggage (which included all the treats and christmas gifts they brought me)... we definitely made a scene everywhere we went. we had a great time though... we paid $1 to buy corn and let pigeons fly all over us... we toured around the colonial zone of santo domingo... we shopped and bartered til our feet hurt... we had dinner on the beach... and even saw a real live dominican baseball game. the stories and adventures are too many to name here... but i'll have tons of pictures up soon (mostly taken by lexy) and let those speak for themselves!

soccer game: we ended the week with a big soccer game on sunday. it was time for my house (santa rosa) and kelly's house (san miguel) to play each other again... so we decided to invite our guests to play. lexy and leah played with me and my boys and kylie played with kelly and her boys because kylie's godson, carlos, lives in casa san miguel. it was a fun game, but my team got crushed. my boys are a lot smaller than the other guys and it seems to matter a lot more in soccer than baseball... plus i wasn't too much help and our best player twisted his ankle about 10 minutes into the game. we ended up losing 3-0... we tried hard and played til the last second... lexy was convinced that if we kept playing we would have at least gotten one goal, so the boys wouldn't have felt so bad... but it never happened. oh well... better luck next time, santa rosa!

week 25: feeling hopeful (december 1-7)

2008-12-07T15:10:00.000-08:00

new members of the faith: we had the great blessing of having a priest come a few weeks ago, who will be here for the next 5 months! his name is padre eduardo and he is from canada. he has been coming to the home here since it began and he stays for about 5 or 6 months every winter. it's great to finally have a priest around because we can finally have mass in the school every week and do other sacraments that we weren’t able to do before… plus he’s just a really, really precious old man… all the kids love him and some of the little ones think he’s father wasson, which is cute and we don’t have the heart to tell them that he died 2 years ago. so, since father is here, we got to have baptisms in the special needs house this week, which was cool. all four of the kids that haven’t been baptized (kaki, genesis, lisbeth, and rosali) were baptized by father eduardo and i got to be the god-mother of three of them. at first i was a little upset when i heard that we’d be doing them in the house with just a few tías and staff members present… i thought it should be done in the school, with the whole community present, but i soon learned that it was better we did it in the house! the whole thing was great, but the kids were definitely themselves… kaki screamed (his happy scream) and clapped his hands through the whole thing. rosali laughed so loud, as she always does, especially as the water was being poured over her head. genesis sat in her chair in her own little world, making the humming noise she always makes. it was a crazy experience, but very fun at the same time… and now i have 3 god-children!

finding hope in a tin shack: i'm not gonna lie… i think a lot of times my blog is a little misleading. i write a lot about the fun experiences we have (and there are a lot of fun experiences) and all the things i'm learning (and i am learning a lot about myself and life in general), but a lot of times i find myself wondering what i'm doing here! i know that just sharing joy and love with these kids on a daily basis is something, but a lot of times i can’t help but think about the long term… what is the future for these kids? yes, a lot of them have been pulled off the streets, or out of abusive families and that’s good… but what’s going to happen when they go back out there? you look around san pedro, or around this country, and it’s easy to feel hopeless. you drive around at 10 am and see the men sitting in their plastic chairs with a presidente (the local beer), listening to bachata music… and you know these are their only plans for the day. you see the 25 year old women who already have 5 kids with 4 different fathers, none of which are anywhere to be found and it's hard to no feel somewhat hopeless. i mean sure it’s great that we bring these kids here, give them clothes and food, send them to school, and give them a roof over their heads, but is it enough to help them rise above the world out there?

i feel this a lot and question what exactly i can do here in only a year… and worry about what is going to happen to these kids when they leave. this sunday, however, i got an opportunity find some hope. i was walking over to salomon’s house to have lunch and he asked me if i wanted to go visit his mother with him and his family. so i said yes. i had no idea where we were going or why on this random sunday we are going to visit his mother, but i went a long for the ride. we went with his two older sisters, and one older brother. we didn’t drive too far, just about 20 minutes to a nearby town called sante fe. we drove through the dusty, bumpy road of this small town and watched the people going about their daily lives… people sitting outside their houses, buying a soda at the corner store, kids running down the streets… and i couldn’t help but wonder if the four kids i was riding with were thinking the same thing i was… why do they live in an orphanage, when their mother is just 20 minutes down the road?

even though i'm solomon’s god-mother and i've been here for 6 months, i really don’t know the story of him and his family... i don’t know if it’s my place to ask. i know they’ve lived at the orphanage for 3 ½ years. i know they have a mother, a father and a grandfather that love them enough to come visit them every 3 months on visitors day. i know their mom’s house is a tin shack about the size of my bedroom at home… with curtains separating the kitchen, bedroom and living room. i know their mom removed a bottle of alcohol from the table as we walked in at 11:00 am, and then i watched her pull down her tank top and show us the scars from the latest operation on her chest. i know the kids were quieter sitting in that living room that i've ever seen them. but i don’t know what they’ve been through. and as i sat there in the awkward silence of the living room, i couldn’t help but think about the stories of all our kids and the strength that they have. yeah it’s frustrating some days when there is a constant struggle with these kids… to get them to listen, to show respect, to want to learn, to have some discipline. but as i sat there i thought about how what some of these kids have been through is enough to put most of us in counseling for years... but these kids just have to move on. they get up everyday and carry on with their lives. and i thought that maybe it’s true... maybe we are pulling them out of this cycle of poverty and giving them a chance. i looked at deborah, the oldest, who is a great student and a great kid, who wants to go to university and become an oncologist, and i wondered if she would have those same hopes and dreams if she had spent the last 4 years living in this house with her mother. a lot of these kids might end up leaving here and falling right back into what they came from, but maybe some of them won’t. maybe what we give them is a chance that they might not have had otherwise… and maybe that’s enough.

"it is Christ in you, the hope for glory." - colossians 1:27

week 24: fiestas (november 24-30)

2008-12-07T15:07:00.000-08:00

he's back!: this was a crazy busy week, but i had a lot of opportunities to eat good food (well good for here), so that was good. first of all, our good friend mario (the baker from italy who came in september) came back for a visit. he's such a sweet little old man and makes life so interesting when he’s here. he still continues to speak to all of us in italian, even though we have no idea what he’s saying… but it doesn’t seem to bother him and we usually find a way to communicate… and he’s picking up on some spanish and i’ve learned a few italian words. he made us delicious bread all week and one of the volunteers had their birthday, so he made us this amazing onion pizza and focaccia bread. grazie mario!

a dominican thanksgiving: i was a little nervous for thanksgiving this year because i've never spent thanksgiving away from my family and it was really sad thinking about how i wouldn’t be there to watch planes, trains and automobiles, watch tyler and drew’s home videos and eat cindy rolls (and all the other delicious food made by mom, gramz and crew)… but after it was all said and done, it ended up being a pretty good thanksgiving. there are three americans that live here, myself, kelly (my roommate), and marijo (who has worked with nph for over 30 years). we sat down a few weeks ago and worked out a list of people to invite, which ended up being about 30 people, then we got to work. well, i think i was being paid back for all the years of sitting back and watching while my mom and grandma made all the food, because i was so stressed all day! it’s not a holiday here so we still had to work and then cook and have everything ready by 7:00. so we were all running around like crazy all day, but some how it all came together and ended up being a great dinner. as we all gathered around the table to pray, we pointed out that we had 8 different countries present (usa, germany, haiti, dominican republic, holland, austria, france, columbia), so that was pretty cool. we wanted to be able to invite all the kids, but it was just impossible, so we decided to invite the high school kids (there are only 9). i think they had a good time and it was fun to get to share with them one of our traditions, even though they were a little surprised when they found out there was no rice on the menu or bachata music and dancing. overall though, i had my turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes and gravy and got to eat it all in a way that i'll probably never get to do again… so it was a good day.

quinceaños: to end the week of parties we celebrated the quinceaños of three of the girls here. in latin american culture, when a girl turns 15 it a very big birthday… it is their transition from a girl to a woman. they get really dressed up and the tradition is that they come in their flat shoes and then they sit down and their father (in this case, the director of the house played the role of the father) changes them for high heels… to signify them transitioning into adulthood. then there is food and music and dancing. it was a good party and it’s cool that these kids still get to do things like this… for kids who have lost so much and experienced so much pain in their short lives, it’s good that they can come here and feel like they have a family and experience some of the “normal” things of life.

"when we trust profoundly that today is the day of the Lord and that tomorrow is safely hidden in God's love, our faces can relax and we can smile back at the one who smiles at us." - henri nouwen

week 23: back to reality (november 17-23)

2008-11-23T14:49:00.000-08:00

i ate a fish with an eyeball: well this week it was back to “normal life”. after all the excitement and adventure of haiti, this week was pretty chill and relaxed. i did, however, eat a fish with an eyeball. i took the special needs house to the beach and there were some fishermen that had just come in with their fish. so they were cleaning them and selling them on the beach and one of the tías decided to buy some. now i'm an arizona girl and definitely not a seafood connoisseur… i eat tuna out of the can and sometimes salmon or some whitefish, but it always comes in a nice package at the grocery store and all that’s there is the meat. so, we returned to the house and as i was walking out the door later that afternoon, the tía was like, “wait megan you have to eat fish before you go.” so i stood there and stared at the whole fish she was frying on the stove, with the tails and bones and the eyeballs that seemed to be staring at me, and cheerfully said, “oh sí”. so i ate it… it wasn’t bad, just had to pick around the bones and try not to look at the eyeball. a lot of the volunteers have determined that every day is an adventure cuz you never know what’s going to happen… so this was my adventure for the day.

breakfast of champions: i also had a fun breakfast with my boys this week. before the first baseball game, we promised the winner the prize of an american breakfast. since the first game ended a little controversially, we decided to play a second and since each team won one game, we decided to serve everyone breakfast. originally we wanted to make pancakes, but when the number doubled from 15 to 30 adolescent boys that we’d be serving, we opted for cereal and toast… which doesn’t sound that exciting, but it’s exciting for them because they never eat cereal (they usually eat some sort of mushy oatmeal stuff for breakfast… i honestly couldn’t tell you what it is). it was fun to see how all these things that were always just in my house growing up, that i never thought about, be so exciting to these kids. we put peanut butter on the toast, which they loved and they couldn’t get enough of the fruit loops and the milk… especially the milk… even when the cereal was gone they kept coming up to ask us to fill their bowls with milk so they could drink it. i know it sounds really cliché to talk about you come to some poor country and suddenly realize all the things you take for granted... but it’s really true.

"where God is, there is joy; where God is, there is calm; where God is, there is happiness." - st. bernard

week 22: crossing the border (november 10-16)

2008-11-19T15:58:00.000-08:00

road trip: the nuestros pequeños hermanos homes in the dr and haiti have a very strong connection... the national director here worked for 12 years in haiti before deciding to come start the home here, many staff members have worked/lived in haiti and there are many ex-pequeños who work here. so, for the past 5 months i have been hearing a lot about haiti and how things work at the home there. one thing that people talk about a lot is the special needs home and how wonderful it is. the director here has been encouraging me to go visit, especially since we are working with this group in chicago to build a new special needs home. so, i got a group of volunteers together (because i did not want to go alone!) and our director let us take one of the nph vans and a driver and we headed off to haiti. it was about a 12 hour trip each way with stops and trying to get through the border. it's amazing though once you do cross the border how much different it is. haiti and the dominican republic may be on the same island, but they are two different worlds. sure the dominican republic is poor compared to the united states, but i've never seen anything quite like haiti.

nph haiti: situated only a few hundred miles from florida, haiti is the poorest country in the western-hemisphere (the average annual income per family is $250 (usd) per year). while it is on the same island as the dominican republic, it is very mountainous and does not have the access to natural resources that the dr does. the people lack sources of natural energy, clean drinking water, jobs (80% unemployment rate), education (60% illiteracy rate), and any kind of stable economy or effective government leadership. haiti is also one of the most densely populated countries in the world… just a little smaller than the state of maryland, its population is estimated at 8 million. for the average person living in haiti, daily life is very hard.

nph-haiti, or npfs (nos petit frères et soeurs), was founded by fr. wasson in 1988 and has become the home to hundreds of orphaned and abandoned children over the past 20 years. the npfs organization in haiti has three separate locations: the orphanage, the administration office, and the hospital/special needs center. the main orphanage, called st. hélène, is located 5,000 ft. above sea level in the cool mountains outside of a town called kenscoff. here there are about 480 children living in small homes similar to the ones we have here in the dominican republic. they also have 2 schools for these children and another 200 children that come in from the outside on daily basis.

