Week one of summer program (week of madness)

We have successfully completed our first week of the summer program and it felt like complete madness. On Saturday I was informed that we would not be having the first week of the program at the school since the eighth grade students would be doing their national testing at the school which meant there could not be any other activities going on at the school during that time. On Sunday night we found out we would be doing the program at the church. We were very grateful to have a place to go but we also knew that we would have to change our plans. First none of the students knew that we were going to be at the church instead of the school which meant every morning we would have to wait at the school for the kids to arrive and then walk them over to the church. Second all of the supplies and materials we needed had to be taken over in the morning before school started and then brought back. Third recess would be indoors and require organized games for the kids to play. With all these changes in addition to the regular obstacles in the summer program it was a pretty hectic week. We were grateful to find out that Thursday was a holiday and we would not have the summer program on that day.
It definitely was a difficult week with the new location and then one of the interns got pretty sick the second day of the program, and by the end of the short three day week I was exhausted. In addition to having the program in the morning we also had guitar classes in the afternoon. There were ten kids signed up for the class and only three guitars. I was really unsure of how it would work out with the kids having to share the guitars, but God knew what he needed and only four of the ten showed up for guitar class. We had a lot of fun working with our four guitar students and teaching them a couple chords but I'm pretty sure the reason they kept coming had more to do with the cookies we gave them and our soccer games that we played at the end of every day than the guitar lessons. The afternoon program was a lot of fun as we got to know our students and joke around and play soccer with them. I've found that being flexible is the only way to maintain sanity while here and that some of he best times come from when your plans get changed.
On Wednesday we got invited to go on a beach trip on Thursday with some of the teachers from school and families from church. We were more than ready to accept a day at the beach. It was definitely not the beach we expected but we were able to have a great time playing in the water and being refreshed after a crazy week. We also got to go to lake Dudu which is actually two lakes that are surrounded by cliffs and extremely deep. One of our interns and a Dominican teacher were brave enough to actually jump off a fifty foot high cliff into the lake. I did not have their courage and instead went swimming in the other lake that was in a cave. The water was very cold but refreshing after a hot day and decent sunburn at the beach. It was absolutely gorgeous a great way to end the first week of summer program.
Being the director of the summer program has been a much different experience than being a teacher in the summer school program. I spend most of my time organizing and making copies so that the teachers are prepared for the next day of class. I also get the privilege of working with the kids that get sent out of class for bad behavior. In one instance two boys from kindergarten were sent to me because they were fighting. When I asked one of the boys if he had hit the other boy his response was "he hit me first" to which the other boy started yelling " no, no, no he hit me first." I had to explain to him that that was not my question so I asked him again and received the same response. After a couple times of repeating myself I finally got the response that answered my question. I talked to them some more about the importance of not fighting and the rules of the summer program. I was very surprised in the end to hear one of the boys apologize to the other for hitting him and then I found out yesterday that he had gone back to his classroom and apologized to his teacher and behaved well for the rest of the week. I was once again made aware that it is not anything that I can do but rather what God does through me. I was sent another kid who had been unable to stay quiet in his class. He was wearing a baseball hat when I asked him to take it off he said he didn't want to so I asked him why and he said that he had taken scissors that his mother had told him not to use and cut his hair and it looked funny. I told him he needed to take it off and it was very evident by the random hairless spots on his head that he had cut his own hair.
It has been a very full week and we are very grateful for the next week of summer program to actually be at the school. I have found myself very blessed with the workers God has given me this summer and also felt God's hand directing this past week and ordaining it to run relatively smoothly.

