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

Hi all,
Just hanging out at my internet/copy place right now, made my copies, and actually the fan is on and it has been raining and I am actually cold!!  Never thought I would write and say that!!  It is great when the days/nights are cool here, until I have to take a shower and never want to get under the ice cold water.  There has been LOTS of rain lately.  Last night I stayed working at school til after dark and didn´t realize I didn´t have a flashlight and walked back through puddles in pitch black. I probably would have looked pretty hilarious feeling the fence as I stepped and taking huge steps as not to step on or encounter any animals. Anyways, things here have been going good.  Spent a lot of time this weekend just hanging out at the orphanage, working on my classroom, but also got to see Tim and Paola on Saturday, we had pizza, and also got to spend about an hour swimming at the beach too.  The kids did a beach clean-up Saturday which was a great learning experience for them.  Things are going good at school.  I started a new system last week where I give out tickets to kids being good (my afternoon kids) and then if they are also good in their regular class they get it signed by their other teacher and can cash it on Friday for cookies, game time, listening to music, etc. (for the Central people out there, I´m totally Sue Odell every Friday=)  So it was really funny, a boy Id never seen before came Friday afternoon with a ticket, slid it through my window, and it had numbers and like codes written all over it in the teacher signature section, and was screaming desperately I have a ticket, I have a ticket, and wanted to get in so bad.  I tried to explain it was something I just did for my own students, and he was so upset, like he had the golden ticket for the chocolate factory and just HAD to get in.  It was pretty cute, and pretty innovative.  Today I had an exciting moment with Jose Martin, who I taught Touch Math, and in three weeks I have been teaching him, has learned not only his numbers but is adding up to 7 with no help and no touch points even anymore, just hitting the spots with his pencil in the right places, I was amazed and excited, he learned SO fast, when he is in 3rd grade, and they have been trying to teach him for 3 years and he couldn´t add 1 plus 1.  I think those are my favorite moments.  I decided we had to celebrate.  I gave him a big lollipop and a huge star student sticker on his shirt and we put on the cha cha slide.  Somehow he didn´t seem to LOVE it quite as much as my kiddos did at Central (i.e. Jordan in his costume) and I struggled to translate as I danced, but we had lots of fun celebrating either way and it was a GREAT moment.  I have been getting more and more and more kids referred to me.  The referral process is a bit different than the states... usually here a teacher just grabs me in the hallway, tells me the kid who has problems and asks when I can start working with him.  I am really trying hard to get my tia (aide) Maria who helps in the morning to be full-time so I can not be spread so thin and help more kids, and also she can have a teacher schedule so she can study teaching, which is her dream and also see her 9 year old daughter every night, rather than every 6 days like she is now that she has to live at the orphanage.  Say your prayers that it will work out for her.  Well, seems I´m writing lots again, so I will be off, I will try to attach some pictures, but you can always look on facebook too cause I am trying to put them on there.  Also, my project should be up on the website any day now www.nph.org - go to DR and projects (and you have to click in the bottom left corner to switch the language to English too)  They told me it would be up by now, so keep a look out for it.  Oh also, I want to apologize if anything in my last emails were offensive to anyone...  when I write these I don´t always think of how they will be interpreted.  Sometimes I say things that might be misinterpreted the wrong way, but just to clarify in case there was misunderstanding, I LOVE this country and absolutely LOVE the people here too.  Sometimes I get frustrated with the cultural clashes and especially the slow-paced way of life and how long it takes to get things done... like copies... but I LOVE the people here and of course the kids especially, but just wanted to make that clear.  Well, again love and miss everyone SOOOO much, and thanks for the mail, I love snail mail, it is so exciting to get here, so keep it coming. 
Love and prayers,
Kristin

Jose Martin and his lollypop, love him!

September Update

Maria, my beautiful teaching assistant, with some of our students

Riding the bus to Los Alcarrizos

Love my precious little class!

Hello!

