Dave's surprise bday party with the roomies

Maria and Paola at the Christmas card making station

Feliz Navidad!!
I don´t think I´ll have another chance to say that before Friday so Merry Christmas!!!  Things have been busy here with holiday parties, shows, etc. but first I´ll start with the schedule for our time at home so everyone knows and we can plan get togethers accordingly.
Dec. 26 - arrive Detroit at night
12/27 - 12/28 - Grand Rapids & Kalamazoo with Daves fam
12/29-12/30 - Lansing
12/31 - 01/02 - Detroit area
01/02 - Big Fundraising Party at my dad´s house at 6:00 p.m. - 3184 Angeles Drive, Waterford - everyone is invited to come!!
01/03 - Kalamazoo for Sandys bday party
01/04 - Owosso all day to see kiddos
01/05 - Lansing with Melissa and fly out

Sooooooooooooo let me know when we can hang out!!! We will not have phones while we are home so that is why we need to make plans now. :)

Im skipping my weekly copy ritual since there are no classes right now so nothing to copy so I have to go meet Dave in a few, so this will be a quick update.  THis past week just very busy with lots of Christmas projects and homemade presents.  Our classroom Christmas party was Wednesday where we made cottonball Santas, Christmas cards, decorated cookies, Christmas paint by numbers, read the Grinch stole Christmas in Spanish, played Christmas Bingo with red and green popcorn, played pass the lollypop with music, and had a huge feast that Maria graciously cooked for us (with money I don´t think she actually had.... but I think she is the most giving person I have ever met).  Thursday they cancelled classes and we spent all day decorating the school for Dia del Nino, day of the child, for the big orphanage-wide party on Friday where we had a clown who called me up on stage in front of 300 people for some contest in Spanish - and surprisingly I won.  This weekend just Christmas shopping and now trying to keep the kids busy with activities while there are no classes.  Also, I am the coordinator for the Christmas program for Christmas eve so running around between 12 houses and 200 kids making sure they have their programs and costumes ready and trying to motivate them to do so.  Now finishing Christmas shopping for the night.  Saw some of my little friends in the park and bought them hotdogs for dinner and they told me they were doing nothing for Christmas.  It´s so sad but the kids in this country are convinced that Santa Claus is someone who died a long long time ago and that´s why they never got presents.  If you try to tell them otherwise, they´ll argue "It´s true, it´s true, someone shot him!"  Wish I still had that Santa Claus costume I borrowed every year in Owosso....


Okay well that´s it for now cause I have to go, I already wrote a really long email and then my time ran out and the internet shut down, that´s what happens when you pay by the minute I guess.  So I can´t wait to see everyone soon - please write and let me know when I can see you if you haven´t already!!! Merry Christmas!!!!

Merry Christmas from Erika

Micheal Jackson show in Boca Chica

Dave's bday in Boca Chica

Dave's bday surprise

Hello all,

Well in less than 2 weeks from now I will be in freezing cold Michigan!!  Not excited about the freezing cold part, but am excited about seeing everyone I miss.  Am getting a little anxious about the details.... all my winter clothes, coats, and our car is in storage in Kalamazoo 3 hours from the airport and not sure yet how we´re going to get to any of it yet.  I think we will be freezing our butts off when we get off the plane... I think we might take a bus to Grand Rapids and then get a ride from there but Dave doesn´t have as much as a sweater, let alone a jacket or coat, so I think we might freeze to death before we get there.  Besides the fact that we are now used to the weather here... I think I freeze now if the temp drops below 75.

Well, not too much to write as most of my interactions in the past week have been with my bed.  It all started last Wednesday when I shot up during the night at 3a.m., in a cold sweat with a fever and the most severe body pains I have ever felt- ever.... even worse than when I had dengue fever.  It started in my shoulder and shot down my back and into my neck and arm, paralyzing my arm so I literally couldn´t move it all.  The pains continued so bad til the point I couldn´t move, Dave literally had to lift me back into the bed because I couldn´t even push my way back in.  I had Dave check my back, and he found a large red splotch on my upper shoulder.  Spider bite.  I was sure of it.  I stayed awake in severe pain til 6a.m.... I took ibuprofen and was feeling a bit better and convinced I would make it into work, yet still couldn´t lift my arm or move my shoulder in order to dress myself, and it hurt too much to let Dave help me.  Since we have no substitute system here, this meant I had to leave poor Maria by herself again.  Good thing she is the kindest and most understanding person I´ve ever met.  So I slept til around 11a.m. and went to the clinic, and the nurse said, probably slept on it funny, but come back and check with the doctor at 3:00.  I went to the clinic at 3:00 but the doctor was running late, so I went back at 3:30, 4:00, 4:30, and then around 5:00 I decided she probably wasn´t coming and went back to bed for the rest of the night.  Friday I went into work and still felt terrible and the doctor came but just handed me over an anti-allergy pill for the bite without checking anything - but by this time the mark had disappeared and there was nothing there.  Dave convinced me to go into the private clinic in San Pedro Friday night where they did x-rays and all kinds of tests.  Friday night I researched online all the possibilities the doctor had mentioned... dengue, panic attacks, spider bites, malaria, pinched nerves..... and found that the black widow spider bite is one of the only spiders that don´t necessarily leave a mark, Dave has seen them around the orphanage, and it causes the same symptoms as all the ones I had during the night.  I went back to the clinic Saturday morning ready to tell the doctor what it was.  But instead he told me the test results show I have severe kidney infection, and that is the reason for the severe pain, aches, fever, and exhaustion.  Never would´ve guessed this, and not sure what to think, but now I´m on anti-biotics, and pain pills but they give me really bad nausea so I quit those yesterday.  So yeah, not too interesting of an update, since most of the weekend I spent with my bed, and finishing my book Life of Pi (which I highly recommend if you can get past the first section), and watching old re-runs of Dawsons Creek on the laptop, because it is the only thing we have to watch... it´s terrible and cheesy but does bring me back to my teen years with Lauren which is enough to make it worth watching. :)  Today went back to teach, feeling better but still in pain and exhausted and feverish, but trying to plan for our classroom Christmas party on Wednesday, which will be much simpler than I had hoped, but I still want it to be great for the kids.  Trying to find cheap easy recipes for sugar cookies now - any ideas?

Other than that... other news.... Tuesday was our Intro to Christmas school presentation.... Dominican kids dressed up as Joseph and Mary and angels, and classes singing Christmas raps and presenting acrostic poems about Navidad.  They also had a "lighting of the park" where we have Christmas lights and manger scene lit up in our park.  Looks a little disheveled but the kids are excited. 

We got two new kids last week, not sure if I mentioned the special needs boy they found in a batey.  He was kept out in the yard on a dog leash (collar around neck) tied to a pole, and not allowed in the house.  Hard to imagine anyone doing this to a child.... the life a child with special needs here is quite different.  Before I met him, I imagined him to be wild and aggressive and out of control after the life he had and for a family to have him live his life on a leash, but when I met him he was very sweet and quiet and mild.  I thought maybe he would be in my class, but he is very severely multiply impaired, with no speech and he is barely able to move on his own.  Thankfully, he is getting lots of special positive attention now in the special needs home and from our wonderful therapists.  He also had a brother come with him who is not special needs, but will need a lot of support in the school as he is Haitian (they both are) and doesn´t speak Spanish.  Keep these little guys in your prayers as they are adjusting.