about an hour down the mountain in a town called pétionville, lies the administration office (former hospital), called the father wasson center. here the office staff works and there are also development classes and job trainings for former pequeños and a physiotherapy/rehabilitation center for children with developmental disabilities.

about 20 minutes from there, in the town of tabarre, is the new hospital, called st. damien chateaublond, and special needs center, called st. germaine. the coolest thing in my opinion about npfs-haiti is all the outreach they do for the community, outside of the close to 500 kids that actually live in the orphanage. the hospital and special needs center are located almost 1 ½ hr. from the actual orphanage, so they are mainly serving the surrounding community. the hospital, which has 120 beds for in-patient care and serves about 100 out-patient kids daily, focuses mainly on HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malnutrition and cancer. they also have a dental clinic, laboratory and public health facility. next door, at the special needs center, dozens of kids come in daily (many with their parents) to receive all different types of therapy, education and treatment. it's estimated that all these programs reach about 30,000 haitians every year.

kay christine: it addition to the special needs outreach center that serves the community, there is an amazing special needs home called kay christine, within the orphanage at kenscoff. it was here that i met a wonderful woman named gena. gena came to haiti about 15 years ago from ireland. she came to volunteer with no experience working with special needs kids, ended up falling in love with her work and the kids and is still there, with no intention of leaving. the things she has done with the special needs kids were amazing and inspiring. the home has 30 special needs kids with every kind of disability imaginable. she has developed a home where all the kids are cared for, loved and their needs are met. she has a staff of about 30 haitains (about 20 at a time) that have been trained to come in and take care of these children… feeding, cleaning, playing and even providing physical therapy for those who need it. the best part is that it seems that every child has his or her place. for many of the kids who are severely physically handicapped and in wheelchairs, life is very simple… they eat, are changed and taken for a walk, but most importantly given love and affection by the caretakers. for the more capable kids, they have chores and jobs and contribute to life at the orphanage. one of the things the special needs kids take great pride in is their homemade peanut butter. every week peanuts are brought in and the kids that are capable de-shell all the peanuts, then they help with the roasting and smashing (and whatever else goes into making peanut butter) process and the peanut butter is distributed to all the houses in the orphanage. and it’s delicious!

it was also cool because we happened to come on one of the days that the special needs kids got to go horseback riding. all the kids from the orphanage that are capable (plus a number for the special needs outreach center) all headed down to a nearby horseback riding center. i guess it is something they have been doing for years and some of the older kids are really good. one girl has even won multiple awards in the special olympics in miami. being at kay christine and seeing everything that gena has done was great, but also a little overwhelming. looking at someone like her, who has devoted her whole life to this, you start to wonder what you can do in only a year’s time. but then i guess we just have to be thankful that there are people in the world like gena, who have the strength and desire to do such wonderful things and be inspired by their example.

morning hikes and delish food: when i decided to go to haiti, i tried to prepare myself for what would probably be a very hard trip (and at times, it was) but i had no idea that it would also be almost like a little retreat. now i'm sure if i had just went trekking about haiti by myself, it would have been a different experience, but i was lucky enough to be able to stay in the visitor house/retreat center at the orphanage. now like i said, the orphanage is up in the mountains and it is absolutely gorgeous. there are amazing trees, beautiful views and it was cold! now, there were downfalls… things that reminded us that we were in haiti. for example, while we get electricity about 12 hours a day in the dr, this home gets it for 3 hours, if they’re lucky. i also learned how to take a bucket shower, in which you stand in the shower in a bucket, then take another bucket (of ice cold water) and use that to wash your body and hair, letting the water fall into the bucket you are standing in. then, all that water is poured into another bucket to be used later for flushing the toilet. (really makes you think about how we waste water on a daily basis.) but the beauty and peacefulness of this home up in the mountains really overshadowed any of these things. the home is about a good 40 minute hike from the very top of the mountain, so every morning i got up at 5:00 to take a hike and watch the sunrise at the top. it was absolutely beautiful. and we ate really well too… really simple, but really delicious. lentil soup, homemade bread (the home makes its own bread every monday, wednesday and friday) and homemade peanut butter. yum.

funeral ministry: i saw and heard a lot of amazing things in haiti and with most of them came a story of fr. rick. fr. rick, i came to find out, is a priest from the states who has been with npfs-haiti since the beginning. (unfortunately i was unable to meet him because he was off helping with the nearby schools that had collapsed… maybe you heard about that on the news). one of the stories of fr. rick that stuck out in my mind the most was the story of his funeral ministry. now, like i've tried to explain, the dr is poor, but haiti is just on a different level. there is only one hospital for every 100,000 people and for many people that hospital is very far away. people lack food, clean water and most diseases go untreated. haiti is a country where 1/5 of all children die before the age of 5 and the average life expectancy is 51 years old. every day people die in the hospitals and on the streets and most bodies are never claimed and the identity of the people is never known. to people like fr. rick, something like this is unacceptable. so, he has a house just a little down the mountain from the orphanage, where he builds caskets out of cardboard and wood. every week he and the ex-pequeños, or older pequeños in the home, take time to build caskets and then go to the morgue and take the unclaimed bodies. they then give them a proper burial and a catholic funeral so they can be put to rest in dignity. just hearing about it was pretty crazy, i can’t imagine actually doing it… actually picking through dead bodies that no one wants, cleaning them up and burying them… but again, there are some amazing people in this world

tap-taps: the public transportation in haiti is pretty much the same as in the dominican, but a lot more colorful. i was introduced to the strange world of what is called a “tap-tap”. basically people get trucks of all different shapes and sizes and board up the bed of the truck with wood or whatever. then they decorate them… very colorfully… it’s like a work of art. then they make places to sit in the back and basically just start throwing in as many people as they can. they are everywhere and, like in the dr, you can take them anywhere… get on wherever you want and get off wherever you want… you just give a little “tap-tap” on the side to let the driver know you want out (hence, the name). i had the unfortunate, but memorable, experience of taking a tap-tap from pétionville (at the bottom of the mountain) to the orphanage at kenscoff (at the top of the mountain)… it is a bumpy, narrow, very windy road, with people crammed into every crevice and no way to see the outside. now i come from a family that can’t swing on the swings at the park, never mind ride any type of roller coaster or anything like that, without getting sick to their stomach. let's just say it was a very long hour and while tap-taps are fun to look at, i found that i’d rather stay on the outside.

the kids: we didn’t get to spend a whole lot of time with the kids, but what we did get to do was really fun. they were all so sweet… and just like the kids at our orphanage, they love visitors. i did however feel like i was back at square one in terms of communication though because everyone speaks creole… it’s similar to french, so most of the kids understand that too, but i don’t speak either, so it really didn’t matter. it was very overwhelming, but they were just so sweet. a really cool thing happened with the kids though… we went to visit one of the boys houses just to see what it was like and ended up deciding that we would play a game of soccer the next day after school. when we got to the court the next day, we weren’t able to play our game because there was already a game going on between the girls!! it was so inspiring… and they were so good! it kinda gave kelly and i hope for our girl’s sports program (which is struggling a little right now). the last day the kids put on a show for us with singing and dancing and even gave us homemade haitian art (keychains, things to hang on the wall, etc…) it was so sweet and they were just so loving and grateful, which was so interesting because we were only there for 4 days and didn’t even get to spend much time with them. i don’t think they realized that we were there to learn from them!

inspired: i'm not gonna lie it was a lot to think about and i’m not really sure that i've still processed everything. you can’t help but look at a country like that and feel somewhat hopeless or overwhelmed, that the world is a mess and nothing is going to change anytime soon. and i couldn’t help but wonder what i'm doing in a country that has seemingly has so much more… clearly there’s a greater need in haiti, right? and then at the same time, i look at the npfs-haiti home and see a home that has been running for 20 years and when you compare it to the orphanage we have here, we have a lot of work to do. it was an easy temptation to look at everything they had there and get frustrated or to complain about all the problems we have, or the things that aren’t going right… but at the end of the day, i think we all walked away with a sense hope. everything else aside, it was an inspiring trip… to be in the midst of this country that is a disaster and to be inside an orphanage that was kinda a refuge from it all, a place of peace and hope was a good feeling. and to see an orphanage that has been functioning for many, many years and seems to be doing it “right” inspired us and gave us a new excitement to come back to our kids in the dr.

tons’o’pictures here… http://dominicanrepubliccitypics.shutterfly.com/

***(side note) - rematch: on the monday before we left for haiti, the kids were off of school for some holiday, so my boys and i finally got to play a re-match with the other boys that we tragically lost to in the rain back in september. the game began much like the last and by the end of the 3rd inning we found ourselves down 6-0. i could tell the kids were down, but i was determined (i think i'm probably more competitive than they are), so i gave a little pep talk and we held them in the top of the 4th. then i don't know what happened, but we scored 6 runs in the bottom of the 4th, tying the game. we went back and forth the next few innings and we found ourselves down 10-11 in the bottom of the seventh. it wasn't quite as dramatic as the last game (no rain, or thunder or questionable calls), but we did manage to score two runs and win the game. we were all very excited! the boys also love to play soccer, so we told them our next two games will be soccer games... should be interesting for me, because while the kids get excited when i'm up to bat in baseball, they might want to trade me when they see my soccer skills... we'll see…

"if you wish God to stoop down to reach you, carry the woes of Christ crucified in your heart." - st. bonaventure

week 21: trying my patience (november 3-9)

2008-11-10T16:28:00.000-08:00

girls sports program continued...: it seems like everything i did this week was trying my patience (which seems to be a common theme here), but i think it's good for me. the first thing was the girls sports program. kelly and i took off the month of october because the kids were praying the rosary during our usual sports time, so this week we decided to start it up again. it was quite a challenge. i don't know if it was because we had been off for a while or what but the girls were in quite a mood. they weren't listening, they were yelling at each other, they were being lazy... i seriously felt like i was in one of those movies where the sports team is really really bad and the coach is new and doesn't know what to do... the only thing is that all those movies end with the coach coming in and doing something amazing and all the sudden the team comes together and wins the championship... and at the moment i'm not feeling like that will be happening! i feel like i need to go watch "miracle" or something to get me motivated. we ended the practice with my best attempt at a spanish "i'm disappointed in you, but you can do this" motivational speech, so we'll see if it goes better next week. we have some ideas for some team-building actvities and we have our eyes on a few girls we need to target at the "captains" and use them to motivate the other girls. we are trying to find some sporting event we can take them to, but seriously girls just do not play sports in this country! so, we'll see... i gotta see if i can find a spanish version of "a league of their own"...

bicycle riding: paola was another one of my frustrations this week. she has been behaving really well lately, much better than her punching me in the face days. we have been having classes every afternoon and she has been working in the office in the mornings. overall, she has been doing really great. however, for some reason she has been gaining a lot of weight, which is fine... being "gorda" in this country is considered a compliment... but none of her clothes are fitting her anymore, so we decided that we would start working out in the afternoons. we started by running, but it didn't go too well because she gets tired and complains after like 2 seconds. but, i discovered that the other houses received a few bicycles each a couple weeks ago to share amongst the kids in each house. so we started to borrow one from the oldest girls house because paola told me she'd like to learn how to ride a bike. can't be that hard, right? wrong! oh my gosh, this was one of the most frustrating things of my life. poor paola, she is just so uncoordinated and she is one of the biggest kids here so the bike is way too small for her. but it was just such an interesting experience. she just couldn't grasp the concept of pushing her feet in a circle (i probably wasn't helping with my broken spanish). she just kept pushing forward for like 2 seconds and then she's get nervous or something and push back, hence stopping the bike. oh my gosh, the first day we tried i felt so bad because i was so frustrated and probably not doing the best job of hiding it. it was so hot and she just wasn't understanding and i couldn't think of any other words to say and i didn't know the words i wanted to say, plus the poor thing was sweating and hot and she gets nervous and starts laughing when she feels incapable, so she just kept laughing and not listening to me (lexy... much like trying to teach you how to use the weight machines at the ymca). after the first day, i felt very defeated and very frustrated. we took a day off and then tried again the next. we made a little progress, but not much. i was secretly hoping that she would just be too frustrated and not want to do it any more because i was out of ideas. i kept encouraging her though because you could tell that she felt bad that she wasn't getting it. the third day we tried started much like the others, but suddenly one of the little boys from my house came out and offered to help. it was so amazing because he is one of the toughest kids i have in my house. he's not really the "helping type". but he was so good with her. he was pushing her and balancing her and explaining stuff to her in ways that i didn't know how. even if she didn't learn, i was so proud of this little 11 year old boy coming to help a girl much older than him learn to ride a bike. then finally, the next day some of the older girls came out to help as well. which was great, because even though they are older or the same age, they often make fun of her. but they came out and they were great and she finally got it! she can do it by herself for quite a while... it's really amazing because after the first day i thought it was a lost cause. she still needs a push to get started... but that will be our project for next week...

uno: i also found a deck of uno cards in the volunteer house this week and i thought it would be a fun and easy thing to do with my boys in casa santa rosa. i also thought it would be a good way to reinforce the english numbers and colors they are learning in school. well it was fun... but certainly not easy. kids are kids and so sometimes it's easy to forget that i'm in an orphanage because we just do normal "kid stuff". but every now and then i am reminded that there are certain things that you just don't learn when you grow up without parents or a normal family setting. playing uno was complete chaos! at first i was frustrated... but it ended up just being hilarious! first of all, they think the "wild" or "pick 4" or "reverse" cards are just so much more exciting than the other cards so when they are picking cards, they just keep picking until they get one... even if in the meantime they pick a hundred cards that they could have played. and then they cheat... so they look at each others cards and when they get a "wild" they'll change it not to what they have, but what the other kids don't have... so they might change it to yellow even if they have no yellow because the kid next to them doesn't have yellow so then when it's their turn again they have to pick again! oh my gosh... seriously we played every day this week and never ever finished a game... no one ever ran out of cards. it was actually quite funny after a while and i'll never look at uno the same again!

