Happy Mother's Day!!  After looking on facebook today, I'm seeing more and more good friends and family celebrating their first mother's day - including my sister-in-law Paola!!  My neice Ana Leah keeps getting bigger and cuter here.  Felicidades to all the mothers out there!  Being at an orphanage makes you realize how lucky you are to have one of these, and that they shouldn't be taken for granted.

Well, since it's only been a few days since I wrote last, and since I have been told my last one was waaay too long, I'll try to keep this one short.  Promise. :)

Friday night, the leadership group put on a "Latin Leader" show - like a Latin American Idol and volunteer roommates played the 3 judges.  Lots of dances, lip syncing, very funny skits, Micheal Jackson (of course!), and my Santa Ana girls put on a "modeling show" with our dance idol Luis Manual dancing as Daddy Yankee in the middle and they won first place - they were stoked.  It was a great time, and always nice to see the kids' talents in the spotlight and that they are able to shine and feel good about themselves despite their pasts or the trouble they may be causing elsewhere. :)

Saturday we were up at 4a.m. before the sun loading onto the bus with the teenagers to go to 27 Charcos.  We had no idea what we were in for, but it was loads of fun.  The now tourist spot was a Peace Corps project by JFK's nephew in 2004 but consists of 27 waterfalls that you can climb and slide back down.  I can't imagine doing this before the guides, helmets, lifejackets, and ropes because usually the guide was just pulling me up the waterfall swinging me by one arm while the water plunged against me.  The best part was riding back over all the waterfalls on the way back, fast slides down before long drops into icy cool crystal clear water (think Lake Superior - the kids' teeth were chattering like crazy).  It was a blast.  There was lots of hiking through jungle and crossing rivers, lots of waterfights and sloshing around in our tennis shoes (none of us had Aqua Socks like the tourists).  Afterwards there was a great buffet and barbecue, it was not technically an "all you can eat" but they decided to let our kids go back "if they wanted".  You can imagine how they were regretting that after the 3rd or 4th plate - after eating the same thing every day for 5 or 6 years, you can be sure our kids don't skimp when it comes to a buffet of all different kinds of delicious foods (and we didn't either).  Finally they just started clearing the whole barbecue and taking the food away.  The ride there and back was through the mountains and jungle, which you already know are lush, green, beautiful and I love them. :) 

Sunday was just another day in the school with lots of lesson planning and paperwork - and I'm 36 pages into my special education guide.  Has all my lessons so far from the year in it (that's a lot!) and lots of other strategies and tips.  Planning to send to all the homes in 9 other countries.  Let me know if you want a copy and I'd be happy to share. :)  Also, desperately recruiting for someone to take over my special ed. program here - know anyone??  At this point, we are not planning to stay another year at the orphanage but the thought of leaving my program with no one to keep it going is killing me and I just can't be at peace with leaving, not knowing who will take it over.  Let me know if you know anyone who might be interested.  I can promise it will be a challenge, but will also be the experience of a lifetime.

Okay, well that's it for today.  Oh and I'm attaching photos, or will try again, but for now it looks like they are successfully uploading to facebook.  The one of my nails are done by my new Haitian girlfriend, French teacher Cristel.  We have become close in the past couple weeks, and in return for helping her in Haiti, she gave me a free manicure and made my nails "hot", as she describes them, with lots of flourescent nail art.  You can only imagine how much cooler I've become in Santa Ana in the past week with my pre-teen girls.  Cristel also gave me a pair of booty shorts as a gift that only cover about half of my booty.  Not sure where I'll ever wear those, but I told her I'm sure Dave will like them. :)  I don't think anyone else will ever see me in them, ever. 

Okay, have a great week and enjoy springtime in Michigan.  Can't wait to see you all again soon!!!

Love, peace, and prayers
Kristin

May today there be peace within. May you trust God that you are exactly where you are meant to be. May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith. May you use those gifts that you have received, and pass on the love that has been given to you....May you be content knowing you are a child of God.... Let this presence settle into our bones, and allow your soul the freedom to sing, dance, praise and love. It is there for each and every one of you.