Not sure if I´ve mentioned all Dave´s new bike tools he ordered, but he is running an "orphanage bike shop" to speak of now... I think the kids drive him a little crazy sometimes with all the requests and how they beat up all the donated bikes... but it is great to see the kids getting their exercise riding around the orphanage grounds all the time. :)

Well, I think that is it for now - lucky for those reading this I am too tired to think of anything else. :)  As far as the schedule we are looking at.... tentatively.... flying in on the 26th and then hopefully somehow getting to Kalamazoo for our car and warm clothes.  Spending the 27th in Grand Rapids, and possibly the 28th, then heading to Lansing for a couple days.... then thinking Detroit area for New Year´s and a fundraiser party at my dad´s house on January 2nd.  Then back to Kalamazoo on the 3rd for mother-in-laws bday party... then to Owosso that night so I can be up early to spend all day at Central with my kiddos on the 4th.  Then the night of the 4th and day of the 5th in Lansing with Melissa then to the airport in Detroit that evening to fly out.  I think it will be a whirlwind, but please let me know if this works and where/when we can see everyone.  We won´t have a cell phone or any way of being reached so that´s why we need to make plans now.  Can´t wait to see everyone soon!!!  Merry Christmas!!!

Love and prayers,
Kristin

Ac

Francisco and Moises at our Thanksgiving party

Turkey hands!

Acting out our Thanksgiving play

Games and story telling

Magic Tropical with Pam and our favorite Fijians!

Enjoying the Magic Tropical

Hi all,
Well rather than going in chronological order this time, I will start with the most important, and tradgic, news of the week.  Yesterday we came back to the orphanage to find that one of our little girls from the special needs home had passed away Saturday night.  It´s been a really sad couple of days, and she was a beautiful little girl.  The staff who cared for her in her house are grieving so hard, and the kids are just so confused.  Like I wrote about in past emails, funerals here are quite different... they actually found her during the big Quincinera birthday party Saturday night and all the staff and volunteers who were here had to have everything done and prepared by Sunday morning for her funeral.  Christian, our volunteer computer teacher had to cut her open because of the hemorraging, and the staff and volunteers had to give the service and bury her Sunday morning.  They are still unaware of how she died, but they think it had something to do with her heart.  She was not one of the students from my class so I did not know her as well as some of the other volunteer therapists and her house tias, but some of the kids in my class live with her in the special needs home and are taking it hard.  Below I have attached the email and picture that was sent out.  What is really crazy, is that the tia who was with her the longest, the really nice one I wrote about that invited me in her home in the batey, also lost her 7 year old nephew (from the same batey) the same day.  He apparently fell and hit his head and wasn´t able to get medical treatment to stop the bleeding in his head.  I cannot even imagine what she is going through.  Please keep all these very special people in your prayers.

Well, in other news, it has been a really crazy eventful week, but will try to keep it as short as possible, as I need to shop for a floral arrangement for the special needs house in her memory and also a birthday present for my hubby. (apparently they don´t do cards and flowers for deaths in this country - today I took around a large card with a bouquet on the front that I made with my class for all the other teachers and staff to sign, and everyone looked at me like I was crazy, nothing new, but they also said it was very lovely and creative)

As far as I can remember in this last crazy week.... last week Dave received a very generous personal gift from family and decided to buy a moto!  So now we have a motorcycle... I won´t get into details on what it looks like cause you wouldn´t want to know, trust me.... but we have only taken it out once to the batey.  I about fell off a couple times, and it stalled out and we rolled down a hill while all the Dominicans laughed and said look at the foreigners trying to drive a moto.  He still needs some practice before we take it into the crazy city.  And we should buy some helmets too.

Thursday night, we had a big Thanksgiving celebration at Marijo´s (veteran volunteer from Michigan) house - she cooked turkey, potatoes, all the works and it was so delicious and fun.  She really loved the handpainted turkeys that I did with my kids and decided I should teach all the adults how to make them during the party, so now her patio is plastered in adult-size hand print turkeys with messages of thanks to the Dominicans (kinda like the pilgrims to the indians kinda thing).  Friday was my BIG Thanksgiving celebration in my classroom.... and it was big.  Dave and I wrote a play about Thanksgiving and the kids made Indian headdresses and pilgrim hats and we acted it out.  We also played a hide and seek turkey game where everyone gobbled, did 2 turkey art projects, went on a parade, and had a popcorn feast (thanks to Laur for the ideas!).  I had LOTS of visitors - volunteers, staff, parents from the batey... but it was absolutely wonderful and listening to the kids and adults´messages of thanks during our circle of thanks touched my heart beyond words.  It was sad to be away from family, but easily the best Thanksgiving I ever had. 

Also, keeping me busy this week was preparing for the Quincinera (big 15th bday party for 3 of our girls) as I was on the decorating committee and signed up to help so we were busy shopping and preparing for that as well (it has been a CRAZY week to say the least).  And on Friday, my sister-in-law Pam flew in and my former host family, the Fijians, from Los Alcarrizos came out to stay in Boca Chica with us.  Boca Chica is like 5x more expensive than anywhere cause of all the tourists so they brought a stove and practically their whole kitchen and we cooked a huge meal in the hotel until we got in trouble for cooking in the hotel room.  But then I got really really sick again Friday night (I think from an empanada but not sure) and Saturday so I couldn´t get on a guagua (little bus with no bathroom) and so I missed the whole Quincinera I was supposed to be in charge of decorating, and also the death of our little one until we came back Sunday.  We didn´t know anything til we came Sunday afternoon and found out we missed the whole funeral and everything.  We felt terrible so now I am trying to make up for it with cards, flowers, etc.  Besides everything else though, it was good to see Pam and relax and spend time with family and friends.

Okay, well I could go on and on with all the details of this past week but I should be going.  Please keep everyone here in your prayers as it is really tough for both the staff and kids.  When the biological family was notified (what is left of them) they didn´t even come to the funeral, so NPH really was like her only family here.  There are lot more kids here with AIDS and other terminal illnesses so please keep them in your prayers. 

Hope all is well back home and everyone had a happy Thanksgiving there.