"we are created by love, to live in love, for the sake of love." - gerald may

week 20: looking towards the future (october 27- november 2)

2008-11-02T12:50:00.001-08:00

visitors: this week was great because we had a group of physical therapists from chicago come and help us out. they came bearing lots of great toys and gadgets to use for physical therapy, which our physical therapist was very excited about, but they also got to spend some time with all our kids that need physical therapy, including the kids i work with in the special needs home. it was great because they gave myself and our physical therapist a bunch of great tips and pointers and ideas for things we could be doing with the kids. the other great thing is another man from chicago came with them who has been doing fundraising for us to build a new house for the special needs kids. right now the special needs kids live in a house that is built exactly the same as all the other houses, which definitely poses some problems for kids with special needs. so we also all got to sit down and talk about all our different ideas for what a new special needs home would look like... building seperate rooms for the kids that don't sleep through the night, putting doors on the bathrooms, making handicap-accessible sinks and showers, adding therapy rooms to the house, planning for the future (for the kids that will be living here for life). all in all it was really a great week with these people, i feel like we accomplished a lot. and even though i'll probably be gone before construction of this home is finished (or maybe even before it starts), it's cool to think about the possibilities for these kids in the future.

lisbeth: lisbeth is another one of the little girls that lives in san pascual. i haven't really talked about her that much because i haven't really been able to spend a lot of time with her. ever since i got here, she has been living in our clinic because she is really sick. she has some mental retardation, but she was also born with lots of problems in her stomach and esophagus. you can tell by just looking at her picture that she is sick (and she is 6 years old!) she has a lot of digestion problems. when she eats she her belly gets all inflated and if she's not sitting in the right position, she throws up anything she has eaten. she lives here because her mother is dying of aids (which she contracted after lisbeth was born, so lisbeth does not have aids). it's a very sad situation. but on a brighter note, this week she was able to go to the capital and have a surgery on her esophagus that will hopefully solve a lot of her problems. she is supposed to come back next week and spend some time recooperating in the clinic. then, hopefully she will be able to move back into the special needs home. keep her in your prayers if you can!

"he who has hope has everything."

week 19: i'm too tired to think of a name for this week (october 20-26)

2008-11-02T12:49:00.000-08:00

rosali: it's been a while since i've talked specifically about the kids here. this is one of the girls i work with in the special needs home. her name is rosali and she is 8 years old. the first thing you notice about rosali when you meet her is that she is so joyful. she doesn't talk, but she sure does laugh. everyone she sees she is greeting and running up to, waving her hands, looking for a hug. and when you start to talk to her she just smiles and laughs and makes all sorts of noises. she can't talk, but she does understand a lot... like she can follow simple commands, but her attention span is pretty much non-existent, so working with her can be quite challenging. getting her to focus or play with one thing at a time is very difficult. we take a lot of walks and swing on the swings and she also likes to play with blocks. lately we have been walking down to the school at recess so she can interact with the other kids. it's cute to watch because she gets so exited and just starts laughing and screaming (in a good way) when she's playing with everyone else. we have to be careful though, because when she gets to excited she wets her pants (which actually happens quite often... just lovely). she can communicate a little, like when she wants water she says, "wawa...wawa.." over and over. the physical therapist and i want to try to start teaching her some signs or give her picture cards to help her communicate. despite the frustrations of dealing with her short attention span and trying to get her to listen, rosali is a really sweet little girl... and if nothing else, she always manages to put a smile on everyone's faces.

chichiguas: well this saturday i experienced my first "latin america stomach sickness"... i still have no idea what happened to me and i'll spare everyone the details, but something did not agree with my stomach. so i barely slept saturday night and when sunday morning finally came, i had chills and a fever, had lost about 10 pounds and was feeling quite weak and out of it. i wanted to just stay in bed all day, but sunday was family day so it was the job of all the volunteers to keep the kids entertained (especially those who didn't have family coming to visit). i was supposed to be in charge of playing sports with another volunteer, but that just wasn't going to happen so i decided to make "chichiguas" (or kites) with kids in the shade. now making chichiguas i think is a national past time here in the dr. the kids are always making and flying kites. it's really cute. at first i thought it was an nph thing, but i've seen kids outside making the exact same kites (and it's funny because you see them stuck in all the electric lines here). i think it's just a really easy, inexpensive way to make a toy out of stuff that you can just find lying around anywhere. so basically to make a dominican chichigua... you need 3 sticks (however small or big you want your kite to be)... string... and a plastic bag (light weight grocery store bags work the best). you criss-cross the sticks together and tie them in the middle and around the sides and then rip out the plastic bag and tie it to the ends of the sticks. then you tie the rest of the string to the end of one of the sticks and you can hold the excess in your hand or find another little stick to wrap it around so you can fly it. some of the kids also attach tails with the extra grocery bags. they're really fun to make and the breeze here is great for kite flying. the kids sometimes have contests to see who can get theirs the highest in the air. one day we found these huge sticks and made a kite that was like bigger than the kids... and we actually got it in the air a few seconds! fun times :)

"God expects but one thing of you, and that is that you... let God be God in you." - meister eckhart

week 18: time with the boys (october 13-19)

2008-11-02T12:47:00.000-08:00

christmas cards: this week i got to spend a lot of time with my boys in casa santa rosa, which was good because i haven't seen them as much since i've had to spend more and more time in the special needs house. one of the reasons i got to spend so much time with them is because we were making christmas cards! yes, it seems early... but we have a ton to make! i think i explained this, but basically the reason nph works is because people all around the world sponsor the kids in the orphanage and become "madrinos" (god-mothers) or "padrinos" (god-fathers). now, most people sponsor the kids for like $30 a month, which obviously doesn't cover all their needs, so most of the kids have about 6 padrinos. so, we had to make christmas cards for all of them. i was in charge of making cards in casa san pascual (which i basically did by myself because the special needs kids can't write), but also in casa santa rosa. so i created a design and brought all the supplies to help the kids make them. it was a lot of fun, but getting fourteen 11 and 12 year old boys to make 6 christmas cards each was quite challenging. it definitely took us the whole week... but i think they turned out really cute.

rosary: since the month of october is dedicated to the rosary, the nuns here decided that the kids would pray the rosary everyday this month at 5:00 p.m. it was cool because it's another way i got to spend some time with my boys in casa santa rosa. everyday they do something different. they will pray inside with just their houses. sometimes they pair up and two houses pray together. other times they will do it by sides (there are two sides, with six houses on each side)... or once they even did a big rosary walk with all the kids. it's very cool. most of them don't have rosaries, so it's cute to watch them count on their hands or they'll grab 10 rocks and move them from one hand to the other. also, after they pray the rosary, they'll do a little short bible study where they read the gospel for the day and then all the kids talk about what they understood and how to apply it to their lives.

here are some of the prayers in case you ever want to pray the rosary in spanish!

ave maria --> Dios te salve, maría, llena eres de gracia, el Señor es contigo. bendita tú eres entre todas las mujeres, y bendito es el fruto de tu vientre, Jesús. santa maría, madre de Dios, ruega por nosotros, pecadores, ahora y en la hora de nuestra muerte. amen.

padre nuestro --> Padre nuestro que estás en el cielo, santificado sea tu nombre, venga an nosotros tu reino, hagase tu voluntad en la tierra como en el cielo. danos hoy nuestro pan de cada día. perdona nuestras ofensas, como tambien nosotros perdonamos a los que nos ofenden; no nos dejes caer en la tentacion, y libranos del mal. amen.

gloria --> gloria a Padre, al Hijo y al Espíritu Santo. como era en el principio, ahora y siempre, por los siglos de los siglos. amen.

week 17: a little less homesick (october 6 - october 12)

2008-10-11T10:19:00.000-07:00

family time: well the best part of this week was getting to spend time with my mom and drew who came to spend their october break with me! last weekend they got to see a little bit of the orphanage, but this week we headed to the capital to do a little sight seeing. we stayed at a little place in santo domingo and spent some time walking around the old colonial zone. we also did a little shopping and bartering at the local market place. it was fun to see my mom and drew experience the craziness that is the dominican republic... the crazy cabs and gua-guas and just the laid-back, no worries attitude this country has about everything! we tried to eat at the taco bell for drew, but it was closed (which is probably good since taco bell is a little shady in our country, i'm not sure how it would be here). we then spent one night in juan dolio and got to relax a little on the beach and eat some pizza. we then came back to the orphanage so they could spend a little more time with the kids before they had to go. it was really cute because the kids loved them. my mom was playing pogs and pushing kids on the swings and drew was giving piggy back rides and playing soccer. it was a little crazy because the kids get so excited and can be really overwhelming, plus they just keep speaking in spanish and my mom and drew couldn't understand them (i usually can't understand them)... but all in all it was really fun. the kids get so excited to have visitors and i think my mom and drew had fun too. thanks for coming guys!

con-con: i've always been pretty easily amused with the little things in life (especially when they are concerning food) and here it is no different. so i think i explained the food system here, but basically there is a kitchen that makes the food for everyone and we eat rice pretty much every day... so we have this huge rice cooker thing that makes enough rice for everyone (kids, tias, office workers, volunteers, etc)... over 200 people. so the thing i have come to love is this stuff the kids call "con-con"... and basically what happens is all the rice on the bottom gets stuck the bottom of the big cooking device and it gets really crispy. plus it's where all the oil sits, so it's just this big layer of burnt rice that is stuck on the bottom. so the chef scrapes it all out with a big spatula and gives a little to every house in their bucket of rice. so every day it's a battle in all the houses to see who gets the con-con. seriously, i know what you're thinking... burnt rice? it doesn't sound good and maybe my standards have seriously lowered since i got here, but it's sooo good. it's crunchy and buttery and salty and delicious! i love it and i'm so excited when i get to eat it! i am going to have to talk to the chef before i leave and get con-con cooking lessons so i can make it at home.

"find your delight in the Lord, who will give you your heart's desire." - psalm 37:4

week 16: week of celebrations (september 29 - october 5)

2008-10-03T10:56:00.000-07:00

dia de san fransisco and more: being catholic i think you could find a reason to have a party or celebration every day if you wanted to. and i think the dominicans, especially at nph, take full advantage of this. wednesday, october 1 was the feast day of st. therese. since all the kids live in houses named after saints, on the feast day of their saint, they get to have a party. so, on wednesday we had mass and then the oldest girls that live in casa santa teresa had a party. then, saturday was the day of st. francis of assisi, patron saint of animals and the environment, so we had a big, day-long celebration. it started on friday night and we helped the kids make posters to honor the day and costumes to wear the next day. then saturday morning we all lined up on the basketball court at 8:00 am and had a procession around nph, through our garden and ended in front of the pig pen. we then had deacon fransisco come and say some prayers and then did a blessing of the animals and the land. all the kids then had to go do work around the land. some picked up trash, others watered the garden, some cleaned the pig pen, others cut the grass (which they do with a machete, because there are too many rocks to use a lawn mower), etc... after that we took a lunch break and then had mass at 2:00. after mass a few of the kids did a short presentation on st. francis and then they played games. we ended the day with popcorn and juice. the best part of the weekend was that on friday night i picked up my mom and drew from the airport because they came to visit for a few days over october break! so, they got to experience dia de san fransisco as well. we also got to play with my mom and drew when it was all over. we did some soccer, swung on the swings, played pogs, etc. it was really cute because the kids have been learning english in school so i was making them practice with my family. they are really embarrased about it, but they did really well. it was a fun day and more about the adventures with my family next week!

