Hey all,

Hope everyone back home is doing well - I sure do miss everyone a lot.  Here it is still hot, hot, hot!!!  I came again today without any idea of what to write so I am starting with pictures... of a frog friend on our window (i find these as well as lots of lizards, spiders, and the like crawling around my classroom and living quarters everyday), the new flowers planted outside our house by Dominican Experience, our new "slackline" (this tightrope thing that my roommate brought from Germany - Dave is already a pro and I always fall off), face painting, the big new trampoline, and other activities from Family Day.

Family Day was yesterday again, and it is always a mix of fun and excitement with sorrow and anger as well as a good slap in the face to remind you how grateful you should be for what you have and how much more love and patience the kids here need and deserve.  One example meeting went as follows:

Hi, welcome, are you family of Estrella's? 

No, Estrella doesn't have family, we were friends with her mother.

Oh I'm Kristin, the volunteer from her house...

Well then shouldn't you know she doesn't have family?  Shouldn't you know that her mom and dad are dead?  Doesn't she talk about them?  Estrella, don't you talk about your mami?  Don't you tell people about her and how she died?  Are you forgetting who you are and who she was to you?

Well Estrella is a wonderful girl, smart, intelligent, sweet, kind... she is like a little sister to me.

She is not your sister - you are not her family and won't be there for her forever, it's not the same as blood family.  Estrella doesn't have anyone.  Is she studying?  Her mom would want her to be smart and to be able to get out of here and make something of herself in the world.  And why aren't you speaking to her in English anyways - don't you speak English?  Estrella, why aren't you learning English?  She needs English if she's going to go anywhere in life.

Well we have an English program in the school...

It sure doesn't look like she is learning any English... Estrella speak to us in English. (Estrella's head is down crying on the table...)

Well nice to meet you - time for lunch....

And other meetings like this.... today I got a note from Estrella saying "Kristin I believe you and you are my sister and I love you and we'll be sisters forever.  You taught me race doesn't matter at all, and it doesn't matter if we're different colors because you're my older sister.  I hope we stay friends forever".  Right as I was on my way to meet Dave to try to buy tickets to come home this summer.  It crushes and fills you with guilt.  And of course this is one story of maaaany.  I held and rocked 12 year old Samuel last night as he learned he wouldn't be going home after all and his mom who met with with him 3 months earlier has now decided she doesn't want to take him back after all.  And there's the consolation you give to Cristela's "2nd mom" who worries she's been lazy in school ever since her sister Raquela died, and convincing her yes she's doing just fine in school and sure she's okay even if it's not entirely true.  With the day to day activities, lessons, and stress sometimes you just forget how much these kids actually have endured and the pain that still lives on in their little hearts.  And then again today as my assistant Maria comes into class exhausted and I ask, "How was your night?" and she responds "Ok, didn't sleep much though".  Later when we have time to talk she explains her uncle died during the night and she had to care for the body, bathe him, clean him, dress him, etc.   When I look surprised, she asks who else is going to do it?  Who does it in your country?  I feel too bad to explain the existence and process of funeral homes.  And because she was too busy with me in my class she missed the lunchtime bus to make it to his funeral.  For a Dominican, it's just another day, another loss, another necessary task, but life goes on.  And then to compare it to the bulldozing of bodies and mass grave sites that happen in Haiti, it's a whole nother story.  Sometimes you just can't even imagine... til you see it with your own two eyes... then you still can't really even imagine cause it's not you yourself it's happening to.

Anyways, Saturday, I did Dominican Experience again, and even though it meant another early a.m., it was really really great.  It was a group of high school juniors from London, Ontario, Canada and they were fantastic.  This time I brought Moises, Erika, and Wilson to do much of my presentation for me, since who better to hear it from than them and they are oh so much cuter than me too.  And after spending the whole week living and working with the poorest of the poor, the Canadian kids all said again and again how much NPH gave them hope and with sparkles in their eyes they all shared how they wanted to come and be volunteers someday too... and I think we got quite a few young sponsors signed up too.  Speaking of sponsoring, just to throw it in there if I haven't already, or recently, you can always check into sponsoring kids at www.nph.org - you get letters, cards, drawings, report cards, and you can even come down and visit them too. :)

Well, I think that's it... other than that we got another new volunteer on Friday - Jaime from Spain who will be our new activities coordinator which we are all very excited about.  It's hard to plan activities nights and weekends when the rest of us already have full time jobs so having someone working full time to do it with us will be really awesome.  He seems really cool other than he is the first person I've met from Madrid so I really can't understand his accent that well.  Working on teaching him all the Dominican street slang that we speak here. :) 

Oh and child of the week to pray for .... Samuel, even though I know it's a repeat.  He's having such a hard time in the school, he has barely made it to class in the 3rd grade room in the past week and I want to increase his time in my room again but everyone is against it because he's not cognitively impaired like my other ones but he is just so angry and sad, he thought he was going back home to mom and finding out she didn't want him is just so hard on him.  He needs a lot of love and prayers. 

Hope all is well back stateside.  If all goes as planned, I should be back in Michigan to take grad classes this summer to renew my teaching certificate in July.  And as everyone wants to know... what's the plan for next year??  Ha well for anyone who knows me well, they can probably guess the answer (as it's the same every year at this time) - we don't know!  For those who don't know, I was laid off from my teaching job in Owosso (I'm on 1 year sabbatical), so probably another year teaching somewhere here in the DR or maybe Haiti.  But that's just a guess cause we really don't know.  Will keep you posted when we know more.

Have a great week all and write me and let me know how you all are and what is new in your lives too!!!

Lots of love, peace, prayers, and sunshine sent from the DR,
Kristin :)