Dominican Republic

Adios la RD, Hola los Estados Unidos

2011-08-21T11:03:00.002-07:00

I said my goodbyes at the airport to pretty much my whole Dominican community minus a few. It was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do. Walk away from so many people I care deeply about: Johan, Merlin, Gloria, Edwin, Elianira, Mami, Maria, Benjamin, Wilson, Yomo, Bella, Memo, Yulena, my Pancho brothers, all my students, Makarios staff, and many more. Knowing that no longer would I be able to walk down the street or hop on a moto to go to their house, hang out, and talk about life. I know God brought me home for a reason, and I will trust in His will and new story for my life. Adios la Republica Dominicana, hola los Estados Unidos.

Last Day with my Babies

2011-08-21T11:03:00.001-07:00

I had a great time on my last day at the school of summer camp with my students. I laughed ALOT with them and took random funny photos. After school, I took Rachel and Franchesca with me to my apartment. It was Yulena's birthday so we decorated the living room area with signs and balloons. Yulena, Escarlet, and Neifi came over an hour later to play. We made hats with construction paper, stickers, and crazy scissors. After that, we had cake and sang happy birthday to Yulena. Overall it was a wonderful last time with my girlies :)

My Crazy but Wonderful Friends

2011-08-21T11:01:00.000-07:00

The Saturday before I left, a few Dominican friends and Cara came over to eat dinner with me and Lara. We cooked, listened to music, watched youTube videos of different dances (Cat Daddy and the Bernie), naturally tried to dance that way, and then had a photo shoot (timer of course). Enjoy the ridiculousness of that photo shoot :)

Mi Despedida de Pancho Mateo

2011-08-21T11:00:00.001-07:00

My last day in Pancho Mateo was the Tuesday before I left. I went in the morning to each of my student's houses and said bye to other people along the way. It was a wonderful morning sitting at people's houses and talking about the years past. I went to Miguel Angel's house last, and he sat and showed me pictures of him as a baby. We laughed alot together, and he picked on me like usual but gave me hugs. I did not cry once though. I had gone to Bienvenido's house and thought I would but did not. Bienvenido was one of my students and one of the brightest. He knew how to read from the start of the school year because he taught himself in his house. Bienvenido is extremely witty and stubborn so he definitely gave me and Johan a run for our money this year. He was a tough kid to discipline, but for some reason, I don't know, maybe God, I loved this child alot and so did Johan. I reached out to him the last few weeks I was there by taking him to the river and playing basketball with him one day. I slowly saw a change in his attitude with me, starting to talk to me and open up more. I thought I would cry when I said bye, when he walked away from me surprised and maybe upset, but I didn't.

I went back to Pancho to play basketball like always on Tuesdays, and Cakito had his soccer boys holding up signs with my name on them to greet me at the court. Then I saw a sign with balloons on it that said "We will miss ya Kendall." I told Cakito if we did not start playing, I would start crying so he picked out our team, and we started. After this, I joked around with my Tuesday basketball family and walked away for the last time with Jhoan and his brother Joel. I knew the tears were coming. I also decided to say bye to Bienvenido one more time. He started to tear up a bit, and I lost it.

I went home to shower and had to go back to Pancho to have my goodbye dinner. My brothers' (Jhoan, Joel, and Jovanny) family cooked me a Mexican dinner. Tacos, guacamole, salsa, all the works. They knew my favorite food is Mexican so they went all out to say goodbye. After, we sat around, talked, laughed alot at Joel, and took pictures. When some of the family went to bed, I asked my five Pancho brothers to sit and talk with me. I read them a letter and gave them pictures that we had taken throughout the years. We sat in silence, smiled, but mostly cried. Cakito prayed for me, and then they drove me home. Miss you my dear brothers :) We had a great few years, and I will never forget them nor you!

Mi Despedida de Chichigua

2011-08-21T10:58:00.000-07:00

My last times in the DR.

It began in the village of Chichigua, where my loves Dido, Memo, and my students live. It was my last Monday, and I spent most of it with them and later that day in the church in my town for their ESL graduation. I walked around Chigs saying bye to everyone, to my students' families, but mostly I sat in Dido's house with her. My students came by to hang out with me, and I gave them a picture of me and Johan with each one of them. I made brownies and brought coke to have a little going away party. Dido lovvvves her brownies. You can see this in the picture of her scraping the glass pan.

I did not get emotional when I left Chichigua for some reason. At this point, I still had not cried about leaving. Honestly, I felt like something was wrong with me since I usually cry about everything haha. I think at this point it was because I knew I would see Dido and Memo at the ESL service at my church. I knew my final goodbye would be there. I went to the service and was happy to sit and hold Ryner, Dido's baby, and sing worship songs alongside of Dido. Eventually Memo came and sat in my lap. Love that boy. One of the final things to do was listen to the ESL class sing "God of this City" by Chris Tomlin. They learned it during the summer so they could sing it at their graduation. I sat close by to take pictures, and then it happened. I looked over at Memo singing about his God that he trusted in this year, and I lost it. Tears pouring. After this, I watched them get into their guagua to go back to Chichigua, and I could not stop crying. I will never forget Dido and how well she loved me every time I came to visit her. Dido became a Christian this year also, and I am more than grateful for that. I pray that even though she is poor, living in rough conditions, that she will never take her eyes away from Christ. That He will always be sufficient for her.

Parque de Agua

2011-08-21T10:53:00.001-07:00

Before I left, I knew I wanted to take Yulena somewhere. Anne Marie, Lara, and I went to a place in Sosua that was called Ocean Village. It has a waterpark, but also has several normal pools (about four). It is along the beach and is wonderful! Lara and I immediately decided that we would take a couple of kids there so of course I chose Yulena.

I do not think I have said much about her in my past blogs, but I grew to love this child like she was my own and even at some points like she was a friend. She is one of the most mature eight year old girls I know, always saying please, thank you, excuse me, and so on. She would visit my house and play while I would do other things, and when she was done, she would say thank you and put everything back to where it was suppose to go. Not normal! Yulena was a new student at Makarios this year in my first grade class, and I thank God for that. Kristen at the beginning of the year asked if Yulena could join my class, and I was very hesitant. I finally said okay, and now I look back and know that Yulena was one of the biggest blessings in my life in the DR. When I left for a week in January when my grandma passed away, Yulena offered to pray for me. An eight year old! My last full day in the DR, Yulena was with me. She walked around town with me, talking to me, quiet at times because she was sad, and laughed with me. I could go on, but you obviously see how much I love this child. I pray that she will stay the child of God that she is (she is a Christian), wise beyond any other kid her age, and will grow up to be a beautiful woman of God.

La Cancha

2011-08-15T10:31:00.000-07:00

I once posted a blog about the basketball court in Pancho Mateo:

La Cancha

My home away from home. As long as I live, I will not forget that place. It is where I first played with kids in the DR. My first village visit when I arrived. Where I started to play basketball with Sili every week. Where I colored with Nelisa. Where I met one of my greatest friends Cakito, which then lead to me meeting my brothers of Pancho Mateo and playing basketball every Tuesday with them till I left (my old blog about them). I miss this place and the people more than words can express.

While I was still in the DR, the boys decided to give the cancha a makeover. Cakito put in alot of work to collect money from people and get the boys together to paint it and redo the backboards/rims. I was so proud of them!

I could say that was it and voila! the court was finished, but there needed to be one last final touch. I had been asking Cakito if we could all put our names on the court somewhere, and he told me if I bought spray paint, we could. A few weeks later, I bought a few cans and went to Pancho Mateo where I found him at the court with some other boys. I handed him the paint and said it was time to write our names. Well...what I wanted to be in a corner smaller somewhere along the walls turned out to be alot bigger haha. That is an understatement. Cakito called out the professional, and next thing you know, my name is HUGE above the stands. Now it is pretty funny, but I still get embarrassed thinking about it. They were so excited to write it there and thought it looked way "bacano" (cool). Honestly, I feel honored by them. Love and miss you mis hermanitos de Pancho!

Marileidi

2011-07-18T13:02:00.001-07:00

Marileidi is one of our students at Makarios, and her brother Miguel Angel was one of my students this past school year (one of my favs!). Their family is well loved by the Makarios school because they have been there since the beginning of the first built school building, but also because their Mom Katherin is one of the sweetest people I have met in this country.

Marileidi graduated a few weeks ago from Kindergarten at the public school (she goes there in the afternoon), and Katherin asked if we would come and take pictures of her in her dress with her escort Yery (who also goes to our school). There are some pretty cute ones of her! Photo shoot de Leidi:

Gloria

2011-07-18T12:31:00.000-07:00

Yes, I have a Dominican mom named Gloria, and she's cra cra, but I love her despite that. When I lived in my old apartment, her house was right across the street. I would walk over there every night to say hi and sit to talk with her. Since I have been living down the street, she asks me at least every other day where I have been and why I did not tell her where I was going...aka you need to get permission from me to go anywhere, and I especially need to see who you are going with. The funniest times in our relationship is when I have to refuse the proposal of her wanting me to marry her son...Oh Gloria.

Because we are leaving her, she has been asking us to come over so she can cook. She loves it when we come eat with her and talk for a couple of hours. She could talk for days. The things you find out about her life are more and more interesting every time I sit down with her. Love me some Gloria :)

Beach Trips

2011-07-18T12:24:00.001-07:00

Throughout the summer we have gone on several beach trips with the students. These are my last times with the kids so they are very special to me. Crazy to think I am leaving my babies behind in a little over two weeks! I am going to miss them terribly.

Joel

2011-06-25T09:08:00.001-07:00

I know I have talked about Joel before in other blogs (he is in the picture with the Dirk jersey), but I felt as though he needed his own solo blog this time. Joel is my little brother who lives in Pancho Mateo. He is fourteen and lives with his grandma and brothers Jhoan and Jovanny who I am also friends with. I really love this kid and wish I could take him home with me in my suitcase, but alas I will have to leave him when I go in August.
This past Monday night I was at my apartment, and he came by with Cakito. He loves talking to me and making fun of me so when Cakito went upstairs to hang out with some of our friends, Joel stayed to hang out with me. We had the music video channel on in our living room so I started doing silly dance moves while he laughed at me and told me I could not dance. He started showing me all his moves like normal, and like normal I was impressed. This kid can dance. If my internet was not so slow, I would post videos, but you will have to settle for pictures...they do not do enough justice trust me.

ps. You can also see the pictures here where they will be bigger:

Joel

A Tad Late

2011-06-25T08:55:00.000-07:00

The two pictures with my girlfriends was me showing off all my Mavs gear (crap). They wanted to put it all on and pretend to be Mavs fans. Of course I soaked that up because no one here likes the Mavs except for one guy that I know in Pancho Mateo. The other two pictures are me with two of my friends (Cakito and Jhoan) after the Mavs won. What I would've done to be in Dallas...but I wasn't, so I ran around town in my Dirk jersey like a crazy person. I am pretty sure everyone thought I was drunk. Oops. Felicidades Los Mavs! Por fin!

Let's Go Mavs!

2011-06-10T17:17:00.000-07:00

Like a true Mavs fan, I have been watching every game since the beginning of the playoffs either in my apartment or at my friend Cara's house. Whenever I watch it at my apartment, I tell my basketball brothers that they are welcome to come to my house and watch it with me. A few games back, three of them (Jhoan, Jovanny, and Joel) came over. Joel loves Lebron so he was cheering for Miami, but the rest of us were cheering for Dallas. Jhoan and Jovanny were only cheering for Dallas because they love Kobe Bryant therefore they hate Lebron.

Kristen took some celebration pictures at the end of the game by clicking on the button multiple times in a row really fast, which lead to the pictures shown in the slideshow. Watch Jhoan who is the striped shirt. Pretty funny.

Graduation Day

2011-06-10T15:49:00.000-07:00

For graduation day, our kids had to make up some kind of presentation for the parents. Most of the time the classes sing a song, say a verse, or do a drama, but this time we had our kids do something a little bit different. Johan and I are very proud to say that our kids can read and write. They still need alot of help in the coming year, but we are happy to know they can do the basics. We decided to have each student make a card for their parents telling their parents how grateful they were of them. At presentation time, they came up one by one with their parents and read the card in the microphone that was set up. It was adorable! Most of the kids were laughing, and Memo (of course) started to cry when he was reading his card to his mom. He is such a mama's boy :). Here are some pictures throughout graduation day:

Dia de Agua

2011-06-10T15:14:00.000-07:00

The last week of school Johan and I did a water day with our first graders. We filled up some water balloons and used some of the buckets in the school to fill up with water. The PreK students had been doing this same idea during the morning so we decided to wait until after lunch until they went back to their rooms. Smart idea, right? NO. The little ones left a huge mud pit for our students which lead to total chaos. My kids were running around like crazy splashing in the mud and throwing it on us. Of course I had fun, and of course I could not stop laughing. I mean how many teachers get to have fun like that with their students. Kristen took some pictures for us and got some great shots of a few kids crying. If you want to see the pictures bigger, you can click on the slideshow.

Photo shoot

2011-05-15T19:57:00.000-07:00

My lil first grade babies are getting wayyy too big. Last week of school!

ps If you click on the slideshow, it will take you to the page of the photos to see them bigger.

Los Mavs

2011-04-22T06:07:00.001-07:00

Representin' en la RD.

2011-04-22T05:51:00.000-07:00

La Cancha de Pancho Mateo. One of my homes away from home.Taken by the lovely Ashley Sienkiel.