Happy Cinco de Mayo!  Though I don’t know if you will get this today or not – we have had problems with our electricity and internet all week so I’m writing in Microsoft Word instead.  So that’s why my email is so late.  That and Monday night I was at a Dominican beauty salon getting my hair done and didn’t get to an internet café to write my usual email.  That was a disaster, but long story short, I look like Carrot Top.  Thanks to my dad’s genes, I have been picking out grays all the time so I thought I would do something about it, but I decided to do it in the wrong country (and I’ve only dyed my hair once or twice in my life – and never from a box).  When I asked for them to color my hair the same color, they said they didn’t have anything like that and took me to the supermarket to look for boxes of Dominican hair dye (which should have been my first clue to leave but at that point I didn’t want to be rude).  But even though it’s orange, I was still mostly relieved after they all called over their friends in the salon over to consult whether I did indeed have hongos (fungus) on my head or just dandruff and whether I’d need my head shaved so I guess orange hair is better than none at all (the little girls here get parts of their heads shaved then style it in comb over type braids which I don’t think would quite fit me).  Either way, I was still fighting tears when I came down to meet all my roommates to leave and they all said “It’s gorgeous – don’t worry – it’s more of a strawberry blonde really, you look like a beautiful Barbie doll”, but when I got home to Dave he was more truthful with “I never thought I’d see you as a redhead, it’s really orange, oh well it’s just hair”.  He and the kids still love me anyways.  The kids mostly said “Something’s different about your hair?  What, what would you paint your hair for?”  They didn’t get the concept but they seemed to get over it quick – they’re more interested in what games I have to play, what’s new in the prizebox, and seeking out their daily hugs and kisses.  So in case I don’t get it fixed before summer (which I’m sure won’t happen in this country) I thought I’d give the heads up so I don’t scare you too much – speaking of which… Dave and I bought our tickets to come home!  June 24^th I’m flying into Detroit and then starting a grad class in Kalamazoo on the 28^th.  There is a part of me that is sooo ready for the USA and to see friends, family, go to American stores, eat American food again, etc. and another part of me dying inside with guilt at the thought of leaving these kids.  The older ones will be okay (like my teenage girls), by now they’re used to having volunteers walk in and out of their lives every year (which is sad in itself) but some of my little guys and especially ones that are emotionally impaired don’t understand quite so well.  Yesterday, I took Rodolfo one on one to explain to him that I will be leaving after school finishes and don’t know yet if I would be back yet in the fall.  The look of panic in his eyes, then anger as he screamed that I was a stupid bad poop head while he punched the wall over and over then fell onto my lap and sobbed leaving my skirt wet with tears, snot, and sweat.  He remembers his mom abandoning him as a kid and still holds his breath every Visitor’s Day hoping maybe she will come (she lives in a batey right outside here) but since she never does we’ve become each other’s family and always spent those days together, and I always bought him ice cream cones and Johnny cakes and things visitors would usually buy).  The tias say they’ve never seen him so attached to anyone and he sees me as a mother figure.  I feel like I’m abandoning him all over again – it’s terrible.  And it’s only May so I can’t imagine even how much harder it will be in June.  But at the same time, I can’t wait to see everybody back home too. 

This has been a rather eventful past week so I will try to explain as shortly as possible.  Last week we finished our unit on colors and rainbows and had a “Colors Day Celebration” on Friday.  Throughout the unit, we made color posters cut from magazines, played colors bingo, pasted together tactile rainbows, played musical colors hop, experimented with food coloring (with all kind of yummy treats), played colors “Hokey Pokey”, read colors books, made rainbow necklaces, sang colors songs, and at our celebration made rainbow cookies and rainbow juice with rainbow straws (see photos).  It was really cute and the kids loved it – and many of them learned their colors too (always a bonus right?).  I also recently translated and taught them “Going on a Bear Hunt” song which they are OBSESSED with and request about 20 times a day and I finally used the Magic Grow Manta Ray that grows 600% that I got for Christmas.  The kids were astounded with this and all thought it was a real animal, daring each other to touch it and trying to find things to feed it.  One of the older ones tricked my little guys by coming back from the bucket with his hand covered in red paint, exclaiming “Be careful – it really does bite!”  The child with the best behavior in the past 2 weeks won it to take home (Luis Alberto), carefully putting it in his backpack before realizing it wasn’t real after all. 

On Friday, classes got out early because they had “Worker’s Day” and a party for all the NPH staff with certificates of recognition and prize giveaways.  We skipped out to go travel but from what I’ve heard it was quite the exciting gathering – one tia won an air conditioner and was crying, she was so excited saying “I’ve always dreamed of having one of these my whole life”.  And one of our Haitian farmers won a king size bed that actually is bigger than his one room tin house in the batey…. it’s good it didn’t fit because it motivated some volunteers to fundraise to get him a better house so hopefully he will be moving up in life soon. 

