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