My lil Easter Bunnies

2011-04-15T18:18:00.000-07:00

Today Johan and I threw an Easter fiesta for our first graders. We played games with them all day, ate cake, and watched a movie. Thanks to Ashley, I got a picture with each of my students in bunny ears:

Chichigua

2011-04-03T10:15:00.000-07:00

Usually I write about the village called Chichigua, but this time I am talking about the Spanish word for kite. A few weeks ago Johan decided to make a kite with our first graders. We told them if they behaved throughout the week, we would take them to the Play down the street where there is a huge field to fly the kite. Of course we made sure they were able to...love having that control haha. Our students lovvvved it. They loved making the kite with Johan and going to fly it. Well it lasted for about ten minutes. The kite flew high in the air and then crashed down to the ground. And that's the end of the story :).

Playa Caleton

2011-03-06T08:04:00.000-08:00

Last Sunday was Independence Day for the Dominican Republic so we did not have school on Monday. I heard Johan (my work friend) and the Pancho boys say how they all wanted to go to the beach together so I thought why not on our day off. We took off to a not so public beach called Playa Caleton that I went to last year and loved. It is one of the more beautiful beach spots I have seen since I have lived in this country plus I love how there are not alot of people . Also there are not as many waves so you can go float in the water and relax. We had a great time! The boys loved hanging out with Johan and just getting to be themselves out of the Pancho Mateo/Montellano scene they are in everyday. For me, it was another fun opportunity to be in my Dominican community and show mis hermanitos that they are loved. We swam, played dominoes, ate lunch together, did flips off a tree branch (obviously not me haha), and talked about life. I cannot thank God enough for blessing me with such an amazing Dominican family. These boys, my neighbors, my work friends, Chichigua, and more have affected my life in numerous ways since I have lived here, and I am very thankful for what God has shown me through that.
Joel. 13 years old. One of my favorite people in this country.
Johan (neighbor/work friend) and Joel.
Jhoan from Pancho.
Me, swimming to Kiko and Cakito on the rafts. I have learned I cannot swim like I could when I was little. Out.of.shape.
Brothers. Johvanny, Jhoan, and Joel.

The Play

2011-03-06T06:31:00.000-08:00

I wrote a blog about my class a week ago for the Makarios blog. Read if you like...

Blog

I love winning bets...

2011-02-12T09:43:00.000-08:00

If you love how ridiculous I can be sometimes, you must read this blog by my roommate and friend, Kristen. It describes the whole event perfectly except for what the bet was actually about. I will add that part here, and then you can read her blog and see the pictures.

I was sitting in Joel and Johan's house talking about the NBA with Joel and Cakito (surprise surprise, I would spend my afternoon doing that). We somehow got on the topic of Jason Kidd, who plays for the Mavericks. I started to say how he played for the Mavs when I was little before he went to the New Jersey Nets and then came back to Dallas. They told me I was wrong. Big mistake. We argued back and forth for 10 minutes and then decided to make a bet. I told them I went to the games and had his jersey, but they still would not believe me. They said we would have to swim in the river, like Kristen says, or they would have to endure water balloons. Now this is not just any river. It is filled with all kinds of nastiness, just use your imagination. Ew.
Anyways, a few minutes later Kristen and Johan showed up and decided to join the bet, Kristen trusting me and Johan with the boys. Now you can click on Kristen's link...please do. It's great.

Kristen's blog

Say What

2011-01-30T18:35:00.000-08:00

Yes, that's right. I have students who can read. The students in my class come to our school in the morning and public school in the afternoon so from both places they are learning how to read. We have so much more to teach them about reading, especially the ones who are having alot of trouble in it, but it is such a blessing from the Lord to see the ones who can do it on their own. This past week I asked Bienvenido, our smartest student, to read in front of the class. I thought he might be too embarrassed, but he just got right up in front and started reading. After him, Escarlet went, and then, as you can see in the pictures, Luis Fernando read the next day with the help of Bienvenido. Of course all the boys wanted to, and so they grabbed a book and their chair and sat in front reading. Really, I almost started crying. It was one of those moments where you feel like all your efforts and the time you put in amounts to something, and you aren't standing up in front teaching, meanwhile your kids are looking at the trees outside. Well...I know that does happen for some, but let's just pretend for now it doesn't :).

Welcome to Small Town Life

2011-01-30T17:40:00.000-08:00

If you ever wondered what I do on weekend nights, well let me give you a preview. Actually before I do that, let me tell you what my usual night consists of: sitting on Gloria's porch, chatting with my neighbors, playing dominoes, and sometimes having a glass of wine with them (only if it is the weekend because Christians can drink wine on the weekends). However, lately there have been basketball games at the Multiuso, the place in my small town where there is an "inside" basketball court. Last Saturday night, I got the girls together, us all attempting to dress Dominicana cool, and convinced them that the games are really exciting...bahaha. We ate at Balin, hence the picture with Johan and Balin cooking our delish sandwiches, and then went to the game. My hermanitos de Pancho Mateo were playing so that was fun for me to watch (the boys I play basketball with every Tuesday). Sadly, yes, that was it, my night O' fun, and it really was fun. I have learned to enjoy some of the small things in life living here. Enjoy some of the ridiculous pics.

Dido, my love.

2011-01-30T06:39:00.000-08:00

I wrote a blog about Dido once. How great she is and how much Robin and I love going to visit her in Chichigua. It was Dido's birthday this past Wednesday so I made a funfetti cake for her and took it to Chichigua after school. She shared it with the whole village, no joke. She kept passing it out to others and only got a small piece for herself. That is something I have learned here: selflessness. Haitians and Dominicans love to share. Something us Americans are not very good at sometimes. Anyways, it was fun to be with her on her special day and take pictures of her while she asked me not to, like always. Our photo shoot, as seen below, goes a little something like this...Dido take a picture with me, no, yes, Dido look at the camera and smile, ok, picture taken, did you smile Dido (me making weird face).Sorry Lubi, Roni is no longer a child :)Me, looking a tad dorky in the princesa birthday hat, inviting people in.
On an even better note, Dido and her family became Christians during the Christmas holidays along with many other Chichiguans. Praise the Lord for His amazing grace!

Azucar

2011-01-24T07:57:00.000-08:00

Dominicans love their sugar...A good healthy cup of coffee :)...do not worry, I did not drink this.

Last Day of School Pt 2

2010-12-19T20:41:00.000-08:00

The boys coming into the classroom singing "Feliz Navidad." Also, Johavanny is speaking while letting Joel speak in "English." (fact: Joel does not know English)

Last Day of School

2010-12-19T20:15:00.000-08:00

Friday, I had my brothers from Pancho Mateo come and entertain our first grade class for our classroom Christmas party. I told them they had to sing two Christmas songs so they came and sang “Feliz Navidad” about 10 times in a row :). Johan made a big introduction for them, and they came in the room dancing, clapping, and singing. Johvanny then had Joel translate in English for the students...Joel does not know English nor do the students speak it. Awesome. He was making up words, and of course the kids have no idea so I am pretty sure they bought it. I was cracking up. After this, Cakito talked about Christmas and why we celebrate it, emphasizing Jesus’ birth.

The students were singing along and listening to every word Cakito and the boys had to say. I think they were a bit speechless for awhile. They had no idea what was coming! To finish up things in the classroom, we turned on "Teach me how to Jerk," and Joel and Johvanny did a bit of break dancing. Once this was over, we all went outside to play a game of soccer in the mud…hilarious. Johvanny fell twice. Overall, I thought this was a great experience for the kids to see older boys they look up to, having fun in a good way, enjoying each other, and sharing about Christ. Hopefully I can do something like this again in the future, si Dios quiere :).

There's a rat...or more

2010-12-17T15:45:00.000-08:00

And this is how it went, or has been going...

We have a hole in the screen above our kitchen sink that a rat likes to crawl through and come steal food at night, mostly avocado. Who would've known that a rat would like aguacate? So Tuesday night at around two Cara woke me up scared that there was a person on our back porch. I woke up and heard the noise. We thought it might be a person, doing who knows what, so I turned on the light thinking maybe they would leave if they knew someone was up. I was not about to walk back there. When I did this, we heard a shuffling noise, and at that point I thought for sure a person. We both freaked out, without making any noise, took off our flipflops, ducked low and crawled out of the room so the "person" wouldn't see us. We called several people who were obviously asleep at this time and finally got a hold of Johan. He came over and thought we were talking about our front porch so texted me when he got back to his house saying, "It's clear." Ahhh, we can relax...ya right. We heard the noise again. At this point, we don't want to call Johan back and annoy him, but of course we did anyways :). While waiting, Cara opened one of the back porch doors, and I grabbed a butcher knife, haha. We walked out, turned the corner, and saw the filthy critter trying to escape out of a bucket that was randomly placed under the screen window (while crawling out of the hole in the screen, it fell into the bucket). It couldn't get out, and it just kept sliding back down. Johan finally got to the house, half asleep with two different colored sandals on (you can see in the pics) and covered the bucket so the rat could not get out, and a friend disposed of it the next day. The end...I wish.
The next night we had friends over cooking and another one popped his head out of the cabinet. Of course us girls screamed running out of the kitchen, only to let it escape out of the screen window. Bleh. We know have two sticky traps and are waiting for the nasty thing to come back.

Mis Hermanitos

2010-12-13T17:40:00.000-08:00

I have always said I wanted a brother, to take care of, play with, pick on, all of the above. Well I came to the Dominican Republic, and the Lord blessed me with maybe too many, but I love it. Johan, Benjamin, and Merlin are a few to name, and then there are about six in Pancho Mateo that I play basketball with every Tuesday...Cakito, Johan (different than my neighbor), Joel, Johvanny, Kiko, Jose, y mas! They are the ones who gave me the jersey for my birthday and said I am a part of their team. I took these boys (minus Johan and Jose) to Cabarete. There is a court there, and I have been promising the boys I would go with them and play basketball on a Saturday. Leave it to me to ask them the last Saturday I am here before the Christmas break :). Little did I know that I was about to partake in one of the more intense two games I have played in on this island, ref, five on five full court basketball...I'm still sore with multiple bruises and a cut on my hand haha. After the games, we went and ate pizza on the beach and hung out. I felt like more of a mom really than a sister, "Wash your hands. I brought games for us to play. Here are some brownies for you boys." Mom or sister, I had alot of fun with them and was happy to give them that time together at the beach. I hope to be an example of Christ's love for them. I pray that before I leave this island, whenever that does happen someday, they will ask me about Him. I pray everyday that Cakito will share Christ with them when the opportunity arises. We go all the way to the beach to play more dominoes...pathetic.They lovvvvve brownies.
I sometimes go to their basketball games to cheer them on and take pictures...total mom :) On the left is Johvanny, Johan, and Joel on the right (all brothers) and then Cakito.

Feliz Navidad

2010-12-13T11:50:00.000-08:00

Go here to watch the video the Uptons posted of my class singing "Feliz Navidad" for their parents.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpVUkBtyl2g&feature=player_embedded

Fiesta de Navidad

2010-12-10T17:46:00.000-08:00

Part one
Part two

My Christmas Elves

2010-12-06T17:59:00.000-08:00

My class has pen pals from my friend Mary's first grade class. Before I go home for the break, I am getting my students to make Christmas cards in addition to taking a Christmas pic. I can't help but share the pictures I took today and yesterday of them. When I think about the beginning of the school year and how far Johan and I have come with them, I cannot help but give thanks to God for His help. I love them more than I ever thought I would. So here are the pictures to show them off...love my lil Navidad elves.Eduardo...Edua
Bienvenido...Bienve
Jeson
Yulena
Bernito
Rachel
Luis Fernando
Escarlet
Memo...Memskies
Wilsenci...Benci
Carlos Alfredo
Regina
Miguel Angel...Migue
Franchesca, Frannie, Francheca
NeifiGustavo

Thanksgiving Fiesta

2010-11-29T16:16:00.000-08:00

On Wednesday of this past week, we had a Thanksgiving fiesta with our kids despite the fact that they do not celebrate it here in November like we do. We thought it would be fun to share about it and have the kids think about what they are grateful for in their lives. After one kid said his family, the rest of them said the same thing :). Memo's answer was awesome: "I am thankful for my mom and my son (10 seconds later)...I mean my little brother." After this, the kids made a turkey craft where they cut out a million parts to color and glue, "me duele" came out of many of their mouths from the cutting. I thought it was pretty funny. For math, they all had to answer addition problems through competition, and if they got the problem right, they won their turkey dessert for the fiesta. Of course, they eventually all won so after lunch we put up balloons, handed out party hats, and played some games...musical chairs and freeze dance. To receive their dessert, they also had to answer the fastest, "Como se llama mi papa?" "Lyle!!" The best part was Franchesca and Yulena wearing their best dresses. That is one of my favorite things about letting the kids wear what they want on fiesta days. I love seeing what dresses the girls come in. Can't wait to see more for the Navidad fiesta.

Blogs de Makarios

2010-11-28T12:21:00.000-08:00

Dress up

Sunglasses

More Nails by Wendy

2010-11-18T16:52:00.000-08:00

Fact vs. Fantasy

2010-11-16T18:21:00.000-08:00

Johan and I did a lesson over fact vs fantasy. We received some funny responses from our students...

Click Here

Name that Celebrity

2010-11-16T18:15:00.000-08:00

Check out one of my students in my Makarios blog:

Click Here

Navidad, Navidad, Hoy es Navidad

2010-11-16T16:44:00.000-08:00

Ok maybe today isn't Christmas, but we decided to spice up the apartment with some lights and a Christmas tree from La Sirena (the Dominican Walmart), while playing Mariah Carey's famous hit...this is basically what happens when you miss home. Us Americans celebrate Thanksgiving, but since Dominicans do not, they start putting up the Christmas decorations extra early. In the states, I hated that, turning on the radio and already hearing Christmas music in November. Now it makes me very happy :). One month till Christmas break!