So while the Dominicans here were having the time of their lives at the party, we were on a loooong 6 hour bus ride through lush jungle and curvy mountain roads up to Playa Limon – one of the DR’s last truly deserted beaches.  The ride was extra long because we were in a guagua and came across political events where people flooded the streets and would jump in our bus and scream at each other like crazy about the most random issues.  One woman with long curly beard hairs yelled and yelled until one man called her a mother f-r and I thought he would knock her out right there – it got pretty wild.  Elections are May 16^th so it has been all the rage here.  That and we would stop about every half hour to let off someone to pee in a bush or grab a beer.  We drove through nothing and nothing and more of nothing until we finally arrived at this little town called El Cedro and from there took a 20 minute very rocky moto ride through more nothing on the worst dirt roads imaginable out to “Harley’s Heaven” – where a guy from Switzerland named Jumbo (name matches his size just right) has a overpriced hotel COVERED in Harley Davison décor.  Even Harley logos painted in the bottom of his pool.  But coincidentally – no actual Harleys.  We got up with the sun Saturday morning and took paddle boats through a lagoon/river surrounded by bright green mangrove trees with twisted roots stretching in every direction perfectly reflected off the mirror of water until we finally reached the outlet into the ocean.  The beach was beyond perfect.  You could walk for miles in either direction without seeing a soul (other than a rundown military checkpoint down the way where men in mismatched camouflage marched with their machine guns and herded cows).  The sun sparkled on the water, which was just the right shade of turquoise.  The bending palms swayed in the breeze, but there was not enough for shade, so of course my brilliant husband decided to build us some.  He spent an hour dragging branches, bamboo, and dried palm leaves until we had a perfect little beach hut.  It was spectacular.  Being in the middle of nowhere at night was just as great, laying under a pitch black blanket of twinkling and shooting stars and watching them for hours.  Later, we met up with some other tourists – an American engineer/former Peace Corps volunteer, an American English teacher and his wife from Spain – and had a bonfire and talked all night about life as a foreigner in the DR – the good, the bad, and the ugly.  They had a rental car and offered to take us to another deserted beach an hour away on Sunday that they claimed was just as remote and even prettier (plus a free ride home) so we accepted.  We got almost there through a downpour of rain through more super rocky dirt roads in their small KIA rental car and had to jump out a number of times until we found a spot where a small lake seemed to have formed in the road so we had to turn around.  I was super bummed as we drove home early but the ride was even more incredible than the first.  We kept winding further and further and further up into the gorgeous green mountains until when I looked out the window all I saw was thousands of feet down a brightly vegetated cliff.  There are not words, or photos, that could justly describe it.  Then we aimlessly came across a cocoa plantation and decided to stay for a while.  Turned out to be fascinating and the original place where all the cocoa is manufactured and exported from the DR.  And you would never believe the great founder, connoisseur, and “jefe” (boss) of the whole operation does most of the work that goes into your Starbucks bags and chocolate bars under and behind his tiny poor tin roof house, while a German man fills his pockets every week bringing in tourists from the resorts.  So sad how cheated these poor people can get.  Anyhow we got to see the entire process and it goes something like this – bright red and yellow fruit get picked from the farm, crack them open to find slimy white cocoa beans that you can suck the sweet flavor from (tastes like guayanabana), clean the beans, roast them (over a fire between cement blocks in the yard – the aroma of dark chocolate is mouth watering to say the least), crush them in this antique wooden bowl, add oil and roll them into balls (looks like you know what), put them in the fridge to cool, then cook them up with milk and voila – milk chocolate.  The finished product was easily the most delicious chocolate I’ve ever tasted.  We bought chocolate balls for the road and Dave was quick to whip up rich luscious brownies when we got home.  A great spontaneous and unexpected experience.  The weekend was just the right getaway and we are hoping to travel lots more in the upcoming weekends and see much more of these hidden hotspots around the country as time slips away through the hourglass – can’t believe only 50 more days.

Sunday night we said goodbye again to our good friend Antoine as he went back to Haiti, determined to start an orphanage like the one he grew up in – this is “his dream”.  This will be another email, but if you are interested in sponsoring this project, please let me know.  Will share his story and ideas if you are interested.  Also, forgot to mention that our roommate Geza, the long-haired dentist/professional kite surfer from Switzerland also left on his next mission to be the first kite surfer to cross the Bering Strait.  If he does, he will break 2 Guinness World Records – http://www.beringstraitexpedition.com/ - pretty cool stuff.  Crazy the people you meet here.  Last week I found out my roommate Kristina who is also an actress was cast for "this American show called Lost - ever heard of it?" - she couldn't get her American visa so came here to save the world instead. 

I could write much more, but one last thing… we got a new child today, only 22 days old and severely malnourished – his skin hangs off all of his bony limbs.  He is absolutely tiny – I would guess maybe 4 or 5 pounds – MUCH smaller than our niece Ana Leah when she was born.  His name is Saul – his mom died in C-section and his dad is dying too and couldn’t care for him.  The tia that was pregnant and recently lost her 3^rd baby (all 3 were lost after 7 months of pregnancy) was curled up with him in the clinic and explained emotionally that the most recent stillborn she had to deliver was the same size as him.  It killed me to see the mixed emotion of pain and love in her eyes as she held him and explained she would give and do anything for a baby of her own.  Instead she just loves so hard with the little ones we have here.

Okay, I think that’s it.  It’s another super long one, I know - but I think these emails will give me a great journal to look back on later down the road - thanks for your patience to those who read. 

Let me know if you want to pray for baby Saul or for Rodolfo too. 

Can’t wait to see you all next month – can’t believe it’s so soon.  And to answer your questions – I don’t know how long we will be in the states and don’t know what we are doing after that.  For now, it’s in God’s hands and we just have to be patient and wait and see.  Will send pictures in another email attached later to go with the stories.

Lots of love, peace, and prayers,

Visiting a chocolate plantation - can you believe this where your Godiva comes from?