Love and prayers always,

Hello all,

Sooo I am exhausted and didn´t make a list of things to write about so maybe this will be a short one?? :) 

Well, it´s been really busy these past 10 days with my dad and my brother here, and we were sad to say good bye to them today.  We spent the first weekend running around Juan Dolio trying to hang out, but mostly losing each other in the process, and then last Wednesday they came to the orphanage to stay and hang out with us for a few days.  Wednesday night they took us out to an amazing dinner of Mexican food, and then went out shopping and seeing San Pedro.  There were a couple of little shoeless boys begging outside an empenada shop we stopped by, they said their dad had his leg cut off and couldn´t work and their mom died.  So I asked the guy working in the shop, and he said their story was ligit.  So I decided to buy them dinner, and said good-bye to them, but no matter where I went around town they followed me like little puppy dogs, hanging on and jumping on me curiously.  I tried talking about the school and orphanage, and like every other street kid I talk to about it, they said take us there, take us there.  The ones in the orphanage have horribly awful stories, but these are the ones that truly break my heart... they ones who are still on the streets, living out the hardship.  I ended up hanging out with them for quite a while and finally told them, okay I really have to go in my guagua and you can´t come with me, and they hung on me and didn´t want to say goodbye.  I hope maybe I can send our social worker to investigate.. maybe they´ll be in NPH someday.  We did get in 5 new kids this week.  They are absolutely precious and oh so excited to be in NPH.  Even past the excitement though, you can see the pain in their eyes as they explain how their parents died and their grandma couldn´t care for them.

Sooo, Thursday night Dave and my dad and Bradley were playing basketball and I went out to get them to watch a dance show my girls and the Micheal Jackson team planned.... and what I found was my poor husband in the clinic again... this time with a huge swollen eye and t-shirt soaked in blood.  Turns out he and another boy somehow collided head on running full force in opposite directions playing basketball.  This time we skipped the MUSA hospital we went to before, and went to a private clinic so he could get stitched up.  It was way more expensive, but great to see the nurse actually wearing gloves this time. (speaking of MUSA, Maria´s sister had her baby there on Thursday, via C-section, and they actually cut her open wide awake with no anasthetic or pain killers!  no wonder you hear screaming there... i can´t even imagine)  So we thought he would get better, but somehow the hit seemed to hit his whole system so now he thinks he has a sinus or respiratory infection, and maybe a punctured lung... my poor poor husband.  We had booked a 5 hour trip from the capital city for the weekend to go to Playa Rincon, said to be the prettiest beach on the island, but then after that event made a decision to stick around the orphanage so Dave could heal. 

So Friday we all headed out on our field trip to the national aquarium in the capital, to top off our unit on sea animals, and the kids were oh SOOOO excited.  I had never seen them so excited before, and they were actually so well behaved (except my little Nairobi who is deaf and mute who I had a volunteer chasing her around all day).  But I was very very proud of them and we had sooooo much fun.  We had snacks and played in the park afterward.  Dave was paired with Moises, my student who is blind with cerebral palsy, and lost him for a while but didn´t tell me cause he knew I would freak, and found him 20 minutes later, with a different class from a different school, hanging with both arms around one boy and having a conversation with him thinking he was another student from our class.  Dave thought it was the funniest thing ever.  So, I will put lots of aquarium pics on facebook soon, along with the ones of our number matching jellyfish, our vowel superstar starfish, our handprint crabs, our rainbow fish puppets, our sponge paint oceans, and much more.  It has been a fun theme to learn about.   Oh and we topped it off by drinking blue "ocean juice" and swedish fish my dad brought down from the states.  The kids were lovin it.

So we got back to the orphanage Friday after the field trip, and Bradley decided he couldn´t stand another night in the orphanage - his "dislike" of spiders (not fear) kept him awake 2 nights and he needed to go to a hotel.  So we changed plans again and all hopped a bus out to Bayahibe on the fly Friday night and stayed there at a German bed and breakfast the rest of the weekend.  We hung at the beach and ate lots of pizza, and there was even hot water, which made Dave and I both feel better (I have the "gripe" too).

Well, that´s it for now, but keep Dave in your prayers, he is in really rough shape right now ... and also some of our kids who are in the hospital and struggling with some terminal illnesses.  I hope all is well back in Michigan, and seriously cannot wait to see everyone in January.  Love and miss everyone tons and tons,
Kristin

5 days after Dave's accident, still looking a little rough

With Erika, Carmencita, Mayelin, and Ana Maria, getting ready to dance!

Bradley and Jhon Luis at the National Aquarium



Dance party on the cancha, dancing with Mayelin

 Oh and thanks again for all the donations - I got a suitcase full of great classroom materials this week from my mom, Mark, and other generous folk and it was like Christmas morning.  The kids and I are so excited!!! :)

Field trip to the National Aquarium

Classroom bulletin board for our ocean unit!

Catching rays at the beach with Dad and B-rad

Hola!

I actually wrote this email yesterday in Microsoft Word while I was at the beach with my fam (it was a national holiday) and came home to send it but there was no electricity last night.  Tonight I am writing in the midst of a crazy Micheal Jackson dance party, a going away party for my roommate Fritznel, a former orphan from Haiti who has been my roommate for the past 3 months here.  Many of you might know him from the dance video, but he is beyond OBSESSED with Micheal Jackson and we’ve done every choreographed video dance all night tonight (he spends hours every night memorizing them, then teaching them to us and the kids). We will miss him.  Well, and the electricity came on, so I raced outside to try to send this email for my devoted Monday readers. 

I want to start by first saying a huge THANK YOU for all the donations to my program.  I was absolutely shocked to go on the website and see that I had $600 already donated to my project.  I cannot say enough how I am so so so touched by such immense generosity!  It absolutely restores my faith in humanity to know that people truly care not only about me and what I am doing here, but also about the happiness and the futures of children with special needs.  So thank you thank you thank you so much to everyone who donated to my project online, and also for all the donations and gifts along the way.  Things are coming along so great, and I could not be more excited about it… and the kids are happy and thankful too. J    

