Graduation

If you would like to read a little about our graduation party on Friday (May 21), here is the blog I wrote on the Makarios site:

http://makariosinternational.org/

It was a huge success! :)

I apparently love basketball.

Last weekend my neighbor Ada asked if I wanted to go watch a game in the town we live in. Since my schedule is always so full on Saturday nights, I said no...mentira, I was sitting in my apartment so I went, of course. When we got to the gym, I realized it was two churches playing each other, and Ada was in charge of doing the sound system. I could go into some lengthy blog about how this was this worst game of basketball I had ever seen, yet extremely humorous at the same time, but I'll just give you the highlights of how unorganized the whole thing was:

1) It has been raining (it is a covered outside court) so water was everywhere. To start the game and actually be able to play, they had mops and put newspaper everywhere to soak up the water.
2) The power went out right when they were starting so we all sat in the dark for about 10 minutes before anyone could figure out what to do.
3) The ref was a boy they picked out of the crowd, and the announcers were three kids under the age of 12 that decided last minute it would be fun to talk into the microphone.
4) The timer was an iphone.
5) When one of the teams was passing the ball around on offense, a guy passed it to a player out of bounds resting.
6) A player was passing the ball in for the guy to take it down the court. When the guy received it, he ran half way down the court, not realizing he was not dribbling. ouch.
7) On one team, two of the players would not go back for defense because they thought it would be better to stay on offense, and one of the other players could throw the ball down the court to them for a fast shot.
8) I was more fascinated in the kid who was trying to do the moonwalk.
9) Someone brought a dog in a princess outfit. Every time it passed us, we had to laugh.
10) Last but not least, I was in my skinny jeans, and I still could've shown those boys what's up...no seriously, I am not being prideful.

Mas Photos de helado y baloncesto

Here are some more pics from my blog about getting ice cream. These are ones that Holly and Robin took when we brought Memo, Franchesca, and Bernito. I love Memskies.

Robin and I went to another basketball game Wednesday night and purposefully sat behind the bench ;). Sadly the main events of the game had nothing to do with the actual game. A couple of random flights broke out so everyone was out of their seats trying to see. In addition, there were two guys throwing trash on the court so naturally the guards at the game went to tell them to stop. The guys started yelling back and one pushed one of the guards...ohhhh man. Next thing you know the guard (which was a lady) had her stick and was ready to use it. She was chasing him up a few rows of seats and then finally he got away. Bad idea. At the end of the game, Robin and I got a picture with my bball crush once. His name is Oliver, and that is about all I have got...well more so all Robin got because she was the one actually talking to him. When we were walking out another one of the players was stretching on the ground. I told him I wanted a picture, and he could not hear me so I stuck my hand out to help him up. He thought I was trying to shake it, and then I pulled him off the ground, well kind of, and he was supppper tall. At that moment, I started to realize how confident I am in this country that I could just go up to a player and tell him to stand up because I want a pic...hmmm. Do not know if that is a good or bad thing. Oh well, must be home :).

PIctures!

I talked about the political parade I joined in last night in my last blog. Today they were still celebrating the white party's victory of Omar winning, in other words they had another parade, and this is when they went down our street Calle Silencio. Enjoy the pics!
Omar is the guy pictured on the left who beat Chino. I have met him in person. Lucky me.



Above, Maria (in the middle) was celebrating with her "white" sheet. Maria is Johan's mom, and she is pretty awesome, and yes she does look like she is twenty but is actually much older. I love her a lot.I saved the best picture (above) for last. I originally took it because of the massive rum bottle that is sitting on top of the car that they have probably been passing around to take a drink out of. Once I put the picture on my computer, I noticed something even more awesome/not so awesome. Here you can get a ticket for not having your seat belt on, but no worries, you can totally drink and drive...hmmm.

Dominicanos son locos.

The more I live here, the more I get excited and think it is fun doing the smallest Dominican things. For example, when you are debating whether you should go to bed and get some good sleep, but how many lives do you live, and I will never forget this moment so heck why not?! Or I could get some blogging and emails done, but will I ever be able to have the chance to do that again, absolutely not, I'm in! Sounds cheesy, but we have all had those moments.

A few Sunday nights ago, my neighbor asked us if we wanted to play bingo. Of course! I lovvve bingo. Robin, Ashley, Rachel, and I met Gloria to walk where we would play...at some kind of bingo hall you would think or something along those lines. No way. We walked up to some lady's house where they pulled out a few tables and some chairs, passed out juice, your bingo card, and tiny rocks to place over the numbers. Even though the bingo cards were the same as state's ones, you only had to get four in a row, ya I don't know. Anyways, we were addicted to this 10 peso a game night out with the older ladies of Montellano, and Ashley actually won. All that to say, we will be going again.

The past couple of months maybe of Sunday nights, there have been "professional" games of basketball in Puerto Plata (the place I blogged about in November where I got to play on Wilson's team). We have gone to a couple of games, but now they are in the playoffs so we went last Sunday, which ended up with me having a crush on number once (11), Robin being a volunteer during the half time show which was a (I am almost positive) drugged up man lighting himself on fire several times in a tarzan type leopard skirt, and last of all taking a picture with the only guy who was American, was the best out there, and was on the winning team. Even though it looked like high school basketball, I felt like a piece of me came back. Love me some basketball.
Elections.
http://robininks.blogspot.com/2010/05/politics.html
That will give you a bit of what has been going on. Last night they finally announced the winner of the elections in our town so in true Dominican fashion, they had to have one last parade. The whole time I have been here for these, I have regretted not joining in one just for the heck of it. I obviously do not care about voting, but the parades looked like something I should do at least once while I am here. Johan drove by last night, dancing and yelling because he said his person won (even though I think he voted for the other haha) so Ashley and I hopped on his moto with him and joined the parade around town which consisted of one Mack truck, too many motos, and hundreds of people blowing horns, some probably slightly intoxicated. We got back from the parade, and it was one of those things where you feel like it was all a dream. And then I woke up to reality when a (in Robins words) "prehistoric" sized cucaracha was in our kitchen. No joke, it was the biggest one I have ever seen, on steroids for sure. I am numb to roaches now so I grabbed the broom to sweep it outside while Ashley sprayed, and voila job done. Pics below of it, comparing it to Robin's toe.