We had this place ALL to ourselves :)

The owner of our hotel was SOOOO obsessed with Harley's!

      

Dave built us our own little beach hut for the day at Playa Limon

Decorating cookies at our rainbow party celebration!

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 :) 

Hi and happy Monday to all,

So to explain the title, first it is so hot here I think I could just totally fall over - one of those days where you are wet and sticky all day long, and start sweating again within 3 minutes of getting out of the shower.  That kind of day... super humid and you want to dance and play and have fun but you can barely make yourself move.  Ah, the kids are super "tranquilo" too. 

And the earthquake part - since I know you're wondering or maybe worrying - it was yesterday, 5.1 about an hour from here I guess.  We were in the capital though so I didn't feel it or even hear anything about it til this morning when a couple teachers I work with told me they felt it.  No damage though, and 3 deaths - a few vacationers who were on their way out snorkeling and got killed by the tsunami that resulted from the quake.  Yikes.

And the other part - we finished our unit on bugs and celebrated Friday with "Bug Day" where Dave took us all on a bug hunt and we danced with our potato bugs that we made earlier in the week, made play-doh bugs, and I finally was able to make my dirt cups (with "bug juice") which the kids LOVED of course, Rosali finished hers in about 30 seconds and half was on the floor while Moises slowly savored every bit for at least 30 minutes til we scooted him along.  Other bug activities included thumbprint ladybug leaves, handprint spiders, potato bugs, and lots more bug songs, dances, and games.  Oh, and as you can imagine, our bug hunt was full of BIG bugs - including big furry tarantulas.  I tried to take a video but it turned out mostly of me screaming at Wilkin to put it down. :)  Some of our guys just aren't scared of anything.

In Santa Ana, I have started a new behavior program with my pre-teen girls.  If there is one thing that transcends culture, it is adolescence and anyone who has raised or worked with girls this age knows the neck swinging or talk back that comes during that special time of their lives.  So we started a new point system/game to go along with the house rules and each time I catch a girl following the rules I write down a point and the rule they did a good job with.  Well, they LOVE this and are taking it to quite the extreme - I feel like I'm being waited on now hand and foot when I walk in, but we are having fun with it for sure. 

On the NPH Haiti front, things continue to develop and improve slowly, and the visitors and aid keep on pouring in.  Last week's visitors included Demi Moore, Susan Sarandon, Ben Stiller, Gerald Butler, among others, who started a charity that was primarily founded to support NPH's hospital.  See pics here of the celebs with our kiddos http://punchbowlblog.com/2010/04/14/celebs-do-good-ben-stiller-gerard-butler-susan-sarandon-and-demi-moore-visit-haiti/ (maybe I should put in a trasfer request to NPH Haiti :) Oh and here is the website of their organization if you want to check it out... http://www.artistsforpeaceandjustice.com/ - you can find some info. on Father Rick - NPH Haiti's now celeb status director, as well as the list of the other big wigs who are on the board... Clint Eastwood, Charlize Theron, Russell Crow, Nicole Kidman...

Also, in NPH Haiti news, our new French teacher Cristal (then one who you helped me support after her family lost her house) finally came back to this side of the island today.  After we gave her a few hundred dollars and she disappeared we thought maybe she decided to rebuild and was gone for good, but turns out while she was on "vacation" in Haiti to visit her family, her dad died and then she became deathly ill and was stuck in the hospital.  But she still responded with a hug, smile, and "todo esta bien" when I saw her.  The strength of some of these people is astounding.  Anyhow, I am glad she's back around and hope I can be a friend. 

For the weekend, we stayed with this absolute angel named Marysue who works for the American consulate and has an amaaaaazing 19th floor apartment in the capital overlooking the ocean.  We spent the weekend hanging with Tim and Paola by her pristine swimming pool, eating pizza, going to the movies (my first one in almost a year - Dear Jhon - pretty good, but no Notebook), and eating delicious dinners she cooked for us while sitting out on her breezy balcony.  It was such a treat and it was so hard to come home to our painful bed with wires that stick out every which way after staying at such a posh pad.  But yeah so nice, she is just this sweet lady whose husband volunteers for NPH and they want to bless everyone and take in tons of guests from everywhere and spoil them rotton (all their kids are grown back in the states, except one with autism who they adopted from Guatemala).  Our fellow house guests included a young man from Haiti who almost drowned after his car went off a bridge and slowly sank down, but without ever learning to swim, he somehow managed to rescue both himself and his American passenger.  In return, he is now moving to the US to study at Rutgers college... Marysue's house was where he came to rest his head on the way to the airport.  And a missionary priest/doctor/profesor/... who was a bit odd to say the least... he decided to shower in our bathroom without telling us so now seeing a naked priest is another first to add to my list (just couldn't not share that one).

Okay, well I think that's it cause I am just rambling and didn't really come today with any idea with what to write about, but oh I did want to share that I now have to articles about my program on the nph.org website.  Look under News - Dominican Republic and you can find "Animals Come to Life" about our zoo trip, and the other one Katherine wrote called "Special Education Program". 