"while you are proclaiming peace with your lips, be careful to have it even more fully in your heart." - st. francis of assisi

week 15: a not-so relaxing week (september 22-28)

2008-10-03T10:55:00.001-07:00

motherhood boot camp: a couple weeks ago, i talked about how would soon have to start sleeping in the special needs home, san pascual, a few nights a week. but, in true dominican fashion, that had yet to happen, as we have been waiting for a bed for me. but, finally late last weekend they brought in the bed and it ended up being just in time because this tuesday we got some more really intense rain and one of the tias wasn't able to make it in. so this left two tias in the house, one of which is new and in training. so, we figured it would be a good first night for me to stay there and help. well... wow... is about all i can really say. it was quite an experience. first we did dinner and showers, which wasn't that bad... i mean none of these kids listen or really understand anything, so everything is a little bit of a challenge, but it was a relief once they were all finally in bed. but then... all the kids sleep in the same room, so at any point during the night, there was screaming, yelling, or just random talking (actually just noise making) and walking around the house. i have no idea how anyone in this house sleeps. by the time 6 am rolled around i felt like i hadn't slept at all. but, it didn't matter, because it was time to get up and do showers, get dressed, eat breakfast and get ready for the day. and i'm not trying to be gross, but when you get up in the morning and walk into the kids room it smells completely disgusting because the diapers are wet and dirty and usually one of the kids that doesn't wear diapers has wet the bed too, and it's all been sitting in this hot, humid room, so ya... anyway, we basically through all their clothes and sheets into a pile and shower them, put on new clothes and mop up the room. then it's time for breakfast and the rest of the day. so during breakfast i discovered the thing that is going to keep me alive for the next 8 months, and that is coffee. now i have never, ever liked coffee in my life (i much prefer the green goodness of mountain dew), but as i sat exhausted at the breakfast table, i graciously accepted the cup the tia offered me. and let me tell you dominican coffee will wake you up. it is very strong, and they just drink these little tiny cups, more like shots of expresso... whatever it was, i forgot that i was tired! anyway, i got through the day and got to go back to my normal bed, but then on friday, we had another problem with the tias and we only had 1 tia for the whole weekend. so, i packed up my stuff again and stayed in the house from friday til monday morning. it was very, very exhausting. but, i gained so much respect for these tias. they do a ton of work. it's just a never ending cycle of sweeping, mopping, diaper changing, feeding, cleaning, etc... i think i got bit six times by kaki (who has been acting up more than normal lately, and really it requires just one tia to be with him all the time), peed on a couple times and pooped on once (again, sorry, not trying to be gross). i don't really know what it's like to be a mother, but i'm thinking if there was some weird bootcamp that they had to prepare you for it, this would be it. overall though, when it was all said and done, it was kinda fun in all the stress of it. and i feel like i really bonded with the tia in my house and a couple from the houses next door. i felt like a tia myself as we sat outside and drank our 4 pm coffee (which btw is a great way to get through the rest of the day). so, we'll see what my next nights in casa san pascual bring...

movie night: one of the things that helped get me through the weekend was a movie night i had with my boys in casa santa rosa. it is the house i normally eat in and i had told them that one night every month we could have a movie night to make up for the fact that i would be spending more time in casa san pascual and not eating with them so much. so, i gave them 3 choices for this month, "the lion king" (el rey leon), "curious george" (jorge curioso), and "teenange mutant ninja turtles" (tortuga ninjas). we debated for about 3 three weeks, and kylie you would be proud, i had a surprising number of votes for the lion king, 2 from the toughest boys in the house... but in the end, we decided on ninja turtles. we set up a projector in their room so we could play the movie on the wall. we also invited another house of boys to come over and join us. so after i had gotten all the kids to sleep in san pascual, i ran over to my house, made a big pot of popcorn and then went to watch the movie. so we had thirty, 11-14 year old boys in one small room, in their pajamas, eating popcorn and watching the ninja turtles in spanish. it was really fun and they were so cute. it really made my night :)

solving a mystery: so i've always wanted, like in my next life, to have some sort of mystery solving career... you know like fbi agent or homicide detective... so this week, i got a chance to act a little bit like a detective. on wednesday, kelly and i did the girls sports program and this week i brought my camera... because this is kinda a momentus moment here... girls playing sports... anyway, a bunch of the kids were using it while the girls were playing, but when practice was over i took my camera back, took the soccer ball in one hand and took one of the boys from house (who was hanging out around our practice and acting up a little) in my other hand to take him home. i got to his house, dropped him off, and gave the boys back their soccer ball and went home to change before dinner. as, i was walking out to dinner, i realized i didn't have my camera. so i looked a little, but couldn't find it. i thought maybe i dropped it off accidentally with the ball, so i asked at dinner, but no one had seen it. i went back home and searched again. i was starting to get stressed. but i just decided to get up early and look again. at the first sign of daylight i started searching outside for anywhere i could have dropped it. i talked to the kids in my house again, and they said they hadn't seen it. it was my weeekend off, so i told the boys in my house to please look out for it or ask around and see if other kids had found it and to let me know when i got back. i said a quick prayer to st. anthony (who, btw, had never failed me) and headed off for the weekend. i hoped to come back to one of my boys who would be so excited that they had found it, but i did not. so, i spent the next couple days going around to every house, asking kids if they had found it, or had heard that any of the kids had it. it was funny cuz i was getting all these different stories from everyone... like i gave it to this kid or that kid or i dropped it or this or that (many of the details were getting lost in translation). so a few days passed and still no camera. i got desperate, so i put out a $200 peso ($6) reward. so every morning kids were coming up to me asking me if i'd found it... i'd get a few more clues from kids here and there, but still no camera. so i finally, just kinda gave up and just accepted the fact that i had probably lost my camera. i was so bummed. however, as i suspected, st. anthony did not let me down! one day while i was at casa san pascual, kelly came running over with a plastic bag and my camera. i asked her what happened and which kid i owed $200 pesos... but she told me that she had found it in the bag of practice jerseys we use for the girls sports program. i felt so stupid and kinda had to apologize to the kids, but now they are all trying to convince me that they helped kelly find it, trying to get a piece of that $200 pesos. all embarrassment aside, i am so happy to have it back... but sadly there will be no pictures to accompany this week's blog!!

"when i say, 'my foot is slipping,' your love, Lord, hold me up. when care increases within me, your comfort gives me joy." - psalm 94:18-19

week 14: a relaxing week (september 15-21)

2008-10-03T10:45:00.000-07:00

a day at the beach: so this week was actually somewhat relaxing. it felt like i was finally getting into a little bit of a rhythm. i am trying to plan some outings for the kids of san pascual because they never get to leave the house since they don’t go to school. so, this wednesday we headed to the beach. it was a ton of fun, even though being with those kids (especially kaki) is a ton of work. they love splashing around in the water and playing in the sand. we completely buried kaki in the sand and he loved it! and the water here is sooo warm… so much different than california. i can't remember the last time i actually "swam" in the ocean! it was good for the kids to get out of the house and do something different, and good for the tias too. these poor tias in san pascual, i think they have the toughest job of all the tias here. not only do they have kids that require a lot of attention, but they don't get the break the other tias get when the kids are at school. so i was glad that they got to enjoy themselves too. overall, it was a good day and a good week.

genesis: one of my other kids in san pascual is genesis. if it wasn’t horrible to say i have a favorite, i would say she is my favorite. she's just a really cute and funny little girl. she's seven years old, which just looking at her is incredible to me. she is super skinny. i'm assuming she was pretty malnourished before she came here. she also has profound mental retardation. she doesn’t talk at all (she makes noises, but doesn’t talk) and i don’t really think that she understands much either. most of the kids in the house understand basic commands and phrases, but genesis just kinda stares at you with this blank stare. she makes the funniest facial expressions though. she also loves to be held. the second anyone walks in the door of san pascual she is walking toward them with her long lanky arms high up in the air waiting to be picked up. she also loves to play with the strangest things. her favorites are sand, rocks and little pieces of trash, preferable paper. (which is why she absolutely loves the beach!) she sits in this crouched frog-like position on the floor and just rolls these things around in her hands. she can entertain herself for hours! and if you offer her a real toy or a piece of trash, she’ll take the trash every time. therapy with her can be really challenging just because i never know what to do. but overall, she’s a very sweet little girl and i love working with her.

"once more he will fill your mouth with laughter, and your lips with rejoicing." -job 8:21

week 13: this week in sports (september 8-14)

2008-09-17T11:27:00.001-07:00

girls sports program: one of my favorite things to do here at the orphanage is play sports with the kids. they play a ton of soccer and a little basketball and baseball (i’m working on increasing those two since i'm a horrible soccer player). however, ever since i got here, i have been bothered by the fact that there is never… ever… any girls playing sports. i think it’s just culturally unacceptable here… which is so sad! kelly, another volunteer, always plays sports with us too (which i think the first time all the boys were just so surprised that we were playing with them, but now they’re used to it), so she and i decided that we needed to start a girls sports program. she played soccer in high school and i played basketball and softball, so we figured together we could figure something out for the girls. so, we talked with sister fanny (the director of the house) and she gave us the ok, so this wednesday we had our first ever girls sports practice. we decided to start with soccer. i'm not gonna lie i was a little nervous… i had no idea what to expect, how many girls would show up, plus my sports vocabulary is very limited in spanish. but it actually ended up going great! we started out with running and stretching, which went well. we had 26 girls show up, so we decided to let them play 13 against 13. it was a little disastrous… they were just running everywhere and falling cuz it was all muddy from the rain and it was just so crowded. so, then we divided each team into two teams and let them switch in and out and it went so much better. i mean we still have a lot to work on, but the best part was that they all had so much fun. it was so fun watching them cheer each other on… they were getting so excited, yelling and screaming from the sidelines! it was great. i can’t wait for next week!

baseball in the rain: this was definitely the week of sports. kelly and i also decided to set up a baseball game between the house she eats in (casa san miguel) and the house i eat in (casa santa rosa). we told them about it about 2 weeks ago, in hopes that they would build up excitement all week. my house was so cute… they were so ready. we practiced at least 3 times during the week… running, taking batting practice, catching fly/ground balls. we also asked frank, the sports coach (who used to play minor league for the dodgers), to come help us and umpire. well sunday finally came (game day) and we were scheduled for a 2:00 first pitch, but the clouds started to roll in and it rained on and off all morning. we talked to frank and he told us to change the time to 3:00 and hopefully everything would be dried up. so, at three it had stopped raining for a while so we headed out to our new baseball field, which was built for us by the boston red sox organization over the summer. just as we arrived to the field and i hung up the hand-made scoreboard, it began to rain again. we all retreated to a nearby tree, but it didn’t provide much shelter and we were all soaked. considering how much this country does not like the rain i was thinking that frank or the tia from my house would make us go back home, but we figured since we were already wet we should just go for it. it ended up being so much fun… it rained on and off, we were muddy, we were soaking wet, and even though it was still like 75 degrees, all my kids were telling me they were freezing. casa san miguel is a little older than my boys, but we played well. we had a bad second inning and gave up 5 runs, so we had some catching up to do. by the bottom of the seventh (the last inning), the score was 9-6, we needed 3 runs. we managed to get runners on first and second and we had our best player up with two outs (and i was going to be up after him). at the beginning of the seventh it has started to rain again, but by this point it was pouring… plus the lightning and thunder started. honestly, it was picture perfect… so dramatic (and a little scary, considering we’re standing out there with a metal bat… the lighting was literally right above us). so our batter, yoan, hits it to third base and runs as fast as he can in the mud and the rain and the third baseman throws it and at this point i couldn’t see anything through the rain… but all i know is chaos erupted! yoan claims the first baseman dropped the ball (and honestly he could have), but frank called him out and the game was over. everyone just went crazy and there was cheering and screaming and it was raining so hard. eventually, i think everyone figured out that we should probably get home so we all proceeded to run home in the pouring rain trying to avoid the lightning bolts and screaming every time the thunder roared. for the most part my team had fun regardless, but i knew yoan was really upset. he's one of those kids that is very disciplined and very hard on himself. so, before running home i went to talk to him and again he told me that it wasn’t fair, that he was safe. i felt bad cuz i think he might have been, but i reassured him that it would be ok and that we are for sure going to have a re-match!

