Carlitos

This is Carlitos. He causes more trouble in school, in my opinion, than all the other kids combined. Usually, if there is a kid in the third grade class crying, Carlitos had a hand in it. Carlitos is best friends with a few other little kids named Yesni and Franklin. All three of them are trouble makers. They are also really intelligent and spunky little people that are able to make me smile more than anyone or anything else in the Dominican Republic.

During my second week here, I was walking around during lunchtime looking for the puppy that wanders around the school yard. She hadn't been doing well with all the kids around, so I decided to go check on her. I found her with Carlitos. And although Carlitos had punched someone in the breakfast line just that morning, he was taking great care with the puppy. He was gentle and patient with her as he tried to teach her how to drink water from an overturned bucket.

A few days later, the puppy, whose name I found out is "Chocolate," was missing. Carlitos found her wandering around Villa Ascension, the Haitian village where many of the children live. He brought her safely back to the Care Center and has been looking out for her ever since. It's

funny how a little kid can cause such disasters for his classmates, but can take care of a helpless little puppy so tenderly.

Coast & Class

This week has been full! I've been doing quite a bit of exploring. I've visited three nearby towns multiple times- Puerto Plata, Sosua, and Cabarete. Each are unique and charming in their own way. Puerto Plata is the largest town on the North Coast. It's dirty and crowded, but in that colorful and exciting Latin American way. It also has a really long boardwalk along the ocean. I walked from one end to the other yesterday, hoping to see some pretty views and find some good eats, but ended up with some pineapple from a street vendor. It was a beautiful walk, but I was hungry for most of it.

Sosua is touristy and busy. It has a nice beach, but most of it is lined with shops and bars. I walked the length of it and was harassed about buying painting and food the entire way. I ended up walking a little too far it turns out, because I ended up in Sosua Abajo, which is a small town beside of Sosua. This was ok, but it ended up being really difficult to find a taxi back to Montellano. The taxi driver I did find tried to convince me that I needed a Dominican boyfriend in addition to my American boyfriend (No importa- puedes tener dos y los dominicanos son mejores). The funny part is that this guy was married- I guess he was looking out for his friends. Who knows? I assured him that I was very happy with the one boyfriend that I have!

Sosua also has a serious problem with sexual tourism (prostitution). It is very common to see beautiful young Dominican and Haitian girls (sometimes midteens) with older European or American men. I remember studying this in some of my Latin American Studies classes at Wake, and I also saw quite a bit of it when I studied abroad in Cuba. It's hard to see it. I worry about all the beautiful little girls, many already living in deparate situations, that attend school at The Care Center and pray that this is something they will never have to face.

The third town that I have explored is Cabarete. Cabarete is a beach town east of Sosua. It boasts some of the best windsurfing and kiteboarding conditions in the world. It was also really touristy- more so than Sosua. I enjoyed walking around and had a really good dinner there, but I'm not sure if it's somewhere I will hang out too much. There is another beach nearby called Playa Encuentro, that is supposed to be good for surfing. I have yet to check it out though. I am interested in traveling to some of the less touristy towns along the North Coast (apparently, there aren't that many)...

The best news I have is that I will have my own classes in the mornings next week! I am working on providing some classes for students that need extra help. The problem is that most of the children at The Care Center need extra help. All of the children that attend class at The Care Center also attend public Dominican school. The problem is that the public school in Caraballo (the village where I work) has at least 60 children in each class!! The kids aren't learning anything! The Care Center has around 20-25 kids in each class and it is still difficult to help all of them. So, in most grades, about half of the kids are behind at least a grade level. I have one child in my third grade group that performs at about a 1st grade level.

So, I will have some smaller classes starting on Monday. Unfortunately, I can't see all of the kids (there aren't enough hours in the day), so I am having to choose which ones I think need the most help. Please pray that I am able to be effective. I expect that there will be plenty of kinks to work out, but I am very hopeful about working with the kids.