Here at the orphanage, it’s been another crazy week, relatively uneventful in the school (other than for the hermit crabs who the kids went crazy over all week) but Dave has had quite the adventure (if you can call it that)… It started on Thursday when Dave was really sick again with severe stomach pains, and then Thursday night he was up all night moaning and groaning like crazy, and by 4:30am I finally convinced him to go into the orphanage clinic.  They gave him some drink to make him feel better, but it made him feel worse, and they talked us into going into the hospital asap.  Soooo we got on the first bus out at 6:30a.m. taking the kids to the high school, and they dropped us off at MUSA… which turned out to be a free hospital for poor people from the area.  We had no idea what we were in for.  We took our number at 7:00 a.m., #94 in line, and then the lady next to me in the waiting room tells me they wouldn’t start calling numbers today til 9:30.  Dave was hunched over moaning in pain, so she insisted on taking us to the “emergency room” (you would not believe your eyes if you saw it).  We got to the emergency room and had to wait for a while, while the two doctors conversed and laughed about a night out or something… then we told him about his stomach pain, but before they asked him anything else, they had taken him into this kitchen like area, where there was a sink full of dirty “dishes” – bedpans and such – and shoved him down into a chair and started poking him several times with a needle injecting who knows what.  They took 4 different pokes to get it in, as I looked around and noticed blood stains splattered all over the countertop, walls, and floor, as well as a few cotton balls soaked in blood on the floor and an overflowing garbage can of things that should go in toxic waste bins.  As they put the injection in, they asked me if I had a plastic bag, I said no why, and they explained the injection would make him start to vomit soon, and then he lunged for the garbage can within seconds and vomited more than I have ever seen someone vomit in my life – they said this was to “clean him out”.  Then they poked him about 5 more times to get another injection in… another I had no idea what it was, but they said it would help the pain (the ER nurse still having no idea what was even causing the pain).  By then he was drenched in sweat, trembling, and couldn’t get up, so they took him to this other small room that he shared with a poor old lady in pain, who looked like she had some sort of tumor, and poked him about another 3 times to get an IV in him.  They told him he would then need a blood test and stool sample after the IV was done.  I left to use the bathroom in the emergency room, and couldn’t believe what I found.  I walked in to find a large puddle of yellow covering most of the floor, two holes in the wall where a sink should have been, another hole in the wall where there should’ve been a toilet paper roll (but wasn’t), a short dirty toilet with no seat, a garbage can overflowing with poopy toilet paper, a puke green chipped paint wall, and a fluorescent light hanging down and dimming in and out.  I don’t think I could have invented a worse scene for a movie, and in all the 17 countries I’ve traveled and even in tin shacks, I have never seen a bathroom quite like this.  I can’t imagine that patients in near fatal conditions are using this bathroom, or that it could possibly be used for taking stool samples.  I exited the bathroom and to my right I saw a room about the size of my bedroom with 8 small beds all squeezed in side by side with suffering patients – I think this would be an ICU area?  I don’t think there is any comment I could make about the lack of sanitation that wouldn’t be an enormous understatement.  So I went back to Dave and then went on to do the lab tests… he couldn’t walk by this point or barely move so we put him in a wheelchair… one with a broken wheel and no footplates… and I pushed him past people with missing limbs, missing eyes, skin covered in various funguses, and other types of unknown disease.  I could hear women in labor screaming loudly, and people wheeled in on stretchers that looked like they had been shot or were dying.  From there, we went to stand in a long line at the lab, but then this guy who spoke English jumped in, a little overeager to practice his English, and demanded we get our things first.  Thank goodness we had brought our own jar for stool sample because in the hospital they used small glass baby food jars (without tops), and rip a scrap of paper from a notebook to write the last name in chicken scratch, and then set it on top of the jar, without sticker, tape, or rubber band, which could easily be blown off.  The English speaking guy physically demonstrated several times how to do a stool sample, as if we didn’t know what a stool sample was.  Dave stumbled into the bathroom with his wheelchair and IV bag and stool sample jar, stepping over broken glass on the bathroom floor from patients who had evidently dropped their stool sample jars.   He couldn’t do it on his own, so the English speaking Dominican barged in to help and raced out with the jar to save the day.  Then we went to wait in line for the blood sample.  This time they poked Dave another 3 times at least, and we had to about catch him from passing out.  Then it was time to wait and wait and wait for the results.  Dave was hunched over, eyes closed in pain, and I observed patients coming in and out.  I think about every 5^th one coming in was a hugely pregnant young girl coming in alone to deliver, and about every 5^th one going out was walking out carrying a brand new-born baby… no wheelchair, no man, no family support system, no pink/blue blankets, no balloons… just a new baby, and an overwhelmed and exhausted expression. (Maria tells me that normal deliveries are free and c-sections cost around $15 at this hospital) Then we got the results and went back to emergency to meet with the doctor.  Amoebic dysentery.  He got two different kinds of scripts and I went to the pharmacy to fill them – they each cost less than 50 cents each.  It was quite a day.  Dave describes it as the worse in his life, and my heart broke watching him all day, but it also makes me think, what is healthcare like in the countries worse off than here?  And how many people would give anything to be able to go to a hospital such as this and be treated for free?  It’s so crazy what we take for granted.  But thank God after a weekend of him resting in our hotel, moaning and groaning in intense pain, while I ran around to nearby colmados buying garlic and carrots and all the holistic things that are supposed to kill amoebas, he is finally feeling better. Now he’s more himself - with bruises covering both arms from all the pokes – but even eating pizza and tostones. J

In other news, my dad and brother are here visiting now!  They arrived on Friday night to their resort in Juan Dolio, and we took a guagua out to Juan Dolio and stayed at our gypsy hotel.  We kinda laid low since Dave was still so sick and it was a little difficult being on opposite sides of town from their resort, but we had a great time visiting with them.  They are going to be at their resort for a couple more days, and then on Wednesday they’re coming here to the orphanage to visit and help, and then go travel with us next weekend. 

Well, I know I’ve written quite a bit here, but quite a few people were asking about Dave so there’s the full story.  All who know me know I sometimes have the tendency to exaggerate a bit, but if you ask Dave this is the true story… his version might even be worse… I am just happy he is feeling better.

Well thank you again soooo much to all you wonderful people I love so much – for your encouragement, kindness, prayers, gifts, donations… I am so truly blessed to have such incredible people as friends and family.  Love and miss you all tons and tons and tons.

Love,

Kristin   

Also, if you actually made it this far in my email, please respond and send me your address too. J  I would love to send back postcards with my dad that he can put in the mail once he gets to the states.  Thanks! xoxo

Hanging out with my dad on his visit at the Barcelo Capella!

Jose, Jacob, and Katha came to help with our classroom Halloween party!

All dressed up for Halloween!

Happy Day of the Dead!!!

Today here they are celebrating and recognizing those who have passed away... in the orphanage this meant they were howling all night, scaring kids, and telling me - dont walk to the school all alone in the dark in the night, you´ll never come back, its a full moon, the spirits will get you, you will die!!!  And they were serious.... :)  I also saw the house director lecturing all the boys houses before school standing in their lines outside, which probably means the haunting went quite late last night.

Last week we finished our unit on transportation... since our bus ride the week before was a hit, we went on a pretend airplane ride.  Paola welcomed people to the airport and sold tickets, Samuel was security, and I was the pilot of course (but I let the kids take turns too).  I brought the webcam on this airplane setting so the kids could see themselves through an airplane lense as they took turns flying and wearing a pilot hat and Daves cool aviator glasses.  I put small cars and buildings on the floor to simulate a window view (I tried make the kids close their eyes but of course they wouldnt) then had Samuel and Paola walked by with the clouds (I think the kids were like what the heck is this crazy lady doing now... but they had fun)  I think their favorite part was the on flight beverage service.  Oh the crazy things you do for fun in a 3rd world country where there aren´t textbooks... :)  See pics on facebook.

On Thursday, Paola met her goal of learning all her letters of the alphabet - so fast - so we went on a trip to the batey where she bought treats, and we visited one of the tia´s houses from the orphanage.  It was actually one of the nicer ones in the batey (concrete floors rather than dirt), but still very poor in comparison to any house in the states, but it was amazing how excited she was to welcome me in and show it off.  She was so sweet and so proud to introduce me to her family and made me a big plate of fresh papaya, picked from her tree out back.  She was so warm and so kind, and so excited to host me in her home in any way she could.  It is something I love so much about the people here, some people have no idea how little they have, but are so excited to share anything they can with you.  On the way home, the men were hissing at the rubia (blonde) and I decided for the first time to start hissing back... Paola was shocked that her teacher would do this and we laughed and laughed until our stomachs hurt.