Me gusta helado

Every Thursday from 2-4 after school we can go into the villages or hang out with our kids instead of staying at the school to do work. We like to do this in order to build relationships with our kids and their families outside of school. The past couple Thursdays a few others and I have taken kids to La Sirena (like Walmart) for some ice cream. The first time I wanted to take Nelisa and Marileidi so Ashley brought Regina, and Johan, Robin, and Kim came with us. The second time Robin, Holly, and I took Memo, Bernito, and Franchesca.

Go Mavs...oh wait.

I have not blogged in awhile, and I think I say that every time I actually do blog. oops. Instead of writing several blogs about my past week and a half, I decided to write the top eight events that occurred.

1) When I came back back after Easter, I got the typical fever, nose, throat combo for a couple of weeks. I kept a toilet paper roll in me and Johan's class because my nose was never ending (sorry tmi, but we have all had this). Finally one day last week, when I was on my second roll, Johan grabbed the toilet paper from me and wrapped it around my head. I poked in two holes for my eyes and one for my mouth. I could not just stop there. I started chasing my students, growling, and tickling the ones I caught. Johan and I obviously get a lot done in our class.
2) Boo Mavs. Once again disappointed.
3) For our Bible lesson on Thursday, we talked to our students about how we can help our community. We decided, as examples of love, we should go give hugs around the school. Johan and I took our students from room to room, to other staff, and then they gave us hugs. Super precious, and well, I lovvvve hugs from my kids so I didn't mind. I know Nelisa was on cloud nine during this. She is probably the biggest hugger in our school, besides Regina of course.
4) Out of the older kids in Chichigua, Ernesto is by far my favorite. He is really shy but so sweet to us. He came by the school last week to drop something off, and Robin noticed that his shoes that he always wears were too small for him. I then tried to give him my old tenni's, but they also did not fit. Just so you know, Makarios does not like giving a bunch of hand outs. We are all about building relationships and not just walking up to a poor village, handing out free stuff, and leaving. Ernesto is someone we have known for awhile, and on his own, he has made me four rings and a bracelet, and same for Robin so in return we went to the store and bought him some new tenni's. We went to Chigs on Thursday and gave them to him. He had the biggest smile on his face, of course got embarrassed, said thank you, and walked into his room where we chased him down and gave him a big hug. Love that boy.

5) On Friday we took all of the students to the park. This was great for me because I had a lonnnng night on Thursday night so nice lil break. Little did I know the humorous events that were to follow that day. I will just write a couple...We brought water to the park because it was hot outside, and the kids start complaining about how thirsty they are. Johan and I were filling the cups and passing them out to the kids, and I gave a cup to Anthony who is one of our craziest boys in the school, silly and loves to joke around. He tried to give me his cup back, but it still had some water in it so I told him to drink it all. Apparently, he either couldn't or tried to drink it too fast because it went down the wrong pipe and came back out of his mouth alllll over me. Awesome. Secondly, Chris was driving me and Lauren's class back, with them sitting in the back of the truck while Lauren and I sit on the sides to make sure they all stayed seated. As we were driving, I saw these boys screaming and running, and the next thing I know my face was getting hit, by bees!!! Lauren and I at the same time realized that they were bees and both started screaming and flailing our arms everywhere. The bees were swarming us and our kids, and that was why those boys were running because they had apparently hit down a bee hive. We eventually drove far enough from them, and gracias a Dios, only one girl was stung because she saw a bee stuck in another girl's fro hair and swatted it out. My worst nightmare.

6) Saturday for Domincan Labor Day we went to the river in Los Ciruellos. It was perfect. The water felt great, some other Domincans were playing music for everyone, I got to jump off the rock while doing some awesome cheerleading moves, and our construction workers for Makarios came and cooked Sancocho for everyone.
7) Last night the animal kingdom decided to nest in our apartment. I was washing my dishes when I heard Ashley scream. Robin then also screamed, and I ran over and screamed myself. A huge nasty looking centipede was chillin by Ashley's door. We were weinies and yelled for Ada our neighbor to come help us kill it, and in true Dominican fashion he stood there saying, "Yeah, that is dangerous, very dangerous. It moves fast. Very dangerous." Then sweeps it outside with the mop, kills it, and says, "That was nothing. Do not worry." hmm. After this, I killed a spider trying to come into our apartment. And you would think it would all be over at this point (not counting the fact that I have a hand length sized lizard in my room with babies). We come back inside, get settled, and then I look at the wall in the living room where an army of ants is moving from one side of the room to the other. Gross.

8) Tonight Robin, Ashley, and I are going to play bingo with our neighbor Gloria (Ada's mom). She is pretty much awesome and loves us so she invited us to come with her tonight. It is only a mere 10 pesos, in other words if I win, I will probably get a good 50 pesos in return haha. Should be interesting :). I will definitely let you know how this goes.