The tooth fairy

2010-10-18T15:29:00.001-07:00

Click Here

Saved by the Bell

2010-10-18T14:42:00.000-07:00

Last night we had a birthday party for one of the girls here, Lara. The theme was Saved by the Bell, but for some reason we wore 80s attire. I got ready in my apartment with Cara, and we got so into it. I had her cut my rainbow brite tshirt, put on some leggings, and wore my nike hightops. Sadly my neighbors told me I looked pretty and should wear this stuff more often. Hmm. At that point, I was not about to say it was a joke/costume.
At the party, we watched episodes from the show, which has inspired me to buy them (along with Fresh Prince), drank milkshakes, and played a trivia game about the show, which ended up in a dance/singing competition of one of the songs on Saved by the Bell. I think we have lived here maybe too long :)

Uñas Lindas

2010-10-17T09:38:00.000-07:00

Ok maybe they are not the most beautiful, but I think they are pretty funny. Johan's sister Wendy paints nails, and every time she does it, she comes up with some new random design to put on your nails. She cleaned up and painted my finger and toenails for 80 pesos. not bad at all. So in other words, I do not really care what she does, just as long as they are painted :). My nails painted like this makes me one step closer to being Dominicana.

Dia de la Raza

2010-10-17T09:22:00.000-07:00

Click Here

Clase de Primero

2010-10-02T13:47:00.000-07:00

Mi Clase :)

First Week of School

2010-09-23T15:08:00.000-07:00

Link to my Makarios blog posting

Critter Room

2010-09-21T17:29:00.000-07:00

I guess this is what I get for choosing Ashley's old room aka the Critter Room. I remember telling her I might move into Robin's old room because Ashley's always had some new creature living in it. Ew, ew, ew. Thankfully Cara came in my room and saw this nasty thing before it could get closer to me. Of course we immediately yelled for Jefferson to kill it :)....and it's dead.

Feliz Cumpleanos Part Dos

2010-09-14T20:13:00.000-07:00

Every week I try and go to Pancho Mateo to play basketball at least once. It is one of my favorite things to do besides going to Chichigua. The Lord has provided ways of being in community like playing basketball in Pancho or playing dominoes with my neighbors without having to speak a whole lot of Spanish. It is cool to see the way He works through that. Anyways, I went to Pancho today to play basketball with the boys (I mentioned them in my last birthday blog), and the usual came to the court, Jose, Kico, Cakito, Johan, and so on. Cakito, the ring leader who has become a very sweet friend of mine, had told me they had a birthday present for me. When I was grabbing my bag to leave, I noticed a present inside. Cakito looked at me and told me not to open it yet so I waited until I got home. I went in my room wondering what it could possibly be that all these boys together would want to give me. As I opened it, there was a note on top:
"From us: Kico, Johan, Johvanny, Jose, and Cakito. You belong to our team. Thank you for coming to play. We love you..."
Underneath it was their Club Pancho Mateo jersey they all have and wear. They gave one to me...tear. It is one of the sweetest gifts I have ever gotten. I am so thankful for those boys and that they are my hermanitos.

Feliz Cumpleanos a Mi :)

2010-09-14T17:54:00.000-07:00

What a birthday...I do not think I could've asked for a better one in the DR. It all started Wednesday (even though my actual bday was on Thursday). I went to Chichigua after work and hung out with Dido and some of the other Chichiguans. We played Dominoes for an hour, and after, when I was leaving, Dido gave me a flower from her garden for my birthday present. Super sweet.The clock struck 12. I was at Johan's casa, listening to music and making fun of Merlin, when I noticed the clock it was 12, and my birthday had begun. I immediately started running to my apartment. Let me explain why. In the DR, it is tradition to pour water on the birthday girl/boy. Get my drift? I ran as fast as I could, Merlin behind me while Johan was yelling at him to catch me. I was doing fine until I got to my house and the doorknob was stuck. Crap. Drenched.
Thursday. Feliz Cumpleanos a Mi!!! I went to work until four. Went to the beach down the road with my beach buddies Merlin and Ada for an hour. Y despues, we threw a party at our apartment. Gringos, Dominicanos, Haitianos, you name it. Favorite things about mi fiesta:
1) Maria, Johan's mom, made my favorite juice, Pina. Ok so maybe Weston and Johan helped her a little.2) We had an amazing soundsystem going thanks to Johan and to Weston for his DJ skills.3) Treats, treats, and more treats. Popcorn, brookies (brownie cookies), guac and chips, and a chocolate birthday cake. Mmm.
4) Johan and Weston lip synced to Aerosmith's "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing." Awesome.5) I got to salsa dance. I have realized from living in this country that I lovvvve to salsa.
6) (The best part) I invited the boys from Pancho Mateo that I play basketball with to the party. At one point, we decided to play the song "Teach Me how to Jerk." Two brothers, Joel and Johvanny, danced in the middle of the living room for everyone. You can't get a more legit birthday party than that.7) Last but not least, I ended the night by playing dominoes. My friend Wandy and I beat the socks off of Johan and another friend Kakashi. Felt realllly good :)
Oh to be 25.

La Musica de RD

2010-09-02T14:11:00.000-07:00

Here is one of the recent popular songs played in this country daily, hourly, you get my point...

Click Here

let me know if you make it through the whole thing :)

Mis Amigos

2010-08-22T12:30:00.000-07:00

This past Friday I woke up and was ready to accomplish everything I needed to in getting settled in my apartment...changing rooms to Ashley's old room. I knew a full day of putting myself to the task would be enough. Lil did I know my neighbors Merlin (Johan's brother) and Ada were going to call my name and ask me to hang out every 2 seconds. I would hear my name being called by them, then walk across the street to Ada's house, and they would start talking about something random. I would politely laugh and walk back to my apartment. Then a knock on my door and them asking, "What are you eating for lunch? Do you want rice, beans, and chicken? We will take the chicken off the bone." "Ok, si, yo puedo comer con ustedes." We eat lunch, and then they ask me to play dominoes. I play dominoes, beat them pretty bad, and get away quickly so I can finish my new room. Hour later. Merlin yells my name and asks me to come to the beach down the road with them. "No Merlin I can't come." "Yes you have to." "No I can't." "We are really mad at you." "Ok fine I will come." I went to the beach, and it was actually really fun. No one was there but us, and we just chilled in the water for an hour and went home.
Now here is where I get to the point...
Ada: Kendall, did you know I talked to Robin before she left?
Me: Yes Ada.
Ada: She said we have to take care of you.
Merlin: Yes, we have to take care of you.
I laughed to myself and realized why the day had gone the way it had. That is one of the mannny reasons why I love my neighbors :)

New Room

2010-08-21T10:14:00.000-07:00

Finalmente I have an actual room...but if Ashley randomly decided to come back, and I would have to go back to my other room, I would switch in a sec :). But things always change, and we have to go through new transitions. All that to say, moving in here was definitely a bittersweet moment. Of course I kept random touches of Ashley like her flower mirror, fake flowers, the color of the room, and her curtains. The most exciting part about it all is that I have a closet, woohoo! I hate clutter, hate it. It makes me feel stressed so to be able to put all my junk into an actual closet is a good feeling. Here are some pics of the new room:
Fresh 2010 Port A trip pics, my lil babes, and my favorite calendar from Kelly :)
Reppin the Miami Dolphin's jersey along with a few cards from friends.
Best for Last...closet!

First full day back

2010-08-17T21:19:00.000-07:00

First full day back, and I took a spin on one of these with a friend...

The Ninja

yes, I was nervous. The person in the front has to lean forward to drive, and the second person (me) has to hold on to the front of the motorcycle and lean forward also. And trust me, you HAVE to hold on. Those things go super fast.

Picture 2

Scared at first, yes. Lovvvved it in the end, yes!

Yes, I do live here.

2010-08-03T17:49:00.000-07:00

To show you how ridiculous this country I live in is, I am going to share a lil story with you...

Last night I was outside talking to my friend Benjamin in front of our neighbor's house. Occasionally at night, there is a bat that flies back and forth between my apartment and their house. As I was talking to him, the bat flew right behind his back, and I freaked out, naturally. But that isn't even the best part. Benjamin then proceeded to tell me that bats can smoke. I was thoroughly confused, thinking maybe he is trying to tell me a joke in English or maybe I am missing something. I said, "Bats? Like the animal?" "Yes, the animal. They can smoke cigarettes." I then begin to call him a liar, but then Gloria came up and said he was telling the truth, then Tanya, then Johan today. Benjamin wanted to make it more interesting so he said if he was lying, he would make me one of his popular shakes, and if I was wrong, then I would have to make him brownies from scratch. At the end of the night last night, I called them all liars, said they were crazy, and went to bed knowing there is no way bats can smoke cigarettes. Dominicanos son locos.

When I told Johan at school today what happened with his brother, he told me Benjamin was right. He said people here capture the bats (super smart huh...), put the cigarette in the mouth of the bat, and it smokes it. Apparently someone did it here in Montellano. Because Johan is my brother, I decided to argue with him more about it and tell him he was lying (all out of fun of course).

Benjamin came over tonight asking for his brownies, and I said he had no proof...

Dang it.

Benjamin is now eating some peanut butter chocolate brownies.

Dessert Partay

2010-07-14T14:02:00.000-07:00

Last Friday night we had the neighbors over once again for a Dessert Party. Robin wanted to have everyone over before she leaves so she told each of the neighbors to come and bring something sweet or snacky for everyone to enjoy. Robin made cookies and banana bread, and I added to the mix with no-bake cookies and a fruit salad.

Love me some Gloria.

Roomies/Hosts...well moreso Robin was the amazing host, and Ashley was the entertainer with Jose Angel (see below).

Merlin (Johan's brother) brought over these cookies/biscuits called Nice cookies, sprinkled with coconut and sugar...ew. Apparently they were a hit because at the end the bowl was empty.

Lovin' the rain

2010-07-08T08:48:00.000-07:00

Well I love the rain, sometimes. Dominicans hate the rain. They think if you get wet from the rain, you will get sick. My neighbor Gloria gets sassy with me every time saying, "Do not get wet! You will get the gripe!" I just pretend to give her a rainy hug, she laughs, and then watches us play in the rain. Tuesday I went with Johan and his cousin to play basketball in Pancho. About two minutes in, the rain came so I ran Marta home in a mini trash bag, and we rode back home on Johan's moto. At that point we were soaked, so we figured heck why not play? And then Dominican Rain Photo Shoot 2010 happened...

This last one is my favorite pic. Everyone was suppose to be doing what me and Johan were doing, aka the Daddy Yankee pose. Good thing everyone followed our lead...especially Ada and Merlin.

Face Painting

2010-07-08T07:41:00.000-07:00

http://makariosinternational.org/2010/07/08/face-painting/

Makarios Blog

2010-07-03T10:23:00.000-07:00

I will be writing blogs here and there on the Mak blog so instead of rewriting on mine, I'll just add the link to click on :)

http://makariosinternational.org/2010/07/03/vamos-a-la-playa/

Dinner Partay Dos

2010-06-28T13:09:00.000-07:00

Since we made food for our neighbors, they decided to cook for us also. Each family made something different. We had salad, chicken, moro (a mixture of rice and beans), cheese potatoes, and a few other food items. Please notice Gloria in the picture above by me. She. is. awesome.

p.s. I stole these pictures from Ashley's camera :)

Dinner Partay!

2010-06-12T18:18:00.000-07:00

Robin and I threw a dinner party this week for our neighbors. Gloria is an older woman that lives across the street from us with her two sons Ada and Ambiorix. Edwin, her other son, and Tanya, her niece, sit on the porch daily with them and chat so we like to walk over and chat with them. This is a part of my time here I will never forget. They are nothing but kind to us and make us feel like family, not to mention they are all hilarious and interesting in their own individual ways. Robin and I had talked about "Tex-Mex" a few times so we decided to make tacos for them. We also invited Mami and our Pastors' families to join. About sixteen to twenty people showed up to this partay (picture above, minus Ada and our pastors); in short, it was a success!

Tacos, queso, and margaritas...you may not be able to drink in public, pero en la casa de nosotros, todos bebieron una margarita :).
Look at that bump'n soundsystem. You can't get more legit than that. And naturally at a Dominican dinner party, you have to play Aventura.
Instead of taking one picture on timer, the camera was set for about eight. We did not realize this until the camera did not stop after the first. Awesome.
They invited us this coming week for a Dominican meal where each of them would cook something different. I am excited, and at the same time a lil worried of what might show up. Probably a mezcla of rice, beans, salami, dumplings, chicken, pig, spaghetti, y mas!
...Like my spanglish? :).

gross

2010-06-12T17:50:00.000-07:00

The animals, creatures, whatever you want to call them that you can find in this country are ridiculous. I learn new things everyday, like in my previous blogs when I wrote about the roaches that are on steroids. In addition:

Roaches can actually poop. Nasty black tar. I smooshed one, barely, and look.
Sick.

And then there are butterflies the size of bats. Robin and I got to work early, and she spotted this bat/bird/butterfly in the nurse's area. When she tried to touch it, and it started flying around, we ran around screaming. Pitiful.
And now you know I have no life because I just wrote a blog about this :).

I miss them...

2010-06-06T10:24:00.000-07:00

Here are some pictures from graduation day. I took individual pictures and then some group ones while they were practicing their song to perform for the parents. Instead of smiling like normal kids, Johan had them do typical Dominican tigre poses.I love it that some of my kids know how to dress better than I do.

Well, maybe for the exception of Wildania. Gotta love her :)
I had to get a picture with my two loves: Memo and Ambiorix.

Love me some Dido

2010-06-05T08:40:00.000-07:00

Once a week, I try to go to the village of Chichigua with Robin and hang out, mostly because we want to see Dido. Dido is one of our moms. She has a daughter Rachel who goes to our school and then other kids we know and love. The best word to describe her is "cool." When I go to Chigs, she paints my nails and toenails and plays pool with me (yes, they do randomly have a pool table in the village). She is super laid back and dresses more in style than I do...all that to say, I love Dido lots.
These pictures are from when she came from her village to watch Rachel graduate. Excuse the sweat. We had no power in a tin roof room. Blazing.
Like I said...way cooler than me. Staights, matching shirt and headband, gold hoops, awesome hair, and cool tenni's vs. my makarios work shirt, sweaty braid, and chacos (bleh).
We like being silly together.