p.s. i've posted a bunch of pictures on a shutterfly thingy at http://dominicanrepubliccitypics.shutterfly.com/

"let us not grow tired of doing good, for in due time we shall reap harvest, if we do not give up." -galatians 6:9

week 12: rain, rain and more rain (september 1-7)

2008-09-17T11:27:00.000-07:00

tropical storm fay: tropical storm fay actually ended up hitting us worse than hurricane gustav. it rained pretty much all week. i think there were another 2 days that the kids didn’t have school this week. we don’t really have a national weather service here, so the country gets all it’s info from miami or puerto rico, but we do have a system… alerta verde, alerta (something i don't remember) and alerta roja… which relate to the severity of the storms. so, anytime we are on altera roja the kids automatically don’t have school because the teachers can’t be bused in to teach. the picture above is our soccer field, which was basically turned into a swimming pool after the storms. apparently we also had a tornado come through, but i didn’t see it. it did some pretty bad damage to the nearby village, called batey nuevo. two families lost their tin homes and the electric lines were torn down, so we were all without electricity for a few days. no one was injured, so that is good. nph has a good relationship with the people of batey nuevo (many of their kids come to our school), so we also try to help them in times like these. please keep these families in your prayer and all those that have been affected by the hurricanes, especially those in haiti. haiti has been hit much worse than we have in the dr…. there is a lot of damage and many lives have been lost.

second home: so this weekend was my weekend off. (we work monday through the following thursday and then are off for three days). it’s very nice to get away from the home for a few days. i really like it here, but i don’t think that i've lived in the same room with anyone since i was like six years old, so living in a house with 6 people (4 in my room)… is interesting at times. also, it’s weird to live where you work because it’s like you are working all the time, which is basically what we are doing. so while it’s really fun and being with the kids doesn’t really feel like work, it’s nice to get away and get refreshed. i was a little worried to go away this weekend because we were expecting hurricane ike to come in, and going closer to the coast probably wasn’t the best idea, but ike passed through giving us only about ½ hour of rain. but anyway, one of my roommates and i found this great little town about 20 minutes outside of san pedro called juan dolio. it's right on the beach and has this great little hostel with $10 rooms… we’ve been several times and it’s been a great home away from home. it’s a very simple little hostel, just a bed, fan, tv and bathroom (that sometimes has hot water)… but really those are the four greatest things ever. it’s so nice to sleep in a room by myself and i never realized how amazing fans are (well… i did, cuz i love fans… but i respect them ever more now). and the best part is the tv… there are like 3 english channels, but one of them is tbs… which is the greatest tv station ever. i really don’t watch a lot of tv at home, with the exception of suns games (and lost and the office), but i never realized what an amazing television station tbs is… seinfeld, friends, funny movies and if i'm really lucky… the office! i even found the diamondbacks playing the dodgers on some spanish fox-channel… they got crushed, but it was good to see them! the lady who owns this hostel used to work in an orphanage in india, so we have become friends with her. it's also great cuz there is an awesome pizza place right down the street… it is so amazing to eat pizza!! all in all juan dolio is a pretty great second home in the dr.

week 11: afraid of the rain (august 25-31)

2008-09-05T14:50:00.000-07:00

hurricane gustav: well i'm sure gustav is big news in the u.s. right now because i think it’s about to hit new orleans, but before it got there it came up through hispanola. haiti and the western side of the dr got most of the damage, but we did get quite a bit of rain. school was canceled for two days because the teachers couldn’t be bused in, even though it didn’t rain at all on the second day. the people here are really funny about rain… they don’t like it at all! it’s like when it rains, everything is off… no one wants to get wet or go outside. and it’s funny because if people really have to walk outside in the rain, they wear trash bags all over themselves… on their heads to keep their hair dry, tied around their feet to keep their shoes dry… they walk around with umbrellas when it’s sunny to stay out of the sun and trash bags when its raining… so funny. for me, an arizona girl… i think the rain is fun! however, i'm sure if we are ever in the direct line of a hurricane, i will be changing my mind on that. we did have a “hurricane training” the other day so we’ll be prepared if that happens. so far we’ve been lucky, but they say that hurricane season continues until november, but hopefully they’ll stay away.

the italian: we had a new volunteer come last week from italy. his name is mario and he is this precious old man who is a baker from italy. he's here for three weeks and has come to teach the kitchen how to make bread, so that if it makes sense economically, we can start making our own bread instead of buying it every week. (which is really exciting because the bread here is really gross and his bread is delicious!) mario is staying in our volunteer house. he is really, really funny and he talks a lot! the best part is that he really doesn’t speak spanish, so he just keeps talking in italian and none of us understand a word he is saying, but he just keeps talking. it's really entertaining. he does however make really good food. he has made us pizza a couple times and pasta… it has been a welcome change from the rice and beans!

dime: another one of my favorite spanish phrases is “dime” (dee-may). which means “tell me”. spanish is a lot more direct of a language than english and they use a lot more commands, which is hard to get used to. for example in english we would say “can i borrow ….?, but there is no word in spanish for borrow, so they say “lend me …” they also use “dame” (give me) a lot when they want something. it’s kinda weird cuz i always feel rude, but everyone talks that way. anyway, whenever anyone calls one of the kids (or anyone for that matter) they respond, “dime”. i don’t know why, but i love it.

misa: going to mass here has been hard to get used to. my spanish is getting better, but i'm usually totally lost in the homily. (luckily… kevin… i have my magnificat, so i know the readings!) plus i don’t know all the responses yet, so i feel like i'm not really participating. also, going to communion is a rarity here… most people just don’t go and it’s not because they aren’t catholic. i understand it when we are at nph because most of the kids haven’t received all their sacraments and most of the tias aren’t catholic and i think i'm the only catholic volunteer, but even when i've gone to daily mass with the nuns in town at the cahedral, i would say 75% of people don’t receive communion. i was really confused, so i asked one of the nuns this week why that was. i didn’t understand everything she said, but basically she said that people will not receive communion if they haven’t been to confession, if they haven’t been to mass in a while, or if they don’t feel they are dressed appropriately, or a ton of other reasons. she said that they consider there are two kinds of catholics here, practicing and non-practicing. i think just about everybody here is “non-practicing”, but there aren’t too many “practicing” (even though they are going to daily mass). the other part that has been hard is most weeks we get bused out to go to a near-by village to go to mass, but there has never been a priest, just a deacon, so we never really have “mass”, but instead have a word service and communion service. i really like the services here though, because there are some cool people from the village that lead the music with their amazing singing and tambourines and other little instruments that i don’t know the name of… but it is definitely a lot different than sunday mass at st. pats! this week the deacon told us that he only had one host with him in his pix, so he asked how many of us there were that were going to receive communion… i think there were about 8 of us, so he broke the host into 8 tiny pieces and we all shared it. it was a very cool experience.

“there is something in humility that strangely exalts the heart.” – st. augustine

week 10: trucking along (august 18-24)

2008-09-05T11:51:00.000-07:00

job changes: so i've talked a lot about how this country requires a lot of patience and flexibility and my job in the special needs home is no exception. they asked me to come here to help in the special needs home, but i wasn’t sure exactly what i was supposed to do. i have a bachelor’s degree in psychology, but am no where near qualified to know what to do with special needs kids, but i said that i'd be open to helping where they needed me. they have a physical therapist here, so when i first came i thought the best approach to working with the kids, would be just to take them one on one and work with them individually. it has been working well… we’ve been painting, going for walks, playing at the park, etc. and with paola i can do more stuff, like read and work on her reading and writing skills. it's nice here because there is a lot of freedom to just take initiative and do what you think needs to be done. it's hard sometimes though when i don’t know what to do and just wish someone would say “do this!” … but i know that nph-dr is one of the newer of all the nph homes and a lot of stuff everyone is still figuring out… it’s kinda cool to be part of that building process. anyway, sister fanny (the director of the house here) told me a couple weeks ago that she would like me to expand what i am doing in casa san pascual and to start sleeping there with the kids and tias a couple nights a week. i guess she wants me to be able to help the tias out and see if i can make any suggestions for how the special needs house is running. the tias here are good people, but there is an attitude that i've found common among many dominicans and that is one of complacency. they are happy people, they are loving people, but they are often times satisfied with just getting by… which makes it hard for us volunteers who come here and try to make things “better”. i mean i have no idea how it is to grow up and live in a culture like this, so i don’t necessarily think it’s their fault, but a lot of the volunteers and i have found it challenging. it’s just hard to know that there is so much potential (especially for all these special needs kids) to do something more. but we’ll see how it goes... sleeping in that house should be interesting to say the least! i also had another job change that started last week. one of the volunteers who was in charge of coordination of visitors/volunteers, just finished up his year of service and headed back home. so, they asked me to help the other visitor/volunteer coordinator with answering emails, giving tours, basically helping all people that are coming to nph-dr before they arrive and during their stay. and also looking at future applicants who want to come volunteer. i think it’s going to be a lot of work, but i'm looking forward to it. san pascual can be very draining, especially if i’m going to be spending a couple nights there, so i think it’ll be good to have something else to do that is totally different…. and if you wanna come visit, let me know!!

mira: if you came here with no spanish knowledge… one of the first words you would learn is “mira”, which means “look” or “watch”. it is probably the most used word at this orphange. whatever the kids are doing they want you to watch. i probably here it a thousand times a day… “megan, mira! mira! mira! mira!” it’s really cute.

salomon: salomon is my god-child that i've been sponsoring for almost two years. (the way nph/friends of the orphans works is that people can sponsor and become a “madrina/padrino” to one of the kids at the orphanages they have. you can sponsor by sending in money every month… it doesn’t go directly to the kid you are sponsoring, but to the organization in general, but if you are a sponsor you will get pictures and updates on your child and a letter twice a year. you can also choose to stay in touch with your god-child and every time you send them a letter, they send one back to you. ) i have to admit i was a pretty horrible god-parent… i sent in my check every month, but that was about it. i tried to write him a letter once i knew i was coming, but i never got around to finishing it (mostly cuz ami and eric were making fun of me the whole time… thanks guys!)… but any way, no excuses, i was just being lazy. so when i got here i was a little nervous to meet him. i thought he would either (1) have no idea that i was his god-mother because i never made any attempt to get into contact with him or (2) think i'm really mean because he knew i was his god-mother and i'd never make any attempt to get into contact with him. however, the volunteer coordinator assured me that it didn’t matter, that he was really excited that i was coming. when i got there, the volunteer coordinator was giving me a tour and we saw salomon, so he introduced us. he was really, really quiet… and so was i because i was afraid to speak spanish… but he walked around with us and i ended up eating dinner at his house. since then, i've eaten as his house for pretty much all my meals so i've gotten a chance to know him a lot better… and he is just a really, really sweet kid. all the kids here are really great, but salomon (or “sol” as we have started calling him), just has a really sweet heart. i'm really glad that he’s my god-child because the other kids can so talkative and outgoing and he’s so quiet that i feel like i probably wouldn’t have ever gotten to know him that well. he likes sports, especially basketball (even though he’s not the most athletic of the kids here), however he is an amazing dancer! i am totally in awe of his skills (cuz i have none). he has two older sisters and an older brother that live here too, so i hope i can get to know them this year as well. it’s been cool coming here to meet him because it was cool to realize that this random kid that i picked up off a table after mass, is actually a real kid, just like anyone back home and he’s here living his life every day… i don’t really know what i'm trying to say, it’s just cool. (if you want info on sponsoring a child, check out the nph and foto websites on the right side of the page)

"walk in beauty my friends... and peace."
-fr. ken

ay-ya-ya-ya...

