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!