Thanks for all of your prayers- they have definitely been needed and have been very helpful to me. I have felt a sense of encouragement since I arrived here. Even when bad things have happened, I have felt content. I am very thankful that I have this opportunity and am excited to share more with you.

Love & God Bless,
GA

La autopista y el apartamento mio

This is the view from my apartment. Well, that's not completely true. This would be the view if there weren't two giant trees and a highway in front of my apartment. If I walk downstairs and stand in front of the neighbors house, this is the view... Montellano is truly a beautiful place.

My first lunch...

I wanted to make sure y'all got to see a picture of our lunches the first day of school. Luckily, mine did not include the chicken foot! (The chickens were actually raised in a hen house behind the school...yum.)

At least this little girls looks excited...

Caraballo: A Day in the Life (written September 10, 2008)

I wake up about 7:00 a.m. and get myself as presentable looking as possible with a freezing cold trickle of water. It’s usually a chilly morning. Then I leave the apartment with Jessi and Candace and head towards the team house where the gua-gua (think: mini van developing country style) lives. We leave the team house and pick up several other Dominican teachers in town and then head through the sugar cane fields to Via Ascension.

(Via Ascension is a settlement that was created by missionaries. It is located near the village of Caraballo, which exists becuase sugar companies came in many years ago and built houses for the sugarcane workers. Shanty towns (made mostly of wood and tin) have sprouted up around the structures built by the sugar cane companies. And I found out that no one has harvested the sugarcane for several years now, because te industry has moved to the south. Most people that live in Caraballo don't have any work at the moment.)

As we drive further into the sugarcame fields, motorcycles carrying people and other miscellaneous objects pass on the left and right down a dirt road that doesn’t even have invisible lanes. Some of the kids we pass attend the Care Center in Via Ascension and others are on their way to the highschool in Montellano. Only one high school, which is public, exists. So, all the highschool age children living among the sugarcane fields either walk or ride on a moto to Montellano for school. Many kids stop attending school once they reach high school age.

When we arrive at school at 8:00 a.m., there are already some children waiting outside the gate. School starts at 9:00 a.m. The teachers have a short devotion and then we go about preparing for the school day.

If you walk around the Care Center, you will see a mess hall, several classrooms, and an office/ clinic/ storage area combination. There are construction projects that include an addition to the building. This will allow the Care Center to have at least two more classrooms.

You will also see a few mangy dogs and one very cute puppy (the only survivor of a full litter) moseying around the grounds of the Center. The grounds also hold a gazebo and plenty of room for the kids to play wiffle ball and tag.

When class starts, the kids come in and have prayer and hand sanitizing time (I’ve used more hand sanitizer in the last three days than in the last year). Then the kids push, kick and fight (anything but walk in a quiet, straight line) over to the mess hall. Once seated, we pray as a large group and then have breakfast together. Breakfast is a roll (which resembles a dinner roll) and a cup of either hot chocolate, sugary, milky coffee, or oatmeal. (All of these hot drinks/ foods are made with cinnamon and cloves which is a Dominican speciality). This may not be the healthiest, but when would I ever complain about hot chocolate.

After breakfast, there is a very brief “recreo.” The thing about recreo is that you never know when or if its going to happen. Sometimes we go into class and spend 5-10 minutes trying to calm everyone down. Once I think we are set and ready to learn, someone will inform us that its time for recreo. And today no one had recreo because apparently the kids were more misbehaved on Wednesday than Tuesday (In my opinion, they were bad enough to miss recreo both days). So, I am getting used to this and hopefully soon I will have it figured out.

The morning recreo ends about 10:00 a.m. and we start our morning session. The younger kids come to school in the morning. I am helping in the third grade class until I get my feet wet enough to have a class of my own. I love the third graders. The little girls are super sweet and quiet. Most of the boys are really bad, but they have their moments and for some reason I am drawn more to the ones that have behavior problems than the ones that seem to have it together. I’ll write more on individual kids later- there’s a lot to tell!