2008-08-23T13:21:00.000-07:00

oh wow.. what a month! it has been crazy (stories below)... but i think things are finally starting to settle down. i was finally able to post all the blog entries i've been writing and i have finally officially had a chance to respond to all the emails in my inbox... however i still have had a few people tell me that they've sent me emails that i haven't gotten or that they haven't gotten my responses... so if this happened to you... just email me again... i think eventually it works! oh and i'll try to post more pictures soon... i just haven't had a chance to move them from my camera to my computer.

hope all is well in sunny az :)
(or where ever you are!)

oh... and hi father eric!!

week 9: crazy cab rides and tropical storms (august 11-17)

2008-08-23T12:38:00.000-07:00

adventures with rolando: so all that stuff i talked about last week how i wasn’t stressed kinda went away this week. i wasn’t feeling stressed per say, but just more frustrated and almost disillusioned by everything here. it’s just hard because sometimes my job is hard in the special needs home… and we are in the process of getting a new physical therapist for the kids… and i don’t always know exactly what i'm supposed to be doing. like there’s a lot to do, but i just sometimes don’t think the people here know exactly what is the goal for the special needs home, therefore i don’t know and plus it just takes so long to do anything here... and we still don’t have internet and i don’t have my computer so i haven’t been able to talk to anyone back home. but i did call my mom on wednesday for her birthday, which ended up making me homesick. so, basically i was just feeling a little down, but on thursday night i think God knew i needed a little boost… and i got it.
so…every day there is a bus that leaves the school at 4:00 with all the office workers and teachers who live in san pedro. so, we can get on it if we want to go to the grocery store or whatever, we just have to find our own way home. so three of us from the orphanage went into jumbo (the big grocery store) to get some food and check our email and the internet café. and kelly, who is teaching esl here needed to get a white board for her class. so, when it came time to leave there were three of us, groceries and a huge whiteboard. you always have to negotiate a price for rides here… the most popular form of transportation is moto-conchos (see week 1)… but i prefer taxis, especially when it is dark. so we bargained this taxi driver down to a good price under the condition that he was allowed to make two stops on the way home, to pick up some things for his wife. so we start driving and the three of us are sitting in the back with this huge whiteboard sitting across our laps, with only our eyes are coming out over the top of it. we pull over at the first corner store and he runs out and grabs something really quick. then he says we are going to get fried chicken for his wife for dinner. so he drives a little more, stops in the middle of the road, puts his hazards on, and proceeds to walk across the street to the fried chicken place. so we are just sitting here in the back of this cab, chilling in the middle of the road, cars racing all around us, and our driver is standing in the fried chicken line for 20 minutes (there is no such thing as fast food here). at this point i lost it, i just started laughing… i couldn’t help myself. i'm just like where i am and how on earth did i get here?! so he finally comes back… and he was really nice, very thankful that we let him stop… but then he started driving really fast… i think he was trying to make up for lost time… but he was driving like crazy and we almost hit all these cars, then he went over a bump and my head smashed into the side of the car… and i just started laughing even more. then we pulled up to an intersection and he is trying to ask me if everything is ok and in the midst of my uncontrollable laughing i'm trying to explain to him in spanish that my head hit the side of the door in his car… to which his response was “don’t hurt my car.” and then he turned on the little light on the roof of his car to make sure everything was ok… but this was no ordinary little light… he had changed it out for a florescent blue light and all of the sudden i felt like we were in a club… and at this point i completely lost it… i was laughing so hard i was crying… and then he just started laughing with all of us and i think we all laughed all the way back to the orphanage. so he dropped us off and gave us his card so we could call him again. so next time i'm having a bad week, i'm definitely going to remember to call “taxi rolando".

tropical storm fay: so i guess we had a tropical storm… i say that because none of us had any idea until after it was over and a volunteer had a text message from someone back home about it. don’t get me wrong we definitely experienced it. it was crazy! it rained so hard with some of the loudest thunder i've ever heard in my life! and the wind was crazy. i accidentally left my laundry hung up outside on the clothesline and i have video on my camera of it blowing around like crazy… luckily none of it blew away too far. and we don’t have real windows… we just have these metal blind-sort of things.. and they close but water can still get in… so we had water all over our kitchen and living room floor. and our power got knocked out for about 3 days, so that was fun. but there is no like national weather service here and we don’t have tv or internet and the people who do have phones barely get reception… so we really had no idea it was coming and didn’t even know it was a tropical storm until it was over. it’s kinda just all part of this dominican lifestyle i've been talking about… you just kinda experience things as they come and learn to go with the flow.

padre wasson: this saturday was the anniversary of the death of padre wasson… the priest who started nph 50-some years ago in mexico. it was cool we did a little program in the morning with everyone from the home. father wasson’s two main things were “family and sharing” (familia y compartir)… so they had all the kids give bags of food and gifts to the tias so they could share with their families. i thought it was pretty cool because they are teaching even these kids that have nothing the importance of sharing. then kelly and i organized some activities for the afternoon… we played soccer, basketball, had a big baseball game, wrote with chalk on the sidewalks with the little kids and made kites with the bigger kids (which is like one of their favorite things to do). then the bishop came for mass. overall it was a good day. it’s cool to think about how big nph is… and all the nine different homes all over latin america… and how it all started from one man caring for one little boy in mexico (see the story of padre wasson and how he started nph @ http://www.friendsoftheorphans.org/s/769/innercol.aspx?sid=769&gid=1&pgid=272)

“the will of God will never lead you where the grace of God cannot sustain you.”

week 8: monday is over (august 4-10)

2008-08-23T09:07:00.000-07:00

closura: well this week was the end of summer program for the kids. the summer volunteers will be heading home tomorrow and the kids will have one free week until school starts. we had a really fun "closura" on friday. all the kids had been in different classes over the five weeks of summer program (dance, theater, teakwando, etc...) and many of them had been preparing things to present to every one else. so we had a whole day of presentations which was really fun for all the kids. they were all dressed up and got to show off everything they had learned. we also always try to keep my kids from san pascual involved so they feel a part of everything. so, we led off the morning with a little "skit" we put together. i dressed all the kids up like chefs (with aprons and hats) and then we created paper ingredients for all the things that you need to make cookies ("galletas"). so we had paola as the head chef and then all the other kids from the house would bring her over an ingredient and put it in the bowl. then we made this oven out of newsprint and the plan was to stick the bowl in the oven and then pull out real cookies, and it was supposed to be funny. so, it went pretty well but the kids weren't really getting the concept of putting the things in the bowl and they were just kind of scrunching them in their hands and ripping them. then one little girl found the real cookies behind our fake oven so she started eating them before we pulled them out... so it was really funny. the tias and i at least got a laugh out of it.

stress is a luxury: so i've been thinking about the way people live here and it has been really weird for me because it is just so different from everything i am used to. the biggest thing is the relaxed attitude people have here. it's like no one has any stress about anything or any sense of urgency about anything. i mean obviously this has it's positives and negatives, but from the perspective of someone who is trying to work in this culture and make some sort of progress, i have just been getting really frustrated. my roommate kelly is from boston and has been equally as frustrated and the other day she said that she just wished we could go visit an emergency room to see if anyone there has any sense of urgency! but we started talking and kind of came to the conclusion that stress is almost a luxurgy if you really think about it. at home we are able to get stressed about things because all our basic necessities are taken care of. but here you can't get stressed about not being able to check your email five times a day because there isn't even electricty most of the time. i guess i should know this from learning about maslow and his heirarchy of needs in all my psychology classes, but it makes sense. when you don't have food or a home, it's hard to get worried about much else. (except cell phones... oh my gosh i didn't think i'd ever see people more obsessed with cell phones than americans, but dominicans might win... it seems like no matter how poor anyone here is they all find a way to have a cell phone!) so, like i said it has it's positives and negatives. sometimes it just drives me absolutely insane how slowly people move here and how nonchalent they are about everything. on the other hand it's kinda nice sometimes just not getting worked up about things that don't really matter. and really, most of the times here there is just no sense in stressing about things because there is really nothing you can do about it. for example, we haven't had internet in a good 3 weeks... and it doesn't look like there's any end in sight. plus, for some reason last week my the delete and spacebar (two pretty important keys) stopped working on my computer leaving it pretty much useless (i've been typing my blogs on a friend's in hope that one day i'll get to post them). so after about a week of looking for solutions, i found out that there is a radio shack in the capital that is an authorized mac dealer. i guess they take the things and ship them somewhere to be fixed, but they are going to honor my warranty, so that is exciting. so i handed it over to them and now my computer is hanging out somewhere in the dr and i really don't know if i'll ever see it again. plus, i have 9 edge sessions that are supposed to be written in 5 days and i have no computer. so, i'm thinking if i was at home, i would be stressed. but i think the dominican way is starting to affect me because for some reason i'm not. like i could be, i feel like i have every reason to be, but there is really no sense in stressing, because there is absolutely nothing i can do! "dominican megan" is just going to wait and hope everything eventually works out...

a new concept of time: so i talked before about how we just finished up our five week summer program. after the first week we were sitting around and one of the volunteers said, "well, monday's over." and we're all like, "what?" and he's like, "well if you look at the five weeks of summer program like a work week, we just finished monday." we all thought it was pretty funny of looking at it and at the end of every week we've been saying, "we made it through tuesday... wednesday... etc." so i started to think about where i would be in my year here... and i did the math and figured that if i consider my year here a 7-day week, i would have finished monday this week. it's kind of weird to think about, especially on the really hard days when i can't wait to get back to family and friends and "reality"... but it also reminds me that it is actually going by really fast and i'm sure before i know it it's going to be "saturday" or "sunday" and i'm going to be wondering where the time went!

"what a glorious day...
what a wonderful day...
today."
-dcb

week 7: enjoying the madness (july 28- august 3)

2008-08-23T08:13:00.000-07:00

kaki: kaki is my second biggest challenge in casa san pascual behind paola, but he is more of a physical challenge. he is eight years old and pretty small, but the strongest kid i have ever met in my life. his diagnosis is simply “mental retardation”, so i'm not sure exactly what is wrong with him, but he also has some physical disabilities as well. his left foot hasn’t grown correctly and the muscles in his calf are really tight (and too short i think), so he walks normally on his right foot, but on his toes of his left foot. he's always smiling and laughing though… he seems to be a very happy kid, always wanted to play with anyone and everyone. his mouth is always open and his tongue is usually hanging out and he’s usually drooling, but he’s always just so happy. he only says two words “mami” and “kaki” (which is how he got the name, because his real name is reuben)… other than that he doesn’t say anything… he loves to yell and make noises with his mouth and he likes it when people imitate what he is doing. it’s really hard for him to sit still. he loves to be moving around and his attention span is about one minute max. i spend about 1 hour with him each day and we have a pretty good pattern going…. we go outside to go for a walk, we get about 10 steps and he stops to take his shoe off (he loves to take his shoes off), so then we stop and put his shoe back on… we walk some more and he stops to pick up some rocks or rip some leaves off a bush and then he puts them in his mouth and i take them out of his mouth (he puts everything in his mouth)…. we continue this for about 20 minutes until we reach the swing set… we stay there for a little while… sometimes we play with a big soccer ball that is deflated because he always bites it… then we head back and continue our routine to his house. he is very physically straining because he is so strong and he never really wants to walk where i want him to. he also doesn’t realize his own strength, so he is always grabbing me and other people and you really have to watch him because he could really hurt someone if he’s not careful. i also learned very quickly that he bites… and really hard. the first day i bent down to put his shoe on he took a huge bite of my arm and i had this big bruise for a couple weeks. the thing is he never does anything maliciously… he’s always smiling and laughing when he’s biting and grabbing people, so it’s hard to get too mad at him, but we are working on helping him to be calmer. overall my time with kaki is fun, he’s a really sweet kid, plus it’s a great cardio workout for the day!

back to the big city: next week is the last week for the summer program so all the summer volunteers will be going home. so, this weekend my roommate, kelly, and i headed to the capital so that one of the other volunteers who will be leaving next week could see it. i remember being really happy to leave the craziness of the big city back when i was in language school but coming back to it this weekend was actually really fun. this place is like anything i've every experienced in my life. i don't really know how to explain it... other than it's just craziness. the people here are nice (the men maybe a little too nice) and fun, but they just have a very different way about them then people back in the states. i really don't know how to explain it other than as my roomate kelly says, "a country of characters". and every day is an adventure, you honestly never know what to expect or what is going to happen. at first it was hard and different, but this weekend i kinda just learned to enjoy the madness of it all. i just learned that you gotta just laugh here and learn to go with the flow.

i want to believe: at the risk of everyone knowing what a huge nerd i am, i will share this little story… so every since high school i have been obsessed with this little show called the x-files. it went off the air six years ago and even since all the die hard fans (myself included) have been patiently awaiting the promises of a new movie. so you can imagine my disappointment when i learned that the movie i had been waiting years for would be coming out a month after i moved to the dr. so last weekend (july 25) i had a little pity party for myself that i couldn't see it, but i decided that on my trip to the capital this weekend i was going to find some way to see it or buy a copy on the streets. so we get to the capital where we found out that the movie isn't out in theaters here yet, but...... down by where we are staying the streets are just lined with bootlegged movies (for the record, i do not support stealing music and/or movies, however sometimes desperate times call for desperate measures, and chris carter if you ever happen to read this please know that i have every intention of seeing the movie in theaters and buying a real version when it comes out!!). so anyway, i am searching and searching through all these movies and then i saw it and i screamed and i think i totally freaked out the two girls i was with, but i just picked up the movie and held it in my hands and the guy selling the movies just looked so confused and i turned to him and forgot every spanish word i know because i was filled with so much excitement. so i stood there for like a minute with a huge smile and finally remembered how to say, "cuanto cuesta?" and he told me 100 pesos ($3). i turned to my friends and told them that i probably just broke every good bartering rule and i was sure i was getting ripped off (i think they are usually like 40 pesos)... but i really didn't care. he could have said almost any price and i would have given it to him. then i just looked at him and said, "i'm so happy" in english and he just looked at my like i was crazy.... and looking back on it, i probably looked like i was. anyway... it's the little things here that bring excitement to my life. so i spent that night sitting on the floor of our dark hotel room watching my bootlegged copy on my laptop with my headphones as my two friends went to sleep. the quality was horrible and i couldn't hear or see a lot of what was going on, plus you can hear the people in the theater where it was being recorded... so it definitely wasn't exactly the way i imagined seeing the new x-files movie (seeing the midnight showing at the cine capri with my crazy x-files friends with a big mountain dew and popcorn)... but it was definitely very dr-esque.