I think it’s been about a week since my last email, and I thought I’d write again with an update.  I tried to make a blog with no success so this works easier.  I will send a picture to go with this story, but anyone who knows me will understand and love this one.  I was shopping at Jumbo last Saturday (like our super Wal-mart), bought coffee but the top didn’t quite fit.  I kinda made a new friend, a Dominican girl that works there and was talking to her.  As she was inviting me out to lunch, the lid fell and I spilled coffee all down the front of my shirt.  So we exchanged numbers, and my other friend Christina, also from Michigan, and I were walking out to this restaurant when she called us.  Christina couldn’t understand so she passed the phone to me.  She was trying to ask me something but I couldn’t hear her.  I bent down and plugged one ear while talking, and sped up to catch up with Christina.  Then out of nowhere, something just hit me in the head, like I thought I got hit by a baseball bat but I actually just walked into this huge metal electrical box and hit my head hard on the corner.  There was a group of 10 middle aged Dominican men standing on the street outside their business, and as I pulled myself up, I waited for them to start bursting out laughing but instead they ran over full of concern, and dragged me over to someone’s rearview mirror where I saw this ping pong ball growing larger and larger from my head.  They pushed me down into a plastic chair on the side of the road and grabbed water bottles and kept pouring water all over my head and face over and over (which made my purse stain my shirt, to add to my nice coffee stain).   The bump kept growing and they were all worried, and so I said I think I need ice.  They were confused, and asked what for, so I explained that it helped the swelling go down, and with that, one of them jumped onto their moto and was off to the colmado and back with ice faster than I’ve ever seen a Dominican move.  The ice helped the swelling somewhat and then I walked down the street with the ice pack on my head trying to find the restaurant.  I felt terrible that I had totally lost my new friend in our conversation and when we finally got to the restaurant, it was closed.  Well then Dave met us for pizza instead, and I got word from Senata, my Fijian host parent I lived with here before, that we were invited to spend the night in Los Alcarrizos.  We took a little van (this is the public transportation) on a two hour ride out there, and I showed up with my huge bump on my head, smeared make-up, and stained clothes, great impression after not seeing them for 2 years.  But we had great pizza and they cooked us a wonderful  breakfast and lunch.  It was so crazy to be back there after two years of not seeing everyone, seeing Josiah my Fijian “host baby” all grown up and walking and talking, and hearing of all the marriages, babies, moves, job changes, and unfortunately deaths, of all the people I had worked with two years ago.  The nanny in the house I lived in died of cancer, the man I worked with at the hospital who gave me moto rides home everyday actually in a moto accident.  And a friend’s friend I met here before was shot by a police officer during the night carrying nothing but a Bible and bottle of water – nobody knows why but rumor is he was impolite to the officer.  And the gate I used to climb every night I came home past curfew (and was hung from by shorts one night and had to be lifted off) – while an American mormon climbing the same gate this summer and was shot in the butt while climbing over.  Death is more common here, and I can’t imagine having been here for a funeral.  Since there is no electricity for refrigerating the body and no money to pay others to do the dirty work, the immediate family are the ones taking care of the body, the arrangements, the digging, and the burial of their loved one, and only hours after the death, because with the heat the smell begins so much faster.  Things I never realize and I could never imagine doing, that people have the strength to do here.  Crazy.  Then we didn't know if we would get back because they were supposed to riot in the streets (mostly just burning tires) over the transportation cost rising from 60 cents to 80 cents but I guess the government tricked everyone into staying in their homes because of Hurricane Erika, even though it didn't come anywhere near here.  Well so anyways, that was really nice to have a relaxing weekend with them and catch up with old friends.  I forgot what an incredible experience I had when I was here before, and am hoping to accompany them on some medical projects around the country in upcoming weekends.

This week was another good week of teaching (things are getting better each week and it’s more fun now than just survival).  I think I am starting to get into more of a routine.  Although I have my challenges, all the kids here are absolutely ADORABLE and (almost) all of them are soooo excited about being in school and in my classroom .  We have so much fun, and when I come to class they jump up and down saying “it’s my turn, it’s my turn”… it’s so cute.  And my “Tia Maria” that helps in my room is adorable is well.  She is 28 and incredibly sweet and more talented than she would ever know.  She works so hard and is always bringing in all kinds of ideas that she comes up with in her very little free time she has.  We are getting to be good friends.  She also wants to be a teacher, and has a great gift for it, and I really hope she may be able to teach the program in the future when I’m not here to do it.  As I’m getting closer with the kids, I’m getting a lot more “love notes” from them.  Mostly slid through my window in little handmade envelopes, with notes that say I love you so much I love you so much I love you so much.  Today one little girl actually made me an entire book of letters mostly repeating over and over that I am her best friend and she is so proud to have a beautiful volunteer like me here, and there were two pages of I love you I love you I love you written hundreds of times over across the page from top to bottom.  They are so sweet and so desperate for love and affection.   Things are still tough sometimes, but I feel like I am getting closer with the kids, getting into a routine, learning more how to teach entirely in Spanish (including teaching kids how to read in Spanish which consists of ma-me-mi-mo-mu, pa-pe-pi-po-pu over and over – it’s sooo different).  I am getting the hang now of writing my raps and songs and puppet shows in Spanish, and now I think they’re actually starting to make sense too, but it takes a lot longer.  I practice all my read-alouds and puppet shows the nights before, and spend a lot of late nights in school making up lessons and materials since they don’t exist otherwise.  Teachers here spend hours and hours every night creating assignments and then literally recopying them 25 times for every student in their class since making copies is a luxury no one can afford, except for gringos like me who go into the city and pay out of pocket.  It’s crazy how many little conveniences I took for granted that I now would appreciate sooo much.

Well, this is getting long now, didn’t mean to write a novel, just an update, but I love and miss everyone lots and look forward to updates from home.  Please keep your eyes peeled for deals to come visit – the beaches here are soooo beautiful and there are great deals out there.  I would always LOVE visitors.  Tomorrow we are going to Bayahibe and staying in a cabana for 18 for the night.  It’s supposed to be really beautiful and have the best snorkeling in the country.  We are excited to get away, relax, and have some alone time (our house is always loud and full of volunteers from all different countries and cultures – the Haitian guys love to blast music from The Lion King, Micheal Jackson, and Backstreet Boys at 6:00a.m. every morning).  This is the first weekend I can remember that they didn’t make Dave work on Saturday so it will be nice to spend all day at the beach!  Well, again love and miss everyone sooooooooooooooo much!!!

Love always,

Kristin