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

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