I was sad missing Halloween since they don´t have it here, so I decided to spontaneously throw a Halloween party in my class on Friday (actually 2).  I had my first one from 9-11 for my first group of 8, then another one from 11-12:30 for my late morning and afternoon kids.  It was a ton of last minute planning but sooooooooo much fun (even though again the kids probably thought I was crazy and had no idea what we were doing).  I found a costume box that an art therapist from Holland had left behind and we played dress-up, sang 5 little pumpkins in Spanish, played musical chairs with candy, made ghosts and jack-o-lanterns, drank pumpkin juice, and went on a parade around the orphanage.  It was pretty crazy, but I was lucky to have my great volunteer friends there to help.  (again, lots of pics on facebook)

This weekend, we went to Juan Dolio to the beach to get away from the orphanage for a couple days, and stay in our $15 gypsy hotel.  I was able to lesson plan and get (almost all) of my reports ready for conferences (that are this Friday again already).  Then, since I am teaching a unit on ocean animals now, Dave and I hit the beach to look for items for my lessons.  We filled a 2 liter full of sand and found tons of coral, sea urchins, and 9 hermit crabs which we put in a carry-out container and threw in our backpacks.  We met a nice guy in San Pedro who was helping us figure out the baseball schedule here, and he also had a moto, so I said take us home, but neglected to notice it was a tiny moto and I think we about crushed it, my feet were dragging and Dave was literally falling off the back, while we let our FULL backpacks hang to the sides, when it started to rain.  It was a long, fast, wet, muddy  moto ride and we totally forgot about our hermit crab friends in our backpack.  They survived, but it was probably the most excitement they´ve had in their short lives.  We started our ocean studies today though and the kids had so much fun with them.  I was also sooo excited to find the Rainbow Fish today in Spanish in the library!!  Can´t wait to start all those lessons with the kids!!

Well, I should be off, but want to say thanks to everyone who is supporting my program here.  Without out, we wouldn´t have the supplies necessary for our fun lessons and our Halloween Party!! 

My dad and brother are coming this Friday and I am super excited to spend time with them and do some traveling around the island for a few days.  We are going to take the kids on a field trip to the national aquarium too.  Hope more people can come visit us soon. :) Have a great week and write soon.

Love and prayers,
Kristin

Also, let me know if you were able to find my website okay... I hear there are still some technical difficulties??  Let me know!!! :)

Okay,
So I just found that my project is FINALLY FINALLY FINALLY ONLINE!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I am so excited!!!!!!!!!  Its a little complicated but here is how to find it!!! 

check out http://www.nph.org (change language to English) then go to How to Help, Projects, then Dominican Republic, and all priorities and you will find my special education project!!!

The money should come straight to my project, and then you can also have a tax write-off too.  Please share this with friends and family... and with Central staff please too Andrea?? :)  Let me know if you can find it okay!!!

Love,
Kristin
(and on the homepage of the website right now is one of my butterfly girls that I face painted for Dia de San Francisco too!)

Hola all,

Hope this email finds you well.  I just came on and realized that this week is Halloween and I totally forgot about it.  Its funny how these things just escape you when you are so far away from it. 

As I said in my last email, we are doing a unit on transportation.  Weve been doing all kinds of games, songs, lessons, etc. with transportation and the kids love it.  I am putting pics on my facebook right now of our peanut butter cookie cars and our bus ride outside the orphanage.  I let all the kids take turns sitting in the drivers seat, honking the horn, turning the steering wheel, pushing the gas and brakes (there were no keys in the bus of course) then we went on a ride and sang wheels on the bus in Spanish.  The orphanage choffer gave us a lesson on how vehicles work.  Its great how the kids can get so excited about such simple things.  On Wednesday I borrowed my roommate Joses hat and dressed up as a bus driver and we set up a fake bus in our classroom with seat numbers, tickets, etc. and did a math lesson with kids getting off and on.  Today we played transportation charades, and tomorrow were going to marble paint blue oceans and cut and paste in a boat (drawing by my husband).  Im trying to work out motorcycle rides for this Friday, but if I cant I think we will just get our pictures taken on them (not as fun, but enough to excite the kiddos). 

As I talked about before, behavior and mostly aggression/violence is a MAJOR issue with a handful of our kids, and so Wednesday when I was dressed up as bus driver and in full song, I noticed police officers watching through my classroom window.  I wasnt sure why they were there at the time, but they came and talked to the´conduct kids´ in the school about their behavior and taught them about jail and real-life consequences.  I dont know how much it will affect them long-term, but it was enough to scare most of our tough teenage boys into tears for the day.  The thing is that they have so much hurt inside, and just comes out in anger and aggression and violence, when there is so much going on so much deeper that I wish I could just reach in and fix.

Thursday it was my turn to get sick.  Even though I didnt want to miss school I knew I had to, so started writing plans and searching for someone to help in my room around 6a.m... .our volunteer coordinator said she would take care of it, but she is not anywhere near reliable with anything ever, so my helper Maria ended up all alone for the whole day.  I felt bad to leave her on her own, but it sounds like she did an amazing job and Im really proud of her, and hope she really gets to get her teaching degree and a job someday.  By Thursday night, I was feeling better... and Dave is now too.

Saturday I spent most the day in San Pedro shopping with Nicole (volunteer librarian from Switzerland) and Katarina (volunteer therapist from Germany) trying to get things to set up her new therapy room (and eating LOTS of pizza).  Met all kinds of nice people willing to help... came home to work on reports (getting a head start this time) and found the kids abusing a kitten in the park and took it home.  The kids had pulled its limbs out of socket and thrown it on the ground, and it couldnt walk, eat, or do anything.  We thought we could nurse her back to health and have it be our volunteer house pet, but she died yesterday.  Jeanvie (volunteer from Haiti) built it a casket but we havent worked out the funeral details yet.  Cats and dogs arent domesticated here like in the states and its so hard to see the way they are treated.

Sunday was Family Day, where living parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, friends, neighbors, etc. could come visit the kids in the orphanage.  I painted faces and played games with the kids in the park for hours among the festivities.  It appeared that less than half of the kids actually had visitors, and a fair amount of the ones that did were not happy to be with whoever was there (possibly the person who abused or neglected them?)  It was really hardbreaking, and I kept a few of the really sad ones close by my side through the day and held them and bought them lollypops.  That evening we had a 2 and a half hour church service, and one of the kids handed me his sisters baby who I ended up holding the whole service and who was the most beautiful baby I think Id ever seen.  I told the great grandmother who was with him that he was beautiful and I wanted to take him home... JOKING... and she left to discuss it with another relative and explained that his mother was not good and couldnt care for him.  I tried to explain again that I was just kidding, but it really seemed like she tried to sneak out of the church while he was still asleep in my arms.  I had to follow her out to give him back.  I wonder if he will end up back at the orphanage someday too.  Sometimes I wish SOOO much that the kids here were up for adoption.  Maybe I will end up finding one though outside the orphanage grounds before I come home.  Well see... :)

I will finish my novel now for this week, but Im putting pics on facebook as we speak if you are able to check them out.  Looking forward to a visit from my dad and brother in 2 weeks, and my sister-in-law in 4 weeks, hoping we will get to do some traveling around the country.  Love and miss everyone back home - Happy Halloween!!!  Take care and God bless!!!!