The morning group finishes at 11:30 a.m. and we have another recreo. After recreo ends, it’s lunch time. The older kids come for lunch as well, so we have about 200 kids in the mess hall at one time. One word: Mayhem.

We’ve had some really interesting lunches and I’ve only been here three days. On Monday we had a mixture of rice and black beans (mostly rice) with assorted chicken parts on top. Fortunately, I was lucky enough to have a entire chicken foot on top of my rice and beans. The Care Center raises their own chickens so I don’t really need to describe to you just how fresh the chicken is… Tuesday, we had rice, beans and induveca salami cooked together with some sort of salad on the side.. Induveca is a salami brand down here. It’s not my favorite, but lunch turned out ok. And today, we had spaghetti (strangely, is tastes a lot like chef boyrdee…spelling?) with rice and soupy red beans. I’ve never had rice and spaghetti in one meal, but it was surprisingly satisfying.

After lunch, all the kids have devotions together in the mess hall, then each class has bible study After this, we have recreo...again. About 2:30 or so, the afternoon session starts. The older kids attend the Center in the afternoon and I work with the 7th graders. I’ve never worked with middle schoolers before. At the moment, I am helping with this class because it’s a pretty wild bunch of kids and they need an estra set of hands. The older girls here are really aggressive and violent with each other. The boys are aggressive too, but mean little girls are a lot meaner than mean little boys. Or at least this is my experience. I'm still getting used to this age group...

The first few days, we didn’t have materials for the 7th grade class. This was difficult, because the first day of school of so important. If you want to pray for something specific for me, pray for the 7th grade kids (specifically Pamela) in Caraballo. They are dealing with a lot of crap at home and they definitely bring it to school with them. They are so bright and eager. They just need some encouragement and direction AND DISCIPLINE.

Between 3:30 p.m. and 4:00 p.m., school is over. It has been at a different time each day. We leave school and head back to Montellano…

That’s all for now. I’ll try to keep things a little more brief in the future, but I wanted you to have an idea of what I typical day is like...

Much love,
GA

First 24 Hours (written September 7, 2008)

I am a little behind updating my blog. For those of you that have been anxiously awaiting my next entry, I apologize. Though I have been in the Dominican Republic for much longer than 24 hours at this point, I think my first 24 deserve an entry of their own.

I arrived to the island of Hispaniola about the same time as Hurricane Ike. After flying around Hurricane Gustav on my way back from Austin and leaving Murrells Inlet a day early to avoid Hurricane Hanna, I was ready to be finished with cyclones. I had a somewhat bumpy plane ride into Santiago before the outer bands of Ike hit the northern part of the DR with full force. Despite my nervouseness from the threatening storm clouds and turbulence, I was elated to see the sugarcane fields, banana trees, and tiny houses that sprinkle the north coast. I was also bless with a gorgeous sunset that made the mountains in the distance all the more beautiful.

After arriving in Santiago, I met up with Jessi and Candace, the two other Kids Alive missionaries living in Montellano. They were kind enough to pick me up from the airport at the beginning of a monsoon. Rain fell in sheets the entire way to Montellano (where I now live). Meeting traffic on a two lane road was a little unnerving, but we made it.

Arriving to Montellano was also a little unsettling. My apartment, where I will be living alone (although there has been talk of adopting a street puppy), was completely empty. I slept on a mattress on the floor my first night here and I spent the morning after trying to clean every nook and cranny of the house. Seriously, I think I killed close to 50 spiders that had taken up residence in the apartment since the last tenant. There are also ants, but I find them a lot friendlier than the spiders…

I was able to pick up a few things for the apartment on my first full day here (Sunday). Jessi and Candace took me into Sosua, which is a touristy beach town, for lunch and to a grocery store that made me feel like I was still in that States. I bought the essentials: a coffee maker, coffee, candles, some mugs, avocados, tomatoes, and a few others things (I brought chocolate with me from home in case you were wondering why that didn’t make the essentials list).