Child of the week for prayer - Jose Martin.  Though he has made loads of progress, he continues to struggle with his behavior and has so many problems in class.  Love him to death though.  Let me know if you're willing to pray for him on a continuous basis. 

Oh and pictures - I will try to attach those now.  Not working - will try in a separate email.

But love, peace, and prayers to all, and all those in Michigan - enjoy the cold!!  I'd love to be there right now!! :)

Kristin

In the capital with my new neice Ana Leah!

Potato bugs from our insect unit!

Hello all and happy springtime (though I think I may be a little late?) – here you don’t really see the seasons change so much you know.  Well, this week has been a cloudy, drizzly, rainy, and stormy one – sometimes both literally and figuratively… I just started a new unit this week on insects, and spent the last week focusing on caterpillars and butterflies, with various books, crafts, puppet shows, acting, etc. yet the kids just couldn’t seem to get that the ugly worm and the beautiful butterfly could possibly be the same animal.  With Rodolfo’s help, I made a toilet paper tube cocoon covered in cotton, a fuzzy pompom ball caterpillar, and popsicle butterfly to put together a trick.  On Thursday, I read La Oruga Muy Hambrienta (The Very Hungry Caterpillar) and acted out the book with my pompom caterpillar eating all the food (with sound effects of course – the kids think that’s the best part) and then stuffed him in his cocoon, and the let my colorful inkblot butterfly emerge from the toilet paper tube at the end of the story.  Then the kids did it in our puppet theatre after I was done.  I still don’t know if they totally got it, but they had fun playing a “magic trick”.  But even every year as I teach it, it still just astounds me every time thinking about the process – that an animal can change so much.  I wish I was able to catch a caterpillar and show the kids the whole progression, and watch it myself.  Sometimes I wish too that I could just do the same when I’m down and jaded – roll up in a cocoon and hide for a while, then just emerge again, fresh and beautiful and renewed.  Even more I think I wish this for my kids.  That all the ugliness and negativity that’s been beaten into them for so long could just disappear and roll away like old skin, and they can just fly away into the world beautiful and untouched, seeing themselves the same way I see them, as gorgeous and amazing as they are.  Anyways, teaching this subject gets me all contemplative like, but we also made butterfly bracelets (also out of toilet paper tube – I got lots of donated tubes for my toilet paper tube zoo and have lots of leftovers) and egg carton caterpillars.  I’ve also learned to sing Baby Bumblebee, The Little Caterpillar, The Itsy Bitsy Spider, and The Ants Go Marching In, in Spanish and so we’ve been having lots of insect sing-a-longs too. 

The rain is pouring and pouring outside the window, and it makes me think of the rainstorms that happen throughout a week here, but also the silver linings that follow (or should I say rainbows?) which are the salvations that keep you going.  Like.....

When you think you can’t stand another plate of beans and rice or you will throw it across the room (as Samuel actually did last week), and then you come home to Dave’s homemade fresh salsa, after picking veggies from the NPH garden.  Or get invited over for a meal at Marijo's – Friday night was fresh squeezed passion fruit juice and a huge delicious dinner.

Or when you think you’ve had enough with the kids and they just have no respect, and then Erika stuffs her favorite toy into your hand saying “Take it, I love you, you’re the best teacher I ever had”… or the crumpled handfuls of wildflowers come, the notes and drawings, the hugs and kisses or when they come running from out of nowhere screaming your name and jump into your arms… all these little things that are what keep you here day after day.

When you think you just can’t get along with some of the people anymore…. Like when Tia Susanna yells and yells in my face and I say why are you mad at me, I just want to talk to you about disciplining the kids… and she responds “Mad?  What would make you think that I’m mad, my lovely daughter?  I’m not mad, this is just the way we talk here…”

When you think the kids just aren’t getting it at all, then they all just blow you away, like on Friday when every one of my (verbal) kids recited all the days of the week, all the months of the year, and all the classroom rules (okay some did have a chindilin of help) – but I was so excited and we hugged and cheered and celebrated so much, they just all wanted to do it.  I thought we were on such a roll, so I said and now the letters!  But when they sat with their mouths hanging open, I realized I was pushing my luck. J

When the kids seem too violent, too aggressive, like they just can’t or won’t get along, then we have Peace Circle (Friday we switched it up to a sticker ceremony) and they just plaster stickers onto one another, not themselves, and congratulate, compliment, thank, and love on each other more than I could ever hope for. 

When you miss the American conveniences, you've read every English book you can find (if only I could have read so fast in high school and college as I do here) and you just miss vegging in front of the TV, but then find more amusement laying in bed with your spouse as he gives a running commentary on the worker ants who travel in lines up and down your bedroom walls – and they actually do stop and communicate with each other I swear (which like butterflies are another amazing and interesting species if you take the time to stop and watch and study them).

