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… 
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
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