"if God created shadows, it was to better emphasize the light." - pope john XXIII

week 6: si dios quiere (july 21-27)

2008-08-23T07:49:00.000-07:00

jose y josecito: so each week i’d like to try and tell a little about some of the different kids here. last week i talked a little about paola, who makes my life somewhat difficult at times, but this week i'd like to talk about two boys that bring me so much joy! like i said, i work in a house called san pascual, but i eat my meals in a house called santa rosa, with twelve 11-13 year old boys… needless to say, we have a lot of fun! not that i have favorites, because they are all funny and unique in their own ways, but two boys that i've really connected with are these twins named jose and josecito. now i gotta say right away that if you come across twins with those names, you gotta know it’s gonna be good! they are almost completely identical except for a scar jose has on his hand, but i can’t usually see it, so it really doesn’t help me… plus they are always together so it doesn’t really matter, because i just yell both names and they respond. anyway, this is probably going to be a lame story because i can’t really think of words that describe them… they are just the sweetest, craziest, strangest little boys ever. they are always laughing and just seem like they are having so much fun. they are the smallest ones in casa santa rosa, but they definitely have two of the biggest personalities. most of the boys here play sports in their spare time, but jose and josecito don’t seem to a be the most athletic kids here, so they usually try to play but lose interest half way through. one day we were playing soccer and all the sudden i realized that we had lost some players and i looked around and jose was off to one side playing with a stick and josecito had himself rolling around in a big cardboard box. my favorite part about them is they are always inventing things. they come up to me practically every day with a new creation. sometimes it’s a battery they’ve found and connected to some random wires and it makes a little wheel spin, or a water bottle top they’ve stuck a stick through and they spin it like a top, or even a kite they’ve made out of string, sticks and some type of fabric or material plastic bag or something they’ve found. and they love making silly faces, which is usually how we end up communicating when i don’t understand them… we just make funny faces at each other and forget about the fact that i don’t get what they are saying or how to say what i want to say to them. really it’s hard to describe them but i think they are really going to help me get through this year. anytime i've had a challenging day or i'm homesick, they always manage to put a huge smile on my face! '

family day: this sunday was “family day” where the orphanage is open for visitors to come see the kids. while the orphanage is technically open to “orphaned and abandoned children”, there are also a good number of kids here who do have at least one parent, but that parent is unable to take care of them. so, every three months there is a visitor day for the kids who may have parents or extended family that might be able to come visit. i really had no idea what to expect. it seemed like it could be a very emotional and hard day, not only for the kids who didn’t have family, but i would imagine for the kids who do have family as well. if they do have family and they didn’t come that would be probably really hard… but even if their family did come, it would probably be really hard to accept why they have family out there and aren’t able to live with them. i don’t know, but a lot of the volunteers and i were really kind of nervous for how the day would go, but we planned a lot of activities to keep the kids busy. it actually ended up going a lot better than i thought and the kids handled it a lot better than i thought. a lot of the older kids were kinda quiet, i suppose because they understand a little better what is actually going on, but most of the kids were ok. a good majority of the kids didn’t have anyone come. i would say out of my 14 kids, 3 had someone come…. and not necessarily a parent, many had grandmothers or aunts come. it was very cute to see the kids who did have family come, though. they were so happy and excited and so proud to introduce their families. my god-child, salomon (who also has one older brother and two older sisters at the orphanage), had practically his whole family come… his mother, father and grandmother. i got to meet them and his father was really, really sweet. i guess it’s easy to judge all the parents of these kids here and think “how could you abandon your children or not want to take care of them?”, but it was just all a good reminder that we never really know what’s going in other people’s lives and it’s really not our job to judge them. i think it was mother teresa that said when we judge people, we have no time left to love them... and really i guess that is our job here... just to love the kids... we don't know why they're here or why they can't be taken care of by their families, but for some reason we are all here together.

si dios quiere: so they have this phrase here, “si dios quiere” (“if god wants”) and they say it after you say something like “see you later” or “see you tomorrow”. so they first time i heard it i thought it was kind of an interesting thing to say and kind of a little depressing to think that you might not see that person tomorrow, but the more i started to think about it i realized that it’s just a really great moto for how we should all live our lives. i remember when i was discerning whether or not i should come here it was really hard. i knew i felt some sort of call to do it, but it was still hard to think about leaving my whole family and all my friends and my job that i loved. but I remembered coming across this quote from mother teresa: “let Jesus use you without consulting you.. take whatever he gives and give whatever he takes with a big smile… if he wants something done, he gives us the means. if he does not provide us the means, then he does not want that work done.” so, i just applied for the job here and told myself if i got the job then i was supposed to do it and if not, then i wasn’t. there’s a lot to be said for the effort and work we put into things and i think God gives us the free will and ability to work hard so things will happen, but sometimes i think it’s good to be reminded that we aren’t in control of everything and sometimes we just have to let go and this “si dios quiere” attitude in the dr has taught me that this week. there is actually a lot of peace in living this way.

“human will becomes truly creative and truly our own when it is wholly God's, and this is one of the many senses in which he that loses his soul shall find it." -cs lewis

internet problems

2008-07-28T16:31:00.000-07:00

so just a little update... like everything here, the internet is not very reliable... i guess there's some problem with the server we are using and we just got word that we won't have internet for at least 2 weeks (which honestly could mean anything here)... so anyway, my ability to answer emails and update my blog will be limited for a while unless i find a way to get into town (like i am now)... also, i've been finding that people have sent emails that i haven't gotten, or sometimes people haven't received the ones i've sent... so i'm just letting everyone know that if i've ignored you, it hasn't been on purpose!

god bless... hopefully i'll be back soon :)

week 5: a punch in the face (july 14-20)

2008-07-21T14:08:00.000-07:00

paola: well i'm not going to lie... this was one of the roughest weeks i've had here. i kinda started to explain last week, but one girl i work with, paola, is really tough. she is 14 and obviously has some major learning disabilities, however i'm not sure there is a specific diagnosis for what is wrong. i think the major problem is that she's different from everyone else and she knows it and that hurts her self-esteem, so she acts out. and who knows what else she's been through in her life prior to being here. anyway, it's hard because i know that she is capable of more than she shows and probably more than most people give her credit for. however, she needs some serious discipline. she's the most capable of all the kids in casa san pascual, but i think due to the fact that there are five other kids that need a ton of attention all the time, and only three tias, she isn't able to be disciplined properly. and she just loves attention (positive or negative), and hates when it's directed toward someone else. you can tell that a lot of people come in and out of her life, so that's probably hard too. but i could tell from the moment i got here that she was testing me, to see how much i'm going to let her get away with. so, it's kinda been my goal to be tough with her in a loving way to try to get her to understand that she's capable of more than she things. it worked ok for a while... we made a behavior chart and when she behaved in our time together she got to do special things. however, this week was rough. the power went out in our computer class which kind of riled up all the kids (and she doesn't do well when the other kids are going crazy)... so she started getting out of control and so i made her go home and on the way home she started chucking big rocks at me... and she's pretty much like my size... so i'm not going to lie, i was a little scared. so, the next day i talked to her tias and the physiologist and we decided that her punishment would be to not go to the summer program in the afternoon. so, that night i found out that she went to the summer program anyway, which made me a little upset. the next morning i took her into our classroom and asked her why she didn't listen to me and told her that we couldn't work together the rest of the week as a consequence. she did not like this at all and got up and punched me in the eye... it was quite interesting... i have to say i've never been punched, so it was a very interesting experience. that was a rough day, but i guess she ended up feeling bad because the next day when i came to her house she made me a bracelet and her tias had her apologize. then the next day she made me a necklace. i told her that we still wouldn't be able to work together or go to the summer program this week because i need her to learn to respect me, but i told her next week will be a new week and we can start over. i really don't want to give up on her (as tempting as that is most days) because i feel she's a good kid who's just been through a lot and is up against a lot as well. say a few prayers for her if you could :)

apagones: so it seems like every week i think of something else that i take for granted at home. this week it was electricity. the electricity in this country is very interesting. there are black-outs, or "apogones", all the time. i guess the major electric company is going bankrupt, so they turn off the electricty for about 12 hours every day... but you never know when, so it could be a few hours here, a few hours there. but, like with most things in this country, we're a little better off at the orphanage. they've set up this like battery generator things that is connected to at least one light in every house and a couple outlets in the volunteer house, so even if there is not electricty ("no hay luz") we are usually fine because of the battery. however, when the electricity goes out for a while, like it did this week (about 40 hours), the battery doesn't charge, so it doesn't work either. so we had about 2 days with nothing this week... i mean it actually wasn't that bad, we really don't use things that require electricity here as much as we do back home... but our food did dit in the fridge all that time, and we still eat it. people here don't really seem to worry about those kinds of things that much. i haven't gotten too sick yet, so we'll see...

arroz y habichuelas: those of you that know me well, know much my family and i think and talk about food... so i felt it was only appropriate to give a little food update. i've been here long enough now to realize that there is a pattern in the meals we eat. i think i explained this before, but the way we eat is this... there is a kitchen that cooks for all the houses. the kids go pick up the buckets of food for their house before each meal and bring it home and their tias serve it up for them. all the volunteers are assigned to a house and we go there and eat lunch and dinner with the. so i eat 14 meals a week with them and i would say about 75% of them consist of lots of white rice, a few beans and a little bit of some kind of meat. it really isn't bad, it's just that it's mostly rice and it gets a little old after a while. i like all the meats we get even though i usually don't know what they are and we usually don't get very much of it. however, some days we get fish and i could definitely live without that since it usually comes complete with some bones and scales in there somewhere. tuesday night we get cheese and platinos. this is not one of my favorite meals... the best way i can describe the cheese is if you imagine how the zoo smells and then put that into a taste... yes, very gross, and i haven't met too many cheese that i don't like. then the platinos that they serve with the cheese are kind of like bananas, but they are more like the texture of potatoes... they are boiled i think and are very starchy and don't have a whole lot of flavor. then on friday and sunday nights, the kitchen staff is off, so we just eat bread and juice (we usually just drink water) for dinner. sometimes it's nice though because the tias will give us a hard boiled egg to go with the bread. my favorite day in the whole world is wednesday. i'm not sure what happens in the kitchen... maybe they feel extra happy on wednesdays or they are just trying to help us get through hump day, but they just pump out some super delish food... like stuff i would actually eat at home. for lunch we get this yellow rice... it's different from the rice we usually get, it's almost a little like fried rice and it has corn in it. and then they put this amazingly delicious piece of chicken on top of it that just falls off the bone. it's so good... my favorite meal here. then on wednesday night we get these potatoes... they are sweet, but they are not sweet potatoes, because i do not like sweet potatoes and i love these... i really don't know how to describe them but they are delicious. and then sometimes they put these scrambled eggs on top of them (which is my favorite), otherwise it's pasta with a little sauce (which is a weird combo, but still pretty good). so overall, the food here isn't bad, it's just a lot of carbs... all the time. you could not do the atkins diet here. it's very filling though... i think my stomach has shrunk because i get full really fast. and the good thing is, if you ever don't want something, you just push it over to one of the kids plates... they eat everything!