When I think I just can’t stand another second of living in this international commune like house, and I think whoever thought it could work to stick a married couple in here, with all these different people, languages, belief systems, cultures - how could this ever work?  Well sometimes it just plain doesn’t.  But then there is my husband, when I am about to totally lose it (or already have), to stick me on the back of his moto and whisk me away to the beach yesterday  - even if it is raining, it is just soooo what I needed. (or like last week shopping when I thought I would have a complete meltdown in the line of the grocery store when I had all the ingredients to make chocolate dirt cups for our insect unit and there is no bar code on the very last bag of gummy worms and the salesclerk just absolutely won’t let me have it for any price – and it's not like you can run to Meijer's - sometimes I just need him to pull me away from these cultural conflicts that just make me NUTS)

When passing by the people living in the bateys seems too depressing, the problems seem too big, and there is just not enough you can do, but a dreaded early morning Saturday with Dominican Experience turns into the opportunity to fix up and paint Moreno’s (a fellow Haitian staff member) crumbling house (with a team of 28 high school kids from Montreal) and you realize it’s all worthwhile.  Our next idea is to fix up Freure’s house, another Haitian farmer, who literally lives under a couple pieces of tin, using a bucket for a bathroom and a cup of charcoal as a stove.  Not sure how we’ll make this happen, but you have to stay hopeful right?

Or like yesterday riding home on the moto, after a rainy day at the beach (and hiding out in our favorite pizzeria) when the rain finally clears, the clouds part, and gaps form in the big puffs of cotton overhead to allow perfectly isolated beams of sunlight to leak through, like something you’d only see in a movie, like All Dogs Go to Heaven or something, when at the end the main character dies but the outpour of light floods down from the sky and makes you realize it’s all gonna be okay.  And there's God, and He's telling you, yup I'm right here.

So anyways, that kinda sums it up for the week.  Okay so prayer child of the week will be Moises.  He was the one found in a basket on the steps of a church as a baby so they named him accordingly (like Moses) and he only learned quite recently to walk – which is more like a lopsided run where he falls on his face about every 10-15 steps but he sure is resilient.  I'm pretty sure I haven't picked him yet but I am pretty sure I don't have anyone committed to praying for him so let me know if you want to.  He is blind with cerebral palsy and like I said before, he is like total sunshine to work with (even if he does talk all the way through all my read-alouds).  And despite him being blind, Maria and I always get to hear from him everyday about how lovely we look. J

Okay, off to one of my two choices of public transportation – One, an overcrowded guagua (van) bumping reggaeton weaving crazily in and out of traffic – once it even did a 180 u-turning in front of oncoming traffic – you feel like you're in a movie or videogame or something.

Or the more expensive choice, the 80 cent motoconcho – the motorcycle taxis that I have seen up to 5 on at a time (limbs hanging off all directions), and where passengers will carry on back anything from newborns to kitchen appliances to full-sized ladders.  Usually I'm practically gagging while hanging onto a fat man wearing too much cologne who tries to practice his English and I don't understand a word of it.

Which choice would you go for? J  Usually I pick the latter, but only because I spend way too long writing these emails.  Hopefully someone is reading... Speaking of which, I think I may switch to blogging rather than the Monday emails, less pressure and maybe it will be a little less random than my Monday night banter?  Any thoughts?  Blog sites are blocked at the orphanage but I could try on Mondays or days off?

Well love and prayers to all – enjoy the April showers and the rainbows too!!

Love, peace, and prayers,

Kristin

So I know what you're thinking... yeah right I'm not capable of writing a short email, but I think I really will.  I just wrote on Thursday (sorry for the baby joke to everyone who really fell for it) and there's just not too much to write, and I still have many copies to make and shopping to do.  We came back Thursday for all the "holiday festivities", only to find that it was very quiet, "tranquilo", and pretty serious.  Friday morning, the kids did these plays where they marched around the grounds and the older kids acted out the resurrection.  But then the kids really all thought that Jesus really actually died that day, they were confused, so they thought they really had to mourn until Sunday (the orphanage called a day of silence... with 200 troubled kids between 1 and 18, yeah right!) so this translated to "quiet" days of watching 14 hours of TV straight.  Blah.  But we did make these cute foam crosses and decorated them and watched the Jesus movie in the park Friday night (they lost the Passion of the Christ we were supposed to watch, then accidentally put in a movie about David with graphic scenes of him and Bathsheba, there were lots of ooohs and ahhhs)  Sooo then Saturday we dyed eggs, and Sunday we had an orphanage wide Easter egg hunt and 5 eggs had numbers on them and the kids got clues and the ones who found them got an entire 2 liter of coca cola (which each drank themselves entirely without sharing, in all of about 10 minutes).  I imagine they didn't get much sleep last night, and their tias probably didn't either.  They also rode the big yellow bus into town for a 5 hour (no joke) Easter service.  They had to leave at 6am so I missed out because I didn't even know about it (communication is not a strong point here).  So yeah, that's it.  Oh and I spent hours and hours plugged away in my classroom creating a program guide for the special needs kids to use here in the future and also to share with NPH homes in other countries I hope (28 pages so far and counting).  And translated IEP forms to try to start that whole process (so far everyone just laughs at me when I try to explain this idea but hopefully I can somehow make it work - maybe I'll bake like I used to in the states :).  Okay, so that's it, was it short this time?  Oh and one last thing, it was really great to go back today.  I was bracing myself after they were stuck in the houses so long, but they were really great, I got a week's worth of hugs and kisses, and the kids didn't even want to leave my classroom (and they were much more well behaved than the past week in their houses so coming back to teach was actually like a breath of fresh air).  And my mother-in-law Sandy brought these cute pen-pal letters from her first grade class in Mexico, complete with stickers, photos, candy, etc. so that was a fun way to welcome them back.  But yeah, that's it for this week.  Hope all was well for Easter and Spring break back home.  And safe travels to all those traveling and still enjoying their spring breaks (I have to admit I am a bit jealous...)  Please write and fill me in on all the details.  Thanks again for all your continous support and prayers.  And please continue to pray for Yudelkis and her heart condition too. :)
Love, peace, and prayers,
Kristin      