I think we're gonna have to kill a chicken

This morning after doing several loads of laundry I came up the stairs to find a live chicken on the porch. I assumed one of the neighbors chickens had wandered over once again until I realized that the chicken was tied up on the porch. I've been wanting to have a dog as a pet here but instead we have a chicken. I asked Nadelly what the chicken was for and she said to eat. Someone had given her the chicken as a gift. I'm not a fan of chickens after nearly being attacked by a group of them out at the High's house years ago so I would rather the chicken be dead than alive. Apparently we are going to kill it tomorrow. When I asked who was going to kill it Nadelly said that me and the interns would do it. I have no desire to or knowledge of how to kill a chicken and I know one intern has experience killing chickens but I don't think she wants to kill it either. I think we will have to have one of the boys who live at the school kill it for us. I'm going to try and forget the chicken was ever alive.
This past week was a very busy week. I left on Sunday for Jarabacoa for the directors training and then the summer program training for all the teachers. I felt like I was living a life of luxury as I lived in a massive house with showers that had hot water. I almost had a little bit of culture shock going from being the only white person in town to spending the majority of my time with Americans and speaking mostly in English. It was a really good time as I got to be refreshed by he missionaries there and meet all the summer interns.
We returned to Monte Plata on Thursday and got all settled in and ready for the prep day on Friday. Friday was a long day with three hours of training and then church in the evening and then closing the night out by getting hit pretty hard in the head by a soccer ball. Thankfully today was a good time to rest and prepare more for the next week which starts the summer program.
After going through the training and prepping, I feel very blessed for the teachers I have working this summer as well as the summer interns. It's a group of people that works hard but also love to laugh and have fun. Be praying for us as we start this summer program next week. It's looking like we will be having it at church instead of at the school for the first week because the eighth grade students have to take their national exams at he school which means we cannot have other activities at the school during that time. This will definitely change how our plans work and how we manage the summer program.
We are very excited about the start of the summer program and getting the summer in general started.
I wrote this blog on Saturday and it's Sunday and we don't have Internet yet. On Sunday evening we killed the chicken. We watched it run around with it's head cut off and enjoyed a delicious meal of chicken, platanos, and lime juice. Thankfully we had some Dominican boys who were willing to kill it for us and get the feathers off and cook dinner so the girls didn't have to do any dirty work. I think some of the girls on the team that is here will think twice before eating chicken after watching the chicken die.

Rain

We have now had two days in a row without rain. It's very humid and hot but a nice break after the consistent daily rains that we had for more than a week. On Sunday we were invited out to the orphanage to eat lunch after church. Soon after we got there it began pouring rain. We stayed there for most of the afternoon and then finally decided to return home but it was still raining really hard so we got a ride since we don't have a vehicle. We asked to be dropped off at the front of the house so we wouldn't have to walk from the school up to the house and get wet. We opened our front gate only to find that the front door to which we have no key was locked. Our genius plan to avoid getting wet was ruined as we found ourselves having to walk all the way around the block to get to the entrance of the school. We both had colds and getting wet was not ideal. We were quite the scene attempting to run in our church clothes. Once we reached the school entrance we had to make our way through the creek/river that had flooded to form a river running across the street. I was not thrilled to be walking through the extremely dirty water but alas we made it into the house and out of the rain.
With all the rain, we have also discovered where the many leaks are in our roof. There is one specific spot where it looks like the ceiling could fall at any time. Needless to say we have a lot of water entering into our house in manners we do not appreciate. On the other hand we have had water not entering our house in manners we would like (indoor plumbing). Sometimes we have running water and sometimes we don't. I do not know what the issue is but when we have water we try to get everything that needs water done (dishes, showers, laundry, mopping, etc.) At times we have to get water from the cistern. It's a bit of an inconvenience but I look at it as my new weight lifting program. I can already see my muscles growing.
This week has been full of many fun experiences. I found myself playing basketball with some boys from the school and their teachers. I sustained my first injury of the summer with a toenail that split about half way down. It bled quite a bit and I was happy I had brought my first aid kit so I could attempt to clean it. I thought my toy story bandaids were pretty cool but not everyone shared that opinion.
The next day we had a series of soccer games. Workers vs students. Of course the workers won and of course I slipped on a wet spot on the court and had every body laughing. We have also been playing daily soccer games out at the orphanage. Everyone gets pretty competitive and I find myself to be the comic relief as I stumble and run into people and get kicked in the head. At one point I saw a foot fly past my head as I attempted to head the ball. I avoided a broken nose by mere inches.
While I'm at the orphanage I find myself doing a variety of things. One of my favorite things to do is to help some of the high school students with math. It's a difficult task as I have to learn all the math terms in spanish but I really enjoy it. This past week I was working with one of the kids and I got the normal response of I don't know how to do this because my teacher didn't tell us how. As I worked through each topic with him attempting to prepare him for his upcoming exam, he would say "I get it now". I could see things clicking and understanding happening and it was really exciting to watch everything click. He also told me about how he always does his homework and he has to do it because he has always done it and it's what his teachers expect and he doesn't want to disappoint them. He didn't understand what he was doing when we started but he was extremely motivated and determined to learn which is something that a lot of the students that I have taught in the states do not have. I enjoyed that time so much and seeing this kid that I have known for four years now and how he has grown in his spiritual life and how that has changed his attitude and his person in so many ways.