I came back from the store and tried to figure out if internet was possible from my apartment (so far, it’s not). The other girls have internet for work so I’ve been able to skirt paying for internet use thus far (there are internet cafes around town). I also took a walk into Montellano (which is more of a Dominican town than a tourist trap like Sosua). I was having a really nice day settling in and getting to know the area, until about 6:45 p.m….

I went into the bathroom to get ready for church that evening. I was in the bathroom long enough to put on make up (quickly) and tidy up my hair for church. While I was in the bathroom, I heard something fall on the ground. It sounded like a curtain rod falling and bouncing a few times. Then it sounded like someone picked it up and maybe dropped it again, but a little more softly the second time. I didn’t think anything about it, because I figured Jessi or Candace had dropped something next door (my apt. is adjacent to theirs). I was about to walk out the door and stopped by my table (my only real piece of furniture) to pick up my wallet. Not there.

At first, I didn’t panic, because if you know me well, you know that I am prone to misplacing things: keys, wallets, cell phone, articles of clothing- you name it. So, I spent about 15 minutes turning my apartment upside down looking for my missing wallet. My wallet was also orange (Annie, if you are reading this, it’s the wallet you gave me!) so it should be a hard one to lose. I couldn’t find it anywhere. Distraught, I went next door to talk to Jessi and Candace in order to seek advice. They didn’t seem too worried which helped. We discussed possible scenarios (at this point, I still has not connected the noises and my missing wallet). I retraced my steps from my walk earlier in the day with no success and then Candace made me a cup of vanilla tea to calm me down.

After talking to Candace for quite a while over tea, I went back to my apartment feeling much better. After all, the only things I had lost were my license, my check card, some cash and my actual wallet. I was very sad to lose these things, but I didn’t lose my passport or a huge sum of money. It could have been so much worse.

So, I got back to my apartment and to my dismay, my cell phone was gone, too. The charger was still plugged into the wall, but the phone was gone. I had not noticed this before. My first thought was that I probably picked it up in a panic after I realized my wallet was gone and stuck in a weird spot. Not the case. My cell was no where to be found. This is when I really started to worry.

Candace tried calling my cell phone number and someone answered in Spanish, confirming that someone has taken my phone (I never had any reason to take my phone out of the apartment, so there’s no way I left it somewhere). The mysterious person on the other end of the line realized they should have answered a stolen cell phone and hung up on Candace. We called back several times and got a busy signal and finally got a recording that said my number had been disconnected (which could happen if the sim card is removed- this is just my guess). At this point, I called my bank and put a hold on my check card (which had been suspended anyway since I was in the DR and failed to tell my bank.)

To make what would be an even longer story a little bit shorter, we think some little kid or teenager probably wandered in or climed up my balcony while I was in the bathroom, grabbed a few small items and ran out (my computer and digital camera were on the same table as my wallet and cell). This would explain the noises I heard from the bathroom. While really annoying, it makes me feel a lot better to believe that a child or teenager took my things instead of someone that might do harm to me! But, it is a little frightening to know that someone, most likely, was in my home at the same time as me. I learned the hard way that my door needs to be locked at all times- even when I am home.

And that concludes my fist 24 hours here. It was pretty disheartening to have my things stolen, but as I said, it could have been so much worse.

I would still love to have a roommate. Living alone is ok, especially since Jessi and Candace live right next door, but it would be nice to have a roommate just to feel a little more secure. So please pray that God would provide a solution to me feeling uncomfortable in my apartment here.

I start work tomorrow (Monday). I have not yet been to the Haitian village where I will be working. My guess is that it will be very different from the Dominican town where I am living. I am really excited about work and can't wait to share more with you.

Love,
GA