Love,
Kristin

Jhon Luis driving the guagua

Moises enjoying his cookie car

Taking the kids on an airplane ride!

Juliana and Ana Maria with their cookie cars!

Hola!!!

So it has been another crazy, busy, exciting, and fun week filled with lots of adventures as always.  Exciting news... we have a great special ed. and tutoring team now... it is growing, and we had our first big team meeting this week which was great, we are really reaching more and more kids, and I am acting as a liason between the teachers and the now 14 tutors in all the houses.  I am also training the oldest girls and the tias in my house to tutor 9 younger girls and am getting lots of activities prepared for them.  Needless to say, I am SUPER busy!!  Second, exciting news from the week is that the school is totally turning around as far as discipline (slowly but surely).  As I mentioned before, about 10% of the kids skip school about 90% of the time, unsupervised which leads to lots of fist fights and other much worse trouble (things I wouldn´t write in email), but now we are really cracking down.  I´ve spent a lot of free time in meetings with the school director, but now we have a schoolwide handbook (only not in book form yet), hall passes, and we are trying to work out a responsibility room like the one in Owosso.  We are trying to figure out a way for the teachers to start taking attendance too as a preventive measure (these are the kinds of things that don´t naturally happen when teaching in an orphanage in a 3rd world country)  Our national director has been involved in all this with me, and it´s been a lot of work and a lot of meetings, but kids are actually starting to get consequences (I got my first apology from a boy who bit me today in the hallway when I told him to go back to class)... and almost forgot, we´re going to start a student of the month program based on different character traits - how exciting is that??  I´m sure it will take time, but I am really hopeful about the possibilities.

Wednesday night at mass, I met my ghost from Sunday night - he came up to me and said Hi I´m the ghost - nice to meet you.  Now all the kids want to sneak out at night to the school and be the ghost.  I´ve been making Dave come to my classroom to work with me now when I have to be there at night.  Then after mass, we ended up with another shindig at the house, our most prized guest being a tarantula, what else, that the teenage boys were not a bt scared of.  They mess with them like crazy here... Dave kept trying to feed it grass, until it pounced up on it´s back legs looking like it was ready to jump, but then a boy picked it up and threw it at my roommates and I, and we ran in the house screaming like babies after it brushed across our legs and they laughed and laughed. 

Wednesday night was also the night Dave started getting really, really sick.  He hasn´t been able to eat barely a thing since last week, but now he is back to work though still sick and not eating.  We are almost positive from his symptoms that it is amoebas, but don´t have a test to prove it yet, since trying to transport his stool sample to the lab on Saturday was quite an adventure, and never made it there, I will leave the details out so he doesn´t get too upset with me. :)

Thursday I was finally able to take Jose Martin, who met his reading goal and filled his graph of 25 sight words, to the batey, the slum-like neighborhood outside the orphanage, (he had to behave for a whole day to be allowed to go) and he got a juice and cookie and bag of cheetos.  It was about a 30 minute walk each way, and we took lots of pictures of horses, chickens, cows, bulls, and each other (he was laughing and laughing about his teacher wanting to stay far away from the bull and has been announcing it to everyone ever since).  While it was quite the motivator for my little trouble maker because his teacher says he has been behaving excellently ever since.  He can´t wait til our next trip.  It is great how excited kids get about everything here.  Today I taught him to subtract using small cookies and I think that was the quickest and happiest I´ve ever seen a child learn.  I also had fun with all the rest of my kids last week, doing a unit on feelings... with tons of songs, games, read-alouds, graphing, mini-books, etc.  This week we are doing a unit on transportation and have lots of fun activities planned... including making cars from crackers, small round cookies, and peanut butter, which I can´t wait to see how excited they will be. (not nearly as cool as the ones online I found with twinkies, frosting, and candy - but they will be excited none the less) Next week I want to do a unit on farm animals if anyone has any fun ideas to share?  Maybe we will go on a class walk and visit the animals around and outside the orophanage.

This weekend we had a volunteer retreat at this beautiful beach house in Guayacanes.  Dave was happy he was sick and missed it, because it was 16 women and no men, and we spent most of the time sitting around and talking about our feelings.  We played DR version family feud Saturday morning which was really fun, and I met volunteer teachers from a batey in Los Alcarrizos where I lived two years ago so I am excited to visit them soon.  It was really really great though to reflect as a group on why we´re here, rewrite our goals and purposes for being here, and bond as a team.  We were having lots of fun at the beach, until I was swimming over a coral at the beach and a sea urchin shot 8 needles into my foot.  I hobbled back to the house, where person after person after person tried with no luck to get them out with a needle/pin/tweezers/candle wax/etc.  Finally we decided to go into the nearby hospital in Juan Dolio, with a 67 year old volunteer from NPH who is not like any other 67 I could ever describe.. but anyways, since we couldn´t find it, she asked a police officer, who escorted us there with lights on and everything.  Since we didn´t know if we would get anasthetic, we made a pit stop for rum to numb the pain, but I didn´t get more than one shot in the doctor´s room, I won´t go into the details of where all the rum went while in the ^`surgical`^ room, but the large bottle was empty by the time we got home.  We got there, and asked how much and they wanted to charge over a 100 dollars, writing out a bill for the gauze, medical tape, needle, etc. - crazy... until I explained I was a resident and volunteer and he dropped it down to 37 dollars.  I was happy to see anasthetic, but he said I would need 8 local anasthetic shots for removing the 8 needles, but but he didn´t wait for the anasthetic to kick in until he already 6 needles out while I screamed and my new best friend (our new German occupational therapist) led me through La maz (spelling?) breathing while I am pretty sure I about broke her hand.  Now I am walking on my foot fine again though and can barely feel it.  It was a really great weekend though, and we got visit from the boys Sunday for our lunch. 

Now back to another week in school, but the kids are always so excited to be there on Monday which makes me equally excited.  Just wish there were more hours in the day to get done all the millions of fun things I would like to do with them and teach them and experience with them.  I really want to try to plan a field trip soon, but that seems a little tricky in a foreign country.  Well, I am off to Jumbo to try to find Dave... and more classroom items.... but lots of love and prayers, and miss everyone tons and tons. xoxoxoxoxo

Kristin

Jose Martin with his treats

With Jose Martin in the batey

Hola from the DR,

Hope this email finds you all well.  I will try to keep this one shorter than usual.  I got all my copies done already because I got here and the whole place was empty - how lucky is that?  Well, it´s been another good week, full of ups and downs and in betweens, but mostly ups. :)  The kids are making good progress and we´re having lots of fun.  Last week, we did a unit on the 5 senses, and got a little carried away, you´ll see what I mean if you look for my pictures on facebook.  I had the kids do all kinds of blindfolded activities, we made collage posters, sang songs, and then this crazy magazine activity where we pasted magazine eyes, noses, mouths, etc. on their faces.  Pretty funny.  This week we are learning about feelings, and I´m trying to do a new theme every week so if you have any ideas, please let me know!!  I like teaching themes each week since I don´t have any type of curriculum or materials to follow.  But I have learned a lot now about how to teach in reading, writing and other content in Spanish, and have come up with a lot of fun games and lessons.  Anyways, now I am up to 30 kids on my caseload, it is so crazy and I just keep finding more and more need.  Last week they asked if I could spend nights tutoring in my house with 9 girls.  It´s so crazy.  But the good thing is 2 of the volunteers are going to help tutor some kids in the morning, so I am going to try to help them with grouping the kids for instruction and train them in some different teaching methods and giving them materials.  The more I talk to teachers and work with kids, I am realizing about 85% or more of the kids here are significantly below grade level, and most can´t read.  I think I have my work cut out for me here.  But most of the kids I am working with are making great progress... learning their vowels, letters, sight words, numbers, name writing... those are always the most exciting moments to see them doing new things that they weren´t able to do back in August.  I am also trying to implement some school wide discipline / positive behavior supports here, since even though I having my 30 kids on behavior plans, the school as a whole needs some serious help with discipline.  I find myself breaking up hallway fist fights most days of the week. 