Baby On Board - I'm pregnant (email subject)

Happy April Fools!!! hahaha... sorry, with my new baby niece, this book I’m reading all about babies, and just so much baby talk, I just couldn’t resist…. But come on, we are making $65 a month and live with 200 kids already; I doubt too many people fell for that one… though anyone who knows me know that I would have adopted at least 10 of them from here or Haiti by now if I had the money for it. J

So anyways, we’re on spring break here or Semana Santa (Holy Week) as they call it where everyone either goes crazy at the beach or fills their week with “serious religious activities” (like we’re doing here at the orphanage).  We decided to bypass both for a couple days and head to the mountains with my mother-in-law who is here visiting from Mexico (the reason I missed my Monday email again).  As I was riding the big tour bus through the curvy mountain roads, I thought back to exactly one year ago, on the same type of bus also on our Spring break curving through mountain roads too, only in Mexico, … when we spontaneously flew down to interview to work for NPH, a trip planned only 5 days in advance when we scored super cheap tickets to Mexico City while all the “danger alerts” were out.  I can’t help but think of the crazy chain of events and how much has come from that spontaneous decision.  It seems like it’s gone by so fast but yet so much has happened since then…  unexpectedly becoming foster parents to two beautiful Burmese girls and the devastating separation to follow… packing up my classroom in Owosso and life in Lansing… finding a disaster of a classroom here and long list of kids, all with the same diagnosis of “mentally retarded”, and somehow turning it into a fun learning environment where I love coming to teach each day… meeting and saying good-bye to so many new friends from so many places… near-death experiences and rare illnesses, countless hospital visits… wild adventures traveling on backs of motorcycles and in overcrowded guaguas through bustling cities, along palm-lined shores, past fields of sugarcane, and through vegetated mountains… meeting crazy wonderful people along the way with all their crazy wonderful stories that inspire and mold me and my perspectives… a natural disaster that brought so much tragedy yet such an amazing outpour of love and kindness too… deaths and births of loved ones… I’m not sure I quite realized what we were getting ourselves into taking that spontaneous flight one year ago, but looking back, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

So anyways, that brings me to this week and my update.  Since I think everyone takes the most interest in all of the crazy illness stories, I will start with that.  In addition to the “gripe” (pronounced greepay) which is like a cough dew cold that you always have either a little or a lot and never really goes away, an inevitable surprise came Monday morning that I thought I had become invincible to.  On my forearm, I found a circle of several elevated bumps which eventually formed one big large pink bump known here as “hongo” (fungus).  The kids are covered in them, in many of my photos I’m sure you could find 20-30 covering their sweet little heads, which in 8 months has never stopped me from cuddling, hugging, and covering them in kisses.  I expected this would be a trade-off, I would love them and save them the hurt of rejecting their affection, and in return would get the hongos myself (like the 4 months of impossible to get rid of biting lice I got in Mexico).  But after a few months here, I figured I was invincible to them and figured this meant I could just smother them even more.  Not sure why it took 8 months, but no such luck.  Just pray it stays on my arms, and not covering my head like our little guys (and girls) who get their heads shaved regularly.  Our cute little girls here and gorgeous actresses like Natalie Portman can pull off that look, but I think I’m just not one of them… I have pictures of the hongos but chose not to attach them just because they’re not pretty but let me know if you really want to see.