Graduation

2010-05-30T13:38:00.000-07:00

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.

2010-05-30T09:44:00.001-07:00

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

2010-05-20T18:31:00.001-07:00

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!

2010-05-17T18:15:00.001-07:00

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.

2010-05-17T06:18:00.000-07:00

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

2010-05-16T13:43:00.000-07:00

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.

2010-05-02T08:31:00.000-07:00

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.

They Lovvve to Dance

2010-04-09T13:15:00.000-07:00

Whether it's Aventura or some other popular Dominican music, my kids know every word and love to dance. One of our kids Kendry can rap and dance Bachata maybe as good as Johan can. One day in the room I brought my laptop and decided to play some music during lunch thinking maybe it would make them settle down a bit...big mistake, but actually really funny. They all paired off together and started dancing. That is the point where I am the worst teacher and just start laughing and letting them continue. Anyways, I took a few pictures, so enjoy!

Meet my Class

2010-03-30T09:49:00.000-07:00

I realized this past week that I have not given a full introduction of each kid in me and Johan's class, so here we go...
Benllina. She is super sassy and does not take orders from anyone. She is tiny, but do not overrate this girl because she can surprise you.
Wilton. Clueless is the best word I can give. He is young so his cluelessness makes him cute (if that is even a word). He barely speaks, and it is hard to hear if he does, unless you ask him a question and put your ear right up to his mouth.
Nayelis. Every morning when I walk to work, I pass her home, and she gives me the sweetest smile. Although young, she is one of my smartest students.
Bianca Nicol. B-R-A-T. But super smart and a perfectionist. She does the best drawings out of anyone in her class. I put up with her high maintenance about lunch because I was once the same way (what am I kidding, I am still that way).
Nelisa. One of my favs. She has the softest hands and cheeks. She also loves giving hugs probably every second of the day. I once saw a Shrek sticker that looked like her when she smiles, so when I saw this at the park, I had to take a picture...awful I know.
Marta la Loca (Robin loves to call her this). Marta is the sassiest student in the school by far. She calls me princesa but tells Johan he is ugly haha. Sorry inaprop but kind of funny. She loves to dance and tell all the students what to do.
Manuela. Do not be fooled by the dress. She has about 7-8 family members, mostly boys, so she is a tomboy to the fullest. She loves making random noises during class and annoying all the boys, especially Wilson.
Kendry. He rules his mama; therefore, he tries to rule the class. He was tough at first, but as time goes by, Johan has been doing well with him. He loves to rap in front of the class, and hopefully one day I will record it and show you in a blog.
Wildania. One of the oldest but does not know what language to speak yet so has not fully learned one language. She knows more than most students in our class and loves to guide the super young ones like Jemsy. That is nice when we need someone to help clean up or answer questions in front of the whole class.
Jemsy. Tightest kid in the whole school. We only allow three and up in the school, but we decided to make an exception for him because he is younger, and I am so thankful for that decision. If you ask Jemsy, "Comas estas?" He will say "Si." From time to time when I need a good laugh, I will ask Jemsy if he can dance, and then we will start dancing silly together.
Alex. Besides Nelisa and Jemsy, Alex is my favorito. He is super spoiled by his family to the point where they have a picture of his face on the front of their moto. I get it though. He obeys in class and answers questions, is a bit shy, but laughs every now and then at the most random things. He is definitely a lil teddy bear so I love giving him hugs. If I ask him, "Como esta mi pelo?" (how is my hair?), he will walk up and fix the front of it for me.
Yasmaidi. When I said Wilton was cluesless, I meant Yasmaidi. She walks around super flimsy and honestly has no idea what is going on. I think I could pick her up with my pinky finger. Thankfully she is young enough to get away with being clueless so she has plenty of time to learn.
Wilson (Son). Hyper, but all out of fun. Whenever he is bad, it is because he has so much energy and thinks everything is a game. I love to hug on him and let him know he is loved.
Marileidi (Leidi). Her mom is super stylish so she loves for Leidi to be the same. Every Semana Santa (Easter week), she gets Leidi's hair done. Leidi is a sass-o-frass, and I love it...well sometimes. Her and Nelisa are cousins.

Well, there you go! Bienvenidos a mi clase :).

Finalmente

2010-03-17T19:45:00.000-07:00

Two blogs in one day. crazy stuff. It is worth it though to read both the one before, and then this short one. This one is only to say...

I FINISHED HARRY POTTER, finally!!

I suggest everyone read all seven books because they are wonderful (especially if you have someone like Robin by your side who has read them already and gets excited every time you finish each book, wants a recap, and then watches each movie with you after). Sad to be done. But now I need a new book or series of books, so if you could email me some suggestions, that would be great. Ok? Thanks.

"Ff" es para Fiesta

2010-03-17T18:45:00.000-07:00

Johan and I have been making an alphabet book with our kids, a letter each day where they can associate the letter with a picture of something that starts with that letter. Last week we were going over la letra Ff so they colored a flower, and then we decided to have a Fiesta with our kids after lunch before they would go home, ya know, hype them up on sugar and caffeine and then send them off with their parents. We went to La Sirena the night before and bought stuff to make cake, princess and transformers plates and cups, and balloons. They each made their own Fiesta hat to wear during the party because I was too cheap to buy them party hats, plus the ones in Sirena were ghetto.
After lunch, Johan took the students to the front of the school to distract them while I taped all the balloons up in the room and cut the cake. Once I gave the okay, he brought them back, and well, it was time to partay. They all jumped up and down and gave many bullitas, and then sat quietly waiting for their cake because Johan and I threatened them with no sorpresas if they did not obey :) love it when that happens. We sat a piece of cake and a cup of coca cola in front of them and yelled go. They all scarfed the cake down quickly and then asked for more, and this is where the point of my blog comes in...
I looked at their cups and noticed that no one was drinking their coca cola, but hey let's get serious, who from Texas says coca cola or soda. We say coke right? for everything. So naturally I say to the kids, "Todos, beban sus cocas!" No one drinks. Some kids turn to look at me, and Johan immediately goes, "Kendall, that is not what you say...you say refresco! You just told them to drink their cocaine." Awesome.

I am so Dominicana...

2010-03-04T14:54:00.000-08:00

...ya right. But no joke, sometimes it just happens.

Almost everyone here drives a moto (like a motorcyle). I am a bit late in talking about this, but maybe because I wondered if my mom would read it and freak out. Last Thursday I went to Caraballo to talk to the lady who use to take care of Marleini and Wilson. Johan took me on his moto, and on the way back he stopped on the road and told me to take over. The road from Caraballo to Pancho Mateo is a long dirt road surrounded on both sides by cane fields...in other words, it is pretty much deserted. Of course I freaked out and told him no, but he is Johan so he kept insisting. Well, I did it. I scooted to the front, hit the gearshift with my left foot, and then accelerated (all with the help of Johan). So when you accelerate, it either goes smoothly or you jerk, right? Well I popped a wheelie and was driving at the same time. haha. It was hilarious! I could not stop laughing but would not let go of the accelerator so we were swerving side to side, like when you first ride a bike and cannot ride it straight. I had to eventually stop because we were both laughing too hard, and I could not focus. After we stopped laughing, I tried again and actually drove for awhile. Johan of course had to help steer for a few seconds here and there so we would not fall off the road. Success...or in my mind it was, seeing how I can be such a weenie sometimes.

Next on the list...I learned how to dance bachata and merengue. I have always thought I could not dance worth anything, but I actually did ok. I did much better dancing salsa (thank you random Tridelta meeting when we learned how to salsa).

Last but not least. My spanish. It still is not great, but I am trying. Robin is teaching me, and it helps so much seeing it visually. As you know from my last blog, I am co-teaching with Johan. I get to hear Dominican spanish on a daily basis. If you do not know anything about spanish here, well, it is ghetto, and they call it Dominican not spanish. Anyways, today I called a kid over, and Johan looked at me and said, "Whoa, you sounded so Dominican." Awesome. Not only did I get complimented for my accent, I got complimented for my Dominican, haha. One step closer to being a Dominicana :)

Feliz Dia de San Valentin

2010-02-20T18:04:00.000-08:00

The same week I found out Weeson and Marleini left, I found out that one of our teachers, Cristina, who is Dominican, was moving at the end of the week to Santo Domingo and would be no longer working with us. I have been working with Cristina for the past year, and she is amazing. Despite the fact that we do not speak the same language, we still built a relationship and worked so well together. Somehow she just got me, and I understood her. It was sad to see her leave, but I know the Lord has amazing plans for her. She is one of the strongest women who is more passionate about the Lord than any other person I know. I cannot wait to hear what the Lord has planned for her next...on that note, because she left, my job has changed. Obviously we had to fill her spot as a teacher so her kids could keep coming to school. The teaching staff got together, and in the end, we decided that Johan would take her place as the new teacher, and I would co-teach with him. We sat in Cristina's class together on the last day to watch her style of teaching but really just had a day o' fun. I mean come on now it was Valentine's party day. So there you go! I get to co-teach with mi hermanito. So far it has been nice, and I haven't killed Johan yet...well at least not yet :). The picture above is a picture of me, Cristina, and Johan, and below is her class we are taking over.
As a side note, one of my favorite things about working at the school is when you have breakthroughs with kids. Some kids you can tell need space and time to warm up to you so you give them that space, and then one day they all of a sudden smile at you, say your name, and give you a hug...or a Valentine in my case (or maybe four). Not only do I love the breakthroughs, I also love building on my other relationships like with one of my favs Memo. He called me his hermanita, which means his little sister. Let's just say it made my day for sure. Love that boy.

Here we go again...

2010-02-09T17:06:00.001-08:00

Today the Chichigua kids came to school, and guess who did not show up...yes, Wilson and Marleini. The kids said they left yesterday with their mom. I went after school to Chichigua with Robin, and we found out that it was true. Magi, who has been gone the past couple weeks and left the kids with one of the ladies in Chigs, came back yesterday, grabbed the kids, and left. The lady who has been taking care of them was not in Chigs today so I am going to ask her Thursday where they went because no one else knows. I once again am saddened by the situation, seeing that they were finally back in Chigs and back at school with all of their friends. Please pray for their family, that I can figure out where they went, and for me as I am hurting all over again. I already miss my lil Weeson but at the same time have to keep reminding myself that God is in control.

Love

2010-02-08T14:36:00.000-08:00

When I think about the past couple weeks, the word "rough" comes into my head. I know it is just one of those exhausting times when I need to remind myself of the reasons why I love being here instead of focusing on the negative, so that is what I will do...
*I love my lil baby Weeson. It is my absolute favorite thing when I pull up to Chichigua, and Weeson comes running out of nowhere and straight into my arms. He has the cutest giggle and sometimes just loves to be held.
*I love Wednesdays in Kim's class when I get to sit by Memo and joke around with him. Memo is probably one of the strangest kids I know but at the same time so hilarious in my opinion. The other day we brought him, Ambiolix, and Bernito over for some popcorn, juice, and a Michael Jackson dance partay. Afterward, we stuffed them in the back of Negrita, and took a cute pic.
*I love Dido. Dido is the mom of one of our students, and she is by far the coolest mom in the DR. Robin and I like to sit and chat with her at least once every other week. She likes to paint our nails so this week mine are purple.
*I love the friends the Lord has blessed me with while I have been here. My roomies are incredible. I could not have asked for a better living situation (no worries Katy, I still miss you!). Also, I have a hermanito named Johan...he is pretty cool I guess :).
*I love the neighborhood I live in. Everyone knows everyone, and I feel so safe. In addition, I live not too far from the beach. I have always been a beach girl growing up so it is nice to know that on the weekends, when I need to get away and rest, it is super close.
*I love playing basketball in Pancho Mateo with Sili and Cacito or in the multiuso...who said girls can't keep up :). Every Saturday morning, I walk to the multiuso where a bunch of boys are playing basketball, and I just hop right in. I usually get the "oh man, who is this girl", and when I make my first shot, I love the looks on their faces...ok not gonna lie, a lot of the time I play horribly.
*I love Nelissa. She is one of our new students who lives in Pancho Mateo with her grandma. I do not know what her grandma is doing right, but Nelissa is one of the funniest and sweetest little girls I have been around in this country. She has the softest hands that Kim and I like to hold while she is at school.
...and there you go! I could go on about the many things the Lord has blessed me with here, but those are some of the things I thought of first.

Mi Viaje a Haiti

2010-01-29T15:15:00.000-08:00

It has been almost a week since we got back from Haiti, and I have not told anyone how my trip has been...sorry about that. I just needed some time to process everything. With that said...

We left last Friday early in the morning and got to Dajabon where you cross the border. As smart as we are, we did not remember that Friday is market day at the border, and so there were thousands of people going back and forth between the DR and Haiti. Cara and Rachel got all the passport and car stuff figured out (paying the DR entrance fee of $25 and the Haitian fee of (drumroll) 1 measly dollar), and after a total of four hours at the border, we were on the road to Cap Haitien to help Chris and Johanne. To sum up Cap Haitien, it is dusty and crowded, full of friendly Haitian men and women who are constantly on the go. Not once did I feel unsafe or feel like anything was chaotic.