This week I was really sad to say goodbye to Lisa, the volunteer from Washington who has been helping in my classroom the past 2 weeks.  She was so sweet.  We had a goodbye party Wednesday, which turned into a Micheal Jackson dance party, my roommate Fritznel is beyond OBSESSED to say the least so he is ALWAYS teaching everyone Micheal Jackson dances... here´s the link if you want to see: http://vimeo.com/6991622

This weekend Dave and I went for 2 nights to Juan Dolio to our $15 hotel instead of 1 night in the $30 one, but it was so perfect and I even got a hot shower!!!  First one since I´ve been here, I loved it!!  Saturday it rained a lot so we ran around in the rain, and hid out in this little comedor, and got empanadas and spaghetti and a bowl of soup, only to find out after 2 bites that it was lengua de baca, cow tongue - and that was all I ate.  The lady who worked there was laughing at me.  Good thing it only cost about 80 cents.  On our way back to our hotel I stepped over this dead dog that looked like it could have been there for months... the dogs here make me sooooooooo sad, I wish I could open an animal shelter and take them all in.  But I guess that will have to be my next mission, cause I think I have my hands more than full now.  Sunday was sunny early (it usually rains every afternoon) so I got up early and walked the beach for 3 straight hours, non-stop, I didn´t realize how far I had walked but just about to San Pedro I walked so far, and I felt it today!!  I have been doing Barry´s Bootcamp with a volunteer from France and one from Germany, but today I couldn´t get my butt out of bed at 5:30 and was so sore already, but I want to start doing it everyday cause it´s a great way to start the day.  So we stayed at the beach til around 3 Sunday swimming and snorkeling (found some cool corals, sea urchins, and fish) til it started pouring and we ran through the rain to catch a guagua, go grocery shopping, and then take a motorcycle back to the orphanage (this is usually our preferred form of transportation :)

Last night I got chased out of my classroom after 2 hours again, but this time not by a tarantula, but by what I thought was a ghost, or a man who snuck in from the Batey, but it scared the daylights out of me... the school is a long dark walk down a dirt road, and there was no electricity so it is pitch black, and someone was following me down the road, running down the halls of the school in the dark, slamming doors, and watching me through the windows.  I found out today it was a teenage boy who snuck out of the orphanage during the night but it scared me so bad, it was pitch black and I couldn´t see a thing outside the school and he was coming up in the dark right behind me going ¨sssssssssss¨¨ in my ear and then disappearing into the darkness.  I felt like I was in a horror movie.  Good thing it was just one of the boys... I hope (he would never fess up to it today).

Other news... the kids have changed houses to separate the boys and girls who were living together, so that was a huge ordeal this past week, people insisted on moving their own beds and refridgerators and washing machines, even though they were the same in all the houses... it was quite a job and kept Dave running.  Today we celebrated Dia de Razas, or something like that, in school... I still don´t understand completely but it had something to do with the many races and ethnicities that make up the Dominican Republic, and celebrating that we all live together in harmony.  The kids did a play about it, but I rarely understand what their plays are all about. (one play in the church put two eight year old twins in diapers to play baby Jesus - guess they just couldn´t choose one of them?)

Also, pray for Alberto, one of the boys in the home who has cancer.  He is in second grade.  The cancer has spread through his whole body and they took him off chemo.  I don´t work with him so I don´t know him personally, but I think these kinds of things are really hard here for all the kids to understand, and hard on all the people who work with him.

Okay, well this turned into a WAY longer email than I planned, I guess I always just have so much to say after a week, but keep in touch and keep the ideas, news, and updates coming.  Love and miss everyone TONS and TONS and TONS.  Oh and also Sui´s birthday was this past weekend, so I hope someone was able to or can contact her to celebrate her birthday??  I am so sad I can´t be there and miss her so much.  If you are able to get in contact with her, please give her a HUGE birthday hug and lots of love from me. 

Lots and lots of love and prayers,
Kristin

Eating pizza at El Sueno en Juan Dolio!



Luis Alberto learning the 5 senses



Moises!

At the beach in Juan Dolio!

