Summer School

It has been very busy here since my last post. I spent a couple days in Jarabacoa where we welcomed the new interns and then had a couple days of training for the summer school program, which involved all the Dominican staff and American staff of the summer program.  It is a very moving experience to see people from all over the island and the United States coming together for the same purpose to serve God through helping children at risk.  I love seeing everyone come together and worship the same God.
After training was over myself and the two interns assigned to Monte Plata and the nine Monte Plata staff packed up the bus and headed back to Monte Plata.  We arrived at the school after the shortest trip I have ever made from Jarabacoa to Monte Plata and got the interns suitcases up to their rooms.  After a few minutes of settling in, the girls jumped right into life in Monte Plata with a game of basketball (in barefeet of course). The girls have been so good about learning about the culture and wanting to experience as much of it as possible.
We began the summer school program on Monday with the most kids in attendance in all the summers I have been here.  The kids seem to really be enjoying being in school, which I believe is in large part to the staff that we have working here that truly care about these kids.  Part of my job besides organizing everything for all the classes is discipline for the kids that need to be removed from the classroom for a time.  Mostly kids get sent to me for fighting.  One such kid was sent to my office, and we talked about how fighting is not allowed in the summer school program and how it is a priviledge to be in the summer school program and how much fun it is, and I thought he seemed to be understanding it pretty well.  He was nodding his head with everything I said and looked pretty sorry for what he had done. I was getting to the end of our talk and I asked him if he understood that he can't fight in school and he said, "there's a guy who sells juice and candy over on the corner over there!" He was really excited about it. I'm not certain how much he heard about not fighting but he hasn't been sent back since, so I'm taking that as a good sign.
In the afternoons, we have been going out to the orphanage to do some math practice there.  We had been given a box with different math games to use with the kids.  They focus on fractions and place value which are areas that a lot of children here struggle with.  I wasn't sure how they would respond to having to do math, but they have been getting into the games and really want to play (it probably helps that if you win you get candy).
Things are going really well here.