Saturday. At this point, we had already found out from Johanne about her trip to Port au Prince, that they would not release the kids she wanted because of security reasons and just in case family members were still alive. As you may have already seen from the media, people started stealing kids for trafficking; therefore, unless you have Haitian papers, you are not allowed to take any kid for any reason. Johanne took us to an orphanage her and Chris use to work at. Of course we fell in love with all the kids, and the sweet thing was all the kids were leaving within the next few weeks to be adopted. When you are at an orphanage, you end up leaving wanting to take every kid with you, but it was nice to be able to play with them and know they are going to some loving parents. After this, we visited the church Chris is building then went to the hospital in Milot. The school across the street was turned into another area to bring refugees into...this is where the hardest part of the weekend was for me. I saw a man who had had his arm amputated and a room full of kids who were hurt during the earthquake. I walked into the room full of kids, and immediately tears started to come. I knew I needed to hold them back, but it was so hard when this little girl smiled and started playing with Ashley despite her circumstance. What a sweet moment.

Sunday. We took all of the supplies to the house Chris and Johanne bought for the orphans. The supplies consisted of 50 foam mattresses, sheet sets, cups, plates, bowls, silverware, shoes, towels, 50 bags we made before we left, toothbrushes/paste, and so on. We set up the house, doing all the dirty details, so that it would be ready whenever kids would come.

Monday. We ran some errands and went to the Haitian market in town. We needed to find more sheet sets for the beds, and Ashley took pictures we had to get developed of the house set up so Chris and Johanne would look legitimate.

Tuesday. We headed out early morning to come back home, feeling like what we needed to accomplish was done, and that when they receive orphans, we could possibly come help them get everything situated and meet the precious kids. Crossing the border was no problem at all...once again we paid nothing on the Haitian side and $10 on the Dominican side.

Sorry if this was a very abrupt description of my trip, or maybe too long, but if you have any other questions or are curious about something, feel free to ask me! Overall, the Lord completely had His hand over the whole trip. Everything went perfect, and the cars made it there and back despite the horrible roads in Haiti. Gracias a Dios :) As for the Makarios team, we are waiting for the right timing to help as a team. Makarios is doing what it can to get supplies to different areas still, so feel free to continue donating if you can.

l

The Road to Haiti

2010-01-21T06:46:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow I will be headed to Cap Haitien, Haiti with my two roommates Cara and Ashley, our friend Rachel, and Rachel's boyfriend Gideon. I would love to explain to you all the details myself, but since I am short on time and found out yesterday I am for sure going, I will let you read Cara's blog to found out what we are going to do. We would love your prayers for safe travels, and that the Lord will provide ways that we can be useful when we get there, instead of an added burden of more people. Love you all, and I will update you when I get back.

http://carajanewelch.wordpress.com/2010/01/20/next-plan-of-action-haiti/

Haiti

2010-01-16T08:51:00.000-08:00

"He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end... I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it. God does it so that men will revere him." Ecclesiastes 3: 11, 14

As you all know, it started Tuesday. I was sitting in my living room typing an email when the futon I was sitting on started swaying side to side. I have never been in an earthquake so I had no idea what was going on until I looked up at Cara, who immediately said in her tranquilo Cara voice, "Um, I think it's an earthquake." (Not going to lie, I at first thought it was an animal under my futon, and then I thought maybe I am dizzy...don't make fun. An animal being in my living room is possible seeing that we have geese, chickens, dogs, and cows among other animals as neighbors.) It was either Saved by the Bell or Fresh Prince when there was an earthquake, and they were told to stand under the door frames. Leave it to me to follow a sitcom I was obsessed with when I was little...in other words, I was immediately under the door frame along with Ashley who followed my role. Haha oh man, no one should ever follow my lead. Anyways, when it ended, we were all laughing and had an adrenaline rush, until, not even ten minutes later Cara saw the real news about the epicenter being in Haiti. After some time, we started to see the damage done and lives ended by the earthquake. I would be lying if I said this week has been fine since I am not directly in Haiti (by the way, if you did not already know, we are attached), but it has been very difficult. We know families who have family members living over there and do not know if they are okay. Secondly, since I am so close to Haiti, I feel the need to rush out of my door and go help. Now I obviously know that is not smart and is an emotional decision, but it has been something we all have felt. Our team along with other friends spent Wednesday praying for the people of Haiti. Schools were closed around the country, and our hearts were anxious so we knew we needed to stop and pray.."Be still and know that I am God" is what I have to keep telling myself. As of now, we have a few people taking supplies to the border today, but Makarios as a whole is trying to figure out the best way we can help and be smart about staying safe and prepared. I ask that you pray for patience for us because I know anxiety can get the best of me when I feel the need to just go do something without waiting on the Lord's timing. My heart has been very heavy this week for the Haitian people. I picture in my head the children who are now orphans and homeless, and my heart hurts. I sit not knowing where to even begin in praying but know ultimately God is in control. I know some of you reading this may have been affected by the earthquake, either knowing someone over there helping, someone who died, and so on, and I am sorry for the stress or sadness you may be feeling. Know that I am praying for you and continually for the people of Haiti and those helping over there as I also have friends who are helping. Love you all and am thankful I can even sit here and write this to you.

Si Dios quiere, I will keep you posted whenever we decide how/when we are going to go over and help. I, along with my team, will need your prayers for safety and wisdom. Also, you can go to the Makarios website and donate money for supplies. We have already sent a team of Dominicans we know from here, and today several from my team were chosen to deliver supplies to the border. http://makariosinternational.org/

Ecclesiastes 3: A Time for Everything

2010-01-12T13:23:00.000-08:00

"There is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every event under heaven...⁴ A time to weep, and a time to laugh; A time to mourn, and a time to dance."

As I sit here writing this I think of the blog from my birthday, the blog where I found Weeson at the soccer game, and when I found out he lived with a voodoo witch doctor, when he had impetigo, and when I cried and prayed for the Lord to guide my steps because I knew He was calling me to do something, but I did not even know where to begin...and during my first week back from Christmas break, I finished my last step (well at least for now!).

I got back to the DR and went with Robin to visit Chichigua last Tuesday. While we were sitting there, we found out that Magi, Weeson's mom, had moved back to Chigs, so we went and sat in her house. I straight up asked her when she was going to bring Weeson and Marleini back to live with her, with the help of Robin translating, and said I wanted them to come back to school. She told me that once she had money for transportation, she would go get them. Of course I thought this would never happened so we told her we would come get her sometime during the week and go get them. I did not get excited at the thought because I know how flaky Magi can be and knew it was something I had to see to believe. It has been raining here constantly except for two days, which made it impossible for me to take Magi, so I continued to pray for peace and patience and to just wait for the Lord's timing. Friday rolled around, and an hour before school ended, I realized it had not rained all morning, and the Holy Spirit moved within me to say alright Kendall, it is time. I went to Chichigua with the Chigs' kids and Johan to grab Magi. We came back with her to Montellano, and Ashley drove us four to Caraballo to grab Weeson and Marleini. After many goodbye's and my last time to look at the voodoo shack with all its weird paintings, Magi, Weeson, Marleini, and I sat in the back seat together. For the first time in a long time, I felt a peace within me for my lil baby Weeson. Magi was smiling, the kids were laughing, and they were going home to be with their mama. Ashley put on a cd, and at one point, I was singing to Mariah Carey. I look over, and all three of them were smiling at me and started laughing (I always say that when I sing in front of people, it is a compliment, because that is when I feel most comfortable). We got to Chigs, dropped them off, and immediately kids were running up yelling their names and were so happy to see them. I gave Magi some clothes for the kids and a few apples...and well, there you go! "A time to weep, and a time to laugh; A time to mourn, and a time to dance."
Yesterday was Weeson and Marleini's first day back at school, and it was so great to see them in their lil uniforms back with their friends. Marleini was just as sassy as before, and Weeson hoped right back in to being as cute as possible...ok cheesy I know, but he really is sooo precious!

Side notes:
1) I went to the beach on Saturday, and while I was laying out, a monkey crawled on my chair and on my leg. say what...ok ok I won't pretend like it is that cool here that monkeys are all around. It was one of those tourist things where they let you take a pic with an animal, and the guy came behind me and placed the monkey on my leg.
2 ) I was sitting on my futon, when it started shaking back and forth. My first reaction was "there is an animal under it." I know, I am so weird. Then I looked over at Cara, and she goes, "Um, I think it's an earthquake." I looked at other objects around and noticed them moving also. My first earthquake! Crazy. As you have probably already read, it was a 7 or more in Haiti, so please pray for the Haitian men, women, and children who were probably affected by the earthquake.

A Typical Dominican Wedding

2009-12-13T08:57:00.000-08:00

...and I can say typical because my Dominican friend said so :).

1) The wedding "started" at 4. Let me restate that. The wedding was suppose to start at 4, but the bride was not there till about 6:30 so it did not start till 6:45.
2) There was a fog machine for when the bride walked down the aisle...along with a strobe light.
3) People stood in the way around the church to take pictures with their digital cameras. For example, when they kissed at the end, about ten people were on stage to take a picture. And because some of them did not get the picture in time for the kiss, they redid the kiss about four times.
4) People got up and left halfway through the ceremony to go to the reception...say what.
5) Every person that walked down the aisle got announced individually.
6) The couple walked down the aisle to the Star Wars theme.
7) Prom dresses were plentiful.

Never a Dull Moment in this Country

2009-11-28T19:33:00.000-08:00

Monday Nov. 23: Ashley and I decided to take Luis Fernando (her fav) out to Caraballo, grab Marleini and Weeson, and have a picnic out on the field. Of course this seemed like the perfect idea, and it was going to go smoothly, taking fun pictures and laughing with our favorite children. We pick up Luis from public school at 5 and hop on a moto, and since there were four of us, Luis had to sit in front of the driver. This 5-10 minute moto ride was one of the more dangerous ones I have been on in this country. I was on the back, and when the driver went over a bump, I definitely got some air and almost fell off the side. I am only giving you this example to help you better understand why what happened next happened. We get to Caraballo, take Luis off the front, and pay the moto driver, and as we are walking away, the moto guy says something to us, and we just kind of ignore him. He keeps saying it over and over again so we look over and realize he was saying, "El hizo caca" (He made/did poop...but I think you all know what caca is in Spanish) because there is "caca" on the driver's shirt and on the back of Luis' pants and shirt...ew ew ew. At this point I could not maintain because I was laughing so hard so I turned and walked away and of course let Ashley handle it all. Apparently, the moto ride scared the .... out of Luis :). So much for the picnic! We had a mini one after Ashley's long adventure of taking Luis to the nearby public school where she had the lovely resources of a bucket of water and notebook paper to clean him off.
Wednesday Nov. 25: After Bible study, Ashley and I left the Makarios house around nine at night to walk to the main road to grab a public car to Montellano. These are not easy to come by at night, and sometimes it can be a bit confusing which public car is for where. We stood by the main road for awhile while full cars passed when finally one that sped past, stopped and reversed to get us. We gladly got in, and the driver started driving for awhile when all of a sudden he turned down a sugar cane road. Sometimes if you pay the driver a lil more money he will take you a bit down the road you need to go on so I thought maybe he was doing this for someone, but he just kept going. Finally Ashley spoke up and asked him where he was going, and he said to Munoz, which was down the sugar cane road we were driving on. We tell him we are going to Montellano so he stops the car and starts getting feisty with us about not paying attention to which cab it was. The old man next to me tells him to drive us back to the main road, but the driver says no we should have paid attention and kept getting mad at us. We get out of the car to walk back down the dark sugar cane road, and the driver gets out of the car and yells at us telling us we need to pay the full amount even though we did not go the whole way. We try and argue with him, but at this point, we are both scared and just want to get back; therefore, Ashley slams the money on his car, and we fast walk it to the main road. In any situation where you are scared, we naturally start praying, praying for a car, someone we can trust. After about ten minutes, a private taxi pulls up and asks us if we are going to Montellano. He says he knows us from church, and he will take us for free (of course we paid him). Gracias a Dios :).
Friday Nov. 27: My mom came in town the day before for Thanksgiving, and on Friday we wanted to take Weeson and Marleini to the beach. We go to pick them up in Caraballo with Robin and her mom, and when we get there, the lady taking care of them is getting high with another lady. The husband is sitting in his voodoo shack possibly drunk, throwing rum around the room, while others in the village are bringing stuff to him to get approved. Thank you Lord for Robin, her knowledge of Spanish, her patience, and well I could go on. The man is telling us no they cannot go because their mom said no (at this point I am thinking where is the mom? I thought she left them?), while another man who is claiming to be their dad says they can go...for the record the mom had told me their dad died so I assume he is newly married to their mom, but not really positive about that. In the end, they get to go even though they are scared of what Ramoncito may do. We decide to take our moms to Chichigua before going to the beach, and guess who is chillin in Chichigua...their mom! what the. Their mom was there with their sister Mileni. To make a long story short, their mom now lives in Pancho Mateo, which is about 5 minutes from me, is looking for a mattress, and once she gets it, they can live with her...so she says.
Saturday Nov. 28: Wilson (my friend, not lil Weeson) asked me to play in a basketball game WestJet Airlines vs American Airlines. I said okay not really thinking much about it...we played in the professional arena in Puerto Plata, with a bunch of really bigggg boys, and I wore Wilson's jersey. All that to say, I felt a tad out of place, and, well, like a boy. It was a lot of fun though! Mary if you read this, I wanted you to be there so bad laughing at me because it was such a typical thing for me to do...you will laugh especially after you see the picture(s) of me and what I was wearing. When I got home, I went into Ashley's room, and there was an infestation of ants...

Like I have said before, C'est la vie!

Bailar con Weeson y Marleini

2009-11-22T18:51:00.000-08:00

Michael Jackson. Apparently everyone and their dog in this country know who he is (who doesn't), love him, play his music, and want to be just like him. We have noticed this a lot particularly with our students. They will randomly start dancing like him at school, and it is hilarious, but kinda scary how good some of them are at it. Anyways, we had been wanting to see the new movie about him, but of course like every other movie, I knew I would probably have to wait till I got home...unless in true Dominican style, a restaurant down the street decided to get a bootleg version of it and let anyone for 50 pesos come see it. Ashley, yo, Cara, y Wilson went last Wednesday night, and it was pretty awesome...not the movie, the set up. The filming was awful, and the sound system was pathetic as well, but hey, it gave us something fun to do, and I will always remember sitting in a random place called La Factoria in the small town of Montellano watching the Michael Jackson movie. On Friday, I was helping Ashley with her class in the morning, and for morning meeting we decided what the heck, let's show them the MJ music videos Ashley downloaded on her computer and let them dance like him...awesome. It is probably a good thing I am not a teacher because I think I would have a play day everyday. "Alright kids today we are going to learn about numbers. Wait, did you say that is boring? I completely agree. Recess for four hours then dance party? Fine by me!"