Robbers or Mangos?

I was abruptly awoken the other night by a very loud BANG! In my only half awake state I believed that someone was attempting to break into the house. I quickly jumped out of bed prepared to use every fighting skill I had. As I became more awake I became conscious of something rolling down the roof and realized that the sound I had probably heard was a ripe mango falling off one of the many trees onto our metal roof. Just in case I decided to get up and take a look around. In doing so I gave Nadelly who had not yet gone to bed quite a scare. Since then I have been woken by quite a few mangos falling onto the roof. I find it pretty incredible my ability to sleep through the Sycamore earth quake but mangos falling on the roof have no problem waking me from my deep sleep.
Last Friday, they had a soccer tournament of the girls in the classes grades 4-8. There were a couple times I though someone for sure was going to sustain a major injury as I saw legs flying without control. Alas, there were no broken noses or concussions although there were a lot of tears as girls got their toes stepped on or became overheated. The games were all chosen at random so at one point the girls in fourth grade were playing those in eighth grade. Everyone called it an abuse but the little fourth graders held their own pretty well. I was hoping for a major underdog upset but the eighth graders won out.
I spend a lot of time out at the orphanage and it is just a good time as I work with Karin on writing and then find myself playing games which can range from hide and seek with he two youngest boys which means they hide and I seek to playing basketball with the older boys. After playing for a good amount of time I eat at Albas house. I have been enjoying her cooking but the other night she made platanos and chicken. It sounded great until I found out the by chicken it meant the feet and necks of various chickens. This is common here but I can't seem to convince myself that I would like to eat the foot of a chicken so I gave my pieces of chicken to the kids and just stuck with platanos. Dinner is always an adventure.
Outside of the school there is a little creek that is filled with garbage and who knows what else. When it rains, the creek become a flowing river many times flooding he street in front of the school. Its been raining a lot so the creek has been becoming a river quite often. When it becomes a river new things come in like fish and then when the river goes down the new things get stuck. Well yesterday I walked up to the office to find a bunch of kids and teachers out of their classes observing something across the street. Nadelly happened to be one of these observers so I asked her what was happening to which she responded they had caught a catfish. I thought it was funny the crowd that had been drawn just to see a catfish until I saw the massive catfish that they had caught. Just estimating I think it was somewhere between two and a half and three feet. Later on in the day they caught another one which again drew everyone out of their classrooms to watch. This one wasn't as big probably only two feet but it was still enough to draw a crowd. After returning to the office I sat in my chair which is on wheels. Next thing I knew the chair was tipping back and rolling out from under me. I gave Andreina quite a scare but once she realized I was laughing she too began to laugh. I laughed until I had tears in my eyes. Only a few passerby students saw the event but after about five minutes it seemed everyone knew as I had teachers and students walking by the office to ask if I was okay. Then this morning as I sat down in the office and I soon felt the chair tipping back, but this time I was much more prepared and was able to stabilize the chair before I fell. It's been a very fun week.