Hola!!
So this time, I kept a list of all the things I wanted to write about this week in my notebook so I could share in my weekly email update... and wouldn´t you know, I left it sitting on my desk in my classroom at the end of the day!  Of course!!  Well, it´s been another hot, crazy, busy week, full of the usual ups and downs, but all is good here.  Last week was NUTS with finishing Christmas cards, but finally got them all done Wednesday night (the day they were due)... thought I could breathe on Thursday, but then the school director called me into her office, and said so I just wanted to let you know report cards are due tomorrow (they decide these things the day before here apparently) - I had never seen a report card here before, but was pretty sure it wouldn´t apply to the majority of my kids, so I explained this to her, so she said okay well just make up your own report card forms, and have them filled out and ready for the secretary tomorrow morning.  I think I stopped breathing then, but realized there was no way I could actually physically do this for all of my now 28 kids on my caseload, so decided to just do what I could and call it good.  She also informed me (24 hours before) that she decided (that morning) that there would be no school Friday afternoon (again) because we would have a conference with all the tias (houseparents) and parents from the batey (these are kinda like slums on the outskirts of the orphanage).  They actually sent around a messenger (like in Cinderella) to all the houses and classrooms with a stamped letter the day of to let them know.  The kids are still mad at me for not working with them the past 2 Friday afternoons, and some of them won´t speak to me.  So anyways I created a progress report form for my morning kids who don´t otherwise come to school... and then sat down as much as I could over lunch and Thursday afternoon to fill out the report cards on my other kids who also go to gen. ed. (which all pretty much landed in the No lagrado - not achieved column) then wrote lengthy comments about their progress.  By Thursday night, I was whipped.  We had a dessert potluck for the new volunteers, but Dave and I decided Oreos was the way to go, with all the craziness of the week.  One of the volunteers asked if I would take over the responsibility of the butterflies for the weekend for Dia de San Francisco and I happily agreed, having no idea what I was getting myself into.  Dave took over the metal decorations and banner on the water tower.  So Friday, the report cards were in (I now have a much better idea for next month´s reports - these are monthly here and I will be much more prepared).  We had a large group meeting Friday afternoon with all the tias, and then they dismissed us all to go to our classes for individual conferences on each kid - another surprise.  None of the other teachers seemed to know anything about it either so I rolled with it, and took the tias from the special needs home to my classroom and showed them work samples and walked them through the kids´progress reports.  It all actually turned out fine, much better than I could have ever imagined for an on the spot parent teacher conference like that, but I can´t imagine what the teachers would do with an on the spot parent teacher conference like that if that happened in the states.  So got through that and left school by 5 to go work on butterflies, that went til late that night and continued through most of Saturday day, then I went to all the houses and collected and hung hundreds of butterflies (handmade by each child in each house) for Sunday... then once those were done we headed to the park to paint tables and benches (did I mention things happen last minute here?)  Then late Saturday night the people who funded the new park flew in from Virginia (only for 24 hours) and we had a dinner party to welcome them in, before the big holiday and blessing of the park Sunday.  Sunday morning, I got up at 630 and was working out and by 700 and I was asked why aren´t you in the park hanging butterflies, so I rushed to the park and we hung butterflies and balloons for 3 hours, and then painted all the girls faces just in time for the big ceremony and parade.  It was exhausting but the park looks beautiful, the people who funded the park were so excited and so grateful, it was in memory of their mother who just passed away recently, so I think it was worth all the work.  Then we had a picnic of Chinese food, of all things, and I spent the rest of the night working in my classroom until another HUGE tarantula, I swear they are the size of small dogs here, came and chased me out.  Today was definitely a Monday, especially when I got on the bus to come into town and the lady from the office came and dumped a pile of 50 Christmas cards in my lap that she thought were ugly and needed to be redone.  ARGHH this is the life of a NPH volunteer I guess - just have to roll with the punches.  I think I won´t tell the kids and just rewrite all these ones myself!  As of Saturday, we´ll have had 28 nights in the orphanage so we are hoping to get out to Boca Chica and spend 25-30 dollars on a nice hotel with a pool and maybe even take a hot shower! (it will be the first since we´ve been here... keeping my fingers crossed).... It´s hard to convince yourself to spend that much on one night in a hotel when it´s half your monthly salary, but I think after the past few weeks, and weekends, we have earned it.  So that said, we should be in a city, with our cell phone, and have a signal, so hopefully we will get some phone calls from people Saturday and Sunday afternoon???  I miss everyone from home sooooooooooo much and hope all is well back in Michigan and other parts of the world.  I will send pics of the butterflies and new park soon, or put them on facebook, but as of right now I´ve had enough of butterflies for a while.  Okay, well again love and miss everyone lots and lots, and please keep the kiddos in your prayers, I just found out one of the girls in my house has AIDS and another 2 have serious diseases, there are quite a few in the orphanage with AIDS, but it hits closer to home when they´re kids you interact with on a daily basis.  Okay, again lots of love sent from the DR, keep in touch and write soon!!!!!
Love and prayers,
Kristin

Belkis and Ditania with their butterflies!

Out for pizza for Kristina's goodbye party

Hello all,
Writing from the internet cafe during my weekly copy machine ritual in the city.  Hope all is going well back in Michigan - I hear it´s starting to cool down there, it´s so weird to think about all the things I´m missing not being there for the fall.  Things are going good here, everyday is a new adventure.  We´ve had a lot of new changes with volunteers... my roommate Kristina flew out on Saturday morning, she is from New Zealand but now living in Chile, and has somehow lived in every single country between in 22 years (she was always telling fun stories of working with monkeys in the jungles of Bolivia or selling jewelry in Spain).  We went out for pizza Friday night in San Pedro to say good-bye, and I made her a good-bye book, which was not the movie I wanted to make for her, so instead I made a TV frame and we passed it around the circle and said our good-bye messages while taping.  It was a sad night, but also fun to go out for pizza!!  Saturday morning I got up around 7a.m. and tried to catch the guagua (van) into town, but it was too full (they literally put up to 25 people in 9-12 passenger vans, I am not even exaggerating) so I hung out and waited for 2 new volunteers, an occupational therapist from Germany and a new librarian from Switzerland.  The one from Germany is living in our house and I´m hoping we can work together in the schools - I really miss that sense of TEAM we had in Owosso.  The other one is living next door.  Then yesterday we got a visitor from Washington for 2 weeks who´s also visiting and helping while her boyfriend is here who is a big part of NPH international.  I think she will be helping in my classroom on Fridays (Friday´s are now completely NUTS with my new student who is very difficult - deaf and mute and spends most the time running away from me - but of course she is cute)  I just need to learn sign language I guess.  Tell Jan Cox to come down and teach me. :) Last night, Jose also arrived, who will be living in our house for 1 year, he is from Spain and working on a gardening/agricultural project with the kids.  So lots of changes, but it is fun, we had a little shin dig last night on the patio to celebrate, and are having a dessert potluck tomorrow night too (which reminds me I need to buy something to bake tonight while I´m out).  This weekend was pretty lax, we used up our stipend so fast so have been hanging out at the orphanage on the weekends now, but I went into San Pedro Saturday and laid under a palm tree by the side of the road by the ocean for  hours (no beaches here but I guess that´s the next best thing) and read my book My Sister´s Keeper, I´m almost done, but it is sooooooooo good.  My next mission is to read a novel in Spanish but I don´t think my language skills are quite there yet.  Yesterday, I camped out in my classroom all day again and worked on making puzzles, board games, memory games (thanks Sandy for the idea), lessons, worksheets, assessments, etc.  You never realize how much you take for granted living in the states.  But I do enjoy it, and I had the director´s daughter (a beautiful and fun Mexican-Irish 8 year old who follows me around like a puppy) helping me with cutting and gluing, etc.  Other than that, just the same ol´, I´m getting into a routine here and enjoying it, more often than not.  Oh Thursday we didn´t have school, and we had a volleyball tournamnet with the kids, then spent the rest of the day working on Christmas cards for the sponsors.  I NEVER realized when I sponsored my child for all those years the WORK that goes into the little Christmas cards you throw aside on holidays.  Between the whole orphanage, we are making thousands of them, and started back in June.  Ah, and by November, I´m sure we´ll be starting Easter cards.  The other big project this week is getting ready for Dia de Francisco, the national holiday this Sunday dedicated to nature and animals, so we have a huge parade and all kinds of activities, but I will be making butterflies all week with my girls house (while after I finish the last of the Christmas cards).... always soemthing. :)  Then after 3 weekends in the orphanage, I hope we can get out of town and go to the beach!!! (we will have our stipend by then)  Oh, also, great news, my aide is full time in the school now!!!  She has a Mon.-Fri. 8-4 schedule, so she can see her daughter, study teaching, and HELP ME so much more.  So thanks for the prayers.  I am really excited.  She is probably my best friend here, she is beautiful and I love her so much.  Oh, I´m also going to check into taking classes with her if I can get the credits to transfer back to Michigan but I have NO idea, so we´ll see... Okay, well looks like the copy machine is open, so I better jump in before someone else does, but lots of love and prayers and HUGS send your way, and keep in touch!!!!!
Love always,
Kristin

Kristina's good-bye pizza party