"consider it all joy, my brothers, when you encounter various trials, for you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. and let perseverance be perfect, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing." - james 1:2-4

week 4: in over my head (july 6-13)

2008-07-13T21:15:00.000-07:00

patience: well my first full week of working full time in the special needs house has taught me that i am certainly going to need patience this year. we have another volunteer here from haiti for the summer who is going to help me out (wonderful!) so we worked out a plan where she takes care of four of the kids, i take care of four of the kids and one is participating in the summer program that the rest of the kids are participating in. i work with the kids for an hour each in the morning, then take a lunch break, then take one of my girls to the summer program in the afternoon (she can participate as long as i'm there to help her). my kids are all very different. rosali is 8 and is very sweet and happy and laughs all the time, but she has about a two second attention span, so doing any activity with her is very interesting. genesis is 7 is very quiet and tiny (she must have been very malnourished). she loves to be held, but that's about it... you can't do many activities with her. paolo is 14 and she is my biggest emotional struggle right now. she is the most capable out of any of the special needs kids, but she only does what she wants to do and she's very difficult to deal with. kaki is my 8 year old boy and he is my biggest physical struggle. he is very aggressive, not in a malicious way, but just because he doesn't have much control over his body. he's always running around and breaking things and he bites and he doesn't talk. it's very challenging. my mornings have been, needless to say, interesting. i'm still working on getting to know them so i can find more effective ways to work with them... but it all takes time... and lots of patience. and then on wednesday, i had a surprise meeting with a bunch of the people from the house, including sister fanny (the spiritual director of the house). i'm not sure if i was supposed to know about this meeting... but i didn't... so i was a little caught off guard. like i said, my spanish isn't that great, so i usually like to write down everything i'm going to say before i have to say it... but obviously didn't have time for that this time. anyway, i was a little stressed out during this meeting, but i tried to pay attention and get the main points of the conversation... and add a few comments... so hopefully i did ok. welcome to my life of never knowing what the heck is going on!!

and a little more patience: adjusting to the different lifestyle here has also required patience. the main thing is everyone's sense of time here. now for those of you who know my family, you know we typically operate on "popa time", which translates to late. it can vary from 5 minutes to several hours, depending on the day or activity. however, i have discovered here something that may be worse than popa time... and it is dominican time. people here just have a very different attitude about time and life. nothing moves too quickly (except for the crazy cars and buses)... but seriously, i have just had to learn that things get done when they get done. when you want to go to the store, you have to expect that it might be a three hour adventure. when you want to take a gua-gua somewhere, you have to know that when you get to the gua-gua station there are no schedules, so your gua-gua could leave two minutes after you get there, or you could wait 30 minutes. when you are standing in line any where, it's probably gonna be a while. and there really isn't any such thing as "fast food". it's been weird to get used to, especially coming from our efficiency obsessed culture, but sometimes (when i remind myself to be patient) it can actually be kind of nice. i've noticed that i have a lot more time to think here... more time to take in my surroundings, and when i stop being stressed about how it's taking so long, i actually find that it can be quite relaxing.

a break through: despite the testing of my patience, i always seem to have those couple moments each day that remind me that i should be here... this week it happened on thursday night. the way meals work around here is this... there is a kitchen who cooks for all the houses. before meals, kids go down to the kitchen and pick up food for the houses, then they bring it back and eat at their houses. volunteers are assigned to a house and they join them for lunch and dinner everyday. this has been really amazing because i got to be in salomon's house (my god-child), so i've had time to get to know him and he has thirteen other 11-13 year old boys in the house and they are so much fun! now, i've learned this week that there are a lot of discipline problems here... which i assume is to be expected from a bunch of kids that grew up in families with no parents, or parents that couldn't take care of them. and my house in particular has some tough boys... and its hard for me cuz i don't always know exactly what is going on. but, anyway some of the volunteers have been reading to their kids before dinner and i have tried to avoid that because i'm not very confident in my spanish reading, plus i didn't know how middle school aged boys would respond to me reading a bed-time story to them! but anyway, on thursday night after dinner one of the boys, ernito (one of the toughest boys in the house) asked me if i would read to them. i got really nervous and tried to think how i could come up with an excuse in spanish... but i didn't and told him to pick a short and easy one. then we went into the bedroom and i tried to explain to them in my broken spanish that i am not very good at spanish and if i say words wrong i want them to help me. i was given the response "no importa" and then all gathered around me on the bed to see this five page story about some random cartoon character. it was really cute, these tough little boys all came around me like little 5 year olds and helped me get through the book. it was adorable. afterwards we had a conversation about arizona because they are very interested in where i come from and then they taught me all the english words they know... they were so proud! then the little boy brought me this like 75 page chapter book and asked me to read "only until page 28"... and i was like i think i've accomplished enough for one night, so we made an agreement that on monday night we would pull out the chapter book and i would read one page and then each of them would read one page... we'll see how it goes. but i just left their house feeling really good that night... like i'm actually making some progress with my spanish and just that as tough as these kids can try to act sometimes, they're still all just little kids at heart that just want someone to love them.

the two sides of the dr: sunday was my birthday and it was my goal to see the "postcard picture beach"... not that the one we went to the other week wasn't nice, but it wasn't what you see on the postcards. so on saturday, two of the other volunteers and i headed to punta cana (on the east coast), which is supposed to have some of the prettiest beaches on the whole island. we decided to splurge a little and stay in an all-inclusive hotel, so we could stock up on food on our day off! it was really great to relax, eat good food and see the beautiful beach (we even got up early to watch the sunrise on sunday morning). however, something about it was weird. it was almost as if we were in a completely different country. everything i've seen so far here is terribly poverty stricken (i haven't talked much about the poverty here yet, but i will soon), but here at this resort, you would have no idea how most of the people here live. sometimes it's hard because i tend to see things like that and get bitter about it and just start to think that it's not fair... and maybe it's not. but i've been reading this book called "chasing daylight" and it's all about taking advantage and seizing each moment... not worrying too much about the past or the future, but being in the present. not that you ignore the fact that there are problems in the world, but that you realize that you can only control what you do in this moment. so if anything, being at this hotel (after 4 weeks in the rest of the country) it just made me realize that there are so many blessings in my life everyday that i take for granted (i.e. hot water, air conditioning, food that isn't rice and beans, fountain soda, etc) and i was reminded this weekend (when i had them all again) that not everyone has these things and i live a very blessed life.

well i can't believe it but i've been here a month! i was telling my family that sometimes it seems like time flies by and other times it's like, "oh my gosh i can't believe i'm going to be here for 11 more months"!! i'm sure there will continue to be ups and downs, but i keep reminding myself to take advantage of all my time here.

"there may well be many moments waiting behind this one, and though the most significant moments of your life may still be moments away, the moment you're in right now waits to be seized." - erwin raphael mcmanus (from "chasing daylight")

week 3: settling in (june 29-july 5)

2008-07-10T13:42:00.000-07:00

casa san pascual: well the kids finished school a couple weeks ago, and now they are in a kinda of "break" period until they start the summer program next week. the kids that are struggling in school will go to summer school and the other kids participate in different activities in the morning and afternoons (led by the summer volunteers). so this week we spent basically preparing for summer program and trying to keep the kids from getting too bored. i also got to go spend some time in san pascual (the special needs home i'll be working in). like i said, i have 9 main kids that i'll be working with, six that live in san pascual. i thought the best way to start is just to get to know the kids, so i can know more about their needs and what i will be able to do with the. so, i spent one day just hanging out at their house... and it was completely overwhelming!! i had a few moments where i was like, "what am i doing here?!" there are six kids in this house and three tias and i have no idea how they do it. the kids are great, and i'm really excited to work with them, but they all definitely need one on one attention. you can't stop paying attention for one second. (i'll write more about the kids specifically later). anyway, they have a room in the house for therapy, but is an absolute complete disaster... and i quickly came to find out why. i took one of the kids in there and then two more came in and they were taking papers out and books and blocks and throwing them everywhere and wanting to paint and play catch and this room (that was already a disaster) looked like a tornado had gone through it after an hour! anyway, i left that day feeling a little overwhelmed, but i had a talk with anne (another volunteer coordinator here) afterward and i felt a lot better. we decided that my first order of business would be to get a lock for the room and clean it so we can actually start working in it. then, i met veronica, who is a volunteer here from austria. she is a physical therapist and has been working with the kids for about a year and a half. it was good to talk with her and get her insight into the kids. also, on friday we had a meeting with the tias in the house and determined that we would put together a schedule for working with the kids one on one over the summer. (most of them will not be able to participate in the summer program).

4th (well 3rd) of july: there are about 7 or 8 volunteers/staff members here from the states, and we were feeling a little blue about not being home for the fourth of july, so we decided to plan a party for thursday night (we couldn't do it on friday b/c we had planned an olympics day for the kids... see below). so, after all our work was done on thursday, we all gathered at one of the volunteer houses for a bbq. they have an old trash barrell that they've cut in half and put a grill thingy over it, so we used that to bbq. we bought hot dogs and hamburgers and chips and soda. i made salsa too... all this speaking spanish has been making me seriously crave mexican food! we also cut up some watermelon and grilled some corn on the cob. it was really fun! the best part was we made s'mores! they were so yummy. then we decided to try to sin some patriotic songs for all our non-american friends... it was pretty pitiful, but we managed to sing "you're a grand old flag", "this land is your land", and "take me out to the ball game".

olympics: as sort of a "last hurrah" before summer program, some of the summer volunteers planned a day of olympics for the kids. it was basically like a field day, with different events for the kids to compete in... potato (well, rice) sack races, sprints, obstacle courses, suicides on the basketball court, long jump, etc. all the little kids competed in the morning (who were adorable btw!) and then we took a break and the older kids competed in the afternoon. all the kids were in groups and were assigned a different country and they went around with their groups to compete in the events. my kids, from san pascual (team espana), competed with the younger kids in the morning. it was quite an interesting day. we weren't able to compete in all the events, but we tried! a lot of times we were just kind of running around and trying to make sure we didn't lose anyone. pretty much walking from one event to the next was enough of an activity for us. we had fun though. then later that night we had the closing ceremonies on the basketball court and gave out awards to the winners of each event. afterward, two of the houses of older girls performed dances that they had prepared for us... that then turned into just a huge dance party on the basketball court. i normally hate dancing, but these kids love it, so it was really fun.

el tres: after a very long week preparing for summer program and the olympics, i got to take a much needed break. two of the other girls and i found out about this place called el tres about 2 hours north of here. we heard it was in the middle of the jungle... or forest... or whatever they call it here... and that it was really calm and relaxing... sounded perfect! and it was! it was just right off the road and about 3 km from this town called sebana de la mar, but it felt like you were in the middle of nowhere.... there were huge trees and beautiful flowers and random farm animals walking around... but it was so quiet and peaceful. there was practically no one there and we got a room for one night for a total of 800 pesos ($24... $8 each... crazy). and they had this really great restaurant with delicious food... and it was kinda just like you were at someone's house because there was no menu. you just tell them that you want breakfast and they bring you whatever they are making for that day. and i'm pretty sure the chicken we ate for dinner had been running around the place earlier that morning... but we go for anything that's not rice and beans when we can. it was definitely a nice get-away... for those of you who are coming to visit me, we are going back there.

another near death experience: well we knew our tranquil paradise couldn't last forever, and it definitely ended the moment we stepped on the bust to go back home. you can basically take a bus, or gua-gua as they are called here, anywhere you want and they are really cheap (like $3). but i don't know what's going on with these gua-gua drivers, but they certainly are in a hurry. it's like how i explained before in the city, but when you travel further, the roads are even worse. i don't even know if you could consider parts of them roads... and there are these huge cliffs with no guard rails or anything and these bus drivers are flying around the corners, passing people on the wrong side of the road. the best way i can describe it is to imagine being on the indiana jones ride at disneyland... except that it's not a ride... it's real life! i literally just closed my eyes, because it was so much better not to look!

but again, i have survived yet another week! hope all is well at home!

"far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor souls who neither enjoy nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat." - theodore roosevelt