On Saturday, all my roomies were in Santiago, and I decided to stay home. I woke up and decided I think I will play basketball today, I think I will visit Weeson and his sister Marleini, I think I will pick them up, take them to Pancho with me to play basketball and eat lunch with them...and that is exactly what I did. I picked them both up from Caraballo and let them play on the basketball court while I was playing Sili. Several times I watched Weeson because it was such a joy to see him running around smiling and laughing with me or with other kids instead of being stuck in that scary, dirty place he calls home. After basketball I decided to take them to my apartment to eat lunch. I pulled out Shrek 2 that you can also play in Spanish and let them watch while I made them quesadillas and sliced up avocado (Kati if you are reading this email, I know you are laughing at me for making quesadillas). I watched the movie with them, and at one point when Shrek toots from drinking a magic potion, I looked over at Weeson, and he dropped his head back and started laughing so hard. It was the cutest thing! So we finished the movie, and it was almost time for me to take them back home. They both asked me for some water, and as I got up, I thought to myself, they need to laugh and be kids a lil bit more before they go back to acting like grown ups..."You can have water if you dance." They both looked at me like I was crazy. I turned on Kirk Franklin of course :) and told them I was serious. As I was pouring them some water, I look back and see Weeson dancing like the little crazy kid I know he is in front of the mirror. Ha! Marleini was also laughing and dancing to. We had the most fun dance partay together, and then it was time to go. I rode with them to Pancho to meet their cousin, and as he drove off with them, Marleni turned around and blew me a kiss...I love those two so much. I felt like a mom all day, and it was not so bad, but maybe because it was worth it for them. Tomorrow Ashley and I are grabbing Luis and going out to Caraballo to have a picnic with him, Weeson, and Marleini...with our cameras of course!

Update on Weeson :)

2009-11-08T12:58:00.000-08:00

C'est la vie!
Last Thursday I went with Cara and Johan to find the casa de Weeson. Robin asked around and found out he lives with a man named Ramoncito in Caraballo. We pulled up to the Haitian side of Caraballo and walked up to this weird looking shack with creepy pictures of saints painted on the outside, and inside, Ramoncito was sitting with some other men chatting. He showed us which house was his, and there I found my lil love and his sister. Cara talked to the lady of the house, and this is what she said: they do not go to school, they do not have clothes, and their mom lives in the city of Santiago. Heartbroken. I go inside to sit with Weeson and notice that his face has sores on it that look awful. I want to cry for him, also noticing that he is famished and his ribs are extremely noticeable. Furthermore, I found out that the man he is living with is a voodoo witch doctor, which explains the weird paintings. We decide to leave, and all I want to do is bring him home with me to get him all straightened out but know I need to put my emotions aside. Of course that does not work so right when I get home, I talk to my roommates about everything and start crying. I felt beyond overwhelmed, but knew the Lord was telling me to be still and just pray. I prayed for guidance and realized that the Lord was going to help me with step by step instructions. The first step: medicine for Weeson's impetigo. I went Friday morning to school and once again felt overwhelmed. You have that desire for God just to fix everything all at once, meanwhile He tells you to be patient and have faith. I sat down with Robin and Ashley, and they prayed for me, encouraged me, and helped me put the medicine together. Ashley offered to go with me to Caraballo after school to give Weeson the medicine, and Johan said he would take us and talk to the lady of the house. (On a side note, there's nothing like good friends who love Jesus. Ones that will pray for you like prayer warrior Robin, one's that offer up there time, health, and ears to listen like Ashley and Johan, and Cara who offered up her time to help me find Weeson.) We went after school, put medicine on his face, gave him some clean water, and showed the lady what to do. Now Dominicans and Haitians in the villages here, because some of them are poor, will sometimes sell things that you give them, like shoes, clothes, medicine, etc. All I could do all weekend was pray and hope that she did not sell the medicine I gave her, and that she was actually giving Weeson the medicine. At the same time, I continually prayed for us that we would not get impetigo since it is a highly contagious bacterial infection. From the pictures, you can see that his face was against me while he was sitting on my lap. Honestly, I should have it, no doubt, yet the Lord has blessed me once again, and I am impetigo free, along with Ashley, who treated Weeson, and Johan.
Tuesday: Johan, Ashley, and I went out to Caraballo to give the second round of medicine. (I did not give the lady the full set just in case she would sell it.) Gracias a Dios, she had been putting the medicine on, and his face was clearing up! Relief set in, and we were beyond thankful for answered prayers.
Thursday (today): He has some scars that are trying to heal, but the infection looks like it is gone. He was laughing, hugging us, and gave me a kiss on the cheek. Precious boy, gosh I love him soooo much. When I updated my mom about him, she was worried about me holding him because I could get impetigo, and all I could say is there's a love that goes beyond anything, no matter what the circumstance. I would do anything for lil Weeson and his sweet heart. I gave him my apple today, and he just about devoured the whole thing after sharing a part with his sister and two other girls. That is when I decided he needs a hamburger :)! Saturday Ashley and I will be in Puerto Plata, and if we have time by the end of the day, we are going to grab Burger King and have a picnic with Weeson, his sister, and Ashley's precious boy Luis Fernando. I will let you know if that happens, and of course, we will take more pictures than we are suppose to :).

"Reunited and It Felt sooo Good"

2009-11-02T17:13:00.000-08:00

I sit here with a smile on my face while I am writing this. I have prayed and prayed since I wrote that blog from my birthday. There are days when I tried to block Wilson (Weeson) out of my memories in the DR, and then there were days when all I could do was think about that lil boy, shed a few tears, and pray that he was okay and loved on wherever he was living in Haiti. So this is where I begin...
Friday night was one of those nights. I sat next to Ashley on the couch while we both did our usual computer stuff, and I started going through old pictures, which led to me looking at pictures of Weeson. I started to miss him of course so I stopped after awhile, but selfishly wished I could see him again. I have done that several times in the past I must admit. I prayed that for some reason his family would move back here so I could see him. Then I would remind myself what is important for Weeson is that he would know Jesus and love Him. Back to my story...Saturday I hiked to some waterfalls with my roomie Cara, our friend Johan, and a couple of his friends. Besides falling a few times :), it was one of the most beautiful places I have ever been to. On Sunday, some of us took the older kids from Chichigua to the beach. They loved it! When we took the kids back to Chichigua, we noticed most of the village was in Villa Asencion for a soccer game. Robin got the bright idea to go watch, so once we got home, we quickly changed and grabbed a couple motos to the village. We got there at the end of the game but saw some of our preschoolers and some of the parents we know. I was standing there waiting to figure out how we were going to get home when I look at this boy walking towards me. I just stare thinking "what the, this is some sick joke", and then I realized I was seeing what I never thought I would see again...WEESON! I picked him up in my arms so quick. I felt like I was in a movie. I jumped up and down with him in my arms, tears streaming down my face, and Weeson and I both were laughing. I could not contain my excitement while all the Haitian men and women were staring at me like I was some crazy gringa. I feel like I cannot even do justice to this story. It was such a sweet moment with the Lord, and I was flooded with gratefulness I cannot even express in words. The Lord had planned that perfect moment for me, and I had no idea. I almost did not go to the game because I was tired from the beach. To think! Gracias a Dios :)
Weeson now lives in a village named Caraballo, which is about 10-15 minutes away from my apartment. His mom left him and his older sister Marleini with someone she knows and moved to Haiti with his two younger siblings. I hope to visit him soon, but it is just a matter of finding out the name of the man he lives with, and then, well, walking in Carabello asking people where this man's house is, haha yes I know, crazy white girl is what they are going to think. Hope you enjoyed this precious moment the Lord blessed me with, and no worries I will keep you updated!
Below is a pic of the moment right after I brushed the tears of joy from my face :)

Welcome to Miami

2009-10-27T17:57:00.000-07:00

So overall Thursday to Monday in Miami was great! When I described it in three words to Anne, I said relaxing, humorous, and luxurious...moreso humorous. I realized men never change, like, never, not exaggerating, for real :) they stay boys forever, especially those whom have not grown past their sports career and are still clinging on to it. A great example would be the uncle in Napoleon Dynamite, oh so funny. So instead of blabbing about my blessing of a break with my roomie Ashley and my dad, here are some fun facts from my time in Miami:

-Ashley and I were picked up at the Miami airport by the Miami Dolphins minivan. Sweet mom car.
-We stayed at the Doral Resort, part of the PGA tour.
-I ate real food, had air conditioning, a real bed, television, and drinkable water...oh the high life.
-I had a convo with Dan Marino about my dad and took two pictures with him...Ashley deleted the first :) thanks Ash.
-I got to go to Target and Anthropologie! yay.
-I met the winner from last season's American Idol Kris Allen and took a pic with him.
-Kim Kardashian, JLo, and Marc Anthony walked past me at the Dolphin's game while Ashley and I were chillin in the VIP lounge.
-I ate a slice of sushi...sick.
-Our suite was as long as the end zone, woohoo.
-I ate some of the best black bean hummus I have ever had.
-I heard some pretty funny stories about my dad, of course all inaproppriate/gross boy stuff.

And that's about all I can think of at the moment. I just got back yesterday, and while at the store today, the security guard and his friend started chatting with me. He was nice, thought I was 14 (awesome). If you know how Dominican men who randomly start talking to you work, you know they ask random questions, and then the one eventually comes..."Do you have a boyfriend? My friend really wants to marry a girl like you"...romantic. The creepy part is they thought I was 14, but when I said I am 24, they were okay with the fact that I looked 14. Not even one day back, and I already got a marriage proposal. Gotta love this country!

Love that Dominican Music

2009-10-21T20:06:00.000-07:00

If you want to listen to a few quality Dominican songs, here you go...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5Ms5fK5OtM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Itny_Vgz8CY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Avzcy-PcaGg&feature=fvw

As you probably have already guessed, I was being sarcastic (surprise surprise). These songs are popular here so that just goes to show you how awesome the music is here...sorry more sarcasm. I thought I'd let you endure what I hear daily before I told you I was joking :). Cars drive down our street with these huge speakers in the back that blare these songs louder than the human ear should hear. Hope you liked them haha.

Going to Miami tomorrow till Monday with Ashley to meet my dad for a Miami dolphins reunion. Real food, real bed, television, drinkable water...I will blog about my trip next week.

Mmm Mmm Better

2009-09-29T17:52:00.000-07:00

Not only was this week wayyy better than the first week of school, it overall was a great one for me personally. I have started to realize how much I love my roomies (no worries, I still miss you Kati :) ) and am starting to recognize the relationships I am building whether it is through my favorite village Chichigua, playing basketball with Sili, or hanging out with the few Dominican friends I have made through my roommates. There are moments that I just sit and laugh and think what in the world am I doing here...when my big tour bus almost goes off the road, a kid bites my hand in the classroom as I am trying to take him outside, the roomies and I get stuck on a two lane highway in political traffic as the car is overheating/we have to turn it off/some man is yelling at us in English as we are yelling back at him in Spanish...but then there are those moments where I look over at Memo, and he is copying what I am doing or just runs over and gives me a big hug, or when I see Sili smiling and laughing while we are playing basketball, and even just sitting in the park with some of my closest friends here eating ice cream and talking for a couple of hours. The small things here can make me so happy to be here and remind me why I am doing what I am doing. Saturday seemed like a long day to me especially after the whole traffic episode, and on the way to dinner we were all riding in the car quietly when all of a sudden Johan (one of my Dominican friends/my neighbor) starts rapping in Spanish about me, Cara, and Ashley. I laughed so hard, and in a way it was a little reminder from the Lord to just chill out and have fun. So that is my lil bit for last week. Oh and one more thing...

I will never bee scared again where I live. My upstairs third floor neighbor Will is pretty much a bodyguard for us girls on the first floor. I have heard about him from my roommates, but I did not meet him until Friday. When he walked through the door of our apartment, I felt like my jaw was going to drop to the floor. As you have probably already guessed, he is a very, very big man. His arms are full of muscle, and he is super tall. Let's just say, he is proud of himself and admitted to us he is trying to be the biggest man in our town of Montellano. He started to tell us several stories about fights he has gotten into or people he has beat up. Some guy stole 1000 pesos from the man he is paid to watch, and Will snatched the money out of his hands and well, you can use your imagination on what happened after. Now you might think 1000 pesos is a lot but this is a mere 30 bucks. I could go on with other stories, but I'll leave you with this fun fact...He at one point was a bodyguard for Vin Diesel and possibly Robert De Niro. All this to say, if anyone ever tries to do anything to me in this town, I will not only scream, I will scream as loud as I can "Willll!" and will know that even if he is 30 miles away, he will hear me and come to my rescue. Only thing is...I feel bad for that person on the opposite end :).

me gusta popcorn...