The rest of the week has been kind of the same… more parties… more specifically a barbecue/dance party thrown by the Canadians where I spent the night twirling around with my student Moises (my blind boy with CP who calls himself my boyfriend) – looking across the basketball court I realized he was the only one in a crowd of the 200 who wasn’t able to get up and dance, so I can’t quite explain the joy that came when I asked him if I could “have this dance”.  He is one of those kids who is like a little slice of heaven… I don’t think it’s possible to spend time with him and ever leave in a less than stellar mood.  Thursday we had a thank you party for the Canadians on behalf of the “special ed. dept.” where we presented cards, sang songs, and ate cake that I was up baking furiously til midnight the night before after seriously screwing up the recipe (you’d think with the amount of cakes I bake I couldn’t still screw it up).  We also spent the week doing a fun Easter unit, making crafts, painting eggs, and creating Easter baskets for our Easter party on Friday.  I managed to pull Dave out of bed before the sun once again so he could help me fill Easter baskets and hide eggs Friday morning.  It was still a week before Easter so I came up with this long explanation which I reenacted for the kids of me calling up the Easter bunny on the phone and asking him to come one week early because we were going to have vacation from school.  The kids didn’t understand or care since they thought the Easter Bunny was American anyways and he had never visited before, but they giggled along and enjoyed all the treats and festivities.

Okay, and again more of the same weekly events… more Italians of course, who were on their way to Haiti to host this event/donation thingy put on by Dannon yogurt at the NPH hospital there.  More aid trucks to Haiti and just more aide…. Thankfully I was able to slip some money (donated last week by my lovely BFF Tracye and her friends) to my new friend Cristel on her way out to visit family in Haiti for Semana Santa… She is a gorgeous Haitian girl and our new French teacher here who lost her home in Haiti, and I already love her.    

Saturday was my first day running “Dominican Experience” by myself here.  They were a group of high school students with their teacher for Alberta, Canada doing like a mini Peace Corps (2 weeks instead of 2 years) but actually really like the Peace Corps… staying with low-income families, no running water/electricity, working in the bateys, getting to know the people, cutting sugarcane in the fields with the underpaid Haitian workers… no fancy resorts or swimming pools… the real deal.  And compared to many of the high school “service groups” I meet down here, they were really really great.  No complaining about spending all day in the hot sun….  they got lots of yardwork and gardening done, and they also painted super cute murals of animals and such on the walls of the previously blank pre-school playground.  They included me in their “daily reflection” group which was full of tears as they shared some pretty profound stuff for a group of high school kids.  One girl I had a chance to talk to told me she herself was adopting from El Salvador so this was quite an experience for her.  I was blown away by them, and excited to hear they all seemed to want to sponsor kids and come back as volunteers. 

Friday afternoon, classes were cancelled and my roommate Katha and I organized a teacher training on how to use some new donated materials to play learning games and help the kids use more hands-on techniques (as a previous volunteer in the school explained to me once, here it mostly like the teacher writes on the chalkboard, the kids copy it down, and if you can’t see it or don’t get it, you’re just kinda screwed).  It turned out pretty good, the teachers did get really into it (we brought lots of volunteers up front and the trouble wasn’t getting them to participate but rather to get them to sit back down after!)  The room was loud and they were having fun, and hopefully a piece of that will transfer back into their classrooms… J

Sunday we went on this “religious outing” and marched for 3 hours in the sun in what felt like 100 degrees stopping to pray every 5-10 min. or so – no water and no bathrooms – then went to a church service that some teens put on for another full 3 hours – also no water and no bathrooms – I don’t know how the people do it!  Poor Maria Ines asked me to look for a bathroom with her which we didn’t find (I brought my Nalgene bottle that I shared w/ her and I myself used the bathroom in one of the tia’s houses halfway through the parade), and when we came back she sat through another hour rocking and crying through church until I finally took her outside where she immediately dropped her pants and peed on the side of the church… then refused to speak for an entire hour because she was so ashamed.  The people would tell me “you shouldn’t have given her water” but it’s just so crazy some of the things they do here like this.  Now you might understand my comment about retreating to the mountains… not cause I’m not religious, but just some of the things they do here are just so crazy.  But the religious controversies I come across here are another topic I could go into for several more pages so I’ll just stop here.

So the rest is just same ol’ same ol’ – working in the school, watching movies under the stars in the park curled up with kids in the grass, playing “beauty shop” for hours in Santa Ana where the girls rip through my hair not quite understanding my hair isn’t African like theirs, and just playing, dancing, goofing around here… also 2 days up in the mountains which could be another whole email too.  But I know everyone says my emails are too long and though I always have a goal to shorten them it just never happens.  Maybe I will cut them to every 2 weeks or maybe try a blog again (last time I just couldn’t get it to work from the orphanage or upload all my old emails).  Anyhow, Happy April Fools – go play a great trick on someone, and also very Happy Easter, have fun back home with eggs and bunnies, I’ve heard the big Easter tradition here is sweet beans, like baked beans with syrup and sugar and cookies inside, so consider yourselves lucky to be in the USA. 

Oh and let me know if you would be willing to pray for Yudelkis, one of my students and former Santa Ana girls who has a hole in her heart and is very sick.  She needs lots of prayers.

Love, peace, and prayers,

Easter baskets!

At our cool hotel in Jarabacoa, it was made almost all out of bamboo!

Easter bunny came to fill our Easter baskets

Dave visiting with his mama in Jarabacoa

Playing Easter bunny games