2009-09-23T17:34:00.000-07:00

The things you will do for the things you love. In this case, it was all about popcorn. I have been reading the Harry Potter series, and in the past week and a half, I have read one and two. I obviously like them a lot :). After I read each book, as a treat, Robin and I watch the movie that goes with it so this past week on Wednesday, we decided to watch the first movie. Now, how can you watch a movie without popcorn?? You can't. But not just any old popcorn; here you have to actually make it, old school style. In the DR, they have what you call a colmado, which is basically a stand type place that contains all the simple things you need in life, like chips, cokes, and toilet paper. I would compare it to a newsstand in the movies in New York but on steroids. Robin and I decide to go looking for palomitas de maíz at the colmado across the street, and they did not have any. We walked down to the end of our street, and ten colmados later, we found one in tamarindo/montellano that has popcorn. Each colmado kept saying, "No, para allá", which means over there, and they would wave their hand in the same direction as every other colmado would do. We had ourselves a nice lil tour of the town, and I actually ran into several students and saw where they live, so not so bad after all. All for the sake of palomitas de maíz.

Mosquitoes. They like to swarm outside of our apartment. Anytime a door is left open too long, it is bad news bears. When I was changing in my room the other day, about 5 were flying around me, so naturally I am jumping around as I am throwing on my clothes. My roomie Ashley does a little riverdance when she is eating in the kitchen so they won't bite her legs. To get a good idea on how I feel, watch this...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFiQV0GAtew
...ok maybe a bit of an exaggeration, but I thought it was kinda funny.

First week of school. The best description I could give is to just say...ha ha (look at pic below). But I'll fill you in on a bit. The first week went like any first week would go. Little girls were crying for their moms, and boys were fighting. One boy ran out of the school to cross the river to go back home so Robin and Charlie had to chase after him through the nasty,infested river water. Other than that, the teachers are doing a great job. Us extras are taking care of the lil ones who are struggling so that the teachers can get going. I had to hold this chunky boy Elijio for an hour, and then on his own he walked into his class and pulled it together. He's a cutie. Please pray for us for patience, perseverance, and the ability to teach in a second language. This is not an easy thing.
Three of our families from Pancho did not send their kids to school on Monday and Tuesday so I for some reason got the bright idea to volunteer to tell them they needed to come to school. Hmm. My friend Johan who can speak English has come with me lately on Tuesdays to go play basketball with Sili; therefore, I figured he could translate for me, and if not him, then Sili because he understands some English. Well, about that...Johan had a flat tire when I called him to go, and when I showed up, Sili was not there in Pancho. I decided I would just go home and forget about basketball and talking to the families, but then I stopped in my tracks and said "Lord I do not know much, but you can help me get the point across." I went and told each family, just saying yes and it is okay to anything they were going on about in Spanish, thinking to myself, they probably think I am some crazy gringa. I left Pancho feeling okay about it until the next day, every kid showed up! Craziness. I thank the Lord for the confidence He gave me when I usually have none and the words to say when I usually have none :).
One week down...many to go!

"Back to school. Back to school."

2009-09-20T11:28:00.000-07:00

Each morning I wake up to the lovely sound of "AGUACATE!" I jump out of bed, grab my pesos, and run out the door to buy myself an avacado. Now these are not your average American avocados. These are huge and dirt cheap, usually costing a mere 10 pesos, and thirty-five pesos equals a dollar so you do the math. This fine Sunday morning I woke up to a different noise. Every now and then trucks packed with veggies and fruits will drive down the streets, while the driver with some type of speaker system yells out what is in the back of the truck. There have been times when one of my friends and I will walk past, and the driver will start whispering sweet nothings into the mic...creepy. Anyways, this morning I woke up to a truck driving by, and the guy was not only singing, he was rapping about what he had in his truck. The only line I could make out was something like..."Con que? Con huevos! Con que? Con huevos!" It was great. I was almost tempted to buy something from him, seeing how much effort he put into it. Oh the Dominican Republic.

School starts tomorrow!! I keep wanting to sing Billy Madison's "Back to school. Back to school, to prove to Dad that I'm not a fool. I got my lunch packed up, my boots tied tight, I hope I don't get in a fight. Ohhhh, back to school. Back to school. Back to school. Well, here goes nothing."I could not be more anxious about this school year and all the new students we are adding. Memo could not have said it better when he said, "Mom, you tell them if we don't start school soon, I am going to a different school." What a cutie. Last year we had two classrooms, fifteen students each. This year we have four classrooms; therefore, we have a total of sixty students. Aye yeye! My work is cut out for me. I will let you know how the first week goes!

It's my party (...and i'll cry if I want to)

2009-09-11T19:03:00.000-07:00

This will hopefully be my one and only venting blog...like i said, hopefully. I have not done this before, but I feel like I need to once to get this past week all out so I can get out all my frustrations and then move on. So all that to say, if you are wanting to read something light and fluffy, you should probably go ahead and well, stop. I know as a Christian and missionary I should remember the typical phrases like "time heals all", "God has a plan for you", "you need to see the positive side of things", and so on, but like David in Psalms, I think I have every right to talk out my frustrations and grievances, and am able to ask God why things are the way they are. The past year or more I feel like He has continually taken things from me (not in death), whether family, friendships, or ones that I love that have affected me. I always think of that song "Blessed be the name of the Lord. He gives and takes away." It has been one of the hardest years, at the same time, one of the best, seeing where He has placed me in this country with all of these beautiful kids to love on. And that is where I begin...
The electricity in the town I live in has been for the majority of this week turning off. They do this to save money, but it usually happens during the day when we are not home so it is not too bad. Well this week they decided to do it at night too, and let me just say, it is the pits. Like I have already told some of you, no electricity=no fans=sweating=high pitched buzzing mosquitoes biting me during the night=no sleep. I know that sounds extreme, but really I am not exaggerating. The lack of sleep has been giving me migraines in addition. I knew (obviously) that Wednesday was my birthday so I just looked forward to it and knew no matter the circumstances regarding sleep and so on, this day would make the week. Like every Wednesday, I knew I would visit Chichigua with Robin because it is my favorite thing to do (moreso visiting Memo and my lil baby Wilson) so of course I would do my favorite thing on my birthday. It started off great! I woke up to a Happy Birthday sign on the floor with balloons, and then when I was walking to work with Ashley, all of a sudden, Anne, Kim, and Lauren started running after me with silly string and another happy birthday sign. It freaked me out, and I am positive the Dominicans living right there thought we were crazy gringas. After work, Robin and I left for Chigs where I was first greeted by crazy Memo and his huge smile, which I absolutely love. It is one of those smiles that makes you smile right back no matter what mood you are in. He wanted me to hold him so I did, well until he accidently rolled in chicken poo, and then I said no...ew. I am determined to call him chicky poo now :). Anyways, I am playing with Memo while Robin is talking to the mom of one of our students, meanwhile I am so antsy to go visit Wilson and love on him obnoxiously. As I am thinking this, Robin looks at me and says, "Kendall I have something not good to tell you." I reply with "What? Is Wilson not coming back to school?" "Worse." "He moved." "Yes...to Haiti." Crushed. For those of you who keep up with my blog, you know that Wilson whom I call Weeson was one of my students who I wanted to take home with me everyday. He is one of the most precious boys I know and would hug me everyday before he left to go home (seen in the first picture of this blog). I cried a lot that night, yes I know, on my birthday, and have on and off since (hence the title...I actually said that to Anne when I got to the Makarios house for my birthday dinner haha). The lack of sleep this week and then Wilson leaving have been a bad combo for me physically, mentally, and emotionally. One of my Dominican friends came over this morning, and he asked me if I was sick haha awesome. You know you look wonderful when someone asks you that. But back to Wilson, I feel like I invested so much emotion into that child, and he was just taken from me. I pray every night that the Lord would place a man of God in Wilson's life that would lead him to love Jesus, and I pray that the Lord planted a seed in him by the love the Lord gave me for him. I am confused as to why now, but I know the Lord is teaching me. To end on a positive note, I randomly went to Chichigua last week and held him the whole time like I mentioned in my last blog, and as you probably saw from my two pictures in the blog. To see him one last time when I could have stayed home that day and waited till this Wednesday makes me want to thank the Lord every time I think of Wilson. When I left Chigs that day I remember holding him, telling him goodbye, kissing him on the cheek, and him giving me a kiss back on my cheek. I set him down, not realizing that was the last time I would ever see him. Adios Weeson...love you soooo much and will painfully miss you.
Depressing blog, I know, but thankfully I have Jesus who still loves me despite my frustrations, big and small, and continues to show me grace. I know for a fact that He will answer the questions I have, He will continue to reveal himself and his character in new ways this year, and will continue to heal my heart from this whirlwind of a past year.

Primera Semana de Regreso

2009-09-06T11:18:00.000-07:00

"The first week back" for those of you who do not speak spanish, and it was a great first week. The beginning started out a bit rough. I had that typical missionary feeling that most missionaries get going out on the field. You long to just have the normal, comfortable American way of life with friends and family close by, but at the same time you know this is where you are suppose to be, where God wants you. I had a wonderful summer in Dallas and in Austin, and therefore naturally it was hard to leave, but I knew once I got back here and back in the routine, I would fall right back in love with it. So this week...
We went to Santiago Monday and Tuesday, which is in hour away from here. We had lots of team time and went to a museum to learn about Dominican history. I went on a tour through an area of the La Aurora cigar making factory, pretty cool huh? http://www.miamicigarcompany.com/miamicigar/aurora/home.htm. He explained how they are made uniquely, being just as good as Cuban cigars, except La Aurora's has more variety. The guy we watched make some had been rolling cigars for 30 years! talk about monotonous. After watching that, Ashley and I walked together through the museum and at one point decided we wanted to take silly pictures. Little did we know, there was a security guy walking around making sure no one did that. After we took a couple pictures, one specifically of me kissing a cardboard poster of a Dominican man, the security guy came around the corner. I had the camera in my hand, and as he walked up, Ashley told me to hide it. Well I could not simply put it in my bag because that would be too obvious so I decided to hold it on the side he could not see, and as he circled around me, Ashley would tell me which way to turn (the benefit of speaking another language than the country we live in) and eventually we just walked away. Of course he followed us the whole rest of the time. You can only imagine how silly and immature I got during and after that, trying not to laugh every time he would pop up. Ashley thought we should take a pic of him, but we decided with better judgment not to.
Wednesday I went to Chichigua for the first time since I have gotten back, and it was sooo great to see the kids. I saw Memo first, and he immediately jumped in my arms for me to hold him. Not going to lie, that felt great! I kept holding him for about 10 minutes until, well, some of you can probably guess who I saw...Weeson! (Wilson). I handed Mems over to Holly and picked up Wilson. He had just woken up and was a bit groggy, which I love because that is when he just likes to sit in my lap or just let me hold him. I have been a bit sad lately because when some of the girls went to ask the parents who was coming back to the school, Wilson's mom said he was not going to. I will get back to this later.
Thursday and Friday we planned for our staff/parent meeting we were going to hold on Friday. We put a meeting together of what we should say, and then went out to the three villages to tell the parents and other parents who have kids that do not come to the school. We were a bit worried that we would not get a full roster because we are now going to have four classes with a total of 60 kids. Knowing some kids might not come back, the thought crossed our minds that we would come short... oh ye of little faith. The room was packed with parents! And...Wilson's mom came to sign him up! yay! We gave each of our speeches (yes I did speak to the parents in Spanish. I was super nervous, and Cristina decided to let the parents know right before I spoke that I am learning so they need to pay attention more when I spoke. For those who know me well, you know that I have a huge fear of public speaking in my own language let alone a second language. At the end of the meeting, we got a full roster and even had a waiting list! The Lord is so faithful. This is when it hit me why I am here and why I love doing what I am doing. By the way, I will now officially be a teacher's aide for four teachers. crazy talk. I will switch rooms after each day so that I can go take notes of each student to see how they are progressing week by week. Even though it may be kind of stressful, I cannot wait to get to know the students individually and of course be with my old students again.
Alright, love you guys. And yes, the picture at the end is what you think it is, but no worries, I did not eat it. Bleh.

And the adventure begins again...

2009-08-25T12:02:00.000-07:00

So I am sitting here knowing I should write this blog about Colorado and my arrival in the Dominican Republic, but all that is really going on is me looking around my room at all the stuff laying around, in and out of my suitcases, thinking about the stuff that I need to go get that will organize everything, and the books that I need to read for work...dang multitasking. But I will conquer my one track mind :). For those of you that do not know yet, I will be living in an apartment with three of the girls I worked with the last time I was here: Ashley, Robin, and Cara. I have the room that is suppose to be an office so as of right now there is no closet, storage space, or...a door! haha it really is not a big deal right now hopefully I can rig some kind of pole/curtain thing to make a door.
Colorado. I left August 3 for a three week training program called SPLICE at Mission Training International right outside of Colorado Springs. Beautiful! There were beautiful mountains by us, the Santa Fe Trail to walk on, and an ice cream place down one end of the trail...you know I hit that up several times throughout the trip. I always forget how wonderful Colorado is especially during the summer when the temperature is perfect. Anyways, we spent three grilling weeks of learning about ourselves (conflict, stress, rest, etc), our team, and how we are going to handle the culture when certain situations differ from the norms of our American culture. One of the simulations we had to go through to see how we handle stress went a little something like this...We showed up for the morning session, and the two men in charge put us in two groups. Once I got in my group, I was led with my group to a small dark room with a wooden box inside about 8 ft long and 5 ft wide that all 22 of us were suppose to fit in. Once we got inside we had to close the door, only getting air from some small holes at the top of the box, and there was a track playing that sounded like bombs, gun shots, and airplanes flying around. Now I know reading this does not quite get the feel across, but standing in this box, sweating in pure darkness, and realizing that some of these people will be in this situation in their country made the situation very real for me. We had to make deals with this man who was the enemy, and one of the deals failed so a guy who had gotten caught was "shot." That was it for me...thankfully I kept calm and scratched the back of the girl crying next to me haha. So not me. Like I said, this was to show us how we handle stress, and what I got out of it was that I sweat, I am quiet, and I try to calm others.
I got back from Colorado on the 21st and had a week at home. It was so much fun hanging out with my family and with some of my friends, but the time went by too quick. I had a lil bday party with the family, went and saw mamma mia second row with my dad, and had a going away night with my friends (thank you so much to those who came :) ). I left yesterday for the DR with a full day of traveling, and when I got here, Robin, Anne, and Garrett picked me up at the airport. When they brought Robin and I to our apartment, I walked into my room, and Robin had made me a little welcome home present. So sweet, especially since I was a bit tender when I first got here. The night was sooo crazy...sike. I unpacked some of my stuff that I could, went to get pizza with Robin (Katy I know you will appreciate that), and then we watched Sense and Sensibility.
Well that is it for now. We have three weeks of workshop stuff for the school, and then school starts on September 21. Hopefully I will have some time to go see my kiddos this week. I miss them so much, especially lil Weeson (Wilson). Love you guys and miss you already. Email me anytime to let me know how you are doing, or even if you just have a prayer request I can pray about. Peace out.

Months of the Year...Dominican Style

2009-06-18T14:35:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I know I did not write many blogs my last few weeks plus this one is a bit late, but it is definitely worth looking at. Here we go...
The last week of school ended on a Wednesday, which was May 20, and then Thursday and Friday were set up for an American dentist to come and pull our students' teeth. During the Thursday morning period our preschoolers played in the classrooms and waited patiently, either reading books or running around like little kids do. I do not know why I got the urge to do this, but I was sitting with Ricardo and decided to record him singing the Months of the Year song on my camera.

As you can see, Ricardo still needs some work on his speech, and well, just knowing what the months actually are. He is only three so no worries. I have a year to work on that boy :).
After Ricardo, Estiven decides it is his turn. This boy is a smarty; therefore, his singing skills were perfecto.

Now Regina has caught on to the lil game and decides it is her turn. Ricardo wants to watch so he sits at the table by her. While she is singing, watch her face and Ricardo...

All I have to say is I was trying not to laugh, and of course I failed. So wrong of me...oops. We always call Ricardo the school thug, and well he definitely lived up to that name in the video...awesome haha. Next on the list is Ambiorix who got too ADD to finish and just wanted to destroy a book and me.

That was the last of the videos. Hope you enjoyed! cuz I know I sure did.
As you all probably already know, I am going back to the Dominican Republic at the end of August for a year. Crazy talk I know, but I loved it that much and miss my kiddos. This will be my last blog till September so until then, adios!

Funny Stuff

2009-04-26T18:28:00.000-07:00

All the pics in this blog are from hanging out in Chigs on Friday with Lubi (Robin).

So I don't have much to say about this last week, but I will leave a few tidbits for you...

i have at least 22 bites on one arm from mosquitoes...not counting the rest of my body. Those lil suckers are everywhere.
My cobrador (the man who opens the door to the gua gua and takes your money) this morning had a groomed unibrow. It was almost as if he penciled in the middle part because he thought the uni looked good.
Katy and I ate lunch with Wilson today, who works at the airport, and he gave us the lowdown on DR airport security. Several times workers have tested the security, and here are two of the stories he told...A girl filled out one of those lovely sheets we all love about her information at the airport, and she gave a guy's name on the name line and said her destination was "the batman cave"...she got through. Second story. A man went through the metal detector with a gun in one pocket and a cell phone in the other pocket. The detector went off, and he pulled out his phone and said that was why it went off. They said okay and let him go. Awesome. All that to say, come visit me :) haha.
So I couldn't be any more immature than I already am, well maybe. Saturday night at church this girl got on stage to do a choreographed dance. Now, it is not like I was expecting this awesome performance, and let me add that I was kinda hyper that night with Katy. Throughout the whole dance, I had to do one of three things: bite my straw (I had some juice from Luis' colmado), bite my lip, or think of something sad. I knew if Katy, Robin, Cara, or Ashley even dared to look at me, I would lose it. I survived not offending the church, well until Katy turned to me and said, "We will be dancing like that tonight at home." I lost it. Silent laugh of course. And yes, we did go home and do some of those awesome dance moves.

Stand by Me.Ben E. King

2009-04-18T17:35:00.000-07:00

I once complained about the rain...big mistake. Did you say steak? (That one is for you Kelly) The hot hot hot weather has finally begun. We are sweating constantly, which in a way makes me feel better because I am not the only one now. haha, gross. Walking up the hill one day, Katy and I were talking about the constant sweat, and then we immediately both started day dreaming of snow cones and how wonderful it would be to have one. If you have seen the snow cones in the DR, which I am assuming you have not, you would know not to even think about going there. Recipe for a some kind of parasite, having no idea where the ice or the sketch sugar juices come from. And since I have experienced the sicky part of living here, I would rather not test my limits. Despite the hot weather and the sweatiness it brings, this week has been my best week in the DR when it comes to looks. I do not mean this in a prideful way, moreso humorous. I have gotten the most hisses, "you are beautiful"s from random muchachos on the street, and a sweet serenade from a cobrador. The best was Friday when I was waiting for Katy in the colmado. This lady came up to me and asked if I spoke Spanish and asked if I was Canadian. After Katy told her no, she said, "tu eres gordita." Katy then responded with a confused look as did I and said, "Tu eres gordita??" For those of you who do not know, gordo means fat...just lovely. Thankfully, Robin and Rachel told me later that it did not mean anything in a bad way. It meant curvy in a good way. Gordissimo is fat in a bad way. I love this country. So Katy and I came home to a puppy on Monday at the house. His name is Miles, and he is half terrier and half lab. He is a cutie, but the picture above is what we came home to. At times I think I start to grow attached to him when I walk outside, and he yawns and comes up to me all lazy and calm. I pet him for awhile and then go back inside feeling bad about not spending more time with him. Then there are the times I walk outside, and he is jumping high up in the air and scratching my legs while attempting to bite my hand (out of playfulness of course). Like Katy says everyday, "He's just being Miley." haha love it. Though we do love him, Miles is leaving soon because our landlord says he cannot be here. I guess you could call it a failed attempt at replacing or covering up our true love for E-Shadow, one of the school dogs who apparently has now "got the mange" according to Katy.

This week since Cristina was on a mission trip, Cara had to teach in my class so she could not have her usual class time. Instead we did recess with the both classes for about thirty minutes. Naturally, the little kid in me was all about it. The first day I sat under the gazebo with the girls and let them braid my hair. Instead I ended up with a side pony, compliments of Neifi and Escarlet. As this was happening, I noticed a trend in our kids pretending like they were pregs. Wilson and Luis Fernando both came up to me with a ball in their shirt at two different times pretending to be preggers. Then at the end of recess I looked over and saw the funniest sight. Wildania was laying in the grass with a ball in her shirt. Marta and Yery were acting like doctors helping her give birth while Raidi was standing by her super confused as to what was going on. Anyways, it made me wonder how many of these kids have actually seen a pregnancy go on in their villages. Awesome. Pics are below for your amusement...

Sweet victory...Katy and I went to Pancho Mateo Thursday because I told Sili I would come to play basketball again with him. Ernesto and Felipe came to the school on the Chig guagua so I brought them along with us. Marta and Manuela walked with us, and it was too cute because Marta held the bottom of my shirt the whole way there while we had some intense convos :) (Note the pic below) When we got there, we decided to match up me and Ernesto against Sili and Felipe. Knowing that Chichigua does not have a basketball hoop, I was not surprised when Felipe gave up after one shot, and Ernesto double dribbled his way through the game after a kid named Alfredo took Felipe's spot. Alfredo was a skinny short lil dude, and when Sili asked him to play, I turned to Sili and asked, "Is he good?" and he just goes, "I don't know." Little did I know that Sili was playing it cool until Alfredo schooled me to the hoop. Silly, silly Sili. Ernesto and I eventually beat them despite Ernesto's double dribbles/traveling. I then proceeded to play Sili and won...ok I know I sound awful since he is younger, but I let him win the week before, and he bragged about it all week. He came to school this Friday saying, "Mucha suerte", which obviously means I have to win again this next week to show him what's up. So as you all know, or I guess I should say should know, the Mavs and Spurs are now playing in the playoffs. We do not have a tv at the house, and I have never wished for one, well until...now! If you have ever seen me in the past years watch the Mavs in the playoffs, you know how crazy (possibly a bit of yelling at the tv) I get during these games and how much they mean to me. Yes I know a lil dramatic, but really I love my basketball. I decided I would watch the first game online. Well, that was unsuccessful since Espn will not let me watch it from the DR so I try to listen, which was just as unsuccessful as the first idea; therefore, I am watching the animated play-by-play. Awwwwesome :(. To add to the effect, Katy and I decided to jam to some jock jams while I was watching. Yes I do have Jock jams on my ipod, thanks to Brookis. Go Mavs!...sorry Timothy. One down, three more to go. Side note: Baby G could possibly be born in time while the mavs are still in the playoffs...get out those Mavs converse I gave him Brooke and Jim :). They better not be in the trash!
Sorry for the longest blog eva...I am a rambler...plus I have not blogged in oh say hmm about a month so I thought I would make it doubly long :) love you guys!

landslide.fleetwood mac

2009-03-19T16:29:00.000-07:00

This past week was...awesome! I don't even really know how to explain it fully, and if I tried, this blog would maybe be a bit too long. Being here has been wonderful, and I have known this is definitely where God called me, but it was not until this week that I truly felt it. I felt the passion I have for each of the students in my classroom and for the kids in the villages especially Chigs. I will give you a lil look see of my past week...We had a highschool group of about 35 people from Austin come. Let's just say we were a little cramped in the casa. Not going to lie, I was somewhat dreading the week, not because of the help but because of the small personal space. At the end of the day, we are exhausted, and sometimes all I want to do is hide away and read a book or get on my computer. With 35 extra peeps, this is not possible. On a more positive note, they ended up being an awesome group who were very mature for their age, and them being here allowed me and Katy to do some of the group activities because group members were helping with los tweems. That is where the fun began. Monday and Tuesday after school, we took the preschoolers to the playa. Monday was assigned for Ashley/Katy's class, and Tuesday was for Cristina/my class, but I went for both days. The kids were beyond excited. They sang some beach chants in the car, and right when we got to the beach, they ran straight out to where we were headed. I took as many pictures as I could of them running from the waves, getting buried in the sand, and running around in their lil undies. If you are on facebook, you can see pics of the cuties on there. Otherwise, email me, and I can send you some.
Wednesday was the usual go after school for house visits time so Katy and I went to Chichigua and took four of the group members to Rebeka and Jeson's House. If you have read my previous blogs, you are probably thinking, "Hmm...house visits...shouldn't you be visiting more than their house?" And my response would be yes we do visit other houses, but I cannot help stopping by their casa every time. Their family is so loving. Anyways, their dad Soni talked to the four boys from the group for a bit while I sat with Yesica (she is the one who always tries to teach me Spanish). She brought a children's book in English to me and started to try and read it. I was so impressed and helped her along the way. After some pages, Yesica (who is in one of the pictures toward the end of this blog) and her sister grabbed a spiral and asked me about the English alphabet. I then proceeded to write each letter also saying its sound and a word that starts with it. All that to say, I gave a mini English lesson to these girls who had such a strong desire to learn it. Sometimes, in this culture, people expect things from you without wanting to work for anything. With Yesica's family, I have learned this does not apply to them. It was awesome to see their dad Soni (who knows seven languages) instilling in his children the same desire he has to be educated. After leaving their house, we resorted to finding Ronal to cut down some sugar cane for the group members y Katy and watched the Chigs boys play some futbal. Yes, I am holding a machete in the picture below :).
Friday was my turn to take care of Los Tweems, but I had told Yesica I would try to come to the afternoon Bible class. Thankfully, Sharla did not mind so I showed up only to see that Yesica did not show up because she had to take care of her baby brother. The majority of the afternoon class are some rowdy boys who love to cause "trouble" and beat each other up (do not worry...it is always playful). The sad part about all of that is I love these rowdy boys. I do not have a brother but have secretly always wanted one in the Blackwood fam. When I go to Mexico, I love play fighting with some of the boys there I have known for a long time...I know, mature right? So class begins, and the boys will be boys, or I guess I should say the boys were being boys. I talked about Ernesto in my last blog who gave me a ring he made. This time he gave me a gold colored one that had a heart on it. I love it besides the fact that it turns my finger green haha oh well, I am just glad I am becoming buddies with the Friday kids. We ended early and let them play outside with some of the soccer balls. Sili, one of the super sweet older boys from Pancho Mateo who knows English, had his basketball with him and was bouncing it right outside the classroom door. Naturally I had to go up to him and steal it away, which turned into a "dribbling take the ball away from the other person" game inside the classroom...oops. Soon, Ronal and Ernesto joined in, and we started a game of keep away. At one point. Sili jumped on the table pretending to dunk the ball, which I thought we would for sure get in trouble for if anyone saw. Ya I know, I am supposed to be the responsible teacher who is making sure everyone gets homes safe, pshh how could I resist a game of basketball. It was finally time for them to go home, and I said to Sili, "Some time soon I need to come to Pancho and play you in basketball", which lead him to say, "Today!" I had to get back to taking care of the twins at home, but I will let you readers know when that happens and how it goes.
Yesterday I went with Katy to meet Robin for a birthday partay in Chigs. Katy and I brought Coke, and Robin brought the cookies. For a majority of the time, I chased Memo my cutie valentine around and carried him upside down around the village. I also promised Yesica (pictured above) and Sara that I would take them to the beach sometime soon, which I think will be so fun.
All in all, I have started to see myself more courageous to form relationships with these kids, getting more involved in playing with them or visiting their homes, which has really been great for me to stop and think about. Even though I do not speak their language, the Lord is so much greater than that. By just hanging out or simply saying, "Hola, como estas?" the Lord has continually provided openings for me. I have started to understand more Spanish and speak choppy sentences, but please continue to pray for me in that area.
So sorry this blog is now a novel, but I just could not stop...Love you all soooo much, and I will be seeing some of you in less than two weeks :).